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Thanks Kai & Tom,

Here's one from the other side of the globe, yesterday afternoon.....no snow at sea level yet, but it's creeping down slowly.


Dman, where are you and what Glacier is that?
Tom

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By the way Tom, you can have Duff here too.



Kai

Kai, I am not suprised the Finns found a way to get Duff beer imported there.
Tom

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Kai,

Looks like this will be happening soon in Calgary too.. we have been blessed with a great fall so far - no snow to stick and most temps averaging about 10C during the days... sometimes not even below 0 C at night! Forecast is a heavy snowfall warning Monday night! Eek!

Where is that winter shot taken?




Dave,

Echoing Tom's question - where was your picture taken?


PS Tom you should post an avatar with you drinking from your Duff beer. come to think of it, I think everyone posting on this site should have a beer drinking avatar!

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Thanks Guys,

The glacier is the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska...the photo stolen from the newspaper that day. Maybe I can lure you guys up here for some salmon fishing and coach coaching some day! Woops...not talking hockey here...Here's a little humor to start the day: Why men shouldn't write advice columns (see attached photo)

Dave

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Dave,

That is one of the best advice columns ever printed! I have seen it before, and it is so true!

Alsaka, eh? Awesome! I don't do fish, but I am sure I could partake in some local beverages and savour the outdoors, during some coachng conversations!

My dad drove the old Alaska highway (up BC, down through Alberta) in the late 1990's and said it was a great trip. He took 4 weeks - in a camper and tent. He followed the Gold Rush Trail and took some great pictures. My friend Tyler wants to ride up that way on our dual sport motorcycles (KTM 640 for me - BMW 1200 GS for him) up to the Arctic Circle - so it is on my radar. Some day / some way, I want to see Alaska as it looks very beautiful!

I just read Brian Kilrea's book "They call me Killer" last night (couldn't put it down). He was the long-time coach of the Ottawa 67's (32 years or something) and I found a reference to Rollie McLenahan. He was my great-uncle. I double checked the name and googled him and it was indeed my great-uncle... He played a season for Detroit in 1945-46 and had a long career in the AHL and IHL as a player (first-team all star D-Man!) and then coached for a few years. I knew he had been inducted into the New Brunswick HOF as a hockey player and builder, along with all but one of his brothers (the one who was killed in WW2) but I didn't know he played in the NHL and coached in the AHL (among other leagues!) Kind of cool to "find out" this way. I had a good talk with my mom today at lunch and she filled me in. I am amazed I never knew about this before! (Apparently, I met him before he passed away in 1984. Wish I would have asked him some questions then... but I had no idea of his pedigree until after he died.)

My uncle on my dad's side was signed to a professional contract by Detroit in the early 1960's but never broke their lineup. He played senior hockey before getting a law degree. He has his original contracts up on the wall of his house. Some interesting clauses written on 'official letterhead' of the Detroit Red Wings - they would pay half for a new pair of skates, the monthly stipend, playoff bonuses, school fees, etc.

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Looking at the home page for hockeycoaching abcs, it appears I have "run the board" - meaning I am the last poster for all 10 topics. OK guys, kick me off the last postings and contribute some more!!! (How can you tell the wife and kids are out of town and I hae some spare time?????!!!!)

letters from players

Sometimes when you coach you get letters or emails of appreciation. It is really uplifting to get some positive comments and today I got two emails and I will share one here. It is what coaching is all about.

One was from a girl I recruited to play college and she worked the hockey school and needs a reference. I didn't coach her but went to Europe instead. The other is from a young man who came to our summer camps at the Pond Arena in Delaware. Court Dunn forwarded it to me. Court, Juuso and I did the camps he is talking about and he sent this to Court.

----------------------------------------------------------
Tom and Juuso,
Thought you’d both like to read a message I woke up to this morning. I don’t have Juuso’s e-mail with me at school, or I would have passed it on to him as well. I’ll do that tonight when I get home. Pretty good stuff ... This young man gets it! It’s great to have the people with whom we’ve worked, give back ... The full circle!
If you remember names, it’s from J R F.. ... a little dynamo, who was really a good player ... his father was a very good golfer, and made sure J R was, too! Hockey though, was still a love for both of them. They were regular participants at our summer camp.
Court

Coach,

Hey, thanks for the wishes.. I just wanted to thank you for the EHC and all your inspiration along the way.. now that i am an old man i have looked back at my life and realized besides golfing with my dad and pop pop, those long summer days at the pond were some of the best times of my life. the way every kid there was so into the endless games and that enjoyment i saw in myself and every other kid at those camps. This year as a last minute thing i volunteered to coach at Chester County Skating club, they actually gave me a head coaching job something i was not quite sure i was ready for it. I remembered all those times playing games and being out of breath on that foggy summer ice. We have won our last 3 games.. to get to 3-3 and tonight i thought of you and the EHC. We had pictures and after we got together and did a little scrimmage with the little nets. As my assistant and I got involved and made it real competitive. As the trash talking increased and the goals kept flowing in i could really get a sense that every kid was having such a great time. It was like if they could pick one place in the whole world to be it would have been the barn! It was a great feeling to have my players having such a great time and I realized why you set those camps up in the first place.. watching a group of kids get better at hockey together is a special thing.
Thanks, your bud

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Greetings from Canary Islands. A small escape from winter (from -3 C to +23 C). hunting for new avatar
My daughter (2 years) is so excited, like quicksilver.


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Kai enjoy yourself there. Just got back from Flames game and they finally won. 7-2 over Chicago.

NHL and major junior practices

I finally figured out how to get the high def video that Dean took of the nhl teams practicing into a wmv file. It is at
http://hockeycoachingabcs.com/mediagallery/media.php?f=0&sort=0&s=2010111916214599 I will break the drills down in the next while and post them separately.

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Quote by: Kai K

Greetings from Canyry Islands. A small escape from winter (from -3 C to +23 C). hunting for new avatar
My daughter (2 years) is so excited, like quicksilver.

Canary Islands! You lucky %$#@!&*^. It was -23 C in Calgary today... before the wind chill. It's -12 C in Panorama Resort, where I am for the weekend...meeting with local coaches in Invermere BC, then home Sunday.

Looking forward to your new avatar. Perhaps a beach setting... with am ICE COLD BEER sweating a bit?

Enjoy the holiday!

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Quote by: TomM

I finally figured out how to get the high def video that Dean took of the nhl teams practicing into a wmv file. It is at
http://hockeycoachingabcs.com/mediagallery/media.php?f=0&sort=0&s=2010111916214599 I will break the drills down in the next while and post them separately.

Thanks Tom,

Please excuse any bad language you hear during the video. I tried to keep quiet - except during the one Flames practice where my old friend, Dr. Dave P showed up... I haven't seen him for years... he is now working for the Flames now as a Sport Psychologist.

I used to play early morning hockey (630-730 am) with Dave and U of C staff "back in the day".... we are talking 1984 to early 1990's. In fact, if memory serves me correctly, Tom also suited up with us way back then? Tom - did you use to wear a full, clear Itech face mask back then?)

I once drove from Moose Jaw SK on a day off in 1996 (leaving EARLY am) to play noon hockey in Calgary (7 hours one-way) with Dave and the boys at U of C; ate lunch, then drove back to MJ right afterward. I took a couple of sport psych classes from Dave during my undergrad years and we attended Pizza Hut on several occasions when they had their "all you can eat pizza lunches" - we did some serious damage (Dave is 6'5" and I am a shade over 6' ... combined we probably tipped the Toledo's back then around 500+ lbs!) OBVIOUSLY we followed the 20-30 pieces of pizza EACH with a few JUGS of beer! BURP!

Tom taught Dr. Dave "back in the day" and they recounted the awesome noon hour floor hockey games they had... pretty cool stuff! (Tom and I went out for lunch that day to a restaurant called "Spolombo's" - the owners played in the CFL for the Stampeders and Tom taught one or two of them. They also played floor hockey with Dave too. Small world, eh?

And finally, RIP to Pat Burns, who passed away today from lung cancer. It was announced about an hour ago. Godspeed Pat.

I wish he would have been inducted into the HHOF two weeks ago while he was still alive. Bob McKenzie, from TSN and formerly of The Hockey News, was a good friend of MANSBREEK. Read the story here... kind of humourous and a nice tribute to Pat - when the media reported (falsely) his demise back in September.

MCKENZIE: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT FOR PAT BURNS

http://www.tsn.ca/blogs/bob_mckenzie/?id=334094

196 and still scoring

Dean, I have never had an itech mask. When I played after college I didn't wear a helmet and then had to wear one when I came back home from playing in the USA. I didn't wear a face shield untlil a teammate was shooting the puck in and fired it into my face. It hit beside my nose and my front top front teeth were numb for 10 years and still feel a little numb. So I went to a half shield that I took out of the recycle box when I was coaching the men at U of Calgary in the 90's.

Anyway we play every Sunday morning at 11:15. Room on room. They are about 15 years average younger but we have the hockey savvy and each week the winning team changes based on who comes that day. Today there were 3 lines and 4 d on each team. We play games to 5. The first was about 45 minutes long and we won 5-3 and our line got 4 of the 5 goals. Same next game where we scored 3 of our 5.

In the locker room after the game Phil, who is about 50 said to George Hill (2 time all American and Memorial Cup winner) that he made the best decision when he put a line together with 169 years of experience. George is 70, me 63 and Kyway 63. They played at Michigan Tech and me Bemidji. The other team had Craig Levy who is famous for being the North Stars defenseman that Lemieux beats 1-1 and then scores in about 1000 replays each year. (he is very excited about this fame)

Anyway it is a great game and "the puck can outskate anyone."

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Tom,

I could have sworn you wore a full Itech. Maybe my memory is leaving quicker than I thought?

Ask the Kryway fellow is he has a son named Kam. If so, I coached him in Major Bantam (Stamps) years ago... if it is his dad, I am wondering what he is doing now? I believe he played Junior A and received a scholarship. He was one of my favourite kids from that team. Just a great, hardworking and pretty skilled kid.

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Cam is Jim's son, he used to play some Sundays with us when he came home for Christmas from Colorado College. He played some minor pro after college.
Dr. Dave was in my dryland group in 1980 and it was the first hockey dryland ever in Calgary. The only pro was Jim Nill who is now asst. gm of Detroit. We did a lot of things that Lucek Bukac introduced at the internations symposiums that George Kingston had every summer for 9 years at the U of C. I talked with David Poile, who was asst. GM of the Flames at the time about how off ice training could help the Flames. He listened politely and said that someday NHL teams may train in the off season but they weren't ready for it yet. (I think he really thought that I had just landed in a spaceship and had these strange ideas from another planet.)

Of course a couple of years later the NHL started off ice and summer training. I kept an article from the paper about the program.

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Dean how did the trip and meeting with the coaches in Invemere go?

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The trip was slow. There were stretches where the road was great; given it is now officially winter - but lots of black ice, blowing / drifting snow and reduced visibility for the rest. The roads and driving conditions weren't very good. It took an extra hour to get there and an extra about 1.5-2 hours back. Coming back, there were numerous accidents and stoppages on the road - three times we were stopped in 50 kms - due to accidents / rollovers. Most of their teams were away this weekend, so I only spoke to one person regarding their MHA and Jr. B team. It sounds like they have good intentions, but I can say that of most MHA boards... rarely do they get the support or have the energy to follow through on their plans!

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Kai,

Nice new avatar! Not sure if it is the big beer you are holding or your exceptional taste in T-Shirts!

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Thanks Dean,

T- shirt is a souvenir from our trip to Toronto and Vancouver. We were there last March. I got to see 4 NHL games and HHOF, it was the best vacation ever.

So I'm back in cold north. From +25C to - 20C (this morning went up to -8C by the evening).

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BRRRRRRR! Tough on the system when the temp changes so quickly!

Glad to hear you had a good trip. The HHOF is amazing. I liked the mock-up of the Habs dressing room and entry onto the "ice"! Made the hairs on the back of my neck stick up!

Hosting Olli (princial and floorball player) and his family (from Finland) this afternoon for Grey Cup (CFL championship.) They head home Wed. Should be fun!

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Dinner with Olli and his family was very nice. Some good discussion surrounding the teaching systems in Finland, Canada, and abroad. Never got a chance to turn on the Grey Cup but I heard the Allouettes won 21-11. There will be a lot of sad John Deer tractors slowly driving home to Scratchybum tomorrow...!

this site and who uses it and what they like ets.

Hi Coaches. Don't know much about if all the stuff I am putting on here helps anyone or not. I do the drill a day to help coaches of all levels and hopefully improve the experience the coaches and players have in the game.

It is nice that 4 or 5 coaches converse on this board. I see about 2000 hits a day and am interested in what coaches want, like, don't like and alll of that kind of thing.

Let me know.

OK !!!

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Tom,

I love the drill of the day. The way you describe it in text plus include a .jpg (with more text) and usually a video example is EXCELLENT! I have used numerous drills in my skill academy and team teaching / mentoring sessions. This is an incredible resource - better than anything I have seen to date!!! AND IT'S FREE! Tell your coaching colleagues!

(People, please donate to Tom. Tom - what does it cost per month to host / maintain the site?)

Also, the articles make for interesting reading. The conversations are great. I enjoy reading people's questions and the subsequent answers. I just wish more people would chime in!

People, feel free to ask questions or post articles / opinions to get the dialogue moving. The more dialogue we can generate, the better. Nobody has all the answers, but combined, we can use our total hockey / coaching knowledge to try to make some suggestions based on experience. This site is an invaluable site for ongoing professional development and mentoring... on "your own time table!"

I know Tom feels like if he posts a reply to every post, or starts a topic, he is fearful people will only see his name as the last poster and not contribute. So please try to contribute more - regardless of whether Tom has posted! If he answers a question, please let us know how his advice worked out.

In closing,

Thanks to Tom for overseeing and contributing to it. (And financing it... DONATE PLEASE!)

Thanks to those posting questions, answers, articles and opinions! Keep it up!

PS Tom - CCSD will be mailing you a cheque for another ABC book I sold to a teacher. I submitted the invoice on your behalf today.

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Tom,

There are two things I really appreciate about this site: 1) Practice materials and 2) Discussion.

1)Drills/Games/Practices: I agree with Dean....the daily drill is a great resource, and the frequent updates make this site incredibly valuable to me by giving me small doses of new concepts throughout the hockey season. The videos you post are also really helpful as they give a clearer picture of what you describe in your books and posts. Posting both images and video links together is a great combination.

2)Theory/Discussion: I like the direction the discussions have gone recently and I'm amazed at the knowledge and experience of the other contributors....I hope to contribute more with time and experience. This is something I see myself using more during the off season, but I still keep my eyes on it daily right now.

I think it's really important to differentiate these two elements here.....They have a tendency to get lumped together, but serve very different purposes. I know there have been times when you feel like people are just taking from the site and not giving back, and I think this is partly because drills don't generate great discussion on their own. These materials are incredibly valuable though, and I will continue to contribute for them. I hope others will do the same!

Thanks for all the work!
Dave
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Dave, thanks for the feedback. Sometimes coaches really get involved like Pops did for a few months this summer and fall and then disappear and I wonder why.
The whole point of the site has always been to help coaches to make the game enjoyable for the players and enjoy the experience of coaching. I have been in it for a long time and am still learning. Dwight does the technical work and makes it easy for me to post things. I learn how to do things by a lot of trial and error. I would like to know how Kai posted the Erkka presentation so it starts by clicking on the site.
I loved the old bulletin board where you could see the thread name and contributor in a way that you could see the topics easily without going thru everything. For some reason it is considered an out of date way to do discussion boards.
I look forward to your postings.

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Tom,

Olli got back home to Finland this afternoon. 24 hours of travel! He said the Finnair flight attendants were on strike, so they had to get a different airline to take them from London. He enjoyed his time here; even though nobody took him up on his offer to teach them floorball; and said if we are ever over there again, to look him up!

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Dean I got an email today from a coach who knows Juuso and wonders if I am interested in doing a youth camp in Finland with Finnish and Czech kid's. I will see if anything comes of it. So I may be able to see Olli.

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Tom, sounds like a good opportunity! Let me know what comes of it!

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Tom,

I uploaded the video to Photopucket.com and from there you can add a code to you forum post that opens the video or image file.
By the way Westerlund is back in coaching. He's coaching in Finnish elite league team Jokerit.
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Thanks Kai. I hope the sunshine vacation helped your tan. An agent from Finland told me about Erkka coaching Jokerit. It is about mid season in Europe and a lot of coaches are getting gassed and replaced. Those coaches just don't score enough goals or back check a lot.

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Thanks Tom,
Vacation was nice and warm.


More TV/movie beers:
Monty Python's
Holy (Gr)ail
tempered over burning witches

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Kai,

That is a great label! I bought one here in Calgary a few years ago for the specific purpose of adding it to my beer shrine! I love Monty Python! Brilliant comedy. Two of my favourites involve "The Upper Class Twit of the Year Competition" and a skit where "Mr. Hilter" (not Hitler!) and his Nazi cronies are pouring over maps of England, planning an invasion, while sitting in an English pub / hotel; trying hard to not attract attention to themselves. Hilarious! Also love Faulty Towers series with John Cleese. Ever watch those?

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My favourite is "The Funniest Joke In The World" and yes "Mr. Hilter" is one of my favourites too. Faulty Towers is great too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gpjk_MaCGM&feature=fvsr

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Just watched "Funniest Joke in the World"... as soon as I started, I remembered it. Pretty bloody funny! Awesome link - that guy has downloaded much of the entire Monty Python series! Good contribution Kai!! Thanks!

