Official NHL Regular Season Thread... Capitals win President's trophy

[dmxfury]

From what I'm reading Savard is relatively ok, is that right? Deadset any additional info on how he is doing?

 

[DeadsetAce]

they're just saying concussion for now. don't believe he went to the hospital...but i haven't heard much. not sure what the local stations/media are reporting tho since i'm in nyc...bjm might have a better idea

 

[smoke ya later]

 

[newbs24]

As much as I think Avery is a child, he does do things that make me laugh. That was one.

 

[jch3]

Originally Posted by smoke ya later

I don't really like Avery but that was good.

 

[bjm5295]

savard didnt go to the hospital. stayed overnight in the hotel with a trainer. theyre saying grade 2 concussion now and that his motion is fine and hes eating. seems to have gotten a very lucky break but still, its a concussion nonetheless.

we should call up jeremy reich and send a line of him/thornton/lucic out against cooke on the 19th.

 

[son of troy]

Originally Posted by bjm5295

savard didnt go to the hospital. stayed overnight in the hotel with a trainer. theyre saying grade 2 concussion now and that his motion is fine and hes eating. seems to have gotten a very lucky break but still, its a concussion nonetheless.

we should call up jeremy reich and send a line of him/thornton/lucic out against cooke on the 19th.

I have a better idea. The Peguins should drop him off the worst part of Boston late night and he should be forced to wear a shirt that says, " I am Matt Cooke".

  

 

[proshares]

[h1]

[h1]GMs study hits to head[/h1]
Associated Press

BOCA RATON, Fla., March 8 -- Hits to the head that can cause concussions were the main topic as NHL general managers began their annual meetings Monday.

A discussion of a two-year independent medical study undertaken by the league included a video presentation showing footage of a number of well-known hits to the head during games. The league estimates there are 60,000 to 70,000 body hits during a season, and during the past 2½ years there have been 200 concussions reported among players.

In 21 games reviewed from this season, showing an average of 22 contacts to the head per game, 30 percent of those hits were shoulder to head. Most body checks with the shoulder are considered legal hits.

"We're looking at can we reduce concussions that come from legal hits?" said Colin Campbell, the NHL's director of hockey operations. "Our challenge today, tomorrow and Wednesday at this meeting is to see if we can arrive at some sort of conclusion that will make the game safer to play and reduce concussions.

"What we don't want to do is damage one of the basic fibers of the game."

The NHL is struggling to minimize concussions without damaging a sport that clearly relies on its physicality to enhance spectator entertainment.

"The hits are great until someone gets hurt," Campbell said. "The question is, do we want to take shoulders to the head out of the game of hockey?"

Dr. Winne Meeuwisse, the NHL consulting physician, said the study did not pinpoint a general trend in the type of hits that result in concussions. Meeuwisse also pointed out not every concussion results from a direct hit to the head, but could happen from a whiplash effect from a hit to another part of the body.

"They happen at all different places and in all different ways," he said. "They're open ice. They're along the boards and glass, which is different than being against the boards and glass, which also happens.

"They happen in the offensive and defensive zone, the neutral zone, and they happen in all different mechanisms of contact."

The issue of hits to the heads was illuminated at the meeting by the concussion suffered by Boston Bruins center Marc Savard when Pittsburgh Penguins forward Matt Cooke blindsided him with a shoulder hit Sunday.

Peter Chiarelli, the general manager of the Bruins, said Savard was cleared to fly home to Boston on Monday. Savard told him he was "very tired and wanted to go to bed."

"I guess the timing on this thing is good from the perspective that we can discuss it," said Chiarelli, who added the Savard incident was not specifically discussed at the meeting.

"What I saw, what I thought was, he was in a position of vulnerability, which is not a criteria right now for supplemental discipline. These are things we talked about all this morning. We're genuine about this [concern] and it's the balance between physicality and the hits to the head."

Players have become bigger and equipment better, which has made the game faster. One outgrowth of that fact is the possibility of more injuries.

"It's clear that a lot of these concussions are from unsuspected blows on lateral players," said Brian Burke, general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. "That's the particular thing we have to look at. But, again, it's a tightrope; there can't be this wave of sentiment that we have to take hitting out of this game."

Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press

[/h1]

 

[DeadsetAce]

Originally Posted by Son of Troy

Originally Posted by bjm5295

savard didnt go to the hospital. stayed overnight in the hotel with a trainer. theyre saying grade 2 concussion now and that his motion is fine and hes eating. seems to have gotten a very lucky break but still, its a concussion nonetheless.

we should call up jeremy reich and send a line of him/thornton/lucic out against cooke on the 19th.

I have a better idea. The Peguins should drop him off the worst part of Boston late night and he should be forced to wear a shirt that says, " I am Matt Cooke".

  

let's go with both ideas

 

[dmxfury]

Ha ha "I am Matt Cookt", that got me


Can't wait for the playoffs, hockey rules

 

[philballa09]

Originally Posted by smoke ya later

  

whata clown

 

[DeadsetAce]

savy still not feeling any better according to bruins coach claude julien

Cooke getting light suspension?

With all the talk surrounding Matt Cooke's hit on Marc Savard, there's speculation that Cooke will be handed a long suspension. But the NHL's discipline czar, Colin Campbell, hinted that a punishment may not be as heavy-handed.

He told The Fan 590 in Toronto (via NESN.com) that he didn't think it was an elbow-to-head hit. Instead, he said it was a shoulder-to-head hit.

"We just watched it for about an hour and a half, about eight of us," Campbell said.

This probably means that they'll come down lightly on Cooke, despite him being the latest poster boy of why the NHL needs to have stricter rules on headshots.

 

[sosly]

Anyone post that yet?

Someone needs to make a gif of Turco's reaction 

 

[smoke ya later]

why did Crosby reject Letterman twice already, If I were Gary Bettman I would fly to Pittsburgh and rip into him Nascar style. -Eric Husselius

 

[bjm5295]

Chris Chelios is headed back to the show.

Chelios
Chelios

The 48-year-old defenseman, a three-time Norris Trophy winner, has been called up by the Atlanta Thrashers, general manager Don Waddell told ESPN.com on Wednesday.

"Can't wait. Got to make the most out of this chance," Chelios said in a text message to ESPN.com.

Chelios had 22 points (5 goals, 17 assists) in 46 games with the AHL's Chicago Wolves this season. He signed an NHL deal with the Thrashers on March 2. The Wolves are Atlanta's primary AHL affiliate.

"Chris has been an outstanding leader and mentor for our young players in Chicago and his level of play has made him deserving of this opportunity," Waddell said, according to STATS LLC. "He's a tremendous competitor who strengthens our group of defensemen and instantly adds a veteran presence to our locker room."

The Chicago native last played in the NHL last May 27 with the Detroit Red Wings against the Chicago Blackhawks in the Western Conference finals.

At 48, Chelios is still three years younger than the oldest man to ever play in an NHL game. Gordie Howe was 51 when he scored 15 goals for the Hartford Whalers in 1979-80.

EDIT:

Pittsburgh Penguins winger Matt Cooke has escaped suspension for a hit that knocked out center Marc Savard of the Boston Bruins.

 

[DeadsetAce]

Wednesday, March 10, 2010
To each his own

---

By David Fleming
ESPN The Magazine


This story appears in the March 22 issue of ESPN The Magazine.

Bruce Boudreau is thinking about tea.

It's early on a cold winter morning in Arlington, Va., and withpractice about to start, the coach of the red-hot Capitals has amillion things on his mind. As Boudreau makes his way to the ice, a fanreaches over a gate and hands him an old hockey stick. It's dingy andbulky enough to pass for a railroad tie, but without hesitating,Boudreau stops and cradles the wood stick in his hands. Hockey playersand their sticks form the most sacred connection in sports, and by thetime Boudreau closes his fingers around the familiar teardrop-shapeknob of white tape at the stick's end, he knows: This one was his.Instantly he's transported to a kitchen in the heart of Toronto duringthe greatest hockey season of his life.

In 1974-75, while playing for the Toronto Marlboros, the MapleLeafs' junior team, Boudreau and his sticks scored an astronomical 165points. Before games, the 20-year-old Boudreau would sit in his kitchenand customize the fiberglass curve of his weapon by carefully steamingit over a teakettle. Then he'd wedge it under a door hinge and bend ituntil it was perfect, race outside and plunge it into the snow to setthe blade. With the kettle at a boil, he'd have a cup of tea whilewaiting for the snow to complete its work. "Even after 35 years, when Ifelt that stick in my hands and saw the blade, I instinctively knew itwas mine," says Boudreau. "Hockey players have always been a littlecrazy about their sticks. We're different, I guess. Our sticks become apart of our DNA."

