HOCKEY LOCKOUT COMPENDIUM
DAY 11 (TO 1:00 PM): THE HOCKEY N00Z EDITION

Well, the push for publicity with regards to the continuing series of hockey lockout links I'm poopin' out has netted me appearances at Off Wing Opinion and On the Wings.  It's a thankless job, granted, and I'm starting to get sick of linking to a bunch of op-ed articles and AHL blurbs so it's probably time for a change-up or ten as the days go by.  I'm going to be doing some reviews of DVDs and music albums for UR soon (seriously, I am) so if you're starting to get sick of this topic, I am too so it's not just you.

Man, I'm amazed I've done this for eleven days.

The Hockey News has gone overboard with the articles today, which isn't surprising given what the shibboleths there have to write about.  Instead of palming the NHL with puff pieces about Ed Belfour's decreasing usefulness to the Leafs (to think the Leafs dumped Corey Schwab for him) there are puff pieces about Bob Goodenow's decreasing usefulness as if Alan Eagleson never existed in the first place.  I'm not going to make a paragraph for each link from THN, but I am going to post the lockout-related links if you're a fan of the mag.  To wit:
Lockout affects me, too!: Good for you.  At least you still have a job, Mr. Simpson.
Return to Red Deer excites Phaneuf
CHL teams relieved to keep prospects
Hasek's AHL stint draws criticism: Boohoo, the AHL's got Hasek.  Suck it up and try to dismantle the Dominator, babies.
Talented Boyes skates with baby B's: Baby B's.  Cute.
Amerks looking to Roy for offense
Reign of errors: Would've liked to see this article in more detail.  Poop on you, Hockey News
Give me my NHL back!: Man, so much op-ed.  Without it, I bet THN would be six pages of stats or something.
Words need a lockout: Man bites dog in this article.  Without the big words, Mr. Brender, you wouldn't have a column deriding them.
Fans get shafted again if NHL doesn't go to Italy: I think Olympic hockey would be shafted if the NHL does go to Italy.  Amateur hockey deserves its props, 'cause Canada's team is strong enough to hold its own in the world.
How long can they sit?: As long as you, I betcha.  Ha, I made a "funny."

SLAM! Sports/Toronto Sun: I'm not a fan of using the term "Baby" to refer to a minor-league club with the same nickname as its major-league counterpart.  It sounds too much like baby talk, like people are referring to some midget Jr. A club or something.  Give Mikael Tellqvist a bellyfart now, goo goo goo goo goo.

Yes, I'm aware I take the baby fetish thing to extremes when I do it.  It's gay, but it's MY gay.  See, there's a difference.  Because I said so.  Yes.

SLAM! Sports/Ottawa Sun: Curtis Leschyshyn's getting into competitive cycling while laid off.  Surprisingly, he's not as bad at it as some would think.

CBC Sports Online: The number of NHLers in Europe is up to 173 as Jaroslav Svoboda and Lubomir Visnovsky are the newest NHLers to piss off.  Weirdly, almost one-third of the players are playing for the Czech Republic.

Boston Herald: Owners, players refuse to warm up.  Duh, tell us something we don't know.  Article is more a wrap-up than anything else, but that's okay.  People need wrap-ups now and again.

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (NY): Article about Dominik Hasek.  He's waffling on the Binghamton stint.  Includes a picture of his man-tits.

Financial Post/National Post: 72% of the Canadian businessmen polled by COMPAS Inc. support imposing a salary cap on players.  I'm sure most of the 72% would love to downsize them players if they could, I betcha.  Hey, something needs to be done to justify the millions in stock options and severance pay.

Daily Herald-Tribune (Grande Prairie, Alberta): Fans in Alberta no likey lockout.

FOX Sports: Examination of the Russian Super League, with 30 NHLers to its credit.  At least it's a change-up from all these monotonous North American stories about how bad the lockout is.  If this is televised, this should be fun.

Toronto Star/Sports Media: TSN is filling time that would've been used for hockey with NCAA football games.  This is good, but I agree with Chris Zelkovich that Canadian universities should get their football games televised.  Then again, my university doesn't have a football team so I'm SOL.  At least the Ravens basketball program is great, hope the games aren't televised on a third-rate channel like freakin' Sportsnet again.

More to come, as Variety once mistakenly put in a headline.  The article, by the way, was about his appearance in a cheap sexploitation film around the mid-1970's.  This is a joke, by the way; I just needed to be creative and shit.

HOCKEY LOCKOUT COMPENDIUM
DAY 10

SLAM! Sports/Calgary Sun: The Calgary Hitmen break the 10,000 mark in sales for their home opener.  Looks like Flames fans go to the next best thing if they can't see their team in action.  The shilling by SLAM! Sports doesn't hurt, either.

Ottawa Sun: Op-ed "panel discussion" by Sun Media pundits about the CBA and the NHL.  The Sun needs to fill that space without pasting on a picture of Daniel Alfredsson, you know.

Ottawa Sun: Hockey is for the people, Mike Ulmer says.  The rest of the world says "DUH" and throws Ottawa Suns at the man's head.  Funny thing: when I was in Ottawa I never really saw anyone buy and/or read a copy of the Ottawa Sun.  True!

Houston Chronicle: Thought I'd post something about the Houston Aeros, since the team is one of the last surviving remnants of the WHA - well, in name anyway.  It's just a great team name.  Aeros.  It's a misspelling of "Arrows," you know.  More on that later.

Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin (NY): The Ottawa Senators' AHL affiliate is doing very well thanks to the NHL lockout.  Shit, even Dominik Hasek is going to be playing in Binghamton for a wheeze.  Those lucky Binghamton Senators, leeching off Ottawa's good fortune.

Newark Star-Ledger: One New Jersey player will play in Albany this year; one can't.  Typical human-interest piece that would have meant more if they played the theme from Love Story in the background.

Seattle Times/Knight-Ridder: Hockey filler from the Knight-Ridder chumbucket.  Seriously, move your cursor to where it says "Seattle Times/Knight-Ridder," wait a few seconds and you'll see a block of text that tells you as such.  Amazing thing, Javascript.  For one thing, that Javascript helped you ignore this article.  Useful, huh?

Wichita Eagle (Kansas): Two former Kansas City scouts want a Kansas City team back in the NHL.  Uh, this is the worst time to arse the NHL into buying into your nefarious scheme, guys.  Besides, the first KC team was bad enough.  You had your chance and you were a bigger flop than - well, the Colorado Rockies, but that's water under a New Jersey bridge.

The New York Post: The usual "journalism" from the Post.  What I don't understand is why THE HEADLINE IS IN ALL-CAPS, but then I guess that's just one of the nice touches of that paper.  Hey, you wanna know what else is a nice touch?  Me when I rub my hands all over your ample breasts!  HEY GOOMBAH, THERE A PROBLEM WITH YER EYES 'CAUSE I CAN FIX 'EM FOR YA, FAGGOT!  GEDDOUDAHEAH!

South Florida Sun-Sentinel: More op-ed fluffage, there's a lot of that going around apparently.  At least I learned that Darcy Hordichuk is the only person who hasn't scored a goal in the OSHL yet.  HA!

Detroit News: More op-ed from the Detroit News.  The article's kind of insulting to fans of the "weaker teams," but who cares.  It's Detroit, so it's not like anyone's going to insult the Red Wings there.  Basically, the argument here is "we have a winner, shut up or else we have to give money to the fucking Thrashers."  Shit, can't have that now can we?

Albany Times Union (NY): The Albany River Rats are going to benefit from the NHL lockout.  Shit, that was sort of a given wasn't it?  I'd summarise, but every city in North America with a minor league hockey team and a local newspaper is printing these exact same articles at least once every 38 minutes.  Besides, I hate the River Rats' logo.  Ugly thing, that is.

St. Petersburg Times (Florida): People who work for NHL-related and/or NHL-friendly industries are being laid off this winter.  I hate to be glib about this, but this is another standard lockout story.  The mundanity of choices for articles is hugely apparent today.  It's like television in the summer, all repeats and nothing new on.

The Tennessean (Nashville): Scuttlebutt about what certain Predators think about the lockout.  About time I find a Nashville paper that reports on the Nashville Predators.  Sadly, even this paper thinks Nashville is a small-market, cap-money-starved sort of team.  It must be tough to be a Predators fan in 2004.

