What does the future hold for Canada’s outdoor rinks?
As if we didn’t already sense the devious work of global warming, scientists say outdoor ice rinks are threatened in Canada, the nation that put them on the map.
Wayne Scanlan, National Post Mar 10, 2012
OTTAWA — In the early morning air, the hose flow was more white than clear, flashing in the sunlight like a child’s sparkler on Victoria Day.
To the veteran icemaker, the sparkles were a sure sign the air was so cold the water was turning to frozen crystals before it even hit the ice surface. Luscious ice-making weather, this, making the task as simple as spraying layers of quick-drying latex paint on a floor.
Here in the nation’s capital, one of the last bastions of winter, there was a morning such as this as recently as Monday, when temperatures plunged to -25 C with the wind chill. By Thursday afternoon, under the onslaught of two near-record mild days, outdoor rinks were a puddly mess, yet again — this time likely done for the season as they say of critically injured hockey players.
A few days before, when it was time for the morning shuttle to high school, the 14-year-old in our household disappeared suddenly, as if I didn’t know where. To the rink, of course, for perhaps one last look at it in a dignified state, before the thaw shot it to pieces. As his buddy, Matt, explained, “He’s paying his respects.”
Hours later, after an early morning university class, the 20-year-old was out on the rink for a light spin and a few shots at the net, just in case this might be a “last skate.”
Other families celebrate early spring. My sons mourn lost winter, global-warming-shrunk winters, more specifically anything that robs them of days and weeks on their precious backyard rink.
For 17 consecutive years, starting with our backyard on Keyworth Avenue — a longer, narrower surface — continuing on to Java Street, the rink beyond the back steps has been a mainstay. Soft, puddly or bumpy on its worst days. Crisp, hard and almost even at its best.
Once, I was a one-man show back there, packing the snow, old-school style, before layering thin spray after thin spray until the white mass gradually shifts to a pallid grey colour. One day each winter, still a magical day after all these years, a rink appears, firm enough to withstand a hockey player on skates and the outdoor season is renewed. Heaven help the picture windows of the family room as pucks fly off crossbars, into window panes and over the fence into the yard of Elmdale Public School.
Over time, I’ve more or less been replaced as the chief ice steward by my 14-year-old apprentice. Long before the first snow flies, he urges me to think rink. If the temperature is right but snow lacking, we’ve been known to borrow a few cartons of snow from J.A. Dulude Arena, scooping from the white mountain outside the Zamboni room, which the two boys and their old man pack down like Stompin’ Tom Connors in his prime.
Don’t bother emailing me about the wonders of tarp and a snowless rink, the weird slope of our yard makes it problematic (the boy has landscaping ideas to counteract this and would dearly love to pave or tile the entire yard for its winter ice benefits. His mom has other ideas).
I hear parents complain of ice sitting lonely, but ours is used every day that winter doesn’t yield to the growing ebbs and flows of thaw and rain and freeze again. After school, after supper, one or both of them are out there on that tiny 40-by-40-foot surface. When they were small, they had friends over for mini-shinny, sometimes a warm-up for the bigger games at the Fisher Park rink. Now that they’re older, bigger, the backyard surface seems shrunk, a glorified shooting pad, still no less precious.
With a Jan. 3 opening this winter, we had a nine-week run, give or take a few soggy days, not bad under the circumstances. Many community rinks, without daily maintenance, did not fare as well, leaving kids looking, longing, but not skating.
What does the future hold, when winter is losing its fastball?
As if we didn’t already sense the devious work of global warming, scientists say outdoor ice rinks are threatened in Canada, the nation that put them on the map. This would be a cruel blow to the nation’s capital, home to the world’s largest skating rink, the Rideau Canal, but also to every province with a tradition of community rinks, frozen rivers, lakes and ponds — which on those rare, beautiful occasions, freeze just so to make a surface so pure and flat and smooth the sensation is of skating on silk.
If the trend to a shrinking outdoor ice season persists, as outlined in research by scientists from McGill and Concordia University published earlier this week, outdoor ice of any kind will become rare. Climate strange.
Imagine how the course of hockey history might have changed, had this weather shift struck sooner. Without real winter, Canada might not have produced Gordie Howe, who grew up skating on the frozen farm sloughs of Saskatoon. Howe says he didn’t play on artificial ice until age 14.
Long before he broke Howe’s NHL scoring records, Wayne Gretzky learned how to skate and stickhandle on the most famous backyard rink in the country, groomed by Wayne’s father, Walter, in Brantford, Ont. This season, Walter could have not have had a rink unless he bought a refrigeration unit, to combat what climatologist David Phillips has called the “most unusual winter in Canadian history.
“A season we’ve grown famous for, is missing in action,” Phillips told CBC Radio the other day.
Winter certainly bypassed Toronto, which required no mayoral calls to the military to clean up snowstorms. In the Leaside neighbourhood, my brother David tried to make ice, but unwittingly made a flavourless backyard Slushie instead. He estimates his children were able to skate on it perhaps five or six times.
Interestingly, as a hockey parent and coach, he noted less adept puck handling skills this season, which he attributed to kids being unable to doodle on backyard ice. His daughter’s hockey team traditionally has a parents shinny game on a backyard rink — bowing to the local weather, they played street hockey instead.
Threatened shinny rinks are not just some old-timers’ lament for lost days of youth. The young NHL stars of today also cut their teeth — sometimes literally — on backyard and community rinks. On CBC’s Hockey Day In Canada last month, when the Edmonton Oilers were in Ottawa to play the Senators, Oilers forward Taylor Hall, 20, told me he learned to dangle on the backyard ice his father made for him, in Calgary and in Kingston, Ont.
Hockey players would dearly miss the fascinating culture of outdoor shinny, a curious blend of adults and children of all ages and sizes that should not work but somehow does.
Each rink has its own curiosities, personality. When we ski in Quebec over the Christmas holidays, we make daily trips to a lovely shinny rink in Saint Jovite, where the games are lively and uptempo. It took a while for us to figure out that players don’t just leap into the game there. When there are more than six-on-six aside, the extras stand on the side boards by turns, waiting to spell off players who grow tired, helping the game flow. French- and English-speaking peoples don’t get along any better anywhere than on the shinny ice of Saint Jovite.
And yet it isn’t hockey players alone who would miss natural and man made outdoor ice. Pleasure skating by definition is . . . a pleasure. Children taking their first strides, with mom or dad or a public school class. Visitors from China, Australia, South America, sampling what they know to be a rite of Canadian winter.
The next Bobby Orr could be on that outdoor ice . . .
By all means, enjoy the early spring.
Me, I worry that a Canada without legitimate winter loses a piece of its soul.
FRASER: SOME SUPERSTAR MOMENTS - AND FINALLY LETTING GO
KERRY FRASER, TSN.CA, March 9 2012
From the time that I arrived in the NHL in 1980, it was plain to see that the Edmonton Oilers were Wayne Gretzky's team. In his rookie season, 1979–80, Wayne tied Marcel Dionne for the scoring lead with 137 points... The next year, it was Gretzky's turn, as his 164 points outpaced Dionne by 29. Wayne was a 19-year-old sophomore in 1980–81, while I was a 28-year-old rookie!...I can tell you without hesitation or reservation that Gretzky was the very best player I ever skated on NHL ice with over my 30 seasons in the league. What may come as a shock is that, in the early going, we clashed on more than one occasion.
Wayne Gretzky did not enter the NHL and become a phenom; he arrived fully formed. In many ways he was mature well beyond his years, but at times he was still just a kid, not unlike those who followed him - Super Mario, "Sid the Kid," and others. All needed to scale a learning curve and endure some growing pains; some completed the process more quickly than others.
The same is true of officials. Even though I was a man with a family, I was a long way from possessing the maturity I now know is required to handle the pressure and abuse that often came my way. Unfortunately, when I was challenged on the ice, I did not always respond appropriately. I too had a lot to learn...
What infuriated me most was when a player, especially in his home rink, would take a dive in an attempt not only to draw a penalty but to unleash the wrath of the crowd against me...
Wayne's young Oilers were playing host to Bobby Clarke and the Philadelphia Flyers in Northlands Coliseum. It had been a close-checking, hard-fought game from the very beginning and Gretz had, in my judgment, fallen down a couple of times in an attempt to trick me into calling a penalty and give Edmonton the man advantage... The dead giveaway when a player is trying to draw a penalty is that they look at the referee before they hit the ice.... There was no penalty on the books for embellishment back then... With under a minute to play, the Oilers were down by one goal. They were attacking hard in the Flyers zone, and at that stage of the game their very best option was to get on the power play and try to tie it up. Wayne was positioned in "his office" behind the goal line and to the side of the Flyers net as Pelle Lindbergh caught the puck and I whistled the play dead. With no one around him, Wayne leaped into the air, threw his hands forward, his feet stretched out behind him, and executed a belly flop worthy of a perfect score. Bobby Clarke skated up to Wayne and said, "Get up, you effin' baby."
I was on the scene and said, "Wayne, what are you doing? There was nobody within 10 feet of you." Wayne hit the boiling point as he responded, "You wouldn't have called it anyway; you haven't called an effin' thing all night!"
I said, "You're right, and I'm going to start right now: you've got two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct." As Wayne stormed past me on the way to his dressing room, he shouted, "Good! It's about effin' time you called something!" That was the first, but not last, time a player would thank me for giving him a penalty...
While Wayne Gretzky's exploits on the ice are legendary, what he contributed off the ice can never be accurately measured or, as we have come to realize, truly appreciated. "The Trade" from Edmonton to Los Angeles on August 9, 1988, rocked Canada. The New Democratic Party even put forward a motion in Parliament to block the trade, declaring Gretzky a national treasure. The popularity that the NHL enjoys in the United States today would not have been possible had it not been for Wayne's move south...
I want to share just one story of the kindness that this man displayed to a child in need at a time when some might not have bothered. Prior to leaving from my home in New Jersey for Calgary, my wife, Kathy, learned of a young boy who was suffering from a serious illness. The youngster had asked if it would be possible to get an autograph from Wayne Gretzky. On that night in Calgary, the Kings were being beaten badly once again. Wayne looked physically drained. His eyes were sunk back in his head and he had beard stubble that gave him an unkempt appearance I had never seen on him before. This trip had obviously beaten him up pretty good. [The previous season 1987-88, Mario Lemieux won the scoring title by 19 points over Gretzky. When I caught up with Gretz in Calgary Mario was on a real tear. Wayne was questioned by the press after every game if Super Mario was the new "King" in the NHL.] During the final commercial timeout, I approached Wayne as he came out to take the faceoff. I apologized for bothering him at a time like this, but quickly explained about the little boy and asked him, if he thought of it after the game, to just sign a piece of paper and I would make sure he got it.
Wayne nodded and dragged himself over for the faceoff. The game ended and I hadn't even untied my skates when there was a knock at the door. It was David Courtney, the Kings' travelling secretary, who said, "Wayne asked me to give you this and to wish the little boy well for him." [It was Wayne Gretzky's signed game stick.] ...
What makes Wayne exceptional off the ice is that he never puts himself above anyone. He is a compassionate, quiet gentleman who often said, "Nobody is above the game."...
Mario [Lemieux] was beyond the real deal; he was the saviour of the franchise - as it would turn out, on more than one occasion. His immediate impact as a player was felt on the ice, at the gate, and in the buzz he created throughout the hockey community.
He was a giant of a man who was unique in that he had the hands of a surgeon, the wingspan of an albatross, and he always knew where the net was. Much like Mike Bossy, he always knew where to shoot the puck and could thread a needle with his passes... As an extremely skilled player, Mario was way ahead of the curve. And he didn't have much patience for the clutch-and-grab style that prevailed at that time. And why should he? People pay to see skill and grace, especially the type that Mario—and few other players of the time—possessed... [I describe, (in detail) a feud with Mario that boiled over on April 5, 1994 when Lemieux charged out of the penalty box after me.]
While several failed attempts were made to crack down on obstruction, real change wouldn't occur until 2005–06, the first season after the lockout, and Mario's last in the NHL... After his playing career, he was called upon again to save the franchise, this time as the owner, and then to acquire the next-generation superstar, the next saviour of the Penguins and the new face of the game: Sidney Crosby... Sidney brings intensity to every game, has a tremendous work ethic, and competes hard night in and night out. He's a leader.
He and I experienced some initial growing pains as we tried to build a working relationship, not unlike my experience with his boss and landlord (Sidney moved into Mario's house with his family when he arrived as a rookie in 2005)...
Sid the Kid came into the league with a little bit of an edge to him. For budding superstars like Sidney, their celebrity status is thrust upon them at a very early age... We had moments of confrontation during his rookie season... One night in Toronto, he felt he had been fouled and he retaliated with a slash to the ankle of a Leaf player. I whistled him for the infraction, and on the way to the penalty box he gave me the kind of grief that I deemed inappropriate. ..[Even though Malkin scored a short-handed goal Sid continued to rail on me over the penalty] At the next commercial break, I decided we needed to have a "father–son" chat. I asked his permission to talk, which he granted. We huddled near the penalty box, and I told him: "You are the face of the game. You are a superstar."
To which he responded, "No, I'm not." Perhaps he thought I was chiding him.
"No, I'm serious," I said. "You are the new face of the NHL. And I say that with the utmost respect for your skill and ability. With that comes huge responsibility, and I'd just like you to be aware of the impression you will leave on youngsters who are watching your every move, and that they will turn around and emulate everything you do. So I recommend that you use that responsibility wisely"...
There was a game the next season in Philadelphia when he approached me after a play on which he thought he might have been fouled. Now the captain, he skated over with a different, more kindly demeanour and said, "I know you're not my number-one fan. I just want you to know the guy brought his stick up and caught me."
"I really am a fan," I assured him. "I've always been a fan of excellence. Concerning your question, I didn't think the stick had contacted you. If it did, I apologize. I missed it."
He said, "Okay, no problem," and skated away.
Over the years, I've been blessed to watch at close hand some of the greatest players the game has ever seen. Mario and Sidney, bookend superstars for the Pittsburgh Penguins, certainly fall into that category...
While my final call as an NHL referee may have been made on Sunday, April 11, 2010 in Philadelphia, the future for me appears to be anything but final—in fact, it's wide open. The game of hockey is still the greatest on earth and one of the fastest-growing professional sports in North America. TSN, Hockey Night in Canada, Comcast, and NBC and their affiliated networks, provides you, the fan, the most exciting and extensive coverage of this sport we all love. I'm proud to be part of that and to help clarify (and occasionally vindicate) the role of the referee. While I'm still unsure about what my future holds, I can only hope it will continue to involve the sport I've dedicated my life to. The whistle and jersey may have gone away, but my love of the game remains. Hope to see you at ice level!
[Letting go is not an option for me at this point of my second career. After writing that last line for my update in the paperback edition of The Final Call, my exciting work with TSN and C'mon Ref continues to expand. Recently I also joined NBC Sports Network as a hockey analyst. I obviously cannot condense an entire book into a five day blog. I've left much more for you to read in "The Final Call;" stories about the greatest on-ice captain/leader ("Captain Courageous," Mark Messier), about the "Legion of Doom" and how they put me down one night (literally onto the ice) and the hilarious story of how Brian Burke, VP of Hockey Ops had to dress me and send me back onto the ice following an injury I suffered during the opening face-off. Read about zany lines of defense employed by Tiger Williams and Chris "Knuckles" Nilan in hearings with Brian O'Neill following match penalties I had assessed them. And for the Leaf Nation, I dedicated a whole chapter on the infamous "Missed Call!" Come, join me at ice level. I return to my regular column on Monday, so get your questions ready.]
Johnny Bower still stopping them cold at 87
CHRIS JOHNSTON, The Canadian Press, Mar. 09, 2012
Johnny Bower didn't miss a beat.
With photographers crowding around during an appearance at the Hockey Hall of Fame on Friday morning, the legendary Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender urged everyone to take a step back. “You'll get all the lines on my face,” he said with a laugh.
Surprisingly spry, Bower is still going strong at age 87. Not only did his week include the stop at the Hockey Hall, he also earned huge applause after being shown on the Air Canada Centre scoreboard during Tuesday's Leafs-Bruins game.
He loves staying close to the sport.
“It's a great feeling here,” said Bower, motioning towards his heart. “I just can't believe the ovation I get here all the time. It makes me really feel good inside to be remembered by the fans.”
Bower has long been a man who belied his age.
He was the oldest member of the 1967 Leafs Stanley Cup team — at the time, his exact age was shrouded in mystery — and would go on to play parts of three seasons beyond that.
All these years later, he remains loyal to the blue and white. The majority of the people who stop him on the street want an autograph and some assurance that everything will be fine with the current Maple Leafs. He often has to remind people he doesn't work for the team.
“I'm still sticking up for them,” said Bower. “I'll be a Maple Leaf until I die.”
On Friday, he was at the Hall of Fame along with five other honoured members to unveil a renovated wing of the building. Since being inducted in 1976, Bower has seen the Hockey Hall move from a small space on the exhibition grounds in Toronto to its much bigger location downtown.
He and the other Hall of Famers took a few playful swipes at one another.
“I remember Johnny Bower having breakfast with Moses one time,” cracked former Philadelphia Flyers goalie Bernie Parent. “He's been around a long time, right?”
“Johnny's always been a professional and represented the game well,” he added. “He was a great goalie.”
Bower has been married to wife Nancy for 63 years — “I wouldn't trade her for all the tea in China,” he says — and credits his good health to all the household chores he's had to do over the years.
“I've got four doctors I have to go through every three months or something like that,” said Bower. “They say I'm getting on real good. Right now I've got a bit of a sore back there — a little bit of a pinched nerve I guess — but outside of that I feel pretty good.
“I do a lot of walking, I do a lot of dishwashing at home, I mop the floor, I do everything.”
But every once and awhile there are reminders of the passing of time. On Friday morning, he surveyed the group on stage that included Parent, Yvan Cournoyer, Harry Howell, Denis Potvin and Darryl Sittler.
At 79 — eight years his junior — Howell was the next closest in age.
“I'm not a young man any more,” said Bower. “I look down here at these older guys and I think I'm the oldest guy here. Can you imagine that? I can't believe it.”
You'd never know it to see him.
The Evgeni Malkin translator
Luke Fox, Sportsnet.ca, March 9, 2012
"Hi, I've been informed you are the s---, my knowledge about the game of hockey is premature at best but your name keeps ringing," NFL wide receiver Chad Ochocinco tweeted this week to @malkin71_, the twitter account of the Pittsburgh Penguins' leading scorer.
We'd like to think Ochocinco is the last to learn that Evgeni Malkin is the s---, but we're not entirely sure there aren't others out there walking around uninformed.
Although Malkin is gunning for the NHL scoring crown and has led the Penguins to the second-best record in the East, his team's other star centre, Sidney Crosby, remains the focal point despite playing a total of eight games since January 2011.
