Want to coach the Tampa Bay Lightning? Slick back your hair, throw on a suit, and you’re good to go.
According to Damian Cox of The Star, it seems Barry Melrose and his mullet have been lured from the broadcast booth to behind the bench, replacing current Lightning Head Coach and fellow hair-product aficionado John Tortorella. While no official announcement has yet been made, Cox deems Melrose-to-Tampa a done deal. Read more about it here.
A pre-sale is occurring right now (through 10:00 p.m. Central) for the first NHL game at Kansas City’s Sprint Center arena.
Of course, it’s a pre-season game on September 22 between the Los Angeles Kings and the St. Louis Blues, so it’s not like KC is getting its own hockey team . . . yet.
Whether via relocation or expansion, Kansas City, Missouri, remains near the top of the NHL’s short list for franchise consideration. Back in October we discussed the feasibility of an NHL team in Kansas City, in the context of a possible new home for the Predators. This exhibition game seems to be the NHL’s way of dipping their big toe in the KC water once again, to see if the temperature is right for hockey there.
Likely Sergei Fedorov, in the initial hours and days after arriving in Washington late this past February, thinking ahead then to what was almost certainly his final game as a Capital on April 5, gave some thought to returning home to his native Russia and signing one last lucrative pro contract before hanging them up — or finishing the 2007-08 NHL as a rental Cap and retiring altogether. And who could have blamed him? He’s as decorated a star player as we’ve seen in the last quarter century: a six-time All-Star; a Hart Trophy winner; a Selke Trophy winner; thrice a Stanley Cup champion. What’s left to accomplish here?
Additionally, Sergei’s brother Fedor, a 2001 draft pick of Vancouver, plays in the Russian Super League with Moscow Dynamo, and older brother has spoken publicly of his wish to play with younger brother before retiring. Again, who could blame him?
And yet from his national team and NHL teammate Alexander Ovechkin we learned this week that Fedorov is keenly interested in playing more hockey as a Washington Capital. That’s right, one of the most decorated superstars in hockey of the past quarter century, having accomplished really everything an NHL player could in a career, wants one more run at glory, in the District of Columbia.
The upshot of which is this: Sergei Fedorov believes he has something still to accomplish as an NHLer, as a Cap.
My how hockey times have changed.
Traditionally, the circumstances surrounding a player like Fedorov and the Capitals this summer would have made resigning thoughts ludicrous and impractical. The Capitals, after all, already have a healed up Michael Nylander under contract and star-in-the-making Nicklas Backstrom to center their top two lines. They have, including bonuses, about $8 million in centers for their top two lines next season. Behind them they have exceptionally capable and emerging talent in Brooks Laich; one of the better young defensive forwards in the entire NHL in Boyd Gordon; and in Dave Steckel a top-notch guy on draws and, like Gordon, an exceptional penalty killer. Fedorov is 38, and in terms of raw production about half of what he was with Detroit in 2002-03.
Fedorov’s versatile and all — capable even of playing top-4-pairing defense in this league still — but you don’t resign a near-40 forward in the flickering embers of his career to multi-millions to play a bit part, right?
Right. You resign him partly because 2007-08 taught you the value of having quality depth up front. You resign him because you envision him as more than a veteran catalyst toward a Cup run.
And, you don’t place all your chips on ‘08-09, either. More on that in a moment. But resigning Fedorov, in light of the outstanding contracts already piled high before General Manager George McPhee, means more pressure against the cap and likely the inability to resign one or two contributors from last season.
Fine by me.
The sentiment among virtually the entirety of HockeyWashington early this offseason is thus: get Feds resigned.
Perhaps this consensus is predicated on this perception: the fit between player and team at this moment in time is as perfect as perfect can be in the sport. It’s more than just the veteran hero-Russian mentoring the young Russian studs Ovechkin and Semin. Actually, ethnicity has nothing to do with it. In point of fact, Fedorov’s arrival in the Caps’ room this spring seized the attention of every member in it. They told us as much game after game in March and April. This was a three-time Cup winner standing up and holding court during tough times, night after night, and he had credibility with every Capital teammate. And he made a difference.
