Remember back at the 2010-11 NHL All Star Game the NHL made the awful mistake of having shitrock band 3 Doors Down play during intermission? And remember how we wrote at length about how the NHL got this wrong?

Well, apparently they didn’t learn their lesson. It’s almost as if no one amongst the NHL decision-makers even reads this blog! There’s rumors afoot that Canadian disappointment Nickelback will help jumpstart the 2011-12 NHL season by playing in Winnipeg during “NHL FaceOff,” a season kick-off party just days before the actual season opens.

Much like we here at HockeyPunx took great exception to 3 Doors Down being able to sully the good name of hockey, Rob Williams and Bartley Kives at the Winnipeg Free Press aren’t too happy about Nickelback potentially doing the same.

So much so that they wrote an open letter to Gary Bettman and the NHL asking them to stop this madness. And how could we not agree? If 3 Doors Down was an affront to our sensibilities, then Nickelback certainly doesn’t offer any redemption for the NHL’s poor decision making.

From the column:

“Please, Person In Charge Of Booking This Event, do not bring Nickelback to Winnipeg that weekend. They can play the arena to their own fans — of which there are many — any time. But a free public performance? That would be tantamount to spitting on Bobby Hull’s toupee, burning Dale Hawerchuk’s jersey, leaving something wet on Thomas Steen’s city council seat or tripping Teemu Selanne on the ice during his final season in the NHL.”

And who do they suggest as possible replacements for Nickelback (aside from “Anyone but Nickelback or Bands That Sound Like Nickelback”)? Among others, they offer two altervative, equally Canadian bands that most HockeyPunx readers can get behind: Nomeansno or D.O.A.!

See, NHL? People are catching on. But those there at the league aren’t, no matter how much we spell it out. Punk Rock is the Soundtrack to Hockey. The Only Soundtrack.

Your average Nickelback fan.

Why not take this a step further, and instead of just allowing any Canadian punk band to play, pick punk bands that specifically come from the greater Winnipeg area? Who comes to mind? Obviously, Propagandhi, Comeback Kid, or The Weakerthans. Though, admittedly, The Weakerthans might be a little hard to land.

Like Williams and Kives do, we here at HockeyPunx will acknowledge that Nickelback sells. They’ve managed to convince a whole lot of idiots to buy their records. But think about the demographic Nickelback attracts. Does this really exemplify the type of person who gives two shits about hockey? The “dour, depressing” (as Williams and Kives aptly put it) stylings of this band will only serve to dampen the energy and intensity of the game, and of the game’s fans.

So to the NHL, we leave you with the same advice you have seemingly chosen to ignore after the 3 Doors Down debacle -  “next time (and every time); punk rock.”

HockeyPunx has made us of other social networks to help promote our small niche community. As you know, we’re on both facebook and twitter (please go like/follow us on those networks!)

We decided to plunge deeper in the social networking world by joining tumblr a few days ago.

Click Here for HockeyPunx on Tumblr

Please follow along with us on tumblr. We’ll be using tumblr as a microblog. It will in no way replace this main site, but we will let you know on our tumblr microblog when we’ve updated back here on our mainpage. We’ll also be posting cool things we find around the web that might be of interest to hockey and punk fans, but that don’t merit a full writeup here on the mainpage. It’s worth following if you like what we do here.

Don’t forget the other social networks we have a small home on.

So it appears that Greg Wyshynski and some of the other folks over at the Puck Daddy blog on Yahoo! Sports are undeclared allies to those of us who want to believe that there is an intimate connection between punk rock and hockey. In the fairly recent past, Puck Daddy has had an interview with Propagandhi, articles here and there that have the occasional punk reference sprinked in, and hey, remember that one time Ryan Lambert, Puck Daddy heel-writer, co-hosted Up The Pucks!?

On Sunday they added more fuel to the fire, posting an interview with Fox Tard, of Canadian  punk band The 3Tards, for their Hockey Guilty Pleasures feature. We’ve praised the Hockey Guilty Pleasures feature on twitter recently, and this gives us even more reason to love it.

With HockeyPunx’s literally tens of readers, I must admit that I am shocked, shocked I say, that my invitation to be interviewed has yet to come in the mail. I’ll continue to stand by my post office box waiting for it, but in the meantime we’re glad to see punk is being represented.

Go read the interview here, and hopefully we can convince Puck Daddy editor Wyshynski to keep the punk rock postings coming.

