Friday night.  Everyone’s gone to bed early.  Time for some West Coast hockey.

First, have to clear a few things off the docket.  Speaking of the West Coast, saw a piece on the Globe and Mail website earlier tonight saying that the Olympic Village, at the upcoming 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, is now expected to be paid for by Vancouver taxpayers, and that bill appears to be for $875 million.

Why in the world would anyone want the Olympics in their backyard?  The charlatans that put on the fancy song-and-dance to woo the Lords of the Rings to their city always (ALWAYS!) promise that the taxpayer will not be left holding the bag, ahh, the bill, ahh, the bills.

Of course, these suits never have to put up their own money.  Typical self-serving swine.  Hardcore capitalists when it comes to their nest egg; publicly-minded socialists when it comes to dipping into the public purse.  Hey, much like the Big Three in Detroit.

Any reasonable opposition to the Games is always attacked as being small-minded, and accused of not thinking of legacy and of dreams and all that other pseudo-romantic crap.  Bread-and-circuses has long wooed public support, trouncing smaller, less glamorous approaches to everyday life.  Who cares about stuff such as classroom ratios, and libraries, and after school programs, and outdoor rinks, and so on and so and so on.  We’d rather have the fancy monorail in our town.  Bribe us with our own money!

No doubt we’ll all enjoy the hockey at the 2010 Winter Olympics.  And just wait until, say, Canada wins the Gold Medal in hockey.  Some well paid TV sports guy will be blubbering on-air about how this is such a special moment for the country, and how one can’t put a price tag on something like this.

Yes I can. Apparently at least $875 million.  For starters.

I’m going to be a NIMBY on this one.  The Olympics? Not In My Back Yard.  Ever. 

Yet some city, could be Chicago, will always bend over backwards for the right to be fleeced.  The robbery continues because we allow it to.

Moving on while we still can afford to, one of my favourite things to do is to peruse the comments sections in sports/hockey sites such as Kukla’s Korner, TSN, and various newspapers.  Someone on TSN today, speaking about the three game suspension Mikhail Grabovski received on Friday for his grappling with a linesman during Thursday night’s game in Montreal, suggested that the Leaf should have instead bit the official, since it’s been established that you only get two games for that infraction in the NHL. 

Well said.

Third point, the rumours about Vincent Lecavalier being moved out of money-challenged Tampa Bay.  Well, predictably, they were roundly shot down by the Lightning and their minions.  My experience has been that most hockey rumours possess a shred of truth; rarely is a rumour floated by respected media members that is, well, completely off.  It happens, but rarely.

No doubt some bright lights reading this will quibble with the term respected media members, but like-it-or-not, the likes of Mike Brophy and, concerning past rumours, Al Strachan, are respected, and well connected.  You at your computer are not.  Come to think of it, neither am I.  So I let folks like Brophy do the heavy lifting.

Does this mean Number Four is on the market?  Probably not the Lightning’s first choice, but come on, do you believe anything coming out of Tampa these days???  If you do, I’ve got some swamp land in Vancouver for you.  Might be a good spot to put on the Olympics.

Speaking of the Dolts, Steve Stamkos was kept out of Friday night’s game against the Anaheim Ducks, purportedly in an effort to get the 18-year-old future wunderkind to work on his strength and conditioning.  He will not sit out consecutive games.

Fair enough.  This kid will be a very good hockey player in the near future; but this is today, not tomorrow…even when you read this tomorrow.  Where was I???

Oh yeah, back in Fairytale Land, aka the Tampa Barrie Lightning.  Stamkos was a key component in their marketing this year.  He should have carefully been brought along by the team, not rushed into the league.  He’s 18 years old.  If anything, Stamkos would have benefited from playing in the recent World Junior’s in Ottawa, not toiling for a lousy pro team with no hope this season.  Maybe, just maybe, Barry Melrose wasn’t all that off-the-mark.

Finally, is the All-Star Game over yet?

- Mick Kern

It must be January, ’cause there’s a ton of hockey to argue about.

First off, for a hockey fan, the World Juniors are almost always a treat to watch.  The Americans and Canadians delivered a game-for-the-ages on New Year’s Eve.  Many were anticipating a rematch in the Championship Game. 

Not gonna happen, thanks to Slovakia and their red-hot goaltender.  But that’s hockey, particularly in a one-game elimination situation.  Here in North America, we have generally been schooled to approach a playoff series as a best-of-seven cage match.   The refreshing beauty of the World Juniors is that on any given day, any dog can rise up and bite the postman.

Why then, are most of the hockey intelligentsia on television calling for the U.S. Hockey program to take a long look at itself and right its ship?  Did I miss something (very possible)?  Is this one loss a telling snapshot of the greater picture?  Or is everyone over-reacting to a hockey loss, which I was sure was a knee-jerk reaction patented by Canadians?

Secondly, the very thought of actually giving a hoot about an All-Star Game runs counter to every logical thought in my head.  Still, that’s what couch musings are about, so allow me to briefly wade into this Montreal-made morass.

The starting lineups for the NHL All-Star Game, as decided by “The Fans”, were officially released on Saturday afternoon.  As expected, as feared, members of the Montreal Canadiens dominated the Eastern All-Stars.  The party-minded Habs swiped four of the six spots, with arguably only one of those players (Andrei Markov) deserving of that honour.  Lord knows Alexei Kovalev has played so poorly, he shouldn’t even be allowed to watch the game on TV.

Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby managed to crack the All-Habs All-Star Team, so someone somewhere successfully stuffed the ballot box to counter the previous ballot box stuffing that went on throughout Canada, particularly in the province of Quebec.  Rumour has it that two Habs were also voted on to the starting lineup for the Western Conference, but the league quickly covered it up.

Really though, WHO CARES?  It’s the frickin’ All-Star Game.  A lackadaisical, snooze-fest of subpar shinny that best serves as a placebo for sleeping pills.  If you really want to work yourself into a lather because more deserving stars didn’t place on the starting line-up (you know, the five guys who line up for the opening faceoff and all the flashbulbs, and then usually beat a hasty retreat to the bench), then that’s the beauty, and idiocy, of democracy.  Go ahead.  But remember…in space, no-one can hear you scream.

Third point, why does anyone bother to ever make predictions?  They rarely turn out to be true, and even then, most prognosticators beat the drum about the one prediction they correctly stumbled upon, not the other nineteen they missed.  Something about a blind squirrel comes to mind.

Reminds me of a snowy Tuesday night in Ottawa back during the 83-84 OHL season.  A friend and I sat behind the net at the 67’s game, and spend most of the night trying to outpredict each other.  Who would score next, how a two-on-one would turn out, etc.

Most of the times, we were wrong, but we had a good time smiling through our own B.S.  I can still see Don McLaren on a clear-cut breakaway late in the game, Ottawa comfortably up on the opposition.  My buddy yells out that McLaren would not score, so, by default, I vigorously maintained that The Don would indeed bulge the twine…which he did.

Did that suddenly make me a genius?  Of course not, but that’s part of the game of publicly predicting sports.  One can go with the tried-and-true (the Red Wings will win the Cup), or one can go against the grain and pick an underdog (Nashville will upset the Wings in the first round).  The beauty of being the contrarian is that you are basically hedging your bets; if your pick actually wins, you puff up your chest and arrogantly proclaim that any fool could have seen the patterns.  If your teams doesn’t win - which it most likely won’t - then your exit strategy goes something like this… hey, no-one REALLY expected them to win, but I liked the matchups, blah, blah, blah.  A noble failure. 

And, for the record, I did pick the Predators to upset the Red Wings in the first round last season, mainly because I had no faith in Dominik Hasek.  And I wasn’t alone, certainly not after the Preds roared back to tie the series at two games apiece, and Detroit inserted Chris Osgood between-the-pipes.  Game Five went to overtime, with Detroit winning, so I wasn’t that far off, even when the Wings won in six.  A noble failure.  But I had had enough of that ride; I backed the Wings for the rest of the playoffs, and, of course, they won the Cup.  And I won the unofficial NHL Home Ice playoff pool here at XM.

Am I a genius?  You know the answer to that question.

Which brings me to poor old Shane Malloy, who declared here on NHL Home Ice, on Friday, January 2nd, to Boomer and Rob Higgins, that there was no way that the Slovakians could beat the Americans in their showdown at the World Juniors that afternoon.  No way.  No chance.  100% chance of rain.  Bet the rent.  No net needed.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong and wrong.  The Slovaks upset the U.S. 5-3, mainly because of the stellar play of goaltender Jaroslav Janus, but as Terry Mercury pointed out later that evening, hey, that’s hockey.  It  happens, particularly in a one-game winner-moves-on scenario.  Mercury makes the point that if the famous 1980 Winter Olympics U.S. upset of the Russians was only game one of a three game set, most likely the Soviets take the next two.

We’ll never know, nor does that in any way dimish that era-defining win by the young Americans.  They won that game, and advanced and captured the Gold Medal.  One of the greatest moments in all of sports.

This time, the young Yanks lost.  Probably didn’t even make page 54 of USA Today, but imagine the headlines in Slovakia.

Fourth and final point, and with all due sensitivity, not much bothers me more than the insipid lip-service that we the media pay to those who die.  For some reason, whenever an athlete passes away, TV producers feel the need to finish the story with a picture of the person, accompanied by lilting, piano tinkling.

Why?  I understand the photo, and the graphic that shows the years that the person lived.  It would be more effective, and more respectful, if there was NO music of any sort underneath that graphic.  Sure, probably once upon a time, that cheesy mall organ music was a nice touch, but like most things in sports, the sheep that work in the industry have copied it to the point of it having become a bloodless cliche.  A cliche they feel they must follow, which reduces the person’s death to a momentary footnote in the highlight package that night.  Which, if we’re being brutally honest, is exactly what it is.

During the winter of 1998-99, I worked part-time as a sound technician at one of the Toronto-based national television sports networks.  My job was to handle all the audio elements for the top-of-the-hour sports updates.  On one particular evening, an ex-athlete passed away, and the staff scrambled to find a suitable image of the gentlemen to end the first segment with.

The producer that night, a well-known hothead to begin with, was in a particuarly ornery mood.  As we came up to the piece, Mr. Producer spoke into his mic that connected to my isolated sound booth, and barked at me to be ready with the obituary music.

It was that same damned tinkly piano music, which always makes me feel like I’m watching The Masters.  But orders are orders, and on my cue, I played the music, but very, very low.  You’d have had to have been a dog in order to have heard it.

