Senators Have Best Team Off The Ice

While it's bad news for Senators fans that Garry Galley is leaving the team's Sportsnet broadcasts to join Hockey Night In Canada full-time, his replacement, Hall of Famer Denis Potvin, isn't too shabby.

You can kind of look at it like the Sens losing Anton Volchenkov but gaining Sergei Gonchar this summer. You lose a young guy in his prime but you gain an experienced vet who's going to bring another dimension to the broadcast booth.

Well, that's a tad corny, but you get my meaning.

If you've had the pleasure of having the NHL Centre Ice package (and the displeasure of having to pay Rogers Cable a fortune for it), you likely have seen at least a few Florida Panthers games over the years (then again, maybe not - even NHL diehards likely watch the Panthers as a last resort) and Potvin was always a calm voice of reason during those telecasts for the large part of a decade. He was also pretty good at the often moribund NHL Network and their dreary highlight show On The Fly.

It's going to be interesting to hear the kind of chemistry he creates with lead play-by-play man Dean Brown. While Galley was more bubbly than Potvin will ever be, it may actually improve the balance a little because Brown tends to act like a colour commentator half the time with his dry humour and elongated stories while Potvin is more old-school and laid back. It should work fairly well in my opinion.

With Potvin coming aboard, Ottawa remains blessed with likely the top group of hockey related TV and radio personalities in the country. I've lived in each of Canada's four biggest cities in the past 15 years and Ottawa's current lot is still the best in my opinion. Toronto may have the quantity, but not many as likable as the Sens crew.

The best, in no particular order:

Ian Mendes (Sportsnet): It's rare for a modern analyst to be fair to a fault and actively try to present the players point of view instead of being comfortably cynical in their approach, yet Mendes achieves this with ease.

Dean Brown (various): Who doesn't like Dean Brown? His jokes may be corny, but he can call a mean game and knows way more about the NHL than he lets on. He's been around so long that we tend to take him for granted, but he's one of the best in the league at what he does.

Dave "The Voice" Schreiber (Team 1200): He's in a league with legendary Sabres play-by-play man Rick Jeanneret in terms of excitement while calling a game. When the Senators score, even your grandma knows about it (actually my Granny watches every single Sens game and loves Chris Kelly!).

Gord Wilson (Team 1200): He's been here with Dean Brown since the first modern day Sens game and he's one of the best when he gets really wound up. Of all the guys who calls games in this town, he's the one you can most likely picture having a cold one while he does it. He comes across as just really loving the game and is worth the listen just for him calling a big scrap on the ice. He makes it sound like Ali vs Frasier every time.

Steve Lloyd  (Team 1200): One half of the best radio show in town, the Healthy Scratches, and the host of the Sens pre-game show, Lloyd always seems equally comfortable holding court with big names like Bob McKenzie, jokesters like co-host Jason York, or the mixed bag of reporters who snipe at each other before Sens games on the Team 1200. I got on him a little last year for his non-stop coverage of "hits to the head", but he's probably the smartest of all the local hockey guys and is never boring to listen to.

Jason York (Team 1200): Who knew this dude would be so good? He doesn't seem to care too much and that's likely the secret of his success. He still has that player's locker room mentality where everyone gets a nickname and gets razzed a little bit. And then he'll come out with a totally reasonable and smart observation that only an ex-player could give the fans. I find he's almost always on the money with his analysis when he finds the time to give it. Don't underestimate Yorkie. He could go far and let's hope he doesn't ever change his laid back ways.

Honorable mention to John Rodenburg who seems to be a smart hockey guy but hosts a morning show that is traditionally more about comedy than sports.

Cherry Takes Another Shot At Senators From The Bully Pulpit

Lots of little storms brewing in Senators land. Here's my take on a few:

Cherry Attacks Senators Players...Again

Immediately following Saturday's loss to the Bruins, Don Cherry called out Chris Neil and Matt Carkner for "hotdogging" and showboating after their fights in Scotiabank Place. He claimed that this was the reason that Boston summoned the emotion to fight back and win the game.

You have to wonder why Cherry is calling out the two Senators for actions that virtually all the enforcers around the league do in their home rinks. It's a league wide trend for a guy to wave his arms in an attempt to pump up the home crowd after a scrap. It's been going on at least since the lockout ended and is rarely meant, or seen, as a deliberate gesture to embarrass the visiting team.

Yet there was Cherry singling out a couple of Senators for ridicule on national television. This is just one in a long line of insults hurled the Senators way by the self-described Maple Leaf fan.

Once it was the Senators use of exercise bikes after games to get rid of lactic acid in their muscles. Never mind that all teams practice that now as just common sense. Cherry revisited this again on Saturday night by showing the Canucks players on the bikes and then proceeded to call them "sucks" at least twice to an amused Ron Maclean.

It was also last season that Cherry singled out Mike Fisher for having the audacity to wear a toque into the rink along with his game day suit in the middle of winter. He showed footage of Fisher with the toque and called the Senators a bunch of "bums". It's a wonder he didn't follow it up by saying "Listen kids, never wear a toque in the winter cuz' you'll look bad. Remember, it's all about how you look, not how you feel. And when I do drink beer, I like to drink Dos Equis."

