Hoserdome 2009: Playoffs, Night 2

Playoffs!

Blackhawks 3 Calgary 2 (overtime; Chicago leads 1-0) — There is genuine envy toward the innocents who watched this without knowing that Roger Sportsnet's Calgary correspondent, Roger Millions, had a hopefully not career-ending moment before the game (language not safe for work).



Meantime, one would think that the Blackhawks, given the way which they finished off this game, have momentum for Game 2. The Flames are hoppin' mad about the fact there was no call on Chicago's Andrew Ladd when he made contact with Miikka Kiprusoff a split-second before Martin Havlat's winning goal hit the back of the net.

Fair enough, Flames fans, but it was all part of a greater glory. After Chicago tied the game 2-2, someone — let's call him Neate S., no, too obvious, N. Sager — texted Kinger, "Havlat to score the winner." That was pretty impressive, coming as it did through a haze of Sapporo and Jello shooters.

Bruins 4 Canadiens 2 (Boston leads 1-0) — The Habs lost and they won, since there was some positive news about the team's potential sale.

Ducks 2 Sharks 0 (Anaheim leads 1-0) — San Jose really is the equivalent of Red Shoe Diaries; always on late at night, leaving you screaming, "Just do it, already!" The Sharks did everything but score for large stretches vs. Anaheim and Jonas Hiller ... the tree that goes in San Jose might be an apple tree, but the apple is in the throats of the Sharks. Game 2 could be the most important game of the Joe Thornton era in San Jose.

Ryan Getzlaf's sealer in the third period was a goal scorer's goal.

Red Wings 4 Blue Jackets 1 (Detroit leads 1-0) — The Jiri Hudler-Valterri Filipula-Dan Cleary line dominated and a gaffe by Manny Malhotra, who deflected the puck into the net on the goal on which put Detroit ahead to stay, helped swing the game to the Red Wings.

Is everyone just assuming Detroit wins in four, five tops?

Last, but not least, Chris Zelkovich from the Toronto Star shared the news during the evening. The Save-On Foods grocery chain is picking up the tab for CBC Sports to broadcast Games 3, 4 and (if necessary) 6 of the Vancouver Canucks-St. Louis Blues series in HD.

Never say the squeaky wheel doesn't get the grease.

Hoserdome 2009: Playoffs, night 1

From The Rink or Puck Daddy this ain't, but it's the playoffs and absolutely nothing else of significance is going on in Canada. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, so bring on the nightly recap:

Canucks 2 Blues 1 (Vancouver leads 1-0) — Both Van goals came through the Sedin twins' line, which should be a talker for the off-day since Daniel and Henrik typically pull an el foldo in April. Truth be known, this was a bit of a bore for everyone except Canucks fans, several of whom were disguised as empty seats, although that might have had to due with a traffic snarl.

And yes, that was 13-year veteran d-man Jay McKee, of Kingston, taking consecutive penalties for the Blues. D'oh!

Rangers 4 Capitals 3 (New York leads 1-0) — Please keep an eye on the TV ratings, since for one night at least, TSN got the better series, in terms of entertainment value, in the 7 p.m. Eastern time slot.

José Théodore's bed-soiling (four goals on 20 shots) was the main post-game story on the Capitals' side. The Verizon Center ice is probably a good subplot, since pucks were bouncing everywhere and Washington's Jeff Schultz fell down to give Brandon Dubinsky the opening to score the game-winner.

Meantime, Théodore, is that one of those situations where if you stick him on the bench in Game 2, you lose him for the rest of the playoffs?



Penguins 4 Flyers 1 (Pittsburgh leads 1-0) — Please be kind and give it another game before sending the conficker virus to puck pundits who said this was the best series of the first round. These teams have a deep-seeded feud that rivals anything that exists between Jay Leno and David Letterman, but there wasn't a whole lot to see, save for a sick Sidney Crosby goal.

Cash-strapped CBC seems to be treating a marquee matchup like a regional Senators telecast, which is understandable since as it is understandably focused on the Vancouver and Montreal series. They didn't do the game in HD and didn't have the crowd miked very well (TSN's microphones picked up a lot more sights and sounds, which adds a lot if you're watching at home). There's some blood in the water in the shark tank that is the TV ratings game, since the CTV family already buried everyone with 3.1 million viewers for the send-off of Corner Gas.

Devils 4 'Canes 1 (New Jersey leads 1-0) — One reason for not un-mothballing the Hoser's Guide to Hockey Hatred was not knowing how to slot the Devils.

Having Kevin Smith, the schlubby sensitive English major's pride and joy, as their celebrity fan gives them a lifetime out from the fact they damn near wrecked the sport in the early 2000s. It's all water under the bridge when Smith, billed as "director, Zach and Miri" (clipping the title is understandable, so far be it to point out it was Z-a-c-k and Miri Make A Porno) coins a way to take The Great One's name in vain:

"I present you with our compromise: anytime I work myself up into a lather about the Devs, so much so that I lose my head and include potentially offensive terminology? I will then swap said terminology for the kindler, gentler, more family-friendly and NHL-approved term 'Gretzky' (or a derivative/conjugation of Mr. Gretzky’s names) instead

"... I know what you’re thinking: 'Listen to this fat [Gretzky] braggin’ about all the money he’s got! Big man, with the pregnant-lady gut and the [Gretzin'] arm flab! Hey, Fatty – you’re gonna die alone, you morbidly obese [Great One]!"

The game was on TSN2 in Canada, so a Rogers cable subscriber of three years' standing can only imagined what happened. Apparently Zach Parise, aptly enough, scored a sweet goal.

There is probably a better time and place to go into this (like a psychiatrist's office), but back in 1995 or '96, Kevin Smith's movies spawned a personal reason to not use "swears" on the printed page if it could be avoided. Talk about a lack of flurking foresight.

Last but not least, the one-and-only Jonah Keri went in a playoff pool, so he's rediscovering his hoser roots.

Do the Terrier dance...

Please, next year, let's have the Frozen Four championship game available in Canada on a tier 1 cable channel, since you don't get many Colby Cohen moments too often. Rogers Sportsnet, which showed some NCAA games earlier this season, had baseball commitments.