[h4]HOF Sticks[/h4]
Check out the evolution of NHL sticks via pictures right here

Although the connection rarely reaches such depths, mostprofessional athletes have complex relationships with their equipment.Tennis legend Ivan Lendl always switched rackets at the ball change(every seventh and ninth games). Ted Williams used to go to theLouisville Slugger factory every spring and spend hours inspecting woodsamples to find the perfect piece for his bats. The ties that bind areespecially strong when the equipment in question is an implement -- beit stick, mallet, racket or club. Just ask Phil Mickelson, who, untilrecently, was exploiting a loophole in USGA rules so he could continueusing a 20-year-old wedge that would have otherwise been illegal.

But in no other sport does the connection between athlete andequipment involve contact with the tongue. Hockey players have alwaysbeen superstitious, dunking sticks into toilets or garbage cans beforegames for good luck. They also use athletic tape as if they were tattooartists, branding each blade and knob with a unique style and pattern.Then, last winter, after watching teammate Maxime Talbot spit on his stick for luck, Pittsburgh's Tyler Kennedybecame a YouTube sensation when a camera caught him giving his stick atongue bath after a shift against Florida. "Tyler Kennedy's stick ismade of peppermint!" posted Deadspin. Go ahead and gag. Kennedy and hiscohorts will only shrug and point out that he scored two goals in thatgame.

[h3][/h3]
Modern sticks are made of aerospace-grade carbon fiber that is fivetimes stronger than steel and two times stiffer, making slap shotsnorth of 100 mph commonplace.

It was a onetime gesture for Kennedy, but no more disgust-causingthan sucking on a finger after a pin prick would be for the rest of us."To a hockey player sticks aren't equipment," says Caps star Alex Ovechkin."They are a piece of your body." That's in no small part a function oftime spent in close contact. In no other major league sport does anathlete spend so many hours cradling his or her, ahem, implement.Counting practice, the typical NHL player holds his stick for nearly 15hours a week during the season, versus roughly three (counting battingpractice) for the average MLB player. By comparison, a typical marriedfather in the U.S. spends less than seven hours per week with his kids.

So while the connection to most other athletic equipment (and,sometimes, offspring) remains largely tangential or idiosyncratic, overthe past two centuries the symbiosis between hockey player and stickhas developed so that even a stick lick no longer seems bizarre. Inevery game he plays, Ovechkin uses his stick like an extension of hishands: to pass and shoot, to break records and make millions. The NHL'sleading scorer also uses it as a crutch to get up after big hits. Hewields it high and with two hands, like a nightstick, in scrums infront of the net. He slaps it on the ice (above a Capitals logo thatuses a stick for its 't') to honor soldiers in the stands introduced onthe giant screen. He taps it against the boards to applaud a teammateafter a fight or against the goaltender's shin pads after a good save.He uses his stick to open and close the bench door. To calm his nerveslate in games, Ovechkin will sit on the boards with his back to the iceand his stick in his lap, like a baby blanket, and lovingly retape theblade.

Watch him long enough and it becomes tough to tell where Ovechkinends and his stick begins. His success, and the Caps', depends on it.Hockey can be breathtakingly violent, but at its core the sportrequires a level of touch and awareness similar to golf's. "The game isall about feel," says Washington's Mike Green,who last season reluctantly gave his favorite stick to the Hall of Fameafter scoring in eight straight games, an NHL record for defensemen."If I pause to interpret what I'm sensing when the puck is on my stick,that extra split second can be the difference between a shot and agoal, a win or a loss or getting my head taken off. So the stick has tofeel like a piece of you."

That link is as old as hockey. In 1789 English settlers foundedCanada's first university, Kings College, in Windsor, Nova Scotia. Inwinter, when the pond on campus froze over, students took their gamesof hurling, an Irish field game, from grass to ice. Nova Scotia'snatives, the Mi'kmaq, used the area's abundant rock elms, yellow birchand maple to carve the very first sticks for those games ofhurling-on-ice.Mi'kmaq craftsmen scoured the forest floor for the L-shape trunk-rootcombinations that gave the sticks their familiar shape. Those sticksbecame known as "hockeys" (no one is sure why), and so did the sport,which migrated west along with the population. The father of organizedhockey, James Creighton -- an engineer and hockey enthusiast born inNova Scotia who published a standard set of rules in 1877 -- championedthe sport in Montreal and Ottawa, where he introduced it to the sons ofLord Stanley, governor general of Canada. Stanley was so enamored ofthe game that in 1893 he spent 10 guineas (about $900) on a silver rosebowl and offered his Stanley Cup as the prize for the best hockey teamin the land.

