A Matt Moulson Story

 

Matt Moulson has scored a couple times in the past two games for the Islanders on passes from John Tavares.  The following is a story about the week we both tried out for the Vernon Vipers in 2001.

I showed up for my 18-19 year old season and started sizing up the competition.  I was one of about four players already signed by the Vernon Vipers of the BCHL after my stellar year playing junior B in Osoyoos, BC.  Moulson was a lock for a spot on the team, but hadn’t been signed yet.

And fortunately for him, he happened to be a lot better at hockey than first impressions.

He showed up at the arena for tryouts with a glossy blue button-down shirt buttoned multiple buttons down with a gold chain and slicked back black hair.  He was… confident.

And he was good.  Very good.

Tryouts consisted of a few practices, then being separated into three or four teams, and playing a mini-tournament while the coaches watched.  Our coach was the notorious hard ass, Mike Vandekamp.

The more I think about Mike and my junior years, the more I think they were book worthy (I kept a thorough journal of the madness).  That whole unwritten book could probably be summed up in two words: toughness mattered. 

In reality, fighting mattered.  Over my days as a Viper, I saw our trainer get told to beat up our opponents mascot (and saw the resulting assault charges), watched my coach thow my stick like a javalin at our opponents, saw our team bombarded by navel oranges, saw a steel gate thrown at our opponents coach, and saw much, much (much) more.  Toughness mattered.

Matt Moulson wasn’t tough yet.  Our captain also happened to love Vandekamps style, and hated that this kid thought he was a fancy-pants.

During intermissions of those tryouts, fights were set up between kids for the next period like Don King was the assistant GM.  It “never came from the coaches”, but we all knew it did.  Someone would walk into the dressing room and say “Waddell, you’re fighting Singer next period”.  The whole group of players trying out were basically Roman gladiators looking for the thumbs up or down from Caesar Vandekamp (22 fights in the final scrimmage, with me accounting for 0.0% of them).  I’m not gonnal lie, it was more than a bit scary.

So, our captain (this time on his own merit) sent word to our dressing room that he was fighting Moulson next period whether Moulson was fighting him or not.  Matt had four goals in the previous game.  Four.  Moulson was so good they had already put him up with a bilet family and a teammate - who, as fate would have it, happened to be the captain.  He must’ve thought “why should I have to fight anyone?  I should have fighters protecting me.”

What basically ended up happening, is that our captain chased the kid all over the ice.  Moulson wouldn’t fight him.  They were roommates for the year, for f$@%s sake.  After a couple periods, most people couldn’t figure out why Moulson wouldn’t just drop his gloves, seatbelt the guy, and go down.  Just get it over with.

Well, our captain eventually caught him and Moulson did exactly that.  He held on so tight he broke or dislocated his fingers, I can’t remember which.  Either way, our coach was so disgusted by the performance that he cut the guy in the next day or two.  He was second or third in points during camp at the time, tall, and could skate like the wind.

And that was the last time I saw Matt Moulson.

Oh, and for the record – our scrappy team advanced all the way to the BCHL league finals that year before losing in game six to a Chilliwack team that had NHL names like Jeff Tambellini, David Van Der Gulik, and Gabe Gauthier.  We were probably a goal scorer short of being national champions that year.

In retrospect, it’s funny how three people I ended up liking (coach, captain and Moulson) were involved in such a string of shitty decisions.  Who knows where the kids career would be if he had made the team.  Maybe he gets buried by a coach who thinks he’s soft, doesn’t play, and quits at 20.  It’s a crazy game, dude.

Nathan Lawson (AKA Nate the Great)

 

The following article was written for NHL.com when Lawson was to make his NHL debut last season.  I’ve decided to tweak it, and run it on my own blog after Lawson played his first NHL exhibition game last night.

 

Nathan Lawson has given me more “is this guy serious?” moments than Flava Flav, starting with his first recruiting trip when he told me “It says Nate the Great on my helmet for a reason.” 

That was the first time I’ve seen his smirk – the “I’m aware that sounded ridiculously cocky, so I’m smirking to show that I’m aware of that… but it doesn’t mean I don’t mean it”  smirk.

I’ve shaken my head in disbelief, and spent more time discussing his on-ice antics than it ever took for him to perform them.  From the three years we spent as teammates in college to the one together as professionals, the guy has been a constant conversation piece.

The University of Alaska Anchorage has always had great goaltending.  Being comparatively under-talented in the WCHA has meant that the Seawolves have needed strength in net to stay competitive.  So when Nathan Lawson committed to our school, it meant big expectations on the kid.  And he exceeded them.

“Laws” is a bit quirky, as goalies tend to be.  And when I say quirky, I mean borderline nuts (but in a light-hearted, happily neurotic sort of way).  Watch him in pre-game warm-ups.  Some guys have routines, Lawson has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  Upsetting his pre-game routine is dangerous and ill-advised.  He’ll de-friend you in real life like its Facebook. 

To start the game, and before every period, he skates to the bench, takes his helmet off and stares straight ahead.  While looking completely crazy (like there’s any other way to do this), he unscrews the lid on a water bottle, leans back and dumps the full contents over his head, helmet and glove, which is placed behind his head.  It’s similar to the Lebron James chalk throw, just with more crazy and less fanfare.

