On Frozen Blog » IIHF

Worlds-Weary, and Grumpy

pucksandbooks — Fri, 21 May 2010 11:03:05 +0000

Russia beat Canada at the Worlds in semifinal play yesterday. Ain’t that just swell? Don’t you just feel all warm and fuzzy for our Russians competing over there (wherever they are)?

I only know about the result because I accidentally stumbled upon a story image of it late last night on line; when you’re a hockey blogger and Canada loses at anything in hockey, you fairly can’t avoid its reporting. Anyway, I haven’t read a single file related to the Worlds this spring. It interests me none.

This is a Worlds-free site this spring. I don’t care a lick about them. I don’t even know why they’re being contested in this Olympics year. If your team wins a gold medal at the Olympics, isn’t it judged to be the best in the world, having beaten the world’s best athletes? So what in the world is the IIHF doing having another international competition just weeks after we got through one of the best ever in Vancouver? (Making money, I know.)

Yes, I’m seriously cranky still from the sudden Capitals defeat. I’ve battered golf balls the past three weeks, and it hasn’t helped my psyche much. (I am grooving a great swing, however.) I am interested greatly in the Chicago-San Jose series. Two terrifically talented clubs there, and the Hawks are defying forecasts and getting great netminding. But once those games are over I go back to being pissed off pretty fast. Meanwhile, back East, we’re profaning Lord Stanley’s Cup allowing one of Philly or Montreal to compete for it in another week or so. That’s adding to my crankiness.

We in HockeyWashington may look back on this spring years hence and only then realize how enormous an opportunity was wasted by our guys in red. I’m not buying into the Philly love story this spring. Look at who they’ve had to play to get where they are. They weren’t that good with Jeff Carter in the lineup; they’re not better without him. And they’re on like their 40th goalie on the season. Sickening. I’m nauseous thinking about it.

It was life-altering fun three springs back going to Moscow on Mr. Leonsis’ dime and covering the IIHF Worlds and the Caps participating in it then. When your NHL team is young and inexperienced and rebuilding, such competition is good experience. But when you’re a 120-point NHL club and a bevy of your players are competing in the Worlds, virtually from the onset of the tourney, it’s not a good thing at all. No good is coming from core Capitals’ players skating in their second international tournament of 2010.

What am I supposed to do if our Russians win another game over there and have shiny medals placed around their necks, pump my fist in the air while a Flyers’ fan looks over at me and laughs?

I really don’t care how well Ovi, Semin, and Semyon played against Canada yesterday or in any of the other IIHF games. I couldn’t care less. No manner of feat over there by any of them alters one iota the sting we’re still feeling in Washington at a hockey season ended way too prematurely. A part of me wishes Ovi had followed Sid’s lead when it came to these Worlds games and said, in effect, You know what, I’ve done my part for my country this year already, I’ve put my body through upwards of 100 elite-level games this season, I’m heading off home to heal up and work even harder this offseason to do everything I can to assure there’s no repeat of late April 2010.

I’d respect that.

* * * * *

Speaking of Mr. Leonsis, I’ll find out how cranky he is these days at noon today, when he appears at the National Press Club as its lunchtime newsmaker keynote. Those keynotes field a lot of questions from the diners in the room, and I plan on submitting one or two. I’d be delighted to read any and all questions you’d ask of him if you leave them here as comments, and add the best ones among my submissions. We’ll also be tweeting the standout observations he offers at the lunch.

* * * * *

Here’s an effective way to combat the grumps — a John Walton call of yet another Bears’ playoff triumph in overtime, from last night’s game 5 in Manchester:

Bouchard the Hero of game 5

Hershey has matched an American League record this postseason with six wins in extra time. The Bears head home to try and wrap up the American League Eastern conference finals Saturday night in game 6, and earn their fourth Calder Cup finals appearance in the last five years. I’ll make that trip north, to try and further work out the grumps.

A Defense Pair’s Conflict of Colors

The OFB Team — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 23:07:05 +0000

The best-laid plans . . .

