The Most Interesting Men In The NHL

 

First things first:  My latest USA Today bit – basically, media members complain about cliches, but go holier-than-thou when Burrish says he hates Pronger, or Kane says he loves cabbies. Don’t beat the fun out of guys (or cabbies).

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Good morning!  Let’s start by talking about an imaginary trade.  Yay!

The rumour that was mentioned yesterday was Spezza to Columbus for their fourth overall pick and Brassard, which I hadn’t heard. 

If that were to be true (and there’s already an “it’s not” comment following it up, but lets bat it around because it’s June), I could understand it. 

The fourth overall pick is probably going to be a good one, but picks are never a lock to pan out.  There’s plenty of stories about NHL busts.  So if you can turn that pick and a good player into one of the top forwards in the league, Columbus could justify getting that aggressive.  Especially since they’d like to be good sooner than later.

And, it would make sense for Ottawa.  You’re not going to get a better return on the goofy-faced Spezza than that, and while it’s a gamble, you never know – there’s plenty of successful 4th overall picks, too.  That’s part of the fun of trading for draft picks.

So who knows.  The best part of debating that imaginary (and unlikely) trade, is it brings me to this point I wanted to make:

Individual players sell more tickets than teams. 

If you’re Columbus, having two heavyweight stars for your fans to enjoy night in, night out takes the pressure off the usual ”if we’re not winning this isn’t fun to watch” mindset.  At least it buys you some time and shows you care about the fans.  I know it’s part of the reason I didn’t wanna go to Coyotes games (like, at all) when I first moved here.  Who was I going to watch?  Hate to break it to you Coyote loyalists, but Doaner isn’t exactly a thrill-a-shift.

Aw, man, you see that?  He just totally worked hard, finished his check and kept his stick in passing lanes!  How fundamentally sound CAN YOU BE?!?

Of all the teams I saw here this year (seven or eight?), Pavel Datsyuk stood out the most – can’t wait to watch him the next time he’s back in town.  I WILL be in the building.

I don’t want to watch the Buffalo Sabres, a team that wins without a star (Vanek is slo-mo ’til he gets a chance). 

I’m just not entertained by quality team play.

Are you?

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I tweeted this last night, but it’s an awesome question: Who are the most interesting people in the NHL?  Who is it that, when they talk, you listen?  Who’s got personality, who do you always want to know what they’re up to?

So far I’ve got: Brian Burke, Patrick Kane, Chris Pronger, Adam Burrish (yes, he’s that good of a quote machine already), Sean Avery, and Alex Ovechkin.

Twitter responses included Ilya “what is love” Bryzgalov, Alex Kovalev, Ryan Kesler, and actually, Avery.  I missed him at first, but he’s a must-include.

To quote PTI…. who ya got?

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Yesterday the Toronto Maple Leafs unveiled their old new jerseys, and announced Dion Phaneuf as their captain.  And I liked it all.

First off, you can’t EVER change the Leafs jersey, or folks in Toronto would revolt.  Fans of that franchise have a crazy sense of grandeur and history, which is somewhat insane, since they haven’t won a Cup in well over four decades.  And don’t get me wrong, I’ll say it with pride - I like the Toronto Maple Leafs.  But god help us all if they ever win another cup.  That city will become insufferable. 

Ahem, anyway.  They jersey’s are nice, in that they look like all their older, also nice ones.

As for Phaneuf, you can’t deny he’s the right choice for captain, and that team needs one.  I thought his “speech” was HORRRRRRIBLE though.  It reminded me so much of the Tiger Woods “prepared statement”, only Phaneuf looked far more guilty than Tiger.  It looked like he didn’t think he deserved to be captain or something.  C’mon Dion, embrace it! 

You’re officially Captain Maple Leaf.

 

Nine Hawk-Thoughts From Game One

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My apologies for the absence on Friday – I hope you found your way over to Puck Daddy to get your fix.  (In fact, here’s today’s latest, on why matching lines sucks, and is distracting.)

So far at their great site, I’ve written about how the lopsided shot chart had helped Montreal win, how the Bruins pain isn’t exactly going to heal, and about how the Flyers dominating win hints at a not-so-shitty Stanley Cup final.

The majority of my topic-specific posts will be up over there for the next week, and I’ll be using Bourne’s Blog for my usual scattering of random thoughts and links.  More links than usual probably – in fact, here’s my column for USA Today, on the Bolland/Versteeg switcheroo.  Let’s talk puck.