Dedham Daily News Transcript (Massachusetts): Another AHL article.  We get it, it'll be great.  Quit harping on that assumption, mmmkay?

Saginaw News (Michigan): Another standard cynical "who cares about the NHL" op-ed article.  I'm not going to say more about it because - shit, what's there to say?

Prince George Free Press (British Columbia): Standard minor league hockey article mentioning the lockout, with the added twist of this being a Canadian article about the subject.  Does that meet CanCon requirements for this blog?

Palm Beach Post (Florida): Whoever wrote the headline to this article needs to get his/her head examined.  Hurling is a cult sport.  Naked bungee-jumping is a cult sport.  Professional shit-eating is a cult sport (at least it is in Japan and/or Germany - I'm assuming.)  Hockey is a mainstream sport with limited appeal to Americans.  Dumb Floridians, all those hurricanes made them idiots or something.

Grand Rapids Press (Michigan): Another AHL article.  KILL IT!  KILL IT!

Bradenton Herald (Florida): Will lockout change the NHL, yea or nay?  Standard SLAM!-esque article to be found here.

New Britain Herald (Connecticut): Article about the Hartford Wolf Pack of - well, pick my ass and call me Bumfinger - the AHL.  Man, I'm glad I only have to do this article once every day.  All these AHL articles are making my eyes see Toronto Roadrunners.

HOCKEY LOCKOUT COMPENDIUM
DAY 9

canadaeast.com/Saint John Telegraph-Journal/CP: More blather about salary caps.  Today's news isn't that great, considering that it seems to be mainly rehashed bits from a week ago and op-ed articles.  This article is no exception to the rule.

San Francisco Chronicle: Another article about NHLers going to Europe, with the added gimmick of the article coming from the should-know-better San Fran Chronicle.  At least no one mentions the California Golden Seals here.

canada.com/Windsor Star: What do people do when there's no hockey to be watched?  Somehow, the Windsor Star managed to stretch this question into a four-page (at least here) answer.  With no hockey, sports journalists can write about how people are "coping" with no hockey.  Hey, they get paid for this as well!  Awesome!

canadaeast.com/Moncton Times & Transcript: Article that is supposed to be about the QMJHL but really has piss all in the way of information about how the QMJHL is dealing with the NHL lockout.  I hate journalistic cheats like this, because this is just lazy journalism.  Seriously, I wanted to read about the QMJHL, not some players who play for the QMJHL.  Is this paper reputable?  It sure doesn't seem like it.

DamnTheYankees.com: Article about the NHL from the person I presently "work for" who runs the wrestling site that I "write for."  I don't usually shill like this for people, but I might as well here since the article's at least on-topic.  It's better than the QMJHL "article," at least.

Palm Beach Post (Florida): Article about Stephen Weiss and his playing for the San Antonio Rampage.  With all the hurricanes hitting Florida these past two months, you Panthers fans are lucky your farm club is in Texas.  Wouldn't want to lose half your team to Hurricane Jeanne, now.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Article about the minor-league Penguins team at Wilkes-Barre Scranton.  There's something unsettling about calling a minor-league team the "Baby Penguins," considering the rungs of minor-league hockey there are below the NHL.  I guess it's one of those "cute" minor-league quirks I'll never understand.

Rocky Mountain News (Colorado): Colorado fans think the players are to blame for the lockout.  Somehow the roots of the labour movement are worked into the article, not that it makes this bog-standard polemic any better.

Greeley Tribune (Colorado): Article about the Colorado Eagles CHL team.  A lot of these minor-league hockey articles seem to pop up when I do this blog, and I try to include most of them.  Still, this should convince you that the CHL is a long way away from what one sees at the NHL level.  Not that there's anything wrong with the minors, of course.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Nice to see the OSHL get far-reaching press, just hope said press doesn't come back to stab the OSHL in the ass when people finally consider it a total ripoff.  I hope that doesn't happen, but hockey fans can be a fickle sort sometimes.

I don't much feel like going through the Canoe/SLAM! Sports listings tonight, because there are so many articles from the Sun/Quebecor chain that it's almost becoming a pain in the ass to make smart-mouth comments about how bad the Sun chain is.  The following is a list of articles from the Canoe/SLAM! juggernaut:

Hockey trivia worth a shot (Ottawa Sun)
'Stars' may skate (Edmonton Sun)
Another breakout year for Canadian baseball (London Free Press)
The Hit Parade column (Winnipeg Sun)
Crash's Rant (SLAM! Sports/Edmonton Sun)
Running into the spotlight (SLAM! Sports/Edmonton Sun)
With no NHL, does anyone care? (SLAM! Sports/Edmonton Sun again)

Note that the Edmonton Sun gets four inclusions out of a possible seven.  Man, without the Oilers that paper'd have nothing, eh wot?

Toronto Star: Looks like the Maple Laughs are cancelling some games and nothing is going to fill the Air Canada Centre in the meantime...except for Toronto Raptors basketball.  Somehow, I don't think Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment should be too worried.

Toronto Star: Damien Cox is bored so he's listing things he'd like both the NHL and NHLPA to say.  Well, what else can he write about?  At least he's getting paid for this.

Toronto Star: St. Mike's is looking for a new venue.  Yes, this day is so slow I'm including more minor-league and OHL news than ever before.  Still, at least there's no more op-ed columns to burn my eyes with.  Today.

In addition, there were some other articles I wanted to use for this article but bugmenot.com's going gay on me, so you're stuck with what you get today.  Maybe tomorrow will be better, because it almost has to be.  Somehow.

HOCKEY LOCKOUT COMPENDIUM
DAY 8

Okay, most of this is carryover from yesterday.  Thank - well, thank whatever god one worships, I hate being monotheistic - that I don't have to recap much in the way of news today.  The checking of links will still be a pain in the arse, but I actually found checking to see if my CyberHome DVD player isn't one of the "bad ones" (it doesn't seem to be, but I dunno) more important than this.  Priorities, priorities.

Fox Sports: Forsberg returns to his hometown, gets a standing ovation.  One would expect he would.

SI.com: LA Kings owner Tim Leiweke calls Bettman a bald-faced liar; Bettman slaps him a fine.  Then again, when any owner speaks out like this one would expect to be ostracized for doing something stupid like criticizing Bettman.  I don't know if the Kings owner is being honest or just making a spat to embarrass Bettman, though I wouldn't discount the latter here.  Attacking Bettman = PUBLICITY.

SI.com: The Kings are cancelling games now.  I bet that's gotta piss off the bald-faced liar.  Enough about Leiweke, though.

proicehockey.about.com: Jamie Fitzpatrick sums up this lockout better than anyone else: "...until one side or the other makes a move, there is almost nothing left to talk about. It's just the same old refrains and catchphrases, over and over."  He knows it, I know it, hockey fans know it.  Then again, he barely has anything to say in this article.

The Globe and Mail: This is for the Nashville fan who read my blog yesterday.  Apparently Nashville has solid finances and a dedicated market for hockey, but it is still underdeveloped and the Predators are losing money.  Still, I'm surprised it took a few years for a certain hockey team owner to figure out that Gaylord Center is not a good name for an arena anywhere in North America - well, aside from San Francisco, but that city already suffered at the hands of the California Golden Seals.

Toronto Star: The AHL is allegedly BIGGER! and BETTER!  Save the hyperbole for the regular season, guys.  One never knows if the new shootout rule is going to bite the AHL in the ass.  Crap knows it's not well-liked by some hockey fans, who get really indignant about this for some reason.  It's a furner idea, see...

canada.com/CP: Article on the salary cap issue.  Some say yea, others nay.  The layout is nicer than canada.com usually affords, and the article's decent enough to warrant the fanciness.

CFRA (Ottawa): They're keeping the white elephant - er, um, Corel Centre - open during the lockout.  Nice gesture, better than closing the thing anyway.

Buffalo News: What will Buffalo fans do without the Sabres?  Come on, I don't see why this question needs to be asked considering the Sabres were this close to bankruptcy earlier this decade.  I think it may be a question of what can replace the Sabres in a few years.  Hard to say, really.

TSN.ca: Quebecois players are forming their own league for charity.  The good news is, the talent is very enticing and there seems to be a high-quality air around it already.  The bad news is, it's for Ronald McDonald House.

