Hockey Evening in Old Quebec.

   We call ourselves "Les Vieux", or, "The Old Guys", and we meet every Tuesday evening on the outdoor rink just inside the walled portion of Old Quebec, near the St-Louis Gate, to play a little hockey.

   I'm not certain what the world record is for the most outdoor hockey rinks, but Quebec City has 127 of them. Within a 20 minute walk from my house there are three. I divide them into the very busy rink, the not-so busy rink, and the skate-with-the-sweetheart-or-the-family rink.

  Tuesdays, we head to the busy rink where "Les Vieux" divide themselves into two groups. Darks versus Whites.

   As Tuesday night is my Toronto Maple Leafs vintage Bill Barilko sweater night, I'm with the Darks, where my job is to play defense, dish off the puck to the more energetic guys, and maybe, just maybe, embark on one or two rushes.

  Rushes that may or may not become end-to-end jobs. That, and of course, have myself some fun.

   So tonight we started throwing the puck around in our usual lazy manner, as guys came on to the ice, one by one, or two at a time, and eventually a game started. A game just like any another game.

   That is, until a coach bus parked itself on D'Auteuil Street, 50 feet or so from the rink.

   As the door opened, a ruckus could be heard. The type of ruckus that any of us who has ever been anywhere near a hockey rink has heard many times.

   They piled out of the bus, half-running, half-stumbling, and headed towards us. Or more accurately, headed towards the ice. "Hey, hey, guys. Wait up, wait up!", a parent or coach yelled from the back.

   The first thing I noticed was their equipment. Everything matched. The gloves, the pants, the helmets. All new and all top of the line.

   I couldn't help but think back and my own faraway years as a young minor hockey player, and think that we would have been quite impressed to see an opposing team so nattily attired.

   Our team, had the old early 1970's Vancouver Canucks hockey stick and rink logo, and certainly had no names on the back. They were passed down from year to year, and you were fortunate if the socks actually matched the sweater.

   As I was the player who is the most comfortable with English, and the player whose style is well adapted to chatting while skating, the man who appeared to be in charge of this group asked me, "Is it okay if the boys go out on the ice? They've never skated outdoors before.". 

  "Sure, we'll divide the rink up. You guys take half, we'll take half." As our numbers were lower on this evening due to the fact that it's Valentine's Day and some guys have their priorities wrong, there would be room for everyone, we all agreed.

   Enough room, until we realized that there was not one, but in fact, two teams, presumably here to take part in the 53rd annual Quebec City Pee-Wee Tournament, hockey's equivalent to the Little League World Series of baseball.

   As sharp looking as the first group of kids looked in their coordinated outfit, the second group was a more ragtag looking bunch. In fact they didn't have full hockey gear. Just skates, gloves and helmets. Except their goalies, who were in full gear, complete with yellow sweaters which had clearly seen better days.

   In the space of about 15 minutes, we went from being 10 older guys shinnying our way through a nice winter evening, to a mishmash of "Les Vieux", a couple of Pee-Wee teams, and about a dozen adults armed with cameras, scrambling to get snapshots of their offspring taking their first strides on natural ice.

   The chaotic scene was too much for a few of our group, who simply chose to leave the ice to the oncoming mob. A couple of us older guys remained, throwing the puck around while looking on as the kids soaked in the experience of skating outdoors under the lights, in a remarkably beautiful setting, just steps away from where, unbeknownst to them, 100 years earlier a group of Quebec City boys, who called themselves the Bulldogs, a team led by hockey legend Joe Malone, won the first of its two Stanley Cups.

   I learned that the first of the two teams, the one with the matching uniforms, was from the U.S. and they figured that it would be good to take the boys out on natural ice while they were in town, and they invited a team from the Ukraine to join them in the experience. "Even if they both played yesterday, they still have lots of energy left over", said one of the coaches.

   "Why don't you guys take the whole rink and have the kids play a game?'', I asked.

   "Only our kids have full gear, plus the kids are not all at the same level", answered the coach.

   "Just throw the sticks in the middle, and split them up. I think the people would like to see that.", I said pointing to the 20 to 30 passersby who had stopped to watch the two Pee-Wee teams buzzing around the outdoor rink, laughing, talking, and having the time of their lives.

   Within two minutes I found myself standing over a pile of sticks.

   One fancy stick thrown to the left, one fancy stick thrown to the right. One not-so fancy stick thrown to the left, one not-so fancy stick thrown to the right. "All right boys, whichever side your stick is on, that's your team", yelled out the coach.

   For the next 20 minutes or so, two Pee-Wee teams from two totally different cultures skated, passed, stickhandled and shot the puck all over the ice.

  As I skated off the ice, my unofficial refereeing duties fulfilled, one of the horse carriage drivers who had walked over to watch the action said to me in French, "Ça c'est la meilleure game de hockey que j'ai vu depuis longtemps''. (That's the best hockey game I've seen in a long time.)

  Hard not to agree with him.

 

The time has come for the Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky trophies.

   You might say that the last thing the National Hockey League needs right now are another trophy or two added to their already well stocked hardware shelf, but a case could be made for the point of view that the time to create a Bobby Orr trophy and a Wayne Gretzky award has now come.

   Right now we have the Art Ross, the Hart, the Norris, the Rocket Richard, the Calder, the Vezina, and the Lady Byng as what one might consider the as the first tier regular season individual trophies. Add to that the Conn Smythe trophy, and we pretty much have it covered.

   Some fans and observers have mentioned that perhaps renaming certain trophies, like, for instance making the Norris trophy the Bobby Orr trophy, or have the Hart trophy become the Wayne Gretzky trophy could be a solution.

  Personally, I'm not a fan of the renaming route. The original names help in passing down hockey history through the generations.  These trophies help tie players like Red Kelly to players like Zdeno Chara. Or guys like Howie Morenz to Sidney Crosby.

  No, rather than change what we now have, adding the Bobby Orr trophy and the Wayne Gretzky trophy would probably do the trick.

   Award the Bobby Orr trophy to the NHL's top scoring defenceman, and the Wayne Gretzky trophy to the Stanley Cup playoffs leading scorer. Those are both accomplishments which legitimately deserve to be honoured. And for those who figure that the Orr will almost always come to the winner of the Norris, or that the Conn Smythe trophy winner will more often that not also add the Gretzky, consider this...

   Since the NHL lockout, the winners of the Norris trophy have been:

Lidstrom
Keith
Chara
Lidstrom
Lidstrom
Lidstrom

   The winners of the Bobby Orr trophy, had it existed of course, would have been:

Visnovsky
Green
Green
Lidstrom
Niedermayer
Lidstrom

Only one two occasions would there have been a simultaneous Norris and Orr trophies winner, and that would have been Nicklas Lidstrom.

   As for the Smythe-Gretzky comparsion we had the following Conn Smythe trophy winners

Thomas
Toews
Malkin
Zetterberg
Niedermayer
Ward

Over that same period, Gretzky trophy winners would have been

Krejci
Briere
Malkin
Zetterberg
Alfredsson
Stall

   Again, we see only two instances where there would have been a simultaneous Smythe-Gretzky winner. In this case, Malkin and Zetterberg.

   So how long before the NHL adds some more trophies? Who knows, but the time has come for the Orr and Gretzky awards.

   

It's a hockey sweater.

   Today was Hockey Day in Canada. A great tradition started about 10 years back by the folks at CBC Sports. It gives us all a chance to reflect on what the game means to us both as individuals and as a society.

   We've heard all the cliches before. Hockey is like a religion. Hockey is what binds us together as a country. Hockey defines us as a people.

   Hockey has also given us expressions and vocabulary that is unique to us as Canadians. Things such as "changing on the fly", "two-hander", "playing in traffic", and "top shelf". 

   And in much the same way that we spell words such as "colour" and "centre" differently than they do in the United States, the vocabulary of the game of hockey is also different to that used in what are considered American sports. Two examples of this are the use of the words "jersey" and "locker rooms".

   Unfortunately these words seem to be creeping into the hockey vernacular. They are terms which are used by the NHL by the CBC, and by the Canadian Press.

   As the NHL is mostly an American corporate entity, that it lacks awareness of the traditional Canadian hockey vocabulary is not all that surprising. The CBC and CP on the other hand, should know better.

   At the risk of being accused of nitpicking, here in Canada, it's a hockey sweater and a dressing room. In the words of Hockey Night in Canada's Jim Hughson, "a jersey is a cow", and there are no lockers in a hockey dressing room.

   So in the spirit of keeping the Canadian game Canadian, let us therefore commit ourselves to using the proper terminology when discussing hockey. A good place to start would be the proper use of the terms hockey sweater and dressing room.

Give the right-wing goalie a break.

