2010-11 Ramblings

A few bits and pieces from around the league on the Blackhawks’ day off.

Fan voting for the NHL All-Star Game has always seemed to me to be the election easiest to rig. Teams scatter fan ballots like confetti all over home games, and team with the most fans at the most games gets the most players into the game. The league is trying to put a lid on that, in its own way; but in the mean time the Blackhawks are reaping the benefits.

Despite his play being less than stellar of late, Blackhawks’ defenseman Duncan Keith is currently ranked first among defensemen, and second overall behind only Sidney Crosby in All-Star fan voting. Other notables on the Blackhawks include Jonathan Toews (3rd among forwards), Patrick Kane (5th) and Marian Hossa (8th). Some dedicated souls have Marty Turco sitting 14th among goaltenders as a write-in candidate, but it looks like Montreal’s Carey Price is going to win that one by a mile.

*     *     *     *     *

We’re going to suggest you take a trip into enemy territory here, and visit one of our red-headed step-sister sites on the FanSided.com network. This time, in honor of tomorrow’s game against San Jose, we present you with Blades of Teal — which you have to admit is a pretty catchy title. They’ll give you an insider’s peek inside the tank in San Jose.

*     *     *     *     *

A brief We’ll Always Love Them Even If They Wear Other Jerseys Now update for you.

Heading north to Minnesota we find John Madden starting to hit his stride after a slow start. His quick stick at the faceoff dot and penalty-killing abilities are helping Minnesota to secure a playoff spot.

Further north in Edmonton, we have seen Colin Fraser three times already this season, fulfilling his role as a grinding center with 22 hits to complement his 2 goals and 1 assist.

Up in Toronto, winger Kris Versteeg got off to a hot start and was an immediate favorite with fans and sports writers alike. But the bloom is off the rose, as his 6 goals and 6 assists are far fewer than Leafs faithful were expecting from a top-six forward. Don’t worry, Kris: the Toronto press tends to anoint anyone with a modicum of talent. Just stay consistent, they’ll get over it soon enough and start picking on somebody else.

Blackhawks’ fan favorite and consummate smart-ass Adam Burish landed in Dallas, and surprising nobody but his mother who is (no doubt) still ashamed, he leads the team in penalty minutes. He has seen time on a line with Mike Ribiero and Brenden Morrow, and has 2 goals to show for it.

But the real action is in Dixie, where some former Blackhawks are transforming a Thrashers team that we saw earlier this month. Winger Ben Eager has been throwing his weight around with 35 hits. Blueliner Brent Sopel continues his solid stay-at-home play, logging 15 minutes a night (and still sporting the homeless-musician haircut).

Dustin “BIG BUFF” Byfuglien has taken Atlanta by storm, returning to his native position on the blue line, and sitting second on the team in points — including a team-leading 4 game-winning goals. The Thrashers put the “A” on his sweater in recent weeks.

And finally, Andrew Ladd was recently named Captain of the Atlanta Thrashers, leading the team with 21 points (7 G, 14 A). He is having what more than one journalist is calling a “career year,” as his scoring and leadership abilities are illustrating the raw talent that has earned him two Stanley Cup rings. Congratulations, Andrew!

My update on Antti Niemi will be seen tomorrow morning: check back for our preview of the Blackhawks vs. Sharks tilt.

*     *     *     *     *

One last note: Jeff wanted me to apologize to all of you for not getting your favorite “Boxing” features up following the games over the weekend. He told me to say that he’s been sitting at home playing “Call of Duty: Black Ops” and smearing Crisco on his nether regions.

And now, he’ll never let me apologize for him ever again!

No seriously, as is the case with all of us, work and life intervene. Jeff had his clothes stapled to his desk by cruel co-workers last week, and the custodial staff went through several pairs of needle-nosed pliers trying to break him loose. But he promises to be back in the saddle and “Boxing” again for you shortly.

Follow BlackhawkUp.com @blackhawksup and on Facebook
Download Blackhawk Up’s FREE iPhone and Droid apps
Visit FanSided’s NHL page, Too Many Men on the Site

At the NHL General Managers’ meeting in Toronto on Tuesday, the league’s GM’s will have an interesting proposal in front of them courtesy of ex-Blackhawk GM (and current Florida GM) Dale Tallon. The proposal suggests allowing each team’s coach to have one “coach’s challenge” (meaning video review) per game.

This mimics other sports, college football in particular, where a coach can call for a video review of a play if he feels the call on the field is in error. In college football the team loses a time-out if they are wrong, but not if they are right.

Tallon’s proposal is similar in nature, but it raises the question: why should he have to be proposing it at all?

I once had an argument with a friend of mine concerning instant replay/video review in baseball. His argument was that it was a human game, played by humans, and humans make mistakes. That was part of the game, it works out in the wash, and it would lessen the integrity of the game to introduce video review.