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Kai,

Thanks for the Daniel Coyle articles. Always a great read!! Keep them coming! Kai you should send me an email through this site so we can keep in touch.

Hockey Canada is going to host another International Coaches Conference this year. Not sure exactly when or where, but I will post it for you and other interested parties. (There is also the coaching conference put on in conjunction at the World Championships - I believe in Slovakia?) Once I know the dates / place, I can figure out the cost and see if I can go. Maybe a few of us can meet up? It would be awesome to meet some of the guys on here in person to share ideas. I know Tom tries to go to the World Championships and the clinic whenever he can (Tom said he met you at the clinic in Finland some years ago.)

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Yes I met Tom at International Coaches Conference 2007 in Vierumäki. It was a lot of fun and it was really interesting to meet people from different hockey cultures.

Down memory lane

In a motel room waiting for the sun to rise so I don't have to drive icy roads in the dark. I haven't been in Lacombe since I played Little League baseball here when I was 12. They had a huge tournament every year and teams from all over came.

We played last night in a town down the road called Ponoka. I played Jr. A in the AJHL there in 1967. I ended there in a round about way.

After high school I went into the seminary and studied Philosophy intending to be a priest. i was in one year and didn't go back the next year. That year I tried out for a Jr. A and a Jr. B team and made them both. Both teams played the university team that was in it's beginning seasons. The Jr. A team lost and the jr. B team won. I decided to play for the Jr. B team. I thought the players were nicer. I was in the top three in the league scoring when I broke my collar bone really badly fooling around with a little kid's stick. I deked a tall guy and when he tripped his elbow came down on the collarbone and gave a bad green stick break. It is still tender now. I missed most of the year but skated a lot taking care of 2 outdoor hockey and one pleasure rink. Scrapped and flooded them every day for about 3 months. I think this really made me a good skater because it forces you into the ideal skating position.

That summer I decided to go back to the seminary and was working cutting greens at a golf course. So 6 hours a day I was walking at a really fast pace behind a power mower. I went to the arena to play shinny with my friends but instead a Jr. A team had a training camp going on. The guy told me I could try out if I wanted.

I was using Eddie Shacks stick autographed by the 67 Maple Leafs. My sister was their stewardess for the entire Stanley Cup playoffs and got me that stick and an autographed air sickness bag. (I lost the stick when we moved but still have the bag which I have framed).

Anyway I was relaxed with no intention of playing for them; just wanting ice time. I was in incredible shape and led the camp in scoring. They wanted me to sign but I said I was returning to the seminary.

I went back to the seminary and returned to my philosophy studies but decided the unmarried life wouldn't be good for me and left in late November. Some of my friend were playing for the Calgary Centennials in the Western Canada Hockey League (now WHL) so I asked for a tryout. It went pretty well and Cec Papke the coach told me to come to the office to sign. they were playing Flin Flon that night (Bobby Clark, Reggie Leach). I filled out the card and Cec looked at it and was surprised. He said "Tom it says you just turned 20. I thought you were 18 and had two years after this. I can't sign you; we are in last place and trying to build for next year." So that was that and I called Ponoka and went there to play Jr. A.

The team payed the room and board and were supposed to give us weekly spending money. I had no money. I couldn't even buy a bottle of pop or get a hair cut. The owner would tell us before every game that if we won we would get our money. Of course it was bs and I never saw a cent. We played vs Calgary and two of their players were pummeling my linemate so I had to jump in to even the numbers. A brawl started. That was the last game before Christmas and we got a few days off.

I went home and my parents drove me the 2.5 hours in -40 weather back for an ex game on New Years Day. They hadn't seen me play since we won the midget provincials. I was getting dressed and the coach came up to me and said. "Tom I forgot to phone and tell you that you are suspended this game. They say you started the brawl vs Calgary. I was a little POed and asked for my release. I returned to Calgary and finished the season with them and went to school at MRC. I started playing for the college team as well but when they found out I was also playing Jr. A I had to chose and stayed Jr. (I am in the college team picture for that season) The next year I went to Bemidji.

To regress with a story about when I went out for the Centennials

I sat in the dressing room and all of a suddent the players jumped one of the guys who had just made the team and held him on the training table. They tied a string around the end of his manhood and held it tight while they shaved him and then put a muscle rub solution on the newly shaved area to give a big burn. When they let him go he went beserk and bodies were flying all over. It was Brian "Spinny" Spencer. He played in the NHL for a long time. The first game he played for Toronto his dad went to the CBC station who were broadcasting Vancouver instead of Toronto to get them to switch telecasts. Unfortunatley he had a rifle with him and was killed by the mounties. Brian ended up murdered as well by the mob after his career. ( it was quite a shock to go from wearing a cassock and collar one day to this situation a few days later.)

So anyway these are the hockey memories that coming back to places like this bring up. It is light out now so I will head home.

picture

Trying to change my picture to one from Innsbruck while I was at the 2005 World Championships. Maybe a coach out there can resize it for me. I am not having luck.

Innsbruck and World Championships

I was at the world's with my asst. coach Tracey and TJ, Terry Johnson, an ex NHLer who I have coached a lot with. We watched the Can-USA game, went out with some of the Canada players and then took a train back at 2 a.m. to Vienna to listen to Scotty Bowman speak at 9 in the morning.

Addition Dec. 21.

I called Dany H. to make sure we could get into the game in Innsbruck and he thought there would be no problem. TJ, Tracey and I got there and it was sold out. The Canda coaches let us use their id's so we could get in. I have a pick of the 3 passes. We got into the game and sat by the bench then waited for Dany to ride the bike and went to a beer garden.

Topic????

Guess I shouldn't have posted so much. The discussions have really dried up. I still spend two hours each morning breaking down practice videos and doing the diagrams; so every day there is something new on the drill front.

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Tom,

I can only speak for myself, but I think it's just a busy time of year........a few more days of work and a few games this weekend and then I'll have more time to read & post. The videos are really useful and the work is appreciated.

Dave
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I am sure your right Dave. Thanks for the nice comments.

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Tom,

Ditto... We have all been sick here for 1.5 weeks and now I am behind in my coach evaluations and contract work for Hockey Canada. Gotta try to get stuff done before Christmas break (not to mention shop, play "dad", etc.) so I will be mainly a spectator until close to the new year. If you want to take a break from posting the daily drills yourself, don't sweat it! We all appreciate the contributions you make and EVEN YOU deserve some time off, Coachy!!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!

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Dean,
The board was totally quiet about 4 days. I will continue to do one a day when I have time. Have that camp in Jasper 27-29. With Christmas on Saturday a lot of my hockey is cancelled. Today was the last Friday noon hockey for three weeks and Sunday will be our last for a few weeks as well. I don't know about our Mon and Wed. Next week will be ok I am sure. My team has one more practice until the first week of Jan. Most players are gone so we won't have many there. Last wed. 5 skater and one goalie. Can't do much. I brought my grandson and he skated and loved it. Student vs staff game on Tues. morning with my skills class then they are done on Wed. My son came back from Toronto for Christmas and will be here about 17 days. Nice to have him home.

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Merry Christmas!

It's nice and chilly here (-27C).

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Happy Holidays Guys...

No hockey games for the next week or two.....off to see a San Jose Sharks game (vs the LA Kings) the day after Christmas....no loyalty to either team, just excited to have the opportunity.

Speaking of opportunities, I'll do my best to have one of these for each of you while I'm down there:
http://www.anchorbrewing.com/beers/libertyale.htm ....or maybe one of these: http://www.rogue.com/beers/northwestern-ale.php Thanks for all the insight this year, and best wishes in the new one. Tom, thanks for all the work!

Dave

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Dave enjoy yourself in San Jose. The beer sounds good. I just put a new avatar on where I am having a Steigl beer at the restaurant on top of the fortress overlooking Salzburg.

Merry Christmas.

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Merry Christmas guys!

Kai - nice hat! Only -10C here this morning but supposed to creep above 0C for Christmas day. Might have to hit the outdoor rink in my neighbours yard with my boy! I bought him skates a few weeks ago. He is just learning to stand on them.

Tom - love the new avatar. Makes me thirsty... for a Steigl... and sunshine with a nice backdrop!

Dave - enjoy the game but I hope you enjoy the beer more!

All the best to you guys. I plan to go watch the Russian Midget team during the Mac's tourney. I watched them a few years ago - amazing size, skill and game sense. I might even try to video some of it...

3 Day camp in Jasper

I drove back from Jasper last night with my son, Jim. The camp went well and was sponsored by their minor hockey association.

There were 3 groups. 5 to 9 year olds, 10-12 and 13-17. The oldest group was mostly girls who play in Jasper with 3 to 5 boy's. There were zero goalies in the camp so we used 4 small nets that their association got from Arizona Sports. So I didn't have to bring my nets, though I always carry two in my van.

They were in two groups for one hour of skating in the morning with Gaston and then had hockey with Jim and I after that.

With the little guys we focused on puck handling and passing skills and doing these skills within game situations. We spent about 20 minutes the last practice on shooting skills. I wish we had light pucks so the little guys and girls were strong enough to do a wrist shot.

The middle group we did a little more advanced puck handling and played games where certain skills were required. Jim also taught them tricks like picking up the puck various ways, picking it and shooting, or picking it and playing around the body with it and various trick shots. It is surprising how many of these players learned to do some of the stick tricks. We added snap passes, backhands and saucer passes as well. The third day we did a checking practice because they want to hit but don't know how. We did lots of games that required them to get open and to see the ice. i.e. everyone must touch the puck before a goal, two pass, 2 seconds with the puck, full ice but at least one pass in each zone, escape move before passing, 3 strides before a pass or shot, etc. The first day focused on puck handling so we played some puck handling games such as 1 vs 1 vs 1 and another game where only one pass is allowed and then you must score and a full ice game where you must gain a zone before you can pass and only one pass is allowed in the offensive zone.

With the oldest group we focused on puck handling the first day and did similar games. Every group did full ice with at least one pass in each zone as well. Day 2 we did more advanced passing and some transition games that focused on playing all 4 playing roles and not just on the puck. The coach wanted me to help them with defensive zone coverage since 80% of that group was girl's from his team. We did that and on day 3 went through the Murdoch breakout sequences and played one zone and full ice trainsition games where they had to use the breakouts and do proper Dzone coverage in their end. The last two sessions with this group were more like a team practice than a clinic.

We got positive feedback from the players and parents and are invited back next July.

Gaston is from Switzerland and there is a fancy Swiss restaurant there that requires reservations and at least two hours to enjoy your meal. We had the full meal deal with wine, appetizers, main course, digestive drinks, special coffee and dessert. Very good and very expensive but well worth it. http://andysbistro.com/

Great experience in a beautiful Rocky Mountain resort town.
http://www.jasper.travel/

Swedish puck skills

Just watched the Swedish U20 team beat Canada in a shootout. They deserved the win and dominated the first half of the game. The last 30 min. was about even.
Swedes have great individual puck skills and offensive team play skills. They won most of the battles on the boards as well.

Incredible stick handlers.. Canda has a great pplay and Schenn is terrific.

Happy New Year and gom player

Happy New Year to everybody. I wish you good health and happiness. (and a goalie who can stop pucks)

I know you can't run the videos on the Ipad or other apple products. My son tells me the gom player can be uploaded and runs almost every format including the wmv files that I post the videos with http://gomplayer.com is where u get a free download. Someone with an apple let me know if it works.

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Don Cherry wishes he had a goalie who could stop pucks when he was in Colorado! Hardy Astrom wasn't the ticket!

Happy New Year to everyone.

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The Russians Are Coming!

Actually, they were here and now they have left...

I watched the third period of the Russians (Severstal) play Tisdale Trojans (Saskatchewan) at the Mac's Tournament.

http://www.macstournament.ab.ca/tournament_11.html

This was the only game the Russians won out of four round robin games (score was 8-4.) The other three games, the opposition teams apparently really laid the body on them to minimize their time and space. Those games were played in the Max Bell arena - it is at least NHL size (maybe slightly bigger). The game I watched was on true International size at Father David Bauer (200' L x 100' w). So maybe this helped lead to their only victory (plus their opponent ended up winless in their pool.)

Pool 2 GP W L T GF GA PTS
Leduc Chrysler Oil Kings 5 3 2 0 6 19 13
Calgary Royals 4 3 1 0 6 8 8
Greater Vancouver Canadians 5 3 2 0 6 18 21
Russia HC Severstal 4 1 3 0 2 20 21
Tisdale Trojans 4 0 4 0 0 10 19

(The teams that played more than four games had moved onto the playoff rounds.)

What I saw of the Russians:

(1) Still most players shoot left-handed. I only saw four kids who shot right.

(2) They weren't all excellent skaters - which surprised me. Most were above average.

(3) Couldn't really judge their size as I was up top. Last time they were almost all over 6' tall. They didn't look any bigger / smaller than their opponents.

(4) Their stick skills (with and without the puck - offense and defense) were excellent! Great passers (direct / to space / indirect / redirect) and receivers (stick / feet) and deflectors (when in front of the net.) Their eye-hand coordination was excellent.

(5) Excellent puck possession skills (toe drags, quick hands, puck protection, turn backs, open men supporting puck carrier multiple times and always ready to receive - lots of give and go's, use of space (width and depth)).

(6) Above average shooting ability - deceptive, heavy, accurate shots with minimal telegraphing. They were usually in the "triple threat" position (pass / shoot / deke) with the puck when they entered the offensive zone... and often whenever they had the puck.

(7) They shied away from a lot of checks (when they had the puck) and they got caught in the cross hairs several times. It's not that they seemed to have their heads down - they just didn't seem used to the amount of hits / style of physical play. They did try to make bodychecks on their opponents, but not often. Looks like they are used to more of a flowing, freewheeling type game, which makes sense based on where they are from.

(8) Both teams took liberties(stick infractions). Lots of penalties. I am guessing the Russians were frustrated by all the body checking and Tisdale was frustrated they they hadn't won a game. Even short-handed, the Russians scored and made Tisdale look disorganized on the PP. The Russians played keep away, spread out all over the ice, and only dumped it when they had no other option / got tired and needed a change. The Russian PP really moves the puck around well.

Regretfully, I couldn't shoot any video as the safety netting (to protect us dumb fans from the puck when we are knitting / talking instead of watching the play!) causes the camera to focus on it in the foreground - the action is blurred in the background.

Based on my memory of a few years ago, this Russian team was not as tall / big / heavy; not as good of skaters; not quite as skilled - as their predecessors. And the team from a few years ago coped with the physicality of play much better - giving and receiving. Their team speed was better too. (I saw them play on the International ice last time too.)

IIHF symposium etc.

Just offered my kid's the tickets to the Flames on Wed. and Fri. as I am coaching both nights.

I looked at the symposium in Slovakia at the IIHF men's championship. the youth one is April 30 may 1 a Sat and Sunday and the speakers are almost the same as the Advanced one the next Fri - Sun. You get 4 tickets to games at the youth one and for 365 Euros which is about $500 you get hotel with a breakfast. 40 Euros for extra nights in one of the sports hotels.

Flights from Calgary at that time are about $1200 to Prague. I haven't checked Brataslava prices.

I think I am going to go to the youth conference. Whether to leave a few days early or stay a few days later is what I am deciding. I am waiting to hear from Jihlava if they want a coaching clinic still. If so it will change things.

If other coaches are considering going let me know and we can get together to discuss some hockey topics over a few pops.

IIHF Conference

Tom,

Please keep me in the loop regarding which clinic you decide on and if you are heading to the Czech Republic. I am considering going this year. Not sure for which one. Usually, we are in Spokane for Bloomsday (first Sunday in May) and if so, this would mean I would miss the youth conference. Might take the wife and kids to make this a working holiday for two weeks.

_______________________________________

Brataslava is only 46 km from Vienna and it is about $50 cheaper to fly there than Prague. Brataslava cost about $500 more to fly direct. You should try to rent an apartment or house if you are taking the fam. This morning I was thinking that you and I should offer an ABC clinic in Calgary this June. Have it Fri-Sun. in June and include on-off ice and classroom plus a night at the Ranchman's.

Theme would be how to run a practice for each of the 4 Game Playing Roles using the A-B-C-D-E drills, games and transition games.

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Try I'm trying to make it to youth syposium but it's not sure yet

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Renney goes on trip despite father's death


By Mario Annicchiarico, Edmonton Journal February 4, 2011

Edmonton Oilers head coach Tom Renney remained at work on Thursday and was scheduled to fly out with the team in the afternoon on its three-game road trip that begins today in St. Louis and continues through to Columbus and Nashville.

Renney's father, Joe, died late Tuesday night in Cranbrook, B.C., and the Oilers' bench boss remained at work, running the team during its 3-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday night.

On Thursday he did not participate on the ice, instead watching from the stands atop the Black Gold Arena in Leduc, prior to the team's afternoon departure.

"Tom is coming on the trip," said assistant coach Ralph Krueger.

"Everything is business as usual at the moment, his family hasn't made final plans yet for a memorial or a funeral and those will be following in the next few days, but at the moment Tom is on board and running the ship as usual."

Asked how the organization was coping with the loss, Krueger said the entire group was maintaining a professional attitude at a difficult time and supporting their head coach.

"It's a reality of life," said Krueger. "He finds out bad news in late hours and the next night you're behind the bench coaching again.

"He spoke a lot to the team about his father Joe. He was very proud of what he had done in his life, about his values and principles, and that's been part of his conversations since the fall.

