Hockey Rock

Puckallica



Speaking of Hockey and Rock and Roll (Canadian) the 2007 Juno Cup has been decided.

PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. (CP) - They played with heart - and even made a last-minute trade for a goalie - but in the end a team of musicians couldn't beat the NHL Greats at the Juno Cup.

More than 2,500 people packed a local arena to see The Rockers, led by Blue Rodeo's Jim Cuddy, lose to the NHL Greats by a score of 11-9. The game preceded the annual Juno Awards for the best in Canadian music which will be presented at weekend galas in Saskatoon.

"We know we're going to get our butt kicked," said Cuddy. "It's just that they're so skillful, they make it slightly different each year. [...]

Although spectators could be forgiven for wondering if the NHL Greats played fairly.

On more than one occasion players, on the bench were spotted with their sticks on the ice, trying to swipe the puck from musicians as they passed.

Former NHL greats needing to resort to cheating to beat a bunch of rock and rollers. What's this world coming to?

Aaah, there's no need to answer that one. I already know the answer.

Sex + Stanley Cup = Baby Boom

Nine months after the Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup, numerous current or former Hurricanes couples... are about to become parents.

Anne Adams, the only one expecting her first child, said she has heard the inevitable jokes about how much fun they must have had celebrating the Cup win.

"Everyone's like, 'Is there something in the water?' " she said. "Everyone was partying this summer. ... It just seemed like good timing. Craig signed a new contract. We had the greatest summer of our lives. Maybe it's now time to start trying."

Aaaah, I don't think it's because there was something in the water they were drinking. I think it had more to do with what was being put in the Stanley Cup that they were drinking from that led to all these babies being concieved... and I don't think it was water.

Comeback of the Year

Ted Nolan
Head Coach of the New York Islanders

Nolan, 48, knows about lost and found. Professionally lost for years, he found his way back to the NHL this season after a puzzling exile upon accepting a trophy as coach of the year in 1997. Later he pitched it down his basement steps.

"I haven't opened the box to see if it's broken," he says. "Maybe when I'm old and retired I'll pull it out and dust it off."

Or perhaps he'll win another someday. The Islanders, who have reached the playoffs three times in the last 11 seasons, are among six teams fighting for the final three playoff spots in the Eastern Conference nearing the regular-season end April 8.

When Nolan last coached in the NHL, his Buffalo Sabres won their division for the first time in a generation. Nolan's return to the NHL completes a circle.

"Everything an Indian does is in a circle" according to Black Elk, late holy man of the Oglala Sioux, Nolan says, "and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles and everything tries to be round."

Even, as it happens, a hockey puck.

I've never been much of a Islander fan over the years but this season I'm pulling for them big time because of Ted Nolan. He's a coach I deeply admired years ago during his stint with Buffalo and as many were I was perplexed by his looooooong forced exile from the game. It's great to see him back behind the bench, being successful again. I never had any doubt that he would be, if given the chance. Finally that chance came and if his club makes it to the playoffs in his first year back, a feat many thought impossible for his team at the start of this season, he'll be my choice for Coach of the Year.

Vancouver Gears Up for the Playoffs

by hiring... extra security guards.

The downtown bar strip has been a magnet for drunken violence since the previous city council began extending weekend closing times in 2003.

There are more than 5,000 licensed liquor seats in bars and cubs in the three-block strip, and the later closing time attracts young revellers from across the Lower Mainland.

I don't know. I've always considered Vancouver (and Canada in general) to be one of the most civilized places left in this increasingly uncivilized world. Their history of problems associated with the playoffs, particularly after losing in the Cup finals to the Rangers back in 1994, has always kind of blown my mind.



Then again, my mind has been blown out for a number of years now, so my judgement on anything is a little questionable at this point.

Speaking of Vancouver... and blown minds.





Hmmmm, maybe the folks up there ought to take a look at this Canadian film on the dangers of alcohol and drugs. I found it very interesting.




Actually, I found it very hilarious.

Anyways, all kidding aside, I hope all goes well for them up there, both on... and off-ice ...in one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been to.

