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One of the first things that I see every morning when I wake up is a framed newspaper article, yellowed and cracked with age, from an issue of Newsday dated May 25, 1994. The headline from this rather smallish, less than a full page article efficiently read "Mark Isn't Worried." The subheading: Messier vows Rangers will take it to a seventh game. This article is now 11 years old, eleven like the number of the man that inspired it all.
Rangers fans know the rest. Backs against the wall, Captain Mark Messier guaranteed victory for his reeling Rangers, and down by one goal into the third period, he put on quite simply the most amazing single athletic performance I have ever seen in my life. I watched Michael Jordan tear the heart out of the Knicks in more playoff games than I can remember. I've seen almost every play in Derek Jeter's career. I've seen Gretzky, Lemieux, Bonds, Favre, Rice, Taylor, Brodeur, Pedro, Ewing, Shaq, and every other superstar that delivered a moment when his team needed it most. Nothing matches up to the final twenty minutes of Game Six. The history, the moment, the stakes, and the reputation of the man will never be repeated in sports.
(And naturally we're going to ignore all the subsequent "We'll make the playoffs" guarantees that Messier issued in the past few years. Those never happened.)
Messier came to the Rangers as just a washed-up player, acquired in another one of those brainfart classic Ranger "deal youth for fossils" moves, a pouting older superstar that wasn't paying his bills in the small market and yearned to cash checks as the newest member of Club MSG. When the Rangers made the deal, I was a freshman in college and my father called me to announce the good news.
"Messier?" I said. "Isn't he like 75 years old? Who'd they trade to get him?"
"Bernie Nicholls, Louie DeBrusk, and Steven Rice."
"Steven Rice!" I yelled. "That kid is going to be a star! I hate this team."
That season, Messier won the Hart Trophy and brought the Rangers two rounds into the playoffs. Steven Rice scored maybe 40 points in his Oilers career.
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We had gotten a different type of player. It was obvious. Inevitable. This was lightning in a bottle. This was a genie in the lamp. This was one of those purely magical things that can't be explained logically to those that don't understand the frustration and disappointment of watching a doomed franchise repeat its mistakes every decade, always futily reaching for that brass (or silver) ring, and always falling short in ways that make you question almost everything about your life. You have to be a lifetime loser to understand the significance of a player like this. Mark Messier changed everything.
Mark Messier changed everything.
Messier was the Captain that sold the Rangers on being more than just the 54-year also ran. Messier was the player that convinced Leetch, Richter, and Graves not to be afraid of greatness. Messier was the player that forced Rangers fans to hold their heads high and not be ashamed of their woefully history, because things were going to change, and change immediately on his watch. As a captain he demanded nothing short of everything from his teammates. And he required the same from every person that thought they were worthy enough to watch his team play at MSG. Messier made you proud to be a Rangers fan again.
And then '94 happened. And Game Six. Rangers fans know the rest.
It can't be argued that Messier's retirement comes as a whimper and not a bang. For a player whose timing for drama has always been impeccable, he surprisingly fell at least a season too short with this decision. But we'll let it slide. We'll let many things slide with Messier -- we'll let his self-imposed exile to Vancouver slide; we'll let his reported insistance that Neil Smith trade Sergei Zubov and Petr Nedved for Ulf Samuelsson and Luc Robitaille slide; we'll let those Lays Potato Chip commercials slide. He's earned the right to have his Rangers legacy corrected by pencil and firmly revised in legendary ink.
There's another picture on my wall, one of the first things I see every morning when I wake up. It's taken from Game Seven, Stanley Cup, 1994. Mark Messier has just scored the go-ahead goal, his hands held high to the air, his feet elevated inches off the ice. Hours later his arms would be held in similar pose, only with a Stanley Cup propped between them.
Thanks, Mark. You changed everything.
This is my favorite column of the year to write. Maybe it’s that it signals the opening day for the NHL offseason, as teams slowly start to assemble their rosters for the coming campaign. Maybe it’s all the youthful excitement and enthusiasm surrounding the next generation of future hockey players. Or maybe it’s just the glow reflecting off of Pierre McGuire’s scalp. In any event, as the unofficial start of the coming hockey season, a season much anticipated and filled with curiosity, everyone has to love draft day.
Except, of course, ESPN.
The Worldwide Leader in Sports, still bitter over the fact that only a handful of people watched NHL2Nite — mostly because what Rob Pilatus was to Milli Vanilli, John Buccigross was to the NHL — has inexplicably decided not to even cover this draft, despite the fact that the most highly touted prospect since Eric Lindros is involved. And what pinnacle of human achievement will they be airing instead of the draft?
Fishing.
That’s right, instead of introducing the next round of future stars in the game of hockey, America’s top sports channel will be focusing its attention on two overweight men in rubber boots talking about plastic bugs for an hour. Rather than jump aboard the Sidney Crosby Express, ESPN is giving the network keys over to a “sport” in which achievement is directly related to the goofiness of one’s baseball cap. Even Bassmaster Sather thinks this is a crock of sh*t.
(Everyone got that last joke, right? We all know that last week when the NHL held it’s dog-and-pony Crosby lottery, instead of being on hand to skew karma toward the New York Rangers, the Supreme Overlord chartered the S.S. Dolan out to catch some stripers. I have my own theories about this — personally I think it’s a great way to tell Gary Bettman where he can stick his stupid new league. But regardless of the reason or motivation, I’m pretty sure I will milk the Cap’n Sather, Master Angler, stuff all season. Just a warning.)
Anyway, despite having a wrench thrown into my summer plans by not having a major network to watch the draft on, I still managed to find a channel picking up a broadcast. Unfortunately that channel is NESN, which means I’ll be subjected to the phrase “Home of the World Series Champion R-- S--“ for the next three hours. Like Steve Yzerman, I’m playing in pain. So without further ado, and all apologies as always to Bill Simmons, I present my third annual NHL Draft Day Running Diary.
12:00 -- We’re live at the, um … somewhere in Ottawa for the 2005 NHL Entry Draft. Joining me is a 72-oz. cup of coffee, three aspirin, and a half-bag of Tostitos. Also providing commentary today are a three-legged dog named Dog (don’t ask) and a cat named Fred. Fred is excited about Vancouver native Gilbert Brule, while Dog is pretty high on licking his own crotch. We’re ready for anything here on draft day.
12:01 -- Crosby Crosby Crosby Crosby Crosby
12:02 -- Welcome back to beloved TSN correspondents Gord Miller, Bob McKenzie, and the always inebriated Pierre McGuire. Miller and McKenzie are wearing dark conservative suits, while Pierre has opted for a t-shirt of a heart with Lou Lamoriello’s face in the middle.
12:03 -- Crosby Crosby Crosby Crosby Crosby Crosby
12:05 -- Crosby Crosby Crosby Crosby Crosby Lemieux Crosby
12:07 -- Boo! Hiss! Our first disappointment of the day, as we just learn that the NHL has abandoned it’s traditional “Come on down!” format for drafting in favor of the more traditional green room approach. And it’s not even a green room, just a curtained off section of whatever ballroom they’re holding this thing in. So that means no shots of huddled prospects sitting with bizarrely undressed family members. No moments where cute Canadian teenage girls forever say goodbye to their hopes and dreams as their boyfriends get shipped to Miami and Atlanta. No awkward hugs from dorky younger brothers. And no potential for any of these kids to fall and break their collarbones as they try to navigate their way through a packed auditorium. It's only been a week and already I hate the new NHL.
12:11 -- Crosby Crosby Crosby Crosby Crosby
12:13 -- After some speeches from some suited corporate dudes, Gary Bettman finally takes the podium and reads his opening remarks like an 8th-grader giving his first speech in front of a class. I hate this man so much. Here’s to hoping that Bob Goodenow is out doing pull-ups somewhere like Robert DeNiro in “Cape Fear.”
12:15 -- Finally, the moment all of hockey is waiting for, as Craig Patrick strides to the podium and announces that Pittsburgh has selected Canadian phenom Sidney Crosby. But what’s this?! Crosby refuses to go! He remains seated, disappointed by Pittsburgh’s initial contract offer, and announces to TSN’s James Duffy that “I don’t want to put on a Penguins jersey because they don’t want me bad enough.” Oh wait, my bad. That’s what Mario Lemieux did back when he was drafted by Pittsburgh in 1984.
12:14 -- Crosby Crosby Crosby … I love TSN’s coverage, by the way, for actually exploring interesting subplots and intricacies of the game and the league, such as Crosby and last year’s stud pick Evgeni Malkin having the same agent. Contrast this with Barry Melrose’s mullet and John Buccigross pimping C-level rock bands and you have a pretty good starting point as to why televised hockey fails in the U.S.
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12:18 -- First interview with Sid the Kid, who I think drank a liter of embalming fluid this morning. Perk up! You’re supposed to save this crummy league. Meanwhile, Pierre McGuire points out that Crosby is even mimicking Mario Lemieux’s posture when he addresses the media. Wonderful. We all know that Lemieux is the dullest and least personable superstar in all of sports, right? I can’t wait till they mic this kid up for the first time and get 60 straight minutes of dead air.
12:19 -- Alright. Since you asked. I think Crosby will be as good as Joe Sakic. Would you invest $140 dollars in Center Ice to watch a young Joe Sakic? Me neither.
12:21 -- What’s the deal with all these young boys hanging around and passing out jerseys? Is this part of the new marketing strategies? Are they trying to attract members of NAMBLA to the league? So far the new NHL makes me very uncomfortable.
12:22 -- Annoying blowhard Brian Burke uses the second pick on promising forward Bobby Ryan. Ryan’s well-publicized background is so troublesome that I’m not even going to make a joke, but let’s just say that it might be a good idea for Anaheim to use a third-round pick on a therapist.
12:28 -- Carolina happily selects American defenseman Jack Johnson. And looking at TSN’s draft list for the first time, where are all the Eastern Europeans? I wonder if GMs are genuinely deterred by the Russians and Czechs reluctance to sign the new IIHF deal and general prickery when it comes to exporting their players overseas. It’s a shame because I was really looking forward to hearing everyone over at Rangers Fan Central blast Glen Sather for passing over some Russian kid with an unpronounceable name that no one has ever seen play.
12:33 -- Minnesota drafts big QMJHL forward Benoit Pouliot, deemed a late bloomer who came from nowhere to surprisingly dominate his league, mostly because he’s 26-years-old. Seriously, has anyone ever carded this guy? And was that his girlfriend he just hugged or his mom? We’re three picks in and I’m already making MILF jokes.
12:39 -- Montreal goes off the program and selects goalie Carey Price, while Pierre McGuire starts to choke on his own tongue. Price looks like a centerfold for Tiger Beat. Which reminds me, did everyone see Al Montoya at the Rangers ticket giveaway last week? Confident in my sexuality when I say this, but this kid is going to absolutely shatter Ron Duguay’s 212 MBS mark set in 1979 (Models Banged per Season).
12:43 -- Columbus drafts Gilbert Brule, who looks exactly like Mike D. from the Beastie Boys. This is followed by Chicago selecting sort-of-local product, Jack Skille, no pun intended. Imagine if your name is “Skille” and you actually suck. Your childhood must be brutal. I’m babbling now.
12:52 -- Trade! San Jose deals with Atlanta and actor Michael Ironside strolls to the stage to select … Devin Setoguchi. The TSN crew is a little perplexed, as they thought for sure that the Sharks were moving up to select Slovenian forward Anze Kopitar. Pierre McGuire quickly collects himself and tells everyone about the time he found a piece of gum that Lou Lamoriello once chewed.
12:57 -- The ghastly visage of John Muckler eerily floats to the podium and selects Brian Lee, making him the first albino player in the national hockey league. Come to think of it, maybe he isn’t albino. Maybe he just had all the color scared out of him when he stared directly into Muckler’s grim face of death.
12:58 -- Anze Kopitar just took off his belt and is looking for a high beam to hang himself on.
1:04 -- Some dude (who is running Vancouver these days?) selects gangly defenseman Luc Bourdon, who played last season for Goon Island in the Popeye League. “Yes! Awesome!” Pierre McGuire squeals, as Gord and Bob quietly shift their seats six inches to the left.