"I think that's very important, that the team understands what a great man Tom's father was and what that meant to Tom. It brings back the reality of how much we should enjoy our situation here," added Krueger. "We're alive, we're all playing a game we love. It's the best game on the planet. As much pain as there is for everybody, especially for Tom above all, it's also the lessons you get in these kinds of times. To enjoy the day, work hard in the day and be very grateful for working in a profession we all want to be in. That's the main message that's coming into the group right now."

Renney did not address the media Thursday, but did speak to his players.

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
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My thoughts go out to Tom and his family. I coached with him in the early 1990's with the National Team program. Truly one of the best men I have ever coached with.

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All right, I'm going to Youth Symposium. I'll arrive to Vienna at morning of 29th and try to figure out some transportation to Bratislava (buss or train I guess). Going back home on 2nd of may.

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Kai,

I spoke to Tom last night. He is heading over May 27 and back May 3, unless he stays longer to help out at a Czech hockey camp. Now I am trying to look at the costs, logistics. Might go over May 2 after our annual trip to Spokane WA so I can at least attend the 'regular' clinic that weekend. I will let you know once I know. Unfortunately, we might not get a chance to make a beer picture with the three of us on this trip... might have to photoshop it!
--------------------------
Dean, Juuso wants me to visit him in Turku; so I will probably go to Finland for about 3 days as well. You could go Helsinki, Vienna, conference, home. He can sleep 2 in his sauna.

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Drunks try to free trapped car with stolen Zamboni

By NADIA MOHARIB, Calgary Sun February 17, 2011


Their car stuck in the slush, two apparently drunk men Thursday committed the most Canadian of crimes — they tried to steal a Zamboni to extricate themselves.

Unfortunately, for the seemingly sloshed suspects, before the pair could free their car which was stuck behind East Calgary Twin Arenas — they were arrested by police.

Ross Harris, operations manager of the arena on Erin Woods Dr. S.E., said he was working in an office at the facility when he noticed the Zamboni on the move.

“I happened to see the Zamboni going outside on the camera system,” he said.

“I really wondered what was going on.”

He soon learned at least one of two men had walked into the building and broken into the garage area where the ice-grooming machine was parked.

When he got outside, the pair — with one driving the machine — was trying to push the car free of an icy stretch of pavement.

They seemed utterly unapologetic about their actions, instead asking Harris if he had a truck or tow rope to help them free their car.

While the Zamboni is four-wheel drive, it is not meant to go up hills or hit pavement.

At one point, the man driving the machine stepped to the ground and it rolled backwards with Harris forced to jump into the driver’s seat just in time to steer it clear of the building.

Telling them he was going inside to get a shovel, he told co-workers to summon police for two tipsy strangers having trouble navigating winter roads.

About five minutes later, police were there and had the pair in custody.

Sgt. Kelly Oberg said the case is certainly unique and alcohol appears to be a factor.

“This is my first stolen Zamboni,” he said.

Charges, including theft of a vehicle, break-and-enter, mischief and impaired driving, are pending against two men in their 30s.

Heritage Classic Outdoor Game-Montreal vs Calgary

I went to the Heritage Classic game on Feb. 20th with my son. It was about -25 C (about -12 F) which isn't toooo bad but there was a wind which makes it way colder.

The video was just before the game. They showed interviews with players on the big screen and then had a lot of fireworks and music as the players skated onto the ice.
It was chilly but a lot of fun.

http://hockeycoachingabcs.com/mediagallery/media.php?f=0&sort=0&s=20110306075807835

"it's the cursed cold and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone;... yet ain't being dead tis my awful dread of the icy grave that pains, so I want you to swear, that foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."
Sam Magee

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I was part of this era... Al vs. Bob & Kelly. Some crazy stuff! Sad to see another 'old' rink with lots of history get retired, but it was bloody cold. No doubt the new one will be much nicer (and warmer for the coaching staff!)

Al is a pro scout for Florida now. Not sure what happened to Bobby Lowes. I think I heard he 'retired' from coaching and got a day job in sales?

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Thursday, March 17, 2011 Gregg Drinnan Blog

Thursday . . .

The place to be tonight is Moose Jaw where the Warriors and Brandon Wheat Kings will play the final regular-season game in the history of the Civic Centre (aka the Crushed Can).

Mark MacKay, the Warriors captain in 1984-85 when he became the only 20-year-old player in WHL history to be named rookie of the year, will drop the puck for the ceremonial opening faceoff.

Kelly McCrimmon, the owner, GM and head coach of the Wheat Kings, has more than his share of Crushed Can memories.
He shared this with Rob Henderson of the Brandon Sun:

“The Bob Lowes era versus the Al Tuer era where for whatever reason we seemed to have their number over a five-, six-year period, they maybe beat us three or four times and yet we never, ever beat them easily. It was just that kind of a series that we had going.

“We’ve had good playoff rivalries with them. We had Theran Yeo get attacked by their crowd, we had Bill Aulie (the father of former Wheat Kings D Keith Aulie) in the middle of a melee. There’s lots of things that happened in Moose Jaw over the years. Bobby (Lowes) and I both got suspended there for running on the ice when we caught them cheating one night. There’s been lots of funny stories coming out of Moose Jaw.”

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Rosetown Redwings on 31-0 roll

SHA senior squad can post perfect season with one more win

By Darren Zary, The StarPhoenix March 23, 2011



Win and they're in elite company. Win their next one and the Rosetown Redwings will close out a rare perfect season in Saskatchewan's senior hockey ranks.

Currently 31-0 for the season, the Redwings keep rolling along as they head to Shaunavon on Saturday for Game 2 of their best-of-three Saskatchewan Hockey Association provincial senior B championship final at 6 p.m. A third game, if necessary, would be played back in Rosetown on Sunday at 1 p.m., but, of course the Rosetown crew would prefer the dream ending.

"So far, so good," says Jason Ediger, head coach of the Sask Valley Hockey League champion Redwings.

"One more game yet."

The Wings' lineup features former Kelowna Rocket star goalie Kelly Guard, who spent three seasons in the NHL's Ottawa Senators system, including two in the American Hockey League. Up front, Rosetown has a mix of Western Hockey League, Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League, Canadian Interuniversity Sport and NCCA grads, some with minor pro experience in the AHL and ECHL ranks.

Among them are Casey Lee, Kirk Pearce, Rory McMahon, Jared Jagow, Denny Johnston and Keegan McAvoy.

"It's pretty cool," said McAvoy. "It's kind of like the whole town is rallying behind the team, taking the logo of our team and stuff -it's all over town. It hasn't been like this here since back in the '70s is when Rosetown used to be seriously good. Rosetown had seen a lot of success in the '70s with its senior hockey, but it had been rather off the map since then."

Until now. "There is a huge buzz around town with the success Rosetown has been having with their hockey this year," noted McAvoy. "The midgets just won the provincial B title last weekend to a full house in the old Rosetown barn and now the whole community is rallying behind the senior team to do the same, bring back some memories of the teams from the winning '70s Wings."

McAvoy, Guard and Endicott are team imports. Among the blue-liners are Derek Endicott, Kevin Aylward, Justin Holmes and Boyd Kampen. Rounding out the squad are local veterans Heath Pearce, Wilson Johnston, Matt Speir, Carter and Tyler Gilchrist and Greg Moore along with Lee Stevens, Matt Kahovec, Kevin Clark and Craig Wagar.

The Redwings were 18-0 during the regular season in the Sask Valley league regular season before racking up eight straight wins in the playoffs to capture the league title in three straight over the Kyle Elks.

In provincial playoffs, they're 5-0. "It is rare and it is surprising," said Ediger. "We never once figured we'd be looking at a perfect season. It never crossed our minds. Our main goal, at the start of the season, was to win league and provincials. We've accomplished the league and now we have our sights set on provincials. If it does come, the perfect season would definitely be icing on the cake."

THAT '70S SHOW

All this for a town which hasn't tasted senior hockey glory for quite some time. Rosetown was once the toast of the senior hockey ranks way back in the '70s. Indeed, the Redwings were Hardy Cup finalists in 1970, 1971 and 1972 -national runner-up each year.

"Rosetown, in the late '70s, was the team in Canada," noted Ediger. "It was the era of the Moores, including Alan Moore."

Dwayne Endicott was an import for that team in the mid-'70s. Four decades later, his son, Derek, is playing for Rosetown, which defeated the Shaunavon Badgers 6-2 in Game 1 of the provincial B final before a packed house of about 1,400 fans.

Shaunavon's squad is Team Hunter. J.J. Hunter, a former Kelowna Rocket and P.A. Raider, played seven seasons of pro hockey in the AHL and ECHL. Luke Hunter, a former WHL Swift Current Bronco, played in the CHL, as did former Melville Millionaire Dustin Hunter. Brock Hunter and Ty Hunter also play for Shaunavon.

"Senior hockey is obviously very prominent here in Sask.," offered McAvoy, who played professionally in China. "There are at least (13) different leagues around the province that are well supported.

"People have been trying to dig up if any (senior) team has ever gone undefeated, but haven't found anything yet to prove it has happened. There is also a lot of buzz about the Allan Cup being played in Saskatchewan next year and Rosetown representing the province at that tournament."

No venue has been announced, although, once again, Lloydminster is a possibility.

"There has been a lot of speculation about our team taking a run at the Allan Cup (in 2012) and, at this time, it's probably the direction we'll be heading," admitted Ediger. "We've still got some things to figure out and I think we've got until September to pay that bond. Ultimately, that's the direction we're focused.

"There isn't a whole lot of coaching involved. We talked, at the beginning of the year that everybody's going to have a role. Everybody's bought into that and everybody's getting along unreal in the dressing room. We go out and do our jobs."

Balgonie and Maidstone are playing in this year's provincial senior A final.

"Everybody's talking about how the A-winner and B-winner should go at it, to see what's really going on," said McAvoy.

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Davis Weisner, Calgary teen at centre of health-care controversy, dies of cancer


By Deborah Tetley, Calgary Herald March 30, 2011



CALGARY — Fifteen-year-old Davis Weisner wasn’t afraid of dying.

After battling cancer for five years — a clash punctuated by thrilling highs and excruciating lows — he was ready for anything.

But in the days leading up to his death over the weekend from neuroblastoma, Davis floored his mother when he said he was afraid of one thing, however.

“He was worried he would be forgotten,” said Janine Weisner, Davis’ mother. “He didn’t want us or anyone to forget about him.

“If only he knew how much he’ll be remembered, and has been the past few days,” she said with a sigh.

Since Davis died at the Alberta Children’s Hospital on Saturday morning, the Weisner family has been overwhelmed by support, concern, gifts and offers of help from the community, friends, family, neighbours, the hospital staff and strangers.

“He has had such an impact on so many and he never realized that,” Janine said Tuesday. “I am proud of everything about him.”

Davis was just 10 years old when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2006, which was already at Stage 4.

Although he’d been feeling sick for several months, it wasn’t until he ended up in a wheelchair during a surprise family vacation to Disneyland that his family realized the aching in his legs was more than growing pains.

Just weeks into his chemotherapy treatments, Davis and his family found themselves at the centre of a major health-care controversy when the boy was turned away from the children’s hospital due to a shortage of oncology beds.

In the ensuing days it was revealed that other children were turned away, as well, amid a sudden surge in childhood cancer cases. Beds were added to the hosital in an attempt to ease the crunch.

About a year later, after rounds of radiation, chemotherapy and two bone marrow transplants, Davis was in remission; strong, healthy and happy for about 17 months, his mother said.

Then, the cancer came back. The family was devastated.

“When you relapse with neuroblastoma there isn’t much hope,” Janine said, “but Davis never gave up; even in the last few months he showed so much courage.”

She recalled a cancer-related speaking engagement he’d committed to, but as the day approached he became self-conscious. He was quite ill, puffy from steroids and had developed a droop in his mouth that affected his speech. Organizers told him it was OK to take a pass.

“But he didn’t,” said Janine. “That was the most courage I had ever seen, He was brave, just like he was the whole time. He knew this was his fate, but he battled in so many ways.”

Last month the Grade 10 student at Lester B. Pearson High School rallied again when it was announced that he was joining 14 other teens to take part in a humanitarian project to build houses in Mexico.

No one who knew Davis was surprised, as he was often admired for his kind heart.

But as the day approached for Davis to leave, he was too sick to make the journey.

His younger sister, 13-year-old Jessie, went in his place.

He was proud of his sister, his mother said.

The family is expecting hundreds of supporters to fill the Pineridge Community Centre on Saturday, for a celebration of his life, which the teen had a hand in planning.

“He wants it to be a party, not a funeral,” said his mother, adding her son was a huge Flames fan, who counted Matt Stajan and former Flame Dion Phaneuf as among his friends.

“So, we’re wearing our Flames jerseys — maybe I will wear his — and we will have his giant Flames flag and we’re celebrating.”
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Although this is a sad story, it is also inspiring. This young man had incredible courage and touched many people. Some of the comments posted below this story were awesome:

Joe Albertan

12:50 PM on March 30, 2011

It's things like this that bring everything into perspective about what's important.
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Just My Thoughts

9:47 AM on March 30, 2011

I was not fortunate enough to know Davis, and I don't know the Weisner family. I would only hope that I would be as brave, compassionate and giving as this young man was, if I ever get sick. The Weisner's are in my thoughts, you did amazing by Davis.
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http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/Davis+
Weisner+Calgary+teen+centre+health+care+controversy
+dies+cancer/4525040/story.html

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NHL Weekend - The last whistle

DAVID SHOALTS
From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published Friday, Apr. 01, 2011


On Saturday in Washington, Bill McCreary will step on an NHL ice surface for the 2,034th and final time, completing a career that began in the same city almost 27 years ago.

When the game between the Washington Capitals and Buffalo Sabres ends, if the self-effacing McCreary were so inclined, he could say he is going out as one of the best NHL referees ever to put on stripes. Few would argue, including Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke, who was once the NHL director of hockey operations and McCreary’s boss.

“When we had a hot spot, we had a handful of guys we could put in there and he was one of them,” Burke said. “We could put him in any situation. Threats, prior fights, suspensions, whatever was going on before that game, we could put him in there and know he would keep the lid on the pot.”

Asked if the NHL game he is leaving, with its rules designed for speed and flow, is better now than when he started, McCreary offered the same answer he gave an NHL GM recently: He’s not sure.

“I had the privilege of being on the ice with Marcel Dionne and his Three Crowns line and with Gilbert Perreault and the French Connection and the Islanders of the 1980s,” he said. “Those players to me were as skilled as any today. And they played through all the hooking, holding and interference that we were taught not to call because that was the way they wanted the game called.

“But if you want to see speed and go and flow, then you can say without a doubt today is a better game. I was fortunate to be part of all of it.”

One thing McCreary is sure of is the season-long controversy over concussions and hits to the head is overblown. He does not think the league needed to bring in rule 48, which outlawed blind-side hits to the head, because it already had rule 21.1, which allows an official to give a match penalty to a player who deliberately attempts to injure another player and subjects him to further discipline from the league.

“Had it been examined enough, I believe the match penalty would have been more than sufficient [to deal with head shots],” he said. “It goes to the same desk. It gets to [NHL director of hockey operations] Colin Campbell, who would then rule on it.

“But it’s a credit to the media. They’ve blown it out of proportion in certain ways.”

However, McCreary is not saying the NHL does not have a problem with concussions. “Is it fair to say there is a crisis in our game?” he said. “I’d say it’s fair, but it has to be studied.

What he says needs to be examined are issues like fighting, the rules, arena design (including the glass and posts around the ice surface) and player equipment.

McCreary sees equipment as one of the biggest problems because some players still wear outdated, inadequate gear from their younger days and others play with the shoulder and elbow pads covered by hard caps that can cause a lot of damage in collisions.

Most of the trouble, McCreary believes, comes from a small number of players who do not respect their peers and go head-hunting. But the small number means it should be easy to stamp out.

“I really think it is,” he said. “I don’t think it’s as big an issue as we’re letting on.

“Players used to check the puck carrier and check the puck. They never used to try and separate the head from the shoulders. That’s what they do now. That is something the players can control.”

One thing McCreary is proud of about the undying controversy around the subject is “there’s been very little said about the officiating. It’s all about players being hurt and the suspensions. I think that’s a credit to all the guys I work with.”

Those questioned about McCreary’s work all mentioned he is a communicator, something of a dying art among today’s referees.

Broadcaster Harry Neale was a head coach in the days of the old one-referee system and said: “I was happy when I read the referee was going to be McCreary. I thought he managed a game better than most.

“He would talk to you if there was a problem you didn’t understand or you needed a clarification,” Neale added.

McCreary says communication is “a tool you have in your toolbox as a referee” along with making sure you are physically fit enough to keep up with the speed of the game and mentally agile enough to make the right call on instinct instead of stopping to think about every move.

But it may be the most important tool.

“If you are able to communicate, in a lot of cases you can bring down the emotional level when it starts to rise and looks like things are going to happen,” he said. “If you can be proactive and communicate to a player or coach, I think it eliminates calling some penalties and creates a level of respect between you and the player.”

As he made his way through the NHL in his last two weeks, McCreary received tokens of respect from his peers, the players and coaches. Philadelphia Flyers defenceman Chris Pronger presented him with a team sweater autographed by the players and Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Dan Bylsma did the same with a Sidney Crosby sweater.

Fellow referee Tim Peel gave McCreary a special bottle of wine from a California winery engraved with his important career statistics: 1,737 regular-season games, 15 Stanley Cup finals, 44 Stanley Cup final games (the most by an NHL referee) and 297 playoff games.

