Lazy Links: Old Men in Colorado, etc

I want to put something up here, but I don't have time to make it a good one. Some news around the league:

• Sakic is manning up for his 20th season, and Forsberg is out until Christmas for "conditioning." Your move, Sundin.
• Bruins fans are classy: Fluto Shinzawa wisely uses the picture of Sydney Crosby's first fight in his article on Andrew Ference.
• AmericanHockeyFan points to a solid example of good journalism and as you can guess, he didn't point here.
• Mirtle has a lot of time on his hands
  
• Puck Daddy and Fanhouse will have anything I missed, including another "5 Ways..." article, this time from Stu Hackel:

4. More shorthanded play. The NHL isn't going to enlarge the size of the playing surface. Forget it; the owners are not taking out two rows of their most expensive non-suite seats. And let's not consider making the game a four on four contest. Besides ruining the symmetry of the spectacle, it would negate too much of the physical element from the game, and enough has vanished since the lockout. But here's a good compromise: End the substitution of players for coincidental majors and for when minors taken while a team is already shorthanded. Two guys fight? It's four on four for five minutes. A pair of fights? Three on three. Two guys get their sticks up during a power play? It's now four on three. Those were the NHL's rules for a long time and restoring them now would make sense.

My dad would love that. I guess I should write my own "5 Ways..." article. More on that later.

2010 Olympics preview: Quatchi

While checking out the official site for the 2010 Olympics, I spent some time in their mascot section, which is quite silly, but also a lot less depressing than the ticket prices section. I found "Quatchi" there, who you see playing goalie in this picture to your right (my left - that's right, I'm INSIDE THE COMPUTER). As it turns out, I'm not the first person to find this shy-but-well-traveled photographer goalie wanna-be. They've been selling plush Quatchi dolls, and Quatchi has been travelling. I hope y'all find all of this at least half as silly as I do.

As for NHL hockey? It's still August. I'm not sure if I'll be posting until I get internet into my new apartment.

2010 Olympics preview: Men's Ice Hockey

As the 2008 Beijing Olympics come to an end (way to go, Phelps!) I'm already looking forward to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. They're February 12th to the 28th, 2010 in Vancouver and a few other nearby spots. The part I (and apparently, Canadians) care about is the Ice Hockey. I have to admit, I'm more excited for men's than women's, but mostly because I know some of the players on the Men's teams and none on the women's teams. (Where are you, WNHL?)

I've decided I want to attend the games, or at least part of them. Tickets haven't gone on sale yet, but will soon in Canada and other locations. If anyone is out in Canada and wants to nab a ticket or many for me, I'd be more than happy to make it worthwhile. I'm going to start saving now, I think. After all, it's $350 for the nosebleeds for the men's gold medal game.

So, as long as I'm going, I may as well figure out what's going on and who's playing and all that jazz. As it turns out, nine teams have already qualified for the tournament (with current medal totals in the event):

Belarus (4th in '02)
Canada (7 golds, 4 silver, 2 bronze)
Czech Republic (1 gold, 1 bronze - Czechoslovak team had 4 silver, 4 bronze)
Finland (2 silver, 2 bronze)
Russia (1 silver, 1 bronze - USSR had 7 golds, 1 silver, 1 bronze and Unified team won gold in '92)
Slovakia (5th in '06 - Czechoslovak team had 4 silver, 4 bronze)
Sweden (2 gold, 2 silver, 4 bronze)
Switzerland (2 bronze from '28 and '48)
United States (2 gold, 7 silver, 1 bronze)

There are 3 open spots in the big tournament. The top three teams from the "Qualification Tournament" get those three spots. The Qualification Tournament, in turn, has 3 spots open at the bottom of it's seeding, for teams from the Olympic Pre-qualification tournament. The Olympic Pre-qualification is in turn fed by some teams from the Pre-qualification tournament. As a result, the prequalification is being held in known hockey hotbed of Turkey, and will include the likes of Bulgaria (last in '76), Mexico (never qualified), Spain (never qualified), and Turkey (never qualified). They'll play before November, sometime, because the prequalification is on November 6-9, 2008. Already qualified for that tournament are, in seed order:

Kazakhstan (Former soviet country, finished 8th on it's own in '98)
Hungary (never qualified)
Poland (4th in '32)
Japan (never qualified)
Lithuania (never qualified)
Netherlands ('8th in 1980)
Estonia (25th - '06)
Croatia (never qualified)
Romania (competed in four)
China (never qualified)
Great Britain (Gold in '36 and bronze)
Serbia (never qualified)

And the list of those already qualified for the Qualification Tournament:
Germany (2 bronze)
Latvia (9th in '02)
Norway (8th in '72)
Denmark (never qualified)
Italy (7th in '56)
Slovenia (never qualified)
Austria (8th in '76)
Ukraine (10th in '02)
France (5th in '20)

And if you've read this far, here's a bonus: So far, the best video about the 2010 olympics is about Quatchi, a shy sasquatch who loves to travel and one day dreams of being the world's best goalie. Seriously, watch the video. You will not be dissapointed.

