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.

March 28th, 2007

For those of you who aren't happy with the way your fantasy hockey season has turned out, check out the link below to help you blow off a little steam...

Be sure to check out the Multimedia/Video section where you can cue up and view the league's most recent pugilistic activity including any fisticuffs that just happened the night before! You can also click on a players name and get a list of every opponent that player has ever fought, including some blow-by-blow action details. There's a whole lot more there, so click on the link and explore the wonder that is hockeyfights-dot-com. All I can say is it's "Very Nice!"...

March 10th, 2007

Oh ye of little faith… So it looks like the "will he ever write another column" poll is tilting heavily in favor of "no he won't" but guess what? I'm here and I'm writing and boy do we have a lot of bloody catching up to do…

Did I just say "bloody" in the Queen's English? Well silly little bugger I think I did! Why am I speaking like such a wanker you ask? Well, it's because I just learned that the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings will be opening the 2007-08 NHL season with a game in of all places; London, England! This is great news for the NHL going European and all. And it's even good news for the fans of this rivalry in Southern California. After all, I have to think it's going to take a shorter period of time to hop a flight "across the pond" out of LAX and into Heathrow then it would be to drive from L.A. to "The Pond" in Anaheim fighting traffic all the way…

Details are still sketchy but I wonder if there would be any rules changes for this game to do it being in a different country and all? I mean, the gun laws are real strict in England aren't they? So I guess that means no shootout then if the game is tied? So what to do then? Well we already know the soccer fans in this country have no issues with tie games but a score of Ducks nil, Kings nil just isn't going to cut it back in the States so I propose we have a "standout" instead of a "shootout". Am I daft you ask? What in bloody hell is a "standoff"? Well allow me to explain…

You know Buckingham Palace, where the Queen lives; or is that Helen Mirren? Anyway, the guards that patrol outside they are famous for just standing there at attention and not moving a muscle despite having folks stare at them and taunt them for wearing silly uniforms. So… To break this tie, each team selects three skaters, who then proceed to their respective blue lines. Once everyone's queued up they all put on those big fuzzy hats that make them look like they just left a meeting of the Grand Pubah Lounge in Bedrock with Fred and Barney, then they hold their sticks at "ready attention" and try their best not to flinch. Each team also selects one player who's allowed to taunt the opposing players trying to make them flinch ("…be gone you silly English pig dogs! Your father was a hamster and your mother smelled of elderberries!…"). If a player moves, he's out and the team with the last player standing wins the "stand off"! Quite simple, isn't it? And given the state of British Television these days a whole lot more entertaining then sitting at home watching Dr. Who re-runs on the telly…

So cheers to the NHL and that good bloke Bettman for bringing the game to The Old Bailey. Wind up that curved blade and bend it like Beckham I say! Oh a few more things that might make this game more amenable to the common folk? First we've got to change these teams name from the Ducks and Kings to the Terns (a rare sea bird indigenous to England) and the Queens. And finally, the goalies for each team must leave their usual headgear on the bench and for this game wear the Guy Fawkes style mask made so popular by the main character of that movie "V for Vendetta"…

I leave this topic now with a high ho "cheerio"! I'm real excited for the game, aren't you? What's the matter? Aren't you feeling Randy (Cunneyworth)"? Well either perk up or go take a flying shag off of Big Ben (Clymer). Better get ready because as Paul Revere once said "The British Are Coming, The British Are Coming (and it's an odd man rush!)…

Ah, so let's move back across the Atlantic and go over all the goings-on at the NHL trade deadline, shall we? First off congratulations to the New York Islanders who went out and got that Smyth person in a trade from Edmonton. Man, I didn't know that Patty Smyth was Canadian? She was one of my favorite singers in the 80s when she was the frontwoman for Scandal ("I am the warrior, and victory is mi-eye-eye-eye-mine"). So looks like "Love Has Got A Third Line On You" Mr. GM of the Islanders Garth Snow. Nice trade, now make sure you sign her to a multi-CD deal lest she go back to Clive Davis…

Sean Avery was traded before the deadline from the Los Angeles Queens (oops Kings, they're not in London yet!) to the New York Rangers in a multi-player deal in which the key minor leaguer coming back to L.A. was a guy named Marc-Andre Cliché. Now as most of you know a "cliché" (pronounced "cliss-shay" not "cleesh") is defined as "a phrase, expression, or idea that has become overly familiar or commonplace and has lost it's original meaning". Still not sure of what this definition means? Well how about I use an example. "Rangers Playoff Hockey". No wait, that's not a cliché, that's an oxymoron, sorry. You know, oxymoron, opposite words that aren't supposed to go together in a phrase. Like "jumbo shrimp", "living dead", and "virtual reality". About that cliché example? Well let me just say I hope Avery does "bring his A game" to the Rangers, "always gives 110%" and "takes it one game at a time" as he tries to get New York into the playoffs and prevent his new team from looking like a bunch of oxymorons…