Best Rivalries in the NHL

I sure do miss the Av's vs Wings rivalry of a few years back, but in recent times that one has gone pretty much dormant for the most part. There was a time however when... it was the best!



Man, I miss those days.

Anyways, here's the best ones raging in the NHL... at the moment.

Ottawa-Toronto: Ottawa's regular-season wins only made the playoff flops -- the Senators fell to the Leafs four times between 2000-04 -- harder to take. Hockey Night in Canada's perceived pro-Toronto bias stokes the flames in the Battle of Ontario.

Calgary-Edmonton: Another provincial battle -- this one's for Alberta pride -- that peaked in the 1980s but still crackles today whenever Cowtown faces Oil Town. One team has reached the Cup Finals in each of the last two seasons.

Buffalo-Ottawa: Credit the Sabres' emergence as an elite team last season -- and their playoff win over Ottawa. But the tipping point has to be the Chris Neil hit on Chris Drury earlier this season. Now it's really a bad-blood rivalry.

New Jersey-Rangers: Hudson River Rivalry has evened out a bit in the post-lockout NHL -- at least in the regular season. But last spring's playoff sweep by the Devils certainly added insult to Jaromir Jagr's injury. Where's Stephane Matteau when you need him?

Rangers-Islanders: For once, it's not just geographic proximity. These teams met Sunday in a game that was crucial to the frantic playoff hopes of both -- and barely three weeks removed from that ugly Chris Simon stick-swinging incident.

I think I'd add the instate rivalry of Philadelphia Flyers vs. Pittsburgh Penguins to the mix, otherwise I agree with what's listed here.

Buffalo Gals

Buffalo gals won't you come out tonight
Come out tonight, come out tonight
Buffalo gals won't you come out tonight
And we'll dance by the light of the moon

The gals are back for an encore performance. This time with an ode to Maxim Afinogenov called Maxilicious.

So, let's dance....

(play the following clips simultaneously.
Turn the sound up on the top one, down on the bottom one)



As a former upstate New Yorker and Sabre fan, I sure hope there's more tunes coming from the Buffalo Gals.

True hockey fans and supporters of their cause... to say the least.

Buffalo gals won't you come out tonight
Come out tonight, come out tonight
Buffalo gals won't you come out tonight
And we'll dance by the light of the moon

Top 10 Goalies All-Time

Well, post expansion at least....

In the early days, the goalies played without masks but didn't have to face slapshots off curved sticks. Today the goalies face a great deal more rocket-fuelled rubber, but have enough lightweight equipment to protect against a nuclear explosion. So we decided to limit this top 10 to players who plied their trades in the post-expansion era (1968 and on). That eliminates some all-time greats like Georges Vezina and George Hainsworth, but as you'll see, most of the biggest-name backstoppers of all time still make the grade.

See the list >>> here.

To Fight or Not to Fight

That is the question?

"I think it's time to ask the question. I think you have to ask the question because of what's happening out there. It's incumbent on me, because of my position, to ask the question," Colin Campbell said yesterday.

The latest evidence in the case against fighting was Todd Fedoruk being taken off the ice on a stretcher Wednesday.



Campbell is no namby-pamby. He used to drop the gloves in his day as an NHL player. But the NHL's director of hockey operations worries about what could happen.

"I'm not afraid now to talk about the fact that we should look at fighting in hockey. I think if you discussed this even three or four years ago you would have got pooh-poohed out of the game," Campbell said.

"But now I think because of the size of our players, where we're at in sports and in life, I think we have to look at it."

It's going to be a hard, long battle to convince enough people, though.

"I think you're going to lose fans. As much as I hate to say it - because you'd like to think everybody comes to see the exciting players do their thing - but there's a large amount of people who love the physical, tough aspect of our sport. And fighting is a favourite of a lot of people," veteran Coyotes centre Jeremy Roenick said.

"Would it kill me (to have fighting banned)? No. ... I wouldn't mind not seeing it, I don't like to see anybody get hurt. But as far as selling tickets, there's a large group of people who enjoy the fights."