On Friday morning, nhl.com streamed a live feed of the Penguins' morning skate; the camera was fixed on No. 87 even when Crosby stood resting his chin on the butt end of his stick, waiting for his turn to run the drill. Conversely, the last time Malkin was in Toronto, the centre of the hockey media universe, a "scrum" of three reporters waited long enough for his 6'3", 205-pound frame to emerge from the visitors' dressing room and coax a few broken-English sound bites.
But if the improvement of 71's game is fine print to the "Crosby Undecided About Sunday" headlines, then the improvement of Malkin's English is merely a footnote.
"My English is a bit better. I can talk to my teammates, same with my coach between periods and after games," explains the Russian, whose response tweet to @ochocino ("thanks") was one of only a handful of English messages you'll read on his Twitter feed.
Though the 25-year-old is deep into his sixth NHL season, he explains that through his improved comprehension of the language, this year he has been benefitting from the team meetings. Malkin says he can now grasp what he does "not right" when the Penguins' staff goes over the X's and O's, and he has seen his plus/minus, which dipped into the red the previous two seasons, jump to a +11.
"Right now, Malkin is the one," Vancouver Canucks star Henrik Sedin says when asked who the best player in the NHL is. Out on the West Coast, the Sedin twins find themselves frequently catching Penguins games at 4 p.m. PT. "Pittsburgh is the team we like to watch. They're a good team. We watch Malkin quite a bit. He's big, he's strong, he's got a great shot, he makes the players around him better. He's the whole package."
Because you're not (yet) going to get lengthy, nuanced anecdotes from a player who is arguably the NHL's best right now, we ran Malkin's quotes through our translator. Here's what the Geno3000 spat out.
"I have great summer, work hard."
Translation: When my collision with Buffalo Sabres defenceman Tyler Myers on Feb. 4, 2011, resulted in a torn ACL, a knee operation and a season cut short to just 43 games, I flew back to Russia and devoted my off-season to intense training in order to be ready for training camp.
Watch: Malkin returns to Russia last summer to train
www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/2012/03/09/evgeni_malkin_pittsburgh_penguins/
"I'm hungry because I missed lots of games, not two or three games. I missed 50 games. Of course, I'm hungry to play hockey."
Translation: Not only did I miss half of the 2010-11 regular season, but I also missed the playoffs. If you recall, even though I've had two 100-point seasons, the postseason is where I shine. In 2009, it was me who won the Conn Smythe Trophy and the playoff scoring title when the Penguins won the Stanley Cup. So, of course I was eager to prove myself this year, especially after scoring less than a point per game in 2010-11 (37 points in 43 games) -- the only season I've done that.
"I have great linemates now. Kunitz and Nealsy are the best linemates I've had in my career. They help me a lot. We try to play 100% every game."
Translation: Centering Chris Kunitz and James Neal, we have formed the NHL's most dangerous offensive line. Combined, we have scored 87 goals for this team. Playing on my wing, Neal made the All-Star Game for the first time in his career. And 32-year-old Kunitz hasn't put up numbers like this since he was in his mid-20s and playing with the Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks.
"(With Crosby out) maybe I play a bit more time, a bit more power-play time, and I understand I have to play better. If we not score, it's tough to win."
Translation: We are enjoying a seven-game winning streak because we are scoring so much. As of Friday, my 81 points are right on the tail of Tampa Bay Lightning sniper Steven Stamkos's 82, even though I've played eight fewer games than Stamkos, and fewer games than anyone on the NHL leaderboard's top 20. To make winning easier, sometimes I score in bunches. On three separate occasions this season I have scored five points in one game. It's easier to win that way. Oh, and I also scored what could go down as the goal of the year:
"The season's not over, but we'll see where we are after 82 games."
Translation: Despite missing three of our best players -- Kris Letang, Jordan Staal, and Crosby -- for long stretches this season, our team has still amassed the second-best record in the Eastern Conference. We just passed the champion Boston Bruins and are now looking to dethrone the New York Rangers atop the Atlantic Division. (You know we play in the toughest division in the NHL, right?) Just imagine how dangerous we'll be once Sid gets back.
"Whole Pittsburgh organization, we work towards one thing: to win Stanley Cup…. I know we can do it. We can win the Stanley Cup. I believe in my teammates, and they believe we can win…. I have great confidence now."
Translation: Look out.
NHL looking at return of the red line
JAMES MIRTLE, Globe and Mail, Mar. 09, 2012
It’s the sort of debate that rages only in the background, far away from fans and the games, in the NHL.
Is the league too fast?
Was it a bad idea to take out the red line and allow two-line passes coming out of the lockout seven years ago?
Ask a different general manager and you’re likely to get a different answer, something that will come to a head next week in Boca Raton, Fla., as all 30 head honchos assemble for their semi-annual meeting to discuss potential rule changes.
Several high-profile GMs, like the Boston Bruins’ Peter Chiarelli and the Florida Panthers' Dale Tallon, are set to stump for the return of the red line, citing two key issues created by no longer having it:
First, the speed through the neutral zone, which has led to concerns over concussions and too many high-impact hits.
Second, how the game has changed due to what Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke calls “the tennis effect,” where defencemen fire pucks down the ice to forwards waiting at the far blueline who then chip them into the offensive zone.
“I think we’ve done a lot of different things to speed up the game,” Chiarelli added, “and I think maybe looking at putting that back in in some way, shape or form would help moderate the speed.”
“The restoration of the red line would add to the skill level needed to play,” Burke acknowledged, before explaining he is "not in favour of any changes to the ice surface."
Chiarelli and Tallon's opinions are far from unanimous, however, with some GMs even disagreeing with their own head coaches about what, if anything, needs to change in the middle of the ice.
Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland said this week that he and coach Mike Babcock have had the debate often, with the man behind the bench of one of the most successful teams in the league saying he feels the dreaded trap remains prevalent and has been helped, not hindered, by not calling two-line passes.
“He [Babcock] thinks that right now, because of the red line being out, everybody’s defensive scheme is really at your own blueline,” Holland said, “because you’re afraid to get people in behind you. For me personally, I like the game. But I am open to hearing other opinions. I mean, I’ve got Mike’s opinion, but he hasn’t sold me.”
The consensus is that it will take a considerable sell job by Chiarelli, Tallon and others to push a change to the red-line rule through in time for next season, but it is significant that it’s even up for serious debate.
Of the six general managers surveyed – three from each conference – in the past few days by The Globe and Mail, two indicated they’d like to see the change made, while three were in favour of the status quo and another was on the fence.
The discussions in Florida beginning on Monday may even swing a few of the undecided GMs over, with a majority decision to recommend the rule change required to push it through to the competition committee.
“We have a really good game now, certainly a game that people like to watch,” said Carolina Hurricanes GM Jim Rutherford, who admitted he hasn’t made up his mind on the issue. “It’s a fast game. But in some ways it might be a little too fast for players to react and protect themselves. I think we have to recognize that the speed of the game could very well be putting players in a more vulnerable position.”
St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong countered that by saying that NHL disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan has done a good job weeding out questionable hits. Armstrong also strongly believes that limiting the league’s newfound speed – one of the main changes made since the low-scoring Dead Puck Era – is the wrong way to go.
“I go back to, well, why did we take it out?” said Armstrong, whose coach, Ken Hitchcock, wants the red line to return. “Because the neutral zone got clogged up, and it was very difficult to gain the red line. It was like going through kelp or seaweed through the neutral zone.
“I wouldn’t be in favour of going in there and saying let’s make our game slower. I’m not sure that’s the right message to our fans, that we want to play slower. I think we can accomplish player safety with the game staying at a high pace and entertaining.”
Hockey pioneer Herb Carnegie dead at 92: Never given NHL shot because of colour barrier
By Signa Butler, CBC Sports, Mar 10, 2012
Herb Carnegie, who many believed was the best black player never to play in the NHL, has died. He was 92.
Carnegie, a dazzling centre man, businessman, philanthropist, championship golfer, and Order of Canada recipient, died Friday in Toronto, his daughter Bernice Carnegie told the New York Times.
Born on Nov. 8, 1919, to Jamaican immigrants, Carnegie fell in love with the game of hockey at an early age, playing on the frozen ponds in north Toronto and listening to Foster Hewitt call hockey games.
Playing alongside brother Ossie, Carnegie played in the Ontario junior ranks before moving to the semi-professional Quebec Provincial League, where they teamed up with Manny McIntyre of Fredericton, to form the first all-black line in pro hockey.
They were given nicknames like les Noirs, the Black Aces, the Brown Bombers and other far from politically correct labels, but they made noise on the ice, with the smooth-skating Herb winning several most valuable player trophies over the years.
In the 1950s, Carnegie played on the Quebec Aces in the Quebec Senior League, where he was a teammate of future Montreal Canadiens great Jean Béliveau, who became a longtime friend and wrote the forward in Carnegie’s autobiography, A Fly in a Pail of Milk.
“When I was 13 or 14, I never missed a game when Sherbrooke [Carnegie's team] was in town,” Béliveau is quoted saying in the Times. “I tried to duplicate what Herbie was doing at faceoffs and making passes onto the blade, not behind the wingman.”
Dream never given a chance
But like Bud Kelly and many other black players before him, Carnegie, despite his tremendous hockey skills, was denied an NHL career because of an unwritten colour barrier.
In 1948, a year after baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson broke into Major League Baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Carnegie was invited to try out for the New York Rangers. He felt he performed well enough at camp to deserve a job, but was told to report to the minors. He didn’t.
It wasn’t his first brush with the pros.
Eleven years earlier, then-Leafs owner Conn Smythe saw his talent but wouldn’t look past his skin colour.
In an emotional interview on Inside Hockey with Hockey Night in Canada’s Elliotte Friedman in 2009, Carnegie broke down in tears recalling what happened.
In the late 1930s, Carnegie was a member of the Young Rangers Junior A club in Toronto. The team would often practise at Maple Leaf Gardens.
“I was good enough for the Leafs because, according to Conn Smythe, ‘I would take Carnegie tomorrow for the Maple Leafs if someone could turn him white,’” Carnegie recalled, choking back emotion.
“I got that statement when I was 18. How would you feel? I can’t forget it because he cut my knees off, he broke my legs … it’s horrible.
“I loved the game and I feel cheated. I didn’t get the chance to prove myself. I just had a door closed where I couldn’t participate. As much fun as I had in the game, I had pain because I couldn’t have that other step.”
It would take another decade for a black player to break the colour barrier in the NHL, the last of the four major professional sports league to open its doors to black players.
Willie O’Ree owns that distinction. He appeared with the Boston Bruins in 1957-58 and, while he paved the way for other notable black players, including Tony McKegney, Grant Fuhr and Jarome Iginla, it was Carnegie who blazed the trail.
Fulfilling life and legacy
Outside hockey, Carnegie became a very successful businessman and philanthropist. He was married for more than 60 years to his wife, Audrey, who died in 2003, and had three daughters, Bernice, Goldie and Rochelle, and a son, Dale.
Carnegie started a popular hockey school called Future Aces, then created a foundation under the same name to help empower youth through athletics and academics. His foundation also awards college scholarships.
Carnegie was also a successful golfer, winning the Canadian senior amateur title twice and several other amateur tournaments.
He was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2001 and was named to the Order of Canada in 2003.
IIHF CALLS SUMMIT TO REVIVE CLUB COMPETITION, WORK WITH NHL
ASSOCIATED PRESS, 3/14/2012
ZURICH, Switzerland -- Ice hockey's governing body has invited European national federations, leagues and clubs to talks about reviving a continental competition, and their relations with the NHL.
The International Ice Hockey Federation says stakeholders will meet at a June 12-14 forum in Barcelona, Spain.
IIHF President Rene Fasel says "the focus will be on finding a format for a competitively and commercially viable top European club competition."
It would follow the Champions Hockey League which folded with financial problems after its debut 2008-09 season.
Fasel says "key points" will include co-operation with the NHL, the NHL players' union and the Canadian (Junior) Hockey League.
RENNEY'S CRITICISM OF YOUTHFUL OILERS OUT OF CHARACTER
THE CANADIAN PRESS, 3/13/2012
EDMONTON -- Reluctant to publicly criticize his team for the better part of two seasons despite mounting defeats, head coach Tom Renney raised eyebrows when he lit into the Edmonton Oilers after a 3-2 loss to the San Jose Sharks on Monday.
Renney has always been mindful to put the process of rebuilding a team that has finished 30th the past two seasons on equal footing with results during a tenure as head coach that has produced just 51 wins in 151 games. But he let the Oilers' players have it after they opened a four-game homestand by losing for the eighth time in nine games at Rexall Place.
While Renney's players had their say in a meeting before practice Tuesday, the response that matters will come Wednesday against the last-place Columbus Blue Jackets.
"My frustration is that we don't play to our potential," Renney said when asked about Monday's comments. "We didn't last night. We can be a good hockey club.
"We went out last night and played not to lose. Go play. Go play, you know? Appreciate the experience and the opportunity, those type of things. Play on your toes and not your heels. We can be a real good hockey club when we apply ourselves that way.
"You can't play in fear of losing. You've got to go play hard. The least you can do is just leave it out there."
Renney didn't mince words Monday night after the Oilers (26-36-7) lost their fifth straight home game.
"It doesn't take many for the wrong approach, the wrong attitude . . . to kind of make its way through your dressing room," Renney said. "It doesn't take many guys at all.
"We have a few people who have to look in the mirror here because this is unacceptable. You're the Edmonton Oilers, you're a millionaire, you have an opportunity to play the game . . . Suck it up and play hockey."
Renney didn't single anyone out for criticism after the loss, but his frustration was obvious.
"There's going to be times where frustration is going to happen in games, especially when you're 29th," captain Shawn Horcoff said. "You know, to tell you the truth, that's the first time it's kind of maybe got to the point where he (Renney) had to address it this year. In years past, it's been much more. Actually, I view it as a good thing.
"Today, we had a good chat and we talked about things among ourselves that we'll keep between teammates. We've re-grouped and we'll be ready to go (Wednesday)."
Pat Quinn publicly chastised his team more than once during the 2009-10 season en route to a 27-47-8 record and 30th-place finish. But the rant Monday was a rarity for Renney, who served as an assistant under Quinn before becoming the head coach to start the 2010-11 season.
The Oilers finished 30th again under Renney last season, going 25-42-12 and are 51-89-18 under Renney, who doesn't have a contract for next season.
"Frustration creeps into a lot of people's games," Ryan Smyth said. "It's a matter of overcoming it, not as an individual, but as a team.
"Not one guy is going to carry the load, you know? One guy can sure lead, but it takes everybody to be an impactful group. We've got to get back to doing that, doing the little things that make this team successful. We've got fight for each other's pride in here."
Despite Edmonton's struggles, Renney has been a picture of patience. He has always stressed process and the development of youngsters like rookie Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and second-year players Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle as the foundation of long-term success.
"I think if frustration didn't happen at this point, you'd have a problem," Horcoff said. "The thing is, we've got 20 guys who care. We've got guys who want to be better. They want to do better, individually and team-wise.
"That's going to happen. We addressed it (Tuesday) and re-grouped and got a little bit of our frustration out. We talked about some problems we were having maybe, things we wanted to change and things we didn't want to change going forward. We look forward to coming back and having a better effort against Columbus."
GM Steve Tambellini, in Florida attending a meeting of NHL general managers, didn't have an issue with Renney's post-game comments.
"You expect your organization, your team, to be emotional," Tambellini said. "They prepare to win every night and you expect the very, very best from all of your payers. Obviously he wasn't happy with a couple and voiced his opinion. I don't have a problem with that."
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Oilers get Renney's message
By DEREK VAN DIEST, QMI Agency, March 14, 2012
EDMONTON - It is not in Tom Renney’s nature to criticize his players publicly.
In fact, during his tenure with the Edmonton Oilers, Renney has often gone out of his way to protect his players and defend them when things get ugly.
So it was a surprise when the Oilers head coach lambasted his team following a lackluster 3-2 loss to the San Jose Sharks on Monday.
It was either a sign of a coach finally losing patience with his club, or of a coach who felt he needed a new method to get his message across.
“He pretty much said the same thing to us in the locker room,” said Oilers captain Shawn Horcoff. “It really wasn’t anything new for me, when I was reading the comments. He’s frustrated, he felt like our body language was going a little south and there was a little too much fighting and bickering. We have to be better.”
Renney appears to be at his wit’s end trying to get what he can out of the Oilers this season.
Having long ago lost any hope of reaching the playoffs, Renney and his coaching staff have had to find creative ways to motivate the team down the stretch.
It’s like trying to squeeze water from a stone some nights.
“I think he just kind of had the end of it,” said Oilers winger Ryan Jones. “He’s such a quiet and positive guy, but he can only take so much.
“I think (Monday) you started seeing a little bit of what he wanted to say, said. The message was taken. When you have a coach that doesn’t say stuff like that very often, when he says it, you pay attention really quick.”
Renney boiled over during his post-game press conference Monday. He criticized his team for their lack of effort and apparent unwillingness to try and win games.
“It doesn’t take many for the wrong approach, the wrong attitude, the wrong give a s- -t to make its way through the dressing room,” Renney said Monday. “It doesn’t take many guys at all. We have a few people who have to look in the mirror here because this is unacceptable.
“You’re the Edmonton Oilers, you’re a millionaire, you have the opportunity to play the game … Suck it up and play hockey.”
Heading into Monday’s game, the Oilers were saying all the right things. They were talking about having to play with pride and for the crest in the front of the jersey and not the name on the back, and whatever other cliché they could come up with.
Yet they came up with another poor effort at home, where they’ve lost five straight and eight of their last nine.
That set off the head coach, who tore into the team in the dressing room after the game, before piling on to the media.
“It’s part of the process. It’s not going to be pretty every night and it’s not going to go your way every night,” Renney said Tuesday. “As a coach and as a coaching staff you try to impart the right principals and the right way you have to play and they’re be departures from that. (Monday) was certainly an opportunity to address things that we have to do in order to improve and we have to improve as a team, it’s that simple.
“It may be out of character for me to display that often. But I don’t think it’s out character for me to make it clear to my players, even through you people (media) what needs to be done by them.”
Whether the message was received won’t be known until Wednesday, when the Oilers play host to the Columbus Blue Jackets, the only team lower in the NHL standings.
The Blue Jackets have had issues of their own this season and are expected to clean house this summer, starting by moving captain Rick Nash.
If the Oilers come up with a poor effort again Wednesday against the worst team in the league, many expect there’ll be some house cleaning done in Edmonton as well.
“I think we should all be a little bit embarrassed,” said Oilers defenceman Ryan Whitney. “Tom made good points. You can’t just try and finish out a season and not play hard.
“(Monday) night is the closest we’re going to get to play something like a playoff game, so we have to really treat them as such.”
GMs favouring hybrid icing
Postmedia News, March 13, 2012
After two days of National Hockey League general managers’ meetings, it has become clear that — of all the new rules up for discussion — hybrid icing has gained the most traction.
If adopted, the rule would see a change in how icing was called — an effort to protect the players from dangerous hits.
