This season we're going to be trying a new News & Notes format. Instead of the weekly column (which we all know was actually a "non-column" last season), I'll be doing more of a blog-type column. That is, whenever the mood strikes, be it stats night on Wednesday, the middle of a Canucks-Flames game at midnight, or maybe even a Friday morning before I leave for work, I'll come here and post entries. Sometimes it will be just a paragraph or two, sometimes longer.

I'll make sure I put a date on everything so you can easily tell what's new from what you may have already read. So feel free to come to this page often, or continue checking in once a week as the stats update, to check out and catch up on the latest entries in what I hope to be a season long stream of (un)conciousness.

If anyone else has anything to contribute, I'll be more than happy to post it here, with all credit given to the author of course.

January 31st, 2007

Just some quick hits as we return from the All-Star break...

Let's start off with a great story about one of my trades from last week. I sat down on Friday night and decided that I was going to watch the Islander game on DirectTV Center Ice since I just acquired DiPietro in one of those trades and this would be his first game for me. I sit down, with my drink and my chips hoping to settle in for the next 2 ½ hours watching the $60 Million Dollar Man go to work and lo and behold what happens? In the first five minutes he gives up 3 goals on 5 shots and gets pulled! Geez, could you at least give me a kiss before you you-know-what-me?! Tease me a bit with about 8 saves before the first goal, get me excited! But no! Honestly folks, I thought I was still watching the All Star Game!

So the ratings are in for the All Star Game and what do you know? A grand total of 410,000 viewers (give or take a few family pets stepping on the remote and changing channels) tuned in for the game. Or roughly equivalent to 10,000 viewers per All Star player. Gee, I didn't realize Daniel Briere had so many relatives… Seriously though, this absolutely stinks! This makes the XFL look like Grey's Anatomy! With apologies to Barbaro, I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but this sport needs more exposure and a Wednesday night slot against American Idol (where there were close to 410,000 people trying out for the show mind you) isn't the way to do it! Now let's keep in mind this number didn't include Canadian viewers, so if you add Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and those two guys sitting in the ice fishing shack up in the Maritime Provinces splitting a six-pack of Labatts, the old Philco and the tinfoil we're up to what? Around half a mil give or take a few loonies (as in crazy Canadian hockey fans mind you, not the local currency)? Someone's head absolutely has to roll for this and I'd suggest Gary Bettman's except his head is so square it ain't gonna roll anywhere…

Well if we can't beat a dead horse, well OK, maybe one more time… So how do you think Horshack and Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington are going to feel now that Barbaro's dead? Or maybe, unlike the NHL TV ratings, he'll come back to life in a few days like that Lazarus dude? "Hey Mr. Kotter, sorry I'm late, I'm back from the dead, and I brought a note…" "Dear Mr. Kotter, please excuse Vinny's tardiness, he was watching the NHL All Star Game and fell asleep during The Wreckers 2nd intermission musical performance and never woke up. Signed, Epstein's mortician…" Now let me segue away from this madness by thanking Mr. Don Cardoza for providing the theme, first line and inspiration for this paragraph. If you didn't like it, blame Don, he's a Ranger fan, he can take it…

I see they retired Ken Dryden's number up in Montreal, eh? Great goalie, but unfortunately he's still alive otherwise he could play in next year's All Star Game. Because I hear that The Ghost of Pelle Lindbergh isn't going to be invited back after this year's performance. It wasn't so much the performance itself, after all, a .400 save percentage may not be good for Rick DiPietro but it sure stacks up for a defenseless All Star Game. Rather, it was all those maggots! For you see a few of them got stuck on the Zamboni when they were resurfacing the ice after Pelle's period (don't even go there!) of play and some found their way into the machinery and as they say in Manitoba "they mucked up the works pretty dang good, eh?" Or perhaps they say that in Kentucky? I could be mistaken… So Kenny Dryden, if you should die between now and next year's game, you've got yourself a starting nod! "Bring out your dead. Bring out your dead goalies!" "But I'm not dead yet!" "Sure you are, they retired your number!" "But I'm feeling better"…

