please hammer, don't hurt em

As soon as I said "there's no more big names signing with new teams", the official word came in on the Roman Hamrlik signing. The Flames inked him to a two-year deal for $7M. Actually, I had forgotten about this, because I had already stored it in my mind as a "done deal". Even the terms of the contract were already known to the hockey world. The 2003-04 Clarence S. Campbell Bowl defending Flames have got to be happy with this. The 13-year veteran was selected first overall by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 1992 entry draft and has played in three all-star games. In addition to being a very strong defenseman with great size, he has a tremendous offensive upside. Including re-signing some of their own RFAs, this is Calgary's tenth signing during the free agency market.
I'd look for the Flaming Cees to make a serious run at repeating as Western Conference Champs.

While doing some research for this post, I looked for songs with "hammer" in the title because I wanted to make a better joke than the one I did. What I came across was something I hadn't noticed before. Maybe this has to do with my lack of knowledge on the heavy metal music scene, but there's a song called "The Hammer" by Motörhead that sounds almost exactly like their "Ace of Spades" (which, prior to ten minutes ago, was the only Motörhead song I knew). Again, it might have to do with my lack of real exposure. With some slight variation, though, the guitar chord progression is the same and the drums are exactly the same. I don't have the mp3 files to post, but if you really care, check out the short samples available at this page.
Dangit. I'm not supposed to talk about music here, and I'm not supposed to talk about hockey on my other blog , but I've already broken both rules in the short three weeks of their co-existence. Trust me, though, I would never write about Motörhead except in a case like this.

Still waiting for the "Canes re-sign Josef Vasicek" news.... Maybe Monday.