Lawson left college a year early to give the pro ranks a try.  I was playing for Utah in the ECHL at the time, and Nate was in Phoenix, our first opponent of the season.  One start and one shutout later, he was on his way.  But as a goalie, keeping a spot on professional teams is a totally different situation.  There’s only room for two per team, so in an NHL/AHL/ECHL organization, that means six goalie jobs.  When a seventh one comes in as part of an NHL deal, there’s a trickle-down effect.

The leap between the ECHL and AHL isn’t all that huge, and the gap between the AHL and NHL is even smaller. A thin line separates many players – and sometimes all it takes is one scout, one GM or one coach to push for a player and create the opportunity for them to thrive.  The line is even thinner for goaltenders, and sometimes the difference between a career-ending cut in the ECHL and making the NHL is that one opportunity.

In Utah, our coach called me early in the season and said “I see this Lawson kid is on waivers. Is he any good?”  After giving Lawson a review that Paula Abdul would call “too generous,” Nate was a Utah Grizzly. 

Like many others, all the guy needed was the right opportunity.  Nathan’s rookie season in Utah was solid, showing what many of us already knew – that he’s the real deal.  And he joined the Isles organization at the right time, with Rick DiPietro’s injuries the past couple seasons. An unfortunate part of minor league hockey is having to root for other people’s injuries to get your chance.

From that, the “trickle-up” effect gave Lawson the American League opportunity he deserved last season, and he capitalized on it.  In 31 games, Laws went 19-9 with a 2.16 goals-against-average and a .927 save percentage.  All-Rookie Team starter.  Not bad, right?

Even the Islanders seem confused about their situation in goal these days, but after signing Biron and Roloson, they remembered to sign Laws.  Had Bridgeport not needed him so badly during their stretch run last year, he probably would have seen NHL games – an odd reason to have to miss your chance at games in “the show”, really.

The reason Nathan Lawson is a stud in net is simply this:  He thinks ahead of the game.  Not in milliseconds, or seconds, but whole plays.  You can watch a Nathan Lawson goaltended game and think “Wow, he had an easy night.”  But it wouldn’t have looked that way had another tender been in net.  Other goalies are making diving glove says, Hasek-esque rolls and desperate scrambles.  Nate is square, up quick, and positional.  He’s usually so crisply controlled that he rarely needs to do anything SportsCenter worthy.

The nice part about Nate though, is that if he needs the spectacular save, it’s in his arsenal.  He has sharp post-to-post speed to go with his strongest attribute, his ability to play the puck.  Like Marty Turco of the Dallas, Nate is often used as a sixth defenseman; a guy to go back on dump-ins and make outlet passes.  He springs players on breakaways, and ices the puck on the penalty kill.

But fans will love his Sean Avery-like antics in the crease best. Lawson is the first goalie I’ve played with who can be a Darcy Tucker level agitator.  Teams love to hate him.  He is the uncompromising evil villain to them, and they can’t let it go.  Often, in college, we would talk to players on the opposing team after the game, maybe out at the bar, or just in the hallway.

“What was with that cross-check in my back?” is fine fodder for conversation, and everyone has a good laugh and lets it go. 

They can’t let go of Laws.  They don’t even want to let it go.  They’d ask:  “What’s he really like?  Is he actually that cocky?  He thinks he’s just the best doesn’t he?”

And Laws loves it.  He plays better when he’s fired up like that.  Guys crash his crease, spray him with snow, fall on him after whistles.  Laws dives when he gets clipped and hustles the refs between whistles.  His home fans adore him and opponent’s fans loathe him. 

Laws played in his first NHL exhibition game last night.  I have no doubt he’ll end up with 1,000 new fans and 10,000 new enemies around the league in no time.

NHL teams don’t like to take risks on players who aren’t drafted, partly because it reflects poorly on their scouts.  But this is a situation for somebody in the organization to look great, discovering a diamond in the rough.  If Laws gets enough games to get comfortable in those Islander colors, I’d bet Isles fans would get awfully comfortable with him too.

It didn’t take me long.

Blog Comments, And My High Horse

 

A few words about negative comments left on my blog, or anywhere else.  So lets get to it.

Those comments?  

They’re welcome.

In some cases (and believe me, not all), I’m writing about things that matter to people, and taking a stance on those issues.  Not everyone is going to agree with that stance, and it’s great when the writing can start a conversation between both sides of an issue.  As my uncle recently pointed out, getting bad comments isn’t a bad thing – getting no comments is a horrible thing.

So here’s the comment that inspired these thoughts:

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Josh:

I love reading your blog Justin, but your little rant about Morency seems nothing but petty, it makes you look ridiculous, and makes you look like a horrible teammate. The guy was nice to you when your illustrious ECHL career brought you to Bridgeport, and you thank him by blogging that he’s a crappy player with little to offer in the professional ranks. Nice, dude. I admit I never got higher than Bantam A, went to UND for something other than hockey, and don’t know anything about a professional locker room, but that’s really shitty to rag on someone still with the organization.

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And I appreciate the comment, as much as I disagree with it. 

