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Hockey Season 2012
September 14, 2011 - 4:48am
XX
Not long before the next winter (fall and spring) marathon session begins, so might as well open another.
Winnipeg is back in the big league (though still stuck in the Eastern conference for some dumb reason) and Victoria BC has a major junior franchise again and St John's NFL has an AHL team again, and Vancouver is once again leading the charge to bring Stanley back to its rightful place.
But first some sad news that hasn't gotten any notice here yet:
"Russian plane crash kills Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/07/russia-plane-crash-lokomotiv...
"Tragedy-hit Lokomotiv pulls out of top league"
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iC_oLHr3BxEe0HYh5ikyFA...
Quite a loss, thankfully rare, including a number of well known names like ex-Flames and Flyer star Brad McCrimmon and ex-Blues star Pavol Demitra, among many others. Too many.
A civil case pitting former NHL player Steve Moore against Todd Bertuzzi and the Vancouver Canucks could finally see the inside of a courtroom late next year.
The target date for the Ontario Superior Court trial to begin if necessary is Sept. 24, 2012 if Bertuzzi is still an active player, and Oct. 22 if he's not, according to court documents viewed by CBC.
Court-ordered mediation between the sides has failed to lead to a settlement.
Moore, now 33, has never played again since getting hit from behind in a March 8, 2004 game by Bertuzzi, who was on the Canucks. Moore was in his first full season with the Colorado Avalanche.
Bertuzzi, now 36, is entering his 16th NHL season.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/story/2011/09/14/sp-bertuzzi-moore.html#ixzz1Y1hdS41X
Don Cherry blasts former tough guys for opposing fightingIt's time for Cherry to hang up the skates. Nilan responded on twitter today saying that he nevver said the things Cherry attributed to him, that he deserves and apology from HNIC and Cherry, and that those who can't play, coach. Hey-o.
Shanahan should suspend Cherry for 10 games.
Time to bring a new ex-coach in for Coach's Corner.
ETA: On both CBC and on TSN's facebook page, the comments tend to be running against Cherry at a rate of at least 4 to 1.
Apparently Stu grim reaper Grimson is a family man now with a law degree. And apparently some of his fights with tough guy Domi were not the grudge matches they appeared to be. New Grimson must be a real disappointment as far Cherry is concerned.
I live in winnipeg, and i can say that i've never been so pumped for the season to start since i was 15 years old. The positive energy during the pre season games was unbelievable, people are seriously losing their minds (and their voices from cheering so loud!) over the jets being back, myself included.
luckily i was able to split season tickets with some friends so i will be able to be there in person for at least the next four years to go ape shit cheering for the little team that could. The only thing that scares me is a possible repeat of the years that saw the jets lose in the first round of the playoffs to the eventual stanley cup champs year after year with edmonton rebuilding a helluva team...
i don't know what it is, i hate the military shit, i hate corporate hockey, but i can't help but love the jets. it's hard to explain unless you're from winnipeg i guess.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/cbc-rides-shotgun-on-don-cherrys-stagecoach/article2195220/
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/story/2011/10/11/sp-hnic-cherry.html
Cherry has been getting worse in his old age. I can't remember the last time i seen him even smile or not be a rampaging fool, swatting mclean's hands out of the way, voice cracking, messing up almost every players name, freaking out about every military death and not giving a shit about the people we're killing, etc.
They should ditch don and let mclean do the show with another ex-coach.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwsAruHCHHw
Sidney Crosby appears to have cleared a hurdle in his recovery from a concussion, with the Pittsburgh Penguins announcing through their Twitter feed Thursday that the captain is wearing a black helmet along with his teammates at practice.
"I'm cleared for full contact. It's a good step in the right direction," Crosby said after practice. "We'll see how it goes for the next little bit."
Crosby had been wearing a white helmet since training camp as he took part in non-contact drills with teammates.
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/story/2011/10/13/sp-crosby-status.html
Does anyone else miss Howie Meeker?
Golly gee whiz, sure.
Winnepeg is in the East because there wasn't time to re do the schedule. Next year, they will be in the west, and some team-- and I really hope it is Detroit, will move over to the east.
I like the Leafs so far, but that third period last saturday was a little disconcerting. Adding Lombardi should bring up the penalty killing average to, well, at least average. And there seems to be a power play now. If that comes up to average too, then we're playoffs bound.
A 15-year-old hockey player in Manitoba was forced to parade around the dressing room with water bottles tied to his genitals, the teen's parents alleged Wednesday in an effort to end hazing rituals in minor hockey.
The parents described their son's hazing experience in a CBC News interview on Wednesday, a day after the Manitoba Junior Hockey League suspended the Neepawa Natives' coaches and 16 players for hazing incidents involving five team members.
The team was also slapped with a $5,000 fine, the largest fine the league has ever issued, according to its commissioner.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2011/10/26/mb-neepawa-hockey-hazing.html
The victim has missed more games than the perpetrators.
Yes. I always trusted his opinion of the game. He didn't dwell on the side shows and feuds, like Cherry does so often. With Meeker it was plays, plays and more plays. He was good at ordering up video on the fly and illustrating the set plays and clever opportunism of dishmeisters and their complementary snipers when artfully undressing the D and handcuffing goaltenders for a finale. I think that as far as Meeker is concerned, there are no other aspects of the game worth discussing.