We’ve certainly talked about John K. Samson before (here and here), and unless you’ve been living on Mars for the past decade, under a rock in a cave, with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears, you know he is a former member of the beloved Propagandhi (who we’ve discussed here), and current memeber of the also-beloved Winnipeg-based band The Weakerthans. He’s also responsible for some amazing solo projects.

With Samson being a Winnipeg native, we were certainly interested in what he had to say about the return of the NHL in to his hometown, and now that the Jets have released their new logo design, we were once again wondering what his thoughts would be. Thankfully, he wrote a piece about it for The Winnipeg review. Definitely check out the full write-up, but here’s a quick, relevant excerpt:

“The new logo will imply that whoever wears it supports both the actions of the Canadian military and the politicians who deploy them. Where does that leave those hockey fans that feel varying degrees of otherwise? At the very least, putting such a weapon on a logo that every hockey-loving Winnipegger should feel enthusiastic to wear, both here at home and while traveling outside our city, a logo that children will draw and redraw with crayons innumerable times, is a decision we should ask some serious questions about. Hockey should be one of those rare and valuable activities we can all share and communicate through, no matter our beliefs or backgrounds. The new Jets logo will tell some of us that we simply aren’t welcome at the rink. “

Read more here.

Last week we posted news that Iafrate released a new tshsirt that featured their logo that looks suspiciously similar to that of the Washington Capitals, stating that it was for fans of “bands that blatantly infringe NHL copyright to produce their own logo.” This led to a few of you emailing us images of other bands that have reappropriated NHL team logos for their own use, and we’d thought we’d share some of them with you here. With any luck, this post will get HockeyPunx (as well as the bands featured) threatened with some fun lawsuits from the NHL brass. We can only hope.

The image to the right was sent to me from Nick (originally from Oakland, CA), who says he came up with the idea of the chaos-spoked-B logo used for the his old “Boston beatdown grind” band INTHESHIT. I didn’t get the chance to listen to this band, so don’t blame me if they’re fucking horrible. Which, with a name like INTHESHIT and a descirption of “beatdown grind,” is fairly likely. But hey, apparently at least one of them is a HockeyPunx fan, so I won’t be too hard on them

For those of you who follow our Twitter feed (and you really should be, as well as our Facebook page), you might remember some months back we found a gig flier for “pop punk” band Man Overboard that parodies the New Jersey Devils logo. I can’t find anything that links the band to any sort of hockey fandom, so it’s likely the flier came from the gig’s promoter and Man Overboard had nothing to do with it, but it’s a nice looking flier none the less.

After seeing this flier, I wanted so bad to like this band. I tracked down the band’s website, and swooned when I learned their motto is “DEFEND POP PUNK.” As a lover of pop punk, I was smitten. And then, I actually listened to the band. Unfortunately, it appears my definition of pop punk and their definition of pop punk vary greatly. When I see “pop punk,” I think bands like The Ergs!, Broadway Calls, The Lawrence Arms, RVIVR, or any number of old Lookout Records bands. But when Man Overboard says “pop punk,” they’re thinking bands more like Yellowcard, Fall Out Boy, and other overly-produced corporate wuss-rock that doesn’t have much at all to do with punk. Bummer, because otherwise I would really love one of those Defend Punk Rock tshirsts.

MOVING ON… You’ve probably heard of hardcore band Comeback Kid. You might even know that they’re from Winnipeg. In which case, you probably wouldn’t be surprised that they have Jets-themed merchandise. Hey, one of you less lazy kids; Go try to get a statement from the newly reformed Winnipeg Jets. Then get back to me, so that I may post their statement here and pretend I actually did something interesting. Journalism!

Speaking of journalism (fuck I rule at transitions), Russ Rankin is a columnist for AMP Magazine. He’s also the former singer for such punk/hardcore bands as Good Riddance, Only Crime, and Creep Division. He’s also a big hockey fan (and according to wikipedia, he’s a “Regional Scout for the Kootenay Ice, a hockey team that competes in the Western Hockey League”). Good Riddance has definitely had some hockey-themed merch, and Rankin’s coolumn header in AMP pays homage to the Devils, as seen below:

Similar to Comeback Kid’s Winnipeg Jets shirt design, New York-based H2O has a New York Rangers themed shirt.  There’s really nothing interesting I have to say here.

Know of other punk bands that have stolen hockey logos? Let us know! You can also find an image gallery of hockey-themed punk merch over on the Up The Pucks! Facebook page, and there they also include merch that doesn’t just copy team logos, but that just has anything to do with hockey at all. As well as some band named Steel Nation who basically just put NHL team logos with their name next to it without actually integrating their band’s style into the logo in anyway, which we all know is cheating (I’m looking back at you, H2O shirt I just posted!).

