Campbell: Blues surprise by plucking Ken Hitchcock from Blue Jackets

Ken Campbell, The Hockey News, 2011-11-07


Well, this wasn’t quite what we all expected when it came to the coaching future of Ken Hitchcock, was it now? In fact, when most of us first found out Hitchcock was going back behind the bench, we naturally assumed it would be with the Columbus Blue Jackets. After all, you give up a nine-spot and you’re on pace for 29 points this season, you kind of figure that’s the natural order of things.

But Blues GM Doug Armstrong, who has a history with Hitchcock that goes way back to their days with the Dallas Stars, managed to hire him away from his Central Division rival when he brought on Hitchcock to replace the fired Davis Payne Sunday night. With a 6-7-0 record this season, Payne didn’t appear to be the first on the NHL’s firing line by a long shot, but when your power play has fewer goals than Claude Giroux, that’s presumably a sign things are not going well at all.

On paper, the Blues have a team that should not miss the playoffs, even in the ultra competitive Western Conference. But the team Hitchcock left shouldn’t be the bottom feeder in that conference either. That’s the funny thing that seems to happen when you don’t get very good goaltending from the guy you’re relying upon most to stop pucks for you. Both Steve Mason in Columbus and Jaroslav Halak in St. Louis have been dreadful this season and they both have to take their share of the culpability for their teams’ early season woes.

Now the question is, why would a team that seems to be screaming for a coaching change allow Hitchcock to go to a division rival for nothing more than the ability to get off the hook for the rest of his contract, particularly one that needs a coach such as Hitchcock more than ever at the moment? (For those of you in Columbus screaming for some kind of compensation, you should know the NHL did away with that a couple of years ago. The moment you give another team permission to talk to one of your management people about a job is the same moment you give up any right to compensation.) It will be interesting to hear GM Scott Howson’s perspective on that in the coming days.

The thinking here is even though the Blue Jackets are now staring down the prospect of facing Hitchcock six times a season, they thought it was worth allowing him to leave because his presence had become too much of a distraction and a veritable Sword of Damocles hanging over the coaching staff. Even though Hitchcock was assigned to work with the Blue Jackets farm team, he had been sitting with team president Mike Priest during games, which never creates much feeling of security.

The thinking was that Hitchcock, who still had the rest of this season remaining on his contract, would go behind the bench if the Blue Jackets fired Scott Arniel to guide the team for the rest of the season. That clearly was not a scenario Hitchcock wanted to see transpire, because he knew doing so would be a no-win proposition. And more importantly, it would have taken him out of the running for vacant jobs such as the one that came up in St. Louis.

And from the Blue Jackets perspective, what good would that have done anyway? They are currently the proud owners of five points in the standings. Teams in the Western Conference have, on average, been required to earn 94 points since the lockout to make the playoffs. That puts them hopelessly out of the playoffs before the season is even a month old. In order to qualify for the post-season, the Blue Jackets need 89 points in their final 68 games, or a .654 winning percentage, or a record that resembles something like 40-19-9.

You can be certain, meanwhile, that starting Tuesday night when the Blues open a five-game home stand against the Chicago Blackhawks, they will be on notice. Hitchcock has been known to lock horns with the stars on his team, but this Blues team is one without stars, so that shouldn’t be a problem. St. Louis is a decent, hard-working team that can play a pretty good game 5-on-5 and is actually a decent defensive team. They give up the second-fewest shots in the league and if not for being let down by their goaltending, they’d probably have a better record. This is a team that should be in the thick of the playoff race, hovering somewhere between sixth and 10th in the standings.

And the one thing we’ve learned is that if you let things get away early in the season, it’s almost impossible to make up ground. Payne was a good coach with a decent record coaching the Blues, but he was not Armstrong’s choice and it’s likely when Armstrong found out he could get Hitchcock, he figured the time was right.

Hitchcock will add discipline, structure, and accountability and will be on the Blues players constantly. Young struggling players such as Chris Stewart and T.J. Oshie would be well advised to prepare for long video sessions, some very difficult practices and perhaps the occasional extended view from the bench. The Blues management team is obviously thinking that will be enough to get this team into the playoffs. If that happens, Hitchcock will be looking a long way down to see the organization he left.

Blues, Blue Jackets respond differently to crisis

David Shoalts, Globe and Mail, November 7, 2011


It’s interesting the way two NHL franchises under siege responded this week.

In both St. Louis and Columbus, the fires are raging because both teams are supposed to be young and on their way up but both are in a death spiral. The Blue Jackets are last overall with a 2-11-1 record and the confidence of that young team is in tatters while the Blues are one spot ahead of the Jackets at 14th in the Western Conference with a 6-7 record.

Both teams have goaltending issues. The Blue Jackets’ Steve Mason has a big contract and small results. He has a 3.70 goals-against average and .869 save percentage and has never matched the 2.29 GAA and .916 save percentage he posted as a rookie in 2008-09 that prompted general manager Scott Howson to reward him with that fat contract. The problem is, the Blue Jackets have no depth at that position, which is why Mason appeared in every game this season but one.

In St. Louis, Jaroslav Halak is just as bad. He’s 1-6 with a 3.35 GAA and a similarly embarrassing .856 save percentage. The difference is backup goaltender Brian Elliott is surprisingly good. He is 5-1 with a 1.72 GAA and .941 save percentage.

The trouble is, too many of the Blues’ skaters are under-achievers, like Chris Stewart (three points) and Patrik Berglund (five points).

So why was it the Blues fired head coach Davis Payne and hired Ken Hitchcock, while the Blue Jackets stood pat? And not only that, the Blues took Hitchock, who was under contract in Columbus for the rest of this season at $1.3-million (all currency U.S.), away from the Blue Jackets.

After all, aside from the goaltender issue, the teams’ other problems look similar. Both have no shortage of under-achievers who have big contracts and both are under intense pressure to make the playoffs. The Blues have not been in the playoffs since 2009 and only made the post-season once since 2004. The Blue Jackets have one brief playoff appearance in their 11-year history.

Scratch the surface, though, and the Blues’ troubles are more severe. They may list their average attendance as 19,150, fifth in the NHL, but those fans do not bring in a lot of revenue. NHL insiders say there are a lot of giveaways and discounts with Blues tickets because the team’s rebuilding efforts are dragging on and the owners are desperate to woo an increasingly disaffected fan base.

Incoming owner Matthew Hulsizer is well aware of these problems and signed off on the coaching moves.

In Columbus, attendance may only be an average of 13,000, 27th in the NHL, and the owners are certainly tired of losing gobs of money but the Blue Jackets have a little more breathing room. The city recently agreed to buy Nationwide Arena and Nationwide Insurance agreed to buy a piece of the Blue Jackets and inject a chunk of cash into the operation. In exchange, the team pledged not to move for a long time.

Howson may be under as much pressure as Jackets head coach Scott Arniel, but he is standing pat for now (at considerable risk to his job) for a couple of reasons. One is that injuries and suspensions played a role in the awful start. Jeff Carter, the No. 1 centre who was brought in at great expense, is still on the sidelines and defenceman James Wisniewski was lost for the first eight games because of a suspension. The team is also missing two of its top four defencemen.

Another reason is the only thing the Blue Jackets have been known for in their short history is upheaval. They’ve had five head coaches and almost as many interim head coaches. One more firing is not going to help much when you don’t have a goaltender and no GM is about to do you any favours in a trade for one, either.

