Olympic madness

Have I mentioned that I love the Olympics?

Some people say that watching swimming is boring. Not me. I love it. If you need any proof of why the swimming events aren't boring, all you have to do is watch the men's 4x100 freestyle relay. That was a thing of beauty. As a proud American, it's easy for me to say that, but it really was gorgeous.

The French were heavily favored to win the event, and even ran some smack, saying "The Americans? We're going to crush them. That's why we're here.". Three legs into the race, it looked like they were going to do just that. Down to the last 50 meters, it looked like they were going to do just that. However, Jason Lezak swam an incredible final lap, smashing the previous record for best split, and helping the Americans win the gold in that event for the first time since 1996.

Michael Phelps now has two golds in his quest for eight. This was supposed to be the hard one. When footage of the incredible finish is available, I'll post it.

Beijing Olympics, and why I like Bela Karolyi

I'm not gonna lie. I love the Olympics. Winter Olympics, Summer Olympics. It doesn't matter. I try to watch as much as I can, and this summer has been great so far.

Everybody has their opinion about former US women's gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi. I think he's great. When he was a coach, he pushed the girls really hard. He may have been verbally abusive. The verbal abuse isn't necessary, but the harsh reality is that if he didn't push them so hard, they wouldn't have been so great. His most famous proteges, Mary Lou Retton and the magnificent Nadia Comaneci have always come to his defense whenever people have harsh words to say about him. That's good enough for me.

What I love, though, is that he's never shy about criticizing the IOC or the judges. Frankly, they need criticism, and tonight was certainly no exception. After Shawn Johnson was given a very disappointing score after a near-perfect routine on the beam, Karolyi didn't mince his words in an interview with Bob Costas. He sharply criticized the "system", which he says allows for bias, and he called out the Argentinian judge. Instead of hinting at it, he used the word "cheat". Wow. Of course tonight's routines were only for qualifying purposes, but it doesn't matter.

Last night, I watched some of the men's qualifying routines, and I thought that there was some corruption on the part of the judges, or some bias against the US athletes. I talked to some people about it today, but unfortunately, nobody knew what I was talking about. Alexander Artemev had an amazing routine on the pommel horse, but was given a score lower than that of a Chinese gymnast who had a horrible routine on the parallel bars. I was blown away. Furious, even. And it was just a prelim event.

This has always been the rub on events like gymnastics and diving and figure skating. It allows for corrupt judges to influence the results. Unfortunately, there's really no way to fix it.

In the meantime... rock on, Bela.

Kaberle might go to LA. Johnson might leave.

While I was catching up on some of my blog reading, I found a short post over at The Battle of California about the Kings and their struggle to reach the salary cap floor.

So far, the Kings have only $27.7M in salary commitments for the 2008-09 season. The salary cap floor is $40.7M. They have yet to re-sign RFA forward Patrick O'Sullivan, or the recently traded for Jarret Stoll and Brad Richardson. They have bought out goaltender Dan Cloutier, but still have somewhere between three and five goalies under contract. Granted, most of those contracts are two-way deals, so that money won't count against the cap. They have just four defensemen signed. The free agent market has pretty much dried up, so they're going to have to make some trades to get defensemen and possibly some trades just to take on some salary commitment.

O'Sullivan had a pretty good season in the last year of his entry level contract. He put up 53(22/31) points, and stands to have a payday probably in the neighborhood of $3.5M. Even if that's the case, the Kings would be $9.5 below the cap, and they'll need defense. None of their free agent defensemen can command a big bucks payday, so they're still in trouble versus the cap floor. Why not trade some of their young talent and/or draft picks to Carolina for defenseman Franke Kaberle and his hefty $2.5M salary?

Another interesting thing that's being discussed in LA is another trade that would be done for the express purpose of spending money. One of Carolina's favorite "I hate that guy" guys, Jack Johnson, is in the last year of his entry level contract and could be dangled as attractive trade bait to a team looking to shed some salary this season. Jim Kelly from SI.com suggests that the Blackhawks would make a good trade partner, but his suggestion of Johnson for Khabibulin doesn't make sense because the 'Hawks aren't deep enough in goal to do that, and I don't think Huet is ready to be anointed "the one". The Hawks (and Flames, and Flyers) need to shed salary, but I don't see that particular trade going down.

As for the other? Picking up a veteran defenseman and a salary commitment? Absolutely! I'm not sure what Carolina would want in return if they sent Kaberle that way, though. Draft picks? A bag of pucks? 20 gallons of fuel for the Olympia? (Zamboni™ is a registered trademark, and Carolina's is not a ZAMBONI brand ice resurfacer).

When the Kings traded away their best player -- Mike Cammalleri, it was evident that they're entering yet another rebuilding phase. Now, they have yet to re-sign one of their best young players --Patrick O'Sullivan, and there is talk of trading away one of their other young promising players -- Anze Kopitar or Jack Johnson. They're never going to get better if they keep doing that.

Anyway, I hope the Canes can help them (and themselves) by sending Kaberle out there. Anything at all in return would be great.

Fleer Ultra 2007-08 set complete

I got my two boxes of Fleer Ultras the other day, hoping to come within a few cards of completing the complete set. I needed 73 cards, and I figured I would get loads of cards I already had. Instead, I nearly completed the set with the first box.

I gave details on the first box break, but the second was a quest for just two cards. It turned out that I indeed had the Mike Cammelleri card that I thought I needed, and it took a little while, but I finally got card # 197 Chris Kunitz to complete the set.

There wasn't anything worth getting excited about in the second box. Just a bunch of common cards, two dozen GPs that I needed and a couple of Ultra Uniformity "jersey" cards. No autograph cards, no numbered, low print cards, no more rookie redemption. It turns out, the one rookie redemption I got in the first box was Jonathan Toews. I have to wait 12-16 weeks for the card to be delivered.

After filing the complete set away and organizing all the extras, it turned out that I was 44 cards shy of a second complete set. I gave the 156 cards, plus a few GP duplicates to my friend Patrick, who is an avid collector.

I'm supposed to be recieving a hobby box of UD Victory 2008-09 cards any day now. They are rumored to be "in transit". That complete set is 198 cards plus two checklists.

Box break 1, part 2

The first half of the first box break went so well, I thought that I would start pulling ice cubes out of the box for the rest of box one. Instead, that box remained on fire!

I'll spare the pack-by-pack details, but in the 13th pack, I drew a Freddie Modin GP and a Rookie Redemption card! The first six packs were on fire, as I pulled stuff I needed, both for the regular set and the Gold Medallion parallel set. Things started to slow down around pack 19. There was one more decoy card, which I drew with pack 15 and an Alex Ovechkin Scoring King card.

In pack 23, I drew some elusive cards: Erik Cole, Jason Pominville and Chris Neil, to finish off their respective team sets.

At the end of that first box, I am only two cards short of the complete set. Card #107 Michael Cammelleri and card # 197 Chris Kunitz.

