Hockeyhead

Question:  Where is the best place to find 18-year old boys inserting stiff 8″ tubes into their mouth so that they can blow them?

Answer:  Why that would be the NHL Draft Combine of course.

TSN has been blogging the NHL’s draft combine all day, so if you want to know how many sit-ups John Tavares can do (46), or how Evander Kane fares on the bench press (17 reps) then you can go take a read for yourself.  We’re just going to take a look at some pictures here.

These pictures from past combines sure leave a lot to the imagination.  Is somebody stealing shirts at these things?  Christ, there’s not a shirt in sight on any of these boys.

What in the name of masculinity does the NHL plan to do with these co-eds prospects?

Let’s have a look:

I don’t know what Steven Stamkos did at last year’s combine, but it must have been pretty bad to be sent to the corner to play with big balls:

Andy fucking Samberg attended the combine to show the boys how to properly blow some pipe:

Oh sweet Jesus, that’s Drew Doughty being ravaged by that fuck machine:

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Maybe he’ll be able to see how much of a pussy he has become.  I’m kidding.  Great news that Danny Briere had successful eye surgery, now, if they could just find him a pair testicles.

It’s pretty impressive what you can find when you start scanning the web to see what a professional athlete looks like with no clothes on.

I’m guessing an athlete is supposed to look more Rod Brind’Amour than like a bag of milk.

Pierre McGuire sure has seen his share of nude athletes, and he doesn’t think Tim Thomas looks like an athlete when he’s buck naked.  I missed the most of the sound in last night’s Carolina-Boston game, but I have Hugging Harold Reynolds to thank for reminding me that McGuire is a bit of a perv:

“You see him without his clothes on, you say to yourself, there’s no way this guy’s a professional athlete. But, man oh man, he gets after it.”

Not terribly surprised by the Bruins’ ousting at the hand of the Hurricanes.  After knocking off the playoff team imposter Montreal Canadians they began to look a bit more ordinary, but still frighteningly tough as nails.

Penguins for the Cup baby, woot fuckin’ woot!

The NHL really believes that they don’t have a problem with performance-enhancing drugs, so much so that they don’t even test during the playoffs.  Obviously, if a player wanted a boost they would only look to do so during the regular season.  Yeah, okay.  I love baseball even though it’s shameful how so many players have soiled the legacy of the game by cheating.  At least they are put in a position to get caught though.

With that said, I also believe that reputed cheaters like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa belong in the Hall of Fame because they played in an era where cheating was all but condoned.  Don’t get me started on Pete Rose, if it were up to me I’d not only reinstate him, I’d make him the fucking curator of the Hall.  Enough about baseball though, we need to take a look at Rick Tocchet!

Rick Tocchet finished his career just 48 points short of 1000, but he compiled the penalty minutes of ten regular men with a whopping 2972.  When Tocchet was in his prime you would have been crazy to have gotten on his bad side.  That’s why he’ll probably end up being a decent coach.

The Tampa Bay Lightning rewarded Tocchet with a 2-year deal to remain head coach of their club.  How is it that in baseball, perhaps the greatest hitter to ever play the game can’t even get a seat in Cooperstown because he placed a few bets yet in hockey, a former player turned assistant coach that plead guilty to conspiracy and promoting gambling can get a full-time gig as a head coach?  If I were a criminal with a shred of athletic ability, I’d be concentrating most of it on hockey.

Tocchet of course took over as head coach of the Lightning last November 16, after Barry Melrose was relieved as his duties.  Barry Melrose now looks like this:

Knuckle-bumps to Deadspin for the photo.

Jim Balsillie’s gall is admirable, but it’s hard to think he’s doing anything other than pissing off Gary Bettman.  Gary loves Phoenix, he probably wants to retire there and have the luxury of watching the occasional hockey game.  The Phoenix Coyotes, aka Wayne Gretzky’s team (how pathetic is that?) have failed.  The experiment is over, or at least it should be.  All they’ve managed to achieve since their inception is the transition from an ugly uniform to a less ugly uniform.  Hockey is as foreign to an Arizona winter as credibility is to a Bob MacKenzie rumour.

So if Gary continues to insist that the hockey in Phoenix will be alright, one is led to wonder what it actually takes to successfully acquire an NHL franchise.  We put together a shortlist of what we felt were some requirements for a prospective owner to relocate a struggling franchise.

• Financially sound ownership. The last thing you would want is your owner to have to borrow money from the previous owner to complete the sale of an NHL team.  It would be much more beneficial to approve a sale to an owner that can remain financially viable even through the toughest of times, for instance the CEO of that BlackBerry maker.  He could probably support a team… hmmmm.
• On top of being financially sound, it would be ideal to have an owner that will remain active in the day-to-day, season-to-season operations of the club.  Imagine if Disney bought a team, gave it a goofy name, and just didn’t give a fuck about for years.  That would be awful, you would have to hope they would sell it and that someone could turn the franchise’s fortunes around.
• Major League Baseball would never put a team on Baffin Island.  That’s because it’s frozen, and unlikely that residents get to play much baseball, let alone watch it.  Hockey teams tend to fare better in climates and regions that are familiar with the sport.  An existing fan base is important, although trying to convince the fine folks in California that an arena is a more entertaining form of air conditioning than a Vin Diesel movie has been amusing.
• It never hurts to have a national television contract either.  Up here in Canada, we’ve got a number of networks fighting over rights to the NHL.  Versus does a decent job of showing the game south of the border, but that network is only available in pockets of the United States.  I’m sure that Rogers Shitsnet is looking for some quality winter programming to dilute the depressing Toronto Maple Leafs games and poker matches they show for six months… maybe not though, it’s a pretty shitty network.

Brent Sutter doesn’t give a “rat’s ass” about the regular season.

John Tortorella sets a great example for Sean Avery.

Markus Naslund retired.

What the fuck?  Markus Naslund retired?  I’m betting the New York Rangers’ locker room isn’t very conducive to winning.

Pittsburgh looked flat out of the gate in Washington.  They fanned on everything and gave the puck away a lot.  Crosby has the beginnings of another great teen-stache, he’s 21-years old now.

Alexander Semin is leading his team in playoff points, he was benched for most of the Saturday’s win over the Pens.

Mike Green’s head is ridiculous.  We’ve seen some players do some dumb shit to their hair over the years during Stanley season (i.e. Wendel Clark and the boys dyeing the tips of their mullets blonde), but nothing looks as stupid as Mike Green’s waxed-muff Mohawk look.

Whatever happened to respect for the good old playoff beard?  There is far too much beard-crime in the NHL these days.  When the playoffs start, you let your beard grow… it’s simple.  Except for shaving following a series victory, there is no shaving.  Now we have these fake-ass pretty boys cutting in goatees and keeping it trim.  At the other end of the spectrum we’ve got over zealous growers jinxing their team’s Cup shot by starting a playoff beard with a couple weeks to go in the regular season.   Not mentioning any names:

At least he doesn’t go out at night dressed like this: