Two for Elbowing

And the sharks exit the preseason undefeated...

and nobody really cares. which is great.

First chance to see the team in person -- once again, I miss most of training camp (only about 2 hours on the first day, before we headed out of town to Oregon) and most of the pre-season games. One thing I always tried to do at Apple was schedule some flex time so I could visit training camp, and one thing that always happened was something that came up and kept me from going. It became sort of a running joke after a while -- so what do I do? Two years in a row, I schedule my own conflicts instead. go figure...

Doesn't really matter.

The Sharks looked pretty good. They more or less manhandled the Flames, until they decided to ramp it down and coast. the game wasn't nearly as close as the stats might indicate, the Sharks got bored as much as anything.

They did look pretty good to me overall, though. Setoguchi saw limited time, but impressed. Roenick didn't see limited time, and looks, well, old and slow, and took a number of "old and slow" penalties. But then, Mark Smith, who signed in Calgary just before the game and is basically the roster spot that went to Roenick, didn't impress, either.

I would not want to have been wearing a flames jersey within sight of Keenan after that performance.

Davison looks to be the 6th defenseman for now, with Murray 7th. I expect once Sandis is released from substance abuse, he'll be signed to some minimal contract as an 8th Dman and we'll see what happens. It may be a pity signing, or simply the Sharks giving an old friend a chance -- but what's wrong with that? Don't forget that Sandis was Doug wilson's partner in the first season before Sandis hurt his knee, and so there's a lot of "more than pure hockey" going on here. And the Sharks have a soft spot for Sandis, and have a history of reclamation projects, both well-known and not so. Some worked out okay, some (Link Gaetz) didn't, and some (Brant Mhyres, anyone?) were, well, reclamation projects.

Sandis's problems started with the Sharks, a kid a bit too young, with too many responsibilities, acclimation problems, a bit shy and nerdy, frankly. He also was sort of a real-life lab experiement that helped the Sharks understand what it took to bring in european talent successfully for both the player and the team, and the team has strongly benefitted from that; perhaps just for that reason, the Sharks will give Sandis a shot, giving both sides some closure. And Sandis is still well-loved in San Jose.

(Sandis, by the way, has a really funky record on his resume: he scored the first goal in San Francisco Spiders history, as he was holding out at the time and signed a deal with the IHL team; then he went off and rejoined the Sharks, and if I remember properly, THEN went and scored the first goal of the season for San Jose, too...)

I'm probably the only person in the universe NOT particularly worried about San Jose's defense. Yes, we lost Hannan, but to me, Hannan and McLaren were very similar players, and the entire defensive corps was way too "stay at home"; swapping out Hannan for Rivet, which is effectively what we did, improves the power play a LOT and increases the blueline offensive capability. Yes, we lose some defensive-defense, but we have plenty to spare, I think.

And Rivet can teach Carle and Plasic how to play as an offensive defenseman, a benefit we need. Honestly, Robb Zettler teaching offensive defense? Not gonna happen...

I think Davison and Murray as a time-sharing combo is a perfectly acceptable 6th dman. As long as Vlasic doesn't have a bad year, we'll be fine. And if Sandis brings something to the table, that's a benefit. But I'm not sure I want Sandis to teach the kids how to play...

I will admit -- I really like the new home jersey, and I wasn't sure I would. I still am not sure about the logo redo (wasn't broken, why fix it?) but it's no worse than the old one, merely different. It'll probably grow on me. But the epaulets instead of those black underarms? That looks pretty nice, actually, and I thought the orange highlights addded to the look, didn't clutter it. So it gets a thumbs up for me.

Other changes in the arena -- the new video board absolutely rocks. Absolutely. well done. As someone sitting near me said last night, "I found myself watching the board, even when the Sharks were in our end of the ice!" True enough, and we're three rows off the glass. THAT good. A nice thing is that it's a purely software/video scoreboard now, so it's got a lot more flexibility for different events.

And they finally redid the sound system, which has sucked since the building opened. We can actually -- god help us -- hear what is being said over the PA in section 127 now, unmuffled and without legibility problems. Well done. So THAT is what Joe Eich sounds like...

They also replaced the boards a wrap-around system similar to those seen in newer building (gah, that building's over a decade old; I remmber it as a hole in the ground); The effect is pretty nice.

And a minor thing I noticed -- they've retuned the lights. In previous years, some of the lights were turned off for hockey games because they caused bad shadows or glare; everything got re-aimed and now all of them are used in games; it makes it brighter in there (about an F/stop, I'm guessing); add in the light from the boards (it's no longer dark, even with the lights off) and it's a much brighter building.

