Hockeyhead

People like Elliotte Friedman should know better than to stick a microphone in the face of a socially unconscious yet cocky hockey player.  You can spend all day trying to dig up a transcript of Alex Ovechkin’s post skills competition interviews, but you won’t find anything.  That’s because no one in their right mind would waste the space needed to print that shit.

Yeah, that Breakaway Challenge didn’t exactly unfold the way we all envisioned it.  Little kiddie Steven Stamkos was the only participant that looked like he actually wanted to impress anyone, Ryan Getzlaf made a point to say he didn’t practice for the event.  It showed Getz.  Overall the All-Star skills event was a bust, it’s impossible to drum up interest if the players involved have little to no interest in making the marquee event enjoyable.  Only Zdeno Chara’s record breaking clapper for charity and Shane Doan’s parapsychological shootout prowess made this thing the least bit entertaining.  Thank you to the 2010 Olympics for giving the “all-stars” a break next year.

News, Notes and Links:

Sheldon Souray will face the NHL’s disciplinarian Colin Campbell to talk about the use of his iron-fist.

It turns out that Gary Bettman might not be such a pussy after-all.

‘High hits’ are raising some discussion in the concussion problem debate.

You could set a city’s print press on fire with this shit.

The Vancouver Canucks will have their say in the NHL’s travel schedule, it’s about time.

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SL