What the ... rule change?!?!?

I have been rereading "The Montreal Canadiens: 100 Years of Glory" by D'Arcy Jenish, that my best friend Stig gave me one Christmas. It was put together from newspaper stories and some other 1st hand sources. Fantastic read. But I digress.

In the chapter about the 1955-1964 Seasons I read a bit about the effect of the 2 Minute Penalty being changed. Until 1956 a player had to remain in the penalty box for the FULL 2 minutes. That is what happens now for a 5 minute penalty. It was changed after the 1955-56 Season basically because the Canadiens were unstoppable.

The Canadiens were a force to recon with back then. They dominated the NHL. The players were so talented that their third and fourth lines could be a 1st line on other teams. Keep in mind there were only 6 teams in the NHL then. The Canadiens frequently scored multiple goals on one power play. One of the most famous incidents happened on November 5, 1955, Jean Béliveau scored three goals in 44 seconds, all on the same power play, resulting in a 4–2 victory over the Boston Bruins.

In the book it is put forth as a means of teh other teams to keep the Canadiens down. When other teams, like Detroit, dominated there was no talk of changing the rule but now that the canadiens are dominating it had to be changed. The Board of Governors, the owners of the other teams, outvoted the owner of the Canadiens and thus the rule was changed.

I am not one for conspiracy theories but it really looks like the change was done just to stop the Canadiens from dominating. Until then no one cared. Then it became important. Oh well. I am used to the rule as we know it now. My problem is with icing during a penalty. If a team is being penalized why the fuck are they allowed to ice the puck without play being sent back to their end?!?!?!?!?

Go Habs Go!

P.S. I LOVE this book. It was the best Christmas present anyone could have given me. If you are interested in the Canadiens it is a MUST read. Right up there with The Game by Ken Dryden. If you are interested nin the NHL and hockey it is a great read because it shows how the NHL started and has evolved.

Mike Babcock

Mike Babcock finally decided. He chose to leave the safety of the Detroit Red Wings and become the Head Coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The contract is reported to be for 8 years and worth $50-Million. Good luck to you Mr. Babcock. You have definitely taken on a challenge it will be interesting to see what happens.

People have already been coming out on two extremes. The doom and gloom group claim he made a horrible mistake. Toronto is the kiss of death. He won't be able to do anything. His career is over.

The head up their arse group see this as THE turning point. They could be right, It could be a turning point but it could be years before it is proven true or not. Some of these idiots are already making claims that the Leafs are now cup contenders next year.

Extremist Fans. They do make me chuckle.

I did find what one pundit said today very funny. (Unfortunately, I can't find a link to what he said.) He claimed that as of the moment Babcock was signed the leafs must NOW be taken seriously. Really? As of right now? What a twat. The team is the same bottom of the barrel team NOW as it was yesterday. It needs rebuilding.

Also, Babcock is coming to Toronto from the Red Wings. The Red Wings arguably have THE BEST scouting system in the NHL. (And I say this as a Canadiens fan.) It is amazing the talent they can find based on the picks they have every year. They also have a great system for preparing their prospects for the NHL. With Detroit he inherited a lot of apparatus to help keep the team winning.

People expecting an immediate turn around are setting themselves up for a huge disappointment. Rebuilding takes time.

Hopefully Babcock has the backing of MLS and the leafs management and will be allowed to build the team the way he wants. It should be interesting to see how things unfold.

Jean Beliveau

I wish I could say I remember watching Jean Beliveau play hockey. I definitely watched hockey then and cheered for Montreal. However, I was 6 when he retired and can't truthfully say I remember him as a player. :( I wish I could.

Jean Beliveau died last week. He is one of the VERY VERY few people I have heard others talk about and they had NOTHING bad to say about him. I remember him more as a retired representative of the Montreal Canadiens. He was pure class. According to those who knew him when he played the same was true. Players from all over the NHL were told that if they wanted to be the best for their team they would do well to emulate Beliveau.

I watched the opening ceremony of the game tonight. It started about 15 minutes ago. Montreal got it right. Their tribute was spot on. Having the chair he always sat in at the Bell Centre ...  I almost typed The Forum (and it will always be The Forum to me) ... draped with his number and The Habs colours was perfect. I cried. His wife was there, along with other family members. The crowd honoured him, and thereby them. I cried. The farewell was almost as classy as Jean Beliveau was and always will be.