   When reading a story yesterday, that the Boston Bruins would be attending the White House to meet with President Barack Obama in a ceremony meant to highlight last spring's Stanley Cup victory, I must admit that my reaction was one of "ho-hum". Boring...

   For American sports teams, the Washington visit is one of the perks of winning a championship. Baseball teams, basketball teams, football teams, and United States based hockey teams, go to their nation's capital, pose for pictures, hand the Prez a jersey with his name on it, make a few lame jokes, everybody laughs, and everybody moves on.

   When it's the Stanley Cup champions making the visit, these public relations events usually serve to show how little most presidents know about hockey.

   The image of George Bush The First, not knowing who Mario Lemieux was, or of Bill Clinton calling the Detroit Red Wings captain Steve "Why-Zerr-Man" are two such instances.

   I don't know this for sure, but I'd be willing to bet that Barack Obama isn't exactly an expert on the game. I could be wrong, but I suspect that if asked he would say that hybrid icing has something to do with green technology being used for the freezing of the playing surface.

   So I figured that this visit would be one that would come and go as most others have in the past, a 15 second blurb at the end of the nightly sportscast. But I hadn't figured on Tim Thomas.

   Today, Tim Thomas, an American-born NHL goaltender, declined the invitation to attend the White House and meet President Obama with the rest of his teammates. This of course set off the media and sent the Twitter world, well, all atwitter. 

   Thomas, for those who may not know, is an active member of the Tea Party, an ultra-conservative political movement. Some clues as to his political views can be seen on his mask which include the "In God We Trust" inscription on the front and a stylized Gadsden flag on the back. Thomas has also stated that he is a fan of conservative media figure Glenn Beck.

   So that he is not enamored with this particular President of the United States, is certainly not a surprise. That he decided that his political convictions demanded that he snub an invitation to the White House is  also not really surprising given the highly divisive nature of current American politics.

   Although Thomas stated that "this was not about politics", the reality is that refusing an invitation to the White House is a profoundly political act. Regardless, how it is spun.

   But be that as it may, as a hockey fan, it is a story of little or no consequence. I'm certain that his teammates are not torn in the least about this, so it won't have any effect on the cohesiveness of the Bruins. 

   This is not Carlos Smith at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games, nor is in Muhammad Ali refusing induction in the United States Army. A hockey goalie refusing to meet the President of the United States is hardly the type of event that will have sociologists and historians writing about years from now.

    I didn't care about the Bruins visiting the White House earlier today, and even with this controversy, I still don't care.

  

Sunday Shots

-   My last trip to the hockey equipment equipment store got me thinking: "When was the latest technological advance in the hockey helmet?". Seems like today's helmets are pretty much the same as they have been for the last 30 years. With all of the talk about concussions, you'd think that helmets would have evolved. Or, maybe not...

-  Even though the top ten leading NHL scoring leaders are within 5 points of each other, one cannot help but feel that it's only a question of time before Pittsburgh's Evgeny Malkin starts to separate himself from the pack. After briefly falling out of a playoff spot last week, the Penguins have won 5 in a row, thanks in large part to Malkin's inspired play.

-   It never fails. You go out on a limb and pronounce a team as being a shoo-in to go all the way, and they thank you by going out and playing a stinker of a hockey game.

   The culprits this time are the Shawinigan Cataractes whom only a few days ago, I predicted will ultimately win the President's Cup, the trophy awarded to the QMJHL champions. While I still believe that they are the best team in the league at this time, yesterday's loss to the Gatineau Olympiques shows that the road to QMJHL supremacy will not be without bumps.

   Ultimately this loss may serve as a reminder to the Cataractes that while they may have a top level roster, rarely, if ever, are hockey games won on talent alone. 

   In their defence, the Cats were not favoured by the schedule, one of the QMJHL's glaring weaknesses, having played the night before in Quebec City, and they did fire 39 shots at the Olympiques' net. But a lot of those shots were from a fair distance, with little or no traffic in front of the Gatineau net.

   Rather than continue to work at coming back from a 4-2 deficit late in the game, they lost their cool and their focus, and became embroiled in a game ending free-for-all. Frankly they looked a lot like a team who felt entitled to win. A team who figured that just showing up at the Robert Guertin Arena was enough to guarantee two points.

   Very rarely does it work out that way at The Bob.

-   It's too bad for the Colorado Avalanche that they are in the Western Conference. They are in the middle of a dogfight for the eighth and final playoffs spot, yet they are 10-2 vs. teams from the East.

