I
don't know if anyone has noticed but there has not been been a whole
bunch of coverage over the firestorm that's going on in Toronto with
the Maple Laughs. I haven't put up one big story on it, and apart
from a mini-blog (actually mini-rant) last Saturday after their dreadful 5-1 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes there has been nothing on the hockey collator.
The
reason for this is because it's tricky when you are running a Greater
Toronto based hockey website, that you make the content too Maple Leafs
centric. As I've said before in a previous blog, with all the Canadian
media based in this area, you find that the subject of the blue and
white bullies itself to the forefront and a lot of the time it is
undeserved.
Since look at in this context, while the Leafs have
sucked large, losing 8 of their last 10 games, and rumours have rained
down over whether Toronto will make a major management shake-up,
nothing of signifgance has happened. They haven't fired General Manager
John Ferguson Jr. nor coach Paul Maurice. And with the hubbub that MLSE
President Richard Peddie has caused, with the Toronto Sun having on the
front page Tuesday a qoute from an interview with Peddie saying, that
it was a mistake to hire Ferguson in 2003, well that was a good smoke
and mirrors job to sell more newspapers.
Nothing has happened folks.
Unlike
in Vancouver Tuesday where there was something with Bertuzzi returning
to Vancouver to face his old team, and unlike what happened with Scott
Hartnell of the Philadelphia Flyers getting ejected in the first game
between the Boston Bruins and Flyers since what happened
with Patrice Bergeron and Randy Jones a month ago, and also unlike what
happened with Ilya Bryzgalov leading the Coyotes to a 4-3 win over
the Ducks, who waived him earlier in the month.
It's crazy that
while story has been buring up the charts with every commentator with a
keyboard having an opinion, there has been little coverage over
what is a much bigger story, that being the sale of the Tampa Bay
Lightning falling through.
And that is all I have to say about that.
24/11/2007
The Late Night Collator Part II
My, my, my the Toronto Maple Leafs must be happy that they are away this weekend and that the Grey Cup is at the Rogers Centre, since with the papers spending a majority of their pages covering the CFL final it means less calling for their blood.
But then again maybe it's too bad for them, since it's just a one day reprieve, and there are 59 games of awful hockey left.
20/11/2007
The Late Night Collator
Lets all have three cheers for the Vancouver Canucks and the Minnesota Wild for not letting tonight's game become a stupid fest.
As you probably know there has been a lot of bad blood brewing since last Friday in Vancouver when Canucks' defenceman Mattias
Ohland swung his stick at Mikko Koivu, cracking the tibia in his left
leg, when he reacted badly to getting elbowed by by Koivu in the
third period. For the hit Ohland was suspended four games and the
Wild have lost Koivu for at least a week.
With Wild enforcer
Derek Boogaard vowing retaliation against the star players of the
Canucks in the media, and Ryan Kesler saying that Boogaard, 'isn't much
of a hockey player,' things could have easily gone into Bertuzzi,
McSorely territory in Minnesota Wednesday.
Maybe Mikko calling for cooler heads actually got through.
Unsure
if this is a statement on how barren the league is for marketable
players but Sean Avery is sure getting a lot of publicity stateside of
late. Partly it's because of the infamous pre-game shoving match he had
with Darcy Tucker of the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Hall of Fame game
in Toronto, which cost him $2, 500 (US). And partly its because of the
subsequent libel suit he has filed against a Toronto
radio reporter, Howard Berger, who reported two days later
that an unidentified Ranger told him that the incident was
instigated by Avery making a remark about the Leafs, Jason Blake's,
cancer. And partly it's due to a recent pre-game
shenanigans he
had with New Jersey Devils goalie, Martin Brodeur that led to
a
confrontation with Devils' rookie forward David Clarkson. Then
it's also to do with the fact that he's been on TMZ.com almost as many
times as Mike Comrie, seen with the likes of Mary-Kate Olson and Elisha
Cuthbert. But, and here is the important part, it is
also to do
with the fact that since his return from a separated shoulder
the
Rangers have gone from shambolic to terrifico, going 7-2, to
lead
the Atlantic division. During those nine games Avery has scored almost
a point a game, earning 2 goals and 8 assists. Here
are some stories I've linked about Avery:
The Hockey Collator might be in
over his head Part II
Well
it looks like if I want to put up a blog with all the bells
and
whistles (i.e recommend, feedback, bake a cake) I'll have to
change my server to Linux, since none of the popular blog programs
seems to work with Windows SQL.
Great for me, huh.
All
this getting into the technical guts of my site for the first time in a
way long while has got me thinking about the first time I was ever on
the Internet. So if you'll indulge me, since it is hockey related in a
way, I'll take you down memory lane.
It was in my
second year
of university at Western, 1995 I think. As an arts students I had a
crappy telnet (unix) account, so I never used it. One day, I
think
it was November but I'm not really sure, two of my roommates came to
see me in my room with a piece of paper in one of their hands. The two
were engineering students and they had just came back from studying
with a buddy of theirs who was also in engineering. Well my
roomates somehow, someway, I can't remember how, but it was probably
pretty devious involving alcohol and euchre, got the username
and
password for his Engineering Internet account that he paid $25
bucks for, writing it down on that piece of paper.
