Link

********************************************I've noticed a lot of folks entering Odd Man Rush through this page which is many, many, many months old. If you'd like to link to the current main page please go >>> HERE.

Hope you're having a great Year....

********************************************







2005 mercifully comes to a end...

Because the lockout wiped out all but three months of last season, the NHL has little reason to look back on 2005.
A look ahead is more in order.
It's no surprise that the Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers are neck-and-neck atop the Eastern Conference and are already on a collision course for the right to go to the Stanley Cup finals.
What has raised eyebrows are the teams right on their heels.

Read the rest about hockey in 2K6 >>>>>>>>>>>>> here.

My own team the Av's are floundering (and I do mean floundering) around the .500 mark and I don't see much improvement coming from them unless Pierre Lacroix pulls a rabbit.... errr I mean a Luongo out of his hat. He's worked magic before to conjure up Cup Champs and we true believers trust in his powers to do it again. A good friend of the blog sent me this beautiful good luck charm to help out the cause. It's much appreciated (Av's win 5-2 on the road, I do believe the charm is already working).

Here's some hockey stories that would be pretty cool to see in print next year but most likely we won't.

Like this gem...

June: Los Angeles defeats Montreal for its first Stanley Cup. But Jeremy Roenick sulks when he doesn't win the Conn Smythe Trophy and the victory parade gets separated by smog and bad L.A. freeway traffic. The Cup ends up at a roadhouse in Cucamonga.

or this one..

December: Rather than be shamed by the coming 40th anniversary of the Leafs most recent championship, MLSEL cashes in. All season-ticket renewals get a 1967 retro Leafs sweater, a shaker snow globe of George Armstrong's Cup-winning goal and a 40th anniversary DVD of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Actually that last one might not be too far fetched.

For my Canadian friends looking for a more general sports overview of the year that just was check out.... The Year That Sucked.

If they auctioned off a century's worth of "years in sports" do you think anyone would bid a plug nickel on 2005?
We can suppose Gary Bettman would be in there bobbing his head at the auctioneer. How about Dick Pound? Maybe Steve Nash. Roger Federer. Sid the Kid, of course. Damon Allen. Tiger Woods, but he would be bidding for every year.
Who else? Anybody? And if so, why?
If ever there was a year that cried out to have its knuckles rapped or maybe even do some hard prison time, this was it.

I couldn't agree more.

Other Year End Puck Stuff

Stick(er) SHOCK

SHOOTOUT Science

The RISE of U.S. Talent

From NASCAR to Hockey Coach

More Women are... PLAYING ...Hockey

Finally this last one is non-hockey related... it just cracks me up. Most cops I think would've simply started blasting the little buggers away. What a sight that would've been... eh?

Happy New Year Everyone!

Everybody Wang Chung tonight and don't forget to add a leap second to your countdown to 2006. Here's Steve Martin (chanelling Bill O'Reilly) explaining why the leap second is a anti-american plot... HA!

Ban Glitter From Hockey

Lifetime Suspension for Gross Misconduct

My all-time favorite arena anthem that I'm sure a lot of you have also liked used to be Rock and Roll part 2 by Gary Glitter (AKA Paul Francis Gadd). For me it was the perfect song to hear after goals were scored because of the way it gets the whole crowd loud and involved. However in recent years I and a growing list of others cringe every time we hear it played because of the disgusting history of the man who wrote it. As much as I've loved hearing his song played at games I've always feared he may be receiving royalties as a result which continue to fuel his despicable perversions. That possibility sickens me. His latest acts of depravity with children have got me thinking that maybe it's time to retire the song from hockey arenas so as to ensure no money from it reaches this monster as a result of it being played.

Others are starting to feel the song should be done away with also.

Time to Silence "Rock and Roll Part 2"

...sex with children? Perhaps it earns a Vietnamese peasant girl more money than she can make harvesting rice, but leveraging a child's poverty, naivete or both is high on the list of the vilest things a person can do.

Likewise, I think any sensitive, intelligent music programmer ought to know better than to roll out Glitter's big hit at a well-attended football game, whatever the recent tradition. He is an atrocious human being, the tune is stupid anyway, and there's a big world of great music out there. At least as far as high-profile sporting events are concerned, good taste and decorum require that "Rock and Roll, Part 2" be retired to the compost heap.