I'm not sure you should or even could take fighting out of hockey. It's part of the games' DNA. More players each year are carted off the ice as a result of hard checks than are carted off from fights. So, should hard checking be banned from hockey too? How about slap shots and the damage, even serious injuries they cause to players each year, either from blocking them or ricochets? Should they be banned from the sport also? Hockeys' a inherently dangerous sport, taking fighting out really doesn't make it any safer. Actually there's a good argument that it'd make it more dangerous with cheap shot artists free to practice their art at will. I'm all for making it safer considering the players today are bigger, stronger and more adept at fighting. Maybe making them keep their gloves on during a fight as opposed to bare knuckle fighting might help prevent some of the more serious injuries from occurring BUT banning it all together won't be good for the sport, from a safety nor entertainment perspective.

RELATED LINKS:

Fighting Ban Isn't The Answer

Belak Says Hype Over KO Overblown

Taking Fighting Out of Hockey Would Be Wrong

Tough Guys Should Wear Gloves

Holey Hockey Sticks, Batman!

Pavel Datsyuk is using a secret weapon this season which soon will be made available to all players as we continue to witness the evolution of hockey take place before our very eyes.

Like all NHL players, Pavel Datsyuk has his choice of hockey sticks. When Reebok offered a new stick with holes in it, the Detroit Red Wings center didn't know what to think - but was excited to try it.

Datsyuk has been using the stick with seven strategically placed holes toward the bottom of the shaft since December. He says it has improved his game and enticed him to put more shots on goal.

The holes are meant to reduce wind resistance by more than 20 percent. And Datsyuk says it has made his shot more powerful and allowed him to block shots without breaking his stick during the middle of a shift.

However, there is one problem with the stick: "Now it's colored green and black," he said, jokingly. "What I need is (one that's) colored red and black because I'm on the Red Wings."

Datsyuk was the first to adopt the stick, but others are slowly following suit. And more converts are likely after the stick's retail launch in May. In the meantime, Datsyuk isn't lending his out.

"(It's a) big secret, I don't give it to nobody - it's mine," he said, adding that the new, light and whippy sticks are far from the wood ones with big curves he used growing up in Russia. "It's a big progress for sticks. It's what I needed."

With the introduction of new uniforms and now new sticks happening soon it kind of makes you wonder... what's freakin next?

Maybe this.

Ode To All The Fallen Sabres

When will they all return?



Few tems have been hit harder than Buffalo this year with the injury bug. The team however has proved suprisingly resilient. They've been division and conference leaders all season and remain a leader in the race for the Presidents' Trophy.

Amazing.

Scoring Down in the NHL

Pierre Lebrun reporting for cbcsports takes a look at the issue...

A year after sporting five 50-goal scorers, the most in a decade, only one player is currently on pace to top the magical barrier. [...]

Scoring is down across the board. The NHL was averaging 5.8 goals per game this season through Monday night's games, down from 6.1 through the same number of games last year, but still up from the 5.1 goals per game the league average through the same number of games in 2003-04 before the lockout.

Now the question becomes, what to do about it, if anything ?

Here's what I think should be done.

The Next

...next one?

Gretzky's long standing Ontario Hockey League mark of most goals in a season by a 16-year-old has been broken. So, you might ask, exactly who is this wonder kid who has achieved this great feat... and is he destined for greatness ?



I guess we'll just have to wait and see if indeed he turns out to be the real deal.

I'm hopin he is.

Danger!

Avalanche Warning!

My Guilty Pleasure

Well, one of them anyways.

Hockey Fight Nights from Canada
3/17/07
Crash Bosse vs Nasty Mirasty IV

It was Friday night in Sorel-Tracy, Quebec and the battle for the undisputed heavyweight title of The World Toughest Hockey League was on the line.

The Colisee Cardin in this town about 65 kilometres northeast of Montreal on the shores of the St-Lawrence River was packed on Friday for a North American Hockey League game between the hometown Sorel-Tracy Mission and the rival St-Jean Summum Chiefs.

