The Sabres have re-signed Dman Teppo Numminen...awaiting details, but this is a great signing.
Talking to a source just now, Mark Parrish may indeed be heading back to the NY Islanders. I truly hope so and I like this fit for this team.
On Mats Sundin...not a whole lot new with the exception of what I sense as a growing discontent within the hockey world. Ask anyone this question, "What do you think will happen with Sundin?" and more and more people are starting to say that he should retire if he has "lost the drive to play."
Again, my job is just to pass on what I hear so it could be that I am just talking to people who are skeptical, but this truly is the mood among many folks as another week passes.
What do you think will happen with Mats?
Along those lines and simply to help us all feel a little better..
A reader sent me this really great video I found on I-tunes...I don't know if many of you are familiar with the website http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/. It is a great site put together by this 31-year-old, self-proclaimed deadbeat from Connecticut. He has been traveling around the world since 2006 to over 40 countries and simply dancing.
I challenge anyone to watch his latest video and NOT leave with a great feeling. It is awesome..
you can watch it below.
from earlier today...
There aren’t many of these moments.
It is one of those “I remember exactly where I was when…” moments if you are a hockey fan over 30.
At the time I was twenty years old. I was driving when I heard it come over the radio that Wayne Gretzky had been traded to the Los Angeles Kings. I thought that I was listening to some fake news show. In today’s sports terms it is hard to even come up with an equivalent. It was a time when “free agency” had yet to strip the sports culture of the concept that certain players would always play for and retire on certain teams. These days we always say, “Nothing shocks me”. Hell, we even say, “If Edmonton traded Gretzky…”
So as I drove, and started to realize that this wasn’t a test, that Wayne Gretzky, the best player to ever play the game, was getting traded from the best team that I ever saw play the game, I knew one thing only. I had to get to a phone and call my buddy Dan, who was the biggest Gretzky fan I knew.
Funny isn’t it? I couldn’t text my friend, or send a wireless email from my iphone…I had to get home as fast as I could. There is something to be said for the fact that I had some time to think about how I would tell Dan. I also had some time to process the scope of it all simply because the technology of the day was so different. I could not only prepare how I would tell him, but I was also pretty sure that unless he was listening to this exact radio station in Philly I would be breaking this news to him.
Dan wouldn’t find out online, or have someone else call him on his cell, or find out listening to XM Radio’s 24 hour Hockey Talk Channel. I was also REALLY hoping that he would be home. Could I leave this sort of thing on his answering machine?
I was honestly excited to be the one to break this story to him. Funny how that excitement is so similar to the feeling I get on Hockeybuzz these days on July 1 and Trade Deadline Day. In some ways that day, and making that call may have been the moment that sent me down this bizarre path. I was fortunate to get him on the first try and told him that Wayne Gretzky was a King…
“No way,” he said and then there was a silence as I am sure he was thinking to himself that I was pulling a fast one.
Hockey changed that day in so many great ways. Hockey was born that moment in cities like Nashville, Tampa, Raleigh, Dallas, Phoenix and Miami. And the power of that needs to be addressed since there are those who will tell you that this trade wasn’t a good thing. They base their arguments on the struggles these franchises have had.
I disagree completely because the franchises in these cities, like Gretzky, were the parents of hockey…they were not Hockey. Hockey itself is the passion we all know. The importance of the Gretzky trade was the millions of kids who didn’t know about this passion and who now know it.
The youth hockey movement in America that followed was incredible. And those who are against the Southern market cities have to realize that while you can teach a kid to love hockey in a few minutes, it takes time until that kid can afford to buy a ticket. It takes more than a few generations to create a “Hockeytown USA.”
But those days are coming. Quite simply if you believe in the “passion of Hockey” for its essence (as I am 100% sure that 100% of you reading this do) then all you need to do is wait. I believe in this sport and I am a firm believer that we owe it to our society to get it to where the people are…and let it spread like a virus. We live in an economical world of one-hit wonders where quite often good things never get off the ground due to the bottom line creeping in.
However this is Micro-Economics, not Macro. The bottom line is down the road and it is HUGE. When you have a solid product you owe it to yourself to let the virus spread.
As I sit here in the GREAT hockey city of Philadelphia the city of Phoenix just passed us in population and there are close to as many kids playing organized youth hockey in Texas as there are in Alberta. Of course the percentage of kids playing in Texas isn’t even close to the percentage of kids playing in Alberta, but what does that really tell you? Where is the potential to get more and more people turned onto this great sport?
That is not to say that we alienate the base.
This isn’t about America vs. Canada (although I am sure many of the comments will be along those lines.) This is about Canadians/Americans sharing something special with other Americans/Canadians.
This isn’t about the fact that there should be more teams in Canada. There should and I have it on STRONG authorities that there will be more teams north of the border. This is your sport and we are forever grateful.
This isn’t about the 6 teams in Canada generating a large percentage of revenues. The Canadian economy is in far better shape right now and that is great for so many of you and your families. I remember when Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton were in danger, and I am not even talking about why Gretzky was traded in the first place.
Things weren’t always so great up there.
I remember Bettman talking about initiatives to help out the Canadian teams right around the lockout. And you know what else I remember about that time? I never once heard a real American hockey fan say that we shouldn’t be helping out the Canadian teams. But you know what I hear now? I hear Canadians talking about how we should screw Nashville or Florida. And I know that they are pissed for losing Winnipeg and Quebec to the states. I get it. I was in Quebec a lot back then.
But what goes missing when a certain few Canadian and even Northern US hocley fans take shots at hockey in the south is the little kid who is sitting at a camp in Tennessee as we speak wearing a Predators t-shirt with Weber on the back of it.
I blame Balsillie to a degree for the hatred now. The Hamilton Predators. Ugh. Talk about polarizing an issue! I like Jim and I think he should have a team, he would be great fun to cover. But for the life of me I will never understand the big “screw you” to the Board of Governors. This is the NHL’s house and you need to play by house rules. As for a team in Western Ontario…The BOG hasn’t spent years and millions of dollars keeping another team out of that great hockey area.…MLSE has. I know the Kitchener/Waterloo area would be great for hockey. Look at San Jose. Young money loves this sport!
So the Gretzky trade and the Southern teams went hand in hand at bringing something we all love to people who are learning and loving it twenty years later. As I was taught (and the way I try to teach my kids) comes to mind here. When I am trying to teach a kid something there is really only one way to get them interested on a level where true learning can happen. Get them to love that something you want them to learn, because quite simply if you love something you will go out on your own with a burning desire to learn everything about it.
That is what Wayne did for many Americans. Made them love hockey.
So. Where were you and what were you doing?
Cheers...
++++
Help Burt Out! Pay it Forward...only 50k views to go to 1 million Views!
Join the Discussion:
»