With one day to go before the 2009-10 season kicks off, it’s time for hockey blogs and fans alike to spit out a flurry of predictions in hopes of being vindicated come the hoisting of Lord Stanley’s Mug come June. We here at HockeyPunx want in on the action too.

But I won’t lie to you, reader, what I’m about to drop on you isn’t merely prediction, but instead the pure, unvarnished truth; from God’s lips to my ears (to your eyes). After reading this, if you don’t immediately start placing bets in Vegas and off-shore gambling rings, you’re a god damn fool.

Without further ado, here is how all the teams will be ranking in their respective conference come season end. Fact.

I will not even attempt to justify my rankings, as the stat sheet at the end of the season never tries to justify itself. The stat sheet simply acts as a reflection of the facts, and my “predictions” are exactly that.

Hey, why not make some of your own predictions today? Post them in the comments below or on our forums?

In the punk rock world, veganism  is fairly commonplace (and almost mandatory in some circles), primarily as a political statement and alternative lifestyle. Simply put, veganism is a stricter form of vegetarianism that strives to avoid all animal products (meat, poultry, eggs, fish, dairy, leather, etc).

This practice, however, hasn’t quite spilled over from the punk scene into hockey rink. But you do occasionally find exceptions, such as Canadiens’ winger Georges Laraque. It was just earlier this year that Laraque decided to become vegetarian, but Laraque just recently this month announced he had made the full conversion to veganism, claiming the decision was made primarily for political rather than nutritional reasons.

Laraque stated he wanted to “break the stereotype that all vegans are skinny people with long hair.”

With around 1,170 career penalty minutes and a reputation as an NHL badass, some might be surprised to learn that he has a sensitive side when it comes to animals and animal rights. But that just makes him more of a bad ass.

 So, are there other hockey players with similar punk street cred? Scott Niedermayer, while not vegan, has been involved in animal rights actions through PETA (yes, I know, PETA is often more of an embarassment to animal rights more than anything, but at least it’s something). Not only is Niedermayer a Ducks defensemen, but he’s a defender of ducks, too (see what I did there?)!

In a letter urging the Chicago City Council to uphold it’s expiring ban on foie gras back in 2007, Scotty stated

“As an Anaheim Duck, I hate to see real ducks tortured so that a handful of wealthy chefs can serve their diseased organs. Please uphold this compassionate law.”

Former NHL players Phil Housley and Igor Larionov were also reportedly vegan. There are probably others in the club, but cursory google results don’t turn up much.

By the way, if you want more information on why one might become vegan, and to learn just how sustainable a lifestyle veganism can be, a good place to start is Vegan Outreach’s “Why Vegan?”

This week’s hockey history (at least, as I see it) lesson is brought to you by Eugene Hütz.

“many girls want to be carnal with Lanny… because, like me, he is such a premium dancer!”

Very few hockey fans know that before Lanny McDonald ever picked up a hockey stick, he was one of the great opening and closing pitchers in the history of the MLB.

What a combination of hair. Wow.

but after giving up a home run to some crippled guy, Lanny decided to move on.

Don't worry. Lanny didn't think it was funny either.

So, now at nine years of age, Lanny decided to follow in his father and brother’s footsteps and play hockey.

Despite being a grown man with a mustache, the other kids all the way up through junior just couldn’t seem to match Lanny’s scoring touch. Being one of the most respectable, honorable, and honest players of the game, the highly touted right winger was rewarded in being drafted by his childhood favorites, Toronto Maple Leafs (yuck.), fourth overall.

"I've come to kick ass and chew bubble gum... and I don't chew fuckin' bubble gum."

Since Lanny never tried to fracture someone’s skull or reinvent the game (that’s why you like him), to explain the path Lanny took in the NHL is to explain the situations around him and how he handled them.

After developing into the scoring machine he naturally was, Lanny became very good friends with the team’s captain Darryl Sittler. The promising team progressed year after year but kept falling short to the eventual Stanley Cup Champions, the Montreal Canadiens.

Part rumor and fact (I'll let you decide which parts), Lanny was once mistaken as a walrus in a hunting program. Escaping with a broken nose and wrist, Lanny went on to score his most famous goal as a Maple Leaf when he put away the Islanders in the 1978 playoffs.

After losing to the Canadiens for the second year in a row, the Maple Leafs organization decided it was time to shake things up and brought in harsh task master Punch Imlach who had coached the Maple Leafs to win the Cup in the 60′s.

As soon as he joined the Maple Leafs, he said there were only five or six good players on the team and immediately butted heads with Sittler (being that Sittler was a well respected member in the player’s union). While Sittler had a no trade clause (the Maple Leafs couldn’t trade Sittler unless Sittler approved the trade), Imlach went around that by irritating the team with stupid rules like wearing suits at all times and no beer on road trips which, considering that the whole goal of the game is to drink alcohol from the Cup, really put a damper on the team.

everything in this picture screams, "fuck face."

