| Nashville Predators News | | | How the Last 13 Stanley Cup Champions Didn't Repeat, Part 4: Fan's Take (Yahoo! Contributor Network)
In the past 13 years, all 13 Stanley Cup champions fell short of raising the Cup another consecutive time. The first part of my series looked at how the champions from 1999, 2000 and 2001 failed to repeat. Part two studied how the 2002, 2003 and 2004 champions missed the chance to win again. Last week, part three explained how the 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 champions were undone the next year. Finally, this series ends by exploring the way the 2010, 2011 and 2012 champions went home early. What We Learned: Embarrassing LA sports media moments while covering Kings playoff run (Puck Daddy)
Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend's events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.
It's possibly the greatest bit of investigative journalism conducted since Woodward and Bernstein brought down Richard Nixon.
This exemplary, collective effort of sleuth work is currently ongoing in Los Angeles, Calif., where an entire media market has unearthed the NHL's shocking secret:
The city has a professional hockey team.
Over the past week or so here at Puck Daddy, we've tried to document every startling discovery made by the intrepid Los Angeles media, like how to properly pronounce Anze Kopitar's name (it's hard because he's from Bosnia or something), the real name of this Drew Doughty character ( it's actually Brad !) and that hockey is in fact not played with a ball, but rather a little piece of rubber known as a "puck." That last one makes me pretty uncomfortable because of the word it rhymes with. ("Duck" — sorry, I just don't trust 'em; they have weird beaks).
Just how villainous is this team, operating as a sort of sporting sleeper cell? They got all the way to the Western Conference Finals without one local noticing. That takes real criminal talent. And not only that, but, the NHL had the diabolical idea to hide it right under the Los Angelinos' noses, by having their home games played at the Staples Center. You know, where the Lakers play. Further, they named the team the Kings to intentionally confuse even the savviest media organization into thinking they are the NBA's Sacramento Kings.
Astonishingly devious stuff. More twists and turns than the Da Vinci Code, which I've read three times just to make sure I understood it all.
The best bit of this journalism on this pressing issue comes, of course, from the city's paper of record, the Los Angeles Times, winner of 44 Pulitzer Prizes since 1942, including three in 2012. It was for that towering beacon of journalistic excellence that columnist Chris Erskine successfully scruted several of the team and sport's most inscrutable mysteries .
For instance, that thing I said earlier about the puck (again, yuck… oh and that's another gross word it rhymes with), I learned it from Erskine. Apparently they even freeze the thing. And that's a huge point of concern, because, "The hardest shots can reach 110 mph and tear flesh, crush bone, even kill you if you're not careful." Yikes, you guys!
( Coming Up: Rick Nash to Boston?; Tororella defends Prust; Ryan Suter faces his future; Evegni Malkin is having a pretty good season; why Lundqvist is King; why the Capitals can't win with Ovechkin; the Islanders know how to party; Canucks might keep Luongo; Ryan Miller on the CBA; Flames and Oilers coaching news; and are the Kings in trouble?)
Predators’ Erat suffers concussion after headshot vs. Slovakia at World Championships (VIDEO) (Puck Daddy)
Martin Erat's Czech Republic team suffered a major blow Saturday when it was upset by Slovakia, 3-1, in the semifinal game of the IIHF World Hockey Championships.
But Erat personally suffered a major blow when he was absolutely crushed by Libor Hudacek in the corner midway through the first period.
I don't speak the language this clip is in, but that uncomfortable exhalation is the same in any language, and I'm about 99 percent positive the word "blindside" is uttered at the 0:31 mark.
That said, Erat does some high-quality puck-watching here. First he's looking back over his left shoulder. Then he swivels his head and looks back over his right shoulder. Then Hudacek drills him, with the Slovak forward's shoulder connecting with his chin.
