Contenders and Pretenders

Ted Montgomery, writing for USA TODAY gives us a rundown on the good, the bad and the ugly teams so far in this NHL season. At the moment, my guys appear in what you might say is the bad (bubble) category.

Colorado Avalanche: This is a tough team to figure. The offensive firepower is there, and the goaltending has been adequate for the most part, but the defense teeters back and forth between being stingy and leaky. They'll have to correct that if they are to entertain any ideas of surviving even one round in the tough Western Conference playoffs.

I couldn't agree more. Well, actually on second thought, I think I'd drop them down to pretender status at this point.

Find where Ted thinks your team stands >>> here.

Hockeydad Rap

I'm big and I'm bad... I'm a hockey dad.

ESPN or Bust

Can hockey be a sport if it isn't on ESPN?

One of the most powerful forces in the NHL today is an organization that owns no standing in the NHL. And therein lies the problem.

ESPN has become the big elephant sitting in our room, only in this case everyone is talking about it.

The lack of a television deal with ESPN is now the No. 1 gripe in hockey today. Players complain about it. General managers complain about it. Coaches complain about it, and fans truly complain about it in most vulgar terms.

With 2008 almost upon us, the return of the NHL to ESPN should be the top priority for Commissioner Gary Bettman. It's that simple. No one cares about network television anymore. We care about ESPN. This is more important than figuring out how the NHL is going to score more goals. I don't want expanded nets. I want expanded visibility for the sport of hockey. To achieve that, we must return to ESPN.

I couldn't agree more.

Me Like Hockey

Yes I do.



Me work Hard five days a week,
sweeping garbage from the street.
Come home not one book to read,
not 'nuff pictures for me see.
Sit right down in favorite chair,
wearing only underwear.
Favorite night is Saturday night,
'cause me can watch hockey fights.

Me like hockey

Me not like pro basketball,
'cause me short and they all tall.
Baseball slow like Forrest Gump,
'cept when Robbie spits on ump.
Wrestlemania not so great,
Me like to see Hulk Hogan Skate.
TV socccer not that hot,
you play bad and you get shot.

Me like hockey

Swedish players must be geeks, haha
'cause they still got own real teeth. hahaha
Not like Finnish players names,
what's a Teemu anyway? hahaha
Russians worst in history,
got stupid names like Valeri. hahaha

Me like Sergi Federov,
Me like him more if head were off. hahaha

Me like hockey

Please Mr. Linesman let the players fight

Friends come over, put game on,
argue then we lay bets down.
Got bag of chips and case of Bud,
should last 'til end of first period.
But Yankees they win The World Cup,
me think they cheat use glowing puck.
Maybe if we want to winder,
maybe we should play in winter.

Me Like Hockey

Hockey's Next Great Frontier...

China?
Huh, well that definitely wouldn't have been my first guess. The US market would've been my first.

"We feel the future in China is extremely bright," said Chris Collins, a former NHL scout and broadcaster from California who has been appointed the general manager of the China Sharks.

"Is it going to be easy? Certainly not. But we're helping them to build from the ground floor up. If we do this right, it will be a path for the rest of the NHL to come to China."

The NHL has visions of glory in the lucrative Chinese market, which Collins says is "breathtaking" in its size. The NBA is already reaping $50-million (U.S.) in annual revenue from China, primarily from the sale of NBA merchandise at 50,000 outlets across the country, making it the NBA's biggest market outside the United States.

The NHL, by contrast, doesn't even have a single souvenir hawker at the China Sharks' games. "Our entire business plan only started a few weeks ago," Collins said. "But the marketplace is wide open. The game has nowhere to go but up."

Yeah, we'll just have to wait and see about that. I have serious doubts. Personally, I think the powers that be should concentrate their efforts on reviving the professional game in this country before worrying about introducing and growing it in another.

Tick... Tick...

BOOM!!!



You know I’ve done it before
And I can do it some more
I’ve got my eye on the score...

Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick … Boom!!

More Puck Rock

Darude "My Game"



What can I say? Not exactly primo stuff. However, I'll always be a sucker for anything that pays homage to the greatest movie ever made... Slap Shot.

More >>> Puck Rock.

Polar Bear Hockey

I thought it'd be pretty tough to go up against these guys...



..I guess I was wrong.

They might not be much as hockey players but I still wouldn't want to go into the corners and fight these guys for the puck.

Scoring down again in the NHL this season

...but what's the answer?

The league was averaging 5.5 total goals per game through Monday night (not counting shootout tiebreakers), down from 5.9 through the same number of games last season and markedly down from 6.2 at the same point in the first season coming out of the lockout when a number of rule changes opened up the game.

That's 100 fewer goals from last season through 251 total games and 175 fewer goals from 2005-06 at the same point.

Is the league alarmed?

"Not yet," commissioner Gary Bettman told The Canadian Press. "It's something we're going to keep an eye on. It's something we're going to continue to monitor. The game is still entertaining. We've had some high-scoring games, the Dallas-LA game Saturday night (6-5) is another good example. But we are keeping an eye on it."

The numbers are still up from the 5.1 total goals per game the league was averaging through the same number of games in 2003-04, but it's trending back the wrong way. [...]

So what now? Bigger nets? Even more reduced goalie equipment? Four-on-four play for the whole game?

Bigger nets and further reductions of goalie equipment sounds good to me.

Hockey Gone Wild

...#17 in a continuing series.

The videotape they didn't want you to see...



Hockey GM denies trying to cover up brawl

Halifax Wolverines player Kirk Forrest dropped his gloves just 43 seconds into a game Tuesday night, and chased down Josh McKinnon of the Summerside Western Capitals.

Forrest told CTV Atlantic he was seeking revenge for a previous incident and had no regrets.

"He hurt my teammate," said Forrest. "I stuck up for my teammate."

He pursued MacKinnon to the visiting team's bench and landed several punches. Another Wolverines player then dove right into the bench and the brawl escalated. [...]

The brawl was captured on tape by students Greg Sewart and Joey Johnson from Halifax's Atlantic Media Institute.

After the fight, the general manager of the Wolverines, Jack Finlay, approached the students and allegedly suggested they should tell others the tape had been lost.

"He suggested, 'Tell them we destroyed the tapes,'" said Sewart, 31.

"We were asked to lose the footage. It just seems so strange and unethical that we should be told that."

CTV News contacted Finlay, who denied making the suggestion. He said he only asked for a copy of the tape and then hung up the phone.

In an interview with the Halifax Chronicle Herald, Finlay had a different answer. He said he was only joking, and had made his comments in reference to a previous game between the two teams that Summerside failed to record.

More >>> Hockey Gone Wild.