Okay, giving money to McDonald's might not be a bad thing, but I'm surprised the company hasn't phased that charity out considering its pathetic attempt to be "urban" and "hip."

calgary.cbc.ca: Wow!  An online petition to save the NHL season?  How is this news in any way?  Shit, is this blog going to be interviewed by CHEX tomorrow?  Man, hasn't the CBC learned that online petitions don't work?  Un-freakin'-believable.

Dundas Star News (Ontario): Even the senior AAA hockey teams are hoping to land some NHL talent.  Good for the amateur senior leagues, considering amateur hockey's storied history.  Senior hockey's not going to make a comeback, but I hope to see the Real McCoys actually land an NHLer or two.

Winnipeg Sun: Want a piece of the Winnipeg Arena?  This is a sad story considering Winnipeggers really loved the Jets and had been through so much with their team in its quarter-century history.  I hate this kind of crass marketing.  Why exploit Winnipeg fans like this?  Idiotic, this is.

Montreal Gazette/CanWest News Service: York researcher Julian Ammirante sides with the players in this salary dispute.  Honestly, they'll just give column space to anyone with an impressive-sounding resumé and a dissenting opinion, won't they?  At least the article isn't as bad as that fucking online petition story, so give CNS that much credit for at least attempting to wring out news from a stone.

canada.com/CP: Same as above, but with a sports law professor.  I'm already detecting a love between canada.com and these marginal stories that don't really say anything but look pretty on newsprint.

FOXSports.com: Link to preview of the minor leagues from FOXSports.com.  Nice of the site to talk about the OHL, the QMJHL and the WHL, especially since I don't expect it from an American website.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Op-ed piece from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  The article's pretty blah, but the picture of the overexcited Steelers fans...man, that's a lame picture to try to sell an online subscription to a football dirtsheet with.  Yikes.

SLAM! Sports/Ottawa Sun: Here's what Ottawa 67's GM/coach Brian Kilrea has to say about the NHL lockout.  Why say anything considering the increased attention Kilrea will be getting this year?  Geez.

SLAM! Sports/Toronto Sun: More bloody op-ed.  Man, op-ed piece after op-ed piece...it starts to blur after a while.

MSNBC/San Antonio Business Journal: The San Antonio Dragons are an AHL team hoping to make it where two other teams failed.  The team will make it, considering there's no NHL to get in its way.  Honestly, it couldn't be a better time to debut an AHL team, even considering there are too many teams there already.

Newark Star-Ledger: Newark's hoping to get the New Jersey Devils to play in the Continental Arena.  This is not the time to arse the Devils over to an arena, Newark.  Keep trying to reinvent yourself, though.

SLAM! Sports/Calgary Sun: Gee, sales for Calgary Hitmen games are taking off like a rocket this year.  I wonder if Bret Hart's shilling had something to do with that. *cough*

SLAM! Sports/Winnipeg Sun: Article on the Wheat Kings.  No reason this is here, really, other than the sound of the term "Wheat Kings."  "Wheat Kings."  The Wheaties aren't a bad team, either.

ESPN.com: "AHL already reaping benefits of lockout."  No shit, you're shilling it.

onthewings.blogspot.com: Latest scuttlebutt from onthewings.blogspot.com.  There's nothing that hasn't been said before here, but it's always nice to hear from Detroit fans - yes, I'm comfortable with the fact that this blog is considered newsworthy by Google now.  Considering the shit I've read from actual newspapers, this is better for one's eyes anyway.

ESPN.com: Article about The Hockey News and its coverage of the CBA brouhaha.  I hated this article initially, but at least it's trying to say something about a topic that isn't Bettman or the Granby Predateurs.  I salute this man.

Oh, and Markus Naslund's not playing for a Swedish hockey team.  I'm sure that's been shoved in the faces of millions today.  I know my face met that article a million times by now.  Bloody stringers.

HOCKEY LOCKOUT COMPENDIUM
DAY 7, PART I

For those articles needing registration before one can access 90% of the paper (which I still think is a silly notion considering one can easily buy a paper or take one from a store's recycling unit once the news has run its course - no one sells yesterday's news, after all), bugmenot.com is a newspaper reader's best friend.  Anyway, on to the stories.

Duluth News Tribune/Knight Ridder: Bettman's promising lower ticket prices when the NHL lockout is lifted.  I hope that comes with better-managed salaries and a salary cap as well, otherwise it's going to be the same old story for this league.  Oh, and there better be higher-quality hockey.  I want no more of this neutral zone crap.  Got it, Betty?

phillyBurbs.com: Did you know Brian Propp works for AFLAC now?  Anyway, here's his take on the lockout situation.  The man knows how to invest his money.

The Hockey News: The Hockey News just doesn't care about taking sides anymore.  Nor should it, since its fucking mandate is to be non-partisan.  Why THN has to tell the readers that, I dunno.

Toronto Star: Injured players still get their salary paid by the NHL during the lockout.  I don't have a problem with this if the players are legitimately injured, but once one wades into the murky area of concussions there's a problem.  More obviousness from a paper that should know better.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Ryan VandenBussche is finding his niche in the OSHL.  Kind of dumb to be printing this article when the league's suspended operations until October, isn't it?  What people are expecting from preseason games, I have no clue.

Grand Rapids Press: More local businesses are feeling the pinch of life without the NHL.  This time, the charities are hurting.

Philadelphia Inquirer: More commentary about the lockout, this time from a university professor at Drexel.  I hope he has tenure.

Cleveland Plain-Dealer: Story about Mike Rupp.  Not much here to peruse.

Reuters: The Czechs are settling their rivalries in their home country.  I would hope they do, considering how much publicity they'd stand to make down there.  It's not like playing in the NHL, but what is?  At least there's good hockey down there.

Toronto Star: The Toronto Argos aren't doing anything special to take advantage of the NHL lockout.  Cripes, you'd think they would considering the opportunity's there.  This is exactly the wrong move to make with regards to PR.  Maybe I should be the PR director for the Argos, then people would care about Canadian football.

Rocky Mountain News (Denver): This guy says there's an easy solution to this lockout.  You, me, and millions of hockey fans in Canada and the US, buddy.

Toronto Star: Damien Cox - another man who tells you what you probably already know.

Ottawa Sun: The NHLPA is filing a charge against "unfair labour practices."  Unbelievable, considering the NHLPA was planning this sit-down strategy in the first place.  This is tragicomedy at its finest.

SmartMoney.com: Topps is feeling the pain of the lockout.  Considering the boom and bust of the hockey card market during the early 1990's, I don't feel sorry for Topps in the least.  I'm not paying $2 or greater for something like 8-10 shiny laminated pictures of guys on skates.  They priced that market far out of reach of the kids a long time ago.

SLAM! Sports/Calgary Sun: Oof.  Another work stoppage looming over the horizon, this time over the horizon of the National Lacrosse League.  If the NLL is forced into work stoppage, it'd kill the league.  Great timing, guys.

Edmonton Journal: Projections say the Oilers could lose $13.5 million this year.  The last surviving memento of the WHA is relapsing in the iron lung.  Prepare to say goodbye to the Oilers soon if things don't get better for the team.  This sucks.

The Globe and Mail: Arthur Griffiths' words about the lockout.  Everyone's coming out of the woodwork to be interviewed these days.

Toronto Star: Garth Woolsey don't like the circus that is the 2004-05 season.  If the WHA gets off the ground, I'm sure the man is going to pout and grouse about how bad the Toronto Toros are.  I just see it.

Ottawa Sun: NHL players talk about the lockout.  Man, we're so starved for hockey stories here it's scary.

Buffalo News: Buffalo's first five regular-season games have been canceled.  If there's a Sabres team by 2006 I'll eat my LSD-laced nacho hat because that team's just running on fumes by this point.

Toronto Star: Daly vs. Saskin, one on one.  The Toronto Star's coming out with a lot of articles today.  Perhaps the staff there have been taking the happy pills.

The Daily Californian (Berkeley, CA): Some SoCal columnist's take on the situation.  It's all very valid, but I've heard it all before and anyone who's noticed sports in the last ten years knows how fleeting team loyalty is these days.  I hate to say it, but this is another "well, duh" kind of article.