1:08 -- Don’t turn around (uh oh), der Kopitar just got drafted (uh oh). Los Angeles at the #11 pick, which isn’t much of a tumble for him. Where is Slovenia anyway? Are we sure this is a real country, or did he just make it up to declare himself the best player from there? I’m getting a map.
1:09 -- It’s a country. It’s located south of Austria, east of Italy, and west of Crotia. It’s capital is Ljubljana. I swear I didn’t make this up. Geography is fun.
1:11 -- Trade! Atlanta dumps their #12 pick to … the New York Rangers! Squeal!!! Apparently Bassmaster Sather just docked the Wellcraft.
1:12 -- Rangers take Marc Staal, best known as the lesser touted younger brother of Carolina forward Eric Staal. Still, a universally approved of pick. Big, strong defenseman with a good pedigree. I’m happy.
1:13 -- Glen Sather’s hair gets worse and worse each season.
1:14 -- No no. I’m not done harping on this: Sather’s hair is just terrible. Embarrassing. Are Maloney and Renney so terrified of him that they won’t say anything? At this point I’d be much happier if he just showed up to all these things wearing a beige vest and a fishing cap. In fact, I’m insisting on it.
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1:19 -- Buffalo drafts Czech forward Mrdk Zrgrpkrdn, fresh off his stint of causing trouble for Superman. If you got that last joke, please discontinue reading this column and try to get yourself outside to kiss a girl for the first time.
1:21 -- Pierre McGuire just made the joke that even though they’re the Washington Capital, they should be called the Washington Cap-Rooms. Bob McKenzie starts waiving toward the waiter to stop drink service, while Gord Miller casually litters the TSN set with AA brochures.
1:24 -- Washington GM George McPhee, looking like he just got into a scrap outside in the parking lot, drafts wayyyyyy off the board in selecting Cornell defenseman Sasha Pokulok. And he traded up to do this.
1:26 -- I guess I have to explain this to any casual hockey fans or anyone that Googled the word “NAMBLA” and stumbled onto this column. Unlike every other major sport, the NHL draft goes against logic in the sense that you hardly ever see a team trade down when their coveted player is not expected to go anywhere near where they’re picking. So even though it makes no sense, it’s quite common for a GM like McPhee to trade up to draft a player that would likely still be available in the late second round. I mean, beyond the first five picks it’s not like any of these kids are going to make a difference in the NHL anyway. Plus, I think they have an open bar at these things.
1:26 -- Islanders safely draft center Ryan O’Marra, with GM Mike Milbury not even bothering to join the team up on the stage to welcome the kid. Probably a good move. If I were an Islander draft pick and I actually wanted to play in New York, I’d file a restraining order against Milbury as soon as possible.
1:31 -- And the absolute highlight of the draft comes, as Atlanta drafts forward Alex Bourret, who strides to the stage looking like he’s spent the morning getting made over by the Queer Eye guys. White suit, lavender on lavender shirt and tie, and hair with at least a half-dozen products in it. Kick ass. James Spader would play this kid in the movie. And as a bonus, he’s a little chunky too. He’s officially my favorite player in the new NHL.
1:35 -- In so many words, Bob Mckenzie just described Phoenix’s pick of Martin Hanzal as “a big Czech pussy.”
1:39 -- Nashville GM Dave Poile: “We’d just like to take a moment to recognize all our fans partying right now back home at the Gaylord Center.” Snicker -- partying at the Gaylord Center. Does that joke ever get old? Snicker. I’m 32-years-old, by the way.
1:43 -- Detroit takes … some little kid holding up a jersey. Oh, they drafted European prospect Jakub Kindl. He’s not here, but then again only 21 of these prospects are. You know why? Because Gary Bettman totally ruined the NHL. And because he eats puppies.
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1:51 -- I don’t speak French, but I’m pretty sure that Florida coach Jacques Martin just told Ottawa to go f**k itself. Anyway, they traded up to draft Kenndal McArdle, who everyone agrees is a great pick. Personally, I wanted the Rangers to grab him, but what’s done is done. Maybe I was just being selfish because I have a lot of inappropriate racist jokes left over from the Anson Carter Era.
2:01 -- Tuukka Rask to Toronto, Matt Lashoff to Boston. Yawn. Without any major trades, this draft is about as exciting as watching John Muckler’s EKG reading.
2:06 -- McGuire literally explodes as his idol Lou Lamoriello selects Swedish forward Niklas Bergfors. Someone should hit Pierre with a tazer right now. And to make matters worse, he just called the Devils one of the best franchises in hockey. They were embarrassingly bounced in the last playoffs in the first round, their coach has cancer, Scott Stevens is on the verge of retirement/irrelevance, their franchise player is on the verge of leaving, and they have no cap room to sign anyone. But other than that, they’re in great shape.
2:20 -- With picks of T.J. Oshie going to St. Louis and Andrew Cogliano in Edmonton, I just realized that I’ve spent the last two and a half hours of a beautiful Saturday afternoon watching an atrocious sports league pick the Dan LaCouture’s and Josh Green’s of the future. I absolutely hate myself right now.
2:21 -- Meh. At least I’m not Bob Goodenow.
2:23 -- Calgary selects Matt Pelech, and James Duffy makes the mistake of trying to interview Darryl Sutter. How did this man come one game away from winning the Stanley Cup when I’m not sure I’d let him out in public without a rubber helmet on?
2:29 -- Finally a trade, as Jeff O’Neill gets sent to Toronto for, um, nothing. Tough offseason for O’Neill so I’ll be nice and wish him luck. And kudos to Carolina for doing the right thing and letting him be near his family. It’s never a good situation to have a player mumbling to himself on the bench between shifts.
2:35 -- And with Tampa’s last pick of Vladimir something, the 2005 draft mercifully ends.
Loaded with one big star, lots of North American talent and many “safe” players, this doesn’t figure to be one of the more memorable drafts in the coming years, but you never know. The Rangers drafted a player they really liked and desperately needed, so we have another piece in place for Admiral Sather’s master plan, whatever it is. And in two months the Sidney Crosby Era officially begins. Good luck, new NHL. Try not to be a lot like the old NHL, because that league kinda sucked.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to do keg-stands at Alex Bourret's house.
I don’t want to get everyone excited, but Gary Bettman just announced that the NHL lockout will be settled on the exact same day that Guns & Roses releases “Chinese Democracy.”
In other words, don’t hold your breath. And like Axel Rose, even when hockey does come back, chances are it will be bloated, out of shape, and sporting about a dozen embarrassing cosmetic surgeries. Is there anything more pathetic in sports right now than the NHL? In terms of credibility it lies somewhere between those Big-Air Dog Competitions and the WNBA all-star game. A team of Carson Kressley, Paige Davis, and those Nannies-911 couldn’t even fix this league with a fabulous makeover. I watch none of those shows, by the way.
With hockey probably on the verge of some kind of settlement or something, there’s been a lot of talk — maybe too much talk, as Bono would say — about how to rehabilitate the NHL when it does come back. And, quite frankly, most of the suggestions are a steaming load of crap. I mean, these same rocket scientists destroyed the game through overexpansion, insane contracts and excremental officiating, they out-priced hardcore fans by catering to disinterested corporate spectators, and alienated just about everyone else with a lockout pitting the greedy against the ultra-greedy. And now their big solution to remedy the game and regain our trust is … (drumroll, please) … shiny new jerseys. Are you f**king kidding me? Why not just dangle carkeys in front of us until we smile?
Anyway, because it seems to be in style, and because I haven’t written a new column since Mark Messier retired — that did happen, right? Right!? — here are my ten suggestions for the NHL, Version 2.0. Grab a beer and cue up the opening riff of “Welcome to the Jungle.” Game on, kids!
1. Fire Gary Bettman
Here’s my dream scenario for how the new season should start.
[Voice over on black screen]: The following events happen in real time, 7:05 on the first night of the 2005 NHL season.
[CUT TO a very haggard Keifer Sutherland dragging a hooded figure across a vacant lot. He finds a secluded corner and pulls off the hood. It’s Gary Bettman. Keifer pulls a gun from his waist, cocks it, and puts it to the Commissioner’s head. Bettman starts to begs for his life.]
Bettman: I had to achieve cost certainty! The salary cap was inevitable! I had no choice! You don’t know how hard it is to work for people like Jeremy Jacobs! The lockout was their idea! Please don’t kill me! I was only following orders!
[Keifer pauses and takes a deep breath.]
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Keifer: I’m sorry, Mr. Commissioner.
[He pulls the trigger and shoots him in the head. He grabs a cell phone from his pocket.]
[CUT TO Wayne Gretzky answering his phone. He’s presiding over a boardroom with Jarome Iginla, Chris Pronger, Brad Richards, and Martin Brodeur. Gretzky listens intently, bows his head, and slowly closes his cell phone.]
Gretzky: It’s done.
[Everyone in the room silently nods. END SCENE.]
Ratings would go through the f**king roof.
2. Give Sidney Crosby to the Rangers
Arguing this with a non-Rangers fan is like explaining to a 16-year-old why “The Godfather” is a better movie than “Napolean Dynamite.” The reason why the NHL is where it is right now is because the New York Rangers — the most financially successful organization with the largest fanbase — became as watchable as a Ken Hitchcock porn shoot. The league needs the Rangers to garner attention, negative or otherwise. By giving the Blueshirts a prized jewel like Sidney Crosby, the NHL invigorates the most important franchise, puts its most marketable commodity on the front page of every sports magazine in the country, and gives millions of fans everywhere yet another reason to despise New York. Everyone wins. Why can’t Canada see this?
And it’s not like this would take much effort either, because no one pays attention to the NHL lottery anyway. They could announce some phony-baloney system where the top pick is awarded to the team run by the GM with the most suits from the early 80s, throw a quick Rangers jersey on the kid, snap some photos, hand out some ice cream, make another half-dozen playoff guarantees, and then refuse to ever answer any further questions about it. It’s the 25th anniversary of the Knicks “winning” the Patrick Ewing lottery — we’re due for some shifty rules. I happily accept that the Rangers are the NHL’s evil wrestlers, so even if Don Maloney has to sneak behind Kris King and club him with a steel chair just as he’s about to hand Bettman the card with the lottery winner, I’m all for it.
3. Fire Gary Bettman
I understand that in terms of job desirability, Bettman’s position as NHL Commissioner ranks somewhere between Press Secretary for the Antichrist and New York Yankees GM. But no single individual has done more to alienate fans and ruin the game of hockey than Commissioner Butthead. Even those that sided with the owners during the lockout universally agree that Gary Bettman is an incompetent, arrogant buffoon that completely misunderstood the game he was appointed to run and reduced a fairly functional league to absolute rubble. Hockey unprecedently lost an entire year of play under his watch, about a dozen teams cried bankruptcy before the break, seats were empty during the playoffs, talented players had to perform with minor-leaguers taped to their backs, good players are fleeing the country for the Euro ligas, and even Barry Melrose’s mullet couldn’t save the league from whoring itself out to television stations like it was a member of the Hilton family. Bettman HAS to go. We need a token execution here. Give him a nice severance package and let him go back on tour with Art Garfunkel. Heck, while we’re at it, fire Bob Goodenow too. Let him go back to his original job of wrangling sick kids for the Neverland Ranch.
4. Get Rid of the Old Guys
I don’t hate old people, and in fact most of the guys I’m thinking about here (Brett Hull, Chris Chelios, Luc Robitaille, Mario Lemieux, Brian Leetch) are among the greatest ever. And, yes, they can still play the game. But for a league that needs to completely rehab its image, it must be more active in promoting its younger stars and unfortunately these poised older guys are getting too much attention. That Flyer idiot Jeremy Roenick became the player’s mouthpiece during the lockout, and he hasn’t been relevant for almost five years (he had less points than Martin Erat). Where were the Joe Thornton interviews, or the Dany Heatley interviews, or the Rick DiPietro interviews? These are the guys that are going to bring the game back, not these media savvy vets that trudge through the regular season like Loverboy singing “Working for the Weekend” on Hit Me Baby One More Time.
