Catching Up with Hockey! NHL All Star Weekend

by Lisa Ovens
photo by Lisa Ovens

I didn't expect to begin my new year with an intense case of pneumonia. Its put a damper on a few things, let me tell you. And now that I am feeling stronger I face a mountain of dishes to do, not to mention other neglected household duties. But for now, let's forget about all that and talk a little hockey!

Canuck All Stars

Congratulations to the Vancouver Canucks for having three players and one coach representing at the upcoming All-Star game. Both Daniel Sedin and Ryan Kesler will be first timers, and they're lucky to have two time all star Henrik Sedin to show them the ropes. Canuck coach, Alain Vigneault will be co-coaching with the Flyers, Peter Laviolette.

It's All Star month so that means everyone and their dog is busy plotting new ways to present this event because everyone and their dog is tired of the festival. I've heard some say they'd like it to morph into an outdoor game. I say no. That would just bring out new complaints about All Star weekend because there are a bevy of fans out there that don't even like the Winter Classic. Let's not make it any tougher on those peeps than it already is.

I like the way the All Star weekend is, they just need to beef up  a couple of things: one -  the red carpet. We need a good hour of the red carpet telecast. I want to see the selected stars, all of them parade slowly up the red carpet, greeting fans, signing autographs, posing for photos, doing fun little interviews. CBC Sports doesn't present nearly enough of the carpet action. Yet we get to see Ron MacLean grill Gary Bettman about everything Ron thinks is wrong with league operations every year. This interview does one thing: put a damper on the affair. Thanks for that, Ron.

Two: the skills event should be twice as long. What they could be doing is there usual skills events, but also blend in some big screen video action as well. The videos would present a contest of the best goals scored, the pucks saved, the biggest clean hits, and the most entertaining fights of the previous season. Whether the best was performed by an All star or not, too. This could be a social media marketing strategy, becasue leading up to the event fans would be voting on their favorites, and then the top three in each category would be decided between events during skills competition. Should a non All Star make the top three, well, then they get a free trip to the weekend and be a part of it.

Well there's my two cents on the NHL's All Star Weekend. That and I really would like to go to one, one of these years. If anyone out there would like to take me to All Star Weekend in Carolina, please let me know...soon :o)

Flyers First to Move on, The Hockey News and CDC, NHL War Room and Doughty...

by Lisa Ovens

Get the keys, Pronger, you and the rest of the Fly Bunch are cruising into Round Two. And I actually picked them to win this series! The Philadelphia Flyers put an end to the New Jersey Devils' season Thursday night with a 3-0 shut out.

Bye Bye Devils :o)

The Power of Canucks.com affecting The Hockey News?

The fan message boards on Canucks.com has the biggest membership (59,500 members and over 4,000,000 posts) out of all the NHL teams with the online feature on their websites. Over the last few years, more and more sports media refer to the "CDC" boards during their coverage of hockey. It makes some Canuck fans feel special that the hockey media "hangs of their every reaction and opinion".

Well I just saw this blog post from The Hockey News: THN.com Playoff Blog: 10 reasons to plot a Canucks conspiracy.  It's full of juicy bits, taking shots at Vancouver Canuck fans and the city of Vancouver in general. Is The Hockey News just trying to pad their online stats with the hopes of landing another coveted topic thread on CDC? Or does The Hockey News really think of us as "latte-sipping, beachcombing, socialist Vancouverites" and that our home team should be eliminated in round one?

As of this moment, a new topic featuring THN's Canucks Conspiracy List on CDC has not been created. Will a member of the Canucks community take the bait??

NHL's War Room: Do They Have a Scheduling Problem?


NHL commissioner Gary Bettman's pre-game press conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday night offered a little more insight into Life in the War Room. After being grilled by several members of Vancouver's media about Game Three's dis-allowed goal and Mike Murphy's explanation of said goal, Bettman had this to say...

"I think Mr. Murphy was trying to explain at 1 o'clock in the morning as best he could exactly what was going on and if he wasn't as articulate as those looking to parse his words, so be it. But as I said, I have complete confidence in Mike Murphy, Colie (Colin) Campbell and the entire hockey operations department."