So for future reference, I’d like to qualify the rules of the relationship with my old teammates, and with my readers:

I’m not going to go all “Jose Canseco”.  But, I am going to be honest about what I’ve seen and what I know.  That’s my pledge to my readers on here, USA Today, The Hockey News, Hockey Primetime or anywhere else.  I’ve got the advantage of being able to provide a player’s perspective.  People read my blog for its candor and insight (and for the occasional chuckle).  I think people appreciate that combination, partly because most players don’t take the time (or may not be able) to put down “what its like” on paper.  And, I’m hoping by not pulling punches, people will want to read this stuff all the more.

I have the option to accept or delete comments on my blog, and I choose to never delete.  In this case, I’ve decided to make it a whole entry and use this (to quote the President) as a “teaching point”.  In no case (barring serious personal attacks or bad language) will I not accept a comment.

So there.

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JETS PATRIOTS TODDDAAAAYYYYYYYY!

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One last thing before I dismount my high horse.

The Clark Gillies Foundation is an um, foundation… put together by.. uh… Clark Gillies.  Believe it or not. 

Clark has raised volumes of money for children with physical (and financial) diabilities in the tri-state area.  They’ve pledged to raise a million dollars, and have already built a pediatric wing in the Huntington Hopital.

If you’re in for a lil tear-jerker, this is the link to the video on the foundations facebook page.  I highly recommend it.  I also intend to link to their fancy new website (that I wrote the copy for, back-pat back-pat back-pat) when it’s up and running.  That’s all for today folks.  Back to sports tomorrow!

Pre-Season NHL Stuff

Thoughts from my first Phoenix Coyotes pre-season game:

(1)  Matt Greene, now of the LA Kings, played for the U of North Dakota when I was in college.  I always thought he was a bit of a liability for them (based on his big, lumbering nature), but UND was one of a few teams that had an NHL (as opposed to olympic) sized rink in college, so he made it work.

Plus, if he hit you, it hurt really, really bad.  He was unaware of the battle going on between him and my roommate Charlie Kronsch.  The battle was that Matt frequently gave Charlie stitches in the chin (wearing the full cage in college makes for a lot of chin stiches), and Charlie wanted to return the favour.  But every year for poor Chuck, here’s your new zips, courtesy Greener.  Final score, Greene, 17, Kronschnabel, 0.  Oh, and by the way Char, Greene is in the NHL now.  18-0.

(2) When the puck first drops to start the game (especially during camp, pre-season, and weekend games), its understood that the pace is freaking intense – like, max effort, until that first whistle.  “Set the tone” stuff, ya know?  It has to settle down from there.  It was nearly ten minutes before the Yotes game saw a whistle, and I got a big kick out of guys trying to keep the pace up on their second, and third shifts.

(3) Was Balsillie there?  No, seriously, was he?  I couldn’t help but think he had to be watching from somewhere, if he’s such a big fan of hockey that he wants to own the team…

(4) They asked the fans “Shane Doan Trivia”, which I found hilarious, because…. what are their options?  Coyote history trivia would just end in “Doan” anyway, so you might as well narrow it down a bit, right?  Nice move.

(5) I feel really bad for writing an article about the Coyotes sucking after having been to a game.  The article I wrote, sadly, was accurate – just seeing the fans that do support them and hearing the interviews with the guys made me feel a bit guilty.  Sorry, guys.

(6) The highlight of the night was a Shane Doan jumbotron commercial for a bank, where a fan is taking money from the ATM, and Shane misunderstands the meaning of “free checking” and hits the guy from behind.  He has a line at the end of the commercial, and that’s when it hit me.  Shane freaking Doan is Keanu Reeves.  Right?  I mean, isn’t he?  The hair… the tone… it was all just so obvious this whole time.  I cannot believe I missed this prior to now.

(7) The rink setting in Phoenix is amazing.  One of the best I’ve ever seen.  Not only is the rink nice, new and ideal for watching a game, but everywhere outside it is just so great.  Fountains with half-Bellagio water shows, a Jimmy Buffet margaritaville, restaurants and bars, Irish pubs and shopping, it’s just too perfect.  If they do manage to survive, I’d go just to linger outside under the misters and drink a few pints in front of the outdoor TV’s.  Heaven forbid this team starts winning, they might just get popular.

(8) They charge more for Pittsburgh and Detroit games.  Just thought I’d pass that along.

(9) They still charge $8.25 for a beer.  Isn’t that unbelievable that they can do that?  A draught beer costs a restaurant something like 37 cents.  Movie theater owners would hear that mark-up and call it preposterous.  I’d have boycotted if it wasn’t a Coyote’s pre-season game, which are the most drink-inducing words you can string together on this side of “bachelor party”.

(10) I’m still a big fan of the sleek RBK jerseys (though not the Coyotes colors/logo).  Nice evolution to the look of a hockey player.

(11) Just how dumb is wearing no visor nowadays?  I don’t even feel the need to make my case beyond that sentence.

(12) There are few things as satisfying as skating behind a d-man into a nicely chipped puck with a ton of speed already going.

(13) The t-shirt shoot: I think they shot 900 t-shirts to the 450 fans, (both ballpark figures).

