Cupcakes

The quiet, hot days of summer summon strange conversations and stories in the hockey world, allowing the fan to ponder things that wouldn't get a fraction of a seconds attention during the busy season.

And so it has come to this.

Cupcakes.

If you at all follow the blog Puck Daddy, no doubt you've heard the quirky story of a lady beating the odds and getting her homemade cupcakes past the iron fence of modern day sports concessions and into the dilapidated Nassau Coliseum in Long Island for Islanders games this upcoming season.

Who cares right?

Well, we here at Black Aces do. Not really, but the marriage of cupcakes and NHL hockey have given rise to a mass of Tweeters coming up with their own cupcake jokes, some of which, below, were posted on Puck Daddy:

#nhlcupcakes

Greg's post Thursday about the New York Islanders cupcakes sparked a bit of a to-do on Twitter. The jokes obviously came rollin' in, and made it an odd trending topic for a bit of the late morning.

Some of the better ones:

@DaveLozo: "The Sidney Crosby Cupcake — it doesn't matter if you like it, it's getting crammed down your throat."

@blogesalming: "The Eklund Cupcake: Convinces you you're eating a cupcake and turns out to be urinal cake"

@DownGoesBrown: "The LA Kings cupcake: Fans love it, but don't understand how the icing works."

@psykovike: "Calgary Flames Cupcake... The 'baker' doesn't give a damn if you like it or not... What do you know about cupcakes..."

@radioactivesmrf: "The Chris Mason Cupcake, it's better than it looks. It would have to be..."

@Kevin_Singer: "The Dany Heatley cupcake: demands to be made at another bakery because current one isn't putting it on the right shelf"

And the winner...

@dear_gravity: "The Phil Kessel cupcake: has one nut inside."

Pretty good stuff there (well, the Kessel one was a little much maybe).

But over a particularly long day at work, I started swapping cupcakes with our pal Blood Red Army, and soon the shelves were overflowing with ideas. I thought, what the hell, it's summer. I can do an entire post about cupcakes. So here's what we came up with during our Friday sun-addled afternoon, mostly Senators related and BRA's epic blast at Luongo included.

Enjoy (or don't). We did.


Blood Red Army: The Alexie Kovalev: If you're not careful, it'll disappear before you even get it in your mouth.

Black Aces: The Filip Kuba: No one even noticed it was gone from the bakery shelf.

Blood Red Army: The Rick Dipietro: You'll still be paying for it in 12 years.

Black Aces: The Jonathan Cheechoo: Like fruitcake, whatever appeal it had faded a long time ago.

Blood Red Army: The Jason Spezza: He'll make you sick as he passes backwards through you.

Black Aces: The Jacques Martin: Sugar free, tasteless and bland, but good for you.

Blood Red Army: The Joe Corvo: Will request to be moved to a Duncan Donuts or other generic store.

Black Aces: The Bryan Murray: So sour it makths you talkth lithke thisth.

Blood Red Army:  The Ray Emery: It's chocolate with a white, snowy-frosting.  (Ed.'s Note: Allegedly)

Black Aces: The Martin Gerber: Stank so bad they had to shut the bakery early in 2009.

Blood Red Army: The Roberto Luongo: Decent, but overrated and extra greasy.

Black Aces: The Zdeno Chara: WAY too much yeast.

Blood Red Army: The Erik Karlsson: So slick it'll pass through you before you can even say number 2.

Black Aces: The Cody Bass: Fell through the crack on the bakers shelf and left to rot.

Blood Red Army: The Jarkko Ruutu: Bite in quick before it bites you.

Black Aces: The John Paddock: You get three quarters through it and end up throwing it in the trash.

Blood Red Army: The Bill Muckalt: A year later you'll still be wondering what happened.

Black Aces: The Mike Comrie: Don't buy or sell - the recipe was fucked to begin with.

Blood Red Army: The Don Cherry: Warning - must be split open to allow hot air to escape before eating.

Black Aces: The AlexeiYashin: You can't afford it.

Blood Red Army: The Chris Chelios: You just can't get it to stay down.

Black Aces: The Anton Volchenkov: Shot so full of raisins you wonder how it stays together.

Blood Red Army: The Wade Redden: Slowly rotted from too much sugar. (Ed.'s note: Allegedly)


And a few more for good measure from Black Aces who evidently had more time to kill than BRA.

The Chris Neil: Free tooth inside every one.

The Matt Carkner: Who knew people would like a molasses cupcake so much?

The Andy Sutton: Leaves the experts confused - is it good or is it just another cupcake?