Then, as if to put an exclamation point on his stature, he went off to Halifax and Quebec City this month with the Russian national team, centered the top line between his two young Capitals’ countrymen, and helped forge the World Championship’s most potent line. Other NHL GMs certainly took notice of Fedorov’s performance in the NHL postseason and at the Worlds, but there’s one and only one GM who should have had his socks knocked off.
Who thinks that Fedorov’s work in Washington is done after 10 weeks’ time? Who thinks that another year or two of Feds would be anything but beneficial for Alexander Semin especially and the Caps more generally?
Did I suggest a new deal reaching out toward two years as a Cap? Multi-millions potentially at 40? Yep. The retaining of this extraordinary talent ought to be pursued with the notion of his playing a lead role on a Caps’ Cup-contending team, and in all likelihood we’re talking 2009-10 rather than next season for that.
Which makes the courtship of Feds this summer the most intriguing offseason personnel challenge for the Capitals since the summer of 1990, when they lost once-in-a-generation talent Scott Stevens. Sergei Fedorov at this stage of his career still carries a bit of magic in his game, but he also brings a bit of moxie to a room full of kids. More importantly, he sure appears to have melded with them. And at this stage of his career he’s paid Capitals’ management the greatest possible compliment: he wants to stick around what management has assembled.
Lose out on Feds and the Caps have the look of a 3-to-7 seed in the East next season. Bring him into the fold and send a message to the rest of the league: you want nothing to do with our power play, we have depth you crave, and the glory future is now.
Fedorov returned to the Caps could play a role we’ve never quite seen of a player in the twilight of his career: that of utility playmaker, on the first, second, or third lines; first- and or second-unit power play QB; first-unit penalty killer; taker of key draws in the Caps’ end at the end of tight games; and mentor. He likely also would play a role that isn’t defined by placement on ice or slotting in payroll. I don’t even know if there’s a name for it in hockey.
It just sure seems to need to happen.
TSN is reporting today that the NHL has decided that its next outdoor, regular season game will take place in Chicago, between the ‘Hawks and Red Wings, next season:
“TSN has confirmed that the Chicago Blackhawks will take on the Detroit Red Wings next January in what has become the league’s annual outdoor game.”
Could the game be on any day but New Years next January?
It’s the veryÃÂ city — and the identical two Original Six teams — we suggested just a couple of weeks ago.
Interestingly, Soldier Field is only one possible site in the Windy City for Winter Classic II. The other is Wrigley Field. ÃÂ
In his latest bout of Penguin love (hmm, I suppose that phrase could generate some non-traditional search hits), ESPN columnist and host John Buccigross drew some questionable comparisons, including the “almost joyless” Detroit Red Wings’ resemblence to the 1980 Soviet Red Army team, and the Pittsburgh Penguins’ potentially miraculous victory potential. Here’s the excerpt that boiled my blood:
If the Penguins are somehow able to win these finals, dubbing it “Miracle on Ice 2″ would not be hyperbole.
What a ridiculous statement. 1980’s Team USA were huge underdogs ââ¬â a team filled with college kids rather than first-round NHL talent. Practically no one picked them to medal, let alone win the Gold, and certainly nobody other than Coach Brooks and his team thought they could beat the Soviets.
In 2008, many people picked the Penguins to win the Stanley Cup, including Buccigross. Perhaps the Pens were slight underdogs to the Wings; it’s also true that a Cup-clinching comeback from their 0-2 start would be impressive indeed.
But even if the Penguins manage to win the Cup this year, calling it “Miracle on Ice 2″ would be more than just hyperbole; it would be a joke, a travesty, something blurted by a die-hard homer rather than someone who actually follows and respects the sport. Buccigross, one would think, should know better.
Eric McErlain recently highlighted a bit of Penguin hypocrisy. After Penguins fans raised holy hell in 2001 when Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis restricted playoff ticket sales to the local DC fan base, the Penguins are now doing the same thing as per the Ticketmaster fine print:
Orders by residents outside of PA, OH, WV, MD, NY, NJ, DE, VA and the District of Columbia will be canceled without notice and refunds given.
Leonsis remembers the reaction to his strategy in 2001, and the irony of the most vocal complainers doing the same thing seven years later:
We were raked over the coals in the Pittsburgh media for our efforts. Furthermore, a Department of Justice attorney called me. He hailed from Pittsburgh and threatened a lawsuit against us for discriminatory business practices. We, of course, heeded the warnings and stopped this practice. This is situational ethics at is finest.”