McCreary, 55, was supposed to retire a year ago, but was asked to stay another year by Terry Gregson, the NHL director of officiating. There will not be another request because McCreary says it is time to go.

“The way the game is played you have to work out to keep up,” he said, adding he is ready to leave the grind of the physical and mental preparation behind.

He decided to end it in Washington because that was where his NHL career began rather than go through what would surely be a media event in Toronto, which is not far from his hometown of Guelph, Ont.

The future is up in the air right now, although McCreary is talking to Gregson about a job with the NHL as a mentor, coach and perhaps a scout of younger referees. “I’m hoping to stay in the game in some way,” he said.

McCreary was involved in few officiating controversies over the years, another tribute to his excellence, although he was on the ice for the famous Brett Hull goal in the 1999 Stanley Cup final.

Hull had his toe in the crease when he scored the Cup-winning goal for the Dallas Stars against the Buffalo Sabres and, despite the zero-tolerance approach on such incidents in force at the time, Gregson, who was the referee at the net, allowed the goal.

To this day, Sabres officials and fans insist it was the biggest injustice in NHL history. McCreary begs to differ. He says Bryan Lewis, then-NHL director of officiating, called down to the ice to confirm the call on the goal was legitimate.

“In layman’s terms, it was a good hockey goal,” McCreary said. “By the letter of the law, the way the rule was written that year, I suppose it could not have been allowed but I defy anyone to say [Hull] interfered with the goalie.”

Such is the regard for McCreary that even Sabres coach Lindy Ruff, who feels to this day his team was robbed, managed a one-liner when it was mentioned McCreary admitted he was on the ice for that goal.

“Man, he’s got to let that go,” Ruff said, deadpan.
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Zebra McCreary set to go out to pasture

By LANCE HORNBY, QMI Agency, April 1 2011


Zebra to pasture

The NHL usually lets retiring officials select the site of their last game to be near friends and family. For Guelph-born Bill McCreary, hanging up his whistle Saturday night after almost 30 years and 2,000 games, that would have been Toronto, perhaps Tuesday against Washington or Saturday against the Canadiens.

But wishing to keep it low-key, McCreary chose the Capitals-Sabres game in Washington, where he first started on Nov. 3, 1984. The Leafs were probably grateful they wouldn’t be distracted from their playoff chase by a pre-game ceremony at the Air Canada Centre, but had plenty of praise for the 55-year-old’s work through the years.

“He was always pretty fair,” veteran goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere said. “You always knew that when he handled a game it would be more old-school. Maybe he would let a bit more go. But at the same time, he would be fair with both teams.

“I will always have respect for referees. It’s tough when you think how fast the game is and that a lot of criticism goes their way. That’s pretty impressive that he’s 55 and he has to stay in shape and skate up and down with the 20-year-olds. It can’t be easy.”

Added winger Clarke MacArthur: “He has been in the game a long time and he’s obviously a well-respected official. He’s put a full career in and our hats are off to him.”

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

Minnesota legend Glen Sonmor has combined hockey and humanity

By Brian Murphy Pioneerpress.com 04/03/2011



Glen Sonmor's hockey footprint is wide and deep in Minnesota, where he started shaping a legacy as a player, coach, manager, scout and broadcaster when Harry Truman occupied the White House.

One of the game's renowned characters is a cultural guidebook for bygone eras of the rebel World Hockey Association and a rowdier NHL when grudge matches ruled divisions named after the sport's founding fathers instead of sterile geographical regions.

For younger fans unfamiliar with Sonmor's place in the sport's history, here is an abridged version:

He played alongside John Mariucci, fought Gordie Howe, introduced the 'Hanson Brothers' to Hollywood and once wore an eye patch as coach of the North Stars to toughen his players.

Yet his greatest impact has come off the ice and is measured from his encounters in a corner booth at the Boulevard Café in Bloomington, where the recovering alcoholic has been influencing lives for three decades.

"Hey, buddy, how are you?" Sonmor says Thursday, extending a hand over his mushroom-and-Swiss burger to greet a fellow member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

"This guy saved my life. He's the greatest," said the man who identified himself as Scotty G.

Scotty had relapsed during several failed rehabilitations before he met Sonmor in 2001 during an AA meeting at the café. They talked about hockey and the demons of addiction, and shared their joys, sorrows and aspirations. Something resonated. Scotty hasn't had a drop since.

"I spent a long time before that not being able to stay sober," he said. "Glen, being the hockey guy that he is, I'm a Minnesotan and grew up playing hockey. Finally, I had a connection and he made me feel like I belonged to something and helped me figure out how to work a program of recovery.

"Because of him, it's worked for me over nine years. I don't always know how, but it worked."

CHANGE OF LIFE

Across the restaurant at the Ramada Inn, Sonmor's daily AA meeting is under way. And during an hourlong interview, Sonmor and lunch mate Whitey Westlund chat with three other recovering alcoholics who stop by their table to say hello.

He is on a first-name basis with waitresses, busboys and managers, some of whom have been working there since Sonmor began frequenting the café in the former Thunderbird Hotel when he coached the North Stars from 1978-83.

There also were too many late nights at the hotel bar where Sonmor pounded beers after games, in denial about a disease that had its hooks in him since the 1960s. He kicked the booze for good in January 1983 after an ugly meltdown. Stumbling out of a Pittsburgh bar, two muggers attacked Sonmor and left him bloodied in an alley.

The incident got him fired as North Stars coach, and Sonmor realized he had hit rock bottom.

"Pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization," is how he described it.

Then-general manager Lou Nanne arranged for him to go to treatment. Sonmor reclaimed his life and began helping others do the same.

"I didn't throw it all away because Louie Nanne wouldn't give up on me, but I really did throw it away," Sonmor said. "But there is hope. There is hope for all of us. I don't care how long you've been doing it because I'd done it a long time.

"It's the thing I'm most proud of to be an example and be able to help people who have absolutely destroyed their life."

Now, Sonmor faces another health crisis in the sunset of his life.

Sonmor, 81, abruptly retired last month as Gophers radio analyst for WCCO, ending a hockey career that started in 1949. Doctors had been advising him to curtail traveling, which had taken a toll on him physically. But dementia has invaded.

His mind remains sharp, and his ability to recall details from long-ago games and milestones are uncanny. When distracted or interrupted, however, Sonmor struggles to pick up where he left off. Some memories mash together into a disjointed story line.

Sonmor recently moved out of the Bloomington apartment where he had lived for 26 years and into an assisted-living facility in the city. Westlund, 80, who met Sonmor in AA in the 1980s, lives three doors down.

"It's been tough. Some of his memory is kind of messed up," Westlund said.

When fall rolls around, Sonmor faces the prospect of being on the outside of hockey looking in for the first time since he was a child.

"It's all right. I'll be following it closely," he said. "Yeah ..."

Sonmor's voice catches before he reassures himself that retirement is for the best.

"When you get past 80, I don't want to have to go to all those games. It does get a little heavy to do. I didn't think it would, but it did."

Sonmor will hear plenty of stories from his 62 years in the game and feel the love from dozens of friends, colleagues and former players when he is feted Monday night at Tom Reid's pub in St. Paul.

Oh, the hockey Sonmor has witnessed over the past 62 years, and most of it through only one eye.

"I have never met a man who loves the game of hockey more than Glen Sonmor," said former Wild general manager Doug Risebrough, who gave Sonmor his last NHL job when he hired him to scout for the Wild from 2000-09.

DRAWN TO MARIUCCI

Born in the fantastically named Canadian outpost of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Sonmor moved to Hamilton, Ontario, when he was 3 and became a three-sport star in high school.

The pitcher even caught the eye of a scout from the New York Yankees, but hockey was Sonmor's first love. He started his journey in Minneapolis, where he found a mentor who continues to influence him.

John Mariucci was considered the godfather of hockey in Minnesota until he died in 1987. A hard-nosed and talented playmaker with the Gophers, he was one of the earliest Americans to play in the NHL.

Mariucci was on the downslope of his career when Sonmor joined the Millers in 1949. The two shared a passion for the game and pugilism that sealed their bond.

"He found out early that I could fight, so he was training me to take over for him when he wasn't going to be there anymore," Sonmor recalled. "That was a great joy of my life. I watched him set the tempo — his love for the game, his respect and concern about his teammates."

Mariucci also drove Sonmor to the U campus in the spring of 1950 to enroll him.

"He pulled me aside and said, 'Kid, of all my teammates who have been Canadians, you're the first one that ever finished high school. You're going to college.' "

Late in the 1953-54 season, Sonmor worked his way into the New York Rangers' lineup and scored a pair of goals. He also dropped the gloves with Howe, the Detroit Red Wings icon. As the story goes, Sonmor was battering Ted Lindsay when Howe stepped in and decided to humble the rookie.

"He took charge, threw me down so hard I hit the back of my head on the ice. Just about knocked me out," Sonmor said of Howe.

"I'm laying there and the ref is down there, 'Are you OK, kid?' I said: 'Yeah, I'm OK. But I'm not getting up until I see that big son of a *censormode* in the penalty box!' "

Those two points and the tussle with a future hall of famer were the highlights of Sonmor's brief career.

On Feb. 27, 1955, Sonmor was playing for Cleveland in a minor league game in Pittsburgh. He was screening the goalie for teammate Steve Kraftcheck, his neighborhood buddy from Hamilton, when Kraftcheck's slap shot ricocheted and hit Sonmor in the left eye.

Doctors hospitalized Sonmor six weeks but couldn't save his eye. Just four days before the accident, his daughter, Katherine, was born. Suddenly, Sonmor's playing career was finished. He was just 25 and facing an uncertain future.

Then, one day in his hospital room, the telephone rang. It was Mariucci.

"He said: 'Don't worry about what you're going to do. I've got you the freshman coaching job at the university, and you can get into coaching right away,' " Sonmor said. "That's what I needed to hear. I needed something to do that I knew I would be good at."

Sonmor never spoke a bitter or self-pitying word about his fate and embarked on the career that would define him.

Sonmor succeeded Mariucci as head coach of the Gophers in 1966. He won two Western Collegiate Hockey Association championships and led Minnesota to the 1971 Frozen Four before turning pro and handing over the program to Herb Brooks.

The fun had just begun.

WILD, WILD WHA

The World Hockey Association existed only five years in the 1970s, but the upstart competitors to the NHL had an impact on the sport that endures.

Lucrative contracts, the 18-year-old draft and teams in cities with palm trees exist because the WHA explored new territory and dragged the NHL into the modern era. WHA teams also scraped the bottom of the barrel for castoffs and all-star beer leaguers.

"You might have had some characters who were orangutans," Sonmor acknowledged.

And no team was more boorish than the Fighting Saints of St. Paul, who hired Sonmor in 1972 to coach and assemble a rogue's gallery of fighters and local legends.

There was former Gophers stars Gary Gambucci and Mike Antonovich, plus ex-North Stars Ted Hampson and Wayne Connelly. Popular players included Mike "Shaky" Walton and Bill "Goldy" Goldthorpe, Dave "Killer" Hanson and the Carlson brothers — Jack, Jeff and Steve from Virginia of Minnesota's Iron Range.

The Carlsons spent the 1974-75 season playing for the Saints' affiliate in the steel town of Johnstown, Pa., where a young screenwriter named Nancy Dowd had embedded to polish a script about minor league hockey.

They were the inspiration for the colorful characters of "Slapshot," the cinematic cult classic that starred Paul Newman as the washed-up player-coach who unleashed his band of brawlers to terrorize the fictitious Federal League.

Back in St. Paul, Sonmor molded the Saints into mirror images of the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers, who fought their way to a pair of Stanley Cups in the mid-'70s.

"Glen's philosophy was he wanted to come out in the first 10 minutes of a game and pound the other team so the other players would think, 'Well, let's pack it in tonight,' " Jack Carlson said.

The WHA's shaky financial footing led to bounced paychecks and teams folding and merging season by season. Sonmor recalled racing with assistant coach Harry Neale from a bank in a taxicab to the airport with sacks of cash, crunching contract terms to determine prorated amounts to disperse to players on the plane.

NORTH STARS REVIVAL

The North Stars of the early and mid-'70s were a sad-sack bunch who missed the playoffs six straight seasons before Sonmor, hired as head coach in November 1978, led them to the Stanley Cup semifinals in 1980.

In 16 seasons in Minnesota, the North Stars were never more successful than during Sonmor's five years under Nanne. He posted a regular-season record of 174-161-81, plus a 36-21 mark in the postseason.

"He was a great coach," said former captain Steve Payne, who played six of his 10 seasons in the NHL under Sonmor. "He was smart enough to realize how to work with the personalities he had instead of against them with a my-way-or-the-highway attitude. He ran a great practice and prepared us very well."

The pinnacle was spring 1981, when the North Stars ripped through Boston, Buffalo and Calgary to reach the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in team history. They smacked head-on into an emerging dynasty, losing in five games to the New York Islanders, who won the second of their four straight Cups.

Months before Minnesota caught fire in the playoffs, Sonmor delivered a pregame speech at the Boston Garden that is seared into the memories of players on that team.

The North Stars were winless in 35 games in Boston. Worse, they had been pushovers against the big, bad Bruins, who taunted them mercilessly on the ice and in the media. John Wencik once skated in front of the North Stars' bench, spread his arms wide and dared anyone to fight him. No one budged.

So on Feb. 26, 1981, Sonmor stood in the cramped visitors' dressing room and challenged his team to stand up for each other.

"Not the second time, not the third time, but the first time they show any sense they're trying to intimidate us, I want you to stand up to these guys," Sonmor recalled 30 years later.

Shortly after the opening faceoff, Boston's Steve Kasper high-sticked Bobby Smith, and the North Stars' mild-mannered playmaker dropped the gloves for a rare fight. When the night was over, officials had tallied 42 penalties, seven game misconducts and a record 406 penalty minutes in a 5-1 Boston victory that nonetheless restored Minnesota's dignity.

"Glen stood up there and said: 'I don't care if we lose 1-0 or 15-0, this (stuff) ends tonight. We're going to play and fight as a team,' " Jack Carlson recalled. "Glen was one of those guys who didn't mind taking the heat. There was always a reason behind his madness. Was it right? That's the way the game was played back then."

The North Stars faced the Bruins in the first round of the playoffs and swept the best-of-five series in three games. The players discovered they had a spine while Sonmor wore a black pirate's eye patch over his empty orbit for all three victories.

"Hockey was lucky to have Glen Sonmor in the game for 60 years," Payne said.

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

More from the last game played in the Moose Jaw Civic Centre, courtesy of Gregg Drinnan's blog (Kamloops BC.)
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Monday, April 4, 2011
A fond farewell . . .

(The Moose Jaw Civic Centre — aka Crushed Can — was home to its final hockey game Sunday night. The Moose Jaw Warriors will move into a new downtown multiplex in time for next season. Matthew Gourlie of the Moose Jaw Times-Herald wrote a feature on the old girl and has graciously allowed it to be used here. We thank him for that.)

By MATTHEW GOURLIE
Moose Jaw Times-Herald

MOOSE JAW — Architect Joseph Pettick was trying to find a cost-efficient modern solution to the problem of heating a hockey arena — he felt a low, concave roof would keep the ice cool and the fans warm by funneling the heat upwards.

The design was meant to channel heat, but it ended up creating it, too — even on nights when you could see your breath inside the building. With its quirky bounces, small ice surface, steep stands and a ceiling that trapped noise and energy, Pettick had unwittingly designed a powder keg of a hockey rink.

“The fans are so close to the action,” offers Peter Loubardias of Rogers Sportsnet, who once was the radio voice of the Regina Pats so is quite familiar with the building. “When they’re involved in Moose Jaw, it’s loud. You’re right on top of the kids and I think the kids really, really feed off it. They can feel it. Almost everybody in that whole building is so close to the ice surface no matter where you are. With the roof the way it is — being so close to the ice — the noise just stays in there.”

The Moose Jaw Civic Centre played host to its final hockey game on Sunday night. But when it is talked about — and surely the old Crushed Can will be talked about by nostalgic hockey fans for years to come — the concave roof and the noise level in the building won’t ever be forgotten.

“When people walk into the place, they say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ But that’s part of its charm. That’s why the legend will never die. It is so outrageously different,” says Kelly Remple, who was the Moose Jaw Warriors’ marketing director for two seasons and was the chair of the Trans-Canada Clash alumni games.

Different. Often derided. More often beloved. The Crushed Can is a Picasso in a hockey arena landscape being taken over by paint-by-numbers.

Brian Costello, the senior special editions editor at the The Hockey News, has never been in a coffin, but he imagines the experience might be similar to being in the Civic Centre.

“You feel like you can reach up and touch the ceiling wherever you were sitting. It’s a weird feeling,” says Costello, who covered the Swift Current Broncos for the Swift Current Sun in the late ’80s.

It’s a building that makes a strong first impression.

Current Warriors captain Spencer Edwards recalls being a 16-year-old rookie with the Red Deer Rebels when he first set foot in the rink. After a long bus ride, the Rebels unloaded their gear through a darkened concourse and down the side stairs.

“I hadn’t really seen the rink yet,” Edwards remembers. “We went straight to the dressing room. A lot of people don’t know it, but the visiting dressing room is pretty nice here. It’s a lot nicer than some of the newer buildings in the league.

“We put away all of our gear and walked out to the rink and I was shocked. I had never seen anything like it in my life.”

There may, in fact, be nothing like it.

Pettick was inspired by the legendary Frank Lloyd Wright to become an architect.

