Ice Bowl?

Thanks to my friend Jack, who found this picture of the Ralph Wilson stadium (home of the Buffalo Bills) on a Sabres message board.



I think breaking this news when it's 89 degrees and humid in New York City is the perfect time to get excited about watching hockey, outside, in Buffalo.

Jesus, I hope they do this.

Where to play street hockey in Tokyo:

-You know, just in case you're in the land of the rising sun and looking for pickup game.

What?

There's nothing else going on in hockey these days, unless you count the Staal brother's bachelor party.

I have nothing to say on that- except that if I could have been at the scene of the crime for any of the athletic scandals breaking last week, (Barry Bonds challenging for the home run record, a fixed NBA game, a dogfight hosted by Michael Vick, strip club shooting with Pac Man Jones) that Staal bachelor party makes the top of the list by a longshot.

Party on boys, just don't hurt yourselves.

With all the douchebags in sports making news-

-anybody else thinking that Janet Jones Gretzky wishes that her gambling story broke this week?

I wrote more on this today over at the Nosebleeds.

Ha ha!

I think this site's position on the Pittsburgh Penguins has been made pretty clear. But redundant as it may be, let no one say that AHF passed up a chance to shit on the Pens for doing something stupid.

How stupid?

This stupid.

I say again: ha ha.

A better goalie than Ty Conklin.

At this time, I would ask you to travel with me down memory lane, and recall the jokes I made when Buffalo signed Ty Conklin just before last year's deadline. Ryan Miller stayed healthy and the Sabres dodged a bullet. Will Pittsburgh be so lucky? Or will Marc-Andre Fleury fall into a sugar coma from eating his own pads? And has there ever been a more self-referential post on AHF?

Close, but no.

Summertime, summertime, sum-sum summertime

Awesome.



What, you got a better idea?

I got nothin' today.

So why not a dose of Peter Puck?

5 minutes: Slashing, Intent to injure.

And lets throw in an extra two for goaltender interference, shall we?



Happy Friday the 13th everybody.

The Duben Messages, Volume One.

OK- I've mentioned my buddy Duben on this blog before.

He was my roommate for a few years when I lived in Brooklyn, a great guy and the father of an adorable baby girl.

He's also a huge Boston sports fan.

Periodically, he'll get mad about something- the Bruins pathetic situation, Jeremy Jacobs, whoever is coaching the Bruins, whatever- and he'll give my cell phone a call. Occasionally, these phone messages are pretty funny, and I always felt like it might make a nice addition to the blog.

Well, I finally recorded one.

Apparently, Duben was on the Boston Bruins website and stumbled across Bish's Blog, AKA "The Bear Essentials."It's the official blog of John Bishop, a dude from Connecticut who works for the Bruins. I never really read it much, and had no opinion either way, but Duben apparently does read it, and has a rather strong opinion.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's negative.

Oh, and this is in no way safe for work.

Put your headphones on, and enjoy.

I'm pretty sure I've posted this before-

-what, you got something better?

Anybody excited to see Joe Thornton return to Boston?

Well, too bad, cause it ain't happening.

Again.

Thanks to the new schedule, Boston fans will once again not see Joe Thornton return to the garden, something he has done exactly once, for approximately 2 minutes, before he hit Hal Gill up high and got thrown out for a game misconduct, kicking him out of what could have been a great contest for both clubs.

I mean, wouldn't it have been fun?

To see what the fans would do?

I don't think they'd boo him.

Who knows?

The Bruins will face Thornton in San Jose on October 13th, but there are so few Bruins left on the team from his era, that it won't really be a factor for him.

Once again, thanks Gary.

Also, the Bruins will not be facing at all, even once- two of the greatest goaltenders in the game in Roberto Luongo and Miikka Kiprusoff. They won't be seeing Ryan Smyth at all, and they won't get to see new goaltender Manny Fernandez prove himself against Minnesota.

Sigh.

Let's just hope that the Ice Bowl comes though.

81 degrees in New York, mostly cloudy.

Not much going on today.

I did take a dump on Sidney Crosby today over at the Nosebleeds, so that's probably worth reading, if you can excuse the kid gloves I put on for those who aren't hockey fans.

Yawn.

I'm gonna go find some lunch.

Oh, and for those of you who do know your way around the game of hockey, maybe I'll have a Pepsi.

I'm inspired by this 1960's ad featuring what appears to be early versions of the Charlestown Chiefs Jerseys.



If I could have improved the ad at all, I would have added a cameo from Tim McCracken at the end saying "Dunlop, you drink Pepsi." Then the guy with the Pepsi bottle would turn to the camera with a grin and say "All I can get."

Thanks to my buddy Duben for the heads up.

Who remembers 1988?

Thanks to my friend Todd, I found this website that features pretty much the entire Nintendo Entertainment System catalog.