SLAM! Sports/Ottawa Sun: An OHL game conflicts with an OSHL game.  C'mon, Mr. Hunt, your league wasn't borne out of three weeks of slapdash planning and on-the-fly booking.  Give the OSHL the benefit of the doubt.  Where else is the OSHL going to play in Ottawa, the Corel Centre?  The Corel Centre is a white elephant as it is, but still.

SLAM! Sports/Toronto Sun: Doug Gilmour's take on the lockout.  I tell you, everybody involved in the NHL is being interviewed by SLAM! Sports.  When do I get my turn?  I own a Maple Leafs jersey, that should be good enough.

SLAM! Sports/Toronto Sun: News about the OSHL.  Man, that league's going to get a black eye in the press, and it doesn't deserve it.  The league was a rush job in the first place, what did you expect from this thing?  World Cup quality hockey?  Man, you people.

NBC4.tv (Los Angeles)/Sportsnetwork: More stuff about the AHL.  I hate when things specifically East Coast-related end up on the West Coast.  It's such a pissoff the way lazy stringers can cut and paste things.

CBC Sports Online: Mats Naslund isn't going to Europe...

CBC Sports Online: but some guy I've barely heard of since I don't follow hockey that closely is!  Yay!

CBC News Viewpoint: An article about a woman and her relationship to hockey.  It follows standard CBC News protocol, so if you don't like the upper-middle-class slant of CBC News' reportage I'd advise you not to read it.  It's a nice article, but it's more toothless than Bobby Clarke's mouth.

More to come, because the media just won't stop.

HOCKEY LOCKOUT COMPENDIUM
DAY 6, PART II

In the way I usually do, I wrote to McClelland and Stewart asking for a review copy of The Rebel League and I'm shocked by the fact they accepted this request.  I'll be reviewing the book, then, for UR and The UR Blog.  I have to thank M&S for this, especially Dulcey Antonucci.  This is surprising, it really is.  Anyway, my eighth straight blog on the subject and thirteen new stories pop up.  That's...uh...not as surprising, but at least it's consistent.

CBC Sports Online: Bob Goodenow's time to shine.  For his part, he was heavily criticised for failing to see the obvious and repeating himself.  I hate to say it, but I feel sorry for Goodenow.  The man keeps talking about market share and trying to get a good deal and everyone's verbally slapping him on the face pointing out that other people do far more for far less.  JUST TAKE THE FUCKING CAP, MAN.

Nashville Business Journal: The Predators cancel the first six home games of their schedule.  I'm sure, and I hate to be cynical here, there are a minimal amount of people in Nashville who care.  Sorry, but Nashville is not a hockey city.

SLAM! Sports: I love Burke's plan for the NHL.  It's fiscally responsible, it's progressive - it'll never get ratified.  Man, this thing would've been over by now if Burke was NHL Commissioner - well, that and if Goodenow wasn't president of the NHLPA.  Goodenow gets my goat.

Christian Science Monitor: Ooh, when the Christian Science Monitor gets involved in talking about hockey, that really says something about how popular a story this lockout really is.  Wow, I'm shocked the Monitor's talking about this - it's sorta like Ty Cobb calling Babe Ruth an asshole.

Banff Crag & Canyon: I don't know why people in Banff are so worried about hockey cutting into business.  The town has a big tourist industry and a television festival.  It's not like the bar and tourist industries are going to be as hurting as, say, Edmonton's.  Man, this is almost a non-story.

Montreal Gazette: The Quebec lottery agency is hurt by the NHL lockout.  Of course it is if it's running a betting line, sheesh.  Why doesn't Loto-Québec just start a betting line on the lockout itself?  Gotta be creative during this lockout, ya know.

CBC News/The National: Rex Murphy's Pointy View...yes, I'm annoying enough to repeat a bad joke from This Hour Has 22 Minutes during the year when Colin Mochrie was part of the cast.  I'm a heel, you should expect this from me.

CJAD/CP: Article about overage juniors' chances in the NHL-less wasteland of minor pro hockey.  Man, that trickle-down is one fickle bitch.

ViveLeCanada.ca: This is actually a pretty good article, but I haven't heard about ViveLeCanada.ca until now.  Man, this gig's opening my eyes to the width of Google News' reach.  Pretty soon my blog will be on Google News, I reckon.

TSN.ca/CP: The OSHL's on hiatus, at least for the preseason.  Good for them if they aim to survive long-term.  This may seem like the OSHL is shutting down, but considering the early reviews they need this retooling period.  I hope the OSHL survives.

San Jose Mercury News/Detroit Free Press: This is a good article, but what the hell is it doing in the San Jose Mercury News?  Man, what is with these Knight-Ridder papers?  Who the hell in San Jose is going to relate to this?  Ah well, at least I'm not dealing with the Gannett chain this time.

Gamespot.com: NHL 2005 is in stores.  Perfect time to bring that out, isn't it?  Then again, this could be a coup for EA Sports if anyone cares about the NHL 199x/200x series of games.  There's even a review of the thing, and EA Sports games are usually quality so they escape my downward thumb - never mind the fact that I'm more a Blades of Steel kind of guy.  Hell, the only reason I have a PlayStation is because I rescued it from a dump.

Until tomorrow, I'm a small-time writer trying to find a break in the world of blogs.  Man, this lockout will never end.

HOCKEY LOCKOUT COMPENDIUM
DAY 6

PuckUpdate is going to feature this series of posts later on today (I write this at 1:30 PM), so I'm trying very hard to get this to make the rounds.  Also, if anyone has video or audio of Bettman or Goodenow from the CBC Your Turn segments, please let me know where they are by writing me at [email protected].  I also hope I'm not alienating Reverend.  You know, you get these ideas and if you don't run with 'em...

canada.com/CP: Scotty Bowman says the NHL won't feel the full impact of the lockout until the season proper "starts."  Of course, he isn't wrong but what he's saying is blatantly obvious.  Wasn't Kevin Newman saying this last week on GlobalNational anyway?

The Hockey News: Trevor Linden sees his foot.  Trevor Linden opens his mouth.  Guess what happens next.

Newark Star-Ledger: Profile of Bill Daly and Ted Saskin.  You might have to register through nj.com (a pissoff, I'm sure) but it's worth it just to read the article.  Very well done.

WRAL (Raleigh-Durham, NC) through AP: Carolina Hurricanes owner saves money every day his team doesn't play.  Yeah, piss off more irate Whalers fans why don't you?  It's not their fault your greedy ass moved to a city that doesn't seem to care less about hockey.

ESPN/AP: The OSHL is already dead.  Shit, that was the fastest fold since Superman on laundry day.  Apparently CBC Sports Online is reporting that the OSHL president is denying the reports, saying the letter was faked.  You don't know how hard it is to fight the temptation to make a joke about Dan Rather right about now.

Toledo Blade: Bryan Smolinski's mulling over playing with the Toledo Storm.  Just do it, Bryan, the NHL's not going to magically open for business any time soon.  Geez, pro players, they can afford this indecisiveness...

Newark Star-Ledger: Perfect two paragraphs right here:

Bobby Holik and Darius Kasparaitis are aware of the stir Devils center John Madden caused last week when, on the eve of the NHL lockout, he broke with his union's agenda and said he'd consider accepting some form of a salary cap in a new collective bargaining agreement.

They have this message for Madden: Shut up.

Man, that selfish John Madden.  A menace to the game, he is.

Miami Herald (login: [email protected], craptastic): More whining from the hotter regions about the NHL lockout not being important enough south of the border.  If it's not important, stop talking about it.  Jeez, stupidity must reign in the land of the Lightning and the Panthers.

SLAM! Sports/Ottawa Sun: Rod Bryden chimes in with his opinion of the 2004 lockout.  Bryden shouldn't be talking about arenas considering how expensive the Palladium Corel Centre was/is to build and run.

SLAM!/Ottawa Sun: Now, here's the current Ottawa Senators owner's opinion of the lockout.  He loves it.

WGRZ (Buffalo, NY): Looks like Zweigle's relies on profits from Sabres games.  It's a pity, but now that the Rochester Americans are front and centre I wouldn't worry too much about lost profits.  It's about goodwill right now...and food.

SLAM!/Ottawa Sun yet again: What the Sens are doing right now in the midst of lockout-mania.