One thing the sharks didn't do (oh well) was theatrical lighting like GM place does. If you want to know why that's a nice thing to have? just think about the 20 minute delay before the first game in London.... Shuttered lights avoid that but allow you to dim them for effect, something vancouver uses to good impact.

And now it's time to drop the puck!

NHL hands Downie a 20-game suspension

TSN : NHL - Canada's Sports Leader:

NHL Executive Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell announced on Friday that the league has suspended Downie for 20 games for his hit on Ottawa Senators forward Dean McAmmond in Thursday's exhibition game between the two teams. Downie will forfeit $63,101 during his suspension.

Good for them. maybe this will get the players attention.

Colin Campbell was on XM talking about this today. He noted that over the summer, he got together with members of the competition committee, players, coaches, GMs and others to talk over this issue and come up with a set of rules on what is and isn't allowable. He emphasized they want to keep hitting in the game, while coming down on dirty hits.

He noted there is now a framework of standards for what constitutes a dirty hit and how it'll be handled in terms of suspension and discipline: leaving your feet or launching yourself at another player; aiming for the head; retribution, or stalking a player; hitting a player that's vulnerable or defenseless; and repeat offender status. Downie's hit, he noted,qualified for all but the repeat offender (but he noted Downie's history in non-NHL leagues, but noted that it couldn't be held against him -- but made it clear that he hadn't earned any slack because of it...)

A tape was made of what was and wasn't acceptable, based on 20+ hits they evaluated over the summer, and the new rules were distributed to all teams and the tape played and explained to all of the players in team meetings during camp -- in other words, Downie and everyone else had no excuse here, and should have known what he was doing was violating the new rules.

And yes, he noted the league was making a statement, so taht other players know to keep it clean; as he noted, the league would have looked silly to the players if they went through all of that through the summer -- and then hadn't done this.

So while 20 games may seem tough, especially compared to previous years, the rules were reevaluated and the players informed of the changes -- so nobody can really complain that this was a suprise to anyone playing or running the teams. Downie has no excuse, so I'm happy to see the league finally saying "enough" here.

One other thing Campbell noted: they've worked hard to improve the safety of the gear -- they've changed the standards for elbow pads and retired some of the older approved models, including one that had "golf ball sized" knobs over the elbows -- and as he noted, elbow-caused injuries were down. They're trying to do the same with shoulder pads, but in their attempts to talk with the players union, they were told "we'll talk about that next summer". Campbell notes they're ocnsidering implementing the changes without the PA,a dn letting the PA argue about it later, because they don't want this to wait....

I feel bad for Downie -- a bit -- because this is going to really hurt his ability to make a team. But if he's looking for someone to blame, he should find a mirror. And if it prevents a player from ending his career over a head injury by making other players get serious about not going for the head, it's a great thing for the league.

Madison Square Garden sues NHL

TSN : NHL - Canada's Sports Leader:

The NHL violated antitrust laws and is acting like "an illegal cartel" by monopolizing control of team promotions, Madison Square Garden claimed in a lawsuit Friday.

MSG, which owns the New York Rangers, said it filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan because the NHL would begin fining the organization US$100,000 per day starting Friday if the company did not give the league complete control over the Rangers' Web site and other promotions.

The league is seeking to control the licensing of teams for all commercial purposes and to stop teams from marketing apparel, merchandise and memorabilia, the suit said. MSG asked that a judge order the league to stop limiting team promotions, and it also wants the court to clarify the boundaries of the league's rights.

I've been waiting for this one. the league has been moving for years towards the NBA and NFL models where control is owned by the league instead of the individual teams for as much as possible. Now, one of the teams is fighting back, and it'll be intersting to see where the lines get drawn in the sand.

There's no simple right answer here -- is it a single league with 30 teams, or 30 companies with a common business environment?

The reality is, NHL teams haven't done very well in cooperating for the common good of the league, and central control of some things makes sense from licensing and consistency -- but I think leagues tend to go too far here; the NBA even controls how teams can use their own logos, which I don't think is really a good thing. Where is the line between league marketing and allowing a team to individualize the marketing for their own environment?

Maybe we'll find out here. But I'm honestly leaning towards sympathizing with MSG here.

Free Darren Haydar!

Free Darren Haydar! - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog:

Some guys, unfortunately, just can't seem to catch a break, no matter how productive they are outside of the NHL. Darren Haydar, who was just cut from the Atlanta Thrashers, is one such hard-luck player who hasn't been given his NHL shot, despite minor league dominance.

Darren Haydar, who won the AHL scoring title and earned MVP honors last season, has been sent back to the Chicago Wolves by the Atlanta Thrashers.

