Around View From My Seats, we enjoy great writing almost as much as we enjoy the sport we cover. Each week, there are excellent writers doing their thing all over the hockey blogosphere—so many, in fact, that it’s easy to miss some of the good stuff that gets published each week. Each week throughout the season, we shoot to bring you some of the best writing from around the web. Some will be from the mainstream media and some will be from talented bloggers doing it for the love of the game. Some entries will come from beat writers around North America and still others will come from national writers bringing a “big picture” perspective. We don’t care. We’re just looking for great hockey writing. Everything else can go to hell.

If you find anything that catches your eye and you think should be included, feel free to contact us and we’ll consider it for next week’s installment!

Without further ado, here is our weekly trip around the hockey blogosphere bringing you some of the best articles that you may have missed.

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“Let me get into the numbers a little bit. The industry in terms of hockey-related revenue was at right about $2 billion before the lockout and the first year after the lockout. We expect it to be a little over $3 billion this year. I’ve heard rumors, of course, that the owners are going to be asking for significant concessions or major concessions or enormous concessions, and whether that will prove to be true remains to be seen. I’ve been in this business long enough to be satisfied that their positions will become clear when the time comes, and we don’t need to invent imaginary horribles until we get there.”

via Proteau: One-on-one with NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr – The Hockey News

“When it comes to collective bargaining, Fehr doesn’t want only the executive board or the negotiating committee involved. He wants the rank-and-file involved, too. Each team will have its own mini negotiating committee – “four or five guys getting all the information, reading it, talking about it,” according to Schultz. Fehr will make a point to schedule bargaining sessions with the league so players can attend. If a session is held during the season, he wants it in a place where teams will be, at a time when players from both teams can attend.”

via Don Fehr’s union sounds ready to take on NHL – Yahoo! Sports

“Bottom line, the Penguins desperately needed a player like Neal and they knew how to get the most out of him. That’s huge for them, because the guess is that Neal couldn’t produce those power play minutes or numbers in Dallas. It just wasn’t possible this season. Conversely, the Stars are still learning how to use Goligoski.

So, in retrospect, both sides have reasons to have made the trade, both sides seem happy with what they got, and that should be enough, right?”

via What better time to re-examine the James Neal trade than today? – Dallas Morning News

“Is the game better off with Ovechkin involved? Absolutely but why should he go when he’s on the suspended list? If he can’t play in a regular game should he even be allowed to play in the ASG? I’m curious what Brendan Shanahan would have done if he was still an active player?”

via Ovechkin says No Thanks – True Hockey

“The added aggravation of a concussion is that it’s impossible to project how long a player will be out.

“I’ve stopped asking the doctor and trainer,” Burke said. “I just wait until I get a report that he is riding the bike.”

via Costly concussions – USA Today

“In the same way that pitchers in baseball have the Cy Young Award, goalies have the Vezina Trophy that is awarded annually, and since there is already recognition given to the best goalie for every season, goalies normally get excluded from consideration for the Hart Trophy. However, Lundqvist’s season puts him into consideration for the Hart Trophy. Entering the all-star break, he is the only goaltender to be in the top 5 in the league in wins, goals against average, save percentage, and shutouts. More importantly, although the Rangers are 2nd in the NHL in points, they are only 11th in the league in goals, which reflects how important Lundqvist’s play has been to his team’s success.”

via Henrik Lundqvist Is the Heart of the Rangers, But is He Also the Hart of the NHL? – The Hockey Writers

“Two team sources think Thomas’s decision won’t have a negative effect inside the dressing room because it reflects no deviation from his character. Separately, the sources both said Thomas’s actions merely revealed what his teammates have known since 2006-07, his first full season with the Bruins: that he is a solitary, me-against-the-world figure who often puts himself in front of the team.”

via Team is used to Thomas’s ways – Boston Globe

“While my father knew enough people for me to get to a lot of Washington Capitals games, the minor league experience started for me when Baltimore got hockey back in the form of the Baltimore Bandits, in which we were season ticket holders for their first season. It was closer to home, easier to get to, and a chance to see different players than what I’ve been seeing at the old Capital Centre. Sad to say, that didn’t last long as the Bandits only stayed two season before departing to Cincinnati because the city didn’t support the team, thanks to lack of advertising about the team.”