This understandably did not go over well with Mr. Hothead.  He sharply instructed me to pump up the volume when the obituary piece came around again next update.  And I did, raise the volume.  How much is open for interpretation.  Suffice-to-say, Hothead didn’t appreciate it.

In hindsight, it was rather juvenile of me to act this way.  It wasn’t my decision to make, but then again, as small an issue as this was, I had long complained about the canned, scripted false-sensitivity of such cloying music, and when faced with my chance to do something about it, I did.  The world didn’t change, and sports television still embraces the same cliche, but I guess I was hoping that someone somewhere was thinking the same thing I was.

The passing this week of Don Sanderson, the young member of the Whitby Dunlaps, brought this odious practise up again.  It may seem that I’m off-kilter for stressing the music bed of an athlete’s obituary, but I believe it speaks to a larger disconnect in sports, in how we cover death.

Sanderson’s tragic death, the direct result of a hockey fight, quickly becomes a footnote in the evening sports parade.  The very same simpleton’s who will cry a river of crocodile tears for this young man and his family, will temper such comments by advising us not to jump to conclusions about fighting-in-hockey, and that accidents happen.

Yup, they sure do; sometimes with fatal consequences.  When that happens in real life, any responsible society will go out-of-its-way to investigate the root causes, and will do their best to mitigate these factors to prevent tragedies in future incidents.  Life can never be 100% safety-proofed, but the odds of disaster can be cut down significantly.

The very same TV broadcasts that will follow the tired-old sports TV playbook on how to handle an athelete’s death (dust off the obituary music) will turn around the next day and play the latest knuckle-dragging hit song by Nickleback under a montage of hockey fights from earlier that week.

Most people don’t want fighting in hockey to go away, they enjoy it.  Oh, nobody except the sickest individual wants to see anybody die or be seriously injured from fighting, but somewhere, mostly unspoken, there is the steadfast belief that fighting is an integral part of hockey, and since the number of fatalities are very low, they are viewed effectively as collatoral damage, a price that is paid.

Maybe statistically speaking, that is true, as brutal as it is.  I personally don’t subscribe to that line-of-reasoning, but if you do, then spare me your emotional theatrics when you metaphorically play the tinkling piano music under your own mumbled comments about thoughts and prayers for the players’ family.

It is B.S.  As is the saying, “our thoughts are with the family”.

Are they?  Are they really, or is that just another term in the sports media playbook, the same way that the tinkling piano music is?  Devoid of any true emotion, it is a robotic reaction to what we all expect has to be said.  Unless you know the family, or have experienced a similar situation in your life, the vast majority of people give such tragedies nary a thought.

It’s all public posturing, much the same way wearing a poppy on Rememberance Day often is.  And, as such, it is an insult to the very real tragedy that has just occurred.

Next time, have the guts to say what you REALLY think when someone dies from fighting; that it’s unfortunate, but in the greater picture, the death is an anomaly.  The fighting must continue.  The fallen player probably would have said the same thing.  Get over it. 

Let’s see some old-school hockey guy say that.

The majority of us would gasp at such insensitivity, and tsk-tsk at such un-Canadian thoughts..and then turn and sing the praises of some Good Ole’ Canadian boy after he gets into a scrap Saturday night.

It’s all such crap. And, sadly,  it’ll probably happen again.

- Mick Kern

Well, that’s over.  Another January 1st, another outdoor NHL game.  If they keep this up, I’ll soon be marking time by the amount of weepy overhype that’ll steamroll it’s way into my basement every New Year’s Day.  Beats marking time by how many sleeps ’till Spring.

This time, at least the novelty wasn’t a novelty.  It looked like a real game.  And no matter how ya’ll spin it, the NHL Winter Classic is one big novelty.

Put together to grab eyeballs, and hopefully dollars.  And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.  Kudos to the league and their partners for thrusting what was just another regular season game into much of the U.S. sporting spotlight.

But it’s still a novelty, the entire concept of the outdoor game.  Don’t let the fumes from the half-drunk bottles of hockey romanticism go to your head.  Too much Pierre McGuire and too much CBC mythologizing can have a ruinous effect on your digestive system.

The first regular-season NHL game that was held outside was, of course, in chilly Edmonton back in late 2003.  That match between the Oilers and the Montreal Canadiens is best remembered for three things; the Alumni Game that Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier showed up for, the toque on Jose Theodore’s head, and the bitter cold.  Somehow, a reasonable facsimile of a hockey game was played.

Mark II of the NHL Winter Classic was a year ago in snowy Buffalo.  That match between the Sabres and the Pittsburgh Penguins is best remembered for three things; those funky Penguins’ powder blue uniforms, Sidney Crosby scoring the shootout winner, and the swirling snow.  Somehow, a somewhat reasonable facsimile of a hockey game was played.

This year, the setting was Wrigley Field in Chicago, and after about a half-year of over-the-top gushing sentimentality, the game was finally played.

It helped big time that two long-time rivals faced off against each other.  The Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings were engaging in battle for the 701st time, as the television graphics were fond of repeatedly pointing out.

The TV monster was also overly fond of continually underscoring the connection between this outdoor game, and the purported roots of the game.  Pond hockey.  Hey, everyone knows that every Canadian citizen, and many northern-based Yanks, have all grown up playing pond hockey.

Actually, that’s a pile of crap, but it looks and sounds nice on television.  A number of decades ago, this would have rang true, but not so much today.  Nonetheless, it speaks to the deep roots of the sport, and the entire contruct of the NHL Outdoor Game is predicated upon that myth.

The buildup to the game was like almost any other buildup; it was almost a shame they had to drop the puck.  Give me more of old Blackhawk and Cubs’ alumni standing shoulder-to-shoulder.  Give me more of the idyllic, HDTV-friendly overhead shots of the Friendly Confines awash in snow.  Heck, even the national anthems weren’t intrusive.  Both singers sang with gusto and kept things going at a pretty good clip, no doubt partially motivated by the thought of the Friendly Confines of a heated box awaiting them.

After last year’s picturesque but rather mediocre outdoor game between the Sabres and the Penguins, I half-expected today’s affair to follow the same story acre.  Great buildup, and lousy payoff.  Much like most Christmases, come to think of it.

It didn’t turn out that way.  Thanks to NHL scheduling, the Blackhawks and Red Wings had played each other a couple of nights earlier, with Detroit claiming a decisive 4-0 win.  There’s Key Point Number One to recall when setting up next year’s Outdoor Winter Classic - make the outdoor game the second game of a home-and-home series.

Actually, let’s consider that Key Point Number Two.  Key Point Number One is to make sure two natural hockey rivals face off against each other in the game.  The Oilers and Canadiens had some cachet, but the Penguins versus Sabres doesn’t leap-to-mind when scrolling through the memory banks considering classic NHL rivals.  Sidney Crosby on NBC, at Ralph Wilson Stadium, in the snow, had a lot of merit, but if you’re actually hoping new fans stick around after all the old-timers have been trotted out, it’s best they actually witness a good hockey game.

Almost from the start, the Red Wings and Blackhawks went at each other.  There was no confusion on anyone’s part that this should be played as a Friendly.  The 2003 and 2008 games sometimes took on that tone, unintentionally, of course, for points were on the line in both games.

At one point, it looked as if a good old fashioned hockey fight was going to break out.  Imagine that.  A hockey fight during a hockey game.  How would the NHL spin masters’s have dealt with that?  After all, they’ve always given tacit support to fighting (and a bit of the ultra-violence) in the game; hey, if you hold enough outdoor hockey games, eventually someone’s gonna take a slug at someone.

Imagine how the jaded U.S. sports media establishment would have had a Wrigley field day with that.  Which always brings me back to why the NHL (and other North American professional hockey leagues) will always remain second-class sporting citizens in the United States.  Fighting is part of the fabric of hockey.  Sometimes it rises in prominence and influence; other times it beats a hasty and welcome retreat to the back of the bus.  Regardless, it’s always been a part of the game, and most likely always will be.

But its also a crack in the matrix of the game, a Founding Father’s Fundamental Flaw, as least in terms of presenting a mass consumption product to the uninitiated American sports fan.  Which is hysterical, when one stops to think about it.  The very myth of America is largely built upon acts of violence, both large and small.  Like many countries, Her legends are steeped in blood, be it the opening of the West, the sublimation of the native peoples, the Civil War, particularly so in the perpetuation of the very right to bear arms, even though British Redcoats aren’t expected to come crashing through anyone’s front door in the next while.

America loves its violence, and that’s reflected in its popular culture, which is popular not only in the New World, but all over the planet.  It has seeped its way into sports; American football is no walk-in-the-park.  Disregarding the silly slapfest that baseball fights usually are, MLB has long had its brushback pitches, and spikes high.  Boxing, auto racing, the emergence of Ultimate Fighting, and Tonya Harding have all drank from the same wellspring.

So why wouldn’t the American sporting fan embrace fighting in hockey?  Why is it usually the one part of the game the non-interested, lazy American sports writer/TV producer both highlights when it happens, and uses as their primary thesis dismissal point when rationalizing why hockey doesn’t deserve its fair share of coverage?  Maybe Tiger Woods was right.

All that considered, one of these days, a real fight will break out at an Outdoor Game…unless there’s a secret rule in place.  Everything else seemed to happen in the game at Wrigley.  There was a lead change, there was a video review, there were questionable penalties, and there was Ty Conklin.

Once given up-for-dead beside an arena in Northern Alberta, Conklin has carved himself into NHL history, by having now appeared in all three regular-season outdoor games the league has held.  The obvious joke has been which two teams are going to play next year’s outdoor game, and how long ’till Conklin makes his way to one of those squads.  Maybe they have a secret meeting before the season about this.

The other thing is, the home team has now lost all three Winter Classics.  So much for home-field advantage.  It just doesn’t translate in hockey.

In the end, after all the panoramic shots of Wrigley, after all the over-extended Walden Pond musings about the roots of hockey, and after all the pricey souvenirs had been snapped up, it was just another hockey game.  Not a bad game at all, but not a classic, no matter how many times that point was continually reinforced during the broadcast.

And if the league is intent on holding these games every year, you’re going to need one of these outdoor matches to be jaw-droppingly good in order for one to refer to these games as Classic, while keeping a straight face.  After a while, all novelties lose their…novelty.

- Mick Kern

Christmas came and went with astonishing speed, as it does every year, leaving behind a jumble of packages and boxes, ripped paper and the spectre of New Year’s bills.

