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It wasn't pretty, but it counts. The old adage... You have to be good to be lucky. Tonight, the Wings were lucky. This game could have gone either way, and I believe the defining moment was Ozzie's stellar save against Penguins sniper Evgeni Malkin on a breakaway. The Penguins were able to out shoot the Wings 32-30 but a strong portion of that was after Abdelkader scored the 3rd goal 2:46 into the period, and the Big Red Machine went into shutdown mode from there on. Not bad for a 4th liner who played 5:10 all game.

Once Pittsburgh pulled their goaltender Hossa had a scoring chance but shot wide, and Zetterberg picked up the puck on his backhand, and appeared to have a clean shot on net, but opted for a pass to Hossa. I could be mistaken (it happens often) but it looked like Z was trying to get Hossa a goal against his former team, and most importantly a goal that didn't come in a game 4.

It was nice to see Lidstrom back out there, and was dominant against the likes of Crosby and Malkin. Crosby finished without a point, and Maklin picked up an assist on the Fedotenko goal. Once again, his ability and talent tends to get overlooked, as he could have easily been one of the three stars of this game. The officials seemed to let the players play, and didn't call a penalty during the first or third period. In total only 3 penalties were called (2 against Detroit, 1 against Pittsburgh) despite a few questionable plays on both sides that could/should have been called a penalty.

All in all, we'll take the win, rest up and come back in less than 24 hours to do it all again in game 2. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

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Copps Coliseum Facelift

Jim Balsillie released a statement today at 10am declaring his plans to renovate Copps Coliseum. From the images in this press release it looks very cutting edge and state of the art. More details can be found here and will be posted to www.makeitseven.ca.

Check out the before and after of the exterior;

Gary Bettman's Love Affair...

It's become obvious that Gary Bettman has a little man crush on Sid the Kid, and he could never allow the 'face of the NHL' to have back to back Stanley Cup losses on his resume. The question becomes, how far will Gary go to ensure a Pens win?

A fellow Red Wings blogger sums up Gary's Agenda.

Highlights of the article include;

Is Gary Bettman starting the Finals this Saturday, then continuing on Sunday for the first back-to-back since the ‘50s as an intentional means of stifling the Wings?

Not that he’d ever admit and certainly no one could ever prove it. But he very well could have considered, going Saturday, Monday...or Sunday, Tuesday...because it would have been better for the game. But the “game” has never mattered to Bettman. His little man syndrome, his bitterness and his ego are all that matters to Tiny Gary Daddy.

Oh, I know...the television thing. I get it. But if he would have gone Versus on Tuesday, Thursday and NBC on Saturday, Sunday? What’s the significant difference? A back to back in Games 3 and 4 would still allow a bit more rest for both teams at the front end of the series.

Why am I even bringing it up? Because the Red Wings defeated Chicago in five games and get two full days of rest. If they’d gone six they would have had what? 9 days? Too much. I agree. But the fact remains, they’re being penalized for winning too quickly, too efficiently?

Now. This. Should a commissioner give consideration to a team’s injury situation? Not publicly and certainly not officially. For fu**’s sake, he didn’t do it around the All Star Game, when who was hurt?

Oh, that’s right. Datsyuk and Lidstrom.

Well played Bettman, I don't know many teams that would be able to make it out of the Western Conference Finals without their Captain/Norris Trophy finalist AND their Hart/Selke/Lady Byng finalist in Lidstrom and Datsyuk, now we limp into the Stanley Cup Finals with the majority of our stars suffering serious injuries. Overcoming this would make the 12th cup win even sweeter.

Rematch

DARREN HELM SCORES THE OT WINNER!!!!!

So Much For Tadlock's Glasses

In music news, the Beastie Boys released an e-mail to fan club members on Monday, May 25th that read;

we, the band, known professionally as the Beastie Boys, will be making a professional appearance on the television show that is called Jimmy Fallon (is that what it’s called?). so if you (the viewer) turn on your TV (short for television) you can see us (beastie boys) on his (jimmy fallon’s) show. is that clear? check listing for air time in your area. monday night (this monday night) like today monday night.

i hope we don’t screw this up.

Love,
Dr. Bombay

ps. our new record that is coming out that we finished the other day is called HOT SAUCE COMMITTEE, and we are going to offer insights into how it was crafted, when we talk on the aforementioned show. that’s that.