But more important than the game itself for the crowd of 2,115 was the highly anticipated fourth instalment in a season-long series of fights between the league's undisputed heavyweight Steve (The Crash) Bosse of the Chiefs and Jon (Nasty) Mirasty of the Mission.

While the NHL tries to clean up its public image in the wake of the Chris Simon stick-swinging and Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore incidents, the North American Hockey League -- not to be confused with the U.S. junior league that goes by the same name -- brings in fans with the promise of rough hockey and lots of fights.

For instance, Friday night's game had a Wrestlemania-style billing of Bosse-Mirasty IV, and there was no doubt right from the opening warm-up that's what the fans were there to see. [...]

Though Friday's contest was pretty over the top, even for this league, there is little question the fans loved it and left the rink fully satisfied. So while the NHL tries to clean up its image, the season-ticket holder Guevremont says no one had better lay a finger on his favourite league.

"The league would have trouble surviving if there wasn't as much fighting,'' he said, shaking his head. "Some people come only to see the fights, others come to see the nice plays, and others come for both. If you took out the fighting, you'd only be left with the ones who want to see nice plays. You'd be left with NHL fans.''

Ouch!

Here's some more of that "over the top" action from Friday nights game between Sorel-Tracy Mission and their rival St-Jean Summum Chiefs of the LNAH. A league which is considered by many to be nothing more than a bizarre spectacle and primal sub-cult of Canada's National Sport.



Yeah, well, they might be right. I guess that's why I'd love to make a pilgrimage to that crazy league someday. I'm into the bizarre spectacles and primal sub-cults of hockey.

It's my guilty pleasure.

One of them.

Stayin Alive

...stayin alive.

The record breaking point streak continues for Colorado rookie Paul Stastny. It's now up to 20 games... long live the streak.

Stastny for the Calder. Spread the word.

Saturday Morning Cartoons

Hockeys' Best GM's

I have to admit, I totally agree with all these choices.

Aaaaah, wait a minute, nope, spoke too soon, all of them except number five. How the hell did he slip in there?

Hockey:

A People's History



A radio interview with Michael McKinley, author of Hockey: A People's History that offers little in the way of visuals but much in the way of information and history.

Fact or Fiction ?

You decide.

HockeyXcross

The only thing I'd change is that I'd give them all sticks and the first one down the course and across the finish line with the puck wins. That make it just a little bit more interesting.

Tales of Stanley

NO, I'm not referring to tales about the Cup, but to tales about the kid. Scotty Bowman's kid... Stanley.

And Bowman, his successor behind the bench, proceeded to talk in that cubbyhole about his son Stanley, named after the Stanley Cup, and how, at 19, this was his son's first chance to be in the building to help his old man celebrate a championship.

And of the overwhelming sense of pride he felt at that moment.

"He's 33 now and works for Dale Tallon and the Chicago Blackhawks,'' says Scotty Bowman, dry and dressed in a suit, more than 13 years after that magical night in the Windy City. "But let me tell you another story about Stanley.

It might've been, oh, 1973. He was two or three years old at the time. And we'd always called him not just Stanley, but Stanley Cup. As a nickname, a little joke. Anyway, he and I went out to get a licence for something for him, I think it was, in this little truck I used to have.

"And to get the licence, I had to give them his entire name, so I told them: Stanley Glenn -- his second name is for Glenn Hall.

"Anyway, as we're heading outside to get into the truck and go home, he starts to cry. The tears are rolling down his cheeks. So I asked him 'Hey, what's the matter?' And he looked at me and said 'I thought my name was Stanley Cup . . . ' "

Poor kid.

But hey, what a great hockey name Scotty gave his kid nevertheless. Stanley, after the Cup, Glenn, after hockey great Glenn Hall and finally Bowman, a name rich in hockey history and lore. Consider yourself truly blessed Stan.

I'm sure you already do.

Canada's National Religion

I'll give you one guess as to what it is.



Are you a practicing member of the faith too? If not let us true believers convert you and show you the light.

It's a red one that you'll find right behind the goal net. When it comes on for your team expect to experience heightened states of ecstatic bliss and joy.

Praise the Lord... pass the puck.

