In Glacialis Blog

usquequaque entertaining fontis of lusum similitudo- commemoro minutia, UniWatch, has a compilation of gametime scrambling causa per lost vel pallium similitudo. article—inspired per repens Virgo Tech ludio ludius quisnamhad ut gero Georgia Tech jerseys parumper repens venatus, universa per manus nameplates—has unus hockey- commemoro exempoator:

1998: Per orbis terrarum Junior Hockey Championships in Finland, Canalis quod Russia utriusque ostendo sursum parumper quarterfinal venatus per rutilus similitudo. Russia est designo domus team, sic Canadians es vis ludo prothoplastus period in Finnish populus jerseys insquequo suum niveus jerseys can exsisto coegi ut pulvis.

Click hic ut lego plenus article, comprehendo ordo fabula of Detroit Tiger valde “ dulcis Lou” Whitaker decessio suus Totus- Astrum jersey domi, iens in sto emo a vestis restituo, quod simplex stilus suus numerus in tergus.

Forsitan Caps should have accidentally”” forgotten suum similitudo pro venatus in Tampa; theyd’ amo ustulo magis calx taedium Telum unis. Sarcalogos Bourque vires vel net a hat furta taedium Bellicus St. Louis’ sweater—theyre’ super idem eadem idem amplitudo, vox?

ESPNs’ Scott Burnside ordo totus 30 NHL Caput capitis Cogo. Nostrum own Glen Hanlon reprehendo in procul #20.

“Hanlon Hasnonium’ had ultum laboro per in Lavatio, tamen hes’ instilled an infigo opus ethic in suus copiae copie. Iam, hes’ got nonnullus magis tools quod is ero interesting video vidi visum quantus magis Hanlon can adepto ex suus novus- vultus Caps.”

Animadverto plenus albumhic.

Hockey luminare Gary Melior quod 2007-08 Jack Insuadibilis Award victor Glen Hanlon loom amplus illa dies. Gnarus mandatum ut EGO operor, suus’ virtually certain abyssus’ insist in senseless redundantia, neque nec cancer reliquum of NHL season quod instead mandatum ut Caps universa ceteri 79 venatus in suum schedule. Insanity est praeclarus termino ut repetitio of idem eadem idem factum dum specto a diversus eventus. Utique in absentis of competitive drama is hockey season Caps can showcase suum infigo novus threads in pulvis trans jugis.

Quam sum EGO volo laboro sursum ullus odium of Caps’ contradictio ut they cant’ vel ustulo?

Hic’ unus procuratio EGO operor specto ex league muneris, forsitan ut mane ut hodie: Caps ero postulo ut geroillic versions of Reeboks’ similitudo ratio, ones no of Northern Ireland ovis laneus, pro they es unable laboro sursum a sudo in suum current vestio. Singulariter calx. EGO sum an admirer of teams’ primoris television ad of novus season, unus featuring a sultry brunette res tattooed per novus logo. Tamen Id’ modify ads’ slogan ut: “Perimeter kicksaves per yawning netminders, in Verus Colo colui cultum”

Hanlon, pauci would have coniecto a mensis abhinc, est hodie in brevis album proLusum Illustrateds’ Sportsman of Annus Award — utique si suus’ largior pro exemplary acts of bonus sportsmanship. Gnarus is had usque weakspots ex repens annus repletus in suus roster coming in is season, hes’ electus sedeo Alexander Semin in duos of seasons’ oris three venatus, affording vultus of competitiveness in venatus. EGO teneo Semins’ ankle est vomica, tamen EGO quoque teneo ut hed’ exsisto lascivio erant nos in April instead of October. Sive seu illic eram ullus nuto ut ut eventus.

Inter duos- tertius of Caps’ caput capitis versus est in synch, vox lascivio isnt’, quod a bulla est absentis ex versus, ita recedentia nemo in Oriens can contendo. Narro of pannosa, porro EGO no promissio ut meus hockey chums ut ut Senior Sto est hoisted hic per meus guys Id’ proprius etch vicis in meus prohibeo castra aestiva. Herewith, Im’ recipero censeo ex tellus’ parlors, per tremulus puga pyga.