(14) Bryzgalov just looks like an NHL goalie.  They have that structure and size you don’t see from the amateurs.  He also has the tendency to get beat five-hole like NHL goalies, a phenomenon that never ceases to boggle me.  For some reason, I think 40% of goals in the NHL are scored five-hole.  It’s absurd.

And that was game one, pre-season.  I’m looking forward to going to more games and having my “to write about” list grow.  I think I need to write about the momentum of skating, and what a bitch having to actually stop is.  Not that I chose to stop all that much, but still, I hated it when I had to.

Video Blog – NHL Predictions

 

Every few days leading up to the NHL season, I’m gonna run a video blog with a couple predictions for the season.

This is my first crack at it, so cut me a little slack.  To make it easier, I’ve made the first two predictions my “safe” ones.  It’ll be harder when I start trying to defend predictions like “The Vancouver Canucks will struggle in the regular season, but have a great playoff run”.

Oh, and one other thing before the vid -- I went to the Coyotes/Kings game last night and have a crazy long list of things to write about today, so look for that in the next day or two.  Unfortunately, I won’t be linking to what I promised yesterday (my take on the Coyotes sitch) because (thankfully) the Arizona Republic bought the article to run in their NHL/Coyotes preview piece in a couple weeks.

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(By the way -- thanks to those of you who’ve made it so I don’t have to charge for “premium content” or anything of the sort by donating a couple bucks to the cause.  Makes the time put in easier to justify!)

Chelios, T. Fleury, and Mrs. Warner

 

Each year, the NHL welcomes a host of new names and faces to the fold, while offering those same, reliable names that you’ve come to know and love.  Or at least know (see: Avery, Sean).

For 114 years, you’ve become accustomed to seeing Chris Chelios in the league, either as a Montreal Canadien, Chicago Blackhawk, or Detroit Red Wing.

For those same 114 years (*figure may not be exact), Chelios has been the quintessential stay at home d-man.  I don’t mean this in a disrespectful way, but this year, it would be nice to see him do just that — stay at home.

I like Chris Chelios.  I like the fire he’s played with, his passion for the game, and the fact that he seems like a pretty sharp guy in interviews.

I don’t think it’s like the Brett Favre thing, where by playing (and playing worse every year) he’s destroying some statue-worthy legacy.  He’s Chris Chelios for flip’s sake.  Worthy of warrior-like respect, but probably not a guy that kids pretend to be in street hockey.

“I’m Chris Chelios!”

“No I’M Chris Chelios.”

“Mommmmmmm!”

My problem is that the whole thing is embarrassing, because you shouldn’t have to tell such a distinguished veteran like him that it’s time to head for the door.  Ushering someone with a career like his out the door probably didn’t just embarrass Chris, it probably embarrassed Detroit as well.

He put them in the awkward position where they had to admit, “look, maybe you can still play in this league somewhere, but we can only dress 6-7 defenseman a game, and we’re the Detroit Red Wings.  We can find 60-70 defenseman better than you by tomorrow and have them under contract by dinner”.

And I have to believe that most NHL teams could make the exact same statement.

Even if an NHL team had to pull up some young kid from the American League that would struggle the way Chelios seems to be these days (forwards are somehow sneaking behind him in the neutral zone for breakaway passes with all the stealth of golf shoes on bubble wrap), at least the kid would be on the improving side of the bell curve, and the team could justify some early struggles to pay for some later success.

So anyways.  You always hope that the great ones will quit before they’re fired, but I think we’re long past that point with Chelly. 

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The other familiar name that’s rumoured to want his face back in the NHL this year is Theo Fleury.

…Seriously.

In all reality, this has become a really sad story.  Theo had kinda been on the path to self-destruction with some drug use in his later NHL years, and probably took a few good seasons off the end of his hockey career.

For a lot of guys, when the NHL money runs out, it’s tough to find another job that pays an above average wage to have fun (for some stupid reason).  So, it’s easy to understand why he would want to make a comeback.

To think he’s capable of it, in his situation, is downright delusional.

At one point after his “retirement”, Theo was playing in a Canadian Native league, where the Chief of the tribe was paying him a ton of money to have him as a ringer (thousands per game – the same team Gino Odjick was playing on).  Regardless of how serious the level of hockey is, you can’t blame the guy for saying yes to that much money.

So um, at least he’s been on the ice.  But my “guess” is that Theo couldn’t even be effective in the AHL right now. 

The game has simply gotten too fast and strong to be effective at his size, and past his quickest days.  The guy is 5’6″ and 40 years old.  I can’t even believe I wasted text on this topic.

But, let’s hope he finds something that makes him happy, because I can promise you, Theo Fleury has less of a chance to play in the NHL this year than I do, and I’m at the point where using the stairs makes me sweat.

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Back in my blog’s early days, I made a little, one-line/ borderline inappropriate joke about the upgrade of Kurt Warner’s wife, Brenda.  Well, sure enough, at the Cardinals game Saturday night, there she was, sitting across the row from me.  I thought it’d be funny to get a picture with her for a follow-up joke, but it backfired a bit when the picture came out looking totally normal, with her looking great.