Violent Civility

Ironically, in spite of often being known for it's outbursts of violence, as illustrated by the recent Chris Simon incident, Hockey and it's players in general, can legitimately be considered the most civil in all sport. Confused? I'll let John Rolfe writing for Sports Illustrated do the explaining.

"Sick of the misadventures of Pacman Jones and all the NFL- and NBA-dominated antisocial behavior going on across the land? Give peace a chance and check out a relative haven of sanity: the NHL." [...]

All in all, though, three decades of NHL misdeeds amount to what the NBA and NFL squeeze out in a good week. That's no small accomplishment for a sport that has been famously described as "a form of disorderly conduct in which the score is kept" and "figure skating in a war zone" -- one with a culture of violence that has been proudly embraced and ingrained for generations.

Consider some of the sport's most famous pronouncements:

"If you can't beat 'em in the alley, you won't beat 'em on the ice."
-- Maple Leafs owner Conn Smythe

"'Take the shortest route to the puck-carrier and arrive in ill humor."
-- Flyers coach Fred Shero

"Half the game is mental; the other half is being mental."
-- Maple Leafs defenseman Jim McKenny

With such a license to ill, it's a wonder there isn't a bloodbath on and off the ice every 15 minutes. I suspect that the great equalizer is the relative lack of fame and money -- which tend to inspire ungrounded individuals to fire guns in nightclubs, shave their heads and drive with babies on the laps, and consort with chimps in personal backyard amusement parks. NHL players, many from fairly well-off (it is an expensive sport to play) or more sedate small town and rural backgrounds, tend to be more humble, polite, devoid of outrageous senses of entitlement, better behaved off the ice and, for the most part, on it (pay no heed to that donnybrook in the corner.) The league even has an award for gentlemanly play -- the Lady Byng Trophy -- and someone wins it each year.

Of course, no one actually pays to watch good citizenship, though it can't hurt, so to speak, to have it around. As much as we decry it, we humans really don't mind violence as long as it's administered fairly. If so, it's on with the ultimate fighting and the jolly he-got-jacked-up clips. It's stating the painfully obvious to say that a goodly number of fans enjoy the fighting in hockey -- just check out the sites that lovingly catalog and critique each and every bout -- and the NHL really dares not alienate them although it has tried to emphasize the actual game. But for all the brute force and ignorance on display each night, the NHL is hardly some tawdry basement cockfight. The skill and passion is hard to beat, in a manner of speaking, and the players tend not to approximate Terrell Owens in sheer obnoxiousness.

(my emphasis)

Imagine that. The NHL as poster child for relative sanity and good behavior in the insane world of modern American sports. Who'd a thunk it possible?

Well, those who know Hockey and it's players know. The rest of the sports world have been the clueless ones.

Learn to Play Hockey

... the song.

Impress and amaze your friends. Make puck bunnies everywhere swoon...



As a amateur guitarist (very amateur) it's great to finally now know how to play this classic hockey anthem.

Oh! The good old hockey game,
Is the best game you can name;
And the best game you can name,
Is the good old Hockey game!

No truer words have ever been sung... or music played.

Poll Numbers

CP's Rankings...

1. Nashville Predators. No one's panicking yet but Peter Forsberg remains out...

2. Anaheim Ducks. Back to playing the kind of hockey that got them off to a great start.

3. Detroit Red Wings. Huge back-to-back tests with Preds.

4. Buffalo Sabres. The callup Drew Stafford may be here to stay.

5. New Jersey Devils. Martin Brodeur, amazingly, closing in on career high for wins in a season.

6. Vancouver Canucks. Bryan Smolinski fitting in nicely.

7. San Jose Sharks. Does anyone know Patrick Marleau leads the Sharks in goals?

8. Ottawa Senators. What's up with those third-period collapses boys.

9. Calgary Flames. Robyn Regehr a team-best plus-24.

10. Dallas Stars. Mike Modano soon to pass Joe Mullen for most goals by a U.S.-born player.

The rest of the rankings can be found >>> here.

The Holy Goalie

He's the all-time saves percentage leader...


No, it's not Ken Dryden.


