There is no shortage of critiques of Brendan Shanahan and his oxymoronic Department of Player Safety. Speaking in his suit from his CNN like ‘war room’, Shanahan offers a very inhuman and sterilized account of some of the most atrocious hits in hockey. He stands, sans emotion, and delivers a verdict as a judge would…
Along with all of the All-Star weekend hooplah came the most recent installment of the NHL’s Hockey is for Everyone campaign. Canadian Governor General, David Johnson, with Gary Bettman and former Boston Bruin (and first black NHL’er), Willie O’Ree were on hand at Rideau Hall to announce the introduction of the H.E.R.O.S program in Ottawa.…
I was fortunate enough to attend the annual Vancouver Canucks Dice and Ice fundraiser dinner this past week. It is an event that I have wanted to attend since I was a child. The whole team is in attendance for a casino and auction gala and the players work all the casino tables. You can…
On February 24, 2012, actor Sean William Scott (you may know him from silver screen classics such as American Pie and The Dukes of Hazard) will be staring in a hockey movie titled, Goon. The IMDB synopsis reads: Labelled an outcast by his brainy family, a bouncer overcomes long odds to lead a team of…
I was checking out the NHL’s social responsibility programs with the intention of writing about the NHL Fights Cancer initiative but a different program caught my attention – Hockey is for Everyone. November 2011 was the inaugural Come Play Hockey month for the program, which was “designed to increase participation in the sport of ice…
Cross-posted on The Rabbit Hole. This is less a commentary and more a show of support for an intriguing article that I found in this month’s edition of Sportsnet magazine titled “World-Class rec league: Because the NHL’s support never materialized, the world’s best female players are professional in name only”. For those of you who…
For those who have yet to see or hear about the Milan Lucic hit on Ryan Miller the synopsis is that Lucic was chasing the puck and Miller came out around the faceoff dot to play it. After Miller cleared the puck to the side boards Lucic took the opportunity to level him. Naturally a…
There are two major reasons cited for not making visors mandatory in the NHL. Reason #1 – because it is player preference and reason #2 – the visor makes the helmet that much harder to pop off and thus would curtail hockey fights. I do not write this blog to sway players or fans to…
*Note – cross posted on The Rabbit Hole Okay, per a request from my friend and fellow blogger Mr. Mark Norman, I have been asked to write a post on the infamous pink jersey/”girl jersey”. It is a topic that divides sports fans like Moses divided the sea. I will try to explain my stance…
On (Canadian) Thanksgiving CBC News aired a timely special with Mark Kelly called “Hockey’s Hard Hits”. In this one hour “investigative report” Kelly interviews former NHL enforcers Jim Thomson, Jimmy Mann and Chris Nilan while also delving into fighting, head shots and Ken Dryden’s expertise. Jim Thomson offers a very candid recounting of how he…
Hockey in Society / Hockey dans la société 