Olympic sweaters unveiled Monday

The Olympic hockey team will look a bit different this year.

The familiar puck carrying hockey player with a backdrop of the black and red maple leaf, is no more.

After a legnthy battle with the International Olympic Committee who just recently decided to enforce their rule that national sport federation logos cannot be placed on uniforms... (conveniently and, I say, rudely when Canada is hosting the games on its soil)... Hockey Canada relented and had to choose a new logo.

They're unveiling that new logo on Monday. Which will coincide with the launch of retail sales of the new logo so hockey fans can now gorge themselves on spending more money on keeping up with the latest logo.

yay.

I suppose the good news is proceeds of sales with the official logo go to Hockey Canada.

Sidney Crosby Day in Halifax

Sidney Crosby celebrated his day with the Stanley Cup here in Halifax on his 22nd birthday! This morning he was at the Halifax Dockyard visiting with the military... he flew in on a sea king helicopter and spent some time on the HMCS Preserver before visiting with the crowd:

You are too rich when...

Someone takes $43 million dollars...

" Former Detroit Red Wings star Sergei Fedorov says a man entrusted to manage his money during the past 11 years swindled him out of US$43 million. "


... and you don't notice until now.

Not Killer!

The Montreal Canadiens are in the middle of Extreme Team Makeover... but I thought that they might try to keep a few players.

One of the players I thought they would make a bother to keep is Tom Kostopoulos. This is a guy i've nicknamed "killer kostopoulos", the guy has some grit and although he doesn't score lots of goals, the ones he did score always seemed to be well-needed, epic, game-saving goals.

Instead, they let him walk, and he signed a three-year deal with the Carolina Hurricanes. So he will undoubtedly be back to score extremely unfortunate goals against the Canadiens as most former Canadiens seem to do.

oh well.

Worth the trip.

Over to TSN.ca to check out Darren Dreger's exclusive interview with Martin Havlat.

After Havlat's his strange and cryptic quotes on twitter, the former Blackhawk offered to speak with Dreger and elaborate.

ah yes, the beauty of twitter...

not really a huge fan of the twitter for the purpose of being like "hey i just had a sandwich", but sometimes it can be useful for keeping tabs on news.

Martin Havlat has a twitter account... and he's been busy today following the sacking of GM Dale Tallon from his former team.

starting with the oldest from earlier today:

I guess everyone saw what happened to Dale....yes, the story is starting to
come out but it's just the tip of the iceberg.

Lot's of people are telling me to stay quiet but shouldn't the fans know
the truth? It's your loyalty, season ticket money and emotions here

What do you people think? Interested to know your thoughts.

Just so everyone begins to understand, Dale was like a 2nd father to
me.

martinhavlatWant to be clear. I loved
my time in Chicago but moved on. Very excited about Minny,going to give
everything I have to the Wild.6 minutes
ago from web

martinhavlatBy telling truth, don't want people to think I'm bitter. Everyone in Minn has been awesome, they believe in me and I won't let them down3 minutes ago from web

Also interesting posts after the July 1 deadline where Havlat was only offered a one-year contract from the Blackhawks...

There's something to be said for loyalty and honor.12:08 AM
Jul 2nd from web

Hossa is a good friend and I am happy for him.12:04 AM
Jul 2nd from web

Thanks to all Hawks fans for your love and support over the last 3 years.
Will never forget your generousity and the great playoff run!12:01 AM
Jul 2nd from web

Excited to be in Minny where I was welcomed and appreciated by management.
The real story about what happened in Chicago to come out.11:59 PM
Jul 1st from web

Seems like Havlat knows something about why Dale Tallon was so abruptly removed from the General Manager's position.... his handle on twitter is "martinhavlat" ... he's fairly active on it, worth adding as a follow.

A new thing to blame on Hossa.

or at least it seems.

After his one-night stand with the Pittsburgh Penguins two seasons ago, leaving to join the defending stanley cup champions (who beat the penguins in the cup final).... only to have a rematch with the penguins this season and lose... it seems likely that Marion Hossa's body actually produces some form of intensely concentrated Stanley Cup repellent.

So when the Chicago Blackhawks GM Dale Tallon decided to sign Hossa to a 12 (YES... COUNT IT... TWELVE) year deal. I kinda thought, gee, that must be a fantastic drug he's on. He's taking a page right out of the Book of Garth Snow.

There are plenty of recent long-term contracts. But I would argue some of those are legit. Who doesn't want to lock down their Sidney Crosby or Alexander Ovechkin.... I would argue Marion Hossa is not a player you want locked down. In fact, I would argue you want him to be one of those player that is easily expendible for a draft pick or a few character players at trade deadline.... having a 12 year deal dangling behind him.... not so enticing.