It would have been a hell of a lot better than that out-with-a-whimper final installment of the Battle of Ontario, where the Leafs done did themselves out of a spot in the NHL draft lottery. Boston U, as you know, beat Miami of Ohio 4-3 in overtime after scoring twice in the final minute of regulation to tie it before Cohen, off a stainless-steel cojones no-look pass from James Shattenkirk, shot and had the puck redirect off Miami of Ohio's Kevin Roeder. Crazy. It was Boise State on ice.

Seriously, the NCAA Tournament needs to be on in Canada. Is it selfish to feel ripped off by not getting to watch a college hockey game and not getting to see Brad May drop the mitts in his final NHL game?

Puck Daddy had the privilege to be there and The Terrier Hockey Fan Blog, suffice to say, is alight this morning. This more than makes up for Boston U losing Ethan Werek to the Kingston Frontenacs.

(Canada played at 5 p.m. ET at the under-18 world championship yesterday, meaning Werek, who scored two goals in an 8-1 win over Switzerland, could have been back in his hotel room to see his former Stouffville Spirit linemate, Corey Trivino, skate for Boston U.)

Blog blast past: The coming Crosby backlash is nothing personal

In the wake of his little set-to with Alexander Ovechkin on Sunday, it seems germane to blow the dust off this post about the lack of love for Sidney Crosby, originally published Dec. 14, 2006, after he had a six-point night vs. the Flyers and Pierre McGuire exclaimed that TSN was "The Sidney Network."

Sometime between the hours of, oh, 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. tomorrow, the Sick of Sidney Crosby Society's power will reach critical mass. May God have mercy on us all.

The backlash against the Cole Harbour Comet (as he would have been known in the days before bestowing nicknames became the droit du TV pinheads) has been there for a while, dating back to long before Crosby joined Pittsburgh Penguins in 2005. It goes back to long before juniors in Rimouski, probably even long before Shattuck-St. Mary's and AAA midget in Nova Scotia. For Crosby, it comes with the ever expanding territory.

It's bound to come to a head soon after last night's made-for-YouTube performance when Crosby had a career-high six points in an 8-4 drubbing of the Philadelphia Flyers and took over the NHL scoring lead, barely four months after his 19th birthday. As noted, there have long been rumblings. Some old fart hockey types (including a few who are still fairly young in years, if not outlook) bristled last year when the Penguins made him the youngest alternate captain in NHL history. Other people called him out for diving. Now the backlash is likely bound to start brewing in earnest.

Very little of that is Crosby's doing. Canadians went through this with Wayne Gretzky too back in the '80s. Gord Miller and Pierre McGuire's Sturm und Drang treatment of Crosby's big night on TSN last night certainly added fuel to the fire. They were just trying to hype a meaningless midweek game, fair enough. However, even by the standards of McGuire, who tends to describe every pitched battle for the puck between third-line wingers like it was the whole of the Peloponnesian War, it was almost an entire other level of dementia.

It was so off-putting that, watching from work, I found myself saying out loud, "What's wrong with Crosby? He hasn't had a point in almost eight minutes. What a suck." And I've cheered for Crosby, been following him since his days with the Dartmouth Subways.

The double whammy is that Alex Ovechkin, a year older, is coming to his own and he and Crosby represent the way the hockey nation stereotypes have been inverted. This is a gross generalization, but so be it: Canadians have come to embody the old Cold War stereotype of the robotic Soviet players. The Russians are the devil-may-care, impish sorts with the wink and the smile with a tooth missing, seriously talented without taking themselves too seriously. If the '72 Summit Series was being re-enacted today, it's a lot easier Ovechin hamming it up for the crowd like Phil Esposito famously did than it would with the serious-as-a-heart-attack Crosby.

Crosby is of the Alex Rodriguez-Tiger Woods-Peyton Manning-Kobe Bryant milieu. The great player who is liked, but not well-liked. He's fast becoming one of those superstars whom almost no one except the worst front-running fair-weather types cheer for. Their feats always seem to have this hollow quality. Tiger wins a major? All he's ever done is play golf. Kobe scores 81 points in a game? What's he ever done but play basketball?

Sidney Crosby winning the NHL scoring title at age 19? That's what he was built up to do. Paraphrasing Lester Bangs, part of admiring him is resenting him for failing to live up to your expectations.

Just for good measure, throw in that Crosby seems to have come to the pros fully formed, lacking any endearing human frailties. Would it kill him to have a zit? There's no backstory -- at least with Wayne Gretzky, you knew that his dad was a telephone repairman -- or even an indication that he's even had a part-time job after school or during the summer, or something of that nature.

It's nothing personal. That's the problem -- for us, not him.

Between the sacrifices the Kid has made to get where he is, plus the pressures and expectations he faces daily (especially from various commercial sponsors), he's not free to act like a typical 19-year-old -- which he isn't, of course. Where is there any indication that he does any of the usual 19-year-old things, or is full of any of the usual 19-year-old's uncertainties and fears?

Surely he most go through some of all that. You'll just never know about it, unless he's got a book to sell or goes on some Oprah-genre program to highlight his softer side. Talk about a turnoff.

Ken Holland's words: It has to start somewhere, it has to start some time

The lid was almost screwed on tightly on the fighting in hockey debate, but it might have been ripped off for at least a couple more news cycles.

"The biggest thing with our sport is you look at the other major sports — football, basketball, baseball — you're ejected from the game for fighting. They have a different culture ... We've had a different culture, history and tradition ... I think we should revisit it, because of what happened with that young player (Don Sanderson) in Ontario."
— Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland, at globesports.com

This might be sidetracked by people pointing out that's easy enough for Holland to say. The Red Wings have had the fewest fighting majors in the NHL by a factor of two. That is a bit of a logical fallacy, discrediting the person instead addressing her/his argument.

Holland's words are welcome to fans who are numbed to hearing this discussion invariably degenerate into an exchange of insults, "knuckle dragger" and "Neanderthal" on one end, "tree hugger" and "granola eater" on the other. Holland is also easier to side with than Pierre McGuire, who give him credit, is has stood his ground (although one of his corporate brethren calling it "intestinal fortitude" is a bit much; it's sports broadcasting).

It seems like 10 years ago, you would have never heard that from a NHL executive, so it represents progress. Holland wasn't calling for a ban, mind you. The premeditated fights, where two players line up for a faceoff and thrown down their gloves as soon as the puck is dropped could stand to go. Fights which are a honest outgrowth of emotion, spur of the moment, after a cheap shot on a teammate, is going to harder to outlaw.