I bolded the time above, because that's how Bettman seemed to emphasize it. Is Bettman's saying it was way passed Murphy's and the other war room cronies' bed time? If they are having trouble speaking then perhaps they are having trouble making decisions, too? How do they combat the Pacific Time Zone? Conspire to have the Sharks and the Canucks eliminated in the first round? Or do they do the logical thing: schedule a LATE shift!!

Here's a video of Mike Murphy giving a tour of the War Room on Fox Sports

BTW, the official name of the War Room is The Roger Neilson Video Room. A nice tribute to the hockey man they called Captain Video. Neilson pioneered the use of video taped games as a learning tool for his players. He also waved a white towel on a hockey stick indicating surrender to horrible officiating during a Canucks playoff game in 1982. I like the irony there.


Drew Doughty Nominated for The Norris

Yes, my Canucks are officially lining up against a Norris Trophy candidate. Howdy Drew Doughty of the Los Angeles Kings has been nominated, along with Mike Green of the Washington Capitals, and Duncan Keith of the Chicago Blackhawks. If Doughty wins, he will be the second youngest recipient (Bobby Orr is the youngest).

GM Place (during the Olympics: Gold was won here...now how about some silver cup?)

Game Five Los Angeles Kings vs. Vancouver Canucks goes tonight at 7pm PACIFIC...stay awake War Room Cronies....

Go Canucks GO!!

Random October Hockey Notes and Aliens, too

By Lisa Ovens


Although I spent most of the weekend watching the Alien movie franchise on AMC, I did take some hockey breaks. It can’t be acid for blood, humanoids and that bad ass flight engineer, Ellen Ripley running into that darn alien species all the time.



Canucks Above 500

Yes. This is good, now all the boys have to do is start winning some road games. Can’t do much about the injuries other than trick the call ups and the rest of the team into thinking they are like aliens that happen to have acid for blood. 

Canucks: 11 games played, six wins, five losses, no overtime losses

The Real Reason Vancouver has the “No Fun City” nickname?

For those of you who watched the Toronto Maple Leafs lose to the Canucks on HNIC Saturday night, you may have noticed the large presence of Leafs fans in the Canucks home rink. Oh, the “blue for blood” aliens were loud that night. The truth is, Vancouver is home to many former Ontario residents, and the number of these Eastern ex-pats must increase every year. Perhaps it’s all of these Leaf lifers that brought the fun level down in Vancouver. It’s a theory...

Gary Bettman: The Ultimate Alien with Acid for Blood?

As a member of the National Hockey League Fan Association (yes there is one of those) I receive emails from time to time. This weekend the NHLFA had this to say....

The following note is being sent to the 30,000+ Members of the NHL Fans' Association.

Recently, many suggestions have been received from Members related to the activities the NHLFA should pursue in its attempt to have Gary Bettman removed as the commissioner of the NHL this season. One such suggestion is to coordinate a league-wide protest week that will rally fans attending games to hold signs calling for the dismissal of Bettman.


If you would like to contribute an idea, please visit http://www.nhlfa.com/minipoll09_10Season

Thanks.

It’s free to be a member of the NHLFA. Perhaps president, Jim Boone needs to sign up thousands and thousands more hockey fans in order to have some influence over the NHL Board of Governors. He is looking for corporate sponsorship, too. The association has been around since 1998, and with a growing membership, it looks like they don’t intend to quit anytime soon.

Goalie Masks Far Cooler than the Alien’s Head

TSN.ca is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the goalie mask with an online vote. For those not in the know, Legendary Canadien’s goal tender, Jacques Plante made his own mask to protect his face. He was only allowed to wear it during the pre-season, and while practicing. On Nov. 1, 1959 his coach, Toe Blake had no choice but allow Plante to wear the mask during a game.

Check out the rest of the story and vote for your fave goalie mask here. The winner will be announce on Wed. Oct. 28th, so make that vote...you are running out of time...kind of like how Ripley always seems to be when she’s planning on blowing up multi billion dollar spaceships and inter galactic colonies!