The Two-Line Pass

I remember how much I hated the last NHL.com redesign. I found it to be oddly laid out, clunky and at times difficult to navigate.

Not so with the new one. Everything looks great, and it’s more intuitive, especially (especially!) the stats page.

But what’s going to make NHL.com the ultimate official sports league website — and that’s not in any way hyperbolic — is the new GameCenter Live feature. This is literally going to be the worst thing that ever happened to my social life. Way worse than the way I acted and dressed in junior high.

Live video feeds with live stats, replay videos of hits, saves and goals appearing on an overview of the ice as they happen, full replays of what seems to be an extensive library of classic games, the ability to watch up to four games at once, in-game chat with other fans (won’t that be unbearable?), and best of all, the ability to view the same game from multiple camera angles. I don’t even know how they’re going to do that.

Yeah, it’s going to cost money, and it’s probably not going to be the same as Center Ice, but if this means I can watch five games at once (six with picture-in-picture!), I’m all for it. I don’t care what it costs, I’m buying this. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a way to purchase it yet, or even see how much it costs, but this can’t possibly be a bad thing. I am completely pumped for this.

The NHL gets criticized a lot in the blogosphere, and rightly so most of the time, but this is unquestionably awesome. Bravo.

Have a peek at this video of Mark Messier doing an interview with ESPN.

First they talk about Yankee Stadium, then they talk about Brett Favre.

Finally, 2:45 into the interview, they actually ask him hockey-related questions. He has to rate scenarios on a scale of “How Hockey” a situation is. I wish I were making that up. Every time the anchor does the cornball delivery on “HOW HOCKEY IS THAT,” I want him to contract hantavirus from the cheese sandwiches at craft service.

First topic: Players leaving the NHL for the KHL (not that they could be bothered to mention the latter by name). HOW HOCKEY IS THAT?!

“I think we all know the NHL is the best league in the world, and if you are a hockey player with any aspirations, the NHL is the league you want to play in. The Russian league is becoming something we definitely have to pay attention to, and the folks over there have a tremendous amount of money and they’re trying to build the credibility of it. We definitely have to have a working relationship with them in order so we’re not stealing eachother’s players that are under contract.”

Second topic: “Tough guy” Sean Avery works for Vogue Magazine and that’s borderline gay, right? HOW HOCKEY IS THAT?!

“I think it’s great. What makes any sport or any player interesting is what he does other than what we see as fans watching him on the ice. Outside interests are always intriguing to the fans, so what he does away from the ice is good for not only him but for the sport of hockey.”

Third topic: Seriously, bro, wouldn’t you call Avery a big gay loser?

“Personally, I wouldn’t. He’s in the right place. He’s a single guy and he’s getting to meet a lot of girls, so why wouldn’t he do it? He’s smarter than everyone else.”

Fourth topic: Sid Crosby’s living with Mario Lemieux again! What are they GAY or something? HOW HOCKEY IS THAT?!

“What a great opportunity for a young superstar like himself to learn from the best ever. I was there during the playoffs over Mario’s house and saw Sidney there. Great opportunity for him to not only feel comfortable and not have to worry about living by himself as a young guy in the NHL, but to live with Mario who, in my mind was one of the best ever and a tremendous leader in his own right. What a tremendous opportunity for Sidney.”

It’s nice to be pandered to.

First it was the team’s name that drew my ire. Then they offered Brett Favre a contract so everyone could yuk it up and get some cheap publicity. Now, there is a confluence of two events that make me seriously dislike the Iowa Chops even further.

First is that they’re having a contest to name their squad of ice girls. The names you can choose from are exactly as bad and pun-filled as you’d expect. There’s the Ice Girls, which is as inoffensive as it is uncreative. There are the Bacon Bits, Baby Backs and Applesauce, because get it the team’s name is Chops and the logo is a pig! There are also the Chop Chicks and Chopettes.

My favorite, though, is “the Hat Tricks.” Now, I’m not one to feel as though I’m “down” with what happens on “the streets,” but I believe Dr. Dre has a song in which he implies that women are nothing but “hoes and tricks.” So let’s hope that one wins.

