Monday Rat Pack
By Frank Rekas
Welcome to another Monday edition of the Monday Rat Pack. As usual, a list of thoughts of mine and some links to some blog posts that you may not have read from last week.
Enjoy!
* I’m going to start off by congratulating my favorouite player Jeremy Roenick for being elected to the U.S. Hockey Hall Of Fame a few days ago. Truly a player that played the game the way it was meant to be played. Listen to his inteview on Fan 960 in Calgary as he describes what he’s proud of.
* On top of that, Jeremy also credits his first NHL Head coach Mike Keenan for making him the player he became. Read this terrific article about the time Keenan scared a young JR during a game, and turned his style of play around. I had the ultimate pleasure of watching JR develop and have to say, thanks Mike for your “iron” ways. Say whatever you want, Keenan knows the buttons to push. If you’re man enough you respond in a positive manner. It you aren’t, you shrivel up and regress. Perfect example was a young but talented Krissy Huselius. You had to be here in Florida to see it.
* The Chicago Blackhawks’ Antti Niemi was awarded $2.75 million in his arbitration hearing on Saturday. The Hawks have 48 hours to match, trade or walk away. Provided they end up demoting or trading Cristobal Huet, this is doable. However, it seems as though the Hawks are considering less expensive options, like Marty Turco and Jose Theodore. Bottom line is they have to decide if Niemi is really worth the money. Is he?
* I’m not going to write anything about the Ilya Kovalchuck saga. It’s made me tired and I’m quite bored with it.
* The Tampa Bay Lightning have signed center Dominic Moore to a two year deal worth about $1.1 million per season. Lots of people like this signing for Tampa. I don’t remember the Florida Panthers getting too much praise last year when they signed him. What’s changed?
* James Wisniewski has been acquired by the New York Islanders to toughen up their defence. As long as they are prepared for bonehead plays and stupid penalties it’s a good move! Don’t forget the Blackhawks basically gave him away to Anaheim a couple years ago, and now the ducks have pretty much done the same.
* Alexander Frolov goes to the New York Rangers and Alexei Ponikarovsky goes to the Los Angeles Kings. The Rangers keep taking on problems and the Kings keep taking chances. Frustration will be had on both coasts.
* The latest issue of the Hockey news has annoited top draft pick Taylor Hall as the Great Whyte Hope. Whyte representing a famous street in downtown Edmonton. It also represents one of the newest sites here at FanSided, Oil On Whyte led by Jeff Chapman.
* My last bullet point for today comes at the suggestion of my daughter. Here’s a video of a couple six year old kids found on You Tube as well as on the Florida Panthers website in a story about David Booth working with some youngsters. This video has had over one million hits!
Here’s a few stories around the blogosphere that you may have missed last week:
Down Goes Brown has a unique and interesting view about grievences in the NHL. As only he can write it.
During the summer us bloggers writers sometimes get stuck for things to write about. Blades of Funny actually turned that into his own article last week, and found there is something to write about. And people in Angola need to see it!
The Active Stick tells us how she became a fan of the Montreal Canadiens. Gotta love it.
Patrick Hoffman over at Red Light District Hockey wrote a nice piece about NHL video games becoming more realistic. Helps to have a nice 52″ T.V. as well.
Steve Ovadia from PuckUpdate thinks that the Bruins should have signed forward Blake Wheeler weeks ago instead of letting him to go arbitration. He’s probably right.
Litter Box Cats writer Donny Rivette did a nice post about an ESPN report that analyzed ove 100 sports arena’s and their food serevce. Unfortunately South Florida didn’t get such a nice report.
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