Finally, a wish for 2006:

Musically Glitter is best-known for the Cro-Magnon and mostly instrumental anthem “Rock and Roll Part 2.” It has become a staple at virtually every sports arena/stadium in America, where fans usually augment Glitter’s Shakespearean prose (“Na-na-na-na-na, hey!”) with the testosterone chant: “We’re gonna beat the hell out of you.”

Not to pour warm beer on a timeless ritual, but the guy gets royalties every time the song is played anywhere, whether it’s a commercial for Starbucks or in the middle of a game at Arrowhead Stadium or Allen Fieldhouse. It’s time to start a new ritual with a different song and deliver this guy and his music into oblivion.

As much as I hate the idea of censorship... I HATE child abuse even more and feel this song should be boycotted so as to not provide this pervert any more financial support for his activities.

In Other More Pleasant Hockey News:

NHL's Mojo Rising

Puck Nuptials on Ice

Zamboni Cruising

Pack of Wolves

The Next Next One

And finally...

The Top Hockey Songs... NOT including R & R pt. 2.

Personally I would've ranked the "Zamboni Song" by the Gear Daddies a bit higher.

UPDATE:
The good folks over at BoA have put together the most extensive list of hockey music I've see yet... check it out.

Requiem for the Heavyweights

R.I.P. ???
I've noticed a large number of obituaries appearing lately that morn the loss of the fight game aspect of the sport under the new NHL rules. It seems like it's really being missed by a substantial cross-section of players, press and fans alike.

New NHL features a lot less fighting

Fighting has not totally disappeared from the NHL. Go to a game and there's still a 29 percent chance you will see a fight. But that 29 percent is on pace to be the lowest since the NHL has kept such records. So much so that it appears time to retire the old joke of "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out."

Fighting is being weeded out of the NHL.

Where's the black and blue NHL ?

DENVER - Dan Hinote had bitten his lip long enough that it was nearly black and blue. But Hinote says in the new NHL that's about the only body part black and blue anymore.

"There's no testosterone in the game right now," the Colorado Avalanche's veteran right wing said, breaking a taboo on league criticism since the game returned from the labor dispute canceled the 2004-05 season. "They've taken a lot of the physical aspects out of the game. It's predominantly special teams now. It's unfortunate, because there's no more battling in the corners. I won't say there's none, but there's a lot less.

New Rules Taking Grit Out of Game

I get it, the NHL doesn't want fighting. Spike TV has Ultimate Fighting, so if you're looking for the brawling, that is were I go for my fix of pugilism. Hockey is about accountability. You are accountable to your teammates and to your opponents. What ever happened to the times when the other team ran your goalie and you did something about it? How about the good ole days when the tough areas of the ice was in front of the net. Wait a minute, it is the tough area, for all NHL goaltenders getting trampled by oncoming forwards.

Today's NHL rules punch pure pugilist out of the game

According to the NHL and Elias Sports Bureau, there had been 300 fighting majors through the first 408 games this season. That is down from 558 fighting majors through the first 408 games of the 2003-04 season, a staggering 45 percent decrease. Consider the fate of several tough guys: Ken Belanger (knocked cold once by Laus) recently retired. Krzysztof Oliwa was cut by the Devils and Andrei Nazarov by the Wild. And former Panthers tough guy Peter Worrell, who led the NHL with 354 penalty minutes in 2001-02, is trying to survive in the ECHL with the Charlotte Checkers.

Once a badge of courage, a way to make a mark in the league, fighting has become passe during the post-lockout era.

New NHL rules have cut fighting penalties dramatically

What in the name of Dave Schultz is going on here?

Welcome to the "new NHL," a relatively kinder and gentler version of the brand of hockey on display less than two years ago before the National Hockey League closed its doors for a season while settling a labor dispute.

Personally I'm not too worried about these developments, I think the dramatic decline in fighting we're currently experiencing is a evolutionary moment in time rather than a permanent state of affairs for the NHL. We're in a period of transition where the dinosaurs of the fight game are being weeded out and a new breed of players like... Derek Boogaard... Brian McGrattan... and George Parros ...players who can both PLAY and FIGHT are slowly starting to establish themselves and their games in the new and improved NHL. It's a different fight game that we're seeing evolve compared to the old traditional model we've had for so loooong and once that process has taken place I think we'll see the pugilist aspect of the game pick up from these record lows... although we'll never see a return to the wild days of the 70's and 80's, you can definitely kiss those times goodbye (sniff, sniff).

BUZZING THE NET:

Are We Getting The BEST Game Possible ?

NOLAN Wants Back In NHL... I say let him back in.

The NHL Has Been FULL Of Surprises

TEN to Watch

NHL MUST Stand By New Rules

LOVE CUSTOMS of the Frozen North

YOU KNOW YOUR A HOCKEY FAN IF...

You refer to your own team's enforcers as "character guys" and you refer to other teams' enforcers as "freaking little pieces of monkey s#@t."

MERRY CHRISTMAS

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on Earth, good will to men!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Swoosh on Ice

Nike and Team USA recently introduced the revolutionary new uniforms that the team will be wearing in the upcoming Olympics. Wind tunnel tested the high-tech uni's are designed to dramatically cut air resistance and reduce drag thus allowing players wearing them extra speed and endurance... theoretically.

Aerodynamics in hockey? It's a genuine revolution.

There are those who call hockey the fastest game on earth. Unlike any time in hockey's history, the action on the ice is faster and quicker, with blinding speeds and unfathomable power. With pucks traveling at 100 miles per hour, and players slicing the ice at 20 mph, demands on player performance have never been greater. And that goes double for apparel.
Without sacrificing an ounce of heritage, and passing rigid International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) standards, the Nike Swift Hockey Jersey and Sock reduces overall weight, adds increased mobility and comfort while making the jersey aerodynamically the most advanced in the world.

Many attempts over the years have been made at introducing new concepts into the hockey uniform, each one has failed and the traditional design remains largely unchanged. Shortly we will witness the success or failure of the latest attempt at updating the sports standard uniform. With the outlook for Team USA at the Olympics not looking to good at this point we'll need every advantage we can get to medal... even if it should come from space age uni's.



BUZZING THE NET:

Guitars, PUCKS and Rock & Roll

It's an AGE OLD Question ?

Bizarre game ends with EVACUATION

" I DON'T like the rule ! "

On-Line Puck Contests... for CA$H

I'd like to take a moment to congratulate those crazed puckheads up north at Battle of Alberta for hitting the 20,000 mark on their site odometer and for this bit of late-breaking Canadian news that I'm sure they're all very excited about up there. I guess our northern neighbors have to allow their consenting adults the flexibility to stay warm anyway possible. WOOHOO ! Anyways, we here at oddman central will be hitting the 10,000 mark sometime today and I'd like to personally thank everyone who has been stopping by these past months. The oddman will use this momentous occasion to get s@#t-faced tonight while watching the CenterIce puck offerings because afterall the odd one never really needs much of a excuse to party.

Remembers kids...

The future's uncertain
And the end is always near.
So, Let it roll, baby, roll.
Let it roll, all night long ........ JM

The Number Crunching Game

Billy Beane has revolutionized the way baseball GM's put together teams based on his system of Moneyball which is refined analysis of players performance numbers. There are those who believe the same approach could be used in hockey.... Moneypucks.

Hockey, like most sports, has scads of numbers and statistics. But there is not yet a well-established system that tracks these numbers to tell you what kind of player brings you the best results in the course of a year.

The obvious point, one that many in baseball made in response to Moneyball, is that talent wins. If you do not have the horses in any sport, you won't cross the line first. Yet it is the refinement in interpreting just what "talent" means that gave Moneyball its validity.

... Perhaps it is time for the hockey geeks to put away the fighting tapes and work on a program that connects hockey's statistical dots to wins.

I think with the introduction of the salary cap to the NHL landscape you'll see some GM's start to explore the possibilities of applying Moneyball to hockey.