I’m thinking that before every season they should make anyone over the age of 35 play in some Logan’s Run four-on-four deathmatch against Ilya Kovalchuk, Rick Nash, Jordan Leopold and Mike Komisarek. Either they drop dead or impale themselves on their sticks in shame. And if they score a goal, they get to play in the league for one more year. Trust me, nothing would highlight the disparity between age and skill than something like this. The crafty old guys slow the game down because they have to; Chris Chelios can ice a puck just by sneering at it. And cutting BenGay out of the budget might actually get some of these teams under the cap. Again, everyone wins.
5. Fire Gary Bettman
Anyone else notice that David Stern bent the NBA’s Player Association over and hammered out a deal in under four days? Meanwhile, Fredo Corleone has run hockey into the dirt, banging Canadian fran-cheeses two at a time. How does this guy still have a job? Let me type that in caps to express my anger and amazement: HOW DOES THIS GUY STILL HAVE A JOB!!!?
Let’s say I hire you to run my modestly successful Mom-and-Pop candy store, and within one week you suggest that I take out a second mortgage to expand my business. And instead of selling candy, you somehow convince me to strangle and sell dead kittens. Then you convince me to sign a bad contract in which I pay way too much money for kittens to strangle. Finally, when the dead kittens shockingly don’t sell and I’m on the verge of bankruptcy, you tell me that I should close my store for a year and refuse to sell any dead kittens to anyone. And then your best solution for reviving this business is to put new jerseys on the dead kittens and limit the amount that a customer may buy. Meow.
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Here’s the point: you won’t like the new NHL under Gary Bettman unless you like dead kittens.
6. No Shootouts, Ever
This is just an awful idea. I’m convinced that the people pushing for this are also responsible for getting Lindsey Lohan to lose weight and setting Katie Holmes up with Tom Cruise. Believe me, I understand that there is no greater drama in all of sports than the mano a mano challenge between skater and goalie. And it’s far more gratifying to walk out of an arena with a sense of closure than it is to take comfort in the mutual draw. But like a boob job on a 40-year-old, I think this radical change is just a temporary fix of a larger problem that may seem kinda cool for a while but will eventually look sad, pathetic, and downright embarrassing. The NBA is not going to use a slam dunk contest to unknot a tie, overtime in football is not going to be decided by a game of Punt Pass Kick, and baseball does not become a home run derby after nine innings. Why must the NHL be the poster boy for this experiment in instant gratification?
Forget that this proud game would now ultimately be decided by a handful of individuals whose skill does not necessarily translate to the team game — suddenly Miro Satan is the most valuable player in the league. And forget that crucial standings are now decided by a challenge in which pure luck is a major factor. And forget that at the current rate almost 20% to 25% of the regular-season games will be decided on the shootout, which means that teams will eventually have to have guys on their limited bench that are just shootout specialists, even if they can’t do anything else on the ice like backcheck, forecheck, or check in general. Satan, luck and no contact — game on, NHL! Maybe the games will be broadcast on the Lifetime Channel.
And I’m stunned that the league would favor this stupid idea, because when you have a dull game that struggles to make any money, can’t attract fans, and can’t sell any ad space whatsoever, it’s always a smart move to distill the entire sport down to thirty seconds. Might as well just call the shootout the money shot. Does anyone else want to buy a DVD called “Jagr Dumpsters” from a shady dude in a trenchcoat that tells you that you're about to see things that you can’t unsee? Me neither.
7. Fire Gary Bettman
Anyone else realize that, without expressly using the words, Gary Bettman was essentially saying that the players in the NHL were not worth the money that they were being paid? So now how does this guy retain any credibility with the players when he talks about how great the game is and how talented these same players are? “Please come out to watch the most talented athletes in the world compete in the greatest game on Earth. Of course, I made them give back one-fourth of their paycheck because they’re overpaid. I told them that I would crush their union like a bug and make them bow to their knees! Who’s laughing now? And check out the new faggotty jerseys I’m making them wear! Suck it, bitch! I rule you!”
What’s going to happen if someone like Joe Sakic has to accept the Stanley Cup from Bettman after hearing another one of his “these guys epitomize the dedication and determination of our league” speeches — I’m thinking he might snap and say “Thanks, asshole” before spearing him in the nuts. Or what happens when one of the Federov brothers needs a new muffler for one of his Ferrari’s? Or when Jose Theodore’s family goes on a crime-spree and needs bail money? Or when Martin Brodeur decides to sleep with another in-law? And what the hell is going to happen if Theo Fleury decides to make another comeback? Trust me, this is going to end badly if Bettman stays around.
8. Declare Todd Bertuzzi an Entity Unto Himself
I honestly don’t know what to do with Bertuzzi. On the one hand, he’s arguably the best player in the league (at least he was, like, two years ago). On the other hand, he almost killed a guy. The league needs him to play like an animal, but also needs to keep him on a short leash so that he does not accidentally revert to his feral instincts and rip someone’s jugular out. Fortunately, I have a solution: make him rotate and play random games for every team in the league. That way, fans get to see his talent and tenaciousness, all the while confused enough that they don’t have time to stage a rally against him, while he himself doesn’t get to form any of the warped sense of team unity that once led him to blindside an opponent face-first into the ice. Plus, all the travel and adjustment might have some sort of sedative effect on him. Also, in any game he plays, referees are allowed to carry tranquilizer guns, just as a precaution.
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Think about it: your home team is playing some boring game against the Ducks or something, when suddenly Todd Bertuzzi shows up like Clint Eastwood, scores two goals and beats someone to a pulp. Then you never see him again. Who wouldn’t love this? It would be like a one-night stand with a big sweaty hairy man. Maybe I should rephrase that.
Seriously, though. Everyone would definitely talk about the night that Todd Bertuzzi showed up and kicked a little ass. We could even make him give these surly lone-wolf interviews like he was The Undertaker or something. This idea is making me giddy. Todd Bertuzzi — man without a team, coming to a town near you! I have to go lie down.
9. Fire Gary Bettman
I was talking to one of my Canadian friends the other day and I mentioned that it looks like the lockout was coming to end. I asked whether he was excited or not to have hockey back.
“We never lost it,” he said. “Sure, the NHL is great, but that’s not where the game ends for us. Small cold communities everywhere rally around their minor league team and pack the local venues every night. Our junior system is a thriving, popular enterprise. We have a great college game that allows us to steal scholarship money from untalented Americans south of the border. With the internet and developing satellite TV, you can even follows the pros over in the Euro Leagues. And none of those things speaks to what playing the game itself means to us, whether it’s a beer league tourney, a Friday-night pickup game, or just a nice afternoon out on the local pond. Hockey is part of our way of life, not the NHL.”
OK, I made that entire speech up. In reality I think my Canadian friend said something like, “Lockout? What’s that a-boot, eh?” Then he called Tomas Kaberle a pussy, mumbled the chorus to “Fly by Night” and passed out from his 18th beer. But all the above stuff, even if I made it up, is entirely true.
Gary Bettman is a tyrant. He overexpanded into markets that had no attachment to the game, diluting the talentbase in the process. He tweeked the rules to cater to a younger and hipper audience which never came, and opened the door for slick coaches to slow the game to a grind. He encouraged franchises to move south for greater revenue, and negotiated a CBA that crushed small-markets and devastated franchises. He orchestrated a lockout that will forever tarnish the reputation of the professional sport and probably change the way that hockey is played in the future. And while all this is going on, he continues to smile for the public and act as if the game has never been better, as if he actually gives a crap about the fans and the players, and doesn’t see more than dollars and cents for the multimillionaires that pull his puppet strings.
And despite all this, because we love the game, we still wait with baited breath for its pending return. Yet I’ve learned to live my life without the NHL, because I still have the game of hockey around me. Keep that in mind, NHL Board of Directors. I don’t need Gary Bettman and the NHL survive. But you guys definitely do need fans like me.
10. Fire Gary Bettman
Seriously though, the guy is a dick. We hate him. Just fire him, hire Gretzky, and make us all happy.
Hey, kids! Bored this summer and wondering what's going on with the labor talks of your favorite sport? Me too. Fortunately I managed to bug the offices of the NHL and record the latest "meeting" between NHL chief Gary Bettman and the head of the NHL Players Union, Bob Goodenow. The full transcript of the discussion appears below. To summarize the current state of negotiations and the likelihood of a hockey season, well, let's just say that it figures to be such a long winter that I'd recommend to you fans that you find a girlfriend or boyfriend to devote your time toward, and failing to achieve that goal because of general repulsiveness to the sex of your desire, considering another challenge, like law school. Just my advice is all. Anyway ...
Start of transcript
Gary Bettman: OK, Bob, let’s make this fast. I have a crate full of puppies that I have to light on fire and a nun-beating event that I have to oversee. After that I have that NAMBLA thing …
Bob Goodenow: I know you’re a busy man, Gary. So I’ll make it brief. Your offers suck Pat Quinn’s ass.
Gary: Who’s Pat Quinn? Wasn’t he the backup point guard for the ’86 Mavericks?
Bob: He’s the head coach of the Maple Leafs. In Toronto. Original Six franchise? Hap Day? King Clancy? Punch Imlach? Terry Sawchuk? Lanny McDonald? Mats Sundin?
Gary: Doesn’t ring a bell.
Bob: [Audible sigh] Tie Domi?
Gary: Tie Domi! I hate that guy.
Bob: Yeah. Anyway, back to the proposals. They’re unreasonable bordering on ridiculous bordering on psychotic. We can’t possibly accept them.
Gary: Aw, fiddly-sticks! I thought they were great. David Stern, um, I mean, the Board of Governors and I worked on them for a whole afternoon. We had lunch at the Tribeca Grill. Have you ever been there?
Bob: No. Getting back to …
Gary: Robert DeNiro owns the place. “You talkin’ to me?” “You talkin’ to me?” Ha! That always cracks me up.
Bob: Yeah. Anyway …
Gary: Hey! You ever see “Ronin”? Now that was a great movie.
Bob: Gary, no offense, but I didn’t come here to talk about movies and clown around.
Gary: Clown? Clown! So I’m some kind of a clown to you? I’m here to amuse you? Is that it?
Bob: Gary …
Gary: Get it? I was doing “Goodfellas.” That wasn’t DeNiro, granted, but he was still in it. Another good movie. You know that kid that played Spider that Joe Pesci shot in the foot is the same guy that plays Christopher in “The Sopranos”? Do you watch “The Sopranos”?
Bob: Specifically, I want to talk about Proposal #4, and maybe clarify some points about this revenue-sharing plan the BOG is advocating. I refer you to page 22 …
Gary: I can't believe they killed Adriana. Anyway, he wasn’t there.
Bob: Excuse me?
Gary: DeNiro. He wasn’t there. At the restaurant. He wasn’t there. I mean I know he’s a busy man and all, and it’s not like we were expecting him to be in the back frying up the calamari or anything. But you figure, he being the owner and all, maybe he’d stop in that day and drop by the table and say hello. I mean, we are the NHL Board of Directors, not exactly some gaggle of dykes from the WNBA. Bill Davidson flew all the way in from Tampa for Christ's sake. FYI: It’s the middle of friggin' July and he’s still wearing his Members Only jacket — hello? The filthy rich are some eccentric bunch, huh?
Bob: Proposal #4, page 22, subsection eight …
Gary: You know who was there, though? That girl, the young one, that does all those Disney movies and has the … you know … the bling bling, beep beep, say hello to my little friends? You know the one?
Bob: Subsection eight, paragraph two …
Gary: Lindsey Lowman, or something. I think that’s her name. Anyway, dammmmmmmmmmmmn. She can freak my Friday anytime.
Bob: Paragraph two …
Gary: You think they’re real?
Bob: Gary, I don’t see …
Gary: I don’t see it either. I mean, they’re just too perfect, if you follow my drift. Not that I’m complaining.
Bob: Jesus. Paragraph two, line seven. Specifically the phrase “Players will be responsible …”
Gary: “Players will be responsible for personally refunding all salary to owners in the event of a loss.” What about it?