CBC Sports: Roenick wants money from the Flyers because he's still suffering from a concussion.  Roenick's mulling over playing for the minors, though.  What a selfless man.

NBC Sports/AP: Olaf Kölzig is coaching the Tri-City Americans of the WHL.  Gotta keep busy, I guess.

Flint Journal (Michigan): Hockey lockout could mean better UHL.  Sheeah, you think?

CBC Sports Online: CBC's replacing Hockey Night in Canada with movies.  It's Saturday, why doesn't CBC do something daring for once?  Who watches Saturday television regularly when there's no hockey?

Everett Herald (Washington): Another article about the Western Hockey League.  Is Washington State really a good minor league hockey state?  It doesn't seem like it to me, but that's just my ignorant arse talking.

State Journal-Register (Springfield, Illinois): Jim Ruppert wants to contract the NHL to 12 teams.  Yeah, that'll happen when I buy the Toronto Star.

Detroit News: Don't worry, Joe Louis Arena!  The NHL may not be around to fill seats, but the WNBA has come to save the day!  Yay!  I bet they'll sell fifteen seats!

canada.com/CP: There's a new book about the WHA of the 1970's out.  I want to review this book, just so I can see the majesty that is the Michigan Stags.  Ahhh, I'm reminiscing about mediocre teams that folded before I was even born.  I'm gonna try to rustle myself a review copy, or buy the thing if I have to.  I WANT THIS BOOK.

More to come, as the old Johnny Carson bumper graphic used to say.

THE HOCKEY LOCKOUT COMPENDIUM DAY 5 PART II

FOX Sports: Daryl Reaugh doing a Q&A article.  This is better than I've seen from FOX Sports as of late, and for once the author puts some reasoning behind the cynical "who cares" attitude I've seen lately.  If only more articles were like this, I wouldn't need to be doing this compendium.

CJAD/CP: A play-by-play of Gary Bettman's appearance on The National.  The CBC's being its usual overliberal self, having a nine-year-old child tell Bettman he misses the game already.  Then again, everyone knows Peter Mansbridge is to Dan Rather what Knowlton Nash was to Walter Cronkite.  No surprises there, then.

Southgate News Herald (Michigan): Detroit businesses are not worried about having one of the city's good teams not play NHL hockey.  They're fine bitching about the Tigers and the Lions.  Thank crap the city has the NBA champion Pistons, otherwise Detroit would be screwed.

SportzDomain.com: Sigh.  Apparently Sports Business News is legit, so I'm not going to make snide jokes here.  I can't anyway, considering the ECHL's Dayton Bombers are busy crowing about how 2004-05 will be the best year the ECHL ever had.  Understandable, but it's still one big duh.

FOX Sports: Reaugh again with his views on a Canadian Press article that made the rounds very recently.  It's more stating the obvious, but you're going to see a lot of that as I said earlier.  I hope Day 6 of the HLC isn't worse than today, because today was as overblown as...well, the present NHL.  I think there were more articles today than there are NHL teams.  We need a contraction.

THE HOCKEY LOCKOUT COMPENDIUM DAY 5

Wow, the day's not even half over and today is the worst day for NHL-derived filler I've witnessed yet.  I don't know who the hell American papers are kidding when they talk about not caring for major league hockey.  I've already uncovered more than TWENTY articles about the NHL alone, and why I'm not given more props for this is a question that shall probably remain unanswered for at least - oh, I'll say a week.  Boy, this is getting sickening.

Cleveland Plain-Dealer: Today's American-based "NHL salaries are too high" article.  No shit?  Like no one vaguely interested in the NHL could tell you that.

theahl.com: Pay Attention To Us, says the AHL.  This Is As Good As Hockey's Going To Be This Year.  Look At Our Fine Young Rookies!

ASU Web Devil (Arizona): What the hell is up with all these articles from Arizona?  Hell, this article is the sort of third-rate piffle one expects from campus newspapers so I have to ask: if you guys hate hockey so much, why do you waste all this time talking about it?  Just saying.

Detroit News: More Detroit Red Wings are going to Europe this season.  Sadly, Cujo might still be with the Red Wings if the 2004-05 season manages to start.  Shit, Toronto's goaltending is going to suck this year.

useless-knowledge.com: Another Google original.  I have never heard of this site before, so why is it so newsworthy?  I guess anything can become a Google News source nowadays.

National Post/CP: Values for the six Canadian hockey teams in the NHL.  Somehow this article has managed to evade becoming part of the Online Edition, which is strange as I don't understand who would want to subscribe to the online edition of anything.  The Globe And Mail is succumbing to the same disease.  Man, these papers are taking a bath on these online versions of their offline product.

New York Daily News: Somehow Mark Messier's still planning to play for the New York Rangers.  I understand twenty-five years of major league hockey is something to marvel at but PLEASE STOP, MESSIER.  You're part of the reason the Rangers haven't made the playoffs six years in a row.  Could you please bow out and stop with this Gordie Howe bullshit?  Thanks.

The Hockey News: Trevor Linden finds the salary cap too restrictive.  Yeah, and I'm Lady Terminator.

Cincinnati Post: Now that there's no NHL, perhaps people from Springerville could pay attention to their AHL franchise for once?

Detroit News: "Now that the NHL lockout has occurred, how long will this thing last? I miss my hockey," says someone who conveniently forgot about the OHL, the AHL and college hockey.  Oy.

SLAM! Sports: The OSHL is already flatlining.  Somehow, Dave Andreychuk decided to involve himself in this mess.  Terrible uniforms, too.

Fox Sports: Scuttlebutt from the NHL.  Even Pat Sajak's chiming in with his opinion, which is faint praise considering how easy it is to win $50,000 on Wheel of Fortune these days.  I miss Chuck Woolery.

CBC.ca/CP: More scuttlebutt about the funny economics of the NHL.

SLAM! Sports/Toronto Sun: The Maple Leaf organization hopes to become a big help in labour negotiations.  Wonderful.  Just what a hockey fan needs, more talk about the Maple Leafs.  The Leafs can't draft worth two damns and the organization loves to purchase veterans to artificially age the team more, so how good can the team be in dealing with labour negotiations?

Chicago Daily Herald: Bill Wirtz scuttlebutt.  I gather Chicago Blackhawks fans don't like Wirtz, then?

Toronto Star: Making the Cut article.  The show's tonight you know, gotta shill it heavily.

SLAM! Sports/Ottawa Sun: Daniel Alfredsson needs to pay $1 million to insure his $32.5 million contract.  Just pay the insurance and go to Sweden already.  I can't stand indecisive men, especially since nobody's paying me $32.5 million to write this series of blog entries.  Man, Alfredsson.

Portland Press Herald (Maine): The entire article is about Eric Weinrich moving to New Jersey.  There must be nothing to report in Maine if this managed to see newsprint.

SLAM! Sports/Toronto Sun: SLAM! is talking about this hockey lockout way too much.  I'm considering not pointing out these articles anymore, especially since the Sun family of newspapers are pretty much universally regarded as toilet paper.

The Community Press (Stirling, ON): Even my community paper has something to say about this hockey lockout.  I love the fact that the HTML title of this page is called "article template."  Man, that's professional as shit, that is.  Still, the article's a lot better than most of the bilge I'm linking to.

Cincinnati Post: AHL article pointing out who will play for Your Cincinnati Mighty Ducks this season.

PR Newswire: Good god, they're airing virtual NHL games on G4TechTV?  I know G4TechTV's known for its video games, but EA Sports-related crap like this...I dunno, either this is a coup or a milestone in retardedness.  Either way, I'm stunned.

KAALtv.com (Austin, Minnesota)/AP: Stephane Veilleux's going to Russia instead of playing for the AHL.  This article's so professional it misspells Veilleux in the headline and hypenates the acronym NHL.  This article, is not writen godo.

Edmonton Journal/National Post: 1-3 odds on the entire NHL season being a washout.  Man, when the bookies predict things like this it makes one wonder why the hell this is being covered as much as it is.

CBC Sports: 150 players heading to Europe.  In other news, hockey is played on skates.

High River Times (High River, Alberta): Local paper article with local paper quality and local paper web design.  Not surprisingly, Quebecor Media owns this thing.

