My my, it's been a busy few days in the hockey world. I've also had a rather uncalled for frustrating day of dealing with customers that had an extra side of stupidity with them, so this should be lots of fun! Lets go to the video tape.....
Seriously though, head over to nhl.com and see the Kris Letang boarding video suspension. Shanahan dropped the hammer on Letang for 2 games. There's tons of chatter as to whether or not he deserves to be suspended but it's done with and not as if we can get the ruling overturned. As of 10am this morning the Penguins knew some sort of disiclpline was coming down because they recalled Brian Strait from WBS who just happens to be a d-man to meet them across the country for tonight's game. No way were they flying him to Minnesota just for the hell of it.
Who knew the first Penguin to feel the wrath of Shanahan would be Tanger? (If you guessed correctly you should be entitled to the $37k he is forfeiting for those 2 games.) Anyways, with Letang now suspended and Crosby, Malkin, Jeffrey, Orpik and Kennedy all tending to various aches and pains, there's somewhere in the ballpark of $25million unable to dress for games. Maybe this means part 2 of the season will be excellent because they are doing the opposite of last season. Of course that means Fleury will be having a mental breakdown in his cage somewhere around June just in time for the finals. Yikes.
When Jaromir Jagr came back to the NHL, he picked his team by choosing the GM which would pledge his bank account enough money and would be willing to play cat and mouse with him, but Jagr didn't come back to score goals apparently. Per Jagr in an interview he is quoted as saying "At my age [39], it doesn’t matter if I score. If the team wins and the lines score, that makes me happy. We got scoring chances. But it comes in cycles." Good to know the Flyers won the bidding war for the non-scoring forward.
The Zamboni driver from the Tampa Bay Lightning's 2004 Cup win is auctioning off his ring on ebay, in pursuit to raise money to drive around the world. Yes drive. About those bodies of water in between countries....
Every sport has their way of celebrating a great play. Football players make up crazy end zone dances, tennis players often fall to their knees, but hockey players love themselves some hugs. All you need is at least one other person, but the more guys that can get in on it the more joyous the occasion can be. Harrison Mooney wrote this awesome piece profiling hugs from this young season.
Down Goes Brown is a hilarious blog and up to their old tricks with this post about MLB vs NHL in honor the World Series that begins tomorrow. Too bad that unless you live in Texas or St.Louis, you probably won't be tuning in to the series.
Finally Rick Rypien was sadly one of the many hockey players to die this past summer and most people didn't know much about him, except he worked his way up and had battled mental illness. His former Canuck teammate Kevin Bieksa opens up about who Rypien really was on and off the ice. Very touching and it's nice to know he wasn't alone.
So the Pens minus $25million dollars worth of players (give or take) square off against the Wild tonight. If they can make it through this game without an injury or suspension, I will call this game a success. Wins and losses, need not apply.
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