Thanks to those of you who submitted some of these. Keep ‘em coming!

Up The Pucks! cohost and Iafrate frontman Peter Evans let us know a few days back that his band has some classy looking shirts available.

If you like Iafrate, or the Washington Capitals, or bands that blatantly infringe NHL copyright to produce their own logo, you should definitely get one of these:

The black shirts are $8 (plus shipping), white shirts have two-color ink and so cost a little more at $12 (plus shipping). Shipping will vary based on your location, but should be about $2 domestic. If you’re interested, contact Iafrate frontman Peter Evans by email at ninety7poundwuss [AT] hotmail.com, or on twitter @Real_PeterEvans

While you’re at it, go download their free EP from Anti-Creative Records.

John K. Samson, front-man for The Weakerthans (and former member of Propagandhi), has been discussed on our site before for mixing punk rock and hockey. However, the news today confirming the rumor that the Atlanta Thrashers are being sold and relocated to Winnipeg puts him back into the punk rock and hockey limelight.

Samson hails from Winnipeg, and grew up cheering on the Jets. With all of this talk about the NHL’s return to ‘Peg, I was often reminded of Samson (and The Weakerthans’ song “One Great City!“), and wondered what he might think of all of this.

Luckily I wasn’t the only one wondering about all of this, as Bruce Arthur reached out to Samson to get his thoughts for the National Post piece “The NHL needs Winnipeg more than Winnipeg needs the NHL”

From Arthur’s article, here’s what Samson had to say about Winnipeg’s new team:

“I’m more of the opinion that not only did Winnipeg not need the Jets, we actually needed them to leave,” he wrote. “Having said that, I was, from my earliest memories, a huge fan of the Jets. I am excited about the new team, I will go see games, I will learn about the players and coaches, discuss the wisdom of trades, worry over injuries, ponder statistics, become a fan.

“But I’ll always be wary of the idea that our identity should be founded on the whims of Gary Bettman and a couple millionaires. The NHL will never have any bearing on the fact that I’m proud of the community I’m from.”

Be sure to read Arthur’s full story.

Back in September, The Weakerthans front man John K. Samson released a solo EP on the label ANTI- entitled Provincial Road 222. According to exclaim.ca, it is the second EP in his planned seven-inch series inspired by the roads of Manitoba.

In what exclaim.ca describes as “a harmony-laden acoustic ballad,” Samson makes a plea to have Winnipeg-born NHLer Reggie “The Rifle” Leach inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on “Petition,” the EP’s second track. You can listen to this track below!

Petition

If this has you convinced, why not sign the song-inspired petition to have The Rifle inducted? Or maybe sign this slightly more formal one. Once you’re done, make sure to purchase the EP.

All Star weekend came and went, and while I already aired my grievances concerning the event I otherwise enjoyed, I of course am not the only one to have an opinion on the whole spectacle. And even though it’s been a while now since the All Star break, why not a take a look at a more positive outlook on the event to compete with my 3 Doors Down hatefest?

As mentioned on twitter, we were surprised (but excited!) to learn that John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats is a hockey fan. And while I admit that the lo-fi indie styling of his band doesn’t exactly connotate  the description “punk as fuck,” it’d be hard to argue that the Mountain Goats and John Darnielle (who has often been the solitary member of the band) haven’t thoroughly penetrated punk culture.

So we here at HockeyPunx were happy to discover that Darnielle was attending the NHL All Star events with a press pass in order to write up an article for North Carolina’s Independent Weekly, a progressive local paper from Darnielle’s current residence.

In his article, Darnielle stresses how the laid-back, mellow culture of North Carolina (where the All Star weekend was hosted this year) permeated all of the weekend activities. There’s a few gems in his recollection of the event, such as…

Prior to the red carpet walk of the 2011 NHL All-Star teams, there’s the promenade of the mascots. I don’t think there’s much I can tell you about the promenade that isn’t already covered by the phrase “promenade of the mascots”

… but I quite enjoyed his summation of the festivities:

the All-Star game is a communal event where, for once, you can actually believe that it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. How many times, as a kid, did you hear this and think, “You’re only telling me that to make me feel good, because I lost.” At the All-Star game, though, the core truth of a hoary cliché glimmers on the ice, goal after goal. I would say that, though. I was for Team Staal, which ended up one goal short of an 11-11 tie, none of them looking even remotely bothered by it, hugging and high-fiving and heading back for one last round of All-Star interviews before the games start counting again.