At least Holland and McGuire, among others, are showing leadership, which might segue into a recent discussion over whether Don Cherry merits induction in the Hockey Hall of Fame. At first shrug, one might say, "Sure, why not?"

There's a reasonable case for Grapes. A counter-argument is that Hall of Fame is supposed to reflect greatness (stop laughing at the mere thought of this about an institution that has Harold Ballard in the builders' category). As Cox Bloc noted, Cherry does not rate induction in the HHOF since he has never used his pulpit for much other than the bullying variety. Putting him in confuses celebrity with greatness:

"At just about every turn, Don Cherry has been wrong about the direction of the game, preferring outdated shibboleths to innovation and progress. How can you honour a builder who would, given his choice not build the game but tear it down and return it to the Eddie Shore era? Cherry's done about as much to build good hockey as his buddy Mike Milbury did to build a dynasty on Long Island.

"Would baseball honour a commentator who was best known for opposing batting helmets, supporting beanballs and benchclearing brawls, and baiting Hispanic players at every opportunity?"

The point, sorry for repeating myself, is that attitudes change slowly and people need to have an open mind. The common refrain with violence in hockey is that we never learn in Canada. The New York Times sent a correspondent to Whitby, Ont., in the aftermath of Sanderson's death and found it's as if some fans, not all, haven't learned anything:

"... the crowd of a few hundred rippled with excitement. The audience seemed to have forgotten that the Dunlops lost a teammate to fighting only two weeks earlier. A fan of the Dundas Real McCoys leaned over to his friend. 'Did you see that right hook?' he said. 'Did you see him go down?' "

That kind of pleasure was never harmless to begin with, but at least that is hitting home. Again, busting on hockey is not going to change things, nor is grandstanding or taking a hard line. Small actions are needed. Stay in your seat when a fight starts at a junior or pro game. If you're watching at home, get up and leave the room. It can have a bigger impact than you might think, just like one GM saying maybe it's time to really get to the heart of the matter.

Related:
Red Wings' GM open to debate on fighting (Allan Maki, globesports.com)
Player’s Death Revives Debate on Fighting in Hockey (Katie Thomas, The New York Times)
Put Cherry in the Hall (From The Rink)

Snark break...

Come on, Sags ... calling Canada a post-literate society, you can't say that.

Canada beat Germany 5-1 last night at the world juniors. Never before has a team outshot its opponent by such a margin -- 49-13 -- and still come through such adversity.

Another great headline that could not be written: "Canucks Grubauered." By the way,

Forty-three-year-old Claude Lemieux has signed a NHL contract with the San Jose Sharks. He's older than Joseph -- the one in the Old Testament, not the one in Toronto.

The Detroit Lions are on the wrong side of another blowout, that being the competition for worst defence in recent NFL history. The two previous marks were each held by the Minnesota Vikings; those teams actually made the playoffs.

A Toronto columnist might need all of next year to live down writing of Mats Sundin that, "The guy's only crime is that he's not a mercenary, that he's true." (Down Goes Brown has the takedown.)

It's so nice to see philanthropic efforts pay off -- Oklahoma State and the University of Oregon have deep-pocketed donors and their teams are in the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl.

Last, and certainly least, Darcy Tucker vs. Jordin Tootoo -- it's hard to figure out who to root for in that scenario.


This post was worth nothing, but this is worth noting

• Please don't infer anything from the fact German goalie Philipp Grubauer, who made made 44 saves against Canada, plays for the Belleville Bulls. The Kingston Frontenacs brain trust would hate it if you said, "Does this mean Belleville's backup goalie is playing with more confidence than Kingston's starter?" or "does this show why you should take the CHL import draft seriously?"
• Last but not least, two weeks later, can someone please answer why it's significant that Marshall Eriksen (Jason Segel) was wearing a No. 70 Vikings jersey on a recent episode of How I Met Your Mother? A playoff game hangs in the balance, plus someone here is pretty much addicted to that show, and why not?
  
  
  
  
• Happy New Year. Plans are to see Slovakia-Russia today at the World Juniors (and, uh, see if anyone is Blagoing tickets for the Sweden-Russia game).

Blog blast past: Stef-fing out; a NHL prospect walks away, quite possibly for real

Columbus Blue Jackets prospect Stefan Legein, who quit hockey at age 19 three months ago, is returning to the game,
(TSN.ca (via Loose Pucks). Strangely enough, the Sean Avery-style agitator's return his hitting the same news at the same time Avery is in the headlines. Here's our post from Aug. 20, and one wishes him all the best now that he's chosen to come back.

Everyone's going to have a theory about what would possess Columbus Blue Jackets prospect Stefan Legein to apparently quit hockey at the ripe old age of 19.

Breaking out the jump-to-conclusions mat -- maybe he's going to sign in the KHL, maybe he doesn't want to play for the Blue Jackets -- is a normal reaction to news that's too much for your usually shockproof B.S. detector. There is no room, none at all, in Canada's hockey consciousness that allows one to easily digest the news that Legein might drop out of hockey. Just read the comments at TSN's website, where the player's father has denied the story).

It would not be a a shock if (emphasis on if) this was borne from Legein having some sort of personal crisis, the kind of thing that, pre-political correctness, was called a nervous breakdown. This could be 100% off-base, but since theories are like fingers (everyone's got 10 of them), what the hell. Depression is a prevalent enough illness, but the wider society, let alone the emotionally stunted sports word, has a hard enough time understanding the condition that's it worth using the Legein story as a jumping-off point. By no means is this the case here.

Speaking from experience, a common trap depressives can fall into is being unable to avoid emotional reactions to everyday situations. It's easy to see a scenario where a young person, unable to work through it, told people close to him that he was quitting the one activity that he had come to be identified through. It serves three purposes. It's a way to punish yourself through self-denial, lay a guilt trip on loved ones and put off working your way through that which you must work through.

Only a true believer would expect hockey fans to not look at Stefan Legein as someone who's throwing away a shot at every Canadian boy's dream of playing in the NHL. No one, though, has any right to ridicule or scorn. No one has to make a cause-of-the-week out of him either, but at the very least you should try to understand it from the player and human being's point of view, just this once.