With their performance last night on 'Late Night with Jimmy Fallon' the boys discussed the new album, & the motivation behind it. Despite a solid performance of 'So what'cha want' featuring the Roots, the interview didn't offer much more info, aside from the fact the new album is set to drop in the September time frame.

I'm curious to find out what happened to the working title 'Tadlock's Glasses' and how the Beasties decided on 'Hot Sauce Committee'.

Game Day

Word out of the Red Wing camp is that Datsyuk and Lidstrom are out for the second straight game. Injuries have also hit the Blackhawks as they will have sniper Martin Havlat and starting goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin in the press box for game 5. Despite Detroit's habit of finishing a playoff series on the road, they must come out flying tonight at the Joe and keep shooting at Christobal Huet. Babcock should have the boys ready for war considering this young 'hawk team will be looking to force another game back in Chicago as their playoff lives depend on it.

This should be a good test of Detroit's ability to throw that much needed knockout punch and solidify a rematch of last year's Stanley Cup Final.

What The Hell Was He Thinking??

So file this under bizarre... former MLB slugger Jose Canseco attempted to start a career in MMA last night in Yokohama, Japan. Jose Canseco is a big man, measuring 6'4" tall and 260lbs, but looked like a child after stepping in the ring against the giant Hong Man Choi of South Korea. When you are an inexperienced fighter, why would you challenge a man who is 7'2", and 330 lbs?

The fight only lasted 1 minute and 16 seconds, and can be watched in it's entirety here... (actual fight doesn't start until the 5 min mark)

With an obvious reach disadvantage, I'm not really sure why Canseco would even consider standing up and exchanging kicks/punches with Choi, but Jose darted in and out not really landing any significant blows, before apparently tweaking an existing knee injury and suffering a mild ground and pound from his massive opponent.

Then again, getting pounded by a seven foot Korean man is less embarrassing than THIS.

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The Wings pulled together a solid team effort today, showing how deep this team really is. With Datsyuk and Nick Lidstrom out, and Osgood getting dehydrated late in the second, the Wings still managed to destroy Chicago by a final score of 6-1. I don't know any other team in the league that can afford to lose their captain/annual Norris trophy winner, as well as a forward of Datsyuk's caliber while still putting up 6 goals. It was nice to see Hossa score again, and nice to see Hank bury 2 goals without an empty net. Interesting note: Hossa scored 2 goals in tonight's game 4, and his only other goals this post season have been in game 4's, and been in multiples of 2. Marian scored 2 in game 4 against Columbus, then another pair of goals in game 4 versus Anaheim, and now two in Chicago.

Check the highlights here;

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Kronwall on Havlat. The Debate.

In an attempt to review the crushing hit Nicklas Kronwall delivered on Martin Havlat last night, I opted to check out a few other sites and see what the consensus was. Was it clean? or dirty? Obviously you'll get the Detroit faithful claiming it to be a clean, hard hit. And also as obvious would be the Chicago camp, who would have you believe he deserves a suspension as a result.

I'll provide some facts, and let you decide. You saw the video in my last post, but if you want a better look, The Triple Deke has it blown up nice and big.

Lets start with the officials. After the hit, neither of the officials raised their arm to indicate a penalty would be called. Meaning that "as it happened", the referees didn't consider the hit to be deserving of a penalty until after Havlat wasn't able to get up. An NHL official shouldn't be able to make a call based on the result of the action. Now the standard counter argument is to defend the referees and say "...but the game is so fast, and decisions have to be made quickly..." OK,
that's fine. Allow me to slow it down.

Screen Shot from a KuklasKorner blogger here.

This hit is textbook. From the pic above, the puck is in Havlat's feet, Kronwall's forearms are down, and didn't jump. Lets hear from Blackhawks defenceman Brian Campbell;

"Marty didn't have the puck," Chicago defenceman Brian Campbell said Saturday. "If he hit Marty and hit him clean, that's fine. That happens. ... It's just how he hits. You can see his forearms coming up and his hands are coming up and he's lunging forward and jumping into the guy."

I wonder if he looks back and the footage and realizes how foolish his quote sounded? So after proving your 3 arguments were false, I can't help but assume Campbell thinks the hit was clean.