[font=verdana, arial, geneva]Caps forward Eric Fehr put a modern twist on his stick.[/font]

In the 1899 Stanley Cup Finals, members of the Winnipeg Victoriasbattled rivals from Montreal. Afterward, an unknown Victorias playerinked the entire strange tale of the championship onto his stick. Thereare snippets from the pregame speech ("We have the men who can win this... ") and a recap of the second and final game of the series. Before8,000 spectators, Winnipeg held a 1-0 lead after 58 minutes, whenMontreal's Bob McDougall slashed and "punctured" Winnipeg's TonyGingras, who had to be carried off the ice. When Gingras' teammatesangrily protested what they thought was a lenient call, the insultedref left the arena. He returned an hour later and gave Winnipeg 15minutes to return to the ice. When the team refused, the Cup wasawarded to Montreal.

It's all right there, on both sides of the stick.This is what makes hockey sticks so special. They don't just directpucks; they tell stories. Undersized in the NHL's bruiser era, the5'9", 170-pound Boudreau compensated by adding four inches to his stickwhen the Leafs called him up in 1976. It didn't work. He played just141 games in eight seasons with the Leafs and Blackhawks. The sticks ofanother Blackhawks player, future Hall of Famer Bobby Hull, testifiedto the aftereffects of a 1964 car accident that severed a tendon in theindex finger of the wing's right hand; Hull had the knobs shaved almostin half to make them easier to grip. A century later, the back side ofthe Victoria's stick is still searching for absolution: "I made amistake," it confesses, "and I am sorry for it."

Special permission and white cotton gloves are required to hold theVictoria's stick and admire its hockey hieroglyphics. It's stored inthe fireproof and humidity-controlled archives of the Hockey Hall ofFame in Toronto. The stick collection is housed on a rack 20 feet highand 50 feet long and includes thousands from nearly every milestone inthe game's history. Nine miles to the east, Lord Stanley's rose bowlglimmers under perfect stage lighting and the cathedral ceiling on thesecond floor of the Hall's main museum. But the stick archive is whatleaves All-Stars, old-timers and dignitaries slack-jawed. They alreadyunderstand the bond between players and their sticks, so to them thisis much more than an equipment rack -- it's the soul of their sportwrit large.

[h3][/h3]
The Pens' Tyler Kennedy became a YouTube sensation when a camera caughthim giving his stick a tongue bath after a shift against the Panthers.

On the right side, halfway up, is the blue graphite composite stickthat recent Team USA forward and former Wisconsin star JinelleZaugg-Siergiej used to score the game-winner in quadruple overtimeagainst Harvard in the 2007 Women's Frozen Four. Less than 10 feet awayis the old boat oar used by Cyclone Taylor, hockey's Babe Ruth, when hehelped the Ottawa Senators win the Cup in 1909.

There's a Gretzky stick with almost zero flex and black tape turnedgray by his habit of using baby powder to add glide to the blade.Gretzky's stick is long and heavy, the opposite of what you'd expectfrom the greatest touch player in history. Generally, puckhandlers havelighter, shorter, more flexible sticks than defensemen, who play a morephysical style in the middle of the ice and so use stiffer and longersticks. But because "feel" remains the most important factor in stickselection, players follow no absolute when choosing or customizing one."Sticks are like wives," former Canucks coach Harry Neale once said."You don't tell a guy what to do with either one of them."

Toward the lower left side of the archive is the banana-curve bladeinvented by Stan Mikita, the Hall of Famer who won a Cup with Chicagoin 1961. Near the end of a practice in 1963, a teammate shoved Mikitafrom behind. When he lurched forward, his stick blade got caught undera bench door and bent nearly in half. In the old Chicago Stadium, toreplace his stick Mikita would have had to navigate 22 treacheroussteps, in skates, down to the locker room. Annoyed, he yanked the stickout of the boards and fired a slap shot across the rink. Everyonefroze. The curve centered and balanced the puck in the axis of theblade, adding lift and acceleration. The era of the modern slap shothad begun. "The effect of the cupped curve made it sound like a cannonhad gone off," says Mikita, 69, from his winter home in Florida.

