Alfie Rips A Page Out Of The Corvo Playbook

It's always refreshing to hear an NHL player stray from the scripted cliche's in an interview and Daniel Alfredsson did just that to TSN today, revealing he thought he was on the path to extinction as an elite player during the Jacques Martin era:

"If I go back four or five years ago, or before the lockout, I had a couple of seasons where I was very disappointed in my own play," said Alfredsson at the Senators' golf tournament Monday. "I was frustrated. I didn't foresee a long future in this league for me."

-TSN

We all know what happened after that. At the rate he's going, he'll probably peak with an Art Ross at 40 (and Chris Chelios will still be playing, no doubt).

While he's no Joe Corvo (who nearly broke down in tears during an interview two years ago saying how awful he was playing and then bashed "small-town" Ottawa on his way out last season), Alfie seems to be pretty good at "telling it like it is".

But then he dropped this clanger in the same interview:

"I think we underachieved last year," said Alfredsson.

You think?

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People thought Jason Spezza was being extravagant for buying a mini-castle in town ...

Ex-Senator Cory Stillman dropped $3 million on a house in South Florida recently. It sounds like he's sleeping fine after bolting Bytown.

Don't be jealous because, hey, "they make a lot of money, but they spend a lot of money" too.

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This is the time of year when the dreaded "bag-skate" is trotted out by the coaches to see who stayed in shape over the summer and who stayed drunk and barbecue addicted.

Except Washington coach Bruce Boudreau has some kind of conditiong drill he calls "Herbies". Over at On Frozen Blog they give a pretty good description of these spleen rupturing workouts that are taking place during the Caps rookie camp:

"Head Coach Bruce Boudreau concluded the skate with a solid 10-plus minutes of Herbies, a session torturous even for spectators to watch. The ill effects of the conditioning drill were most noticeable on European prospects Gustafsson and Dmitry Kugryshev. Both fell to their knees at one end of the Kettler sheet, gasping for breath. After 10 minutes of Herbies, Anton was crumpled in a corner, annihilated with fatigue. Mathieu Perreault, Boudreau admitted afterward, became light-headed and nearly feinted from the duress."