Via Baltimore, bandits, and life in the locker room – Shooting for the Show (guest post by Scotty Wazz)

“Personally, I was optimistic that the NHL had thought this through, and could make good on its promise to make the schedule more efficient. Gone would be the days of an East Coast team flying out to California for two games against the Ducks and Kings, only to return later in the season to play the Sharks and the Stars. Not to mention a third trip out west to swing through Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton. Not to mention those Western teams coming East.

Players around the league shake their heads at this type of thing every year.

Maybe, we thought, the new travel schedule wouldn’t be that bad if we could have fewer, longer, better organized road trips. I assumed, also, that the travel burden would be eased on teams such as the Wild, the Red Wings, the Jets and the Stars.

After all, wasn’t that what prompted the realignment discussion to begin with?”

via The Player: Why NHL players rejected realignment, and why the backlash was worth it – Puck Daddy

“The corner of Portage Avenue and Main Street is known to be the coldest spot in North America,” says native son Monty Hall. (Yes, that Monty Hall.) It’s an oft-repeated claim, but there is something almost supernaturally frigid about the iconic downtown intersection a few blocks from the Jets’ home ice at the MTS Centre. Former Hurricanes coach Paul Maurice remembers his first visit. He called a friend on a pay phone from the corner but had to hang up early. “My hand was freezing to the phone,” he says.

via Everybody loves Winnipeg – SI.com

“I think sometimes our league forgets about people like that,” Tortorella said. “That restores a little faith for me, that the league stepped up and when it was clear it was deserved, and gave it to him. It’s not just pedigree, it’s what he’s done on the ice. I couldn’t be happier.”

“He’s a big reason why I’m here and can talk with you today,” Tortorella said of Girardi. “That’s the highest compliment you can give him. He has turned himself into a pro.”

via Rangers’ Girardi Rises From Free Agent to All-Star – Slap Shot blog

Around View From My Seats, we enjoy great writing almost as much as we enjoy the sport we cover. Each week, there are excellent writers doing their thing all over the hockey blogosphere—so many, in fact, that it’s easy to miss some of the good stuff that gets published each week. Each week throughout the season, we shoot to bring you some of the best writing from around the web. Some will be from the mainstream media and some will be from talented bloggers doing it for the love of the game. Some entries will come from beat writers around North America and still others will come from national writers bringing a “big picture” perspective. We don’t care. We’re just looking for great hockey writing. Everything else can go to hell.

If you find anything that catches your eye and you think should be included, feel free to contact us and we’ll consider it for next week’s installment!

Without further ado, here is our weekly trip around the hockey blogosphere bringing you some of the best articles that you may have missed.

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“Before the lockout I can’t remember another player telling me no or me turning down a fight. That was just the way it was. If the score got too one-sided or if a good player got roughed up all the guys who could fight made sure their jerseys were tied down before the next shift. There were many more fighters on each team and there was a gentlemen’s agreement between them.”

via The Dirty Work (from Jason Strudwick) – Oilers Nation

“I’m somewhat troubled by the sale of future revenue streams, which is what securitizing the TV contract amounts to. Say that Vanderbeek succeeds in doing this. The Devils will then have, for the next eleven years, effectively $0 in TV revenue – they’d just be signing the cheques over. How do you make up for that if you’re Vanderbeek? He either has to find new revenue streams – difficult to do when he’s already had a rink built for him – or figure out a way to significantly reduce the cash needed to fund an elite team. That second option would probably look pretty attractive. How do you do that? You drive down the players’ share of hockey related revenue in the next CBA. If the players aren’t interested, you lock them out. No hockey for hockey fans.”

via Wherein I’m sure I’ll get slapped around in the comments – mc79hockey.com

“I think I’m pretty lucky that I don’t feel any side effects or symptoms now. Sometimes I blame it on my concussions when I do weird stuff, but I don’t feel like some of the guys who I hear have the problems. (Keith Primeau), I know he’s still had his share of problems, but I’m pretty lucky. I just use it if my wife told me something, and get out of doing the dishes.”

via Concussion files: ‘It’s the whole brain that takes that hit’ (with Eric Desjardins) – Sporting News

“He said he remains optimistic the NHL will send players but added that the IOC would have to know in 2013 so alternative plans could be made. If the NHL doesn’t send players, the U.S. and Canada would have to form teams from players in college or in Europe.