Damien Cox from the Toronto Star summed the play up like this;

Hard to believe four experienced NHL officials could get a call so wrong.

Did the misguided first period expulsion of defenceman Niklas Kronwall from Game 3 of the Western Conference final on Friday night between the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks decide the game? No, but it sure changed it...

...There was just no need for the call. Even worse, clearly one of the on-ice officials simply made it up after seeing Havlat on the ice and deciding something illegal must have happened without actually seeing a foul. It wasn't even close to interference because Havlat was in possession of the puck, and so the play wasn't remotely like the late, blindside hit by Anaheim's Mike Brown on Detroit's Jiri Hudler in the previous round.

David Staples from the Edmonton Journal had this to say;

If you didn't see Kronwall's outstanding hit on Martin Havlat of the Hawks -- surely one of the best hits of the year in the NHL

The only thing wrong with the Kornwall hit was that someone truly deserving of such a masterpiece such as Jordan Tootoo, Steve Ott, Matt Cooke, Sean Avery, Ben Eager, Adam Burish or Robyn Regehr wasn't on the receiving end of it.

Even John Jaeckel (A Chicago Blackhawk blogger) wrote;

If I were a Wings fan, I would feel jobbed. No doubt. It was, basically, a clean hit. For Hawk fans, it is not easy to see one of your stars get knocked out and leave the game. But Brouwer did it to Phaneuf on a clean hit and Campbell did it to Demitra on a clean hit.

Empty Netters (Pittsburgh Post Gazette) shared their own screenshot trying to show that Kronwall left his feet, but just like last year's Stanley Cup final, the Pens fans will come up short in this debate. I could take the time to explain the physics surrounding Kronwalls higher center of gravity and forward motion hitting Havlats lower center of gravity thus forcing Kronwall upwards and making Marty crumble like Bettman's dreams of Sid winning the cup in '08... but all that would be a waste of time because the Post-Gazette would much rather write about the Red Wings and call the Kronwall hit dirty, while attempting to take the focus off the questionable hits on Eric Cole and Tuomo Ruutu.

Nice try ladies. Bottom line: Kronner crushed Havlat with a hard CLEAN hit. I hate to see someone get hurt, but that how contact sports are played.

This Officiating Is A Joke.

I have played hockey since I have been able to walk, I used to run the clock when I was younger at my local rink, I have taught at a hockey school, I have coached the sport, and even had the displeasure of officiating a game... The point I am trying to make is, I know the rules.

I DARE YOU, to show me how the hell this is even worthy of a 2 minute minor for interference, let alone a 5 minute MAJOR AND a game misconduct.

This call (and several others that followed it) make Brad Watson look like a damn rocket scientist. 11 minutes of penalties to Detroit in the first period alone.

Mike Milbury was asked about the hit on CBC and said, "Get the refs on a bus tomorrow and ship them out of the playoffs." Kelly Hrudey said he cannot understand what the NHL is trying to do.

I'm glad I'm not the only one completely flabbergasted by the obvious bias that has been shown this post season.

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After spending a rowdy May long weekend here in Canada celebrating my 30th birthday with friends and family, I was given an extra present as the Detroit Red Wings opened their Western Conference Final series against the Chicago Blackhawks with a decisive 5-2 win. I watched the game while entertaining guests at my place, so the game review is somewhat light.

Many analysts questioned how much the veteran Red Wing squad would have left in the gas tank after a physical series with Anaheim, but it seems the had enough to teach the young Blackhawks a thing about playoff hockey. After 10 minutes of play, the tempo of the game was controlled by Chicago until Dan Cleary scored the Wings first goal on a well placed wrist shot that Khabibulin probably should have been able to handle. After that, this game was all Detroit and they never looked back.

The Red Wings managed to shut down the potent Hawk's offence, with Captain Nick Lidstrom eliminating Chicago superstar Patrick Kane who finished the game without recording a shot on net. With the exception of the Mule, and Zetterberg's empty netters, Detroit has been relying on secondary scoring of late, and this game's leader was Dan Cleary. With his most complete performance of the post season, Cleary started to look like the player drafted 13th overall in 1997. Ironically enough, he was drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks.

This Chicago team might have rolled over in game 1, but I've seen enough of this team to know that a win in game 2 won't be as easy.