-   Good to see Mike Milbury back on Hockey Night in Canada's Satellite Hot Stove. While Milbury may not be everybody's cup of tea with his gruff manner and sometimes extreme viewpoints, I find him entertaining. Plus in a segment that features Ron MacLean, Eliotte Friedman, and Eric Francis, somebody has to bring some testosterone. 

-   It could be a while before we see another 500 goal scorer, in the NHL. Now that Jarome Iginla has passed that milestone, only 3 active NHLers are in the 400 to 499 goal range. Jason Arnott (412), Marian Hossa (408), and Daniel Alfredsson (404). I'm not betting on any of those players making it to the 500 mark.

-   Has hockey changed? Take a look at this hit delivered by Dougie Hamilton, Boston Bruins 1st round draft pick, during a recent OHL game. The Sudbury player is dipsy-doodling around the opposing blueline with his head down for about 4 to 5 seconds before getting leveled by Hamilton. I'm not necessarily a fan of hits to the head, but come on, keep your head up kid.

Untouchable? Why?

   Watching Montreal Canadiens defenceman P.K. Subban arguing on the bench with coaches Randy Ladouceur and Randy Cunneyworth after turning over the puck in the Habs zone, a play that led to a Pittsburgh Penguins shorthanded goal, showed just how bad things are going for the Habs these days.

   There was Pernell Karl, sitting alone at the end of the bench, his teammates shuffling down to their left and looking away, as the young defenceman argued on and on, even as coach Ladouceur held up his hand in a "that's enough P.K., just play" motion. 

   Considering the absolutely brutal game that Subban had been playing up to that point (turn over after turn over, bad penalties, getting caught pinching in at the Pittsburgh blueline), it wasn't as if the Montreal defenceman was arguing from a position of strength.

   But what yesterday's game showed is just how bad things really are for the Montreal Canadiens. Not only do they have to count on a player of P.K. Subban's caliber to assume the role of number one d-man, but he feels confident enough in his role on the team that he figures that it's acceptable for him to get into a debate with his coaches during an NHL hockey game. 

   Some will say that what P.K. Subban did is not anywhere near as serious as the epic Patrick Roy-Mario Tremblay blow-up which led to the Hall of Fame goaltender being traded to Colorado in 1995, but that would be missing a couple of major points. The most obvious difference is that P.K. Subban is nowhere near being the hockey player that Patrick Roy was.

   When Patrick Roy confronted Montreal Canadiens president Ronald Corey behind the player's bench on national television, he had 2 Stanley Cups, 2 Conn Smythe trophies, 4 Jennings trophies, 3 Vezina trophies, and 3 NHL First-All Star team selections under his belt. 

   P.K.Subban, on the other hand, is in his second full season in the NHL. He was selected by Montreal with the 43rd pick in the 2007 draft. Sixteen defencemen were selected ahead of him. 

   Yet through a series of fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on your point of view) events, he has managed to find his way into a critical role within an organization that has lost its way. So overrated has he become, that many observers have taken the irrational and illogical view that somehow P.K. Subban is one of the few untouchables on the Montreal roster. A player who cannot be traded away.

   That Subban ranks so incredibly high on the Canadiens depth chart is not his fault. It does however serve as a glaring example of the dire situation the Montreal hockey franchise finds itself.

   Jacques Martin was heavily criticized by fans and by hockey analysts for what they felt was the stifling of Subban. That somehow Martin was preventing him from fully expressing his talents on the ice. It was as if Subban were only to be left alone to play without the shackles of a system, he would magically develop into the second coming of Bobby Orr. 

   The reality is that Subban is showing himself to be an incredibly selfish and high maintenance player. Last night's loss to Pittsburgh can be pinned squarely on his shoulders. Had it not been for a couple of very good saves by Peter Budaj off chances which resulted directly from Subban blunders, the Habs would not have even escaped with a single point.

   If I were a fan of the Habs, I would also be very worried that even though Subban was a liability on the ice and was sucking the energy right out of the team with his on-bench attitude, the coaching staff decided to keep putting him out there, shift after shift. The message being, "it doesn't matter if you're playing poorly and being selfish, you'll still play". No consequences, at least if your name is P.K. Subban.

   That Pernell Karl Subban has elite level talent is undeniable. There are nights when he can make a difference in a hockey game and be a big part of a win. But for the most part, he has not shown that he has the maturity level required to be a leader in an organization. Successful teams, whether it be in hockey or any other endeavour, are those in which the most talented people are also the best leaders.