The tactic is not inherently bad ââ¬â though a local-area “pre-sale” would be better than an outright restriction on out-of-town purchasers. But the Penguins’ front office using the same tactic that they gnashed their teeth about in 2001 . . . well, that smacks of hypocrisy. They complained and threaten legal action back then, and now take the very same objectionable approach when it suits them.
This situation is reminiscent of Penguins head coach Michel Therrien blaming poor officiating for his team’s 0-2 deficit. Therrien apparently does not not see the irony of accusing Detroit’s netminder Chris Osgood of diving while defending Sidney Crosby from the same accusations in prior rounds and the regular season. “Situational ethics” seem part and parcel of the Penguins’ plan of late, though it isn’t serving them particularly well on the ice.
From TSN’s Off The Record with Alexander Ovechkin earlier today.
At a ceremony in Pittsburgh at 2 p.m. today, Alex Ovechkin will officially be awarded the Art Ross Trophy and the Maurice ââ¬ÅRocketââ¬? Richard Trophy. Prior to the award ceremony, Alex met with the press on a conference call.
Alex said he was happy to win these awards and feels it is important to the fans to know that their “players win something and have good players.” He also said that the recently completed World Championship was “unbelievable,” especially beating Canada in Canada.
I asked Alex if Alexander Semin’s play in the postseason and again at the Worlds shows that he’s maturing into a world-class talent and if they would be battling for these same awards next year. He responded that watching Semin for the last three years that “you’re right, he’s going to be a great player and I’ll happy if he wins awards next year.”
With the talk turning to the Worlds he was asked if he had spoken with Sergei Fedorov in trying to convince him to return to Washington to play next year. Without hesitation, Ovechkin responded, “I know for sure he wants to stay. I know for sure.”
First came the news that Olaf Kolzig will not be a Washington Capital next year. Now, up in Hershey, it appears that Frederic Cassivi’s career with the Bears has come to an end.
Tim Leone reports, per eurohockey.net, that Cassivi has signed to play for the Sinupret Ice Tigers in Nurnberg, Germany next season. Cassivi’s departure opens a slot for either Michal Neuvirth or Simeon Varlamov. Or both.
Cassivi of course backstopped the Bears to the Calder Cup finals in both 2006 and 2007, with the Bears winning it all in 2006.
Perhaps half or more of contemporary hockey fans never saw the incomparable Bobby Orr perform, and with this in mind, we’re indebted to Stephen Brunt and his literary landscape-altering effort Searching for Bobby Orr (Triumph Books, 2007).
A Canadian sports journalist, a hockey fan and one of Bobby Orr most particularly, Brunt in his book catapults us back into the rural rearing grounds of Parry Sound, Ontario, of the 1950s and ’60s. He invites us into his immaculately constructed, heart-felt reminiscence of an iconic prodigy, a figure whose virtuosity transcended his sport.
It was Orr — not Richard, not Howe — who first represented hockey for Sports Illustrated in its Sportsman of the Year designation, in 1970.
A literature professor once told me you could identify a great book by the success or failure of its opening and closing sentences. If those two impress you, he told me, you can be reasonably assured that what resides between them is nourishing as well. Brunt begins his examination of Orr thusly:
“On the river, he could skate forever.”
Actually, the concluding paragraph of Brunt’s Prologue foretells a special treatment thereafter. In it he artfully delineates his first-ever attendance at a hockey game, as a youth in Ontario, the beneficiary of a hockey-loving neighbor who prevailed upon Brunt’s hockey-indifferent father. Back then, there was no such thing as attending a Maple Leafs game by the common Ontario family. So Brunt in the company of his neighbor Reg did what just about everybody else did then — he patronized the local junior team. But there was a particular reason for attending on the particular day they did:
“Remember, Reg said. Remember who it was you saw today. Remember so you can tell your own kids someday. Remember. For forty years, I have tried my best.”