 Wish I didn’t look so creepy and happy about it.

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That’s all for today!  Stay tuned on the blog this week – I’m settled and back at work, and have a plethora of hockey related topics to bat around with you readers.  What do you think?  Will someone pick up Chelios?

Take Your Ball and Go Home, Jim

 

Still in my relative infancy as a writer, I’ve been encountering a frequent problem:

How can I write honestly and accurately about NHL news, when the players in question are not only playing like dogs and making poor decisions, but personal friends?

How can I sit down and write something about Dany Heatley conducting himself in a less-than-professional manner this summer, something that could show up in USA Today, when I know and like him?  What if he reads it?

Will I ever get another genuine comment?  Am I a leper next summer in Kelowna?  I don’t want to start alienating people.

The solution, thus far, has been to not touch those topics, but it’s getting increasingly hard to do that as writing has morphed into an actual job.

I’m still feeling out the boundries, but I’ve started getting more confident in my ability to give opinions without coming off too snide.

The good news? 

I’ve never met, let alone seen, Jim Balsillie.  And you know what I think he should do?  Take his ball and go home.  That link will take you to Hockey Primetime.com, where I explain his current situation a little better.

The Favre No-No and a Cyber Hobo

 

It’s been a looonnnnggg time since I’ve cleaned out the ‘ol thought locker.  Fortunately, I’ve been too busy to fill it with much.  Hold on tight while I unleash some unparalleled genius (aka unfiltered gobbledygook)

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Starting recently and moving backwards, I deserve one more rant at the Favre dog and pony show he’s running:

Doesn’t signing with the Vikes officially prove we need police tape around this guys crime scene of a brain?  It highlights the sad fact that he clearly never understood the importance (and general seriousness) of the Green Bay/Minnesota rivalry to the fans.

Doesn’t it sort of illustrate that he’s simply been some turbo gifted athlete that was totally spaced on what it all meant to people?  Like everytime those two teams played, he wasn’t sure why the fans were in such a frenzy, but instead of bothering to figure out why, he just enjoyed it?

It’s like he has no idea what he’s doing to his legacy.  He literally has to win a Superbowl this year to be remotely validated.  They would have built golden statues of this guy all over Wisconsin - he could have been the Governor! (Him and Al Franken could rule the north as an unstoppable duo).

He was absolutely my favourite player for years.  What. Is this. Guy. Doing?

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Why aren’t there any funny Republicans?

And I mean, “haha” funny, not “this milk smells funny”, like the way Glenn Beck is.  That guy’s so crazy Gary Busey watches his program and thinks “…Wow.  That guy’s crazy”.

I’m not trying to start any political warfare here, I’m just thinking – every political comedian I can think of leans heavily left.  Why is it impossible to be pro-life and pro-laughs?

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 After three days of living in Arizona and budgeting for reality, I’ve acquired a broken microwave and chipped tooth.  Thank you unforseen expenses for the kick in the reality button.

Now that I’m done with hockey, I’m getting the tooth permanently fixed (re-breaking it on a yearly basis would have been pricey, so I waited to get it done right).  What does a crown for a tooth cost, you ask?  $1,100.00, I answer.  I think it’d be cheaper to get one for my head.

Which leads me to my idea (copywritten August 2009).

I wanna become a cyber hobo.

I want a picture of me as a hobo, holding a blank sign, and I’ll change the message daily.  I’ve got a hundred good hobo sign ideas, and I figure I can beg for e-change somehow.  I’ll be like the Naked Cowboy of New York, only not naked.  Or a cowboy.  Or in New York.  But you get the drift.

Will blog for food.

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Oh, and for those of you who’re super interested in what the drive from Kelowna to Phoenix looks like, I’ve put a little picture blog at the end of “Over The Hills and Through The Woods”.  Enjoy.  I believe at one point I have two straws in my nose, a yard of margarita, and I’ve befriended a huge M&M.

Chips Are Aptly Named

Sports injuries suck, but they heal.

Sadly, with age, they sort of un-heal.

You’ve seen the “un-healed” - that group of fun old guys that limp around with bad knees because they used to do squats with bison on their back during their football days. 

Is it too soon to look like one of those guys?

I rarely missed a game during my hockey playing days (supply your own “’cause you never went in a corner” joke).  I Ironman’d it (never missed a game due to injury) for all three years of junior, all four years of college, and my first year + of pro.

*(The one college game I missed was A HEALTHY SCRATCH my junior year.  But I’m not bitter.)

In order to accomplish this feat, I played on percaset, cortisone or adrenaline on multiple occasions.  Nothing says recovery like re-injuring stuff you can’t feel.

So, here I am.  The last professional game I played was on my 26th birthday, almost nine months ago.

I’m not gonna rattle off my list of ailments, cause I’m still a young buck, so “shut up and stop complaining” right – I can understand that.  The list shouldn’t be this long.  But, as a reminder of the beatings I took, my front tooth (already 3/4 fake) chipped on a chip tonight (…is that irony? Alanis Morissette messed up my ability to tell). 

Perfect timing to enter the American health/dental world.  Anyone know a good dentist in Phoenix?

