Flip-check

I know... it always is, I get what you're saying. "So long as there's breath, there's hope" -- which matters. Ilitch: hmm, looks like they paid him $4.5mill usd, even if they didn't publically reveal the figure. Kenny: .... Mike: No, Ken, I see the look on your face here. Not gonna happen. Kenny: ........ Mike: Look, I know, we're both men cut from similar cloth. Pick a path and take a gamble. If you gotta climb Kilimanjaro though, do it with some other mountain. This one won't chew you up and spit your body back out down the slopes, but it will eat your money and s*** it back down the toilet. Kenny: ...BUT WE HAVE TO GIVE HIM ONE MORE CHANCE, MAN! *points to the TSN.CA profiles of Bertuzzi, Drake, and Hasek on his smartphone* Mike: *reaches over and pats Holland on the shoulder, shares a moment of consoling silence*

Okay, two words: HE'S GONE let it go already?

I think Calgary believes they're on the verge of starting to contend. Iginla signed back, so I'm figuring they'll get Kip too.

I know, it'd be nice to see and besides that, it'd improve his career - and his life. But he probably got his money, even if he's off in Russia, so there probably won't be anything making him feel majorly reflective. He'd seriously have to play in a really awful place to even start thinking, and that's only if he couldn't play anywhere else lest he face retirement. That's when the money gears would stop ticking in Yashin's noggin. -- "Right now the city is electric, everyone is excited, the arena will be packed and Alexei will play hard." The 33-year-old Yashin was an unrestricted free agent after the New York Islanders bought out the remaining four years of his 10-year contract. All the same though, Locomotiv is getting a good player for their league, there's no doubt about that.

A healthy Ziggy would be almost as sick as a Kipper backstopping us, or a Selanne driving down the boards with a #13 and #96. I wish the guy the best. I'm curious about what he and his doctors say about his shoulder though... that seriously screwed up his career.

I think that after this long, it's extremely unlikely. He'd seriously have to be blackballed everywhere to have it impact him. Sometimes humility takes a real slap in the face to get through to somebody.

That's my response! I never expected the guy to play again, especially after his seasons (iirc?) of being put out with his injuries. I don't know if he'll even finish with this Euro league let alone make it back to North America. But this is good.

Mob rules. It's such stupid crap and I'm tired of it too.

We didn't need him, but NFM's response is right on the money: Lang saved our playoffs, so let's not even get into the bashing. That's likely not singh's intent, but that's what it'll turn into.

I hate you, Gary Bettman. I won't ever buy a team jersey that has that NHL logo at the neck. And I can't stand this vertical line stuff, they don't look like hockey players anymore! They look like they're trying to be thin and svelte and fast-looking, and god dammit it's killing me. =P

Even better question is, "Have you ever been to a soccer match?"

Anaheim will crack the top four, zero doubt there. Calgary's actually closer to Colorado in the 6 (LUCKY) to 8 (probable) seeds. And this ain't a big deal, but I hate when people say stuff like "Anaheim phucks" or "Colos***o avs". I dig giving a team a good ribbing, but that's just so 4th grade and not even clever.

It really wasn't anything to write home about. I'm glad we didn't take a real hit (i.e. no replacement for Matty), but nothing impressive can be said until February rolls around.

I have an ipod shuffle but I haven't used it in months. not because anything's gone wrong with it... I think I just got sick of having an earbud in instead of being focused completely on what's around me Maybe the universe is just sending you a hint

I hear what you're saying about "thug" life, although I don't know what you mean -exactly- with the use of the word thug... I think you probably just mean "bad boy" and not "thuuuugggggggghhhh *grabs a glock*" but who knows I just mean though if ice hockey were as popular a sport, we'd probably see the same public horseplay. NCAA hockey players are totally not the university campus scenesters that everyone loves... but college football and basketball players? They're the center of every party. They just don't have the same kind of star power, so less people really care. I'd like to think hockey players are classier, but I really don't think they are, at least not because of who they are.

Diagonal lettering almost always improves a club's jersey (Colorado looks great with it), but I gotta disagree on the cartoon penguin of death. I'd hate the thing if it were a new design, but it's old, so I love the hell out of it.

Slick. I would not shy away at all from wearing a Pens jersey with these babies. But then I've always had a dear spot for the Penguins. Gimme a Lemieux jersey anyday.

Yes. 23 is such a good age for Dats to be turning, I'm so glad he's still a young guy. Can you tell I'm in denial? Datsyuk nearing thirty depresses me, lol.... stay young dats!

I have not seen this "Ninja Warrior"... but I too agree he should do Ninja Warrior. If my ps skills were anything worthwhile, I'd have a Chelios in full ninja gear slapped up right now.

I'm not sure hockey players are necessarily better than other pro athletes... But I definitely agree that they don't get into as much trouble as the rest do. I don't think this is as much about "hockey players being classier" as it's football and basketball being more popular fan sports though, thus the players get more popularity themselves. Hockey players aren't stars like that, but if they were I wouldn't be surprised at the same antics.

I think they have a real lame one, it doesn't do much. I went there for the first time a few weeks ago... totally was not impressed. Jerseys, lame t-shirts, sweaters, lame hats... I'm glad for people who like it, but it just had nothing interesting there at all.

If you were Chris Chelios, you would never get tired and you'd never get hungry.

It's cool out, I'm wearing shorts socks and a hoodie, life is good. I really could live a life of one week summer next week fall... These never cease to make me laugh (so long as they're funny), I love captioned cats! This is my favorite right now off flickr: flickr link

Ran across this on the NHL frontpage. It's a sport-promoting organization that deals with communities in other countries, they have Brad Ference from the Bruins and Steve Montador of the Panthers on this particular journey to Africa. http://fans.nhl.com/right_to_play/home/ http://bruins.nhl.com/... This sounds pretty cool... it's probably a lot more interesting to me than almost all of the off-season news we've had, and that includes any of the FA deals that were flying around hands down. Anyone can tell that this doesn't compare with giving straight up physical relief to people who are hurting the most, but seriously, these little things like giving kids something to do - whether you're in some downtown first world city or somewhere else, that's important. Sports don't matter a lick, it's what they do for kids that matters, and I really like the idea of this. -- "The rural children are much more shy and reserved than the city kids because their exposure to the West and "Mzumu" (white foreigners) is very limited. "It was hard to coax a smile out of them for pictures at first but the magic of digital photography provided a great solution. Showing the kids the pictures of themselves proved to be a true crowd pleaser and soon enough kids wanting to see their digital reflection surrounded us." ~Ference's blog I just wanted to share this with you guys. I'd never heard about them, but if you have and know much about how they work and their results, that'd be great to hear about.

Past articles talk up his skating ability (besides just speed of course) pretty well, I just think it's a damn shame he had to lose any of that at all. But I'll take 90%. And to anyone wondering about the visa problem--I'm not expert on 'em, but they say it'll be fixed for September, so there's probably nothing to worry about.