Cherry is a guy who will always says what he thinks and I respect him for that. But isn't it time he just comes out and says he dislikes the Senators as an organization and get it over with rather than foolishly attempting to embarrass them on national television over and over again with petty grievances that the players then have to answer questions about again and again?

Just once, I'd love to hear Bryan Murray stand up for his team and tell Cherry to take a flying
f!*k at a rolling donut.

Rumours of Karlsson Getting Sent Down

With Filip Kuba seemingly ready to return from injury, and Karlsson about to hit the 10 game mark on Wednesday in Sunrise, the organization has been mum on whether or not Karlsson still fits into their plans for this season.

In fact, if you heard Cory Clouston's interview on the Team 1200 Monday afternoon, he suspiciously sounded like a coach who already knew the rookie would be on his way to the AHL, without saying so on the record.

I've argued for keeping Karlsson up in the NHL and I haven't changed my stance on that. It seems to me that Karlsson has suffered more by playing with the largely ineffective Chris Campoli than he has by his own play. He's still getting used to the NHL but he also hasn't been the reason Ottawa has lost any games. Campoli on the other hand has been largely invisible all season but is probably going to get the benefit of the doubt because of what he has done in the past for the New York Islanders. Alex Picard has played better of late once he got the solid Carkner as a partner. Karlsson, meanwhile, hasn't had the benefit of a defensive presence on his pairing since Kuba went down.

A lot of it will come down to politics in the end. Sending Campoli down is not an option because of his one way contract. It's also similar to how politics is playing a role in why Shean Donovan is sitting and Jonathan Cheechoo is playing.

There is no chance in hell that anyone could agree that Cheechoo has deserved his roster spot more than Donovan. Yet Cheechoo is going to get the call every game because his salary says he needs to be on the ice.

If you take stats out of the equation, you have to look at how effective each player is at his specific role. Donovan is expected to create energy on every shift, even if that means playing under 10 minutes and sometimes not at all late in games. Clearly, Donovan has met or even surpassed those expectations.

Cheechoo is expected to provide offense playing with Jason Spezza and Milan Michalek. Obviously he's not fulfilling his role, even if his linemates are having individual success. The painful truth is that Cheechoo just can't skate at an NHL level. Perhaps he just needs a break and that will get the goals coming. That's probably the only rationale you can use to keep him in the lineup, especially when Nick Foligno is playing behind him on the 3rd line and is more than capable of filling that role. Ryan Shannon can do the same.

In Karlsson's case, I'd be surprised to see him get demoted if only for the fact that Murray came out last week and said that 10 games would not be the benchmark for the rookie. I'm not sure why he would change his mind now, especially after a strong game on Saturday where the rookie looked very good at times.

Yet if Karlsson does get sent down, we can probably expect to see him again due to the compressed schedule coming up and the injuries it will undoubtedly cause.

Sunday Notes

The first clue that the Senators are playing a vastly different and successful system under Cory Clouston?

42 shots.

If it wasn't for the circus style saves of Sabres goalie Ryan Miller, this game would have been over after the first two periods when the Senators had already accumulated 30 of those 42 shots.

The Senators just weren't getting those numbers under Craig Hartsburg's system, which basically entailed retreating into a defensive shell whenever the opposition had the puck instead of trying to get it back through aggressive skating and checking. (But that didn't stop Allen Panzeri from totally exonerating Hartsburg yesterday by saying that the Senators, gosh darn it, just didn't work hard enough under Hartsburg.....yawn).

Speaking of Hartsburg's system, Daniel Alfredsson had some interesting words for the Ottawa Sun's Chris Stevenson when comparing the old ways to Clouston's style:

"That was the knock on us: People were asking, 'Do they care?' We were passive," said Alfredsson. "Now we're more involved, forechecking with two guys, the defence pinching. In the second period, we had some great shifts. Everybody feeds off the energy, the hitting."

It's a good point by the captain. It was easy for the pundits and fans to scream that the players weren't working hard enough when in fact, it was Hartsburg's system that forced them to be passive. And that's not just my opinion. Alfie says it all in that quote. It's hard to look like you're ready to run defenseman over when your coach tells you that you have to retreat.

It's also been fun to watch a player like Nick Foligno seemingly reinvent himself in a matter of three games under Clouston.

For most of the season, Foligno was a fringe player and used sparingly. His hell-bent-for-leather skating style and rangy physique is a match made in heaven for Clouston's aggressive forechecking system. It would not have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago to see Foligno back with the Bingo Sens but he is now a vital cog on the second line and is starting to produce.

And how about Brendan Bell? This guy has the wheels and passing ability to make a difference and he's using those skills now on the power-play instead of Chris Phillips who was a favourite at times of Hartsburg. Phillips is a heart and soul player who will hopefully spend his whole career in Ottawa, but there's no way he should be running a powerplay.

I'm also going to assume that Clouston had something to do with convincing Bryan Murray to bring up Ryan Shannon in place of Peter Regin. No offence to Regin (who was very good) but Shannon has provided some much needed speed up front that is essential if your going to go after the puck all night.

And let's not forget the veterans here. The guys who have taken heat all season, like Mike Fisher, Antoine Vermette and Chris Kelly are starting to play like themselves again and earning big minutes.

It may surprise some but both Fisher and Foligno had more ice time than either Alfie, Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley. But that doesn't mean that the Big 3 are not pulling their weight either.