The other big reason to dislike the Chops is that they, like John McCain, are now using vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as a marketing tool.

The other day, she gave a speech in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in which she expressed her belief that the name Chops was “cool.” Of course, she felt the same way about the Bridge To Nowhere and forcing some poor high school hockey player into a shotgun wedding and the national spotlight, but who am I to judge? Later in the speech, she said she might round up a few local Hockey Moms (yech) and hit up a Chops game. More campaign promises upon which a candidate won’t deliver, and another $100 to the Alaska Special Olympics from stupid Keith Olbermann.

So it begs the question, if Sarah Palin has heard of the Iowa Chops and plans to attend a game, why don’t you?  Opening night (Friday, October 10th at 7:05pm vs. Peoria Rivermen) is just three weeks away, so now is the perfect time to pick up your tickets for the upcoming season.  There is a new team, new affiliate, and lower ticket prices, so now is the time to find out what Sarah Palin knows… it is time to Dig the Pig!

HEY! Barack Obama got in a lot of trouble for using a phrase like that. Apparently, even the elitist, arugala-eating Iowa Chops aren’t above dirty campaign tactics.

TOEWSFACE !!!

We’re now something like 21 days out from the start of the NHL season, which means I have to get a move on  with these season previews. This is mainly for two reasons: 1) I am lazy and there’s no way I’ll do one of these every day, and 2) These started early enough that if I just stop doing them entirely you’ll have forgotten by October anyway. Oh and I guess also to show off my near-infinite knowledge of the National Hockey League. I’ll be previewing the teams in reverse order of finish in the 2007-08 season. Please note, though, that this is the opinion of one man, however smart and handsome he may be.

Chicago Blackhawks, you’re on the clock.

The last person you want to be like is Bill Wirtz. No one’s death should be a cause célèbre that actually makes people happy.

While he was philanthropic and loyal almost to a fault in some cases, Old Man Wirtz’s stranglehold on the team he owned for more than four decades had an entire city turned against him and it for the better part of the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st.

More after the jump.

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We’re now something like 23 days out from the start of the NHL season, which means I have to get a move on  with these season previews. This is mainly for two reasons: 1) I am lazy and there’s no way I’ll do one of these every day, and 2) These started early enough that if I just stop doing them entirely you’ll have forgotten by October anyway. Oh and I guess also to show off my near-infinite knowledge of the National Hockey League. I’ll be previewing the teams in reverse order of finish in the 2007-08 season. Please note, though, that this is the opinion of one man, however smart and handsome he may be.

Vancouver Canucks, you’re on the clock.

This is the Sedins’ show now.

Before, they were kind of in that nebulous group of players that seem good enough for the first line, but are largely unregarded as such throughout the league. It has often been my contention that, were they not twins but remained the exact same players they are, no one outside of the Northwest Conference would really think about them too much one way or the other.

But the league is going to have to start thinking about them, and hard. Daniel and Henrik are two of the best players in the league that get very little credit for what they bring to the rink every night. I mean, LOOK at these guys (and enjoy the sounds of Molly Hatchet while you’re at it), and then think about how Vancouver fans continue to say they aren’t true first-line players.

More after the jump.

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We’re now something like 26 days out from the start of the NHL season so I figure this is as good a time as any to start doing the season previews. This is mainly for two reasons: 1) I am lazy and there’s no way I’ll do one of these every day, and 2) This is early enough that if I just stop doing them entirely you’ll have forgotten by October anyway. Oh and I guess also to show off my near-infinite knowledge of the National Hockey League. I’ll be previewing the teams in reverse order of finish in the 2007-08 season. Please note, though, that this is the opinion of one man, however smart and handsome he may be.

Florida Panthers, you’re on the clock.

Oh man is this going to be a bad team.

Bryan McCabe is the big offseason pickup is proof enough of that. The Panthers franchise is one with a complete lack of direction right now. It just traded its best player, malcontent though he was, and replaced his offensive production with almost literally nothing.

