Image via WikipediaThis is what Sidney Crosby the face of the NHL had to say about headshots. Unfortunately the face of the NHL hasn't played a game since January 5th of this year. Bill Beacon; Globe and Mail--- (Sidney) Crosby has been out of action with concussion symptoms since early January after taking shots to the head in consecutive games. While the Pittsburgh Penguins centre is optimistic he will be able to play again, no date has been set for his return.
The 24-year-old urged the league to take action on shots to the head when he met with the media Sept. 7 in Pittsburgh.
“As a league, as a union, I think we've all educated ourselves a lot in the last six or seven months,” Crosby said. “I think it can go further. At the end of the day, I don't think there's a reason not to take (headshots) out.”
TORONTO — The rookie wants to be a role model.
He wants young people to know his story and how it changed him, made him a better hockey player and — ultimately — a responsible adult. Wants them to know that as a sophomore at the University of North Dakota, he made foolish decisions that resulted in him being kicked off the hockey team and working a blue-collar construction job.
And how it made Matt Frattin who he is today.
“It was a life experience that I kind of needed to happen,” says the Toronto Maple Leafs prospect, who is among those competing at a four-team rookie tournament in Oshawa, Ont., this weekend. “I wasn’t really living my life as though I wanted to be a professional. I was more a college kid. It happens. But it was probably good that I got caught in a couple of situations and it changed the way I am today.”
David Drew; Mlive.com --- WMU athletic director Kathy Beauregard said Wednesday no developments have come about regarding the Broncos’ future.
On Aug. 25, the Western Collegiate Hockey Association invited WMU, Bowling Green, Ferris State, Lake Superior State and Alaska-Fairbanks to join its league in 2013-14 and stated each program had 30 days to accept or decline the offer.
FSU, Lake Superior State and UAF have accepted the invitation while BGSU and Western Michigan have not yet announced a decision.
It is believed the National Collegiate Hockey Conference is still an option for WMU, but the new league has been quiet about potential future members and the qualifications for membership.
1. Colorado College2. Denver3. North Dakota4. Gophers5. UMD6. Nebraska Omaha7. Alaska Anchorage8. Bemidji State9. St. Cloud State10. Wisconsin11. Michigan Tech
Bruce Arthur: National Post --- Sidney Crosby will not retire, though he intimated the thought did at least flit across his mind. When asked Wednesday if there was a chance he would never play again, Crosby said, “A pretty slight one. I wouldn’t bet on it.” When his doctors were asked if the Pittsburgh Penguins star would make a full recovery from the concussions which have sidelined him since early January, they almost made it sound as if he would return better than ever.
It all seemed very encouraging, given the vacuum of information that has swirled around the 24-year-old Crosby all year. Still, he is “not even close” to being cleared for contact; no timeline for a complete recovery exists. It sure could be better, even if it could have been worse.
But on the day Crosby broke his four-month silence, he also found his voice in a way he rarely has before. Crosby took his first media training classes at 14; he is careful, when he speaks. In March he had expressed cautious support for banning targeted hits to the head, but said he was not sure about accidental contact. He seems sure now.
Image by slidingsideways via FlickrI would say that the Boston Bruins based on who they lost and who they retained during the offseason; would have to be “one” of the favorites to come out of the Eastern Conference and repeat as Stanley Cup champions. That’s not to say that the Bruins won’t be challenged by the other teams in the Eastern conference because they will, I would also put the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Pittsburg Penguins if Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are healthy as teams that will also compete for the Eastern Conference crown as well. NHL.COM --- Unlike the mass exodus from Chicago last season, and even the losses Pittsburgh incurred two years ago, the Bruins will return much of their Cup-winning club intact. They have three key players to replace: Mark Recchi, Michael Ryder and Tomas Kaberle.
Recchi defied time in the Cup Final, authoring a vintage performance and finishing the 2011 postseason with 5 goals and 14 points. He embraced the role of steady, veteran leader and spent much of the season on the second line. He slumped early in the postseason, but came on strong to help win the Cup for the third time in his career before announcing his retirement on the ice after Game 7.
Ryder was one of several Bruins who elevated his play during the Cup run. He had only 18 goals in each of the past two regular seasons, but racked up 8 goals and 17 points in the playoffs and earned a hefty contract from the Dallas Stars.
