The whole Jerry Sullivan vs. Ryan Miller thing

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On Sunday, Ryan Miller channeled Dan Cloutier and opened the floodgates against the Islanders. He allowed seven goals on 26 shots and looked bad doing it. Funny enough, he wasn’t the worst goalie on the ice, that distinction belonged to Al Montoya who looked way over his head in net.

After the game John Vogl, the Sabres beat writer for The Buffalo News, asked Miller, “Do you feel OK?” It is a fairly harmless question that was more than warranted. Miller has been very average this year and I think a great deal of that is because of his injuries at the outset of the season. Either way, he has not been the best goalie on the planet like he was last season. Sunday was a great example of it. Continue reading →

Buffalo Pond Hockey Tournament – Day 3

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The Pilthy Puckers managed to grind out a victory on sloppy ice on Sunday. The final day of an otherwise spectacular event was marred by warmer temperatures that made the ice extremely soft.

Pregame scrapes with snowplows did little to help as your skates would sink in anytime you put an edge into the ice. So, after about five minutes of play the ice had about a half inch of snow accumulation and it tuned into a game of home run passes. As it turns out, we were the better team at taking away passing lanes and getting pucks near the net. We finished with an 18-14 triumph too take home the trophy.

The amount of stuff you get for making the finals is extensive. Each team gets to rock a Labatt Blue jersey (which you keep) plus the winners get a HUGE trophy in addition to the smaller trophies each player gets. But, those weren’t even the best prizes. Coupling the free jersey with the free winter hats each (and every) participant received; the winners also received dry fit t-shirts with the tournament logo on it. Roughly, we took home about $90 in apparel (retail).

The tournament was fantastic. It was run well from top to bottom. From preparation to scheduling and everything in between, it was as good as it could get. Sure, Sunday’s weather hurt the play, but aside from that it was a monumental success. So much can be said about playing hockey in its truest form. However, nothing can be said about 700 guys playing on a pond in February.

Buffalo Pond Hockey Tournament – Day 3

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The Pilthy (or Philthy) Puckers have advanced to tomorrow’s finals after a pair of victories. What was better than the wins was the fact that a light snow fell intermittently throughout the day. It gave everything the Winter Classic look.

Of course, in our final game we ran into a bunch of guys who were upset that they were losing. One brainwave decided to take a run at one of our players. Oh well, we will be getting some pretty cool unis to rock for tomorrows final (if my information is correct). DISCLAIMER: I received a message from one of our opponents and I should clarify it was only on of their players who stepped out of line at the end of the gaEverEtt other guys were very good competitors.

Once again, the tournament was running quite well, in all aspects. The ice was very good, especially since a full day of games was played on it yesterday. Again the party area was bustling with people as the influx grew with the entire field playing today.

I have yet to get down to the Powder Keg Festival, I’m not even sure if I will partake. To be honest, winter activities on pavement aren’t too interesting to me. Although, there is a lot of time to take it in tomorrow.

Enjoy a few pics taken by Michelle McNamara.

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Buffalo Pond Hockey Tournament – Day 1

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The Labatt Blue Pond Hockey Tournament is truly a spectacle to behold.

This is my first year participating and from what I observed today, everything is being run well and Mother Nature has done her part, so far.

There are enough rinks to accommodate the large number of teams at this year’s tourney, 124 to be exact. The city workers and tournament staff are all diligent about touching up the rinks once a game has completed. Albeit, pouring some slushy water onto a rut and pushing it with a shovel (one-handed) doesn’t fix much.

It is obvious the tournament organizers know what they are doing. The beer tent is large and the beers are cheap. The Sahlen’s dogs are also quite affordable and quite delicious. The change tent is rather crowded and could use an expansion or a companion. Lastly, there is plenty of room for spectators to watch.

My team, the Pilthy Puckers (it should be Philthy, but our captain didn’t grasp the concept of ph matching the sound of an f), won our first game and it will be interesting to see how we fare tomorrow. It would certainly be fun to get an extra game on Sunday, but three is enough to really savor the experience.

I’ll have more tomorrow. In the meantime enjoy the scraggly group of guys that make up our team – and please enjoy my homemade burnt cork eyeblack.