By the time Boxing Day rolled around, we all needed a break from the festive cheer, so the wife trooped us outside into the backyard for a game of hockey.

Two years ago, during a consistent stretch of frigid weather during February, we iced the backyard and fashioned ourselves a rather ragged rink for about three weeks, before the first stirrings of Spring took it away.  Last year, the weather was too unreliable to even consider undertaking such a task.

As for this Winter, no-one seems sure how the season will unfold.  Here in Toronto, we got hit with three major snowstorms in the ten days before Christmas, which not only guaranteed a Bing Crosby Yuletide, but also resuscitated the wife’s romantic notion of having a backyard rink.  The trouble is, the forecast for Saturday, December 27th was for rain and more rain, which gave us a window of only one day to prepare, flood, freeze and enjoy our own Winter Classic.

Time for Plan B.

Around 2 pm that afternoon, the whole crew moved into the snow-covered backyard, shovels-in-hand, and proceeded to clear a sizeable area, large enough for our regulation-sized net and three hockey players.  The wife supervised the work, assigning herself to the snow pick, while I cleared the debris.  The four-year-old quickly lost interest in the proceedings, and instead practised his Bill Barber dives into the nearest snowbank.

After about a half-hour, we had the semblance of a backyard rink…minus the ice.  The only effective way to pat down the surface of snow into a consistent packed base was to tread on it.  The four-year-old and I began a game of keep away, and I’m not embarrassed to say I kicked his ass!

Yes, I know, how sad is that?  A grown man in his mid-forties bragging about outplaying his four-year-old son.  But c’mon, Father Time was sitting on the snow-covered picnic table, taking notes.  I know my window for channeling my inner Rick Nash, going around some pylon defenceman, is very narrow.  With each passing season, the pylon will grow and gain more confidence.  Sooner than I think, we will have switched roles.  Heck, he’s already got a better shot than I had at that age, or when I was eight.

Okay, it’s still sad.  And the boy let it be known he didn’t appreciate it, either.  He enlisted his mother, and suddenly my puck handling skills were put to the test.  I still ruled!  Everyone knows girls can’t play hockey.  Right?  Right?

The wife would exact her hockey revenge later.

As for the puck, we were using one of those bright orange street hockey jobbies that I picked up from Canadian Tire for a buck each.  Loaded up on about a dozen two years ago, and after banging a bunch of them off the goalpost during that deep freeze, we only have a couple left.  My wrist shot will never strike fear into the heart of any goaltender, still it was rather satisfying to watch the puck explode into two pieces after rattling it off the crossbar, allowing me to pretend I was some backyard Kent Nilsson.

After about twenty minutes of action, the snow surface under our feet was finely packed down, in perfect condition for the wife and I to later lay down the first layer of water from the trusty old garden hose.  But the weather forecast hadn’t changed.  Today it was a perfect late December day.  Tomorrow, it would look like March 29th.  There would be no need to use the hose.

But that was all in the future; at the moment, the three of us were immersed in a serious game of shinny.  One game pitted me against the wife and child.  The objective was to see who could score on the unguarded net.  Sounds easy, but you’d be surprised how difficult that can be when one has to navigate two hostile bodies, a finite amount of space, and an unpredictable playing surface.

At one point, the wife had possession of the puck about halfway towards the net, and my only recourse was to bodycheck her into the snowbank, tie up her stick with mine, and then extract the puck with my boot.  This was going rather well until the four-year-old saw that his teammate, his Mommy, was in need of help.

With all the speed he could muster, he slammed into me, which resulted in me losing the puck, and the little guy falling to the ground.

Suddenly, we snapped back to being concerned parents.  As we went to help him up, he brushed away any helping hand, and picking himself up off-the-ground, muttering something to the effect that I had knocked him to the ice.  If there had been a referee on duty, no doubt the kid would have made his way over to him, petitioning for a penalty.  And he may have been right; maybe I did knock him down.  How sad is that?

Then again, if one adheres to The Gospel According To Bobby Clarke, I was innocent.  The four-year-old entered the scrum, and got what was coming his way.  His mission was accomplished; I lost possession of the puck.

The boy showed that everything was alright by dropping his plastic stick, and his winter gloves, and charging at me, gleefully shouting out “Hockey Fight”.  The fight was a draw; he got in a few good left hooks, while I managed to sneak in a noogie before the wife separated the combatants.  I’m not a big fan of hockey fights, nor do I let the kid watch The Loud Man, as he calls Don Cherry.  Somehow, he just knows that hockey guys drop the gloves every so often.  Apparently, a four-year-old understands The Code.  Make of that what you will.

The sun was beginning to drop low on the horizon, and thoughts turned to supper and hot chocolate.  But first, time for Showdown.  Mano-a-mano, or, in this case, Mano-a-Womano.

I went to the mudroom and retrieved my old Mike Richter goaltender stick.  Last used it on-ice as a pickup goaltender way back in June of 1995.  Lovingly taped it to perfection, and then took to the ice on that steamy late Spring evening.  Which meant that my glasses steamed up terribly, which meant I battled to stop even the most rudimentary shot, which led to the spectacle of me violently chucking my goaltending equipment, piece-by-piece, into the corner, accompanied by every swear word I ever learned in the playground during grade school.

Since that day, I haven’t played ice hockey.  Do I miss it?  Sometimes very much.  Then again, after a while, I grew tired of fighting over a black piece of rubber.  And fighting was the word; often, the action would grow far too heated for a friendly pickup game, and the fun would be drained out it.  This even happened during our weekly Sunday morning ball hockey game, which I used to live for.  A person can only take so much testosterone-fueled macho crap before he’s had his fill.

I used to marvel that most of my friends in Ottawa stopped playing hockey during their mid-20’s.  A couple of these guys were very good, having played Junior “B” hockey, and when we’d organize a pickup game, they looked like Bobby Orr and Mike Modano out there, cutting through the rest of us scrubs.

Why weren’t they playing in a recreational league?  One friend explained that, while he missed the competition, what he didn’t miss were the guys who came straight from work, loaded up on beer, and then took to the ice in an effort to work out whatever frustrations they were experiencing with the wife or the boss.  It wasn’t worth the chippiness and the petty violence.  They’d much rather slum it with wannabee’s such as myself.

The trouble was, soon they grew bored by the lack of competition, and invited a few acquaintances who were also pretty flashy on a pair of skates.  Within weeks, the ringers began to crowd out the ankle-skaters.  While the level of play rose accordingly, the original purpose of getting all the guys together to have some fun soon was forgotten.  And before you knew it, many of the guys stopped showing up.  In my experience, this dynamic happens every time, another reason I don’t play ice hockey anymore.

These days, my hockey playing is reserved for when the two older neighborhood boys knock on our door, and invite the four-year-old and I to play street hockey.  The kid puts on his Pavel Bure Rangers’ jersey and I usually slip on my Canucks’ sweater, though this Christmas the wife got me a very nice Washington Capitals road jersey circa 1985, so I can now channel my inner Pat Riggin.

Which is another way of saying, I’m terribly out-of-shape; most my exercise these days consisting of running for the bus in an effort not to be late for The War Room.

Which brings us back to Backyard Showdown, Husband vs. Wife.  Me in net, the wife with her Sidney Crosby yellow stick.  Three shots.  Winner gets bragging rights.

Sometimes I’ll throw on the old goaltending equipment, in part because the kid loves it, but also because I love it.  Today, no such protection, not even a jock.

First shot, the wife unveils her world-famous move…stand about fifteen in front of the net, and hack at the orange puck, missing it completely the first time, which sends me into a twisted, body-protecting position, which frees up a good portion of the net.   She then reloads, takes a second swipe at the puck, and sends it towards my exposed shins.

I stop the first stop with my right leg, the brighly coloured orange frozen plastic puck feeling like a shot from Bobby Hull.  Regardless, I stopped it.  One for the good guys.

Second shot, the wife follows the same game plan.  She whiffs on the first attempt, which again sends me into a spasm of body protecting motions, which leaves most of the net uncovered, which allows her to deposit the puck into the bottom right-hand corner of the net.  One for the bad guys, err, girls.

Next shot would determine everything.  If there had been a crowd watching, they would have been on their feet, particularly since all of our lawn furniture was buried beneath the snow.

I clenched my teeth, gathered up my Mike Richter goaltender stick, and vowed to not flinch this time, summoning up the courage of yesteryear, when getting hit with a puck or an orange street hockey ball was a badge of honour.  This time, I would be ready.  Thou Shalt Not Pass.

At this moment, the four-year-old, having had enough of this middle-age drama, enthusiastically reinserts himself back into the action, steals the puck and sends it sailing towards my unprotected shins; this time the puck looked like a Dennis Hull slapshot.

Luckily for me, it skittered wide left, and it was time for hot chocolate.  The Showdown grudge match would have to wait until tomorrow.

Correct that; it would have to wait until the next extended cold snap and snowstorm.  Turns out the weather watchers were right.  It rained all day Saturday, and the next.  By Sunday afternoon, it would have been more appropriate to play football in the backyard.  The leaves I never got around to raking were exposed, mocking me from beyond the grave. 

Our hockey net looks out-of-place on this muddy field, where once it was the crowning glory on a modest backyard hockey “rink”.

The three of us stared out the back window, a little sad at how things turned out, but very grateful we went outside on Boxing Day.  Maybe it was the first in what would become a family tradition.

Weather permitting.

- Mick Kern

The Paperboy changed things up this year with a new creation ‘12 Days of NHL Voices’ featuring NHL Radio Play-by-Play announcers you here on NHL Home Ice…Happy Holidays everyone!

You asked for it now you got it The 12 Days of Sabres announcer Ric Jenneret!

It must be the Christmas Season; how else to explain the Miracle of Mats.

Just after 6 pm eastern time, on Thursday evening, word got out that the Vancouver Canucks had finally snared Shy Sundin, the boy who wanted to play hockey, but gosh-darnit, wasn’t sure which team jersey he wanted under the tree.

Immediately, some of us speculated that the Rangers of New Amsterdam were unable to clear cap room, no doubt due to the Christmas crush and GM Sather’s credit card being maxed out.  So, were the Canucks slippery seconds?

Regardless of what finally made Sundin kiss Mike Gillis under the mistletoe, the fact is laid-back Swedish surfer dude Mats finds himself in a perfect locale - laid-back West Coast British Columbia.  Okay, there was that riot in the streets after the Canucks Game Seven loss to those Dutch Rangers waaaay back in 1994 - which was the same year Sir Mats was traded from the Nordiques to the Maple Leafs.

