Training camps are opening soon. The season is less than a month away! So I thought I'd start a thread. I think we did pretty well having just one thread for the league rather than individual team threads, since there aren't enough of us hockey fans posting. If any major stories break we can always do separate threads. ("Plus," Joe said with a self-promoting smirk, "I'll try to get important hockey items on to the Jock Talk blog." )

So...while a certain ex-boyfriend changed his mind about retirement, Anaheim's Scott Niedermayer still hasn't made up his mind. He's going to miss the beginning of training camp to continue to ponder his future. The article says Niedermayer "did not rule out the possibility of joining the team during the season." So we may have hockey's version of Roger Clemens.

I also found a note that the Stanley Cup champion Ducks have capped season-ticket sales at 15,000 to allow fans the chance to purchase single-game tickets. Good for them.

Edmonton's Fernando Pisani is out indefinitely after being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. Yikes.

Yet again, I am eager for the season to begin, and see if Anaheim has any chance of defending the Cup.

Seems as if you've caught the hockey itch... one of my better friends has, too. He wouldn't shut up about hockey las night (not that I minded).

It's going to be a real interesting year. I think the East is VERY even and almost impossible to predict. I could come up with a few good reasons for at least 5 teams as to why they should be the favorite. The West is pretty open, too. Just because it's what I'm more familar with, it's good to see St. Louis and Chicago make some improvements to make the Central Division better. I'd say the weak schedule the Preds and Wings have had the past couple years have, in part, led to their demise in the postseason.

I just hope the Preds get this whole sale thing worked out relatively soon so that the new ownership is in place for a good majority of the season... and so we can make my friend happy and re-sign Peter Forsberg.

The Hockey News prediction for the eastern conference:

1. Ottawa Senators
2. New York Rangers
3. Carolina Hurricanes
4. Pittsburgh Penguins
5. Buffalo Sabres
6. Tampa Bay Lightning
7. New Jersey Devils
8. Atlanta Thrashers
9. Philadelphia Flyers
10. Washington Capitals
11. Toronto Maple Leafs
12. Florida Panthers
13. Montreal Canadiens
14. New York Islanders
15. Boston Bruins

can't wait for New Year's Day. Pens v. Sabres @ Ralph Wilson Stadium. Holy shit that will be sooooooooo freaking cool!

Blue, that may require a special trip up to Buffalo for the game. Loser has to wear the jersey of the winner's favorite team for a week. Can you get tickets? .

But will it be cold (enough)?

The new Flyers jerseys have been revealed. I'm not crazy about them, but at least they didn't tinker with the logo. They've only released the home and away jerseys. The third jersey isn't out yet.

The Leafs have changed their uniforms for this season as well - but nothing too radical. As far as I can tell they've dropped a couple of stripes and dropped the TML logo from their shoulders. And call me a die hard Leaf fan - but I think a lot of these pre-season predictions that have the Leafs down around 11th or 12th in the conference are a bit out of whack considering they should be an improved team and only missed the playoffs by one point due to a shootout win by the Islanders over the Devils in the last game of the season last year. Although I won't go overboard and say I expect the Leafs to contend for the cup - which is what Paul Maurice - the Leafs coach told the media the other day. He claims this is the most talented team he has ever coached.

The Leafs have a number of good young defenceman whose play should improve this year compared to last. They've upgraded their goal keeping by adding Toskala, and added a bit of scoring punch too with the additions of players like 40 goal scorer Jason Blake - who it is rumoured will be put on Sundin's line. I think 7th place is within reach.

This story has a pic of the Leafs new duds.
http://www.thestar.com/Sports/article/255928

And speaking of my Buds - interesting survey came out the other day. The Leafs are the most popular team in Canada with 26% picking them as their favourite team in a national poll. Montreal at 23% came second. But in their own local market the Leafs got the lowest level of local support with only 63% of people in Toronto picking the Leafs as their favourite hockey team. Not sure if that is because they have not won the Cup in 40 years or if it is just a case of the Toronto area now being home to over a million people that have only moved here in the last few years - many of whom likely support their old home town team.

Call me crazy but I actually kind of like the new Flyers jersey.

You're crazy, but liking the jersey has nothing to do with it. The main reason I'm happy is that I was half-expecting a more radical change just for the sake of merchandising. I don't see why the stripes on the arms and such had to be changed just because Reebok created a new jersey. Reebok claims the new jerseys weigh 75 percent less than the old ones at the end of a game (they apparently dry fast and don't hold sweat). That and the more streamlined form-fitting design supposedly will make the players even faster. I'm skeptical about that.

