At A Glance

Did Dany Heatley just call Jody Shelley the “best in the league at what he does”?  Maybe he juggles behind the scenes or something.

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I think we can put Mike Johnson on our Potentially Good Analyst Watch.  Lets track his development.

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The wife is currently en route to JFK to catch up with her family for five days.  I’m currently at my destination until her return, our couch.  What are the best (and worst) parts of having the house to yourself for extended periods of time?  Show your work.

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Anyone else skeptical of Tocchet’s ability as a coach in Tampa Bay?  Their team isn’t that bad, man.  Not this bad anyway.  Good tenders, couple stars, “extras” like Malone, Hedman…  I’m thinkin’ they need a real coach.  I hear Barry Melrose is available.  Or maybe Don Cherry?

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After writing the Don Cherry bit, I just thought – wouldn’t it be sweet if some struggling US team in a non-hockey market just went full-on sideshow to make money?  Hired Don Cherry, Mike Milbury and Pierre McGuire, traded for Avery, Carcillo, Boogaard, and like, George Parros, picked up some tiny little thrill guys who suck defensively like Afinagenov and Kovalev, put Ron Hextall and Billy Smith in net and just sold the shit outta tickets?  Vince McMahon could be Director of Operations.  It’d be like watching Jersey Shore — “I know I shouldn’t be supporting crap like this, but I just… can’t… turn… away.”

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I think my cat is sneaking acid tabs.

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Yes. 

If this goal was by Crosby or Ovechkin, it’d be being called the goal of the __________ (fill in the whatever length of time you like).  To me, these types of goals aren’t as cool as beating a bunch of opponents with moves, but it’s so awesome it deserves this simple review:

Yes.

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I may add to this as the day goes on, but I’ve got a few things to do first!

Best. Punch. Ever.

There’s something unique about every city in the world, but no place has unique like Alaska.  When my uncle moved from New York, he had to have an NY parking ticket to commemorate his years there.

Ours wasn't nearly this "cherry".

When I left Alaska, I wanted a couple of items to commemorate my time, too.  I’m still two items short of completing my mission.  One is a WLFHKY vanity plate from the Geo Tracker that my roommate and I spent $400 total dollars on and drove for three years (we left the car as a tip for our waitress on the way to the airport.  For real.  Title, registration, paperwork and all.  Thanks for the good service).

And second, for which I’d like to enlist the help of an Alaskan reader, if there’s anyway you can send me a placemat from Sea Galley, I’d be extremely grateful.  Our team ate pregame meal there for four years, and the mat lists everything you need to know about the state of Alaska, which of course we memorized as a part of our meal-time trivia game routine - if you were called on, you had to answer the state bird (Willow Ptarmigan), flower (Forget-Me-Not… I did), state gem (jade) and a million other things about the state that you weren’t aware it had an “official” one of (I had to google two of those three… embarrassing).

Also, as a mini-trivia question to those of you from Anchorage… what other facts are on the Sea Galley placemat?

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You know it's not my picture, cause this guy owns some crazy bike. But that's the highway.

The University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves do a rookie party like no other.  And I mean literally, because no other school has the option to drive you into the middle of the wilderness by a glacial river.  And let the record show that “drive you into the middle of nowhere” means stay on the Seward Highway for about 22 minutes from downtown, then decide that’s not “middle” enough, and continue on for two more unnecessary hours.

Here’s how the greatest punch I’ve ever seen got thrown:

Rookie party all starts back at the dressing room the day before the weekend, when the older three classes pair up, put the rookies in as many layers of sweatpants and sweatshirts and jerseys as possible, then stick them in the sauna while conducting a draft.  The sauna part is totally unnecessary, it’s just funny for the other guys cause the rookies need to leave the room for a bit anyways.

The oldest seniors get to draft the first overall rookie.  That lucky rookie (and everyone after) has to buy all the food and booze for an overnight trip for the three of you.  It’s about a 100$ hit, but after your rookie year the trip is free, so whatever.  The trick is to draft a rookie with rich parents so you can get steaks and good beer over hotdogs and Natty Light (those “are your parents rich” questions seem awkward the first week).

Upon your arrival in nowheresville, Edward 40hands is the first go-to drinking event of choice for most guys.

That’s when a 40 oz. beer is taped to both hands with duct tape, and can’t be untaped until both are empty.  It makes having to pee a difficult situation, so you better drink that second one quickly.

The night is highlighted by rookie olympics, which is essentially explained best by the sentence ”here, drink this, spin your head on this, run there, and drink that”.  The theme, if you’re still missing it, is that you drink a lot.

Billy Smith was a rookie (plays at Northern Michigan now) with Jolly (both born and bred Alaskans, which you can tell from a ten minute conversation with either of them), and neither of them tended to drink all that much all that often.  So chalk it up to that, cause these guys generally really liked each other.

