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Hockey Newsletter - December 5, 2000

Spoiled brats
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Last week, with much hoopla, Eric Lindros told anybody who would listen that he wants to play in Toronto. Where have we heard this before?

"I don't wanna play in Sault Ste. Marie, I wanna play in Oshawa near Mummy and Daddy... I don't wanna play in Quebec, I wanna play in a big U.S. market so I can make even more money..."

Why do teams continue to indulge this guy? Especially now that he is -- literally -- such a head case?

The difference this time may just be Pat Quinn. Eric has put him in an almost impossible situation. Does he really want the big guy on the team? If he says yes, the media are all over him and there's tension in the dressing room -- who gets shipped to Bob "don't call me Bobby" Clarke's house of horrors? If he says no, the media are all over him because he won't take a chance on one of the league's marquee players.

And then there's Claude Lemieux. He's been sitting by his pool all season, just waiting for the word from his good ol' buddy Wayne Gretzky. Well, Phoenix has now become Wayne's world, and little Mr. cheap-shot whiney-boy Claude has signed a one-year deal.

What is this about? Is the Great One a Dumb One when it comes to player management? The Coyotes were doing fine until the sale of the team was off and on and off and on. They've slipped a bit in the tough western conference. And Claude Lemieux is going to save them? Wayne's golfing and barbecue buddy, who never shows up until the playoffs, is going to help? At this rate, the once-steady Coyotes won't even make it to the post season. But the boys just want to play with each other. Whatever!

Ouch! Volume 5
Now here are a couple of weird ones:

Steve Smith - groin/concussion
Joe Hulbig - concussion/knee/hernia

How does something like that happen? It's like stubbing your toe and getting an earache as a result. Huh?

And in the "way too much information" category:

Peter Popovic - hairline toe fracture
Doug Gilmour - inflammation in pelvic area
Mike Grier - hyper extended elbow
Gino Odjick - inflamed left elbow bursa sac

Not the bursa sac! Goodness, man, how do you get over something like that?


Who's hot
Steve Sullivan, Gary Valk, Tie Domi. Yes, that's right. A couple of guys who were released by their teams (Sullivan - Toronto; Valk - Pittsburgh) are on fire. The little Chicago forward is the only guy giving the Hawks a hope of getting in the race this year. Too small for Toronto, this little winger is even ahead of millionaire Tony Amonte in the team scoring.

And what about Toronto? While Valk's and Domi's teammate Mats Sundin was in an awful scoring slump, everyone figured it would be Berezin, Roberts and Tucker who would pick up the slack. Nope. No way. A no-name gritty forward and a little bruiser who thought he was on the bubble when teammate Nik Antropov came back from injury has picked up the slack. In fact, as this newsletter goes out, Domi has a career-high 9 goals, while captain Mats has 8.

Who needs multi-millionaire players these days?


Who's not
Jaromir Jagr and Pavel Bure; Teemu Selanne and Paul Karyia.

The first two are supposed to be the leaders, the excitement, and the future of the NHL. Where the heck are they? Jagr's busy pouting because he doesn't want to play the way his coach tells him to. And Bure... well, who knows what goes on in that guy's head? Maybe we should find out the status of his relationship with perennial underachiever Anna Kournikova to find that answer!

As for Anaheim's Mighty Duds, Selanne and Karyia are supposed to be the dynamic duo of the league. But these guys aren't even in the top 20, much less the top 10 scoring leaders. Maybe Disney's Magical Ice Kingdom was just an illusion after all. The NHL needs these guys to step up and make things happen, or else the big dream of hockey in the western sunbelt is going to dry up like a water balloon in the California desert.


I'm a star in New York I'm a star in LA
And speaking of the great western hockey hotbed, the Los Angeles Kings are the liveliest stick-totin' guns in the west. As CTVSportsnet.com's Jake Daniel reports, the explosive offence led by ex-New York Islander Ziggy Palffy and ex-New York Ranger Luc Robitaille is going almost unnoticed in the east:

"Palffy has spent this season making the Kings' management look brilliant for wrestling the immensely-talented forward away from the New York Islanders in exchange for Olli Jokinen (now in Florida) and not much else. Of all the curious and misguided moves he has made in the past few years, the Palffy trade best illustrates the short-sighted judgment Islanders GM Mike Milbury brings to the office every day."

Read more at
[retired link]


Scotty Bowman - Hockey's Moses?
A couple of weeks ago, Scotty Bowman coached his 2000th game. Just try saying "2000th" three times fast!

We've heard a bunch of tales, seen the statistics, tidbits, and important facts about this incredible run. But the one that stands out to us reveals the biggest impact he has had on hockey -- 26 big-time NHL coaches were once coached by Scotty Bowman. Several of them have incredible coaching/GM records as well. Here are the most notable followers in that interesting group of Bowman disciples:

Al Arbour, Glen Sather, Terry Crisp, Larry Robinson, Rick Dudley, Bob Gainey, Jacques Lemaire, Larry Pleau, Craig Ramsay, Doug Risebrough, Jim Roberts, Lindy Ruff, Andre Savard, Jim Schoenfeld, Mario Tremblay.


A good sign...
Derek Morris has finally been signed by the Calgary Flames. This is a young guy who will probably be one of the top defencemen for many years, a future Bourque or Pronger. Well, that's what the fans in Calgary hope anyway. Here's what the folks in the CTVSportsnet.com fan forum had to say:

CGY says: "This could be a good sign. Hopefully they can start playing as a team, and not individuals. They have really struggled this year thus far. Hopefully Calgarians can see some playoff hockey this year, and I think Derek will help."

Fan4Life begs to differ: "A sign of what? Derek Morris had absolutely no right to hold out the way he did. Button felt the same way, so he went out and signed Kravchuk, another mistake. This particular hold out reminds me of when Bryan McCabe held out here in Vancouver, he had no reason to either, I was hoping that they'd let him sit out the year 'cause he's not worth that extra dollar. They paid him, he came back and scored a goal in his first game back, and that was it."

erik young is happy, but not entirely convinced: "Signing Derek Morris is a good sign, but I don't think this'll be the reason the Flames start to turn it around. The team is finally buying into coach Hay and his system. They're learning to be a team and Morris might just set that philosophy and team chemistry back. I figure January the squad gets hot after Morris gets back in shape and gets into the team groove."