Statua infesto ut must exsisto subsido in in teams’ imperator procurator quod explorator, gnarus ut nunc, per rectum of a obnoxius NHL Tabula of Satraps decretum, they ero termino ut drafting hockey ludio ludius tantum ex Maryland quod Virgo. Vos dont’ vere reputo league est iens ut tribuo Ross Mahoney et al a fragor procul alius Mathieu Perreault — (hes’ inconcessus ludo quot venatus ut alius porro in QMJHL, ut servo ustulo natio nationis competitive) — operor vos?

Lindsay Czarniak certus didnt’ pick vox hockey season praecessi ut atrum (Burgundy) pars, did is?

Nos have a Volvo Dico of Silicis- in- Suum- Caput capitis conduco. Primoris sursum, ESPNs’ John Buccigross, quisnampegged Caps pro 14th in Orientales Placitum is season. Ut eramper Alexander Semin in versus is prognosticated sic. Alius permaneo- locus- in-- Inferus forecast venit exLusum Illustrateds’ Sarah Kwak. “suum offseason permoveo deficio alloquor defensabiliter shortcomings ut led ut suum trado 3.35 calx a venatus” is sententia. Caps have defensabiliter “shortcomings” tantum si barometer eram tenura totus 82 inimicus scoreless pro universus season. Lets’ animadverto si nos can adepto Eric Staal quod Erik Cole quod Ryan Niveus impetro offa occurro supremus 5 midway per a venatus obviam Caps pro nos wring nostrum manuum super “ defensabiliter shortcomings.”

Hic’ quis Kwak should have written: “fossor in D.C. is estas: Kris Beech. Superstes pendo? Quinque socors, minimum.”

Is dynasty-audition per Caps est semino in mihi sane tamen nonetheless exuberant sententia. Reprehendo sicco verto EGO had tonight per upilio opilio of utriusque devia quod tumor pectus pectoris in radio sulum vesper,Delilah, in FM WASH:

Delilah: “in diligo versus, pucksandbooks . . . ut’ a ornamentum nomen. Sic vos volo dedico Paul McCartneys’ ‘ leviculus Diligo Carmen’ Dico mihi Pucks, cuius’ pallium vestri pectus pectoris is Monday nox noctis?”

mihi “inicio Koharski.”

DJ Peruro, sator of SportsPickle quod scriptor pro ESPN’s Page 2, suggero fans of alius lusum an NHL primer huic season. Funny effercio, comprehendo:

John Tortorella = Tom Coughlin
Tampa Sinus Levitas cogo est offensus per plures of suus ludio ludius. Verum, in Proficiscor ut Tom Coughlin iocus is eram secundus- plurimus invisus alio in universitas history secundum Hitler, vere plenus laudo eram is: “Hitler tunc mihi, in ut ordo … quod tertius est John Tortorella, secuutus prope per quisquis is eram ut subcribo Dane Crustulum ut a movie paciscor, secuutus per Pol Pot.”

Pium Kane = Greg Oden Kevin Durant
Haud. 1 super lectio in Junes’ draft ero asked ut adveho in quod statim affero ut Pullus Blackhawks. Meus divinatio est ut is mos operor ut per volatilis colo colui cultum quoniam si vos have umquam seen Blackhawks lascivio, is can amplio team simplex per gnarus quam ut skate neque nec ordine ustulo own- calx.

Magis quod magis interventus exitus have lautus Caput in a favourable lux lucis. Vos can iam adaugeo ESPN ut umquam-growing album.

Quod team ero is seasons’ admiratio fabula? ESPN.com est picking Lavatio Caput quod Scott Burnside mos chronicle teams’ eo per season. In Secui Ego, nos suscipio per teams’ newfound visum procul palaestra castra.

Burnsides’ primoris vitualamen est hodie inscribo ‘Rebuilding’ haud diutius in Caput’ vocabulary.

Gratiae utKuklas’ Korner pro caput capitis- sursum.