I was walking by Smith when I heard him make a joke to Jolly.  Like a genuine, big smile, joke.  And while Billy smiled, Jolly pulled his left hand back, and in a smooth, natural, football throwing motion, punched Smith dead square in his mouth.  For no reason.

Wonder if that's the one Chad Anderson tried to ride?

Smith fell back like he was about to make a snow angel.  Thinking there was gonna be trouble, someone went to get between the two when Smith bounced up, lips bleeding, smiling, and gave Jolly a big hug, then went on his way.  Happy drunk, huh?  End of event.  Nothing further.  It was the dudiest dude moment I’ve ever seen.

It’s the rugged Alaskan in them both.  Hell, I woke up my rookie year in a sleeping bag by a river – it had to be below freezing, maybe 7 a.m.  I moved my eyes, not my head (which was covered in frost), and there was a moose about 50 feet to my left.  This was my first month in Alaska, and my first “what the hell did I do to my life?” moment.  At least I didn’t get socked in the mouth, I guess.

Alaska.  Where dudes punch dudes near moose.  Now there’s a goddamn official state slogan.

The Perfect Salary Loophole

In an attempt to postpone the slow but steady journey from hockey player to fat cynical writer, I’ve given these so-called “Perfect Pushups” a try.  I gotta believe any product with “perfect” in it’s name is probably not the most reliable item to exchange legal tender for, but c’mon…  that guy on the box is jacked.

Anywho, they’re money.  They really are.  They better be, cause it’s shirt-off weather in Phoenix about 13 months a year, and I need to make some changes.  Apparently, a day of writing burns roughly four calories, and that sack of chocolate covered pretzels I just humbled contained a number similar to the national debt.

Moving on.

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How about those shade-ball owners in the NHL abusing the salary cap loophole?  I mean, come on.  For the Flyers to claim with a straight face that they think Chris Pronger has seven good playing years left is pretty feeble, isn’t it?  He’s got the operating speed and mobility of an early 90′s desktop computer, and they didn’t think it was just a little too obvious that they were trying to circumvent the salary cap?  I’ve seen more subtlety in Andrew Dice Clay jokes. 

Pleasedon'tmakemecrossover, pleasedon'tmakemecrossover...

For the uninformed, here’s a quick rundown of how and why you’re seeing massively long contracts:

NHL teams have a salary cap of $56.8 million for the 2009-2010 season.  The cap hit that each player costs is simple: the dollar total of their contract, divided by the amount of years.

Thus, in the case of Marion Hossa and Chris Pronger, they were signed to long term deals where they make the league minimum in the last few years, so the teams yearly cap hit comes down.  For example, Hossa signed for 12 years, roughly 60 million dollars.  But, he actually makes nearly 8 mill a season for the first seven years, then peanuts for the last five.  Instead of taking an eight million dollar cap hit (which is what they’re paying him), his contract works out to a five million dollar hit (60/12=5), so they Hawks are free to spend more money.

And now, an outside firm has been hired to figure out if the teams were intentionally signing guys to contracts that they weren’t actually going to play out.  Apparently, they’ve called the Hardy Boys, Sherlock Holmes, and the Scooby-Doo crew to crack this difficult case.  Pronger, $525,000 (league minimum) at 40?  Noooo, I’m sure he intends to play, right?

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Everytime I think about writing a book (which is becoming more often), this clip brings me back down to earth with a laugh.  Then I make a martini.

 ”

Ahhhh, crap that’s funny.

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So, our first celebs arrive tomorrow to hang out for a day or two before our Hockey Greats Camp starts, and I’ve got good news:  I will be blogging.  I’d be a fool not to.  Last year one of these guys told my Egyptian friend he looks like a half-chewed caramel.  These guys are a gold mine for material.

Over the  next day or two, the following is the group of gents we’ve enlisted to help make our camp a success (chosen on a formula of what great guys they are times how good they were):  Dave Semenko, Bryan Trottier, Steve Shutt, Billy Smith, Gary Nylund, Clark Gillies, Doug Bodger, Dale Hawerchuk, Ron Flockhart, Cliff Ronning and Larry Melnyk.  27 Stanley Cups between em.  Not bad.

I’ll be tweeting the frequent gems that stumble out of these guys booze-holes as the week goes on.

(Last year, the same tale was rehashed a half dozen times: A player gets beat when an opponent - frequently cited as being Pierre Laroche -- puts the puck between his feet and goes in to score.  After getting berated by his coach, the player says “Gee, I guess I shoulda kept my legs closed” to which the coach responds “No, your mother shoulda“.)

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And last, one more thing - Brianna gets here on Tuesday, marking the start of “NeverApartEverAgain time”.  Married men, pour one out for me.  Looking forward to it, honey!