Greener

This time of year always brings a smile to my face, and not for the reason most others look forward to this season.  Oh the being with loved ones, visits from Kris Kringle, and the liberal flow of liquid spirits are darn fine reasons to enjoy the holidays.  But for me, Yuletide brings the start of the greatest hockey tournament of the year; the World

Rimouski Oceanic at Gatineau Olympiques: Friday February 6, 2004 Almost every generation has its hockey heroes.  Players that are bigger than life on the ice with a list of accomplishments longer than your arm.  But every now and then, the hockey gods allow a special player to come along to show the world just how mortal all others are compared to them. If you were

Saturday March 10 2007 Ottawa @ Toronto   From 2001 -- 2005 I lived in Ottawa and being a Leafs fan, I often took the battle of Ontario to heart.  Looking back on it, it can sometimes amaze me how many debates, arguments and scenarios for potential violence I have been involved in just due to this rivalry.   I was the only person who cheered for the Leafs at

From time to time I get asked what is my favorite hockey memory.  People expect me to say the first goal I scored or winning a local championship.  The truth is, I have never really played organized hockey or any hockey at all really that requires me to actually skate.  My skating ability would have me getting scratched from a squirt house team.  So, inevitably all of my hockey memories are from the

It is safe to say that the most disposable member of a NHL management team is the head coach.  There is an old adage that a NHL coach is “hired to be fired”.  With the salary cap, teams are handcuffed if the players on the ice stumble out of the gate.  There are so few trades in the post-lockout NHL that teams are usually stuck with the roster they begin

Over the past few days I have gotten texts and emails from people asking why I am not blogging more than once or twice a week.  I did not know that there were any people out there wanting to know what I had to say.  In my defence, I went to a concert this week, was hungover at work and had ringing in my ears that only subsided late last night. 

The 2009-2010 season just under 20 games in and there have been some surprising oddities and irregularities making an appearance in the NHL.  With the season nearing the 1/4 mark, it will be interesting to see which of these developments will continue. King’s star Anze Kopitar leads NHL in scoring.  Former Art Ross Winner Ovechkin is down with an injury and Crosby is below a point per game early into this campaign,

The past couple of days has seen a big hullabaloo in Canada over stories that the Calgary Flames and the Toronto Maple Leafs players and staff have skipped ahead of the queue and received shots against the H1N1 virus.  People are up in arms because the health of athletes seems to have taken precedent over the health of other high risk groups.  Politicians in Ontario are about to make a

One month into the 2009-2010 season and the overwhelming storyline is the rash of injuries hitting almost every team.  It seems that every night a player will go down and be out of the line up for an undetermined period of time.  And we are not talking about 4th line role players but the go-to guys and stars of the squad. The Penguins are without Malkin and Gonchar, the Capitals