I am not a big fan of televised funerals. I wish I could be in Montreal tomorrow to express my grief at the loss of Jean Beliveau. My gratitude at all he gave to his sport and his country. His family is in my thoughts, and he will ALWAYS be there.

Thank you for all you did on the ice and off. You will always be remembered.

The Golden Age

While rereading "The Game" by Ken Dryden I came upon a quote I always liked and is so true.

"Nothing is as good as it used to be, and it never was. The "Golden Age" of sports," the "Golden Age"of anything, is the age of everyone's childhood."

SiriusXM Satellite Radio

A couple of things came with my new car. One of them was SiriusXM Satellite Radio for a free 3 month trial. Now that the 3 months is coming near to its end they called me about buying it. I suppose if the bi-weekly mailings weren't enough to entice me to pay to continue they probably felt a phone call would work. Fucktards

First off they call at supper time. That is guaranteed to put me in a pissy mood before I even answer the phone.

The second problem, for them, is that I don't really like their product. I use my MP3 player for music so their music channels are useless to me. The only channel I use is the NHL Channel. One would think that if you were paying for a service you wouldn't have to put up with ads. Wrong. There are ads. Ads for things I am not interested in buying. Ads for other XM channels I am not interested in listening to.

One would also think that the NHL channel would stick to hockey. Unfortunately, wrong again. Their talking heads chatter about other sports from time to time. If I wanted to know how Tiger Woods is doing I would listen to the golf channel. Not the hockey channel. If I cared about the lead up to the Super Bowl I would listen to a football channel. You get the idea?

I just don't need their service and when my free trial runs out I won't miss it.

What the ... showing now?!?!?

I turned on the TV for a change and hit the sports channels. I was ready to finally watch a hockey game. Since the lock out, not a strike like too many fucktards call it, I have not watched a game this "season". It was strangely easy. I am still pissed off with the owners locking the players out and then settling for something that could have been agreed upon in August or September, well before the "need" to lock out became a reality.

Montreal is playing. Is it on any channel? of course not. A documentary on the Oilers is on. Two fucking shows about Golf are on. Ok, to be fair, one of them is on the gulf channel. Curling is on. Damn I like curling but would rather watch hockey. No hockey. No Habs. But the fucking Kardashians are whoring themselves out on a channel. The fucking (no pun intended) Kardashians are on but the Habs aren't? Fuck off.

I was finlly ready to watch a hockey game and there was NONE on. Fuck you NHL. Right up the ass.

Hockey Players of Yore.

I play Dynasty Hockey on FaceBook. It is one of my guilty pleasures. :) The game is damn frustrating bordering on stupid at times, how the hell can someone who is slated to beat the opponent 90% to their 10% lose, TWICE, and once be SHUTOUT is beyond me. It makes me realize why I stopped playing the game for a year plus. Mind you, the game does bring to the present day some of the players of the past. Players we may not hear about ... at all. Case in point, Earl Robinson.

Earl Robinson was available early on for me as a draft option. I knew, by his uniform, that he was a Montreal Maroon player. Which meant he was from the past. But I didn't know anything else about him. So I checked him out on Wikipedia. He also played for the Chicago BlackHawks and the Montreal Canadiens. While he wasn't the Wayne Gretzky of his day, he was a good player who also won a Stanley Cup.

Hockey Dynasty frustrates me and boggles my mind but I am appreciative of it for bringing players of the past to me. When I see someone I don't know, ok mainly Habs and Maroons, I look them up on Wikipedia and learn a bit of history. Hmmm ... that isn't completely true. I often see non Habs and Maroons who stir a memory or who I look up just to see who they were. For that, I thank Hockey Dynasty.

What the ... ranking?!?!?!?

I was reading one of my favourite Montreal Canadiens related sites. They had an article about the Canadiens being ranked 111 out of 122 by ESPN the Magazine.

I will be the first to admit the Habs sucked last season. Anyone who tries saying they didn't is deny reality. Can they turn it around? Any team can. Can they do it quickly? I hope so but it wouldn't surprise me if it takes time. I can wait. But I digress.

The ESPN Magaine ranking. Heh. Out of all the hockey teams in the NHL they rank the Phoenix Coyotes as the Number 6 out of  122professional sports franchises looked at. Really? 6? After reading the reasoning, and rereading it several times to make sure I understood it, the crux of ESPN reasoning seems to be because of the Coyotes 2011-12 playoff experience.