The Manitoba Junior Hockey League is reopening its probe into a hazing incident involving the Neepawa Natives after several players recanted earlier evidence.
The league has also indefinitely suspended Natives assistant coach Brad Biggers, who was previously suspended for five games in connection with the hazing that took place the week of Sept. 26.
The hazing incident involved tying water bottles to the genitals of rookie players.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2011/10/28/mb-hockey-hasing...for me the bigger question is why the hell is it okay that the team is called the neepawa natives and using the chicago blackhawks logo? I don't know anything about the team, but i'm assuming they're not primarily FN people.
Hazing in all places comes into the public forum from time to time because the nature of it is for one cohort to ramp up what happened to them when it comes their turn to do it to someone else. That happens in school initiations, sports hazing, and as we saw, in the military.
Proponents say it creates unit cohesiveness. I think that's complete horeshit and always has been horseshit. You create unit cohesiveness by everyone doing their best at the job, and creating mutual respect through recognition of those accomplishments.
Hazing is about being able to humiliate another person and I don't think that creates any kind of comraderie or cohesiveness in a group.
Quite the contrary.
I hope those responsible find themselves in a lot of difficulty.
Former junior hockey coach and convicted sex offender Graham James has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two of the players he coached in the 1980s and early '90s, including former NHL star Theoren Fleury.
James entered the guilty pleas in a Winnipeg courtroom on Wednesday afternoon. He and his lawyer appeared in court via video link from Montreal, where James currently lives.
James will be sentenced in Winnipeg on Feb. 22, 2012, the CBC's Marisa Dragani reported from the courtroom.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2011/12/07/mb-graham-james-...
Hockey Hugs
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/analyst+Milbury+charged+with+assault/5872288/story.html
Milbury should know better than to put his hands on a kid. Very dumb.
And this kid from Buffalo playing for the Hawks - who does he think he is? Anyway?
Well I for one appreciate Brendan Shanahan's video updates informing us hockey fans of the reasons for player suspensions. They are brief and to the point and amount to so much,
Yep, it was an illegal hit to the head alright. And Elbows Magoon will receive a stiff fine of a few hundred bucks and a full week off from gladiator duties!
One stern word from the league and an easy week off, and they are right back out there to do it again.
What about Jordin Tootoo getting suspended for the Lucic hit on Miller? That's what it amounted to. Tootoo tried to avoid Miller, Lucic didn't. None of it makes sense.
I thought Shanahan was a standup guy, but obviously his attempt to level big suspensions at the start of the season had General Managers and or owners on the phone to him, and then he lightened up.
And every suspension seems to have a unique set of rules created for it, so players can be suspended or not suspended based on who they play for or what box office draw they are.
This whole idea of basing suspensions on "intent" is wrong. Did you hit the guy illegally or not? Whether you intended to or not shouldn't enter into it. You can't climb inside a players mind to make that kind of determination, hence the gross inconsistencies.
I know. And I get the feeling that they are trying to encourage players to be more careful. Pacioretty's hit to the head on Letang was a good example. In Pacioretty's opinion, a puck carrier should not be allowed free reign to skate unimpeded into the high slot like Letang did without suffering some consequences. It's as if he felt he did nothing wrong, but then qualified it with saying he understands that hits to the head have to be curbed. Letang suffered a broken nose and probably rattled his brain as a result. I was almost glad for him that he came back on and scored the winning goal.
Fighting in hockey should be stopped because it leads to head trauma that causes progressive brain damage, says an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2011/12/19/head-hits-hockey-ban.htmlthe origins of of hockey violence?
Adam Gopnick, a fellow McGill '80 grad, elaborates on a current thesis regarding its origin as ethnic rivalries in Montreal:
http://publications.mcgill.ca/mcgillnews/2011/12/08/how-montreal-perfected-hockey/
In one way we expect sports to mirror the social arrangement of their society. But sports are a hammer as much as a mirror, breaking social conventions as they invent them. Baseball was shaped by 19th-century Irish and German immigrants to the United States, who gave the game its character, but it later acted as a conduit for Jews and Italians, who entered the game to take on Americanness. Sports preserve the pressures of the era that they're made in, but they alter some of them too. Hockey reflected the social order of late-19th century Montreal, but it disturbed that order too, in healthy and invigorating ways.
For there was a kind of free-valence atomic shell at play in Montreal life at that time. Between the pious French and the prosperous English stood the Irish, who occupied two positions at once, in a way that would prove potent for the making of the winter game. As English-speakers they were in one way aligned with the anglo elite. But they were also Roman Catholics, and that meant they were educated with (and sometimes married to and buried alongside) the French. To be Irish was to have a kind of double identity. On the one hand you belonged to the English-speaking minority and on the other hand you despised your masters in the English-speaking minority; you were a fellow worshipper with the French-speaking majority but at the same time you were reluctant to identify with the French underclass.
When you played hockey, you wanted to beat the Brits at McGill . . . but the way to do it might be to look for help from the francophones across the hall. And so the Irish played a central role, in some ways the central role, in the invention of ice hockey.
Tim Thomas skips visit to White House
LOL