Roll Call of [hockey] Champions, 2007-08: Below, the full list of 2007-08 men’s and women’s champions for all international and domestic competitions around the world, including all major and minor professional leagues as well as collegiate and top amateur leagues in North America, top professional leagues in Europe and elsewhere, and IIHF-sanctioned international tournaments.
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The Deadbeat Club: 10 least desirable NHL cities for free agents: 6. Minnesota Wild: This is an interesting one, because there seems to be some agreement between the blogosphere and the MSM. Over on 18,568 Reasons Why, Elise notes that the Wild lost out on Marian Hossa, Markus Naslund, and Kristian Huselius. On Wild View from Section 216, the free-agent rejections are creating an inferiority complex. Then there’s Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse, who absolutely destroyed GM Doug Risebrough’s inability to get a big move done this off-season. Money? City? System? Something is keeping players away.
Honoring the NHL 94 Survivors: 14 years have passed since EA Sports released what is arguably the greatest hockey video game in history, NHL 94. The pixelated “graphics.” The organ music. That damn thing had it all. And it had us all addicted to it. So who are the last survivors? Who has managed to forge an additional 14 years onto their NHL career following the monumental success of pixelated hockey? The following is a list of 43 players who are still active in the NHL and a couple that are playing in Europe.
Personally, I was more of a Blades of Steel fans, but NHL 94 was pretty awesome, even if it was super easy to score if you perfected the one-timer!
YouTube - So Into the Wild: A parody remake of Sean Penn’s fun factory flick, “Into the Wild,” a 2007 film starring Emile Hirsch, Vince Vaughn, Jena Malone, and Marian Gaborik. (via)
There’s Something About St. Mary’s: Hockey’s finest are currently kocking themselves silly chasing the Stanley Cup. But for Sidney Crosby and dozens of other NHL hot shots, the fun really started at a little hockey factory in rural Minnesota.
Jacques Lemaire, on the Verge of No. 500: The man who turned the Devils into a champion, Jacques Lemaire, is one win away from his 500th coaching victory and gets a nice profile from Kent Youngblood in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
KARE 11 Exclusive: One-on-one with Norm Green: KARE 11 last night did a story with Norm Green, the old owner of the North Stars, to tell his side of the story of why he took the team out of Minnesota, and I have to say that I know look at it a lot differently. I was definitely one of those kids back in the early 90s, chanting “Norm Green Sucks” as we watched our hockey team leave. But looking back at the whole situation, I can see why he moved.
The finances of professional sports had changed and Norm knew that he could make it work somewhere else where he would get a new arena. Playing at the Met Center in front of 8,000 people just wasn’t going to cut it anymore. Had they been able to work out a deal with the Wolves, they might still be playing in Minnesota, though it would be in a far inferior arena and they might be in a similar situation that the Chicago Blackhawks are in.
Yes, it was painful to watch them leave, and it sucked to watch the Dallas Stars win a Stanley Cup, but it might have all been for the best for Minnesota Hockey fans. The game of hockey never left our state, and when a professional team came back, we were rewarded with the best hockey arena in the world and a team that has had it’s share of playoff excitement.
It was a good story and you can watch part 2 of the story tonight.
But of course, the folks on wild.com message boards are ripping it, most before even watching it. And those that try to look at it objectively are made fun of and ripped up. Some people just don’t get it.
And here is an interview with Scott Goldberg, the guy that did the interview with Mr. Green, from local hockey blog Hitting the Post.
Today is Hockey Day Minnesota, with events starting at 9:00am and going until 11:00 tonight, with three High School games, a Wild game, and the Gophers all on FSN TV. The first High School game features Eveleth vs Lake of the Woods HS, and will be played outdoors on Baudette Bay up on the US/Canada border as part of a full day of outdoor events, called Baudette Bay Pond Hockey Classic. Current weather up in Baudette, -2° with a -29° windchill.
The second game of the day is in St. Paul between Hill Murray and St. Thomas Academy, followed by another game up at Baudette Bay between Blaine and the top team in the state, the Roseau Rams, featuring future Gopher, Aaron Ness who has scored 56 points in 22 games as a defenseman.
At 5:00 the Wild play the Islanders (without Kyle Okposo) and then the Gophers play in Denver to end a great day of hockey in Minnesota.
City hockey’s future gets blast from past: “Many who played in or remember the glory days of hockey in the Minneapolis public schools are trying to build it back up by, among other things, recruiting more young city athletes to the sport.”
Having played at my local park these past 7 years of living in Longfellow, I’ve seen and played against some really good young kids that end up playing at Minnehaha Academy or Holy Angels. So the talent is here, but the kids need a reason to stay, and hopefully this new attention being given to the sport will help.
Flickr: Photos tagged with tcfg01192008: A few of us from the Twin Cities Flickr Group braved the cold and met up at Lake Nokomis this morning for the 2008 US Pond Hockey Championship to take some pictures. It wasn’t all that bad out, at least not as freezing as I expected it to be. My toes were still numb, but that’s because I don’t have the proper boots. After about an hour and a half, we left the lake and went to the Chatterbox in Highland Park for some lunch and a quick game of Sequence.
It’s really cold here this morning, so what better to do then to go out onto a frozen lake and take some pictures of the US Pond Hockey Championship with some friends. This is going to be fun.
College Hockey News: NCAA Opens Door For Canadian Schools: The NCAA has voted to allow Canadian universities to apply for membership. The schools would only be able to play Division II, with a provision to allow one men’s and one women’s program per school to “play up” to Division I. Schools would also have to change their recruiting, since most schools allow older, ex major junior players, to play. I would love to see college hockey grow, but I’d fear that eventually Canadian colleges might over take the entire league, leaving Canadian player dependent schools like North Dakota and Wisconsin behind (heh). Minnesota would obviously be okay.
Naegele sells interest in Minnesota Wild to former Nashville Predators owner Craig Leipold. The Wild have been so well run since they came into the league, it’s a little sad and worrying to see the team change hands. But from all I’ve heard, Leipold is a hockey guy, and even though he failed to get hockey working in Nashville, supporting hockey in Minnesota will be a lot easier.
Team USA played Canada today in the semi-final of the 2008 World Junior Hockey Tournament in the Czech Republic. Unfortunately for team USA, they lost 4-1, and this after going undefeated in the first four games of the First Round. They play Russia tomorrow for the Bronze medal.
While watching the game I created this map of the hometowns of every player on the team, just to see where the top players are coming from these days. Minnesota and Michigan are tops, but it looks like the New York area has passed Massachusetts as the third hotbed of USA Hockey.
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