January 26th, 2007

Welcome to the American Airlines Arena, home of the Dallas Stars and "five for flying"… Here are my notes taken as I watched the NHL All Star Game, in no real particular order but I've tried to maintain at least some flow to the column. Although I was clutched and grabbed in the middle of the 6th paragraph but no penalty was called… So the announcers say we've got every team represented here tonight, yes even a member of our last place California Golden Showers is on the ice (Kimmo Timonen). But actually that's cool, and good for the fans, everyone has at least someone to root for, although I wonder if they had to do rock-paper-scissors in the Flyers locker room to see who got to go? Nice rendition of the National Anthem but Simon didn't like the Oh Canada, says it was a little off-pitch. Paula and Randy said "yes" though so the lady in the pink dress is moving on to the next round and going to Hollywood! Oh wait, this is American Idol? I must be on the wrong channel. And who's the genius in the Versus and NHL marketing departments who thought it was a good idea to schedule the All Star Game on (a) a Wednesday night and (b) against American Idol? Anyway, on to the notes…

How would you like to be a goalie in this game? Absolutely no defense in front of you. Just odd-man rush after odd-man rush. Slapshots, wrist shots (but thankfully no gun shots). But you might as well be dead! Heck, there's a novel idea to juice up the game, they could just exhume the bodies of deceased but good-while-they-were-alive goalies and prop them up in net. Call it All Star Weekend At Bernie Parent's… Starting in goal for the Eastern Conference, The Ghost of Pelle Lindbergh… "So Pelle, how did it feel to give up 6 goals in the first 4 minutes of the game?" "Well I haven't played in some time so it took me awhile to shake off the maggots but let me tell you, those guys from the West, they killed me, eh? I give up goal, go back to grave, feel much shame"…

So we're back to East versus West now? Last time they played this game, which by the way was back in what was it the 1985-86 season? I mean this game's been postponed more times than a Guns N Roses concert. Olympics, Bird Flu, SARS in Toronto, another Olympics, that lockout thing… Anyway, my point was I thought we were playing North America versus the rest of the World last time so why the switch back to Cold War Era politics of East versus West? Well if we can have a new Rocky movie this year, why not go back to the time of Rocky IV and the old "I must break you"? Hey maybe this is a veiled homage to the late James Brown, who passed away recently and whose singing of "Living In America" was a great scene in that movie? Ah who cares, it's entertaining anyway (the hockey game I mean, I haven't seen the new Rocky movie yet), they could play shirts vs skins and it wouldn't matter.

Actually speaking of shirts, check out these new unis the players are sporting here. Sounds like some really high-tech stuff according to what the announcers are telling us. Matter of fact I hear that they've been scientifically engineered to retain less water, but then again so has Kirstie Allie's new body so what's that worth? The East squad looks like a bunch of Storm Troopers in their white sweaters. Can we still call them sweaters or does one now wear the "C" on his "micro-fiber composite"? I'm having flashbacks to the scene in "Strange Brew" where Bob McKenzie faces down the odd man rush of white plastic clad psychotic Elsinore Brewery employees (come on you know you're reaching for the DVD as you read this!). "No goal, eh! He was in the crease"…

Daniel Briere scores the game's first goal (more on him later) but I've got a serious question here in the "Pronunciation for $400" category, Alex? This Ryan guy from Edmonton is it pronounced "Smith" or "Smyth" (with a long "I")? I know, these are hockey players and they don't really care how their name is pronounced but inquiring minds want to know. I say "Do-nay-to" you say Ted Donato, let's call the whole thing off… Now what's up with this "Rail Cam" thing that keeps flying by along the glass near the bottom of my screen? OK, the camera angle is kind of cool but all I keep thinking every time I see this is "Here Comes Rusty!" and how far am I from that Greyhound Racing Park up in Northeast Connecticut? Is that still there by the way? Can I get a ruling on this?