As I was on fire, I was hoping to complete the set with the first box, so I could give away the second box, still wrapped. Such is life.

On to box #2.

Box break 1, part 1

I just opened the first 12 packs from the first of two 24-pack boxes, and things have gone very well so far.

The first pack yielded a David Vyborny Gold Parallel card and four regular cards that I already had. My hopes were in the gutter at that point.

The second pack had a Kyle Wellwood GP and a Jonathan Sigalet rookie card, plus three regular cards that I needed: Dustin Boyd, Brian Rolston, Philippe Bouchard.

Pack three had a Henrik Zetterberg GP and four regular cards I needed: Brad Richards, David Legwand, Freddy Modin and Dion Phaneuf.

Pack four had a Sergei Federov GP and four cards that I needed: Mats Sundin, Georges Laraque, CuJo and Peter Budaj.

The fifth pack had a Johan Holmqvist GP and an Alexander Ovechkin Ultra Action card that I already have. It also had three cards that I needed: Emmanuel Legace, Patrick O'Sullivan and Scott Niedermayer.

Pack six had a Simon Gagne GP, a jersey/auto decoy and four cards that I needed: Johan Holmqvist, Ryan Smyth, Henrik Zetterberg and Tim Thomas. The Holmqvist card completed the Lightning team set.

Pack seven had an Andy McDonald GP (as well as a McDonald regular card), one card that I already had and three that I needed: McDonald, Freddy Norrena and Paul Stastny. Stastny completes the Avalanche set.

Pack eight had a Noah Welch GP and an Aaron Rome rookie card, two cards that I already had and one that I needed: Tomas Kaberle.

The ninth pack had a Tomas Vokoun GP and four cards that I needed: Chris Clark (completes the Capitals team set, Doug Weight (completes the Blues set), Antero Niittymaki and Teemu Selanne.

The tenth pack had a Tomas Vokoun GP, a Joe Thornton Season Crown (assists leader) card, and three cards that I needed: Darcy Tucker (completes the Leafs set), Rick DiPietro (completes the Islanders set) and Gilbert "shoulda been drafted by Carolina" Brule (completes the Dinner Jackets set).

Pack 11 had a Joe Thornton GP and a Brad Stuart Ultra Uniformity jersey card. It also had four regular cards that I needed: Bill Guerin, Jay Bouwmeester (completes the Panthers set), Robert Lang (completes the Red Wings set) and Ryan Getzlaf.

Pack 12 had a Patrick O'Sullivan GP and four regular cards that I needed: Dany Heatley, Jaro Jagr, Hepatitis Boy and Patrick Sharp.

Of these 12 GP cards, I didn't already have any of them. I've had very good luck with the first half of this break, getting 37 of the 73 cards I was looking for, and only seven cards that I already had.

I imagine from here on out, I won't be as lucky.. I'll be back in a little while with the second half of box one.

Today is card day!

Today, I received my shipment of 2007-08 Fleer Ultra Hockey cards. Today's shipment consists of two boxes of 24 packs. Each pack consists of five cards.

I am 73 cards short of the complete base set, and maybe 120 shy of completing the Gold Medallion parallel set. After today's box breaks, I hope to be within 10 cards of the base set.

With one Gold Medallion per pack, that cuts the number of cards down to 196. Maybe 40 of those will be some other special insert or parallel. If there are sweater or sig cards (and there should be two out of today's breaks), that won't effect the number of cards. So I've got about 150 or so cards to get the 73 that I need. Honestly, I don't expect to make it.

I know full well that you can buy this complete set on ebay auctions for something like $20, but there's no fun in that. That's a bit like getting a mail-order bride.

I'll break this down into four segments. No video. Just the written word. So far, I don't have any team sets completed. I need Erik Cole, Justin Williams and Mike Commodore to complete the Hurricanes set. I'll be looking mostly for those.

Oddly enough, most of the ones I'm missing from the complete base set are ones that I have already gotten the Gold Parallel.

More later.

A/V club presents: Maurice Richard

While the Mats Sundin/Joe Sakic drama plays on and the ridiculous circus that is the Brett Favre drama plays itself out, I've been wandering around the YouTubes for some fun stuff. Mostly, I've been watching Huckleberry Hound cartoons. You gotta love that guy. He's got the best intentions but the worst execution. Despite his incompetence, his foolish pursuit of sisyphean tasks and his magnificent failures, he never became flustered and he never quit. It's this "Never give up, never say die" attitude that reminds me of Maurice Richard. I'm going somewhere with this. Trust me. For now, allow me to digress. For his quixotic persistence, Huck is either an idiot or a hero. Or both. One of my favorite episodes was Fireman Huck. It's one of the few times where he looses his zen-like cool, and one of the first times we saw the dog that would become his nemesis. It's also one of the only times that he doesn't botch the words to his favorite song "Oh My Darling Clementine". Check it out.

Anyway, Monday happened to be the birthday of Maurice Richard. He would have been 87. One of the coolest things I've ever seen is this video of a very touching tribute at the Montréal Forum, back in March of 1996. Before the final game in the building, there was a magnificent ceremony honoring the building itself and the great players who played there. No matter how many times I watch any part of it, I'm blown away by the ovation that the crowd gave and the way The Rocket reluctantly but graciously accepted the loving gesture.

Rumor has it that the ovation went on for up to 16 minutes. Clearly, The Rocket was humbled by the whole thing and he probably felt like the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Check out how excited Saku Koivu looks at 1:14 and how dumb Gary Bettman looks at 1:28. Those two couldn't be further apart.

I also stumbled upon this great 1983 commercial for Grecian Formula hair dye, starring Richard.


That "Hey Richard, two minutes for looking so good!" line is a classic.

Everybody's seen the classic cartoon "The Hockey Sweater". Even if you've seen it a million times, it's always worth another view. I just saw this impressive modern adaptation, which ties in Maurice Richard and brings this full circle back to Mats Sundin. Enjoy:


I love how the "pear say queue shun" from the original made it to the remake. And the "one of the defensemen was Bertuzzied" bit had me roaring with laughter.

Thursday will be the 21st birthday of Sidney Crosby. He will finally be able to legally drink beer in Pittsburgh.

Happy birthday to the Rocket (RIP) and to the Kid.

I've got loads of hockey cards arriving via UPS on Thursday. I'll do some box breaks of my quest to complete the 2007-08 Fleer Ultra set.

The forgotten Sutter

Mike Morreale at NHL.com recently wrote two fine articles about the future of the Carolina Hurricanes. Not surprisingly, there's a lot of emphasis on the Canes 2007 first round Pick Brandon Sutter.

Hurricanes hope help is coming from kids
and
Next generation Sutter aims for NHL

In this second generation of Sutters, Brandon was the third to be drafted into the NHL, but he will be the first to play in the NHL. Barring a really unfortunate series of catastrophic events, he'll be lacing them up in Raleigh this fall and hopefully for a long time to come. For the record, the other two second generation Sutters are:

• Shaun (son of Brian), who was a fourth round pick by the Flames in 1998 and is now playing for the Belfast Giants of the British Elite Ice Hockey League.
  