I see where the champion Ducks picked up where they left off last season and beat cross town rival the Kings in pre-season last night. I know hockey isn't far off, when they start listing the standings in my paper now. Woo-Hoo!!

iirc.....the NHL has eliminated the third jerseys league wide....

Thank goodness because I hated ours!(The Red Wings)

I hadn't heard that. And I read somewhere (I don't know where) that the Flyers' third (orange) jerseys would be released later. Perhaps it's just for sale and not to be used in games?

They had one????

Actually I think this was just a concept.

The Ducks are showing all the signs that they will be a force to be reckoned with again this season, in my opinion, as they post another win, overtime against Vancouver last night. Lets keep the Cup out west Ducks!

NOOOOOO!

Oh Yeah????

For those of you attending the game in Buffalo, make sure you dress warm, dress in layers and invest in some pocket warmers (those little warming pads you can put in ur shoes and gloves). Believe me, I was at the Heritage Classic... the whole 8 hours in frigid cold temperatures (-22 F for you American people). Heck, my hot chocolate froze before the first game even ended

It'll be a lifetime memory for those of you who go though.

Actually predicting New Years Day weather in Buffalo this far in advance is tough. In 1985 the high was 63F but by late in the day a cold front had gone through with wickedly high winds and freezing rain - all on the same day. In 1999 they were getting major lake effect snow at the rate of 2-3" every hour. The average high temp on January 1 is 32F or 0C - but I do remember one January Bills playoff game with wind chills of -56F.

Here's hoping they get a nice day for it!

I read somewhere that over 40,000 tickets went on sale and sold out extremely quickly. The remaining tickets are being held for Buffalo and Pittsburgh season-ticket customers, corporate sponsors and such.

102 days, 20 hours, 45 minutes and counting....give or take a few minutes.......

They were gone about a half hour after going on sale. And there have been some issues as to how it was done.(At the NHL's discretion, not the Sabres as the league controlled the ticket sales)

For some mysterious reason, the NHL went about things with the belief that they might struggle to sell out the building. This despite the following factors:

The 2003 event in Edmonton had requests for nearly 1 MILLION tickets. Did they not think that demand would easily be high enough to fill Ralph Wilson Stadium?

Sabres tickets have become scarce in recent seasons, the club has cut off season ticket sales at about 14,5 K and has a healthy waiting list of thousands. An event like this would bring in throngs of fans who couldn't see the Sabres live otherwise.

Plus the fact that the game is on a holiday, and there are thousands of Buffalo expatriates across the nation who would be willing to return home to see this event(In case they haven't noticed the large Buffalo contingents in many NHL venues across America).

So the boneheads at the NHL did a couple of things that blew the collective minds of many around these parts.

First, a customer could purchase an UNLIMITED amount of tickets at a time. Sources state that the largest order taken was for 32 tickets! I'm guessing those went straight to StubHub or something like that.

Second(only a few hundred of tickets went this way but still) Some Maple Leaf and Blue Jay season ticket holders were allowed to purchase tickets as well. What! The! F***! Will a Sabre STH holder get a shot at World Series or NBA Finals tickets if they ever come to Toronto??? Why should any STH of a team not involved get ANY crack at these tickets! I can understand allowing some Pens STH the opportunity, it is a big enough venue to allow some of their fans in.

Right now about 30K tix remain to be purchased....the 14.5 K STH and the extras they can put in for and the 1500 or so Pens STH. Plus there will be about 2K or "obstructed view seats" that ring the bottom of the Ralph yet to be sold.

Still very excited about all this, but I feel more than a few Joe fans got screwed over by someone's ineptitude in the NHL heirarchy.

No one's ever accused the NHL honchos of being very bright.

Are the goon Flyers back? Disgusting hit by Steve Downie on Dean McAmmond of Ottawa last night. If he makes the Flyers he should be sitting out a minimum of 20 games if not more. The NHL has to get serious about protecting the heads of players. McAmmond who has a history of concussions is seriously hurt and who knows when he will be back for Ottawa. Fortunately he has no broken bones - but he was out cold after the dirty and very cheap shot by Downie.

As Bob Mackenzie - one of the TSN hockey analysts pointed out - Downie had taken a solid hit earlier in the shift and Mackenzie even said to a colleague in the press box - "watch Downie - he's going to get somebody before this shift is out." Who knew he would be so right and that the shot would be as disgusting and vicious as it turned out to be. I'd be quite happy if Downie never plays again after a shot like that - leaving his feet and going for the guys head. Worse still - apparently laughing about it later. Absolute no place in hockey for players like that.