PUCKS UNLIMITED:

Former NHL coach stunned by racial slurs

Morale UP with on-ice Officials

The Roots of Hockey being played today

Last Minute Holiday Hockey Gift Ideas

My NHL includes a good, honest donnybrook

Let's see, something else happened over the weekend, what was it? Ooooh yeah I remember now... it was revealed that the...

*****XXXXX*****
.....Other than that I guess nothing much else happened.

The Big Six

Here's a look at the top Hockey playing countries and their chances at the upcoming Olympics in Turin, Italy.

We're less than a week away from the United States and Canada naming their Olympic hockey rosters (Dec. 19 for the U.S., the 22nd for the Canadians). It should be a tough tournament for both teams, who will vie with 10 other countries for medals. Others in the tournament include likely quarterfinalists Slovakia and Germany as well as Italy, Switzerland, Latvia and Kazakhstan.

Basically things are looking pretty good for the Canadians... not so good for the Americans.

In Other News:

The Habs say they ONLY accept advertising for products they use.


"Alright, boys! Let's keep it up!"

caption courtesy of Michael from over at
Confessions of a Hockey Fanatic.
Thanks Mike.

Fiery Coach finds Fit

Hockey nerds, this one's for you... (scroll down)

NHL Tilts Toward the Wealthy

Who's Next to be Fired ?

International Police Blotter Hockey:

Drunk Russian Hockey Fans Hijack Train

Hockey Day in Canada

The Unofficial Puck Holiday

For the past six years the CBC and specially chosen host communities have been celebrating the great game of hockey in Canada by setting aside a special day to honor and watch this grand sport. Hockey Day in Canada this season will be gloriously celebrated on January 7, 2006.

Hockey Day has become somewhat of an unofficial holiday for Canadian hockey fans.

This year's 13.5-hour broadcast showcases our game at the grassroots level, highlighting how hockey defines both the parent-child and adult-child relationship.

Stephenville won't be the only Canadian community bustling with action. Hockey Day will also carry remote video feeds from Florenceville, N.B., Parry Sound, Ont., Winkler, Man., Calgary, Alta., and Burnaby, B.C.

Former Toronto Maple Leaf forward Wendell Clark will join hosts Ron MacLean, Don Cherry and Dick Irvin in Stephenville for all the festivities, which begin at noon ET.

There is also the traditional NHL all-Canadian tripleheader starting with Ottawa at Montreal at 2 p.m. ET, followed by Toronto at Edmonton at 7 p.m. ET and Calgary at Vancouver at 10 p.m. ET.

Hopefully this annual event will continue to grow and be supported until it becomes an "official" national holiday... just as it should be.

For this years host community of Stephenville being chosen for Hockey Day in Canada was the first bit of good news the town has received in quite awhile.

Dozens of children who lost their hockey equipment in a flood last fall, or whose families have been affected by the closure of the local paper mill, are getting a little help from some hockey-loving friends.

This hard-hit Newfoundland town was chosen to host CBC's annual Hockey Day In Canada broadcast. But when organizers showed up to make plans, they found a town where hockey enrolment and community morale was down.

"They've had some tough times there lately," said Joel Darling, executive producer of Hockey Night in Canada. "Some of the kids had lost some equipment in the floods. I think, with the plant being uncertain whether it was going to close . . . people were hesitant to join. Some kids were actually moved right out of their houses, relocated."

For more info. on Hockey Day in Canada go >>> here.

MORE NEWS FROM THE WIDE WORLD OF PUCKS

Xmas Presents for NHL Teams

NHL Season of Giving... Maybe

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

The World according to Grapes

2005's Most Influential Sports Figure

And finally...

Here's some players I wouldn't want to go into a corner and fight with for the puck.

They might be appearing at the 2006 ice hockey world championships.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hockey Day everyone!

CURRENT POSTS:

A lot of folks seem to be entering OMR through this page, if you're interested in current posts they're located >>> here.

The Canadian Cup

It's A Small Hockey World After All


The Canadian Multicultural Hockey League (CMHL) will be holding a tournament this December in Toronto that will bring many of the traditionally non-hockey playing communities of Canada together to compete for the Canadian Cup and multicultural hockey glory.