Also, this is my first year as a hockey fan, and I won’t be living in Canada.  Obviously, this means I won’t be getting the CBC, TSN, SportsNet, or Headline Sports, all of which come with every basic cable package in Canada, and the last three run hockey highlights roughly 40 minutes out of every hour.  Seriously.

So how do I stay in touch?  The Center Ice package?  Pirated cable?  Move back to Canada?  Sign up to play for the Coyotes? (I assume that’s how it’s going to work there this year, isn’t it? On a volunteer basis?)

All I know is, I’m too excited for this years NFL season to be mad at ESPN’s coverage right now.  Show me all the clips of Brett Favre punting Packer nation in it’s cheeseballs that you can dig up, I’m fully entertained.

I’d say the Pack are up there in my top couple teams to root for, but this is just too fun to follow, because you know some die-hard Favre-tattooed cheese-doodle-eating Wisconsin-ite has contemplated killing either himself or Brett in the past few days.

Watching Favre right now is like excusing your crazy Grandmothers rantings at the Thanksgiving table because “she doesn’t know what she’s saying”.  He’s that far gone for doing this.  He needs to be medicated.

I’m almost loving the NFL drama enough to chose NFL Sunday Ticket over a whole tooth tomorrow.  But only almost.

A Plea To Current NHLers

 

When I grew up, sports seemed so clear.

There didn’t seem to be so much legalise; this constant, in-depth coverage of the personal lives of the athletes I was watching and revering.  Our heroes of old were probably just as flawed as our heroes of present, only they didn’t catch guys like Babe Ruth doing something stupid and run it on every TV in the nation because there weren’t six cell phone camera’s around at the time.

In earlier decades, fans would have no clue that in pre-season Josh Hamilton stumbled in his attempt at a sober life, but thanks to a few college teens, we have a couple dozen pics of his bizarre meltdown. 

The mistakes our athletes make are constantly in our face, covered to the fullest, and intertwined with regular sports news. 

This steroids thing in baseball has gone from “no!” to “oh” to “so?“. 

I understand sports fans who don’t like baseball.  It’s a thrill-an-hour, and they play more games the video game world has Halo users.  But for me, there was always something kinda pure about it.  Because there’s no man-to-man contact in baseball (or very, very little), it just seems like the least relevant sport to be a steroid user.

And that may be why the steroid suspensions haven’t come crashing down too hard on the users.  There’s no risk of injury to other people, like in football, where if someone is scary strong, it’s scary for a reason.

What’s with the length of suspensions?  In baseball, getting busted for injecting your body with illegal performance enhancing juice costs you 50 games (that injection also costs the right people their jobs, and earns the wrong people more money).  And then you’re cleared to play and help your team down the playoff stretch, while most of the falsely earned new muscle is still there and about to burst through your jersey.  You’ll lose some of the muscle mass, fine, but hey, get in enough cycles before you get caught and you’ll see the benefits for a while.

Why does baseball think it’s any better now that it was before the Mitchell Report?

Of course, baseball’s not alone in it’s embarassments in recent years.

Somehow, the culture of the NFL is breeding poor decision-making too.  This hip-hop culture that has emphasized the need to be a gun-toting, take-no-guff cool guy is putting guys in prison so often it barely registers a blip on my care-dar anymore.  Thanks Plaxico.  Dante.  Pacman.  Vick. 

And the NBA is nowhere near exempt.  I’m not so sure we’ve gotten to the bottom of the officiating scandal.  One single referee gets caught betting on games he’s working, claims he’s part of a league-wide reffing circle of hustlers, and the story gets buried?

Guys are always going to get in trouble, I get that.  Like all jobs, men work them, and men are flawed (sometimes we hit cabbies).  We do expect our athletes, as role models, to hold themselves to a higher level of accountability (and not the opposite, as they may think), but mistakes are still going to happen.

But when you step back and see the frequency of the problems, and the consistency in the types of errors being made sport by sport, I’ve kinda gotta ask:

Still holding that lockout against the NHL, hey America?

I can’t stand hearing the “I used to watch before the lockout” comment.  It’s not that I don’t love the NFL (I love the NFL) or other sports, I’m just running on an equal sports-shunning platform. 

Baseball’s ratings are up in recent years.  And people claim they don’t watch the NHL because of greed?  Have you seen MLB contracts?  Occasionally, hockey ratings are below the PBA and poker, but it’s the only sport that’s gotten better this decade.

Maybe hockey will figure out that fans like a little mischief and chaos, and follow in Patty Kanes example (for the record, I’m skeptical he committed much of a crime there).  This is a call to hockey players!  Let’s start mixin’ it up!

Hell, I’m gonna be a writer guys.  I need material now!

Juicin’!  Guns!  Gambling!  Gimme something! 

We’ve got to win the lockout fans back!

We’ve got to win the lockout fans back!

Simply A Link

 

My latest entry for USA Today will run sometime tonight, and can be found by clicking nhl.usatoday.com, and scrolling down a bit.  On the left is a “Bourne’s Blog” link.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

Three Things On The Way Up

 

ONE -- Sledge Hockey: Murderball on ice.