Hockey, for Canadians, Brunt tells us, “seems organic. It emerges out of the trees and rocks and ice, out of the long winter months, the rare, precious daylight, out of facing down nature, surviving and embracing whatever it can throw at us, enduring to spring.” It is a reflection that speaks directly to the plasma and marrow of the book’s subject. Bobby Orr wasn’t manufactured in any rink or out of any structured hockey program. His greatness arrived remarkably early in life, outdoors, and it arrived of his own passion and seemingly of God’s blessings.
Just how great, how early? For the 1962-63 hockey season Orr joined the Oshawa Generals as a bantam-aged 14-year-old. The Generals were so covetous of him that they allowed him to skip all of the team’s practices during the week, every week, and merely skate in the team’s weekend games, in deference to mother Orr’s wishes. He was selected as a second-team All Star that rookie season in Juniors. He also completed the eighth grade.
Brunt is at his best when honing in on his memory’s scrapbook of Orr’s brilliance on the ice. It is a memory that paints a vivid portrait of a player forever changing the confining notion of his position before reaching his twentieth birthday.
“Wherever he was on the ice, the puck just seemed to come to him, as though directed by a higher force. And when he carried it, when he was stickhandling, Orr never needed to look down. He could somehow feel the puck there on his stick blade . . . Orr’s skating ability was remarkable but not startling at first glance . . . Orr seemed to have five or six different speeds, different gears, each of which he could achieve without any obvious extra effort. When he accelerated, there were no little stutter steps to get going, just the same smooth, graceful motion.”
If it’s numbers you need to evaluate Orr’s best-ever brilliance, consider no more than this one: in his 1970-71 season with the Bruins Orr amassed a plus-minus tally of . . . plus one hundred and twenty four. To put that feat into perspective, consider that in his absolute prime — 1985 — the 208-pt. Wayne Gretzky skated a +98.
“The truth is,” Brunt observes, “you can adjust Orr’s statistics all you want, you can build in qualifiers, and he still stands alone . . . Just measure Orr against his contemporaries. Measure him against all others competing in the same position. There is no comparison — and his 1970-71 season stands alone as the greatest ever played by a defenseman, if not the greatest ever played by anyone in the history of the NHL.”
In chronicling Orr’s era and the athlete’s role in it Brunt selects New York Jets’ quarterback Joe Namath as a referent, a touchstone to #4. The two achieved stardom strikingly early in their pro careers, and as the ’60s ushered in redefined notions of culturally acknowledged sexuality in America, both exuded compelling and marketed-for-the-first-time-by-athletes sex appeal. But Brunt wants his reader to recognize the limitations with the comparison. Namath actively nurtured his sexual aura, and sought off-the-field fortune and diversion with it. Orr’s was less brazen and crude — he was Canadian modest through and through.
To an extent. Brunt’s eighth chapter, ‘Spin the Bobby,’ ventures where no others in journalism seemed to have before. It details the late-night practice by Orr in Boston bars when, well-beered, he’d stand before a literal wall-length of willing women and submit to being spun around by his teammates, his right arm and index finger outstretched, and end the evening back home with her his spinning stopped upon.
And did you know that Orr’s influence extended even to America’s strip clubs, based on his method of taping his stick?
” . . . years later, in the stripper’s trade, a ‘Bobby Orr’ would be a way of describing how the girls on stage trimmed their pubic hair, with just one strip down the middle.”
Who knew a biography of Bobby Orr could be a summer potboiler?
The story of Orr can’t be told without its tragic dimension: ‘Hockey Achilles’ is the narrative of the Orr knees. There are two inescapable truths about them (principally his left one): almost certainly they bore an inherent weakness or fragility that bordered on the congenital; and were his career to have commenced just 10 years later than it did, it’s virtually certain most if not all of the insidiously aggressive, invasive corrective procedures on them — career-shortening in their cumulation — would have been avoided.
I can’t guarantee that Searching for Bobby Orr will be the best book you read this summer. But I can guarantee though that should you pick it up you’ll finish it with a heightened love for the game we love.
The Washington Capitals have re-signed right wing Matt Bradley to a three-year contract, vice president and general manager George McPhee announced today.
The Stittsville, Ontario, native has been a feisty shutdown forward for the Capitals for the past three years; he played his 300th NHL game last season. Signing the scrapper to a three-year deal fills the Caps’ third- or fourth-line RW spot.