After beating Chicago in the conference quarterfinals, the Coyotes returned to Phoenix to find a crowd of hundreds cheering them on at the airport. Fans said they were more likely than any other fans in the NHL to "get the most out of the money they spend." That's a brand of fan loyalty that all the big-name free agent signings in the world can't buy. During the playoffs, the Coyotes turned the arena with the lowest attendance in hockey into a sellout machine and had to create additional standing-room sections to accommodate all the fans. 

What about the regular season? The fact that Phoenix had the LOWEST turnout of all NHL teams last season according to the stats compiled by ... ESPN? How about their ranking out of all NHL teams for attendance in the last 5 seasons?

2011-12   20
2010-11   29
2009-10   30
2008-09   28
2007-08   29

Of course "tickets are also the most affordable in the NHL" , no one wanted to watch the games! The fact they had to offer tickets as low as $25 to get people into the seats during the PLAYOFFS speaks volumes.

The Phoenix Coyotes? What the kimchi?!?!? I don't expect to see the Habs at the top of the list. But Phoenix ranked the top NHL franchise let alone #6 out of all pro sports franchises? Give me a break. It definitely makes me think the ranking is not worth taking seriously.

Is Gainey still making decisions?!?!?

Work has been keeping me pretty busy and doesn't look to slow down until after the holidays. I still follow hockey though and was pretty much left shaking my head wondering what the hell is going on with the Habs after reading a story on another blog.

Montreal traded Spacek to Carolina for Kaberle. Kaberle? Really?!?!? Kaberle, who was so invisible in Boston that they DIDN'T want him back. Kaberle who is paid $3.5 Million a year to under perform.

Does Pierre Gauthier really want Montreal to improve? I know people jokingly called him Bob Gainey Light but it looks like he really is.

While I wasn't a big fan of Spacek this is ridiculous.

EA Sports NHL 2004

As you know, I love hockey. I love playing hockey computer games too. When I had my PS2 the only thing I really played on it was hockey. EA Sports makes a great game but they don't make it for the PC anymore. :(

I play EHM Hockey Manager 2007. It is a great game. The detail is fantastic, especially when you use the mod fans have made for it to keep it up to date. The Blue Line is a GREAT fan site. They have some very dedicated people there who keep the game alive and vibrant.

Sometimes EHM can be a little too detailed and you want a game where you can just go in and sim being a player too. I bought NHL 2004 back in '05. I have owned other versions (older and newer) until EA Sports stopped making it for the PC. Something always made me come back to NHL 2004.

After battling a bout of boredom that was so intense it had me troll baiting for a diversion I decided to reload NHL 2004. Knowing there are mods out there I surfed the web and found a fantastic site where they have basically created a mod that remakes the game. Thanks to them I am not bored any more AND I am getting my off season hockey fix.

P.K. Subban cheered for Bruins in playoff final.

According to Michael Landsberg of TSN, P.K. Subban (Montreal Canadiens defenceman) told him he was cheering for the Bruins to win in the Stanley Cup finals. This has the panties of some Habs fans in a bunch. Here are a few comments taht were posted:

Buyout PK Subban right now. Put him on waivers. Trade him to Boston for a conditional 7th.

Cheering for the team that beat you? Last time someone did that was the French circa the summer of 1940.

PK should keep quiet about “rooting” for the bruins….they are our arch rivals going back decades….and an american team.

You don’t cheer for your rival. Period. End of Story.

*burns PK jersey after bruins comments*

What a bunch of immature wankers. These are the type of idiots that remind you FAN is in Fanatic.

I am a habs fan. I thought Boston deserved the win. They were clearly the better team. Vancouver was outplayed even when they won. If you can't acknowledge that you need to grow up.

Do these idiots think that every player on a hockey team is a fan of the team? I would imagine a lot of, maybe even most, players never play on their favourite team. When the team you are on is knocked out why not root for another one?

And then you have the idiots that pull the "Vancouver is Canada's Team" card. The team might be IN Canada but a vast majority of Boston's players were Canadian.

In theh end "fans" like them look classless and immature.

NHLTV again.

For a change they are actually showing classic games. It would have been nice to sit down and watch one, especially considering they are old enough that I forget or don't know the outcome. Except for one problem.

When you go to the channel it tells you what the game is and the outcome. It looked something like this.

From 1979: Montreal at Boston in Game 4 semifinal-round series. The Bruins got by Montreal 4-3.

Why the hell tell the ending?!?!?!? If I wanted to know before watching the game I would look it up on the internet. Instead my interest in watching the game evaporated because I know how it ends.

They do this for every game. What a bunch of Icetards!!!!