In its simplest form in the new rule, icing gets called if the first player to pass the faceoff dot is from the defending team. The defender would no longer need to touch the puck.
“I think what you’re doing is removing the dangerous portion of it,” said Chicago Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman to the NHL Network. “When guys are usually lunging for pucks, it’s when they are most likely to be off-balance and you can have a high rate of speed collisions happening. We’re trying to do our best to remove the dangerous plays.”
Among Calgary Flames players queried on the subject, there are those in favour of a change, and other who like the status quo.
Defenceman Jay Bouwmeester favours a switch.
“It’s probably been a long time coming,” Bouwmeester said. “There’s been some injuries and there’s been lots of talk about it for a few years now. If it will eliminate some of those dangerous collisions three or four feet from the boards, then that’s good.
“It doesn’t happen very often,” Bouwmeester added of injuries, “but when it does, it’s big. If you can eliminate that, or try to eliminate that, it’s probably best for everyone.”
Veteran forward Tom Kostopoulos respectfully disagreed.
“Personally, I like the icing rule the way it is,” Kostopoulos said, knowing full well he is in the minority. “I’ve had conversations with a lot of guys on the team, and they don’t agree with me. I like the race. I think it’s an exciting part of the game. I know injuries do happen, and that’s unfortunate. But I kind of like it the way it is now.”
The league’s GMs wrap up their meetings on Wednesday.
Any rule changes proposed go to the NHL competition committee and then on to the board of governors for final approval.
Avery hanging up his skates
QMI Agency, March 14 2012
Unwanted forward Sean Avery, recently cut loose by the New York Rangers, says he has retired.
The controversial 31-year-old told Bravo TV host Andy Cohen during an appearance on 'Watch What Happens Live' Monday that he had retired and "threw my skates in the Hudson (River)."
Not so fast, Avery's agent says. His client was "not serious," Pat Morris told ESPNNewYork.com on Tuesday.
Wait, maybe he wasn't kidding.
Avery told the New York Post, "No, that wasn't a joke; yes I'm retiring at the end of the season, and it's OK. I guess that was my retirement press conference." He added that he was taking a post-hockey gig with an advertising agency.
Avery then followed that statement up by telling ESPNNewYork.com he won't make it his retirement official until after his four-year, $15.5 million contract expires at the end of this season.
Leave it to Avery, one of the most reviled and polarizing players in recent NHL history, to muddy up the waters about his own retirement.
If he has retired, though, his final season was filled with much of the same controversy as the rest of his 10-year career. He spent most of this season with Connecticut of the AHL after being waived -- twice -- by the Rangers but the minor-league team didn't include him on its post-season roster and told him he was no longer required to show up for practices.
In 580 NHL games with four franchises -- New York, Dallas, Los Angeles and Detroit -- Avery had 90 goals and 157 assists.
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I hope it's true...!
Determined players take to snowmobiles to get to Nunavut hockey tournament
Nunatsiaq News March 16, 2012
Two hockey clubs used this mode of transportation to make it to a tournament this week in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut.
Two hockey clubs used this mode of transportation to make it to a tournament this week in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut.
Players attending a major hockey tournament in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut proved this week it takes more than a blizzard warning to keep them off the ice.
The adverse weather was a rocky start for the annual Sakku First Avataq Cup. At least five of the 10 participating teams were grounded.
While three teams opted to wait for better weather, two hopped on their snowmobiles to make the trek.
Normally three hours away, it took the Whale Cove team six hours late on Wednesday, travelling through gusting winds and low visibility to reach Rankin Inlet.
"There were a lot of prayers being said, but all of them made it," said David Clark, tournament organizer.
The players had just enough time to rest, eat and lace up before hitting the ice Thursday to play the Rankin Inlet Miners, who beat them 5-3.
Next up, players from Chesterfield Inlet opted to trek more than 100 kilometres by snowmobile on Thursday, arriving in Rankin Inlet in the afternoon.
"It definitely adds to the challenge," Clark said. "But you do the best you can with the energy you have."
The last of the 10 participating teams — from Iqaluit, Baker Lake and Coral Harbour — were scheduled to arrive Friday, with the forecast showing the weather gradually clearing.
The Sakku First Avataq Cup, now in its 11th year, runs until Sunday.
A look inside the NHL’s video-review headquarters
Bruce Dowbiggin, Globe and Mail, Mar. 16, 2012
“Hey, Murph, look at that,” says former NHL player Kris King, alerting Mike Murphy, his fellow senior vice-president of NHL hockey operations, to the Boston Bruins-Washington Capitals game playing on his TV screen.
“I’m putting it up there so you know. Linesman makes a great call, [Bruins forward] Krejci’s pissed and fires it at the linesman.”
Murphy asks: “They give him a penalty?”
King points to a monitor on the far wall of the 11th-floor NHL war room. “Unsportsmanlike.”
In the replay, Krejci does indeed launch a puck at linesman Jean Morin. The video will be sent to NHL offices in New York within minutes for the perusal of player safety commissar Brendan Shanahan.
Murphy turns in his chair in the centre of the league’s video-review headquarters.
“If someone wanted to know what happens, we can send that clip in seconds to anyone who wants to know,” he says. “The commissioner [Gary Bettman], [deputy commissioner] Bill Daly, Brendan Shanahan, even the referee. It takes about 10 minutes, and we can send it to everyone who needs to know.”
On the next screen, the live feed of the Bruins-Capitals game plays, flanked by two dedicated live-time overhead cameras above the nets occupied by Boston goaltender Tim Thomas and Washington counterpart Tomas Vokoun. It’s the first of 10 games that day and, as such, gets maximum attention from the staff in the room.
The array of monitors on the wall (there are 14 separate screens) at 50 Bay Street resembles a casino sports book – without the slots. It is no coincidence: the league’s operations department consulted with the tech people who create casino sports-viewing rooms when it moved its operation down a floor to this new room at the start of the 2011-12 NHL season.
Each work station also contains a mini version of the video wall for the staffer assigned to watch a particular game. The goal of this sparkling new room is not only to get the close calls right but to reduce the time an in-game video review takes and to convey the decision via e-mail and NHL.com to the world wondering, “What happened?”
Because of the live overhead net cameras now available, lag time is being greatly reduced.
“We probably know within 20, 30 seconds what the call is going to be,” Murphy says. “By the time the referee gets to the headphones, we have a pretty good idea already. We’re quicker and more accurate and more consistent.”
When those decisions are made they’ll be posted online (later with video) within 90 seconds of the call being made. (Using Twitter.com as well is being debated.)
Murphy is asked about the notorious time-clock snafu in Los Angeles on Feb. 1 that allowed the Kings to score a late goal in a crucial decision over the Columbus Blue Jackets.
“When the goal was scored, I went to my video-booth guy, and he said there was still time left on the clock,” he says. “We have the official time clock burned into the feed. But he didn’t go back further to see where it paused. None of us did.
“How did the clock pause? Was it user error, was it a flaw with clock? I’m not about to accuse anybody. I know the man who ran the clock, I trust the fact that he said he didn’t stop it. But I also understand that we’ve tested it before and never had an issue with it. Now, when we have a late-second goal, we go back to the last stoppage and chase it down from there.
“That changed our procedures.”
The league is also ensuring that all buildings and broadcasters have access to the official time clock. “When you’re talking about hundredths of a second, there can be a slight discrepancy in time among the TV people and us. In one game, the signals had three distinct and different times.”
So far, the afternoon has been quiet. The NHL staff are like firemen, however, on alert. So they cue up a contentious call from the night before in Pittsburgh, where referee Marc Joannette called a goal against the Florida Panthers that was soon overturned.
Murphy points to the monitor. “You can see that the way [Panthers goalie] Jose Theodore’s arm came down, the puck could never have been in the net. Joannette first seems to call no-goal and then seems to change his mind. We were pretty sure very quickly. The combination of all the new net cam and the overhead helped us make the call to overturn.”
On the video, Joannette can be seen announcing, “After review, it was determined that the puck did not completely cross the line” – followed by a cascade of boos from Pens fans.
“When Bob Errey’s doing the commentating [for the Penguins], anything in the blue is in the net,” Murphy says with a laugh. “But he admitted afterward that the NHL had made a real good call on that one.”
The hardest calls?
“High sticks,” Murphy says. “Because it’s almost impossible judging a three-dimensional play with two dimensions. Trying to find the puck, the stick and the crossbar. You can’t get it exactly where the stick contacts the puck. It’s hard to overrule the referees on those ones.”
How about kicking the puck?
“Kicking, we have more refined,” he says. “Now, it has to be a defined kicking motion. People used to talk about the skate staying on the ice, but you can still kick it in that way. We’ve permitted a lot more pucks off skates. A guy can turn his skate and it’s still good. It’s much more liberal in that way.”
And who gets the tie-breaking vote in case of a disagreement in the NHL war room?
“Whoever’s sitting here is the consensus guy,” Murphy says. “We’ve never had an argument about a play. … Not that we’d ever tell a reporter.”
Toronto school uses hockey to offer cool taste of Canada
Sean Fitz-Gerald , National Post, Mar 17, 2012
TORONTO — He was thin, soft-spoken and, four months after moving to Canada from Nepal, he was becoming a legend in the halls of Ted Reeve Arena. And that was before he stood in the hallway between the ice and the dressing rooms, fresh out of his equipment, with a sore tooth wiggling free.
It was aching and bothering Rupkrishna Dangol before he left home, but his dedication to Thursday morning hockey was unshakable. An on-ice instructor spoke in awe of the time Dangol pulled an overnight shift at the fast food restaurant where he works, then arrived to play hockey before taking a full day of high school classes. The instructor laughed and joked Dangol must have thought participation in hockey was mandatory in Canada.
“I love Canadian things,” Dangol said. “I just love it. I never thought … see?”
He paused, reaching to his mouth.
“My tooth is coming out,” he said.
Really?
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s out.”
It was in his left hand, which he closed quickly, embarrassed. He would see a dentist later in the day, after hockey, which had just ended for another week. Dangol and more than a dozen students from Eastern Commerce Collegiate Institute, in Toronto’s east end, were on the ice until the Zamboni engine roared, sounding the international signal to leave.
“I don’t want to miss hockey,” Dangol said in the hallway after. “I love to be here.”
Another student was playing with torn ligaments in her shoulder. Another got up early to commute from the eastern fringe of the city. They skated with rock music playing on the speakers, with coaches offering gentle instruction to teenagers who were playing for free in donated equipment that would have been fit for use in the National Hockey League.
Not all of them were new to Canada, but they were all new to hockey.
From September to April, an Eastern Commerce drama teacher and his dedicated band of volunteers run a hockey program open to students at the inner-city school. Eamonn Nolan estimates about 75 students have given it a try since it launched two years ago, meaning a fifth of the entire enrolment has been exposed to a game it might not otherwise be able to afford.
Another teacher handles the paperwork. Coaches from Beach Sports Academy, a training business based nearby, volunteer their time to teach the fundamentals of the game. Nolan, the dreamer behind the project, a beer-league veteran and married father of two, holds the belief that hockey can be used as a vehicle for inclusion in Canada, even in Toronto.
“Kids who go through high school at Eastern Commerce are not always as connected to the Canadian way of life,” Nolan said. “The things that we take for granted aren’t always taken for granted by Eastern Commerce kids. So hockey is kind of a cultural currency, you know? They learn through hockey that they can be just as much a part of the Canadian scene as any other kid.
“It doesn’t really matter that they’re not at an upper-middle-class school when they know the language, the nuances, the routines of hockey. If you know the order in which you should put on hockey equipment, you’ve got a passport for Canada, you know what I mean?”
Nolan was born in New York City, to Irish immigrants, but landed in Canada at age four and quickly fell in love with hockey. He lives near Eastern Commerce with his wife, Canadian Paralympic rower Victoria Nolan, and their hockey-playing children. Without factoring in the cost of gas, skate sharpening and Gatorade, Nolan estimates the couple will spend about $4,500 to have their own children play minor hockey this year.
Nolan launched his first program for less privileged students four years ago, after he left his job teaching in a wealthy uptown school for Sir Sandford Fleming Academy, a school in a less affluent part of north Toronto. It was move spurred by the realization he enjoyed “making a difference, making an impact and high-fiving the kids.”
There was no hockey equipment and limited funds. Nolan embarked on a scavenger hunt for equipment among his friends and the hockey people he knew around the city, yielding a bounty of leather elbow pads, ancient brown gloves and skateboard helmets.
He sought funding and failed. And then he was directed to the National Hockey League Players’ Association and its Goals and Dreams fund. The union has made $20-million in donations since it launched the program in 1999. Goals and Dreams sent Nolan 25 sets of equipment in a mountain of boxes that landed at Sandford Fleming.
“The caretaker was furious with me,” Nolan said with a broad smile.
There was an unused change room in the drama class he taught — “the drama program I teach is amazing, but it’s not Fame” — that was quickly converted into a hockey storage locker. The NHLPA followed up with invitations to the Hockey Hall of Fame, offering a chance to meet players from the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“A kid just comes from Afghanistan, he doesn’t know the Leafs; he could think I play for the Leafs, you know?” Nolan said. “So that was amazing.”
Two years ago, Nolan transferred to Eastern Commerce, a school known for basketball. Toronto Raptors centre Jamaal Magloire stands perhaps the tallest among its recent alumni.
“I’d say it’s a tough school,” Magloire said. “The demographics are very diverse, so a lot of different ethnicities there. It’s an inner-city school.”
And it is not known for hockey, though Magloire said if they had a program like Nolan’s when he was in school, “I would have given it a try.”
When Nolan changed jobs, he called the NHLPA again, which provided 25 more sets of gear. Last year, his new school and his old school met in a friendly game, the Goals and Dreams Cup. Leafs defenceman Luke Schenn was there, as was then-Leafs forward Tim Brent.
“To know that some of the money that we raised goes to kids who wouldn’t necessarily get the chance to have those types of days — whether it’s once or twice a week — it’s really all you can ask for,” said Brent, now with the Carolina Hurricanes. “It’s fantastic.”
“I take it more as a luxury rather than an extra-curricular program, just because I never really received the opportunity to go and play hockey,” said Sadaf Ahmed, a Grade 12 student at Eastern Commerce. “My parents could never afford such expensive equipment. So just the fact that I get to play hockey and do something that I love, and with the satisfaction that my parents are never burdened by the pricey costs, it’s just great.”
Ahmed grew up in Regent Park, a historically rough Toronto neighbourhood, and moved with her family last year to Scarborough. She has been accepted by two universities, but was still waiting to hear back from her preferred choice, the University of Toronto, after playing hockey one recent Thursday morning.
“I’m surrounded by violence, drugs, everything,” Ahmed said. “There’s a lot of negative influences around me, but when I come to see a positive influence like this, I take advantage of it.”
Another student, Carlie Manners, skated that day despite a badly injured shoulder. She is a first cousin of the late Jordan Manners, who died of a gunshot wound to the chest five years ago at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute, in northwest Toronto. He was 15 years old, and he was close with his cousin.
Carlie Manners lives near Eastern Commerce and plays a variety of sports. She has also been snowboarding as part of another program Nolan has started.
“There’s a lot of different kids at Eastern who have even less than me,” she said. “So when they get this opportunity, and especially when they’re new to Canada, playing Canada’s pastime is huge for them.”
“I see my students, who’ve come from every part of the planet — and who come from Toronto, but come from a part of Toronto that’s like a different planet to many Canadians, I think — seeing them feeling included and being part of what we do is great for me,” Nolan said. “I’m a teacher, foremost, and that’s really important to me.”
And hockey, in turn, has become a weekly staple for some of his students. Dangol could not stand when he started, and if he managed to get to his feet, the accomplishment was followed swiftly by a fall. He has learned, gliding carefully through a scrimmage at the end of a recent session.
He had left his home, in the west end, at 7:15 a.m., to reach the east-end arena in time for the 9 a.m. skate. It is on the subway that he does a lot of his reading for school. He works up to 35 hours a week at the fast food restaurant, but had this one particular Thursday off.
“I’m here every Thursday,” he said. “I don’t miss a Thursday.”
Hockey World: Bigger is better when it comes to guarding goal in today’s NHL
Jim Matheson, edmontonjournal.com March 17, 2012
Who’s Hot: Dallas winger Loui Eriksson has 65 points and only 11 on the power play, hammering home how good he is playing 5-on-5.
Who’s Not: Rene Bourque only has four goals in 28 games for the Canadiens and is minus 16.
Marquee Matchups:
Tuesday: Coyotes in Dallas for Pacific Division lead and No. 3 seed overall.
Wednesday: Another instalment of the bitter Hawks-Canucks rivalry with Vancouver at the Madhouse on Madison.
Goalies like Oilers’ six-foot-five Devan Dubnyk are taking puck stopping to new heights
Could Andy Moog play in today’s NHL? How about Mike Vernon? Both were five-foot-nine and 170 pounds.
Grant Fuhr looked as big as a sumo wrestler in net some nights, the way he covered every inch of space, but he was only five-foot-11 and 185.
Now? Tall is in, baby. Look up, look way up.
“The average height of NHL goalies now is six-foot-two,” said Fred Chabot, the Oilers’ goalie coach, who played at five-foot-10.
Tim Thomas in Boston, Jaroslav Halak in St. Louis and Jose Theodore in Florida are small today, and they’re five-foot-11” Jimmy Howard is only six-foot even.
Contrast that with Ben Bishop, the NHL’s Hi-Rise at six-foot-seven as he tends net in Ottawa. Or Devan Dubnyk here, at six-foot-five. Or Pekka Rinne at six-foot-five in Nashville. Even the ones you think are average are big. Semyon Varlamov? He’s six-foot-two and 209 pounds, the same as Antti Niemi, who plays at 215 pounds.
“When I found out Varlamov was six-two, I said ‘really?’ ’’ said Phoenix goalie coach Sean Burke.
Scouts will look at junior or European goalies under six feet, but how closely? Under quick feet, good glove, competes hard, there’s the but ... he’s under-sized.
“I don’t know if I’d have been drafted,” said Chris Osgood, who won 401 games and was only five-foot-10 and 180.
The question is this: does tall automatically equate to more saves?
“There’s an article you should write ... which big ones will make it and which ones won’t?” said Ken Hitchcock, who’s got Halak and Brian Elliott (six-foot-three) and had Bishop knocking on the door until he was traded to the Senators for a second-round draft pick.
There is a theory that tall guys have to fall farther to the ice to handle shots along the ice, so pucks can skip under them. That was Bishop’s problem at one time, coming out of college, but Blues’ goalie coach Corey Hirsch worked hard with the giant to spread out. He gets to all the low shots now.
Chabot says size counts but they have to have agility to go with the ability, and it doesn’t matter if you’re built like Rinne (“he’s like Gumby in the net,” said Dubnyk) or the Vezina and Conn Smythe winner Thomas, the most unorthodox of today’s goalies who lives for making snow-angels in the crease.
“You can’t coach size. You can’t teach size,” said Chabot. “A little guy can’t be bigger. That’s how big he is.”