“In my mind it looks not too bad. I would say it could work,” he said. “We are looking at what would happen if they decide not to come. I will have discussions, especially with USA Hockey and Hockey Canada. If the NHL says no, the national federations would be more under pressure than European federations because players are playing in leagues there. If the NHL says no by the spring of 2013, they would have one year to prepare.”

via NHL players should participate in the Olympics – LA Times

“Decline of the Habs Empire” isn’t a title so much as a genre designation. It would be like calling an article about the Leafs “Forty Years of Frustration”, or publishing a Canucks essay entitled “Successful but Still Not Likeable.” Excepting that of the Romans themselves, few tales of decline have been retold as often as that of the Habs. Mordechai Richler wrote on the theme; so did Ken Dryden. Half of Red Fisher’s columns for the past ten years have used it as either the introduction or the finale. It is Montreal’s greatest trope, it’s most enduring cliché. If the team had any sense of humor about its media coverage (it doesn’t, sadly) they could have put out an anthology of literary writing on the subject in honor of the Centennial.”

via Defending Byzantium – Theory of Ice (h/t to Spector)

“Weirdly, the players (under former executive director Bob Goodenow) weren’t even all that insistent on a salary-cap floor in the last round of negotiations; it was something the NHL gave them. There will probably be a floor in the new CBA as well, but the gap will be wider than $16-million, just so the Nashvilles, Phoenixes and St. Louises can set their budgets and spend to their limits. The gaps between the haves and have-nots will widen financially, although how that actually plays out on the ice remains to be seen.”

via For NHL players, the cheque is (nearly) in the mail – The Globe and Mail (Eric Duhatschek)

“Weaver’s career has been nothing short of transient. He chose to pursue a college degree instead of playing major junior hockey. Undrafted as an 18-year-old, the 5-foot-9 defenseman had to play for a contract nearly every year of his professional career.

To put Weaver’s situation into perspective, entering this season, he had signed more contracts (seven) than he had scored NHL goals (six).”

via Weaver’s journey finally rewarded – Rinkside.net

“For Sarah, success was about others as much as it was about herself. It was about fighting to make sure other women had the opportunity to compete against her, to one day break her records and compete on the same level as men. Since she buckled into her first pair of plastic boots at the age of 5, Burke was a skier by trade but a fighter by nature.”

via How Sarah Burke wanted to be remembered – ESPNW

“I like fighting as much as the next guy, but Jesus Christ, how many people have to die? Look, man, when one of the greatest hockey players living isn’t playing because he’s concussed, then something’s seriously f—ked.”

via Silent Bob strikes back against violence – Toronto Star

“To date, the county has paid more than $90 million for the arena that serves as the Panthers’ home, and gotten back just $331,000 in profit-sharing.
The Panthers side of the scoreboard is far brighter, according to county records. Since the doors at BankAtlantic Center opened 13 years ago, Arena Operating Co., the Panthers’ sister company that runs the arena, has rung up a reported $117.4 million in profits. That’s more than 353 times what the county has banked.”
via Broward auditor: Panthers loan request “really, really troubling” – Sun-Sentinel (s/t to Litter Box Cats)

“This isn’t some older player en route to hitting the free agent market. This is Zach Parise. The former All-Star. The hustling point machine out of New Jersey. A former Olympian. Someone who’s now healthy and will turn 28 in July. On top of that, there aren’t many big money forwards going UFA in this coming summer. Throw in somefinancial issues where that may or not may be concerning and the rumor mill is churning. Do the Devils think about trading him? If so, what would be acceptable?”

via How Zach Parise of Today Compares with Zach Parise of the Past 4 Seasons – In Lou We Trust

Around View From My Seats, we enjoy great writing almost as much as we enjoy the sport we cover. Each week, there are excellent writers doing their thing all over the hockey blogosphere—so many, in fact, that it’s easy to miss some of the good stuff that gets published each week. Each week throughout the season, we shoot to bring you some of the best writing from around the web. Some will be from the mainstream media and some will be from talented bloggers doing it for the love of the game. Some entries will come from beat writers around North America and still others will come from national writers bringing a “big picture” perspective. We don’t care. We’re just looking for great hockey writing. Everything else can go to hell.