Sounds like they miss the old "Broad Street Bullies" moniker.

Sure. Based on one bad hit by one idiot, "the goon Flyers are back."

I guess by that standard, when the Maple Leafs win a game you'll give them the Stanley Cup.

A new day is in Chicago!

Bill Wirtz passes on......

Looks like Patrick Kane got some karma going there.

The Downie hit: Here we go again, everyone will cry foul and say how horrible that was. Then he'll get suspended(ok, maybe he won't, ask Chris Neil). And in the end nothing will change, cheap shots will continue until someone gets killed out there.

The weird thing about it, that a scrum occured right after the hit and players were stepping over the injured and unconscious player to throw down. What if dude suffered a life changing injury(See:Kevin Everett) thanks to that carelessness?

Pathetic. Simply pathetic.

Downie's assault on Dean McAmmond was indeed despicable, but I wasn't impressed with comments made by the Senators' Brian McGrattan afterward either. He vowed revenge on Downie in front of the TV cameras. What is this, WWE or a professional sports league?? Fights and penalty minutes are up in this pre-season, according to CTV. Last night two players from the Sharks and Flames started beating the crap out of each other while the referee stood there doing nothing, as usual, and the announcer gleefully made reference to one player ripping the nostril of the other. Not exactly an encouraging trend for the NHL, which I thought was trying to clean up its image after the infamous Bertuzzi incident of '04.

Marc, sounds like maybe they know that to increase the ratings in the states, this is what they are going to do.....its not exactly a secret that the ratings go up down here when there is more fighting in the NHL. Remains to be seen for the season, but I will be watching.

This is a very sad statement on the world of hockey, and it is the reason I spend most of my energy following and watching the college game.

Steve Downie has a hearing on Friday and I'm sure he'll be suspended. How long it will be is the question, and also whether it affects his chances of making the Flyers' roster.

The Flyers lost 4 players to injury in that game, with the biggest blow being a broken left wrist suffered by Scottie Upshall. He's having surgery and is expected to miss six weeks or so.

For what it's worth, Steve Downie did apologize personally to Dean McAmmond, who was gracious enough to accept it:
http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/2007/09/27/...downie_apology/
But I doubt if I'll be seeing McAmmond (a former flame...I mean Flame ) on the ice in Ottawa on Oct 11 when I see the Senators-Hurricanes game (I'll be there visiting family). It will be my first NHL game outside Calgary, so I'm really looking forward to it. My father tried to get us tickets for the season opener against the Leafs, but not surprisingly, they were sold out except for some high-priced seats.

Hockey Tom, I believe you about how the fights in hockey generate higher ratings in the US, although I've also heard the opposite, ie that one reason hockey is less popular among Americans is BECAUSE of the violence.

Downie received a 20-game suspension, tied for fourth-longest suspension in league history.

But strangely, Downie is allowed to play for the AHL Phantoms (where he might have been sent to start the season anyway). That seems to defeat the purpose of a suspension.

Simon Gagne says:



This much I'll agree with -- future incidents must be dealt with in a similar manner. The league keeps claiming they're cracking down. It's long past time for them to actually do it.

The season begins this weekend! Ducks and Kings from London. Saturday the game's on CBC and Sunday it'll be on Versus. Both games are at noon ET.

Here's the situation on the Downie-playing-in-the-AHL thing:



Meanwhile, LA beat Anaheim 4-1 in London to open the season. The game was delayed 15 minutes because they turned out the lights for the US and UK national anthems, and couldn't turn them right back on.

The Ducks' schedule is bad -- after Sunday's game in London they have to play at Detroit Wednesday, at Columbus Friday and at Pittsburgh next Saturday. The Kings get almost the whole week off. Who came up with this idea?

Caught the game from London this morning. Good to see the Ducks with alot more jump. They said that had 2 sold out buildings in London the past two days, and the crowd was pretty enthusiastic as well. There was some choice hitting, and a good fight to boot. I noticed some new Canadian network, the NHLN carried the game. They said they would be offering about 40 games this season if I heard them correctly, and I think they are based out of Toronto....they said to contact your satellite provider to request them. Wonder how much more $$ Comcast would want. Possibly alot. Good game though today. I liked the announcing as well.