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I gave the Sharks/Blackhawks game a good watching, and here’s what I jotted down in my phone along the way:

1) Patick Kane and Duncan Keith are just so dynamic.  They have an explosive sneakiness to their game you don’t see very often (especially on the same team), and I’m starting to think that the day they had the press conference announcing extensions for Keith, Kane and Toews might have been more valuable than I originally estimated.

Everyone (including me) rails about the difficulty they’ll have with cap issues coming up, but they’ll have those three guys and Hossa for a lot of years to come.  Quality parts like Burrish and Bolland are always interchangeable.

2) Kane doesn’t get hit very often, because not only is he crazy talented, he’s freaking smart.  He’s one of those kids that’s a c***bag because he’s been better than you at everything since he was a fetus, and he knows it.  And most people hate him for it.  Well, my respect for his game is growing.

3) One thing with Kanes game I don’t like - he doesn’t stop on the puck enough.  Just cruises around waiting for a chance.  I’m in no position to judge…. I mean, Hi kettle, I’m pot… you’re BLACK.  But it’s still the truth.

4) Hossa kind of has a bad rap, probably from switching teams to try to win a Cup, but think about the guy:  A), he had other long-term offers that year, but turned them down to try to win a Cup.  Sure, he was wrong, but his motives are better than a lot of players.  B) He’s not a floater.  So he gets all those points, but he kills PK’s (and scores shorties), plays defense, is strong on pucks, and has a good +/-.  So yeah…. booooo what a loser.

5) In keeping with the Chi-town praise thing, they rolled their lines, and gave ice time to the guys that help in other ways (Eager, Bolland, Burrish etc.).  A fastball is effective, but it’s sure harder to deal with when you mix in the odd curveball.

6) It’s not, technically, but…. I feel like the chin part of Niemi’s mask is a little… fuschia-ey.  It just doesn’t seem like a true, solid red.  Am I crazy?

7) Crap, a non-Hawk thought: of all the things guys say on the ice in a game, they can’t ever run a decent full sentence or two from a guy who’s mic’d up?  They had Clowe (I think) rigged up in this game, and all you could hear were half grunts and mutters.  Okay we get it, they swear…. get the complicated bleep machine out and lets hear the rest of those apparently-tainted sentences.

8} Byfuglien’s game winner (god I hate spelling his name) was the simple case of two guys caught between duties, with a lil extra blame for Blake.  Heatley is heading to the goal line/wall for a low rim they’ve clearly called, so he’s not in Byfuglien’s kitchen, and Blake is protecting the net front.  Unfortunately, the winger is his guy, so when they don’t have the puck, his gap has gotta be tight.  Granted, Byfuglien scoring from there is like Shaq hitting a three, so I wouldn’t exactly being d’ing up too tight either.

9) Bolland’s not going to the box when he was the guy who got the penalty was intentional.  Whenever the linesman isn’t sure who’s supposed to go, coaches constantly try to send a guy who doesn’t kill penalties as much.  But still, it was incredible that it went unnoticed at that point in the game, and then Bolland clears the zone and redirects a shot off the net with a half-block.   For more on that, again, here’s today’s USA Today column.

Okay!  Busy times here for me, churning out columns like it’s my…. crap.

Have a great Monday.

Hockey Quick Hits

 

(Yes, that’s Dustin Byfuglien and TWISTA playing NHL 2K9 in the preview picture.  Twista hardly looks stoned.)

UPDATE: I forgot to mention this earlier, because I have the memory of a goldfish, but I was supposed to plug THIS.  My brother is auctioning off an autographed Bryan Trottier Hall of Fame stick for charity.  Bryan gave it to Jeff to help raise money for Kelowna Sledge Hockey.  Go place a bid, you Isles-loving bastards!

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Look, I’m all-Isles over here, and not trying to sabotage my own team, but… HEY. REST OF THE LEAGUE.  Tavares is lurking backdoor on the powerplay for tap-ins.  Might wanna address that in your pre-game discussions.

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The first heavily circulated Tiger joke, as I tweeted yesterday: “What’s the difference between Santa Claus and Tiger Woods?     Santa stops at three ho’s.”  Ba-doom-boom-ching!

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As Bill Simmons explained, sports hate and real hate are different.  Sports hating a player has nothing to do with needing a reason or an explanation, sometime you…. you  just… god I HATE that Bob Barker Milan Lucic.  Who do you inexplicably sports hate?