Logos, Icethethics

So, I'm thinking of doing gameday previews for this upcoming season. I've started to look around for bruins (and other teams) logos. It brought me to a former favorite of mine: Icethetics (formerly NHL Tournament of Logos). If you were reading hockey blogs last offseason, this was certainly one of them. It was the best source for information on the RBK Edge jerseys back then, and they were having a tournament. The Habs logo was selected as the best logo of the NHL, which I disagree with. Then again, I think my red sox "yankees suck" hatred has bled over into "habs suck" hatred, especially after last year. Canadiens fans are for the most part quite nice people, I've found, with the exception being ones that have been attacked by bruins fans. They are really annoying when they're infesting your arena, though. I could go on an on about the habs@bruins experience, and I'm sure I will soon.

They're having a center ice tournament right now of which teams logo with a line through it plus the name of the arena around it is best. Here's the Center Ice Bracket. The Bell Centre and the TD Banknorth Garden are currently squaring off like Shawn Thornton and...Komisarek? Some other hab? I don't know, they're all bad guys anyhow. Regardless, go to Icethetics and vote for the Bruins!

I also was looking through their old stuff, and found the Bruins "Guitar" (Banjo?) picture that has already burnt itself into your brain. It came from a series that someone was trying to do, the first part of which can be found here on the old site. I didn't see much beyond parts one and two, but that may be because they switched sites.

Paramore and other crappy music in NHL 08

It's August. Between working, and figuring out stuff for moving out of my old place and into the new one (less than 2 weeks left!), I've been playing some NHL 08 on my Xbox. And I've got to tell you, the "music" in NHL 08 is....unfortunate. Naturally, the worst song of the bunch is Paramore's "Misery Business." I think the rest of the mediocre indie-pop wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have the singer from Paramore screaming in my head for the past 2 days. It's like when the crappy song off the last Anti-Flag album was in Madden 07, except that I like Anti-Flag and don't like Paramore.

Luckily, the band has apparently already apologized for the song. Ok, just the casual use of the word "God." It's a start, though. Next step: Getting a better soundtrack for EA's NHL 09... crap.

The reason I even bought NHL 08 was that NHL 2k8's menus kept crashing, but that's another rant for another afternoon. If I have only more Bill "clothespin-on-the-nose-pin" Clement and crappy indie pop to listen to from the next one, I'll...still buy it. The League's got everyone by the balls. I mean, Puck Daddy interviewed the producer, and everyone was all hibbity-bibbity about it, myself included.

On another note, Comcast is coming tomorrow to take away the cable (and internet), and it's not like there's a ton of news in August, so you might not see much from me until September.

Speaking of new photos...

As an aside, Joe Pelletier is having the Greatest Photos in Hockey History series while he's on vacation right now. Head on over and check it out!

New Look

Thanks to some extra time and the Flickr search-by-creative-commons option, I've found a new top image and we've got a new blogger layout to complete the "new look" of what was, for a brief moment, "Zorkon Talks Hockey," until I realized that nobody has any clue who "Zorkon" is, and I can use my real name to talk about the Bruins and other hockey stuff on the internet.

New Headline Image's original photo was taken by Eric Kilby and is released under a by-sa creative commons 2.0 license. If you want it without the text and at higher resolution, please go to his flickr page. I have no affiliation with him, except that I like this picture and his Ballpark Panoramas Photoset. I hope the rest of you are weathering August at least as well as I am, which is to say slightly better than Ryan Whitney. More to come when I get free moments and hockey news appears.

R.I.P. soon Reggie Dunlop

The Alex Ovetjkin blog brings us some sad news: Paul Newman wants to die at home. The man is a fantastic actor, and it's sad that he will not be long for this world. However, he's certainly paid his dues and will always be remembered by hockey fans as Reggie Dunlop, Coach and center for the Chiefs in the movie, Slapshot. Some say that it is the best hockey movie ever made, and I'd be hard-pressed to argue.

he was also in a whole host of other movies, the least of which definitely not being Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. If you haven't seen it, go check it out.

Fuck you, Stoosh (also, happy birthday!)

Howdy, y'all. Apparently, the Pensblog really has Whole lot of time on it's hands. And an alleged happy birthday to their resident motivational days-until-hockey countdown artist, Stoosh.

Well, happy birthday, fucko. Will I see you at the game on October 20th?

UPDATE: I also commented in the PensBlog comments, and this is what Stoosh wrote back:

@ Cornelius -

All in good fun, sir...all in good fun. You had no way of knowing this ahead of time unless you've been here over the last couple of years and heard me mention it, but I count the B's among my top three favorite teams in the NHL.

I should note as well that one of the sites I saw with that same picture made the reference that it WAS a Bruins game, but the game was being played despite a large snowstorm that hit New England, and that was the reason for the small crowd. We've had games here with similar crowds under similar circumstances.

I will say, though, B's attendance has been down a bit the last couple of years, and it's sad to see that team taking a decided back seat to the Patriots and the Sawks (for the record, I hate the Pats but like the Sawks and while I don't follow the NBA anymore, I respect the Celtics).

I agree. All in good fun. I hadn't realized when that picture was from (though if it happens again, I'll definitely remember it).

Tom Lynn takes on the Trap

Tom Lynn for the Wild talked about the Trap today.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been watching the olympics and nothing happens in August. "Zorkon Talks Hockey" should be seeing a re-invention soon. (I got my photoshop, and I should have a better mouse before too long!).