Bettman made us wait a week for this mismatch? How is it that so broad a spectrum of press had so difficult a time recognizing the glaring discrepancies between these two teams? “Fooled by youth” is one explanation. In the pressure cooker of a Cup Finals, the Penguins look their age. Meaning, it’s one thing to take down the Rags and Flyers in high-stakes series, but quite another when the brightest lights are shining on the biggest stage.There’s wide variety to the recreation we employ on summer’s first (and long) weekend. Families pack the car and head for the beach. Those remaining at home often host the season’s opening backyard barbeque. Still others take in a ballgame with the kids or garden or dive into summer reading in a hammock. My time-honored tradition associated with this holiday weekend combines the anticipation of Christmas morning with the devoted labor of study for final exams in graduate school: Memorial weekend inaugurates my Season of DraftGeekdom, and on its kickoff Friday I stroll excitedly to a District bookstore near my office to secure the newly arrived Hockey News NHL Entry Draft Preview. With it I will whittle away the long weekend hours, come rain or shine, intoxicated by three-paragraph summaries of eighteen-year-olds who are the hoped-to-be future of hockey.
THN’s not the most informative or important of my Entry Draft resources, but over the years it’s tended to arrive on newsstands in Washington quite near the holiday weekend, and so its procurement serves as the spiritual kickoff to my holiday weekend. It’s true: during one of the calender’s most powerful symbols of summer my thoughts and doings remain lodged in winter.
Once I possess the cherished Guide, I make like Sandy Berger leaving the National Archives.
I was business traveling from the American Southwest during the end of this past week, and so my trip to a Washington-area Borders or Barnes & Noble for the Guide was delayed until Saturday morning. This caused sleeplessness in me only Tuesday through Friday nights. My Draft addiction is such that I actually entered all the newsstands in my airline’s gates in both the Vegas and Phoenix airports this week hoping to find the Guide.
As if. I may as well have been searching for Vermont Maple syrup there.
Returned home and being out in the Maryland suburbs added some drama to my Guide search Saturday morning: typically, I couldn’t be certain of finding this or any other edition of THN there. Initially I struck out at the Borders at Bethesda’s White Flint Mall, but at my next stop, at the Barnes & Noble just up the road on Rockville Pike, I discovered the Guide prominently showcased with two or three other special edition sports magazines. 10:25 Saturday morning was a Christmas morning moment for me.
Of course I could subscribe to THN or even order the Guide on line and be assured of securing a copy in time for Memorial weekend, but I actually savor the shopping search for it. It’s just become a highly personal routine that delivers a highly personal reward for this DraftGeek.
Whether at the beach or in a mountain chalet or simply relaxing hard by my retired father’s pool, I make a fair portion of summer’s first weekend a devoted study of the Entry Draft eligibles. A lot of Washingtonians remember boardwalk dalliances or Bayside flirtations from Memorial weekends past; I remember first learning of Joe Finley’s USHL thuggery under a cloudless Ocean City sky in May 2004.
Pre OFB, my devotion to the Draft knew no limitation of season, no rival for my affection, and rather was a year-round pursuit. But blog feeding has marginalized my single-minded immersion in the devotion. So Memorial weekend, arriving almost a month to the day before the Draft, has for the past couple of Mays for me carried a heightened sense of homework. I have a lot of catching up to do.
My studying typically includes the THN Guide; all 245-plus pages of Central Scouting’s Draft guide (I print that out in the office after hours); TSN’s thoughts draft; and at least three well-regarded mock drafts posted at hockeysfuture from “insiders” whose forecasting over the years has proven to be reliable. Beer-bellied family men struggle to deliver refreshments-laden coolers to the family beach blanket across acres of sun-baked sand on May’s final Saturday; I grunt from the backpack weight of my literature pertaining to 18-year-old hockey players hailing from towns I’ll never visit in this lifetime.
There are estimates that on Memorial weekend Saturday an excess of 100,000 sunbathers convene on the Maryland and Delaware beaches. Among them, beach towel reading is commonly comprised of lurid paperbacks, newspapers, and various categories of best-sellers. Lugging my beach-bound backpack teeming with reams of Entry Draft drivel, I was — and am — aware of my idiosyncratic subject matter reading. I figured that no more than 5,000 of Ocean City’s 100,000 sand-studying in shades could be joining me in wondering whether the WHL’s class of prospects in a given year was superior to the Q’s.