Not that being bad is an unknown situation in Florida, or anything, but this is going to get ugly even by Florida Panthers standards.

On offense, there’s.. well, there’s Nathan Horton and Stephen Weiss who are pretty good and after that.. umm.. I guess David Booth. After that, there’s a bunch of guys who scored less than 40 points. Repeat: less than 40.

More after the jump.

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I usually go out of my way to avoid mentioning piece-of-garbage, no-info, no-contacts hack hockey rumormonger Eklund around here (he is the Voldemort of the Two-Line Pass), but this was just way too much.

Here’s something from HFBoards today that, as a hockey writer, made me want to punch You-Know-Who right in the you-know-what (penis).

Basically, YKW cited his L.A. “source” regarding the Matheiu Schneider trade rumors. The post from his awful website follows:

According to an LA source: “Anaheim’s Mathieu Schneider is the one the Kings are seriously considering. Other names under consideration would be San Jose’s Kyle McLaren, Florida’s Karlis Skrastins, Nashville’s Greg de Vries, St. Louis’ Jay McKee and Pittsburgh’s Darryl Sydor. There’s one more name out there that might surface as a real option in the next couple days, but as always these talks are pretty fluid.”

That source, by the way, was the blog of Los Angeles Daily News beat writer Dan Hammond, who does a hell of a job. Says Hammond:

Lombardi and Hextall made it clear at the GM breakfast that the Kings are still actively pursuing a veteran defenseman. From what I’m hearing, those talks could get particularly intense this week, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a deal get done.

The names? Anaheim’s Mathieu Schneider is one the Kings are seriously considering. Other names under consideration would be San Jose’s Kyle McLaren, Florida’s Karlis Skrastins, Nashville’s Greg de Vries, St. Louis’ Jay McKee and Pittsburgh’s Darryl Sydor. There’s one more name out there that might surface as a real option in the next couple days, but as always these talks are pretty fluid.

I mean, that takes balls to straight word-for-word copy and paste someone else’s work and pass it off as your own. I mean, it’s not even an OBSCURE blog. I read Hammond’s blog several times a week and I really don’t care very much about the Kings one way or another. It’s just a good blog and, obviously a great source of information.

But what YKW did next was really gutless. Instead of, say, apologizing and admitting total fault for committing one of the biggest journalistic crimes one can commit (granted, he is not a journalist, but rather some jerkoff from Philly), he does the following:

It has been pointed out to me that my source emailed me the LA Kings rumour from Rich Hammond’s article found here…
http://www.insidesocal.com/kings/2008/09/defense-options.html

I apologize for this not being corrected as a family emergency has had me out of touch since my update. I have also emailed Rich apologizing directly to him, as I had no idea that he had written the same thing. I have removed it and suggest that you read Rich’s Article here.

http://www.insidesocal.com/kings/2008/09/defense-options.html

I have never had this happen before and I will be sure to do my best to not allow such a thing to happen in the future.

So yeah, a “family emergency” is the reason it’s okay to plagiarize. I’ll be sure to let college students in on the big news.

Professor: “Bill, this paper you handed in…”
Bill: “Yeah?”
P: “It’s literally just a paperback copy of The Brothers Karamazov with Dostoevsky’s name crossed out and ‘Bill Stevens’ written on it.”
BS: “And?”
P: “That’s plagiarism.”
BS: “Well my dog was sick.”
P: “Why didn’t you say so? A+!”

As though it hadn’t been repeatedly proven enough that YKW is a total fraud. This is just sickening, even by his low standards.

Make sure to send him pictures of big black “NHL rumors” at eklund@hockeybuzz.com.

We’re now something like 28 days out from the start of the NHL season so I figure this is as good a time as any to start doing the season previews. This is mainly for two reasons: 1) I am lazy and there’s no way I’ll do one of these every day, and 2) This is early enough that if I just stop doing them entirely you’ll have forgotten by October anyway. Oh and I guess also to show off my near-infinite knowledge of the National Hockey League. I’ll be previewing the teams in reverse order of finish in the 2007-08 season. Please note, though, that this is the opinion of one man, however smart and handsome he may be.