So despite the rampant speculation Hitchcock, who is working off his contract after being one of those fired Blue Jackets coaches, was about to replace Arniel was off-target. And Hitchcock does have a long history with Blues GM Doug Armstrong when both worked for the Dallas Stars.

A Dying Breed

Nick Kypreos, TSN, November 7, 2011

http://www .sportsnet.ca/hockey/2011/11/07/kypreos_dying_breed/?source=video


The move to hire Ken Hitchcock in St. Louis can be summed up in one word: Desperate.

Clearly the patience of Blues general manager Doug Armstrong and his management team was running paper thin after a mediocre start to the season, so they went back to the old drawing board.

Hitch will get the rest of the season to show everyone what a genius coach he still is, and if he does get them to the playoff dance, he'll likely parlay it into a new, lucrative long-term deal with the new ownership group. And if he doesn't, he'll simply fade off into the sunset like so many have done in the past.

For Armstrong, he can sell this with minimal downside because Hitchcock won't get a new long-term deal until he proves he can motivate this group into playoff contenders.

Armstrong can also pin this hiring on how no one else was remotely available with Hitchcock’s coaching experience to save this season. Above the surface, we all know Armstrong put his job on the line with a very gutsy call.

In the meantime, Hitch will go into the Blues' dressing room and remind the players who the new boss is and how the country club atmosphere has officially come to an end. He'll start by grinding them to the bone with rants, raves, threats, lies & tantrums -- heck, whatever it takes to get the team winning.

And knowing a thing or two about brow-beating coaches, he'll probably get a jolt out of them within a week or two but count on one thing: it never lasts long. These "old school" coaches don't get the four or five-year shelf life expectancy they once knew.

Players now quit on hard-line coaches much earlier because they stop believing what they're selling far more quickly than ever before. In my era, coaches fed off our fear of having our careers buried by them and worrying we'd never recover -- even highly-paid players felt that way.

Today, highly-paid players who are locked in long-term don't suffer the same insecurities we did back then. Players now look at coaches and think to themselves: "You're embarrassing yourself". Then they shut down because they're not buying what's being sold to them so they often outlast the coaches.

The truly successful coaches today are the ones that look at their players as partners, not puppets. You won't find a better example of that than Dan Bylsma of the Pittsburgh Penguins. He's a man who can still pass as one of the guys, while maintaining the utmost respect of his players.

And how does he manage to do that?

By simply offering knowledge and wisdom in a manner that isn't so intimidating; by having better communication skills than the norm. This is how Bylsma and his colleague Joel Quenneville stay ahead of the curve when it comes to dealing with the new generation.

Interacting with a fair, honest approach -- without attitude -- can go a long way with these kids. Take a good listen when cameras roll on certain coaches when they speak -- it's like they invented the game. Now imagine what some of the players get from coaches behind closed doors in a private one-on-one meeting. I may miss the paycheques but certainly not those meetings.

Coaches who continue to bully just don't last anymore. Hitchcock was very fortunate with his group in Dallas back in 1999 -- they had Mike Modano, Joe Nieuwendyk, Brett Hull, Ed Belfour, Sergei Zubov and Derian Hatcher. Those were guys who could stomach the everyday dosage of his condescending attitude and still maintain professionalism despite it.

The only question that really matters today is whether or not David Backes, Patrik Berglund, Alex Steen, Alex Pietrangelo, Kevin Shattenkirk and Jaroslav Halak have the same type of stomach.

Good luck boys ... the Pepto-Bismol is on the back shelf in the trainer's room.

Nick Kypreos is a Stanley Cup champion and Hockeycentral analyst

Sports matter to the nation, but hockey matters the most

Roy MacGregor, Globe and Mail, Nov. 07 2011


There are times when Canada feels like a one-sport country.

So dominant is hockey in the national conscience that, at an Order-of-Canada ceremony held at Rideau Hall on Friday, so much fuss was made over the two hockey stars being honoured – community-conscious Trevor Linden and three-time Olympic champion Hayley Wickenheiser – that it seemed there might a fourth level to the three-tier national honours system reserved only for those who can skate.

While attendees crowded about the two deserving recipient for autographs and photographs, brilliant scientists, generous philanthropists, accomplished artists and one other gifted athlete – four-time Olympian Tricia Smith, winner of a silver medal in rowing and senior vice-president of the Canadian Olympic Committee – had to make do with family pictures and the well wishes of other recipients.

Such is the power of the national sport. (There are two, officially, but the hold of lacrosse, a wonderful game, on the national psyche compared to hockey is roughly the equivalent of the Green Party’s hold on Parliament.) Hockey is so dominant, in fact, that it almost squashed all other sports in the country when it came to having a special place in which to honour the stars of the various games Canadians play.

At one point, Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame shared quarters at Toronto’s Exhibition Place with the far more popular Hockey Hall of Fame. When the Hockey Hall of Fame left for its own downtown quarters in the early 1990s, the second hall foundered to a point where it virtually disappeared.

“We became the orphan,” says Roger Jackson, the 1964 Olympic gold medal rower who ran the successful Own the Podium program at the 2010 Winter Games and is today chair of the reborn Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Efforts were made to find a new home, but they failed. The hall found the “perfect location” in the old Ottawa railway station, only to have the government of the day change its mind and decide to keep the building operating as a conference centre. By 2006, Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame was an embarrassment, existing only as a web site and in storage.

Jackson was asked by then Senator Trevor Eyton if he could help “find a solution.” They put the Sports Hall of Fame out for proposals, nine cities made pitches and in 2008 it was awarded to Calgary. On Canada Day 2011, the new $30-million building opened at Canada Olympic Park, fully financed and, according to Jackson, $112,000 under budget. A $20-million endowment fund to cover operating costs is, he says, well on its way to completion.

Tuesday night at Calgary’s TELUS Convention Centre six new athletes will be inducted – football star Lui Passaglia, paralympian Lauren Woolstencroft, soccer player Andrea Neil, triathlete Peter Reid, IOC member Dick Pound and, of course, a hockey star in Raymond Bourque – bringing the total number of inductees to 520, representing some 60 sports.

The new hall is, by early accounts, a hit. It opens with a 14-minute film that captures the emotional highs of all Canadian sport. “People come out of it just trembling,” Jackson says. Visitors pass by statues of eight iconic sports heroes – from Wayne Gretzky to Herman (Jackrabbit) Smith-Johannsen – and visit a dozen galleries and 50 interactive exhibits.

Hockey, of course, is represented, from early community teams (Kenora, Dawson City, etc.) to Paul Henderson, the hero of the 1972 Summit Series who, for reasons that no one comprehends, is not in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

But hockey here is only a portion, one sport among five dozen sports. There are exhibits paying tribute to diver Sylvie Bernier, skier Ken Read and the other Crazy Canucks, cyclist Clara Hughes, speed skaters Gaetan Boucher and Catriona Le May Doan, curler Sandra Schmirler, paralympic star Chantal Peticlerc, swimmer Alex Baumann, inspirational runner Terry Fox and even a horse, Northern Dancer.

“They all hold their own,” Jackson says.

“They all tell us that sport does matter to us as Canadians – and finally, we have this important tool in which to honour those athletes who make sport matter so much.”

Next wave of American stars arrive in NHL

Dan Gelston, The Associated Press, Nov. 09, 2011


Long before he was a budding star for the Philadelphia Flyers, James van Riemsdyk was a big New York Rangers fan.

Brian Leetch and Mike Richter were more than champions and star players.

They were proof that Americans could play hockey, too.

