Today is Sydney Crosby's 22nd birthday and what a day it will be for the NHL Superstar. Today is his day with the Stanley Cup in his home town of Cole Harbour Nova Scotia (in the Halifax area). My day started flicking on the TV and watching live national coverage on both the CBC and CTV of a military helicopter circling Halifax Harbour before landing on a destroyer with Crosby emerging to a crowd of thousands with the Stanley Cup over his head. His day will continue like that with ceremonies and celebrations throughout the day - many of which will be covered live on TV across the country.

Here is a sample of some of the coverage - with more events happening throughout the day.
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2009/08/07/sp-crosby-cup.html
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...?hub=TopStories

Yet another example of Hockey Lives Here!

And in a similar vein about Canada being where hockey rules - I could not help but laugh when watching the national news on I believe CTV the other night - and the main sponsor of the nightly newscast was www. makeitseven.ca which is the website put together by Balsilie and Blackberry to promote the move of Phoenix to Hamilton. I can't imagine something like that happening anywhere but this hockey crazed country.

Screw Ballsack. Seriously.

Well Balsilie is winning the public relations game over Bettman and the NHL by a mile up here in Canada. Every move the NHL makes related to the bankruptcy in Phoenix is met with criticism by fans up here and derision by the hockey media - whereas Balsilie is largely being described as exactly the kind of owner the NHL needs to break the old boys club that runs the NHL.

And people in Hamilton are quite excited that the judge in Phoenix has ordered that Balsilie's bid be considered at the same time as the stay in Phoenix bids. The Balsilie bid is some $60 million higher than any other and has more upfront money to immediately pay-off creditors. This may yet prove to be very interesting.