If you find anything that catches your eye and you think should be included, feel free to contact us and we’ll consider it for next week’s installment!

Without further ado, here is our weekly trip around the hockey blogosphere bringing you some of the best articles that you may have missed.

____________________________

“The franchise, though, has – at times unnecessarily – created a more complicated dynamic. Anytime a coach is fired, it creates tension. That’s unavoidable, even when the coach is a franchise loyalist like Paul Maurice. Coaches might be hired to be fired, as the old saying goes, but that doesn’t make it any easier when the time comes.

Firing Laviolette, as the Hurricanes did in the fall of 2008, always was going to make proper acknowledgement of his contributions to the franchise difficult.”

via Canes must give Laviolette his due for ’06 Cup title — News Observer

“I’ve been beating myself up for a while about not watching enough and not writing enough and that’s pretty darn silly. Blogging is like sports. If it’s not fun, what’s the point? In this period of my life, I need to embrace a more casual fandom. I’ve been afraid to do that for some reason, but it’s time.”

via It’s Time for Saying Goodbye — Top Shelf Blog

“Let me repeat that. After the Leafs CHOSE to send Orr down. Nobody made Burke do it. It wasn’t about a cap consideration. If Orr was so beloved and his role so important, the Leafs could have kept him.

It was Burke and Ron Wilson who decided not to use Orr this season and, more to the point, he and Wilson who decided another, younger tough guy, Jay Rosehill, was more valuable to the team. Burke will have to explain this to team ownership, why a $1 million player will be getting that money to skate in the AHL, although my guess is that is a small part about what pained Burke about this decision.”

via The Inevitable End — The Spin

“The speed of the game has become such a hot topic, the general managers plan to discuss whether the game needs to be slowed at their next meetings. Maybe they reinstitute the red line for two-line offside passes. Maybe they get rid of the trapezoid so goalies can come out farther to play the puck. Maybe they allow defensemen to fence off again at the blue line so forwards aren’t able to fly into the offensive zone at warp speed.”

via Speed makes, breaks game – Star Tribune

“But, to my mind, the NHLPA’s refusal was less about the upcoming negotiations per se and more about living under the current CBA, which gives the players various rights concerning the conditions of their employment. For longer in its history than not, the NHLPA didn’t do much with these rights and rubber-stamped the NHL’s proposals or didn’t even bother to question them. But by insisting on raising realignment issues that troubled the union, the NHLPA has indicated it’s not going to function that way any longer.”

via NHLPA has valid realignment concerns — Red Light Blog

“Their helmets are simple: silver, and bisected front-to-back by a black-and-white-framed scarlet stripe. It’s a scheme that has become eminently recognizable ever since it was debuted in 1968 for the football team at, as the cadence goes, THE Ohio State University. But the nationally ranked team sporting the iconic look this weekend, in a chilly outdoor game against heated rival Michigan in front of tens of thousands, won’t be playing the football that Ohio State is famously known for. They’ll be playing hockey.”

via The Frozen Diamond’s Hidden Gem – Grantland

“St. Louis isn’t the biggest media market, and I don’t doubt that a few folks might look at the Blues’ success with a jaundiced eye, given the surprising nature of the goaltending they’ve received. Those out-shooting numbers are quite sturdy looking, though, and David Backes is at the heart of that dominance. He might not even get a mention at year’s end, but through half a season, he’s a worthy Selke candidate, and in a just world, a very worthy All-Star.”

via The Best Player No One Talks About – Jets Nation

“We can blame injuries, the coaching staff, the new additions or the old core. But it doesn’t matter. We just want the team to do well. Dammit, Pegula said we would win the Cup, so where is the team that will bring it to us?”

via Something’s Gotta Give For The Sabres – Buffalo Sabres Nation

“So why fire the coach? Because he is the guy everybody focuses on. Six other NHL teams had fired their coaches this season, and they all had better records than the Jackets. Arniel’s survival had become a story.