The NHL Network has been in Canada. It's now apparently becoming available here, finally. I got a message on my digital cable box that Comcast here has added it as of tomorrow to their "digital preferred" package. I think that means it'll be free, and not part of the "sports tier" that you have to pay extra for, that they pushed the NFL Network on (and want to put the Big Ten Network on). We'll see tomorrow. I feel it'll be free because Comcast has a huge interest in making the NHL successful because Comcast owns Versus.

Interestingly, there's no NHL Network on my TV yet. I don't know if I misread the date on the message or what.

I forgot to mention that before the baseball games started yesterday afternoon I tuned into Versus briefly. Needless to say, they sent no one over to London, but just picked up that NHL Network coverage. Blimey!

It appears Harry Neale is leaving the Leafs to become the color commentator for the Sabres.

Him and Jeaneret in the booth together, two broadcasting legends.....sweet!!!!

No special message from Comcast out here..yet about the NHLN, but if we do get it, it will be in a more expen$ive package, of that I am sure.....

You can have him! Everyone in Canada - outside of the 416 area code - is rejoicing.
If he ever gets ONE player`s name right, please let us know.
Can you please take Don Cherry, too?

Actually I'll miss Neal on the Leaf games he did with Joe Bowen in the past. The two of them always sounded like they were having fun doing the game and that made watching the Leafs fun - which is not always an easy thing to do. He lives in Buffalo - so it will certainly cut down on his QEW commutes.

I always enjoyed Harry Neale's commentary, at least he had a sense of humour. I would gladly trade Don Cherry and Bob Cole to keep him.

TWO games on tap this evening, the first is the Wings/Ducks I think, and the second game is Dallas/Denver I believe, so with that, DROP THE PUCK!!!!!

A Steve Downie update: the AHL said that because of his pre-season hit resulting in his NHL suspension, he can't play in their league until November 3rd. So while the Flyers may still move him back and forth from the NHL roster to the AHL roster (as mentioned in post above) he won't play in any games this month at all.

I won't get to see the first 2 Flyers games (at Calgary tomorrow and Edmonton Saturday) since I'll be in NYC watching the GaySuperMegaUltraBowl flag football, and besides, any TV time I get will be devoted to the Phillies.

I was wondering why Bill Clement wasn't on Versus tonight. Found this on philly.com:

In case you were wondering among other things Bill Clement is now one of the studio analysts on Sportsnet up here. Sportsnet does not have any 'national' games but they do a weekly Hockey Central preview show before CBC's Hockey Night in Canada doubleheader on Saturday evenings.

The four regional networks that make up Sportsnet have the bulk of the regional TV games for 5 of the Canadian teams. Sportsnet Pacific has 47 Canuck games, Sportsnet West has 40 Flames and 48 Oilers games - which I think are only shown in each of those two teams own 'territories' within the Sportsnet West region. Maybe somebody in Western Canada like Marc or Enigma knows how that works out there. Sportsnet Ontario carries 22 Leaf games and Sportsnet East does 35 Ottawa games.

I'm not sure how often they plan on using Clement - but with that many games being covered by the various Sportsnet channels he should be kept busy. Plus according to this article from the Star he is doing some other things like radio work.
http://www.thestar.com/article/261449

And my Leafs showed a decent effort against the Sens in their 4-3 overtime loss. One point at least! ;-)

It looks like the Blake, Sundin and Antropov line is going to be a good one as they were +2 on the night. The baffling thing was that Maurice started Raycroft in goal and not Toscola who they traded first round draft picks for and signed to a much bigger contract than Raycroft. And last night Raycroft was ...... well .... Raycroft. A handful of very good saves, but one very weak goal and one iffy one of the four Ottawa scored.

I'm assuming it will be Toscola in net in the rematch in Ottawa tonight.

I wondered what happened to Clement. I like him, although I do like th enew guy on Versus too...was listening to the pre-games banter on which teams could be hot this season, and which would not. In the east, the Flyers were mentioned, although with so many new players, it may take some time to mesh, but if/when they do, lookout...also the Rangers were mentioned quite a bit as really beefing up. The Islanders were mentioned as the biggest losers in the off season, as they got rid of alot of players. Out west here, Denver was mentioned again as maybe being a force to be reckoned with, and San Jose and of course Anaheim. One of the Announcers picked them to win the Cup again, esp. if they get back one of the Neidermeyer boys and the two other players on the sidelines. All in all, it sounds like it could be a great season. I am jealous of our Outsporter Marc who got to be in Ottawa for the game against the Leafs last night. Very jealous bud!