Bob: Um, well, it’s a little extreme, isn’t it?
Gary: Not at all. These players are paid to win, right? So if you don’t win, you don’t get paid. Sounds fair to me.
Bob: But it essentially amounts to slave conditions. Every night roughly forty guys put their health and skill on the line to win a game while your owners sit in cozy boxes and make millions of dollars watching them do it, regardless of the outcome, and you only want to see them paid for their effort based on the final score. How is that fair? Why not just revert to the days of the Roman gladiators and have the winners behead the losers at center ice every night?
Gary: I thought we were talking about Proposal #4, not Proposal #2.
Bob: This is absurd, Gary. Do you and the Board want to even try to negotiate here and have a season?
Gary: It’s up to you and the Union, Bob. We’ve proposed six fair and balanced offers, all of which you’ve rejected. Who is really being unreasonable here?
Bob: Gary, all six of the proposals include a clause where the owners of a given team can harvest the crucial organs of any of their players under contract, any time, any organ, no questions asked.
Gary: Heh heh. Charlie Wang insisted on that one. He wants to see if Alexei Yashin has a heart. Heh heh. I said “Wang.”
Bob: Thanks for wasting my time, the players’ time, and the fans’ time, Gary.
Gary: Bob, wait. I can negotiate. Let’s talk about this for a sec.
Bob: Fine. Go ahead. We refuse a salary cap and instead favor a luxury tax, with concessions made to free agency and limits on the entry draft. How’s that sound?
Gary: Um, if a team loses a game, the owners get to have their way with the players wives.
Bob: Nice working with you, Gary.
Gary: OK, twist my arm. In the event of a first-round playoff loss, the players give their first-born child. Sounds fair, right?
Bob: Good day, Gary.
[Sound of door slamming]
Gary: Sure, Bob, go. Walk out that door, doom the fate of hockey forever. See if I care. See if anyone cares. [Brief pause, slight sobbing heard] I should never have left basketball. I have no idea what I'm doing. Nothing can cheer me up … except maybe my sock monkey, Mr Bananas. You still like me, right, Mr. Bananas?
Mr Bananas: Whoot whoot! Three million dollars a year is too much for Mikael Nylander! Whoot whoot!
Gary: It sure is, Mr Bananas. It sure is.
End of transcript
I wanted to write a Rangers column for the past few weeks to update some of the stuff that’s gone on in this offseason, but none of the issues with the team or the league have really been worthy of a full column. So call this Quick Hits or Rough Cuts or Ice Chips or Renney Clumps or something like that. Basically I just wanted to weigh in briefly on some scattered issues. Like …
Eric Lindros
Here’s the perfect metaphor to sum up the Lindros Era. I thought the end and summation of his career as a Ranger warranted its own column, so I jotted down some notes, formulated an outline, cleared an evening to sit down at the computer and write the column, and then got distracted and decided to play Super Techmo-Bowl on my SNES emulator instead.
Meh.
Read through my archives and you’ll see that I gave Eric a pretty fair deal during his Rangers tenure. I supported the trade three years ago, I was extremely impressed with the way he handled the media and attention in New York, and I think he did a lot to silence his critics and keep all his supposed baggage in check. That said, I think his overall accomplishments are just like my column that never happened: sounded like a good idea in your head, worthy of a few scribbles, but when it comes time to doing the actual work it turns out that it wasn’t worth the effort. I wish Eric Lindros all the luck in the world, but for their investment the Rangers got little in return, he proved incapable of leading another team to the promised land (never mind the playoffs), and once again another potential savior teases us fans for a few seasons before ultimately breaking our hearts.
The New York Rangers — NHL franchise or the chubby bridesmaid at your cousin's wedding? You decide.
The Draft
Pretty good, I thought. I’ve already addressed the outrage over selecting Alvaro Montoya in my previous column, but to sum up: get a grip. You always draft the best player available, and Montoya was the best player available. The only other intriguing player still around the six spot was the big Finn, Lauri Tukonen, and the Rangers rectified their Finnlessness with the Korpikowski pick at #16. Besides, there’s a little known rule that you can’t have more than two Finns on the same team, otherwise their Finnish magic cancels each other out and they start to argue with each other like Chinese fighting fish. Plus I refuse to root for a team that has two guys named Lauri on their roster. It’s bad enough that our best young player is a bleach blonde named “Ballet.”
Anyway, rest of the draft went OK, I think. Darin Oliver led Northern Michigan in scoring as a freshman, and comes from the same university as former Rangers Tom Laidlaw and Steve Weeks — bet you didn’t think I was capable of that kind of research, huh? Bruce Graham is a monstrous forward with upside, first-round potential available in the second, and he provides some much-needed muscle in case Jamie Lundmark decides to hit on Lindsey Lohan one night at Spa. Dane Byers has a resume that says good energy guy, though he looks like the type that might spend too much time listening to Floyd albums at Mike Dunham's house. Brandon Dubinsky, undersized but very talented, is described as playing an agitating game, which is important because the Rangers are an agitating franchise. After that they drafted some foreign guys with unpronounceable names, all of which I’m sure will go on to become solid depth players in the Czech Elite League someday.
Unfunny jokes aside, I want even the most cynical Slats-hating Rangers fan to check out the “In the System” page on their website — ignoring, of course, that R J Umburger is still listed there — and count off the number of viable prospects that the organization is holding right now. No, there are no Ovechkin's or Malkin's or even Parise's on the list, but for the first time that I can remember it feels like the Rangers have a solid core of diverse and wacky hockey players, all of various size, background, and talent, that could one-day come together in a Corbin Bernsen Tom Berenger Charlie Sheen type way. A big goofy Ivy League forward, two dopey Russian defensemen, a handful of Finns, a flashy Czech winger with bleach-blonde hair, a little guy named Nigel, and the best Cuban-American goalie in the history of Cuban-American goalies — what's not to love? Let’s go Rangers, 2010!
Coach Renney
This did happen, right? It’s official? Remember in the past when the Rangers would introduce a new coach with a big press conference and a parade around MSG and about a half-dozen guarantees to make the playoffs? Now I think they’ve downsized to just a sketchy message by Don Maloney on John Dellapina’s answering machine. I guess this means that Tom Renney can white-out the word “Interim” from all his business cards. Whatever. At least I don’t have to spell out the name “Quenneville” for the next 2-3 years.
Honestly, there isn’t much more to say about this. On the one hand, Renney was the guy that scouted and stocked the organization with all the young players that should form the Rangers of the future. On the other hand, his NHL coaching record is excremental. Maybe there’s some truth to guys turning down the job because of the state of the team or the pressure of New York or having to work with Overlord Sather. I don’t know. We've done worse. After years of staring straight at armageddon and trying to spin it into sunshine and rainbows, I’m basically numb to Overlord Sather's decisions at this point. They could have hired a coaching staff of Paris Hilton, Joel Steinberg, Courtney Love, and a head of lettuce and I probably wouldn’t have batted an eye.
But one thing is certain, Rangers fans. Glen Sather hates you. Speaking of which …
Glen Sather Hates You
He hates you. I mean, he HATES you. Hate in the way that conservatives hate Michael Moore. Hate in the way that Alvaro Montoya hates the six-fingered man that killed his father. Pathological hate. Festering, deep-seeded hate. Soap opera hate. Shakespearean villain hate. The kind of hate where you don’t just want to see someone hurt — you want to see them miserable, suffering, their hearts broken and their spirits crushed. Grinch-type hate. Rowdy Roddy Piper pro wrestling hate. Yankee fans versus Pedro hate. H-A-T-E. Hate.
We’ve booed him, ridiculed him, taunted him, pounded his body with socks stuffed with soap, and left him for dead. Now he's back with a vengence. Seagalian vengence. In just the last month alone he’s …
1. Drafted a goalie when the consensus fanbase practically pleaded with him to not draft a goalie.
2. Ignored every viable coaching candidate and instead promoted the guy that guided the Rangers to a 5-11-4 record down the stretch.
3. Refused to sign any free agents, even though the current roster has many glaring holes, and actually let two useful players (Lindros and Jamie McLennan) depart to other teams.
4. Propped open the door for a potential Mark Messier return.
5. Released that boring S & M tape he made with Cameron Diaz.
That's hate, Rangers fans. If this was a movie, he's grabbing Homo Larry by the throat right now and saying "Rebuild this" before snapping his neck and throwing his body out of section 425. Don't be surprised when he signs Petr Nedved next week. I'm serious. We've pushed this man too far, and now he's pushing back. With a vengence.
The Offseason, So Far
Quite pleasant, thanks for asking. The weather’s been a delight, the Yanks are six games up, “Six Feet Under” has thrown three straight gems so far, the new ATHF DVD comes out in a few weeks, C-level celebrity sex tapes are surfacing daily, an Olsen twin is in rehab, and that rash on my thing is almost all cleared up. This offseason is going great.
Oh. You meant the Rangers offseason.
Well, despite feeling like Glen Sather is sitting in a darkened room, stroking a white cat and plotting my demise, I’m mostly OK with the way the Rangers have handled business so far in the last few months. Conservative, sure, but I'm glad to see that they're not using Jimmy Dolan's filet mignon to fish for chum. I’d like to see them make a run at Jason Allison, and not just because I have some unused concussion jokes from the Lindros Era. I like watching the guy play, I think his game is perfect for Jaromir Jagr, and his lack of skating skill should mesh nicely with the slushy Garden ice. And if he goes down … eff it, this team sucks anyway. Bring on the Sidney Crosby Era. No harm, no foul.
I don’t even think I’d be that annoyed if they signed Ziggy Palffy, the rumor du jour these days, even if Ziggy is made of the same stuff holding Mike Dunham's groin together. Ziggy’s one of the most consistently productive forwards in the league, and at 32 years he's not that old. With him and Jagr the Rangers now have game-breaking talent along the boards and a genuine threat to score at any given moment. Of course, this season they'll both be centered by Mike Green and Layne Ulmer respectively. Welcome to rebuilding.
Ultimately, though, I can't get too excited about anything these days, what with this ongoing threat that I may never watch another professional hockey game again. That’s life under lockout conditions, I guess. Everything has this weird gambling-with-Monopoly-money feel. Pittsburgh can sign the player formerly known as Mark Recchi to some ridiculous contract and it doesn't matter because it's not like they'll ever have to pay him. Inexplicable things happen almost every day in the NHL but no one is sure how to evaluate moves or what the outcome will be or when these moves will be relevent or whether worrying about these things makes any sense or not. Heck, Mike Keenan got fired and then promoted by the same team within a two month span and no one has a single thing to say about it. Welcome to Gary Bettman's NHL. So grab a beer and join me out in on sun-deck. The NHL — back in '94, it was out-STAND-ing.
I’d rant about this further, but I think Joe Thornton just signed with an Ultimate Dodgeball League.
Have a bitchin’ summer, Rangers fans. See ya in a few months. Or weeks. Or years. I dunno.
Greetings again, hockey fans, and welcome to the 2004 NHL draft in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Yee haw.
My original plan was to do another running diary following the 2004 draft and insert my own particular brand of yuk-yuks and Mike Milbury jokes along the way. Only that didn’t happen. I had to take my dog to the vet – she’s fine, thanks for asking – and then I got a phone call and then I had a breakfast-related crisis (burned bacon) and then, before I knew it, the Rangers had already drafted famed Spanish swordsman Inigo Montoya. Plans ... open window ... summer breeze ... see ya.
And so the draft proceeded without me — ho hum. Meanwhile, in an abandoned warehouse somewhere on the outskirts of Rye, New York, thousands of Rangers fans were sharpening knives, cleaning handguns, strapping C-4 to their chests, and saying silent prayers to Eddie Giocomin before they headed out on a take-no-prisoners suicide mission toward MSG.
Relax, guys. Seriously.