I’ve played the majority of all wheelchair sports -- basketball, rugby, hockey, bowling, kayaking, football and cow-tipping - if it exists, I’ve tried it.  And, I’ve been pretty decent at most of it.

My brother Jeff however, is downright good.  From being a gold medalist at the BC Disabled Games, to  dominating the occasional game of Shoot-The-Tennis-Ball-At-Your-Brothers-Junk, he’s always been pretty successful.  In following the family rules, he was always especially good at floor hockey.  Once you master minor complications like “how to move while holding a stick”, the game gets a little easier.

But obviously, hockey could never quite be the same for disabled players as stand-up guys.   Until sledge hockey.

These athletes are about to take the international sports world by storm.

In an exciting move, CTV has committed to showing all of Canada’s games in the 2010 winter Olympics.  Have you seen these guys haul yet?  You’ll be floored, unless (heaven forbid) you get in the way of one of them, in which case you’ll be iced.

Here’s what you need to know to fully enjoy the sport when you watch it on tv (because you will watch it on tv):

The sleds are balanced on two legit skate blades, with a third little one at the front.  The national team studs have the blades nearly touching each other under their bucket seat, where you’d need them to function like training wheels.  Your first time out on a narrow-bladed sled is like trying to balance in a wheelbarrow on a unicycle… not that easy.

The sticks are nearly flat (like a super-obtuse angle in geometry class), and have picks on the back to pull the sled around.  Only it’s less of a pull, and more of a “holy-christ that human is a missle in a bucket”. 

In a sentence, it’s a well-organized car accident.

And of course, it’s hockey.  The goalie has picks on the bottom of the trapper and blocker for mobility, and also (I assume) because they figured the only way to make hockey more interesting was to make the goalie be a human Swiss-army knife.  Less snow-spraying, more “yessir, no sir, my fault sir”.

Sledge hockey’s popularity is rising, and it’s rising fast.  Like all new sports, its taken awhile to come into it’s own, but there’s some extremely elite players out there that’ll make you feel really bad for doing so little with your four limbs. 

So here it comes.  Just another reason to enjoy a good ol’ fashioned Canada/US on-ice suckerpunch festival.  To complete my sale, give me 45 seconds of your time.  Click!  Sold.

‘

*****

TWO -- The Crown Float: Tastes like liquified angels.

This, my American friends, is what’s known as a crown float.  It’s 50 percent Strongbow (dry cider), 50 percent Guiness, and 100% better than what you’re drinking right now.

 

The black and tan is nice (Guiness over Harp’s or Bass), but not nearly as refreshing.  And you know what?  It’s not alone in the ”strictly-in-Canada” category for popular drinks at our local watering holes.  Here, as you may know, it’s standard practice to drink your beer with Clamato juice.  Not V8, Clamato (yes, that’s clam and tomato).  I loathe it, but it’s everywhere, and, I’m told, is the hangover beverage of the pro’s (where the US cure is the Bloody Mary, Canada answers that as well with a slight variation in the Caesar).

I’m not trying to sell poutine here people.  I’m trying to help.  Strongbow and Clamato.  Call us and we’ll ship you some, it’ll be popular I swear.

*****

THREE -- My USA Today Blog: My voice to help save the US, one beer at a time.

And last, thanks to those of you who checked out and recommended my first posting on the USA Today website.  Down the left side of www.nhl.usatoday.com, is the “Bourne Blog” option.  The better reception it gets, the better for all of us, because hell, maybe they’ll send me to cover something cool one day.  I’ll start planning for my trip to the 2010 ESPY’s now, just in case.

 

 

 

I’m 6’3″, 200, I Swear

 

Here’s a comment/question from reader Far North:  

“A player who was listed as 6’3″, 200 pounds on last year’s college roster  is listed as 6’2,” 175 pounds by his new NHL team.  I’ve stood next to enough college players to think that the roster stats are often optimistic.  Does this continue at the higher levels?  Are NHL teams required to report those things accurately?”

The craziest thing about height measurement, in my experience, is that there’s no uniform, standard procedure for doing it, even in the NHL.  It’s like a slightly upgraded version of a mom putting notches on the wall as her kid grows.

My favourite year was the one in college where they measured us using the advanced clipboard-on-head method, followed by the measuring of that mark.  The guy taking the measurements that particular year was all of about 5’8″, so all the clipboards had a nice uphill slant to them.  I literally had to call the athletic administration to tell them not to list me at 6’3″, because I figured scouts would notice I wasn’t, and label me full-of-shit before I even had the chance to prove them right (I’m 6’1 and a half, but was always listed at 6’2″). 

But every year, in a split second, your height and weight were both measured and permanent, to be splashed on a dozen websites, in programs, on scouting reports, wherever.  All the guys tried to drink about a gallon of water (literally) the morning of the weigh-in, as to appear more muscle-dense.  I actually played with a defensemen who was drafted that was told to “beef up” in the off-season, so he literally had two 2.5 pound weights hidden on him for weigh-in (they didn’t make us strip down in college like they do in pro either, which is nice - wearing jeans tacks on at least a pair of crucial l.b.’s).