With the angles and curves of the Civic Centre and the SaskPower building in Regina, Wright’s inspiration is evident in some of Pettick’s most iconic work. When it opened, the arena looked modern and space-aged — like a tail fin on a ’59 Cadillac.

The sloped roof is the rink’s most notorious feature, but it’s far from its only quirk. The ice surface is officially listed as 194 feet long — only six feet short of regulation — but it’s hard to find anyone who really believes the listed 85x194 dimensions.

Along with the cozy confines came the lively boards and erratic bounces. Rare is the rink that has a personality, but there were nights when it felt like the Crushed Can was trying to help the home side.

In last season’s playoffs, a Chad Suer dump-in took a hard left turn off a stanchion without losing speed. The shot had a CGI quality to it as it made a beeline for Calgary goalie Martin Jones, hit him and ended up in the net.

In the Warriors’ first home game after the 2006 car accident in which forward Garrett Robinson was so badly injured, Warriors defenceman Jesse Zetariuk watched one of his dump-ins take a friendly hop into a vacated net.

Once the playoffs started and the days grew longer, the setting sun would even peek into the building, bathing the lower seats on the east side in sunlight.

Of all of the mythical qualities of the rink, none was as pronounced as the way momentum would rapidly build.

Earlier this season, the Pats had quieted the local crowd with three early goals. The Warriors promptly scored four goals in less than five minutes to grab the lead before the end of the first period.

“It’s the momentum. With the atmosphere and the fans behind you, that momentum is easy to keep building upon,” explains Mark MacKay, the original Warriors captain. “On the other end, it’s hard for the opposing team. It pushes them down.”

Loubardias says in his five seasons calling games with the Pats, he frequently saw a superior Pats team fall victim to a seven- or eight-minute run of Warriors momentum and lose in the Civic Centre.

“When that team gets going in that building and they get on a roll, they are no fun to deal with — and they’ve never been any fun to deal with,” says Loubardias.

“I always loved the passion there. When the games were good and the people were really involved, it really was a special, special place to go to a game.

“What makes Moose Jaw special and what makes that building special is that that team is so important to that community. The people liked hard, physical, tough hockey and thrived on it. It will always be a real special place to me and I will be sad to see it go.”

The passion spills over from time to time as well. And that, too, is part of the building’s lore.

There was the night Brandon Wheat Kings defenceman Theran Yeo was jumped by a group of fans in the tunnel as he exited the ice. And the night Pats fans knocked Puckhead, the Warriors’ mascot, to the ground. Puckhead got some quick medical attention but returned to action. One night later, the Pats’ mascot, K9, was a healthy scratch for fear of retribution.

It was a bench-clearing brawl in 1984 that kick-started the Pats-Warriors rivalry. Remple recalls being a wide-eyed 12-year-old standing at the glass, taking in all of the mayhem.

“I wish all of the new generation of fans in southern Saskatchewan could have been to a Pats-Warriors game in the ’80s,” Remple says. “It’s hard to explain to people, but the level of excitement and enthusiasm — and just the decibel level — was in a different universe than it is now.”

There are those who argue that there’s a good reason why there aren’t any other rinks like the Civic Centre. Its steep stairs are treacherous. The lineups to use its washrooms can be endless. There’s little room to move on the concourse that runs under the stands. The rink is showing its age. It can be tropical or freezing inside — sometimes in the span of the same week.

It’s not the most pleasant spectating experience for the fans, but those who played there have always loved it.

“Since I’ve been involved with the alumni, every single player I’ve ever talked to says they absolutely loved the games in there,” says Remple. “The amenities may not be quite up to par. But the 2 1/2 hours of actual hockey? They loved it.”

Of course, the Civic Centre is merely a building — concrete and steel, for the most part. MacKay believes the building is special because of the people who have spent more time in it than any player — the fans who have dutifully backed the Warriors through good times and bad.

“Any hockey player loves the fact that the people are involved. The fans are right on top of the ice. They’re loud,” says MacKay, who was a 20-year-old in the Warriors’ first season in Moose Jaw.

“We didn’t win a ton of games that year, but the ones we did win, they made it special for us. They made us feel special. Their support through hard times was so important.”

They knew how to make visiting players feel special, too, though not in quite the same way. After Regina forward Frank Kovacs declined to fight Warriors tough guy Kent Staniforth, then-Warriors head coach Lorne Molleken called out the Pats’ captain and called him “yellow” in the media.

“Molleken was no dummy,’’ Kovacs says. “He clicked into that and it was a good trade for him to have me sitting in the penalty box with Kent Staniforth.

“So I was in a tough spot. Do I fight Kent Staniforth and sit in the box or do I turn away from a fight offer? Well, I can’t win, right?”

Instead he was serenaded by the Warriors fans. Constantly. For more than a season.

“The way the rink is built, the fans are right on top of you. Everywhere you went, there were fans on top of you,” Kovacs says. “So when someone says something against you like ‘yellow! yellow!’, well, you hear it. It’s not like it’s up in Section 500 in the nosebleeds. It’s all right there. And one person says it and the whole crowd gets into it because you can hear it so easily.”

If anything, Kovacs says, he enjoyed the heckling and the odd profanity from the crowd. He says the rink was a good test for a hockey team because you had to show up every night when you played in Moose Jaw.

“You had to be ready for a good game coming in there or else you were going to get crushed,” says Kovacs. “I loved playing in Moose Jaw. It’s a great character hockey rink. That’s a great place to play.”

As hard as it was for most visiting teams to play in the Civic Centre, it could be a welcoming place, but only on the most significant of occasions.

After the Dec. 30, 1986 bus crash in which Swift Current players Trent Kresse, Scott Kruger, Chris Mantyka and Brent Ruff died, the Broncos returned to the ice for the first time in Moose Jaw.

“On the way to that game it was such a sullen feeling on that bus,” recalls Costello. “When the team and the players walked in that arena, it was pretty special — especially when they came in for the pre-game warm-up and the anthem. It was quite an amazing ovation for them. You don’t see that for the visiting team — at all — anywhere.”

The Civic Centre opened in the fall of 1959 with a gala performance by legendary jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, an event that was attended by then-Saskatchewan Premier Tommy Douglas. It later played host to the 1983 world women’s curling championship.

With the Moose Jaw Canucks (WCHL and SJHL) and then the Warriors its primary tenants, the building became synonymous with hockey. A lot of great players passed through its doors and its rich history is in evidence on every wall with framed photos of Moose Jaw’s hockey past.

“There’s so much history,” Edwards says. “Even just walking through, you can tell that not only has it been around for a long time, but a lot of important people have walked in and played in this building.

“There’s no atmosphere like it. The noise level in the building on a playoff night or a Regina night is second to none in the league, for sure.”

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

HOCKEY PLAYER MANDI SCHWARTZ DIES OF LEUKEMIA AT AGE 23

THE CANADIAN PRESS March 3 2011


Saskatchewan hockey player Mandi Schwartz has lost her battle with leukemia.

The 23-year-old from Wilcox, Sask., died Sunday after two years of fighting the disease, according to the St. Louis Blues.

Schwartz played forward for the Yale Bulldogs and also attended Canadian women's team camps.

Her younger brother Jaden was drafted 14th overall by the Blues last year and played for Canada at this year's world junior championship in Buffalo, N.Y.

"From the entire St. Louis Blues organization, our thoughts and prayers are with the Schwartz family during this difficult time," Blues president John Davidson said in a statement.

Both Jaden and another brother Rylan play hockey for Colorado College in the NCAA.

Schwartz and her family fought hard for her survival. Her father Rick and mother Carol took leave from their jobs with the Saskatchewan Safety Council and Saskatchewan Justice respectively to shepherd their daughter through treatment.

She was engaged to engineering student Kaylem Prefontaine of Rockglen, Sask., and they had planned a wedding for the summer of 2012.

She was first diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2008 during her junior year at Yale. AML is an aggressive cancer of the blood and bone marrow.

Chemotherapy sent her into remission and she returned to Yale, but Schwartz suffered a relapse in April, 2009. Schwartz's situation was dire and she desperately needed a stem cell transplant.

Both the Yale and North American hockey communities combined in a massive on-line campaign to find both bone marrow matches and umbilical cord blood from women about to give birth.

The Facebook page "Become Mandi's Hero" has drawn almost 6,500 followers.

A message posted on the page Sunday read: "Thank you for your support. We regret to inform you that Mandi passed this morning at 10:35 PST surrounded by her wonderful family, fiance and friends."

Donors were found, but Schwartz's transplant scheduled for Aug. 26 was delayed when it was discovered the cancer had again returned.

She had more chemotherapy in Seattle before stem cells from two umbilical-cord donors were transplanted Sept. 20 at the University of Washington Medical Center.

Schwartz and her parents remained in Seattle for weeks for follow-up treatment. They hoped the transplant would do its job. Schwartz went home to Wilcox, but in late December tests revealed the devastating news that her cancer had returned.

Schwartz greeted Jaden at the Regina airport Jan. 6 upon his return from the world junior championship in Buffalo. A fractured ankle suffered during the tournament prevented Jaden from playing for Canada in the medal round.

He greeted his sister on crutches and draped his silver medal around her neck.

Her family wrote in a CaringBridge on-line posting that day that bone marrow tests revealed leukemia had aggressively settled in her bones. The treatment they'd hoped to continue in Saskatchewan was not possible.

"We ask for your support in prayers as we treasure our time with her at home," they said.

Schwartz, who was born in Yorkton, played high school hockey at Notre Dame College in Wilcox.
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Prayers to the Schwartz family. I saw Mandi play several times when she was with Notre Dame 'back in the day...'

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

By ERIC FRANCIS, QMI Agency, April 4 2011

Interesting study by the Boston Globe’s Kevin Paul Dupont, who took a snapshot of every team’s 20-man roster last week to determine how many players were still with the team that drafted them or signed them out of college, junior, the minors or Europe. Of the 274 ‘originals’ in the league only four were playing for the Flames — lowest in the league. What’s worse, only two (Mikael Backlund and Mark Giordano) are regulars, as the other two were recent call-ups: Lance Bouma and Greg Nemisz, who combined for three minutes of action Friday. By comparison, seven teams had more than a dozen originals, including Buffalo and Nashville with 14. New Jersey, Detroit and the Islanders all have 13 originals, while Ottawa and Colorado have 12 apiece. While such a study re-emphasizes how horrible the Flames draft record has been, most veteran teams have few originals.
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Debating the merits of the self-contained roster
By Kevin Paul Dupont Boston Globe Sports
April 3, 2011

The deal that sent Bruins Mark Stuart and Blake Wheeler to Atlanta at the end of February pulled two “originals’’ out of Boston’s lineup. Stuart was a first-round pick (21st overall) in 2003 and Wheeler, after initially being chosen as a first-rounder (No. 5 overall) by Phoenix in 2004, turned pro with the Bruins upon signing as a free agent out of the University of Minnesota.

All of which leaves the Bruins today with only five players who entered the league as Boston draft picks. The subset consists of, by order of draft selection: Tyler Seguin (2), Patrice Bergeron (45), Milan Lucic (50), David Krejci (63), and Brad Marchand (71). (Aside: Shouldn’t Marchand surrender that No. 63 sweater to the true 63, Krejci?)

A review of all 30 NHL game rosters this past week found that the Bruins now are at the bottom of the totem pole for drafting players and retaining them on the varsity. Please note that using game rosters slightly skewed the picture in that players such as Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, not to mention Edmonton’s Taylor Hall, could not be included because they are sidelined by injury. The exercise provides an imperfect snapshot rather than a complete representation of how organizations assemble their playing assets.

Nonetheless, of the 600 players who suited up, 274 were “originals,’’ in that they either were drafted by their clubs or signed as free agents out of college, juniors, minors, or Europe. That last free agent group, by the way, accounted for only 16 players leaguewide.

The Bruins, with only those five originals, ranked above only the Calgary Flames, who had four (Lance Bouma, Mikael Backlund, Greg Nemisz, and Mark Giordano). The other clubs very short on originals included Montreal, Phoenix, and Tampa Bay, all of whom had six.

The clubs that ranked best at drafting players, promoting them to the NHL, and keeping them were Buffalo (14), Nashville (14), New Jersey (13), Detroit (13), the Islanders (13), Colorado (12), and Ottawa (12).

Draw whatever conclusions you wish from all that.

Of those five clubs short on “original’’ talent, the Bruins, Lightning, Coyotes, and Canadiens are in playoff positions. The Flames are poking around the No. 8 spot in the Western Conference, but likely will miss for a second straight season, despite an impressive resurgence after the holidays.

Among the seven clubs with game rosters rich in their own stock, the Devils, Islanders, Avalanche, and Senators will wrap up their 2010-11 season next weekend, all of them DNQs. It’s important to keep in mind here that their high number of on-the-job draft picks reflects, in part, their regular-season failure. If the Senators were prepping for the playoffs this week, some of the draft picks now in the NHL assuredly would be in the minors.

It’s clear, however, that the Bruins, in part because of the Stuart-Wheeler trade that brought Rich Peverley to Boston, lag well behind the league average (slightly more than nine) for getting their own picks in the game and keeping them in the fold.

Focusing solely on the draft as an organization’s lifeblood for talent and keeping those players around, the Bruins are on the anemic side. The trade of former top pick Joe Colborne (16/2008) to Toronto in the Tomas Kaberle deal won’t help the number. Nor, it seems, will Zach Hamill (8/2007), who is wrapping up his third pro season in Providence and looks as if he won’t progress beyond the Wanna-B’s.

There are no guarantees, in any draft or in any sport, but organizations need No. 8 picks to become impact NHLers.

Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli, reviewing the snapshot tally Friday, noted the franchise’s recent record in identifying other clubs’ draft picks and developing them as key franchise components. To wit: Tuukka Rask (Toronto/2005), Adam McQuaid (Columbus/2005), and Steve Kampfer (Anaheim/2007). None was a Boston pick, but each was identified, obtained, developed, and brought to market by the Bruins.

“In an ideal world,’’ acknowledged Chiarelli, “you’d like to have players come up through your system, and it’s what I’ve tried to do, we’ve all tried to do. At the same time, you want to win, of course. We’ve made trades to do that, and in some of those deals we’ve moved our own picks and, sure, you’re always trying to find that balance. Overall, I think we’ve drafted well.’’

As for that number of originals standing at five, he added, “It doesn’t concern me. I think you have to look at it as part of the whole exercise of team-building, and the draft is one of all the options. When we try to reinvigorate our lineup, whether that’s through draft or trade, I’m OK with either.’’

A more specific, perhaps more accurate measure, Chiarelli conjectured, might be found over a full season, totaling the days the franchise’s own draft picks remain on the roster. In that case, Boston’s number would improve this year because Stuart and Wheeler would be included.

Perhaps the most interesting number of all in last week’s review is that 14 in Buffalo. During the 2004-05 lockout, the Sabres essentially wiped out their amateur scouting department, shifting to a system that has front office employees scrutinizing game tapes of college, junior, and European hockey. Sure looks as though the tale is in the tape.

The move to wipe out amateur scouting in Buffalo was viewed around the league as penny-pinching at the time, and led to a number of longtime scouts leaving Buffalo, including Jim Benning, now one of Chiarelli’s assistant GMs. Now, with that 14 hanging there (some of whom were drafted in the Benning regime), we have to ask whether the Sabres were skinflints or savants.

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

Sherry Bassin still has plenty of bark at 71

By Tim Wharnsby CBC Sports.ca April 5, 2011


ERIE, P.A. -- There are a couple of hours before puck drop, and Erie Otters managing partner Sherry Bassin has exited through the front door of the Louis J. Tullio Arena to take his beloved corgi Newman for a pre-game walk.

For Bassin and his dog, it was time for reflection. His Otters were about to face one of junior hockey's best in Windsor Spitfires netminder Jack Campbell in Game 4 of a first-round OHL series. Campbell had stopped 70 of 75 shots in the two previous games to allow the back-to-back Memorial Cup champs to take a 2-1 series lead. Bassin and Newman hoped for better times.

The 71-year-old Bassin has experienced plenty of good times in his life. But that wasn't the case about eight years ago when his mind and energy were not on junior hockey and began to wander. That trademark oomph was gone when he was around the rink.

He was worried about his eldest daughter, Zalena. She was in a Las Vegas hospital fighting for her life after being diagnosed with bladder cancer and an aggressive case of Chrohn's Disease. For a few years, Bassin and his wife, Jean, traded weeks down in Las Vegas to be with their daughter. Son Darin and the youngest daughter, Alana, also made visits to be with their ailing sibling.

For the first time in their Dad's life, hockey had taken a backseat and the Otters' on-ice performance exhibited his lack of attention. Since capturing the 2001-02 OHL championship, the Otters had six consecutive poor to middling seasons.

One spring Las Vegas evening three years ago, Bassin returned to his daughter's townhouse. He was exhausted, but noticed the light was blinking on the answering machine. It was from the school where Zalena taught. They wondered when she was coming back to work.

The next day Bassin drove to the school to talk to the principal. It was in a rough neighbourhood and he didn't like the scene. When he went to visit Zalena in the hospital later that day, he asked his daughter what she was doing teaching in that school. Her reply hit Bassin smack in the face. "What are you doing in hockey?," she shot back.

"I told her not to answer with a question," Bassin recalled. "But she wanted to know what kind of a job I was doing."

The answer was not good. Zalena was telling her Dad that she loved what she was doing and she knew her Dad's lifelong passion was hockey. It was time for Bassin to have faith that his daughter was on the mend and better times were ahead. It was time for him to immerse himself back in hockey.