Part of my devotion-addiction in this weekend’s pursuit is premised on the novelty of the whole thing. I just really like knowing where a Moose Jaw Warriors’ third-liner — who bears a fiery streak of viscousness, mind you — ought to be selected according to a plurality of draft prognostications. I admit, with pride, that I am a card-carrying member of sports’ equivalent to a Star Trek conventioner.
Memorial Weekend 2008 in Washington will be remembered for its beauty. How could it not — according to THN, still available on the draft board when the Caps pick in round one should be one Anton Gustafsson.
The photograph above was taken by Getty Images photographer John Moore on Memorial Day last year. You can find his account of the day and the photograph at the Getty Images blog. Take a moment, give it a read and remember the reason for today’s holiday.
As is tradition, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman addressed the media late yesterday afternoon inÃÂ the lead-up to Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals. The commissioner has used this forum in the past to offer a quasi state of the game assessment, and yesterday was no different. James Mirtle has the entire transcript of the session up on his blog, but we thought we’d highlight some standout aspects and quote in full eyebrow-raising realms that are staple thinking of this commissioner.
The commish, from hisÃÂ vantage,ÃÂ identified highlights of the 2007-08 season:
We particularly enjoyed this opening to the Q&A portion of the session:
Q. At this point in time, often times television ratings come up in this session. I understand they’re positive this year. But how does the League measure kind of the unprecedented access that hockey fans have across the world through all the new technology?
COMMISSIONER GARY BETTMAN: That’s an interesting and intriguing question. Obviously with respect to ratings we look for continued growth in traditional media. I think all sports, particularly us, tend to get measured too much solely by that metric and not the other things, including access to new media . . . What it means is our fans, and probably the fans of all sports, are seeking to get content of what they want on their own terms. And, therefore, we need to make sure that there’s access to our game the way our fans want it when they want it, how they want it.
On the league’s newly instituted intolerance for flying octopi:
COMMISSIONER BETTMAN: . . .The issue is the swinging of it. And Colin Campbell has had numerous conversations. The problem is the ice. I don’t know what the technical name is for stuff that comes off an octopus. I assume it’s some sort of gunk. When it sticks on the ice it’s a problem, and when it gets on things - it’s actually in one game got on a goaltender as it was being swung. They were going out the Zamboni entrance. It’s really more about making sure that no player hits something on the ice and blows out his knee.
[OFB note: octopi gunk impairing ice quality is an issue for the league, but just regular old rotten ice -- like for a Game 7 of the playoff series -- isn't.]
It’s about the conditions that we’re playing under. So I have no illusions. The octupi will fly, but they just can’t be swung because we’ve got to limit the gunk. Not a very artful way of describing it, but I think you get the point.”
Q. I just noticed that the League kind of missed a chance to end this, by this, I mean the playoffs, they had a shot at ending it before June. And I just wondered if there was any effort being made to squeeze the playoff schedule a bit so it’s a little less interminable.
COMMISSIONER GARY BETTMAN: I don’t think it’s interminable. And I’m sorry if you do. I like being here. I like going to games. And I feel a void in my life when the season is over. And I don’t even get to go on vacation.
Q. You need a hobby.
COMMISSIONER GARY BETTMAN: That may be. Squeezing it is an issue. It is the most grueling march to the championship of any sport. We’re very mindful of the wear and tear on our players.
[OFB note: For a specific instance illustrative of the league's concern with wear and tear on its players, look back on Anaheim's opening seven days of the 2007-08 regular season, with five games contested all on the road, two in the United Kingdom and three in fast successionÃÂ back in North America.]ÃÂ
I was dreading my business trip to Las Vegas this past week. For starters, Monday’s temperature there was a hockey unfriendly 108 degrees. And please, spare me the “It’s a dry heat” defense. Pizza ovens harbor little humidity, and I don’t want to reside in those either. Mercifully, a cold front swept through some time on Tuesday, and by the time my plane touched down the desert had cooled by some 40 degrees and was being kissed by 25-30 mph breezes.
