Hit of the Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=322zqTkL0-c&feature=related

Not exactly clean, but still a bit hit worthy of the hit of the day.

More Lowe Blows?

So Kevin Lowe was moved from GM to President of the Oilers with Steve Tambellini taking over the GM role. Not sure what that says about what Oilers' ownership thinks about Lowe performed in his role as a GM, but I'm sure Brian Burke has an opinion on it. Looking forward to hearing what he has to say. Hopefully, he'll add some fuel to the fire because it seems to be burning out over the past couple of weeks.

Previous quotes by Burke about Lowe:
On Lowe's decision to give Penner an offer sheet without giving Burke a heads up: "I think it's an act of desperation by a general manager who is fighting to keep his job." "I thought that was gutless."

Previous quotes by Lowe about Burke:
"Where do I begin?," started Lowe. "He's a moron, first of all. Secondly, he really believes that any news for the NHL is good news. Thirdly, he loves the limelight and I don't think anyone in hockey will dispute that. Lastly, he's in a pathetic hockey market where they can't get on any page of the newspaper let alone the front page of the sports, so any of this stuff carries on."

Ding. Ding.

Hit of the Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MKtA_nJLbc



This is a good one. Guy takes a header. Someone forgot to tell him that this water is frozen.

Hit of the Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAFGzsPCFrI

Ouch. Soup takes out Umberger. Best view of the hit is at the 49 second mark. Nasty.

Are the Bruins serious?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O66oSixrIcs&eurl=http://deadspin.com/index.php?refId=5029718


Please don't tell me that they actually paid this guy to market their "All you can eat ticket special" package on his terribly terrible youtube video blog.

They already have the worst GM in the league but not the rest of their front office is struggling too.

Are the Bruins really struggling so bad to get people in the seats that they have to offer an all you can eat buffet and game ticket for $39.

My tickets in the 300 level at MSG are $52....now that's a REAL organization!!!!!

Hitting a Hinote by Tapping a McCarthy

So Dan Hinote (picture) of the St. Louis Blues just married Jenny McCarthy's sister, fellow playmate Amy McCarthy (picture). Must be nice to be an NHL player.

Apparently, all invites were supposed to come wearing their favorite 1950's costume. Jim Carrey (Jenny's husband) came dressed as Fidel "Don't call me Mets catcher Ramon" Castro.

Also in attendance were Forsberg, Sakic, Podein, and Liles. I wonder if Forsberg came dressed as someone receiving treatment during an episode of M*A*S*H. It would be fitting.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/27/tying-knot-50s-style/

Hit of the Day

Glass-shattering hit. Not bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-_AwyH099U

NHL '09

Have you seen the promo for the new NHL game? Looks pretty sick:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyX23cERTnQ

Hit of the Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUkiyBVytRQ&eurl=http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/07/28/2008-07-28_video_shows_nypd_cop_assaulting_cyclist.html

Solid hit by NY's "Finest". Hopefully, that is the type of hit you'll see Rissmiller laying on chumps in a few months.

"Guys with Weird Last Names" Signing Day

• Bouwmeester re-signed with Florida. Didn't realize that Bouwmeester played the most minutes per game of any NHL defensemen last year (27 minutes, 28 seconds). Pretty impressive. He has also played in all 82 games for the Panthers for the past 3 years and had 15 goals this past year. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed yet.
• Sjostrom re-signed with the Rangers. There was some question as to what the Rangers would do since they have a number of forwards under contract. Apparently, he was willing to discuss taking less than the ~$800k (don't remember the exact number and too lazy to look it up) he was eligible for as a RFA if they offered him a multi-year deal. Word was that they were talking about 2 years at $650k per. Sjo plays with lots of speed, but I liken him to the skinny guy in Nintendo's original hockey game: so fast that he is sometimes out of control. At the same time, I like him at $650k per year for 2 years.

ESPN SUCKS

So a big tell about someone's personality is to see what they have their home page set to on their personal computer.....

For many people it's CNN (they want to appear worldy yet they never even open a link), for others it's Google, and for some (Fattey) it's http://www.ilovelittleboysinnothingbuthockeygarters.com/

For me...it varies depending on the time of the year. During the hockey season, my home page is set to http://www.tsn.ca/ for obvious reasons. Pure and simply, nobody comes close to covering hockey better than TSN. I even go as far as to get the daily headlines emailed to me every morning. So besides the week of July 1st (free agent deadline), I need to find another home page because I'm not really down with hearing about the Canadian Olympic Track and Field team every day.

By default I choose ESPN. So when I opened up Internet Explorer today, after skipping over the first five links to Brett Fav-ruh, I noticed a picture of Patrick Kane. To say the least, I was pleasantly surprised and it got me a little wet seeing the 19 year-old NY-born Blackhawk on the front page of ESPN.com.

