I dislike greeting card companies.  I think that they are an evil embodied only by the cardboard rectangles that we shuffle around the world like money, germs, or, more likely, money coated in germs.  To this extent I tend to take issue with holidays defined by greeting cards such as Mother’s and Father’s days and Valentine’s day.  Also, Children’s day, the hell’s up with that? 

Now that I’ve created a compiled image, I thought I would share with the readers the last project that I completed before I started writing for Hockey Punx.  There isn’t much to say that you can’t see for yourself, but there are links below that will take you to my commentaries.  Thanks, enjoy

What is the deal with Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender Dan Ellis?  Nashville hockey fans used to champion Ellis due to his humble yet fun, open, and honest personality.   The man could even make a good time out of mid-game interviews from the bench.  He was a solid goalie, but the fans loved him because he was simply a lovable sort of guy.  What happened between the end of the Predators’ season and now that has turned him into sounding like a bit of jerk whose hobby is introducing his tonsils to heels of his shoes.

He made waves this summer by getting into twitter arguments with fans, a subject that I wrote about a little.  Folks across the NHL were pretty shocked and confused as to why Ellis was suddenly antagonizing and belittling fans.  Even those defending Ellis’ comments found themselves unsure as to why a professional hockey player had any reason to refer to other professions as dime-a-dozen, un-skilled labor, with his job being more akin to brain surgery (not to mention saying that Paris Hilton deserves all of her fame and fortune because she was fortunate… what?). But the Lightning management took hold of situation in order to prevent it from happening again, and encouraged Mr. Ellis to focus on his rebound control, leaky 5-hole, and not giving up laughably soft goals, while downplaying his internet debate skills.  While the latter has been successful for Ellis he still managed to find a way to remind all of us of his twitter escapades.  During a post-game interview he said the following about Linus Omark’s shootout goal:

It’s embarrassing for him. You come into a league, a respectful league like this, and you try a little move like that. It’s not a very classy thing. That’s just the kind of person he is.

YouTube - The Shootout Goal in Question

All I can do is echo what most bloggers have been saying.  The shootout is a gimmick, we know it, Ellis knows, he needs to deal with it.  If you hate that shootout then don’t let the game get to the shootout, stop the puck.  After all, Ellis did gives up 3 goals on only 23 shots.  Omark did nothing that violated the rules or taint the spirit of the shootout. The young Swede wasn’t really showing off because if Omark pulled out that move at the All-Star skills competition he would have  hardly been on the judge’s radar.  The only thing truly unconventional about the shootout goal was that the spin-o-rama came at the beginning of the attempt rather than towards the end.  Just a cursory search on YouTube will show you dozens of examples of NHLers using the same move in- and outside of shootouts.  My opinion, Ellis feels pretty foolish from being dazzled and then tricked by a simple forehand/backhand deke.  He needs to get over it.

Writing Music: Make Do And Mend – End Measured Mile

Jer gave me a nice little introduction and then ruined my plans to repost some old blogs by pasting convenient links to some of my work, but it’s good because Ontheforecheck is not only a great Nashville Predators blog, but the man behind it, Dirk Hoag is a master of numbers, stats, spreadsheets and the always amazing Super Schedule covers anything and everything about your team’s schedule this season. Currently the thing to see over at my blog is my series on colors in the NHL, the first post contains links to the rest. In the meantime I’m going to leave you with a article that I wrote a couple weeks ago.

The Current State of Fans and Body Contact in the NHL

Watching and listening to Predators games this season I’ve noticed a common topic that frequently crops up between play-by-play man Pete Weber and color commentator Terry Crisp. Crispy has consistently noted the strong fan reaction when the home town crowd sees one of their boys leveled with a hit. The gist of Crispy’s comments are along the lines of “current NHL fans believe that any body contact between two players should result in penalties or retaliation.” Further, he believes that the NHL hockey culture as cultivated by the central NHL officers are, at least in part, to blame for current fan-reactions to body contact. As with most things there is a grain of truth in what Terry Crisp has been saying recently, but as always I’d like to spend some time thinking about what may actually be going on in the minds of fans.

For better or worse every hockey fan can agree that the game has changed since the league entered the post-lockout world. Grappling and constant body-crippling hits have either decreased or been totally eliminated from the game and as fans we’re now experiencing traditional North American hockey with some added European style flavors. The NHL have also placed a greater emphasis on player safety with rules that try and protect players from head shots and other plays that result in high probability of injury. The easiest thing to say about the fans is that when you and your friends or family are sitting in the stands all you can see is the hit. Like with many potential penalties, the fans can’t see every detail. Sometimes the fans see a trip, but the hometown guy just stepped on a stick. The same thing happens to referees. Predators fans may recall a penalty last year called against (I think) Kevin Klein. He was called for a slash after Klein’s opponent broke his stick by clashing with Klein’s. The same thing can happen with hits of all types, but I don’t think that is the essence of the issue nor what Crispy has noted in his commentary.

I think the fan unrest that we’re seeing when it comes from hits stems from two things: perceived inconsistency of rule enforcement and sensitization. As always this isn’t a commentary on how people are doing their jobs, but rather a hopefully objective exploration of a hypothesis. With the NHL’s closed door, window, and vent policy fans know little to nothing about injuries, rule making, and rule enforcement outside of what is directly observable in public settings. It is therefore difficult, neigh impossible, to comprehend how the NHL deals with supplemental punishment. After several seasons of confusion on the parts of fans as to why and how certain suspensions and fines are doled out we’re becoming acutely aware of inconsistencies. It’s tough when you see a fan favorite penalty killer and fourth line grinder go into the boards face first and watch the guilty party skate away and face no consequences, then days later see a player get suspended for two games after trying to squeeze an opposition player through the cracks in the glass. I could illustrate more instances, but if you’re a hockey fan I’m sure you’re aware of a dozen examples on your own.

What you’re seeing is the perceived inconsistencies in enforced discipline that is causing fans to become hyper-sensitive to hits and any other type of body contact. Fans have started to look at and mentally break down each and every hit trying to determine not if it’s clean or dirty, but rather to what degree of dirty it was. The problem is then only compounded as similar hits are treated differently and further complicated by fans trying to figure out what equation is used to determine how justice is doled out, or not doled out as the case may be. At some point fans might as well boo any hit because no one really knows when or if a hit will be considered dirty by the NHL.

As a final note, the whole Crosby/slew-foot topic could also be included in the above blog, but I won’t be addressing that.