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Frozen Vulcan: Free At Last

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 | Author:
Yay! Its Over!

Yay! It's Over!

Yes, this does feel like an obligatory post to mark the end of the NHL season. I’m sure I’m not the only who’s relieved that it’s over.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are the Stanley Cup champions, Sydney Crosby gets a Cup at only 21 years of age, Evgeny Malkin has one over Alexander Ovechkin and the Detroit Red Wings are left to wonder how they let one slip away. Pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it?

Really, that’s about as much enthusiasm as I’ve got for the NHL right now. As I’ve written before it’s not that I don’t love hockey or that the quality was bad, it’s that I don’t have any hunger left for the sport past mid-May. Hockey is one of my favourite sports and the quality of play in the 2009 playoffs were better than I can remember at any point in my life.

I think a big part of the problem for me is that the NHL in Canada has morphed into what the NFL has become in the U.S.; a 365 days a year media onslaught. You cannot watch a sportscast in Canada on any day of the year without a hockey story. Every little detail is parsed and beat to death on three dedicated sports networks.

Case in point? The Sydney Crosby handshake controversy. It wasn’t enough that the sport had just crowned a new champion, seen its poster boy lift the Cup, drawn the biggest television rating since 1973, had a dramatic ending to a 7-game series – no, the story of the day is that Sydney Crosby failed to shake hands with every member of the Red Wings.

Listen, I’ve been hard on the “Kid” in these parts, but here’s where he gets my sympathy. Overcome with joy and celebrating with teammates, not to mention being pulled every which way by mulitple media outlets simultaneously, Crosby got into the conga line a little late to shake the opposing team’s hand. He managed to get most of them, but Nicklas Lidstrom didn’t get a handshake. This is the main story of the night? Unbelievable.

So now it’s mid-June and the hockey calendar seamlessly flips over  to 2010. First we have the draft in a week or so, then free-agency July 1st (don’t worry, Sportsnet has you covered with a special NHL Free-Agency Show!). Interspersed throughout the month will be the obligatory stories of the Cup going moose hunting, golfing, going to some remote town, etc. The Ottawa talk radio guys will spend the summer evaluating the Heatley trade every single day until training camp. Phoenix will be a hot topic until the team is moved or sold. August will see the Canada Junior evaluation camp and possibly an Olympic tryout camp. Next thing you know it’s September with all the yawn excitement of pre-season, and countless news stories emanating from Toronto about how the Leafs are on the brink of winning the Cup.

It’s not hard to see why one would get hockey burnout every couple of years. And just think; because of Olympic participation in 2010, we’ll be having this conversation two weeks later next year. Hockey in July? Hell, why not. Might as well play some games if we’re going to talk about it year-round…

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Frozen Vulcan: Game of the Year

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 | Author:

Unlike Sportsnet’s marketing department incorrectly labeling last night’s Yankees v. Jays game “The most anticipated game of the season” (if that’s true, what now Sportsnet? Everything going downhill from here?), I am going to go out on a limb and say this is the Game of the Year (of any sport).

Penguins v. Caps tonight has me as excited for a non-Senators hockey game as I’ve been since Canada ripped the USA a new one at the Salt Lake Olympics. Roy MacGregor sets this one up better than I ever could, so I’ll leave with a link to his piece and some art:

What more do you need?

What more do you need?

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Frozen Vulcan: All Goes According To Script

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 | Author:
Perhaps Simeon should try that glove on the right hand?

Perhaps Simeon should try that glove on his right hand?

And so we come to it then: Alexander Ovechkin and Sydney Crosby in a fight to the death, in a winner-take-all final game that will put a tidy little bow on a package that has done nothing but deliver. It hasn’t been the perfectly played series, and therein lies its charm.

In almost every game the Capitals have come out flat. To my untrained eye it looks like the game only begins in the second period for these young players. Consequently, it is shocking that the Penguins haven’t buried their foe. At one point in the first period last night, the Pens had out-shot the Caps 17-3, in a game the Caps couldn’t lose, yet they were able to tuck their tail between their legs and head to the dressing room only down by one goal.

Oh, and it wasn’t due to Simeon Varlamov standing on his head. No. I found myself wondering why they hadn’t gone to José Théodore for this game. After impressing in his first few games, probably due to his opponents’ unfamiliarity with his flaws, the kid has shown to be most vulnerable in many aspects. Most glaring is his glove side, which is non-existent. He looks so bad on some shots that you wonder if he’s got his mitt on the wrong hand. The reason the Pens weren’t up by at least three after the first is they failed to press their advantage.