Maybe Mr. Sweden prefers the Northern Climes…first Quebec City, then Toronto, now Vancouver.  Bit-by-bit, he’s moving to warmer Canadian cities.  If he sticks around the NHL long enough, the pattern suggests he’ll sign with the Victoria Coyotes next.

I don’t know about you, but personally speaking, Mats finally picking a team to play with is just one more item I can cross off my Christmas to-do list.  Got the tree?  Check.  Sent the package to my Mom in Calgary?  Check.  Sundin signs with an NHL team?  Check.  Which is great; now the Christmas season is officially underway.

And the best thing is????  I’ve had Sundin sitting on my Fantasy Sports team bench since early November.  Enjoy the holiday break, Mats.  You’ve got a lot to do once the New Year rolls around.

- Mick Kern

Saturday afternoon.  3 pm eastern standard time.  Nap time for some of us.  But not this afternoon.

On this particular dull, metal gray afternoon, naps would have to wait.  Mommy was busy preparing some broccoli salad concoction for a gathering of the clan later that evening.  Daddy and Son were busy, preparing to take the bus (and subway, and then another subway) to downtown Toronto.  We had been to Cooperstown this past August, and I felt it would be appropriate to finish the year by visiting the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Growing up in Alberta, most of my hockey knowledge was gleaned from the back of O-Pee-Chee hockey cards, dusty old hockey biographies checked out from the school library, and the occasional chance to read a copy of The Hockey News.  When Scholastic Books began offering selections such as Hockey Stars of 1974 by Stan Fischler, I felt like I had found the Rosetta Stone, and suddenly the once-murky world of NHL hockey exploded in glorious technicolour right in front of me.

Like most Canadian kids, I made my weekly pilgrimage to the front of the family television set in order to tune into Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday evening at 6 pm…mountain time, remember.  Dinner was usually at 5 pm, which allowed plenty of time to prepare for the big game.

in those days way before Internet access, I would construct my own makeshift program, spread out in front of the TV, out of various bubblegum cards of whomever was facing Montreal or Toronto that night.  Even in Alberta, it was rare we were offered a Vancouver Canucks game.  There was no Saturday night doubleheader.

The point being, not very much was instantaneous thirty-five years ago.  Even Minute Rice took longer back then.  But you found ways to follow your sporting passions.

An early goal of mine was to visit the Golden Horseshoe region of Southern Ontario.  One autumn, that was the subject of study in grade school.  The home to apples, Niagara Falls…and the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The very idea that there existed a whole building dedicated to the sport of hockey sounded like Nirvana to me.  I could only imagine what it looked like inside that hallowed Hall.  I knew all about the men who had been honoured, but that information I got from books.  What I wanted to see, with my very own eyes, was a place where hockey ruled supreme.  To have been able to visit such a Puck Valhalla would be akin to peeking through the window of Santa’s workshop on December 23rd.

As time moved on, and so did my family, we ended up in Ontario.  By then, while hockey was still on my radar, it shared space with baseball, football, music, films, politics, and girls.  A trip to the Golden Horseshoe finally came about in the summer of 1981, when my father was to address a military conference at McMaster University in Hamilton.

After all those years of reading the multi-coloured tourist pamphlets, I finally laid my eyes on Niagara Falls.  Being the jaded age of 17, this wonder of nature failed to resonate with me the way it would have had I experienced it through the wide-eyed gaze of a 10-year-old. 

Passing through Hamilton on our way back to my father’s house in Picton, we ventured across the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, another place I had very much wanted to visit when I was a kid.

Alas, it was closed.  To this day, a couple of friends still bug me that I probably was the only kid in the world crushed that the CFL Hall-of-Fame wasn’t open.  As we drove through Toronto, it dawned on me that the Hockey Hall-of-Fame, which I once considered the Promised Land, had to be nearby.  We entertained the notion of searching for it, but neither could recall where it was located.  The HHOF remained elusive.  It would have to wait for another day.

That day came the summer of 1992, during the Canadian National Exhibition, otherwise known as the CNE.  The August fair was in the waning days of its glory, having been eclipsed by year-round amusement parks and the advent of home video games.  Not having grown up in Toronto, I was curious to attend the granddaddy of Canadian exhibitions.  Suffice to say, most of it was just a louder, smellier version of the Vancouver PNE, the Calgary Stampede, Edmonton’s Klondike Days, and the Central Canada Exhibition in Ottawa.

Wandering around, a little punch drunk on bad food and sensory overload, we came across a stout little building that was festooned with 12 stone logos of the franchises of the National Hockey League as it stood after the 1967 expansion.  Come to think of it, the Sabres and Canucks logos could have been up there as well, but it didn’t matter.  All I know is that, like a disoriented archaeologist in some George Lucas movie, I had somehow stumbled on to the entrance of the hidden temple I had been seeking all these years.

I had finally found The Hockey Hall of Fame.

Once inside, I experienced one of those rare moments in life, and I assure you I am not exaggerating.  There was a sense of accomplishment, a feeling that a goal has finally been achieved.  As I walked into this modest building, all awash in everything hockey, the wide-eyed 10-year-old emerged, not the jaded 17-year-old who dismissed Niagara Falls with a wave of the hand.

Despite the CNE raging just outside their doors, the Hall of Fame was not swarming with visitors that day.  There were probably a half-dozen people milling about, taking in all the treasures contained within.  Crammed within that small building was a king’s ransom in hockey goodies; trophies and uniforms and photos and pucks and sticks and pennants.  I suddenly remembered that hockey mattered to me.

The crowning glory to me was something that looked like an ashtray, standing off in the corner.  Closer inspection revealed it to be The Avco Cup, or more accurately, The Avco World Trophy, the symbol of supremacy in The World Hockey Association, and for a kid who attended Edmonton Oilers’ games in the mid-70’s, that was a big deal.

What struck me the most was the lack of glitz and flash that the Hall had.  It was merely the facts, ma’am, which was fine with me, but the relative lack of visitors that day spoke volumes.  This was a Hall badly in need of modernization.

Unbeknownest to me, that was exactly what was happening behind the scenes, even as I was poking around that day.  A year later, the entire affair was shipped to a glorious old bank building in downtown Toronto,   instantly becoming a must-see destination for tourists.  As much as the old building held a special place in my heart, it was a move long overdue.

And through those doors, my 4 1/2 year-old son and I walked this past Saturday afternoon.

When he was told where we were going, he immediately informed me that the Rangers would be playing the “bad Maple Leafs” that day at the Hall.  I explained to him that the “hockey guys” would not be there that day; they were busy elsewhere, but there would be games, I assured him.

My son’s love of playing sports was no doubt fostered by my own love of hockey and baseball, but I never pushed it on him.  To live in our house, though, one cannot help but be immersed in sports (just ask the wife), but he took naturally to throwing a baseball, a basketball, and drop-kicking a football.  Delightfully, he took a small plastic hockey stick in hand and began whacking everything in sight.  Time-out for behavoural indiscretions at dinner time became time in the penalty box.  If my son had been issued a hockey card, his PIM total would be, ahh, impressive.

This was to be my fifth visit to the Hall, but it never grows old.  There’s always something new to savour, and I never tire of looking at their embarrassment of riches, particularly the hockey sweaters.

The first sight that greeted us as we approached the cashier was a simple, yet dazzling display of the finest goaltender masks assembled in one place on the planet Earth.  My son is too young to know any of the goaltenders who donned these visages, yet he ran towards each one with glee, pointing out the ones he found to be scary, and asking which ones I liked.  Of course, I liked them all.

Once admission had been paid, we entered the Hall, my kid jacked up about which type of hockey games we would play.  He was delighted when we found the Xbox 360 display, and he picked the Rangers.  I chose the 1981 Minnesota North Stars, and after a quick lesson on what button to push to shoot, father-and-son played their first ever video game together.  For the record, before the little squirt gains the upper hand in the months and years to follow, the North Stars beat the Rangers 3-1.  No quarters asked.  Actually, my son had asked for some money for the table hockey game, but I was fresh out.

We stood in line for the chance to snap a plastic puck at a video image of Ed Belfour in his bad Maple Leafs’ uniform.  My son topped 8 mph with his shot; in his opinion, he scored on every shot.  Dad didn’t fare much better, hitting only 62 mph and finding the back-of-the-net only twice, and even then, I think Eddie was taking it easy on me.

None of this would have happened at the old place.  That building was for the converted, this place is for the uninitiated, and the converted.

We toured the mockup of the Canadiens’ dressing room and, like most kids, my son gravitated towards the goalie equipment, and not fully comprehending why he couldn’t suit up, he moved on to the next shiny thing.

While the vast majority of displays were over my son’s little head, he perked up at any picture of one Robert Gordon Orr.  “Bobby Orr…Numba Four”, he already knows.  This is a good thing.

He tried his hand at the TSN mockup technical suite, but as this struck me as being too close to what I do at work, I suggested we move on.   First, though, he handled the play-by-play of a couple of famous goals, including adding the sound of the goal horn when Lafleur beat Gilbert with the greatest goal of all-time.

We also stood and stared at the Avco World Trophy, always a must see for me everytime I visit here.  I tried to explain that this forgotten trophy was like the Stanley Cup to me when I was a kid, but he wasn’t buying it.   He wanted the real thing.

The visit to the Great Hall always has the feeling of entering one of the great cathedrals in Old Montreal, regardless of what faith one may adhere to.  In this church, hockey is what is worshipped, and the Great Hall is the summit of that love.

As that 10-year-old collecting hockey cards, some of my favourite cards were Trophy cards.  Here in the Great Hall, those cards come to life.  I’ve seen the Stanley Cup up-close enough times that it’s almost second nature…ohhh, the Cup, nice…so to see the Vezina and the Hart and the Art Ross, to me, always inspires awe.

My kid, on the other hand, having no idea yet what that silverware represents, was estatic when he saw the Cup.  So much so, that like a child in church on Christmas Eve, he let his joy ring out, much louder than any self-conscious adult would have.  Which reminded me, this was hockey, not a church.  You’re allowed to get loud.

He insisted we take a closer look.  Once we got near, for some reason, it struck me that on this particular day, the backup Cup was the one on display.  A quick question to the staff member nearby verified this.

This slightly lessened the effect, but my son and I had already had our photo taken with the “real” Cup when it was here at the NHL Home Ice studios almost two years ago.  Looking over the doppelganger, he searched for his name.