At the start of this week I had ahead of me the prospect of one of the more appealing visits to Hershey, Pennsylvania, I believed I’d ever make. It was the return home to Hershey weekend for American hockey hero John Carlson. But as Joe Murphy’s law would have it, the Capitals on Friday recalled Carlson, and so as my Jeep was making its way North for the weekend just as Carlson’s car was headed South. But the beat of one of the most illustrious franchises in all of professional sports hardly has but a single storyline, and so I adjusted my coverage plans, and hardly, I thought, to a mediocre plan B: still skating with the Bears is Karl Alzner, who just happened to captain Team Canada at the 2008 World Juniors and won two gold medals in that tournament. Think he had a rooting interest in the most recent WJC?

So I thought it would be fun to try and chat him up about that remarkable gold medal game between the Canadians and the Yanks, and and take the pulse of his emotions on it a bit.

And as far as Carlson goes, Comcast Sportsnet’s Michelle Scalise had my back a bit by penning a terrific feature on the other bluechip blueliner and, along with Lisa Hillary, producing this video of Carlson from Friday night, after the Caps’ 6-1 smackdown of the Leafs:

Now my video of Alzner carries a slightly less polished look to it, but that’s part of the charm of a retail hockey blog, isn’t it? I’m indebted to the Hershey Bears’ Jess Mikula for shooting the footage while I tossed questions at Alzner.

Two things stood out to me about Alzner’s reactions to the American victory in Saskatoon: first, like so many of us, he at first didn’t realize it was his defense partner who’d won the game — no. 11 in red, white, and blue looked an awful lot like a skilled forward carrying the puck up the ice and unleashing a no-look snapper into the back of the Canadian cage. But Alzner, while acknowledging shock and disappointment at the outcome, quickly realized how significant a moment this was in the entirety of what will be John Carlson’s hockey life, and he sent his teammate a text in the immediacy of the outcome, just to drive home that point. That’s a former Team Canada captain reaching out to his American League teammate in real time to say ‘Hell of a job, buddy.’ No wonder Alzner is so thoroughly well liked throughout the Washington organization, and how well does it bode for the Capitals’ blueline in the years ahead knowing that two gold medal winners from perhaps the world’s best hockey tournament soon will be patroling it?

Ten-Minute Video Scrapbook of Gold Medal Glory

The OFB Team — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:27:44 +0000

Revenge Looks Beautiful Wearing Gold: USA 6 / Canada 5 – OT – WJC Final

The OFB Team — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:39:01 +0000

Not Quite the Confidence and Swagger Associated with a Five-Time Champ

The OFB Team — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:02:24 +0000

Now That's Vanquishing a Hated Foe

The OFB Team — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 05:24:41 +0000

Musings from an unexpectedly madhouse rink in Chinatown:

A season-altering triumph? It sure had that feeling in the immediate aftermath of a cardiac comeback against the ‘Canes. The Caps were three minutes shy of starting off an important homestand with a frustrating loss to their fiercest and most hated Southeast foe. Then, in keeping with his storybook season, Alexander Semin took a struggling team on his back and willed them to triumph with his magic wrists.

It was a World Championships reunion night at Verizon Center. Back in May, the Russian entry in the IIHF World Championships skated a top forward line comprised of Alexander Ovechkin, Sergei Fedorov, and Alexander Semin. They acquitted themselves rather well in the sense that all three finished in the top 5 in tournament scoring: Semin with 13 points, Ovechkin and Fedorov with 12, in 9 games. All three skated in double-digit plus-minus for the tourney, and Ovechkin and Fedorov assisted on Ilya Kovalchuk’s gold medal winning overtime goal against Canada. Caps’ fans following the tourney on line understandably wondered: would the dominant line in one of hockey’s most prestigious events be reconstituted on the Caps in 2008-09? The answer on Thursday night at Verizon Center finally arrived — yes! And before Fedorov departed the game in the third period with a “lower body” injury, there was ample reason for Caps’ fans to wish that the line remain intact the remainder of the season.

It really ought to be the best line in hockey. Alluding to the trio’s chemistry, Mike Green in the post-game locker room noted, “They’re best of buds.”