Hint: nobody saves more.


Hey, what can I say? It's the Easter season and I'm feeling just a touch spiritual these daze. Especially since the only hope my team has to make the playoffs is for some divine intervention to take place.

So, praise the Lord and pass the puck.

Another Bad Sign

As if we needed any more....

It's either a sign of the NHL implosion or the end of Western culture as we know it: Anna Nicole Smith has passed the NHL as the most popular Internet search in Canada.

Actually, I think it's both a sign that the NHL is imploding AND it's a sign of the end of Western culture as we know it.

It's a twofer.

Objects in your mirror...

may be closer than they appear, Mr. Malkin.

Given up for dead by many (including me) the Av's and their sensational rookie Paul Stastny have put together an impressive streak of point scoring for him and wins for them to put the club back into contention for a playoff spot. Who'd a thunk it possible just a short while ago?

The Avalanche are playing with renewed motivation. They haven't missed the playoffs since 1994 when the team was still based in Quebec City.

"It was only a matter of time," Stastny said, referring to the team's turnaround. "Team morale is so high, we know we're in every game. The first 10 minutes tonight, we were down 1-0 and in the back of our minds we knew we could turn it around and give ourselves a chance to win."

Credit Stastny, who assisted on Colorado's first two goals, including setting up Milan Hejduk's short-handed tally that tied it at 1 midway through the first period.

Stastny's streak is the longest in the NHL this season, and the best run since Ottawa's Dany Heatley had a point in 22 consecutive games from Oct. 5 to Nov. 29, 2005.

Stastny's my pick for the Calder Trophy. When you tie (and possibly break) a NHL record for consecutive games scoring by a rookie, that's stood for 14 years, you definitely deserve the consideration. Hopefully more will be giving it to him.

UPDATE:

It now appears that's starting to happen.

The race for the Calder Trophy as NHL rookie of the year has been jazzed up by the red-hot play of Colorado Avalanche centre Paul Stastny.

Long seen as a 1-2 battle between Pittsburgh Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin and Los Angeles Kings centre Anze Kopitar, the 21-year-old Stastny is having his say with a 17-game point streak that ties the NHL record for rookies.

Now Stastny is getting more recognition around the league.

"He should," Avs head coach Joel Quenneville said. "The consistency of his play is the best part about his game.

Every night he does all the things well.

His bonus is his point production. I think the streak gets him a little more recognition and attention but his contribution to our team game has been outstanding." Stastny extended his point streak to 17 games Wednesday night with a pair of assists in a 3-2 win at Buffalo, tying the rookie mark set in 1993 by Winnipeg's Teemu Selanne. Stastny also set the franchise rookie record, breaking the 16-game mark set by his father, Peter, in 1980 with the then-Quebec Nordiques.

Currently Stasty has 65 points (22-43) in 68 games and Malkin is in first with 69 points (29-40) in 62 games among rookies. Obviously it's not the runaway race many had thought it would be.

A New Tradition Born?

Man, I hope so.



I don't think I've ever seen that particular kind of debris thrown on the ice following a score before. I like it. I wouldn't mind seeing the custom catch on. Not sure why they felt a need to use a hockey stick to pick it up though. It was like they thought they were dealing with something really dangerous.

Which I guess you could say... is true. The seductive spell of that particular item has brought many a strong man to his knees.

Me included.

Foreign Leaders

In a development that is sure to disappoint some (not me, I'm OK with it), Colin Stephenson writing for the Star-Ledger points out that more and more of the captains of NHL teams are coming from the ever growing ranks of European players.

If Don Cherry were dead, he'd be rolling over in his grave.

Cherry, the colorful television commentator for CBC's Hockey Night in Canada, has entertained viewers for years by selling himself as hockey's version of Archie Bunker.

The former Boston Bruins coach installed himself as the champion of the good old Anglo-Canadian NHL player, extolling the virtues of clean-cut boys from Ontario and Alberta and Saskatchewan and attacking those imports from across the Atlantic.

What must Cherry be thinking these days, with fighting and physical play way down in the new-rules NHL, and the league so heavily populated by European players that no one bats an eye at the fact that 11 of the 30 teams are captained by a European?