The CMHL is motivating those communities, would-be players and spectators alike, to fully appreciate one of Canada's biggest legacies—the game of hockey!

...Teams include; Hellenic Lightning, Italian Gladiators, Portuguese Sea Wolves, Nubian Kings, First Nation Thunder, Chinese Ice Dragons, Serbian White Eagles, South Asian Vipers, Croatian Knights, Macedonian Lions, Polish Hussars, Russian Kremlins, Finnish Sisu, Irish Shamrocks, and the Japanese Arashi.

With all these different ethnic backgrounds participating you may ask why there is no Canadian team? The CMHL promptly answers: Because we are all Canadians! This is not about country versus country. This is about Canadians playing against other Canadians.

I'm pulling for the Irish Shamrocks.

If your interested in more info on the tournament go >>> here.

In other Puck News:

NHL Fan Demand Causes Shortages

Owners Get Together

Hockey History on the Block

Gretz says "hair is OK"

Hockey Rockers... The Zamboni's

Police Blotter Hockey:

Hockey dad charged with attacking player in an act of rink rage.


Hockey Quote for the Day:

"All hockey players are bilingual. They know English and profanity."

Gordie Howe

Penguin Exodus

Where o where will they end up ???

Whatever you do don't worry about them because lots of places would love to give them a good home.

Mario Lemieux has hammered the For Sale sign into the Pittsburgh Penguins' proverbial front lawn and speculation has already started.

Could the "Return of the Winnipeg Jets Campaign" finally bear fruit? Would the Penguins move from one Steeltown to another? Does the NHL adore Quebec City? And what about new possibilities on the NHL map, places like Houston, Las Vegas and Kansas City?

Well, while they look for that new home they're searching for maybe they'll be able to catch and devour that RED HERRING the NHLPA just released.

Trent Klatt, a former Los Angeles Kings forward and a onetime NHLPA vice-president who is among more than 100 players who have contested Saskin's hiring, said the announcement that the league is increasing revenue is designed to take the attention away from the controversy.

"It's a red herring," Klatt said yesterday. "Revenue has nothing to do with why we're here. We need to tell the players the truth and the (player) agents are another tool we can use to get that information to them."

By what I understand Penguins LOVE to eat Red Herrring and hopefully they'll make short work of this one.

Meanwhile...

In another development related to the dispute over Saskin's hiring, prominent NHL agent Mike Liut, a former goalie who was a member of the players' committee that originally hired former NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow, contends Saskin has the support of less than half the league's 700-some players, and that several hundred players may consider mounting a bid to decertify the union because of the controversy.

Now there's an idea maybe worth looking at... union decertification.


********* PENGUIN EXODUS NEWS UPDATE *********
Deal possibly in place to save the Pitt. Pens

Just days after Mario Lemieux struck fear in the hearts of Pittsburgh hockey fans, suggesting it may be too late to keep his team in town, KDKA Investigator Andy Sheehan has learned about a new deal that could keep the Pens here for a long time.

Under an "agreement of terms" reached yesterday with city and county leaders, the Penguins will get development rights to the current Mellon Arena site if the team can come up with $300 million to build a new arena.

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BUZZING THE NET:

Canada Looking for Leaders

Fighting Words

The NHL cure for Insomnia

Size Doesn't Matter... anymore

Lost in TV Land

And finally...

YOU KNOW YOUR A HOCKEY FAN IF...

You punish your kids with "minors," "majors," and "misconducts."

NOT Your Typical Hockey Player

I love seeing "characters" make it in the NHL. Players who express and/or conduct themselves a little differently than the norm, true individuals who walk their own path. The NHL has a long tradition of having "characters" playing in their league and here's a new one who in addition to definitely skating to the beat of his own drummer also happened to set a NHL record recently.

(he).. is wearing a shockingly bright white track suit, drawing attention to the diamond stud earring flashing from his right ear lobe. The look is in stark contrast to the standard jeans-sweatshirt-ball cap outfit favoured by most NHL players on practice days.