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Head to head fantasy hockey is like the card game “war”.  This is how I’ve justified performing worse than Ashley Simpson on SNL.  Sometime you play your ace against a two (y’know, put up 30 points in a week your opponent has like, 12), and it feels like a total waste.  Sometimes you play a queen against a king.  The draft is really just the “deal”.  Looking forward to contrarian comments from other league members (whom I sports hate.  Like, all of them.)

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If you billet junior hockey players in hopes of saving a nickel on the money the team gives you for boarding a kid, you’re pure evil, and should let the kid move out today.

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Beer of the completelyarbitrarylengthoftime: Yardhouse Pale Ale.  Maybe I was just in the mood for one, but man, I thought it was great.

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The only thing more frustrating than Dustin Byfuglien is the spelling of his last name.  I do like that there’s a “fugli” in there, because he is.  And the hint of “alien” at the end would explain his general on-ice appearance.  I figure it’s a mish-mash word, like Butt-f****ing-ugly-alien or something.  I sports hate him.

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Don’t you get the impression that Toews reputation for being Serious Steve makes the Blackhawks that much more of a legitimate playoff threat?  He can keep 20-Cent and The Butt-fugly One focused on the right goal, you know?

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Do the Kings have the most underrated jerseys in the league?  Those whites are sick.  Other than the original six (we all get it, they rule), who has the leagues most underrated jersey in your opinion?  All votes for the Panthers will earn you permanent site dismissal.

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And last, I’d like to thank Handsy Kopitar for snapping his 214 game goal-less drought last night.  He morphed into a crappy fantasy pick-up faster than Kirstie Alley circa Cheers.

(Thanks to Jeff from Illinois for helping keep the blog in business with a donation.  Happy Thursday, all!)

Post-Thanks Thinking

 

So, the Mrs. rocked thanksgiving.  I accomplished the elusive six pound day – by “six pound day”, I mean that from breakfast to bedtime (according to our fancy new scale), I stuffed six solid pounds of delicious animal flesh and casseroles into my being.  Puke.

Since I’m already a Canadian cliche (career based on hockey), and spent yesterday being the American cliche (football, beer, general gluttony), today I thought I’d be a media cliche – here’s a list of (hockey writing-related) things I’m thankful for:

Patrick Kane reeeeaally wanting his change. 

That was a fun story for everyone. 

You know those high-school movies, where they really exagerate the roles?  Nerd, jock, hot/mean-girls etc?  Doesn’t Patrick Kane remind you of one of the mean girls that makes everyone else feel bad?  I really get the vibe that he makes little sounds and gestures that make people feel bad without him ever using words.  Like “pssshh” or “cch” or just a f**king smirk.  Smug little bastard.

High Definition TV

Periodically, games on the Center Ice package aren’t in high-def, but I feel the need to check them out anyway.  It makes my eyes bleed.  Thank you, advancing technology.

Recently discovering how ugly Pascal Leclaire is

I’m really excited to have a new punchline.  I’ve been beating up the WNBA now for about ten months now, but really, he looks worse than they play.  Okay, that’s not fair to the WNBA.  He looks as bad as they play.  ….And they play BAD.

My commentors

That one is serious – it’s tough to read most hockey forums without trying to find a way to digitally punch someone.  Most people keep it pretty smart down there, have some great insights, and are consistently more funny than me.  We’re like a little family over here – don’t be afraid to chime in. 

On that topic, I have the power to completely edit anyone’s comment.  It’s hilariously unfair.  I’m dying for somebody to write something overtly ridiculous and hateful so I can edit their entire comment to say how awesome I am and how much they enjoy my awesomeness and they look forward to reading more awesomeocity from me.  That’ll be awesome.

God, it was agony watching an Andy Hilbert - AnyoneElse two-on-one last year.  One of those “I’m an Islander fan” years, where I’d be watching Columbus/Atlanta on another channel while their game would be on.  Thanks for finishing 30th last year, boys, you’ve made this year infinitely better.

 Ken Juba

 

My mom’s brother (and thus, my Uncle), was a sportswriter/editor for the Star Phoenix, the major Saskatoon newspaper for years.  I’m saving the whole explanation of what he’s done for me for another day, just know this – he edits every column I write, he works with media for a living (so his advice is money), and he makes sure I don’t do stuff like write about how disappointed I am in John Buccigross for not plugging a link to my blog anywhere in exchange for passing on the Brendan Burke story like he said he would.  See, if he edited my blog, that sentence wouldn’t be there.