• Brett (son of Darryl), who was a sixth round selection by the Flames in 2005, and is playing with the AHL's Quad City Flames.

There's no need to link to the credentials of each of the first generation Sutters. Only to point out that they played a collective 4994 games, scored a collective 2934 (1320/1614) points and spent 7224 minutes in the box. That's five days to you and me. Between them, they won six Stanley Cups.

We all know their names as Brian, Darryl, Duane, Rich, Brent, Ron, and Gary.

Wait. That's seven. There's only supposed to be six. Gary??? Who is this Gary character?

He's the oldest of the Sutter brothers, and rumored to have been the most gifted of them all, but he never played in the NHL, or really any level of major organized hockey. He turned down an invitation to a tryout with the Red Deer Rustlers, at which Brian earned a spot. One by one, the brothers worked their way through junior hockey and into the NHL, and Gary had few regrets. He certainly never resented his brothers' success. Although Gary denies it, all of his brothers say that the reason he turned down the tryout was that he was very serious with a girl who he would later marry. And divorce. He says that he felt like he wasn't good enough. Everyone else begged to differ, but that's what he says.

I found a fantastic article about Gary Sutter, which appeared in the 2005 issue of The Crow, which is the University of Regina School of Journalism's yearly publication. I highly recommend the story, written by Dan Kinvig, starting on page 14. (this is a pdf file)

The article tells the story behind the story, but also points out that the story doesn't end when Gary found himself remarried, working in a lumber yard and living in a mobile home. Like so many other blue collar workers across the world, Gary entered a lottery ticket pool at work with a bunch of the guys. They won a $10M jackpot, and Gary's cut was $1.5M.

Unlike many people who find themselves in the same spot, Gary didn't quit his job the next day. He continued to work there, despite his newfound riches. That's the "Sutter work ethic". Gary knows, as the other six brothers know, as the Staal brothers know, the value of hard work. The Sutter brothers grew up in a 800-square foot, two bedroom farmhouse in Viking, Alberta. They had no choice but to work on the farm from a very early age. Their father, who passed away in 2005, instilled in them a strong work ethic, which helped six of them have terrific careers as NHLers. We'll never know how good an NHLer Gary would have been.

Young Brandon never had to get up at four in the morning to drive a tractor. He never had to bail hay until the sun went down. He never had to live in a cramped room with three brothers. No, his life has been much easier in that respect. However, the apple rarely falls far from the tree, and in this case he's falling from the (second) best tree in the lot. By anyone's account, Brandon's dad Brent was the best of the six, but maybe not as good as Gary.

So far as we know, there isn't a fifth Staal brother.

horrible looking third?

Today, the good folks over at Icethetics were able to present some visual representation of the third sweater desriptions given by Toronto Maple Leafs beat writer and pal of Eklund Howard Berger.

Keep in mind that the image you see is only an artist's rendition of a questionable description given by an unreliable source.

If the desription that Berger gave is accurate, and this rendition is a fair rendition of what he saw, I've gotta say that it looks horrible. There's no way in the world that I'm going to shell out a hard earned $200 or so to get one of these. There is nothing good about this rendition. The stars are crap. The white triangle is crap. The traditional logo inside that white triangle is crap. The sleeves look halfway decent, but the rest of it is crap.

I'm hoping that Berger's account was completely wrong, and the forthcoming thirds feature the "storm warning" secondary logo on a black background. No white triangle and no stars.

We won't know for sure until September 21, but I'll tell you right now that I hate the way that rendition looks.

Wild waive their only native son

On Tuesday, the Wild announced that they were placing right wing Mark Parrish on waivers. If he and his three-year $8.35M salary commitment aren't picked up on Wednesday, he will be bought out. At which point the Kings (or whomever) can get him for much less than the $2.85M he was scheduled to get this season.

I can't pretend to know everything, or really anything about the Wild, but it's a bit sad to see this happen. Parrish is the only native Minnesotan on the team. GM Doug Risebrough said that Parrish was simply a "victim of the salary cap". Based on this story in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and the comments, Parrish was a bit of an enigma for Wild fans. He used to be a good player, but wasn't playing up to his potential. There's a common sentiment that he just wasn't "fitting in" and spent a significant amount of time in coach Jacques Lemaire's doghouse. Fans wanted to like him for a number of reasons. One of them was that he is a native son. However, it just wasn't working out.

I looked around the Wild blogosphere for reactions to this. Sadly, I don't have any of these fine bloggers in the blogroll, but that'll change soon.
Kirsten from Land of Lakes and Hockey, is one of Parrish's biggest fans, and is pretty irritated about the matter. She went the extra mile by cursing Risebrough's name (and Lemaire's) in both English and French.

Fellow Wild blogger Hitting the Post chimes in with a little "Don't drink the kool-aid" action:

As neat as it is to have "one of our own" on the squad, perhaps we should apply a little perspective to their on-ice contributions to-date before we yell ourselves hoarse clamoring for DR to sign another one.

Fair enough, but it's just odd to see a guy go from being the Wild's Captain during the 2007 playoffs and one of the alternating Captains this season to the waiver wire.

There's no way any team picks him off waivers. Instead, he'll become a free agent and will likely end up in the City of Angels. By the way, has anybody told the Kings that it's damn near August? When are they gonna sign anyone?

Checking out the Wild's salary commitments for the 08-09 season, they don't have a whole lot of wiggle room, and they don't have a full roster either. If they feel the need to sign a Minnesotan on the cheap, there's two perfectly good, um ...good, er ... serviceable, uh ... available native Minnesotan blueliners who have just left Carolina's fold. If they want Kristy or Snuggles, they're both there for the taking.

Speaking of Snuggles, it's been a full month since we've heard a single word about him and his NHLPA appeal of the Canes buying out his contract. I wonder what's going on there. He's disappeared from the Canes page, and the NHLPA lists him as "unsigned". Has anyone heard anything?

New sweater design leaked???

Although we won't know for sure until September, our friends at Icethetics have an inside man, and he has a description of all 18 alternate sweaters set to debut this fall. The Hurricanes alternate isn't quite what we were expecting.

Here's what their inside guy says

Carolina Hurricanes
The Hurricanes will introduce a black third jersey, with red and white trim – different than their customary red home uniform with the black and white trim. Each arm will sport red and white angular stripes. The bottom of the jersey will feature a narrow white stripe and a thicker red one. In between, will be 10 white stars. The club’s red logo on the uniform front is placed within a white triangle, presumably to honor the famed Research Triangle that dominates the Raleigh-Durham area.

We were all expecting the alternate logo to appear on the crest and the main logo on the shoulders. This description doesn't indicate whether the "red logo" refers to our traditional crest logo or our alternate "storm warning" logo. Either way, the "white triangle" is a bit unexpected, and the "ten white stars" come out of nowhere.

