The Kovalchuk Trade, And A Must-See Gear Link

Man.  You guys loves you some gear talk.  The second part of this entry picks up where we left off, a bit.  However, there’s something a little bit more relevant to discuss today:

The Kovalchuk Trade

 The Devils?  The Devils.  Really?  The Devils.

Get ready to hear "dynamic" way too often.

I guess I was hoping for somewhere a little bit…. sexier.  I mean, no offense to you, Devils fans – you guys have every right to be stoked.  Not only are you now legitimate Cup contenders, but the rest of us (sorta) benefit from Kovy playing in more “important”, widely broadcast games. 

But when I think of the amount of exposure I get to NHL stars, Parise wasn’t too far behind Kovalchuk in the ”great players I never see play” department.

So whatever.  From the hockey fan aspect, I’m a little bummed about the deal.  But lets look at the deal beyond Justin’s self-interest, something we rarely do:

My first, and somewhat ridiculous thought, was “as an unrestricted free agent, you can sign anywhere you want, right?  Could Kovalchuk feasibly sign back with Atlanta?  Would that be looked at as the most evil thing ever, or is that legit?”

Only reason I thought that was because of the legitimate quality of the offers Kovalchuk reportedly received from Atlanta: $101 million over 12 years, or $70M over 7.  Does he think he’s going to get much more than that somewhere else?  Those deals would have made him higher paid than both Ovechkin and Crosby (in the early years of the deal).  Who turns down offers like that from a team you claim to want to play for?  No, I think I deserve MORE than half a million dollars a year over what that Ovechkin dud makes.  Nobody, that’s who.

{In the event he can’t sign with Atlanta as a UFA this summer for some reason I’m unaware of, then my bad.  That was just my initial reaction.}

So that was my brief conspiracy theory.  Maybe Ilya and the Thrashers just agreed that they don’t have “it” this year, and were conspiring to stock up for next, when he’ll then re-sign with them.

{By the way, I really like the name “Ilya”.  It’s just badass to say.  I might name my dangly rec hockey alter ego “Ilya”.}

Back to life, back to reality….

I thought Atlanta made a pretty nice deal.  Bergfors and Oduya are above average additions to any team, plus Cormier and the first-round pick are packed full of positive maybe (or maybe Cormier will get charged with more elbow-related assaults), so who knows how this trade looks in five years.  It could look really good for ATL.

Forhead save!

As for New Jersey, good on ya for taking a swing at this year.  I hate the half-commited thing the Flyers do every year – it’s what I keep bitching about with Washington.

Yes, we acknowledge we’re good enough to win the Cup.  Yes, we acknowledge our goaltender isn’t good enough to win a Cup.  No, we don’t intend to do anything about that.

So the Devils smell themselves as a three(ish) seed, see themselves winning round one, mayyyybe round two at best, but see that they’re going to have to beat Pittsburgh or Washington to have a shot at the Cup.  And, as it stood, they couldn’t go blow for blow in a game that ends in a football score.

Now they can.

You can only lean on Parise and Zajac so much – believe me when I say, this was a huge puzzle piece for them.

By the way, if you’re in the West, you’re going  YES.  Another team to make getting out of the East that much more miserable. 

The West feels that misery, like, every year.  San Jose, Detroit, Chicago and in the past, Anaheim and even Vancouver have all taken turns rallying on each other for extended series.  By the time the Western Conference champion shows up to the final, they’re a ragtag group of replacement players, while the winner in the East has generally had one,/one-and-a-half difficult series instead of at least two.  (How about San Jose getting a just-healthy Anaheim as an eight seed last year?  Or whoever gets Detroit this year?  It’s just a deeper conference.)

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Nice work, you comment machines.  Our stick-taping conversations grabbed us a link from Uniwatch - if you’re a sports gear fiend, this blog is amazing.  The sub-heading describes it best “The Obsessive Study of Athletics Aesthetics”.  The site is amazingly well written and thorough – definitely check it out.

Some hockey-tagged postings are here (including something you Wild fans will love – a behind the scences dressing room tour of their gear).  College hockey posts are here.

I used team-colored grip tape pretty much everywhere I went, because it’s fun to make your stick pretty, and I actually liked how the product feels.  Further links to pictures are provided on the site (like to certain players Olympic sticks), but for now, here’s a sampling, taken directly from Uniwatch’s trip to the Wild’s stick room:

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Holy crap, humans.  It’s Super Bowl weekend.  Should be a doozy, so tear it up!  Zima’s for everyone! (They still make those?)

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BREAKING FRIDAY NEWS UPDATE: My cat is cute:

I guess I should get up and do something...

"ceilingfan, ceilingfan, ceilingfan..."

Can't get enough of this pic - "nombottlenommmm"

Observations From Yesterday

I put in around 90 minutes a day, give or take a half hour, getting each days blog entry up.  The rest of the day, I work towards earning money as best I can – columns, real estate copy, working on the Hockey Greats Fantasy Camp, or soliciting new sponsors.

Yesterday, I recieved an extremely generous donation from an Aggie in Alaska, Frank Reddick.  Frank was living up in AK when I was playing, and in looking for ways to support the University hockey program, he bought my jersey at an auction and gave it to my family the second I was no longer NCAA eligible.  He is buddies with a couple of my roommates as well, and has done more for us than he’s ever needed to.  So, to Frank, THANK YOU.  It’s feels wonderful to have the time I put in to this justified.

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Crap, same costume, AGAIN!

I’ve written a couple columns in the last few days that I really liked.  When that happens, the response is usually great.  The problem though, is that I received the NHL media stuff in my inbox the other day, took it at it’s word, and went on to write about the amazing growth of attendance and television ratings.

And though the NHL has seen major gains, my point is this: did anybody catch Capitals/Thrashers on TV yesterday?  It was in Atlanta, and I was embarassed watching it.  After naming ATL as one of the four teams to see huge growth in attendance, it looked like 7/8ths of the fans came dressed as blue seats for halloween.  How am I supposed to write about how awesome their ticket sales are, when all it takes is someone with two eyes to see they aren’t doing that well at all?

(The other article is an elaboration of the gay rights for hockey players blurb that started some conversation yesterday.  We’re ridiculously behind the times in sports.)

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Knuck it up.

Is doing the “pound” (knuckle-bump) officially the new “old-white-guy-high-five” yet?  Isn’t it time for Afro-Americans to continue to lead the way in cultural trends and start something new?  This may be the only time in our culture where you still see young black men and old white men using a similar form of expression. 

Except old white guys “blow it up” sometimes now, which kills me (case in point: Clark Gillies Charity golf event, where my Dad and his group, in a scramble event, honored each good shot with a double-fist simul-pound, with TNT like results… PZCHOOOOOO!  They were hilarious).  Oh, and apparently the fear of “pandemics” promotes the pound too.  Whateves.  (says the kid who lives 2.5 hours from the Mexican border)

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Alexander Frolov got me thinking: there’s nothing worse than playing well after being benched.  Its such a stupid situation to be put in.

Basically, post-benching, if you play well the coach takes credit for “motivating you”, even if all he did was earn himself a dose of seething resentment.  Then, given the chance to play again, you get a couple bounces and he takes credit.  Long term, it’s not effective, I promise.  Pulling that card out in game seven?  Fine, Frolov is hot (because Frolov is good).  Looking forward to that relationship deteriorating as soon as he cools off again.