Heatley led both teams with 6 shots on goal and Alfie was right behind him with 4.

At some point, those shots are going to go in and goal scoring may become less of a problem in the last half.

***

How many of you caught Don Cherry comparing the way Cory Clouston looks to Macauley Culkin of Home Alone fame?

I don't see it but it made for some good televison all the same.

***

If you happened to catch the Satellite Hotstove segment on Hockey Night in Canada after the second period last night, you would have heard that Ray Emery has refused to report back to his Russian club after a dispute with the way he is being paid by the team. Apparently it has something to do with the team using the wrong exchange rate and Emery is refusing to report until he is paid what is due to him in his contract. The panellists went on to say that this is not something new with the KHL and that a lot of players are having the same problems. I have been unable to find a valid report on it in the print media so for now we'll just have to take the word of Al Strachan and company.

Some will speculate that this opens the door to Emery returning to the NHL this season instead of next. I don't know where Don Brennan got his info but he mentions that there's a rumour going around that Rayzer could even find his way back to Ottawa. That sounds unlikely but I'm sure there are a handful of teams who would love the opportunity to bring in a guy who has been to a Stanley Cup final once already in his short career. Some markets can handle fiery goaltenders with outgoing personalities.

Just look at the popularity of guys like Billy Smith in Long Island, Ron Hextall in Philly, Tom Barrasso in Pittsburgh, Dominik Hasek in Buffalo and Patrick Roy in Colorado.

Those guys were all nuts but they could win you big games. Emery is in the same mould but he's too out there for conservative little Ottawa. We prefer our goalies quiet and mediocre. (Maybe Elliott will change all that. He's quiet and pretty good all at the same time.)

Weekend Notes

It's probably tough for Senators fans to get excited after barely squeezing by the last place Tampa Bay Lightning but it at least sets up a possible mini-streak with the almost equally struggling Atlanta Thrashers coming to town on Tuesday.

Not to put too much dramatic emphasis on it, but the Atlanta game is another must-win for the Senators. Pundits are already starting to count them out for the playoffs, including Adam Proteau of the Hockey News who points to the fact that the Senators have 9 more games against Boston and Montreal. He didn't even mention their 3 gargantuan road trips left in the season.

But if you're looking for positives in a game that still felt a little like a loss due to a flaccid performance by the top line, there's a few to mention.

Obviously, Martin Gerber getting the shutout is a big leap forward for the beleaguered goalie but this might only be setting up another headache for the team. Gerber should never have been on this roster going into the season but now a few good games is going to force Craig Hartsburg's hand and the whole circus is about to start again.

Don't be fooled. The technical issues that have hampered Gerber's game have not suddenly gone away and they will rear their ugly heads again at the worst possible moment if Gerber is given another shot to play meaningful games.

Unfortunately, it looks like that's the direction the team is headed in. Still - Gerber gets kudos for a solid game.

Other positives: Alex Picard and Brendan Bell are starting to look better and call-up Brian Lee played a solid, if uninspiring game.

If you watched the opening half-hour of Hockey Night In Canada, you would have seen footage of Brendan Bell escorting the two hockey bag carrying Bingo call-ups (Lee and Ilya Zubov) to the Senators dressing room and seemingly calming their nerves by making a few jokes - if the big grin on Zubov's face is any indication. Bell seems like a natural leader and a guy who commands respect, if not for his actual play but for his character. It's hard not to cheer for a guy like that.

***

Speaking of hallway encounters, Don Cherry showed some more footage on his Coach's Corner segment but he didn't like what he saw.

First he showed the Washington Capitals entering the Molson Centre in Montreal from the team bus and praised the first-place club for wearing sharp looking suits, saying they exuded "class". Then they ran film of the Lightning and assorted Senators players entering the arena looking like "thugs".

What may have shocked some is that the Senator player he was referring to was none other than Mike "milk and cookies" Fisher who was wearing a (gasp!) wool toque and a heavy winter jacket. God forbid Fisher sets a bad example for the nation of Cherry's kids by wearing proper winter attire on a bitterly cold night.

The main Lightning player they showed was Andre "everybody hates me" Meszaros who, similar to Fisher, was wearing a toque and winter jacket but was guilty of the ultimate sin - talking on a cellphone. When they showed Fisher and Meszaros having a quick talk outside the locker rooms, Cherry went into a hilarious routine, insinuating that they were agreeing not to hit each other on the ice. He was even incensed that half the Senators were talking to Meszaros before the game, calling it a love-fest. To end the segment, he called the whole thing "sickening".
It was prime Cherry.

***

What actually disturbed me was a quick shot of Fisher and Daniel Alfredsson dressed in military fatigues in the middle of a bush somewhere, rifling down geese or birds or whatever the hell they were shooting. Fisher already admitted to killing a bear this past summer (classy) but we were also informed that he's an avid deer hunter. I don't want to go on a big anti-hunting rant here because people will freak out, but ... dude, take it easy.

The only solace was that we were told Alfredsson has resisted the deer hunting so far. Maybe Cherry was right about Fisher after all....