"When I landed back in Toronto I drove straight to Erie and organized a meeting with the front office staff, the coaches and the players," Bassin said. "I told them 'the Sheriff is back in town.' I told them I'll take full responsibility if we don't get this thing back on track."

Life lessons

The Otters began the turnaround the next fall, and in the third season since Bassin's address they notched 40 wins, one short of the remarkable championship season nine years ago. Bassin was back on top and all the people who have been touched by him in his 45 years of hockey couldn't be happier.

"He has been such a big influence to so many people and players," said Buffalo Sabres forward Brad Boyes, who played on Erie's 2001-02 championship team. "I went there not really knowing much about junior hockey. I moved away from home for the first time. Having him there was a bonus. He taught me how to carry myself, how to play, the kind of commitment you need to make and then there is his passion. He's had so much success and experienced everything. He's a special person.

"I just have so much respect for him. He is so captivating to listen to. He always has a story that helps get his point across."

For Boyes, the story about Joe Sakic's work ethic has stuck in his mind. When Bassin was hired by the Quebec Nordiques in the summer of 1993 as assistant general manager, he set out to talk to each Nordique player that summer because he wanted to gauge the character and personality of every player on the roster.

When Bassin phoned Sakic on a Saturday morning to introduce himself, his girlfriend asked Bassin if Sakic could call him back in about 90 minutes when his workout in the basement would be finished.

"I've got all kinds of stories like this to get the message across for all the generations I've been with," Bassin said. "Here was a superstar [Sakic] who was 24 at the time and he's already in a routine and regiment in July. People talk about the will to win, well, it's more than that. It's not just talent that wins, it's the will to prepare to win."

Bassin began forming his winning philosophy as a kid growing up in Semans, Sask., under the watchful eyes of his parents, Mal and Molly. Mal owned grocery and clothing stores in the town of 400. His industrious work ethic was unmatched and rubbed off on his son Sherwood, as did his parents' unflagging optimism.

Bassin's grandfather was killed in Russia because of his religion (he was Jewish). Mal helped his mother and five sisters flee to Canada. Molly was part of a family of eight that emigrated to this country.

"My Dad would always tell me that a job that is not worth doing well isn't worth doing at all," Sherry recalled.

"There was a three-strike sort of rule with my Dad. When he spoke to me in English you were safe. When he was telling you to do something in half-English, half-Yiddish, you better start to listen. If it was all Yiddish - lookout."

It was slang, however, that Mr. Bassin employed when he noticed his son was spending too much time at the local outdoor rink. "He told me, 'hockey, smockey.'" Sherry said. "School was the only thing I was supposed to be worried about.

"But I grew up in a small town and if you didn't play hockey or curl in the winter or play baseball in the summer, you died of boredom."

Back in the game

Dad got his way. When the family moved to Winnipeg when Sherry was 16, Sherry excelled at school. He went to United College (now the University of Winnipeg) and gained post-graduate pharmaceutical and law degrees in North Dakota.

It was in North Dakota that Bassin began to make his mark as a motivator with young hockey players. He led a Fargo youth team to an upset 1-0 win over Grand Forks in the state championship. All of a sudden Bassin was on his way.

When he moved to Toronto in 1968 to work for the legal division of Health Canada, he stopped by a nearby rink. Next thing Bassin knew he was teaching a kid how to shoot and the existing coaches swiftly installed him behind the bench that season.

Not long after, he guided the York Mills bantams to the league final, the Wexford midgets to a Metro championship and a dominant Pickering junior B team to its league final. Bassin's success was not ignored by Oshawa Generals owner John Humphreys. As a result, Bassin was hired to run the Generals in 1976 and after some early hiccups behind the bench, Bassin, who was teaching at Durham College in Oshawa by then, concentrated solely on the general manager duties.

"I remember John asked me when he hired me what I wanted him to do," Bassin said. "I told him I'm a big believer in owners own, managers manage, coaches coach, scouts scout and players play. I may play devil's advocate quite a bit to a scout or a coach or a player. But that's just to challenge them."

It wasn't long before the Generals won the 1982-83 OHL title and lost the Memorial Cup final to the Portland Winterhawks that spring. A few years later the Generals were back as hosts of the 1986-87 Memorial Cup tournament.

Bassin moved to Sault Ste. Marie in 1989 to help rescue, along with a local ownership group, the once-proud Greyhounds franchise. A few months earlier, the previous regime, led by Phil Esposito, refused to acquiesce to Eric Lindros's demands to play closer to home. But Bassin found a way to convince his fellow OHL governors to change the rule that prohibited a team from trading its first-round selection.

Half-way through that 1989-90 season, Lindros was dealt to the Generals. They won the Memorial Cup and the following season the Northern Ontario city exacted its pound of Lindros flesh when the Greyhounds upended No. 88 and the Generals in six games in the OHL final.

Bassin would make three straight trips to the Memorial Cup with the Greyhounds and they finally captured the elusive trophy in 1993. The junior championship, in his mind, allowed him to try the NHL after he turned down many offers.

Although he had left by the time the Colorado Avalanche hoisted the 1995-96 Stanley Cup, Bassin helped build that Nordiques/Avalanche club into a contender.

Golden moment

Another proud accomplishment for Bassin was his assistance in developing the Canadian junior program. He was an assistant coach and assistant GM on the 1982 and 1985 teams and won a silver in 1984.

When Canada won its first world junior gold in 1982, it was Bassin who helped inspire the players to the title. It looked bleak for Canada as the Czechs held a 2-1 advantage after 40 minutes. During the second intermission, Bassin persuaded an organizer to lend him a gold medal. The emotionally charged Bassin sashayed around in the dressing room, waving the prize.

"He told us we could touch it, but not hold it," Canadian goalie Mike Moffat said.

Bassin asked how many players had won city and provincial championships. He then said, "Well, if you don't win this third period, you will only be able to tell people you were 20 minutes away from being world champions."

Canada busted out with goals from Mark Habscheid and Mike Moller for a 3-2 lead. The Czechs scored the tying goal, but a draw was enough to give the Canadians their golden moment in the round-robin tournament.

"The party lasted a long time in Rochester, [Minn.]" Bassin said. "We realized we had to get back to Minneapolis for the official ceremony. Then this rink rat, the guy who drove the Zamboni, hands me a piece of paper with a 613 phone number on it and says, 'Some guy named [Pierre] Trudeau has been trying to get a hold of you guys.' We tried to phone the Prime Minister, but no one answered.

"I wish I would have kept that piece of paper as a souvenir."

So here is Bassin, 29 years later, still in junior hockey. He has had both hips replaced and received a new shoulder. He has six trips to the Memorial Cup. He doesn't need this at age 71. Or does he?

"What are you doing in hockey?" as Zalena asked her Dad a few years ago.

The answer is quite simple. Bassin isn't the retiring type. He still has plenty to teach and plenty more to accomplish. Plus, he knows it's in the Bassin DNA that he will be around for at least another 20-plus years. Mal was 97 when he passed away. Molly was 94.

"My life has been pretty good and as a family we've always tried to give back," said Bassin, who has been married to Jean for 47 years, but really only six, he jokes, if you count all the time he's been away.

"I still have the passion for hockey. What I love about the game is that there is no place to hide in hockey and some people do that in life."

And you can bet that Bassin won't be hiding in Windsor before and after Game 7 on Tuesday. You see, the Otters didn't win Game 4 at home last Thursday, but they have won two in a row to force a deciding seventh game.

Win or lose, Bassin will climb back into his car with Newman to make the lengthy drive home. They'll talk about the game, about hockey, about life. Bassin will either be upbeat about the next round or next season.

That's why he still is in hockey, Zalena.

Mission Impossible

Mission Impossible was the most popular activity I ran in schools. The pictures are from a Kindergarten to ninth grade school, 5-14 year olds. All classes did it. We set up an obstacle course with the equipment in the gym. The kid's got 8 minutes to get to the end. Any failure and they have to start again. There was complete silence because the scenario was that they are trying to escape from a prison of war camp. Half the students were guards and half prisoners. If they touched the floor anywhere but safe places, knocked anything over, made a loud noice, were touched by a snake (dangling ropes), fell off the raft and into the acid moat (off the scooter and touch the floor) etc. They had to ring the bell at the top of the rope to finish. I built in areas where cooperation was needed to pass through.

At noon they all played together and there are pics with them in the regular clothes.

This same idea idea can be used at hockey practice by making a progressively more difficult circuit requiring individual or partner work.

https://cid-bd6fa116988317e9.skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?page=play&resid=BD6FA116988317E9!1117&authkey=qGy3MEUv!HE%24

Players Utube video

Just got a video from a pro player that I have worked with the last two summers. We go on the ice together and work on puck handling, shooting, etc. He played in the Finnish first division this year. He played NCAA div. 1, some American league games and a few seasons in the Eastern League. Good skills, good size.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K1NIjeIH8c

Red Bulls win Austrian Championship

Red Bulls - Champs

Today was game 7 and it went to OT tied at 2-2. Two previous games had gone to OT and the Red Bulls lost both. This time they won 3-2 early in the overtime. A player I recommended to Pierre Page assisted on their last two goals. Ryan Duncan a 5'6"-150 lb. PLAYER, who played at North Dakota and won the Hobey Baker while playing on a line with Jonathan Toews and Oshie.

I couldn't return because of family commitments but am really happy they won. I will be in Salzburg for 2 days at the start of May and hope some of the coaches I worked with are around and we can have a cola together.

Blackberry Playbook

I have been waiting for a tablet computer that will show the videos from this site. Ipad won't play Flash and the others I have tried at the computer store show the diagram but not the videos.

Blackberry release Playbook on Tuesday so I went and tried it out and much to my wifes dismay I bought another what she calls "Toys". The 16 GB one does everything I need. You just need WiFi access.

It plays the videos really clearly and is basically a 7" computer. I like it.

Blackberry Playbook 2

Tom,

You continue to amaze (and embarass) me! I am so far behind you in techy stuff...! I was wondering about this playbook - I have avoided the iPad for the same reasons as you - the inability to play Flash, etc. I really want to use it as a teaching tool on site. Where did you get it and what are the costs for the various 'sizes' of stograge?

You say it needs to be connected via a WiFi connection to do so? Does it have the ability to connect to a USB jump drive? I am thinking you could store the stuff you need on one of those; then have it available to show so you don't need to rely on a WiFi connection...



Steve Norris (and his wife Lea) is going to Slovakia to present at both the Youth and regular IIHF conferences. Steve is a dynamic, passionate speaker who specializes in Long-term athlete development. I am sure people will enjoy his presentations.



Thanks to Dwight for getting me back onto the site. For some reason, I couldn't log on for the past several days. I had several articles to contribute, but don't know if I will be able to find them again - lots of news sources only keep them active for a few days. If I can find them, I will post them. Tough to find lots of time these daysbetween being sick, teaching, a couple of funerals lately (heading to another tomorrow in BC) and with the kidlings running around at home! (RCMat, I will try to call you as soon as I have time! I haven't forgotten...)
--------------------------------------------------------
Dean it does hook up via usb to the computer so can download all your videos, pictures, diagrams etc. and play them without wifi. It is a mini computer. It plays all of my hockey video, gets email and you can surf the web. The keyboard pops up when you need to make notes or write emails. It also has a word and excel function. I am still getting used to it.
I got the 16GB for $500, the 32 gb is $100 more and I don't know if they is a 64 GB one. It also has a good camera for both still and video with front and back lenses. I also can read my Kobo books on it. I think I will load the 4-500 hockey practice diagrams on it as well. I don't know if I can paste them onto the Technicoach template I use for practice planning or not. I have to experiment.

I have listened to Steve Norris. He is good. I leave for Vienna next Wed.

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

Tom,

Is there anything you learned from your trip that you could share on the site?

Hope you had a good time... we need to go for a beer soon to discuss your trip in more depth!

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dean, it was a great trip. Staying with Juhani Wahlsten and listening to him during the three days there is always interesting (11 years on Finnish National Team, 7 as captain, 3 Olympics, IIHF Hall of Fame). He was working on his autobiography that a publishing company asked him to do and he shared a lot of stories about Finnish and International hockey. There was no hockey there when he was a little boy and he got excited about this new game when it was introduced in Finland. They played soccer football and bandy. Lots of interesting stories and insights on a life well spent. He is also the Father of Ringuette in Finland; as he saw the game here and introduced it there. I think they are World Champs now.

Kalle Kaskinen is and assistant coach for the U18 Finnish Team and will be at the World Jr's here next year with the U20 team. We discussed lots of coaching ideas.

I was offered a coaching position in the Czech Republic as a U20 asst. and coach mentor. I said if I can come home on a regular basis I am interested. No decision yet.

In Salzburg it was just visiting friends and I have posted video of the whole trip in the video section here about my hockey trips.

Let me know when you want to get together.

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

Like Magic, Great Sports Nicknames Are Disappearing

New York Times By JOHN BRANCH Published: May 10, 2011


Today’s baseball rosters are filled with names, not nicknames, not like the ones that used to be. The N.B.A. playoffs are equally devoid of onomastic pleasures, just cheap echoes of Magic and the Mailman, Tiny and Tree, Chief and Cornbread. The N.F.L. cannot match the treasured nicknames that evoke folk heroes like Night Train, Hacksaw and the Refrigerator.

A part of sports, somewhere near the soul, is slowly dying an unimaginative death. In an age of A-Rod and D-Wade, when nicknames rarely conjure imagery beyond a corporate logo, it can be easy to bemoan the loss of another slice of simpler times.

“There’s no substance there,” said the Hall of Fame basketball player Walt Frazier, also known as Clyde.

But sociologists and experts in onomastics, the study of names, said the diminishment of nicknames was not exclusive to famous athletes. Studies on the subject are few, but there is widespread agreement that the use of nicknames across American society has steadily slipped.

“You just have to extrapolate in places where you can gather data, like baseball players,” said Cleveland Evans, an associate professor of psychology at Bellevue University in Nebraska, who writes a regular column on names for The Omaha World-Herald. “And they are certainly less common than they used to be.”

Less certain is why. Maybe it reflects a loss of intimacy and connectedness. Maybe it is because of the changing way we name children, or how we now deflect unflattering nicknames to shape our own identities. Maybe all the good nicknames are taken.

Whatever the case, the decline is most easily gauged in sports, where nicknames have long played a role in distinguishing and at times deifying athletes. They often arrived with a nickname given by family or school friends. (Such was the case for Lawrence Peter Berra, called Yogi by a boyhood friend for his apparent similarity to a film version of a Hindu yogi.)

Those who did not have one were frequently nicknamed by their teammates or coaches. (George Herman Ruth did not become Babe until he was signed by the Baltimore Orioles.)

Sportswriters, looking for imagery or lyrical alliteration in the age before cable television, made a habit of bestowing nicknames on athletes. Rams receiver Elroy Hirsch became Crazy Legs because of a Chicago newspaper reporter; decades later, a 15-year-old basketball player named Earvin Johnson was considered Magic by a reporter in Lansing, Mich.

“When we gave them a nickname, good or bad, it meant that we cared,” said Ernest Abel, a Wayne State professor of psychology and obstetrics who has studied names and is on the executive council of the American Name Society. “You don’t give someone about whom you are indifferent a nickname. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”

Doc Rivers, the coach of the N.B.A.’s Boston Celtics, was simply Glenn as a boy in Chicago. But he was a big fan of Julius Erving, known as Dr. J, and wore an Erving shirt when he arrived to play at Marquette. Al McGuire, the former Marquette coach, was there and nonchalantly called him Doc.

“I didn’t have a lot of say-so in it,” Rivers said recently.

When Rivers played for the Atlanta Hawks in the mid-1980s, his teammates included Tree Rollins, Spud Webb and Dominique Wilkins, the Human Highlight Film. Now Rivers coaches a perennial championship contender with big-name stars that is nearly devoid of memorable nicknames. Shaquille O’Neal continually nicknames himself — generally a no-no — but people still call him Shaq.

“Back then, I thought you got nicknamed from other people, and it stuck,” Rivers said. “And now it’s almost like guys or gym-shoe companies try to give you a nickname. It’s not as natural.”

One exception is Glen Davis, the soft-muscled Celtics forward. Everyone he knows — friends, coaches, his mother — has called him Big Baby since he was a big baby with a propensity for crying.

Now Davis is part of a dying legacy of great nicknames.

“That’s true,” he said. “Most people don’t even know my name. They just know Big Baby. That’s a good thing.”

There are a smattering of other present-day nicknames around the sports world, including the golfer Tiger Woods, the baseball player David (Big Papi) Ortiz and the basketball player Chris (Birdman) Andersen. The San Francisco Giants, last year’s World Series winners, featured pitcher Tim (the Freak) Lincecum and third baseman Pablo Sandoval, known as Kung Fu Panda.

But most famous athletes are now best known by their given name. The Yankees won generations of championships with men known as Babe, Iron Horse, Joltin’ Joe, Scooter, Yogi, Catfish and Mr. October. More recently, they won with players named Derek, Mariano and Andy. Alex Rodriguez — A-Rod — has what passes for a nickname these days.

The sociologist James Skipper, author of “Baseball Nicknames: A Dictionary of Origins and Meanings,” found that the use of nicknames peaked before 1920. It has since been in steady decline, dropping quickly in the 1950s.

Using a baseball encyclopedia listing all major league players from 1871 to 1968, Skipper found that 28.1 percent of players had nicknames not derived from their given names. (Lefty, Red and Doc were most popular.) No doubt the percentage has since dipped precipitously.

“The era of the colorful nickname may be over,” Skipper concluded about 30 years ago.