The 27-year-old right-winger from Milton, Ont., scored 41 goals and assisted on 81 for 122 points in 73 games. He got at least one point in 39 consecutive games, tying Wayne Gretzky's 1985-86 run with Edmonton as the fourth-longest in pro hockey history. He was recalled for four NHL games over the course of his season and had hoped to stick this time.

Now, I realize that there are many players that have excelled in lower leagues, and didn't do much at the NHL level (Pavel Patera, Jason Ward, Jason Bonsignore, Steve Kariya), but it's hard to fathom that somebody as productive as Haydar has only ever played in 6 NHL games. In those games, he got about as much ice time as George Parros. How does a guy prove himself in that environment?

you don't catch breaks -- you earn them. How does a player prove himself in this kind of environment?

They do it in practice, that's how. You earn your ice time in games by proving yourself in practice. If you don't prove yourself in practice? Why should you get ice time in a game?

Answer: you shouldn't. So if Haydar wasn't getting much of a look in games, it's probably because he wasn't showing himself well in practices.

Having spent a year with the Spiders back in the IHL days, we got to see a lot of hockey by guys who were really, really good at the minor league level, but couldn't tie their skates the next level up. Heck, that kind defines the first four or five years of the Sharks, too (Robin Bawa, I still owe you a beer!)

There's really a huge difference between the AHL level and the NHL level: most players in the AHL have some flaw in their game, something that they can play through at one level, but which NHL players know how to exploit. The AHL is a slower league, too -- speed is many times the key factor between a player that dominates at the AHL level and one that can play well at the NHL level. Be a little slow, and NHL players will eat you alive.

Haydar? I've seen him play a bit, and he's good. but, officially, he's 5'9" and 170 pounds. That probably means he's REALLY 5'6 or 5'7 and maybe 160, because small players always inflate their numbers, unless they play for Keenan, at which point Keenan adds another 10 pounds to make his team look even bigger (don't believe me? check player stats for guys who've played for Keenan and other teams. Many of them magically get heavier when they arrive in Keenan town, and lose the weight again when they return to a team in this universe).

Now, for comparison, look at Theo Fleury. He was OFFICIALLY 5'6 -- and 180. Now, in reality, he was more like 5'4, but Haydar has 3" of size on Theo and Theo outweighs him?

Martin St. Louis? 5'9, 185.

Chris Drury? 5'10, 202

See the problem? The guy's small, but worse, he's light. Assuming (and it's a fairly safe assumption) that all players lie about their stats to the same general degree, you can see that in comparison to other smallish players, Haydar doesn't have the weight, which means he hasn't built up his strength, which means he isn't as strong on the puck or in the corners.

So to me, this is a player that's easily knocked off the puck, because that missing weight is upper body strength. If I were a coach or a scout, I'd wonder whether he's made the committment in the weight room (although it could just be he's got the frame that doesn't build muscle well; either way, that's not nearly the problem in the AHL that it is in the NHL).

To be honest? at 27, he's not growing into his final playing weight any more, he's at it. And he really ought to be playing at 190, not 170. I don't have his draft weight offhand, so I don't know whether he started out even lighter or simply never filled out, but to me, this guy is too small to really be successful in the NHL -- not height, but strength.

Even small players need the strength to fight through traffic in the NHL. the NHL defensemen are massively better and more mobile than AHL players (and smarter at the game, too); that's one huge reason why guys can't make the transition, because suddenly, you just can't dipsy your doodle around a guy very often, and even perimeter players in the NHL need to be able to recover pucks in the corners. At 5'9 and 170, I question just whether Haydar's strong enough to do that. And if he wasn't doing it in practice, no need to prove he can't do it in a game, no?

TSN : CANADIAN HOCKEY - Canada's Sports Leader

TSN : CANADIAN HOCKEY - Canada's Sports Leader:

Created and organized by local volunteer businesspeople and veteran Canadian Olympic Team members such as Jennifer Botterill and Sami Jo Small, the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL) will begin its season this fall with seven teams based out of Ontario and Quebec. It replaces the eastern division of the National Women's Hockey League, which suspended operations in May due to ongoing financial and structural woes.

"What makes this league different is that many of the teams will be supported by the girls' minor hockey associations in the communities in which the teams are located," Small told TheHockeyNews.com.

TSN : NBA - Canada's Sports Leader

TSN : NBA - Canada's Sports Leader:

Former Dallas Mavericks forward Roy Tarpley filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday, claiming the NBA and the team violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by refusing to reinstate him to the league.

Tarpley, who was permanently banned from the NBA in 1995, claimed in his lawsuit that the league and the Mavericks discriminated against him on the basis of his disability as a recovering drug and alcohol abuser.

anyone else consider this an insane interpretation of the ADA?

While I fully support the need to legislate acccessibility and protection from discrimination, I've seen so many abuses of the ADA over the years that I'm thinking maybe it's time to toss it out and try again...

