The NHL Winter Classic, thanks to successful outdoor games at Buffalo’s Ralph Wilson Stadium in 2008 and Chicago’s Wrigley Field this year, is quickly becoming a New Year’s Day tradition. Now the National Hockey League may be expanding it. Multiple sources are reporting that the league plans to turn the next Winter Classic into a [...]
Posts Tagged ‘NHL’
More proof hockey players are manly men
In the aftermath of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ seventh-game Stanley Cup victory at Detroit, Red Wings star Nicklas Lidstrom revealed the reason he missed the final two games of the Western Conference semifinal series against Chicago: he had surgery after being speared in the testicles by Chicago’s Patrick Sharp in Game 3 of that series.
Lidstrom told [...]
Wanna see a champion? Visit Pennsylvania
A couple of months ago my friend Kurt and I were walking around downtown Philadelphia after lunch. We passed a steakhouse that opened recently and has become a favorite spot for celebrities. We saw a guy with a beard and some bruising on his face outside the restaurant and we both had the same thought: [...]
Good ratings news for NHL, NBC
Granted, the May sweeps ended and the summer television doldrums are upon us, so many network programs are in reruns. Plus, Saturday night has become a true dead zone for network television. Taking all of that into consideration, though, NBC and the NHL have to be happy with the ratings for the first two games [...]
Stanley Cup Finals Preview
The more things change, the more they stay the same. For the second consecutive year the NHL season wraps up with a Detroit Red Wings-Pittsburgh Penguins final. Let the battle between Motown and the Steel City commence!
Last year the Red Wings won in 6 games. Despite the addition of Marian Hossa near the end of [...]
The Rematch….Wings vs Pens
This is what I’m talking about. The Detroit Red Wings against the Pittsburgh Penguins for the Stanley Cup Finals. It doesn’t get better than this. The Penguins Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are on fire with 28 points a piece in the playoffs so far. But don’t ever count out the Red Wings, even if [...]
Stanley Cup Conference Finals preview
Sometimes, even the blind squirrel finds the acorn. That’s one way of looking at the fact that I not only called all four conference semifinal series winners, but also correctly predicted that no series would go less than six games. Three of them ended up going the distance, as it turned out, with the Carolina-Boston [...]
NHL: Capitals-Penguins must-see TV
The first-ever Stanley Cup playoff showdown between the NHL’s top two superstars has lived up to the hype. On Monday night Alexander Ovechkin’s Washington Capitals forced a seventh game in their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Pittsburgh Penguins with a 5-4 overtime win at The Igloo (or, if you’re a stickler for corporate names, [...]
Stanley Cup - Second Round Preview
We’re down to eight teams in the Quest for the Cup. I predicted six out of eight first-round winners correctly, with three series right on the button (Pittsburgh over Philadelphia in 6, Washington over NY Rangers in 7, Chicago over Calgary in 6). Since I picked the higher seeds in every matchup, I also ranked [...]
Stanley Cup Playoffs - First Round preview
The Stanley Cup playoffs, the best postseason tournament of them all, begin tonight. This is one thing the NHL gets right, and will continue to get right as long as they never replace sudden-death overtime with that godawful shootout.
And don’t listen to that “every team makes the playoffs” crap. Only 16 of the 30 teams [...]
Celine Dion to buy Canadiens?
This just about leaves me speechless. Among the possible bidders for the Montreal Canadiens (as well as the Bell Centre arena and a concert promotion division) is none other than singer Celine Dion. I assume the arena and concert promotion angles are really what interests her.
Montreal fans will remain loyal to the Canadiens — even [...]
NHL’s European jinx?
Four NHL teams started the 2008-09 regular season overseas. In Prague, the New York Rangers swept two games from the Tampa Bay Lightning, while in Stockholm, the Ottawa Senators went 1-0-1 against the Pittsburgh Penguins. With today’s firing of coach Tom Renney by the Rangers, all four of these teams have now changed coaches since [...]
Eagles LB interning at Elle
Let’s hope his career doesn’t follow Sean Avery’s path: Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Stewart Bradley has begun an internship at Elle magazine, the Philadelphia Daily News reported Monday. The item says Bradley wanted to learn more about the fashion industry and is one of a handful of NFL players who have interned at fashion magazines. The [...]
Montreal wears throwba…OH GOD MY EYES!
In proof that we in 2009 have progressed immeasurably in the last hundred or so years, the Montreal Canadiens wore some truly awful throwbacks Sunday night in their 3-1 loss to the Boston Bruins. They wore uniforms inspired by their 1912-13 counterparts in what can only be some sort of test of Quebec-area HD televisions’ [...]
Is Avery suspension warranted?
The National Hockey League has suspended Dallas Stars forward Sean Avery indefinitely. Avery has been blogged about a number of times here for both his on-ice antics (causing a rule change during the playoffs by waving his stick near the face of a goalie) and off-ice interests (interning at Vogue magazine).
The reason for the suspension, [...]
