Boxing Day addition. (Linkorama)

Boxing Day in Winnipeg

When I got up this morning I said its December 26th Boxing day in Canada. Obviously I am an American but I do live in a border state. If the Winnipeg Manitoba still had an NHL team I could have the opportunity to watch NHL hockey 150 miles from my front door, but I digress. The Jets folded up shop and moved to Phoenix Arizona after the 1995-1995 season and that team is now known as the Coyotes who are now floundering in the desert southwest poised to lose millions of dollars. There has been some question wether they will be able to make payroll or not.

I believe to this day that it was a huge mistake to take a NHL hockey team out of Canada and put it in a city that doesn’t appreciate hockey. There are even suggestions that the Coyotes should move back to Winnipeg. I am crossing my fingers.

I remember back to the Winnipeg Jets 1992-1993 season and my father, brother and sisters attended a hockey game in Winnipeg Manitoba at the Winnipeg Arena to watch an NHL hockey game between the Jets and the L.A. Kings.


Fighting in the NHL up again

The incidence of fighting is up in the NHL. My first response is good. Usually we hear the hue and cry from some fair weather hockey fans how fighting has lost its place in the NHL and the league needs to ban it immediately. The usual claim is that incidence of holding fans back fan or keeping the NHL from having more fans follow the NHL. I say B.S.

First off, hockey is a regional sport and we don't need a lot of clueless fans that we have to explain the game of hockey too every step of the way. Go watch basket brawl. If these novice hockey fans don't understand the reason for fighting in hockey we don’t need them to be fans they are probably the same people that like the Fox Glow Puck.

Fighting in hockey is a tool and keeps the agitators and cheap shot artists in check. The thought of having to pay for you transgressions keeps players honest. If I am one of these punks that hides behind a half shield runs around the ice running players and hacking the opposition with my stick I am going to pay for my actions eventually.

Goons/tough guys protect players like Sidney Crosby or Marian Gaborik. I know that if I take a run at Marian Gaborik I am going to have to look over my shoulder for the Boogey man, because he is coming. If fighting is taken out of hockey there is no checks and balance to cheap shot and the league will putting a star player’s health in jeopardy.

Detractors of hockey say that fighting keeps the sport away from a broader fan base and continues to leave the sport in relative obscurity. In the past, efforts to curtail fighting have set hockey back on several occasions. I’m not talking about taking the sport back to the reckless style of the 1970’s, but critics have to recognize the unbreakable link between fighting and the popularity of hockey with its fans.

Penguins Coach on a the rampage

The Penguins coach Michel Therrien let his team have it after loosing to a crappy Tampa Bay Lightning team. As a hockey fan I would like to see more coaches have press conferences like this one. Team plays bad let them know it. These guys make too much money to be dogging it.

Penguins coach Michel Therrien was critical of his team's effort.

"The schedule is pretty tough. We just played four games in six days. Those are excuses," he said. "We don't have the right attitude. We like to complain about each other on the bench and on the ice. They better wake up pretty quick. ... I'm really disappointed with their work ethic and the concentration. Until they change their attitude, we are going to have the same results."