The NHL draft, beyond the two or three sure things that everyone agrees on, is an outright crapshoot when it comes to predicting the future of any given player. Can’t-miss studs can turn to miserable busts in a matter of weeks, and every GM in the league, even the ones not named Milbury, have taken their roll of the dice and had two empty black eyes staring back at them. Check any draft list from the past 20 years and you’ll find roughly 10–20% of the players chosen in the first round never even make the NHL at all, let alone become anything more than serviceable utility players. It's powerball, dude. Assuming you don’t have one of the top five picks, in any given draft and in any given round, if you draft a player that will stick around the league for about 10 years, you’ve done well. And if you manage to draft a future all-star, you’ve won the friggin' lottery. Think about it. Most teams have about twenty "regular" players on their roster in any season, yet they draft seven to twelve new players every single year. That's a lot of chum when you consider that most "regular" players usually stay in the league for 10-15 years.
Part of it is the star bias in the league and the big-eyed optimism that everyone naturally brings to a new situation. I mean, no one would have the same enthusiasm for these kids if they were described as "a poor man's Ruslan Salei" or "the next Dan Lacouture" — even though that's exactly what most of these players become. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
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So with that in mind, I think it's kind of silly to douse yourself in kerosene because your team drafted Rostislav Olesz instead of Ladislav Smid. Is there a science to it? Sure. Are some GMs and scouts better at it than others? Absolutely. Should teams use the draft to plug obvious deficiencies in their lineup and build a foundation in line with their ultimate direction, rather than just choosing the best player available? Probably. Maybe. I don’t know. Nobody knows, really. Because of the total uncertainty and the lack of coverage these kids get before the draft, it’s really quite unfair (and kinda ignorant too) for the average hockey fan to get apoplectic because their team selected Question Mark A over Question Mark B. Which brings me back to Rangers first selection Alvaro Montoya.
I’m not going to spin out support behind this pick because, quite honestly, I have no idea how he’ll turn out. I’ve never seen him play. And, in fact, if history is any indication (which it usually is), most of the first-selected goalies in a draft year go on to unspectacular careers, or at the very least become overshadowed by another goalie chosen at a later spot (which is why Marek Schwartz is now a player to watch). Nothing gets determined until the player hits NHL ice, no matter who that player is or what Pierre Maguire says. They’re all just prospects with promises and rainbows. Everyone is a star on draft day.
Take, for example, our reigning Stanley Cup champions, the Tampa Bay Lightning. The WORST drafting team in hockey. Aside from winning the lottery for Vinny Lecavalier one year, guess how many players on their everyday roster were actually drafted by the Bolts. Give up? Three — Dmitry Afanasenkov, Pavel Kubina, and Brad Richards (who was probably drafted to keep Lecavalier company). They drafted Alexander Svitov before Stephen Weiss, Stanny Chistov and Tuomo Ruutu. They traded away the pick eventually used to draft future all-star Joni Pitkanen. And yet the road for the next Stanley Cup passes straight through St. Petersburg. So much for building through the draft.
Anyway, to get back to Montoya and the #6 pick, I don't think anyone should be too upset nor surprised by it. The perceived depth of the organization in goal is only wishful thinking. They have one young goalie, Dan Blackburn, coming off a MAJOR injury, not to mention the flaws in his game. Another goalie, Henrik Lundqvist, sounds promising (like every young prospect) but has yet to face NHL-caliber talent, nor does he seem like he's in a rush to do so. Hockey these days consistently proves that the difference between winning and losing is, without question, quality goaltending. Is it really that horrible to nab a player considered by the majority to be the best at his particular position, the most important position on the ice, in a given draft year? That horrible? THAT effin' horrible?
That said, I'm still torn by the choice only because I have visions of Jamie Storr floating in my head. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed, refusing to succumb to the "they could have had [insert unpronouceable European name]" argument. And if his play isn't enough, here's another five reasons to like the newest Ranger-to-be.
5. He really really REALLY wanted to be a Ranger. Almost pathological.
4. Gold medal goaltender at the World Juniors a few months ago.
3. Smoldering Cuban intensity will increase the supermodel presence at MSG by at least 60%.
2. Majoring in kinesiology, whatever that is.
1. You killed his father. Prepare to die.
But enough of my yammering. Even though the diary didn't work out, I did take some notes during this somber and otherwise downbeat 2004 draft, someday to be known as The Year of the Finn.
— I used to complain about ESPN giving the NHL the finger with things like downplaying their draft (whereas the NBA gets its draft on friggin’ prime time), but what's the point anymore. They hate hockey. All afternoon the ESPN ticker read "F U NHL fans for not watching NHL2Nite." Whatever. I wanted to watch women’s golf instead of the second round anyway.
— One look at Alex Ovechkin and I understand why EA Sports doesn’t have these kids do promo spots for their video games like the other sports do. Yikes! GQ ain't calling this kid anytime soon. Maybe he’s a great hockey player, but he looks like something that might burst out of John Hurt’s chest.
— From this point on, Evgeni Malkin’s pledge name is “Gump.”
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— I think the battle between Ovechkin and Malkin over the years will be on par with LeBron James versus Carmello Anthony. That sound you just heard was 15 million NBA fans laughing their ass off.
— Before the draft, with a week of research under my belt, I said the first four picks are locks and then after that anything goes, and I just want to thank the Phoenix Coyotes for proving that point. Pierre Maguire was so stunned when they announced Blake Wheeler that I thought he might swallow his own tongue.
— Another point. Weird selection by the 'Yotes because they were rumored to be interested in Montoya, but if they coveted Wheeler they could have traded down for him. Nice job by Slats to not fall for Gretzky’s bluff attempt to bleed out a second-rounder in a swap of picks. In the offseason TGO should start working on his poker face with Ben Affleck.
— Despite the Internet, mass publication and satellite TV, fashion in Europe is still about ten years behind the rest of the world. I think they're just getting to the grunge phase. And if I ever wanted to make a million dollars, I’d sell Strydex pads in Russia. Some of these poor kids look like they've spent the last three years working the fryalator at the McDonalds in downtown Magnitogorsk. Shake their hands, give them the jersey, then introduce them to a good dermatologist.
— Not only were three Finns taken in the first round, but two of them were named Lauri. That HAS to be a record.
— Speaking of Finns, my personal highlight of this draft was the Rangers trading up to draft Lauri Korpikoski. Great pick. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: every team in the league needs a Finn. Finland is like this magical land filled with elves and talking animals and wizards and people with funny names. I think last season Lauri played on a line with Frodo and Legolas. And when he gave that sweet “I have no idea what’s going on” look as Glen Sather handed him his jersey, I swear I just wanted to hug him. Let's go Lauri!
— Finns aside, I am a little bummed that the Rangers couldn’t peddle some of their second round picks for a chance to draft Wojtek Wolski. He got stolen somewhat because he pulled a Courtney Love right before the draft, and I guess that's never a good sign. But I still don’t think you can ever discount the boost you get from having a big Polish guy on the team named “Woggy.”
— Last point about the Rangers. Clearly I’m a Glen Sather apologist, but I absolutely love the fact that he again managed to infuriate the bulk of Rangers Nation by selecting Montoya. His smarminess is really approaching Dr Michael Mancini on Melrose Place levels. Given that I feel like the draft is much ado about nothing anyway, and Sather has alienated fans so much that they’d complain even if he traded Josh Green for Ovechkin, I sorta admire the fact that he just doesn’t even care about his personal standing anymore. Trumpesque defiancy. He’s does what he wants when he wants, and if you or Pierre Maguire don’t like it, kiss his ass. I'm like Christopher Moltisanti at this point. I’d follow Glen Sather into hell.
— It really doesn’t feel like a draft day without Bobby Clarke ruining everything. Couldn’t he have crashed the stage, bashed Darcy Regier over the head with a steel chair and drafted Drew Stafford under a chorus of boss? This is exactly why TV ratings are down.
— Flipping channels, as a Yankee fan, their loss today serves them right to be so cocky to think they can pull 15-year-old kids out of the stands and start them against the Mets.
— With Ottawa trading Radek Bonk for a third round pick and then having him bounce right back into their division, I think it’s officially time to disconnect the phones from John Muckler’s office. Ouch. I know Bonk is hardly Joe Sakic, but the #77 pick? Muck? Anyone home? Serves Ottawa right for hiring a GM that shows up for work in his pajamas.
— Anyone want to buy 15,000 shares of Wes O’Neill? Anyone?
— Does TSN have to employ someone to wipe Pierre Maguire’s drool whenever Lou Lamoriello enters a room? I heard an audible squeal when the Devils traded up to draft Travis Zajac, perhaps the big “upside/downside” player in the draft. And while I'm on the subject, does Mike Milbury wake up in a cold sweat screaming the name "Parise!" once a week? I need to know these things.
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— After a hour of Nokelainen's and Chipchura's and Mesrazos's, I think every announcer, uniform stitcher and NHL proofreader breathed a sigh of relief when Washington drafted Mike Green.
— Speaking of Washington ... A+ on paper, but at some point I have to think the hockey gods are going to reap their revenge for the way they tanked the season. I wish Ovechkin luck, but I wouldn't be surprised if his episode of TSN's future show "Behind the Blueline" is scheduled between Alexander Daigle's and Patrick Stefan's.
So, all in all, this was a pretty standard NHL draft, top-heavy on forwards maybe, with two expected future stars (the Russians), two guys to keep an eye on (Cam Barker and Andy Ladd), and a bunch of kids with tons of upside. With few trades and the CBA Sword of Damocles hanging over everyone’s head, it perhaps wasn’t the most entertaining two hours in hockey, but I’m excited about some of the players the Rangers drafted, especially the Finn. Lauri the Finn — that’s is how he will be referred to, now and forever. And in a few years we may even be talking about that draft where the Rangers stole Inigo Montoya, future Vezina Trophy winner. That, of course, assumes they even play hockey again.
Sigh.
Let's go Rangers.
Game Seven, Stanley Cup, Bolts versus Flames. You know what’s at stake. You know the drama involved. And you know why I’m here: to shamelessly rip off ESPN’s Sports Guy Bill Simmons with another NHL-themed running diary on what might be the last hockey game in a long, long time. But before we drop the puck, let me just get this off my chest.
Five Things I Haven’t Made a Final Decision On
5. Amy Lee
4. Jon Leiber in the postseason
3. The new 1.5 liter Coke bottles
2. $27.99 for "The Dukes of Hazzard" Season One DVD
1. Vinny Lecavalier
Honestly, I’m not a Vinny fan. Don't know why. Maybe it's the boyish nontraditional hockey looks, the foofy Frenchy accent, the stigma of being a former number one — I don't know. It’s cliché at this point to write about Lecavalier’s struggles in the finals, and I’m not about to call the kid a career flop at age 24, but I do think that tonight’s game determines whether he becomes a perennial all-star or this generation's Jimmy Carson. He’s been second-banana to unheralded Brad Richards since he entered the league, and with Martin St. Louis emerging this season and Freddy Modin kicking his game up about fifty notches in the last two months, I think it’s a legitimate question to wonder if Lecavalier has that big-game ability that defines the premier players in the game. With his petulant history, his holdout, his occasional drifting, and all the patience the Lightning have shown him, doesn’t Lecavalier owe his fran-cheese a big game when it's on the line? I think so. Even Coach Fonzie Tortorella knows the significance of this game for Vinny's career arc. Bolts lose and I gotta think his head gets firmly mounted in Jarome Iginla's living room. But that's just me.
Anyway, enough of my soap-boxing. Game's on! Without further ado ...
8:00 — Welcome to the St. Pete Times Forum in sunny Tampa Bay! Because when you think ice hockey, you think of Tampa Bay. Tonight’s game is sponsored in part by Vicodin, which I have on prescription to deal with a persistent, um, foot infection. Later on Courtney Love and Rush Limbaugh are dropping by to help me seal my windows with tin-foil and duct tape. Should be a hoot.
8:02 — Nice promo piece hyping the game and summing up the series to date. Briefly, Calgary hits everything in sight, Tampa protects a lead as well as anyone in the past ten years. In between both coaches threw a hissy fit. Welcome to Game Seven.
8:05 — Gary Thorne, Bill Clement, and the venerable John Davidson recap the two Conn Smythe finalists, Jarome Iginla and Brad “Boy Band” Richards. Two of the game’s best, no question. Even their playoffs beards are going whisker to whisker. Richards looks like a gay warewolf, while Iggy's sporting the patchy "Bubbles the crack addict in The Wire" look. It also bears noting that Lecavalier has gone sans facial hair throughout these entire playoffs. I’m just saying is all.
