The NHL playoffs started tonight; my productivity is also going way down.
Could there be a connection?
Hard to say … after all, correlation is not causation.

A couple of days after our women won their second straight gold, Canada’s men’s hockey team is out of the Olympics after an embarrassing 6-game run that included losses to Switzerland (well known hockey power, ahem) and Finland.
Today they were knocked out in the semis by Russia.
I don’t blame the players - I think every […]

What team wins against premier talent like the New York Rangers, Ottawa Senators, Colorado Avalanche, and Detroit Red Wings, but can’t win against NHL bottom-feeders like the Columbus Blue Jackets and the St. Louis Blues.
The Vancouver Canucks.
What team has great players who are having mediocre seasons, at best, and mediocre players who are having great […]

Imagine you’re an NHL general manager.
Imagine you trade for a guy you think will be a franchise player. Imagine you give up 3 key guys to get him. And imagine you’ve been losing, and losing, and losing.
Then you get this new player. He scores 16 or so points in his first 6 games with […]

The Vancouver Canucks are playing the Colorado Avalanche tonight, and as I was sitting at my computer, I was wondering … is there any live broadcast of the game online?
CKNW, the local radio station that usually broadcasts the Canucks’ games, doesn’t have streaming.
So I checked out NHL.com (irritatingly part of the MSN network) and was […]

Saw a cool bumper sticker at the rink Saturday night:

Support your local hospital. Play hockey.

I believe this is the one right here. Certainly rings a bell with me!

Remember the big ugly foot?
Well.
Apparently playing hockey on a badly bruised foot is not quite the thing to do. Unless you want it to get worse:

Ah well. It goes nicely with the bump just over my left eye that I acquired today from yet another stick in the face.

Ice hockey is for masochists, as I believe I’ve mentioned before.
In addition to the 4 stitches that were inserted to hold my lip together about 3 weeks ago, and the cantaloupe-sized bruise just above my right knee that I got as a souvenir for stopping a puck a week after that, I’ve got an entirely […]

I love, love, love playing ice hockey, but it’s not without a price.
After noon-hour hockey today, I’ve got a bruise just over my left hip (cross-check), a contusion on my upper left leg (puck), and another sore spot on my right calf (stick). That in addition to the 4 stitches from two weeks ago.
Either hockey […]

Most Wednesdays I like to play noon-hour drop-in hockey. There’s a rink only minutes away from our Bellingham office, and a good bunch of guys who play there …
Today was a great game, lots of people, a couple of shifters, and a high tempo. No goalies, unfortunately.
I was just starting to think about leaving […]

You have got to be kidding me - Don Cherry is now offering pet insurance?
Wow. The mind boggles.
(In case you don’t follow hockey and don’t know who Don Cherry is, here’s a brief bio.)

Forbes had a very good story on the cancellation (boo, hiss) of the NHL season today, in which Michael Ozanian correctly blames Bettman - not for being a poor negotiator or lousy boss - but for greedily following expansion money and losing the league in the process.
This particular quote is very interesting, particularly for a […]

Wow. Excellent, wonderful, great, happiness, joy, peace, and light.
Canada won the World Cup of Hockey, everything is well with the world (for one night) and Canada is celebrating one more confirmation that hockey speaks Canadian.
But isn’t that trophy butt-ugly?

The biggest issue in hockey today is killing the trap - the grinding, defensive mode of playing that results in boring, slow games.
The trap also results in low-scoring games. And the result is that it has killed hockey’s superstars.

OK, what if the Canucks are toast again this year - I’m starting to play hockey again.