***

The first period scrap between Chris Neil and Zenon Konopka was an absolute beauty. Neil was having his way with Konopka but the feisty ex-Ottawa 67 repeatedly ignored Neil's body language which was clearly trying to shut the fight down. At one point Neil was just holding Konopka off and smiling at the linesman like "this guy is nuts". So Neiler decided to throw a few more and decisively won the fight but it looked like he cranked his hand off the glass, possibly hurting himself, though he did return later in the game. ..... People have been hard on Neil this year but I don't understand why. He's doing his job perfectly. I don't have the numbers in front of me but he's probably on pace to have the most fights of his career in a single season and there's not many heavyweights he won't take on. Some claim that Neil is expendable because Ottawa already has Jarkko Ruutu and Cody Bass. Except that Bass is not an enforcer by any means and only drops the gloves once in a while, usually when someone like Neil is out of the lineup. It would be like asking Mike Fisher to be the enforcer on the team. There's a big distinction between being a physical player and a regular scrapper. Ruutu backs his antics up with a scrap when he needs to but he's also not a frequent flier. Hopefully Bryan Murray finds a way to get Neil under contract for the next few seasons. There's not too many players in the league with Neil's character and spirit...... It was interesting to see Jesse Winchester singing along with the national anthem before the game. You don't see that too often..... Speaking of enforcers, it was revealed yesterday that Brian McGrattan was in the voluntary NHL substance abuse and behavioural program. The Phoenix Coyote and ex-Senator joins the long list of past NHL enforcers with similar problems. It might be toughest job in pro sports and it certainly takes its toll on the guys who do it. Here's hoping Gratts gets it together and gets back on the ice soon...... Speaking of problems, I was so into the game last night that I plowed about 10 mini peanut butter cups into my trap during the first period and was nearly in a coma by the third because of it. The Christmas season is very dangerous.....

You know what drives me insane? The NHL refuses to go to no-touch icing because they claim they like the exciting aspect of races for the puck but the referees always call the play in favour of the defender when it's close. So in reality, there's no exciting races because the only way to negate an icing is to be so far ahead of the defender that it's no contest anyways. Shean Donovan beat the Tampa defenseman last night in a close race for the puck but the linesman ruled in favour of the defender yet again, almost mechanically. It's brutal. Just go to no-touch and be done with it.

Sunday Notes

For all the doubts that still exist about this Ottawa team, there is a palpable feeling right now that things are somehow different from the confused and unconfident group we saw at the start of the year.

Just listening to Daniel Alfredsson's post-game interview on the Team 1200 would have allayed the fears of even the most hardened pessimist.

He seemed almost jubilant at times but it wasn't just the afterglow of a single good game. You could hear the relief in his words as he traced back over the past 7 or so games and pointed out that there had only been one average effort in the whole lot and that was the loss against the Islanders last week.

When the captain is happy, the rest of the team must be too. For a change, they look like they are having fun again.

Despite everyone's brave words, it was clear that the negative atmosphere from the second half of last year was still weighing on the core players and that the new additions were too busy trying to adjust to a new team and city to do anything about it right away. But slowly, a hardened team is starting to emerge.

I really like how Craig Hartsburg is not too proud to change his mind, altering some concepts he brought in from the start.

The first was the idea that Martin Gerber was the number one goalie and that all he needed was a vote of confidence and a stretch of games to prove himself. Hartsburg let Gerber play himself out of the spot and that was that. Alex Auld has taken over and Hartsburg hasn't played around since. The rumours of trading for the expensive Nikolai Khabibulin seem almost absurd at this point.

Hartsburg also paid lip service to the notion of having to break up the top line to spread the offense around. Even when they were losing, he kept them apart to try and see if the team could come through it. When it became clear that this team needed some offense, he changed his course and now the Senators are inching their way up the standings.

Hartsburg could have extended the misery of this team if he was too hard-headed but he's shown that he's of the modern variety of coaches - adaptable and capable of motivating his players without resorting to the bag skates and the media call-outs (his early mistake of putting public heat on Spezza aside).

I said after the Atlanta win that the contest against the Penguins would be real test for this team and they came through with top marks. Now with some careful moves by Bryan Murray to bring in a little more skill, this team has the potential to do some damage down the line.

***

Eric Duhatschek has a good quote from Buffalo Sabres president Larry Quinn on how the NHL can break through into the American television market:

“I talked to the NFL guys last year,” said Quinn, “and I asked them: How did you change your game from the off-tackle, three-yard running play and scores that were 13-10 to what you have right now? And a wise old guy said to me: It's very simple. Roone Arledge walked down the street and said to Pete Rozelle one day: Listen, I have this idea. It's called Monday Night Football. I can make you lots and lots of money, but here's what I can sell: I can sell quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers. That's what I can sell to the American public.

“Well, if you look at what we do, we sell goaltenders. I think it's fair to say, both Canadians and Americans, that's not what they love about the game. They love Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky, Guy LaFleur and Jean Beliveau.”

According to Kelly, if the NHL could get goal-scoring up in the seven-per-game range, that might be enough to make the long-awaited breakthrough on television in the United States."

He's right. The goalie worship, which started around the time Patrick Roy won his first Stanley Cup with Montreal in 1986, is way overboard. How else can you explain Roberto Luongo, despite winning zilch in his NHL career, being more of a star than any single player on the Detroit Red Wings roster?