Thankfully the energy level picked up in the second period and despite not being a gem like Saturday’s game 5 (a game in which I turned to my 19 year-old brother and said: “I haven’t seen hockey this good in 10-15 years – and you never have”), it finally felt like a deciding game. Crosby had his best game of the series in my opinion, always buzzing around à-la-Ovechkin, and Ovechkin was more subdued but still dominated the scoresheet with three assists. Kind of a role-reversal. Overtime was, as it has been for most of these playoffs, a short affair. Ideally it would be a little longer: somewhere between the triple OT snooze-fest between Detroit and Anaheim and the 12 seconds it took Martin Havlat to dispose of Calgary.

I thought the Penguins deserved to win on the night, but I won’t complain about this series being extended to its limit. Can they give us overtime in Game 7? Something tells me they would have it no other way…

Washinton Capitals PA Annoucner

Washinton Capitals PA Annoucner

I’d like to end with a rant about periphery stuff in this series. I have to ask the question of the Penguins PR department: what is up with the Pittsburgh white-out? Do you not realize that the opposing team is wearing white? Do you not want your fans to look like they’re supporting your team? What a bonehead move. Meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but aggravating nonetheless. What REALLY gets under my skin, though, is the Washington PA guy who sounds like the Tazmanian Devil and the insistence on burying crowd noise after every home goal with an incessent torrent of cop sirens. Come now, DC: no need to make the inside of your arena sound like the outside. All wisecracks aside, Washington currently has the loudest fans in the league – why not let them be the illustration of the city’s exuberance rather than a canned sound-effect cranked to 11 by some overreaching PR guy? Right, this is North America, where crowd noise is frowned upon.

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Frozen Vulcan: Hype Slain

Tuesday, May 05th, 2009 | Author:
Ovechkin vs. Crosby: Better than advertised

Ovechkin vs. Crosby: Better than advertised

In this age of the 24/7 news cycle, three Canadian all-sports channels, expert panels on four major Canadian networks, newspapers, blogging, Twitter and on and on, rarely does it happen that an event that falls so easily into the jaws of hype live up to expectations.

Crosby v. Ovechkin, Washington Capitals vs. Pittsburgh Penguins, hockey’s collection of Young Guns assembled in one do-or-die series: this event was Gary Bettman’s wet dream. Not to mention every sports editor in Canada. Heck, even Americans are taking notice.

With such hype usually comes much letdown. Not so here. It’s quite evident that Crosby and Ovechkin have jumped at this opportunity to bury one another. They both realize that this series, and it’s result and their performance in it, will go a long way to define their careers for the next few years. The Madison Avenue crown is up for grabs, and neither of them want the other to have it. Both want to be the NHL poster boy, the focus of hockey fans’ attention, the face that pops into mind when one thinks: Hockey Greatness. This is our Kobe/Lebron, Gretzky/Lemieux, our Bird and Magic. Alex and Syd get this, and they’ve brought their A+ game to prove it.

Waaaaaaah! Waaaaaaah! - Sydney Crosby

"Waaaaaaah! Waaaaaaah!" - Sydney Crosby

If anyone doubted that the series could live up to its hype, then yesterday should have put that to rest. Each of them had a hat-trick, and Ovechkin absolutely terrorized the Pens when he was on the ice. Crosby plays a much more subdued style, but you could see how intense he was about the occasion. Unfortunately, it also brought out a Crosby trait that feeds many of his detractors: his tendency to whine about every single thing that happens on the ice. Nothing illustrated this clearer than when he complained to the referee about people throwing hats on the ice following Ovie’s third goal. As I watched, it occurred to me that’s what he must be complaining about, but I dismissed it immediately, giving him the benefit of the doubt. No one would complain about such a long-lasting tradition, right? Then this morning, this:

“People kept throwing hats,” Crosby said. “And I was just asking if he could make an announcement to ask them to stop.”


You know, it’s possible that he was simply performing his duty as the team’s captain, relaying a message to the officials from his coach. I doubt it. Deep down it bugged him so much that Ovechkin had scored a hat-trick against him, against his Penguins, in the PLAYOFFS , that the rage, the poison, the bile had to come out some way. And the method used is the one Sydney usually reverts to, and that’s complaining to the officials.

To his credit, though, that’s not all he did. Shortly after, he went out and got his own third goal, his own hat-trick. Too bad there were no hats left in the stands to honour his feat. Yes, I am picking on Crosby, a guy who’s done nothing but elevate his game in these playoffs, scoring eight goals and garnering four assists, and boy am I going to have to change my tune next year at the Olympics. He’s a hard player to love, though. Unlike his nemesis.

Tomorrow night can’t come soon enough. How can they top this? Here’s how: Pittsburgh needs to win a couple of games  to make a series out of this. We all want overtime in Game 7. Is that too much to ask?

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The Twit: MONDAY! (shoot me now) Edition

Monday, May 04th, 2009 | Author:
Aaron Hill: Boys and girls take note

Aaron Hill: Boys and girls take note

‘Twas s nice little weekend in sport, that. Let’s dive right in with another edition of The Twit!