No pictures are available, although their inside guy says he's seen evidence. Now, to be fair, I should point out that the "inside guy" is one of Eklund's lackeys. Therefore, this shouldn't be trusted just yet.

Here are the details about the other 17 sweaters.

The description of the Sens new third makes it sound an awful lot like the all-star sweaters from last season.

I can't wait to see these. Especially the Hurricanes.

Is hockey Brett Favre's next move?

By now, even if you're not a football fan, you've heard that Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre won't be back on the frozen tundra next season. Although he's technically retired, he's got two years left on his contract with the Packers. He's hinted at a desire to come out of retirement and he's demanded an unconditional release. There's been a huge soap opera between Favre, the Packers front office and the fans of the other 31 NFL teams, all of whom think that the Mississippi native is coming to play for their team.

Today, there came another rumor about Favre. Well, not really a rumor. More like a harebrained idea. Some folks think that he'll be able to make the transition from "frozen tundra" to "frozen pond". The AHL Iowa Chops (Anaheim's team) have offered the 38-year old a contract, which I'm sure went directly into Favre's agent's trashcan.

Chops' president Steve Nitzel said:

“We can offer him plenty of bone-crushing hits, read-and-react plays, and thousands of fans cheering for him, so what’s not to like about that? All we have to do is sharpen his skating skills and after that, his athletic instincts will take over and he’ll be one heck of a hockey player.”

Yeah.

This is obviously a gimmick. There's no way anyone expects Favre to sign the contract. This is a ploy to drum up ticket sales for the newly renamed team.
When NBA legend Michael Jordan came out of retirement to play minor league baseball for the Chicago White Sox affiliate Birmingham Barons, it was a huge success at the box office, but a disappointment on the field. Jordan obviously has tremendous athletic instincts, and he already had a background in baseball. However, the gap between a standout high school ball player and a Double-A ball player is too broad to fill in with "instincts". The gap between someone who probably has very limited skating skills and an AHL player? Well....

Next week, the ECHL Charlotte Checkers will announce that they are offering Indy car driver Danica Patrick a contract. I kid.

Glove tap to James Mirtle , who had a nice line on this:

Maybe they're looking for someone to quarterback the team's power play.

Groan.

Bomani and the survey

I didn't really want to get involved in this, but there's not a heck of a lot going on, and Bomani Jones keeps pushing the Caniac Nation's collective buttons, so I'm gonna give my two cents on the recent poll that everyone's talking about. Some "summer fellow" (i.e. intern) with some group called "Public Policy Polling" conducted a telephone survey which yielded some results that are getting some snickers from some folks. This poll "found" that 18% of the 500 respondents were unaware of the Hurricanes existence. Six percent of the respondents from within the 919 (Raleigh, etc.) area code didn't know about them.

The complete "findings" are available here in pdf format. What it shows is that 500 people were polled. How these people were selected isn't known. All that's known is that there was an automated questionnaire. "Is this a scientific poll? Press one for 'no', two for 'yes' or three for 'I like Fig Newtons!'"

That, in itself, makes the whole thing suspect to me. First and foremost, though, is that the entire sample size was 500, and that was meant to be representative of North Carolina as a whole. North Carolina has 8.9 million people. 500 represents less than one one hundredth of one percent. That's not a good sample size.

I might contact the guy who did the survey just to find out what his methods were? How many people declined to participate? Where did they get the pool? Seriously, they couldn't have possibly cold called people during the dinner hour. Could they? Did the results take into account for people who just pressed buttons quickly to make the survey end? Where were the dummy questions to determine whether people were paying attention? Why did the survey assume that the respondents cared about sports at all? Every one of the 15 or so questions had to do with sports.

Anyway, Bomani Jones has taken this and run with it. He's a local radio journalist who has a history of taking potshots at the Canes, most notably a piece that appeared on ESPN Page 2During the 2006 Stanley Cup playoffs. Jones asked two of his buddies if they liked the Canes. They said no. He used this sample size of two to postulate that nobody in North Carolina cared about the Canes. Then he went to a couple of bars in Durham and reported that he couldn't find a single Canes fan. Jones, who is black, lamely threw out the race card.

you've probably heard that Durham has a lot of black people. And as you might expect, hockey's not really their bag.

Lame. And from that point on, it doesn't matter because he's revealed his bias.

He decided that he'd be fair about it and go to Raleigh. Instead of going to known Hurricanes hot spots (all Carolina Ale House locations), he went to some "family establishment", then to an NC State bar (remember, school wasn't in session, so the place was dead anyway). He proudly proclaimed that he still couldn't find any Caniacs.

My favorite bit is when he simply made stuff up. After naming every other place he went to and every person he talked to, he said that he went to a bar in Raleigh where the manager insisted that he and the establishment remain anonymous. He described it as a ghost town. Yeah, that's great. If there were zero customers in there anyway, what difference does it make that zero out of zero were Hurricanes fans. Try going to a busy place.

I can make stuff up, too. Watch this:

People in Dallas don't care about the Cowboys. It's true. Some guy I met in an airport said so.

Awesome.

Anyway, Bomani, who writes for 850 the Blog, proudly pointed to that PPP survey and in a blog post said, essentially, See! I told y'all crazy crackers. Nobody cares!. He thinks that all of us are "missing the point", and when readers took him to task, asking "okay, what is the point, sir?", he refused to answer. He pledged to go on the radio and answer calls about this hullabaloo. That was supposed to happen today, but he decided to postpone, citing some "We need to make sure it runs smoothly, and now isn't the time for this" excuse. The real reason is that he realized that he didn't have a point.

Miller signing has major implications in Carolina

On Friday, the Sabres announced that they have signed goaltender Ryan Miller to a five-year contract extension for a total of $31.25M. His current contract runs through this season, and he will make $3.5M. When the new contract begins, he will make $6.25M for each of the next five seasons. Crunchy is also an internationally renowned master of the pan flute, an accomplished amateur photographer, and has twice hiked the entire 2174-mile Appalachian Trail. Only one of those things is true.

This means a lot to the Carolina Hurricanes. In the summer of 2007, Carolina netminder Cam Ward was given a three-year deal that was EXACTLY the same as the three-year deal that Ryan Miller had been given by Buffalo. Cam Ward's contract runs through 09-10, and it seems likely that they will have no choice but to continue to use Cruchy's contract as a template. Barring a complete disaster, massive injury, or a late meteoric rise by Michael Leighton, Cam Ward will need to be pegged as the franchise goalie. Truth told, he's already been pegged as such. It's becoming more and more obvious that a franchise goalie is gonna have to get paid Kiprusoff money even if he can't carry a Brodeurian load.

The summer of 09 will present a much bigger challenge: Eric Staal. Hopefully, Jim Rutherford will break the silly franchise rule of not extending contracts until the final weeks before expiration. There is no doubt about the fact that Eric Staal is the face of this franchise, the captain-in-waiting. Hopefully he will be a Hurricane for life. Hopefully, they will get something worked out sooner than later so we don't have to fret about it next summer.