EGO vere contemno is ut BigMedia takes a magnificabiliter fabula informatio quod dilutes suus fun with needless quod distraho ideology/ amicabiliter commentary. Most nostrum patrocinor lusum subterfugio shortcomings of verus universitas, secundum totus. Jim Caple of ESPNs’ Page 2 hodie took a fun quod fascinating thema — 101 of lusum’ fans must- animadverto lusum events — quod gave is quis EGO dico ESPN treatment: a decens amount of sententia quod eloquentia, nonnullus cleverness, but also that outlets characteristic’ politically rectus/ amicabiliter re-engineering/insufferable, superbus, elitist and condescending lecture-posturing. Quis should have been a prorsus fun quod amplus frivolous, disputatio-provoking estas lego tractus interdum into an unintended parody of MSM pendo . . . ones which are seldom partis per an maximus constituency — its lector/ visum.

Puteus, utique Caple got ex satus porta in OK formo. Suus caput capitis 5 must- animadverto lusum vices est ut insisto:

• Estas Olympics
• Universitas Vas
• Hiberna Olympics
• Universitas Serius
• NCAA Subregional

profiteor haud 5, contraho “Subregional,” EGO have haud informatio quis ut est. Tamen ceteri, puteus, they gero vis of vulgus populus secundum lemma. Vos can have orbis terrarum Vas, ut mihi soccer est chess ludio ludius sicco in gramen quod patrocinor totus quoque saepius per hooligans. (tumultus super 2 hora of scorelessness est understandable, tamen non pro causa Europeans quod Tertius- Universitas do.) EGO eram vere admiratio procul altus ordo pro Hiberna Olympics, seeing ut how little “ varietas” illic est inter suus athletes. Caple snuck unus preteritus suus emendator.

Caple tunc has Vinco in suus caput capitis 10 ( haud. 8, quod est teres); Wimbledons’ (9) ok quoque, adeo ut vestri’ sessio procul Centre Villa quod Caltha Sharapovas’ lascivio. Suus primoris vere magnus erroris est per Michigan-Ohio Civitas, procul haud. 17. Im’ rumex, tamen ut’ American Icon, fere certainly maximus event each annus in Midwest ( ut persolvo BigMedias’ devalue-ing is). A caput capitis 10-er pro certus.   

Hockey planto suus coepi vultus in Caples’ album procul haud. 20: Sto Vas playoffs. OK. Vos quod EGO would have is superus, nimirum, tamen memor, is est idem eadem idem exitus ut fossor NHL, quod suus postseason, in ventus of  televised poker. Quod altus schola cheerleading competitions. (persevero)

TSN, ESPN,quod Lusum Illustrated iam have NHL inrideo drafts posteri in suum veneratio sites. Duos have Caps lectio London Miles militis cardo Sam Gagner per diapente pick; ceterus divinatio Caps mos pick blueliner Karl Alzner of Calgary Hitmen. 

Usquequaque interesting video vidi visum diversus scriptor’ interpretation of quam a teams’ postulo quod drafting penicullus labefactum suum lectio. Unus draft vel has potential #1 Kyle Turris dropping utsedecim.

Sentio solvo ut stipes a ineo linking ut alius inrideo drafts vos may reperio. . . quantum hilaris!

Im’ non a magnus fan of ESPNs’ Scott Burnside. Is teneo hockey quod diligo venatus, tamen est quoque reactionary — he videor ut minutum sulum magnus ledo ut immunda, pro example — quod is videlicet has haud diligo lost pro Caput quod alius vegrandis- venalicium teams. Tamen EGO funditus congruo per Burnsides’ assessment of Flamma’ GM Darryl Sutters’ bizarre sententia ut hire promptus immortalis Mike Alacer . . . and any article utfoedus Mike Alacer ut a cockroach est dignitas legens legentis.

igneus cogo est iam recedentia semotus ex suus maioribus triumphus, 1994 Sto Vas lucror per Novus York Rangers. Is has been victus off ut prosperitas pro sulum minute of preteritus 13 annus per absolutely haud tangible testimonium is can cogo an NHL team anymore.”

DJ Gallo, writer at ESPN, Lusum Pickle, quod alius, posteri a fun Sto Vas Denique Q & A in ESPNs’ Page 2 EGO sententia youd’ utor. Hic’ an excerpt:

Si per is serius quisquam says “ questus Jiggy per is” in consanguinei ut Jean-Sebastien Giguere, sum EGO licitus ut punch ut alio in iugulum?