“Loved those guys,” van Riemsdyk said. “Any American, you always kind of have a special connection. Being American, you take some pride. Brett Hull. Mike Modano, I loved.”

Raised in New Jersey, van Riemsdyk was a prospect, even in youth hockey. He also played partially at a private high school in the Garden State, the genesis of a career that led him all the way to being the No. 2 overall pick of the 2007 NHL draft. In his third season in Philadelphia, van Riemsdyk has already played in a Stanley Cup final and been rewarded by the Flyers with a six-year contract extension.

Van Riemsdyk is also one of the standouts of the current crop of great American players in the NHL. As players like Hull, Modano and Chris Drury have retired, they've been replaced by a new wave of all-star Americans that are among the best at their respective positions.

Ryan Callahan captains the Rangers. Phil Kessel leads the NHL with 11 goals and 22 points entering Wednesday. Tim Thomas won a Stanley Cup with Boston last season. Zach Parise is one of the top goal scorers for New Jersey. Patrick Kane twice bested van Riemsdyk, first as the top pick of the ‘07 draft, then leading the Chicago Blackhawks past the Flyers for the championship in 2010.

“We already have a pretty young Olympic team and the USA team won the gold in the juniors last year, so that's a good sign,” Parise said. “I see a lot of good players from the colleges coming up and making it in the league now. There are younger, more talented players, even younger than me, moving up.”

Americans are coming from more than traditional hockey areas like Minnesota and the New England states. Van Riemsdyk was the highest draft pick out of New Jersey since New Brunswick's Brian Lawton was taken first overall by Minnesota in 1983.

“If you look back 15, 20 years, it was unheard of if there was even a guy drafted from Jersey, let alone a first-round pick,” van Riemsdyk said. “There's no reason to think it can't become a hockey hotbed.”

Anaheim's Bobby Ryan is from New Jersey. Washington Capitals defenceman John Carlson was born in Massachusetts, but played youth hockey and high school hockey in New Jersey.

The state known for Bruce Springsteen could find a rising number of prospects become stars in the NHL.

“I know when I played in New Jersey, we'd produce teams that went to the national tournaments and hung right with teams from those states,” Carlson said.

“You're now starting to see guys make it to the NHL from there, and it's only going to continue. There's a lot of talent there, in New Jersey, and it's improved talent. It's kind of a place now, where players coming out of New Jersey can decide on whether to go to college or whether to go pro. Maybe before, there were guys striving to get to college. Now, they're pushing for more.”

But how much more the Americans achieve outside the Stanley Cup is in doubt. An aging group of American veterans flamed out at the Turin Games, kickstarting a youth movement that led to a silver medal in Vancouver.

St. Louis Blues forward Jamie Langenbrunner, one of the older American stars easing the transition to a new generation, captained that Vancouver team. He said the result there can only help Americans earn more respect at the international level.

“You don't have to win every time, but you've got to be a tough team. You can't be a walkover,” he said. “The Olympics were a good step.”

But there's still work ahead. The U.S. has struggled at the World Championships.

“I don't know if it's put on quite the same pedestal for the Americans as it is for other countries,” Langenbrunner said. “But I think the young kids you see in the league right now, there's so many good young Americans. It's in good hands for a while. They should continue to be in that upper group.”

It's still in doubt whether NHL players will be making the trip to Sochi, Russia, for the 2014 Olympics. Van Riemsdyk has represented his country at various world championships and would love to try and earn Olympic gold.

“When you get a chance to do that, it gives you an extra sense of pride,” he said. “That's something I never take for granted. Any chance I can pull on that red, white and blue sweater, I'm always anxious to do it.”

Players like Kane and van Riemsdyk have long, distinguished careers ahead of them and plenty of time to try and match the careers of great American players like Pat LaFontaine, Chris Chelios, Jeremy Roenick, Modano and Leetch.

“I don't think we look at it so much as carrying the torch for those guys. They were all great players, and they did so much for our game, for our game in this country, certainly,” Carlson said. “But we are our own players, and we're going to have our own impact on American hockey as we continue to develop in this league.”

Joe Nieuwendyk: The winning touch

By LANCE HORNBY, QMI Agency, Nov 10 2011



TORONTO - To those who watched everything Joe Nieuwendyk touch turn to gold, it’s no surprise the team he runs is first overall on the eve of entering the Hockey Hall of Fame.

With the Dallas Stars atop the NHL, Nieuwendyk will have the million dollar view from the Great Hall’s stage on Monday.

“You looked at a player such as Joe and said ‘this guy’s going to be a real good NHLer’, ” said Cliff Fletcher. “Well, people started looking at Joe years later, saying ‘this guy’s going to be a terrific general manager, too’.

“Joe was an insightful player. No one understands the game better and he’s had the opportunity to play for different GMs and some great coaches. When he retired, you could just see his potential, through his people skills. He’s also a good listener, which is important in hockey, but applicable to everything in life and something that’s missing with a lot of people.”

Fletcher has been tracking Nieuwendyk almost every step of the journey to the Hall. In 1986, the Flames’ GM used a second round pick from the Minnesota North Stars, acquired months earlier for Kent Nilsson, to secure Nieuwendyk out of Cornell University. Within three years, Nieuwendyk helped win the Flames’ inaugural Stanley Cup, the first of three for the Whitby, Ont. native, who repeated with Dallas in 1999 (as Conn Smythe winner) and New Jersey in 2003.

Nieuwendyk notched 51 goals as a rookie to win the Calder, later the King Clancy Trophy for leadership on and off the ice and brought home Olympic gold in 2002 with Team Canada.

“He’s as Canadian as it gets, great and humble at the same time,” said Sportsnet analyst Nick Kypreos. “With him, it’s just going about your business. He’s never clamoured for the spotlight or needed to come up with a clever quote to get some attention. Some people just get it and he’s one of them.”

That was recognized at Cornell when Nieuwendyk was named to the century old Sphinx Head Society, the school’s cream of the crop, whose ranks include prominent judges, politicians, writers and business tycoons.

On the ice, he slipped past the scouts his draft year while playing Jr. B for the Pickering Panthers, then had 21 goals as a freshman for the Big Red. Nieuwendyk and Brian Leetch were among the Hobey Baker finalists in 1987 and when he joined the Flames that spring, he burst in with five goals in nine games, then 51 his first full year.

“Immediate impact,” Fletcher said. “It wasn’t like inserting a rookie into your lineup, it was inserting a top line veteran.”

The whole NHL community took notice.

PAIN AND SWEAT

“Joey was nothing but class,” retired referee Bill McCreary said. “Obviously, he gave 110% for his teammates and the crest that he wore, but he was never an issue with the officials. If he had a question, he always approached us in a professional manner.”

Nieuwendyk, who was a teenaged Minto Cup lacrosse champion for the Whitby Warriors with future Flames’ teammate Gary Roberts, never tired of lifting trophies.

“When you win the Cup so early in your career, you think, ‘We’ll go back out and win four or five more’, ” said Flames’ teammate Lanny McDonald. “Roberts was never able to win one (more), but Nieuwendyk, to his credit, won three with three different teams.”

Nieuwendyk enters the Hall with two of his Cup-winning mates, Doug Gilmour of the Flames and Stars’ goalie Ed Belfour.

“You always look back to a lot of the pain and the sweat that you went through to get there,” Nieuwendyk said. “I was fortunate to go through it with both those guys. The common denominator with both, and I think probably the case for everybody that goes in the Hall, is that these two guys were ultimate competitors.”