Not yet, kid.

After that, it was back to the main level, where the souvenir shop beckoned.  I resisted buying a gorgeous Glenn Hall St. Louis Blues’ jersey circa 1968; not a good time of the year to be buying yourself expensive presents.  But I’ll be back.

Tried to get my son the very sharp looking powder blue Pittsburgh Penguins t-shirt, but he insisted on buying the throwback Montreal t-shirt that has the A in the C as the logo.  I am not making this up.  Apparently, my almost five years of brainwashing has worked.  The trouble is, the Penguins’ t-shirt looks so much better.

Grabbed a few things to help Santa fill the stockings, and we headed off into the cold night, looking for supper. 

For the 90 minutes we were there, the two of us probably saw 2% of the collection on display.  My son didn’t learn any hockey history that day, still thinks the Rangers play there, and was rather concerned that they only had the “backup Cup” on display.

What did happen was a 90 minute break from the rest of the world.  An hour-and-a-half where a father shared with his young son those things that were so very important to him when he was a boy.  The Hall-of-Fame was the ideal setting for a shared experience in a place that has always held a special place in my heart, even when I lived thousands of miles from it.

We will return.

- Mick Kern

First the ham-fisted over-reactions over comments made by bad boy Sean Avery, now possible legal action over comments made by bad coach Barry Melrose.

What the heck is going on?

While the rest of the sporting establishment in North America are finding ways to cope with the worsening financial situation, it appears that the only wolves at the door of the National Hockey League are those with loose lips.

Apparently the legal eagles of the Tampa Bay Lightning are huddling together with their briefcases, attempting to determine whether or not Melrose broke his confidentiality agreement with the Lightning, thanks to comments the ex-coach made recently on the Fan 590 all-sports radio station in Toronto.

It appears the comment his ex-employers have the biggest beef with is Melrose’s contention that young phenom Steven Stamkos is Not-Yet-Ready-for-Primetime.

Apparently, such a statement from their ex-employee, which was picked up by the likes of TSN, and here at NHL Home Ice, could be construed to be potentially damaging to the carefully constructed marketing plans of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Fellas, if one comment by a disgruntled ex-employee is enough to torpedo the best laid plans of mice and men in Tampa, it’s time to get the lawyers and their briefcases to huddle together and maybe rethink your entire approach to marketing.

This is quickly becoming a league where one cannot talk, whether the talk be stupid (Avery), inquisitive (Jim Kelley on rumours about the Sabres being for sale), probing (Al Strachan about the Lightning), or critical (Melrose).

I understand the concept behind a confidentiality agreement, having signed one back in August of 2002.  About four dozen souls found out one Black Tuesday that we were all out of a broadcasting job, as the station we toiled for felt it cheaper to play oldies instead of investing in its all-sports property.  Besides, rumour has it they needed liquidity in order to complete the purchase of television stations in British Columbia. 

I wasn’t privy to such information; that’s what some trade journals speculated.  What I do know is my suddenly former employer gave me thousands of dollars to leave quietly…minus taxes and the usual deductions.  I signed an agreement not to talk about, well, not to talk about what I didn’t even know anything about to begin with, which is why the programming change really came about. 

Six years later, that company has been bought out by a much larger media company here in Canada, so I don’t know if my confidentiality agreement still stands, nor whether it would stand up in court.  Suffice to say, I’ve never been a threat to my former company, and even if I had an axe to grind, I was like Schultz from “Hogan’s Heroes”; I knew nothing.

But Barry Melrose does know something, even though he’s been picked apart by much of the electronic helmet hair hockey media for being a coach badly out-of-touch with today’s game.  Funny, I recall back when he was hired, most of those media hacks were lauding the hiring, trumping up the marketing possibilities of the Lightning hiring the face of ESPN hockey.  When legitimate questions arose about the large gap between coaching assignments for Melrose, many in the electronic media rose to Melrose’s defence, trotting out what would become the party line…hey, he’s followed the game very closely as an analyst during that time, no sweat.

The rest of us thought, what the heck are Tampa thinking?  Then again, the Terrible Two in charge of the Lightning seemed to revel in off-beat moves, and this one fit the bill perfectly.

A scant half-year later, co-owner Len Barrie now maintains that Melrose lost the team while they were in Europe to start the season.  If that’s so, then why did it take the Bolts’ braintrust so long to file a missing team report?  Why wait two months?

The more things unravel in the Sunshine State, the more it appears the Al Strachan’s of the world had a pretty good source about the chaos by the Bay, despite the rantings from Team Tampa and the mouthbreathers who inhabit the Internet chatrooms.

Back to Melrose, back in his comfy seat on television.  As one person commented on a hockey blog (a rare pithy comment from these often lowbrow forums), what did anyone expect from Melrose; he’s back to being a hockey analyst, and he’s expressing an opinion about Stamkos, which is worth discussing.

Since I’m not under the employ of the Tampa Bay Lightning, and don’t expect to be anytime soon, allow me to explore that marketing-busting contention.

Would Steven Stamkos be better served being back in junior hockey, or in the American Hockey League?  I don’t honestly know.  Sometimes it’s better to be exposed to the culture of the NHL, in order to get your feet wet like Vincent Lecavalier or Joe Thornton did, before they became the stars everyone expected them to be.

No doubt the same thing will eventually happen with Stamkos.  He is, after all, still just a kid.  He’s shown flashes of what made him such a coveted draft pick, and Lightning fans can only hope he doesn’t get adversely affected by performing in the Ice Capades circus known as the Lightning.

Some players can handle the NHL early, some can’t.  More to the point, some young phenoms can handle the expectations, and attention, and pressure at an early age, while others are smothered by it, and are never afforded a proper opportunity to develop their formidable skills.

It makes sense that the dead-last Lighting would centre much of their marketing around Stamkos.  After all, the halcyon days of 2004 are as dead and buried as the days of sub-prime mortgages.  Stamkos represents the future, a future that better come sooner-than-later in Tampa.

Which would explain the early season controversy over the amount of ice time The Future was getting under Melrose’s tutelage.  Coaches understand they are on short leashes, and are often judged by their win-loss record.  Developing players is a luxury for general managers.  Melrose made a coach’s decision; this young man was not ready to shoulder the load just yet.

This wasn’t the first time a coach made such a decision, nor is this the first time upper management disagreed.  And this is the part that strikes me as funny regarding possible infringement of the confidentiality agreement; I do not believe Melrose is dumping on Stamkos by expressing this opinion.  If anything, he may have been one of the few people willing to speak up and express concerns about rushing the young player.

What is really amusing is the quick-to-judgement hockey establishment now criticizing Melrose, accusing him of throwing Stamkos under the bus.

Maybe Sean Avery was right about one thing - maybe most hockey players are simple.  And since most hockey executives played the game in the NHL, or at least in the minors, well, you can do the math.  Someone has to be able to.

Hindsight will show whether Stamkos was ready for the NHL in 2008.  Melrose no more knows the future than Len Barrie does, but what Melrose does know better than Barrie is hockey.

They both played in the National Hockey League, though you can probably get a dozen of their hockey cards for a dime, if you can even find them.  Melrose rose to prominence as head coach of the Gretzky-led L.A. Kings’ team of the early 90’s, including the squad that lost in five games in the 1993 Stanley Cup Final to the Montreal Canadiens.

Barrie made his fortune outside of hockey while Melrose made his name inside the game.  They appeared to be a natural match this past summer; a couple of mavericks.  Now, that partnership is in tatters, gone the way of the Jacques Martin-Mike Keenan friendship.

The Lightning very well may have the legal right to seek damages against Barry Melrose, but such action only adds to the circus surrounding the team.  Better to let Melrose pop off; he’s not the first recent ex-Lightning employee to take his shots at the team.  Time for the Lightning to move on. 

Somehow, the National Hockey League clubs continue to provide top-notch, colourful hockey, despite the simplistic, black-and-white world much of its executives inhabit.

- Mick Kern

Okay, okay.  I know.  The National Football League game that was held on Sunday, December 7th, 2008, at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, was not technically a neutral site game.  It was a home game for the Buffalo Bills, and a rather important one, if they still entertained any playoff hopes.

The truth is, it was unlike any Bills’ home game ever.  Sure, there were more Bills’ fans than Miami Dolphins fans, but the “visitors” were well represented.  And, as it was the first-ever NFL regular season game in Toronto (in all of the Dominion of Canada, from sea-to-shining-sea, for that matter), there was a sizable contingent of fans in attendence who cheer for other NFL teams. 

The Pittsburgh Steelers, for one.  So much so, that the good folk at the Rogers Centre who stock the souvenir booths, made sure to bring a healthy supply of Steelers’ paraphernalia, in addition to the Bills and Fish.

But mostly, this NFL game was about being seen.  I don’t consider myself a football snob, though I love the game (NFL and CFL), and played some of it earlier in my life.  But I do know when I’m surrounded by folk who are there more for the experience at being at the big league NFL, as much as they’re in attendence for a football game.  And that describes a great deal of the people at the Rogers Centre on this Sunday.  The football was secondary to the experience of commenting on the size of the crowd, texting their friends across the way, trying to start the wave, and drinking copious amounts of bad beer.

But that’s all fine.  After all, pro sports is entertainment.  Some of us hold it near-and-dear to our hearts, but for the vast majority, it’s another way to spend a frosty Sunday, even better so when there’s a novelty factor involved.

The game itself was a dog (16-3 Dolphins), and a lot of people started streaming for the exits at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

Which was a shame, but you pay your money and you take your chances.  The Bills aren’t exactly setting the football world on-fire this season, but one hoped that this heated rivalry would produce sparks.  It didn’t.

What it did produce was an appreciation by myself for when the National Hockey League used to play a couple of neutral site games during the early-to-mid 1990’s.  The league played an 84 game schedule, and ended up taking to the ice in exotic locals such as Cleveland, Halifax, Sacramento, and Hamilton.

It was at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario, that I attended two of these neutral site games.  The second one (11-18-93) featured Ron Hextall and the New York Islanders defeating the Montreal Canadiens 5-1, with the majority of the crowd festooned in Habs’ gear.  It was a lively crowd, though the game was lukewarm.

It was the first neutral site NHL game at Copps that remains fresh in my mind.  That cold November night, Ron Hextall and the Quebec Nordiques took on the Toronto Maple Leafs…and there was no doubt whatsoever what team was the crowd favourite.