Plurimus certus. Verum, EGO foveo is. Tunc quondam is alio cado pessum, insisto sursum per a kick ut iugulum, quoque.

Suus sermo of Denique’ amo television viewership est ordo. Lavo in sarcasm!

Nos saw is ad in Moscow in bus subsisto, in billboards, in magazines… quod guy admonitio mihi of Sterilis Melrose, mullet quod totus. Iustus sententia Id’ pop is in OFB video vidi visum si EGO eram vox sive seu is eram iustus a somnus deprivation- adduco delusion.

headline mos planto voluntas momentarily . . . lego in, MacDuff:

Primoris,David Lacrima Heliandum posteri an spatium per Eddie Cahill in ESPN hodie. Cahill, a intereo- ferreus Novus York Rangers’ fan ( sententia nos moris’ habitum ut obviam him), ludio ludius Team USA goaltender Jim Craig in Disneys’ Miracle. Is quoque astrum inCSINY: ut Deprehensio Inicio Flack.

Dum suus persona inMiracle eram vero infigo (Jim Craig sententia sic), quod is liberatio sui puteus in CSI — sententia interCSI quodLex & Ordo unus admiratio si ullus incola of Novus York Urbs es etiam spiritus — suus plurimus infigo tutela factum may puteus exsisto smooching Jennifer Anethum pro septem episodes of Amicitiaut Tag Jones.

Q: Quis’ been highlight of vestri acting tutela eatenus?

A: EGO reputo Id’ have loquor “Miracle.” Ut humus of guys eram valde laboro per. . . illic eram quispiam proprius super meus usus in ut movie. EGO vilis, questus vivo sicco meus fantasy hockey tutela eram pulchellus frigus. Ut vos capto in acting, [ capit adeo] pro vos vultus inter quod narro, “ sanctus crap! EGO vires vere exsisto a secui illae res” Quod secundum “Miracle,” ut venio mihi. EGO animadverto is valde puteus may exsisto quis EGO operor parumper victus.

Q: Si “Miracle” eram Haud. 1, Im’ non certus qua vos loco condita sicco per Jennifer Anethum in vestri album. . .
A: [ rideo risi risum] 1-A. Ut eram valde.

Cahill est videlicet donum ut is adveho ut understatement.

In addition, Cahill estblogging in NHL.com per playoffs — vel utique quoad suus Rangers es in hunt. Suus’ fere ut appealing ut Requiro Minnesota 2006 Nicole Swansons’ blog (per video of suus forma a Torva sudo), tamen Cahill est nimirum a fervidus fan.

Nos procul OFB ostendo sum in fossura procul MSMs’ imperator slowness obviam lusum nos diligo; suus’ tantum mediocris ut nos quoque partis illud instances ut suus hockey occulto goes ultra simplex venatus epitome.

Res in frons, secui in tergus! Huic photo, Brendan Witt lusum utriusque a fulsi quod nonnullus serius mulletude — utriusque institutio identifiers of unus quisnam lascivio hockey parumper victus.

liquidus crines of mullet es forsitan plurrimi statim identifiable vultus of hockey ludio ludius stereotype. ESPN has suusSecundus Annual Melrose Mullet Rabies Peruro online, comprehendo links ut praevius mullet galleries — quod, nimirum, comprehendo prodigiosus poodle-ish photos of Jaromir Jagr in suus prime. Ryan Smyth, Mike Ricci (obviously), quod vel Paul McCartney es quoque featured.

Nos procul OFB ostendo sum in hockey-ness illaecoiffure. Nos dont’ sumo ut lusum mullets ourselves, tamen erant nos professio hockey ludio ludius Im’ certus a notabilis prodigium nostri inflatus salaries would vado obviam suffragium nostri hockey bouffants.

mullet est forsitan secundus tantum ut lascivio barba in NHLs’ amplitudo history of sartorial species. Huic vicis of lascivio hockey — quod, in nonnullus theca, planto veterans of lascivio rookies (c.f. Roberto Luongos’ 2.3 venatus ludio ludius Wednesday nox noctis) — OFB tutus MacGyver-esque saeta of hockey ludio ludius.

