OTF Classic

As if watching career knuckle-dragger Wade Belak score a goal as Toronto topped the Nashville Predators 3-1 Tuesday night wasn't bad enough, the intermission commentators on the Rogers SportsNet coverage of the game couldn't resist taking another round of shots against the hockey market in Nashville. In the first intermission, Gord Stellick established his Bozo-like credentials while discussing the recent spate of suspensions for the Philadelphia Flyers with his astute observation that "at least they've got an identity, most teams don't." I'd sure like to see the Mission Statement in Philly that's led to all those head shots... Anyways, in the second intermission the topic of ownership change in Nashville came up, and both Stellick and his comrade Bill Watters launched into a diatribe repeatedly calling Nashville a "false hockey market", and offering their sage prediction that in three years Boots Del Biaggio will move the squad to Kansas Ci...

Everybody is in an uproar over the latest suspension-drawing cheap shot , that of New Jersey's Cam Janssen on Toronto's Tomas Kaberle. Janssen drew a 3-game sitdown from the league office, which is well deserved given the lateness of the hit, and the proximity to the boards. The thing that gets me about all this, however, is the chorus labelling the latest of a series of head-shots that are putting players' careers in danger, if not their lives. I've seen the replay again and again , and don't really see it as Janssen going head-hunting. It was definitely a late hit, no argument about that, but you had a combination of Kaberle skating backwards near the boards, which left him no leverage to withstand the shot, and in the final moment as Janssen comes in Kaberle ducks his head about a foot (check out the link earlier in this paragraph, and focus on the final few seconds). The resulting impact sends Kaberle careening gruesomely into the boards, and thank goodn...

Leading up to Saturday's celebration at Air Canada Centre, Joe Pelletier has put together a comprehensive look at the Leafs 1967 Stanley Cup Championship squad, including bios of every player on the team. Be warned - if you surf around the Legends of Hockey network of sites at work, don't blame me if you get fired for losing hours of "productive" time. It's all too easy to click your way through hockey history, one player at a time...