Thanks to a sell-out crowd, and apparently most of those folk deciding to pick up their tickets at the will call, there was a huge throng that jammed the front doors, and most of us did not get into the venue until after the first period was finished.  It was frustrating standing out in the cold, knowing a game was going on which you had a valid ticket for, but there was no way to do anything about it.

By the time the puck dropped for the second period, Copps was packed.  To this day, it remains the noisiest sports crowd I have ever been a part of.  It tops even the game at the Montreal Forum, the one where Guy Lafleur first played on Forum ice against the Canadiens.  He suited up for the New York Rangers, scored two goals and added an assist, and brought the roof down with each goal, particularly the second one.  It was so loud I could not make out at all what the guy in the next seat was trying to shout at me.

That was February of 1989.  A few years later in Hamilton, November 17th, 1992, the crowd topped that.  Since it was a neutral site game, it appeared most of the corporate fat cats didn’t bother to make the trip down the road to The Hammer.  The real hockey fan filled the building that night with a true appreciation for the game in a way no typical Maple Leafs’ crowd could hope to match.

The Nordiques won the game 3-1, but that’s not what has stayed with me.  I’m probably the furthest thing from a Maple Leafs’ fan, but that evening I developed a real appreciation for these fans, who didn’t need a scoreboard to implore them to cheer, didn’t resort to the wave, didn’t need to rely on overplayed cheesy commercial rock music to fill the spaces between action.  They stood and cheered and yelled and laughed and argued and cheered and drank and cheered until the final star was announced.

They were just happy to be at a Toronto Maple Leafs game.

This wasn’t a European soccer crowd either, which itself can be very impressive.  There was no organized singing or chanting.  There was just real hockey fans watching a pretty good game.  It’s a shame it can’t be that way at every game.

It was after this game that I stopped picking on the real Maple Leafs’ fan, and came to the realization that real fans of whatever sport are very much the same.  They share a undiluted passion for their sport, and their particular team.  You can dress up the arena, the field, the ballpark.  You can, as everyone’s so fond of saying these days, put lipstick on a pig, but the real fan doesn’t care.

Just give them a shot at half-decent tickets, and let the actual game be the centre-of-attraction, and, trust me, word-of-mouth will spread and people will want to be there.

The trouble is, with the high cost of tickets, and the scarcity of said ducats (depending on the market), the real fan is either consigned to the upper deck, or have to be content to watch from their living room.  Which saps the arena of the very lifeblood of what makes sports special in the first place; the shared experience between a group of strangers, who have come together for three hours with a united purpose.  Which is a rare and precious thing these days.

- Mick Kern

Okay, I tried to avoid clogging up the internet with yet another blog about Sean Avery and Sloppygate.  Yet after watching Kelly Hrudey pontificating during the first intermission of CBC’s Thursday night broadcast of the Rangers at Montreal, I have finally given in.

During the intermission, Hrudey commented on a clip from the pre-game ceremonies showing various esteemed Rangers and Canadiens alumni all gathered at centre ice for the ceremonial faceoff.  Hrudey does his best Don Cherry impersonation as he talks with emotion about the legends gathered in one spot, informing the audience (and, borrowing from Cherry’s bag-of-tired tricks, appeals directly to kids) that these guys are what the game is all about.

Then, without missing a beat, Hrudey drops the other skate by cutting immediately to Sean Avery, holding the fallen Star up as an example of what the game is not about; a player who has no respect for the game, and probably no respect for himself.  And to underscore that point, the tall foreheads at Hockey Night in Canada roll the offensive Avery clip yet again, just in case a handful of their audience had been sequestered in jury duty over the past two days, and had been unable to hear with their own ears the scandalous words that he uttered.  Apparently those words were so damaging to hockey, that the NHL saw fit to suspend Avery, and the Stars saw fit to distance themselves from Avery, yet it remains acceptable for those damaging words to be repeated over and over and over again by the media.  

Thanks Kelly.  Just in case my kid didn’t hear Mr. Avery’s famous utterance the first forty-two times, you’ve made sure he’s been exposed to his wisdom via the CBC Guardians of Hockey, instead of learning such lessons from some older kid during recess in the schoolyard, which is probably how most of us cobbled together our fractured knowledge of the birds and the bees.

Am I the only one who has had enough of the pious stance taken by the hockey establishment regarding Avery’s ill-advised potty mouth?  His comments were a number of things; juvenile, sexist, insensitive, and totally non-related to hockey.  At the same time, they were the words of a man-child who fancies himself above the very game he makes a very good living from, the very game that provides him with the attention he craves as the maverick, the anti-hero.

And like moths to the flame, we, the hockey media, can’t help ourselves. 

The initial comments are Avery’s fault, and his alone.  No one forced a microphone into his face and demanded a comment about his past relationships.  Avery decided to show his disdane for the media and sought out the microphone horde.  His attempt at humour was below low brow, and now he’s paying the price.

But what price is just?  Avery is a jerk.  He’s proven that during his relatively short NHL career.  At the same time, disregarding his on-ice merits, Avery is also a welcome slash of colour in a monochromatic hockey world.  And he’s right about one thing; the bad guys are as important as the good guys, for without that dynamic, how does the white hat prove his worth?  The hero defines himself, finds his purpose, and becomes an extension of our hopes and dreams, when he faces, and slays, the dragon.

Avery is that dragon.  He willingly plays the role.  And that role has provided him with a stage larger than the provincial world of professional hockey.

Not many players have been able to transcend hockey.  Wayne Gretzky did it the best.  Bobby Orr wasn’t that far behind.  Name me one other player who truly is known throughout the non-sporting world?  The likes of Gordie Howe and Maurice Richard came close, but only Gretzky and Orr were, if only momentarily, bigger than the game.

Avery does not inhabit that same plateau, and thankfully never will.  But he is better known today outside of hockey circles, outside of sporting circles, than Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin.  Argue if you want, but that’s only because you can’t see past your blinding love of hockey.  Somewhere, at sometime, Avery understood that he could stand head-and-shoulders over the robots who play this game if he was willing to play the villain’s role.

Now is it actually a role, or is this the real Sean Avery?  That’s been the million dollar question for a number of years, and Avery has been smart enough not to allow too many people a glimpse behind the curtain.  Teams such as the Dallas Stars only fed the fire, signing Avery for relatively big bucks during the off-season, with full knowledge of the baggage he was carrying.

And that in itself is pathetic, the Stars washing their hands of Avery.  Not that I wouldn’t have also looked for a reason to dump him.  Something is rotten in the state of Texas, some of it is the goaltending of Marty Turco, but that can’t be the whole story.  Word has spread that the players on the Stars had had enough of Avery’s antics well before he opened his mouth in Calgary.  What Avery did was give the reeling Stars the perfect opportunity to dump him.  They don’t even have to admit they made a mistake signing him in the first place.  Avery gave them the perfect cover.  The only thing is, now Dallas has no excuses left for their pathetic play.

I understand why the NHL would suspend him for the game against the Flames.  I also understand why they would want to levy further punishment against Avery.  His statement is not something the league will be including on its feel good, end-of-season marketing DVD.

I also understand why the hockey establishment have been climbing over each other in an attempt to stone Avery to death.

He broke some obscure section of The Code.  He dared to go public with the moronic, sexist vernacular that is a part of most, if not all, professional locker rooms, and often on the ice during play.   This is a fact-of-life.   Life in the trenches, if you will.  A large number of your favourite hockey players talk something akin to this.  There’s a good chance, if you’re a male, you’ve done it yourself.  I know I have.  And when I have, it’s always been in a group dynamic, the mob mentality taking over, when the individual subverts their better judgement into the greater whole.  It’s normal human behaviour, and often it’s rated X (and I’ve been assured women are quite capable of the same talk, albeit with different reference points).

What Avery did was rip off the very thin veneer of civility that cloaks the jock culture at the heart of all professional sport.  Avery allowed us to peek under the curtain, and we saw a glimpse of what any mature person already knows.  Hockey players are as profane (if not more so), and prone to the same vices, and carnal motivations as the rest of us.  They just have more cash and get their own bubblegum card.

This truth, of course, runs counter to the constantly pumped proproganda that hockey players are all great guys, the very Salt of the Earth.

But hockey players are not superheroes, they’re young men.  They’re in very good shape, they’re rich, and that’s enough to put them at the front-of-the-line in the endless race for alpha dog mating status.  There’s a reason why the likes of Avery hang out with Supermodels.  I don’t care how smart you might be, or what contributions you’ve made to the human race…some jock with a ton of money trumps you and me every time.

These guys are rock stars.  And, as such, some of them behave like rock stars.  Which means, lock up your daughters.  Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with any of this.  Humans are sexual beings, despite what any religion might tell you.  The hockey star you worshipped as a kid probably had a girl in every port.  Heck, maybe you would have worshipped them more if you had known that.

None of this is wrong between consenting adults, nor is it anyone’s business, anymore than your personal life is anyone’s concern.   Why it’s worth noting here is that, even with our modest advances as a society, women still play a marginal role in the world of men’s hockey.

Just reference the recent David Frost trial, where the purported sexual shenanigans between players and local girls are much more common than anyone will admit.  The hockey establishment will rise up to deny it, but that’s part of the public relations game. 

Young women are often a trophy for young players to collect.  Puck bunnies very much exist.  So when a Sean Avery actually verbalizes that part of the long-ingrained culture of hockey, the hockey establishment goes nuts.

His childish words are condemned from all corners.  It’s the worst scandal to hit the NHL since, well, since the league and its media lapdogs finally were forced to admit that Alan Eagleson was a criminal.  From hockey analysts to ex-coaches to current players, the condemnations for Avery’s comments reeks of hypocrisy.  And more importantly, the priorities are all out-of-wack.

Speaking on TSN’s Off The Record on Wednesday evening, former NHL sniper Rick Vaive called for a 20-game suspension for Avery.  What?   A guy can plaster a fellow player against the boards, risking the guy’s career, and one day a guy’s life, and the guilty party might receive 3 games.  MIGHT receive 3 games. Probably only 1 in the playoffs.  But some moron miscalculates his own worth and opens his mouth, and you want to suspend him for 20 games?

No wonder the NHL remains a joke in many quarters in the U.S.   Despite some headway, the league (meaning the entire league…the teams, management, the players, most of the established media) still refuses to honestly address the on-going self-inflicted wounds the game suffers thanks to garbage such as head shots and hits-from-behind.

Instead, many of the hockey mob want to string up Avery, as though they finally caught the medieval witch that was causing all their chickens to die.