The son of a carpenter, Mikita set about after practice to re-createhis revolutionary boomerang curve, using a vice, a hacksaw, a chiseland a plane, along with a hearty helping of heat and pressure. His newstick made its game debut a few weeks later. Expecting to getridiculed, Mikita scored on his first three shots. "I invented thecurve, but maybe I created a monster," he says. "I'm pretty sure thegoaltenders' union is still pissed at me."

Until Mikita's invention, hockey sticks -- and hockey shots -- hadremained largely unchanged for the first 150 years of the sport. Thenext revolution took just three decades. In the late 1990s, technologyand synthetic materials altered sticks in the same way they changedtennis rackets and golf clubs. One-piece graphite hockey sticks werelighter, had less drag and packed a bigger punch. Avs star Joe Sakicdebuted a full graphite composite stick in 2001; by the beginning ofthe next season, more than 100 players had made the switch. Thefollowing year, players using composite sticks swept the NHL awards. By2009, fewer than 1% of NHL players still used wood. Purists lament theway the game has, literally, lost its hockey roots. But in truth,sticks have evolved as you'd expect -- in tandem with the game. Likehockey itself, equipment that was once purely and organically Canadianhas become international and high-tech. In 2009, James L. Easton, CEOof stick- and equipment-maker Easton-Bell Sports, gave $2 million tohis alma mater, UCLA, to continue research on the use of advancedmaterials in sports equipment. The aerospace-grade carbon fiber now inuse is five times stronger than steel and two times stiffer per volumeand has allowed sticks to drop nearly half their weight, from 25 ouncesto the teens, while making slap shots north of 100 mph commonplace.Industry insiders call the weight loss "the race to zero."

[font=verdana, arial, geneva]Ovechkin's stick has helped him become the NHL's points leader.[/font]

Most sticks produced by the market leaders -- Easton (used by 47% ofNHL players), Nike/Bauer (23%) and Reebok/CCM (14%) -- are made inMexico and China, and the designing and manufacturing of a stick linehas become so complicated that it requires 15 hours of work and 100people. Sticks can now be customized in thousands of ways and down tothe tiniest details, depending on the length, lie, flex, strength,geometry, design, grip and curve preferred by a player. Alterationsthat used to require a hacksaw and a blowtorch can now be done with atext message and a computer stroke. Stick manufacturers say they canperfect each player's stick before it leaves the factory, although somepeople doubt it. "Our computers tell us there are almost no variationsin the sticks now, but hockey players very well might be more finelytuned than our computers," says Larry Carlson, director of advancedmaterials at UCLA. "Whether the fussing is real or not doesn't matterwhen you understand it's part of the hockey culture -- this deep humanneed to tinker with the tools of your trade."

For the Capitals, that work gets done in the stick room at theirpractice facility in Arlington. It's no bigger than a toolshed, withjust enough room for two metal racks of sticks and a workbench thathouses a torch, a hacksaw, a tabletop saw, a bucket of ice, glue, asander and a dozen rolls of tape in every size, color and style. Thecustomized sticks on the walls form a kaleidoscope of types, colors andshapes that correspond to the spectrum of personalities and playingstyles on the team. The space has the cozy feel of a coffee-break room,and players dressed in shorts and flip-flops wander in and out,talking, singing and cracking on one another as they go through thegenerations-old hockey ritual of stick prep. The only thing missing isa teakettle.

Defenseman Tom Poticomes in with a heat pack on his back and several purple welts abovehis left eye. Poti fires up the glue gun to add a wood knob and anentire roll of tape to a stick that is already long, stiff and squaredup as sharp as a battle-ax. "Tom's stick is like a piece of rebar,"jokes forward Brooks Laich, who is shortening his stick and sanding down the blade a quarter of an inch for better puck control against the boards. After prepping more than 100 sticks this season, Laich and Poti know the measurements by heart.

[h3][/h3]
Ovechkin keeps two sticks and places one back on the shelf. That onedidn't feel right and will marked with a piece of tape and the lettersNFG, code for No F--ing Good.

