"A better team than the team I formerly played on"

Avery is a dick. That's why I loved him on the Rangers. At the same time he says some things some times just to get a rise out of people. I hate when people do that. Other times he might actually mean it. Either way, he is a dick.

I guess I should give some context for my rant. I just got home from work (yeah...awesome), watched the end of the Mets game (which they lost because partially because David Wright is going senile or can't count or both), and jumped on my laptop to check out youporn..er..I mean cnn.com and then decided to see what happened in the world of hockey during the afternoon. So of course I went to espn.com...oh no wait, this isn't 2003 and ESPN doesn't carry hockey anymore so they have only one guy who is a Juliet Alpha (codeword for Jack Ass) by the name of Burnside writing for them during the summer.

So I went to tsn.ca. And I saw a clip of the Stars welcoming Avery to their squad. After showing that annoying mojito commercial (which leaves Mags dancing in his living room), they only showed one or two minutes and of course Avery had some dickhead thing to say. Something to the effect that he is "obviously" coming to a team that is better that the team he used to be on (the Rangers). First of all, Dick, the Rangers and the Stars had the same number of points in the regular season last year. Second of all, you're a dick. (I really had only one point, but I started off with "first of all" because I thought I'd come up with a second. Turns out I couldn't.)

Okay...so are the Stars better than the Rangers? Maybe. Is it "obvious" that is the case? No. That's why Avery is a dick. I loved the guy on the Rangers but I hope he sucks in Dallas, gets into a big fight with Modano, and sleeps with Morrow's wife and Guy Carbonneau's daughter. Now that might sound like a lot for him to do, but Carbonneau's daughter is Morrow's wife, so he can kill two birds with one stone on that one.

PS: Could Guy be any more French Canadian in that tux? Someone get that guy some poutine.

Crosby, котор нужно сыграть в Россия

What does that title mean, you ask? It means "Crosby to play in Russia" (at least according to on-line translator I used).

Now...that's not a true statement. But what if it was? There is an article on ESPN today (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3520860) stating that LeBron would consider playing in Europe if the price was right...and by right I mean $50M.

The five of us who started this website often argue about this. What if the European leagues become successful in their attempts to snatch up high profile stars from the NHL? With today's salary cap, the max contract a player in the NHL could receive is $11.34M per year.

What if a Russian team offered an NHL star $25M per year? Impossible? Far from it. With the new Russian Super League and Czech teams shelling out big money for washed up players, I think it is closer and closer to becoming a reality. Throw in the weakness of the US dollar and I think it's only a matter of time. What is $25M to us is only €16M to them (feel free to convert to whatever ridiculously-named currency is appropriate).

So what does that mean to the NHL? It could mean big trouble. Fortunately for them, their three biggest stars (Crosby, Ovechkin, and DiPietro) are locked in to contracts through 2013, 2021, and 2022. (Just kidding about DiPietro but had to throw it in there for a laugh...since Garth Snow and the Islanders have given me so many over the years). But what happens in 2013 when (hypothetically) Crosby is on pace to break all of Gretzky's records and he gets an offer for $30M a year for 10 years from Omsk to play side by side with the 84-year old Jaromir Jagr? Crosby...the face of the NHL and the player the NHL has built their "new" NHL around.

What happens then? Does the NHL crumble? Probably not, but it would most likely mark the beginning of the end. What happens next? Does the NHL become desperate and switch to 4 on 4 in an attempt to survive? Mags would wet his pants and petition to become the Commish of the new, new NHL. He'd bring back emails he saved from 2005 stating that the NHL should go 4 on 4 and tell the whole world "I told you so". Stay gold, Mags. Stay gold.

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