Then I started reading Scoot Burnside's article about his power rankings for the upcoming season. After slowly puking in my mouth, I soon realized why ESPN sucks at NHL coverage.

Scott Burnside is sipping the Blackhawk and Flyers Kool-aid....quite frankly, I'm not.

You can't argue with his top 2 in each conference: Pittsburgh-Montreal and Detroit-San Jose but after that it gets a little sketchy for me. He's got the Flyers as 3rd in the East. Did he not realize that they barely snuck in the playoffs last year? Or that they had the worst record in the NHL 2 years ago? Yes, I'm a fan of Mike Richards and he is the leader of this team (Briere pushes poop on his off days) but to expect them to finish 3rd in the conference is crazy.

He also has the Senators 10th!!! Is he serious? Yes they sucked it up down the stretch last year but if they finish in 10th this year, I might give Burnside my first NCAA goal puck (very valuable - Fairfield Stags class of '03) .

And how do you have ANYONE behind Garth Snow's Islanders???

For the West, does he honestly feel that the upstart "pretty pick" of the Blackhawks will finish higher then Calgary? Calgary has proven every year that they are one of the hardest teams to play against in the league. Blackhawks have some amazing young talent and add Soupy to the mix to play next to Duncan Keith on the PP but still....

I also think that Edmonton is nowhere near the 5th best team in the conference and I will be surprised if Wayne-o doesn't have his Coyotes battling for a playoff spot and Peter Mueller making a run at the scoring title.

My rankings:
East
1-Pitt - Dirty Good
2-Mon - Kovalev is G-O-D
3-Wash - OvechKING
4-NYR - they are a very different team this year...but better overall. Patrick Rissmiller's name will look amazing on Lord Stanley
5-Philly - they will be more consistent this year
6-Ott - Spezza and Alfredsson are still there....don't count them out
7-NJD - Marty gets them in the playoffs by himself
8-TB - UNREAL offense.....terrible D and goaltending. Mike Smith? Really?
9-ATL - ILYA
10-BUF - who cares that you can't name 5 guys on the team...they always contend
11-FL - some decent young talent bus losing Olli will hurt
12-BOS - worst GM in the league
13-CAR - Staal can't carry them alone. Ray Whitney is sneaky good though
14-TOR - Oh Mats, oh Mats, where art thou?
15-NYI - Garth motha f'n Snow....nuff said

West
1-Det - Three most underrated players in the world...Pavel, Nik and Henrik
2-SJ - Love the Boyle signing but will letting Rissmiller go be too much to handle?
3-ANA-Nieder is back....just watch him play....it gets me hard
4-DAL - always there
5-CAL- Phaneuf will win Norris
6-PHX-they're sneaky good
7-CHI- I love two crackers with my soup
8-Min- not sure why...but they are always better then I think
9-Nash-best young d-core in the league
10-STL-very good d-men.
11-CLS-Nash keeps them out of the cellar
12-EDM-I just don't think they are good....am I the only one?
13-LAK-Kopitar and his tinted visor....dirty
14-COL-Sakic? Will they bring him back?
15-Van-No Naslund = no leader

Here is the link to Burnside's picks....
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=burnside_scott&id=3504426&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab6pos1

Taking one in the five hole

So I can't help but feel like I'm being screwed by the New York Rangers' owner, James Dolan (tough visual for a Friday afternoon, I know). For some background, a few of the geniuses from this site starting buying Rangers season tickets the year after the lockout. At the time, everyone had the Rangers picked to finish dead last and our tickets were at a very reasonable rate of $36. The Rangers were obviously a big surprise that year and did well. Attendance numbers were also stronger than expected. They then raised our ticket prices up to $40 the next year. Last year, they went up to $46. This year, they went to $52. Though tough to swallow (44% increase over 4 years), we were expecting an increase in that range. I then took a look at the schedule that came out and noticed that it is quite lopsided. Take a look at the breakdown of home and away games by day:

Home Schedule:
8 Mondays
7 Tuesdays
6 Wednesdays
4 Thursdays
2 Fridays
6 Saturdays
8 Sundays

Away Schedule:
4 Mondays
3 Tuesdays
6 Wednesdays
5 Thursdays
7 Fridays
14 Saturdays
2 Sundays

Who wants to go to games on Mondays, Tuesdays, or Wednesdays? I enjoy the social aspect of going to games. That means being able to head out to the game and have a few (dozen) beers without having to worry about work the next day, which is a lot easier to do on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Even for the common (non-alcoholic) fans, I would think that being able to get to the games earlier in the week would also be more difficult because of people's work schedules and real-life commitments.