...Over the years, the culture of hockey has created a "one for all and all for one" mantra as a necessary part of teamwork. That has tended to breed conservatism in players away from the ice. With a few exceptions, players generally dress, walk and talk from the same playbook.

Then there's Emery.

I think the NHL would help itself greatly if it would do more to highlight and promote the various characters like Ray Emery that are and have always been so much a part of the game of hockey.

OTHER PUCK NEWS:

Pens to leave Pittsburgh ?

OLN... The NHL's Remote Outpost

Tweaking the Rules

Panthers - Luongo to Part Ways ?

Lets Get Physical

And last but not least... Everything you always wanted to know about driving a Zamboni but were afraid to ask.

Now ever since I was young it's been my dream
That I might drive a Zamboni machine
I'd get the ice just as slick as could be
And all the kids would look up to me

I want to drive the Zamboni...hey
I want to drive the Zamboni...Yes I do!

- Gear Daddies, "The Zamboni Song,"

It's ALL about the F-U-N !!!

OR...

How I learned to stop worrying and love the... Shootout.

Think about that shootout game between the Rangers and Capitals a few weeks ago. Did you see Marek Malik's unbelievable goal to win it? Talk about F-U-N! Here's a 6-foot-6 defenseman, who up until that point hadn't really shown an iota of offensive skill in the NHL, and he scores a highlight reel goal that I'm pretty sure brought Jagr to climax. Seriously, it was so good that, for about 15 minutes, the sports talk stations in New York actually stopped discussing the Mets' pitching rotation to talk about hockey.

Never mind the fact that the 15 rounds of shootout could have instead been a prolonged 4-on-4 sudden death overtime under goal-friendly "new" NHL rules. And never mind that Malik's goal is no different that a jaw-dropping move in the NBA's slam dunk exhibition: an athletic feat that could never be repeated in an actual competition because it's flashy sideshow garbage.

It was super duper candy-coated F-U-N!

Straight out of Kazakhstan... a new shootout star is born.

OTHER PUCK NEWS:

Creative Hockey is BACK

Original Six Mystique... fading

Offensive Explosions have Died Down

Gretzky Goes for the Three-peat

Junior Hockeys' Dirty Little Secrets

Police Blotter Hockey:

Bavis and Head-Butt

and finally...

YOU KNOW YOUR A HOCKEY FAN IF...

You went into a bank because it advertised "Free Checking"....and walked out disappointed.

U.S. Super Squad

Gets Ready for World Tournament

The American Junior team may have the greatest collection of talent ever assembled as it heads north to Canada with high expectations of winning a World Championship.

...it is here, at the U-20 level, where the first real bumper crop of talent is ready to be harvested. The 22-man American squad will feature 18 NHL draft picks, four 2006 eligibles, and previously unimaginable depth across the board.

"Our talent is so much deeper than before," Kyle said in a telephone press conference. "We had to cut a number of [NHL] first-rounders from this team. That's never happened before."

It's also a team that's properly motivated. The stands at last year's tournament in Grand Forks, N.D., were filled with red and white sweaters, the rink becoming an extension of Canadian soil as the Canadians celebrated a gold-medal win over Russia, while the U.S. squad failed to medal. Gaining revenge in Vancouver is clearly a priority for the U.S.

"We're going up there to defend something we lost last year," says Jim Johansson, USA Hockey's senior director of hockey operations.

Good Luck Boys.

Buzzing the net:

For the first time in nearly two decades all the Canadian teams could end up in the playoffs.

Hockey tales from a simpler time and place.

I just love all the various mutations of the sport that people have come up with to compete at including… Sled Hockey.

Some think although it's down now eventually we’ll see more fighting in the NHL as the season progress with it’s rival intense schedule.

Guess what’s sneaking back into the game… The Trap.... YIKES!

Police Blotter Hockey:

Team foils bar holdup.

Breaking... "The Code"

Just Don't Do It

Even though this is the New NHL with it's New Rules it's good to see that some of the games traditional laws never change, nor should they... especially the unwritten ones.

One aspect of the NHL game that the penalty crackdown will not be able to deter is "The Code" an unwritten rule that, once broken, comes with a violent, underlying message: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

Certainly, those watching the Ottawa Senators-Los Angeles Kings game Friday night at the Corel Centre saw "The Code " broken more than a few times and the consequences for doing so subsequently delivered.

