100 Pushups, Injury Anguish, and the Presidents Trophy

When I retired from hockey, I was PUMPED to not have to work out.  I knew I would want to, someday, but I needed some time where I didn’t have to shower three goddamn times a day.

I had always envied that about people not playing hockey – for the most part, you wake up, shower, and that’s it for the day.  You’re done.  Hockey players never get to do that.  Minimum two a day, and on game days, three (post-morning skate, post-nap wake-up shower, post-game).  You’re day has too many starts and stops.

So for my first summer out of the gym, I just enjoyed getting up, showering, and having a full day.  That formula, for those of us who consume like gluttons, equals gaining a bit of mass.  So, I’ve been making a committment to working out the past month or two - and by working out, I mean cardio, because I could care less about being jacked…. I just don’t want to have to buy all new clothes.

It is time, friends.

That said, it’s probably time I try to get some muscle tone again.  So, at the recommendation of Deadspin’s Drew Magary, I’m going to take up the program from 100 Push-ups (assuming my sterno-clavicular joint doesn’t get too angry – it doesn’t like when I lift too often, after the abuses it suffered.)  The goal being, obviously, to be able to do 100 consecutive pushups after seven weeks.

I’ll be doing the push-ups Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and will be reporting progress the following days .  I took the first test yesterday (as many as you can, to fatigue) to see which program I’d be on, and busted out 38 (a far cry from the 80 I once did at an Islanders camp).  So here we go! 

Day 1:  38

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Any other Isles fans out there as worried as me about them becoming the Montreal Expos?  Y’know, drafting well, developing talent, then trading those guys for picks once they’re ”ready”?  What’s the status of the Lighthouse project out there? I haven’t kept up on progress — lord knows Wang ain’t gonna pay to keep all these kids if the team’s future isn’t the one he envisioned.

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It's no fun showing up to the rink everyday to workout and watch practice.

Can you imagine the mental anguish of being injured so badly you may never get to prove you’re worth the big contract you signed?  I know lots of you will joke that you’d take the big contract, but it must be a horrible feeling to be Rick DiPietro or Greg Oden, and to think – “If I got the chance to be a bust, and was one, I could handle this – but being called a bust after never physically getting the chance to play feels horrible.”  I definitely have sympathy for those guys.

I think Garth Snow has done a great job with the Islanders.  He’s in an Obama-like situation - digging the Islanders out of the mess made by the previous administration.  But still, there’s just too many uncertainties in life to ever sign an employee to 15 years.  Too much can happen to think you wouldn’t need a review after say, five, where you can say ”hey, nice work, let’s re-up your deal.”  It’s like my Arizona drivers license that expires in 2047.  Really? I don’t have to take a single eye test between now and when I’m 65?  That seems safe.

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The NHL’s Presidents Trophy has an offensive bias.

Already seven 20-goal players (Green has 17)

Lets face it – if two teams come into a game lethargic, you can play smart defense and work less hard.  If your team scores mucker-style playoff goals, you need to have the throttle down to be effective (and you need some bounces).  So when you can’t be at that 100%, teams that have dangly skill guys (who are dangerous at half-speed) can still put enough pucks in the net to win.

And over the course of an 82 game season, plenty of games are played by two worn down teams.  Which is why, when you have the natural firepower of a Washington, you can score that extra goal or two without the extra effort, and collect your two points.  In the past, it hasn’t been that the Presidents Trophy winning team has the best team, they’ve just had the best skill guys.

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Tampa Bay has the 8th best powerplay in the NHL, the leagues 5th, 6th, and 26th leading scorer, the number two overall draft pick from last year, and what should be good goaltending.  They’re currently three points ahead of Toronto, who hold the title “dead last in the Eastern Conference”.  Ooo, idea for who to replace Rick Tocchet with:  Amazingly, he’s still available — Barry.  Melrose.

Canadian Shake-ups, NHL Observations

Whether you love or hate Brian Burke, you have to, at the very least, admire how seriously he takes winning.  The man wants to win.  Like, right now.

There are simply too many players involved in the Toronto/Calgary deals to congratulate a winner.  But Burke knows one thing – players that are good-but-not-great are easy to come by.  You need the difference-makers to win, and Phaneuf is definitely one of those.

This pic of Wendell is G

Toronto had nothing to build around when Burke got there, and the guy seems to be aware that nobody has ever won anything “by commitee” (the current codeword for “trying to win without talent”).  The Penguins win around Crosby/Malkin, the Red Wings win around Datsyuk/Zetterberg, so Burke is building around guys like Kessel/Phaneuf/Komisarek.  Not quite on the same level, but better than the cores of a few other teams (Havlat/….Kobasew?).

At least Toronto fans will have a few A- players (okay, B+) to cheer for while finishing out the year — for them, it’s been far too many winter months of cheering for a team of C+ guys without a Mats Sundin, Doug Gilmour or Wendell Clark.  (By the way, how insufferable will Toronto fans be if Burke manages to transform them into good…. which I suspect he will.  It’ll be like mixing crappy Flames fans with obnoxious Yankee fans.  Plus, about 55,000 people already have one foot on a bandwagon that would immediately collapse under the weight all the new “diehards”.)

By the way, worth mentioning – I think Matt Stajan is a really talented guy.  The Flames did well by themselves in picking up a quality depth scorer.  In fact, I think both teams made a smart move.

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I think DiPietro looks too bad on too many plays, too often right now.  I know he’s got rust to shake off; the guy hasn’t played goal in forever, but it looks worse than that.

I’m just really nervous about that big contract.  His numbers are fine, that’s not what stresses me.  I’m saying he just isn’t technically sound these days.  He doesn’t look balanced, his angles are suspect, he isn’t getting his pads flat post-to-post in the butterfly, and just doesn’t look like the old Ricky. 

Here’s to hopin’.

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Is Matt Duchene gonna be last years Steven Stamkos?  Just kill it the second half of the year and be a legit NHL stud by next year?  I say yes.

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If you’re the GM for Washington, don’t you go Brian Burke trying get a goalie for your team?  You can’t expect your guys to put up football numbers every night in playoffs, and those stupid, weak goals are just so disheartening.

Of all the stacked teams, San Jose really has the best total package right now (even though I like Chicago and Washington’s forwards better.  San Jose might have the best line in the NHL, but aren’t the best one through 12).  Nabokov is legit.

Happy February – it’s Superbowl week!  Your reward is an insider report on how TV news reports get made.

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.

I did not. have. sexual relations...

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.

For Them, By Them, Ed.

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.