Peter Forsberg goes from the cellar in Philadelphia to the penthouse in Nashville. Now what's a Swede to go in the land of the Grand Ole Opry? It's not they're still making "Hee Haw" are they? Well anyway, here's to hoping this Forsberg deal leads to a championship for the Predators, this way we can get some good country music out of all of this. Can you see the song titles now? "My Baby Got The Stanley Cup And All I Got Is The Yellow Ice", "Swede Home Alabama", and my favorite possibility, a remake of the Charlie Daniels hit "The Devils Went Down In Nashville"…

Speaking of the Devils did you see the rare sighting the other day? No, I'm not talking about the lunar eclipse, I'm telling you I saw Devils backup goalie Scott Clemmensen play a whole game the other night! Yep, Clemmensen's spent a grand total of 209 minutes in the crease this season (which would be like one movie's worth of "crease time" for Ron Jeremy) and as a result has been placed on the All Star ballot for next season in the "dead goalie" category. You all remember my movement to have dead goalies play in the All Star game don't you? (If not, read back a few posts ago and soak it up)

Now Scott's going to have to fight off The Ghost of Gump Worsley, the great goalie for Les Habs who died last month, for Eastern Conference starting honors but I think we've got a dead lock (no pun intended) for who we can have start for the West. Why none other than Anna Nichole Smith! She's dead (and hopefully actually buried by now), spent lots of time out west (at the Playboy Mansion in L.A.) and has a great set of pads so why not? Plus we know that by having her in goal, there won't be too many penalties because it's pretty obvious she's used to having her crease crashed isn't she? I mean after all, they never did actually figure out who put the biscuit in her basket did they?…

And while we're on the subject of "dead" have you seen some of these TV ratings numbers lately? I read somewhere where a grand total of 736 people tuned in to MSG for the January 27th Devils-Panthers game. 736 !? How could that be? If every player on the ice asks his 20 closest friends and family members to watch we'd be at 800. 736?! Ok, so let's assume this number is correct. How many watched the commercials? I'm guessing maybe 37 plus the family pets? What kind of advertising can you sell here? Ah yes, pet food, that's right! "Now Sparky, Daddy's going in the garage to do some work on the car, just sit here like a good puppy and bark if Sergei Brylin puts the biscuit in the basket. Er? No, I didn't say dog biscuit! Sparky, get back here the game's on…"

736! Well at least it wasn't 23. Have you seen this movie yet? "The Number 23" with Jim Carrey? I was wondering what Jim Carrey's been doing since stealing the Vezina from Martin Brodeur back in 1996 then wallowing around the league in mediocrity for 6 years thereafter (yes, as one of the remaining 736 Devils fans, I'm still bitter about that, can you tell?). Anyway, it's not the number 23 I'm here to talk about, it's the number 22. On Valentine's Day, Martin Havlat's stats looked like this: 22 goals, 22 assists, + 22 plus/minus and 22 penalty minutes! And if that wasn't enough his average Time On Ice stood at, yep you guessed it, 22 minutes (and 3 seconds). Still not convinced we're in Rod Langway Sterling territory here? Well would it help if I mentioned he had also missed 22 games with an injury? Doo-doo doo-doo, blue line up ahead, next stop, the red-light zone…

How does one say "iron man" in Latvian? Well however you say it, it's what Avalanche defenseman Karlis Skrastins has become. For those of you about to take the SATs, Karlis Skrastins (say that three times fast!) is to NHL defensemen as Cal Ripken is to Major League Baseball players. The Latvian Ripken played in 495 consecutive games (about 6-plus seasons worth) on defense before a recent knee injury ended his streak a few weeks ago. Also during that streak Karlis played 80+ games for his home country Latvia in international and Olympic play. He broke the record previously held by Tim Horton, who while being a good hockey player in his own right is actually more famous for opening up a string of coffee and donut shops north of the border, a chain which is known as Tim Horton's and is basically the Dunkin' Donuts of Canada. So if you're scoring at home that's America runs on Dunkin' Donuts, Canada skates on Tim Hortons' and Lativa depends on Karlis Skrastins…

I see that Sidney Crosby is the youngest player to 200 points? Now that's nice but if he'd only eaten the yellow power pellet a few seconds sooner he would've headed Blinky off at the lower curve. He could've then caught Winky at the next intersection, sailed in to take the cherry for an extra 100 and been on his way to a thousand by now instead of just 200. Man, will someone teach these young kids how to play Pac-Man already! Basic arcade fundamentals are just so lost on today's youth spawned on Xboxes and PlayStations. Anyways, let me hurry up and finish this column, I have to take a Wii…

Finally, I'll leave you with a little poem in which I reveal the results of Boston's favorite early February collegiate hockey tournament…

I'm a little Beanpot, short and stout