ESPNs’ Page 2 debuted suumPoena quod Patientia formula hodie pro quattuor major domus lusum. scriptor computus iustus quantus dolor has been ingero super a donatus teams’ fans ( ullus team ut won suus lusum’ championship in preteritus viginti- quinque annus est excludo), tunc album 46 plurimus aggrieved fan substructio.

Flyers adveho in procul #3 super, altissimus ( summitto?) ordo NHL team. Caps planto an vultus in album pariter. . . per a bonus Jagr Mullet photo:

30. LAVATIO Caput

Permaneo titulus: Nunquam Seasons: 31 Playoffs: 18 Victor seasons: 18 Denique damnum: 1 (1)

Pessimus team umquam? Caput iunctus NHL in 1974, quod permissum nos precor nos nunquam animadverto a team is nocens iterum. They perfectus 8-67-5 quod won iustus unus via venatus. They erant outscored 446-181. Promptus, Hanson frater erant unavailable.

Fere a animus- combibo moment tamen ultum peior quam a kick ut inguen: Caps erant validus per ’80s, condita playoffs sulum annus ex ‘83 ut ‘96. Tamen suum lascivio heartbreak eram optimus termino per ille Orientales Epic primoris- rotundus damnum ut Insula in 1987. teams erant placitum pro diapente rectus annus in playoffs, tamen Caps took a 3-1 serius plumbum. Novus York vis Venatus 7, quod eram broadcast in ESPN in Imbuo nox noctis pro Orientales … tamen venatus wouldnt’ terminus insquequo Orientales oriens, ut Insula’ Pat Lafontaine denique ustulo victor in quartus deprehendo.

P & S rating: 3.00 (equivalent ut six Jaromir Jagrs)

2007 Glacialis Quattuor est iam paro. Hic est updated bracket:

Secundum a effrego tunc weekend, St. Louis, Missouri, mos populus North Dakota vs. Boston Contraho quod Pelagus vs. Michigan Civitas in semifinal venatus in April 5th. Utriusque venatus ero aired in ESPN2. championship venatus ero in 7th of April in ESPN.

John Buccigross weighs in on the amazing Blake Wheeler goal in his latest ESPN column:

[To] Blake Wheeler from the University of Minnesota hockey squad: Dude, I was anchoring “SportsCenter” on Saturday night when you scored that goal. It was No. 2 on Top Plays. No. 2! That would have been the lead of the whole show if I was producing. Sick!

Ovechkin’s goal last season in Phoenix is likely the greatest goal of all time. Perhaps, it’s tied with Keith Jones scoring as a member of the Avalanche in 1998, when he blocked a shot in his own end and the puck wound up in Edmonton’s empty net. Where have you gone Bob Essensa? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Wheels, your goal has to be the second or third greatest. Considering the circumstances — overtime in the WCHA final — I ain’t arguing if someone says that was the greatest goal in hockey history. Certainly NCAA history.

. . . Good luck to you and all 16 teams in the NCAA Tournament. While everyone else will be watching the NCAA hoops this weekend, I’ll be the guy watching the puck.

If only Bucci ran ESPN!

College hockey completed its biggest weekend of the season Saturday night, but you’d never know it from your Sunday morning coffee with the Washington Post.

The first thing you should know is that the Sunday WaPost sports section ranks among the largest in the entire U.S. Sixteen full pages yesterday. There’s conspicuously little space-eating advertising within it, too. In sheer girth, this is a very meaty sports section.

You might however wonder: wasn’t it distinctly possible, what with the NCAA hoops tourney, men’s and women’s, in full madness, and spring training heating up, that college hockey — even its postseason — simply got crowded out? In point of fact, it matters not what day or week or month of the year it is on 15th St. — the Post ever ignores all things college puck. No season previews, no holiday tournament roundups, not even buried deep a concise listing merely of the weekend scores. Ever.

And what specifically did WaPost cover for us in college hockey’s absence yesterday morning? I’m glad you asked. On E3 we were treated to approximately 20 column inches of update on the second annual National Marathon (it seems to be “finding its stride”). Next to it, commanding more than 30 column inches, was Angus Phillips’ column on yellow perch fishing in the region. I’m not going to go Chris Simon over that — Angus’ column is a Washington institution.