The John Muckler: White icing, full of bones and smells funny.

The Dany Heatley: Smells like chicken, tastes like chickenshit.

Dog Days Are Here...

Still the best video of the year.



I'm already getting nostalgic for Andy Sutton's brief, but memorable time in an Ottawa uniform. It's a shame he's not going to be back.

Bob Probert Passes Away

I grew up in the 80's with split allegiances. I loved the Gretzky/Messier led Oilers, but my first favourite team was always the Detroit Red Wings (back when they were terrible in the early pre-Yzerman 80's and onwards).

And Bob Probert was a big part of those Red Wings later in the decade and he's still the toughest fighter in the history of the league if I do say so myself. Who can forget his legendary battles with Marty McSorley, Wendel Clark and Tie Domi? He was a superstar back when fighters were considered stars.

Unfortunately, Bob Probert passed away today at the very young age of 45.

Here are two of the great scraps he had with Tie Domi in 1992.

UPDATE 4:45; Murray Steals Gonchar From Pens .... Volchenkov Signs A Bargain Deal With NJ

Gonchar. 3 years. 5.5 million per.

Mindblowing deal.

I was ready to bury the Senators today for letting Anton Volchenkov walk away but never did I imagine the Senators would be able to hit a home run the other way by grabbing the best offensive defenseman in the market.

The term and the money are all ideal. Even if Gonchar begins to slow down, three years is not a long time. The cap hit is very, very reasonable for a player of Gonchar's capabilities and there is nothing to suggest Gonchar will be anything other than a godsend for the Senators power-play.

After ranking in the bottom 10 of the league with the man advantage, the Senators can now have a tandem of Gonchar and Erik Karlsson feeding pucks to Jason Spezza, Daniel Alfredsson and Alexei Kovalev, assuming the Russian forward's knee is on the mend.

If anyone is worried about Gonchar slowing down, you have to think what his strengths are. Running the power-play and moving the puck out of the zone. Those skills don't really go away with age. Instead it's the physical grind and the minutes that are harder to handle. Gonchar is not going to be asked to do what Volchenkov did (nobody could do it better than Volchie anyways), so to me, the issue is moot unless Gonchar proves to be injury prone down the stretch of his career. It's a risk, but one well worth taking considering the circumstances.

It's interesting to note the Senators are simply exchanging one Russian with another, yet the direction of the team is now going to change completely. It's offense GM Murray is looking for and when you lose perhaps the best defensive defenseman in the league, it may not be a bad idea to swing the other way and go for one of the best offensive ones.

Yet, it's still a bittersweet moment for Ottawa. Volchenkov was a core player just entering his prime and the Senators will no doubt be poorer in their own zone with his loss. Yet with Gonchar's ability to move the puck, they may not be spending much time there anyways.

This also effectively puts an end to a theory, partly put forth on this very site, that star players would not want to play in this market with the successive Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza trade controversies.

Last year it was Kovalev and this summer it's Gonchar. To paraphrase David Spade in the movie Tommy Boy, Bryan Murray "could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves."

Bryan Murray created a hole by letting Volchenkov leave, but he more than strengthened the power-play, which frankly, was an embarrassment last season.

So, offense it's going to be.

And Murray may not yet be done. Let's see what else happens today.

***

Update: 4:45

Volchenkov signs with New Jersey for 6 years and only 4.2 million, not even close to the 5 million plus that everyone quoted as gospel.

This raises a few questions. It's hard to believe Murray wasn't willing to pay 4.2 to keep his best defenseman. Perhaps it was the term that Murray wasn't willing to meet. Then again, 6 years is not overtly excessive for a player just entering his prime like Volchenkov is.

It makes you wonder what could have been. For an extra 500, 000 dollars (a pittance), the Senators could possibly have kept Volchenkov and moved Filip Kuba's 3.7 million cap hit to another team, which would have given the Senators a far superior top four defense than they currently have now.

But maybe Volchenkov was determined to leave no matter what. Certainly, by playing in NJ, he now finds himself close to one of the biggest Russian communities in the United States, but he is also playing for a team that seems to have taken a step back, with an aging Martin Brodeur and an increasingly less mobile defense.

With Murray's penchant for revealing details of his negotiations, I'm sure we'll hear the full story soon enough.

But it's all just spilled milk now. Volchenkov is a huge loss for Ottawa and a big gain for New Jersey, but Murray made the best move possible by signing elite defenseman Sergei Gonchar.

It's just so tempting to imagine what could have been with both countrymen Gonchar and Volchenkov on the same team, possibly even the same pairing.

But that ship has sailed.