Since he couldn’t trade Sittler, Imlach decided to be a total fucker and trade Sittler’s friends. Yeah, welcome to high school. He really did this.

"No beer on road trips? I'd want to punch Imlach, too! Wakka Wakka Wakka!"

As if Imlach didn’t suck enough, Lanny was a target for being the Maple Leafs’ union representative and friend of Sittler. Lanny was traded to what was considered the worst team in the league, the Colorado Rockies.

Eventually rejected by management, Imlach also tried to sell the team name as the Toronto American Wal*Marts.

That site is just unreal.

It’s no surprise that a team coached by Don Cherry would suck, but Lanny made the best of it even if his numbers declined.

You at least have to give him credit, he practices what he preaches... Too bad he keeps his head up when dressing himself in the morning.

Lanny would only last three seasons in Colorado before being traded back to his home province with the Calgary Flames.

I would've traded three Gretzkys and a Sittler for this gem.

With the Flames, his numbers picked back up and he even challenged Wayne Gretzky for part of a memorable season in the scoring race.

Eventually, the Flames would reach the Stanley Cup Finals in 1989.

Magical Mustache Tour '89.

Lanny would end his career the same way he began, by scoring a goal on Montreal ice. This time it was for his home province and the Stanley Cup.

Let’s just say…

Fuck Imlach, Lanny got that beer.

He retired on top. You can’t blame him.

Lanny is just an all around good guy and deserved to have the fairy tale career he did. His story can make this atheist almost believe in karma at times. That mustache is what dreams are made of.

Click here to watch a video of Lanny McDonald.

The regular season is just around the corner! A few of us on the HockeyPunx Message Board have decided now is the time to get a fantasy league together. Whether you’ve never played before of if fantasy hockey is old hand to you, you’re welcome to join our league. Sign up for our message board and check out this thread to get more information about how to join. Sign up soon, we want our league finalized well before the start of the season.

When Jake the Snake was a kid, he soon realized that playing defense would be difficult with asthma. So, like any kid of the 1930s would do, he had his dad carve him a goalie stick out of a tree root and let people shoot pucks at his face.

as if acne and covering your boner with your science book were bad enough, try stopping pucks with your face for five different teams before the age of 16.

Coming from a poor family, Jacques’ father made his first pads with stuffed potato sacks and reinforced them with wooden planks. While it has been debated whether it was to relax or family need, his mother also taught him how to knit everything from underwear to tuques. That would be something he’d continue to do his whole life.

While playing goal for a factory team at 15, his father mentioned that the other players were earning a salary. Jacques talked to the coach and started earning 50 cents a game as long as he didn’t tell the other players.

young jacques tuque a lot of crap from other players for his love of reading and knitting.

Filled with intelligence and innovation, it was no surprise that the courted Plante would only work a couple of weeks in a factory before being groomed for the Canadiens big club.

His innovations include communicating with his teammates (and also raising the glove hand for icing calls), leaving the net to play dumped pucks, stressing positional play (pioneering the ever popular butterfly style of goal-tending), and possibly his biggest innovation, when natural disaster Andy Bathgate took a wild backhander and split Jacques’ nose open in a game needing seven stitches, regular use of the goalie mask.

Most people my age are only familiar with one other incident involving a natural disaster and Jake the Snake.

that little kid sitting in the front row and the looks on Gene’s face are priceless.

"eff this ess." coming out after having his face "rooned," the other team was the first in history to also experience what it's like to be haunted by a bloody serial killer mask.

While he had used the mask in practices before, traditionalist Toe Blake was furious when he came out wearing it. Not one to take shit from a guy named Toe, Jacques continued to win.

Despite winning five consecutive Cups and six overall with the Canadiens, Jacques was traded to New York for Gump “I don’t need a nickname because my name is f-ing Gump” Worsley. Jacques being traded to New York from Montreal at the time could only be compared to taking your significant other to that new hip sushi place everyone is talking about and they just poop on a plate and hand it to you.

honey, im homely.

It’s no surprise that Jacques decided to retire early shortly after.

during his retirement, plante took up a job with molson.

After being retired briefly, fellow bad ass Scotty Bowman asked him to park himself between the pipes as the Montreal Jr. Canadiens were set to match up against the powerhouse Soviet National Team.

Stressful?

“Suppose you were working at your job one day, and you made a little mistake. Then all of a sudden a red light went on over your desk, and fifteen thousand people stood up and booed.” – Jacques Plante

Despite all that mess, he only let in one goal and his team won 2-1. This prompted the Soviet Coach, Anatoli Tarasov, to say, “Jacques Plante is the best goaltender I’ve ever seen.”

hmm, how horrifying do i want to look today?

He won seven Vezinas, six Stanley Cups, and carried a 2.37 goals against average with 82 shutouts in his 18 year career. What’s more important are the advancements he brought to the sport of hockey.

Click here to watch a video on Jacques Plante.

or my favorite nickname of his… Old Blood and Guts!

You don't get that nickname wearing ironic sweaters and drawing a mustache on your finger.