8:08 — Say what you want to about Hulk Hogan, but you really have to be impressed by a 75-year-old guy that can fire up a packed arena just by tearing off his shirt and exposing his flabby, freshly shaven chest. And yet when I try this move on the bus suddenly I'm a "public nuisance." Whatever.
8:11 — ABC's done everything but show naked photos of Ken Hitchcock to detract viewers, but in the spirit of fairness I have to give them credit for one pure marketing decision that TOTALLY works for me: the lovely and talented Ms. Erin Andrews. Adorable. Sideline reporter, I know, but she’s very cute. Even the players like her, like when a winded and delirious Craig Conroy ended his postgame interview the other night by saying, “I want to kiss you right now.”
8:12 — Note to future NHL TV rights owners, NBC: show the anthems! The angle on this series is Canada against the U.S. And there is nothing more moving in sports than hearing a frenzied crowd driven to pure silence during a moment of national pride. It's very important and we want to see it. Granted, it's not like this country is at war or anything ...
8:14 — Puck drops and play begins. And then there's a penalty. Sigh. If the NHL were a movie script, it would be ... well, I'm drawing a blank here. But I imagine that Kate Hudson would star in it, whatever that means.
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8:20 — JD mentions that Lecavalier has been invisible since Ville Nieminen tried to put his skull through the plexiglass in Game Four. Great point. Nieminen, incidentally, took Game Five off to have the words “Thug Life” tattooed across his stomach, complete with an umlaut over the “u”. Nice touch.
8:28 — Did everyone else just see Erin Andrews dance seductively and blow kisses toward the TV camera while the music from “American Beauty” played in the background? No? Must be a glitch in my DirecTV feed. The Vicodin just kicked in, by the way.
8:32 — First Calgary scoring chance goes to mohawked former Ranger Chris Simon. Now I like Chris Simon and all, but how can I not be a little bitter about this? Isn’t this like an ex-girlfriend getting breast implants after a mutual breakup? Shouldn't he wear a black armband with the Rangers logo or something?
8:41 — Score! Rusty Fedotenko off a Brad Richards rebound. And it’s a power play goal! Bolts strike first. That bad pun brought to you by Vicodin! Vicodin — because you really weren't going to work tomorrow, were you?
8:44 — Sam Ryan. Meh. One sideline hottie is nice, but another less-hot and more refined sideline reporter is just overkill. It’s like when Carmen Electra joined Pam Anderson and Yasmin Bleeth in the cast of Baywatch. OK, it’s absolutely nothing like that, but you get the idea.
8:45 — Dan Boyle hits the post as the Calgary Flames are showing some breakdowns. Darryl Sutter should call a timeout and calm his team with his hilarious Sloth from The Goonies impression.
8:53 — End of one, Tampa ahead with a decided edge in play. Streets are packed with fans outside The Pete, just in case the ones inside the arena don’t do enough postgame rioting and looting. I hope Bird didn’t park the family roadster in the Flaming Overturned Car Lot.
8:55 — ABC just hyped something called “Summer of a Billion Laughs” featuring a bunch of actors that I swear I saw working a boat show last month. Oh boy. I guess the more realistic "Summer of Maybe Three Laughs and a Half-Dozen Solid Guffaws" just wasn't drawing the viewers in.
8:59 — I think Canada is behind Calgary in the way the music industry got behind 2 Live Crew in the early 90s, or the way that Amber suddenly became a perfect 10 if you watched too much Survivor.
9:03 — My girl Erin interviewing Brad Richards. They have no chemistry whatsoever. Erin can't even make eye contact, she's so repulsed by the Tampa forward. Plus, Brad Richards is gay. I cracked open a beer about ten minutes ago. The Vicodin was making my throat dry.
9:06 — Number 5a on my “Things I Haven’t Made a Decision On” is Mark Cuban owning a hockey franchise. Yes, he’s repellent and annoying, but doesn’t the struggling NHL need a wildcard owner to stir some crap up and call out Commissioner Paul Simon on some of his nonsense? In your heart you’re saying no, but in your head you’re picturing this wild WWE scene where Cuban does a shirtless belly-slide across the ice while Bettman yammers on about cost certainty and salary caps.
9:10 — As play resumes, it occurs to me that there isn’t much happening on the ice right now, unless you’re a fan of close efficient dump-ins and blocked shots. To steal a good joke, I think my Afanasenkov just fell asleep.
9:16 — Really awesome computer animation thing about the “controversial” Martin Gelinas goal / no goal from Game Six. My opinion is that two things are badly missed here. A) What a save! And B) Why didn’t the refs go to the video tape? Aren’t these things in place just to prevent people like me from using quotes around the word “controversial”? Maybe there is a big conspiracy against Canada. This series, the 2002 Olympics, Geddy Lee's solo album — it all ties in.
9:27 — As said, Tampa protects a lead better than anyone in modern hockey history. Which means I haven't been this bored with an on-the-edge-of-your-seat moment since Coach Tortorella jumped over the shark tank on his waterskis. Yawn.
9:32 — Erin Andrews: "Martin St Louis … undrafted … University of Vermont … blah blah blah … I’m waiting for you, Brian … Hockey players bore me, writers turn me on ... I’m all yours … We can talk about Reijo Ruotsalainen all night … Take me now, stud … blah blah blah …"
9:41 — OK, I’ll say it: Phil Pritchard’s affection for the Stanley Cup really creeps me out.
9:42 — Score! Rusty Fedotenko again, from a brilliant play by Vinny Lecavalier! I guess some apologies are in order, huh? Oops. That stuff above about you being an overrated French wuss — typos. Vous êtes l'homme.
9:48 — When the DVD for the 2003-2004 NHL season comes out, make sure that it's subtitled "The Year of the Icing." This series definitely set a record for the amount of times a puck was flipped over three lines on the rink.
9:57 — Should I be a buzzkill at this point and mention the impending lockout? Probably not. But I think the look on Barry Melrose's face says it all. He looks like a politician that just got beat in a primary. The party's over. He's going to retire to Hockey Falls and coach the mullet-headed Bud Light kids. Tragic, really. Curse you, Gary Bettman!
10:01 — Our last between periods interview together has inspired me to write this impromptu song about my beloved.
Oh, Erin!
Well you came and you talked about hockey.
But now you’re going away!
Oh, Erin!
You made these crappy finals worth watching,
But ABC’s dumping your feed!
Oh, Erin!
(Just forward the restraining order to the Betty Ford Clinic at this point.)
10:15 — Puck drops at the start of the third, and I just want to use these fleeting moments to congratulate my adopted playoff team, the Flames, for an amazing run. I think they're the lowest seed to make the finals, and if you look at their anonymous roster (after Iggy, at least) and the injuries they've faced, what they've accomplished in pretty impressive. Fantastic performance, Canada, so hold your heads high. But you know you lost, right? Just making sure. USA! USA! USA!
10:28 — Score!!! Craig Conroy, power play, after a DREADFUL call on Nolan Pratt. Hold the phone. Ten minutes to play, Jarome Iginla a shot away from tying the game, the Stanley Cup on the line … and most of you are watching a repeat of “CSI: Miami” right now. Oy vey.
10:34 — Calgary on the press, led by Iginla. What a game! Meanwhile David Caruso just got the results from the lab ... and it turns out there wasn’t just heroin in the hooker's bloodstream but arsenic too! Did I say “oy vey” yet? Oy vey.
10:38 — Flames pushing everything toward the net, with Khabibulin turning everything aside, including a phenomenal kick save on Jordan Leopold. Brad Richards has locked up the Conn Smythe with overall dominance, but Khabby has been very underrated in the games that have mattered most. It's all the more impressive since he always looks like he spent three hours in a closet doing bong hits with Mike Dunham.
10:43 — Huge give-us-a-chance save by Miikka Kiprusoff on, um, Vinny Lecavalier. OK, my last point about Jordan on Skates here: Brad Richards and MSL score that goal. That’s all I’m saying.
10:45 — With a minute and a half left, this is now Dave Andreychuk reflection time. Gary Thorne, for those that don't remember, used to do play-by-play for the Devils and therefore has a sentimental tie to Big Dave. So pardon him if this makes him misty, OK?
10:47 — And with one minute left in the game, the NHL shoots itself in the foot again by calling a penalty to effectively decide the Stanley Cup. And yeah, it was a penalty. But was it that egregious to end Game Seven of the Stanley Cup finals? I don’t know. At this point I'd rather err on the side of drama. Any Lightning player goes near a Flame at this point and they’ll call a payback penalty.
10:48 — Twenty-two seconds left, Dave Andrychuk, tripping. Sigh.
10:50 — And the Tampa Bay Lightning win their first Stanley Cup! Brian Bradley and Paul Ysebaert are doing cartwheels in their graves! Excited Tampa fans are flipping Bird’s car as we speak!
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10:52 — Handshake. Do other sports do this? And what a fantastic job by ABC of following Jarome Iginla as he shakes hands with Lecavalier, Darryl Sydor, Pavel Kubina, and all the other guys he fought his ass off against during the series. Oh, wait. They didn’t do this. Instead they showed us some mumbly interview with Ruslan Fedotenko. Please be paying attention to this, NBC Sports. Please.
10:56 — Brad Richards wins the Conn Smythe. No surprise here. Brad is one of my long-term keeper league fantasy guys, so I almost feel like a proud papa here. Of course, this means I have to fend off "Richards for Eric Lindros" trade offers all summer. Note to everyone in the league: he's not for sale.
10:58 — Gary Bettman: “This trophy is as good as it gets in sports. There are a lot of people in the organization to congratulate. You fans deserve congratulations for the great support you've given this team. It's too bad that all the policies I'm advocating will ensure that you never see the Stanley Cup again. But really, when you think about it, if it weren't for my failed plan of expansion and overregulating the game to cater toward a mainstream TV audience that never came, you fossilized mudpeople wouldn't even get this one fleeting moment of drunken bystandery. So don't hold me accountable for the mismanaging of the league and ruining the game, because I'm just a small man running a sport I don't understand. Plus, my parents were first cousins. Screw you, Tampa. Go fuck yourselves, NHL fans. Me and Julio down by the schoolyard." OK, I made most of that up.
11:00 — Dave Andrychuk now with the Cup. Nice stuff, but didn’t he win a Cup with the Devils? Are you sure he didn’t? Did anyone actually look this up? Seriously.
11:02 — Martin St Louis, no bigger than the Cup itself, holding the immaculate silver trophy over his head, a fresh wound across his nose, a Hart Trophy waiting for him. And here’s the point where I break down and start to cry because I’m really really REALLY going to miss this game. This is the NHL. I know this game is broken and needs repair, but despite what these TV numbers are saying, out there are some passionate, hardcore, dedicated fans that live and breath for this sport and for moments just like this. And as shallow as it may be, hockey is an integral part of us and without it in our lives we feel an absence, a loss both profound and meaningful in ways I can’t describe. I love hockey. I love the NHL. And I hope that all the people involved in the game get its problems corrected as quickly as possible and realize that our hearts, raised mighty with Stanley Cup glory, are just as easily fragile. [Audible sob, bartender waiving toward security.]
Don't be a stranger, NHL. That's all I'm saying.
11:05 — And with Nik Khabibulin’s incoherent postgame interview in which he "hasn't digested it all yet" I bid adieu to the 2003-2004 NHL season. Hurry back, league. Hurry back.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go lop off my ear to send to a certain lovely blonde reporter over at ESPN.
Greetings again, hockey fans! I come to you again in sad times. Sad, not because the Rangers are a total abortion of unprecedented proportions, but because the Supreme Overlord, Glen Sather, decided to abdicate his coaching throne and give the primary game responsibilities over to Tom “Shortest Straw” Renney. Why would this make me sad, considering this is the only good news that Rangers fan have had all season? Because watching Glen Sather parade out old suits from the early 80s was making me laugh.