NHL on the fly

Living in the US, it’s the life-blood of the hockey fan.  Now, if we could just get Kevin Weeks/Gary Green/Dennis Potvin/Dave Reid to un-suck, the show would be killer.  I KEEP MY RATES LOW, JUST READ THE RIGHT SIDEBAR.

Ovechkin

Anytime one player is that much better than the best players in a league, it’s confusing to watch.  Is Crosby’s shot soft?  Is Malkin slow?  Why is Datsyuk so lazy?  This guy throws the scale all off.

Boobs

Thought I’d clarify the gay thing.  Big fan of boobs over here.

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Forgot to put this up before: The Toronto Sun issues a “clarification” here.  ….Thanks guys.  The apology for misrepresenting who I am made it into a phone call as well.

An Essay on Quickness

 

Physically demanding sports continue to evolve -  to quote Daft Punk (not Kanye) - “harder, better, faster, stronger”.

When it comes to quickness, they’re all evolving the exact same way. 

Quickly.

Hockey, football, badminton, jai alai - you name it – have all seen “quickness” rise to the top of their list of ”most important athletic qualities”.

Because of this, we’re seeing an increase in the amount of younger players having success at higher levels.  Not sure if you’ve noticed, but young punks tend to be quicker than withering geriatrics old punks. 

So, as is my job, let’s take a closer look at how quickness is changing hockey:

Not that long ago, hockey was a game dominated by men with man strength.  In the era I grew up in, that scintillating era of dump, chase, hook and hold,  you needed all the mobility of a bubble hockey player if you were a strong dude.

In my younger days, bigger, more um, adultish men, could simply chuck a stick across my stomach, and I’d huff and puff and pout and pray for one of those big lugs to catch an edge and fall so I could get a scoring chance, which I damn well had to score on if I was gonna be worth anything to my team.

For weaker, more dangly types, the rules made it so scoring chances weren’t created as often as they were waited on.

Then, the NHL (and North American hockey all together), put their heads together and realized “hey, I bet if we phased out big, talentless d-men, hockey would be fun again…”

So, with that simple epiphany, the game started to change.

Suddenly, big d-men were hustling around trying to put a leash on guys like Maxim Afinagenov, Daniel Briere and Marty Havlat, failing, and going home to write FML’s.

Today, I tried to put a bell on Patrick Kane, but when I went to run him through the boards to impress my coach, he put the puck through my feet, and I tripped myself trying to squeeze my skates together.  As I fell, I managed to lose my top row of teeth on the dasher.  FML.

Those slick, skilled guys are the real talents of the NHL.  And, isn’t that what you want, as a league?  The guys that’re the best at playing the game to be the most successful? 

As a Canadian, I’ll always have some love for the big power forwards, but if the NHL (great idea coming) put together a 5’9″ and under game, and a 6’3″ and over game, I know which one would be more exciting to watch.  And that’s not too say the skilled guys are all small (see: Perry, Corey) – but just to point out that we were minimizing the talent the league displayed under the old rules.

{Also, as a bit of a related thought, how great would Pavel Bure have been a decade later?  Did this guy just miss the boat on becoming one of the NHL’s all-time most exciting players?}

{These are my new “complete tangent brackets”, btw.  Here’s another one – Every team in the NHL should be afraid of Chicago this year- I’ll take them (with the dicey goaltending situation) to win the Presidents Trophy, barring major injuiries. August 27th, 2009}

Under those old rules, players could stay effective as they got older, because quicker players could be slowed down using any number of techniques.  I remember, as a player at that time, when a guy would dump the puck, one of the opposing d-men would turn to get it.  The other one played you like an offensive linebacker, literally trying to stop you from getting by him in order to give his partner more time.

With the rule changes allowing for quickness to be at a premium, today’s game looks a lot more like “junior hockey” – and I don’t mean that in a bad way.  it’s exciting.

In junior hockey, guys over-pursue.  They’re petrified of looking lazy, and constantly wondering what they should be doing, and where they should be going.  So they just go anywhere.

The professionals of yesteryear tended to stand around, play smart and positional (see: Guerin, Bill), and jump when opportunity presented itself.  Half the time, junior hockey players (WHL, USHL, BCHL etc…) skate away from where they’re supposed to be, simply to so they can be skating somewhere.