“Doesn’t matter how big a goalie is if he cannot move, though. If he’s six-four and he cannot move around on his feet, he’s not going to be good. Tall goalies also have to play a simple game. They don’t have to challenge a lot because they’re so big,” said Chabot. “The disadvantages? The holes are bigger. The five-hole is bigger. Playing along the post is more difficult, too, because there seem to be holes between them and the post. I’ve seen more and more goalies of that size and that’s a problem. Big goalies giving up goals along the ice? I don’t see that as a problem.”
“Size makes a difference because the forwards have so much freedom around the net. If a big goalie can move, it’s an advantage, for sure. All the screens, all the traffic, if you’re one of the tallest goalies, that helps.”
Every day Dubnyk wakes up he’s glad he’s six-foot-five not five-foot-10. He says he doesn’t have any trouble getting down to the ice and back up at his size. “Depends how your body is scaled. I’m six-five but most of my height is in my torso, from my hips up. From my hips to my feet, they’re the same as somebody who is six-one. The height is an advantage but it doesn’t affect how I move around the ice. Now, the higher your hips are off the ice, the harder it is to get down and the harder it is to recover,” said Dubnyk. “I think anybody at this level is quick enough to get to shots on the ice, but you might have to modify your stance a bit, wider, lower to the ice. I don’t think I could play like, say, (Evgeny) Nabokov (six-foot). He has his feet really close together. I know I couldn’t play like Thomas.”
To make himself bigger (upper body), he turns his knees inward and stands on the edges of his skates.
Dubnyk concurs with Chabot that “there are more holes for tall guys. The bigger goalie moves and the holes under the arm, the five-hole, there’s more room there. That’s why you see big goalies playing deeper in the net; the holes are bigger once you start to move. They’re looking for minimal movement.”
“There are times when I’d like to be smaller and closer to the ice, quicker movements, but when I make a shoulder save from a sharp angle sometimes, Khabby (Nikolai Khabibulin, who is six-foot-one) will get on me that it’s not fair,” laughed Dubnyk.
Burke, who played at six-foot-four and tutored Ilya Bryzgalov and now Mike Smith (two tall guys too), knows size matters. “It’s like seeing a Chara. It can be an advantage out there,” said Burke. “A bigger guy can look a little awkward, but if you’ve got good feet, that’s the key.”
“You go scouting now and if you find a goalie who’s as agile at six-three as a goalie who’s five-11, you’re going with the bigger guy. It’s no different with, say, a quarterback. You get a five-11 quarterback who’s quick and good, but if you have a six-five who is the same, you go with the six-five guy.”
Marty Turco (five-foot-11, 184) looked pretty small in net for the Bruins this week when Steve Stamkos whipped his 50th goal past him.
Burke, whose boy Brendan (six-foot-three) just turned 17 and plays for the Portland Winterhawks, knows big goalies are intimidating when a shooter is coming down the wing. It really is a psychological thing. “When you see a smaller goalie, I do think the shooter is thinking ‘this puck is going in,’ ’’ said Burke.
Western Conference:
Hyperbole is the staple of the sports world, so nobody should be surprised they’re calling Alex Radulov “the best player outside the NHL.”
OK, he lit up the Kontinental Hockey League but that’s only a cut above the AHL. How good is he really?
He bolted the Nashville Predators when he was 21 for fame and fortune in Ufa, a city of one million 1,500 kilometres from Moscow. He was MVP in that league, with 80 points one year. But will that translate to the NHL if the Predators ever end this soap opera and get the winger back? It would be nice to see him Tuesday night when the Oilers are in Nashville, but nobody knows if or when he could get his release from Salavat.
“The one year he was here we played him with (Peter) Forsberg in the playoffs. The next year he played with (Jason) Arnott and those guys and they didn’t treat him very well. I don’t know what happened off the ice but he decided he wanted to make big money right away. But, boy, he’s a dynamic player. He loves to score, loves to go to the net. He gets there because he wants to get there,” said Nashville’s former associate coach Brent Peterson.
He acknowledges the KHL isn’t the NHL, but believes scorers can score anywhere. Point-producers are point-producers.
Radulov was on the Russian Olympic team in Vancouver in 2010
“He led the KHL in scoring and was MVP twice,” said Peterson. “He had 25 goals for us as a 19-year-old. He was our best scorer then. He had only scratched the surface when he left us.”
Radulov, who played junior for Patrick Roy (152 points and 61 goals in 62 league games and 55 in 23 playoff games in 2006) was the MVP in the Memorial Cup that spring. He started the season in Milwaukee in 2006 like all their draft picks but only stayed a few weeks. “He was the only one we ever sent there who dominated the league. We had to bring him up. Had to. He had four goals one night,” said Peterson.
“He’s a playmaker too, not just a scorer. He loves hockey, loves to play the game. He wants to be on the ice. Some guys are players but they don’t like to play. They want the money and toys but not to play the game. Rads loves to play,” said Peterson.
Would Radulov riding in on a white horse to save the day, upset the chemistry in Nashville? I doubt it. Players want to win. He’ll help them win.
“It’s too bad he kind of left us hanging there, but he’s a good player, a great player. Hopefully if he comes back, he plays well and stays a while,” said defenceman Ryan Suter. “There will be a feeling-out process, but when he was here before he was a great guy.”
Peterson, like everybody else in Nashville, is in limbo.
“We have no idea what’s going on. If he’s coming or not,” said Peterson.
By the numbers:
0: Tim Thomas is a perfect 6-0 in shootouts this season.
1: The Devils lead the league in shootout wins.
28: Games between goals for Danny Briere, until getting one into an empty net against New Jersey.
This ’n’ that:
Theo Fleury, just in town for a Legends of Hockey game with the city police team at Rexall Place, says his country band with brother Ted will be playing a series of venues in Western Canada in the next little while. “We’re opening for a big name. A really big name,” said Theo, who wouldn’t say who it was. Ash Koley guitarist/keyboard player Phil Deschambault was with the Fleurys in a recording studio recently ... The Predators will have to make due without centre Paul Gaustad (wrist). “He’s been great for us on faceoffs. He can take them from both sides, right or left. He wins about 70 per cent of them,” said Peterson ... The Stars sorely miss Sheldon Souray, out with a charleyhorse the last four games. Souray isn’t the offensive weapon he used to be, but he’s fourth in minutes played (20:20) a night and he’s plus 20. They want to re-sign him. He’s making $1.65 million this year from the Stars and his buyout (two-thirds of $4.5 million Oiler salary) ... The feeling is Canada won’t automatically give their world junior coaching job to either of Don Hay’s assistants — Ryan Huska (Kelowna) or George Burnett (Belleville). They may go in another direction for the worlds in Russia next Christmas ... Injuries to Andy McDonald (separated shoulder, out for three weeks) and concussions to Alex Steen and Matt D’Agostini opened the door for Canadian world junior captain Jaden Schwartz to play and score a goal his first NHL game with the Blues in Tampa … He left Colorado College after two years. Blues’ coach Ken Hitchcock got a scouting report from Hay and it was two thumbs-up for Schwartz, even if he is joining the best team in the NHL. Schwartz may be used to kill penalties to start with ... Ducks’ goalie Jonas Hiller, who stood on his head in a 4-2 (empty-net goal) loss to the Kings on Friday, has started 31 games in a row, every game going back to Jan. 10 when Jeff Deslauriers got a rare start in a 5-2 win over Dallas. Have there been that many must-win games for Anaheim in the last two months? Guess so ... Wild captain Mikko Koivu, who has missed 14 games with a bum shoulder, might get into a few games before the season ends, but he might also need surgery in the off-season. Minnesota forward Pierre-Marc Bouchard has skated in a track suit, but you can forget seeing him until the fall as he rehabs a second concussion. Same story with Guillaume Latendresse. This would be three of the Wild’s top six forwards on the shelf. Little wonder, they can’t score ... Former Oilers’ centre Colin Fraser is the Kings’ Masterton trophy nominee. Getting his hands dirty, often unnoticed, has long been his calling card. He comes by it naturally. As he said this week on the Kings website, his dad worked six days a week in a sawmill in B.C. and now he’s a longshoreman, unloading ships.
Eastern Conference:
We keep tossing out Quebec Remparts centre Mikhail Grigorenko as a possible Oilers’ pick in the June draft, but if they are going on need to fill a hole on the back-end, former Everett Silvertips GM Doug Soetaert says it’s a slam-dunk. It has to be Ryan Murray. “I was talking to Steve Yzerman and he told me Murray reminded him of Mark Howe,” said the one-time NHL goalie. Not Scott Niedermayer, as many people think? “No,” said Soetaert. “I’m not just saying this because I had Ryan and I saw him play all the time, but Ryan could play in the NHL right now. For me, he’s better than (Cam) Fowler (when he came into the NHL). I think he’s better than Luke Schenn and Tyler Myers (WHL first-round picks of the Leafs and Sabres). He’s a coach’s dream. At 16, he was playing against 20-year-olds in our league. Makes a great first pass.”
Soetaert, who once upon a time played for the Oil Kings with partner Larry Hendrick, was surprisingly let go in early February. He was GM and coach in Kansas City in the IHL for 11 years, joining Everett in 2002 with a one-year detour to be the Flames assistant GM. He’s a good man. He should be working somewhere.
This ’n’ that:
Ilya Bryzgalov became only the second Flyers goalie to ever record three straight shutouts, and set the club record of 249:33 minutes without giving up a goal until Michael Grabner beat him. The three-straight shutout goalie beside him? Not Bernie Parent or Pelle Lindbergh, who crashed his Porsche into a retaining wall. Instead, it was The Beezer, John Vanbiesbrouck, who also put up three zeros in a row. Bryzgalov, by the way, is taking his run low-key. He didn’t even skate out to acknowledge the Philly faithful after being named first star against Jersey in a 3-0 shutout ... Most players go through a couple of pairs of skates in an NHL season, but Zdeno Chara figures he uses about 12 pair, wearing them out in about three weeks. “With my equipment on, I’m about 270, 280 pounds. That’s a lot of twisting and turning. The skates get wet and break down,” said Chara ... If it’s true that Evgeny Kuznetsov, a slam-dunk to be on the Russian Olympic squad in Sochi in 2014, says he wants to stay in the KHL rather than come to Washington next year, it’s a kick in the head for the Caps, who were counting on Kuznetsov, the captain of the Russian world junior squad, to be a No. 2 centre. “With the uncertainty with the CBA (up on Sept. 15), he feels it’s better if he stays in Russia,” said a KHL source. Betting is he goes to either St. Petersburg where Denis Grebeshkov, Patrick Thoresen and Alexei Semenkov are playing or Ufa to replace Radulov ... Adam Larsson, the second name on the Oilers scouting list after Ryan Nugent-Hopkins last June, has struggled in the last month with the Devils. First he hurt his back when P.K. Subban knocked him into the boards and missed 10 games, then he got benched against the Flyers. “Just a bump in the road. The league is at a different level now,” said Devils’ coach Pete DeBoer, who sat Larsson down to have a chat with Larry Robinson, the assistant coach. The message: less is more, simple plays preferred ... Teams are always looking for quick fixes in trade deadline deals — the Oilers got a great return out of Sergei Samsonov in 2006 when they got him from the Bruins — but usually, there are growing pains. Cody Hodgson is still looking for his first point with the Sabres in nine games and has one shot on net his last three. He only played 11:08 against the Habs this past week. Not the first impression you want to make after a trade. Alex Sulzer, a defensive D-man, has two more points. Zack Kassian hasn’t been a huge factor in Vancouver, either ... Nikita Filatov, who went back to play for Red Army in Moscow this winter after the Blue Jackets said goodbye to their failed first-round pick and he couldn’t crack the Senators after showing little inclination to go to where goals are scored in North America (around the blue paint), just got scratched from a junior team playoff. What a waste of talent. “You have to get a result, just not skate around,” said the junior Red Army coach, as relayed by ace Russian scribe Dmitry Chesnokov.
He Said It:
“It’s not the standard boo-yea, boo-yea. The fans come up with different things. They’re ruthless”
Jets’ coach Claude Noel after the fans at the MTS Centre started chanting “Crosby’s Better” every time Alex Ovechkin touched the puck Friday.
Matty Short Shifts:
• Face-offs are overrated. Evgeni Malkin wins 46.9 per cent of his draws, but always seems to have the puck and Steve Stamkos is just 45.7. The puck is always on his stick, too. You’d be surprised how many top-drawer centres are very average in the faceoff circle. They’re not all Jonathan Toews or Joe Thornton
• Can the Blackhawks win a playoff round without Toews, who likely has been texting Sidney Crosby on how to deal with a concussion? I can’t see it, although Marian Hossa, their best forward outside of Toews who was an MVP candidate before getting hurt, and Patrick Kane, now playing centre, are picking up the slack. Can Toews make it back before the post-season after skating four days and shutting it down? “Let’s hope so. That would be great,” said coach Joel Quenneville. Wishful thinking?
• Hands up, how many people thought Matt Cooke would be in the Lady Byng running this year? The kinder, gentler Cooke has had 15 minors and not one fighting major. Thirty penalty minutes. And he’s got 31 points, 16 goals in Pittsburgh. That’s the same number of goals as Pavel Datsyuk. OK, Datsyuk also has 43 assists.
• Could the Minnesota Wild finish with the league’s second-worst record? Everybody talks about the Leafs’ in free fall, how about Minny? Eight losses in their last nine, four times shut out in that span, a measly seven wins in the last 28 games going back to mid January. They’re only five points (68-63) ahead of the Oilers. Will they win three more games? Hawks twice, with the Preds, Canucks, Rangers, Coyotes, Panthers, Flames, Capitals, Kings, Sabres on their dance card?
• Not to beat a dead horse, but Crosby (349th in NHL scoring) has more points (17) in his 10 games than Dustin Penner (14) has in 54 games for the Kings. An lamentable season for Penner, who is 394th in scoring.
• Tim Thomas has looked bagged and every bit of his soon-to-be 38 years in the Bruins net — maybe because he’s played 133 games the last two years, counting playoffs — but he was back on his game against the Flyers Saturday. Was this a blip on the screen or are the Bruins ready to snap out of their half-season funk? They’re a .500 team the last 2 1/2 months. Patrice Bergeron, the most consistent Boston player this year has a sore knee. He got the shootout winner against Bryzgalov.
• Is there a more improved player in the league than Blake Wheeler in Winnipeg? His skating has come in leaps and bounds. When he’s attacking now, teams are in trouble. He’s got 59 points in 69 games Max Pacioretty in Montreal? Same story. Big body who eats up the ice. He’s got 58 points in 69 games. Can Teemu Hartikainen, who looks ungainly now, get his skating to match Wheeler and Pacioretty? If so, the Oilers, who desperately need his size on the wing, could be laughing. Hartikainen, who had seven hits against the Flames Friday, does have a touch around the net.
• Everybody talks about how the Red Wings almost never fight (only 15 majors all season). But the Oilers have only had 22, which puts them 23rd in the league. The Rangers are the most pugnacious with 58, and they just got six-foot-eight John Scott to add to their pugilistic arsenal.
• Marty Brodeur had a pedestrian start in Jersey but his goals-against average is down to 2.42 (17th best) and his save percentage is up to .907 in 51 games. He’s also 7-1 in shootouts this year (20 shots, 17 saves). He’s won more (42) than any other goalie since the skills contest came in.
• Funny how the Red Wings can’t beat anybody now without 41-year-old Nick Lidstrom, who is still in considerable pain with that bone bruise on his ankle that pains him every time he puts his foot in a skate boot, never mind takes a stride. Is this what we have to look forward to if he ever hangs up his skates? OK, they haven’t had Datsyuk (knee) either. He’s the second-best player in the league after Crosby in most recent players’ poll for The Hockey News. The Wings are going to draw Nashville in Round 1 (worst-case scenario), unless they get No. 4 seed and start at home where they’re dynamite.
• Former Atlanta Thrashers prez/GM/coach Don Waddell, now working for Pittsburgh, says the unsung hero for the Penguins is goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. “Honest to god, I don’t know if I’ve seen him have a bad game,” said Waddell, who was working with Team USA at the world junior tournament here at Christmas. Fleury and Carey Price have a leg up on being Canada’s 2014 Olympic guys, if the NHL sends its best to Sochi, in Russia.
• Take this to the bank: If Ken Hitchcock had still been unemployed, Caps’ GM George McPhee’s first call after firing coach Bruce Boudreau would have been to Hitch. Instead, it went to Dale Hunter. I don’t think Hunter will be back as coach; I think he really misses his London Knights junior team where his brother Mark is minding the store now as coach and GM. I don’t know if he actually likes being an NHL coach.
• Don’t be surprised if NHL clubs take a look at Oilers’ fourth-line winger Lennart Petrell who is an unrestricted free agent July 1. He’s a big body who can skate and finishes his checks. Also a good penalty-killer. Heavy shot, but almost never shoots. “He’s older, knows how to play,” said one scout.
• Former NHL GM Mike Smith (Winnipeg, Chicago), who has been living at Martha’s Vineyard on Cape Cod for years, is the North American recruiter for Yaroslavl as the Russian team rebuilds after the plane crash wiped out the whole team last fall. They will be back in the KHL next season after playing in a lower league in Russia this winter. “I don’t think it’ll be a problem getting players to go there. The pay there was beyond belief in some cases and the planes are better. The league is using Boeing planes now,” said KHL executive Igor Kuperman.
Stricken by cancer, Paul Henderson flexes in the face of mortality
Patrick White, Globe and Mail, Mar. 18, 2012
Time is a slippery character in the seven-decade pageant of Paul Henderson. It pauses and surges and even spools backward at times.
Every other day, somebody is commemorating the 40-year-old feats of his younger self with a coin or a stamp or a monument. In recent months he’s approved a beverage, a documentary and a few other memorial souvenirs bearing his triumphant image, frozen in 1972.
Today, much of his body – brick stomach, lumberjack forearms, beach-ready biceps – appears stalled in that same era.
But time has definitely passed. Mr. Henderson marked his 37th anniversary as a Christian this week with a call to his spiritual mentor. Later this year, it’s his 50th wedding anniversary. Six months from now, he’ll mark the 40th birthday of his Sept. 28th goal and the Summit Series it capped off in a reunion with former teammates, the youngest of whom is a 60-year-old grandfather.
“We’ve lost four guys now from the original team,” he said last week, thrumming his fingers impatiently on a boardroom table. “In reality, a lot of us are in our late 60s and 70s. Our 40th anniversary, this year, will probably be the last big celebration, because Father Time marches on.”
That may not be true for the other Henderson, the one frozen in time. But for this 69-year-old man – head jostled by six concussions, nose bent by eight breaks, body full of cancer – mortality can no longer be avoided.
“The last checkup wasn’t that good,” he said of his condition, lymphocytic lymphoma chronic leukemia, a slow-moving cancer first diagnosed in November, 2009, that hasn’t needed extensive treatment until now. “They tell me chemo is coming sooner than later, probably in the next month or two. It’ll be six months of chemo and then we’ll see what happens. Cancer is cancer. I’ve got a great life if I can just stay alive.”