The Canadian junior hockey system is not famous for being sympathetic to teenagers, let alone sensitive types who might bruise easily. Players are drafted at 16 and are forced to develop a keen survival instinct in a hurry, because they have no rights, none at all, except to ask for a trade (and then they get branded as a "brat" or a "hot dog"). There are probably a few players who develop thick skin to the exclusion of an actual maturation within.

In this context, the self-portrait Legein offered for sportsnet.ca in the lead-up to last season's World Juniors is kind of chilling:

" 'You have to hate everyone out there,' Legein confirmed. 'They hate you and they're trying to hit you and hurt you and they're trying to beat you so you have to have that same hate back.

" 'I have no friends on the ice. Once the game's over, sure everything's fine but once we're on the ice there are no friends.' " -- Dec. 7, 2007

In hindsight, you could read between the lines that Legein was trying to tell the adults who control his hockey destiny what they wanted to hear. It's ironic that he said he emulated Sean Avery, the NHL's premier agitator. Avery is at least as famous for the lengths he goes to to show the world how much he's bored by playing hockey as he is for playing hockey. (Others have pointed out this could be a prank, and considering the previously noted Avery/Andy Kaufman comparisons, it's not impossible.)

Avery's off-ice notoriety, the Vogue internship, all that, could be how Avery handles his ambivalence toward playing a game -- that's also happened to make him wealthy and a much more eligible bachelor than he would have been otherwise. (It's kind of hard to imagine Elisha Cuthbert would have ever shown up on a red carpet escorted by a guy who teaches Grade 9 math in Ajax.)

Of course, the fear when you try to act like someone else is that's what you'll end up becoming -- someone else. That's contributed to a crisis for more than one athlete in a violent collision sport such as hockey or football.

There are obviously other scenarios that could be at work.

(This might have nothing to do it, but ShysterBall has linked to a Pat Jordan Sports Illustrated profile of Bo Belinsky, who was kind of a Sean Avery of his generation. One quote from Belinsky that's kind of haunting: "I could never give up enough of myself for success." Does that not sound like, as Duane notes, clinical anxiety?)

It's bad enough to have already violated Legein's privacy by wondering if his mental state might have influenced his reported decision to walk away from hockey. It's not even out of the realm of possibility that taking time away from the sport is part of making a commitment to trying to become a NHL player. He probably never had And yes, perhaps something scandalous or prurient that will come out in a matter of days. Last, but not least, someone will connect the dots between Legein and 16-year-old Western Hockey League prospect Brandon Regier also retiring and argue that Canada's hockey system offers as quick a road to early burnout as it does to the NHL.

Sports fans don't always accept that players who have a chance to realize what you always dreamed of doing don't necessarily embrace that dream. It would be easier for us to understand if Legein had physical problems that made it too risky for him to keep playing high-level hockey, like the heart condition that forced the University of Denver hockey player David Carle to give up the game this spring. When it's something like depression, which is a very common condition, there's absolutely no understanding and that's just plain wrong.

That's not to say this is what's afoot with Stefan Legein. If not him, though, then it will be for some other promising athlete soon enough.

(Other, better hockey sites have noted that Daniel Ryder walked away from the Flames last season and he's back this season.)

What, no one is going to argue Halak would have stopped it?

Hey, Montréal Canadiens fans, remember when you sat there all smug and haughty, when Bryan McCabe was unravelling in Toronto? Karma is a hideous bitch goddess sometimes.

The best part? It was a phantom penalty call.

Shooting down the walls of heartache, Wendel is the Warrior

Wendel Clark is the Leafs. He gave it all and got nothing. He is the same as all of us in Leafs Nation.

There is full awareness among the blue-and-white brethren that it is mortifying to read an article about Wendel Clark that references Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky in the first three paragraphs, because he is not in their strata. True, it is ironic that the Leafs scheduled this for the same night that the Montreal Canadiens are honouring a hockey demigod, Patrick Roy, but you know what? Leafs Nation doesn't care

To quote Cox Bloc, we are the "straw that stirs this country's hockey drink" and will, "no matter how much we lose, we will never suffer an even worse fate -- not mattering," you don't have to care. Caring what other people think of you as fans, well, that's for Canucks and Sennies fans.

One stab at putting this in perspective is to imagine a six-year-old falling in thrall with Luke Schenn, the most dynamic rookie the Leafs have had since 1985. That little boy or girl is out there, with the audacity of hope — yep, went there — and knows nothing of the horrible baggage that comes with making the choice to inject blue-and-white into your bloodstream, an incurable affliction. 

A truth is, though, for a couple years in the mid-1980s, Wendel Clark brought hope to the most drab, futile, godforsaken franchise in North American sports. A fellow conscientious objector puts it is this way: Imagine if Jarome Iginla — and Wendel wasn't that class of player, mind you — had come up to the NHL with the worst team in the league. Imagine that he had to drop the gloves every night, since no one else in that dressing room had any pride left after all the losing the Leafs had done and after what Harold Ballard, Punch Imlach Part II and Gerry McNamara had done to throw Toronto's hockey tradition into utter disrepute.

He hit people, he fought, he had that heavy wrist shot and in those days when hockey players didn't seem so faceless and interchangeable, he seemed as close to a natural phenomenon as you can get. If Ballard had never come along and ruined the Leafs, Wendel Clark would not have mattered as much as he did for a generation of Ontarians. He would not have mattered as much if MLSE had never come together and the Leafs had ended up with an ownership group which was set up to win Stanley Cups, not build condominiums.

When you follow hockey through the lens of the Leafs, you do so knowing all of this. We know full well that there is no joy in Leafland. It is like being part of a dysfunctional family's drama. You know all the jokes, know the whole tortured history. When the P.A. announcer at Air Canada Centre intones, "your Toronto Maple Leafs," you fire back at the TV, "he means the high school teachers in the crowd."

Once in a while, those who have to pretend not to care in order to allay the anger need something like this. The plight of the Leafs is akin to the nod People Under The Stairs, on their new album, gives to former hip-hop fans: "A lot of you left, but I don't even blame you."

That might be. Wendel never left us, though and it's our wont to celebrate No. 17 and if it comes off like an eff-you to the rest of Canada who cannot or will not understand, well ...