Marc Crawford, who coached the Colorado Avalanche to the ’96 Cup, knows how hard it is to get the ideal conditions in the room for just one run from October to June. The league is going on 14 years without a repeat champ.

“Joe did it with three different teams, in three different roles, as a No. 1 centre, No. 2 and so on,” Crawford said. “And any time you score as many goals as he did (564) and pay the price in traffic through 20 years, that’s pretty impressive.”

Back woes likely dating to his lacrosse years helped end Nieuwendyk’s playing career at 40. The only places his magic didn’t work were Florida and Toronto, where the long Leaf Cup jinx held through his 2003-04 season. He did have six goals in nine playoff games, in Toronto’s last playoff appearance.

“We had a great dressing room and were one of the teams that had a shot, but we came up a bit short,” Nieuwendyk said.

“Still, I’ll never regret playing for the team so close to my hometown, the team my idols played for. Every day was a pleasure coming to the Air Canada Centre where the people lived and breathed hockey.”

Nieuwendyk might be taking the Cup for another ride through Whitby before long.

“People wonder how Dallas is doing it this year — is it smoke and mirrors?,” Kypreos wondered. “Then you realize it’s Joe making the decisions and it makes it a little clearer.”

“You can see right now, how many good moves he’s made,” added Crawford, “whether it’s Kari Lehtonen, Alex Goligoski, Vern Fiddler or Sheldon Souray, he just does the right things. He recognizes what you need to do to make a team good.”

Shot blocking in the NHL shifts from rarity to necessity

PAUL WALDIE, Globe and Mail, Nov. 11 2011


When Russ Courtnall was playing hockey, he wouldn’t dare step in front of a shot and not many of his teammates did either.

Blocking shots was a rarity in Courtnall’s day, so much so the NHL didn’t even keep track of the statistic until 2005. “I wasn’t going to put my skinny leg in front of a shot,” said Courtnall who spent 16 seasons in the NHL from 1983 to 1999. “Far more players are blocking shots today than when I was playing.”

Indeed, shot blocking has become such a key component of hockey, Courtnall is now helping coach his 15-year-old son’s team on how to stand in front of a shooter. “We started when they were nine or 10 with sponge pucks and balls,” he explained. “We tried to teach them the timing in getting in front of a shot.”

Shot blocking has increased steadily in the NHL in recent years, a sign of the growing importance it plays in team strategy. In the 2005-06 season the St. Louis Blues led the league with 634 blocked shots and 92 players overall stopped 100 or more shots. Last season Anaheim led with 714 blocked shots and six other teams had more than 640. As for individual players, 110 blocked 100 shots or more.

The are many possible explanations about why shot blocking has become so prevalent. Some point to rule changes in 2005 that opened up the game and left shot blocking as one of the few legal means available to counter skilled players. Others say improvements in equipment have given players better protection. And still more say players are just bigger, stronger and more durable nowadays.

“Teams are definitely harping on it a lot more,” said Mark Stuart, a Winnipeg Jets defencemen who is tied for sixth in the league with 40 blocked shots so far this season. “In the last few years, there are a lot of teams that just collapse five guys in front of the net. Basically, if you are shooting from the point, you’ve got to get through two guys and then the goalie.”

Teams like the New York Rangers pride themselves on shot blocking and last year Ranger defenceman Dan Girardi led the NHL with 236 blocked shots. Girardi didn’t start blocking shots until he reached the NHL in 2006, when it became a central part of the Rangers’ penalty killing.

Some teams like the Edmonton Oilers and Boston Bruins have practised shot blocking over the years using sponge pucks. But that’s still rare and players are generally left to figure out how to do it themselves. Techniques vary, from lying down on the ice just as a shooter winds up, to standing up and being as big as possible to reduce the target area. Other players go down on one knee or both, making it easier to get back into the play once the shot is taken.

The key is to get as close to the shooter as possible. That cuts down on the speed of the puck which reduces the possibility of injury. Above all, timing and positioning are crucial. “You have to know when he is going to shoot because if you just go down and try and block a shot and he just passes it around you, it’s not working,” said Stuart who prefers to stand while blocking shots.

However a players does it, shot blocking can take its toll. Stuart has already missed a couple of games this season because of injuries inflicted from shot blocking. The Jets have also been without defenceman Randy Jones for four games after he got hurt blocking a shot with his foot. Even though many shot blockers wear extra padding on their hands and skates, it is often no match for a puck travelling at up to 160 kilometres an hour.

Most important of all, players need to know when to step aside and not block a shot at all.

“There are guys who are really good at it. But there’s guys that when they are not good at it, sometimes it can be a nightmare to a goalie,” said Jets goalie Chris Mason. Poor shot blocking leaves goalies screened and opposing players unguarded and able to pick up a loose rebound. Mason’s preference is for forwards to try to block shots at the point. If they can’t, then the defencemen should leave the shot to the goaltender.

Like many goalies, Mason has mixed views on the popularity of shot blocking, saying it has almost become a fad. While he appreciates the sacrifice his teammates make, he sometimes prefers them to just get out of the way. “I just think that the game today there’s maybe a little too much forcing guys into doing that when it’s not necessary.”

NHL not budging with Coyotes

Heading into Thursday’s game against the Montreal Canadiens, the Phoenix Coyotes were averaging 10,023 fans. Only the Dallas Stars, with an average of 10,001 fans, were drawing fewer.

Pat Hickey, Postmedia News, Nov 11 2011


The sky is so blue above the Arizona desert that it has often been substituted in postcards for the sky over, say, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh or even sunny Florida.

But the future of hockey in the Valley of the Sun remains as cloudy as ever.

Depending on your point of view, Jobing.com Arena was half-full or half-empty Thursday night when the Montreal Canadiens faced the hometown Phoenix Coyotes. (Disclaimer: The arena is a half-hour drive from downtown Phoenix).

The team has been owned by the National Hockey League for two full seasons. Plenty of would-be buyers have kicked the tires, haggled over the price and faded into the picturesque sunset.

This summer brought news that two groups had been pre-approved by the NHL. One is headed by Jerry Reinsdorf, a local resident who owns the NBA’s Chicago Bulls and Major League Baseball’s Chicago White Sox. The frontman for the other group is Greg Jamison, who is the former president of the NHL’s San Jose Sharks. When a local insider was asked about the progress of the sale, he shrugged and replied: “Who knows?”

The most baffling aspect of the Coyotes situation is why the other 29 owners in the league haven’t pushed commissioner Gary Bettman to resolve the mess here by allowing someone to buy the team and move it. The current situation was created when Bettman vetoed Jim Balsillie’s bid to buy the team from Jerry Moyes and move it to southern Ontario. Since then, Bettman has made it his personal crusade to keep the team in this market.

While it may be admirable to say that the NHL doesn’t want to abandon the loyal fans here, there’s every indication that the fan base simply isn’t large enough to support an NHL team. The uncertainty over the team’s future doesn’t encourage fans to invest themselves emotionally.

In the first season after the work stoppage, the Coyotes drew an average of 15,582 fans. In the first year under league ownership, the average had dropped to 11,989 and the average last season was 11,285.

The decline flew in the face of Bettman’s long-held assertion that the best cure for low attendance in the league’s non-traditional markets is a winning team. The Coyotes, under the leadership of general manager Don Maloney, have defied the odds and have made the playoffs in each of the past two seasons with one of the NHL’s lowest payrolls.