It was poppycock back in the Middle Ages, and it’s poppycock now.

What is most priceless are the commentators that are tut-tutting from their pulpits, stating that Avery’s comments are degrading to women.  True, they are, but so much of the macho, male culture of hockey feeds into that same river.  As Captain Willard noted in Apocalypse Now, when he was sent up river to take out Colonel Kurtz, “…charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500″.

To the hockey establishment, Avery’s real sin was in speaking the unspeakable.

Knock yourself out, boys, trying to see who can sound the most pious in their condemnation of Avery.  Your spot in hockey heaven is reserved.

- Mick Kern

Paul, we tried.

This morning, on The War Room (9 am to 10 am, Mountain Time), Dan Blakeley and myself made the focus of the entire show Happy Hockey Day.  Hey, if Kukla’s Korner asks for everyone to participate, then we are only too glad to contribute.

We solicited calls from listeners that dealt with warm and fuzzy stories from the wide world of hockey.  Tell us about your fondest memory from attending a game, the time you met a hockey star, maybe your personal greatest moment playing hockey, what about a great place to eat before-or-after a game, etc.

We opened the phones.  And we waited.

And waited.

Usually the phones are active, often even jammed during the The War Room.

Not today.

Maybe it was the way we sold it.  I’m never going to be confused with Mr. Happiness, Shawn Lavigne (though don’t buy that act, folks…man, have I got dirt on Big Country), but both Dan and I embraced the topic.  Or so we thought.

The response from the listener’s, if phone calls are any true gauge of interest, was tepid.  It got to the point where Super Technical Producer Paperboy, who we had flown in for this show, started off a segment by playing the corny theme song from Happy Days…and thanks to a dearth of phone calls, Dan and I spent two minutes breaking down the differences in composition and quality between the opening for the first season of the show, and subsequent seasons.

Maybe that was the exact moment when The War Room jumped the shark.

Many will disagree, and point to earlier shows for such evidence.  Each to their own.   What I do know is that, from this point forward, The War Room will decline to take part in such contrived spectacle’s, and will leave such treacle to the walking dead who inhabit the Up With People world.

We will continue to explore issues and occurrences that will rub some people the wrong way, that will enrage some folk, no doubt bore others, but hopefully will engage the interest and curiosity of the majority of listeners.  Hey, if along the way, we trip over a happy hockey story, all the more merrier.  But we will not bunch up our collective faces into a fake Wal-Mart greeter smile.  Some can do that, Blakeley probably could for about five minutes, but I’d burst out laughing.

Back to the whining, complaining, belly aching, and talk about head shots.  Apparently that’s what the public wants.

- Mick Kern

Sometimes, in this big ole’ hockey world we all live in, we forget all about yesterday’s wunderkind and instead focus our attention and lavish our praise on the latest Messiah.

No one can rationally argue about the amount of attention the likes of Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby have heaped upon themselves every single day.  Even young whippersnappers like Patrick Kane and Alexander Semin have deserved the spotlight, though in Semin’s case, he invited much of that glare thanks to his comments about Crosby.

A lot of fans and media worked themselves into a lather over where old warhorse Mats Sundin may end up, and whether or not the Minnesota Wild will move oft-injured, yet supremely talented Marian Gaborik, before he becomes an unrestricted free agent and takes the first skyway out of town.

But what about Mr. Ilya Kovalchuk down in Georgia?  He is one of the true snipers in the National Hockey League.  He is one of the true superstars in the game today, though it’s almost as though he’s become the forgotten star.

Tuesday night at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Kovalchuk and his Atlanta Thrashers dominated the host Maple Leafs, and walked away with a spirited 6-3 win.  It was the first time I’ve seen Kovalchuk play in person, and of the hundreds of NHL games I’ve attended, you can mark him down as one of those special players I would pay big bucks to watch.

From the 6:45 pm warmup until they announced the three stars as games end, I could not take my eyes off number 17.  He was everywhere, handling the puck as if it were on a string, scoring a nice unassisted goal on a snapshot a mere second after a Thrashers’ powerplay expired, and getting into it with Ian White of the Leafs.  Kovalchuk took exception to Mr. White, and apparently his approach to the game that evening, and picked up a double minor for roughing and charging.

The Maple Leafs failed to score on that powerplay.

But Special K wasn’t done.  He later renewed hostilities with Mr. White, and they fought like they were on the undercard at Casino Rama.  Which both pleased me, and annoyed me.  I’m not a big proponent of fighting in hockey, but understand its place in the game, and have a grudging respect for that legacy.  In an era where the cave dwellers of hockey still believe only good ole’ North American boys are tough, it was great to see Kovalchuk fight his own battle.  Unfortunately, that robbed me of watching this marvel work his magic on-ice for those five minutes.

After the game, both players got in their verbal shots at one another, with Mike Knobler of the Atlanta Constitution-Journal making note of the fact these two teams meet up again December 22nd.  Nothing like a little Christmas cheer to get the blood flowing.  In fact, these two teams will get a real opportunity to build upon that feeling; they also play each other on December 30th and January 16th.

I sat beside Knobler during last night’s game, and asked him if Kovalchuk had any star power in Atlanta.  After ranking hockey as maybe fifth in the pecking order when it comes to sports in Atlanta (he says the Braves are first), Knobler pointed out that while Kovalchuk does a fair amount of charity work, he tends to shy away from the spotlight, preferring to let his work on the ice do the talking.  Knobler added that Kovalchuk is uncomfortable with standing apart from his teammates; he wants to be one of the guys.

Are you kidding me?  When his contract is up in Atlanta after the 2009-10 season, do you not imagine that the 29 other clubs in the league will be knocking at his door, with a hefty contract-in-hand?  Kovalchuk is one of those rare players in any sport…a game breaker.  The thing is, with all due respect to Thrasher fans, he’s been plying his trade pretty much under the radar since entering the league in 2001.

This guy already has two 50-goal seasons under his belt, and shared the Rocket Richard Trophy with Jarome Iginla and Rick Nash back in 2003-04 when they all reached 41 goals…during the Dead Puck Era.  While he’s not on-pace for such gaudy totals this season, consider that he’s playing for a team that’s near the bottom of the Eastern Conference.  What if this guy was a Detroit Red Wing, or a Montreal Canadien, or a San Jose Shark?

Then again, if he’s reluctant to appear in the spotlight, you might want to strike some cities off the list of where he potentially lands a couple of seasons from now.  Maybe he prefers to play in a hockey backwater.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  Some guys prefer it over such cities as Toronto and Montreal, where the attention paid to the home team borders on insane. 

The first overall pick of the 2001 Entry Draft will be 26 on April 15th.  Make sure your favourite team sends Mr. Kovalchuk a birthday card.

- Mick Kern

Folks, calm down.

Take a deep breath, and look around you.  The world is not falling apart.  Okay, maybe it is financially, which, of course, influences everything we do, but try to forget that apocalypse for the moment.

Focus.

On the fan voting for the upcoming NHL All-Star Game in Montreal.  And take that deep breath again.

Folks, it’s the All-Star Game.  A mid-season exhibition of shinny.  None of it means anything in the long run.  None of it means anything the next morning.  It’s a mid-term schmooze fest for hockey industry types, a chance to take a breather before they go back to beating each other’s brains in.  Probably from behind.

Outside of the programme salespeople, the only ones in the entire building working up a sweat that day will be the goaltenders.  They’re sitting ducks.  They don’t have a prayer.  People pay their money in order to see the NHL gunners fill the net with rubber.  No one really wants to see a goaltender steal the show.  Save that for the real games.  This is the All-Star Game; as close as the NHL will ever get to being the razzle-dazzle, all sizzle NBA.   What’s the over-under on the final total goal count. anyhow?

So does it really matter that some computer-literate fans in Montreal have been stuffing the electronic ballot box?  Sure, it runs counter to the spirit of the entire affair; fans voting for their favourite players, over and and over and over and over again.  Yup, how dare those hackers in Montreal monkey around with true democracy.  Do they think this is the state of Florida?  Hopefully their mom will ground them for at least a week.

If anything, outside of the honour of hanging out with your peers, and the really cool gift bag, it’s understandable if a player logged onto the internet, took a quick survey of the latest all-star voting results, and then proceeded to click onto the name of his nearest rival in the voting…and made sure that it’s that dude who will be going to the All-Star Game, not him.

Hey, who couldn’t use a mid-season break?

In the name of restoring some sanity to the choices for the 2008-09 NHL All-Star Game, I’ve cut through all the hype and hysteria, and come up with the six goaltenders who’ll be making the trip to Montreal.  No need to thank me.  Now you can go back to using the internet for what it was initially intended for, watching people make total fools of themselves on YouTube.

NHL EASTERN ALL-STAR GOALTENDERS:

No controvery here, as there are three men who are heads-and-shoulders above every other netminders in the East.  One of them is now a perennial All-Star, and Vezina contender, the second is a journeyman who’s surprised many by making his mark permanent, and the third is keeping himself afloat on a team that is well below the waterline.

- Henrik Lundqvist - New York Rangers
- Tim Thomas - Boston Bruins
- Mike Smith - Tampa Bay Lightning

Not sure how anyone can argue with these choices.  No doubt many will, but most of those arguments will be tainted by their own prejudices as they shill for their guy.  One would imagine Carey Price will actually be named to the team, as it’s in Montreal, and young Price has shined at times this season, but he has not outplayed any of these three picks.  If one of these gentlemen are injured, then Price’s inclusion could be justified. 

Personally, I think Joey MacDonald of the Islanders should be the fourth choice.  He’s had a fine first two months, considering the team he’s playing on.  Sorry Alex Auld, a fine performance, but not all-star worthy.  Stats are important, but they don’t always paint the whole picture.  This isn’t fantasy hockey, this is the real thing.

NHL WESTERN ALL-STAR GOALTENDERS:

These three gentlemen are obvious choices; there’s no way anyone can construct a rational argument against them.

- Roberto Luongo - Vancouver Canucks
- Niklas Backstrom - Minnesota Wild
- Marty Turco - Dallas Stars

I know what you’re saying, what the heck is Turco doing on this list?  Have you seen this guy play recently?  Yes, indeed I have.  Turco has been a top notch goaltender over the past few seasons, and his fall-from-grace this fall has been stunning.  If anything, he’d be perfect for the All-Star Game, since everyone wants to see goals, goals, and more goals.