Kaberle struggled for much of his time with the Bruins after arriving in one of the marquee deals of the 2011 trade deadline. The power play was awful during the postseason, and that was expected to be the one area where he helped. He did finish the postseason with 11 assists, but was mostly a third-pairing defenseman in tight games. Had Boston not won the Cup, the trade would be considered a huge disappointment. Kaberle signed with Carolina as a free agent.
Boston also lost depth defenseman Shane Hnidy, and the future of center Marc Savard remains uncertain -- he only played 25 games for the Bruins last season while recovering from a concussion.
Image by Getty Images via @daylifeMy buddy Redwing77 would probably agree with some of the things written in Ken Gray’s Ottawa Citizen Newspaper article; Gary Bettman must go. Of course I am also in favor of the NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman stepping aside; I have never been a fan of the man because I find him to be a very unlikable person, he is smug, arrogant, condescending and a very pompous person. Whenever I hear Bettman talk he reminds me of a Washington D.C. Politician that talks in circles, never answers direct questions and says very little in the way of substance. We can only dream that some day we will have an NHL without Gary Bettman. Ken Gray; Ottawa Citizen --- Bettman has orchestrated a league that has absolutely glorified violence to the point where the players are being irreparably harmed. Concussions from head hits and fighting would have normal business owners concerned. Sutcliffe would do something about it in his workplace. The pads are too hard. Bettman should have acted.
Furthermore, the game is basically flawed. The players are so big, so fast and so well trained that even legal hits are causing brain damage. Something fundamentally needs to change in hockey or players will face brain disease later in life. Why Bettman could not protect the game’s biggest asset, Sidney Crosby. The NHL should be examining how the game can be basically changed to protect the players and provide a good life lesson on Saturday night instead of fighting.
Bettman has failed horribly in his southern U.S. franchise strategy and failed when Fox TV tried to make NHL hockey a national U.S. sport. He failed so badly that he had to bring Winnipeg back into the NHL and will probably do the same for Quebec City in the near future. There is room for new teams in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. In fact, you could probably put a NHL club in Dawson City and draw better than Atlanta.
The reason Bettman signed a big TV contract recently is because networks and cable companies are trying to secure programming as sports in the increasingly diverse broadcasting universe is one of the few places where people (and advertisers) continue to gather in one place. It had little to do with Bettman. At least he didn’t screw it up.
No it’s time for Bettman to go. Perhaps it has always been time for Bettman to go.
Fluto Shinzawa, Globe Staff --- Bruins sign Benoit Pouliot The Bruins have signed Benoit Pouliot to a one-year, $1.1 million contract. RDS was among the first to report the signing.
The 24-year-old was the fourth overall pick in the 2005 draft. Minnesota traded Pouliot to Montreal for Guillaume Latendresse on Nov. 23, 2009.
This past season, Pouliot scored 13 goals and 17 assists in 79 games. Pouliot was a healthy scratch for four games in the first round against the Bruins.
The 2005 draft included Sidney Crosby, Carey Price, Bobby Ryan, Jack Johnson, Marc Staal, Anze Kopitar, Paul Stastny, and Keith Yandle. Framed against those players, Pouliot has been a major disappointment. In 183 games, Pouliot has scored 37 goals and 35 assists. The left-shot forward will be a reclamation project for the Bruins, who like his size (6-foot-3, 199 pounds) and skill.
In Boston, Pouliot is best known for one-punching David Krejci during the regular season. In the playoffs, Pouliot took a run at Johnny Boychuk, which brought Andrew Ference calling.
PITTSBURGH -- Sidney Crosby still isn’t ready to return to the Pittsburgh Penguins’ lineup, playoffs or not.
Crosby skated on a fifth line with Mike Comrie and Eric Godard during the Penguins’ morning skate in advance of Game 2 of their Eastern Conference Quarterfinals series against Tampa Bay on Friday. But the Penguins’ captain is not ready to take part in any drills with contact.
Crosby, out since Jan. 6 with a concussion, can’t begin thinking about returning to the Penguins’ top line until he first can absorb contact in practice. Even after he does that, he must be cleared by his doctors to play.
The Penguins have not speculated when that might be, and they have given no sign that he will play at any point during the Tampa Bay series.
Coach Dan Bylsma doesn’t believe Crosby is pressuring himself to return sooner than he should.