Got some real great line combinations in this game. They're hyping up the fact that Sid The Kid (and is that a Kansas City Scouts throwback micro-fiber composite he's wearing?) and Alexander Ovechkin are skating together and yes, this is neat having the NHL's future on one line but you know what they should've done here? Found a way to get Corey Stillman in the game, temporarily traded Rick Nash to a team in the Eastern Conference (the Rangers can have him, with no cap hit mind you) and put them both together with Sid on the Crosby, Stillman and Nash line! Come on, stop groaning, you know that's freakin' brilliant! Speaking of young stars, for those of you who missed it the previous night (if you were watching the State of the Union address maybe, more marketing genius from the interns at Versus) the Young Stars game was won by the East by a score of 9 - 8. Zach Parise of the New Jersey Devils was the game's MVP. So if one day you forget everything you ever knew about the 2007 NHL season you can look back on this game and know (yes, wait for it) "you'll always have Parise"!

Those of you who are now done choking after my not so magnifique wordplay and have actually ventured on to this next paragraph, I thank you. Now let's talk about some of the commercials they've been showing. The first one is this Quizno's commerical for the Ultimate Italian sub? Hey wait, get me someone from The Commish's Office legal department on the phone we've got trademark infringement! I thought our Wang Whacking owner Fabrizio Sparacino was The Ultimate Italian?! Or does this depend on whether he's from Sicily or Naples? And where's this sandwich from then; because we might have to consider this "soul food", no? Never mind we don't want to start that again do we (Kev, Fab please return to your neutral corners)… The other commercial I found amusing was the one where Ovechkin is trying to fish out a bag of Lay's chips that have gotten stuck in the vending machine. He enlists the help of Capitals owner Ted Leonsis who gets his hand stuck up in the machine while trying to help. Yes, I guess you could call this one "Trying to get Lays". Then later on, in a live on-ice interview by the sideline reporter type person, Ovechkin is actually handed a bag of chips. Which he then proceeds to break open, eat and pass around the bench! Hey everyone carb load for the next power play…

Actually you know what we need next season? An All Mascots game! Everytime they cut to a low shot of the ice they wind up showing some team's mascot jumping up and down amongst the fans in the lower bowl near the glass. I really like the Blue Jackets insect looking dude. Reminds me of my youth and that "Bugaloos" show from Sid and Marty Kroft (the same folks who brought you "H.R. Puf'n'stuf)… So I think I just heard that Yanic Perreault is leading the NHL in face off percentage? That's a good stat but Yanic should feel lucky that Hannibal Lecter is not in the NHL. Because if you want a guy that's good at "face offs", he's definitely your man! Now pardon me while I take a snack break of fava beans and a sip of my chianti… So who won the Zamboni Demolition Derby event in the Skills Competition on Tuesday night? I heard a rumor it was Pinky Tuscadero but I thought she was out with an "upper body injury". And what better place for a Fonzie reference, eh? Just about the same time this column is about to "jump the shark"…

Funny you should mention sharks? As in the kind from San Jose… Another great line combination we've got going here, this time for the West, is a trio of San Jose Sharks forwards. Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Jonathon Cheechoo are all skating together and have at least 12 shots on goal combined at this point. Poor goalie, it's like being trapped in a Jimmy Buffett song, he's got fins to the left, fins to the right… Did I mention that they've got two goalies miked in this game? Yep, Martin Brodeur and Marty Turco are, going all Henry Hill in Goodfellas and wearing wires. If we listen closely I think we can hear Brodeur hitting on some hot Texas babe sitting near the bench. Man, this is not a good idea Marty, you're on national TV and your sister-in-law is going to be pissed! Oh wait, that's right you're safe, she's probably watching American Idol…

Ok, I need some help here. They just mentioned that someone has been elected to the Saskatchewan Hall of Fame and I didn't catch the name. No I don't think it was Pete Rose or Mark McGwire. Seriously though, this exists? Yep, just Googled it, it's for real. The "Saskatchewan Hall of Fame is located in Regina". So naturally, I have to ask this question. What else is located in Regina? Perhaps our very own Ultimate Italian dated a girl with this name once? But any self respecting Canadian (or even Ronnie D of the Phantoms) knows that the girls' name and the city are not exactly pronounced the same way, eh? Ok, I'm leaving this thought before someone comes up with a "rhymes with Regina" list… Switching topics quickly, another line of note, the East now, with apologies to Gilbert Perreault (no realtion to Yanic), has put together a "French Connection" line of Martin St. Louis ("looey, looey, looey, lou-eye"), Simon Gagne (his rock dulled Mike Knuble's scissors in the finals) and Vincent "Maurice" LeCavalier. They've also got Zdeno Chara out there with them too (he played Lurch on The Addams Family right?), and Zdeno's like a whole foot taller than St. Louis so that must look real weird on an HD TV. "Do not adjust your television…"

