From the Ice Block

After Rodriguez sues the Forum, he might want to go out and sue whatever television station the cup-thrower watched the night before, for inspiring him to go to the game, and maybe find out if cup-thrower has any video game consoles, because we know video games cause us to do bad things too.

Of coruse, this happened on the “All you can drink” night at Times Palace…. That leads to further speculation from David….

Tampa Bay is bidding to host the Frozen Four in 2009, 2010 or 2011…

Can you imagine a stranger thing happening than the Frozen Four being hosted here in Tampa Bay???

I can. Quite happily, too

Team Canada will be absent Vincent Lecavalier, Brad Richards and Martin St. Lous in the upcoming World Championships, as it was revealed that Vinny is set to have arthroscopic surgery on his knee.

Add this to Brad Richards still recovering from abdominal surgery and Martin St. Louis’ wife’s difficult pregnancy and all three men are shelved for team Canada.

Well, John Tortorella doesn’t have to just sit aroudn and watch Tape any more…

But then again, that’s one thing he excels at and it will no doubt help him in his role as an Assistant Coach for Team USA.

Taken from Hockeybird.com

Are they kidding? So now every time they make some crappy offer and the union doesn’t accept it, they are going to file a complaint? Well it looks that way. So much for a partnership, and so much for good faith. This was the plan all along, and now you can look forward to replacement players and legal battles.

If this was the ‘plan all along”, the NHLPA could have circumvented the plan by actually showing some interest in COLLECTIVE BARGAINING to begin with. That means, you get an offer and you bargain over certain aspects of the offer… you negotiate. The NHLPA’s tactic with Collective Bargaining to this point has been thus: Recieve offer, find aspect you do not like with offer, reject offer. There has been very few attempts to find a middle ground, and the only time that has really happened was when Trevor Linden called several CBA discussions to order - where there was talk, not just flat out rejections.

Now the NHLPA is posturing by just waiting, and after a lockout and failed bargaining process (because there was no bargaining on the Players side of things) it’s high time someone held the PA accountable for dragging their feet and avoiding negotiations… If it has to be a National Labor Relations Board, then so be it. We lost the 2004-05 season, folks, and both sides are responsible - that much is true - but one side tended to be less intersted in bargaining and more interested in having their members whine and complain about the other side in the media while another faction of it’s members avoided negotiations by running off to Europe for the duration.

As for the assertion we can look forward to replacement players now? Good. I want the Tampa Bay Lightning back on ice and I wnat the bullshit posturing from the upper-echelon, overpaid star controlled NHLPA to be put on ice (no pun intended) so I can focus on my team again.

I’ve sometimes wondered if me and Vincent Lecavalier woudl ever meet somewhere or somehow cross paths in life. He’s only a few months younger than I am and when he was drafted and the big hoopla was made about him, I had this premontion that Vinny and I could be friends, could get along, could hang out.

And yet with each day, every season, every interview that I’ve read (not many, because Tampa Bay is not Montreal or Toronto) that link… that kinship that I felt disappeared. Vincent is a big name star, he’s got it all and he’s got confidence… He dates models and he’s an icon in Canada.

And today in the St. Petersburg Times, that link was renewed… That sort of hopeful understanding.

Tom Jones traveled to Kazan and spent time with Vinny. This is all chronicled in a piece called Rough Translation and some of the things that Vincent has gone through in Ak Bars Kazan have made me feel… well, like someone would understand some of the crap I go through daily being hard of hearing. That lack-of-understanding and such.

But to get off my personal points, this article by Jones chronicles some of the adversity that Vincent has faced in Kazan and how he’s kept a positive attitude. How trying it can be to understand his coach’s rants (Zinetula Bilyaletdinov speaks English but addresses his team in Russian), how not understanding what someone says makes you want to shrink away because you don’t know the translation, and the difficulty just to order a bowl of Oatmeal in Kazan.

And if you are interested in seeing the photos associated with the article (and there are a few), please check out this link.

Well, Florida’s Junior C entry into the USA Hockey junior tournament is getting set for their games. The Oldsmar Sandsharks start action on April 7th versus the Jersey Wildcats. A complete schedule can be found here is here.

Judging by how the stats are updated on USA Hockey’s site, it would appear the Sandsharks are a team coming out of nowhere. No player information or goalie information is availible on the web site.