The timing is tough. In September, Mr. Henderson hopes to be at the centre of the most elaborate Summit Series celebration yet. Until then, he’s deepening his relationship with cancer charities and, more importantly, his seven grandchildren.
“His attitude is terrific,” said close friend and former linemate Ron Ellis. “He’s got a battle ahead of him, and he knows it. At the same time he’s grateful for life, for his wonderful family and for being able to do something very special in the hockey world.”
This week, Mr. Henderson spoke at the informal launch of a 40th-anniversary T-shirt emblazoned with his face and autograph. Priced at $14.95, the proceeds will go toward Cops for Cancer.
“It was Paul’s idea,” said Peel Regional Police Sergeant Trevor Arnold, who’s leading the Toronto-area force’s fundraising efforts. “With his situation, he wanted to give more back and this was an ideal opportunity. He’s clearly a selfless guy.”
In the coming months, the hockey icon will be launching another cancer campaign and his third book, The Goal of My Life, which promises details of his life beyond the well-documented moment, including the several troubled years before he became a Christian in 1975.
“I didn’t handle fame very well at first,” Mr. Henderson said. “I got a little resentful. The thing that irritated me most is we’d be out for dinner and women who’d had too much to drink would come over, sit down and keep their back to my wife, Eleanor. They’d ignore her. I’d get so ticked off with them. You can say what you want about me, but don’t mess with my wife.”
Friends recalled that period as difficult for him and everyone around him. “With Paul scoring the goal of the century for the team of the century, he couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized,” remembered Mr. Ellis, who played Mr. Henderson’s opposite wing on both the Toronto Maple Leafs and Team Canada. “People expected a repeat performance every night. That was a heavy burden to carry.”
But Mr. Henderson seems bred to bear such a uniquely Canadian trouble. In January, 1943, his mother went into labour during a minus-30 whiteout that blocked all roads to the nearest hospital in Kincardine, Ont. So the family took to Lake Huron by sleigh. She gave birth to the future hockey star part way across the ice. He barely survived the journey.
“I was blue by the time they got me there to the hospital,” he said. “They tell me if it were another three or four minutes, I would have died.”
Such last-minute dramatics have been Mr. Henderson’s forte ever since. He can’t contain it. Today, that reservoir of adrenalin surges at the sight of traffic lights rather than goal lights. Just last week, driving in Mississauga with his eight-year-old granddaughter, he got stuck behind an elderly driver who was dawdling to make a left turn. He waited and waited and then bellowed: “You old fart, would you get moving?”
His granddaughter frowned. “Your daughter needs to have a talk with you because you can’t go around calling people old farts,” she lectured.
“What can I say, that’s the old Paul Henderson,” he explained, recalling the episode. “I’ve still got a thing or two to learn.”
As much as he can control his intensity, he’s channelling it toward cancer. He exercises as if preparing for a Leafs comeback, rattling off 55 pushups at a time, sweating out lengthy bike rides, shredding his core muscles. He’s given up sugar and, to spare his immune system, handshakes. Everyone gets an Obama-esque fist bump now. He’s even pared down a gruelling speaking schedule to the bare essentials.
“I wrote in my journal in January of 2010, ‘Lord, thank you for the cancer,’ because when you get cancer you can differentiate the trivial from the important so much [quicker], your mortality is right there in front of you. I still don’t know if I have three months, six months, 10 years, whatever it is. I’m probably such an idiot I would never experience this clarity without getting cancer.”
Former teammates have noticed the same. “I really admire him,” said ‘72 Team Canada member Marcel Dionne. “You see how much stronger he is right now than so many people, it’s incredible. He’s so strong and so completely at peace.”
The ‘72 team is preparing a series of events this September. Others are waging a campaign to get Mr. Henderson in the Hockey Hall of Fame. His health will likely play a big role in both.
“Because of my closeness to Paul, one goal of mine is to organize anniversary events in a way that makes it easy for him to take part,” said Mr. Ellis, who sits on the ‘72 Team Canada players’ committee. “Once we have a schedule in place, he’ll let us know what he can attend and what he can’t.”
Mr. Henderson isn’t worried. This life on earth is just the warm-up, he said. Plus, there’s that whole alternate time zone of his. Days ago he was playing basement hockey with his six-year-old grandson when the boy pronounced, “I’m Paul Henderson and I’m playing for Team Canada. Who are you going to be, grandpa?”
He couldn’t decide. “Suddenly, Paul Henderson is a six-year-old,” he said later, still a little dumbfounded. “But, when I think of it, I’m 69 and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be in the world. I’m so fortunate, even full of cancer. The Lord expects us to enjoy our lives. He says there will be some brutal times, but we shouldn’t get all bent out of shape about it.”
UNTOLD STORIES FROM RON WILSON
JONAS SIEGEL, TSN.ca, 3/19/2012
The timing was never quite right for telling this story.
One week before he was fired as the 27th head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ron Wilson sat down with TSN.ca for an exclusive, hour-long conversation on a significant milestone that lay just ahead in his coaching career.
In what would ultimately be his final game behind the bench with the Leafs – a 5-4 loss in Chicago opposite former teammate and Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville – Wilson would pass Pat Quinn for 4th on the all-time games coached list with 1401 to his name. Only three men in the history of the game, all legends in their own esteem – Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour and Dick Irvin – have coached more.
Love him or hate him, his journey to this point is worth at least a tale or two.
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Ron Wilson has coached in every NHL season since 1993.
It's unclear if and when he'll coach again, but moving beyond a mentor in Quinn was certainly significant and wildly unexpected when the dream took off. "Back then, Pat's probably already coached 700 games," Wilson said last month. "You don't map this out, like where am I going to be when I get 1500 games or 1400 games or 13 and 1200."
His start to coaching life in the NHL began under the big Irishman with Vancouver in 1990.
An assistant coach with the Canucks farm team in Milwaukee the year prior, Wilson had an opportunity to run the bench with the Admirals for six weeks when the team's head coach, Ron Lapointe, relapsed with kidney cancer. Lapointe returned to coach in the playoffs, but the Admirals head coaching job became available the following offseason. "I thought I might be the head coach and I was prepared for that down in the American League," Wilson said, "but Mike Murphy was one of the assistants in Vancouver and he wanted that kind of responsibility."
Murphy won the job in Milwaukee and in an odd twist of fate, Wilson received his former gig, the promotion on Quinn's coaching staff in Vancouver, strongly recommended for the job by then-Director of Hockey Operations, Brian Burke. A wizard of sorts with computers, Wilson arrived in British Columbia stocked with innovative ideas and promise. He took charge of the Canucks video and statistics analysis, integrating computers firmly into the fold from VHS while revamping the organization's system of game preparation, both internally and for upcoming opponents. The idea was to ease the time crunch on the coaching staff.
"It didn't take long for us to figure out he knew what he was doing," Quinn told TSN.ca last month. "What was impressive was his work ethic in terms of the preparation and the number of hours he put in. It used to be coaches didn't put in those kind of hours that they do now. Ronnie had that right from the start in his career."
"My motivation was always to be prepared enough to help the players be the best they could be," Quinn continued, noting a similar trait in Wilson. "That's what gave me the pleasure and that's what gave me the feeling that I was successful in what I was trying to do. You don't get to the number of games he's at without recognizing that and knowing that you need to be prepared. You don't con people at that stage. They know when you're ready and they know when you're doing your work and clearly that record proves that he's been prepared all his career."
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Technology is ever-present across the NHL today, but at that point in the early 90s, few teams were utilizing computers for their video work and analysis. Wilson had the gift or perhaps the experience. "He had an ability to use computers which many of us older guys didn't have at that time," Quinn said.
It was a chore at first.
As a young boy of 10, maybe 11-years-old, Wilson spent his summers not outdoors on the baseball field or in the street playing road hockey, but in front of a typewriter. His grandfather, a one-time communications employee for the Canadian Pacific Railway who was stricken with polio, made sure of it. "He sat me down, he gave me a typewriter and he said 'you're going to learn to type'," Wilson recalled. He was given a Gregg typing book and a message. "He bought me the book and he said 'every night instead of watching TV or doing what you [kids] are doing, you're going to sit down and teach yourself how to type' so I learned how to type that one summer when I was like 10 or 11 years-old, thinking 'I'll never use this stuff. Now I know how to type, big deal'."
His family moved to the United States shortly thereafter, his father Larry on the hunt for a coaching job following a playing career that stretched over 150 NHL games. A teenager at that point, the younger Wilson typed out letters to the likes of Punch Imlach and Harry Sinden, hoping to help land his father a job. Larry eventually scored a gig with the Dayton Gems of the IHL, but with assistant coaches a wave of the future, he decided it best to put his son to work in the pressbox, tracking shots on goal, scoring chances and other useful stats. "Then he would ask me 'What'd you see up there today?'" the younger Wilson recalled. "Of course I'm at 15 or 16 [years old] I think I'm smarter than my dad like everybody thinks. And I'd be telling him who he should play, who he shouldn't play, who I liked, who I didn't like.
"He would just sit there and listen."
--
After three seasons as an assistant coach with the Canucks, opportunity knocked on Wilson's front door. The expansion Anaheim Mighty Ducks were searching for their first head coach and Wilson's name piqued their interest. A call from the Ducks organization – led by President Tony Tavares and GM Jack Ferreira – was placed to Quinn for permission to speak with his assistant coach. "He didn't think it was a good idea," Wilson recalled, before offering Quinn's reasoning. "The guys who often coach expansion teams, that's the only coaching gig they'll ever get."
"It sounds like something that I might've said," Quinn noted, "but obviously it was a chance for him to step up and he ended up doing a heck of a job there."
"I told Pat, I said, 'once I get permission from you, I'm going after the job," Wilson added. "I'll do what I have to do to get the job in terms of preparation and you know me Pat I'll be prepared.' I was surprised I got the job."
In his first season with the expansion Mighty Ducks, Wilson achieved unexpected success, guiding his band of castoffs to an impressive 19 road wins. Their uniforms were a bold blend of toothpaste green and deep purple, complete with the film-inspired cartoon duck on the front. "I think part of the advantage we had is everybody laughed at us," Wilson grinned. "That was our motivation every town we went into is 'Oh the Mighty Ducks are coming. It's a Mickey Mouse Disney production' and we just said 'Well, let's use that for our motivation to prove everybody wrong' and it worked the first year, for sure."
Wilson's four-year term with the Mighty Ducks would culminate in the club's first ever playoff appearance.
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Stints with the Capitals, Panthers, and Sharks would follow before Wilson ultimately landed in Toronto. Years of experience not surprisingly produced an evolution, not only in the coach but the person. "You simplify as you get older," he explained. "I think when you're younger you focus more on complicated things, like little details that might have been important to you when you played, but then you realize you've got to simplify. That's the art of coaching is to make something that is complicated that you've spent a lot of time [on] and you've got to simplify, you've got to get right down to the basics."
Wilson agreed that the practice was not so dissimilar to the art of teaching.
"Yeah you break down the equation, but you don't solve the problem," he said when the math analogy was presented. "The players have to go out and solve the problem. But all your students are different. Some don't want your involvement at all and some want a lot of information so that's what you learn over time. You don't flood the guys who don't want information with that information [or] you'll lose them fast. So you make it available somewhere else that they can see the information."
"He's prepared and that's a real important part of it to start with," Quinn said. "That's John Wooden's first rule of coaching is if you're failing to prepare you're preparing to fail. So it takes work and he was willing to put those hours in; all of those traits would lend you to believe that he had a chance to be a good coach and a long-term coach."
Driving information home in new and varied ways over a lengthy period of time is perhaps the greatest challenge of the job. One thousand, four hundred and one games means at least that many conversations with the team, not to mention all the pre-scouting meetings in the morning, incessant chatter and instruction on the bench and a slew of intermission breakdowns. Add in thousands of practices along with team meetings and the talk seems endless. "Plus you're not thinking about the World Cups, the Olympics, the World Championships, just regular season games and you're coming up on fourteen [hundred]," Wilson said. "That's 1400 times you had to talk to the team.
"And you have to be different. You don't say the same thing every time."
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A lesson from Quinn, Wilson always abstained from speaking with his team in the aftermath of a game. "First of all, when you win, the players don't want to hear the head coach and when you lose they don't really want to hear the head coach either," he explained. "And you're going to end up saying something that you can't take back the next day because you're emotional, those sorts of things."
An eighth round selection in the 1975 Amateur Draft, Wilson played in parts of three seasons with the Leafs, two under the late Roger Neilson. Neilson would spring an impressive umbrella of eventual head coaches, including Wilson, Quenneville, Bruce Boudreau, and John Anderson. "Not that I was ever sitting around thinking that the other guys would be coaches some day, Wilson recalled, "but I knew that there was a possibility that I would."
Asked if passing the milestone in Toronto had any added significance, Wilson offered a response typical of the profession. "This stuff happens so fast you don't really think about that part," he said. "I played for the Leafs and that was a thrill, something I wanted to do that I never thought I would."
Time flies by on a job that is arduous, demanding and frequently unrewarding, but there's a reason men like Wilson and Quinn stick around. "For me I've won lots more than I've lost, I've had more ups than downs, lots of playoff success, so all of those things make it feel like it goes too fast, like you haven't had time to enjoy what is going on around you," Quinn reflected. "You know at the end of the day that you're enjoying it, but you don't think about that when it's happened...It felt like it was fast for me. I wish I was still in it. Time goes by on you."
"What you have to have is passion for the game and a love of the game," Wilson concluded. "That doesn't change. You do get tired at times. That's a lot of games."
--
He was on the phone that day interviewing Corey Hirsch for the goalie coach position in Toronto.
Ron Wilson had recently been hired to coach the Maple Leafs, the team he cheered for as a child and would briefly play with in the NHL. Rooting for the legend of Dave Keon, the opportunity to coach in Toronto is one that he never could have imagined. "You never think you're going to be that character one day on TV, Punch Imlach," Wilson reflected. "You maybe imagine yourself being Davie Keon or Bob Pulford; you don't think you're going to be the coach."
The conversation with Hirsch feels odd from the get-go. "We're talking on the phone…and he's calling me 'Buddy'," Wilson recalled. "And I'm going this doesn't sound right. You don't act so familiar when someone cold-calls you and asks if you're interested in becoming the goalie coach." Delving deeper into the past of his prospective hire, Wilson uncovers a pair of unexpected connections. Eyebrows first raise upon the mention of Dave Prior, whom Hirsch lists as a prominent coaching influence; Prior just happened to be Wilson's goalie coach years back in Washington. Hirsch offers another unsuspecting clue when he declares Olaf Kolzig to be a model in terms of preparation; Kolzig was of course Wilson's starting goalie with those very same Capitals.
Befuddled as he hangs up the phone, Wilson dials up Rob Zettler, his long-time assistant coach. "'I've had the weirdest conversation with Corey Hirsch,'" he tells Zettler, "'and he goes 'What do you mean?' I said 'He's acting like he knows me really well' and he says 'Wils! You coached him!' "I said 'When?!?' He says 'Look it up, he backed up in Washington. Not a lot, but he ended up in Portland and he was like a third goalie in the organization. When somebody got hurt we'd bring up Hirschie'. He says 'You don't remember that?' and I'm like 'No I don't'.
"Then I'm saying 'Oh yeah!'"
"That's when I feel like Pat Quinn," he chuckled. "We used to laugh with Pat when he would forget a guy's name and I'll do the same thing where I'll be 'Uh' and I can't remember like what would be an obvious name."
337 different players have played for Wilson in a career that spans 18 NHL seasons. Forgetting the odd name or two just comes with the territory.
CBC must decide what to do with Don Cherry
Postmedia News, Mar 19, 2012
As the CBC prepares to negotiate a new contract with the National Hockey League, there are reports that league officials are putting significant pressure on the network to overhaul Hockey Night in Canada and muzzle Don Cherry.
What do you do when your greatest asset is also your biggest liability?
As the CBC prepares to negotiate a new contract with the National Hockey League, there are reports that league officials are putting significant pressure on the network to overhaul Hockey Night in Canada and muzzle Don Cherry.
Frustration from team executives and owners apparently boiled over at some recent meetings between the NHL and the public broadcaster. Apparently it wasn’t just coming from Brian Burke, the Maple Leafs general manager who has engaged in a public feud with Cherry.
The problem for CBC is that Hockey Night in Canada is dominated by Coach’s Corner, the popular intermission segment featuring Cherry and Ron MacLean. Ron and Don are the stars of the show, but they — especially Cherry — are also holding it back, limiting its potential to evolve into a modern sports broadcast.
Coach’s Corner is a strange phenomenon, a bizarre mix of hockey, politics and mythology that clings to an outdated notion of the sport and the nation. We accept it only because we are used to it. Just for fun, imagine yourself trying to convince a foreigner that the spectacle, including Cherry’s wardrobe and idiosyncrasies, is not only serious but almost universally popular.
Rather than address current-day issues in the league, the segment tends to focus on themes that only Cherry cares about. He argues fruitlessly on behalf of his own obsolete philosophy of the game, unloads viciously on his critics, plays clips of himself from previous episodes where he might have made an accurate prediction and then gets misty eyed as he honours fallen Canadian soldiers. It’s all about him, not the sport.
As a result of his unique popularity, the entire broadcast lives in Cherry’s shadow. It’s impossible for anyone else to contradict or eclipse him, so the rest of the show withers.
HNIC overemphasizes the business of hockey rather than engage in compelling storytelling about great moments or interesting players. And it maintains a testy relationship with the league’s head office, clearly demonstrated in the hostile exchanges between MacLean and commissioner Gary Bettman. Imagine such a touchy on-air dynamic between the commissioner of any other sport and its lead broadcaster.
And yet it’s impossible to overstate Cherry’s uniquely widespread appeal in this diverse and sparsely populated land. His name has come up when a new governor general was required. Eight years ago, when CBC viewers were asked to vote for the greatest Canadian, Cherry finished seventh, ahead of Sir John A. Macdonald.
That says as much about this peculiar country as it does of Cherry. Imagine a list of the greatest Americans of all time including Terry Bradshaw or Tim McCarver, let alone seeing one of them place ahead of George Washington.
But this wasn’t just a statement about the country’s passion for hockey, but also the power of television. So important is the Saturday night tradition, Cherry also finished three spots ahead of Wayne Gretzky and 12 places in front of his cherished former charge, Bobby Orr.
You can’t argue with success. For all its faults, Hockey Night in Canada is routinely in the top five highest rated programs in Canada.
Ultimately, with only two seasons left on its current contract, and with Cherry soon to become an octogenarian, something has to give. In the era of government cutbacks, can the CBC continue to use taxpayers’ money to outbid other networks for hockey coverage?
Between now and the next round of negotiations, CBC executives face some tough choices. Do they overhaul the show and start a new era, or back away from hockey altogether? Do they take a tough stand against the league and risk losing the contract, or phase out Cherry to placate the critics?