Cherry passed on a request to answer that question, but others in the NHL aren't that surprised by the influx.

"The NHL's come a long way," Brendan Shanahan, the Toronto-born left wing and Rangers assistant captain said a few weeks ago when asked about the proliferation of Euro captains. "In past years, there was definitely a stereotype and a prejudice against Europeans, and probably for some people, there always will be.

"But most knowledgeable hockey people realize that it doesn't matter now where you're born or where you grew up playing; desire is desire and leadership is leadership."

There is a greater percentage of Europeans among the ranks of captains (36.7 percent) than there are Europeans in the league (29.8 as of Feb. 7).

(my emphasis)

Somewhere Don Cherry is fuming.

Which probably means, so is Clark Robertson.

Hockey Gone Wild

#12 in a continuing series.

This clip comes courtesy of the LNAH and it even includes some audience on-ice participation...



Well, that's just a sample of some of the action that you can expect to see from... The World's Toughest Hockey League.

Other installments of >>> Hockey Gone Wild.

What goes around...

comes around.

Here's a funny little tale about instant karma taking place at a hockey game. Remember kids, for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction.



So, what's the moral of the story here? Be careful next time you think about ragging on some poor hockey player who's just gotten dinged up because you never know, that next ding could be headed your way. Especially at a hockey game.

Instant karma is gonna to get you
Gonna knock you right on the head

Janssen Suspended...

Well, in typical NHL head scratching fashion, the league ended up punishing him for the lateness of the hit... not the head shot itself. THAT doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't to Kara Yorio either.

Of course, I can't be completely happy with this decision because of the explanation.

Campbell's statement did not mention that Janssen hit Kaberle in the head. If Janssen had hit Kaberle late but not in the head, it's very unlikely there would have been an injury. There certainly wouldn't have been the scary scene that followed the brutal hit. As a matter of fact, it wouldn't even have been noticed. Late hits happen all the time. Guys shake them off and catch up to the play. Just another part of the game.

Like blows to the head, unfortunately.

Lost in the public explanation of this decision is that it's the type of hit, in conjunction with the timing of it, that makes it so dangerous and worthy of a suspension.

No one can convince me otherwise.

But at least this is a small step in the right direction for the NHL. If players realize they can't take advantage of an opponent after the play, maybe it'll cut down on some of the vicious, dangerous shots to the head.

(my emphasis)

Heck, even the NFL knows it makes sense to ban head shots. Hey, I'm all for tough play on the ice, but as far as I'm concerned, intentional head shots have no place in the game. When is the NHL going to stop with the taking of "small steps" in regards to this issue and finally address it strongly once and for all ????

Hopefully they'll wakeup before someone is laid out for good.

Hockeys' Roots

As incredible as it may seem to some fans, the CHL... The Colored Hockey League ...is being considered by a growing number of hockey researchers to have been the secret source of hockeys' modern style of play.

The roots of modern Canadian hockey originate, in large part, from the influence of an even more surprising source, that of early African-Canadian hockey. For it was Black hockey players in the later half of the nineteenth century whose style of play and innovations helped shape the sport, effectively changing the game of hockey forever.

RELATED POSTS:

Soul on Ice
Black Ice

There's No Crying in Hockey

Terry Frei writing for ESPN explains that and answers twenty other wide ranging questions about the recent NHL trade frenzy.

For example...

Q: When deals were reported to the NHL office for confirmation, did league functionaries ask the rental customers if they wanted the additional collision and liability insurance at the bargain price of $3,284.94 per day?

A: They were asked to initial in the circles to confirm their choices.

Aaaah, actually most of the other questions are a bit more serious. That one just happened to crack me up a little.

Word of the Day

Today Mr. Cherry explains the proper use of the hockey term...



dangle.

On a side note, it's good to see the cherry bomb dressing down for a change instead of his usual practice of dressing up. Way up. I don't believe I've ever seen the guy dressed so casual.

Hmmm, come to think of it, maybe that guy in the clip is an imposter.