Other business

• Down Goes Brown has the top 17 Wendel Clark moments.
• Cox Bloc's taunting of Vancouver fans must be passed along, strictly as a public service:

  "The Leafs wear iconic uniforms with a crest that is recognized worldwide —the Canucks change their uniforms as often as Van Halen change lead singers. They celebrate second-tier Swedes like Naslund and the Sedins, while the Leafs have iced two of the very greatest ever to wear the Tre Kronor — Sundin and Salming. They venerate Stan Smyl and Trevor Linden. We honour Doug Gilmour and Wendel Clark. We are on coast-to-coast-to-coast just about every Saturday night from 1931 to Armageddon. They are seen on the late game once a month or so. Classic songs are written about our team and its players. You ever hear 'The Ballad of Tony Tanti'?

• We couldn't get away without The Rheostatics.

Related:
Roy and Clark: Two routes to rafters (Stephen Brunt, globesports.com)

The secret of hitting...

Puck Daddy has a post today on hits to the head in the NHL, in the wake of Chris Pronger's totally unnecessary whacking of Pavel Datsyuk last night. The only thing to piggyback is to refer back to Mark Moore's 2006 book Saving The Game, which talks about how players rejected safer upper-body equipment -- the padded wetsuit -- several years ago.

"His reply shocked me: he said they did. Their design staff came up with prototypes very similar to what I was dscribing, he said. But here was the reception they got: They were scoffed at and ridiculed by the sponsored pro players they showed them to, who said they looked absurd and vowed they would never wear them. And they were rejected by consumer parents in test-marketing, who statistically always preferred the biggest, bulkiest, most armourlike equipment offered, for their kids."

And yes, as has been obvious for quite some time, the NHL needs to make it a penalty when someone makes a shoulder-to-head check on a player who has passed or shot the puck. It's counter to the purpose of body contact. Hitting has always been more akin to tackling in rugby than in football. Players hit someone to cause a change in possession, or the flow of the play, not to hurt someone. The pendulum has swung too far toward the football mentality, with the difference being that men on skates move much faster.

Petty power-trippers deserve an Oil embargo

He got treated like a petty criminal for the crime of loving his hockey team -- by some very petty power-tripping people.

All that young journalist David Berry, who writes for the awesome hockey blog Covered In Oil was ever guilty of was loving the Edmonton Oilers. Last Sunday, when he was in the Skyreach Centre pressbox in his capacity of working for another media outlet, the Oilers turfed him and shut down his liveblog of the Avalanche-Oilers game. Never mind that at least two regulars on the Oilers beat are routinely saving quotes they get thanks to having a press pass for mainstream media outlets for use on an independent blog. They're doing exactly what David Berry was doing -- using a blog to complement his coverage. Why are the Oilers and the NHL, which is supposed to have a uniform Internet policy for all 30 member teams, cool with one and not cool with the other?

At worst, this was just a simple misunderstanding. The CIO guys have explained that the Oilers didn't say that Berry could not post during the game. He should not have had to ask. He was a properly vetted, fully accredited writer who was using his best judgment. The control freaks apparently just couldn't handle it.

The Oilers organization should hear it over this gaffe. No less an authority than James Mirtle has said the team has the best blog community in the NHL:

"It's really not even close. There are a lot of Oilers blogs, but it's more the popularity and quality that exceeds other NHL teams." -- Edmonton Journal, Nov. 19, 2007

The Oilers ought to be embracing this Alberta advantage, not trying to nip in the bud. It's best to leave it open-ended why they would act in this manner (ageism -- Berry is in his mid-20s -- ignorance, arrogance, whatever).

The least the Oilers could do is be grateful that they have this fanatic following on the web. Covered In Oil's Mike Winters told the Edmonton Journal last year that they maintain the blog as a "kind of a love letter to Edmonton, a way of keeping in touch." One can only assume what it meant to Berry as a fan of the team to be so lucky as to get to cover the team as an adult -- and then to great treated in such a shabby manner.

The Oilers don't have to open up the gates to every Joe the Plumber with a Blogspot or a Wordpress account. The least they and the NHL could do, though, is be consistent with their policy regarding bloggers, so-called. As noted, if bloggers are persona non grata in their press box, then why are Robin Brownlee, a former Edmonton Sun beat writer and Jason Gregor, of the Team 1260 radio station, allowed in? Several sources say they often take quotes they could presumably only get thanks to their credentials and use them only on a blog, nowhere else.
Besides, by the Oilers' irrationale, if Covered In Oil is going to get the heave-ho, then no one in the press box should be allowed to blog stuff that they pick up once they're inside the velvet rope.

The funny thing about that. On my Google Reader, I have several sites that are compiled by a professional broadcaster or writer who gets his info thanks in large part to their jobs at another outlet -- the Belleville News-Democrat's Norm Sanders' Blues Note By Note, Kelowna Rockets play-by-play man Regan Bartel's Regan's Rant and Kamloops Daily News sports editor Gregg Drinnan's Taking Note, just to name a couple. There is also Coming Down the Pipe!, compiled by Guy Flaming and Dean Millard, media personalities in, wait for it, Edmonton.

At the heart of it, they each do it for the same reason. They have information that they can't fit into the news-hole or a live broadcast, but they know there's appetite for that info. The point is that the Oilers were wrong, and the NHL is wrong, to make an example out of Covered In Oil for simply trying to do its part for the team's fans. Would they rather have people flocking to an Edmonton Eskimos blog (if one even exists)?

And if the coverage is critical, so what? Did they not read the part in Will Blythe's To Hate Like This Is To Be Happy Forever when he argues that all game reports should be put together by people who are diehard fans, since they're likely to be the most honest? It's far better to be criticized than ignored.

Obviously, there are control issues for the teams. This isn't the first time a team or league has turfed someone who was blogging during a game -- a reporter from Louisville got the bum's rush during a NCAA College World Series baseball game a while back. It gets into the "any retransmission, without express written consent of Major League Baseball" issue.

Guess what, geniuses? A liveblog is not competition. It's a companion piece. It's the liner notes. Not everyone is going to read it, but those who do appreciate it when it's obvious some care and thought is behind it.

Out of 100 fans who want to follow an Oilers game, 95 to 98 will turn to TV, radio and streaming video. The ones who are checking a liveblog, to hazard a guess, probably have the TV on. They want to see someone else's impressions of the match, to see how it squares with their own. It's another way of enhancing our shared experience as sports nuts, and tough titty that the NHL cannot find a way to charge people $9.95 for that (if they could, they would).