Erat left the game and would not return, and according to Czech GM Slava Lener, he won't return for the bronze medal game either. The Nashville Predators' forward has a concussion. Here's hoping he's recovered in time for training camp next fall. Oilers torched for Renney firing; Milan Hejduk back; Alex Radulov fallout (Puck Headlines) (Puck Daddy)
Here are your Puck Headlines: a glorious collection of news and views collected from the greatest blogosphere in sports and the few, the proud, the mainstream hockey media.
• Look, JGL: "Inception" was the bomb. You were Han Solo in "500 Days of Summer." You probably become Batman when Bane breaks Bruce Wayne's back (/speculation). But please do not wear the Lakers gear to the Kings game. That said, feel free to wear the Kings gear to the Lakers game, if there are still going to be Lakers games this spring.
• The Ryan Suter watch begins next week. Hold on to your butts. [ Malik ]
• Shea Weber on Alex Radulov's quasi-suspension in Round 2 for the Nashville Predators: "You feel a little bit betrayed, but I am sure he feels bad about it now and he looks back on it and wishes it didn't happen. Those are the things you can't take back and we've got to move forward." [ Examiner ]
• Pekka Rinne on Radulov and the curfew issue: "It didn't affect as much as media made it seem like. The way I see it, Radulov joining the team mid-season affected the atmosphere more than the incident that happened in the playoffs." [ On The Forecheck ]
• Milan Hejduk is back with the Colorado Avalanche for one year and $2 million. Says Dater: "Yeah, I'm a little concerned about where/what Hejduk's role might be. I mean, it's a little worrisome to think he'll be relied upon perhaps as a top-six forward. And yet, would he really be effective on a third or fourth line? Those are questions Joe Sacco will have to grapple with next season." [ All Things Avs ]
• Great work here by Nick Cotsonika on burgeoning New York Rangers star and rookie sensation Chris Kreider. [ Y! Sports ]
• Ryan Callahan says his left hand isn't injured, despite blocking a shot with it back in the Ottawa series. [ NYDN ]
• Darryl Sutter, on the growth of Los Angeles Kings forward Dwight King: "Growth?" Sutter said. "He's still 232 (pounds). After games, he's 228." [ LA Kings Insider ]
• Kerry Fraser on embellishing players in the postseason: "The Conference Finals of the Stanley Cup playoffs is not the time for the referees to strap on the six guns in an effort to clean up embellishment in Dodge. The refs must however, ramp up their radar and if any doubt is created in their mind as to the legitimacy of a foul, then I would suggest they keep their arm down and play on. I also hope they will seize every opportunity to enforce obvious embellishment by calling a penalty (whether as a 'stand alone' penalty or a coincidental minor when embellishment occurs as the aftermath to a legitimate foul)." [ TSN ]
• John MacKinnon torches the Edmonton Oilers for firing Tom Renney. "This move — anticipated as it was — was a long, slow slap in the face to a coach who deserved better. If you're the incoming man, it would be wise to at least ponder the fashion in which the Oilers will ultimately dump you. That might help you decide whether you want to accept the job in the first place." [ Journal ]
• David Staples does much the same: "My bottom line on Renney? He earned a new deal. He made a few big miscalculations, but much more was going right than wrong under his direction." [ Cult of Hockey ]
• From Black Dog: "The Oilers are like the opposite of that and maybe this should be their master plan. Howson has already destroyed Columbus. Maybe Messier can take over the Rangers and Prendergast can move to Chicago. Let Tambo move back to Vancouver and Buchberger coach the Avs. Let them go forth and multiply and take their special brand of incompetence to the rest of the league, like the Black Plague, destroying franchises as they alight from their private jets, just as flea ridden rats destroyed cities as they swarmed ashore from ships manned by infected doomed sailors." [ BDHS ]