At the end of each period they've got these celebrity interviews going on and during the first intermission it's none other than Chuck Norris! Yes! Walker New York Ranger was my favorite TV show in college. Anyway, Chuck's promoting this new ultimate fighting show which will be aired on Versus, all right give a point back to the marketing department. It's called the World Combat League, and will have teams of ultimate fighters (not those wrestling wussies), both male and female, face off against each other in matches each week. All I have to say to this is "very nice!" and maybe there's something for the NHL goons to do after all? During the 2nd intermission we get a glimpse of pro wrestling wussie, er, oops, make that WWE tag team champion, Edge. (Not to be confused with the guitarist from U2 who is actually "The" Edge). Edge-without-the-the says he's a huge hockey fan and is at the game in the stands as a casual observer of sorts. He says his "boy" is Martin Brodeur (Kev, we need to get some Edge t-shirts!) and that if he had to pick a tag-team partner from amongst the NHL players, he'd want Zdeno Chara watching his back. Nice choice, but remember those back-in-day matches where Andre The Giant would wrestle like 5 midgets at a time? Yes, I won't even mention his name but I bet there's a defamation of character lawsuit on my desk in the morning from St. Louis (and we ain't talking about the city here folks)…

I didn't know there was going to be live music at this game? Well guess what? There is. In between periods we get treated to a live band playing a song. Well "treated" is a relative term I guess as the first intermission features something called Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. Anyone got anything here because I'm clueless? So I figure, it's a break, I fire up iTunes on my laptop and what do you know, this is an actual popular band. The song's not half bad, I forget the name of it, but they remind of that band Candlebox that had that song "You" back in the 1993-94 season. So if that grunge sound is for you, check out Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. Or if you want a second opinion, perhaps Win, Lose or Tyler Burnham, who is like at least half the age of all of us, can help us out here with a music review? Or throw us an illegally download MP3 hoping to teach us old dog some new tricks… The next break brings us a more Dallas like sound as the country band "The Wreckers" plays a catch little ditty titled "My Oh My". I swear I caught the lyrics "My oh my, that stick is way too high" (but I could be mistaken). This band is made up of Michelle Branch, who had a more recent hit in 2002 when she teamed with Santana in the song "The Game Of Love", and some girl who looks like the actress who played Buffy The Vampire Slayer's sister. Needless to say I didn't stick around for the post-game entertainment. I'm getting old! What ever happened to A Flock Of Seagulls and who's singing for Van Halen these days…

The 3rd period starts with a new set of goalies, Cristobal Huet (that's pronounced "hoo-aye" as in "Lewis and the News") for the East and a miked-up Marty Turco for the West. Marty's kind of psyched to be playing in front of the home crowd and talks to the guys in the booth almost the entire period, even while play is going on! At one point Turco makes a glove save on Ovechkin and we here him proclaim "that hurt!". Later on he allows a goal on a slap shot from the blue line by Sheldon Souray and he tells the announcing team "seriously, I never even saw the puck". Good stuff, so I say we call things even with the marketing departments of NHL & Versus, forget about the whole American Idol scheduling thing and just start fresh on Friday night when league play resumes OK. Other third period highlights include some nice shots by Jay Bouwmeester, which allows me to hum "take these broken left wings" and get in a Mr. Mister 80's pop music reference (Take that you silly Red Jumpsuit Guys! Be gone or I shall taunt you a second time!) and some fancy wordplay from the booth as Rick Nash beat Cristobal Huet for his 2nd goal of the game and someone proclaimed that there "was no chance for the guy from France" to make the save. I like that!…