Anyway, the whole point of this rant is to point out that the Blackhawks fired their General Manager. Most of the stories appear to be calling this a "surprise move" since indeed Tallon was "at the helm when the team drafted players such as Kane and Toews". Yes, he was at the helm when the Chicago Blackhawks were so bad that they got third and first overall picks. Picks so high up are usually no-brainers. Kane was ranked first and Chicago took him first. Toews was ranked third and Chicago took him third.

Hossa is a Stanley Cup repellent.... and Tallon signed him to a twelve year deal on a team that has promise to go far in the next few years.

Not so surprising any more?

Canadiens sign very large Pilon to 3-year deal...

oh wait... that wasn't the headline... it was:

The Montreal Canadiens continue to add size to their lineup.

On Monday, the club announced the signing for forward Andreas Engqvist to a
three-year two way contract.

Last season, the 6-3 centreman notched nine goals and seven assists in 31
games with Djurgardens IF of the Swedish Elite League. He missed the last
24-regular season games with a wrist injury.

In his three seasons in the Swedish Elite League, Engqvist has recorded 15
goals, 17 assists and 44 penalty minutes in 126 games.

Sweet, just what the Habs need... another low-scoring forward.

A revelation that blew my mind.

It's not something I've ever really thought about until James Mirtle's new blog post came up in my twitter feed.

Gary Bettman makes SEVEN-f*****g-million-dollars!

Are you kidding me? I've always felt slightly bad when Bettman would show up to give the Stanley Cup to the winning captain and the fans would un-mercilessly boo the s**t out of him.

I no longer feel bad. There's no way the job this guy does warrents $7 million. For some naive reason I always thought the guy would make something like six-figures... but definitely not seven figures.

It's just a little increase... I swear.

What's more annoying about this realization is that it's always the "overpaid players" that bear the brunt of negative public opinion. And yet there are only 14 actual players that make more than Bettman in a season.

Bettman makes more than NFL commissioner Roger Goodell who makes $6.5 million. But significantly less than baseball's commissioner Bud Selig who makes $14.5 million. Regardless, it's a fairly large chunk of change for a league that is financially propping up some of it's franchises. And it's also a fair chunk of change in a league that has a newly instated salary cap. Too bad the formula for increasing the Salary Cap doesnt' seem to apply to Bettman's salary:

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman received a 27 percent raise during the 2007-08
season, pushing his salary with benefits to $7.1 million for the fiscal year
ending June 30, 2008, according to league tax filings.

The salary is the highest Bettman has earned in his 16 years as commissioner and a major increase from his pre-lockout salary of $3.77 million. League tax filings, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, show Bettman received $4,197,694 in compensation from the NHL and an additional $2,911,550 in compensation and benefits from the NHL's business arm, NHL Enterprises.

— Tripp Mickle, SportsBusiness Journal

It's time for your annual....

....someone stole some sidney crosby shit, story.


STRATHMORE, Alta. - An autographed limited-edition photo print ofNHL star Sidney Crosby was just too difficult to resist for a brazenthief in a small town east of Calgary.

RCMP Sgt. Kevin Reilly says a man in his 20s walked into the TimHortons in Strathmore, waited until staff weren't looking and tookoff with the picture of the Pittsburgh Penguins captain from thewall.

Reilly says it was obvious that the suspect had planned the heistcarefully. The photo is emblazoned with the Tim Hortons logo, shows Crosbyin his Penguins uniform and includes a 1993 Timbits hockey card withCrosby as a youth.

Reilly won't reveal how much the print is worth except to say itwas over $1,000 and was valuable. Police are hoping the public can help identify the thief.

BHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA......

.....sigh.... BHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH


phew, excuse me... this just came in over our wire services here at work:

"NHL: Canadian Press NewsAlert

OTTAWA _ Ottawa Senators sign Alex Kovalev to two-year contract.<"




..... HAHAHAH BRYAN MURRAY YOU FOOL!!! Good luck with that one...

An open letter...

Dear Chicago Blackhawks,

Signing Stanley Cup repellent Marian Hossa to a 12-year contract... proabably a bad life choice.

Just sayin,

Cheers,

Jenn

Geez where do I even start.

I want to start with the aftermath of the Free Agent Frenzy, but instead I need to talk about the Team Canada summer selection camp. Can someone tell me why I am talking about this. This is one of those things that get announced and you're supposed to go "yah...makes sense".... especially after the 2006 squad that was.... not a good squad. Com'n folks let's make some good life choices.

NO. MARC. SAVARD. you kidding me. arg.