They’ve shown reluctance to tinker in the past, hanging on to Bob Cole as their lead play-by-play man long past his best-before date. And Cherry, of course, will not go gently into that good Saturday night. If you think he’s preparing for retirement, consider this: he just started tweeting.
And for a private rival, it’s not just as simple as outbidding the CBC for the contract. The league and a new rights holder would have to consider how to match the coverage provided by CBC during the regular season and playoffs. Would CTV, for example, want to turn over its entire broadcast schedule to playoff hockey in April, May and June, forgoing other programs like the season finale of American Idol?
Of course, with the high percentage of households getting cable and satellite signals today, that might not be necessary. Depending on how eager the NHL is to move away from the CBC, it might accept a combined package from CTV and TSN.
One way or another, an era is coming to an end. Even if CBC wins a new contract with the NHL and manages to do so without scrapping Coach’s Corner, Cherry won’t be around forever. CBC executives soon have to start preparing for a new chapter, without Cherry, without HNIC, or perhaps even without both.
Let the Patrick Roy speculation begin
Sean Gordon, Globe and Mail, March 20, 2012
MONTREAL--Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, turns out that Martin Leclerc of Radio-Canada.ca and NHL.com is the first off the mark with news that a deal is done between the Montreal Canadiens and former Hall of Fame goaltender Patrick Roy that will see the fiery Quebec Remparts owner/coach/GM take over the Habs' reins next fall.
Leclerc framed it rather cheekily as an open letter to the Remparts players here, and has said in follow-up interviews that he has at least two reliable sources saying Roy will coach the Habs next year.
There has been the predictable rush to slap down the scoop, and St. Patrick himself took to the airwaves in Quebec City to issue a denial that carefully skirts the meat of Leclerc's assertions: namely that Habs owner Geoff Molson has reached out to Roy, and that a deal is done, at least in principle, to re-join his former team.
Presumably this is a Clintonian moment where everything hinges on what the meaning of "is" and "done" are.
Here's our two cents worth on the subject: Roy ticks all the boxes for the Habs, he's a bilingual Francophone, he's an adored alumnus, he's a living link to the last Cup conquest, he's done good things in junior, with gusts to great. But he's also got maybe the shortest fuse in the history of coaching, and it's debatable that his tempest-in-a-suit-jacket act will translate well to the pros.
It would arguably make more sense to hand Roy the keys to the organization by making him vice-president of hockey operations or general-manager, a role he has thrived in for the Remparts - Roy evidently has a keen eye for talent and the ruthlessness required to bring it on board (and by the way, all this talk can't be seen as anything else than another signal the GM's job in Montreal is about to be vacated by Pierre Gauthier).
And what of all the Curse of the Bambino undertones? The Habs have basically been on an uninterrupted downward slide since Casseau was shipped out of town in 1995; team and former player took the first step toward reconciliation when it came time to retire his No. 33, maybe bringing him back in an official capacity will appease the Forum ghosts further.
Either way, it says here that Roy will probably be employed in one role or another at the Bell Centre this fall, given the paucity of other candidates who fit the same profile.
All that really remains to be determined is the title on the business card.
Leafs fans now chant ‘Fire Burkie'
JEFF BLAIR, Globe and Mail, Mar. 20, 2012
He has no goaltender, his leading scorer is a milquetoast, Tom Thumb guy who shrinks even further in front of the cameras and nobody knows for certain whether his team captain has credibility in the dressing room.
The better part of four years in the bag and who is the face of the franchise in the centre of the hockey universe? Brian Burke. Who does Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment run out to thank season ticket-holders, to spear-head its renewal campaign? The general manager who hasn’t made the playoffs. Him, and Randy Carlyle, the head coach of a month or so who seems to be in charge of a dressing room full of misfit toys. Four years, and the Leafs don’t even have a player worth putting front and centre; they don’t even have the type of modestly-talented plugger that Toronto fans will lavish with praise. Four years, and it’s still Brian Burke they’re selling. Four years, and it’s still Brian Burke in your face. How’s that working for you?
What is clear is that there’s a vacuum at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment right now – a lack of adult supervision that will unfortunately be the new norm until the sale of Teachers' stake in MLSE is finished. Tom Anselmi is more or less the ranking guy under Larry Tanenbaum but there’s no sense that either of them are in a position or have the inclination to relieve Burke of his job, which for most franchises would be the next move given the mess that has become 2011-2012. But, really: what else does this franchise have but Burke? It’s pathetic – but it’s true. No other Canadian team puts it’s G.M. front and centre. Few teams in sports do it. There are times when this franchise – I swear, I believe this – is the Chicago Cubs (minus the lovable nature.) It will never win. Ever. Somehow, some way, they’ll screw it up.
There were ‘Fire Burkie’ chants at the Air Canada Centre Tuesday night, as the Maple Leafs embarrassed themselves yet again in a 5-2 loss to the New York Islanders in a game that ended with acres of empty seats and nasty, braying remnants. Matt Moulson’s first of two third-period goals, with Matt Frattin in the penalty box serving a delay of game penalty, broke open a 2-2 tie in a game in which the Leafs managed 14 shots, 24 hours after firing just 13 shots on goal in an 8-0 loss to the Boston Bruins. The dressing room was closed for 20 minutes after the game, which gave the Leafs ample time to practice their blank stares and shrugs.
“It was just a heart to heart,” said goaltender James Reimer, who was unable to rescue his team while facing 34 shots. “Some words were said. Let’s keep it that way.”
Carlyle said later that he sat in on the meeting. Normally he talks to the team after every game, but this time he lingered in his words “a little longer.” He heard the chatter. He asked some questions. Carlyle was asked if this team still lacked confidence, something he referred to in his first days on the job.
“Very much so. Very, very much so,” he responded. “Their goals came off of pucks that were easily manageable, and we didn’t manage them properly.”
Burke is going nowhere. Not with negotiations on a new collective agreement coming; a bad time if ever to bring in somebody and expect them to hit the ground running. The only way that changes is if sometime this off-season, Burke gets rid of one of his many assistant general managers. That will be a sign that the game has changed, that somebody in the new ownership group has the ear of somebody else. Much like a head coach being ordered to get rid of an assistant coach, if Burke is told to divest himself of, say, a David Nonis or two it will be a sign that the suits have awakened; that the guys who actually do up their neckties instead of letting them hang on either side of the collar have awakened and want to take back their team.
Truth is, more and more of Burke’s supporters will tell you they do not care whether or not Burke’s back. They’re all talked out; tired of the made-up, personalized trade deadlines and desire to meddle in the affairs of other teams and the league in general. Bored of the broad pronouncements, the sappy attachments to the Colton Orrs of the world; the tiresome tilting at windmills and the flippant “I could have traded for four first-round draft picks,” stuff. ‘Fire Burke,’ they started to chant loudly enough in the third period that the P.A. system at the ACC seemed a little louder than usual during stoppages. Really, at this stage the only response is a shrug and a ‘whatever.’
Roy denies coaching rumours: Reports say Hall of Famer is set to manage Canadiens
QMI Agency, March 21 2012
Hockey Hall of Famer Patrick Roy denied reports that he has already agreed to coach the Montreal Canadiens next season.
Roy, a former Canadiens great who is the co-owner, general manager and coach of the Quebec Remparts of the QMJHL, says the report by Radio-Canada.ca that he will replace Randy Cunneyworth next season is "ridiculous." The report, using unnamed sources, says Canadiens owner Geoff Molson has contacted Roy and a deal in principle is done.
"It makes me laugh and I'm flattered that my name is circulating, but at the end of the day, it's Mr. Molson, who will make decisions about who is going to be his coach and general manager," Roy told the Journal de Quebec.
Roy fits the bill for what Habs fans want to see in a coach -- he's a bilingual Francophone, his exploits with the team are legendary and he's been successful as a coach, albeit in the junior ranks.
Cunneyworth's interim hiring midway through this season after the firing of bilingual Jacques Martin was controversial from the outset. In addition, the Habs haven't improved with him running the bench and will miss the playoffs, leading to speculation that Cunneyworth, and possiblly general manager Pierre Gauthier, will be axed at the end of the season.
Burr battles cancer head on
Dave Paul, QMI Agency, March 21 2012
SARNIA, ONT. - “Yyyyyell-o!” the voice, answering the call on the cell phone, shouts.
It’s not what you would expect from someone who is less than 48 hours away from starting chemotherapy treatment.
But it’s what friends and family of Shawn Burr have come to expect.
Burr was admitted to Universtiy of Michigan medical centre this past Sunday to begin chemo for the second time in just under a year.
The leukemia which had gone into remission last spring, has returned.
But, in a conversation, two days before entering the hospital, he was doing what he does best — acting carefree, and even cracking a few self-deprecating jokes.
“I guess, for the most part, it’s just my personality. It’s who I am,” he says, though he admits, in his next breath, “but I’d be lying if I told you that I’m not nervous ... that when I’m sitting by myself, I don’t start thinking about it and feeling uneasy.
“I just know it’s not going to make things any better if I’m moping all the time.”
Burr’s most recent diagnosis came just a couple of weeks ago when he started feeling run down and went to get a blood test.
“If I hadn’t been through it before, I might have just thought I was feeling a little off, like I was getting a cold, or something,” said Burr, 45. “But I kind of knew what to expect this time.”
Burr’s blood platelet count was very low. A transfusion was conducted and chemotherapy scheduled.
A bone marrow transplant is also going to be required to ultimately save his life.
All of these developments happened just a few days before Burr was scheduled to host a hockey all-star/Detroit Red Wings alumni game to benefit cancer research.
“Yeah, I’ll do anything to sell tickets — even have a relapse,” jokes Burr, the Sarnia-born, St. Clair Mich. resident, who played for the Red Wings from the mid-1980s until 1995.
In addition to being a cancer fundraiser, that game, which was played in Fraser, Mich. on Saturday, kicked off a bone marrow donor registry program, featuring Burr as its ambassador, in Michigan.
“Maybe this happened to me for a reason,” says Burr. “Maybe if we start adding thousands of names to the registry, we can save a life.”
He adds the Michigan dental association is also on board. They will be launching a campaign this spring to offer to perform the simple mouth swab procedures that are required to be added to the registry.
Lauren Drury, 23, of Sarnia, knows Burr well.
“Shawn Burr is my parents’ (Brad and Kim) best friend,” she says. “He’s been a part of my life since as long as I can remember.”
She approached the Sarnia Sting (a team which was once part-owned by Burr) about setting up a bone marrow donor display at one of their games and the club agreed.
The plans are to have a kiosk on the concourse at the RBC Centre for the team’s playoff opener, this Friday.
“We’re more than pleased to participate in this,” says Sting Director of Marketing and Corporate Sales — and Shawn Burr’s cousin — Greg Burr.
“This is something that could benefit many others, as well as Shawn,” he added.
Drury said the swabs will not be collected at the arena.
“People can sign up at the game and the swabs will be sent to their homes,” she says, adding the “swabbing” is easy to do and painless.
The data becomes part of an international registry, she adds, and there is no commitment for people who do participate.
Shawn Burr adds that donating marrow is not as unpleasant as some people might think.
“Something like 96 per cent of the time, peripheral stem cells are collected and used. It’s slightly more complicated than donating two pints of blood ... it’s not getting a big needle in your bone,” says Burr.
If this round of chemotherapy puts his leukemia into remission, the search for a donor will intensify. If one is found, Burr would then undergo more chemotherapy to eliminate all of his existing bone marrow and a transplant would be performed.
But finding matches for bone marrow transplants is not easy. The odds are long and only a small fraction of the population is on the international registry.
Still, Burr remains optimistic.
“I’m approaching this like I would a hockey game,” he says. “It would be silly to go into a game thinking about all the things that can go wrong — like, what if I break my leg, or what if my team takes ten penalties.
“There are things that can go wrong, or they can go right,” he says. “There’s a way to beat this and I know I have great doctors on my side. ... All I’m focused on is winning at the end.”
Lightning goalie Dustin Tokarski shows that size really doesn’t matter
After being passed over in the WHL draft, Dustin Tokarski went on to win a Memorial Cup and world junior gold.
Michael Traikos, National Post, Mar 16, 2012
In the beginning there was Ken Dryden, a goalie so tall that when he stood upright in front of the net he looked like a tourist at Legoland. He showed that size really did matter. And eventually, goalies started to sew extra flaps onto their equipment and began acting like teenaged girls by stuffing themselves with so much padding that they literally filled the net.
It worked, to an extant. More and more hockey games ended in soccer-like results, eventually convincing the league, as it was coming out of a lockout, that it needed to slim down the sumo-sized behemoths. Armed with rulers and a Jenny Craig-like mentality, they put restrictions on how big goalie equipment could be.
Of course, they could not change how big goalies could be.
So now you have 6-foot-7 Ben Bishop, 6-foot-6 Pekka Rinne and a league where, according to NHL goaltending supervisor Kay Whitmore, 76 of the 85 goalies who have appeared in at least one game this season are 6-feet or taller. And yet the net has remained six feet wide and four feet high.
“You can’t teach big,” Whitmore said. “I’ll get a call from a GM saying, ‘Why is this goaltender so big? Is he cheating?’ The fact is he is that big and you can’t do anything about it.
“It’s almost like they’re outgrowing the net.”
So why is it that last year’s Vezina Trophy winner is 5-foot-11 Tim Thomas of the Boston Bruins? Why is it that 5-foot-11 Jaroslav Halak of the St. Louis Blues has the second-best save percentage in the NHL? And why is it that the Tampa Bay Lightning are looking at 5-foot-11 Dustin Tokarski to be their goaltender of their future?
Is bigger really better? Hockey is a highly coached and constantly evolving sport. When Jean-Sébastien Giguère led the Anaheim Ducks to a Stanley Cup championship in 2007, he did so with a style of goaltending where the object was to take up space and let the puck hit you. But over time, players became smarter and realized that bigger goaltenders were often slower and less mobile when they were forced from post to post.
“With the blocking style, you had to be big to cover the net,” said hockey analyst Greg Millen, a former NHL goaltender who was 5-foot-9 when he played. “But now that the game is quicker with the east-west game now, you have to be quicker to get over and stop the puck.”
“There’s always been talk about my size,” Tokarski said. “But look at a guy like Tim Thomas. He’s good because he’s so agile. A goalie who’s 6-6 can’t move like a goalie who’s 5-11. At the end of the day, it’s all about stopping the puck.”
In theory, that is what it should be about. But like pint-sized goal scorers, scouts tend to overlook smaller goalies.
When Central Scouting released its final rankings last month, three of the top four North American goaltenders were 6-foot-4 or taller, while the top-ranked European was 6-foot-3. Perhaps that is why Thomas spent the first seven years of his career backpacking through Europe before landing NHL work and why Halak was a ninth-round draft pick.
“Look how long it took a guy like Marty St. Louis to get into the league,” Whitmore says. “When Ben Bishop plays the way he has [for Ottawa], it’s going to be hard not to look for those types of goalies. It takes time to evolve, for trends to shift the other way.”
Tokarski, who was called up to the Lightning last week to fill in for the injured Mathieu Garon, is hoping to cause that change. After being passed up in the WHL draft, he went on to win a Memorial Cup with the Spokane Chiefs, where he was named tournament MVP. He also backstopped Canada to a gold medal at the 2009 world junior championship.
Tampa Bay probably could have used him this season, where Garon and Dwayne Roloson turned the Lightning’s net into an all-you-can-score buffet. But the team was careful not to rush Tokarski’s development, knowing that the 22-year-old factors heavily in the future.
He had been 1-1-1 in three games since arriving, compiling a 2.30 goals-against average and a .923 save percentage. His development took a small step sideways on Thursday night when he was pulled midway through the second period after falling behind the Maple Leafs 3-0 on just 10 shots.
“The one thing I know is he’s won wherever he’s at,” said head coach Guy Boucher, who also coached Tokarski at the world juniors. “That means he’s strong mentally. So the things that he doesn’t have right now, there’s a big chance he’s going to get them.
“He’s a youngster, so I’m not going to put any pressure on him to save us. We don’t need to be saved. He needs to progress the way that he needs to progress.”
Essentially, he still needs to grow. Just not in the way that we have seen in the past.
There’s no ‘I’ in Regina coach Pat Conacher’s team
Greg Harder, Regina Leader-Post March 22, 2012
REGINA — At first, Pat Conacher wasn’t sure how to react.
Using words like “surprised” and “honoured,” the Regina Pats’ bench boss graciously accepted his Eastern Conference nomination for WHL coach of the year — despite the fact it made him feel a little uncomfortable.
“It’s a team sport,” insisted Conacher, who’s up against Western nominee Jim Hiller of the Tri-City Americans. “The individual stuff comes and goes but at the end of the day you win as a team. One guy gets picked out. I guess it’s great but it’s still about the team. It’s everybody (contributing to a united cause). One guy shouldn’t be singled out.”
Truth be told, Conacher has been known to utter the word “hate” in association with individual accolades. They simply don’t mesh with his team-based convictions, the same belief system he has worked so hard to instil with the Pats, who will make their first playoff appearance in four years tonight against the host Moose Jaw Warriors.
“Being around long enough and being around teams that win and teams that lose, that’s just the makeup (of a successful club),” said the 52-year-old former NHLer, who won a Stanley Cup with the Edmonton Oilers in 1984. “No one is bigger than the team and we do everything for each other. I don’t have many rules but the ones I have I’m pretty strict on. It’s always about respect — respect your teammates, respect your organization, be on time. Those little things make such a difference.”
Jordan Weal found out the hard way on opening night when he was a healthy scratch for the first time in his career after accidentally missing a team meeting. Weal didn’t like it, but he accepted the coach’s decision, which set the tone for the rest of the season.
“He really straddles that line with getting respect from his players but pushing them at the same time when they need a kick in the behind,” noted Weal, who — despite his superstar status — has embraced Conacher’s team-first concept. “That’s one thing Pat said as soon as he came in here, he wanted to change the culture. He didn’t feel it was enough team-oriented. That has worn off on all of us. We’ve really bought into his systems and his beliefs.”
Conacher’s words don’t just carry weight with the players because he’s the boss, but because he has been in their shoes. He also played at a level which they aspire to reach.
“He has been on some of the greatest teams of all time,” said Weal. “He has given us examples and stories about those times. When it comes from a guy who has been through that much and has been around Wayne Gretzky, the best player of all time, you have to listen and take it to heart. You know it’s going to be gold and something you can take with you for a long time. You’re going to become a better person and a better player.”
Although Conacher supplied the philosophical foundation of Regina’s turnaround, he’s quick to credit GM Chad Lang as well as assistants Malcolm Cameron, Josh Dixon and Rob Muntain. As a collective group, they’ve pointed the Pats in the right direction.
“They don’t work under me,” Conacher said of his coaches. “We’re all equals in there. There’s no egos in the room. They don’t just sit there and agree with me. Sure I make the last call because I’m the head coach but I respect those guys so much in their opinions. I trust them totally.”