***

More goals might help the ratings, but is it too late for the Phoenix Coyotes? According to the Globe and Mail, the franchise is on the brink of bankruptcy. ... Jim Lang of Sportsnet actually hissed and booed at the Senators third jersey's when showing highlights of the Pens-Sens game this morning. Then again, this is the guy who thinks "slobberknocker" is a catchy phrase which must be repeated every time a home-run has to be described during the baseball season. ... Ron Maclean and company probably want their first-intermission commentary back as they went on and on about Jason Spezza using an all-composite stick and said it was the reason he was having trouble controlling the puck. Except Spezza uses a wooden blade jammed into a composite shaft and ended up with a hat-trick by the end of the afternoon. Whoops......While he had another great game, Spezza might have the ugliest moustache on the team. That thing is brutal.....If you ever feel the need to torture yourself, just listen to the post-game show on the Team 1200. It is the worst collection of phone callers outside of the weekday Over The Edge show. Unbelievably, people still found opportunities to vent their Spezza hate, saying that his latest scoring exploits only increases his trade value. .... How many of you at home for the game were contemplating making an irate phone call to CBC when 2:00 rolled around and they were still showing a curling match? Only a play or two was missed but you can bet that the Toronto Maple Leafs would never have to endure a similar problem. .... The Penguins are good now but wait until they get Sergei Gonchar and Ryan Whitney back from injury. At that point, they may become Eastern Conference favourites.

Picking The Bones Clean

Craig Hartsburg is new in town and can't really be expected to know the history (and undeserved baggage) of Jason Spezza in Ottawa like the rest of us.

But when the coach publicly criticised his star player in an honest effort to light a fire under the team, he unwittingly set off a firestorm that was laying dormant, ready to be ignited.

Since his former coach, Jacques Martin, called him a "boy" playing a men's game, Spezza has been one of the main punching bags for irate fans and snarky radio hosts. Now that fellow targets like Wade Redden, Ray Emery and Andrej Meszaros have been shipped out of town, Spezza has the spotlight all to himself and everyone is taking turns getting their cheap shots in.

The criticisms were always never far from anyone's lips but when Hartsburg went public with his tried and true motivating tactic, he seemed to legitimize those ideas and now it's a free-for-all.

Take the radio show "Over The Edge" on the Team 1200.

You get to listen to ex-WWF wrestler Glen Kulka rage and ramble about how Hartsburg should be benching Spezza (?!!?) (despite the fact that Hartsburg singled out Spezza for praise after the Montreal game) and that Ottawa's star players don't work hard enough for his liking.

His cohort Lee Versage does nothing to raise the level of conversation and laughs out loud when Kulka hangs up on callers who disagree with him. When the Senators lose, it's always because they aren't "working hard enough". When they win, they talk about the CFL for three hours.

The resentment towards many of the players on the team has reached epic proportions, flamed by the cliched ramblings of media types like Kulka and Versage who appeal only to the lowest common denominator of fan.

Nobody knows where the PR control is on behalf of the Senators. Roy Mlakar is often on the radio but he doesn't lift a finger to defend any of his players against these types of unfounded attacks. Bryan Murray doesn't defend anyone except Martin Gerber. Yes, these are big boys and they can take the heat, but what kind of atmosphere are we creating in this city for hockey? Is it even fun anymore for people?

Someone who is respected by the fans and media, like Daniel Alfredsson or Mike Fisher, needs to step up and defend their teammates before this ugly and negative atmosphere totally engulfs the franchise like it did last season and starts turning off the casual fans from buying tickets.

And don't tell me it's the same in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal when their teams are losing. I've lived in all three of those cities and it never gets as personal and vindictive as it does in Ottawa. Those cities appreciate skilled players and tend to stay loyal, even during the hard times.

In Ottawa, it's just a continual exercise in character assasination. It must be tiresome for all these "experts" to be so angry all the time.

It's just a game after all, isn't it?

***

It's seems to be half and half.

Some are repulsed by Jarkko Ruutu's waving to the Montreal crowd routine and some are amused.

I'm definitely in the latter. Some people take this game way too seriously.

It was funny.

The same way it was funny when Alfredsson pretended to throw his stick into the stands in Toronto.

If Ruutu really upset you by doing that, your pants are on way too tight.

***

Speaking of being uptight, some people are actually complaining that this amazing goal by Mike Ribiero on Tuesday night could be illegal (because of the non-forward momentum of the puck). What? I'm not sure what he was doing with that "shush" thing towards the L.A. bench afterwards though. Ribeiro has always been a bit of a hot dog, and not in a good way. Still a beauty goal though.



***

The crusade continues:

I wrote about how the NHL should honor some of it's more modern greats by renaming some of it's major trophies back in May and now Elliotte Friedman of Hockey Night In Canada has written a really good piece on the same subject.

I only suggested 3 changes - the Hart to the (Gordie) Howe, the Art Ross to the (Wayne) Gretzky and the Norris to the (Bobby) Orr. Friedman ended up making the same choices (no-brainers) but he goes much further and wants to rename virtually every trophy except the Masterton.

I would be a little more careful than that but it's still a good idea whose time has come.

Sunday Notes

It's nice to see someone finally pulling the alarm on the cozy and somewhat sickening relationship that Republican Sarah Palin has been cultivating with the NHL.

People in the NHL have been wallowing in her meaningless "hockey mom" publicity spin which culminated in Palin dropping the puck in Philly (as guest of Flyer owner Ed Snider) last night.