Chris Berman, and ESPN announcer, saw the void in the 1980s. He became well known for his creation and use of hundreds of colorful nicknames, based mostly on puns — Mike (Pepperoni) Piazza, Sammy (Say it Ain’t) Sosa and Bert (Be Home) Blyleven among them.

“I viewed it as reviving a lost art,” Berman said. “Why aren’t there nicknames now? Maybe everything is so literal. You can see everybody on the Internet, TV, YouTube, whatever it is. There’s very little left to the imagination.”

The Harlem Globetrotters, more than any other team, keep the nickname tradition alive. Every player on the roster has one.

“We want our fans to have an emotional attachment to our players, especially kids,” Kurt Schneider, the Globetrotters’ chief executive, wrote in an e-mail. “It’s more fun and easier to connect with — and emulate — Special K, Dizzy and Ant, than it is Kevin, Derick or Anthony. A nickname grants ethereal status to a player and elevates him to a platform where kids can aspire to be like them; it is a form of escapism and fantasy to want to be like Thunder or Hammer, and they are global in nature.”

In other words, the Globetrotters try to engineer a connection that generally does not exist today. Athletes are more famous and more disconnected from fans than ever, sociologists said.

“I think it represents a loss of intimacy and identification with the players,” said Ed Lawson, past president of the American Name Society. “I don’t know how you have the same level of affection when a guy makes $16 million a year.”

But nicknames rarely came from fans; they came from friends and family, teammates and reporters. None of those connections are as strong as they once were.

“With the communication age, everybody’s on the computer, the cellphones, there’s not a lot of communication,” said Frazier, who became Clyde four decades ago when his wide-brimmed hats reminded Knicks teammates of the movie “Bonnie and Clyde.”

“When we traveled, there were only three channels, and all during the day, there was nothing but soaps on,” Frazier added. “So the guys spent a lot of time together, playing cards, talking, hanging around in the same places, traveling together on the bus or whatever it might be. There was a lot of camaraderie among the players.”

George Gmelch, a professor of anthropology at the University of San Francisco and a former minor league baseball player, said the influx of international athletes could be a factor in the decline of nicknames. American players are less likely to give nicknames to Hispanic or Japanese players, he said.

He and others also suggested that nicknames were less useful, given the trend toward less-common names. After all, the N.B.A. player Joe Bryant was better known as Jellybean. His more famous son is simply Kobe.

According to the Social Security Administration, the 10 most popular baby names for boys in 1956 represented 31.1 percent of the total born. In 1986, around the time many of today’s athletes were born, the top 10 represented only 21.3 percent of the total. In 2010, the number dropped to 8.4 percent.

“Nicknames are less needed today because given names themselves are so much more varied than they used to be,” said Evans, the Bellevue psychology professor.

He also posited that nicknames are often “humorous or noncomplimentary, and we may live in a culture where people are less willing to accept names that are less complimentary.”

It is telling that few of today’s biggest stars have widely used nicknames. LeBron James is an exception, but he is better known as LeBron than as King, the lofty nickname used for commercial purposes. Michael Jordan never really had a nickname, lest those who wanted to “be like Mike” be distracted from buying Air Jordans.

“Their own names now act as brand names,” said Frank Neussel, editor of Names: A Journal of Onomastics, and a University of Louisville professor of modern language and linguistics. “Your identity is not your nickname. It’s your stats.”

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

Jim Souhan: Jarring Friday reminds us no one is immortal

Article by: JIM SOUHAN , Star Tribune
Updated: May 15, 2011 - 8:11 AM

Kirby Puckett told us not to take life for granted; the news of Harmon Killebrew and Derek Boogaard reminds us of that lesson.



We shouldn't require reminders. We should know, innately, that death plays no favorites, that not even the strongest escape this planet alive.

Somehow, though, death always jars us when it intersects with sports, making this one of the saddest and most jarring weekends in memory.

Friday morning, we learned that Twins legend Harmon Killebrew will end his battle with esophageal cancer and spend his remaining days in hospice care.

Friday night, we learned that former Wild enforcer Derek Boogaard had been found dead at his Minneapolis apartment.

The men shared few connections. Killebrew is 74 and those close to him, such as Jack Morris, expected this news. Even those far removed from Killebrew's inner circle realized that this form of cancer was particularly devastating, especially for a man of Killebrew's age.

Boogaard was 28 and those close to him worried about his recovery from a concussion. At 6-7 and 258 pounds, possessing the toughness of a man who made his living with jaw and fists, he would have seemed, to an outsider, invulnerable as Killebrew in his prime.

They are not invulnerable, though. Beneath the muscle and machismo of a pro athlete beat all-too-mortal hearts.

We shouldn't require these reminders, especially we Minnesotans. We followed Kirby Puckett's descent.

In 1991, he became a part of World Series history. In 1996, he awoke blind in one eye, and retired months later. In 2006, he died after suffering a stroke.

A.E. Housman wrote the most celebrated elegy about interrupted athletic lives: "To An Athlete Dying Young."

The greatest poem ever written on the subject, though, was uttered, extemporaneously, by a product of the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago, when he announced his retirement in a cramped room deep inside the Metrodome on July 12, 1996.

"Can you all just do me one favor?" Puckett said. "Don't take life for granted, because tomorrow isn't promised to any one of us."

A version of that quote now hangs in the Twins clubhouse, close to Justin Morneau's locker. Saturday night, Morneau, the rare person who befriended both Killebrew and Boogaard, stood under that quote and spoke quietly about a weekend of loss.

"Yesterday was a rough day," he said, speaking of Friday. "Obviously it was rougher for their families, but it was tough. I found out after the game about Boogey, and I was in shock.

"On the ice, he was completely different than he was off the ice. You can ask anybody who knew him. He cared about people. If you asked him what he did and he told you he was a fighter in hockey, you wouldn't believe him."

Boogaard, like Morneau, struggled to overcome concussion symptoms. "With his concussion, he's been checking up on me and seeing how I'm feeling," Morneau said. "He texted me last week to see how I was doing, make sure everything was OK.

"We talked back and forth. He's come down and taken batting practice with us. To get news like this about him, it's not fun."

Many Twins knew that Killebrew was nearing the end of his battle with cancer. Boogaard's death arrived without warning.

"It's almost like, as athletes, you have that feeling of invincibility," Morneau said. "You're out here and you're supposed to be in the best shape of everybody, and that's not supposed to happen. That's why it tends to be more of a shock.

"You're looking at guys in their 20s and 30s who are supposed to be at the peak of health. Something like this happens, and you realize that you're not invincible, and that every day you get to come out here you're lucky, and you should enjoy it."

A visitor pointed to Puckett's quote. "That's it," Morneau said. "That's why what we're going through as a team, even though it's not fun and we're not used to it around here, we can't feel sorry for ourselves just because we're losing baseball games. You look at the big picture, and while obviously everyone wants to have success, you can't feel sorry for yourself because you went 0-for-4. There are people going through a lot harder things."

Fans brought flowers to Killebrew's statue by Target Field, and honored Boogaard by placing flowers outside of Xcel Energy Center.

"Boogey was 28 years old," Morneau said. "That's not supposed to happen to a guy that young."

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Kris Knoblauch latest in line of great Kootenay Ice coaches

By Jim Matheson, Postmedia News May 15, 2011


EDMONTON — Kootenay Ice general manager Jeff Chynoweth proudly says he’s never fired a coach, probably because he keeps hiring the right ones.

Ryan McGill, Cory Clouston and Mark Holick all got professional minor-league offers after spending time behind the bench with the Western Hockey League team.

Kris Knoblauch may be on the same career path.

Knoblauch, in his first season as head coach of the WHL champions, has been pushing all the right buttons for the Ice, who’ve won 15 of their last 16 playoff games to reach the Memorial Cup.

It’s obviously not just Knoblauch. The Ice beat the Brayden Schenn-led Saskatoon Blades four straight in the second round of the playoffs. Schenn was taken fifth overall by the Los Angeles Kings in the 2009 NHL entry draft. Kootenay had another sweep in the third round, eliminating the Medicine Hat Tigers. The Ice then got past the Portland Winterhawks with Ryan Johansen (fourth overall to the Columbus Blue Jackets) and Nino Niederreiter (fifth overall to the New York Islanders) — two of the top five draft picks last June — in five games in the WHL final.

They did it more, as Chynoweth says, with “our will prevailing over their skill” mentality, along with wonderful netminding Nathan Lieuwen, who is getting plenty of NHL notice right now. They also had trade-deadline pickup Cody Eakin, a Team Canada junior star forward who could make the Washington Capitals next year, giving up eight draft picks and players to the Swift Current Broncos in the blockbuster deal.

After trailing the Moose Jaw Warriors 2-1 in the first round, they won 11 games in a row, lost an overtime match to start the final with the Winterhawks, then won the last four contests.

They’ll start the national junior championship tournament Saturday against the Ontario Hockey League champion Owen Sound Attack.

“We beat Saskatoon, which was the best team in the WHL (regular season), Portland was second-best and Medicine Hat, I believe, fifth overall. We didn’t have an easy route,” said Knoblauch, who once played for the Edmonton Ice before the team moved to Cranbrook, B.C.

McGill, who took the Ice to the junior championship in 2002, went on to coach the New York Rangers’ American Hockey League affiliate in Hartford, Connecticut; Clouston left for the Ottawa Senators’ farm job in Binghamton, New York, and eventually made behind the bench of the NHL club too; and Holick was hired by the Anaheim Ducks to coach their development club in Syracuse, New York, last summer.

Throw in Brad Lauer, McGill’s assistant, who went to Milwaukee as an assistant before joining the Senators, and it’s a well-worn road to the pros.

Knoblauch would like to follow in their footsteps.

The 32-year-old played five years for the Alberta Golden Bears, then had two pro years in Austin, Texas, and Paris.

He also spent four seasons as a WHL assistant, one in Prince Albert under Peter Anholt and three in Kootenay under Holick. He’s proof positive that Chynoweth knows his stuff.

Chynoweth had a stack of applications for the head job when Holick left, but opted for Knoblauch.

“In the last eight years, we’ve moved four coaches onto pro hockey and I don’t think any team in major junior hockey can say that,” said Chynoweth.

“We knew Kris had a bright future . . . he played at U of Alberta under Rob Daum, an assistant with Anholt and Holick, but it’s all timing. How do you know if you’re ever ready for a job? Not just in hockey,” said Chynoweth. “But we promoted Clouston when Ryan McGill left. I believe in hiring from within but, sometimes, it’s hard being a head coach of a team when you’ve been an assistant. It’s like substitute teacher day.

“Kris is a student of the game . . . his degree is in education. That’s important dealing with the 16- to 20-year age group. It’s a volatile age group.”

Knoblauch never once considered coaching until he played for the Golden Bears.

“I wanted to pursue the playing dream as long as I could, but I saw Rob Daum and I thought he had a pretty good thing there. He was very organized and he was very rational. He didn’t fly off the handle like a lot of coaches,” said Knoblauch, who thought about applying for the Golden Bears assistant job to Daum’s successor, Eric Thurston, before Chynoweth rewarded him with the Kootenay head job last July.

“Initially, Jeff felt more comfortable giving the (head) job to a more experienced coach, which was understandable, but he had a change of heart and I was fortunate to get this job,” said Knoblauch. “I’m very grateful to be in this situation. We’ve got a special group of players. I could coach many years and not have a group like this one. We have great character and, if we don’t have a lot of players who’ve been drafted, I think NHL teams are taking a second look at them now,” he said.

jmatheson@edmontonjournal.com
© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

Ed Chynoweth Cup comes home


May 15, 2011

Matt Coxford

PORTLAND, Ore. - After posing for pictures with Western Hockey League commissioner Ron Robison and the WHL championship trophy on Friday night, Kootenay Ice captain Brayden McNabb invited someone else to the party.

A few more shutter bursts later, McNabb handed the Ed Chynoweth Cup to the namesake's son. Team general manager and president Jeff Chynoweth lifted it above his head, and gave it a few revelatory shakes before kissing it.

"I thought it was fitting that he got the trophy first," said Ice head coach Kris Knoblauch. "It was our captains who thought of it, and Jeff didn't want to have any part of it because he felt it's the players' moment. But we pushed him out there and he did get it."

Chynoweth insisted the same thing after the game, crediting the players and coaches instead.

"They're the ones that are in the trenches, they're the ones that do it day in and day out," he said. "They deserve all the credit. I'm in the back and don't want to take away from anybody. At the same time, it's very special to me and my family and it's something I'll never forget."

Few who witnessed it will.

"It's tough to put into words," said Chynoweth, his eyes welling at the recollection. "I kept thinking about my dad and everything he did for this league and our organization. A lot of the kids here did meet him, and it's emotional. My mom's in Arizona right now and she's a mess. My brother is in New York and he's a mess. He'd be happy. Let's enjoy it and get ready for the next challenge."

An architect of the Canadian Hockey League and champion of the WHL education program, Ed Chynoweth moved the Edmonton Ice franchise to Cranbrook in 1998. Ten years later, he lost a battle with cancer, and was posthumously inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in the builders' category.

The trophy had previously been known as the Presidents Cup. The Spokane Chiefs were the first team to win the Ed Chynoweth Cup, and advanced to win the 2008 Memorial Cup.

A couple of Ed's former employees with the Ice had shots at the Ed Chynoweth Cup as general managers of other clubs: former Ice head scout Roy Stasiuk with the Lethbridge Hurricanes in 2009, and former Kootenay GM Bob Tory with the Tri-City Americans last year.

"This trophy is something we've always wanted, especially when they renamed it three years ago," said Chynoweth. "Roy said the other day: 'It's your turn. We're 0-2 already.'"

Much of the Ice team didn't get to meet Ed, but McNabb got to know him well in short order.

"I remember when I was 15, I got called up and he picked me up at the airport and took me out for a pre-game meal," said McNabb. "He was a great guy and he did a lot for this league and I'm very proud that we won it."

Although another Cup looms large on the horizon - the Memorial, of course - the Ed Chynoweth Cup isn't an interim sort of trophy, like the Eastern Conference mug.

"We can touch this one as much as we want," McNabb laughed.

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

Kai, you must be pretty excited about being World Champion.

It was fair. Canada beat Sweden, Russia beat Canada, Sweden beat the USA and Finland beat Both Russia and Sweden. So the best team won.

Congratulations.

You have 5 million people and we have 5 00 000 hockey players as does the USA. You must be doing something right.

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

And how about Granlund's goal? Pretty nice...! Cheers to Finland!

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

Thank You,

Yes, it has been quite wild here for few days.
Granlund is very good promotion for the hockey. When he is interviewed he allways says how he is ejoying the game and just having fun. He is talking about how shinny is the base for he's skills and game sense.

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

You may have seen F Mikael Granlund score that spectacular goal for Finland in the world championship game against Russia last week. The MacBeth Report points out that he did the same thing during the 2006-07 season while playing for the Kärpät Oulu bantam team. The video isn’t top-flight but you can see it right here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2w5Q6yKk04 . . . . As The MacBeth Report adds: “So in four years, he goes from bantams to scoring possibly the most talked about goal in World Championship history.

(From Gregg Drinnan's Blog May 18, 2011)

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TWEET OF THE DAY:
“@USAHockey surpassed 100K members in 8&under category for 1st time in 2010-11 & finished season w/105,394. Goal for 2011-12: 110K!”
———
Those are rather interesting figures and should make Canadian hockey people sit up and take notice.
If you are wondering, Hockey Canada had 584,679 registered players in 2008-09. That figure slipped to 577,077 for 2009-10.
I couldn’t find figures for 2010-11 but apparently they were expected to decline another one per cent.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca

gdrinnan.blogspot.com

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

Canucks flasher causes a stir

By KRISTY BROWNLEE, QMI Agency May 19, 2011


Vancouver Canucks fans are abuzz over their team's 7-3 win Wednesday night, but also a breast-baring woman in the stands.

With about 2:30 remaining in the third period of the Western Conference finals game, a blond woman lifted her Canucks jersey and pressed her breasts against the penalty box glass as San Jose Sharks player Ben Eager sat inside.

It aired uncensored on CBC's Hockey Night in Canada.

Jeff Keay, CBC spokesman, said the broadcaster has received "very few e-mails" from angry viewers.

Keay said it was an in-house camera, not controlled by CBC, that captured the nudity.

Jen Rollins, media relations co-ordinator for Canucks Sports and Entertainment, said the incident was "unacceptable behaviour."

Rollins said complaints have trickled in and are expected to be received throughout the day.

The identity of the woman is unknown.
--------

Didn't see it but I am sure it was better than the Green Men!

Halifax conference cancelled

Just got this. I guess they don't consider people who have got lower air fares on non refundable plane fares and hotel rooms. I guess I am having a vacation in the Maritimes.
------------------------
Dear Registered Delegate,

Please be advised that the 2011 International Coaches Conference scheduled for July 14-17 in Halifax, Nova Scotia has been cancelled.

Hockey Canada wishes to inform all registered delegates that conference registration numbers lagged behind the projected requirements to insure the delivery of an event that meets with the Hockey Canada standard of quality.

All delegates who are currently registered for the event and have paid the ICC registration fee will receive a full refund. Within the next 72 hours, refunds will be automatically processed back onto the credit card the registration was purchased with. Refunds should appear on your next credit card statement. Should you have any questions related to your refund, please contact Derek Amalfa at damalfa@hockeycanada.ca or 403-777-4589. All Hockey Nova Scotia registrations entered under the Hockey Nova Scotia promotional code will be removed from the system. No refunds will be processed under this promotion.