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After a convenient blogging lapse, I returned behind the keyboard to summarize the Wings series victory over the dreaded water fowl. I've mentioned before that I despise the Ducks, and the feeling of eliminating them from the playoffs is ever so sweet. As I try my best not to sound spoiled or considered a poor winner, but I have to express my complete and utter lack of respect for the NHL officials last night. I had the privilege of watching game 7 with two Toronto Maple Leaf fans (yes, they still exist in the summer months) and even they were shocked at how many terrible calls were made in the Ducks favour. For those who watched the game, you'll recall during Detroit's first period power play, that Hossa took a high sticking penalty but replays showed Marian's stick not actually making contact with the Duck forward, and commentators even questioned the apparent 'sales job' stating "the call was bad, and the sales job was worse". Regardless Hossa sits for 2 mins and the Wings lose their man advantage.

Chris Pronger deserves his own paragraph when discussing non calls or blatantly incorrect calls. We'll start by a high hit on Hossa before wrapping his arms around #81 and taking him to the ice like an NFL linebacker. I'm pretty sure this could have been called any number of penalties from Holding, Interference, or general douchebaggery. With a referee within 2 feet of Hossa's mugging, the play goes on without a call. Moving on to several crease battles between Thomas Holmstrom and the NHL title holder for 'dirtiest player'. Holmstrom was repeatedly punched, speared, tripped, tackled, and high-sticked in the crease by Pronger, and on ice officials called this 'battling for position'. Then the finishing touch on Pronger's low light reel was when he obviously cross checked Jiri Hudler from behind, sending the Wings smallest forward crashing into the only player with real talent on the Ducks roster. With both players laying on the ice in pain, it only makes sense that Detroit should receive a goaltender interference penalty as opposed to using common sense to determine how/why Hudler decided to run Hiller. The fact this collection of NHL officials allowed 60 minutes of the Anaheim Ducks style of hockey to be played without Chris Pronger getting caught for a single 2 minute minor escapes me. In addition to the brutal penalty calls or non calls I was actually taking a running total during the game, and counted 9 instances where a Detroit center was thrown out of the face-off circle. Don Cherry also touched on this during the intermission. It's nice to know I'm not the only person fed up with important games having biased people in charge of their outcome.

Now, lets not lose focus here. Despite my obvious hatred for the anti-Red Wing slant the NHL appears to be taking, we must celebrate the Ducks exit, and the Wings advancing to the Western Conference final. Darren Helm's breakaway speed was always talked about, but was never more clearly demonstrated than it was on the 2nd goal last night. From blue line to blue line Helm split the Anaheim defenders and left them in his dust. It was nice to see the kid finally score after coming so close in previous games. If Helm plays that hard during the regular season, it'll be fun to watch over 82 games. He was the Wings best player in this series.

Bring on the Hawks.

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Mike Babcock adjusted his line-up only 9 minutes into game 4, and in turn, out coached Randy Carlyle who 's one dimensional team was unable to handle the barrage of offense the Big Red Machine began to throw at the unsuspecting water fowl.

Hoping for a repeat performance tonight, the defending Stanley Cup champs came out with guns blazing at home in this pivotal game 5 match up. With Thomas Kocpecky injured after a lopsided fight with Francois Beauchemin, the Wings looked to home grown super forward Justin Abdelkader to provide a spark. Another welcomed surprise line-up change was veteran rear guard Chris Chelios watching from the press box as Derek "multipurpose" Meech takes his place.

The Franzen-Hossa-Fillpula line has been magic, and the mule added another goal notching his 7th in 9 games this post season, and his 20th in 25 playoff games going back to last season. To put that into perspective, if he maintained that pace for an 82 game season, he would have ended up with 65 goals. Alexander Ovechkin won the Rocket Richard trophy this year with 56 goals, and Franzen plays on Detroit's second line!! NHL.com tracks Time On Ice Per Game (TOI/G) and Franzen is at the 18 minute mark, to Ovie's 23 mins. This guy is a beast.

The Wings outshot the water fowl 14-3 after the first period, and rang 2 posts in the first frame. In a sloppy second period both team added 9 shots, before the Wings closed the game by out shooting their opponents by a 15-5 margin. Total shots were 38-17 Wings. The more telling stat, would be the fact the 'old' Red Wings out hit the 'rough, and tough' Ducks 35-18. When one team is doubled in shots AND hits, it's rare to win that game.