Meanwhile Ottawa's Chara has no regrets.

Today's Puck Buffet:

Carnival Cattle Call

Recipe for Ideal Defensemen

NHL looking at Hiring Euro-Refs

Hockey's Red-Light District

NHL... SkillJam ?

Oddman's Odd Blog Pick of the Week:

It's a Sports Groupies Gone Wild With Webcams kind of place that's good for a few chuckles and isn't that what we all need a little more of now days... chuckles.

Enjoy.

Famous Canadian Quote for the Day:

It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees

Neil Young

Puck Trip

I've fantasized for along time about being able to take a hockey vacation like the one Ben Sturtevant was fortunate enough to take recently.

I studied the NHL schedule and a road map and discovered it would be fairly easy to hit several NHL cities in a week. I informed my friend, Josh, an equally demented pucks fan, of my plan and he was quickly on board. The plan was to go to games in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Detroit. The trip would allow us to see three Original 6 teams (the Montreal Canadiens, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings) in three hockey-crazed cities, and possibly the NHL's best all-around squad in the Ottawa Senators, who also happened to have one my favorite all-time players, 40-year-old Dominik Hasek, in goal. Since the trip would take us through Toronto, we'd also be able to hit the Hockey Hall of Fame. It was the ultimate pucks pilgrimage.

Best of all, we'd be free to act like little boys again.

Read more about >>> Ben and Josh's excellent puck adventure.

If I ever get the chance to fulfill my fantasy puck vacation it would go something like this...

Montreal... watching games from the Bell on CentreIce is incredible, the crowds are just so totally into the games from beginning to end, chanting, singing, booing, cheering... LOUD. No nuance of the game escapes their attention or appreciation in Montreal. It's just a totally immersive hockey atmosphere bordering on worship that I just GOT to go and experience someday. Plus it's got all that history.

Laval... Ever since seeing the movie Les Chiefs I just have to make a pilgrimage to this Montreal suburb and experience the primal and crazed hockey sub-culture of the Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey... the infamous LNAH. Maybe even visit the apt. under the bleachers where the enforcers live.

Toronto... Not so much to catch a Leafs game (which would be cool) but really more to visit all the rinks, bars and other haunts of Dave Bidini's great book "The Best Game You Can Name" which is set in this city which arguably is the most hockey fanatical of them all. The Best Game... is a great hockey book that I've really fallen in love with and I highly recommend as a great X-mas present.

Calgary... Another place with a super highly charged hockey atmosphere that I think would be a lot of fun to experience especially a night on the Red Mile after a Flames win.

Vancouver... Any city voted the Most Livable Place on Earth ...AND... has all kinds of hockey played in it's incredibly beautiful surroundings is definitely on my must visit list.

Well, that's my fantasy road trip through Puck World. What's yours ?

Other News:

Young Gun Era of U.S. Hockey ?

"All HELL Broke Loose"

Stranger in a Strange Land

No Canadian Expansion Any Time Soon

Yet another NHL2K6 4 XBOX 360 Review

Quote for the Day:

I'm sitting on my watch so that I'll be on time.

Bob Dylan

Les Chiefs de Laval

Are you looking for a hockey gift for that special puckhead on your X-mas list that has a interest in and a fascination for the fighting aspect of the sport ? Well if you are let me suggest...

LES CHIEFS

"The Chiefs!" is a 75-minutes documentary film that digs its fingernails into a truly bizarre sub-section of Canada's National Sport. The LHSPQ is the NHL's perverted little cousin. Here you may see 10 fights in a single period, or a bench-clearing brawl in the warm up. Coaches beat on each other. Goalies go at it. And players hike through the stands to slug it out with fans. Welcome to Laval, Quebec, home of The Chiefs de Laval, the toughest team in the Quebec Semi-Pro Hockey League. The story begins underneath the bleachers in the back of an old arena. Once a ramshackle storage area, it is now a ramshackle apartment, home to several of the team's tough guys. Although it is cold, noisy, and a fire exit on game days, it is rent free and the players don't seem to mind scaling the fire escape, or climbing through second-story windows to get in and out of their home.

