Running 2007 NHL regular season thread

The Dallas Stars fire GM Doug Anderson, according to ESPN News.

 

Shocking. The Stars haven't done anything of note since winning the Cup.

 

Proof that Dave Tippett is kin to the cockroaches. Tippett will indeed survive the apocalypse.

How this guy hasn't been let go yet is a shock considering he is in the final year of his contract and Army was under contract through 2011. I'd have thought the coach would be the first casualty.

Rumo(u)r has it Brett Hull will be named interim GM.

 

BTW, that was Doug Armstrong, not Anderson. Didn't catch that till now.

 

I'm not sure what kind of GM Hull will be, but I am sure he'll be damn entertaining.

 

Nice piece by Scott Burnside on the HHOF Inductions

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/halloffame07/columns/story?columnist=burnside_scott&id=3107427&campaign=rss&source=NHLHeadlines

The induction ceremony is always a night of high drama as the inductees try to put their long journeys through the game into perspective. And there was much anticipation for Messier's speech, given his emotional nature.

For the record (and for those of you who were in the "When Will Mess Weep?" pool), his first emotional pause came 2:51 into a speech that would last a total of 17:50.

Messier joked that he was glad to spend time with Gregory on the weekend. "I finally met somebody who was crying more times than me this weekend," Messier said.

But the one thing that still boggles my mind is this:

When Francis broke into the NHL with Hartford in 1981, his first roommate was former Toronto captain Dave Keon, a notoriously prickly individual.

"I think it took about 30 days for him to have a conversation with me in the room," Francis joked.

How old was Keon then? 45? Jeez, he's from my era.

It's like Toskala coming to the Leafs and finding out his roomie is Johnny Bower.

 

Refs and linemen are on the ice during warmup. I recalled during my stint in Newfoundland the teams had separate warmup times to prevent such incidents as those caused by my then boyfriend.

 

In the OHL just the two linesmen. Teams warm up at the same time.

I've never seen an incident in warm-up but maybe Huggy has.

And Flash you seem to have a lot of "then boyfriends"

 

Hey, things happen when you hang inside a dressing room. You get to see a whole different side of a guy ...

Of course, some of the then-boyfriends to which I refer are the same people ... I suppose I should attach names to them so it doesn't sound like I'm too much of a ho ...

 

IIHF is seeking nominations for an all-world team ...

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=222803&hubname=

Wayne Gretzky with Peter Forsberg and Valeri Kharlamov up front, Viacheslav Fetisov and Alexandre Ragulin on defence and Vladislav Tretiak in goal.

Perhaps.

Others will suggest variations, and the International Ice Hockey Federation has enlisted 56 hockey experts from around the world to get it right.

An all-time global all-star team will be announced during an IIHF gala in Quebec City when the world championship tournament is held in Canada for the first time next spring. Games also will be played in Halifax.

The IIHF has a myriad of events going on during its 100th year, and the beautifully-illustrated book "World of Hockey" put together by Fenn Publishing of Bolton, Ont., was unveiled at the Hockey Hall of Fame on Tuesday as former NHL and international stars Peter Stastny, Borje Salming and Ron Ellis looked on.

"If nothing else, it's going to cause some discussion if not arguments," Canadian IIHF executive council member Murray Costello of Ottawa said of the all-star selections.

 

The other thing to remember about Quebec City in 2008---they're celebrating their 400th anniversary.

There is going to be some serious partying in one of my all time favourite cities.

 

I am looking forward to the Worlds.

I plan to watch some games and also cover it. Also, organizers have approached me to volunteer in Media services. There are supposed to be roughly about 1700 media people from around the world converging at the Metro Centre.

They have to take out seats to make room for a huge media centre.

Halifax's ticket sales are much more brisker than Quebec's, but that is due to the resistance of the mayor of Quebec for a time about the Championships.