To that, verily I say unto thee, butt-nuggets.

I, as a fan, pay money to go to a game. I cheer for my team, I buy its merchandise, and I have a certain amount of emotional energy wrapped up in the team’s success or failure. For me, the fan who spends the money to buy the ticket, I want the game to be fair and the call to be right. Every. Single. Time.

Does that mean stopping play every time a player takes a shot? Every time somebody falls down? Every time there’s a line change? No. There are limits, there have to be. But any goal, EVERY goal, should be reviewed. Anything that even looks like it might be a goal should be reviewed. Any time a player gets injured — or pretends to be injured! — should be reviewed.

When will they review it? Dunno. How? Dunno. Who will do it? Dunno. Obviously there are a lot of details to be worked out, but fortunately the infrastructure for a comprehensive video review is already in place. But the fans, the players, and the coaches should have the confidence in knowing that they are playing a game that has been called accurately.

What’s the expense? Probably less than 5 real-time minutes a game. What’s the payoff? Solidifying the reputation and integrity of the game. And that’s a lot more important than you might think.

For a very long time there was a figure skating special on every Saturday or Sunday afternoon, because the ratings were dynamite. Nationals, Worlds, exhibitions, you name it. Now? I think you’d have to search long and hard to find figure skating on television outside of the Olympics.

Why? The judging scandal at the 2002 Winter Games at Salt Lake City. Once the fans believed the scoring system was no longer fair, and that tainted officials had the ability to negatively affect results, they fled the sport by the thousands. Ratings suffered, and quite quickly the sport was bleeding revenue by the millions.

Integrity of officiating is no laughing matter. If the NHL is serious about its fan base and its revenue stream, it will consider a robust, if not complete video review regimen that sets a standard for fairness and accuracy in professional sport.

Follow BlackhawkUp.com @blackhawksup and on Facebook
Download Blackhawk Up’s FREE iPhone and Droid apps

We have a little break in the action, the Blackhawks are enjoying three days off to lick their wounds from the embarrassing losses over the weekend, so we thought it was time to open up the Mail Bag and answer some of your Blackhawks and hockey questions. Lots of new hockey fans in the Chicago area, so remember: there are no stupid questions!

How serious is Brian Campbell’s injury, and when do we expect him back?

— Dave, River North

A sprained MCL (medial collateral ligament, it’s a vertical stretchy thing on the inside of your knee) is not as serious as a torn MCL, so the Hawks dodged a bullet there. Plus there’s good news from the weekend: Mr. Campbell skated for the first time in the last couple of days. He’s on target for his return to the lineup, which is… they’re not saying. But figure at least two more weeks, and maybe three. He’s got to get doctor’s clearance for participating in practices, and then to do contact drills, both of which usually take a week. They’re talking about him returning for the Circus Road Trip, which starts on November 17th. So cross your fingers.

I’ve watched hockey before, and they’ve put some new lines on the ice behind the net that I don’t understand. What do those mean?

— Huey, Mundelein

Nothing whatsoever. It’s called the trapezoid, and in theory it is supposed to be a restricted zone where goaltenders can’t play the puck. But neither the goaltenders nor the referees really know what that means, so play continues as it did before the area was created. Just ignore it.

How come some goals get reviewed and some goals don’t?

— Mika, Kankakee

Because some refs are idiots, and some aren’t! No seriously, in theory every goal is reviewed. But when the guys that review the goals think the refs might have screwed up, they stop the proceedings on the ice and take as much time as they want to in order to sort things out. Whether each goal is *actually* reviewed, I’ve seen enough blown calls to believe that’s not the case.

There is also allegedly a “war room” back in Toronto, where every goal from every game is reviewed to make sure the *reviewers* are getting the call right. But that’s a load of crap. They just got the dedicated satellite feeds because they wanted free Playboy Channel.

Hey! They made a big deal about fool-idiot suck-weasel referee Bill McCreary retiring last year. But then I watched the Blackhawks game the other day, and there he is! What gives?

— Mark, Addison

Yes, they did. And yes, you did. Buckethead is back, and despite being 54 years old and barely able to skate two lengths of the ice without an oxygen mask, Mr. McCreary will be donning the stripes and blowing call after call after call again for the 2010-11 season. Apparently NHL Director of fool-idiot suck-weasels Terry Gregson talked McCreary out of retiring late last season, because apparently there were too many veteran fool-idiot suck-weasels retiring, and the rookie fool-idiot suck-weasels replacing them were actually worse! If you can believe that.

I once watched two games with the Blackhawks playing against Tampa Bay and Florida, during which a grand total of four goals were scored. Replays for each of the four showed very clearly that McCreary, reffing both games, blew three out of the four goal/no-goal calls. That’s a 75% failure rate, and that was over ten years ago. He hasn’t gotten any better since then.