This was a lopsided affair and to be blunt, Hiller kept Anaheim in the game. The only reason this series has made it to 6 games is because of a triple over time bounce, a blown call, and Jonas Hiller. Bottom Line.

On an interesting note, Detroit recalled Darren McCarty after game 5. I'd have to assume Babs is looking to have some toughness in case things get out of hand should the Wings dominate game 6.

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How Far Does Your Creativity Go??

The Panamericana School of Art and Design located in São Paulo, Brazil has come up with a very clever and interesting advertising campaign. With a sheet of paper filled with either X's or O's they want you to draw around these letters and see where your creativity takes you. In the São Paulo area they have designed napkin dispensers and place mats with these patterns for people to scribble and draw at their leisure. Larger displays such as subway walls, bathroom stalls, and even T-shirts can be found with black X's or O's for the general public to doodle on while expressing their creativity.

I thought the idea was rather impressive and it'd be an interesting excercise to see what people can come up with. Regardless of your artistic ability, I'm sure you'd get a decent mental workout attempting to fill a page with doodles using either X's or O's. Here are two samples to see what I'm talking about;
















Can you tell the Red Wings have a day off??

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That's more like it.

Tonight Detroit played like the big red machine that Red Wing nation is used to watching. Despite falling behind 1-0 after 42 seconds of play, the defending champs held their composure lead by their big guns. Criticized of late, Hossa exploded with 2 nice goals matching the same feat by playoff scoring sensation Johan Franzen. The first 10 minutes of this game looked as though the Wings hadn't learned anything from the previous games versus the water fowl, but Mike Babcock had a trick up his sleeve. In previous playoff series, Babcock would mix up the lines a bit, putting Datsyuk and Zetterberg together on the same line. That move shifted the Ducks focus, and while Anaheim spent the majority of the evening trying to cover Pavel and Hank, they seemed to forget about Hossa and the Mule.
Hossa was sending a message tonight. Telling the entire NHL why he left truck loads of money on the table in order to wear the winged wheel with pride. I'm sure he can still feel the sting of watching Detroit celebrate their Stanley Cup win from the opposing bench, as the haunting memories are quite vivid in his mind. Tonight, he took matters into his own hands, and helped win back home ice advantage sending this best of three back to Hockeytown.

Franzen was a beast. 2 big goals, 1 sweet assist on Hossa's first, and like a bulldozer he drove Niedermeyer out from the front of the net to provide the screen on Hossa's second of the night.

Chelios looked one hundred and forty-seven years old tonight, and really frightens me when he's out there. I can't wait for Rafalski to get healthy.

Ozzie looked sharp, Darren Helm can absolutely fly out there, and I really liked the looks of Filppula with Franzen and Hossa.

Obviously the win exactly what we needed, but I couldn't help but enjoy watching Mike Brown attempt to throw a big hit, then miss his mark, only to crash into the open gate to the Ducks bench leaving himself winded and in some discomfort. (I wonder how that compares to 10 stitches in the face??) That would be the hockey gods teaching Mikey a lesson.

I'm officially clearing my schedule for Sunday... Series tied at 2...
Game 5 back at the Joe.

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People In Glass Houses...

I despise the Ducks.

Anaheim defender James Wisniewski was injured in Game 3 versus Detroit after taking a Pavel Datsyuk shot to the chest. He left the game and was quickly taken to a nearby hospital and diagnosed with a lung contusion. The controversy the Ducks are whining about is after Wisniewski doubled over on the ice and began to cough up blood.

Head coach Randy Carlyle whined that his player was bleeding because of a Thomas Holmstrom elbow. Now the coach made his whiny post game accusation before knowing the outcome of Wisneiwski's hospital visit. If you look up the symptoms of a lung contusion you'll find;

"Typical signs and symptoms include direct effects of the physical trauma, such as chest pain and coughing up blood..."

Wisniewski is quoted as saying “I was kind of out of it he whole time I was skating around. I looked back and I see it was a blatant elbow when I was hunched over coughing up blood, not even battling. So it shows a little bit of a gutless play by one of their players.”