Fucking SLAM! Sports/London Free Press: Ever wondered what Marcel Dionne thinks of this lockout?  No?  TS for you, he's going to tell you anyway.  Now SHUT UP.

CNN/SI: As if you didn't think Sports Illustrated wouldn't chime in on this lockout.  Man, these papers and magazines make it hard for me to keep my sanity, not that I had it anyway.  At least there's a nice picture of Gary Bettman's fisheyes.

I hope I don't have to update this again in eight hours time.

THE HOCKEY LOCKOUT COMPENDIUM: DAY 4

Better Living Centre: Marc Weisblott/Brett Lamb's little cozy couch linked to The UR Blog recently, so I might as well give props to the Torontonians.  Must be maddening to find things to talk about in Toronto what with the city being the ultimate heel and all.  Still, here's his little take on the media/hockey drudge.  It deals with marketing and stuff.

Reuters: Without the teams to fill asses in seats, some publicly-funded arenas are feeling the squeeze.  Well, that's what happens when taxpayers fund an arena.  If it's empty a quarter of the time, taxpayers are going to feel their testes in a vice.  Note how the southern states are more affected by this, though we know the teams are still making money.  It's about as fair as Chappelle's Show not winning an Emmy.

TimesLeader.com (Pennsylvania): The Pittsburgh Penguins cancelled their exhibition games and their home opener against the New York Rangers.  Is there even going to be a Penguins team next year?

TurkishPress.com (?!): Article about Swedes returning to their home country to play hockey.  Why this is coming out of a Turkish paper through a French wire service stymies the holy hell out of me.

WHBF (Quad Cities, IL): Article about the AHL.  Today's a slow news day, hence the lack of juicy tidbits.  I hate padding out this article with bread crumbs but there's sweet F all I can do about it.

CJAD/Canadian Press: A rundown on how bigger salaries led to this latest lockout.  Pretty standard article from CP, you saw it yesterday in a different form.  Still, this article's worth a read.

The Edmonton Sun: Opinion article about Don Cherry being transplanted to...I can't do it.  I can't add to the glorified list of puns that comprise Paul Whitney's article.  Good god, "Coach's Coma?"  Is this is the sense of humour I need to expect from Albertans?  Then again, this is the daily Sun article I'm dealing with here.  Poor quality is a stock in trade there, I hear.

Edmonton Journal: Kids talk about the NHL lockout.  The kids aren't that worried.  Hey, media, listen to the kids.

USCHO.com: NHL Fan's Guide to College Hockey.  I like it.  The article is glib, but college hockey in America has a damn right to be considering every game in college hockey means something.  I seriously think college hockey's got a chance to break out of its ghetto this year.  If it doesn't, then throw shitty Dan Rather jokes at my face.

TSN.ca: "Bettman, Goodenow set to hear the fans."  HAW, HAW, HAW!  Seriously though, even Vince McMahon's making an effort (however worked it may be, and it usually is) to listen to the fans.  Taboo Tuesday isn't going to make much in the way of actual money but I'm assuming more people will view that than this CBC National Town Hall.  Granted, Goodenow vs. Bettman is going to be a hell of a lot more entertaining.

The Hockey News: I'm just going to link to the site itself.  There's no reason to link to the seven hundred variations of complaints that came up on Google from The Hockey News, so here's the scuttlebutt from there.

Sports Business News: Looks like the WHA is in more financial trouble considering the Quebec Nordiks are now out of the league.  Is this league going to find some stability?  Even the original WHA had better organization.  I mean, how many Miami Screaming Eagles are there going to be in this revived WHA?  Doesn't look too major league to me.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Lemieux takes a paycut, among other members of the Penguins staff.  I'm surprised there's money in the organization to pay Mario Lemieux $2 million.

Boston Herald: I love the why the NHL does business.  If teams don't play, they stand to lose less money than if they did.  There's something utterly retarded about that business plan.  Evidently all you need is a good arena deal and you're set for a good few years.  Man, pro hockey.

proicehockey.about.com: Speak out tomorrow, the About guy says.  That's it.

CBC Sports: Paul Martin's not going to mediate in the dispute between the NHL and the NHLPA.  The man managed to hammer out a health care agreement with the provinces in a few days and yet he doesn't want to get involved in trying to save the hockey season.  Couldn't blame him, considering Stephen Harper's just going to win his job within three months anyway.

TSN.ca: Ugh, the Central Hockey League?  Man, Brad Lukowich must either be desperate for work or love the CHL.  Yikes, I would have at least expected an IHL or ECHL team to snap someone up.  I wasn't originally going to link this but even I know the CHL isn't exactly the highest rung with regards to minor league hockey.  At least he's not a member of the OSHL.

THE HOCKEY LOCKOUT COMPENDIUM: DAY 3

Well, Marc Weisblott's interested in this series of link farms, so this hockey/media thing will last until the lockout ends.  Strangely enough, for all the bellyaching about how the lockout hardly matters to the American sports scene south of the 49th Parallel there are a hell of a lot of American papers covering it.  You Yanks don't care LIKE A FOX.  Man.

On The Wings (Blogspot): Google sometimes accepts the stupidest news sources.  Anyhow, Nick Lidstrom's staying in the USA instead of arsing off to Sweden for the time being.  He can afford it.  Good for him, by the way.

SLAM! Sports/The NEW! Toronto Sun: Roundtable article featuring people like Jeremy Roenick, Bob McKenzie (not the guy related to Doug, ya schmucks) and Brian Burke.  Better than usual Slam! article.

The Vacaville Reporter(!!!), CA: Very-well-written article from the most unlikely of sources.  I'm just surprised the writer of this article didn't pull out the hoary "who cares" chestnut.  Good for him.

Sun-Herald (Biloxi, Mississippi) [?!]: Re-reportage of an Arizona Republic news story about how the Phoenix Coyotes will make possibly the best profit ever in the team's history.  Isn't that nice?  They don't have to play, but they make money through an arena deal.  There's also a Dan Rather joke in the article, like no one saw that coming from five thousand kilometres away.

WCCO.com (Minneapolis, MN): Same story, different anus.

Indiana Gazette: Standard "Americans don't care about hockey" column, except this is from a hockey fan.  I don't understand the logic behind Rick Weaver's article, dependent as it is on some cobbled-together pastiche of television exposure and high school sports.  Then again, the best Indiana ever got with regards to hockey was a minor WHA team that debuted Wayne Gretzky.  Hmm, now I understand.

Arizona Republic: Okay article (for a Gannett paper, which isn't saying much.)  Hey, Arizona, how dem Diamondbacks doing?  Oh wait, they're terrible.  Nyah.

Chicago Sun-Times: Carol Slezak wants Gretzky to become the new NHL Commissioner.  Um, Slezak, perhaps you haven't been to the 51st State where Gretzky's been eroding that stellar self-image with his constant shilling and hogging of the spotlight.  Mario Lemieux is a better role model these days anyway, plus he didn't run away to Phoenix when he saw dollar bills waving in his face like a certain goal-scorer that shall remain The Great One.

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bob Matthews has a bit on the NHL lockout and, surprisingly since this never usually comes up, a bit on the National Lacrosse League.  Would that more people would make the translation from ice hockey to land hockey, but what do I know.

Boston Globe: The usual good quality one expects from the Boston Globe, but the thought of scab hockey terrifies the hell out of me.  Gives me diarrhoea - at least mentally.  Don't want people to think I get diarrhoea from merely thinking about hockey.

Denver Post: Article about the NHL's downfall from hot property in 1994 to where the game is now.  One could have condensed this article into this solitary given name/surname combination: GARY BETTMAN.  It explains the point much more succinctly than going through the NHL's finances.  Easy shorthand, really.

Philadelphia Courier-Post: This guy loves the lockout.  I couldn't blame him, either, considering I've squeezed this much out of the topic.

Detroit News: A nice rundown of the NHL lockout and how it affects people like Michael Peca and Don Cherry.  Surprising that a Detroit paper's actually talking about a Canadian personality.  Must be that bad influence from those mean ol' Windsorites.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Okay, so Bettman wants to keep the existing 30 NHL teams but lower the ticket prices.  Meanwhile, the average NHL player makes upwards of $1 million a year.  There's something stupid about that plan.  And you wonder why I'm not too keen on Gary Bettman.