The big question, which is a bridge we're gonna have to burn when we get to it, is "at what cost Ward?". Assume that Staal gets a raise into the neighborhood of $6.5M. If Wardo is given the same contract and Tim Gleason and Joni Pitkanen's massive blueline contracts are taken into account, something's gonna have to give. "New, more fiscally responsible NHL"? What?

Three summers in a row since I've been paying close attention, Darcy Regier has let players walk away or slip through the cracks. This time, he did the right thing. He did the right thing by locking down their franchise goaltender, and it's a bit of a surprise. A surprise that Regier worked something out, and a surprise that the contract is as long as it is.

The only trouble is, Regier's play will force Carolina into a tough spot in the summer of 2010 when they need to re-ink Ward.

Out with Scorpions, in with AC/DC

Finally, on Friday we got some semi-official word about the third sweaters that have been speculated upon for the last two years. Luke Decock spoke with Jim Rutherford on the matter, and JR has indicated that the third sweaters could be worn as early as October 13, against the defending Stanley Cup champion Red Wings.

Everyone has speculated for years now that the third sweater will be black and will flip-flop the primary and secondary logo. Rutherford declined to comment to Luke about that, but it seems like one of only two options. The other being a diagonal wordmark "CAROLINA", similar to the one the Rangers wear, or the Penguins used to wear on the Avalanche used to wear as thirds. The picture above is from a concept gallery at NHL Tournament of Logos, (which has since migrated to the new website, Icethetics). It's not dramatic, but it's the one that most of us have imagined ever since we first started dreaming about a third sweater.

In Luke's article, Rutherford indicated that the team hopes to unveil them at the Caniac Carnival in September, but they won't interfere with the pageantry of opening night. They'll wait a little while, but it sounds like he's pretty set on debuting them on October 13.

Having obtained NHL approval for the alternate jersey, Rutherford said they could be seen on the ice as soon as the Detroit game, when owner Peter Karmanos figures to be in the stands. League guidelines encourage teams to use the alternate jerseys no more than 10 times per season.

"We wouldn't wear it opening night," Rutherford said. "Our jerseys as they are now are really nice jerseys in red and they're really popular. ... It could be [Detroit]. It won't be opening night, but after that sooner rather than later, probably. We haven't made that decision."

"Rock You Like a Hurricane" by the German hair band Scorpions, has been the Hurricanes semi-official theme song since day one. Except for the 2005-06 playoffs, it has been played as the players hit the ice and during the starting lineups. It will almost certainly be supplanted by the over-used in sport "Back in Black" by AC/DC.

Like Dave over at Carolina on Ice, I can't wait to snap one up. Every day at work, I get a few free dollars. Literally a few. Never more than six; never less than two. Instead of passing this money through my liver and kidneys, I've been quietly squirreling it away. Three dollars here and five dollars there doesn't sound like a lot, but in just two months, I've stashed away $192 of free money that would otherwise go to beer. That's my sweater money. If I have to buy an authentic, I'm about two-thirds of the way there. If they produce replicas of the third, I'm already there. Since I'm already squirreling the money away, I'll just keep doing it, and call it parking and gas money.

According to the same article, as many as 18 NHL teams will have alternate sweaters this season. Last year, with the rollout of the "RBK system", no team had an alternate. This will be the first time the Hurricanes have had an alternate sweater, leaving Detroit and New Jersey as the last teams standing to have never had one.

Fun with Justin Williams

Yesterday, after a long day at work, I went out with the intention of buying one of those cheap box o' hockey cards. Instead, I bought one of the slightly more expensive boxes with 12 packs of 2007-08 Fleer Ultra cards. Out of all the cards I've been getting in the box o' cards, I like the Fleer Ultra the best. I think they're good looking cards for the collector without a ton of money. Also, the bonus inserts, like the gold medallion parallel set and the rookie set are very cool for such a reasonably priced card.
As I opened the box and felt each of the packs, I noticed that one was considerably thicker than the others. That's a good indicator that there's a special card, like an autograph card or a jersey or stick card. I saved it for last. Out of the other 11 packs, there were a couple of pretty cool limited run cards, including a Sidney Crosby "Difference Maker" card that might be worth as much as $12, and a Michael Nylander gold medallion parallel card that, for some reason, could be worth $10. Right there, if I were into card dealing, the box has paid for itself. I had no idea how completely awesome the special card in that last pack would be.

If you know me, you know that Justin "Viva" Williams is my favorite player on my favorite team. So you can imagine how excited I was when I got this:


I'm really new to card collecting. When I bought baseball and football cards as a kid, I wasn't really "collecting" them. I had no idea about things like "complete sets" and "rookie cards". Of course, that was in the '70s, before card collecting became the beast that it is now. The point is, I'm really excited about that card, and it couldn't have been more perfect. For me.

Also, since we're already on the Justin Williams topic, allow me to share this video that I've wanted to share for some time. It's from the "ask the Canes" in-game feature from the last home game last season. Watch how quickly Viva answers "What's your favorite section?" with "Section 112", as if to say "Of course it's 112. Why would it be anything else?" 112 is, of course, where I have sat since 2002. All the more reason to love 112. As if the bar within the section wasn't enough.

Happy birthday to RBH (and Japers' Rink, and Casonblog)

I nearly forgot all about it, but today is the third birthday of Red and Black Hockey.

Japers' Rink just turned three this week, and BFLOblog will be turning three in September. Oddly, the only reason I remembered was a post that Kevin made at BFLOblog, congratulating JP on three years in the blogosphere. Let me be the second, or fortieth or whatever, to also congratulate JP, even if it is a few days late.

As Kevin said, there was a batch of us who started blogging at the tail end of the lockout, and for some reason, those are the ones we feel more connected with. Obviously, I'm more connected with other Canes bloggers, which allows me to also congratulate Scott Cason on the third birthday of CasonBlog, which was just two days ago. I'm sure there are others whom I've forgotten to congratulate on their third birthday, but seeing as how I nearly forgot my own....

It's been mostly fun. I've gone through periods of taking this blog über-seriously. I've gone through periods when I wanted to give the whole thing up. I've gone thorough some personal highs and lows whilst writing this blog. On that day three years ago when the "new NHL", and this blog were born, I never imagined that I would ever have any readers. To my surprise, people keep coming back. Some of them by choice. I'm no James Mirtle, but it's really cool that anyone at all reads this.

My favorite blog-related moment was when I was on tee-vee with my horrible beard during game 7 of the 2006 ECF. People who read this blog recognized me just in that brief three or four seconds I was on screen, and I got a few emails and messages from complete strangers because of it.

Thanks again to the people who keep checking in here.

I raise my glass not only to myself, but to JP, Cason, and all the others who started blogging hockey back in July of 2005.

Schedule released.