That’s where general manager Scott Howson failed. All the while, he was giving Arniel a benefit of the doubt he hadn’t earned. The players were probably at least subconsciously thinking the same thing the public was, wondering why management hadn’t noticed that the team needed new leadership, why it wasn’t doing something to provide a burst of adrenaline.”

via With Arniel finally gone, players now accountable – Puck Rakers

“The opposite is true for Columbus: you don’t fall short 116 goals purely by bad luck, as this would be a 3.5 standard deviation event, having roughly 1 chance in 5000 of occurring by chance. I wish Todd Richards the best, but the fact is that he’s been trusted with a team of decent players with below-average finishing talent at the NHL level. The nights where the bounces don’t go the Blue Jackets’ way are not over yet.”

via Numbers On Ice: Columbus, True Talent, and the Limits of Corsi (Puck Prospectus)

“This is a team built without foundation or direction, drawing inspiration solely from the masturbatory hype surrounding top prospects now that a certain Canadian cable giant has turned the World Junior Hockey Championship and the NHL Draft from fringe to made-for-TV events.

Wherever I go to discuss hockey, the prevailing sentiment about the Edmonton Oilers is “they’ll be good next year” and if not next year, “soon. They’re going to be very fun to watch.” This is all based on the early career successes of Jordan Eberle, Taylor Hall and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (and hopefully Nail Yakupov, apparently).”

via The Edmonton Oilers and the never-ending rebuild – Backhand Shelf

Around View From My Seats, we enjoy great writing almost as much as we enjoy the sport we cover. Each week, there are excellent writers doing their thing all over the hockey blogosphere—so many, in fact, that it’s easy to miss some of the good stuff that gets published each week. Each week throughout the season, we shoot to bring you some of the best writing from around the web. Some will be from the mainstream media and some will be from talented bloggers doing it for the love of the game. Some entries will come from beat writers around North America and still others will come from national writers bringing a “big picture” perspective. We don’t care. We’re just looking for great hockey writing. Everything else can go to hell.

If you find anything that catches your eye and you think should be included, feel free to contact us and we’ll consider it for next week’s installment!

Without further ado, here is our weekly trip around the hockey blogosphere bringing you some of the best articles that you may have missed.

____________________________

“I completely appreciate why the shootouts were implemented into games coming out of the lockout – the league needed something new (gimmicky) to drum up some interest in the game after a season lost to the lockout to bring fans back. And, to some extent, I can understand why they are still in effect as there are cheers from the stands when it comes time for a shootout to decide the “winner” of a game.
But can anyone tell me who comes to a hockey game hoping to see a shootout? And if shootouts were eliminated, would fans stop coming to the game? What about coaches, are there any out that that actually like shootouts?”

via Time for NHL to eliminate shootouts – Tampa Tribune

“Landeskogs game looks so polished because it’s so simple. The way a great minimalist piece of art works. Not to get all Buccigrossian, but Landeskog’s game is like Green Eggs and Ham. Legend has it Dr Seuss’ publisher bet him he couldn’t write a full book using only 50 words. He created a childhood masterpiece.

Simple

Beautiful.”

via A Dichotomy of two young players – JibbleScribbits.com

“Here’s the issue: hockey players (just as players in all team sports) have been trained to know that there’s no I in team. Except, to be able to make the team, especially in the rarefied top-notch leagues’ air, athletes have to concentrate on themselves. Without individual skills, nobody will bother to give them a look, or a second look, even. What does it mean? It means there is a certain level of egocentrism and egotism involved. You’ve got to push yourself. No need to push the others.

After all, there is a certain level of egocentrism and egoism in all of us. We all think of ourselves as the standard by which we measure the rest of the world. It has nothing to do with whether we’re right or not. It’s just the way it is, that’s all, and nobody can blame you (or me, or her, or him, or anybody else).”

via It’s easy for Lowe to say an Oiler should accept a demotion, much harder to do – Cult of Hockey

“But Burns just has that spark, that intangible voodoo magic, which defies explanation. That ability to singlehandedly change the complexion of a power play, a game, or a series, that someone outside of Antti Niemi and maybe Logan Couture just don’t have right now. It’s having a set power play entry dedicated to you, where the team is clearing out the neutral zone almost like an NBA game, passing you the puck as you hit the zone with speed, and saying go make a play. It’s a blend of raw athletic talent and a willingness to play on that precipice dividing risk and reward, the ease at which he transitions up the ice and the utter force at which he directs shots towards the net. Burns has “it” in spades; and whatever “it” may be, it exists in only a special few.”