Borrowing
the
buddy's information I turned on my 286 computer, got onto the
University system with my 14.4 kilobyte modem and with Netscape
Explorer 1 surfed onto the World Wide Web. We all sat huddled around
the monitor and since I knew the address of only one site, I
put
it in. After what seemed like minutes of loading an animated
space
stadium popped up in the middle of the screen. On that stadium were six
areas to go that were all numbered using different colours. The name of
these areas were things like, broadcast booth, ticket booth,
scoreboard, playing field, locker room, souvenir stand.
It
was a
Canadian sports site that I went to. And its adress was TSN.ca. Or as I
like to call it, The Sports as long as it is hockey Network.ca. If you
want to see how the site used to look like, here is the link:
This
shows that the prestigious New York Times can even get a headline wrong
every once in a while.
16/11/2007
The Hockey Collator might be in
over his head
You
know how you go to blogs like Nothing
but Leafs or OffWing
opinions and
they have an area after the article where you can
recommend and
write remarks
about the story. Well after being in this blog business for the past
week-and-a-half I thought that I should have an official looking blog
with all the glitz and gadgets.
But boy, is this
blogosphere
thing a whole new country that I never knew existed. Since I didn't
know that you can't just put up a blog and have it recognised on blog
search sites like Google and Technorati. No, you have to have a blog
program on which your blog sits and which when it's going, pings --
just like sonar I guess -- those sites to get them up there.
So
I've got a program and I'm trying to get it working on my server, and
boy is it sludge work. It reminds me of trying to use Telnet in my
first year of university.
I'll keep you updated.
Today's
uncovered
story is about the New York Islanders' Bill Guerin who is returning
from the M.A.S.H unit after suffering a gash over the eye during last
Saturday's game against the New Jersey Devils which caused an eye
condition called hyphema.
This
is the first year that I have linked stories from sources other than
local papers.The
reason I've done this is to make the headlines page less static,
because I have found in the past that people would go to my site in the
morning for the day's update and then after that not come back in the
afternoon or night since there was nothing new to see. With the page
now being updated at all times of the day that trend has changed. So
much so that the early morning has become a bit of a dead
zone,
but I digress.
What I have found while working this
new format,
actually I shouldn't say found since I had an inkling it was the case
before, is that the Toronto media pushes what is covered in
the
league.
I don't think they mean to, but since hockey
is Canada's
'National' past time and a majority of Canada's National sports' media
work here, how could they not.
Let's look
at the list of media based in the 'Big Smoke'.
Papers:
Toronto Sun,
Toronto Star,
National Post,
Globe & Mail
Magazines:
The Hockey News
Broadcast: CBC,
TSN, Sportsnet
Radio: Fan 590
And
that is not even counting the Internet with the likes of MSN/Sympatico
and AOL Canada, who all have their head offices in the city.
With
this amount of media here it is no surprise that a lot of NHL news is
Toronto centric or more specifically Toronto Maple Leafs' centric. And
it is no surprise that Leafs' stories lead on the Internet. This would
explain why every goalie change and injury and Marlie call up becomes
breaking news on Sportsnet and TSN, and why some stupid camera phone
pictures by Juri Tlusty becomes front page news in the
papers, and
why a pre-game jawing session last Saturday between the Leafs'
Darcy Tucker and the New York Rangers Sean Avery has become the hot
button issue this week.
Did Avery go over
the line? Did he say something untoward to the Leafs' Jason Blake?
I
don't know. But if a Toronto radio station didn't play up the incident
Monday afternoon during two call in shows, it wouldn't have come close
to being the story that it turned into.
Today's
uncovered
story comes from Philadelphia where Simon Gagne is using a video game
to help him recover from two concussions he has suffered this
season.
For
most people Mondays suck. Since it's the first day of work,
the
first day of having to wake up early to the alarm clock, the first day
of having to finish your toast while you run to the car, the first day
of knowing you have to get on the highway and face the onslought of
traffic, the first day of having to search ten minutes in vain for a
parking spot close to the office and on and on and and on. But for me
Mondays are great.For me Monday is the one day that I can sleep past my
alarm and not worry that I'll be late for my site's first
update at 8:15 AM. The reason is that on Monday,
the NHL is the last thing on their minds of the majority of sportspages
in the States. In places like New York City, Washington D.C., Denver,
Boston, Dallas, Chicago even Miami there is only one sport of
consequence in the world and that is the National Football League.
This
has got me thinking. Especially after seeing how barren and lifeless
the TD Banknorth Garden was last Sunday when the Bruins took on the
Ottawa Senators. Shouldn't the NHL just wave the white flag already and
concede Sunday to the NFL. Since when you see a six-foot five,
300 pound lineman coming after you, and all you have to
protect
you is a a RBK Edge sweater, a Synergy stick and a tinted visor, you
get out of the way right.