Sites such as Battle of Alberta (glove tap to Andy Grabia for bringing this to our attention), Hot Oil, mc79hockey, and others, should have more. This should be meet with some form of symbolic protest -- one site suggested they all go dark for one week -- so the Oilers smarten up and swing with the times. Shame on them for not realizing what they have in the NHL's best blog community.

The bottom line, they did wrong by David Berry. Please go over to Covered In Oil and leave a comment in "solitarity." He was just putting his skills to good use and for that, the Edmonton Oilers tossed him out like a drunk who had micturated on the jukebox. That is not right.

(Update, 1 p.m.: It has been Deadspinned.)

Related:
It ends (Covered In Oil)

The Palin puckdrop, for both of you who haven't seen it

Oh, for the days when Flyers owner Ed Snider palled around with domestic terrorists like Joe "Hound Dog" Kelly and Dave "The Hammer" Schultz.

The only point to add is that Barry Bonds got torn a new one for using one of his children as a prop. The standard a ballplayer is probably high enough to be applied to a politician. Have a nice today.

Related:
Palin Met With Boos at Flyers’ Opener (Lynn Zinser, Slap Shot)
'Hockey Mom' Palin Booed -- At Hockey Game (Editor & Publisher)

Then why does it have the bowl? Why does it have the bowl?

There are times in life when you see something so stunning that there's barely even any point in commenting on it, plus other, better blogs have it already ...

"Yes, NHL, a has-been band (in your employ, no less) just misplaced the greatest icon of your game, setting the Stanley Cup upside-down on a table." -- With Leather

Going Five Hole has more. Thing is, there is no point in going on about how the entertainment should not have been allowed to touch the Cup, even if it was a replica. This possibly never happens if the NHL had found a band from this century whose members have a passing familiarity with hockey. Our mythological CanRock frontman -- let's call him Gord Downie from The Tragically Hip -- might raise the Cup over his head in a gesture of showmanship, but he would know what side is down.

And the NHL looks tragically unhip, but that's nothing new, so why bother pointing it out?

Blog blast past: St. Patrick's day of reckoning

Jonathan Roy, son of Montreal Canadiens legend Patrick Roy, has been charged with assault for his attack on QMJHL goalie Bobby Nadeau. There's no word if the Quebec courts will accept the he was "standing there like a Nancy Boy" defence advocated by hockey writer Pierre LeBrun. From March 23, 2008, here's our post, after the jump.

Hall of Fame goalie Patrick Roy is in a whole lot of hot water. Roy, as you know, is the coach and owner of the QMJHL's Quebec Remparts. Long story short, his son, Jonathan Roy, a goalie, left the net during a line brawl against rival Chicoutimi yesterday and apparently with his old man egging him on, attacked opposing goalie Bobby Nadeau, who as you can see, had no intention of fighting back.

The fact TSN made light of it by running a split-screen of Jonathan Roy whaling on Nadeau with a clip of the elder Roy fighting in his playing days suggests the hockey pucks will stick up for St. Patrick and paint this as an isolated incident. As a sidebar, handling the story that way was in poor taste. Did they not know, not care or not remember the elder Roy being arrested for domestic violence in 2000 (the charges were later dropped) when his son happened to be 11 years old, a very impressionable age?

Nadeau being attacked also wasn't an isolated incident that can laughed off. It was also one of two borderline assaults on QMJHL goaltenders on Saturday. Ryan Mior got nailed by a Shawinigan player after a whistle in the late stages of the Gatineau Olympiques' 9-3 win, touching off a line brawl that led to about 10 ejections. The Quebec league's commissioner, Gilles Courteau, will have to do some major damage control. Fights as a honest outgrowth of emotion and pent-up hostilities are one thing; keeping a game from becoming a gong show is another.

Patrick Roy's reputation takes a hit here. He's enjoyed a halo effect and as a junior hockey maven, he probably gets away with a bit because, well, he's Patrick Roy and he's in Quebec, out of sight and out of mind to most of the national media in Canada (such as it is). Now he's exposed. The temper tantrums as a player, the 911 call his then-wife made to police eight years ago and the night his son wigged out on the ice are a troubling tableau. Judging by the comments left on the RDS.ca website, there's some clamouring to see the rumbling Roys booted from the rest of the QMJHL playoffs.

(You can't make this up. Today is Bobby Nadeau's 20th birthday. Some gift!)



Related:
Ça dégénère à Chicoutimi (RDS.ca)
Roy's son bares knuckles in QMJHL brawl (CBC.ca)

We'll always have the wraparounds in NHL 94

Damn you kids with your carefully considered haircuts, your constantly changing relationship statuses on Facebook and your complex hockey video games.

Reading about the next step in online play for EA Sports' NHL 09 is a one-way trip to the other side of the generation gap. Obviously, this is nothing new for the hardcore gamers, but for a guy who's still perfectly content to play Madden or the NCAA 08 college football game for hours on end on a PlayStation 2 (how 2002!), it's mind-bending.

(For anyone who's wondering, given a choice, today's trivia question would not revolve around a certain former Raptor who will never, ever be forgiven. Time heals almost all, but not that.)

David Littman, the producer of NHL 09 (like Chuck Klosterman once said, how long until we have video-game critics, the same way there are film critics?) offered a window earlier this week into what's in store for the gamers. The latest edition of the hockey franchise will include an EA Sports Hockey League where teams, with up to 50 members, can be created and compete against other teams. This builds off the 6-on-6 mode that's apparently pretty popular (some of us still like playing these games alone, usually with alcohol within an arm's length; sweet liquor eases the pain).

Far be it to suggest that if you can swing getting 50 people together at one time in this day and age, all that energy should be put to something other than an activity that's popular among eight-year-olds with ADHD. How about organizing an actual hockey game? Or reading to children?

You should read it all, if you're interested, to get the full appreciation, but this kind of jumped out in a not entirely pleasant way for the guy who's on the wrong side of 30 (cue the Logan Run's theme):

"... we want to make the people sitting at home into superstars. Instead of wearing someone else's name on the back of your jersey when playing online, it is your name on the back. Your team is trying to win the EASHL Championship and you will feel the pressure to perform for your teammates. With our performance tracker feature, you are graded on how well you play hockey, not on how well you play a video game. The leaderboards show the real names of people instead of their gamertags. This is the first step for people to become the next sports superstars. In a few years, we want there to be SportsCenter-style highlights and interviews with our gamers.