In light of the way the Hurricanes’ ’07-’08 season ended last spring, with that stunning home ice loss to Florida opening the door for the Capitals to steal the Southeast title and the division’s lone postseason entry with their 82nd game, you could convincingly suggest that last night was Carolina’s biggest game of the young season. The visitors played a simple, largely disciplined game, and they got high-quality goaltending from elite talent Cam Ward. What the ‘Canes failed to do was win faceoffs (winning just 36 percent of the game’s draws), and they certainly failed to contain Alexander Semin when it counted.

A confession: I arrived at the rink somewhat soured on this team’s long-term prospects, and Thursday night’s high drama late masks for another day still significant concerns. The Caps at times Thursday again got “too cute” with their offensive zone attacks, and the home crowd let them know it — particularly in the third period. The development of a reliable “lunchpale line,” a trio of strong and gritty willing to get dirty in front of the net and in corners shift after shift, would I think go a long way to reorienting this team’s identity and alleviating its startling inconsistency. Who would skate on such a line? Chris Clark for sure. Brooks Laich is another candidate. If he could somehow make a position switch, I’d like to see what Eric Fehr could do on such a line.

Remember Ovi’s monster night (4 goals) against front-running Montreal at Verizon Center way back in January? Don’t you get the feeling that his countryman Semin, in this ‘I’ve arrived’ autumn he’s authoring, is going to have one of those himself? Or maybe three of them?

Games like Thursday’s have meaning — even season-defining meaning ocassionally. Fully 30 minutes after the game I walked past ‘Canes’ coach Peter Laviolette in the hall outside the visitors’ room. His team was already on its bus. The coach moved slowly, his shoulders slumped, his expression one of thorough, lasting dejection. I’ve seen a lot of disappointed coaches in that hall the past couple of seasons, but none looking quite as agony-ridden as Laviolette.

Washington is a town renowned for Redskin quarterback controversies. This autumn, the Capitals have a goaltending one.

Upstate New York Is Where the August Hockey Action Heats Up

The OFB Team — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:27:35 +0000

Ryan Bourque seeks to follow brother Chris' path to the World Junior Championships

August is a month of relative tranquility for the NHL, but for USA Hockey, it’s one of the most important months of the calendar year. Each August, more than 50 of the most accomplished young American hockey players gather for a week in Lake Placid for the 2008 National Junior Evaluation Camp. For most, their performance during this camp determines their viability for the U.S. Under-20 team that competes in the World Junior Championships at year’s end.
The camp includes the participation of the national junior teams from Sweden and Finland, and the approximately 50 Americans are split into two teams, White and Blue, resulting in a four-team, eight-game round robin slate of exhibitions. The results this month were largely good for USA Hockey: the two American squads won five of the eight games.
August 5: USA Blue 4, Finland 1; USA White 2, Sweden 3
August 6: USA White 7, Finland 1; USA Blue 7, Sweden 1
August 8: USA White 3, Sweden 7; USA Blue 4, Finland 5 (OT)
August 9: USA White 5, Finland 2; USA Blue 5, Sweden 4 (SO)
Thirteen Americans who were in Lake Placid have already been selected in the first round of the past two NHL drafts; 10 more were tabbed in round 2. There were a number of ’09 and even ’10 draft eligibles who will surely swell those ranks. We could see first-round talent skating on the American 4th line this December.
NHL.com offered blogging coverage of the camp that is worth checking out.
Quality and consistent netminding has been an achilles heel for the Americans at the World Juniors in recent years, but this August’s Evaluation Camp hinted that better days in net could be on the horizon. Three of the goalies in camp have already been drafted, including Detroit’s first-rounder from this past June, Thomas McCollum of the Guelph Storm. 2007 second-rounder Jeremy Smith (Nashville) played so well for Plymouth in 2006-07 — 23-6-0-1, with four shutouts — that he made the Caps’ talented goaltending prospect Michal Neuvirth expendable. Smith went 4-0 at the 2008 World Juniors, but he’ll need to improve on a .894 save percentage for the Americans to contend for gold. The Americans have fielded strong World Junior teams in recent years, and have played some excruciatingly competitive hockey against four-time gold medalist Canada then, but the Canadians have consistently boasted stud talent (Cam Ward, Carey Price) between the pipes.
Seven 17-year-olds were at this month’s Evaluation Camp, and perhaps none generated more buzz than netminder Mike Lee. NHL.com has already weighed in on Lee’s talent. He played high school hockey for Roseau in Minnesota last season, but he went 27-2-0 with a 1.10 goals-against and a .936 save percentage. Some of the most respected names in American hockey are already sold on Lee’s ability.