It took Adam Proteau of the Hockey News to finally offer something other than an acquiescent whimper that has been the norm from the attention hungry NHL crowd and I think he's dead on here:

"Listen, I don’t give a tinker’s damn if he supports Sarah Palin on his own time. Stars owner Tom Hicks did just that, and that’s well within his rights. But for Snider to foist his views on his fan base the way he did Saturday night, to openly bang the drum of politicians while they’re still running for office, to associate the NHL with one particular ideology, is beyond nauseating and will go down in history as a black mark on his ownership for the rest of time. ...

Moreover, it’s another element of the cutesy-fication of politicians that has lowered public debate in North America to the equivalent of the phony speech portion of beauty pageants. As the old bromide goes, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, and all Snider did was unnecessarily polarize the experience of all fans who showed up at the Wachovia Center with the sole intent of watching good hockey.

So shame on Snider – and on the NHL for not stepping in and stopping him from denigrating and diminishing the sport as he’s done here. And my eternal thanks to all Flyers fans who booed Palin (and, I’d like to think, the guy who invited her) for their enthusiasm and volume Saturday night."

-The Hockey News

***

Despite the uneven performance of the Senators last night against Detroit, rookie Jesse Winchester again stood out. You can't help but think of Peter Schaefer when you see Winchester dominating on the boards like that. Except the rookie seems to have a good attitude as opposed to the kind of "cooler than thou" aura that Schaefer always gave off.

***

For those of you in Ottawa on the Nikolai Khabibulin watch (or should we say the Gerber Gets Out Of Town watch), you might be happy to hear that the Russian netminder was being praised for his 30 save performance last night despite losing to the Capitals. It was Khabibulin's first game since last April after missing all of training camp in the waiver fiasco.

***

A lot of people are already pulling the "I told you so" card with the Tampa Bay Lightning getting off to a horrible start. Last night they completely collapsed against the Hurricanes and have now allowed at least 39 shots in all three games they've played. For those of you interested, Andre Meszaros played a whopping 27 minutes last night but that wasn't even good for first on the team. Matt Carle hit the 30 minute mark. Sounds to me like they could use a defensive workhorse with size - Kyle McLaren immediately comes to mind.

***

The blog 6th Sens has a pretty funny take on the game last night which includes their thoughts on a possible "underground women's movement" to discredit Mike Fisher, some solid Gerber frustrations and a picture that illustrates the physical similarities between Shean Donovan and a certain famous character from the Goonies who once uttered one of my favourite movie lines ever.

"Hey you guuuuyyyyysssss!"



It's a very good site in the vein of the popular Pensblog. Check them out.

***

I've got to say that the new Hockey Night In Canada theme is actually really good. Seriously. In my opinion it might even be better than the old one that TSN ripped from them. It certainly gets the heartstrings swelling a little. Yah, it's overdramatic but that's kind of the point I think.

Got to hand it to the CBC. They took what could have been a disaster and managed to salvage something out of it. The show itself was pretty good too with more energy than usual.

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On the downside of things as far as HNIC goes, did anyone catch Greg Millen calling Senators coach Craig Hartsburg "Craig Simpson" last night?

Millen made up for it though by relating the story that Hartsburg reorganized the dressing room so that all the defenseman are sitting together as a group, meaning Chris Phillips had to change locker stalls for the one of the first times in his career.

My favourite "locker-room seating story" (yes, scintillating stuff) is how Mark Messier made the New York Rangers training staff remove the GatorAid table from the middle of the dressing room in his first year there so he could make eye contact with everyone in the room from his stall.

Messier is a god.

All Leafs, All The Time

The Toronto Sports Network ...errr Total Sports Network released its NHL television schedule today and the lowly and now completely faceless Toronto Maple Leafs lead the pack with 17 appearances.

The Habs are next at 15 while the rest of the Canadian teams get a perfunctory 10 games (Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary).

While definitely more balanced than before, the same basically holds true over at the CBC who will load up on the Maple Leafs during the regular season and scramble to attract other Canadian viewers during the playoffs who don't know any of the Senators or Montreal players.

No sense in trying to figure it out anymore. It's simple economics and the Leafs could send out a beer league team and still get the same play on television.

The Leafs season is going to be like a train rolling off the tracks into hell but we'll all be watching it over and over and over and over again all year.

Way To Go Scotty

First TSN nicked Chris Cuthbert when the CBC balked at renewing his contract. Big mistake. Cuthbert is the best play-by-play man in the hockey business.

Nonetheless, Hockey Night In Canada survived with the aging Bob Cole and Harry Neale at the helm and a lightweight in Greg Millen.

Then TSN outbid CBC for the upcoming Winter Olympic Games. A major blow but Hockey Night In Canada remained relatively unaffected.

The next chink in the armour came when TSN was granted a license to broadcast up to 70 NHL games next season which includes a slate of nationally televised Toronto Maple Leaf games, once the sole domain of HNIC.

Yet HNIC vowed to move on.

Now CTV, which owns TSN and the French language RDS has silently snatched the iconic HNIC theme song which has been a staple of the Saturday night show for 40 years. They plan to use it on all their hockey broadcasts, including the Leaf games and the hockey portion of the Vancouver Olympics.

What's left for TSN to plunder from the once proud public institution?

Maybe HNIC itself.