The NHL released the schedules this afternoon. They've gone back to the "balanced" schedule wherein everybody plays everybody at least once and there are fewer intra-division games. As usual, there are a few quirks, and I'll try to cover many of them in this post.

The Western Conference teams that Carolina will play at home are:
Detroit on October 13, Erik Cole and the Oilers on November 1, Phoenix on November 21, Nashville on November 23, Anaheim on November 30, St. Louis on January 2, Columbus on Valentine's Day, Colorado on February 22 and Cal-Gary on March 6.

The Western Conference teams that Carolina will play on the road are:
Los Angeles on October 17, Anaheim on October 19, St. Louis on November 30, Minnesota on December 23, Vancouver on February 3, San Jose on February 5, Phoenix on February 7, Chicago on March 11, and Dallas on March 14.

The schedule features 14 back-to-back games. Five start at home, three start on the road, three are back-to-back road games, and three are back-to-back home games.

There are just two home-and-home consecutive games against the same opponent. Both are in November.

Unlike the past three seasons, the final month is not division-heavy. In fact, Carolina's final seven games are out-of division. Five of the last six are against Atlantic Division opponents.

Carolina will face the Flyers four times in a sixteen day span between November 26 and December 11, and the two teams will be done with each other.

As is usual, Carolina will go on an extended road trip early in the season due to the North Carolina State Fair. This season, that trip will be six games. There will also be a string of games in January where seven out of eight games between the 8th and 27th are on the road. In addition to the six game trip, there will be two four-game trips and three three-game trips.

Carolina's longest home-stand will be four games, and that will happen three times.

The traditional New Year's Eve home game will be against Atlanta.

Matinees are the thing. Carolina has traditionally had just one matinee home game, but there will be seven this year. Six of those will be 3:00 Sunday games. Four of those will be in November.

The Hurricanes will first face the Islanders on October 25, but not again until February 19.

The date of "Glen Wesley night" hasn't been announced, nor have any of the mini-season ticket packages. Even if it doesn't work out for whichever package I choose, count me in for opening night, Edmonton, and "Glen Wesley night".

Canes to open at home

The full schedules are expected to be announced today, but Hurricanes fans learned yesterday that they will open the season at home against the Panthers on Friday October 10. They also learned that the three "wildcard" teams from the West whom the Canes will play twice will be Phoenix, Anaheim and St. Louis.

This is the third consecutive time the Canes have opened the season at home, and the first time that it will be a divisional opponent.

Carolina fans may remember that FSN South signed a deal with the Hurricanes, pledging to broadcast 65 games this coming season, up from 60 in 2007-08. They also have pledged to broadcast "at least 70" Charlotte Bobcats NBA games. I did some research and discovered that last season, the two teams had simultaneous games 34 times, and each team had 44 nights when they were the only one playing. There were an additional four times where one team played early and one team played late. Supposing the common dates were split down the middle, that gave each team 61 broadcastable games. Including the "doubleheaders", there could have been 65 games for each team. All of this is, of course, using last year's schedules as a template. In any event, it doesn't seem possible for one channel to commit to as many games as they're committed to.

I've written to FSN South, asking them how they plan to honor both commitments when the schedules probably won't accomodate 135 different broadcastable games. I haven't received an answer.

The NHL also "officially" announced that the Winter Classic '09 will indeed be in Wrigley Field on New Year's Day between the Red Wings and Blackhawks. This came as news to nobody. I think there's some people who are holding out hope for a Winter Classic in Raleigh. It isn't gonna happen in our lifetimes, and if it does, I'll gladly eat crow.

The full 2008-09 schedules will be released at some point today.

O'Neill possibly making a comeback

I just got word via Dave from COI about the possibility that Jeff O'Neill will be donning the old #92 sweater in Carolina again. Luke has most of the details in his post over at LSB, but the gist of it is that they're looking to get some "organizational depth". Apparently, the Matt Cullen situation is still kinda shaky, and the Canes need to have an NHL-calibre center under two-way contract for emergency fill in.

Luke:

"Yes, that Jeff O'Neill.

The Canes have talked to O'Neill and Jeff Taffe, Rutherford said, but both are holding out for one-way contracts. "

Um.

Yeah.... No.

Jeff O'Neill was a good player for a few years, and he is the franchise's leading goal scorer since the team moved to Carolina. For the record, O'Neill scored 176 for Carolina. Rod Brind'Amour has scored 149 for Carolina, and Eric Staal has scored all of his 124 for Carolina. Brindy should pass that mark this coming season, and Staal should pass it early in the 2009-10 season.

Jeff O'Neill is not remembered for his 41-goal season in 2000-01. He is not remembered for his other accomplishments, which put him near the top of every franchise statistical category.

Jeff O'Neill is remembered around here for very different reasons. He had a legendary row with former Hurricanes coach Chairman Mo following a bag skate. He had a couple of run-ins with John Law, including his arrest for DUI and public urination during the lockout.

O'Neill scored 60 or more points four straight seasons, but in 03-04, he stopped caring. He was lazy and sloppy on the ice. By the end of the season, he had fallen from fan favorite to pariah, often drawing boos for his listless play. I have never apologised for the way I felt about him.

After the underachieving 34 point season in 03-04 came the lockout. Instead of staying in shape and doing something good, he sat around with Bates Battaglia and got liquored up. I don't know for sure that O'Neill and Batesy were hanging out, but Bates has the reputation of being a party boy, and I'll make that assumption whether it's fair and accurate or not.

The DUI arrest was O'Neill's second. His shoddy play was enough to make him fall from grace, but the DUI was the last straw for many fans. After the Steve Chiasson incident, this organization is really sensitive about drunk driving.

The fight with Maurice, the lazy play, and finally the DUI pretty much secured O'Neill's walking papers. Then, in June of 2005, O'Neill's brother was killed in a single-car accident near Toronto when he fell asleep at the wheel. There was no suspicion of drugs or alcohol. Only fatigue.

Donny's untimely passing provided an excellent opportunity for the Canes to "trade" O'Neill to the Leafs. That was exactly what Jeff wanted and needed.

O'Neill had 38 points for the Leafs in 2005-06 and 42 in 06-07. Oddly enough, he ended up back with coach Paul Maurice, and the two let bygones be bygones. Although these numbers aren't quite up to what he's capable of, he was getting back on the right track. Until...

O'Neill didn't play at all in 2007-08. Not professionally, anyway. He played in a Thursday night beer league. For some reason, he thinks that he can go from once a night in a 30-and up league to a one-way NHL contract. Jim Rutherford has made his intentions quite clear.

"He's trying to work his way back but with him sitting out a year, his opportunity would be on a two-way contract, probably starting in Albany," Rutherford said. "Maybe even at center ice. He played there in junior. At this time, we're experimenting with a few things. Based on his career he feels the same way (as Taffe) — he would like one-way contract somewhere. If he can't we're willing to talk with him."