So go check out John Darnielle’s article, titled “Nine points: The mellow mood and high-offense charms of NHL All-Star weekend,” because, as one commenter on the article put it, “It is a source of great comfort and joy to find out that one of your most beloved musical idols is also partial to the most amazing sport on planet earth.”

Today, as some oddly-obsessed hockey fans know, is Wayne Gretzky’s 50th birthday. And according to very reliable reports, he picked up a stick “moments after leaving the womb, rushing out of the hospital and scoring a natural hat trick in a local senior league game.”

In order to half-assedly celebrate The Great One here on HockeyPunx, we’re rehashing some content that we already shared with you via our twitter account, which you should be following (but as of yet have been too lazy to click the god damn follow button).

First off, I should say that this content is from Kevin Smith’s blog, and in no way am I claiming that this is our original content. Nor am I claiming Kevin Smith wrote this exclusively for HockeyPunx (or for that matter, has any idea that HockeyPunx exists). I am merely quoting/reproducing HIS WORK here, for your reading enjoyment. But you should definitely check out his place, as there is loads of other content on there, and while you’re at it, go buy every single one of his movies immediately.

For those of you unfamiliar with him, Smith has done a zillion great things, but he is best known as writer/director of brilliant comedy flicks, a champion of indie film, and host of the SModcast podcast (along with purveyor of the SModcast Podcast Network). He is also a hockey fan.

And a huge Wayne Gretzky fan.

So when “Jordan B” innocently asked Smith about his adoration of Gretzky on Twitter he probably wasn’t expecting a longwinded rant (well, okay, if you’ve followed Smith on Twitter for any amount of time, I guess you expect nothing but longwinded rants; and we love him for it). But rant away he did, and what resulted was actually a positively heartwarming piece on Smith’s outlook on Gretzky, hockey, and how the two influence his life.

Here it is, reprinted in it’s entirety:

Dude’s a role model. Made the impossible seem possible. That inspires me.

In the time I’ve leaned on Gretzky as a higher power, I’ve made two flicks, sold out Carnegie Hall andthe Sydney Opera House, toured the country with podcasts from an entire network we built in less than a year, opened the world’s first & only podcasting theater, got Walter Gretzky into the Guinness Book of World Records, and started the long-tail, long-lead sell of Red State (the posters, pods, etc.).

I’m not saying Gretzky’s responsible for all of that; I’m well-aware I did all that stuff myself, with the help of friends & fans. But going where the puck’s gonna be comes directlyfrom Gretzky. My office walls are loaded with images of the boy from Brantford trying to do things that hadn’t been done before. Considering Gretzky’s work ethic, humility and character, why not look up to him as a role model – even if I’m 40 and I’ve done cool shit of my own?

Gretzky spent his career outdoing his own personal bests; I’d like to spend the time I’ve got left doing the same. The Askewniverse was a dream come true, but I dream bigger now. And settling for one Stanley Cup when I know I can secure a dynasty seems a waste of opportunity. Gretzky said “You miss 100% of the shots you never take.” So I stopped being cute with my puck and started firing that shit top shelf instead.

The Gretzky/hockey metaphors simplify the vast, unwieldy concept that nobody’s been able to encapsulate yet to my satisfaction: existence. Hockey offers imagery that illustrates the off-ice game of life, too…

We are goal-oriented.

We get checked constantly.

We take hard hits.

But if we work hard, assist and receive assists, and out-skate our attackers, we get to take our shots.

And the more you shoot, the better you will be able to roof that shit, or chip it right through life’s five-hole.

Avoid the corners and stay out of the scrums.

Even the best players will get penalized from time to time; feel your shame, then you get free.

Doesn’t matter what line you’re on, you come over the boards and you contribute. You produce for the team.

You can’t play every minute and you can’t win alone.

It’s an exhausting but an exhilarating game, best when played with heart.

If you go out there unprepared, all half-assed, you’re gonna lose teeth. Actually, with age, you’re gonna lose teeth regardless; might as well lose ‘em fighting for something.

Nobody wants to let you take your shot, so expect to take all manner of shit. But like Espo observed, you simply stand in the slot, take your beating and shoot the puck into the net.

It’s a fun game.

A brutal game.

A beautiful game.

The fastest game.

Keep your head up and never chase the puck; go where the puck’s gonna be.