Hockey

Woe, Canada! In an upset, Team U.S.A. beat Team Canada, 5-3, in men’s hockey in a terrifically exciting and dramatic game. I had no rooting interest but watched all 60 minutes, aided greatly by the fact that there were zero commercials during any of the periods. It was a great sporting event. While the loss […]

I am a huge fan of the blog hockeykidmn, written by Mikey, a gay (but closeted) teenage high school hockey player in Minnesota. His stuff keeps getting better and better, and his eulogy to the late Brendan Burke was very touching. Mikey obviously knows his hockey and I asked him to write a men's Olympics […]

I like hockey, but don’t watch much until the NHL playoffs. But for the past three years, I’ve spent part of New Year’s Day watching the Winter Classic, games played outdoors. It’s a great concept and much more compelling than watching just another bowl game. This year's was played at Fenway Park and saw the […]

Brendan Burke with the Stanley Cup won by his dad’s Anaheim Ducks in 2007. There is a very touching and affirming story on ESPN.com about Brendan Burke, how he came out as gay and was accepted by his father, Brian Burke, the president and general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Brendan Burke, 20, is […]

Pascal Dupuis Of all the major pro sports, hockey has the best championship tradition — the Stanley Cup, awarded to the league champs, basically goes on tour and is found in bars, churches, businesses and just about every conceivable place. I have seen babies given baths in the cup, while Pascal Dupuis of the newly […]

I liked this commercial by the Boston Bruins, who start play this week in the NHL playoffs. I liked this commercial by the Boston Bruins, who start play this week in the NHL playoffs.

A breath of very good news from the Coors Cup hockey tournament: Despite the economic recession, they’ve been able to retain Coors as a sponsor. The event, which moves between Los Angeles and Denver, is hosted by the Colorado Gay Ice Hockey Association and the Los Angeles Blades hockey club. They even give cash prizes […]

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 […]

What if there’s an All-Star game and the jocks don’t show? That’s the quandary the NHL finds itself in as its All-Star match plays out in Montreal tonight. Burned last year when seven jocks didn’t show in Atlanta for the game in which they were selected to play, the league offered up a one-game suspension […]

Being fortunate enough to be able to put on a jersey of an NHL team comes with some standard guidelines. One is not using your ex-girlfriend and who she's dating to publicly build excitement for a game. Many say a suspension by commissioner Bettman and the NHL is excessive for the comments Avery made. I […]

Great goaltending, strong steady defense and a potent offense have let the Minnesota Wild jump to a 7-2-1 start. All this without their star winger Marian Gaborik who’s been sidelined for the last five games with what’s been called a “lower body” injury. No matter because the line of Mikko Koivu and Andrew Burnette has […]

The New York Rangers are off to their best start in 25 years (5-1). They won back-to-back 2-1 victories in Prague against Tampa Bay as the NHL tries to expand its interests in Europe. Lundqvist has sparkled in goal with a 1.61 GAA and a sturdy offense leads the league with 17 goals. Similarly, the […]

The Detroit Red Wings beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-2, to win Game 6 of their Stanley Cup playoff series and take the Cup for the first time since 2002. Detroit’s winning goal was kind of fluky and basically involved Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury sitting on a loose puck in the net area and then propelling […]

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=FtnSuoew_1E] The Pittsburgh Penguins were done. Having blown a 2-0 lead in Game 5 of their Stanley Cup Finals to the Detroit Red Wings, the Penguins trailed 3-2 with under a minute to go and the Detroit fans getting ready to celebrate another title. But, stunningly, with 34 seconds to go in regulation, Maxime Talbot […]

The matchup of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings in this year’s Stanley Cup finals gives the National Hockey League something it desperately wanted: the presence of Sidney Crosby. You’ll know this if you tune in by all the praise constantly being thrown Crosby’s way. It’ll be the verbal equivalent of fellatio. I imagine […]

At the website Shop.com you can now buy a Reebok Pittsburgh Penguins 2008 Eastern Conference Champions Locker Room Hat for $28.99 (excluding tax and shipping). This is wrong on two levels. $28.99 is an outrageous price for a baseball cap, even if it's the "official" locker room cap. Oh, and the Penguins haven't actually won […]

O Canada, your teams all now play golf…sorry. Had a bit of a jingoistic feeling to work through. You see, some people had the impression that the Flyers-Canadiens series was being played by the Montreal rule book instead of the one used by the rest of the NHL. As much as I tend to disregard […]

If you attended last night’s San Jose Sharks at Dallas Stars NHL playoff game, you saw a game that did not end until 1:25 a.m. local time; on the East Coast, people watching Versus at that hour saw the game end at 2:25 a.m. What everyone saw was Dallas winning a 2-1 thriller that took […]

New York Rangers forward Sean Avery has gotten some attention from this blog. Jim determined that Avery is gayer than he is, and Cyd wrote about his upcoming summer internship at Vogue. I, on the other hand, called him a jerk after his latest on-ice antics. Unfortunately, this Avery update isn't a very happy one. […]

In sort of a "like father, like son" situation, the Philadelphia Phantoms defeated the Albany River Rats in a five-overtime American Hockey League playoff marathon last night. Ryan Potulny scored at 2:58 of the fifth overtime to win it. At 142 minutes, 58 seconds, it's the longest game in AHL history. The Phantoms outshot the […]