Hockey Canada wishes to recognize the commitment of Hockey Nova Scotia Board of Directors and staff for their support of the ICC planning process.

Please accept Hockey Canada’s sincere thanks for your interest in and commitment to the 2011 International Coaches Conference.

For any additional information please do not hesitate to contact me directly at your convenience.

Yours in hockey,





=====================================

Michael Bara

Manager, Coaching/ Responsable, entraineurs

Hockey Canada

2424 University Drive NW

Calgary, AB T2N 3Y9

Ph/Tél (403) 777-3620
Fax/Téléc (403) 777-3635

mbara@hockeycanada.ca

www.hockeycanada.ca

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

Quote by: TomM

Just got this. I guess they don't consider people who have got lower air fares on non refundable plane fares and hotel rooms. I guess I am having a vacation in the Maritimes.
------------------------
Dear Registered Delegate,

Please be advised that the 2011 International Coaches Conference scheduled for July 14-17 in Halifax, Nova Scotia has been cancelled.

Hockey Canada wishes to inform all registered delegates that conference registration numbers lagged behind the projected requirements to insure the delivery of an event that meets with the Hockey Canada standard of quality.

All delegates who are currently registered for the event and have paid the ICC registration fee will receive a full refund. Within the next 72 hours, refunds will be automatically processed back onto the credit card the registration was purchased with. Refunds should appear on your next credit card statement. Should you have any questions related to your refund, please contact Derek Amalfa at damalfa@hockeycanada.ca or 403-777-4589. All Hockey Nova Scotia registrations entered under the Hockey Nova Scotia promotional code will be removed from the system. No refunds will be processed under this promotion.

Hockey Canada wishes to recognize the commitment of Hockey Nova Scotia Board of Directors and staff for their support of the ICC planning process.

Please accept Hockey Canada’s sincere thanks for your interest in and commitment to the 2011 International Coaches Conference.

For any additional information please do not hesitate to contact me directly at your convenience.

Yours in hockey,





=====================================

Michael Bara

Manager, Coaching/ Responsable, entraineurs

Hockey Canada

-----

Tom, that is crappy. You would think they (Hockey Canada) would be able to do something - like offer those who have already booked their flights (and can't cancel) a free pass for their next event?

PS I know a prof at Acadia (motor learning / sport psych / TGfU) who is a hockey guy. I will see if he is around and maybe you guys can meet.

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

Taylor Vause (Swift Current) - Photoshop Posters!

Gregg Drinnan, Taking Note, Jan 30 2012


Check out this and see what F Taylor Vause of the Swift Current Broncos does in his spare time. I guarantee you will be impressed.

http://imgur.com/a/RqPKG/noscript

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

LeBron uses bike to beat pregame gridlock

SIMON EVANS, Reuters, Jan. 29, 2012


LeBron James got in the saddle before the Miami Heat’s clash with the Chicago Bulls on Sunday, riding to the game on his bicycle.

The Miami Marathon on Sunday morning meant delays were expected around the city due to road closures and the two-times National Basketball Association (NBA) Most Valuable Player, decided two wheels would be more effective than four.


Drivers stuck in traffic saw James, in cycling helmet, zipping past them and before long pictures of the spandex-clad forward were appearing on social networks.

James estimated the journey from his home took 40 minutes but the trip had no discernable influence on his performance as he racked up a game-winning 35 points and 11 rebounds in Miami’s 97-93 win.

“I’ve done it a few times, it’s not common but I’ve done it a few times. It felt good this morning,” he told reporters.

It was not likely that James would be cycling home, and with the tight NBA schedule meaning he is back on court on Monday, James joked he might not even take the trip back.

“I might just stay here till tomorrow’s shootaround,” he said.

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Obituary
Angelo Dundee, trainer of Muhammad Ali, dead at 90

TIM DAHLBERG, The Associated Press, Feb. 01, 2012


Angelo Dundee, the brilliant motivator who worked the corner for Muhammad Ali in his greatest fights and willed Sugar Ray Leonard to victory in his biggest bout, died Wednesday in Tampa, Fla. He was 90.

The genial Dundee was best known for being in Ali’s corner for almost his entire career, but those in boxing also knew him as an ambassador for boxing and a figure of integrity in a sport that often lacked it.

He died with his family surrounding him, said son, Jimmy Dundee, but not before being able to attend Ali’s 70th birthday bash in Louisville, Ky., last month.

“It was the way he wanted to go,” Jimmy Dundee said. “He did everything he wanted to do.”

A master motivator and clever corner man, Dundee was regarded as one of the sport’s great ambassadors. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1994 after a career that spanned six decades, training 15 world champions, including Leonard, George Foreman, Carmen Basilio and Jose Napoles.

But he will always be linked to Ali as one of the most successful fighter-trainer relationships in boxing history, helping Ali become the first to win the heavyweight title three times. The pair would travel around the world for fights to such obscure places as Ali’s October 1974 bout in Zaire against Foreman dubbed “The Rumble in the Jungle,” and Ali’s third fight against Joe Frazier in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, called by promoters as the “Thrilla in Manila.”

“I just put the reflexes in the proper direction,” Dundee said in a 2005 interview with The Associated Press.

Their partnership began in Louisville, Ali’s hometown, in 1959. Dundee was there with light heavyweight Willie Pastrano when the young Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, called their room from a hotel phone to ask if he could have five minutes. Clay, a local Golden Gloves champion, kept asking the men boxing questions in a conversation that lasted 3 1 / 2hours, according to Dundee’s autobiography, “My View From the Corner: A Life in Boxing.”

After Ali returned from Rome with a gold medal at the 1960 Olympics, Dundee ran into him in Louisville and invited him to come to Miami Beach to train. Ali declined. But that December, Dundee got a call from one of Ali’s handlers, seeking to hire Dundee. After Ali won his first pro fight, Dundee accepted.

He helped Ali claim the heavyweight title for the first time on Feb. 25, 1964, when Sonny Liston quit on his stool after the sixth round during their fight in Miami Beach.

In an age of boxing when fighter-manager relationships rarely last, Dundee and Ali would never split.

When Cassius Clay angered white America by joining the Black Muslims and become Muhammad Ali, Dundee never wavered. When Ali defied the draft at the height of the Vietnam war, losing 3 1 / 2years from the prime of his career, Dundee was there waiting for the heavyweight’s return. And when Ali would make bold projections, spewing poetry that made headlines across the world and gave him the nickname “The Louisville Lip,” Dundee never asked him to keep quiet.

“Through all those days of controversy, and the many that followed, Angelo never got involved,” Ali wrote in the foreword to Dundee’s book. “He let me be exactly who I wanted to be, and he was loyal. That is the reason I love Angelo.”

Born Angelo Mirena on Aug. 30, 1921, in south Philadelphia, Dundee’s boxing career was propelled largely by his older brother, Chris, a promoter. After returning from the Second World War – “We won, but not because of anything I did” – he joined Chris in the boxing game in New York, serving as his “go-fer” and getting the tag “Chris’ kid brother.” Angelo and Chris followed another brother Joe, who was a fighter, in changing their surname to Dundee so their parents wouldn’t know they worked in boxing.

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The Last Sweet Man in Boxing: The life of Angelo Dundee

Dave Kindred, Grantland.com, February 4, 2012


Angelo Dundee sent postcards. They came from everywhere. "With Willie in Puerto Rico," one said. Another, "Dupas in Miami tonight." He carried an address book and sent postcards to sportswriters. It was so quaint, postcards showing he'd thought of you. Sometimes, he called.

"Mailing you something," he said.

"What is it?"

"Helen found it," he said.

Such a sweet, sweet man. Angelo Dundee, the son of an Italian shepherd, came to be boxing's most famous trainer. He was an island of sanity in Muhammad Ali's mad world. He was in the corner for a dozen champions, among them Willie Pastrano, Ralph Dupas, Carmen Basilio, Jimmy Ellis, Luis Rodriguez, and, if only for one fight, George Foreman. Sixty years ago at a fight, the short, dark, Italian immigrant's son met a luminous, willowy model named Helen Marone. "She is," he would say, "my greatest champion." They were married three days after she came to Miami to tell him she couldn't marry him because her very Southern Georgia parents would never allow such a mismatch.

"Helen found this thing looking for something else," Dundee said. "You'll like it."

The mailman delivered a memory. It was an 8x10 photograph of an impossibly beautiful young man, 18 years old. There was a sunrise in his smile. He flexed his arms overhead, a strongman's pose. He sat on a fighter's stool. His name ran in script letters across his white workout shirt: "Cassius Clay." All of life awaited him. Behind Clay, Dundee leaned on the ring ropes. Behind Dundee, light came through a pair of tall windows painted with block letters: GYM. The trainer and the kid were in the 5th Street Gym, Miami Beach, 1960.

Two weeks ago, he and Ali were still together. God only knows how Dundee did it. Up from nothing, scrambling for survival through the Depression, street-smart, sly, and unfailingly optimistic, he came to Ali with a psychological gyroscope that kept him even-keeled in a quarter-century of unprecedented turbulence. Dundee's partner in Ali's corner, the fight doctor Ferdie Pacheco, told me, "Angelo did it by being an innocent. He was soft-hearted, kind, gentle. He was the exact same man Ali was — but no one knew that about Ali then. They clicked in ways nobody could ever have guessed, let alone explained."

The malevolent Fruit of Islam thugs — the thick-necked muscle of Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam in the 1960s — wanted the little white guy gone. Dundee stayed. He stayed through Sonny Liston, Malcolm X, Vietnam. He knew the glory of Zaire and the hell of Manila. He outlasted three of Ali's wives and walked without harm through the fight game's snakes, who were licking at Ali's feet. Pacheco's take: "Angelo kept his nose clean. He went about his business, nobody else's, and he was good at staying in the shadows. He knew Ali was the star of stars. He was just along on the ride, and he was happy to be part of the circus."

This January, though feeling ill, Dundee flew to Louisville for a celebration of Ali's 70th birthday, a celebration in name only, for all that's left of the Ali we knew are the abstractions layered onto the myth of a man who, once upon a magical time, lived those ideals. That man is now old and infirm, withered and silent, sitting in a wheelchair. It was cruel of fate, which had been so kind to Dundee for so long, to send him home from that party with a blood clot that put him in a hospital. On February 1, 90 years old, Angelo Dundee died, and a time died with him.

He came to boxing when boxing mattered. He knew men who knew men who knew Jack Johnson. He knew the great trainers Charley Goldman, Whitey Bimstein, Chickie Ferrara. He heard Ray Arcel talk of taking men in against Joe Louis. "They'd be all right until they looked across the ring and saw Joe," he said. "Then they wilted like tulips."

Dundee was born in Philadelphia in 1921, one of five sons of Angelo and Philomena Mirena. Before World War I, the shepherd had taken his wife out of the mountains to the toe of Italy to catch a ship across the Atlantic. He found work driving spikes into railroad ties. Mirena's firstborn son, Joe, became a boxer; to hide the work from his mother and to escape discrimination against Italian immigrants, he changed his name to Joe Dundee. All the Mirena boys became Dundees.

In 1948 Angelo joined another brother, Chris, who was managing fighters in New York. Afternoons, he hung around Stillman's Gym, watching trainers. Every night, he'd go to a fight club. His introduction to training happened as quickly as a man could toss a roll of tape to him. He told the story to Dave Anderson for In the Corner, a book on the trainer's art: "My first night, in Fort Hamilton out where the Verrazano Bridge is now, I was standing around the dressing room when Chickie Ferrara threw me two rolls of gauze and one roll of tape and said, 'Wrap this kid's hands.' I said, 'I never wrapped hands.' So he showed me."

Then, in 1957, in Louisville with the light-heavyweight champion, Willie Pastrano, Angelo Dundee took a phone call from a young man who said, "Mr. Dundee, my name is Cassius Marcellus Clay. I'm the Golden Gloves champion of Louisville, Kentucky." There followed a list of fights he had won and championships he intended to win, including the Olympics and the heavyweight championship. "I want to talk to you and Mr. Pastrano." Dundee said to Pastrano, "Some nut downstairs wants to talk to us. But he sounds like he might be a nice kid. Want to talk to him?" Pastrano said, "Why not? Nothing good on television."

Dundee had learned the game by listening to old men talk. Here was a kid speaking their language. How much roadwork did Pastrano do? How many times a day did he eat? How many rounds did he spar? Dundee liked both the kid's hunger for information and the intelligence of his questions. "By then, I'd worked with six champions," Dundee said, "and none of them ever talked the way the kid did."

After Clay won a gold medal in the 1960 games at Rome, his sponsors hired Dundee to make him a pro. Dundee may have done the smartest thing any trainer/coach/manager ever did. He left Clay alone. He recognized supranatural abilities when he saw them. He took credit only as a guileful cornerman looking to help his guy. Dundee once slit a glove to gain Clay time to recover from a knockdown. Hearing Clay complain of "something in my eyes," he pushed him off the stool in the first Liston fight with one instruction: "Run!" Dundee loved a thing the estimable Eddie Futch said. After 11 rounds in Manila against Futch's man, Joe Frazier, Ali thought to quit. He said he felt near death. But then, as always, he came off the stool. "Angelo prevailed upon him to continue," Futch said. Ali won when Futch wouldn't let Frazier come out for the 15th round.

There are people who believe Dundee should have prevailed upon Ali to quit — and long before Manila. Those people believe Ali's condition today is the result of brain damage suffered in 30 years of being hit in the head, the last decade by men younger and stronger than him. In fact, on an April morning in 1978, a few months after Ali had been beaten by the unknown Leon Spinks, Dundee told me he wanted Ali to retire.

"Forget it now, Muhammad," Dundee said.

"No, I gotta get a check," Ali said. He wanted to see a doctor.

"You don't need any checks," Dundee said. "There wasn't anything wrong with you. You were in great shape. Just forget it now, Muhammad. You got nothing to prove to anybody."

But he knew his guy wouldn't go away beaten. He said, "I'm not God. Muhammad quits when he wants to quit. Not when I think he ought to. Who am I? He wants to go on, he goes on. He's earned it. He can do what he wants and nobody ought to say any of that baloney about having so much 'heart' it'll wind up hurting him."

Ali fought for three more years, always with Dundee in his corner.

Dundee was still looking for fighters the last time I saw him, six years ago. He had worked as a consultant to Will Smith on an Ali movie and had helped the actor Russell Crowe get through a movie in which he played a fighter. But Dundee was 84 years old and pale and tired, and he stumbled over names and lost the thread in sentences. As Red Smith taught us, I closed the notebook when there was nothing more to learn. Then, when I thanked Dundee for all the years, and told him to thank Helen for finding the photograph of the young Clay, he spoke in a whisper.

"She's not good now," he said.

Ferdie Pacheco had told me about her cancer and said he had told Dundee he should be ready for the end.

"So I've gotta be with her as much as I can," Dundee said.

They'd picked out burial spots.

"We'll be together soon."

Helen Marone Dundee died two years ago.


Dave Kindred is the author of Sound and Fury, a dual biography of Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell.

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

Here are the best TV commercials of Super Bowl XLVI (Including the Budwesier Hockey Flash Mab)

Sympatico.ca Sports, Feb 6 2012


We know that many of you simply tune into the NFL's Super Bowl (or visit websites like this one) for the latest over-the-top-sometimes-too-far-but-often-funny-and-extravagant TV commercials that companies pay millions of dollars for. With that mind we've grabbed what we think are the best commercials of Super Bowl XLVI and placed them all in one convenient place for you. And your friends. Check them all out and let us know which commercials you thought were the best.

http://www.thecheapseats.ca/2012/02/check-out-the-best-super-bowl-xlvi-tv-commercials.html

The one below is for the hockey ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Cw6c77TaKWs

Re: The Unofficial ABC's Off TopicTopic

When Al Saunders' sentries let him down

Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronichle, February 7, 2012


Oakland Raiders offensive coordinator Al Saunders during their NFL football training camp in Napa, Calif., Sunday, July 31, 2011.
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Al Saunders has been replaced as Raiders' offensive coordinator. Now that he's likely gone, I can share a story with you, because it has a useful life lesson: Always check the asparagus.

Saunders did a nice job with the Raiders under adverse circumstances, but I feel relieved that he is no longer around, because I probably don't have to worry about accidentally bumping into him.

He's a good guy. That's the problem.

In 1988, I was living in Los Angeles and my wife and I came to San Francisco to attend a banquet in honor of Leigh Steinberg, the player agent. The event was in the ballroom of an Embarcadero hotel. We were seated next to Saunders, then head coach of the San Diego Chargers.

Saunders was a charming fellow. We chatted with him for a half hour or so. Dinner was served. At some point, Saunders said, "Excuse me, I see someone I want to say hi to. Would you watch my plate, make sure the waiter doesn't pick it up?"

No problem.

Actually, problem.

My wife and I were yakking with others at the table when she did a comedic double-take.

"Oh, no!" she said, or words to that effect. "They took his plate! We're dead."

I noted that technically, Saunders had asked her to watch his plate. That observation didn't seem to relieve the tension.

Looking around desperately, I saw that the person clearing the tables had left the pickup cart right behind us. I found a plate that barely had been touched and placed it at Saunders' seat. Voila!

My wife recoiled in horror.

"It's gotta be his," I said confidently. "He had hardly started eating."

Saunders returned to the table and prepared to dig back into his dinner, then:

"This isn't my plate."

My wife and I usually don't perspire heavily at social functions, but we might have made an exception.

"What do you mean?" we asked in clumsy unison.

Saunders was staring at his plate.

"I ate my asparagus."

Awkward silence.

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