Gomez could go?!?!?

It is almost enough to make me find religion. Gomez, the amazing black hole of hockey statistics, could actually be traded because of the increase in the salary cap. Teams who have to make the minimum salary level can actually use his bloated contract to reach it. that would be sweet. :)

Disgusting.

It is disgusting that a bunch of idiots spoiled the end of the Stanley Cup Playoffs by rioting. They give all Canadians, not just those in Vancouver, a black eye. In some ways we should be grateful that Mr. Weiner decided to resign from Congress today as it took a lot of the US focus off of the riots in Vancouver and onto ... Weiner.

There have been some nice things to see come out of the riots. The way people are coming together to help clean up the mess. The way people are posting their pictures and videos of the rioters so they can be caught and punished. Hopefully they can id and prosecute all of the idiots.

Stanley Cup FInals: Vancouver vs Boston Game 5

Damn tight game. Lots of back and forth. The things that really really stick out ...

Burrows. What a diver. At one point one of his own team mates touched his shoulder from behind to stop him from skating back into him and Burrows flopped to the ice as if he had been elbowed in the head. I hate crap like that.

Max Lapierre. I didn't like him when he played for Montreal and I still don't like him. When he played for Montreal I found him to be a coward. He would start shit with other players to provoke them into taking a swipe at him. Then he would turtle. If you are going to get someone to fight you don't wussy out just so they get a penalty. Have the testicular fortitude to back it up. He isn't much better with Vancouver.

Vancouver won. YES!!!!!

Why does the NHL look stupid at times?

It is no wonder the NHL looks like it has idiots doing the discipline when decisions like the latest punishment to Rome were handed out. Granted, I believe Rome DOES deserve a suspension for what happened. But, if what Rome did was heinous enough to result in a 4 game suspension why didn't Chara's hit on Pacioretty in the regular season? This kind of inconsistency in delivering punishment is what makes the NHL officials look bad and gives fodder to the conspiracy theorists.

Aaron Rome (Vancouver) hit Nathan Horton (Boston) middle of the ice, a la Scott Stevens, after the puck was no longer in play. Definitely an interference penalty and deserving of extra suspension time. Horton is concussed and out for at least the rest of the season. While the hit evolved from a hockey play that happened quickly it was a late hit and did result in a horrible injury.

Talking about the incident and punishment Mike Murphy pointed out that it was a late hit, the puck wasn't in play (textbook interference penalty), he thought the head was hit, and the severity of the injury were all taken into account.

Zdano Chara (Boston) hit Max Pacioretty (Montreal) along the boards and pushed him head first into a stanchion, after the puck was no longer in play. Pacioretty is concussed, has cracked vertebrae in his neck (ie broken neck) and who can say if/when he will play hockey again. Definitely an interference penalty and deserving of extra suspension time, although NONE was give.

In the Chara-Pacioretty incident they never talked to Pacioretty or even considered the severity of his injury. The decision was handed down before they even knew how bad he was hurt.

This is where the conspiracy theorists now have ammunition when claiming the Bruins get special treatment. Why wasn't Chara's hit not punishment worthy yet Rome's was?

It still amazes me to hear my Nephew-In-Law whine about a league conspiracy to prevent the Bruins from winning the cup. I have always been a Habs fan but never as rabid as this. A bad hit is a bad hit. A bad call is a bad call. If you ignore one while whinging about the other you are a hypocrite.

The NHL itself just confuses the hell out of people over whet is or isn't wrong when they continue to hand out inconsistent penalties. Hopefully this will change when Campbell is gone as Head of Discipline, but I doubt it will.

Mind you, as rabid as NHL fans can be it is a good thing they aren't as bad as the South Koreans.

Well said Coach Julien.

Claude Julien, the Head Coach of the Boston Bruins was asked after game 2 about the lack of a Burrows suspension for biting in game 1. Burrows had 2 goals, including the game winner in game 2 of the finals. Julien's reply:

"That has nothing to do with that. I never thought about it that way," Julien said after his "no comment" to the silly question. "They made a decision. We moved on. For us, if we start using that as an excuse, we're a lame team. To me, it's not even a consideration."

Well said. Unfortunately most many Bruins fans are using it as an excuse to whine and just be, to use Coach Julien's choice of words, lame.

More Whine and Cheese with the Bruins.