As it stands now, the CBC has a six year contract (five years left) to broadcast NHL games on Saturday nights and during the playoffs. Who's to say that the CBC doesn't decide to part ways with the league and become more like their American counterpart PBS at that time? They may not have Don Cherry by then and even Ron Maclean could be sitting beside Bob Mackenzie and Pierre McGuire knocking out his trademark puns with a few more grey hairs speckling his head.

The optics look bad here for the CBC. They tried to use a court case against them by the owner of the song as leverage in their negotiations and got burned. Now they actually have to go ahead and have some kind of public competition for a new song. You just know that this new jingle is going to go over like a lead balloon to the legions of HNIC traditionalists. Why has HNIC debased itself to the point that they now have to hold a nerdy version of Canadian Idol (a program owned by CTV by the way) just to replace the song they let CTV walk away with?

The irony is thick, like the head of CBC sports Scott Moore.

Way to go Scotty. You must be proud.

Don Cherry Goes On A Right-Wing Nutjob Rampage

William Houston of the Globe and Mail has a very funny but all-too scary article on Don Cherry's antics during last Saturday's Coaches Corner on HNIC.

In just 5 minutes, Cherry was putting the flamethrower to Native Canadians, David Suzuki and environmental activist Andrew Ference in a rant that would make even Bill O'Reilly of Fox News blush.

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From the Globe and Mail:

"They struggled on, showing clips from a game between the Penguins and Boston Bruins. Cherry then referred to "a left winger" on the Bruins as "Dr. Suzuki."

The player in question was Andrew Ference, who initiated an environmental program for the Bruins and spends his off-seasons working with children in developing countries. Hockey Night ran a feature on Ference on Dec. 15.

Ference is a defencemen, but in the context of Cherry's politics and ideology, he's a left winger in the mould of famed Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki.

"That was sickening last week by the way," Cherry said of the Ference feature.

"What?" MacLean said. "What is going on with you here?"

"What is this stuff?" Cherry asked. "It's Hockey Night in Canada. And we're talking about saving the world and all that stuff. Let's talk about hockey."

Of course, Cherry talks about subjects unrelated to hockey all the time: fallen police officers, firefighters, members of the military.

At the start of Saturday's segment, he reminded viewers of the real meaning of Christmas: the birth of "baby Jesus. "

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Now, I actually find Cherry to be amusing most of the time but he crossed the line by trying to denigrate a player who has the audacity to be an environmentalist.

So let's get this straight. Don Cherry over the years has now insulted the following people:

Europeans

Russians

Native Canadians

French Canadians

David Suzuki!!!!

Environmentalists

Players who are environmentalists

Left-wingers

Players who wear visors

So who hasn't he insulted?

Stephen Harper

Baby Jesus

Tie Domi

Darcy Tucker

Who will the Cherry hammer fall on next?

Mother Theresa?

If you are white, vote Conservative and are a Christian, you're probably safe.

If not, run for cover.

Brought to you by a federal institution (CBC) payed for by all the taxpayers.

The Old NHL Is Back. Is Anyone Surprised?

Morris Dalla-Costa pens a very important piece here about how clutch and grab hockey is back and the fans are the ones who have to suffer through this crap simply because the NHL and its officiating department can't do anything consistently for more than a season or two.

"There has been a noticeable increase in restraining fouls that go unpunished. There has been an increase in what is termed game management by officials. That means, depending on the situation, a penalty that is called at one point may not be called later in the game.

That goes back to the ridiculous notion that no matter what a player does late in a close game, no penalty should be called so that "players can decide a game, not the referees."

No doubt this turn of events is making Ron Maclean over at Hockey Night In Canada very happy. In fact, it probably makes many in the Canadian hockey media establishment very happy as well.

In my mind, we had only one year of exceptional hockey under the new rules and that was in 05-06. Last year we saw it slip and this season it's back to rewarding the mediocre and the slow footed, just like it was back in the dirty late 90's and early 00's.

The NHL pays lip service to the fact that it wants more goals and more excitement, yet they still allow goalies like Roberto Luongo, Martin Gerber and Dwayne Roloson to wear ridiculously huge gear, especially on their shoulders.

Now they're letting the obstruction go. What's next? Maybe the toe-in-the-crease rule? If a goalie even gets touched nowadays, the play-by-play and colour commentators start complaining about how goalies are getting run.

Why do we glorify the goalie so much anyways? We used to call goalie equipment "the tools of ignorance" and now mediocre to terrible goalies like Dwayne Roloson get more press than the Ales Hemsky's and the Sam Gagner's.

Enough is enough. Shrink the equipment. Reinstall the obstruction standard. And let's make all penalties a full two-minutes regardless if the power-play team scores or not while we're at it.

If the game is ever going to grow in the USA (don't listen to the Canadian media elite who says it's not important) goal scoring needs to go up. Big time.

I didn't hear anyone complaining about the game in the 80's when there were sometimes 10 goals scored in a game. From what I remember, that was some of the best and most exciting hockey ever played.

William Houston versus Hockey Night In Canada

The dinosaur mentality over at HNIC has really been grating on the Globe's William Houston lately and he comes out with some solid stat proof that shows Ron Maclean doesn't know what he's talking about when he says the obstruction crackdown has had no positive effect on the game.