At the end of September, the team announced that season-ticket renewals were at an all-time high and that ticket sales generally were up. Heading into Thursday’s game, the Coyotes were averaging 10,023 fans. Only the Dallas Stars, with an average of 10,001 fans, were drawing fewer.

And the Coyotes don’t have any more success drawing fans on the road. The average turnout for a Coyotes road game is a league-low 13,272.

It’s time for the NHL to find the Coyotes a more hospitable habitat.

Life of Bryan

Luke Fox, Sportsnet.ca, November 12, 2011, 9:28 pm


Two years removed from a long career, Bryan Berard received a call to return to the ice.

Living in an apartment in New York City, the 34-year-old Rhode Island native had never seen the CBC fish-out-of-frozen-water contest show before, or even laced up a pair of figure skates.

So when Battle of the Blades executive producer Kevin Albrecht rang up the retired defenceman, Berard needed a week to think about it. He was 50/50.

"I just didn’t know what to expect. Putting on a pair of figure skates was my biggest (hesitation), but I’m glad I did it. I’m having a blast," Berard said. "It’s not something I ever imagined, but the challenge is what I’m up for."

So far, Berard has triple-axeled that challenge (That’s a figure skating move, right?). With only three pairs remaining in the charity skate-off, Berard has a good shot to win it all.

The quick and dirty of Berard’s career path: Memorial Cup finalist and first overall NHL pick in 1995; Calder Trophy winner in ’97; Olympian in ’98; victim of a devastating eye injury in 2000; Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy winner in 2004 in recognition of his against-all-odds comeback; first NHLer to test positive for steroids (unintentionally, he says) in 2005; stint in the Kontinental Hockey League in 2008; potential pairs figure skating champion in 2011.

"The best way to describe it is going from Rollerblades to roller skates—it’s completely different," said Berard. "Different edge, different everything. You gotta learn to skate all over, basically. You get used to it pretty fast; we’re on the ice twice a day. There’s still some good falls, and you go down hard, but I think that’s part of it. Every day you learn new stuff."

It’s been grueling, according to Berard. Four hours on the ice every day, plus another couple hours working off the ice on the steps and lifts with his partner, Marie-France Dubreuil, a five-time Canadian ice champion and two-time Olympian. The work has paid off considering Berard and Dubreil are one of only three pairs remaining heading into the contest’s finale.

We caught up with Berard to talk about the making the leap to hit the ice stick-free, the Do It For Daron movement, and what it was like to travel in the KHL.

Sportsnet.ca: Before this, when was the last time you tried something completely new?

Berard: A long time. Probably the first time I picked up a golf club when I was 12-years-old. I never thought I’d ever try figure skating, but I’m glad I did. I always liked figure skating, watching it in the Olympics.

I was impressed with (how athletic) they were and how they skate. If kids want to play hockey, I think learning how to figure skate would help them tremendously. You’d become a better skater.

Sportsnet.ca: How frequently do you fall?

Berard: The last couple weeks I’m doing some more challenging things, so I’ve gone down probably three times in the last week pretty hard. You learn how to fall, too. There’s no pads—that’s the thing you forget. Elbows and knees are a little sore, but other than that it’s alright.

Sportsnet.ca The lifting must come easy.

Berard: The lifting isn’t bad. It’s the steps in between and some of the moves you’re not used to. The lifting, to be honest, we just support the weight. The girls mostly do the lifts themselves; we just put them up. Their body positioning makes the lifts pretty easy. We just have to look forward, not look up at them, and stay firm on our feet.

Sportsnet.ca: Since you retired from hockey, what have you been doing athletics-wise?

Berard: Just staying in shape, basically. This summer I worked out a little bit, and I think that helped with my decision to come into the show. I’ve lost 15 pounds since the show’s been on, so it’s been good for my gut.

Sportsnet.ca: Tell me about your connection to the charity you’re skating for, Do It For Daron.

Berard: I started getting involved less than a year ago. I played with Luke Richardson. He and his wife, Stephanie, after their daughter Daron died by suicide, they started this. When I heard about it, right away I knew this was the charity I wanted to represent and raise awareness for. What they’re doing is very brave, first of all, and second, for youth it’s great. The more we talk about suicide or depression, the more lives we can save.

Sportsnet.ca: If you could skate to one song, what would it be?

Berard: I leave the music department to my partner. It probably took me a good three shows to even hear the music, hear the beats. I was just concentrating on the routine.

Sportsnet.ca: You played for Chekov in the KHL for half a season in 2008-09. What was the biggest difference you noticed in that league?

Berard: The league’s very talented. Out of four lines, the top two lines could play in the NHL for sure. Bigger ice surface, more European, Olympic-type game.

There’s not as much physical play, but more skating and more finesse. Just a bigger ice surface—not everyone realizes what a difference that makes.

Its’ really fun, a great league. For guys who are coming back from injury or getting up there (in age), it’s great.

Since the (NHL) lockout, it’s a young man’s game. Half the guys in the league, I don’t recognize their names anymore. There’s not many guys over 30 years old, so that’s tough for guys that get forced out too early.

Sportsnet.ca: When you played there, were you hoping to make enough noise to get back to the NHL?

Berard: No. My body was pretty much done. My back surgeries in Columbus put an end to playing an 82-game schedule, two or three times a week. It was a battle every day with the back. So the KHL, I went there to finish out, play a little bit, and I hate to say it, but make some money towards the end of the career.

Sportsnet.ca: In light of this summer’s tragedy, what did you notice about the travel situation in that league?

Berard: The planes are old. It was definitely a concern of mine. I’m not scared to fly or whatever, but when I was on some of the planes there, they were definitely old.

I hate to see what happened, but hopefully this situation—I hate to say it when it means taking people’s lives—means looking at the planes and making sure people travel safe, because they have the money over there.

Sportsnet.ca: So there were moments when you were actually scared?

Berard: Yeah, they’re just old planes, and they’re putting a lot of guys on there, a lot of equipment and stuff. It’s a scary place to fly.

And in the winter it’s cold, and the regulations are different over there.

Imports and Overages in the CHL

Gregg Drinnan, TAKING NOTE, Nov 13 2011


Brock Otten from ohlprospects.blogspot.com — see below — is beating the drum for an interesting suggestion.

“I can already hear you saying it. In fact, I'm prepared to read your comments that tell me just that,” he begins. “I'm going to try and convince you that the OHL (and CHL) should increase the number of Import players allowed on each team's roster.”

If you are interested in the rest of his argument, check out his blog (below).

But I, for one, would be all for that.

And I would go two steps further . . .

I would do away with the provision that a 20-year-old import player takes up two spots — one as an import and one as a 20-year-old. (Teams are allowed to list two imports and three 20-year-olds on their rosters; a 20-year-old import thus takes up two of those five spots.)

I also would allow teams to keep four or five 20-year-old players. I would push for five, but would settle for four.

“The question is,” Otten writes, “would the league not benefit from increasing the quality of its talent base?”

Oh, boy, would it ever.

I have never been able to understand how it is that teams in the CHL will spend money to develop players and then cut one of them loose when he turns 20, not because he isn’t good enough to play, but because they are only permitted to keep three players in his age group.

The same holds true for imports. With the money spent on recruiting imports, getting all the paperwork done, flying them back and forth . . . why cut one loose because he’s 20 years of age when he still has another season in him?

Of course, it is doubtful that the CHL ever will go to three import players or more than three 20-year-olds.

Why not?

Because the CHL and its teams will argue that they are in the business of developing players.

While I would certainly agree with that, I would argue that they also are in the entertainment business. And given a little more maturity the product that now is being presented to the paying customers could be a whole lot better than it is today.