Jesus. This runs counter to the gaming experience of someone who came of age during the Paleozoic Era of sports video games. It wasn't about feeling like a superstar, sitting at home -- there was supposed to be guilt attached to playing your 11th game of NHL 94 that day when it was bright and sunny outside. Another part of the appeal was that the games weren't realistic, whether it was Bo Jackson being untackle-able in Tecmo Super Bowl, the hot spots on the floor in NBA Jam, or being able to deke the goalie with the same move every time in some of the early EA Sports hockey games. Remember the one-timers? They were unstoppable.

Obviously, the paradigm has shifted. Gaming is serious. People post their highlights on YouTube. It used to be that if you, say, played an entire 162-game season of Earl Weaver Baseball on your parents' Tandy, you kept it to yourself and didn't tell anyone about it, because you know sharing that fact was a sure way to be socially unpopular -- even more so.

The next edition in EA Sports hockey franchise will probably reward gamers for their use of hockey cliches in postgame interviews, which is another step toward a world where no one will ever having anything original to say.

Ah, you kids. You'll never know what it was like to make Gretzky's head bleed. Those of us who did, and still do, are going to go listen to some sad bastard music.



Related:
NHL 09 Q&A: EA Sports Hockey League Revealed (Adult Gaming Enthusiasts)

Blog blast past: VandenBussche's 'concussion defence' might put pro sports on trial

Former NHL tough guy Ryan VandenBussche today had all charges dropped against him in connection with a Canada Day weekend 2006 brawl with police in Turkey Point, Ontario. Judge Marsha Ziwolak accepted his claim that he had "a head injury that legally rendered him a 'non-insane automaton.' " Ziwolak, the Simcoe Reformer reported, "also pointed to Vandenbussche's history of concussions throughout his hockey career, incidents that had also left him with temporary memory loss." A civil suit is pending. From June 8, 2007, here's a look what could be called the controversial concussion defence.

Former NHL tough guy Ryan VandenBussche's legal team is contemplating a controversial defence during his assault trial in our former stamping ground, Simcoe, Ont.:

"(Defence lawyer Gerry) Smits has said he will call a psychologist who is an expert on the effects of concussions to testify that VandenBussche was not
responsible for his actions that night."
Daniel Pearce, Simcoe Reformer

Imagine the precedent. Think of how often athletes from contact sports where concussions are a reality (hockey, football) end up in court on assault charges, or legal raps that involved physical and/or emotional violence. If this legal argument helps VandenBussche, who's facing a string of charges including three counts of assaulting police officers (and a $10.2-million Cdn civil suit from OPP officer Hector Jibbison, whose nose was broken, among other traumas) after a Canada Day post-bar melee, it could have uses in other legal jurisdictions.

A defence lawyer could also point to how the stress of facing the end of one's career can impair a pro athlete's mental state. The transition out of the pro-athlete lifestyle is typically turbulent, since the player is often left to make a major lifestyle change (and adjust to a lower income) without much more than a "good luck" from the team and the league that coveted him for his body until he was used up.

VandenBussche, 34, can be seen as at that stage when he brawled with the cops outside the Turkey Point Hotel last July 1, jumping in after seeing two of his cousins were involved in a melee. He was less than five months removed from season-ending major back surgery. His playing prospects were further curtailed since the "new NHL" had rendered players of his ilk (10 goals, 702 PIMs across 310 career games) superfluous (he tried a comeback last season in Finland and in the low minors, neither of which lasted long). They probably should have been superfluous all along, but he certainly didn't create those conditions. He did what he had to do to stay at the highest rung of the hockey ladder and cash a NHL paycheque, which in his case was seldom much more than the league minimum. He knew being a finesse guy was a one-way ticket out of the NHL.

RACIAL AND MORAL ELEMENT

Now VandenBussche is in a legal imbroglio is part modern morality tale, part about small-town celebrity and with a dose of racial politics. With his case pending, a local hockey man named Darren DeDobbelaer, president of the Simcoe Storm of the Niagara Junior C Hockey League, hired Ryan as head coach. From the vantage point of a journalist who had good dealings with both men during his stint as sports editor at The Reformer, this doesn't seem totally wrong -- DeDobbelaer is trying to help a friend.

Besides, VandenBussche wouldn't get anywhere advocating goon hockey. The Niagara Junior C loop doesn't permit fighting. He also has a base of hockey knowledge that should be put to good use. Where better than in the area where he grew up?

(As if to illustrate nothing in this story is cut-and-dried, DeDobbelaer reacted to an article that detailed VandenBussche's hiring while facing charges by saying he would deny The Reformer access to Storm coaches and players.)

As well, Jibbison, who got his nose broken while on duty, is an African-Canadian who was posted in an area that hardly reflects the New Canada, notwithstanding the men from Mexico and the Caribbean (inexplicably called "offshore workers") who come to work on farms during the summer months. Jibbison's lawsuit was filed by the Selwyn Pieters, who seems to be without peer in Canada in arguing legal matters which involve race.

It's hard to see how you deliver justice for both men. VandenBussche needs some kind of restorative justice. He had a weak moment, but he's not a sociopath. Not to be all bleeding-heart, but both he and Jibbison are victims. It's mostly a matter of degree.

This might not be more than a local story, since it's a fringe player and it's not a murder trial, although apparently this goes to trial in August, when editors are often scrambling to find something to fill the news-hole. Still, to most people and probably most sportswriters, the old "live by the sword, die by the sword" serves as a good sum-it-all-up. The enforcer got pinched for using the same tactics that served him well on the ice.

There just seems to be more at play here.

It's understandable why Jibbison is seeking redress: He was suffered physical and emotional pain for just doing his job. An irony is that was a reality for Ryan VandenBussche in the NHL and that might have sowed the seeds for that regrettable night -- ergo, the possible use of the "concussion defence."

Perhaps the way pro sports treats players on their final bounce out of the game should also be on trial.

Previous:
Bussche Party In Turkey Point (July 4, 2006)
OPP Claims Assault By NHL Player (CityNews, Sept. 8, 2006)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

Sunrise, Fla., sounds sweet for ex-Fronts coach

From this perspective, it's always good to keep tabs on escapees from Kingston Pen former Frontenacs coaches who end up in a better place.