“I don’t see many goalies better than Mike Lee,” says Dean Blais, coach of the expansion Fargo Force in the United States Hockey League, “and I’ve coached three World Junior teams.”
Blais, a former coach at the University of North Dakota, doesn’t easily throw around praise. He sees something special in Lee and has made him the No. 1 goalie with the expansion Force this season. Lee has passed up his senior season at Roseau High to join forces with the Force.
“I have a pretty good feeling about him, that he will be a success at whatever he does,” said Blais. “He’s a very good goalie, fundamentally solid and competitive.”
Lee [is] already on NHL Central Scouting’s preseason watch list for players eligible for the 2009 Entry Draft . . .”

On the blueline, the Americans will return just three talents with World Juniors experience: Jonathon Blum, Ian Cole, and Cade Fairchild. But the American reinforcements on the back end are exciting: Zach Bogosian, drafted third overall by Atlanta this past June; Kevin Shattenkirk, 14th overall by Colorado in 2007; and Ryan McDonagh, 12th overall by Montreal in ’07.
Caps’ 2008 first-rounder John Carlson will get a good look. Keep an eye on 16-year-old Cam Fowler of Canton, Mass. In the past two years two OHL teams (Kitchener, Windsor) have selected Fowler in the OHL’s first round attempting to lure him away from his commitment to Notre Dame. He’s a wild card longshot who’s been ranked among the best talents in the world in his age group for years — including skating with the U.S. Under-17s as a 14-year-old.
Up front, the Americans will rely on the firepower of James vanRiemsdyk, Jordan Schroeder (8 points in the 2008 WJC), and Colin Wilson, the latter of whom enjoyed a breakout World Juniors in the Czech Republic last year that launched him into the the top 10 of this past June’s NHL draft (7th, Nashville). Jim O’Brien spent just one season with Minnesota of the WCHA before signing with Ottawa this summer. Two American forwards put up more than 100 points in the WHL last season: Santa Ana, California’s, Colin Long notched 112 points in 79 games with Kelowna in ’07-08, and Drayson Bowman went for 53 goals and 49 assists in 87 games with Spokane.
Caps’ fans might be interested in the name of another Lake Placid camp attendee: Ryan Bourque, brother of Chris. Like his brother, he’s packaged small (5’8, 170), but he enjoyed a strong season with the Under-17 team and had a solid Under-18 World Championship (5 points in 7 games).
This year’s World Juniors will be contested in Ottawa beginning December 26.

Russia Came, Russia Conquered, and Russia Was Very Well Covered

pucksandbooks — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:14:16 +0000

Congratulations not only to Team Russia for its performance at the Worlds but for the excellent coverage of the tournament by Sovetsky Sport, Russia’s largest newspaper.
The Russian Hockey Federation was thrilled with SovetskySport’s coverage of the team at Worlds, so much so that they were the only print media allowed in the dressing room after Sunday’s gold medal win. They were also the only print media invited to fly back with the team on their charter back to Moscow. According to our good friend Dmitry Chesnokov, a lot of stories from that champions’ flight will forever remain unpublished.
Incidentally, these Russian hockey players — they’re a rather photogenic bunch, aren’t they?