“For 20 years, man and boy, this evil fellow has been punching people, hitting them over the head with his stick, chewing their ears, butting, gouging, shoving, and generally bedeviling his fellow men and always for handsome fees.” – John Lardner

It’s no surprise that one of hockey’s toughest players entered the league how he’d later be remembered: talented, eccentric, mean, and tough. When he was sold to the Boston Bruins for $50,000 and 6 players, Eddie Shore entered the NHL with a reputation following him. Shore had previously played for the Edmonton Eskimos and had been cut by a skate deeply requiring 14 stitches in his leg. Not one to miss a minute of a game (yeah, he played full games), let alone a shift, he went back out, played full on, and popped all of the stitches soaking his pants completely in blood. Later, with the Melville Millionaires, Shore was instructed not to get a single penalty in the championship game. Targeted throughout his career, Shore suffered a broken nose, jaw, lost six teeth, and was knocked out more than once. Despite this, he did not take one penalty. After 50 minutes, he had to be taken off the ice unconscious.

legend says that this is exactly how he came out of his mother's va-jay. he also got a fighting major for sucker punching one of her ovaries.

In Shore’s rookie season, Billy Coutu and Red Cleghorn were traded from the Montreal Canadiens to the Bruins. In their first practice, Shore supposedly strutted in front of them and pissed Coutu off. One story says Coutu body slammed Shore while the other says that Coutu rushed at Shore with the puck and later collided with him. Regardless, what ended up happening left Shore with his ear almost completely severed off.

barf.

While it took Shore a couple of doctors, he eventually found one who would sew it back on. He refused anesthetic, watched the doctor patch him up while holding a mirror, and actually made him redo a stitch. “It would have left a scar!” he would tell a reporter later in life. He said Coutu severed the ear with his stick and Coutu was fined $50.00. Shore later claimed otherwise and Coutu’s $50.00 was returned. I guess no blood, no foul.

more evil than Ivan Drago eating black licorise and shaking hands with Fred Phelps.

Other stories have New York promoter, Tex Rickard, hiring ambulances to circle the block with the sirens on (yes, that’s where Slap Shot got the idea) and even posting wanted posters that read, “Dead or Alive” with Shore’s picture all over the city!

I wonder what he thinks of Animal Collective.

Shore’s most notorious incident came during a game with the Maple Leafs. Shore was rushing up the ice with puck in tow when he was hit by King Clancy (man, I love old time hockey names). When no penalty was called, Shore war irate and went for the closest Maple Leaf. Whether accidental or not, he upended Maple Leafs’ scorer Ace Bailey causing him to go head first on the ice fracturing his skull at both temples.

one five year old was quoted to say, "WHOA! SICK!"

Bailey was in a coma for two weeks and had to have two brain surgeries. To raise money, Shore created the first NHL all star game (for real) to donate money to Bailey. The reaction of public forgiveness from Bailey prompted an enormous cheer from the Toronto fans (the all star game was all stars vs. maple leafs) and this photo op:

"you're still an f-in' d-bag. you know that, right?"

Shore’s list of injuries include:
over 1,000 stitches
14 broken noses
12 broken collarbones
5 broken jaws
a broken back
a broken hip

He also holds the unbreakable record for fighting majors in one game. Since players are now tossed after too many, Shore was once able to accumulate five fighting majors in which he fought Montreal Maroons (yeah, there were two Montreal teams at the time) players, Buck Boucher, Dave Trottier, Seibert. By the end of the game, Shore had a broken nose, lost four teeth, two black eyes, and a concussion. Trottier, Seibert, and Shore ended up in the hospital.

While he later became an owner full of other eccentricities, the stories mainly include just making the players actually work the stadium they played in and a complete hard nosed DIY approach to everything.

He was a hockey player’s hockey player.
I can’t get this to post for the life of me.

Click here to watch a video on Eddie Shore.

He is the only defenceman to win the Hart Trophy four times, an all star eight times, and won the Cup twice.

HockeyPunx is go! This is the new site. Take a few moments to browse through it, then immediately go sign up for our message board and start talking with all of us! Share your ideas and tell us what you’d like to see come of this site. This is just the start, we need your help to get going.

Here’s some other ways you can help:

• Find out how you can write news/opinions/etc for our blog/main page
• Give us suggestions and ideas for the site
• We know you have a punk rock friend who likes hockey. Tell them about us.
• At the bottom of every page/post, there’s a drop down box that lets you easily share our articles on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and other social networking sites. If you see something you like, please share it. it only takes seconds!
• Contact us (for whatever reason)
• Be creative. Find some other ways to help out.

Thanks for stopping by and showing some interest. Please stick around for a while.

Although this site is certainly not public yet, we are working on features to be ready for once the site is available.  One such feature is the ”New to Hockey” page, which encompasses three new sections: Common Terms, Common Penalties, and Basics. All three of which are under the New to Hockey mother-page. As time goes by, we hope to add much more information to page. In the mean time, if you don’t know your hockey, the New to Hockey page is the place to start!