Thursday Links: Mr. Kessel's Wild Ride Edition

aka cornell ben scrivens

aka started in the ECHL last year ben scrivens

aka “i have 3 NHL starts and a 4.05 GAA” ben scrivens.

aw yeah.

The only thing allowed on stage for the hosting, awards announcements and acceptance speeches are Muppets. Also, the seats at the theater where they’re holding the awards must be filled with nothing but Muppets. All the movie folks have to stand outside and wait in line to receive their awards, which are tossed out the door at random by Sweetums.

If not, we will have been lied to once again by the entertainment industry and the people who really control the Muppets: the felt manufacturing industry. Big Felt runs it all, people.

you are a worthless fuckwad.. go screw yourself. Your opinion isn’t worth a shit. Crawl back into Jennifer Toews’ vagina.

Die-hard hockey fans probably didn’t notice. It’s dry enough diving into the details of labor negotiations in the sport you love, let alone one you don’t follow. But on the 132nd day of the NBA lockout, players and owners met for more than 12 hours Wednesday without striking a deal. They’ll meet again today.

In theory, there’s an upside for the NHL if the NBA and its players can’t strike a deal during this latest round of talks. Grantland’s Bill Simmons wrote a column in mid-October about his decision to buy Kings season tickets since the Clippers weren’t playing. “The Kings have either seven, eight or nine months to win me over,” Simmons wrote. When the most well-read sports columnist in the United States takes that stand, the NHL notices.

“Bill Simmons’ interesting article about purchasing Kings season tickets and trying to see if hockey players really are the best guys — I think that’s great,” said NHL COO John Collins. “It’s not changing what we’re doing. Our effort is to capture as much share of advertising as we can to become increasingly relevant to the casual sports fan and make hockey as easy to find on any screen.”

Perhaps that gets a little easier when there’s not another professional sports league competing for those advertising dollars. But the majority of general managers I spoke with who have NBA teams in their markets haven’t noticed a significant change in interest because of the NBA lockout.

The reality is, Simmons might be the high-profile exception. There just might not be a lot of crossover between basketball and hockey fans.

AP Photo/Matt Slocum
GMs like Philadelphia’s Paul Holmgren haven’t seen the NHL benefiting from the NBA lockout.
“In Philadelphia … we have our niche group of fans as I suspect the Sixers do. I don’t know if the [lockout] is good or bad. I hope they come back and make a deal at some point in the near future,” said Flyers GM Paul Holmgren. “I don’t think it’s good for any of us in professional sports to be locked out.”

The marginal benefit may be winning over new fans or getting fans to tune into games when there’s not an NBA option on television, although let’s hope potential hockey fans didn’t opt to watch the Lightning host the Flyers as their first hockey experience Wednesday night. There’s nothing like a chess match surrounding the trap to excite new fans.

The bigger benefit may come in the local coverage of the NHL team. One year ago, LeBron James dominated all local sports coverage in south Florida, but now Panthers GM Dale Tallon is seeing his team more prominently covered in local newspapers and sportscasts. Chances are that wouldn’t happen as much with competition from the Heat.

“We’re getting a lot of coverage,” Tallon said. “Ever since July 1, we’re getting a lot more. Fans there are excited about what’s going on. We’re getting a little more [attention] but it’s more to do with what we’re doing [than a lockout].”

In Detroit, where the local sports scene has hardly noticed the disappearance of the Pistons, Red Wings GM Ken Holland sees a small opportunity for short-term gain. Internally, the team believes that it can sell out around 35 of its 41 home games this season, which is impressive in a struggling city that also has one of the NHL’s bigger arenas. Those projections have more to do with Detroit’s strong base of hockey fans than the NBA lockout.

“We have 20,000 seats and the economy is tough,” Holland said. “It’s pretty awesome our fans are going to support us given the economy.”

He noted that hockey has grown from a $2 billion industry to a $3 billion industry during a time when most industries have struggled. The key is to continue the momentum regardless of what’s happening in the NBA.

“I think to a degree, they’ve got their marketplace and their fans and their sponsors, and we’ve got ours,” Holland said.

Notes
• The NHL general managers will meet on Tuesday in Toronto for their annual fall meeting. One agenda item sure to be debated will be the implementation of hybrid icing. The scary preseason injury to Edmonton’s Taylor Fedun in Minnesota has raised awareness of the issue once again, and considering it happened in his building, Minnesota GM Chuck Fletcher feels strongly about changing the icing rule to make it safer. He wants hybrid icing in the rulebooks as soon as possible. “To me, it’s a no-brainer,” Fletcher said. “I’ll be shocked if it’s not in the rulebook starting next season. It’s one of those things, I don’t know if there’s any strong opposition to it. It’s just something we all need to wrap our heads around.”

He pointed to the success of hybrid icing in the USHL as proof that you can keep the footrace for the puck while removing the danger of crashing into the boards. “Any injury that results from icing is an unnecessary injury,” he said. “Even if it’s one every year or one every two years.”

• According to an NHL source, there’s a small group of general managers who feel strongly about removing the trapezoid to allow goalies to play the puck more and protect their defensemen. “We have to slow the game down a little bit,” the source said. Expect that debate to happen once again at the GM meetings.

Removing the trapezoid was one of the many rule changes tested during the RDO camp in Toronto this summer, and Brendan Shanahan didn’t see much of a difference in the way the game was played. “We took out the trapezoid rule and yet the goalies still had no time to come out and play the puck,” Shanahan told NHL.com during the camp. “I think the idea of goaltenders coming out and having all day to set the puck up, tee it up, are gone simply because of the lack of the defenseman’s ability to hold up the forecheckers now and clutch and grab through the neutral zone. So even though we said to the goalies, ‘Go play the puck,’ they had no time.”

• The best part about watching the Flyers stall against Tampa’s 1-3-1 trap Wednesday night was knowing Chris Pronger would have some strong opinions about the way the Lightning play hockey. He didn’t disappoint during a postgame conversation with CSNPhilly.com’s Tim Panaccio.

“Would you pay money to see that? I wouldn’t either, and that was a TV game, too. Way to showcase the product,” Pronger told Panaccio. “That was their game right there. We were making them look bad. That’s not hockey in my book, but whatever. The league is letting them do it.”

• The Leafs may not be calling James Reimer’s injury a concussion, but his mom is, according to a story from the Toronto Star.

Apparently Reimer has a history of concussions, and it’s starting to concern his mother, Marlene Reimer. “He looks clear. His eyes look fine. But he says he still has that nagging headache,” Marlene Reimer told the Star. “How is that not a concussion? … The initial test showed him to be clear of a concussion. But as it goes on, it’s kind of mystifying. He’s OK some days. And some days he’s definitely not OK.” There’s still no timetable for Reimer’s return.

Learn how to read a fucking scouting report, or learn how to skate. Possessing one of those abilities will earn you a long-term job in the National Hockey League. You’re a worthless fucking piece of garbage.