A New Season Upon Us

First, apologies for the lack of blog entries since June, but I have a good excuse. I've been filming Dos Equis beer commercials over the summer...

Well a new season beckons, but first we talk about last year's Stanley Cup Champion, the Chicago Blackhawks. A tremendous hockey team for the most fanatic and arguably the best fans in hockey. The scary thing about this team is they will be formidable again this year. Any team with Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Patrick Kane, Jonathon Toews and Patrick Sharp is enough of a nucleus to make another run. Yes they have had some housecleaning and yes they have let go some great players (a legacy of Dale Talon snafu's) but the Hawks are still loaded; their leadership, Stan Bowman and Joel Quenneville, are tremendous judges of hockey talent.

There a few other items on my mind. One troubling development is the high number of UFA's still looking for a place to work, you can view the current list at:

http://espn.go.com/nhl/freeagents/_/type/available

There are some big names on this list, particularly goaltenders. What is concerning here is a trend developing in the NHL to bring lesser quality players into the league sooner. These young players come in at entry level salaries in order to get a given team under the cap. This is a big sore spot with college coaches losing players to the NHL and the Canadian Junior leagues. Think about it, when a kid is lost mid-season, the scholarship is lost and it's real difficult to replace the player. I believe college hockey is at the crossroads if this does not get fixed. In fact, I am willing to bet this single issue will drive Boston University coach Jack Parker into retirement. The other collateral damage is the NHL-fan watches watered down talent who prematurely push more capable UFA's out of the league. No winners here, except possibly the KHL.

Well now that I am on my soapbox, why step off? Interesting article in today's Washington Post in the Free For All section. A disgruntled Tony Eckert writes-in that the area's premier sports franchise (Washington Capitals) warrants coverage commensurate with the team's performance. I agree with Tony, I've been saying this for years. My recommendation, if you really want to get a clue with what is going on in the NHL, is to check out the Boston Globe Sports Section at:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/#globesports

other suggestions are the Toronto Globe and Mail or reading Red Fisher of the Montreal Gazette, in fact here's a good article he wrote about Bobby Orr in today's Gazette:

http://www2.canada.com/montrealgazette/columnists/story.html?id=d4f013d5-e3d7-4c53-aa5c-25b78d0b95e2

These publications are not Caps-centric but are a more preferred alternative to the Post. Ahh, the Internet, we aren't stuck with Washington's hockey writing. Incidentally, Red Fisher states Bobby Orr was the best ever, he's right but Ovechkin is really, really getting close.