Moments later, a shirtless Ovechkin, suffering from serious bedhead, shuffles in and, in a deep and corny voice, starts singing"Superstar" by Lupe Fiasco, the song he picked for his video game, NHL2K10. Ovechkin takes three of his sticks down with one hand. Heexamines his curve, an unmistakable descendant of Mikita's, with oneeye shut, like a marksman. He then waggles each stick, places the bladeon the ground and leans into the shaft, testing the flex by bucklingthe stick almost to the floor. Satisfied, he nods. He keeps two andplaces one back on the shelf. That one didn't feel right and will bemarked with a piece of tape and the letters NFG, code for No F -- ingGood. "Getting your stick ready is like putting on a power suit forwork," says Boudreau. "You feel confident. You feel like you've lostweight and you're ready to take on the world in that suit. Well, that'swhat a hockey player feels like when he picks up the right stick."

It's a connection so deep and powerful it can last 35 years. Minutesbefore practice is scheduled to start, Boudreau is still holding hisold buddy and reminiscing about the Marlies. A crowd has gatheredaround him, and someone asks if he's still trying to decide if it'sreally his.

"Oh, no, I know it's mine," says the coach. "I'm just trying to decide if I should make an offer to buy it."

As the Caps clop onto the ice, and the familiar cannon crack ofpucks fills the brisk air, coach and fan strike a deal: If Boudreau candeliver the Stanley Cup, he'll get his beloved stick back, free ofcharge.

From the look on Boudreau's face as he walks back toward the bench,it's tough to tell which keepsake will give him a bigger thrill.

David Fleming is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine.

 

[dmxfury]

Great piece in sticks. I'm always taping, retaping and fiddling with my goal stick, drives the wife nuts


Unfortunate Cooke did not receive a suspension, he should have. Apparently the rule is changed but not till next year?

 

[frenchblue23]

That sloppy turnover in OT by the Kings last night.

 

 

[DownByLaw]

Originally Posted by FrenchBlue23

That sloppy turnover in OT by the Kings last night.

 

  

 

[proshares]

[h3]

[h3]The nasty history of Matt Cooke http://insider.espn.go.com/nhl/blog?name=hradek_ej&id=4984826[/h3]
March, 11, 2010
Mar 11

8:17

AM ET

Before I resume my Thursday picks (and I was doing a pretty darn good job with my once-a-week puck prognostications before that Olympic break), I wanted to speak to you about two topics.

First, I have to say I'm incredibly disappointed that the league didn't throw the book at Pittsburgh Penguins pest Matt Cooke for his cheap-shot, blindside hit on Boston Bruins pivot Marc Savard last Sunday in Pittsburgh. As you know, Savard suffered a Grade II concussion as a result of Cooke's intentionally reckless play. The playmaking center could be lost for the season.

Interestingly, the league's dean of discipline, Colin Campbell, might be more bothered by his own ruling than I am. My sources tell me Campbell wanted nothing more than to slap a lengthy ban on Cooke, who has made a living by taking advantage of vulnerable players throughout his undistinguished career. Those sources say Campbell watched the video repeatedly over the past several days -- even waking up in the middle of the night to view it -- searching for a violation of the league's current rules that would allow him to apply supplementary discipline. By CBA agreement, there must be a clear rule violation of some kind to trigger a suspension.

Sadly, at least for the remainder of the season, there's no rule on the league's books that addresses blindside shoulder-to-head contact. The GMs did address that omission Wednesday, unanimously recommending that language be added to the rule book to cover such dangerous plays. That recommendation will move to the league's competition committee (a group that includes five players, four GMs and one owner) and, if approved, eventually to the Board of Governors for implementation.

While most believe the new language will be adopted for next season, the league's step forward doesn't do Campbell a bit of good in this current situation. Nor will it help him should something like this happen again between now and the Stanley Cup final.

Like most knowledgeable hockey folks, Campbell apparently smelled the foul odor of Cooke's actions. While Campbell couldn't act here, I imagine he and his hockey operations crew will be keeping a very close eye on Cooke during the rest of the regular season and the playoffs.

As for Cooke, I can only say that what goes around usually comes around on the ice.

A couple of years back, during his brief stint in Washington, Cooke severely damaged the career of Tampa Bay Lightning C Vinny Lecavalier with a late/unnecessary hit in the final game of the regular season, with the Bolts long out of playoff contention. Lecavalier needed significant shoulder surgery to repair the damage. That dirty deed went unpunished in terms of supplementary discipline. Then-Tampa GM Jay Feaster still gets irritated just thinking about it.