It's just a thought.
George W. Bush is a lame duck
President, you don't say
There
must be something in the water that they serve in the press
rooms across the NHL since everyone who is paid to have an opinion is
taking a stand on whether Eric Lindros should make it to the Hockey
Hall of Fame or not. Leading up to Lindros announcing his retirement in
London, Ontario Thursday and now a day after it has been
the topic
de jour on the net. Here is a list of opines I have linked on my site:
The thing I found about this debate -- and I hope
you kept
a score card, as there will be a quiz at the end of the blog -- is that
I don't think that there is much point in discussing it. Since Lindros
has to wait 3 years to be considered to the hall, right? Like guys
isn't this just a tad bit premature.The ink on his retirement papers
hasn't even dried yet.
If it was three years down
the road and
he was on the ballot then sure guys, swing away with all your might.
Since I like everyone love debating the merits of Hall of famers. See
watch me go down this year's nominees. To start with Al MacInnis gets a
big thumbs up since he had the most dangerous shot at the
point,
was a perennial all-star and won a championship with the Calgary Flames
in 1989. Ron Francis. Two straight Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins,
then a decade later led the Carolina Hurricanes to the finals. Has to
be up there in talent with Gretzky and Lemieux, but get this the guy
could also play defense. Mark Messier. Best leader period. Cups for all
his fingers Guaranteed game six in 1994 and brought it home. Scott
Stevens. Never liked him with his dangerous hits to the likes of star
players like Lindros and Paul Kariya. But the guy was the most dominant
defenseman for a long time.
But to discuss Lindros
and the hall now. Eric
&%$#@ Lindros. The Big E isn't even close enough to see through
a
telescope if you peered out from the roof of the shrine on
Yonge
Street, while standing on top of the longest ladder in the world. I
wonder if all this is because it is hall of fame weekend in the NHL. I
wonder if Lindros retired say during training camp or during the first
week of the season there would be even a hint of this talk.
Hey
wait, you know something, maybe the E-Train planned it this way from
the start since with Sault Ste. Marie, Quebec City, the way
his
time with the Flyers ended with his not accepting the qualifying offer
and wanting to be traded. They were all controversies right. Yeah, that
could be it. Always leave on a high note.
Today's
uncovered
story is what is happening in Minnesota with Wes Walz. The Wild veteran
centreman has been missing from the team since last Wednesday.
Yesterday the team put him on non-roster status as it was learned that
Walz is considering retiring.
If
you are wondering why on the Dallas page this morning there is no story
on Mike Modano breaking the U.S. born points record from the Fort
Worth Star-Telegram, its because the paper didn't send a reporter to
cover the game in San Jose. Instead they use a wire report. And since I
only put up local reporter stories, well there you go.
Hi
folks this is John, and this page will be where the blog for
headlinehockey.com will be from now on. It probably won't be daily.
Gosh no. I'm too lazy for that. And it won't be once a millenium, like
some of my past blogs have been . No this blog will stick this time. It
has to because every good sports site has to have a blog right? Its
like bacon and eggs.Milk and Oreo cookies. Toronto Maple Leafs and bad
management. So
to get this to work there will have
to be some structure, some routine, some thing that's going on in the
real world to tell me, hey, get your #%&@! blog up. And so for
now, the blog will come up everytime the NBA Toronto Raptors play this
season, since I like following the Raptors and hey its something. Why
the Raptors and not the Maple Leafs, you might ask? Well have you seen
the Leafs play? With
the Raps playing tonight,
Friday and Saturday that means three blogs this week. I can see that
you are holding your breath already. Also
I
should have a quick blurb on this page when I find
something dumb while doing my morning work. i.e
Oct. 30
a Florida news site had the Buffalo Sabres celebrating a win
against the Tampa Lightning, when alas the Lightning lost 3-1 to the
New York Rangers. These will be classified under the title,
'Why Americans don't get hockey.' So
what is
a hockey collator? Well its what I do. Every morning I get up and go
through all the local news sites for the 30 NHL cities and collect
and organise them on my website so you can see them. Just think of it
as US Sportspages with more stuff on it and sustantially less monthly
hits. From
doing the site I've got to see how hockey
is viewed in North America. I've learned from the amount of coverage in
Toronto, Edmonton, and Vancouver that hockey is king in Canada. And
I've also found that while there are some areas where hockey is popular
in the States,
like Colorado, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New York. In most places like
Washington and Phoenix the NHL is barely a blip on the radar. I've
also seen how the Internet has revolutionized how newspapers cover
sports, with the Toronto Star and the Globe &
Mail breaking news throughout the day. And all the blogs out there.
Heck. Everyone and their kid has a blog. It seems a long way from the
time where the Buffalo News put
their day's sports section up at 9:00 AM. Before
I leave,
I'm going to start another tradition, an uncovered story of the day. So
keeping with the basketball theme: Born
agitator (Columbus Dispatch) compares Blue
Jackets' tough guy Jared Boll to Cleveland Cavalier rebounder Anderson
Varejao.