Reviving a classic

San Jose Mercury News - Morning Buzz: Reviving a classic:

"Rock 'n' Roll Part II" - a.k.a. the "Hey" song - made an unannounced but widely praised return to the Sharks' goal celebration for exhibition games last weekend. Team spokesman Scott Emmert confirmed that the one-year switch to Green Day's "Holiday" is history.

Last year, the Sharks were among the teams that switched on moral grounds because the song's creator, Gary Glitter, is in prison in Vietnam after being convicted of molesting two girls. The Sharks stress that their version is from an organist, meaning the artist receives no royalties.

"The change of the song probably drew the most passionate response from our fans of anything in the 17 years we've been here," Emmert said, adding that "it really became obvious that quite a few of our fans really include that as being part of the Shark experience."

This is a good decision by the Sharks, and a nice compromise. The replacement of the Glitter song last year didn't go over well, and the Sharks asked the fans to give it a chance. We did, but it never really took off in the arena.

So the song is back, but in a way that doesn't send money to Glitter. I think that works fine for all involved. Except maybe Gary Glitter, and that doesn't bother me.

Steve Downie's Cheap Hit on Dean McAmmond

Steve Downie's Cheap Hit on Dean McAmmond - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog:

Just a few days after the Orange County Register published a series of stories on concussions and the NHL, last night's preseason schedule gave us a prime example of the sort of hit that we shouldn't be seeing anymore when Philadelphia's Steve Downie took out Ottawa's Dean McAmmond:

It's still preseason and this crap is going down.

This is the kind of goonery that got me really pissed off last season, to the point I stopped paying attention to the NHL for a while. Here it is -- and the games don't freaking count yet.

Two for Elbowing: How I learned to stop worrying and love the goonery....:

Two for elbowing went through a bit of a dry spell where I wasn't doing much posting. Part of it was because of outside factors, things that were sucking up my time and energy and not leaving me much in spare to blog with.

But to be blunt about it, I got really pissed at hockey for a while, and I just didn't feel like spewing about it on the blog. Or talking about hockey -- or watching it very much.

The good news is that the NHL seems to be getting ready to make a statement by bitchslapping Downie into the next county, but man, if the players are going to be playing hockey like this all season, I'm going to go off and become a fan of, oh, I dunno. Competitive blackjack, anyone?

This is not what I'd call an auspicious start to the season...

Is The NHL Ignoring a Concussion Problem? - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

Is The NHL Ignoring a Concussion Problem? - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog:

That data point, and a whole lot more, comes from a story in yesterday's Orange County Register written by Scott M. Reid. The piece is the first part of a two-part series on the subject of concussions in the NHL, and unearthed a number of other interesting facts and quotes from players and front office types from around the NHL. The study, sponsored by the Register, looked at concussions over a ten year period

This should be a must-read piece for all hockey fans.....

I talked to doctors involved with studying concussions in the league years ago, and I've been arguing for protecting the head for a while (see this piece from 2003, for instance) -- and yes, the league needs to do more, but part of this is, frankly, a growing recognition of the problem and how to diagnose it. "Getting your bell rung" has been going on in hockey since forever, but there's a lot of peer pressure and motivation to "shake it off", and in the "good old days", guys who couldn't tended to get swept under the rug or left behind to cope as they could.

At least now, the doctors have diagnostic data and training and the authority to do something without easily being overridden by a player or cooach -- assuming the player actually says something. Which they still don't, far too often...

There are, unfortunately, conflicts between protecting the player and the hockey mentality -- there are good people in the medical staff trying, but the "shake it off" world still holds a lot of sway here. it's changing, but slowly, and we keep losing good players because of it -- and a lot of the players are the primary problem that needs to be solved...

TSN : NHL - Canada's Sports Leader

TSN : NHL - Canada's Sports Leader:

Penalty shots can now be awarded when a player with the puck is hauled down from the centre line on in rather than from the opposition's blue-line as previously was the case.

The interference rule has been altered to allow for a major penalty and a game misconduct when an injury results.

[....]

Another change will see all faceoffs conducted at one of the nine dots painted on the rink. This should speed things up. Previously, faceoffs after pucks left the playing surface could be performed on unmarked ice parallel to the dot nearest the place where the puck left the playing surface, resulting in delays while players jockeyed for position on an open section of ice.

"Sometimes the simplest changes have the biggest impact," says Walkom.

[....]

Referee Craig Spada of Welland, Ont., has retired, and Steve Kozari of Penticton, B.C., moves into a full-time NHL job.

I like these changes. We still need to figure out head shots and diving, but we're moving forward.... And best regards to Spada and Kozari...