   I've been a very vocal critic of the Montreal Canadiens over my many years as a fan of the game of hockey, but the one thing that I've always respected about that organization is that everything they did seemed to be done with an eye towards ensuring the success of the team. Nothing, and no one, came before the team.

   Very high on the Habs executive list needs to be the re-establishment of the mentality within the organization that every action taken by all members is to be geared toward the betterment of the team. 

   Make sure that those who are brought in are not only top end talent, but top end people. People who understand to build something worthwhile, you need to be prepare to fill your role, but also need to do it with a good attitude and in a manner that does not impact negatively on others.

   A team, any kind of team, should be all about "us" and very little about "me''. In only 125 games in the National Hockey League, P.K. Subban has required, and received, far more attention than he warrants. The reality is that he will never be one of the NHL's top defencemen. He will never be the type of player who anchors a blueline and leads a team to the Stanley Cup. 

   If the Montreal Canadiens don't want to spend the next few years coddling, coaxing, and otherwise dealing with P.K. Subban, for what will probably be limited returns, then trade him. There are surely teams out there who would be interested in his talent and ability, and he could bring some interesting elements in return.

   If they don't, they risk regretting it for a long time. Time will tell...

Hall, Salming, Cataractes, Phaneuf, and Pronger.

-   Taylor Hall's much publicized skate cut to the face/head, which occurred during the pre-game warm up two nights ago, has many calling for NHL teams to make the wearing of helmets mandatory for all players when they hit the ice for the pre-game. 

   So far, Hall's Edmonton teammates have vowed to wear helmets in pre-game skates, and the Colorado Avalanche management has directed their players to do the same.The good news is that it doesn't appear as though Taylor Hall will be out of action for long. Just a question of reducing the swelling and letting the stitches heal a little and he'll be back. 

   The Oilers sure have been snake-bitten on the injury front as of late. Jordan Eberle was out for four games with a knee injury and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins will be out for at least another week with a shoulder injury.

-   Older fans will remember another fairly gruesome skate vs. face incident. This one occurred back in November of 1986.

   Toronto defenceman, and Hockey Hall of Famer, Borje Salming, was struck in the face by a skate during a game against the Detroit Red Wings.The injury required 200 stitches to close, yet remarkably, the Swedish rearguard was in the Leafs' lineup just 3 days later. 

- I've seen pretty much every team in the QMJHL (haven't seen Bathurst or Cape-Breton) in action this year, and no team has impressed me more than the new look Shawinigan Cataractes. As they are hosting this year's Memorial Cup, they were intent on icing a competitive team.

   The acquisitions of Morgan Ellis and Brandon Gormley, when added to an already impressive squad headed by Mikael Bournival, have pretty much ensured that the Cats are the team to beat in the race for the QMJHL's President Cup. 

-   Is it just me or has Nick Foligno been at the centre of a few controversies this season? The latest was the submarining of Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf in the latest Battle of Ontario. 

   Foligno was assessed a two minute penalty, and while he sat in the box, many were saying that he would have to answer to Leafs strongman Jay Rosehill once he returned to the ice.

   It wasn't surprising however to see Dion Phaneuf take matters into his own hands as he dropped the gloves against Foligno, in what turned out to be a spirited scrap.

   You can count me as one of the the tens of thousands of players who have never been clipped like that, but one can easily imagine that being on the wrong end of a dirty hit of that ilk leaves one more than a little pissed off.

   The kind of thing that would leave you saying "Never mind, I've got this one" to however happens to be the designated bodyguard on your team. 

   Kudos to Phaneuf for taking on Foligno, especially when you consider that he still hasn't fully recovered from taking a shot to the face in a game against the Winnipeg Jets.

   While the Leafs did ultimately lose the game, seeing your captain go out there and "take care of business" surely must have left an impression on his teammates. I know that it did on me.

-   While were speaking about controversial defencemen, Chris Pronger, the captain of the Philadelphia Flyers is by all accounts not doing very well in his battle with concussion symptoms. You knew it had to be a serious injury for the Flyers to announce that there was no way that Pronger would be back, so early in the season. 

    Because love him or hate him, there is no denying that throughout his career Chris Pronger has shown a remarkable ability to either come back from, or play through, injuries.

   So for word to be getting out, both through his family and Flyers GM Paul Holmgren, that Pronger is not doing well, is unsettling.