- Robert Ray made his Major League debut and went (almost) 6 innings, giving up 3 runs on 4 hits. Best part is that he seemed to settle down after conceding a first inning home run to Adam Jones.

- If you have a young child, and you are looking for a professional athlete for them to treat as a role model (careful now), look no further than Jays 2nd baseman Aaron Hill. As far as I can tell he is loved equally by his teammates, management and the members of the media who cover him (and probably his Mom). Plus he delivers heroics as witnessed in the bottom of the 10th and 11th innings of Saturday’s game. First he booted the ball in the top of the 10th, spotting the O’s a one run lead, only to homer in the bottom frame to tie it again and in the 11th sealed the game with a walk-off base hit. NAILS.

- It was extremely difficult to juggle between watching the Jays game and the Pens-Caps opener. My brain was saying “playoff hockey is special, it only comes once a year (for two months, but still), and this series will be the most compelling story”. My heart was singing:

I managed to do a decent job as I didn’t miss any of the goals, and caught most of the pertinent Jays moments. Most importantly I got to watch every second of extra innings.

- Here’s hoping that the Pens/Caps series continues to be as good as the first game. Crosby and Ovechkin scoring, physical play from both sides, and the goalies stood on their heads (and sticks). If you haven’t yet seen the amazing save by Varlamov that preserved the final score, here it is in all its glory:

- I think there was a horse race or something. People wore hats. Not sure on the details though.

- The Jays  and Scott Richmond (4-0) just kept on rolling Sunday, getting the brooms out in what surprisingly was their first sweep of 2009. Goodbye Orioles, come back soon! They Jays now have eight of the 14 wins I requested when their current 20 games in 20 days started. Two more wins and they go .500 for that stretch. Starting tonight the Jays will see the Indians twice, the Angels twice and finish up with a three game set against the Athletics. Something tells me they can scratch two wins out of those games.

- Triple overtime in the Ducks-Red Wings game yesterday was pretty cool, and once again was the scene for two outstanding goalie performances. Chris Osgood held up a middle finger to all his critics and Jonas Hiller showed everyone why he was the right choice over Jean-Sébastien Giguère.

Snider: Take a long term view?

Snider: Take a long term view?

- I’ll come right out and be the first to say it. Maybe it’s time for Travis Snider to head to Las Vegas to work on his swing. I realize this comes after a weekend in which he made some spectacular plays in the outfield (Brian Roberts won’t soon forget The Travis). However, he’s in a 6-for-33 slump which leaves him with a .229 average. My reasoning includes an excuse to send him down six weeks, which would give the Jays an extra year of control over Travis, as Bart Given explained before the season began. Everyone kinda forgot about it after Snider jumped out to a fantastic rookie-of-the-year-ish start, but now the question needs to be asked: Would a platoon of Jose Bautista and Joe Inglett really be a downgrade at this point?

- Caught the last period of Bruins/Canes last night and it was highly entertaining. Cam Ward (recurring theme alert) was spectacular facing wave after wave of Winnie The Pooh attacks. At one point during a series of successive Ward saves, the usually staid Gord Miller ran out of octaves to which he could climb. Doesn’t get better than that.

- The Jays send Brian Tallet (1-1) to the mound tonight, and the Jays hitters will face Fausto Carmona (1-3).

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Frozen Vulcan: All Giddy Over Penguins-Capitals

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 | Author:
Great 8 is catching on, and I like it

"Great 8" is catching on, and I like it

Last night’s NHL slate was enough to relegate Jays-Royals to “during commercials” viewing. Alexander Ovechkin is a joy to watch even in the regular season – getting to see him play in a game seven was more than I could resist. The game got off to a slow start but more than made up for it once the Caps scored in the 2nd period and the intensity ratcheted up. Every pass, every check, every battle in the corner: all of it mattered. It is sports at its best.

The result was to my liking as well. I’ve never been a fan of the Rangers, plus I believe Glen Sather lost his magic touch long ago and has been surviving by the skin of his reputation over the last few years. The drop that made my cup runneth over was his proclamation that Sean Avery was like a son to him after signing him to return to the Rangers. Gag. There’s a character barometer if I’ve ever heard one.

This is what happens when you lick Glen Sather

This is what happens when you lick Glen Sather

The other night we had Lola and Daddio over for dinner and the conversation turned to the aforementioned ladykiller. The gist of their opinion was that Avery should be run out of the league as soon as possible, that he was bad for the league, that he had no class and was a cancer on his team. I uncharacteristically held my tongue (I was enjoying watching them converse and get riled up), and although I agree with most of what they said I hope he keeps playing in the league. The man is a villain, and he is awesome at that job. I’m not arguing that he’s an asset to Rangers – quite the contrary, I think he’s proven to be a liability on every team he’s had the pleasure of soiling. Rather, I make the case that he’s an excellent villain and it is a joy to cheer against him. Last night was not different. When he got absolutely crushed into the boards late in the game, I’ll call you a liar if you didn’t experience warmth in the pit of your stomach. It’s awesome to watch bad people fail, and we all know that despite occasional success (he created the Rangers goal through dogged perseverence last night), this man is doomed to fail.