It’s probably just the lack of thorough measuring in college that leads to the misrepresentation of height and weight.  They want the guys to look bigger to increase their chances of moving on too, as it looks good on the program.  Once you’re in the NHL, there’s no advantage in lying about your size – results are finally what matters, not potential, so you tend to see a more honest representation of size (even though there are in fact no rules governing truth in advertising).

But sure enough, at Islander camp, in Hershey, wherever;  you simply took your shoes off and stood against a wall with heights on it.  I always managed to get my heels just that half-inch of the floor to make the 6’2″ mark.  Nobody cared (MLIA).

*****

 There’s only one other thing I want to write about for today, and it’s of crucial importance to me.  I have a neat opportunity to contribute to the USA Today’s online hockey section, so starting today, I’m writing an occasional blog (every week or so) on a profile there.  If all goes well, it could be a great thing for the other sites I write for as well, bringing more credibility to what I do, while helping increase readership.

Basically, it would be in my best interest if the blog did well there, so please, if you’re an avid Bourne’s Blog reader, click THIS LINK and feel free to contribute a positive comment or two.  The article is a more current re-packaging of my piece  ”A Love-Hate Relationship With Hockey” , and has a link on the main USA Today hockey page, www.nhl.usatoday.com (thanks to those of you who commented already – minor technical difficulties at USA Today have meant I’ve had to re-post the article, and lose the early comments).  Turns out there is hope in this writing world…

Exercising Two Legs and One Finger

 

I’m feeling refreshed and alive today people.

I finally soaked in a little vitamin D in the midst of this gorgeous Kelowna summer we’ve been having (gorgeous, just no fires allowed.  Also, no: smoking, rubbing sticks together or dragons allowed in the park).  We chucked together a surprise birthday party for one of my best friends yesterday, Dave Cunning (www.davecunning.wordpress.com).  A few of us headed out for little evening of wakeboarding, swimming and Ogopogo hunting.

It reminded me of a little hockey nugget I thought I’d share, cause this is the type of thing not all hockey fans are around to hear: 

Scott Hannan, a Kelowna resident, genuinely claimed that he stopped doing leg workouts a few summers back, because wakeboarding was his new workout.  I know it’s a leg burn, but it isn’t squatting 315 pounds 12 times.

The guy consistently showed up to skate minutes before we went out, fully equipped with his crazy long hair, uber-summer tan, and surfer-dude mentality.  Kinda strikes me as more of a “minus-five SPF-oil guy” than the “concerned-about-melanoma’s type”.

Not that I’m hear to pass judgement, but I’m not so sure his career has been heading in the right direction since I heard him say that.  But then again, maybe I should withhold criticizing his regimine.  Things have gone pret-ty decent for him over his 10 years or so in the league.

*****

So… I stepped on the ice for about the third time since December last night.  The good news is, I’m still a decent player.  What wasn’t great, is that I’m in roughly the same shape as John Candy was while shooting ”Uncle Buck”.  I drove home looking worse than Nick Nolte before a mug shot.  I can’t imagine playing contact hockey (which, for those of you who don’t know, is only about 80 times as tiring as non-contact). 

But still, I got thinking… “yeah… yeah… I could figure this game out again real quick-like.  I’ve been getting some calls from teams for next year, maybe I’ll just whip my ass back into shape…”

And then I took the heel-end of a stick across my mustache, and starting planning my next blog.

 

Dear Hockey,

F. you too.

Love,

Bourne.

A Tear, A Curse, and a Link

 

I’ve got this weird soft spot for sports.  Like, I could watch a four hour documentary on blind people curing baby tigers with cerebral palsy and not flinch, but the second somebody is involved in some impressive sports feat, I tear up.

Mark Buerhle pitched a perfect game yesterday, that included a wall-scaling catch from his replacement center fielder, who was just chucked into the game to be a defensive specialist.  Nice call by Ozzie Guillen on that one.

Anyways.  Congrats to Mark Buerhle on accomplishing such an unbelievable feat, and receiving a phone call from the freaking president for it.  That’s the part that got me.  It was just… it was… so special… siiigghhh…

*****

So, I try to keep curses out of my writing as much as possible, because I hope to someday do this for a living, and it’s generally frowned upon by reputable newspapers.  But, in order to keep it sounding conversational, I tend to slip the odd curse in, because, um, I slip the odd curse in in conversation.

Regardless of your stance on that, let this serve as a little disclaimer.  The following picture contains a well placed f-bomb, and I love it.

 

 

 

I love that somehow my blog in the NHL off-season has become the chuckle-hut, and people continue to send me hilarious stuff to include in the blog.  You’re really makin’ my job easy.  Keep ‘em comin’!

*****

In other news, the fires in Kelowna have subsided.  Thanks for all the well wishes.  We had a little scare that our beautiful resort was about to be the Okanagan’s biggest bonfire, but she was saved!  The camp is ready to go as planned, and thanks to the fire, we even got a couple nice room upgrades.  Take a look at this picture taken from the lake that shows how close we were to losing The Cove:

 

Phew.  It just barely made it.

*****

As for a little real sports writing, my take on how the drafting of John Tavares will help Kyle Okposo out will probably be up in the next hour or so at www.hockeyprimetime.com.  Check it outtttt.

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