Am I the only one that noticed that we had the worst dressed head coach in the entire league? That you could imagine him looking in the mirror before a big game and saying to himself, “I wore this suit the night Risto Siltanen scored the hat trick against Ed Staniowski — maybe it’s lucky!”? Like the game itself, fashion and high couture have passed by Glen Sather faster than Martin Havlat playing one-on-one against Dale Purinton. Think there’s a correlation between the way a coach dresses and the success of his team. I do. And since it’s Oscar week and I’m feeling very catty, I figured it was time to channel my inner Mr. Blackwell and write a scathing review of the style decisions made in the Eastern Conference of the NHL. Enjoy! Meeee-owww!
I’m straight, by the way. I just wanted to point that out.
Eastern Conference (ranked best to worst)
Pittsburgh Penguins (Eddie Olczyk)
Like the Pens themselves, Eddie is young, fresh-faced, and promising. Definitely has a little “metro” in him, in the sense that he’d probably give an extended answer if you asked him what kind of product he uses in his hair. Reminds me of Richard Gere in “American Gigolo” — flashy and suave and appealing, but deep down he’s really just a vulnerable prostitute. Maybe they can rent Eddie out to pay Marc-Andre Fleury’s contract next season.
Atlanta Thrashers (Bob Hartley)
With the exception of metrosexual Eddie Olczyk, Hartley might be the snappiest guy in the league. Very crisp and stylish look, totally modern fashions, not afraid to take some chances. Hartley makes Glen Sather look like he’s wearing potato sacks and canvas ropes. Throw is his French accent and his success and, well, let’s just say that Hartley is the type of man that average guys like me would like to throw feces at.
Ottawa Senators (Jacques Martin)
Not much of a looker — sort of a French-Canadian version of Fred Flintstone — but keeps his wardrobe fairly conservative and understated. Decent suits and composure behind the bench; except for the occasional $3 tie, not much to criticize him for. Has that awkward but calm “I don’t know anyone here at this wedding” look about him. May or may not have a tail.
Philadelphia Flyers (Ken Hitchcock)
Fat guy + bad suit = shooting fish + barrel. Hitch’s corpulence gives him a Brando-esque stateliness, and his Flyers players don’t seem to rally around him as much as simply being drawn into orbit by a strong gravitational pull. I don’t know what sophisticated system of girdles and pulleys and buttresses are holding his seams together, but whoever tailored it should be working for NASA. Work it, fat man!
Carolina Hurricanes (Peter Laviolette)
I don’t have much to say about Pete, and I’m not even sure what this means really, but Laviolette looks like a guy whose wife dresses him. If he ever gets divorced there’s a 75% chance that he shows up to games in sweat pants.
Florida Panthers (John Torchetti)
First off, without even looking at him, Torchetti would be a great name for the lead character in a Steven Segal movie. “Torchetti, you’ve gone to far!” or “You may run Little Havana, Diego, but you don’t run John Torchetti.” Anyway – meh. JT seems like an average guy, I guess. I can’t think of much else. I think he needs a little bit of flair. He should consider growing mutton chops.
New Jersey Devils (Pat Burns)
Pat Burns is a former cop, which explains why most of his suits are from the Andy Sipowicz collection. Style-wise he never recovered from shaving off his moustache years ago, even if he did win the Cup sans facial hair. These days he looks more like a guy that wants to know if you’d like your loved one entombed in a casket or an urn.
Montreal Canadians (Claude Julien)
I think the best way to describe Julien’s sense of fashion is that he really is a perfect blend of the terms “French” and “Canadian.” Sort of an arty, intellectual, European look mixed with some clothes you might find on the rack at J C Penney’s. Kind of, how you say, schlopp-pee. Just a guess but I think his sport coats cover up a lot of wine stains.
Boston Bruins (Mike Sullivan)
Beer is on the house at the Knights of Columbus whenever a team in Boston lets a guy named Mike O’Connell hire a guy named Sully to coach a hockey team. Sully reminds me of the awkward way my frat-friends in college used to dress for job interviews: wrinkled collars (pronounced “cawl-ors”), regimental striped ties, navy suits — nothing you wouldn’t find in a Land’s End catalog. I don’t think I’d be the least bit surprised if he wore a tattered BC baseball hat behind the bench one night.
Tampa Bay (John Tortorella)
Hey John, Arthur Fonzerelli called. He wants his look back. Maybe it’s the goatee, but Torts just reminds me of one of those personal injury lawyers that advertise on the Jerry Springer show. There’s just some sleezy “customized Camaro” quality to him. I guess he’s a good coach, but he still seems like the kind of guy that would buy himself a gold bracelet.
New York Islanders (Steve Stirling)
I take one look at Steve Stirling and I think to myself “Southern Baptist preacher with something to hide.” Maybe he’s secretly a member of the Klan, maybe he frequently patronizes a brothel that he publically wants to shut down – whatever. Should consider cradling a Bible under his arms during the game, maybe calling out a player or two for being “sinners.” If this hockey thing doesn’t work out for him, I hear The 700 Club is hiring.
Buffalo Sabres (Lindy Ruff)
When your first name is Lindy, you can pretty much scratch off names like Armani and Gucci from your fashion radar. Might be the first time that a head coach’s wardrobe was paid for with Marlboro Miles. I give Lindy a little credit though, as you can barely see the Dale Earnhardt tee underneath his dress shirt. Lindy should consider accessorizing his look, perhaps with some flip-flops, a rope belt, and a beer kept cool in a foam cup holder.
Washington Capitals (Glen Hanlon)
I got nothing. In fact, when I punched his name into a search engine to find some pictures of him behind the bench, all that came up were a few shots of him wearing the old “V” sweaters of the Vancouver Canucks. And really, once you throw one of those jerseys on, your fashion sense is pretty much blemished for the rest of your life. It’s like a scarlet V, except it’s orange. OK, I’m babbling now.
Toronto Maple Leafs (Pat Quinn)
I think he slimmed down last season just so he could buy Glen Sather’s old suits on eBay. Fashion-wise he’s a horror show: old clothes, unkempt hair, and skin so weathered you’d think he spent the last ten years on a bender with Charles Bukowski. One look at a guy like Pat Quinn and you understand why you don’t talk politics or religion in a bar. Five bucks says that he has a tattoo of a battleship on one of his forearms.
New York Rangers (Glen Sather / Tom Renney)
Glen Sather? Ugh. Sloppy, undisciplined, at times makes you cringe – sort of like the Rangers! I wish I could pinpoint the moment when Glen Sather gave up all hope and started to recycle old outfits from the back of his closet. We were literally two more weeks away from plaid suits and butterfly collars. And now he’s gone. Sigh. Anyway, in all fairness, I haven’t had enough time to evaluate Tom Renney, so anything I say should be considered interim criticism.
1926-2004
Bring a handkerchief, readers, because this isn’t a normal Between Period column. This is a eulogy. The New York Rangers are dead.
The Rangers? Dead? Again? You don’t say.
Nice article, Captain Obvious. You’re only getting this now? Have you spent the better part of the last decade trapped in a spider hole with Christian Dube and Par Djoos? Seven straight years of misery, frustration, heartbreak and humiliation—and you’re only now coming to this conclusion? You’re a fan of the Rangers, right? Expensive team, lots of old guys, Statue of Liberty on the jersey? They’ve been dead for years. What team have you been watching?
Yeah, I know, dead and dying. But not this kind of dead. Not dead dead. Not “fundamentally” dead, as Bobby Holik might say. Not “meet me at the old mill and bring a bag of quickline and a shovel” dead. Not don’t-even-pick-the-bones-from-the-carcass-because-you-might-catch-whatever-killed-it dead. This time they’re really dead. Really really dead. Call a priest, have the doctor note the time, and get the body in the ground before it starts to smell—dead. D-E-A-D.
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Overreacting to a bad week? Hardly. This isn’t about Eric Lindros’s recent concussion, the acquisition of Jaromir Jagr, or the pile of injuries that’s mounting faster than a frat kid on Paris Hilton. This isn’t about the glaring cry-for-help losses, the fundamental errors, the mind-numbing mistakes, or the way that the Hall of Fame coach shouts “Bingo!” when everyone around him is playing chess. This isn’t about mediocre talent being put in critical situations or star talent failing to provide anything but mediocrity. This isn’t about the chemistry, or the salaries, or the system, or the lack of youth. This isn’t about seven years without the playoffs right before a lockout that will forever change the landscape of the NHL. This isn’t even about the fact that Glen Sather is one more Alex Kovalev blunder away from completely snapping and trading Jed Ortmeyer for the rights to Dave Lumley.
All these are just symptoms, really, of a much more bloated and pungent problem. As any Rangers fan will tell you, this hockey team had been dying since the late 90s, well before their final playoff game in 1997. That series, where the underdog Rangers fought valiantly as a speed-bump for Eric Lindros and his powerhouse Flyers squad, should have been the last brave gasp of dignity from a terminal but proud man. Neil Smith sort of knew it—he even put a mirror under its breath when he let Mark Messier run off to steal money from the Vancouver Canucks—but instead of pulling the plug, he swallowed the DNR request and put the Rangers on a respirator. But they look so healthy, he thought. Medicine is improving every day. We’ll eventually find a cure.
Years went by, coaches were fired, players shuffled, new managers brought in—and yet this sick patient never improved. Finally—and who can really say when—the Rangers passed quietly in the night, with little struggle. The body should have been laid to rest. Instead the powers that be, either too proud to admit defeat or too scared to live up to the consequences, decided to prop the festering carcass up and pass it off as a hockey team, like a Broadway revival of “Weekend at Bernie’s.”
And I fell for it. You fell for it too. We had our suspicions, sure, but somehow the jerky movements of the people pulling the strings were just convincing enough to dupe our hearts into believing what our heads always knew. The Rangers were dead. We were watching a corpse. And living in denial.
Protest all you want, complain about how you wanted rebuilding as far back as 1995--you fell for this illusion too. Every offseason they decorated this blueshirted stiff with another gallon of embalming fluid and another layer of face paint. For seven years they spruced the corpse and lugged it to training camp. Maybe you thought they looked pale, tired and languid—the lack of youth, the nagging injuries, the history itself—but you still wanted to believe the lie. This team was flawed, but flawed only in the way that all teams are flawed. It was simply inconceivable that they would fail to make their incredibly non-lofty goal of a playoff berth in April. We naturally had our doubts, but that’s what makes us Rangers fans.
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This season was no different. A mediocre preseason became a dreadful opening night loss to the Gaborik-less Minnesota Wild. The win-one, lose-one struggles through the first half of the season, with premier players mired in prolonged slumps, seemed like a cold that never went away. The goalies could no longer carry the team; the cold became a violent, hacking cough. Back to back losses to Boston had the Rangers coughing up blood. Management clamored for more expensive greasepaint. A 9-1 loss to Ottawa was like watching Lou Gehrig fall off his stool in “The Pride of the Yankees.” And with a 2-1 loss to Washington, perhaps the last game of Eric Lindros’s career, the sick and rotting head of this Frankenstein monster, this gruesome marionette, worn and frayed at its stitching, finally tore from the body and came crashing to the ice at MSG. The public was horrified, frightened and enraged.
And now the Rangers stand lifeless before you, their star player gone, their enthusiasm waning. This team has quit on their coach and GM, quit on each other, quit on themselves. This will be their seventh year without the playoffs. The prospects (what few they have) aren't ready to contribute; the veterans have little use to anyone else. And we fans are heartbroken, once again, staring at a headless corpse, wondering what should be done.
This isn’t just another one of those articles that suggests the Rangers start dumping veterans and devote themselves to an honest-to-God youth movement—Lord knows you’re going to get plenty of those in the next few months. Nor is this another self-righteous “I told you so” rant that are all too commonly directed at New York, notably from out-of-town sources whose hometown does the very same things but somehow gets away with it; winning covers any mistake. The debate between whether or not New York fans have the patience for a true youth movement has no answer, and is probably irrelevant anyway. The New York Rangers need to make the playoffs every single year, and the lucrative payoffs from doing so (and being as successful as possible) make it impossible for the managers and ownership not to do everything in their power to improve the chances of this happening. Argue about their flawed strategy at accomplishing this, but ask yourself how long the NHL—a corpse in its own right—would last if its only productive market were reduced to the level of the Pittsburgh Penguins for the next three years, with still no certainty that this would change anything other than the names on the jerseys. Ask if you’d subject yourself to The Garden’s high prices, knowing the product is substandard and that the ownership responsible is profiting at a larger rate than before. I myself take great pride in our ridiculous payroll. At least it takes money out of Jim Dolan’s chubby hands.