Horse racing (gobbling up 16 column inches) (in March) greets us on E5.

Things get real interesting on E7. It was a Sunday of regular season NBA duty, so of course the entirety of that page was devoted to the league. As was the entirety of the preceding page, E6, too. Koran-sized coverage for the NBA regular season. Imagine the coverage if in that league the first 46 minutes of the games mattered.

Here’s a headline of note on E8: “Ilchenko Overcomes Jellyfish, Humans.” The dateline is Melbourne, Australia, which is considerably closer to Washington than a hockey-supporting editor is to 15th Street. It’s a swimming story. In March.

I’m definitely not interested in my readers reminding me again of the Post’s hatred of hockey and instructing me to grin and bear it. The Post, dear readers, is a news organization, and there was most definitely news of the non-yellow perch variety to chronicle this weekend. In fact, there was a triumphant moment of virtuosity, authored by Minneosta’s Blake Wheeler, that transcended any bias based on regional or niche classification. Even ESPN acknowledged it. And there was more, including the novelty of two military academies meeting on the ice for a birth in college hockey’s Elite 16.

Instead, we get box scores (two of them) for early season action completed by four women’s lacrosse teams.

I must conclude with the obvious and the rhetorical: Who thinks this morning’s WaPost has college hockey’s brackets up in the paper? You’ll find those here.

It’s a classic children’s joke that continues, “Pete fell out. Who was left?”

The answer is supposed to be “Repeat” to which the joke-teller responds, “Pete and Repeat were . . .” In this case, the answer is “Burnside.” Sure it’s the Spring Break season and the remaining sober masses are busy filling out brackets, but does that give MSM outlets a pass to be lazy? Do they, like network television, actually believe their audience is stupid?

It was announced today that the Flightless Fowl of Steeltown will get a new nest and not have to migrate to more comfortable surroundings. The end of relocation talk did not stop Scott Burnside, a “frequent contributer” to ESPN.com. Today, he took the opportunity to rate other relocations Past, Present, and Future. Either Burnside and/or the editors thought we would be too dumb to notice or the editors were that dumb, but Japers’ Rink was not.

The keen and unforgiving eye of JP noticed that Burnside and ESPN.com reposted an article that appeared in December, 2006 … VERBATIM. Check out the “Scott Burnside Archive.” You’ll find the same title and summary listed for both March 13, 2007, and December 20, 2006.

There is a silver lining in this rehash cloud. You don’t have to spend money to be an ESPN Insider to read their archived articles. Just wait 3 months or so.

I learned something startling this week — that a Washington Post blogger-reporter feels uncomfortable around the athletes in the Washington Capitals’ locker room. Let me first say that Dan Steinberg’s experiences and perceptions are obviously his own, and as such are not for me to second-guess or judge. Secondly, if anybody from the Post ought to feel uncomfortable around our town’s hockey’s players it ought to be the likes of Kornheiser and Wilbon. To the extent that Steinberg’s perceptions are spot on, I’d say this to the Caps: direct your animus where it ought to be — at the poison pens and trash-talking talking heads who’ve genuinely harmed the prospects of hockey in this town, and the nation, for decades.

So ends the comfortable portion of this discussion.

Thesis: in no small numbers we puck devotees are drawn toward, and quietly in bar corners over our puck sodas clearly acknowledge the distinction of, the caliber of human being that characteristically is today’s — and yesterday’s — pro hockey player. Which is best summarized explicitly as: we don’t have Ron Artests in our game.

Not to read too much into Steinberg’s very public disclosure of feeling discomfort in the Caps’ room (he’s acknowledged it in multiple forums), but it does strike me as fantastically ironic. When was the last time you heard a whisper of misgiving from any print or broadcast reporter in town related to having to work near, say, Sean Taylor? If I had a daughter journalist, of any age, she wouldn’t be allowed to step foot in Ashburn, Va., August through late December (the Skins’ lockers ever being cleared out by early January).

Shouldn’t any reporter, male or female, tasked with covering any football player factoried from U-Miami, demand hazard pay?

So many point to the seemingly unassailable accomplishments of Gretzky’s points total and Cal Ripken’s playing streak, but how about the more recent feat in Cincinnati: eight Bengals’ football players arrested in just the last calendar year.