Including Ice Hockey, one of the more fun video games ever. Sadly, it doesn't work for those (like me) who have PowerPC Macs, but I figured I'd be remiss in not passing it along to those who don't.

Enjoy!

PS:
Screw Sheldon Souray, I wanna sign the fat guy with the heavy slap shot on my point.

This would certainly ease the pain

of New Jersey's recent Gomez-ectomy:



I mean, I don't think our entire defensive corps has enough highlights for an 8 1/2 minute YouTube piece. No offense to our new #23, Karel Rachunek, who did this:



UPDATE: Well, so much for Souray. I don't know much about Vishnevski, but I was pretty mystified by the addition of Brad Lukowich to the lineup, only to have him step up big time when the chips (and half our D) were down. Vishnevski isn't exactly the power play specialist we're hurting for, but I'm officially reserving comment until the season starts.

OK, technically that was a comment. So I'm officially reserving comment startiiiiiiing...NOW!

Happy Birthday, America!

-You don't look a day over 230.

Seeing as there hasn't been much news since the Carolina Hurricanes won the Wade Brookbank lottery, I feel like today might be a good time to take a few days off.

I wrote a few notes on NHL free agency for my pals over at The Nosebleeds, and the latest free agent signings are available on Sportsnet Canada.

Oh, and you probably know this, but Spector's your spot for the hottest rumors on the net as well. This morning he's got Boston shopping Glen Murray, and Sheldon Souray close to signing with the Devils.

Fun stuff.

Happy Independence Day everybody, and Canada- As you were.

This Drury/Gomez signing is less than a day old-

-And thanks to a great catch from Kukla's Korner, we learn that Jaromir Jagr is already grumbling about it.

He's doing his grumbling in Czech, and in the form of regretting losing Nylander, but it doesn't bode well for your squad when your team manages to snare two of the most coveted free agents of the off season, and your captain doesn't have a positive word to say about it.

Also, there were some reported problems with the new free agent goaltender the Bruins just signed, but GM Peter Charelli waved them off with the simple explanation that it was just "Manny Fernandez being Manny Fernandez."

That works like a charm in Boston.

To be fair-

I just had a look at the pre-thunderbolt roster of the New York Rangers and they were kinda weak at center.

Before tearing the hearts out of Devils and Sabres fans around the country, the Rangers had the following guys playing center:

Michael Nylander- The fact that this guy is your number one center is a problem. He's good but nowhere near great. He's also gone. I'm guessing Washington.

Marty Straka- Capable of flashes of brilliance, but injury prone and kinda soft.

Matt Cullen and Blair Betts- good hockey players, character guys and good for a team, but certainly not dominant. If either of these guys shake out because of this move, another team could snap up a great role player.

Petr Prucha- Showed huge promise his rookie year, then fell off. A question mark at best.

So it makes sense for the Rangers to go after some centers, and ostensibly, with the cap, anybody had a shot, right? But the only sticky issue for me is- Over the past two seasons, the New York Rangers have had something they had missed for seven years: chemistry.

After winning their cup in 1994, the Rangers adopted a policy of signing practically every high profile free agent they could get their hands on, which hurt both the Rangers and the league as a whole. From Lindros to Gretzky to Holik to Bure to Jagr, if a team's leading scorer was on the market, the Rangers were buying. They proceeded to strip mine the league and had absolutely zero in the way of team identity.

Until a few years ago.

Two seasons ago, they rebuilt from the bottom up, and figured they couldn't do anything about Jagr's contract, so why not build around him? They did so, with a nice circle of Czech players and a great young Swedish goaltender, who is still the primary reason to take the Rangers seriously. They made the playoffs for the first time in years, and over the course of the season incorporated the European tradition of raising their sticks as a salute to the fans, one of the greater things to happen to hockey in many years.

Hockey is a game of tradition, and any player or team that can establish one deserves some respect.

The next season they started strong, stumbled, then signed Paul Mara and Sean Avery, and the chemistry came back. They swept their first round playoff opponent and did far better than anyone expected against an under performing Buffalo Sabres team.

OK- Stan Fischler expected more,
but c'mon.


They did well, and looked better.

Now with two new free agents in Drury and Gomez, the same old question is haunting the Rangers.

When everybody is a superstar, who leads the Rangers?

You take it way from Jagr, and he pouts. But with Drury in the room, and Gomez no slouch, what are you saying to your team? How do you fit Avery and Hollweg, two guys that add fire into that mix?

Who knows.

The fact is, The New York Rangers just got a lot richer, talent-wise. But we've seen them do that before.

It'd be a shame that if- in their haste to grab the newest and shiniest free agents on the shelf- they lost the spirit of the team they worked so hard to build over the last two years.

We'll see.

I think it is now safe to say

that American Hockey Fan's official position on the Rangers is as follows:

Fuck the fucking Rangers.

That is all.