Hockey Night In Canada Sputtering At The Moment

If you are not a regular reader of Damien Cox's blog or columns, then you're missing out. For some reason, the normally mild-mannered Cox is really cranky this year and is bashing out columns on his keyboard like a bear with a thorn in his paw.

His recent take on HNIC rings true:

"Much of hockey-loving Canada was left with the same question after Hockey Night in Canada's 10-hour marathon on Saturday. Who the hell is P.J. Stock, and has anyone ever absorbed so much air time and said so very little? "

I concur.

Like William Houston of the Globe says, the Hotstove segment (in between the third and second periods) hasn't been relevant since Al "The Beauty" Strachan was unceremoniously booted, apparently due to complaints from various NHL club executives.

It's now even harder putting up with Ron Maclean's weekly rants about the good old days of the NHL when you could clutch and grab with impunity without some valid entertainment like Strach enraging Gary Bettman or ripping into the Toronto Maple Leaf ownership.

Hockey Night In Canada has basically devolved into the shrine for the fourth line player. Players like Sidney Crosby and Ilya Kovalchuk get short shrift from Maclean and Don Cherry. But good old pluggers like Gary Roberts and Darcy Tucker are celebrated beyond all conventions of good taste.

The dinosaur mentality is cleary in charge at HNIC, no matter how many cosmetic changes are made.

Ron Maclean - The Dinosaur

Remember when CBC Hockey Night In Canada host Ron Maclean seemed like the urban and intelligent antidote to partner Don Cherry's small town bombast? Anyone who has been watching the iconic program since the new rules against obstruction came into play after the lockout, already knows that Maclean is, if not the biggest, then the most vociferous opponent of the new standards.

Finally, finally.... someone takes him to task for this ridiculous attitude.

William Houston of the Globe does a good job picking apart Macleans foolish and ill-conceived notions that the game was better when players were allowed to hook and hold. Does Maclean even remember the game circa 1999? It was unwatchable for everyone except the hardcore. Even Cherry seems to be more progressive nowadays.

"MacLean's argument was this: Because the 1987 tournament was the best ever (according to Kelley), and because players were allowed to hook and hold, hooking and holding should stay in the game.

"Everybody loved this hockey," MacLean told Colin Campbell, the NHL's senior vice-president and director of hockey operations.

Needless to say, MacLean has consistently applied wonky logic to arguments that range from silly to hardly plausible. For example, he says that, because goal scoring has not increased, zero tolerance hasn't worked. But changing the game was not about goal scoring. It was about improving the quality of play."

Ron Maclean is a Joke and other items

There’s been a “mild” shakeup at Hockey Night In Canada, which is too bad because we all know that what’s needed is a major one.

Bob Cole and Harry Neale are being brought back but in a reduced role where they will no longer be the number one broadcasting team for Saturday nights. This is obviously due to the rising tide of complaints, most of them from Ottawa fans, who feel that Cole and Neale are unable to competently call games anymore, due to the persistent mangling of player names as well as their reputation as homers for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

It’s hard to criticize Cole who has been such a presence for years on the Hockey Night institution but he has obviously regressed in his play by play abilities. If it’s not a Leaf player, then Cole seems to have trouble recognizing him and also has trouble mounting any kind of enthusiasm for anything other than a Leaf goal. Maybe it’s not his fault. For years, the CBC has made the Leafs number one priority for its national broadcasts and it backfired on them when the Senators made it to the finals and nobody in the country knew who the hell they were. Because of this, the CBC lost a shitload of viewers who are more used to the Leafs storming out of the gates in the first round and then dying a painful death to the Flyers or Devils thereafter.

So we can now expect more Sens national broadcasts but instead of Cole and Neale calling them, it will be Jim Hughson and Greg Millen who until now have called the west coast games for the latter half of the Saturday night double-header. Hughson is definitely an upgrade but now we get stuck with Greg Millen who is only really capable of complaining about the officiating. In fact, the entire CBC hockey organization has made it a point to try and sabotage the new NHL rules against interference. Ron Maclean actually surpasses Millen in moral outrage, using every opportunity he gets to lambaste the officials who are ruining “our game”. He just won’t let it go.

There is a sentiment out there that Gary Bettman pushed through these rules to increase scoring and ultimately to appease American broadcasters. For some reason, people are aghast at this. Remember the NHL before the lockout? It was terrible. It was turning into soccer. But it didn’t matter to the CBC people because ratings in Canada had never been higher. But the league cannot survive on Canadian support alone. Only 6 out of 30 franchises are in the north. The game is not “ours” anymore. Nor should it be.

European and American players make up more than 50 percent of the players in the league but the only ones who are glorified by Maclean and Don Cherry are the Canadian grinders. They elevate the personalities of people like Tie Domi and Darcy Tucker over the obvious choices in Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin so much that it has brainwashed the average Canadian hockey fan into thinking that their teams need to be filled with fourth liners with “character”. Don Cherry calls Sidney Crosby a “hotdog” every chance he gets and his insipid host Ron Maclean lets him get away with it.

Come on!

As I see it, the CBC should let Cole and Neale retire gracefully, put a muzzle on Maclean, dump Millen and let him stay on Leafs TV, bring back Chris Cuthbert at the first opportunity and increase exposure of Kelly Hrudey, Gary Galley and other new bloods. OK, you gotta keep Cherry because he’s entertaining but let’s quit with the whole “our game” business. It’s bloody irrelevant.