But I was also lodging at the Green Valley Ranch resort hotel. It’s stunning — in an ostentatious resort in Sin City kind of way — but my schedule allowed for no real fun. Let’s just say this property isn’t conducive to starched shirts, stiff business shoes, and nine-hour days inside, away from the sand-bottom pool hard by outdoor refreshment cabanas (plural).
There’s a minor pro hockey team in Vegas — the Wranglers, ironically a member of the East Coast Hockey League. They’re having themselves quite a season. Tonight, in Cincinnati, they meet the Cyclones in game 1 of the Kelly Cup Finals. You’ll recall that Bruce Boudreau won a Kelly Cup with the Mississippi Sea Wolves in 1999.
Thursday’s Las Vegas Sun bore a column by Ron Kantowski titled ‘High-sticking in June is just weird.’ I loved how his column began:
“It was 108 in the shade Monday — and the Wranglers were getting ready to play another hockey game.
One hundred and eight degrees. Hockey.
That had to be the strangest convergence of diametric entities since Julia Roberts married Lyle Lovett.”
One of the Wranglers told Kantowski that before arriving in Vegas he’d never shot a puck in triple digit temps. Turns out, this is the first time in the history of pro hockey here that a team has played for a championship. The defunct Las Vegas Thunder of the defunct International League never made it to the Turner Cup finals.
In Friday’s newspapers there was talk of how a Wrangler Kelly Cup triumph wouldn’t likely occasion the outpouring of community enthusiasm that UNLV’s national championship winning golf team did a few years back. I know that this is a desert and all, and that golf thrives in warm weather climates, but a parade and screaming locals for a golf team? Did they parade down the Strip in golf carts?
The Wranglers are a Calgary Flames affiliate. Former Caps’ farmhand Chris Ferraro is rostered with the Wranglers, although he’s been out of action since a March 1 cheapshot-punch to the head.
The ‘E’ is 20 years old, and known mostly for its development of tough guys during that time. Still, it’s sent more than 350 players to the NHL. And things may be looking up for the league — NHL teams today are sending well regarded draft picks to develop there.
It was nice to see the local media cover the minor pro hockey team with the enthusiasm it has this week, and it made me wonder about the prospects of bigger things puck here. Las Vegas, after all, is a name you hear associated with a new NHL team. It is a sports-loving city — well, it’s at least a city that follows sports scores very closely!
Boxing of course reigned supreme here until about 1990, then that sport whithered. This made me think: could big-league hockey fill a bit of that sporting void?
There was a story in Thursday’s Sun about three minutes of silence observed Monday afternoon by the Wynn and MGM Grand casinos, in remembrance of the Sichuan earthquake. The memorial pause, it’s estimated, cost the casinos between one and two million dollars in revenue.
In a nook of the Green Valley Ranch’s sprawling and luxurious recreation area sits a secluded enclave known as the Pond. We’ll call it Area 69. It’s shrouded in nearly as much secrecy and intrigue. It’s a layout, a lair, for libertines. It’s where the free-spirited sunbathe sans a full compliment of swimwear. It’s partitioned off from the resort’s larger paradisical pursuits by thick shrubbery, a preponderance of palms, and angled cabana paneling that affords tantalizing glimpses of the overexposed within. Its organization and aura — from fancy waterfall to stylized seclusion to massage mattresses — fairly screams orgy at all hours.
Cursed cool temperatures!
I peered through Area 69’s peeping portals on each stroll past the bacchanalia, not because I’m a voyeur (in the strict technical sense) but rather because of the parlor’s novelty and allure relative to my typical business lodgings.
So Sin City has at least one frozen pond and one filthy one. They seem to coexist just fine.
So let’s talk about expansion.
ESPN’s Page 2 presents 44 reasons to watch the Cup finals, including the funny-because-it’s-true (”Not one word about Roger Clemens or Spygate”), the snarky (”Brian Engblom’s hair”), and the dead-on correct (”Unlike in the NBA Finals, the last minute of a Stanley Cup finals game doesn’t take 45 minutes.” and “HD technology has improved the viewing experience of hockey more than in any other sport except perhaps women’s beach volleyball.”).
Check out the list here for a Friday chuckle and a few terrific YouTube links to hockey vids.
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