Let the blood feud begin

Let the blood feud begin

Alright, now that my guilty feel-good moment has passed, let’s move on to the remaining contests. I have yet to talk to a hockey fan today who isn’t absolutely jacked about the Penguins-Capitals series. This is a rivalry that got so hot during the regular season that some smoothing over was necessary over the All-Star weekend. The playoffs have a way of melting away any accumulated good will, and I am counting on that to happen here. In fact, I hope that in game one Malkin takes a run at Ovechkin, and Crosby jumps in, flipping the net onto them so that Semin can climg the end boards and drop an elbow on Malkin’s melon. Then the benches will clear and Mario Lemieux will climb down from his luxury box to …

Ok, that fantasy scenario degenerated into Vince-McMahon land way to quickly. Sorry about that. I’m also hoping for some great goals. With Ovechkin, Semin, Green, Crosby and Malkin playing a part, great goals should be on display throughout. There might not be another series with so much talent on the ice. I hope it goes seven games. I hope we get triple-overtime games. I hope tears of joy – and tears of devastation – are shed. Ok, I might be hyping this one a little too much, but man is it ever going to be a cracker!

In other series we have Boston vs. Carolina which will surel – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I’m sorry, but unless you are a die-hard Bruins, Canes, Ducks, Red Wings, Canucks or Blackhawks fan, there really is only one series to watch this round.

I can’t wait.  Caps in seven.

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Homecoming

Thursday, November 16th, 2006 | Author:

No, I didn’t get killed in Buffalo, although my buddy Karl did his damnedest to get us in trouble with the Amerkans (Way to go, Jamocha!).

I’m finding blogging regularly very challenging when big things are happening to me and the sports world takes a back seat. I wonder how the better amateur bloggers do it, like Neate over at Out of Left Field?

Anyway, the toughest thing to do when you’ve been away from your blog for an extended period is to figure out where to get started again. I suppose I’ll go with a story that really caught my attention this morning: the Evgeni Malkin court ruling.

Yesterday, a U.S. district court ruled in favour of the NHL against Russian hockey clubs that wanted to bar some of its players from playing in NHL games until a decision is made over compensation for those players. I imagine most NHL fans welcomed the news with a shrug of the shoulders and a “way to stick it to the Russians!”.


As is my nature, this turn of events has me wondering, especially on the heels of the Matsuzaka sweepstakes in baseball. The two cases are similar at their core: a bigger league covets a superstar in the making from a smaller league. This happens all the time in soccer, where one team will compensate the other with a “transfer fee”, usually in the millions of dollars (depending on the player, of course). This appears to be modus operandi for the Boston Red Sox, who have offered $51 million to the Seibu Lions should they succeed in signing their star pitcher.

Meanwhile, in what seems like another world, the Pittsburgh Penguins practically smuggled Evgeni Malkin away from Metallurg Magnitogorsk without compensation. This is a player that was under contract to the Russian club, and the Penguins were able to sign him to a contract and have him play.

How can two situations that seem so similar at their core produce such differing results? Imagine this scenario: have Sidney Crosby signed by, say, Spartak Moscow. For whatever reason, Crosby decides this is the right career move and leaves the Penguins for Russia while the Pens get nothing in return – like the NHL wouldn’t go all the way to the Supreme Court over something like this.

It’s been mentioned that it’s the Russian Federation’s fault for not signing an agreement with the NHL, which would have capped the amount of compensation given to Russian clubs at $200,000 per player. Can we blame them? 200 grand when the Penguins will make millions off this deal? There’s a certain hypocrisy from the NHL wanting to globalize the game, yet when rival leagues try to hold on to their talent (or get fair compensation for being pillaged), the NHL tries to kick them back into the backwater. It’s only a matter of time before the Russian league will be able to hold
its own against the NHL. Bettman and company need to embrace the fact that they’re succeeding in making the game a global success, and everything that comes with it, including successful leagues in foreign countries. It’s not because a bunch of NHL execs get together in a room once a year and decide who gets what (the NHL draft) that the rest of the world have to abide by these terms, as if we were back at Versailles in 1919.

I’ll say it again: North American sports leagues need to look at soccer for guidance on how to go global. The systems are mostly in place when it comes to soccer, and all the NHL needs to do is model themselves after them. Baseball seems to be getting the message, and the NHL, as usual, is lagging behind.

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