Dedicated to Patrick N. and Chivas.
The biggest news going on in the world of hockey is me going to Staples Center last Friday evening and dropping all sorts of cash for a season seat about 20 rows behind the Kings goal. Among the other activities that took place in order to soothe the pain of losing out on so much money was walking in and getting a glimpse of the Kings locker room, talking to many of the blonde girls they have working there (and there were A LOT, it was ridiculous!) and hanging out on the Kings bench while some guy hosed down the ice. As if it needs to be said, but I’ll be paying for this seat for the rest of my freaking life and donations are now being accepted.
Aside from now having access to every Kings home game, there are apparently other Season Ticket Holder perks that I can look forward to as the season moves along…like me having the ability to donate my tickets to charity if I can’t make it to a game. Cuz yeah, that’s way better than scalping them. I ended up passing on pre-paid parking as it came with absolutely NO discount. I’m happy parking with my good friend “parking attendant guy” over beyond the Metro tracks and walking a block instead of paying over double the parking price to have some chick in a red jacket sit in a booth.
All in all, I have no doubt that this will be a good investment, HOWEVER, if any of you are ever at a Kings game at Staples some time during the upcoming season, stay away from section 10*, please. I’m going to be annoyed enough as it is, I don’t need more people crowding up my seat or all my buddies seats because you wanna come by and say ‘hi’ or give me gifts. And if you do decide to ignore my plea, then you better be carrying a beer with my name on it as you approach me or at least be kind enough to allow me the company of your lady friend while you go buy me a beer. One or the other, I’m not too picky. But really, send me an e-mail if you happen to be in Los Angeles and feel like meeting up for a beer and running down that ‘On The Offense’ guy.
In other just as important hockey news all plans are set for Frozen Fury IX in Las Vegas this September. Frozen Fury is an annual pre-season game taking place in Vegas between the Kings and the Colorado Avalanche. I’m sure most of your teams participate in such an event against other teams during the pre-season except not in VEGAS! Which, quite frankly, I’m not all that crazy about but its all part of the sacrifice of covering hockey…sometimes you just gotta be willing to go that extra step.
All that remains now is heading down to Anaheim and checking out what kind of deals the Ducks have going on season tickets.
FREE AGENCY
The free agent market has now been pretty much finished up with as the Oilers were the last team to make a significant signing when they acquired Petr Sykora for one year but maybe someone..MAYBE, can remember about this guy Yanic Perrault?
The other day I was arguing with a friend of mine, or more like, giving him a hockey lesson on how pointless some of the moves that the St. Louis Blues made this off season are. They bring back Doug Weight, who for the first time in his career actually saw some success and then they sign Bill Guerin. All the talk amongst ESPN and blah, blah is how this is a 1996 US World Cup Reunion….no, it’s not, at least not when the talent is still back in 1996. Weight can still get a puck across the crease and that’s all nice and cute and Tkachuk will probably still be right there in front of the net to deflect the puck in and Guerin will stand in the high slot or on top of the face off circle and hit that one timer and the Savvis Center will boom as the bell tolls signaling the number of goals the Blues have scored.
The hell, that doesn’t sound so bad after all.
As if Phoenix hadn’t learned their lesson when they signed Brett Hull a couple of years ago, since the last time I was here, the Coyotes signed Jeremy Roenick to a one year deal which is probably just Gretzky wanting to see his protege play his lasy days under him? Gretkzy was part owner of a junior team in Hull and Gretkzy recruited Roenick to play for that team and so they have a history. Along with being a former Coyote, it made sense to bring Roenick back…sort of. Roenick went from singing the praises of Canadian NHL teams in hopes of getting one of them interested in his services and then the next week he signs with Phoenix?! Alrighty, J.R….this is probably and hopefully his last shot at regaining whatever credibility he had left. Good luck, Phoenix.
2006-2007 NHL Season
Be on the lookout for a season preview within the next couple of weeks. NHL pre-season starts on September 17th with what sounds like a pretty good game between the Phoenix Coyotes and the Edmonton Oilers in WINNIPEG. We got any Winnipeggers reading this?! What’s the outlook amongst the hockey faithful about this game? Talk about the NHL teasing the hell out of a city.
On 9-25 the Senators play the Canadiens in Salmon River, Nova Scotia who won the Kraft Hockeyville contest when resident Jack McCheese was able to eat 100 24-Singles packs of Kraft cheese in 15 mins. WOW! Is that true? Who cares.
On September 23rd the Florida Panthers and New York Rangers will play in Puerto Rico at Jose Miguel Agrelot Coliseum. Puerto Rico won the rights to have this game after having to deal with the Montreal Expos for half a season plus. Poor bastards. Now they get to watch a real sport.
The Custody Battle
It’s like watching two greedy parents fight over their million dollar baby or at least for the million dollars and the kid just happens to be in the way. The Pittsburgh Penguins and Metallurg Magnitogorsk of the Russian Superleague are currently battling it out via words and threats of a lawsuit over 20 year old Evgeni Malkin who is described as the best player in the world currently not playing in the NHL.
Malkin, who was selected by the Pens as the No. 2 pick in the 2004 NHL draft, apparently ditched his Russian club after arriving in Finland for training camp. Rumors going around right now say that Malkin is currently in Canada but his U.S. agents won’t confirm anything beyond that “He’s safe”. No word on what his Canadian agents (if any) are saying.
Meanwhile, his Russian agents are yelling rape:
“We all are really shocked by his departure and we will take legal actions against the NHL club Penguins from Pittsburgh,” Metallurg general director Gennady Velichkin told Itar-Tass news agency. “Americans like to speak about democracy and teach the whole world how to live but engage in sport terrorism and simply steal people.”
Wah, wah. Come on, Alexander Ovechkin went through this and his Russian team lost in court. For some reason the Blue Jackets fought for Nikolai Zherdev and they won in court, this is nothing new and unfortunately for Russian teams and all other leagues in Europe EVERYONE wants to play in the NHL. Aside from winning the Stanley Cup, it’s probably the biggest dream of any hockey player in the world. It’s just that simple.
Now, if Malkin’s Russian contract held the clause that he could bolt for the NHL then this is all fine and legal, but even then most Russian teams have been willing to put up a fight against the NHL. The other talk is that Malkin might have secretly signed a contract with the Penguins before signing with his Russian team which is a whole different deal. Another angle to this is that on August 7th, 2005, he had come to a compromise and signed a deal with Metallurg Magnitogorsk that would have kept him in Russia until 2007. The one year deal annulled his previous commitment that would have kept him in Russia until April 2008 and means that he could play for the Penguins in 07-08.
After all that, however, Malkin has made it clear that playing in the NHL is his top priority and mama Malkin has said that Metallurg played on her sons patriotism and cajoled him into signing.
Malkin continues to be “missing” but is expected to report to the Pens rookie camp.
The kids a hot shot and belongs in the NHL…that’s all there is to it.