Phoenix Coyotes, you’re on the clock.

We saw a little bit of this team’s capabilities last year. Very little. But there’s reason for optimism in the desert.

Yeah, the Coyotes were pretty bad last year. Granted they finished above .500 (by a game) and ended with 83 points in a very strong Pacific Conference that sent three teams to the playoffs and saw two teams get out of the first round (the one that didn’t, Anaheim, lost to Dallas). However, I liked the Coyotes’ style of play last year and could stomach their announcers, so I watched a fair number of their games, and I can tell you what their problem was.

More after the jump.

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We’re now something like 29 days out from the start of the NHL season so I figure this is as good a time as any to start doing the season previews. This is mainly for two reasons: 1) I am lazy and there’s no way I’ll do one of these every day, and 2) This is early enough that if I just stop doing them entirely you’ll have forgotten by October anyway. Oh and I guess also to show off my near-infinite knowledge of the National Hockey League. I’ll be previewing the teams in reverse order of finish in the 2007-08 season. Please note, though, that this is the opinion of one man, however smart and handsome he may be.

Toronto Maple Leafs, you’re on the clock.

For the record, I’m still laughing about that Jeff Finger contract.

Jeff Finger. For $3.5 million dollars. Holy hell.

And the best part, it might not even be the worst contract on the team. Jason Blake at $4 million’s right up there. And yeah, the Leafs fans out there are going to argue that he had 52 points last year and that’s no so terrible, which is true enough. But here’s the problem, and it points to a problem we’ve seen with a lot of these bottom-of-the-barrel teams I’ve previewed so far: no offense at all.

Last year, the Maple Leafs were paced by a 78-point season from Mats Sundin. Pretty solid. After that, the next closest guys are Nik Antropov, Tomas Kaberle and the aforementioned Mr. Blake. Point totals for those three: 56, 53, 52. What do they all have in common? Sundin was the player with whom they combined to score the most points. He and Antropov combined on 25 goals (45 percent of Antropov’s scoring), 22 for Kaberle (42 percent) and 16 with Blake (31 percent).

Now the Leafs might have to live with the idea of not having Sundin around any more. That’s a scary thought.

More after the jump.

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We’re now something like 32 days out from the start of the NHL season so I figure this is as good a time as any to start doing the season previews. This is mainly for two reasons: 1) I am lazy and there’s no way I’ll do one of these every day, and 2) This is early enough that if I just stop doing them entirely you’ll have forgotten by October anyway. Oh and I guess also to show off my near-infinite knowledge of the National Hockey League. I’ll be previewing the teams in reverse order of finish in the 2007-08 season. Please note, though, that this is the opinion of one man, however smart and handsome he may be.

Columbus Blue Jackets, you’re on the clock.

This isn’t the first time the Blue Jackets have dropped big money in the offseason in hopes of reaching the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. Right after the lockout, the team spent tons of cash on over-the-hill versions of Adam Foote and Sergei Fedorov. Fedorov was pulling down $6.08 million on the cap, and Foote was getting $4.6 million.

Money not-so-well spent. In the nearly three years both were with the team (they were traded at the deadline this year to Colorado and Washtington), Columbus won 35, 33 and 34 games. Ouch.

But with that $10-plus million freed up — along with a bunch more from letting some overpaid players go — it allowed the Jackets to either sign or trade for a number of players. It’s been a very busy offseason. Some of the moves help them now, some down the road, and some simply don’t.

The moves at the blue line seem nice. Free agent signing Mike Commodore is well-traveled and a very solid player. He’s well worth the $3.75 million he’ll get the next couple years, but by the end of this five-year deal, I’m not so sure. But maybe one of the best trades of the offseason for any team was what really beefed up the once-thin Jackets blue line. Offloading troublesome winger Nik Zherdev and promising but underperforming center Danny Fritsche for Christian Backman (eh) and Fedor Tyutin (hey!) addresses where Columbus really had problems. Flashy forwards like Zherdev make highlight reels but they don’t play defense, and that’s been Columbus’ problem, theoretically at least.

More after the jump.

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