Throughout the season, the arena dwellers fight their way to celebrity status but when the playoffs begin, the Chiefs find themselves in a viable position to win it all and the goons end up watching from the bench. As the team progresses closer to the championship game, the battles once fought on the ice become battles within themselves. Am I a hockey player or a circus clown? The plot turns even more on end, when an underground boxing promoter surfaces with an offer that seems too good to be true.

With characters like a crazed ex-military strong man, a six foot seven, 320-pounds giant, and a French Canadian superfan who believes that hockey is religion and The Chiefs are gods, "The Chiefs" has all the makings of a cult classic.

oddmanrush gives Les Chiefs DVD a 3 out of 5 pucks rating, I bump that up to 4 out of 5 pucks when considering the DVD extras in the overall rating like the directors cut commentary, the fight club highlights and the cut scenes which are all excellent. I highly recommend this DVD and I too think Les Chiefs is destined to become a hockey cult classic. You can get this DVD through amazon.ca

In other Puck News:

Speaking of the Devil

More U.S. fans watching TV hockey

...but NOT on OLN

Black Hockey Hero Inspires Others

More on the movie... "The Rocket"

Enforcer in Exile Update

Play by Play... in Print

Police Blotter Hockey:

The continuing sad and strange saga of Mike Danton.

Hockey Quote for the Day:

"Ice hockey is a form of disorderly conduct in which the score is kept."

Doug Larson

Little BIG Man Hockey

With the games this season being played under new rules fourteen of the thirty NHL teams have players UNDER 6' tall leading their clubs in scoring.

The list of little guys making a big impact crosses the National Hockey League's generational divide. From Camille Henry and Henri Richard to Denis Savard and Theo Fleury, there was always a smallish dervish that defied expectation and put up big scoring numbers, against all odds.

Even the last year before the NHL lockout, the MVP and scoring leader was a 5-foot-9, 185-pound winger named Martin St. Louis.

However, in the new NHL -- with its crackdown on obstruction and its emphasis on skill and speed over brawn and bulk -- it looks as though the trend toward smaller players is taking hold.

Of all the major sports ONLY Hockey has the rules and the conditions that allow a lot of athletes of normal or even smaller stature to compete and even dominate. It's another one of the many reasons I love this sport so much.

From the Wide World of Pucks:

The Trap makes a comeback

Beer Tanker Truck Hits Hockey Bus

Home-ice advantage in NHL is melting

Sid and Dion go head to head tonight

and finally...

.......

Click the Pic for another ^ NHL2K6XBOX360 Review

Today's Hockey Joke:

St. Peter and Satan were having an argument one day about hockey. Satan proposed a game to be played on neutral grounds between a select team from the heavenly host and his own hand-picked boys.
"Very well," said the gatekeeper of Heaven. "But you realize, I hope, that we've got all the good players and the best coaches."
"I know, and that's all right," Satan answered. "We've got all the Referees!!!"

Man, ain't that the truth.

Are Goalies Different ?

I would think any fan of the game would know the answer to that question.

To the long list of marginalized segments of society, be sure to include a group of athletes that is widely misunderstood, and often ridiculed. Decked in cumbersome pads and colorful masks, hockey goalies are derided as an eccentric breed, a group whose very existence is defined by a willingness to ignore a basic human impulse

Most of us see an object hurtling in our direction at speeds of 100 mph and think, "Duck." A goalie wants only to get in the way.

"We're looked at as psychos," said Tom Natoli...
..."People don't understand. They say, 'Why do you do that? Why do you stand in front of those things?' "

Why ?

Well, if you haven't figured it out by now the answer is because goalies are different.... Very different.

BUZZING AROUND THE NET:

NHL sets ANOTHER Attendance record

Annus Horribilis

The best rookie NOT named Sidney, Alex or Dion

NHL no longer on thin Ice

And last but not least it's...

TABLE HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA

Bumper Sticker Quote of the Day:

My Hockey Mom Can Beat Up Your Soccer Mom.

That certainly was true of my mom.