Now this camp is not the end of the line. The final decisions are made before December. So Savard could still make a case for himself. But it just became that much harder. I'm not going to rant about this much longer since this is something i've ranted a few times about. I'm just going to point out that these are Marc Savard's stats for the past three years:


Year --- Team - GP - G - A - Pts

2006-07 BOS - 82 - 22 - 74 - 96
2007-08 BOS - 74 - 15 - 63 - 78
2008-09 BOS - 82 - 25 - 63 - 88


here's a rundown of the invitees:

Goalies: Martin Brodeur, Marc-André Fleury, Roberto Luongo, Steve Mason, Cam Ward

Defense: François Beauchemin, Jay Bouwmeester, Dan Boyle, Brent Burns, Drew Doughty, Mike Green, Dan Hamhuis, Duncan Keith, Scott Niedermayer, Dion Phaneuf, Chris Pronger, Robyn Regehr, Stéphane Robidas, Brent Seabrook, Marc Staal, Shea Weber

Forwards: Jeff Carter, Dan Cleary, Sidney Crosby, Shane Doan, Simon Gagné, Ryan Getzlaf, Dany Heatley, Jarome Iginla, Vincent Lecavalier, Milan Lucic, Patrick Marleau, Andy McDonald, Brenden Morrow, Rick Nash, Corey Perry, Mike Richards, Derek Roy, Joe Sakic, Patrick Sharp, Ryan Smyth, Martin St. Louis, Eric Staal, Jordan Staal, Joe Thornton, Jonathan Toews

Canadiens.

O.K. so from under-rated (Marc Savard) to completely over-rated (see: Scott Gomez, post rookie season). At first glance when I saw the trade that sent Chris Higgins packing for overpaid, underachiever Scott Gomez I was furious. But after seeing some of the other moves Gainey made i'm a bit less likely to call for his head.... maybe just a leg??

A few people have asked me what I thought would fix the Canadiens after such a dismal attempt at making a go of their 100th season.

My answer: get a new team.

Ok my answer included a lot more expletives but it was along that train... besides the point anyways.

Get a new team is actually kinda what Gainey did. Now i'm not forgiving the dumbness of sending Chris Higgins who seems to always score a clutch goals, but at least it seems he did the rest of the task correctly.

He just let people go. He cleaned house. Doesn't matter how much it hurts, just rip that band-aid off. He let Saku Koivu go, which is sad, but it needed to happen. But also: Alex Tanguay, Tom Kostopoulos, Mathieu Schneider, Mathieu Dandenault, Francis Bouillon and Patrice Brisebois.

If that's not starting the eff over, I don't know what is.

They also lost Mike Komisarek to the Toronto Maple Leafs. That's a bit concerning since he's going to a rival. But after last years playoff performance, i'm ok with it.

The Canadiens still have to sign Kovalev, but they did sign Mike Cammalleri and Brian Gionta to contracts. Both small players, but very fast and exciting.

Overall the moves on Canada Day are a win, i guess, maybe...

Well it's a definitely a win if you're comparing it to....

The poor poor Ottawa Senators with their whiny sniper Dany Heatley who's got the team handcuffed with his long contract and no-trade clause that he's choosing to invoke when convenient for him.

"I want a trade... but not that one"

I think if a player walks into the General Managers room and says "I want a trade", that should null and void his no-trade clause. They gave him that clause because Heatley was making a long-term committment to the Senators and was saying "i don't want to move, and i don't want to be a rental player at the end of a season when my contract is up".

It's like the worst kind of deja vu...

It's like the deja vu you get when you spend your whole Thursday thinking it's Friday only to wake up and realize that indeed today is Friday not yesterday.

I got that same feeling when I saw a story about Scott Niedermayer.

"The Anaheim Ducks remain in a holding pattern waiting for Scott Niedermayer to determine his playing status for next season."

Really?! Again?! What is wrong with this man?! Have you been hit in the head too many times?! You're like a 4 year old kid who can't decide between the burger or the hot dog.

Just freakin retire already will ya?

this has fail written all over it.

From TSN.ca today,

"The Boston Bruins are in pursuit of Tomas Kaberle and a top 10 pick in today's draft. Sources tell TSN the Bruins have offered restricted free agent forward Phil Kessel to Toronto in exchange for the Leaf defenceman and Toronto's No. 7 pick in the draft."

Boston, listen, we don't like each other. In fact "not liking" you is probably a huge understatement. But, dont' do this to yourself. You don't want Tomas Kaberle. And if you really must have him, please don't give the Leafs Phil Kessel.

Phil Kessel is good, he gets like a point a game, he was a +23 last season, and the kid overcame ball cancer. The kid's got heart. Toronto will ruin him. They ruin all players who come neareth. Why would you send him there. Do you hate him? How could you hate him that much? Send him anywhere else if you can't pay him.