There are loads of other unrestricted free agents who could be signed to two-way deals. I'm not sure why O'Neill is being considered.

Seriously, I'd rather have Pavel Krispy Brendl. Speaking of whom, it looks like he's been doing okay in the Swedish Elite League.

I'm sure that when the dust settles, O'Neill won't have a contract with Carolina, but it gives us something to talk about.

off topic - music ... Los Campesinos!

Once again, I'm forced to bring non-hockey into this blog. I mean, I could write about how the Bolts have signed The Horseman to a life-long contract ala Rick DiPietro. I could write about the drama surrounding Brian Burke and Kevin Lowe. I could write about the drama with "Boots" Del Baggio. I could even write about the Carolina Hurricanes prospects camp that just happened. I won't. Today, I'm gonna go on about music. More specifically, I'm gonna go on about a particular music video.

I've become a sucker for anything that's on the Arts & Crafts music label. Canadian indie pop. Most of it's Canadian, anyway. One of the non-Canadian bands, Los Campesinos! are Welsh, and they are the very epitome of "twee-pop" that was so popular in Olympia, Washington back in the mid-late nineties. They have a new album, and a video promoting one of the songs. I'm sharing it here today, just like I did on my other blog because I can't get the damn song out of my head. I hope that I can get it to infect at least a couple of you.
I'm sharing it here also because even if you don't like the song, you might at least appreciate the uncanny resemblance of Ollie Campesinos (the guy wearing the green t-shirt) to a younger Eric Staal. Say the 2003 Eric Staal.
Anyway, enjoy the video. My Year in Lists by Los Campesinos!:


Incidentally, I think that Aleksandra Campesinos (the waifish redhead) is pretty hot.

Weird hockey card #3 -- Tuomo Ruutu

In what may or may not be a summer-long series, I've got another weird hockey card to share. I'm still buying these box o' card sets for $10, which is well worth it for the entertainment value alone. Most of the time, I'll get at least one that I think makes the expense worth it. I'm also getting pretty close to collecting the entire 262 card set of Bowman 1990-91 cards.

I was disappointed in this latest set when I didn't get anything that made me go "ooooooh". However, the closer I looked at the cards, I found one that at least made me chuckle. I present the Tuomo Ruutu card from the 2004-05 Upper Deck "Victory" set. Card #44, if you're scoring along at home.


Just a normal card, right? I don't own a scanner, and I'm not skilled enough to get a crystal-clear photo of the card, but if you look closer, you'll see why this card is weird.



Yes. That's right. "They could not have been more happier..." They also could not have been more grammatically incorrect. More excited? Sure. More impressed? Sure. Happier? Sure. More happier? No.

Speaking of Ruutu, here's a great video from the YouTubes. These little kids are great.

Demitra signs with Vancouver

Everyone's favorite Slovak -- Pavol Demitra -- signed with the Canucks today. No details are available just yet.

Okay, so he's not everyone's favorite Slovak. He's just Jes Golbez' favorite Slovak. Anyone who's ever read Golbez' blog knows that he's a huge Pavol Demitra fan.

Looking at his posts with "Pavol Demitra" tags, you'll see things like

...our master, lord, and saviour, Pavol Demitra...

Pavol Demitra is awesome at many things: passing, shooting, stick-handling, skating, fashion, and Sudoku.

November 29, 1974 is one of the most important dates in world history. Why? Because, in a little village in Northern Slovakia, Pavol Demitra, your lord and master, was born.

This is one of those great moments when everything falls into place. Demitra has been Golbez' favorite player for a while. The Canucks have been his favorite team. Finally, the two have met.

And there was much rejoicing in Vancouver.

Demitra won't be able to fill the void left by the eternal Canuck captain, Markus Naslund, but he'll be a welcome addition.

Now that Trevor Linden and Markus Naslund are gone, I'm not sure if Demitra will slide right into the captaincy. He wore the C in Minnesota, and he might be a good candidate, but maybe the Sedins will be co-Captain. I don't have my finger on the pulse of the Canucks, and for all I know, they've already made a choice.

The hockey world still awaits news on Mats Sundin, and the Caniac world still awaits news on trading F. Kaberle to Tampa or Ottawa or Los Angeles or Chicago or Atlanta or anywhere.

Sharpie signs the dotted line

On Wednesday, the Hurricanes announced that they have finally come to terms on a one-year deal with winger Chad LaRose. The 26-year old Michigander will make $875k in 2008-09.

LaRose, who had NHL-career highs in goals (11), assists (12) and points (23) last season, earned $500k while playing out his first one-way contract. Previously, the undrafted player had been signed to two-way deals.

The signing means that the Hurricanes have avoided arbitration with LaRose. The Canes haven't had an arbitration hearing since Jeff O'Neill was awarded $1.5M in 2000.

This is good news, but it puts the Canes about 4M over their budget. After Kaberle and his $2.2M get moved out, they'll be close enough.

off topic - movies ..... Vertigo

The summer of boredom continues. The Lighting continue to sign everyone who ever played on the Penguins forward lines, and they still don't have defense. October is a long way away, so I'm gonna spend my summer watching lots and lots of movies. The netflix cue should be hopping, and I think I'm gonna spend a small fortune just going to see classic films.

The historic Carolina Theatre of Greensboro is just around the corner from my house, and they always show classic films on Tuesdays. Every summer, they kick the classic films into high gear, doing them most every night. Tonight, they're showing one of my all-time favorites, Vertigo.
Vertigo is by far my favorite Hitchcock film, and it usually sits in my "top five all-time"

As usual, Jimmy Stewart is perfect, and the stunning Kim Novak is amazing. Let's be honest, though. It doesn't matter how good or bad her acting is. She's just simply there, and she's beautiful. One of my favorite things, though, is the very underrated performance by Barbara Bel Geddes as Scotty's (Stewart) gal-pal Midge. I've probably seen this movie 20 times, and I never tire of it.

Next Wednesday, the Hitchcock series continues with The Man Who Knew Too Much. I've never seen it, and I doubt I'll go this time. In two weeks, The Birds, with Tippy "Poor Man's Kim Novak" Hedren. I liked it a lot the first time I saw it, but not so much on subsequent viewings.

Among others in the summer Hitchcock series : Rebecca, Rear Window.

Among other classic films being shown that are worth mentioning: This is Spinal Tap, Princess Bride, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Evil Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I'm pretty excited about the lineup, and there's about 10 others that I didn't mention, but I'll probably go see most or all of these. Of course I own most of these on DVD, and it isn't as if they own film prints of these movies. They're just projecting the DVD version on the huge screen. Still, I'm gonna go. Y'know. Support the arts. The theatre is non-profit; it uses ticket sales to fund building renovation and upkeep. It's a beautiful 1920's theatre complete with balconies, private boxes, massive staircases, marble pillars, statues and all the other glorious fixtures that you would expect from that era. Oh. And a high-quality up-to-date sound system.