Boston Herald: Article about the minors.  Pretty standard article, you've seen it many a time before.

Winnipeg Sun: Someone got paid for rehashing a months-old e-mail spam and printing it verbatim.  This is why no one respects the Sun chain of newspapers.  As much as I may hate papers like the Toronto Star for hiring some of the worst writers ever (e.g., Ben Rayner, Rita Zekas), at least they write their own copy.  Man, someone must have been on deadline...and lazy...

Daily News-Tribune (Waltham): Another look at the business dealings of NHL and where the players are wont to go.  Good article, duplicates other articles of its type though.

New York Post: Some scuttlebutt from the Toronto Sun of America.  Some interesting facts, but it's still the New York Post.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Letters to the sports editor.  All three letters are variations of Why Should We Give A Shit, so you're not missing much by not clicking on the link.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: See above, but with cultural snobbery - as if Pittsburgh could lay claim to being some sort of a haven for the upper-class twits anyway.  Why is it these bitter "who cares" letters are from cities that don't have a rich hockey history and haven't won a Cup in at least a decade (or ever?)  We're almost done, settle down now.

Sports Business News (who?): The Philadelphia Flyers stand to lose $15 million this year after accruing $101 million in profits the previous two years.  They're really hurting, aren't they?  By the way, how the hell did this site manage to appear on Google News?

St. Cloud Times (Minnesota): If the NHL doesn't enlist the help of a certain red dread-locked echidna...okay, I'm pulling jokes out of my ass since the article is about a guy with the nickname of Knuckles, but I have to entertain myself somehow.

Man, for people not caring about the NHL there are a lot of articles about the subject.  It makes me wonder if people are secretly in love with the NHL.  Think about it, that Florida Panthers logo is sensuous isn't it?  Ohh yeah...

Man, this article's making me addlebrained.

THE HOCKEY LOCKOUT COMPENDIUM: DAY 2

More American articles about how this lockout hardly matters:

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch lumps the lockout in an article about the relationship between player and fan. I don't see how Frank Francisco's chair-tossing is related to the NHL lockout in any meaningful way, but I don't cobble together a story with two bits of string and a half-arsed idea so I shouldn't talk.

Fox Sports says "who cares?"  Granted, the comparison to baseball is superfluous considering how badly damaged baseball still is from the 1994 lockout.  Also, what kind of a statement is "most Americans have never played hockey?"  The minor leagues were at least trying to expand the sport's popularity to the warmer climes ten years ago, whaddaya want?  Maybe Americans don't want to watch a watered-down, Bettmanesque product?  I'm just saying.

Fayetteville Online regurgitates a New York Times columnist calling the lockout the "Hurricane Ivan" of hockey.

AP Wire copy from the San Luis Obispo Tribune has a blurb about the San Jose Sharks needing to catch up on payments to the city.

Alexei Zhitnik is mulling over whether to stay in Buffalo or go back to Russia, according to the New York Times.  Um, Vladimir Putin's budding dictatorship vs. glorified minor league sports city.  Which one is the lesser of two evils?

Forsberg to Sweden, Russian hockey players "go home," Joe Thornton and Rick Nash to Switzerland, among others.

Today's pithy joke from a Toronto Sun "columnist."  SLAM! Sports/Quebecor Media also tells its readers that the OSHL sucks while Bret Hart shills his Calgary Hitmen WHL team.  And people wonder why I hate SLAM! Sports.

CP shill from the Ottawa Citizen about Making the Cut.  Hey, it's free publicity for MotherCorp.

Some schlub from a small California paper makes pithy remarks about NHL fans ("both of them," he reiterates) and would like to see the NFL example translated to the NHL.  Both his readers must like this article.

Saskatoon Star-Phoenix/CP with more OSHL scuttlebutt.

NO, WE DON'T CARE ABOUT HOCKEY IN CANADA.  It's lazy and the ties to Bell Globemedia are apparent, but who cares.  It's the TSN NHL page.  Have fun.

THE HOCKEY LOCKOUT COMPENDIUM: DAY 1

Yep, I'm resorting to another gimmick for this blog since I sometimes think I'm Marc Weisblott or, you know, some sort of journalist (HAR HAR HAR!  har.)  Basically, I point out hockey stories in the news, talk about the media, bla bla bla.  You'll get the gist of it as I go.  No sense getting too wordy about these things.  I'm going to go all media-crazy over the next while.  Something to do.

I dedicate this gimmick to Jeff Z. Klein and Karl-Eric Reif, writers of The Hockey Compendium. Yeah, they're American (as if being Canadian is a prerequisite to being a part of hockey tradition) but man, I enjoy that book and their writing and I have ever since I read that 1987 edition of The Hockey Compendium back in the late 1980's.  Also, they're Sabres fans so I imagine they know the pain of being Cupless just as much as anyone.

OSHL debut ends 16-13 (TSN.ca/Canadian Press): Anyone surprised the OSHL was made mainly of low-level scrubs from the NHL?  Still, for all the jokes aimed at the league, one has to admire that the league is actually trying to aim for the smaller markets where hockey is scarcer to come by, although I'd aim a little lower if the median price for the Original Stars Hockey League is around $45.  Barrie has an OHL team (the Colts) which I imagine has more competitive, better hockey for 1/4 the price of the OSHL.  At least the OSHL got off the ground, though, you have to give the ersatz league credit.

Fans greet NHL's labor pains with deafening silence (STLtoday.com): Yer typical American stand on the situation, "NHL is minor league" type commentary.  Mind you, he has his opinion and it's hard not to agree about what he's saying, though hockey doesn't have nearly the foothold in St. Louis as it does in cities like Boston or New York, where there's a storied history and a bigger market for hockey...and, you know, more Stanley Cup banners hanging from arena balconies.

Few notice as NHL drops ball, not puck (Ed Waldman, Baltimore Sun): another opinion from the US.  It's a common one, you'll hear it a lot as the days go by.

What would Lord Stanley think of this? (Toronto Star): article about whether the Stanley Cup will be actually up for grabs if there is no working agreement between the NHLPA and the owners by the 2004-05 playoffs.  Personally, I'd love to see the Stanley Cup return to the arrangement where the NHL had to compete with the PCHA and the WCHL for the entertainment dollar (this is around the late 1911-1927; the 1970's WHA and an AHL team have since tried to challenge for the Cup but the NHL refused their claims.)  If the modern-day WHA gets off the ground and survives I wouldn't mind seeing a WHA/NHL arrangement reminiscent of the Super Bowl.  The hell with the "tradition" of the NHL awarding the Stanley Cup, that thing belongs to any worthy team that deserves it.

By the way, Garth Woolsey would just whine about the Toronto Maple Laughs if this lockout wasn't in place, so there is an upside to the NHL being on, er, ice.  It should be right about now that the whole of the Toronto sports media writes off the Leafs' season...until they get to the semi-finals of something.  Gotta love them lovable lunkheads.

AHL now best hockey league (London Free Press): Well, duh.  They're like, what, the biggest minor league running?  Geez.

It's worse than a zoo in the NHL (London Free Press): What's harder to divide? A. Hundreds of pounds of fresh meat to be distributed among a pack of hungry cheetahs, lions and polar bears. B. Two billion dollars a year in annual revenues divided among 30 ownership groups and 600 or so hockey players.

The answer is A. They do it every day at the Metro Toronto Zoo.

Let the snide jokes about the NHL lockout begin.  You'll also see this as the days go by, so watch out for the dead puns.

Winter blues: Hockey Not in Canada; TV needs its puck fix (Montreal Gazette) | NHL lockout to affect 50 positions at CBC, including up to 36 at CBC Sports (canada.com/CP): RDS is showing Slamball?!  Are they that fucking desperate for programming?  That show couldn't even survive on the junk heap called Spike TV, never mind a legitimate sports station like RDS.  As for the CBC, they have an enormous backlog of classic NHL games (I hope, unless the MotherCorp has allowed the footage to rot away or something.)  It's not like Hockey Night In Canada is going to suffer that much given how ten years ago they just aired old playoff games and Soviet Union/Canada series.  After all, they pretty much dominate hockey coverage in Canada.

