Thursday Links: America Best Hockey Forever

I certainly hope that you had a joyous holiday, a great meal, every gift you wanted, and/or the ability to fight off your tears during last night's Doctor Who special (RIP 11...).

Still no NHL hockey today, but there is the next best thing: the IIHF U-20 Men's Ice Hockey World Championship Tournament, aka, the World Juniors!

First things first though...

BLUES NEWS:

• A brand new edition of Beyond Checkerdome went live yesterday. Listen to it to hear Tyler & Tim wax poetic about beer and maybe a little hockey. [SLGT]
• Kevin Shattenkirk, Chris Stewart, and Vladimir Tarasenko are the three best friends that anybody could have... [STLToday]
• Chris Porter and Dmitrij Jaskin have been reassigned to the Chicago Wolves, however it's possible they may be coming right back up for the next Blues game, Saturday night against the Fuckhawks. [Frozen Notes]

HOCKEY NEWS:

• No games last night, and still no games tonight. [Search your feelings, you know it to be true.]
• Remember when Zach Parise got hit in the foot with a puck against us and was supposed to miss at least 3 weeks, then ended up playing about 48 hours later? Well apparently that wasn't good for his foot and it might not have healed right. My reaction. [Star Tribune]
  
• Not just any Jersey Fouls, these are the TOP Jersey Fouls of 2013. Sometimes I think people create these gag-worthy travesties for the singular purpose of getting noticed by Wyshynski. [Puck Daddy]
• Gary Bettman has upheld Shawn Thornton's 15 game suspension. Thornton has until Tuesday (the 31st) to decide if he wants to appeal to an independent arbiter. [Pro Hockey Talk]
• Ottawa has been un-officially officially promised an outdoor game, likely in 2017. [Ottawa Sun]
  
• This year, the NHL decided to make the nets 4 inches shallower than before, giving players more room behind the net for passing lanes and wrap-around chances. Has that impacted scoring so far this year? [SBNation NHL]

WORLD JUNIORS NEWS:

• The 2014 edition of the prestigious prospects tournament that America is the greatest at - much like all other forms of hockey - begins this morning in Malmö, Sweden with the Red-And-White Menace taking on Germany at 6:30 central time. The rest of the group stage schedule is here: [World Junior 2014]
• The American Heroes, on the other hand, will begin their all too easy road to a 3rd Gold Medal in 5 years with an obvious win against the Czech Republic this morning at 10:30 central. It will be broadcast live on NHL Network, as well as streamed via NHL.com. Here's a game preview with everything you need to know. [United States of Hockey]
• As for the tournament on the whole, Ryan Lambert makes sure you know all the basics going in. [Puck Daddy]
  

OTHER STUFF:

• Jason Giles passes along a very cool time-lapse video of observatories in Hawaii. I'd embed it, but I'll level with you, I'm running pretty thin of "other stuff" at the moment, but please do check it out! [Space.com]
• The first links post I ever did for you guys this past summer was the day they announced Peter Capaldi as the next Doctor Who, and last night he officially took over. Congratulations on a seriously fantastic performance, Matt Smith, whom I assume obviously reads St. Louis Game Time on a daily basis and therefor will read this. (As River Song would say, "Spoilers!") [Nerdist]

VIDEOS:

Harrison Mooney has commemorated Mike Smith's #BUTTGOAL in musical form, because it is the only art form that can properly match the glorious beauty of the moment.

To make sure you're in the World Juniors mood, why not relive the 2010 Gold Medal game? This is still the greatest hockey game I've ever watched in my life, and I will never not love Jack Campbell or John Carlson because of it! (Also, sorry Alex Pietrangelo and Jake Allen. Sorry I'm not sorry.)

Tomorrow DonutKing will be back on duty, taking the weekend shift after I covered your holiday week, so the next time I see you guys, it'll be 2014, when the USA will be in the medal round, laughing at Canada and their media's excuses. Hey, have you seen an article about how much America is the best and/or Canada is not so much? Send it to Tyler!

• gtdonutking AT gmail DOT com
• @KingDonutI