The Rangers home schedule provides only 4 Thursday games, 2 Friday games and 6 Saturday games and a lot of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday games. 29% of Rangers home games are on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays and 71% occur from Sunday-Wednesday. That seems to me to be extremely lopsided. I would think that is the most lopsided of all NHL teams (someone else look it up...my brain hurts). Now the question is: How much influence do the Rangers have on the schedule? It is clearly beneficial for MSG to schedule Ranger games on the less desirable nights. They sell out every game regardless of what day of the week it is. That saves their more desirable nights (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) for other events, which leads to more revenue. It would also make sense for the league and other teams to want it this way. It lets other teams have more games on the more desirable nights and therefore increases their team revenues. It’s a win-win for the league and MSG.

Despite paying some of the highest prices for tickets in the NHL, the Ranger season ticket holders seem to be the ones who get screwed. Poke me in my five hole.

Now that's taking the term "Lord Stanley" a little too literally

So on Holmstrom's day with the Cup, he let his cousin baptize his daughter in the Stanley Cup. Instead of a Christening, would it be called a Stanleyening?

"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray Lord Stanley my goals so sweet; And, if I die before I wake, I pray Lord Stanley the goalie to deke."

Except from tsn.ca:

PITEA, Sweden - Tomas Holmstrom had his day with the Stanley Cup on Friday, and he let his cousin use it as a baptismal font for a christening. Holmstrom suggested the idea to his cousin, Robert Sundstrom, who baptized his seven-week-old daughter Alva Felicia during a private ceremony outside Holmstrom's hometown of Pitea in northern Sweden. "Tomas came up with the idea when we were sitting in his summer cabin kitchen a week ago," Sundstrom said. "Me and my wife thought it would be fun to christen our daughter in such a priceless object."

The Bruins are a joke and the Sabres are boring

• So the Bruins put Murray on waivers...and no on claimed him. Now they have to buy him out on order to get under the cap. Wait...the Bruins are over the cap? With that lineup? How is that possible?
• In other news that isn't so interesting, the Sabres re-signed Mathieu Darche. Who is Mathieu Darche, you ask? No idea. Don't really care either. I could basically say the same thing about 95% of the Sabres' roster. What a boring team to root for. Even though they consistently put a decent team on the ice, they are so boring. Not sure how anyone can really be a Sabres fan. It's bad enough that the people in Buffalo have to live in Buffalo. If it wasn't for their the Sabres' superb amateur scout Nik Fattey, their TV access to Hockey Night in Canada and the Ballet being in close proximity, they'd have nothing.

NHL news and notes

• So the Bruins put Glen Murray on waivers. I like Murray (I'm a Boston guy), but he is pretty much washed up. Without Thornton, he is not very effective.
• The Bruins also re-signed Dennis Wideman - I like this guy. I think he is a solid puck moving defensemen and the Bs need that. Terms were not disclosed so I can't comment on whether or not I love the signing, but I'm glad to see him back. (Is it just me, or is Dennis not a good hockey name? Neither is Glen for that matter. Maybe that is why the Bruins suck...yet I digress).
• Sundin will make the announcement this week I guess. Who cares? I just hope and pray he doesn't become like his fellow Swede - Peter Forsberg. Look, Forsberg is (was) awesome, I'm just get so tired of the constant "I'm retiring, I'm back, I'm hurt now, I'm back, I'm hurt again someplace new, I'm back, No I'm not back, I'm hurt, I'm back, I might play, I won't play, I'm retiring, No I'm back, I'm hurt, I'm OK. It unfortunately tarnishes a stellar career and everyone, especially me, is tired of it. Just make your decision Sundin.
• What with the ESPYs giving no love at all the hockey or the NHL? The show was great, I thought Justin T was solid and funny. But only 2 vague references to hockey - Nash's sick goal and the Wings as best team. Neither had a chance to win. And the NHL was the only league to not get on area recognition of player of the year. Come on, in this age with Crosby and Ovechkin - the best duo since Wayne/Mario (yes, first name basis), and the NHL gets no love? Good call breaking with ESPN and moving to VS.....
• And speaking of Oveckin - the 5 hockey geniuses who started this blog had a huge debate on "who is the best pure goal scorer of all time". I claimed Ovechkin and got beat down a bit, and supported some. But seriously - you have one guy to put on the ice to score and unassisted goal - who is it? Wayne, Mario, Espo, Rocket Richard, Ovechkin, Bossy, Hull? I would love to hear some other comments - but have no idea how others will see/read this....somebody respond

Sundin

Why is Mats Sundin being offered $10m/year from Vancouver? How desperate are they? The guy is maybe a 30 goal scorer and 80 pts. He has scored 40 only 3 times in his career and the last time was in 2001.

Its almost as bad as the Bruins signing Michael "Healthy Scratch" Ryder for $4m/year.

Purple Helmets in 2009 - you heard it here first.

Budaj