The Pats made immediate strides under Conacher & Co, but the process wasn’t as easy as it might seem. After being hired in the off-season, he arrived in training camp with a huge task ahead, not the least of which being to foster confidence in a fragile team.
“August seems like 100 years ago,” Conacher said with a laugh. “When we first addressed the team and said, ‘this is my expectation of you guys as individuals and as a team,’ some guys were looking at me like I was from outer space. And then as we went down the line they kind of bought in.
“What I enjoy the most — and the job is far from over — is seeing the guys (improve). They can see the reward of pulling together as a team, working hard each and every day, being open to new things, getting out of their box, accepting new roles and responsibilities. We haven’t even played a playoff game yet but at least we got here. It’s still a work in progress. I’m not going to say we’re a long ways off but there’s still work to be done.”
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Good for Pat! I coached one of his son's and taught his brother in a NCCP class many years ago. I stayed in touch with Pat; he was an A/C in Phoenix when I was working there in the late 90's / early 2000's and he always made time to chat. He is a genuinely 'nice' person so it is particularly gratifying to see good things happen to good people. Josh Dixon is a former A/C and roommate of mine. He is working his way up the ladder and will be a great coach in his own right.
Habs great Beliveau released from hospital
Sympatico.ca Sports, 24/03/2012
MONTREAL - Montreal Canadiens great Jean Beliveau has been released from hospital after suffering a stroke late last month.
Donald Beauchamp, a spokesman for the NHL team, said Beliveau was released from Montreal General Hospital on Friday. The 80-year-old Hall of Famer was transferred to a rehabilitation centre.
"His condition is improving, it's good news," Beauchamp said Saturday.
Beliveau suffered the stroke on Feb. 27, his second in as many years.
He was also treated for cardiac problems in 1996 and in 2000 was diagnosed with a tumour on his neck. Beliveau underwent surgery last year to treat abdominal aneurysms.
The longtime fan favourite, who won 10 Stanley Cups as a player with the Habs, received an outpouring of support after news of the stroke surfaced.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper even sent him his best wishes.
On Saturday, fans rejoiced after it was revealed their hockey hero was recovering.
"Very happy to see that Jean Beliveau was released from hospital," said one Twitter user who identified himself as Paul Balfour. "No player will ever win 10 Stanley Cups again."
Beliveau's career began with brief stints with the Habs over two seasons before he joined the team for good in 1953-54.
He had been such a coveted prospect that the Canadiens bought an entire league to gain his contractual rights. Even then, he managed to exceed expectations.
Beliveau retired in 1971 after playing his entire NHL career in Montreal.
He recorded 507 goals and 712 assists in 1,125 career games. He also had 176 points (79-97) in the playoffs.
Answering Montreal’s prayers: St. Patrick ascends to the Habs
ROY MacGREGOR, Globe and Mail, Mar. 23, 2012
The beauty of it is, you can say anything you like about him but thanks to all those Stanley Cup rings, he’ll never hear about it.
He’s too temperamental for the job, too stubborn, too rude and far too full of himself.
He’d also be perfect.
The very idea of Patrick Roy returning to the fold of the Montreal Canadiens, this time as head coach, was floated earlier this week by a Radio-Canada blogger. Naturally, Patrick Roy denied it and claims the time is not right for him to return to the NHL.
At some point, of course, it will be – and likely sooner than later.
According to the denied report, a deal is looming between Roy – owner, general manager and head coach of the Quebec Remparts junior hockey team – and Geoff Molson, main owner of the fabled-now-dysfunctional Montreal Canadiens.
True or not, it fits. And much sooner than later. Molson has promised outraged fans that the team’s next head coach would be bilingual, something that is currently beyond the tongue grasp of interim coach Randy Cunneyworth, who never really asked for the job in the first place.
Cunneyworth ended up behind the bench only after general manager Pierre Gauthier had fired head coach Jacques Martin and was unable to turn to Martin’s far-more-experienced assistant Perry Pearn because, well, Gauthier had months earlier fired him, as well.
Given that the Canadiens, winners of 24 Stanley Cups, won’t even make the playoffs this year, are burdened with bad deals (Scott Gomez, for example, currently scoring at a $3.75-million-a-goal pace) and have few prospects coming along, Gauthier himself may be shown the door at season’s end.
And here’s where the 46-year-old Roy makes most sense: in the media rather than on the ice. The Montreal sports media – far more powerful in its constituency than, say, the Ottawa media in federal politics – have been driven beyond the point of frustration in recent years They have dealt with a GM who doesn’t speak (Gauthier), a coach who never says anything (Martin) and an interim coach who can’t say anything in French.
Roy is hard to shut up in both official languages.
The Hall-of-Fame goaltender can be funny. Responding to a complaint by the Chicago Blackhawks Jeremy Roenick that he deserved a penalty shot during the 1996 playoffs, Roy told the media “I can’t really hear what Jeremy says, because I’ve got my two Stanley Cup rings plugging my ears.” A few weeks later he had a third ring, and a fourth by the time he retired.
He can be engaging: remember his wink at the Los Angeles Kings’ Tomas Sandstrom during the 1993 Stanley Cup finals – which the Montreal Canadiens won only because of Roy’s astonishing success in winning a record 10 successive overtime games.
He has a temper: when he was finally yanked by then coach Mario Tremblay during an 11-1 loss to Detroit on Dec. 2, 1995, Roy raised his arms in triumph, raced to the bench, pushed past Tremblay and went straight to team president Ron Corey to let him know “It’s my last game in Montreal.” And it was. He was soon traded to Colorado Avalanche in a lopsided deal that many now believe was the start of the Canadiens long years of woe. They have not won a Stanley Cup since he left.
He can be infuriating: refusing to join Canada’s 2002 Olympic team in Salt Lake City because he hadn’t been chosen one of the “Original Eight” players in the fall. No matter, Canada won the gold medal without him.
He can be stubborn: just ask Martin Brodeur. Roy had been in goal during Canada’s shocking loss to Dominik Hasek and the Czech Republic in Nagano in 1998. Roy let in one goal during the famous shootout, Hasek none, forcing Canada to meet Finland for the bronze medal. The decent thing to do would have been to stand aside so the backup could have an Olympic experience. Roy insisted on playing, played half-heartedly and Canada returned from Japan without a medal in men’s hockey. Brodeur, who grew up idolizing Roy, would go on to break Roy’s NHL records for wins and shutouts.
He’s bizarre: Roy talked to his goal posts while playing, refused to skate over the red line and bluelines on the ice, kept a photograph of Bobby Orr in a Chicago jersey in his Avalanche locker (surely seeing himself as another all-time great who would later switch teams), would incessantly bounce a puck off the dressing room floor during intermissions.
He comes with a laundry list of personal baggage: arrested for domestic violence while playing in Colorado (case later dismissed), accused of signalling his goaltender son Jonathan to jump an opposing junior goalie, getting in scuffles with opposing fans and even other team executives. ...
And yet, he’s a winner.
He won the Calder Cup in his first and only year in the AHL.
He won the Stanley Cup in his first year in the NHL, was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy (his first of three) as the MVP of the playoffs and picked up the nickname that sticks with him still: “St. Patrick.”
He won the Memorial Cup – emblematic of the top junior team in the country – in his first year coaching the Remparts.
How can the Canadiens possibly resist?
How, at some point, could he resist?
If only for the sake of the Montreal media.
Trotz pulls off Music City miracle
Paul Friesen, QMI Agency, March 24 2012
Barry Trotz cut his coaching teeth in Manitoba, and has turned the Nashville Predators into a success story.
WASHINGTON - He's a Manitoba boy, through and through -- grew up in Dauphin and cut his hockey teeth in the Manitoba Junior League and at the University of Manitoba.
So you'd think his first game against the new Winnipeg Jets, Saturday in Tennessee, would be pretty special for Nashville Predators head coach, Barry Trotz.
Think again.
"From my standpoint, we need the two points," Trotz told the Sun, Friday. "That's about it."
Welcome to the pressure-cooker of the NHL playoff race, where there's little room for sentiment or nostalgia.
Trotz may have grown up with the Jets top of mind, but it's the Red Wings and Blackhawks on his brain these days, the teams Nashville is clustered with in the four-through-six positions in the Western Conference.
The new-look Predators (1-3-1 in their last five) haven't exactly been lighting up the league since undergoing a makeover at the trade deadline, outscored 11-4 in back-to-back losses to Pittsburgh and Edmonton.
The Preds make no bones about their new identity. No longer is this the small-market, low-budget outfit that was content simply to make the playoffs.
This is a team built to last, to win, behind a coach trying to become the first Manitoban since Fred Shero in 1975 to guide his team to the Stanley Cup.
"We're all in," Trotz acknowledged. "We probably made the most moves at the trading deadline. We were a decent team at the trading deadline. We've added some pieces, now we've gotta make them fit."
Going to the Music City via trade: rugged forward Paul Gaustad, skilled winger Andre Kostitsyn and big defenceman Hal Gill.
And the big coup: the return of Alexander Radulov from a four-year exile in Russia.
"On paper we look better," Trotz said. "But you know what? It's not necessarily the best teams that win. It's the team that plays the best. And right now we could be playing a lot better."
Trotz's challenge is managing the team chemistry the Preds have always seemed to have in spades.
Because adding players means some who've been around for 60 games get bumped down -- or out altogether.
"If you want to win the Cup... you need everybody buying in," the coach said. "And in order to win the Cup you have to have a deep team. We are a deep team, in terms of talent. Now we have to become a good team."
That job falls to the only coach Nashville has ever known, a finalist for the Jack Adams Trophy as the NHL's top coach the last two years.
Three more victories and Trotz will join Al Arbour (Islanders), Lindy Ruff (Sabres), Billy Reay (Blackhawks) and Toe Blake (Canadiens) as the only coaches to reach 500 wins with one franchise.
After Saturday, it better be two more victories.
Or he's going to be one grumpy guy.
Hockey World: Yzerman looks for fresh faces for Team Canada
Jim Matheson, edmontonjournal.com, March 24, 2012
Who’s Hot: Raffi Torres has come alive for the Phoenix Coyotes with six goals in his last 12 games.
Who’s Not: Dany Heatley has two goals in his last 17 games for the Minnesota Wild and only has 20 on the year.
Marquee Matchups:
Monday: Battle for eighth in the West with the Colorado Avalanche in the Shark Tank in San Jose
Tuesday: Battle for eighth in the East with the surging Buffalo Sabres in Washington to play the Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin, who suddenly has 35 goals.
In 2014, when the NHL elite hikes over to Sochi, the Russian resort city on the Black Sea where Stalin once had a summer dacha, you might not see an extreme makeover of Canada’s reigning Olympic hockey gold-medal winners from Vancouver, but there will be definitely be lots of freshly-scrubbed new kids.
Maybe a 50-per-cent turnover?
“I think you’ll see 10 to 12 different faces,” said Steve Yzerman, who has a tough act to follow as the team GM.
Steve Stamkos and Claude Giroux (No. 2 and No. 3 in the scoring race) are slam-dunks. John Tavares, Jordan Eberle, Taylor Hall, Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn, Milan Lucic, Jordan Staal, Logan Couture, Ryan O’Reilly, Matt Duchene, Alex Pietrangelo, Tyler Myers, Marc-Andre Fleury and Carey Price are all on Yzerman’s radar, although the cavernous ice surface in Europe will open up the debate on some guys.
The big bodies of the nasty Lucic and the shutdown centre Staal may be more of a weapon on an NHL rink where it’s more bumper cars and a lot more cycling of the puck along the boards to crash the blue paint.
Fleury, who was along for the ride in Vancouver watching Martin Brodeur and Roberto Luongo in 2010, will be No. 1 or 1a in net in Sochi. Sidney Crosby, as long as he stays healthy, Rick Nash, Shea Weber, Corey Perry and Jonathan Toews are givens to return.
Duncan Keith, even though his game isn’t as rock solid today as it was then, maybe because he has been over-extended, and Brent Seabrook on defence are close because they’re going to need some experienced hands back there.
Ryan Getzlaf, even having a crummy year, works so well with Perry. Jarome Iginla still has lots of game, but he’ll be 36 in the winter of 2014. Luongo, the goalie of record in the gold-medal game in Vancouver, will be 34.
Joe Thornton, Eric Staal, Mike Richards, Patrick Marleau, Patrice Bergeron and Drew Doughty were there in 2010, but are they locks? I don’t think so. Thornton struggled with the pace then. Bergeron is a terrific two-way player in Boston, but was a faceoff specialist in Vancouver who didn’t get a lot of ice time.
Brodeur, Scott Niedermayer (retired), Chris Pronger, Dany Heatley, Brenden Morrow and maybe Dan Boyle, all on the 2010 Olympic squad, could be out for age (Brodeur would be 41, Boyle would be 37), body wearing down (Pronger, who would also be 39 and Morrow) or game going downhill (Heatley).
“Some guys retire, a lot changes in four years, young guys come along,” said Yzerman. “We’re still two years away (from Sochi).Players get hurt, young guys don’t develop as you’d expect and veterans have a resurgence, but there will be some turnover, for sure.”
Stamkos, who’s on his way to his second Rocket Richard trophy, was on the bubble in 2010, in the midst of a 51-goal season. Why didn’t they take him?
“I wouldn’t say every decision we made was the right one, but we won. He was a young player and parts of his game needed to improve. Young guys need to round out their games,” Yzerman said.
Stamkos was bummed about not getting picked for Vancouver, but he also knew he was new to the NHL party. Yzerman was still working for the Red Wings then. He came on board with the Lightning in the spring of 2010.
“When Steve took the job with our team (Tampa Bay) I told him he’d have a harder time explaining it to Marty St. Louis than me. I was 19 at the time. I didn’t expect to get my name called. I was thrilled to be in the mix. It was a good experience to be mentioned in that breath,” said Stamkos, who was watching the gold medal game on TV with a couple of Lightning teammates. He was fan, like the rest of Canada.
He’ll be on the ice in Sochi, if the NHLers are there. They haven’t finalized it yet. “There’s obviously a lot of young guys coming in, prepared to play in this league. You see the results. They’re some of the top players in the league,” he said.
The bigger European surface will force Yzerman and his staff to place more emphasis on footspeed, moreso than in Vancouver. Up front or back though Yzerman, who played in Nagano in 1998 and won a gold medal in 2002 in Salt Lake City with his aching knee full of pain-killer, is a bigger believer in ice savvy too.
“Whether it’s at forward or on defence, intelligence is the most important thing. You’re playing with different players … we put so much importance in that tournament and there’s so little time to prepare. Chris Pronger was a good player for us in the Olympics and he didn’t skate like he did when he was a kid, but he’s so smart and he passes the puck so well. He knows where to go and, as the tournament went on, he got better and better. That said, on a big ice surface, it’s more important that defencemen are mobile,” said Yzerman, who did toss out a caveat. “We had Mike Commodore with us in 2007 in Europe in the world championships and he was smart and knew how to angle people off. He was very effective for us.”
Changing of the guard in goal? Brodeur has had his time, and Luongo will be in his mid-30s.
“Whether Marty’s still playing we don’t know, but Roberto is playing pretty well this year … that poor guy is under the spotlight all the time. I don’t know if age is an issue there,” said Yzerman. “But Fleury was the third goalie in Vancouver and is in the prime of his career. We’ll see about Roberto.”
If it’s not Fleury and Price crowding the issue, I’d be surprised. There aren’t a lot of options for Canada in net, as Yzerman fully acknowledges. Canada isn’t turning out a lot of high-end NHL goalies right now. Jonathan Quick is American. So is Jimmy Howard. Then you’ve Henrik Lundqvist (Swede), Pekka Rinne, Kari Lehtonen, Tuukka Rask (Finns), Jaroslav Halak (Slovak).
“Things go in cycles. I don’t know why we don’t have the up-and-comers (Canada), but at some point we’ll get the next one coming along. Seems like every good goalie is Swedish or Finnish now. Maybe we need to go over there to see what they’re doing to develop their goalies so we get it figured out,” Yzerman said.
What has Yzerman learned from his Olympic playing and managing? It’s not about re-inventing the wheel.
“You need good goaltending, I know that. Look at the Czechs winning in ’98 (Dominik Hasek). There we were humming along in the tournament, but it’s single elimination and we lose in a shootout. In ’02, we got it. In Vancouver, we had great chances in the gold medal game, but Ryan Miller made some great saves (to get it to OT),” he said.
Western Conference:
The Alexander Radulov walking out on the Nashville Predators saga has NHL general managers on alert because they don’t want to be left holding the bag if, say, they take Nail Yakupov No. 1 or Mikhail Grigorenko No. 2 in the June draft and they high-tail it back to Russia for gobs more money than an entry-level NHL contract for a first-rounder.
“You do as much homework as you can on a player, what kind of character he has, what drives him. The general consensus is, say, if they’re here playing junior in North America (Yakupov in Sarnia, Grigorenko in Quebec City and fellow Russian Alex Galchenyuk, also in Sarnia), the player wants to be here. I think the Radulov situation might be a one-off. The top Russian players who’ve made the committment to come over (Malkin) are staying. They do have leverage of going back to Russia which can help with an NHL contract. Yeah, that has to come into consideration, but I look at the kids in this draft, I think if you like them you’ll take them and you’ll sign them.”
**
There’s a body of thought that Predators GM David Poile, who has been a general manager for 2,239 games in Washington and Nashville — second only to Glen Sather (2,480), with the Edmonton Oilers and New York Rangers — might be looking at retiring soon, grooming Paul Fenton to take his job.
Poile is 63 and maybe he has worked so hard to get Radulov back to try and surround his unrestricted free agent (UFA) defenceman Ryan Suter and his restricted free agent captain Shea Weber with the talent to keep them, because he knows the clock is ticking. He dismissed the thought of him being tired and maybe getting away to Florida for the winters. After all, Sather is 68 and still going at it, a cigar in his mouth.
“I just got an (three-year) extension. I haven’t thought of quitting, but now you’re giving me something else to think about today,” Poile said with a laugh after the Radulov returns presser this week. “How long is Glen going to do it? Why is he still doing it? He’s already won something.”
Poile hasn’t. He’s a good man who has built good teams and deserves to hold the Stanley Cup at least once.
This ’n’ that
With all the Detroit Red Wings’ injuries they’ve had to look at more farmhands than normal and the one who’s made the best impression is winger Gustav Nyquist, a little dynamo who had three years at the University of Maine and was a Hobey Baker finalist. He played an excellent game against the Cup threat Rangers in 17 minutes of work this week. “Smart player, makes the right decisions,” said fellow Swede Henrik Zetterberg, who centred for Nyqvist and Valtteri Filppula.
Jordan Eberle likes Steve Stamkos, but has a man crush on Martin St. Louis. “My favourite player. He’s awesome, he’s the leader on their team,” Eberle said. St. Louis played 28 minutes against the Toronto Maple Leafs 10 days ago, in a game that didn’t go to OT. That’s a ton for a forward.