Okay, let’s give Marty a well-needed break.  Instead, how about the goaltender not wanted by his own team, the ultimate orphan, Nikolai Khabibulin of the Chicago Blackhawks?  Let’s see, the media darlings of this past off-season, the “Back Hawks”, foolishly throw a load of money at Christobal Huet, only to watch in horror as the incumbent, Khabibulin, plays like it’s 2004.  Now the rumour mill has it that Blackhawk players would mutiny if the suits decide to trade the Bulin Wall.  What is this, Tampa Bay north?

San Jose Sharks and Calgary Flames fans will no doubt lobby for their guy, and for good reasons, but my mind is made up.

And keep this in mind, the only real All-Stars that matter are the guys named to the post-season First and Second All-Star Teams.  Now that’s an accomplishment.

- Mick Kern

Used to be a time when a guy could be dead sure who was the number one goaltender for any given NHL team.  Used to be a time a guy could reliably count on that goaltender to be between the pipes for the majority of games.   Used to be a time a guy could manage his fantasy hockey goaltenders with little effort.

Those days are gone.  Now, if you really want to have a fighting chance in your fantasy hockey league, you pretty much have to put other parts of your life on-hold, just to track the daily myriad of possibilites as to which goaltender gets the nod that night.

No doubt many a guy has allowed yardwork, homework, work work, and personal relationships to deteriorate thanks to the absolute need to scrutinize the daily internet hockey news in an attempt to ascertain who’s going to start in net.  No doubt a number of woman also find themselves in this same bind.

For starters, fantasy hockey is not real hockey.  Not even close.  That’s why they call it fantasy hockey.  To the uninitiated, it might sound as if the likes of Clare Danes, Mila Kunis, Zooey Deschanel, Jennifer Aniston and Sarah Silverman are skating around, with Scarlett Johansson in net.  Actually, that’s a fantasy hockey team alright, one which would probably outperform the team I’m currently managing, as long as they knew that Johansson was starting most games.

During our fantasy draft back in late September, I stayed away from goaltenders, until they started to go near the end of the first round.  Brodeur and Luongo left first.  I managed to get my paws on a goaltender I was confident would be solid for the season.

Marty Turco.

Okay, so that’s why they actually play the games.  The real hockey games, that is.  They play them just to cause major pain to the fools who dabble in the black art of fantasy hockey.

I stayed away from drafting a second goaltender, going with the belief, particularly in our league, that scoring numbers/plus-minus would win the day.  When the backup guys began to fall off-the-board, I had to change plans once again, and decide who would be goaler number two on my squad.

The choice came down to either Martin Biron or Cam Ward.  I dithered.  I looked for a coin to flip.  I quickly checked my email to see if Johansson had gotten back to me.  Finally, with precious little time remaining on the draft clock, I gulped, and took young Ward.

Which earned me the almost immediate wrath of fantasy hockey guru Rob Higgins, who, when he’s not screaming into a microphone, channelling his inner Lemmy, leads the way in pouring over stats and minutiae and dominating his hockey pool.  Or so he says.  No one’s actually thought to confirm these claims.

Regardless, the hasty slapdown by Higgins had me limping away in shame, quickly logging onto the nearest computer, and furtively scanning the waiver wire, trying to pick up a third netminder.

As luck would have it, Biron got off to a rotten start.  As luck would also have it, Ward wasn’t doing much better.  In fact, Michael Leighton appeared to be getting as many starts as Ward. 

So naturally, doing what most poolies do, my knees jerked me into moving the mouse, hovering over Leighton’s name.  One click later, I had my third goaltender.  Since Turco was Turd-o, he was going to see a lot of pine on my team.  I wasn’t going to outright release him, bury him in the minors, lend him to a Russian team, or trade him to Boomer.  I was sure (I still am…really) that Marty will get his act together.

But until then, the two Hurricanes were going to rock my team.  I was going with a tandem, which broke most hockey pool “rules”, but I had to know I’d get four starts in a week, or risk losing valuable goaltending points.

Trouble is, Leighton didn’t do much, either.  So, naturally, I panicked, and dropped the bum, instead looking for comfort in the arms of Ty Conklin.  There was no way that Chris Osgood was gonna last, I told myself, and the Red Wings are stacked.

Mr. Shows got me some wins, but my goaltending was still preventing my team from performing to their full potential.  They were letting down the rest of the team, costing us points.  And then I started noticing Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers hanging around the rink.  He seemed to be getting some starts up in Edmonton, even though they had about 28 goaltenders on their roster.

So, naturally, I parted ways with Conklin and went with the hypen man.  Who. naturally, was returned to the bench in favour of Dwayne Roloson.  Which got me to noticing former St. Mike’s Majors’ netminder Peter Budaj, who appeared to be getting his game together in Denver.  But he’s been running hot-and-cold, so I’m waiting to see how he does over the next few games.  Which means he’ll be gone by then.

Turco was still on-and-off, while it seemed whenever Ward picked up a win in the Carolina net, I had him nailed to the bench.  For no explainable reason really, expect perhaps I was obsessing about my third goaltender, and neglected the rest of the team.   Sorry guys.

I see that Ty Conklin is still available.

We’re only seven weeks into the regular season, and I’m already exhausted.  Good thing we don’t put up any money on this madness. 

When does baseball season start?

- Mick Kern

Now that the biggest non-secret in the hockey world is finally official, that Brian Burke is done with the Anaheim Ducks and is searching for greener pastures, there’s been non-stop speculation as to which NHL team he’ll lay his hat with.

Ever since the Toronto Maple Leafs’ arrogantly made it known that they were going to conduct an exhaustive search for the “best hockey general manager in the world”, most pundits believed that man would be Burke, particularly when the Detroit Red Wings did not want to part ways with Ken Holland, and Hurricanes’ GM Jim Rutherford turned down the job.

But is Brian Burke as good as he’s being made out to be?  Oh sure, he won the Cup with the 2007 Ducks, and that’s a heck of a lot more than most NHL teams have accomplished recently, but is he really a hockey Messiah?  Some teams no doubt believe so, and one would have to think there’d be a number of organizations lining up to get this guy onboard.

The safe money is on Burke ending up in Tarana, but there are other intriguing possibilities for Uber-Burke.  Let’s take a quick look at the contenders…

1. TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS
 - if a GM could ever somehow manoeuvre around all the sharks in this dysfunctional organization, and win the Stanley Cup, he would be proclaimed Prime Minister of Canada the next day, thanks to the grass roots support for the Maple Leafs across the Great White North…and it helps that Burke has dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship.

2. CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS
- the cold-hearted, cut-throat manner in which they gassed head coach Denis Savard clearly shows that the new Hawks management will stop at nothing in an effort to win a Cup before the equally historically sad-sack Maple Leafs do.  Also, current Chicago GM Dale Tallon is accustomed to coming out second, though usually it was thanks to the spin of a roulette wheel.

3.  BOSTON BRUINS
- wait, they’ve got a GM who’s done a very good job rebuilding this team that hasn’t won the Cup since before anyone in North America knew who Tretiak was.  Regardless, Burke lives in the area, and he’d be home for dinner almost every night.  That really cuts down on the cost of brown-bagging it.  That way, Boston could low-ball their offer to Burke, thus keeping a proud Bruins’ tradition alive.

4.  WINNIPEG JETS/LAS VEGAS STARS/HAMILTON PREDATORS
- word has it a number of wannabe team owners have approached Burke to run their hockey affairs when-and-if they are granted an NHL expansion franchise, or one of the weak sisters relocates.  But since NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman recently stated that all thirty teams are fine, well, then no-one’s moving, and only a bunch of crazies would venture down the path of expansion during these turbulent economic times.  Okay, so this option is very much alive.

5.  TORONTO BLUE JAYS/TORONTO ARGONAUTS/TORONTO RAPTORS
- well, this is somewhat contingent on choice number one.  If Burke doesn’t get the Maple Leafs’ job, maybe he could spin his magic with the Jays, Argos and Dinos as well.  Not that he could do any worse than what those teams have been through recently.  And he would be in the city for the inevitable failure of the man the Leafs chose as GM instead of him, which would give the hockey panels on Hockey Night in Canada, TSN and Sportsnet enough material for the next year that they would only have to mention Mats Sundin when he actually does something.

6.  GENERAL MOTORS
- okay, so the consensus pick for best general manager in the National Hockey League is Ken Holland, and he’s currently working for the Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings, one of the few companies in Michigan that’s actually successful these days.  The former Big Three have taken a big hit, bigger than most companies have, and speculation is that once-mighty GM is lurching towards bankruptcy.  The industry always talks fondly of the days of Lee Iacocca, and Brian Burke is kind of the NHL’s version of the chairman.  Besides, it might be the closest he gets to the Stanley Cup in the next few seasons, though I understand the Anaheim Ducks have a pretty good team.

7.  THE WHITE HOUSE
- actually, come to think of it, that position’s recently been filled.  But Burkie could always try again in four years time.

8.  THE BEATLES
- okay, maybe not the White House, but what about the White Album?  Paul McCartney doesn’t need the cash, but he craves the spotlight, while apparently Ringo Starr is very busy these days, so don’t send him anything.  Now what could Ringo be that busy at?  His garden?  Woodworking?  That kick-ass triple CD set he’s been working on that’s going to revolutionize popular music as we know it?  Maybe,  just maybe, the remaining Beatles are secretly practising in some garage somewhere in England, preparing for their return to the stage.  Enter one Brian Burke.  The Beatles Mark II are going to need a great frontman who’ll look good slinging a Rickenbacker 325.  Burkie’s most definitely the Lennon in this equation.  He’s clever, inquisitive, sarcastic, and doesn’t suffer fools easily…though I can’t really picture Burkie giving peace a chance, particularly when it comes to his feud with Kevin Lowe.

9.  SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE
- if any one person could breath life into this sad, tired franchise, it would be Brian Burke.  He’d dominate the show the way Chevy Chase did during the show’s first season, and in the manner of John Belusi during his all-too-short glory days.  Problems might arise when Burkie demands that he gets to say “Live From New York”, handle the opening monologue, and anchor Weekend Update every show.  Then again, they could always get Sarah Palin to host, she doesn’t have a lot to do these days.

10.  NHL HOME ICE
- if Burke ends up getting the job in Toronto, it wouldn’t take all that long to make the trek up on the Yonge subway line and drop by our studios to impart his wisdom.  I don’t think we’re hiring at the moment, but there are always intern opportunities.  We’re got a bubble hockey game, Joe Thistel will often spring for pizza, and who’d want to pass up a chance to hang out with Rossy?

- Mick Kern