via Brent Burns gives San Jose a gamebreaker on the backend – Fear the Fin

“I don’t like rebuilds. I think they’re a convenient way for a GM to avoid having to take responsibility for his team’s on-ice performance. My feeling about rebuilds aside, the Oilers are rebuilding so I’ve had to accept it. Part of that acceptance is knowing that the Oilers are not going to be a playoff team this season. In fact they’re likely to be a very bad team this season that will probably be in the draft lottery at season’s end, which of course means another high draft pick. We’re getting good at this rebuild thing.”

via Why Ryan Nugent-Hopkins Should Go Back To Red Deer – The Copper and Blue

“Of course what were similar were these big Canadian victories in significant international encounters with a massive percentage of Canadians captivated by them. Those two occasions — that 1972 Game 8 final and the 2010 gold-medal game—were watched by virtually everyone. They shut down the entire country. In those two ways they were similar, both huge moments, both exciting, and both thrilling victories. The differences are at the bigger level. The first is that in terms of hockey, the game between Canada and the United States was a game between two teams of players that, while all the passion and competition was there, compete with each other in the National Hockey League and essentially play the same style of hockey. The game in ’72 was between two hockey worlds, featuring athletes who did not know each other and didn’t approach the game in remotely the same way or play the same style.”

via Stephen Harper on hockey and headshots – National Post

“I believe it is time for the Flyers to begin thinking about trading Sergei Bobrovsky. Bobrovsky is a talented young goalie with a promising future as a starter in this league, but his future won’t be with the Flyers. With Ilya Bryzgalov signed to be the starter for nine seasons Bobrovsky is relegated to the backup role where he will be lucky if he starts more than 20 games. It is a complete waste for someone who has the talent to be so much more in this league.”

via Point/Counterpoint: Trading Bobrovsky to Columbus – Flyers Faithful

“Honestly, I did not want to get into this; it’s beyond the ken of your typical sportswriter. There is no one out there I know playing devil’s advocate for hazing. Everyone agrees it’s wrong. It is pretty much impossible to get into it without being a scold on a soapbox or a “finger-wagger,” as CBC’s Brent Bambery put it on Wednesday.

Still, it keeps surfacing. It happened in 2005 when there was incident on the Windsor Spitfires team bus, involving current NHLer Steve Downie and a younger player, Akim Aliu. The same year, Montreal’s McGill University cancelled its last two football games after a hazing scandal. Every so often, you read of some university team in Canada which had to forfeit games after rookies were peer-pressured into getting drunk at a so-called rookie party.”

via Want to halt hockey hazing? Be willing to bring the police in – Buzzing The Net

“If you work in an office, you’ve probably seen this yourself. When an employee within a department is not performing, the business addresses the issue in one way, shape or form. When the greater majority of the employees within a department are not performing, the business will usually be lead to believe the team leader is unable to get the best out of his employees.

The Canadiens situation is the same.”

via Habs Fans Voices Hushed by Sound of Silence – All Habs

“For the first question, there isn’t much of a debate as to whether or not the Coyotes have been handling this situation properly. They are an organization that has made the playoffs in each of the past two seasons in large part because of getting great value for their money. They have never been big free agent spenders, but the guys that they bring in like Ray Whitney and others have great intangibles and can also produce effectively on the ice, a combination that makes them perfect for a cash-strapped organization. Their team-first mentality that’s built more around a solid core rather than a couple of superstars has been their recipe for success, and they aren’t very likely to treat a player like Turris with the kind of star treatment that he and his camp seem to think he’s entitled to.

As for their mentality to refuse to trade Turris, they are absolutely spot on. Not matter what Overhardt has to say, the fact of the matter is that teams likely aren’t beating down the door for a guy who has 46 points in 131 career NHL games. 25 of those points came last season, and he also spent the entire 2009-10 season, a campaign in which the Coyotes stunned everyone and finished 4th in the Western Conference, with the San Antonio Rampage.