Arenas quiet but war of words heats up (TSN/CP): This is from Wednesday.  Gimme a break, the media hasn't piled on the overcoverage quite yet.  Don Cherry likens this to Armageddon.  Hey Don, Armageddon wasn't as bad as your voice-over performance on Zeroman last Saturday!  HYOOO!  That joke was worse than Letterman's Top Ten Lists.  Man.

Seriously, what's Cherry gonna go?  His position with CBC Sports is tenuous enough as it is.  I'm surprised he was still employed there after that brouhaha about how "French guys wear visors" back in January.  I'm sure the man's really worried about employment considering his mini-empire and age.  He's set and he knows it.

Wrestlers look to muscle in on hockey fans (Globe and Mail): Yeah, the perfect alternative to hockey is watching HHH and Eugene fight three hundred times while Tony Schiavone makes his comeback.  This company is getting really fucking stupid.

Tune in tomorrow, if this thing gets off its ass.  You know how I get with these lead trial balloons...

STUPID FORUM MOMENTS PART ONE

Who the hell is Johnny Ramone? - I'm sure everyone who has even a passing knowledge of the punk scene has heard of Johnny Ramone.  Now that the last half-decent Ramone is dead at 55 (at least he didn't die of a drug overdose, else Dee Dee Ramone would still be alive - this is why returning to the "glory days" is a terrible idea, people) some dipshit with a terrible screen name had to go and pull off the "WHO'S JOHNNY RAMONE" schtick and bloat a PoE News forum to a nigh-unreadable 256 posts at the time I write this.  This happens often - someone acts like a badass, other people tell the poster he's a fag, the word "boners" gets thrown around an awful lot - but for some reason this annoys me more than usual.  How anyone would not know who The Ramones are considering the band's widespread influence is beyond me.  I imagine it does happen, I admit, but it's not like people are referring to the lead singer of Random Killing or anything.  Things like this are why I stopped going to PoE News and its sister site in the first place.  How anyone can put up with this for years is beyond me.  Hell, I'll admit to doing stupid stuff like fill the PoE forums with this sort of dreck earlier on in my life, but I had a different mindset two years ago than I do now.  I don't want to say I've grown or anything but I at least realised there are better things to do with my life than put up with this shit all the time.  I haven't been in a good mood this week, and sometimes I need to read stuff like this to realise how worthless pandering to a broad audience can get sometimes.

TheDDT Messageboard - I'm honestly mulling over my writing for Wrestling Opinions given the appearance of posts like this.  I admit I can shill a little too much while writing for WO/TheDDT, but lately TheDDT's forums have become so bad that I just can't put up with it anymore.  I really have to rethink the UR strategy.  Personally, I like TheDDT better than the mainstream of wrestling 'net writing but there was a time when I really hated the site, and posts like this are seriously making me think that I need to set a few priorities straight.  I've been in one of my downturns lately and I'm starting to think people seriously consider me stupid - these are the sorts of feelings one gets when one is alone - but I don't think I'm stupid enough to post something like this on a site's forums.  I've been thanklessly contributing to a few small forums in a stupid attempt to make myself seem more than what I portray myself as but it doesn't work; at least I tried though.  I try to act like I do because I don't desire the sphincter of becoming a parody of myself or acting like the type of person I despise.  I can't understand what fuels TheDDT - the management there is shitty, and there's enough baggage with that site as it is.  I knew that coming in, but I get the feeling I'm not important there so I might just say "the hell with it."  I've had this feeling ever since James Ryder deleted my TheDDT posting privileges, and what has happened over the past few months there makes me wonder why I even bother trying to appeal to anyone besides the small, specialised audience I appeal to.  I'm not negative but man, when you have enough unpopular opinions it really limits you, I tell you what...

UR updates forthcoming, if I get off my ass within four weeks.  By the way, the sprain's been fine since around Saturday - I just haven't updated this site (aside from minor template changes to the blog) because I've been too bloody miserable to.  Lame excuse?  You bet!  You think I'd be this bitchy if the Queen was bucking my ham?!  Come on.

FUN WITH FATE

Well, I'm going to be doing a lot more music and movie reviews now that I sprained my fucking foot earlier today.  Right now I'm trying to keep off it, so today I've been viewing a Urusei Yatsura film and trying to do chores (I still live on a farm with my parents - yes, now you understand how fucking lame my life is that I fill it with trying to review anime DVD's...and I'm twenty-three) so I've got nothing but time for the next few days at least.  Funnily enough, the 'rents are going on a vacation tomorrow.  Either I'm lucky or I sound like the exact candidate for Portal of Evil mockery that I've assumed I wasn't for some time.

Anyhow: short preview review.  Lum the Forever is fucking weird.  I'll try to come up with better material later.  Shit, what a time to injure myself...

By the way, does Calamity Jon read this blog?  If he does, ya wanna post a comment here or draw a masthead or some shit?  Why the hell does trying to expand UR always end in failure these days?  Musta fucked up a mirror or something, or I'm turning into the exact specimen of fag I've tried to avoid being.  That fickle finger of fate's fucking me fierce forthwith. Damn alliteration.

RECORDS BROKEN


As of 10:00 07/07/2004
This blog seems to have broken its previous record of 34 visitors two days in a row with the Seebelow coverage of the continuing UR Blog brouhaha.  Yes, this is how lame this blog sometimes is, my loud-music loving ass sucking on a Calamity Jon appendage to pop a crowd.  The previous record was set back March-ways when I...um...installed the comments feature on this blog.  I know most of y'all couldn't care less about these uninteresting facts but I just thought I'd let you know.

Also, I'm trying to get the ShieldHost people to get the sweetposer.com redirect up, just so this site has less of that .tk stigma since I need to look semiprofessional these days.  Mind you, right now I'm just a knob with a host of VERY unpopular opinions but you never know.  MAYBE I'LL BECOME THE NEXT X-ENTERTAINMENT!  HAR, HAR, HAR HE-MAN SUCKS

Also, new Wrestling Opinions article.  I'm not fond of this one, such is the world of "e-journalism."  Saying that makes me want to E-punch random people.  Man, I'm E-lame.  Too many E-jokes.

IN THIS ISSUE WE FIX CRACKED!

Just for a larf, I sent an e-mail recently to Cracked Magazine asking about banner ad rates (the e-mail bounced -- HA!) I don't know why I did it, since I'm usually not that fucked in the head (I'm somewhat fucked most days but that's a given anyway). I realise Cracked has always been a second-rate Mad ripoff; anyone with half a brain knows that. Have you seen some of the mag's latest issues, though? I read one about a year and a half ago and this thing - a national mag distributed across North America - had articles about the ten funniest cartoons of the 1990's and were "making fun" (as if you can call Cracked Magazine fun in any way) of things that had run their course two years before Cracked did its usual half-assed parodies of current pop trends.

Why is this piece of shit allowed to continue existence? Why did Film Roman make a deal with Cracked to make TV shows based on Cracked characters? (For god's sake, the only decent characters Cracked ever had were Spies and Saboteurs and Mike Ricigliano's been long since gone from the staff.) Most importantly, why won't this thing die?

Mr. Ricigliano, if you're reading this, send me an e-mail. I want to interview you, since what you did was the only notable part of Cracked. Dick Kulpa should not be allowed to touch anything besides his penis. I am not giving the creator of DinoSoars (dinosaurs in spaceships, it's a gay idea, end of story) credit for saving the mag. And for shit's sakes, it's spelled "MAZAGINE" you dumb fucks. Quit printing this cluttered piece of sub-mediocre faff.

EDIT (6.22.2004) - Took down the picture of Raven ripping up a Cracked mag as I got Scott Gosar of The Mad Store all huffy. You'll notice how he's shilling in the comments section. Man, that's professionalism!

UPDATE (6.27.2004) - Okay, now I'm confused. Which one is the real Scott Gosar and why do I have the feeling I know lowercase scott gosar from somewhere?

UPDATE (9.6.2004) - That little rant about Dick Kulpa is apparently outdated now; Rick Nielsen has been the publisher since ish #364 (I'm still not fond of DinoSoars, though.) It seems the mag's at least returning to some semblance of professionalism recently, and considering some EXTREEEEEEME BDSM publisher just shilled in a follow-up blog post I did about everyone's favourite Mad-baiter (or not, depends on your stance on these things) this post is the gift that keeps on giving...me headaches. Man, Cracked.