Jimmy Hulton will be an assistant coach for Peter DeBoer with the NHL's Florida Panthers. South Florida hockey scribe Brian Biggane noted DeBoer should turn the Panthers into "an up-tempo, attacking style of (team)," which is the kind of hockey Hulton had the Frontenacs playing in '05-06 before he was made the Fall Guy after yet another first-round playoff loss.

Meantime, do the Frontenacs have a coach yet, or are they waiting until people have to renew their season tickets before they confirm his Royal Mavness will be permanent interim coach? If that's what they want, fine, but why delay telling the people whose taxes helped pay for the K-Rock Centre?

Never forget how they put the Boots to Balsillie

Please do yourself a friggin' favour and go read Melt Your Face Off's open letter to Gary Bettman, after the jump.

It will totally make your Friday. We're willing to put that in a certificate you can frame.

"What in the hell have you been doing for the last few months, Gary?

"... Apparently, MYFO’s favorite prospective owner Jim Balsillie was so goddamned repulsive to you and your owner cartel that Philip Anschutz (LA Kings Owner) and Craig Leipold (Now the owner of the Wild) lent “Boots” Del Baggio $17 million of the $25 million he put in to buy the Predators from….Craig Leipold. So, wait, Leipold lent this douchebag money…to buy the team from himself? That’s how desperate he was to get rid of the team to someone that he liked? He was willing to take a bath on his own sale? All so Del Baggio could get such a sweetheart deal that he does better financially the worse the Predators do financially? If they bottom out, he can take sole ownership of the team and move it to Kansas City. If they thrive, he can give up his stake, make a bundle, and bolt to take the next expansion team that comes along. Plus, there’s a clause saying his money isn’t on the line when free agency comes along. So Del Biaggio essentially gets 27% of an NHL team for a grand total of 7 million dollars. I’ll get myself a footwear nickname if it means I can score that kind of deal. And, oh yeah, by the way, Del Baggio’s now under federal investigation and has declared bankruptcy. Good call, guys! This is the point in our letter where we remind you that you held this sale over the voters of Tennessee’s heads to approve a tax hike for the stadium, otherwise, you’d let Boots yank the team to Kansas City anyway.

"Now here’s the kicker…you claim you didn’t know this fraternity-style circle-jerk was going on. I’ll repeat, again: HOW DO YOU LET THAT HAPPEN? You are the commissioner for a top-flight sports league in the most industrialized nation in the world. You are supposedly the most powerful man in your sport. Now, you claim that while owners are lending each other money to keep the franchises in their own little AllTel Circle of Friends, you thought everything was hunky dory?

Mirtle is much more on the ball with these hockey matters. One irony is that one Canadian newspaper listed Luc Robitaille, who's entangled with

Related:
An open letter to Gary Bettman (Melt Your Face Off)
Bettman blindsided by backdoor dealings (Rick Westhead, Toronto Star, June 24)

NHL draft: After the gold rush...

Chances are, some of the same people who maintain baseball is boring might have watched all four hours of TSN's coverage of the first round of the NHL entry draft.

That was occasion for a fun little sociological experiment: How many picks would the NHL get through in the time it took the Blue Jays and Pittsburgh Pirates to completing nine innings of boring ol' baseball By unofficial count, when the final out of the ninth was made, the patrons were waiting on the 18th selection of the draft -- barely halfway through the proceedings. The Jays' farm club in Syracuse had finished its game about 20 minutes earlier, around the time of the 15th pick.

That being said, the pace has been picked up on Day 2 and the form calls to duly note the local selections. First things first: It's a little funny that there's any excitement over the Kingston Frontenacs having two players drafted. The Belleville Bulls, with a veteran team full of 19- and 20-year-olds, still managed to have three players taken.

Inverary's Mike Murphy, the Belleville Bulls goalie, went to the Carolina Hurricanes in the sixth round, 165th overall.

It's a little humourous that Orleans native Shawn Lalonde, the Bulls defenceman, was Chicago's third-rounder (68th overall). The Blackhawks took another D-man from Orleans, Ben Shutron (then of the Frontenacs), in the 2006 draft, but apparently couldn't sign him.

The biggest stunner among the Eastern Ontario contingent was that Kingston's Jamie Arniel, the Sarnia Sting centre, fell all the way from possible late first- or second-round selection to the Boston Bruins at 97th overall. (The Leafs were next up, which is kind of humourous.)

The educated guess yesterday on the Offsides roundtable was that only one Kingston Frontenac would be selected. Winger Josh Brittain, who's a Dustin Penner/Todd Bertuzzi type, was Anaheim's third-round pick. Crafty centreman Nathan Moon was nabbed by the Penguins in the fourth round, giving the Fronts a second selection. That matches the number of top-5 picks (Drew Doughty and Zach Bogosian) whom Kingston passed on when they had a chance to take them in the OHL draft.

Go ahead, look it up.

CIS Corner: Hockey Gaels lose star goalie

Notes on our teams of interest from The 613...

• The Queen's Golden Gaels hockey team without Ryan Gibb is like Earth, Wind and no Fire. It's like the Gang, without Kool. Queen's press release about their star goaltender signing with the Laredo Bucks of the Central league refers to it being "bittersweet," since he was such a big part of their program and is leaving after just two seasons. Thing is, and it's easy to rationalize when you're not invested in the program's fortunes, but if the Gaels had been told they'd be getting a goalie who would post a .922 save percentage while handling 38 shots per game, but they'd only have him for two seasons, they'd probably take the deal.
  
  Brady Morrison, the former Frontenac and 67, didn't see much of the net toward the end of last season, but he had some good games early last season. One personal opinion is that university hockey, with the players jugging commitments with their course loads (right?), lends itself to a goalie platoon.
• Having a Newfoundlander worked for the Detroit Red Wings, so the Gaels have added winger David Chubb, of Stevensville, N.L. He's the second newcomer from Atlantic Canada who played on a team that was in the RBC Cup national Junior A championship, although he missed much of his season with the Cornwall Colts due to injuries.

Our own Tyler King will be talking with Queen's coach Brett Gibson about Gibb going pro on Offsides, which airs Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern on CFRC 101.9 FM (cfrc.ca) in Kingston. The panel of Tyler, K-Rock 105.7's Tim Cunningham, Queen's SID Michael Grobe and some guy from a blog will have more to say.