Crosby wore a headset during Game 1 while sitting in the press box with assistant to the general manager Tom Fitzgerald and goalies coach Gilles Meloche.
“I have not sensed any kind of pressure on Sid that he feels, based on the fact it’s playoffs or that it’s this time of the year, to get back earlier,” Bylsma said. “Actually he’s more in tune with watching the games and what we can do and what adjustments are they making and those types of things. I haven’t sensed anything to do with Sid trying to get back earlier, feeling that pressure, not one bit.”
Bruce Arthur February 23, 2011 – 10:19 pm ----- It has been eight weeks now. Eight weeks since Victor Hedman smashed Sidney Crosby’s head into the glass in Pittsburgh, which was four days after David Steckel ran his shoulder into Crosby’s temple in the Winter Classic at Heinz Field. Which means that it has been eight weeks since Sidney Crosby played an NHL game.While driving home from my workout this afternoon, the host from the Point on XM-204 NHL Home Ice was talking about Sidney Crosby’s concussion and basically saying the longer Sidney Crosby is out with this concussion the more likely he won’t be back this season, we are running out of time for his return, there is roughly what six weeks left to the season. Which is a shame you have the top player in the NHL an elite player sitting on the shelf and might not play again this season because he has a head injury.
And that should make anybody who cares about hockey nauseous. It should give them a headache. It should cause sleepless nights. In other words, it should make them feel like they have suffered a concussion.
It’s not that Sidney Crosby, as a person, is more important than Marc Savard or David Perron or Matthew Lombardi or Peter Mueller, all of whom have missed most or all of the NHL season with post-concussion symptoms. It’s not that his symptoms are necessarily worse. There were 33 concussions reported in the NHL through Dec. 1. There are a lot of guys sitting in dark and quiet rooms, these days.
But Crosby is different, because he is Sidney Crosby. He is the best player in the world; he is one of the two players in the league who actually have the ability to transcend the league. And since Alexander Ovechkin has spent the season being a more physical Brad Richards — another guy who has the curtains drawn, at the moment — Crosby was, until early January, standing alone.
And then came David Steckel and Hedman, neither of whom were fined or suspended for making contact with Crosby’s head from behind. And as the days stretch out, you start to wonder and worry about what comes next.
The precise severity of Crosby’s concussion has not been made public. The Penguins have said he needs to go symptom-free for 10 days before being cleared, and that has apparently not happened. On Jan. 24 he told reporters in Pittsburgh, “People say mild concussion, but I don’t know that there really is such thing. The good thing is the past four to five days have been pretty good, but that’s not to say symptoms won’t come back.”
That was a month ago, now. Then he talked about headaches, and not knowing what triggered them — light, noise, exertion, it all seemed a little random — and that he was happy to be able to drive a car again. Just 10 days ago he returned from some time away from the team, with his parents, and when Pittsburgh Tribune beat reporter Rob Rossi mentioned he didn’t have much of a tan, Crosby said, “I didn’t want to stay [outside] too long because that might bring on [headaches].”
There has been speculation that he is done for the season, but we won’t know until the season is over. So all we really know is that Crosby’s symptoms have not gone away. Or that if they have, they’ve always come back. And that the vacuum of information coming out of Pittsburgh is like the quiet between bombings.
And the NHL should be terrified. Crosby was having his finest season; he is still fifth in the league in scoring despite missing 20 games. And the greatest difference between Crosby and every other hockey player is not his skating, or his hands, or his size. It is his neural capacity to control his skating, to direct his hands, to see the ice, to think the game with a fine edge. It is his brain.
So many players have never been the same after suffering a concussion this severe, or at least, that has lasted this long. Eric Lindros, Paul Kariya, Pat LaFontaine, Keith Primeau, Savard, on and on. Not every concussion opens a window to more concussions. Maybe this is the only brain injury Sidney Crosby will ever suffer, and he will fulfill the promise of being a generation-defining player. He is just 23.
But either way, he will now play the rest of his career in greater danger of a second concussion, and a third. The worst-case scenario, of course, is that he becomes Lindros all over again. Crosby’s much better at protecting himself, but in a league where those two hits are deemed acceptable, it might not matter. When he decried such hits back in January, Crosby said, “when you get hit like that there’s nothing you can do, there’s no way you can protect yourself.”
And yet they went unpunished.