Does Hockey Really Need TV?

pucksandbooks — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:32:13 +0000

By now, you’ve probably read accounts of hockey enjoying a significant spike in the sport’s television ratings recently. No doubt you also know of (and admire) hockey’s embrace of alternative media. That union has been a fusion of opportunism, technology, and desperation. Generally, it seems to be working.
Still, we’re three years into the Crosby-Ovechkin Era, and even with the promise of hockey benefitting dramatically — perhaps moreso than any other sport — from high definition television, there are durable limitations posing a serious ceiling on Television America’s embrace of our frozen game.
One is geography. Climate, while not metaphysically determinative in the matter, nonetheless plays a lead role in forging many puckheads’ attachments to the game. The other is the physical parameters and pacing at play. Football with its rectangular field, allowing many varying camera angles, and regular stops in the action, doesn’t merely allow television a foothold in its event but actually, in its modern incarnation, is determined by it. Or perhaps you’ve missed the past twenty Super Bowls.
But think about the hockey rink, which necessarily with its dasher boards shields three-and-a-half feet of action from the camera eye and many spectators seated low-in-the-bowl. Its oval, walled- and netted-in configuration just isn’t super fan friendly, relative to the playing fields and surfaces of other sports. It ever has to be so.
This week, freshly considering this reality, aware of a new and fabulous North American fascination with the untelevised World Championships, and aware of film increasingly relying on viral marketing, I wondered: just how much does hockey really need TV?
Can hockey go Cloverfield?
Something fantastically viral transpired with these Worlds. True, North American hockey hearts could welcome them into their lives as not before because of their arrival in Canada, and their being contested in North American time zones. But in Washington at least, it seemed to me that many, many more followed this tournament than in recent years past.
They were able to because of the arrival of the World Championship Sports Network. You plunked down $5 and you got about 50 world-class hockey games broadcast on your computer. On demand, too. Folks like me on regular business travel could carry our laptops along on trips and catch the Worlds in our world of airport terminals, bars Wi-Fi, or hotel rooms.
We in D.C. didn’t want to surrender high-level hockey when we were forced to last month, and when in prelude exhibition play for the Worlds word filtered out (virally) that Russia’s top line was comprised entirely of Washington Capitals, a fair number of folks in this region found a storyline they wanted to follow a bit.
In years past, I don’t recall hockey fans clogging my in-box with reactions to the Worlds they were unable to view. They couldn’t. Also in years past, if I wanted some reaction forum on the tournament I was pretty much confined to the tournament message board at hockeysfuture. This spring there was vibrant commentary on the Worlds on the Caps’ official message boards; in comments left here and on other Washington hockey blogs; and perhaps most tellingly, on the media blogs of the Caps’ beat reporters in town.
Now consider, too, the behemoth ESPN’s role in hockey’s rather robust return from its labor stoppage of a few years back. Which is: nothing. People still snicker at the agreement the NHL has with Versus, but the league’s revenues keep on growing. Somehow word is getting out about great hockey being played these days.
Moreover, hockey’s roots in the broadcast medium are with iconic, culture-defining radio personalities (Foster Hewitt) as opposed to John Madden- or Howard Cosell-type mega personalities on TV. I find that charming. And telling.
I’m still fascinated by the X-Files-like thought of Comcast one day rising up and challenging ESPN’s dominance. But if that never happens, if hockey is never accorded a seat at the broadcast dining room table by the usual suspects, is that so bad? It will always have regionalized television coverage. The league’s dedicated channel is a hit with its fans. Its universe of supporters on line grows by the week — and it appears to be broadening internationally, too — and they’re distinctly engaged. And I’m sure the league and its visionary, new media marketers like Leonsis are by no means exhausted of their ideas for broadening further sports’ fans interest in hockey.
Still, what a lovely virus we have at the moment.

The Look of a World Champion

pucksandbooks — Mon, 19 May 2008 04:13:07 +0000

IIHF game summary:

“If this game isn’t evidence enough to everyone in Canada of the calibre of play possible in the World Championship, nothing is or ever will be. Played at breathtaking speed with heart-pounding drama, this would surely rank in the top 10 of the IIHF’s top 100 if the list were released next week instead of yesterday.”

TSN tournament photo gallery
‘Russian rhapsody,’ by Roy MacGregor, Toronto Globe and Mail
‘No Canada! Collapse GIve Russia Gold,’ The National Post
‘Can’t Bear It,’ by Kevin Crush, Edmonton Sun
Champions! Russia Today (video)