As the summer wears on, I'll have more off-topic posts. Hopefully Frantisek Kaberle will get traded so I'll have something hockey-related to write about.

Seidenberg re-signs, Kaberle becoming more expendable

On Monday, the Hurricanes re-signed defenseman Dennis Seidenberg to a one-year deal valued at $1.2M. This is almost half again what he made last season.
The 26-year old German was hit hard with injuries, and appeared in only 47 games, but he still managed to have a career best 15 (0/15) points. His average ice time of 18:50 per game was second on the team among defensemen.

Seidenberg has never played more than 63 games in an NHL season, and his health is a bit of a concern. He plays an unspectacular but fairly consistent game, and we're glad to have him re-inked.

Despite the retiring of Glen Wesley and the moving on of Bret Hedican, Carolina has gone on a blueline signing frenzy. Now, they simply have too many defensemen. I've said before and I'll say again that Frantisek "Cup Winning goal scorer" Kaberle has got to be the odd man out. He just doesn't fit in with the "younger, bigger, more physical" look that the Canes are trying to give their back end. They need to trade him and his $2.2M for anything they can get out of it. Preferably a depth forward, but anything at all in return will be fine.

Frankie's days are definitely numbered. If you were to make me guess, I'd say that he'll be out of here by the end of next week. I know there are at least two teams out there who are in dire need of defensemen, so I imagine JR will be on the phone with Ottawa and Tampa among others.

Sharpie files for arbitration

On Saturday, Carolina forward Chad "Sharpie" LaRose notified the Hurricanes and the NHLPA that he has elected to take the team to an arbitration hearing. He is one of 15 NHL players to do so, and the only Hurricane.

LaRose, who was undrafted, but played junior hockey in the Compuware system, earned $500k last season. He was given loads of ice time due to a plethora of injuries and was slotted as high as second line. He posted a career high 23 (11/12) points in 58 games played. In a crucial late season game, he posted his first career hat trick in a 6-2 win over the Lightning.

Sharpie was given a standard qualifying sheet, but the RFA has yet to accept it. Jim Rutherford has indicated that negotiations with him are "going nowhere".

In his three years with the Hurricanes, LaRose has built somewhat of a cult following due to his hard work on and off the ice. He has given this team everything that he has. When he wasn't getting any, he never once complained about ice time. Instead, he worked harder than almost anybody in practice. He was an excellent fourth liner, and when things got difficult due to injuries and illness, the hard-working midget was rewarded with an increased role.

Carolina is nowhere near the salary cap, but they are already a smidgen above their own budget. That said, even if LaRose "wins" his arbitration hearing, it should be for less than a million dollars, and the Canes should definitely accept the ruling.

I've am the proud owner of Chad LaRose's page at hockey-reference.com, so it goes without saying that I would be upset if things don't get worked out.

Tidying up, part III

Okay, so I got bored and decided to mess around with a new template. I wish the changeover could have been fully automatic, but unfortunately, it involved a lot of cutting and pasting and manual entry of stuff from the old place to the new place.
I hope that this site will be easier on the eyes, more functional, and will look decent in any browser. I know that the old place had issues for those who have a wide sidebar or those who use Internet Explorer. The new place should look fine with any of those.

Some of the stuff got left behind, and some of the links still need to be added, but eventually, I'll get it all over here. Please bear with me in the meantime.

Canes sign Pitkänen, Melichar

On Wednesday, the Hurricanes made two signings. One fully expected, and the other a bit of a surprise.

The first of the signings was the surprise. Jim Rutherford went way off the rumor charts by signing former Penguin Josef Melichar. The rumors about him were that he was going to return to the Pens after spending last season in Czech and Swedish leagues. He spent his entire six-year NHL career in Pittsburgh, where he tallied 40 (7/33) points in 310 games. The 29-year old Czech was signed to a one-year deal at $1M. When Rutherford flat out said that he was gonna get another defenseman to get bigger and younger, then get rid of one of the existing ones, everyone pretty much assumed he was really saying "Frantisek Kaberle, pack your bags". I'm not sure what the Canes would be able to get for the guy who scored the Cup-winning goal in 2006, but I'm guessing they'll get a prospect and a second round pick.

Frankie has been so frustrating to watch. He can't seem to put two good games back to back. Most nights, he can't even put two good shifts back to back. He's been having lingering problems from the multitude of surgeries he's had, and at 34, he's just not getting any younger. I'd say his days are over in Carolina.

The second was the big one. Joni Pitkänen was signed to a three-year $12M deal. The money is a bit more than I was hoping, but the length is more than I was expecting. For the most part, I've been hearing good things about him and his skill set. The question marks are on his health. From a Carolina standpoint, his health can't possibly be dodgier than that of Bret Hedican or Frantisek Kaberle. And he can't possibly be worse defensively than those two. And he definitely will provide more back-end offensive production than those two combined.

Frankie and his $2.2M have got to go. If the Canes can get a depth forward out of it, hooray! Otherwise, shed the salary and stock up on draft picks. I'll always have the fond memory of Frankie scoring the Cup-winner on June 19, 2006 -- just a few feet in front of my face, but this team desperately needed a massive overhaul of the defense. It started with the brilliant Commy/Stillman for Corvo/Eaves trade last winter. These two signings pretty much finish that off. I still think Kaberle is a swell guy, but I also think that both the team and Kaberle would be better served if he was traded.

The few of us who stand behind the team on this Cole/Pitkänen deal have been getting railed by the many who hate it. Make no mistake, I will miss Cole. He will continue to be one of my favorite players; he'll just be wearing a different sweater. I understand and appreciate what he did for this team. I understand it as much or more than the next guy. I'm not saying "Good riddance, jerk!" None of us is saying that. It's business. The Sliding Pokecheck put it quite nicely in her post:

"The Hurricanes had a lot of good forwards and desperately needed to trade for a defenseman. Cole was the only one the team could afford to lose WHO WOULD ALSO get the team something of value in return. Someone had to go and Cole was a valuable trade option. There you go. It's business, folks. Much as you might get attached to certain players and want to keep them around for their entire career, it's not about you - it's about trying to put together a winning team."

Carolina didn't miss the playoffs last season because they weren't scoring enough goals. They had plenty of offense. They narrowly missed the playoffs chiefly because their defense sucked. This will probably be a blog post of its own sometime in the near future. The chief goal this summer was to rehaul the defense even if it meant losing a star player. Feelings have been hurt, but that mission has been accomplished. The defense has been rehauled. Will it pay dividends? I think so, but we'll have to wait and see.

If Pitkänen stinks up the joint, I'll gladly eat crow. For now, I'm totally behind this.

As an aside, the Hurricanes website lists Melichar with the sweater #2. Obviously, that won't be his number. Since the Hurricanes are retiring that number for Glen Wesley, Melichar will be asked to pick something else. Pitkänen is shown with the #25, which will be just fine. I just hope he can be better in that sweater than Bruno St. Jacques and Eric Belanger were.