-----

An Argument to Raise the Number of Imports

Brock Otten, November 10 2011


I can already hear you saying it. In fact, I'm prepared to read your comments that tell me just that. I'm going to try and convince you that the OHL (and CHL) should increase the number of Import players allowed on each team's roster.

Let's take a look at the straight facts. OHL teams are allowed to carry two Import players on their roster (or even just their rights). That's just under about 8% of the players in the league.

As of Thursday night (the 10th), Import players made up 10 of the top 50 scorers in the league. That's 20%. Now I realize that's bias by simply examining the skaters. So how about the goaltenders? Imports held three of the top ten spots in SV%, G.A.A, and wins. That's 30%. Considering that Import players make up only 8% of the league...the fact that they are so heavily saturating the league's top performance charts speaks volumes as to their talent quality.

The question is, would the league not benefit from increasing the quality of its talent base? If every team was allowed to carry just one more Import player, they would now make up about 13% of the league's players. If that happened, could you not expect to at least have 15 guys in the top 50 of league scoring instead of 10? And maybe another goaltender in the top 10 of SV% and wins?

I know, I know. That's under the assumption that those extra players coming over from Europe are actually half decent. The league has a hard enough time drafting in the second round of the Import draft, let alone adding a third. But, if we allowed more Import players to come over, would more of Europe's top talent look to come over to join their buddies? Would the draw be larger, especially since so many players coming over are finding success and are drawing the gaze of NHL clubs? If the London Knights, or the Windsor Spitfires, or the Kitchener Rangers were given an extra pick, would they be able to lure those players over?

I can already hear you traditionalists though. In the vein of Donald S. Cherry; by creating another Import spot, we're taking away a spot from a good Ontario (or Canadian) boy. But is that really the case anymore? Let's be honest...if the Ontario Hockey League was concerned about the good ol' Ontario boy losing his spot in the league...wouldn't we have restrictions on the amount of American players in the league? Before the trades of Jack Campbell and Craig Duininck last week, the Spitfires had half their roster "imported" from the United States.

Now I'm not arguing that we should have a cap on the amount of players in the league from the United States. I'm simply asking, what makes an import from Europe different than one from the United States? The fact that we have teams based in the United States? It's still the Ontario Hockey League though...a branch of the Canadian Hockey League. I just think it's a tad ridiculous to limit the amount of Europeans on a team when certain teams can already ice a nearly entirely "non Canadian" team.

Would the league not benefit from the potential of adding more talent? Watching this Subway Super Series and enjoying the contributions of this year's outstanding Import crop certainly makes me believe so.

What do you think?

Simmons: Fletcher must be proud

By Steve Simmons, QMI Agency, Nov 13 2011


TORONTO - This is a proud, emotional weekend for Cliff Fletcher: Two of his boys are being inducted in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Twice in his career, Fletcher made terrific team-changing trades for Doug Gilmour, one of them leading to a Stanley Cup win in Calgary, the other leading to the most dazzling and emotional Maple Leafs’ excitement of the past 44 years.

Fletcher came to admire Gilmour’s talents in 1986 when Gilmour almost single-handedly carried the St. Louis Blues to a seven-game series win against a much superior Flames team. It wasn’t in any way coincidental that two years later, Fletcher traded Mike Bullard and others for Gilmour and won his only Cup that first year.

It was different with Joe Nieuwendyk, whose career began under more scrutiny than was probably fair. He was a Flames draft choice, a player chosen with the pick that came from Fletcher’s controversial trading of Kent Nilsson. On draft day 1985, when the Leafs selected Wendel Clark with the first pick in the draft, Toronto chose defenceman Ken Spangler with its first choice in the second round.

Five picks later, Nieuwendyk was selected from Cornell, prompting a Calgary Herald headline of “Joe Who?” The Leafs, with a skeleton scouting staff, had basically the same reaction to Nieuwendyk’s selection. They scoured their draft list after the Flames made the selection but couldn’t find Nieuwendyk’s name anywhere. Truth was: They didn’t know who he was. Nieuwendyk, who scored 51 goals in each of his first two NHL seasons, including the Cup year in Calgary, had a marvellous career and is one of the most respected players in hockey history.

As for Spangler, things didn’t work out so well. He never did play an NHL game.

THIS AND THAT

There must be some bittersweet feelings to Mark Howe’s Hall of Fame induction. He finally gets in, with his father there, but with his longtime defence partner, Brad McCrimmon gone. In 1986, Howe was a ridiculous plus-86 with the Philadelphia Flyers while McCrimmon was plus-83. Next best on that team was Rich Sutter at plus-28. To put this in context, the NHL leader last season was Zdeno Chara at plus-33 ... It is really too bad that Pat Burns isn’t part of this Hall of Fame class, even though he has passed away. Burns was Gilmour’s favourite coach and Gilmour was his favourite player ... Applications are being accepted now for the Ron Wilson Journalism School. Courses include: Questions you can and can’t ask parents. Nothing is being offered regarding how to kill penalties but if you want, you can major in snarky ... When the Leafs signed Ed Belfour as a free agent to replace the very popular Curtis Joseph, the move didn’t exactly go over well with fans. But for two years, they were treated to finest goaltending Toronto had seen post Bower and Sawchuk. The only one who predicted Belfour would thrive in Toronto: The Hall of Famer’s former coach, Ken Hitchcock.

HEAR AND THERE

Phil Kessel probably knows this, or maybe not, but no American has ever led the NHL in scoring. As of Saturday afternoon, NHL scoring looked like an international smorgasbord. The top point-getters were an American, two Swedes, an Austrian and a Slovenian ... Kessel also leads the NHL in even-strength points, a statistic I place a lot of value in. Kessel has 18 ESP, way more than the Sedin brothers (10 each), Steven Stamkos (11), Pavel Datsyuk (7), Alex Ovechkin (7) and the impressive Claude Giroux (10) ... Some guys just fit certain uniforms. With Ryan Smyth, it’s being back with the Edmonton Oilers. At 35, Smyth is among the league leaders in goal scoring, and hands up, both of you, who saw that coming? ... Why I love stats: Because they show Dallas goalie Kari Lehtonen with an 11-2 record, a 2.20 goals against average and a .934 save percentage as the best goaltender this season while Roberto Luongo at 6-5-1, 3.14 and .891 as one of the worst.

SCENE AND HEARD

With the passing of Joe Frazier, a thought occurred: Could anybody name the three heavyweights claiming to be world champions today? They are, for those who care, Alexander Povetkin, Wladimir Klitschko and Vitali Klitschko. The only thing that could draw me back to heavyweight boxing: A Klitschko-Klitschko title match. But no quoting the parents ... Some of the politicians who have backed Joe Paterno for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the highest honours in the United States, have not so quietly withdrawn their support.


WE KNOW HOW THIS ENDS IN THE LONG RUN

There are basically two certainties to every lockout/strike in pro sports history away from the NFL: 1) The players always win; 2) The owners need a system in place to protect themselves from each other. And they, in the end, can’t control themselves. If you look at the NHL today, some six years after the lockout, what’s been solved? There are more teams in trouble than ever before. Players, for the most part, are being handsomely rewarded, you could argue overpaid, for their services. So other than implement rule changes and streamline league business, what was accomplished? If you can play at all in pro sports, you will be compensated beyond your wildest dreams. Take Jose Calderon for example. The average NBA guard is scheduled to earn $9.7 million this season. How can he or any NBA player vote no to that?