After he missed half the season with a concussion, the St. Louis Blues are getting Alex Steen back by the end of this month. That’s like making a trade. He’s a solid top-six forward who was plus-20 in 36 games (13 goals).
Mikko Koivu is back playing in Minnesota after missing 15 games with a bum shoulder, but the question is why when they could be a lottery team? Is he feeling some pressure to play in the worlds where the Finns are defending champs and the tournament is in Helsinki and Stockholm? The Wild are 8-16-3 without their captain. Matt Cullen had to fill in on defence late in the win over the Calgary Flames when they lost three guys, including Jared Spurgeon to a possible concussion after an Alex Tanguay elbow. Tom Gilbert played 31 minutes in the game. Years back, the Oilers were down to three defencemen for a lot longer than the last five minutes of the third and OT as Cullen was. Gilbert played a ton that night, too.
Congrats to Tony DaCosta, the hard-working Wild equipment manager who just worked his 1,500th game. DaCosta has been with them since their inception in 2000 after starting as a helper with the Winnipeg Jets. He survived the wild equipment truck fire in Kanata, Ont., before an Ottawa Senators game that destroyed the club’s gear.
Eastern Conference:
The MVP race was still in question a week ago even, if Stamkos’ Lightning are a lottery team, not a playoff team, because Stamkos was 11 goals ahead in the Rocket Richard trophy race, had 42 even-strength goals with 10 game-winners, but now Pittsburgh Penguins sniper Evgeni Malkin is only seven back (52-45). Stamkos scored two on Saturday to extend his lead.
“Malkin has been been magnificent,” said Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson.
“Malkin? He’s got my MVP vote. I’ve seen him up close,” said Predators coach Barry Trotz after Malkin lit up Nashville.
It’s always been a thorny debate: can a player get the Hart Trophy if his team doesn’t get to the Stanley Cup tournament? The last time it happened was 1988, with Malkin’s boss, Mario Lemieux and the Penguins, but Mario had 169 points and won the scoring title in 1987-88.
“The name of the game is to win, so generally you look at who has the biggest impact on his team, but every now and then a player is so important to his team you have to give him consideration,” Yzerman said.
Stamkos was close then in the scoring race, but no longer.
“Look at what Malkin did when Crosby was out? It’s a good race (with Stamkos), but he keeps getting those four and five-point nights,” said Oilers winger Jordan Eberle.
Malkin has finished second twice to Alex Ovechkin in Hart Trophy voting.
**
The line’s forming to the right for Florida UFA defenceman Jason Garrison, who has 16 goals, second only to Erik Karlsson. The Panthers have offered $2.5 million a year, but he’s barely given the offer the time of day after making $600,000 this year. The feeling is he figures he can get $4 million on the open market. Should the Oilers be in the hunt? Yes, but with reservations. They could use somebody to pound the puck — he’s a shooter not a passer, playing with Brian Campbell which gives him the leeway to fire away — but there are niggling concerns.
“He’s a No. 5 defenceman,” said one NHL team executive. Plus, he’s only lit it up for one year. There’s no body of work here. That said, it’s a very shallow free-agent market for blue-liners, so he’s holding all the cards. Garrison is six-foot-two and 220lbs, but not physical. He’s only 27, from Vancouver. The Oilers are probably on the hunt.
**
Yzerman has wheeled and dealed to get two first-round and four second-round picks in the June draft, all with an eye on going after a young goalie. It’s fair to say goaltending is the No. 1 priority for the Lightning?
“Either we stop more or we score more, one of the two,” Yzerman said. “And if we’re going to score more we better score a lot more.”
Would the player they’re looking at be Schneider?
“Mathieu Schneider?” Yzerman said, winking.
The Lightning and the Blue Jackets are both assembling war chests to go after Luongo’s right-hand man, Cory Schneider, although sources say Yzerman is also keeping a serious eye on Quick’s backup Jonathan Bernier. Why? Because Tampa Bay’s head of amateur scouting, Al Murray, used to work for the Kings and was behind them taking Bernier in Round 1.
This ’n’ that
The Panthers drafted Jonathan Huberdeau, the best Canadian junior player, as a winger, but there’s serious talk of trying him as an NHL centre. Huberdeau (Saint John Screaming Eagles of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League) made the club at camp last fall, but he only weighed 173 pounds and there were concerns players would take runs at him. “I would say everybody’s happy with their picks in the top four last year (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Gabriel Landeskog, Huberdeau and Adam Larsson),” said Florida GM Dale Tallon.
The little dynamo Tyler Ennis has been outstanding for the Buffalo Sabres in their surge for a playoff spot. He’s got 27 points in 41 games (he missed 34 with a sports hernia) and playing with Mike Foligno’s son Marcus and Drew Stafford, they have 33 points in the last six games. Stafford, after struggling mightily for the first five months, has 12 points in those half-dozen games. Foligno isn’t as tough as the departed Zack Kassian (for Cody Hodgson), but he’s got better hands.
You have to figure Stamkos will have higher-end linemates in Sochi that his wingers against the Oilers Thursday — J.T. Wyman and Trevor Smith — on the injury-riddled Lightning. Wyman sounds like he should be on stage at Tootsie’s in Nashville.
Classy gesture, also an expensive one, by Tampa Bay owner Jeff Vinik whereby he gives $50,000 to the charity of choice for a Hero in the Community initiative. “You’ll see who they’ve picked on the scoreboard early in the first period of every game with their story. It’s really nice,” said Scotty Bowman, who spends his winters in Florida and attends lots of Lightning games. It’s a five-year endeavour. That’s over $10 million out of Vinik’s pocket.
He Said It:
“Yeah, she’s not allowed to drive anymore.”
Devin Setoguchi, who was hit by a car as an 80-year-old paralyzed woman hit go instead of stop on her trigger control and drove through the door of a chiropractor’s office in San Jose while the Wild forward was standing outside minding his own business..
By the numbers:
5 overtime goals since Jan. 1, 2011, by David Jones, most in the NHL.
0 Mike Ribeiro, who had a penalty shot against Vancouver Thursday is 0-for-3 in his career.
3 Cory Schneider has stopped all three of his penalty shots this year, including the one on Ribeiro.
Matty’s Short Shifts:
The longer it goes without the Ducks announcing they’ve signed their draft pick Justin Schultz, by far the best college defenceman this year and maybe the top college player (University of Wisconsin) period, the more it looks like Schultz wants to be a free-agent and play somewhere else. Absolutely the Oilers are looking at him. They can sell him on getting the puck up to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle, plus he can play right away, but there’s a stampede of teams wanting him. Schultz can be an UFA, just as Blake Wheeler was, because he would be unsigned four years after being drafted and one of those years played junior A. Schultz played for Westside in Kelowna, B.C., for Edmonton’s Gary Gelinas.
Duncan Keith is a hell of a player, a Norris Trophy winger, but his chicken-wing elbow that felled former scoring champ Daniel Sedin and got him a five-game suspension was a silly brain cramp. To be honest, he’s lucky he only got five. Because he didn’t have a long rap sheet he only had to pay a $150,000 fine. Small change when you’re making $6 million. Keith had 22 penalty minutes last year — that’s Lady Byng material. He has 42 this year.
Gabriel Landeskog is one of those five-tool players — scores, scores in traffic, tough, responsible without the puck and big heart — for the Colorado Avalanche, but I’m not sure why Nugent-Hopkins has fallen into the “he’s going to need a great finish to win the Calder” category. Going into Saturday’s games, Landeskog, Adam Henrique and Nugent-Hopkins all had 47 points. Nugent-Hopkins had played 55 games; Landeskog 76, Henrique 66. It wasn’t Nugent-Hopkins’ fault he missed 20 with two shoulder problems. Landeskog is 20 years old, Henrique is 22, Nugent-Hopkins turns 19 after the season ends. He’s the youngest player in the league. Shouldn’t that count for something?
New Jersey Devils sniper Ilya Kovalchuk already has 400 goals and he’s only 28. No Russian has ever had 500 (Sergei Fedorov is closest at 483). Kovalchuk should easily join the other 19 guys who scored 600 or more, unless he rips up a knee or something. Washington Capitals star Alexander Ovechkin is flashier, but is Kovalchuk a better two-way player?
Jaden Schwartz, who scored in his first two games with the St. Louis Blues after leaving Colorado College — first teenager to do that since Eric Lindros with the Philadelphia Flyers in 1992 — roomed with Nugent-Hopkins at last summer’s evaluation camp at Rexall Place in August. “I texted him right away when he got called up (Blues). Everybody thinks he’s older, but he’s only 19. Awesome he can make the jump so fast,” Nugent-Hopkins said.
Is there any possibility Pekka Rinne is running out of gas in Nashville, giving up 12 goals in his last three starts? The Predators say he’s fine, but this is the wrong time to be struggling. They can’t afford to have Rinne weary going into the playoffs. He’s their ace in the hole.
If you didn’t know it already, Dominik Hasek is the Satchel Paige of hockey players. He’s 47 and he’s not ready to put away the tools of ignorance, even though he didn’t play this season after a year with Moscow Spartak. He still feels he’s got some gas in his tank, but not this year. He hasn’t ballooned to Michelin Man size, but if he gets no offers by July 1, he swears that’s it. Hey, Dom. Quit and you’ll be in the Hall of Fame in three years.
There’s a lot of love for New York goalie Henrik Lundqvist as the Vezina Trophy winner because he’s there every night for the Rangers, but if I had a vote (I don’t, the GM’s vote on this award) it would go to Jonathan Quick in L.A. Eight shutouts now and in 15 other games he’s allowed one goal. You’d think he’d have won them all, but he’s 15-4-4 with the offensively challenged Kings. That club is swimming with the fishes without Quick.
Flames coach Brent Sutter has taken major grief for having Blake Comeau and Blair Jones go in a shootout against the Wild, leaving Jarome Iginla, Alex Tanguay and Curtis Glencross on the bench, but has anybody looked at Iggy’s shootout stats? He’s two for seven this year, Tanguay is one for eight and he was hurt in the Wild loss. Glencross is zero for three. Maybe he could have gone with Olli Jokinen (three for eight), but unless you have automatic scorers like Ilya Kovalchuk (10 for 12) or Malkin (eight for 11), it’s hit or miss, even with big guns. The Sedins never shoot for the Canucks in Vancouver, same with Sharks captain Joe Thornton in San Jose. Comeau has been a huge disappointment in Calgary after they got him on waivers, though (four goals in 51 games). Looks like the Islanders knew what they were doing giving up on him.
Quebec City getting NHL-calibre rink
QMI Agency, March 25 2012
QUEBEC CITY - Quebec City took another major step in its quest to regain an NHL franchise with the announcement Sunday afternoon that a deal has been reached to construct a $400 million, 18,000-seat arena complex scheduled to be ready in 2015.
"The dream has finally become a reality," said Quebec City Mayor Regis Labeaume at a news conference. Construction is set to begin in September. The arena will be located on the site of the old Quebec City Hippodrome.
The arena will be a public-private partnership between the city and Quebecor Media Inc., owner of QMI Agency and Sun Media.
Quebecor President and CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau was at the press conference and said the new building, which he referred to as a multifunctional amphitheatre, will be a "source of pride for all citizens of the Quebec City region and for all Quebecers alike."
The deal was reached Friday night, Labeaume said, adding with a smile that Peladeau was a "hard negotiator."
Earlier in the negotiation process, QMI Agency learned that Quebecor will pay $33 million for naming rights and management of the arena. The value of the agreement rises to $63.5 million if Quebec City lands an NHL franchise.
It was unclear on Sunday if the numbers had changed. Neither Peladeau nor Labeaume mentioned the NHL in their speeches on Sunday -- and Labeaume told journalists he would refuse to answer any questions on the subject.
However, it is unlikely the Nordiques were far from their thoughts. The team left Quebec City in 1995 and moved to Denver to become the Colorado Avalanche.
Peladeau has made it clear he would be interested in buying a team.
Quebecor undertook a major expansion of its sports holdings in 2011. It launched TVA Sports, a French-language specialty channel that would be the lead broadcaster for a future NHL property.
Quebecor also bought an interest in a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League team near Montreal.
The new arena will also include a television studio specifically for Quebecor Media.
Now that the arena deal has been finalized, the next step is finding an NHL team to play in it.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told QMI in early March that he recognized how serious Quebec City's mayor and Peladeau were in bringing back an NHL team to the city.
"I am aware of the new TVA Sports network," Bettman said. "I am aware of the efforts of Pierre Karl Peladeau. I am informed of what is going on in my world. I also know that the economic power of Quebec City is much bigger than it was. The studies that I have read have kept me informed. And I know the mayor of Quebec, Mr. (Regis) Labeaume, and I know that he is certainly a determined and opinionated man."
However, Bettman also said that the NHL is not talking about moving any teams at the moment.
"We aren't talking expansion because we are not planning an expansion," Bettman said. "We are comfortable with 30 teams ... We don't like moving teams and, currently, there are no teams available. Maybe one day the circumstances will allow for one but for now, there is nothing available."
The proposed NHL-calibre arena will ensure that if a team does become available, Quebec City will be ready.
Getting To Know: Dave Andreychuk
Dave Andreychuk scored 640 goals in 1,639 career NHL games
Mark Malinowski, The Hockey News, 2012-03-25
Status: NHL left winger from 1982-2006 with Buffalo, Toronto, New Jersey, Boston, Colorado and Tampa Bay.
Ht: 6-feet-4 Wt: 220 pounds
DOB: Sept. 29, 1963 In: Hamilton, Ont.
First Hockey Memory: "Down on the Hamilton Bay. My dad and his uncles, his brothers, we all used to go and skate on Hamilton Bay. That was before I started playing hockey really, it was about going down and spending time with the family on the Bay."
Nicknames: "Andy, basically. And then there was one Andy in Toronto, so then it was Chucky. Pretty much Andy."
Hockey Inspirations: "Lots - obviously my family, my father. And then the Leafs. A lot of the old Leafs, Lanny McDonald, Darryl Sittler. Those are players that I watched."
Last Book Read: "Probably a Grisham book."
Current Car: "Is a Lincoln Navigator."
First Job: "Worked for a veterinarian."
Greatest Sports Moment: "Quite a few, but probably the '04 Stanley Cup."
Most Painful Moment: "Knocking all my teeth out with slap shot. (By who?) Not sure, I didn't see it coming, so no idea (laughs)."
Favorite Uniforms: "Probably the Leafs. Tradition."
Favorite Arena: "Old Boston Garden. Old, old Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo."
Closest Hockey Friends: "Probably John Tucker. We played together in Buffalo and now we live together here in Tampa."
Funniest Player Encountered: "Mike Foligno. (Why him?) Mike Foligno for sure. Days in Buffalo, then our days in Toronto together. Never a dull moment."
Most Memorable Goal: "Probably the 500th. In New Jersey."
Funny Hockey Memory: "One time, Hartford to Boston in a bus, we stopped. I was supposed to go out, because I was a rookie, and get one of the guys’ bags. And the bus drove away. So I had to chase the bus down for a little bit. I had to walk probably a half-mile to catch up to the bus. (Who got you on that?) Lindy Ruff and Mike Foligno were the ones who started it."
First Famous Hockey Player You Ever Met: "Bobby Hull. Neighbor was Bill Friday, who was a referee. And met him at a dinner when I was seven or eight-ish. He was the first NHL player that I ever met."
Strangest Game: "Probably some of the snow-out games in Buffalo. We played the Rangers one time in the early ‘80s with a thousand people in the stands. Those are the kinds of games you remember."
Favorite Sport Outside Hockey: "Growing up it was lacrosse. Now I would say I watch a lot of football."
Personality Qualities Most Admired: "That they're honest. That they're friendly."
Red Wings GM to make pitch for 3-on-3 extra OT
ERIC DUHATSCHEK, Globe and Mail, Mar. 08, 2012
Mr. (Ken) Holland’s latest opus will be brought to the attention of his fellow NHL general managers at their semi-annual meetings, which begin in hockey country – sunny Boca Raton, Fla. – on Monday.
Holland, the architect behind the most successful NHL team of the past two decades, the Detroit Red Wings, will pitch a new/old concept that would see overtime periods extended to 10 minutes from five.
The twist? The second five-minute period would be played 3-on-3, in the hope games would be decided in a more conventional hockey environment, rather than in a shootout.
Holland’s thinking is that playing 3-on-3 would open up the ice so much that a goal would almost certainly be scored. On the rare occasions it didn’t happen, the shootout would be the last-resort tiebreaker.
Shootouts might eventually become as rare as ties in the NFL – something theoretically achievable, but in practice almost never happens. Through Thursday, 13.54 per cent of NHL games were decided in shootouts this year, the second-highest total since the league introduced the format in 2005-06.
If successful, the measure would further devalue the shootout in the NHL standings – which can only be a good thing to all the purists and old fogeys out there. The GMs made a similar, but far-less radical shift a couple of years back, when revamping the criteria for playoff qualification.
It used to be the first tie-breaker for teams tied in the standings at the end of the regular season was total wins. Holland, and a handful of like-minded peers, convinced the league that only regulation and overtime wins should count for such an important matter – and no one should slip into the playoffs because of an ability to win games on penalty shots.
Once upon a time, Holland was also in favour of revamping the NHL points system, so regulation victories would be worth three; overtime or shootout victories would earn two; overtime and shootout losses would be rewarded with a single point; and regulation losses count for zero.
However, Holland’s thinking has shifted there, he says, because of the closeness of the playoff races.
“I was a big believer that we should go to the three-point game three or four years ago,” the Wings GM said. “I’m not a fan any more. What do you want? More separation? Less races?
“In the [Western Conference], you could maybe say there are two teams out of it, but from [No.] 13 on, they have a chance. I mean, we’re sitting here in early March and realistically, 28 teams can say, if they win nine out of 10, they would make the playoffs,” he said.
“I like it the way it is. If you look at the West, Vancouver, St. Louis, Detroit, Nashville, you’ve got four teams at the top, all within about six points. You’ve got about five teams at the eight-hole, between seventh and 11th, within four or five points. What more do you want? It’s stretch run time. We’re all rounding the bend and it’s a horse race. I think the races are incredible. So I’m not a fan. I was a fan. I’m not a fan any more.”
Still, there is something a little nonsensical about a standings system in which some games are worth three points and others just two. That creates a scenario which is mathematically improbable: a false .500 that makes it look as if 23 out of 30 NHL teams have winning records. And even though Holland understands that is not a rational system exactly, he thinks the ends justify the means.
“I agree … from the mathematical point of view,” he said, “but last year, on the final day of the season, we beat Chicago in the afternoon and Dallas lost to Minnesota [to decide the last playoff spot]. In the East, Carolina lost their last game. If they win, they get in. Two or three years ago, Philadelphia and the Rangers had a shootout to decide a playoff spot. Why do you want separation?
“History shows there are great races right until the last weekend. Why would we change that – and run the risk of losing that intrigue?”
Dean
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Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
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