And for the record, I’m not even suggesting that practical steps toward rebuilding be taken either—I’m advocating many impractical changes as well. I don’t think they should just dump whatever aging players they have out into the NHL netherworld for prospects and picks, I think that once they’ve done this they should start shooting pucks into their own net. I think the league should rig the 2004 entry draft lottery to ensure that they nab Alexander Ovechkin. I don’t think that the management and coaches should just be fired, I think they should resurrect some colonial restriction from assembly law to prevent these guys from even having lunch together. I want to see MSG completely torn to the ground and excavated by the anthropology department at Columbia to see if it was once a burial ground for people with ACL tears. I want this organization purged of every decaying tissue that has haunted and tormented the franchise since its early existence. Tear the posters off the walls, change the jerseys, melt the equipment, and fire the Zamboni drivers. Purge the organization of everything that ails it. Perform an exorcism.
But knowing this will never happened, and that it’s silly to write another hopeless request to management to rebuild and remodel, what exactly is this all about? This is one fan’s honest plea for stability. For rationality. For consistency. For accountability. For sympathy. Because I, as a fan, can’t take it any more.
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I can’t take it anymore.
I can’t keep watching star players turn into basket-cases because they can’t perform to their past level. I can’t keep watching my favorite players break down into decrepit shells. I can’t keep hearing the same tired cliché quotes about discipline and accountability and how “injuries killed us down the stretch.” I can’t get excited about the grit of character guys like Todd Harvey, Mike Knuble, Ronald Petrovicky, Manny Malhotra and Matt Barnaby, knowing full well that they’re viewed as expendable. I can’t watch the Kim Johnsson’s and Tomas Kloucek’s and Mike York’s get traded away. I can’t see another star succumb to whatever personal problem or injury baggage they bring with them to MSG.
Theo Fleury, Pavel Bure, Eric Lindros—all ended disappointingly. And now Jaromir Jagr. How am I supposed to get excited about this, knowing he’s just another diseased limb sown on to a decaying body? How can I be enthusiastic as a fan anymore, knowing that some horrible fate awaits him: gambling addiction? shoulder injury? marries Scores dancer? shot by P Diddy? fired by Donald Trump? run over by Lizzie Grubman? After all the history of heartbreak that this team constantly gives to me, how can I be expected to believe them when they swear this is the time that they're finally going to change?
I can’t take it anymore.
I (sadly) live and die with this team. Every crushing blow that I sit through picks away at my red, white, and blue heart. Eric Lindros won me over. I was his fan. And now, even if he does come back, I can't watch him play without cringing from every hit, knowing that he’s one small shot away from vegetable city, just another ticking time-bomb at MSG. This dead team is going nowhere. It died a long time ago. You reach a point where it’s impossible to even care.
Lay the body to rest and try again. Close the lid on the coffin, say a quick prayer, cue the piper to play “Amazing Grace,” fire 88 rifle shots, shed a quick tear, and pile the earth over top.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, something to something...
Amen.
Read here for Part I.
Under normal circumstances writing this column is one of the highlights of the hockey season for me. After three months of living without the NHL and the New York Rangers, my primary source of entertainment away from the mediocrity of my own life, I always feel this cathartic rush of excitement every September when training camps open. Fans of any sport can understand this sensation: the return of daily newspaper columns on your favorite team, planning out evenings around preseason games, preparing for fantasy drafts, reading preview guides, predicting which players will have breakout years and which will lose their edge, and finding a dozen or so reasons why, with a little hope and a lot of luck, their team could have a chance at championship glory. And I like to think that all my columns, written for fans by a fan, touch on these same things, no matter who you are, where you are, or how you feel.
But, as stated already, I'm having a tough time getting into this coming season. I feel very alienated from the sport itself, thanks in part to the corporate officers that laugh off my complaints about the game, the media that cheapens the experience, the ownership that treats my loyalty as commodity, and certain star players that mistakenly feel their value as individuals far outweighs the value of the team. All these things will virtually assure that professional hockey comes to a screeching halt in the summer of 2004, with an uncertain future looming beyond. These things have been on my mind for months, and when it came time to push past them and focus on writing this column, on generating a slow buzz among my fellow fans, the words came only sporadically, if at all. I'm not all that excited about this coming season. Let me clarify with use of font: I am excited, but just not that excited. And then Dan Snyder died on Sunday night and made writing this column a moot point.
I didn't know Dan Snyder. I know almost nothing about his career, couldn't pull his face out of a line-up, couldn't properly name his skills or weaknesses, can't tell you a distinctive play I remember him making or a big game he had in which he was a deciding factor. I'm not a Dan Snyder fan. All I know about him is that he was a 25-year-old professional hockey player that succumbed to injuries suffered in a car accident about a week ago.
I'd like to think that Dan Snyder was living his dream, but I honestly don't know if that's true. Perhaps he was frustrated by his role with the team, perhaps frustrated with the limits of his talent. Maybe injuries and years spent in the minor leagues had disillusioned him, or maybe he didn't even like hockey altogether and was just merely good enough at it to make it a career while his true passions lingered in the back of his head, now left tragically unfulfilled. I'm hoping that none of these things are true. I'd like to think that Dan Snyder was living his dream and never took a single second of his life for granted, proud of all his accomplishments, on the ice and off, even the ones that may seem insignificant to you and I.
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The story of Dan Snyder's death becomes even more tragic in that driving the car, as all hockey fans know at this point, was Dany Heatley, perhaps the brightest young star the NHL has to offer. Heatley, 22-years-old, is the kind of kid that fans feel an instinctive need to root for: talented but unassuming, tough and hard working, a distinctive smile and a seeming joy for the game. He looks like a hockey player. He was poised to lead a budding franchise to future glory, perhaps to lead the entire post-lockout league to greener pastures. Now he faces a potential 15-year prison sentence for killing his teammate, for ending the life of his good friend.
People concern themselves with the issue of Heatley's recovery, the effect it may have on the future of this star player, the effect it will have on the immediate and long-term success of the Atlanta Thrashers. This isn't a concern to me. Money will be spent to ensure Heatley's mental stability; Heatley's own character that made him a young star in the league will take care of the rest. Agents and PR people will script his words to once again make him the type of person that fans need to root for. Too much is at stake here to let things fall as they may. Heatley's situation is metaphoric of the league itself, its image tarnished and its future uncertain. Both of these situations are frustratingly out of the hands of the casual fan; all we can do is merely react as we see fit, cheer or boo, watch or don't watch. Thinking beyond this is pure speculation.
What concerns me is that one 22-year-old made a tragic mistake that cost the life of his 25-year-old friend, and now I'm expected to write a column about how enthusiastic we fans are supposed to feel about the coming NHL season. I don't feel like it. Not today. I'd love to make jokes about Jacques Martin's ears, or the fact that Boston hired a guy named "Sully" to be their coach, or that Mike Keenan can't do enough to get himself fired in Florida. But I don't feel like it. Today I feel like writing a column about Dan Snyder, a player I don't even ever remember watching, and telling anyone that cares to hear that life is too short to make light and judgmental comments about something that should otherwise break your heart.
This column isn't meant to depress. In many ways I'm hoping it has the opposite effect. I'm hoping it inspires. I'm hoping that it reminds all the participants involved in the sport of hockey, be they owners, officials, players or fans, that what they are watching is just a game, meant to be enjoyed on many levels, but not enough to overshadow life itself. I'm hoping that it doesn't cast a pallor over the season but instead renews hope that the various disagreements clouding the game's future can be put aside before irrevocable damage is done. Tragedy unfortunately is not unique to sport--Bobby Phills, Korey Stringer, Darryl Kile, to name a recent few--and now the name of Dan Snyder is added to that list. The 2003-2004 NHL season starts in 24 hours, and undoubtedly before the first puck is dropped the league will remind you to save a moment of your thoughts for this young life ended too early. I'm asking that the league itself do the same as well.
The Season That Fans Forgot
Yawn. Have the Ottawa Senators won the Stanley Cup yet? Yawn.
Maybe it’s just me, but has this been the most unanticipated and uninspiring hockey season of the past, let’s say, twenty years? Normally by early October I’ve memorized the jersey number of every new rookie in the league, participated in a half-dozen fantasy drafts, fielded close to a hundred emails from angry Canadians who still think the Rangers are ruining the NHL, grown and subsequently shaved my Todd Bertuzzi training-camp beard, gotten on and off the Alexei Kovalev bandwagon nearly a dozen times, and made enough “how does Mike Milbury still have a job?” comments to fill a book equal in weight to War and Peace. But this season? Meh. I’m just not excited yet.
The impending lockout at the end of the year doesn’t help, which is pretty much like paying a cover charge at a strip club before finding out that not only don’t they offer lap dances or serve alcohol but all the dancers look like Mike Ricci. Hearing bazillionaire owners and whiny GMs cry poverty for the past few months didn’t help matters either, especially when most organizations conducted business this off-season like Kate Moss at a all-you-can-eat barbecue. And the lingering aftertaste of having to watch the New Jersey Devils, easily the most unlikable team in all of sports, record yet another horrible Stanley Cup win leaves a worse hangover than a night out with Sebastian Janikowski. So whatever the case, there definitely seems to be a great deal of apathy, an ennui if you will, wafting in the air over this coming season. And the zeitgeist of NHL fandom is frustration, cynicism, concern, and skepticism, which is ironically the same attitude I have about Mark Messier as a fourth-line center.
Either way, there's still a season to be played that starts in less than a week, and in an attempt to generate some interest, any interest, in the NHL, Between Periods is back with our much beloved annual preseason bad prediction review. So sit back, grab a frosty beverage, and prepare yourself for a half-dozen "Mario Lemieux should trade himself" jokes--it's the Eastern Conference preview, Part I!
Atlantic Division
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New York Rangers
Last season you may recall the I picked the Rangers to win the division, a move right on par with my brilliant decision to impress everyone at a party once by doing twelve consecutive beer bongs in under ten minutes. There were no winners that night, much like their were no winners in New York last season. So why am I picking them again this season? Because I’m a staggeringly stupid drunken moron faithful to the worst franchise in all of sports. Fill up the funnel, boys, here we go again.
Pluses: Most talented roster in the division; Eric Lindros foaming at the mouth; full season of Mike Dunham in goal; manager/coach wielding powers of the dark side; aura of desperation now replaced by blind zombie-like determination for human brains; they have to win eventually, right? Right!?
Minuses: Brian’s Leetch’s ankle joining Chris Webber’s shoulder, Fred Taylor’s groin, and Manny Ramirez’s brainstem in the pantheon of unreliable superstar body parts; replaced Pavel Bure’s offense with Jan Hlavac (like switching Jennifer Garner on “Alias” with Camryn Manheim); Mark Messier killing penalties; still the New York Rangers.
Watch Them Because: You never know. That's the beauty of Reality TV. You never know when the paint-huffing hillbilly is going to run from the Cops, you never know when the skinny chick is going to wig out on a deserted island, you never know when Jessica Simpson is going to say the word "bestest", and you just don't know how many goals Anson Carter will score. Watch. Enjoy. Love. Let's go Rangers.
Philadelphia Flyers
John Buccigross used a Radiohead song to describe the coming season for the Flyers, which I took great offense to. For one thing, Radiohead is totally awesome, whereas the Flyers suck. For another, Radiohead is wildly creative band that mixes haunting and mysterious lyrics with textured and beautiful music, whereas the Flyers suck. And Radiohead has a canon of resonating hits and conceptual albums, whereas the Flyers really friggin' suck. I’ll keep riding this joke until Ken Hitchcock sends Donald Brashea