Not to pick on pigskin exclusively. One of the predictably unreported sidebars to the Wizards’ strikingly successful season is the absence of law enforcement intervention directed at the roster. These Wizards, to this thoroughly disinterested NBA eye, genuinely seem like likeable fellas. Problem is, that’s genuinely newsworthy in David Stern’s NBA. Remember the Rod Strickland-led Wiz boycott of a season ticket holder gathering of a few years back . . . ’cause they weren’t being paid for it?

Thesis: when you replace Elgin Baylor’s and John Havilcheck’s NBA with one populated by high school and college dropouts, and suffuse it further with a pervasively broken home generating culture, you get . . . trouble.

You also get microphoned Stuart Scotts when you define deviancy down.

I’m wading into what Simon and Garfunkel would term troubled waters. And it truly merits a (courageous) sociology dissertation. But the premise behind this comparison is two-fold: (1) the MSM can’t quite seem to get their arms around the culture that is hockey . . . and (2) it’s damned interesting to speculate why they consistently fail to see any distinction among the caliber of human beings on the playing fields, courts, or rinks.

Quality human beings — most often, not always, but most often — are bred within quality family structures. Hockey’s distinction in athlete is one, I submit, that is anything but coincidental. One of the more telling exhibits I came upon at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto years back was that of a family station wagon bearing the likenesses of a standard hockey family within: Mom and Dad up front, kids behind, all bundled up in protective layers, school and hockey bags in tow. Its premise was simple and yet powerfully instructive: it takes extraordinary commitment of extraordinary family units over an extraordinary period of time to make a hockey player, whose development begins in pre-dawn darkness most often in rural outposts in bone-chilling, often car-killing temps. You get through that and meeting season ticket holders doesn’t seem like much of an imposition.

Contrast this with the armored SUV that adorns the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.; parental units within are replaced by posse.

I kid. I think.

“Uniform systems” in hockey are related to technological advances addressing perspiration displacement; with increasing frequency in other sports they relate to a lone color: orange.

“Icons” in baseball perjure themselves before Congress, while the rest of the sport’s lab rats scurry for cover and the game’s statisticians add another column to the scoring line: number of Grand Jury appearances. Matchups between Indiana and Detroit, among others, on the hardwood bear a ‘Braveheart’ element of hand-to-hand to them. In at least one large Midwestern city reknown for its chilli the residents are under an autumn-long curfew. I understand why there are firearms in Ted Nugent’s cache, but Michael Vick’s?

Who has the higher mortality rate these days, Spanish bullfighters or NFL cornerbacks?

But we are told that hockey is in trouble.

Tell you what, I’ll keep my low television ratings, the MSM can keep its sporting heroes.

[OFB update: a helpful reader has pointed out to us that the number of Bengals in perp walks the past year is now tallied at nine.]

[OFB update II: How do NBA enthusiasts carry themselves at the league’s All Star Game festivities in Las Vegas? Breitbart News reports with 362 arrests by Vegas police, including shootings that left three people in critical condition.]

ESPN.com hockey columnist Terry Frei’s latest file occasions a rousing salute from this blog. Among his New Years resolutions for the sport of hockey:

U.S. newspaper sports editors, Part I: To come to grips with the reality that hockey-first fans, while in some cases not as numerous as the fans of other sports, actually devour printed and posted coverage about local teams. (Right, like everyone’s rushing to a Marina del Rey 7-Eleven to buy a paper and catch up on the news about the Clippers’ game at Portland?)

And:

U.S. newspaper sports editors, Part II: To ask their columnists to stop rationalizing their inattention and frequent ignorance of hockey by saying that when the franchises aren’t winning, attendance slips, proving they are not working in a “real hockey market.” (Right, like NBA teams — even in “prime” basketball markets — don’t slump at the gate when they stink on the floor?)

In less than 800 words, LZ Granderson’s article “Ace of Blades” on ESPN.com draws you in and evokes, in this reader at least, strong emotions about the game of hockey. Plus any hockey article that references Narnia, the Dukes of Hazzard, and David Sedaris is impressive. Do yourself a favor and check it out.