Alex Auld has the coolest mask in the NHL

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Alex Auld finally figured it out. After a few too many years of wearing terribly ugly masks, he had Dave Gunnarsson make a Montreal tribute mask featuring the three greatest goalies in Canadiens history. Take a look:

So sick. The coolest part is the Dryden tribute on the left side while Patty Roy and Jacques Plante adorn the right. A++ in my book on all counts.

A slight retrospective

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It was last year at this time that I was settling in at the Hampton Inn on Robson St. in downtown Vancouver, just steps away from BC Place. I was lucky enough to spend an unforgettable month in that great city to take in the incredible spectacle of the Winter Olympics as an employee with NBC.

I kept a running blog of my activity there, you can find it here, at Ozzylympics. Take a quick read, hopefully you will enjoy it. All I can say is that I made a bunch of good friends, worked with a ton of great people and I will never forget the four weeks I spent getting little sleep, watching a lot of hockey and spending time with some fantastic unique people.

Nothing like a good ol’ donnybrook

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The Montreal – Boston game turned into an absolute Gonger tonight. The final was 8-5, in favor of the B’s, and there were three line brawls, a goalie “fight” for a grand total of 182 PIMs.

The goalies did nothing more than grab each others jerseys and spin around. But enjoy watching Benoit Pouliot land a bomb on David Krecji (video 2) and watch Gregory Campbell and Johnny Boychuk beat on Tommy Pyatt and Jaro Spacek, respectively.

The dominoes are falling

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It is now officially trade season in the NHL. Forget the 20 trades that happened prior to February, or the fact that ten of those trades involved players that were immediately inserted into their new team’s lineup. We are 18 days from the deadline and the fire sales can now officially begin.

As I mentioned there have been ten trades that involved players going to a new team and immediately being inserted into the lineup. What I mean is that there were ten meaningful trades before tonight. Dwayne Roloson to the Lightning for Ty Wishart crops up right away as does Jamie Langenbrunner’s move back to Dallas or the Avs, Caps and Habs all adding needed talent to their blue line.

I am making this point to show that trades don’t need to happen at the last moment, or two weeks before the last moment. Brian Burke said he likes to get out in front of the deadline, he did today (sorta). I just wonder if GM’s will wise up and start dealing in January in the future. Continue reading →

How is this for a sweet deal?

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All of the people who got jobbed out of a seat at Super Bowl XLV got the royal treatment. In fact, they may have gotten a better deal than if they had gotten to sit in a tiny, uncomfortable plastic chair somewhere just below the gears that open the roof at Cowboys Stadium.

There have been a few different stories in regards to what each person was offered/given by the NFL. ESPN seems to have the bead on exactly what’s up.

In addition to the fact that these people got set up in a lounge in the stadium with free refreshments and swag, they now will get $2,400! Or they can simply go to the Super Bowl anytime and receive airfare and hotel accommodations.

Not a bad deal. Of course, most of these jokers probably dropped $2,400 on one ticket alone before factoring in any other expense. But why are they complaining? Or suing, for that matter.

Now they can sit on their hands and wait out their favorite team for a return to the Super Bowl, unless they’re Bills fans. For the Steelers and Packers fans, they likely won’t have to wait too long or they can sell the tickets on the secondary market and come away with a profit, hopefully. For the rabid football fan who just wanted to snag a ticket, going next year probably doesn’t make too big of a difference. It is still the Super Bowl, you’re in a covered dome and there is a good chance you will have a decent seat for the game.

While I give no forgiveness to the NFL for this error, I don’t think too much fault can be found in their fire plan.

One last Super Bowl tidbit

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I noticed pretty early in the Super Bowl that the turf looked pretty ragged in all of the spots that had new logos for the Super Bowl. In fact, I felt that it looked so bad that it might affect play.

I don’t think it ever really made a difference. As it turns out, the only reason it looked so brutal was that it was probably brand new. I just found out that Cowboys Stadium uses this nifty new roll-out turf system that allows them to interchange parts of the field. So the answer to my original query was that the new turf had not been run on enough to look uniform. You learn something everyday.