While I am on the subject of whining Bruin's fans and bad calls by referees I HAVE to mention the diving penalty that Steve Downey of Tampa Bay got in a playoff game. Tampa Bay was playing Boston at the time. Downey got his head smacked into the glass from a cheap hit by a Boston player. The Boston player got a penalty and the referee gave Downey a penalty for diving.

Downey had trouble getting up after the hit. He had trouble skating to the bench. He never returned to the game because of the after effects of the illegal hit. Yet the referee gave him a diving penalty. THAT was bloody ridiculous. Bruins fans were amazingly quiet about bad referee calls then.

One of the TSN announcers, god I hate having to watch hockey on TSN, made the comment that Downie's reputation preceded him. That struck me as a monumentally idiotic thing to say. Downie has a reputation for being too aggressive. In the past he has been given some hefty suspensions for being too violent. He does NOT have a reputation for diving. How his reputation for being too physical has anything to do with a diving call is beyond me ... unless you REALLY REALLY stretch reality and then some. But I digress.

Whine and Cheese with the Bruins.

The intensity of the whining of Bruins fans after their loss on Wednesday is deafening. I get a kick out of the lengths they will go to blame their loss on anything but being outplayed. (And I gotta say it was only outplayed by a little bit. Both teams played well that night. )

One fan whined on Facebook saying

I would love to hear the leagues take on how someone is not given a penalty if you bite another player or punch someone directly in the face. Just a question for the NHL, I know Boston is playing and nobody wants to see them win, but it would be nice to at least give them an equal chance of making something happen...

Yeah. They should mete out punishment to anyone and everyone who put there hand in someone's face! Oh, and in between your sobs can you please tell me exactly how Bergeron's finger got INSIDE Burrows mouth?

and to say there is no conclusive evidence that burrows bite him, ahhh, all you have to do is watch the replay?????????????

I watched the replay. It could go either way. Burrow's may have bit but then again his face was being pushed around. If the officials believe it was a deliberate bite then he should be punished. At the same time, Bergeron should also be punished for hitting him the face.

Knowing the fan who is whining I just have to harken back to the Chara hit on Pacioretty and his take on that. He felt it was a good clean hit and that focusing on the picture of Chara guiding Pacioretty's face into the stanchion was unfair. The picture didn't show things in context and made it look deliberate. The picture wasn't ... conclusive evidence. Funny how he reacts when the shoe is on the other foot.

My reply to the Bruins fan is simple, a quote from Charles Pierce of the Boston Globe after the NHL did nothing to punish Chara.

There is one good thing to come out of the NHL's abdication of its duty to protect people like Max Pacioretty yesterday. That is -- the fans of the Boston Bruins now have lost forever any right to complain that "the league" is out to get their team, and that the Montreal Canadiens have some kind of pull inside the NHL home office. That Zdeno Chara got a complete pass on what he did obviates that talking point forever.

If he whined about bad officiating, against both teams, I would have had more sympathy for his view. There were some horrible calls both ways. In light of the Boston-Tampa Game 7 where the teams were allowed to play and NO penalties were called the officiating was bad in Game 1 of the finals.

Suck it up princess. The Bruins have a great team this year and I would be surprised if they didn't bounce back with a vengeance. Mind you, I am hoping the Canucks win. :)

Unlike the Fan, who is my niece's husband ;), I have no problem saying when a team I don't like is good. I am a Habs fan and have been since as far back as I can remember. I haven't liked Boston (the club) since Bobby Orr left. However, that doesn't mean I can't say they have a great team or that they outplayed Montreal. Only an idiot tries to deny reality.

What the ... classic game?!?!?

I was channel surfing and noticed that NHLTV shows classic hockey games. Now that was no surprise, in fact I expected they would show classic games. I guess I just have a different definition of what a classic game would be.

To me a classic game would be the older ones, or at least games that are over 20 years old. Kind of like how a classic car is a car 20+ years old. It would also be a game that was special for some reason, be it a record that was reached, a match up of players or teams at the time, or some similar criteria. Not NHLTV.

NHLTV has a bizarre idea of what a classic game is. They have been showing games from last year under the banner of classic games. What the kimch .... errr ... maple syrup?!?!?! A game that is a year old being labelled classic? That is a pretty huge stretch of the word classic.

I wish they would show classic games. REAL classic games. I was considering getting the NHL channel once the freebie ends but really it doesn't show anything special. I can get NHL On The Fly on YouTube or download it as a torrent. The games it shows as classics I can still find on torrent sites if I wanted to watch games from last year that really weren't that special. Why waste my money? Easy answer. I won't.