• Ellen Etchingham on the Los Angeles Kings: "These Kings, they just look so brilliant. So clearly and completely and definitively ass-whoopingly eye-catchingly heart-liftingly brilliant. They play the way I'd always hoped a Cup-winning team would play. They play like they are actually so much better than everyone else that they ( *gasp* ) deserve to win. There's still a part of me that can't wholly believe they're for real. There's a part of me that's still tensed for the inevitable fall. But, nevertheless, I hope. I would like to see a team take the Cup this decisively, in less than twenty games. I want to see a juggernaut victory." [ Backhand Shelf ]
• Alex Ovechkin was named the 11th most marketable athlete internationally in 2012. [ Alex Ovetjkin ]
"A finalized lease agreement with a potential Phoenix Coyotes buyer has yet to emerge publicly but a Glendale City Council majority appears poised to approve a $17 million fee to operate the city-owned arena." [ AZ Central ]
• Hopefully, when Daniel Alfredsson says he may have played his last competitive game, he means all 82 games next season for the Ottawa Senators (plus playoffs) are blowouts. [ Senators Extra ]
• Finally, the New York Mets all wore hockey jerseys on their road trip to Canada. Expected to see more Islanders sweaters, given that both franchises have been living off the glory of the 1980s for decades… ( Kukla )
ESPN’s Colin Cowherd vs. NHL writers; longest game record; Roenick, Modano beards (Puck Headlines) (Puck Daddy)
Here are your Puck Headlines: a glorious collection of news and views collected from the greatest blogosphere in sports and the few, the proud, the mainstream hockey media.
• In case you haven't heard, Colin Cowherd of ESPN insulted the entirety of the hockey media on Thursday (you can watch the video at the bottom of the post) by calling coverage amateurish and saying, "You're getting a lot of young, cheap people covering hockey and it's not like newspapers send their best people to hockey." He's of course talking about summer interns like Michael Farber of SI, Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe, Eric Duhatschek of the Globe & Mail, Kevin Allen of USA Today, Jeff Klein of the NY Times and Pat Hickey of the Gazette. Not to mention the scores of writers over the age of 40 in any hockey press box Cowherd's never been in. [ Awful Announcing ]
• Here are John Tortorella's 13 minutes of media time from Thursday's conference call. [ NYDN ]
• Mirtle makes the case that the New Jersey Devils should be embraced by Canadians: "To many, the Devils are still this no-nonsense, Scott Stevens led defensive squad that celebrated its three Cup wins in the parking lot -- even though they're now full of personality, led by Parise (who talked at length after Game 2 about how DeBoer pushes them to be aggressive in the offensive zone) and have a beautiful new rink that has a read-and-black pavilion out front to potentially parade around in." [ Globe & Mail ]
• Glendale's funding of the Phoenix Coyotes has partially led to 49 people losing their jobs. [ Globe & Mail ]
• No Adrian Aucoin for Game 3 vs. the Los Angeles Kings. [ Orlesky ]
• The Dino Ciccarelli Award for best postseason rookie. Has to go to Holtby, right? [ Backhand Shelf ]
• GM George McPhee is going to take his time before naming the next Washington Capitals coach. [ Capitals Insider ]
• Sad news: The Dayton Gems are folding. [ Dayton Daily News ]
• Big congrats to the 40 men who played hockey for 246 hours and raised $1.4 million for charity in the "world's longest hockey game." [ Calgary Sun ]
• Carrie Underwood totally sticks up for her man Mike Fisher during Nashville Predators games, ya'll: "When somebody trips Mike or does something dirty, I'm like: 'Are you KIDDING me?' Yeah, I get pretty heated." [ Metro ]
Record TV Ratings Indicative of Growing Predators Fan Base
The Nashville Predators saw a record number of fans come through the Bridgestone Arena turnstiles during the 2011-12 campaign, with a franchise-record 25 sellouts during the regular season and five more during the playoffs. The growing Predators f... Preds Prospect Austin Watson Named OHL Playoff MVP
Preds 2010 First Round pick Austin Watson was named the Ontario Hockey League's Playoff MVP after leading the London Knights to the OHL title --- and the OHL's spot in the Memorial Cup Tournament. Watson is the first US-born player to ever earn OH... | | | | |
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