The number three overall pick in the 2007 Draft, Turris seems to believe that he should be getting paid like the highest rated player by NHL Central Scouting instead of the reality that he hasn’t had much of a career to base such contract demands on. He’s been thoroughly outplayed by a slew of members of that Draft class, including Patrick Kane, etc…”

via Are the Coyotes Right to Deny Kyle Turris’ Trade Request? – The Hockey Writers

Around View From My Seats, we enjoy great writing almost as much as we enjoy the sport we cover. Each week, there are excellent writers doing their thing all over the hockey blogosphere—so many, in fact, that it’s easy to miss some of the good stuff that gets published each week. Each week throughout the season, we shoot to bring you some of the best writing from around the web. Some will be from the mainstream media and some will be from talented bloggers doing it for the love of the game. Some entries will come from beat writers around North America and still others will come from national writers bringing a “big picture” perspective. We don’t care. We’re just looking for great hockey writing. Everything else can go to hell.

If you find anything that catches your eye and you think should be included, feel free to contact us and we’ll consider it for next week’s installment!

Without further ado, here is our weekly trip around the hockey blogosphere bringing you some of the best articles that you may have missed.

____________________________

“With the Thrashers franchise moving to Winnipeg, many fans in the city contest that a packed MTS Centre will contribute to improved performance for the Winnipeg Jets 2.0. Many reference the fact that Atlanta had poor attendance figures and that the Thrashers played in front of less than—and sometimes far less—capacity. As a result, they believe the Thrashers players may have, in a sense, gotten off easy with mistakes and felt somewhat underappreciated at times.

In theory, more fans, more noise, and more emotional support would push a team to play better than playing in front of empty seats, but is this actually the case? What about the opposite effect? There is, of course, increased pressure and with more glory also comes more scrutiny.”

via Do Fewer Empty Seats Mean Better Results? – Hockey Prospectus

“I just had my birthday and my dad told me that, ‘It’s good that you are getting older because you need to get smarter,’ ” Bergeron said. “So, I guess that with the age you are a little more mature and you understand the game better, and that’s really the way I feel.

“When I was younger, I was kind of an all-out and not so much thinking, whereas now I’m trying to be a little bit smarter and use my strengths when it’s time to use them and not trying to do too much.”

Instead of forcing plays, Bergeron is picking his spots.

via Bergeron getting smarter with age – Tampa Tribune

“An interesting potential positive to come out of this according to Nicholson is this: The rush to get to the NHL will be slowed and therefore would trickle down to the lower developmental levels.

That’s a bit of a tough sell for me. I don’t know that delaying the draft age by a year will cause everyone to slow down in their rush to become better players. Hockey parents and kids, often wrongly, will rush to play up a level so that player is challenged, even at the youngest ages. Sometimes it works, many times it doesn’t. I don’t see how this new rule would change anything.”

via Potential Problems in Raising the NHL Draft Age – The United States of Hockey

“For supporting evidence, Nicholson cited the 2003 NHL draft class, whose arrival in the NHL was pushed back by the ’04-05 lockout. Another off-shoot of the lockout, which Francis didn’t mention, was that another off-shoot of the lockout year was that Canada had one of its most stacked world junior squads of all time.

Nicholson says there would have to be some latitude, “meaning perhaps the top ten picks or entire first round would allow NHL teams to select 18-year-olds.” However, is this just posturing? It’s inconclusive at best whether moving the draft back would really make any big changes. There were draft picks who didn’t pan out when the NHL had a 20-year-old draft in the 1970s, too.”

via Now why would Hockey Canada’s prez want the NHL draft age pushed back? – Buzzing The Net

Most of us have problems that don’t compare so we don’t care about this. For the vast majority of us, the NBA is a luxury rather than a need. We don’t really need the NBA, because it’s just a movie.

Guerin sounds like a man who learned this lesson, and one of the many truths that exist in our world.

“For so long, I thought so long and hard about it,” he said. “But when you think about it, I tell guys it wasn’t worth it.”

via Bill Guerin to NBA players: It’s not worth it – Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Listening is a skill, and you need to take a class in it, because that is not what I just said.” [Olczyk said to Roenick]

And BOOM goes the dynamite.