Last spring, during the Cup finals, Cooke ran future Hall of Fame D Nicklas Lidstrom from behind into the corner boards, and he tried to kick Wings G Chris Osgood during a scrum around the net. Amazingly, but not surprisingly in one of the worst-officiated Stanley Cup finals series in recent memory, Cooke didn't receive even a two-minute minor for either act.

Cooke's dirty-play résumé is lengthy. Sadly, the one time he could have saved everyone a lot of trouble, (as a member of the Vancouver Canucks) he was unable to score a decisive victory over former Colorado Avalanche forward Steve Moore during a face-to-face fight in a March 8, 2004, game.

If he'd been able to accomplish that mission, perhaps the Canucks' bench would have been satisfied that Moore had paid his dues for a weeks-earlier hit on then-captain Markus Naslund, and Todd Bertuzzi wouldn't have been driven to attack Moore in one of the nastiest incidents in league history.

I realize Cooke must play on a fine line to be effective and keep a job in the NHL. For me, however, he's skated over that line far too many times. He got off the hook again this time. But as I said earlier, what goes around seems to come around in the NHL. If it does, I'm sure Savard and Lecavalier are just two guys who'd like a front-row seat.

Secondly, there's been a flap in recent days concerning Penguins GM Ray Shero's comments defending Sidney Crosby's decision to pass on a date on "Late Night with David Letterman."

We can all agree or disagree about Crosby's decision. The kid star does do a lot of media requests. I don't think anyone can do them all. I'd have loved to see Crosby appear with Dave. In fact, I would have advised him to do so, just like I would have advised another superstar player to fulfill a similar request last spring. (That player didn't do Letterman, either). But I'm not going to beat him up in print because he didn't.

In defending his star player (which you knew he would do), Shero was quoted as saying that Crosby has done more to promote the game than anyone, including Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux.

Having known Shero for more than a decade, I really couldn't believe he'd make that kind of inane statement. So I asked him about it. And as it turns out, his point was quite different that what was reported.

Shero told me he was trying to explain that the explosion in media during the past several years makes the landscape very different than it was in the 1980s or '90s. And, because of that, Crosby gets far more media requests and corporate team-based requests than players did in the past. Thus, he was basically saying Crosby gets more media requests on a day-to-day basis than players did in the past because the times are different. And I must say, he's right about that. The times -- in terms of the media -- are very different now.

Shero added that he wasn't in any way trying to insinuate that Crosby had done more to promote the game than Gretzky and Lemieux. That would be a silly statement, he added. I think everybody would agree there.

With the record clear, let's hope that puts an end to that.

[/h3]

 

[DownByLaw]

Two great articles, thanks for posting DeadSet & Proshares.

 

[bjm5295]

In light of whether or not the Bruins go after Cooke or not, heres a video recap of the best game ive ever been too.

I'm not so much for the goonery in the NHL as opposed to intl. hockey, but at the end of this you'll notice the little, scrappy, high speed/scoring Marc Savard go after Sean Avery for cheap shotting Lucic. I hope the looch remember what he did for him next Thrusday.

Timmy challanged Turco to a fight in the middle of that line brawl that you cant see in this video, but you could see a the Garden. I wanted them to go SOOO bad.

 

[dmxfury]

Yeah the crap that Sid got for the stupid top ten thing was annoying and seemed like a case of people wanting to just take a shot at him. Good stuff with the clarification in regards to 99, 66 and 87

 

[DeadsetAce]

Originally Posted by bjm5295

In light of whether or not the Bruins go after Cooke or not, heres a video recap of the best game ive ever been too.

http://www.youtube.com/v/H-D09wj5VtU&hl=en_US&fs=1&

I'm not so much for the goonery in the NHL as opposed to intl. hockey, but at the end of this you'll notice the little, scrappy, high speed/scoring Marc Savard go after Sean Avery for cheap shotting Lucic. I hope the looch remember what he did for him next Thrusday.

Timmy challanged Turco to a fight in the middle of that line brawl that you cant see in this video, but you could see a the Garden. I wanted them to go SOOO bad.

haha dude i was at this game too...GREAT game. the 5-1 win helped too

 

[son of troy]

Originally Posted by dmxfury

Yeah the crap that Sid got for the stupid top ten thing was annoying and seemed like a case of people wanting to just take a shot at him. Good stuff with the clarification in regards to 99, 66 and 87

People just like to take shots at Sid, who cares if he didn't do Letterman.