That waste of energy isn’t a major crisis for a young pup who’s legs and stamina bounce back like a trampoline with a sip of water on the bench, so coaches have found a way to harness this never-ending go-go-go, and use it as an advantage in the new NHL.

They find the smart, coachable ones (a rare quality).  Then they spend some real time beating the simple defensive systems into the kids head.  Then, the second this Alaskan sled-dog of a player crosses his own blueline into the neutral zone, the coach unhooks the leash.

The NHL isn’t tailored for Chris Chelios’s anymore.  I’m not trying to rag on Chris, but sled-dogs really are the best analogy for how the youth movement looks in the NHL now.

“Lemme-go-lemme-go-lemme-go-I-can-run-wanna-run-wanna-run!”

Thankfully, Ovechkin happened to come into the league right when d-men weren’t allowed to jump on his back, grab him with a free hand and limit the fans entertainment.

His quickness (and the quickness of other young stars) has forced the NHL to re-arrange the priorities of what makes a D-man good, and it’s not just size anymore.

We’re finally being allowed to see, not only see which forwards are truly quick, but also how defenseman can break the mold and still be great.  We have a whole new generation of d-men on the rise: Alex Goligoski’s, Matt Carle’s, and Duncan Keith’s, who can fly around and keep up with dangly forwards.

Quickness has made it so as GM, I’d rather have a slightly more mistake-prone young buck on my team than a plotting, plodding veteran.

These changes are happening, and it the transition hasn’t been very gradual.  Fittingly, it’s been happening quickly.

Cheers To The Good Ones

 

Naturally, the type of person who follows hockey during the summer months is the type of person who loves hockey.

Naturally, the type of person who loves hockey doesn’t like bad things being said about it.

I’m allowed to because I love it too.

THE PATRICK KANE thing is pretty vague.  In all reality, what probably happened was a series of semi-jackass moves marinating in a sauce of people not acting appropriately, which unfortunately got topped with a small portion of physical violence.

We’ll never know exactly how it happened, and I don’t care.  It brings me to another point.

Hockey players of the highest level, like most athletes (actually, probably a little less than most athletes), have a sickening sense of entitlement.

All I can remember growing up as an average-to-above-average minor league hockey player was Mom saying “just don’t get cocky… Hockey players are just so cocky.”

Mom taught out of the “treat everyone equally” bible, and we did the best we could to oblige.

And, who would be better qualified to speak on the topic of “what hockey players are actually like” than a woman who has four pieces of Stanley Cup jewelry (back then at least, they got the wives something every year too), and was with my Dad from the Saskatoon Blades to the end, followed by my twenty-some years of hockey?

They have reason to be confident, these hockey players.  Fit and young, athletic and rich, it’s easy to feel like you rule the world.

Can we introduce some sensitivity training?

Can we hire my Mom to talk to NHL teams and tell them all how they’re just people, and no better than the next guy?  Or at least to slap guys like DiPietro, who when invited to Clark Gillies CHARITY  golf outing says things to his golf group (who pay to play with a celebrity) ”this sucks, are we done yet?”

This blanket doesn’t cover the whole of the sport, or all sports.  In fact, in any NHL, AHL, QPCHL (quarter-pounder w/ cheeseHL), you’ll find five plus guys who are smart, socially aware people.  But it’s the opposite five plus that make us skeptical of the rest.

Sports coverage of other sports tends to include more shootings, hit and runs, and general violence than NHL coverage (even less now that the FUBU-wearing Ed Belfour is done), and for that we can be thankful.

But we still need to exorcise the general nose-up, better-than-the-rest attitude sported by these guys.

As a kid, playing junior hockey, I tried to play in Kelowna’s elite NHLish summer shinny games, and got treated like an absolute leper by most guys.  A few went out of their way to be nice.

As I got better at hockey, and moved up leagues, guys got nicer at that game too.  But my list of people who made me feel like a dog has always been nicely tucked away in my back pocket.  I’m not out for revenge.  It’s just nice to know which guys are there for a ride in the limo, and who will stick with you when you’re riding the bus.

Here’s to the good guys of the NHL and other sports.  To those who appreciate the gifts they’re given and share with others.  As we’ve seen, they certainly aren’t obligated to.  These are the guys who deserve the real coverage.  They’re the ones that matter.

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!