Please, NBC, if you know what is good for you, keep these two guys on the show and bring Milbury over as well. If that wouldn’t become appointment television, then I don’t know what will.

via NHL + Media: Roenick, Roenick, and Don Cherry – Too Many Men On The Site

“The end is well-documented – his battles with the Philly media, his cool relationship with coach Peter Laviolette, his love of the nightlife. You can blow it off as overblown. (“A 24-year-old multimillionaire likes to have a few beers,” teammate Scott Hartnell(notes) told the Courier-Post. “What a shocker that is.”) Think about it, though. Would the Flyers really trade their captain, the face of the franchise, just because of a few beers?

This goes back to the beginning. He earned a reputation as a tenacious two-way player. He could score, defend, do it all. Then came the comparisons to Clarke – and the captaincy at 23. In your early to mid-20s, you’re supposed to have a few beers with your buddies, but Richards was also supposed to live up to Clarke’s No. 16 hanging in the rafters and the image of a hockey leader.”

via King Richards moves on from Philadelphia – Yahoo! Sports

“Build through the draft, right? As a general manager, the idea is to define your team’s style, find a coach to preach it and groom it, and then year after year, draft after draft, ferret out the kids around the world who fit that style and develop into true franchise mainstays that become the faces of the franchise, determine its success.

Nice idea. But just not true. Not in today’s 30-team NHL, especially not in the new NHL’s era as defined by the collective bargaining agreement that was crafted out of the 2004-05 lockout. It was that new deal, one that expires Sept. 15 of next year, that saw the owners win their much-sought salary cap, essentially in a quid pro quo for a drastic reduction in the age threshold for players to reach free agency, from 31 to as early as 25 or 26 (based on years of service). Free agency went from the over-the-hill gang to the prime-of-career bunch.”

via Stay-at-home players are a vanishing breed – Boston Globe

He smiles. “When I played and you got a concussion, you were asked who’s the prime minister of Canada or who’s the president of the United States, and when you answered, you went right back out.” And often you went right back out even if you didn’t get the answer right. “Ask any tough guy, you wanted to go right back out.”

Still, he says he experienced anxiety knowing he’d probably have to fight, settle a score with a fellow combatant. “Sure. You don’t sleep the night before. It’s on your mind. Am I going to back down or will I fight? I had my best fights when I was scared.”

Peluso has no problem with tough medicine for deliberate head shots, but the essential nature of the game — it’s speed, emotion, body checks, disparity in height of the players, blurs the definition of malice aforethought.

via Peluso defends fighting, Says NHL ban ‘would be stupid’ – QMI Agency

“And the Danes, oh the Danes. Don’t get me started on Frans Nielsen and Mikkel Boedker, who play a despicable game of two-hand touch on the ice. Call me crazy, but it’s probably the Nielsens and Boedkers and Franzens of the world that like this suspension nonsense. Take off the skirts and start drafting some good hard-workin’, hay-bailin’, fightin’ prairie boys, Canucks. They know how to win the Stanley Cup.

I mean look at Joe Thornton…okay, maybe he didn’t win, but he wouldn’t have even been close if he didn’t constantly carry a bit o’ wheat in his mouth. Or Shane Doan, who’s carried the Coyotes to…well, the playoffs, but that’s Boedker’s fault, you see. Or Cam Neely, who was more successful than either of those two and nearly indestructible…wait…shoot, got him mixed up with Henrik Sedin. I hate it when that happens.

Don’t even get me started on the diving. Every time I see a Canuck take a dive, it makes me sick, just like when I see players on all the other 29 teams do it. Play like a corn-fed Canadian damnit! Play like Joe Thornton!”

via Mark Spector is Right – Arctic Ice Hockey

“Fans are encouraged, by teams, to identify with their respective clubs. They put their money behind their statements of support, buying tickets and merchandise. The obscenely priced NHL Center Ice package exists because enough fans immediately outside their chosen club’s geographic area are willing to pay large amounts of money to watch every game. The willingness to fork out dollars at unimaginable rates for the right to sport the team’s logo is created, in no small part, because fans identify with their teams.”

via Is It Wrong For A Fan To Talk About His Team As “We”? – The Cult of Hockey