I'll add links to 2 clips of the same play. One is the TSN feed, the other is the Versus feed. The TSN feed reports the shot injured Wisniewski, and Versus makes it sound like Holmstrom hunted him down with sharpened elbows. As for the victim's quote above... Watch these and let me know if you see him "hunched over" and "not even battling"

TSN feed --------------OR-------------- VERSUS feed

I'm not denying there was an elbow thrown, but you can see 2 critical things. 1) Wisniewski was injured by the shot. and 2) Holmstrom wasn't even looking at Wisniewski when the elbow was thrown. Even the titles of the videos show complete bias. Thomas Holmstrom takes FAR worse in front of the opposition net every single game.

The difference?? Babcock is a classy coach. Carlyle is like a teacher at summertime. No Class.

BUT, I have to say... the pièce de résistance of all this, was Mike "I play 7 mins per game" Brown jumping in to comment about Holmstrom's elbows. If we look back to game 1, I think he'd be the last person to talk about vicious elbows.

Re-enforcements Ready and Willing.

With Detroit's Minor League affiliate (Grand Rapids Griffins) getting eliminated from the AHL post season last night, that frees up a plethora of young talented players to help bolster the current Red Wing lineup. I don't know if Babcock will shuffle his lines and make room for the likes of Leino, Abdelkader, Kindl, Downey and Howard. I could see adding Leino but I don't know which current forward I'd sit to make space. I could see possibly swapping Chelios for Kindl, but I think Babcock would rather the experience Cheli brings and seems comfortable with his 8 minutes per game. Despite taking the blame for Selanne's break away goal early in game 3, the 47 year old drew 2 penalties late in the game to make up for it.

M-Live reports;
Abdelkader, Howard Kindl, Ville Leino and Aaron Downey next will join the parent club Detroit Red Wings as "Black Aces."

The obvious name missing from that list is journeyman Darren McCarty.

Trailing 2 games to 1, with game 4 tonight @ 10:30pm. The Wings had better come out flying.

Yet Another NHL Screw-up

In game 3 of the Detroit/Anaheim series, the Ducks were handed the win as a direct result of a blown call. The TSN panel couldn't believe how bad the call was, and even the commentators made mention of it being a 'premature whistle' and 'for some reason' referee Brad Watson blew it dead just before Hossa scored what would have been the game tying goal with under 1 minute to play. As a direct result of of that blown call, the Ducks went on to win, and the Wings trail 2 games to 1 in this series. I sat in disbelief watching this unfold while colourful expletives ran through my mind. For anyone living under a rock, here's the play that had Wings fans seeing red.

How does a call like this stand and in turn, decide a playoff game? I'm completely and utterly amazed at the fact the NHL is fine with this. James Duthie made a comment regarding the 'common sense' factor. In summary his point was that if the video evidence clearly proves the call was incorrect, why wasn't the call overturned and goal awarded? I'm aware it's a 'non-reviewable play', meaning the war room in Toronto can't overturn the call made on the ice, but when it's a blatant error that decided the outcome of a game... that needs to be considered a reviewable play.

I went to bed angry, and opted to blog about this after letting it sink in, thinking a cooler head would prevail... I was wrong. Over at Abel to Yzerman they didn't hide their distaste for Bettman, his crew of officials, and the league in general.

If you haven’t seen it, you will.

The officiating in this league is the most pathetic of anything just south of professional wrestling.

But the league’s healthier than ever, eh Gary? Is this how you want your playoff games decided?

I’m two games away from being done with this whole charade.

Done with a league that allows the strong to be hamstrung because the pansies can’t keep up.

I’m trying hard not to turn this into a Detroit against the world thing. But watch that play, you know the one, again. Watch it, then consider the phantom Datsyuk penalty in 2007. It’s not anti-Detroit.

It’s just plain incompetence and we all just sit back and take it.

I’ll tell you this. If the Wings lose this series, after that call, I’m going to strongly consider how I can put forth any more time, effort or money toward a sport that has Gary Bettman as its commissioner.

Disgusting.

I read some other sites and found a convenient reply from Barry McGuire (the spokesman of officials for this series) who added;

"A combination of the black puck and the black pants may have been a factor,'' McGuire said. "But when he didn't see the puck, he blew the whistle.''