WHY DIDN'T HE JUST STOP IT?

You walk in to a dressing room and allegedly witness a grown man raping a young boy in the shower — and you do nothing???

How would you react? Would you not attack the adult in question? Would you not scream, grab, punch, pull hair, do everything in your power to protect the child? And if you don’t, how do you live with yourself? The more we learn about what went on with Jerry Sandusky at and around Penn State University, the more I am troubled by the actions of Mike McQueary, the former quarterback, graduate assistant and now assistant coach on leave from Penn State. Institutional silence is one thing: But where was the human, instinctive, emotional reaction here? McQueary is not the perpetrator, but he could have and should have stopped all of this years ago.

Simmons: Jones is 'Large'r than life

By STEVE SIMMONS, QMI Agency, Nov 13 2011


The nickname has always been perfect.

Large. It tells you who he is, what he is, what his career in sports writing has been all about, what kind of impact he has left on the industry.

You have to be Large to be honoured by the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The stories of our hockey life that mattered most were things we watched on television, heard on radio, purchased in video. Terry Jones didn't need any of that. He was there to chronicle the dynasties of the Edmonton Oilers and before that the New York Islanders. He was there when Mario scored in Ô87 and when Sidney scored in 2010 Ñ and so many memorable goals and moments in between.

For most of us, those are the where-were-you moments of your own personal hockey history: For Large, he knows where he was. He was there. In the press box, in the dressing room and in the bar, usually in that order. Telling the story quicker and better than anyone in the business. Somehow having the remarkable talent when the clock was ticking fastest and closest to deadline of finding the angle that succinctly told the story too many of us missed.

I would read Terry Jones every morning after we covered something at night to find out what I missed. I would read him because I had to, because I needed to, because it was the way to learn the business, because his legendary instincts weren't never easily explained.

You don't get where Large has gone and been and done without skills, without instincts and, in his case, without the craziest luck of any reporter I've ever known. The rest of us have to bust down walls sometimes to get stories. For Large, all it took some days was the right seat on an airplane.

One year, during one of Wayne Gretzky's remarkable scoring streaks, Jones had an idea. Why not get in touch with Joe DiMaggio, the baseball legend, he of the 56-game hitting streak, and talk to him about what Gretzky is going through, how much the streak plays on your mind?

Jones called the New York Yankees. No help. He called the baseball alumni association. No help. He called the Mr. Coffee, the company DiMaggio did television commercials for. No help. Jones had all but given up on getting in touch with DiMaggio when he got bumped up to first class on an American flight he was taking.

Sitting next to him on the plane Ñ none other than DiMaggio. Right place, right time: This is how you become an Elmer Ferguson winner. Stories have a way of finding you as much as you have a way of finding them.

You don't become Large and Hockey Hall without being inventive, without being aggressive and mostly competitive. One time, Jones travelled to Long Island with the Oilers for a second-round playoff series. When he got there, he picked up the New York Post and saw a controversial story on Gretzky. In those, the pre-Internet days, Jones did only what the best newspaper people could do. After seeing the story in the Post, he purchased all 17 copies of the paper in the hotel gift shop and made certain his competitor, who hadn't yet arrived, wouldn't see the story upon check-in.

When his competitor, Dick Chubey, walked into the gift shop he noticed there were no copies of the Post. He asked what happened.

"You won't believe it," said the woman in the store. "Some guy came in and bought all the Posts."

"Some guy," said Chubey. "What'd he look like?"

"Large," she said.

It is a difficult nickname to live up to, being Large all the time, in your market, in your newspaper, on the road, in your industry. When Gretzky finally made it official, that he would be playing his final game at Madison Square Garden on a Sunday afternoon, the best of the hockey-writing world gathered in New York to chronicle the end of an era. Gretzky looked around at his afternoon news conference on the day before the game and somehow noticed that Jones was missing. Most athletes, let alone superstars, wouldn't pay any attention to who was asking the questions Ñ but Gretzky wasn't like most athletes.

After the news conference, Gretzky picked up the phone and called Jones at his hotel room in New York.

"Do you need anything from me?" Gretzky asked.

In the end, The Great One took care of The Large One. One superstar looking out for another.

Tears of joy for Gordie Howe as son joins him in the Hockey Hall of Fame

Dave McGinn, Globe and Mail, Nov. 14, 2011

You don’t get to bask in the limelight the way other players who are inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame do when your father is a living legend. But Mark Howe, Gordie’s son, is taking it all in stride.

The former Philadelphia Flyers defenceman, his father and his brother Marty, who is also a former NHL player, arrived in Toronto last Friday to enjoy a weekend of Hall of Fame celebrations.

“The first day in the hotel, 50 people came up and asked for autographs and they all asked for Gordie. Marty and I just sat there. That just comes with the territory,” Mark said at a reception on Monday at the Hall in Toronto where he and this year’s other inductees in the player category –Ed Belfour, Doug Gilmour and Joe Nieuwendyk – received their Hall of Fame rings.

Mr. Hockey himself was sitting in the front row at the ceremony. The 83-year-old cried at the sight of his son being officially welcomed into the ranks of the sport’s greatest players.

Later, he casually dismissed the attention heaped on him and made clear who the man of the hour is.

“The heck with Gordie Howe. It’s Mark Howe,” Gordie said.

The Howes are the fourth father-son pair to join the Hall of Fame as players, joining Oliver and Earl Seibert, Lester and Lynn Patrick and Bobby and Brett Hull.

Mark spent six seasons playing forward in the World Hockey Association and another 16 years in the NHL, where he moved to defence. In his career he totalled 405 goals, 841 assists in 1,355 games before retiring in 1995. He ended his playing days with Detroit, where his father cemented his legend.

“My biggest wish for this week I guess would be that I receive a lot more credit than dad only for his sake,” Mark said. “He wants me to deserve all the credit and get all the credit and be honoured for this week. He doesn’t want to distract from that.”

The Howes have always been a tight-knit group, and their closeness has always meant much more than the many accolades heaped upon them, Mark said.

“Honours mean nothing in our family without having the family to share it. That’s what makes this so special,” he said. “It means far more to me having him around than anything else.”

Gordie Howe said Mark’s induction to the Hall of Fame was more special to him than his own in 1972. He added he would like to see Marty join them there one day.

“I’ve got one to go,” he said.

For now, though, Mark has stepped out of his father’s shadow, as much as he could ever hope at least, and is enjoying his moment in the sun, happy to share it with his famous dad.

“Every kid growing up who loves the game of hockey, you play in the driveway, you dream of winning Stanley Cups. You dream of winning Conn Smythe trophies, you dream of everything,” he said. “The only thing you never dream of is making the Hall of Fame, so this is beyond any dream I’ve ever had.”

Proteau: Would the NHL return to Hartford?

Adam Proteau, The Hockey News, 2011-11-17


If the NHL can return a franchise to Winnipeg – and be poised to bring one back to les gens merveilleux of Quebec City – is a return to another former World Hockey Association city possible?

In the cases of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Houston, Indianapolis, Baltimore, San Diego, Birmingham and San Francisco, probably not. But I wouldn’t be so sure about Hartford not having a shot. In fact, I think at some point in the near future, and maybe sooner than some people imagine, we may yet witness a new NHL era for those Kermit The Frog-green uniforms and the capital of Connecticut.