At one point the camera showed a bunch of soldiers who had just returned from Iraq posing with the Stanley Cup. Now according to stories the Cup has traveled everywhere but I bet it's never been to Iraq has it? I say we send Jacques Lemaire overseas to bring the Stanley Cup to the troops in Baghdad and who knows, while he's there he may dream up a new defensive scheme. Green Zone Trap, anyone? It's heavily fortified… Finally, with time running out the East squad pulled their goalie, allowing Calgary's Dion Phaneuf to go all "Minnesota Fats" and score the best goal of the game. Phaneuf cleared the puck from behind the net and the puck traveled all along the boards without being touched then took a crazy "uh-oh, looks like we've got Grandma on the Ouija board" like turn at the red line and curved straight into the empty net on the other side of the ice. Nice shot! Next year, I hear we're going to introduce a new skills competition called Phaneufing. Think of it as a cross between snooker and curling…

Did I say finally? Well almost. Final score, West 12, East 9. If you had the West giving 2 and a half and over 19 in the teaser, you're a winner. Present your ticket to Neil from Hell Froze Over on the way out… The MVP award goes to someone on the losing team, Daniel Briere, who led all scorers with 5 points (1g, 4a) and who cares if he's from the losing team, this game isn't about winning anyway is it? But should we consider what kind of message we're sending to the young guys? Lose a game but win a truck? Hey someone close Crosby's eyes, will ya? So anyway, Briere is being interviewed and this guy doesn't even know he'd won a new Dodge Nitro! See, that's the difference between the NHL and the NBA. The NHL guy is saying "hey they gave me keys, is this mine?" (seriously that was his reaction), but the NBA guy would already be having the car waxed, detailed and driven out of the arena by his posse before the interview was over while getting in a plug for "Pimp My Ride"… Anyways, last question I have to pose here is what would've happened if Dany Heatly had won the MVP award, and thus the truck? You think anyone would be asking for a ride home? Would Gary Bettman be advocating public transportation? Or worst case, maybe we'd see a return of the blue Rock'em Sock'em robot from that Dodge commercial? Funny thing here is after I write this down in my notes, they actually show a highlight of Heatley winning the MVP in 2003. He had four goals in the game and I really don't have any idea what happened to that car!

Good night everyone, thanks for staying with my this long, hope you enjoyed the trip through the All Star Game even if you were all watching American Idol at the time. Come on admit it! And don't try to blame this one on your wife, "but I really wanted to watch the game", yeah right. Just sing me a chorus of "Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye" so we can end this thing… Good luck to everyone in the 2nd half of the season…

January 17th, 2007

Happy New Year everyone! Only took me something like two and a half weeks to get the first entry of 2007 in the books here… Sorry 'bout that, with football season ending and the annual "year end festivities" I have to go through being a data guy at work I've been a little time crunched of late and haven't been able to deliver on those "new column coming soon" promises of late. So "two minutes for procrastinating for me", and a double minor for lieing through my teeth and let's catch up on what we've been missing…

First off, I'm still trying to figure out this whole Pittsburgh Penguins situation. I mean, I understand the basics. It's more or less, no new stadium, Kansas City here we come, but why exactly can't they get a replacement for The Igloo? Something about casino licenses and money being thrown their way by The Isle of Capri? OK, here's where I get lost. What exactly is this Isle of Capri? Because to me this sounds like a big tropical paradise where everyone walks around in three-quarter length khaki pants and sip fruity fruit and umbrella-topped drinks! Actually, now that I think about it some more, kind of sounds like the next Old Navy commercial doesn't it? So are the Penguins getting some kind of payola from Old Navy to promote capri pants? And maybe The Gap has blocked the move with some kind of behind-the-scenes corporate political espionage? Because if that's what's really going on here, I have to tell you, I'd much rather see Malkin or Crosby walking down the streets of K.C. sporting a nice pair of cargo pants instead. Or if I have to stretch the visual, maybe, just maybe, we can bring back those parachute pants from back in the day when the Penguins were actually Cup contenders… Anyway, hope that clears things up on the Penguins options. Oh and one more thing, this Isle of Capri? Are they in anyway related to the Archipelago of Capri Sun? Because I've been there. Quite nice actually despite just being a bunch of small land masses wrapped up in silver bags with straws sticking out of them…

So I'm watching ESPNews the other night and you know how on the crawl at the bottom they like to show you the winning and losing goalies to the right of each NHL score as they appear? Well it's Tampa Bay 3, Buffalo 2 the other night and right next to the score I see this:

W - Denis