If the Penguins offered to trade Sidney Crosby and Marc-Andre Fleury for Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, do you think we should take the deal?

— Stewart, West Loop

Stew, it is my fervent hope that Jonathan Toews turns into the Blackhawks version of Steve Yzerman, playing his entire career in a Blackhawks uniform and wearing the captain’s ‘C’ until they raise the #19 to the roof of the United Center. I would be surprised if we could keep Patrick Kane that long, as the contract offers that will await him upon the day he becomes an unrestricted free agent will likely be out of reach for the Hawks.

That having been said, I think if the phone rang in Stan Bowman’s office and somebody from the Penguins organization were on the line offering that deal, I think we’d have to sedate the Blackhawks’ GM to keep him from laughing himself to death. I would be hard pressed to find two players on any team right now that match the output — and potential — of Kane and Toews. And the two flame-outs from the Pens that you mentioned definitely don’t come close.

Who do you think the Blackhawks’ biggest rival is this year, Detroit or Vancouver?

— Brian, Joliet

I think the Blackhawks’ biggest rival this year is the Blackhawks from *last* year. The fans won’t be concerned about whether we beat Detroit or Vancouver so much as whether we win the cup again. As Jeff has outlined here recently, it’s a fool’s errand to expect a championship team this year. But that won’t stop the fans’ expectations from being elevated to that point. As for Detroit and Vancouver, we’ll bitch-slap both of them enough for us to enjoy this year. Don’t you worry.

The Red Wings are going to win it all this year!!!

— Chris, Novi, MI

Everybody’s entitled to their opinion, Chris. Now go put your nuts in a toaster.

That’s it for now, but keep those letters and e-mails coming! See you in November with another edition of Mail Bag.

Follow BlackhawkUp.com @blackhawksup and on Facebook
Download Blackhawk Up’s FREE iPhone and Droid apps

Photo: AP

The battle of wills appears to be over, and it ended with a wave.

In Monday night’s game against the Blues, Blackhawks’ goaltender and ramblin’ man “Myocardial Marty” Turco skated out of his net to field a puck at the left face-off dot. He stopped. He looked up ice. And he waved.

Some background for you who haven’t been following this closely. The word on Turco when the Blackhawks acquired him in the off-season was that he was a skilled puck-handler, able to deftly wander the defensive zone and become an additional mobile asset on breakouts. This, it was reported, would be particularly helpful on power plays and when opponents were trying to execute a line change. Or for beaning Mike Leggo in the melon when he misses calls so obvious that somebody standing outside the United Center and facing away from the arena could have seen them.

During pre-season we saw this in action: both the good, and the bad. In two separate games Turco wandered up-ice and fired a tape-to-tape saucer pass to our right winger on their blue line. Both of those plays ended with the puck behind their goaltender in the next five seconds. This was an incredible crowd-pleaser, and it showed the potential for Turco’s offensive capabilities.

But the down-side was when Turco would go on his fishing expeditions with opponents in our zone. Twice during pre-season Turco either mis-fired on a pass or was stripped of the puck, resulting in an open-net goal for the opposing team, and Turco himself diving frantically back towards the net looking like a leaping tree frog from a nature special on the National Geographic channel.

The TV broadcasters were even nice enough to use their super-slow-mo feature to show Turco, hanging in mid-air for what seemed like an eternity, all four limbs splayed in abject panic as the puck sails gently past him into the webbing. This was the other side of that double-edged sword Stan Bowman had bought at a discount.

So then, about a week ago there was a suggestion amongst the “legitimate” (ha-ha-ha) Blackhawks press corps that insinuated that perhaps there was the possibility that maybe Coach Joel Quenneville could potentially be growing tired of his number one goaltender making plays that made him look like the freshman goaltender on the St. Mary’s School for Girls JV team. This was whispered, few took note, and nothing more was said.

Then, last night, came the wave.

The wave was aimed at Brent Seabrook.

The wave said, “Come here and get this, I’m not passing it to you up there.” Which he did, and the play continued.

But what the wave really said was, “If I do what my instinct tells me to do, and things go badly with me 30 feet out of my net, Coach Q will have the trainers tape my wiener to my butt-crack, the long way, then make me skate side-boards with my skate laces tied together until Captain Serious believes I’ve learned my lesson.”

And thus, the battle of wills ended, with a wave.

I’m sure that we will see Marty Turco out of his net again, and I’m sure we will see him make bone-headed mistakes again. Every goalie does a few times a season. But I’m reasonably sure that the days of keeping a defibrillator charged and ready every time Turco is announced as the starter have come to an end.

(*sigh*) And I spent all that time thinking up a cool nickname for him…

Follow BlackhawkUp.com @blackhawksup and on Facebook
Download Blackhawk Up’s FREE iPhone and Droid apps