In fact, if you look at what’s happening in Hartford, you can’t help but notice how similar it all seems to what went on in Manitoba before the Atlanta Thrashers ownership group disintegrated and the franchise became the Jets, Part Deux. Although Winnipeg lost its NHL team to Phoenix in 1996, what remained was a relentless hockey supporter in businessman Mark Chipman, who was prepared to take the long view and bide his time until conditions were perfect to make a move.

Rather than employing the Jim Balsillie storm-the-castle approach to landing an NHL team, Chipman demonstrated to commissioner Gary Bettman and the hockey world his ownership group was not going to sulk or swing and instead could run a team (the American League’s Manitoba Moose, which replaced the Jets in town from 1996-2011) well no matter what league it was in. Consequently, when the NHL lost control over the direction of the Thrashers (in a way it hadn’t when encountering ownership problems in Phoenix or Nashville), the ties Chipman had established with Bettman paid the best of dividends: Winnipeg had a team again.

These days, the Mark Chipman of Hartford is Howard Baldwin, chief businessman for the AHL’s Connecticut Whale, former WHA president and founding owner of the WHA’s New England Whalers, and former part owner of both the Minnesota North Stars and Pittsburgh Penguins. He’s nearly 70 years old, but Baldwin hasn’t yet given up hope Hartford again can be big-league town; on Tuesday, he revealed his vision for a revitalized arena (the 36-year-old XL Center) that would help revitalize a decrepit downtown core, cost approximately $105 million and would meet all NHL regulations with the goal of landing an NHL team by 2017.

If you think Baldwin will have an uphill battle convincing Hartford politicians to fork over tax dollars in the present economic climate, you’re likely right. However, remember that the City of Glendale has been more than willing to throw tens of millions of civic dollars to justify arena-related jobs and revenue. Indeed, Baldwin’s proposal – which should be regarded with a healthy sense of skepticism, of course – included an independent economic study that shows a refurbished arena area would create up to 1,500 jobs and pump between $48 and $61 million per year into the local economy. You know there are politicians who’d be more than happy to be the ones responsible for bringing those positives to the community.

In addition to public funding, there are still considerable obstacles to the NHL returning to Hartford. Corporate support, which never was plentiful in the Whalers’ best days, isn’t on the upswing in any professional sports league. But that was a problem in Winnipeg at one time as well. Sometimes, leagues have to make the best of a bad situation. The NHL has plenty of those.

The fact is, the NHL has been propping up the teams in Phoenix and Dallas for too long. Columbus is devouring money like a Kardashian sister let loose inside the Federal Reserve, and the Islanders are far from profitable. The Coyotes situation will be remedied in one way or another in the next couple years – and in related news, Quebec City is believed to be a shoo-in for a franchise within five years. As we’ve seen with the Coyotes and Thrashers, there is only so much even Bettman and the owners can do to keep a team in or out of any specific market. If any other franchise melts down, there is not going to be a huge lineup of cities jostling to acquire it.

And save your breath attempting to convince me Kansas City and Las Vegas are more appealing options. If there was the requisite ownership interest in either of those towns, they would have gotten the relocated Thrashers and Winnipeg still would be an AHL city.

Hartford’s population was measured in 2010 at 1,212,381 – nearly half a million more people than are in Columbus (787,033), nearly double the population of Nashville (635,710) and triple the population of Raleigh, N.C. (403,892). Hartford is a cold-weather climate with a genuine hockey history and a small-but-passionate generation of devoted Whalers fans. And most importantly, Baldwin has maintained ties with the NHL and is pursuing the league with honey and not vinegar.

As it was with Winnipeg, people focus so much on the downside of the city, they forget the reasons the league was situated there in the first place. That’s why some were so shocked by the Thrashers move – but if you paid attention to the foundation Chipman quietly was building, you wouldn’t have been blindsided.

Baldwin isn’t quite at that stage just yet. But he’s not as far off as pessimists would argue, either. If the NHL can reappear again in Winnipeg, you’d better believe it can do the same thing in Hartford. Stranger things have and continue to happen.

Why Capitals’ big gun Alex Ovechkin is firing blanks

PAUL WALDIE, Globe and Mail, Nov. 17 2011


He’s still a big enough star to get four guys from Norway House, Man., to travel 800 kilometres to Winnipeg and watch him go through a pregame skate at the MTS Centre. Still big enough for a gang of school kids to gawk at his every move and for a throng of journalists to hang on his every word.

But Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin is not having his usual spectacular season. And he knows it.

“So-so,” Ovechkin said Thursday when asked to assess his season during a media scrum prior to the Capitals’ game against the Winnipeg Jets. “Sometimes I get great chances, I just stay in the offensive zone most of the time, but I don’t score and so sometimes I just get frustrated.”

Ovechkin knows that his job is to ring up goals and with just seven so far this season heading into Thursday’s game, that hasn’t happened nearly enough. “I’ll say I [haven’t] scored goals like I used to score, wrist shot or slap shot. I think about it all the time. I’ll react a bit differently and, you know, we’ll see how it goes.”

Ovechkin’s slump is not only bad news for his team – the Capitals got off to a fast start but have won just once in their last five games as of Thursday – it’s also bad news for the NHL. The league has built much of its marketing around Ovechkin and Pittsburgh Penguin star Sidney Crosby and both are missing in action.

Crosby has yet to play this season because of a concussion and it’s not clear when he will return or how well he will play once he is back. And Ovechkin is rarely delivering the kind of showstopping moves that made him famous. He’s on track to score 35 goals this year and collect 70 points. That would be his worst point total in his NHL career and a far cry from the three 50-plus goal seasons he had between 2007 and 2010.

“I think it’s an issue when any of your stars are missing,” said Brian Cooper of S&E Sponsorship Group in Toronto, a sports marketing company. But it’s even more important for the NHL, he added, since Ovechkin and Crosby are by far the league’s biggest and most recognizable players. They endorse more products than any other NHL players and they are the only two who are in multiple national advertising campaigns.

Cooper said Crosby and Ovechkin could still return to top form, mitigating any long-term damage. And he said the NHL has done a better job marketing hockey in general and not just the two superstars. But for now, the loss of Crosby and the slumping play of Ovechkin hurts, he said.

“It’s certainly an issue,” added Bob Stellick, a Toronto-based sports marketing consultant. “It’s not what the league is looking for right now. It’s disappointing.”

Ovechkin may be a victim of his own success. Teams have studied his preference for flying down the left wing and cutting to the middle and they focus on stopping him or at least slowing him down. Opposing players are also stronger and more skilled, making them better able to block shots or give Ovechkin less room to operate.

“I think there’s a sense that other teams key on him all the time,” said Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau, whose team faces the Maple Leafs in Toronto on Saturday. “But that’s the same with every good player on every team, they find ways to key on him and it’s up to us and him to find ways to get around it. It’s just the way nature goes and hockey goes.”

Jets goaltender Ondrej Pavelec said Ovechkin is a remarkable player, but added: “For him it’s tough to play because everybody looks at him and everybody tries to stay with him on the ice and [make sure he] doesn’t make a play.”

Jets coach Claude Noel isn’t convinced that anyone has figured out Ovechkin just yet. “I don’t know that there’s many people that can control him,” Noel said prior to the game. “There’s no doubt that we are going to be paying attention to him. I don’t know that there’s a recipe to take away his enthusiasm other than get on the rosary and start making phone calls to the big guy upstairs.”

For now, anyway, fans like the four guys from Norway House can’t get enough of Ovechkin and can’t wait to see him play. “He’s exciting,” said one group member, Will Kizuik, who like all the others was wearing an Ovechkin jersey. “He’s famous.”