Good luck, guys….

From the AP

NEW YORK (AP) — Its season already called off, the NHL on Thursday canceled its 2005 entry draft that had been scheduled for June in Ottawa.

“In the absence of a collective bargaining agreement, we are not able to conduct an entry draft in the traditional sense on the dates scheduled,” Bill Daly, the NHL’s chief legal officer, said in a statement.

The NHL said there was no immediate word on when Ottawa will host a draft “although the league is committed to bringing an entry draft to Ottawa as soon as is feasible.”

The league had been facing a deadline on hotel rooms reserved for the June 25-26 draft at Corel Centre.

I don’t get it.

Is this another pressure tactic by the NHL to get the NHLPA to get with the program? If it is, it’s VERY detrimental to the League itself and only encourages top prospects (read: Sidney Crosby) to look elsewhere to play hockey because there is no guarantee the NHL will resume any time soon.

And from the looks of it, it won’t.

While I may be biassed, I’ve always considered Calgary and Edmonton to be the barometer of the NHL’s health. We are small markets, but small markets filled with some of hte most passionate hockey fans in the world.

This belief is supported by the attendance figures of many of our remaining teams.

The Edmonton Roadrunners are currently third in the AHL, averaging 8884, right behind Chicago (8999) and Manchester (8945).

The Calgary Hitmen obliterated the WHL and CHL attendance record by nearly 40,000 fans becomming the first team in CHL history to average over 10,000 fans. Also in the WHL, both Lethbridge and Red Deer set attendance records of their own, while Medicine Hat has sold out 90 straight games, prompting calls to replace their 4006 seat arena.

There is no doubt. Fans in this province eat, breathe and sleep hockey. It seems like a very logical place for a “goodwill tour” of prominent NHL players to start. Ryan Smyth thought so. He decided Red Deer, which is right in the middle of the province, and about 1 hour away from both Calgary and Edmonton would be a good spot for a game.

Afterall, they just packed 7200 fans into their 5800 seat arena on Saturday for a WHL game agaisnt their arch-rivals from Calgary. On Monday, 5700 showed up to watch oldtimers like Lanny McDonald and Tiger Williams face off against the local police/fire team. And Ryan Smyth’s expectations were modest. His hastily arranged tour only hoped to draw 1500 fans last night.

According to the Edmonton Sun, only 800 fans bothered to attend. 100 of those were only their because their children and grandchildren were participating in a mini-game of atom hockey players during the first intermission.

The NHLPA has long believed that the fans will flock to them because of who they are. The collosal failure that the OSHL was didnt break that belief, and I doubt this will either. In fact, Smyth already has his excuse for this failure:

“It was frustrating, but this has nothing to do with (the lockout),” Smyth said between periods. “Maybe we could have done a better job marketing, but I don’t think we had enough time.”

A couple of thoughts Ryan. You put this thing together. Why didnt you make the time? Blame marketing all you want, but people knew you were coming. Radio in both Calgary and Edmonton, of which Red Deer gets both made mention of it, and it has been mentioned in all of the papers.

No Ryan, people didnt go because people dont want to pay $25 (Red Deer Rebels ticket $20 or so) to watch a bunch of egotistical primadonnas play shinny for a couple hours. People didnt go because you did not offer a product worth watching. People didnt go because they are pissed off at what you have done to the game.

Smyth’s tour has three more stops to make. Prince Albert, Saskatchewan tonight. Saskatoon tomorrow and Winnipeg on Friday. We shall see if “poor marketing” leads to small crowds there as well. I am betting yes, as word out of Winnipeg is that they have already cut ticket prices in half because of poor sales. I hear sales are still poor.

And Winnipeg is a city full of people who would kill to get the Jets back. If Winnipeg turns it’s back on you Ryan, will you and your union bretheren still be making excuses?

Something tells me they will.

Well, Vinny’s championship streak has ended abruptly in Russia.

After winning the Stanley Cup and the World Cup, the Lightning’s 24 year old center has been bounced from the Russian playoffs along with the rest of the star-studded AK Bars Kazan team.

With 15 NHL-caliber players, AK Bars Kazan have proven to be the embodiment of the New York Rangers as they have paid a fortune for those services and have gotten only a marginal return at best.

Thanks to reader Doug Girvan the tip-off of the story.