This is the caliber of people we put in control of a professional sport... Thanks again to Gary Bettman. If the previous post about the Bettman-Balsille power struggle didn't make me hate the little weasel, this incident getting swept under the rug sure will.

He's single-handedly ruining the NHL.

3rd time's a charm?

Research in Motion C.E.O., Jim Balsille, is at it again. With previous attempts to purchase the Pittsburgh Penguins, and Nashville Predators falling short, it appears that his dream to own an NHL franchise is still fresh in his mind. Yesterday, the Phoenix Coyotes declared chapter 11 bankruptcy, and shortly there after, Balsille made his offer of 212.5 million dollars with an additional 17 Million dollars to keep them alive during the chapter 11 hearings. Now the biggest issue with his offer, is the one major stipulation he's had in his previous 2 bids. Balsille has made this offer on the grounds that he is able to move the Coyotes to Southwestern Ontario. Current location rumours have included Kitchener-Waterloo (where RIM is located), Hamilton (taking advantage of Copps Coliseum), or even that coveted 2nd Toronto team.

Now I'm sure the vast majority of my readers haven't purchased an NHL team before, and are unsure if that offer is fair or not. To clarify, Forbes ranked Phoenix 30th of 30 NHL teams in order of financial value, and lists the franchise value at 142 million dollars. During the attempted purchase of the Nashville Predators, he set up a season ticket site for the future 'Hamilton Predators', and managed to sell 15,000 season tickets for a team that he didn't even control, thus proving the ferocious demand for another franchise in the Southwestern Ontario area. This time around, Balsille hasn't begun to reserve tickets just yet, but he has started this website called www.makeitseven.com (referring to bringing the Coyotes to Canada and making them the 7th NHL franchise) With the NHL owners sharing revenues across all teams, I can only imagine that the other 29 owners should be drooling at the thought of moving the 30th ranked team (in regards to financial gains) to a hockey crazed market. Sure, Ballsille could have been a little softer in his approach, but the way I see it we are looking at a man with deep pockets who wants to be an NHL owner. Not because it's the only thing he can thing to purchase with his spare $212.5 million, but because he is a hockey fan. A passionate owner who is willing to spend money to put a competitive team on the ice isn't a bad thing at all.

Gary Bettman has never liked the aggressive way Balsille does business, and showed with the Pittsburgh and Nashville situations that he won't allow an owner to pick and choose where a team is located. Since the Coyotes have filed for chapter 11, all ownership responsibilities now fall to Mr. Bettman himself. So if a sale is to happen, it'll have to go through Gary.

I'd love to see another team in Southwestern Ontario... but I can't help but wonder what the fine people in Winnipeg must think. They lost the Jets to Phoenix, and are eager to get a team back in Manitoba, now they might have to watch the team they loved potentially move to Ontario.

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I despise the Ducks.

Game 1 hasn't even started yet, and already we get the news that Brian Rafalski won't be playing due to an 'upper body injury'. The playoffs are all about dodging injuries, and we're not starting out on the right foot... err.. I mean... 'lower body'.

Did I mention I despise the Ducks?? Last year it was Pronger's cheap shot B.S. on Thomas Holmstrom, and this year it's Mike "I play 7 mins per game" Brown laying a cheap hit on Jiri Hudler (the Wing's smallest player @ 5'10", 170lbs) and leaves him in a bloody heap on the ice. I'm all for hard nosed full contact hockey, but Hudler clearly was vulnerable and Brown took advantage of it. Head shots need to be eliminated, and this was a case where early in game 1 of a series, some nobody 4th liner was trying to send a message to Detroit's skill players.

Amazingly, Huds returned to the bench to start the 2nd. Wow.. that's a hockey player. 10 stitches needed in between periods, and showing no concussion symptoms. I was really hoping he scored the game winner, that would have been poetic.

The Wings came out looking sleepy after the 8 days off between rounds, but I think the hit on Huds woke the team up. With a 5 minute powerplay, Detroit only scored once during the extended man advantage but managed to avoid falling into Anaheim's dirty style, and made them pay for foolish penalties. When the game is on the line, you can always count on the captain. Nick Lidstrom scored his second of the night and the eventual game winner with 49.1 seconds remaining, leaving the Ducks hanging their heads, as the good guys take a 1-0 lead in this series.

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