2008/09 NHL Thread

Part one of the Toronto Sun's five-parter on the Greater Toronto Hockey League, the biggest minor hockey league in the world. Not sure what the rest of the series will focus on but if you want to know what kid's hockey is like here this is a good start.

I'm sure JR, our resident recovering GTHL parent, will have something to add to this.

http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2008/11/30/7580846-sun.html

 

All three of my boys played in the GTHL, but all at completely different levels.

The eldest played AA right up through Midget---cost was around $2500 a year for registration. That didn't include gate admissions, tournament fees. That'd add another $1,000 or so. And the last set of goalie equipment cost me around $3,000.

Both of the twins played house league hockey (registration is around $400-$600 depending on the club) and one of them played on the league's "Rep" team. That was around $250.00 extra a year

The biggest problem facing the GTHL (besides the cost) is the ever diminishing registration. Toronto is a city of immigrants and many of them know nothing about hockey or can't afford the enroll their kids. Let's face it, it's a sport for middle and upper class kids.

Oh, and John Gardner has to go. Talk about personal fiefdom

 

Larry Brooks writes that the NHL should ban fighting.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11302008/sports/moresports/its_time_for_nhl_to_throw_in_the_towel_141548.htm

 

Linesmen want no part of interceding, fearing as they should for their own safety.

I think officials don't jump in right away because, like the fans and the rest of the players, they want to see a good tilt. My thought is it has little to do with fear.

Brooks, in the very same column (ironically, called "Slap Shots"), lists his top No. 19s of all time and has Steve Yzerman in fourth place, three spots behind Bryan Trottier. Gimme a break.

 

Sigh ... some people just don't know when to fade into the sunset.

Am reading in the Globe that David Frost has launched a hockey commentary website, www.hockeygodonline.com, promoting himself as hockey's No. 1 bad boy controversial figure.

And due to blog on the site?

Mike Danton.

 

Re: 2008/09 NHL Thread http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/ hockeygodonline....wow, well, at least he's characteristically modest. : : : Here's hoping the site gets the attention of hackers with little to prevent them from unleashing lots and lots of havoc. I'm thinking Photoshop, Frost, Danton and farm animals. But hey, for all I know those pictures already exist and are genuine. Anyway, I couldn't resist looking at the site and it's about as illuminating as you might imagine. Rants directed at Steve Simmons and Rosie DiManno. I figured a train wreck was coming fast when I read about him not wanting to stoop down to some level.....as if there's a level below anything already reached by Frosty the Showman.

Arcticles?? Are those newspaper stories that are published north of the 90th parallel??

I'm telling you, this shit would be comic gold if it weren't so insipid, if Frost weren't such a repulsive parasite. No ads on the site, thank goodness, but soon he'll have a "membership area" where the gullible can pay to get sneak previews of what you must have known was coming - books written by the Dynamic Duo themselves, Batman Frost and Robin Danton, maiden name Jefferson. My thought, and it's just a hunch, is that the Boy Wonder's book won't exactly reveal the real story behind the murder-for-hire plot. You think? :

 

Did you see the Hockey Hottie section? That's how he'll get his traffic. Whores in hockey jerseys.

 

I did see it. The Sunshine Girl, most days, is just as attractive if not more so.

Wonder if Frost's Hockey Hotties have to agree to threesomes with him and his pals as a condition of getting their pictures on his site?

 

Well ... there goes my lunch.

 

Saw this come over the wire last night. Could not believe it. Did not want to believe it. Of all the repulsive crap this guy has been linked to ... and now he goes and launches a website to rub it in everyone's face that he somehow was acquitted. can't remember the last time I was so appalled

 

I figured he would have a book coming out at some point, but it was a surprise to note his sock puppet will have one too.

Which publisher wants to make a deal with the devil in order to put these books out? Would anyone in the hockey world really want to read them in the first place? From a legal standpoint, could Frost plausibly write even a halfway-interesting book that doesn't libel numerous people, starting with Steve and Sue Jefferson?

 

If Bernardo and Homolka (sp?) both had seperate book deals and a public willing to purchase them, then there is saddly a market for the shit these two have to sling. The libel end, well that remains to be seen.