The Carolina Hurricanes will be without forward, Tuomo Ruutu, for three games.  The suspension stems from his hit on Colorado Avalanche forward, Darcy Tucker, last night.

The hit definitely was ugly – Ruutu slammed Tucker to the boards while he was trying to play the puck in Carolina’s end and Tucket collided with the glass and then was knocked unconscious and appeared to be bleeding.  The medical workers put a neck brace on him and took him off the ice.
At the hospital, Tucker received 40 stitches to his forehead and he stayed in the hospital overnight even though the CT scan …read more

During practice, the Tampa Bay Lightning players decided to take one item of clothing off for every breakaway shot that they didn’t make.  I’m not exactly sure whose idea this was but the video that is currently making the rounds is of Martin St. Louis.  He ends up losing his skates and wearing flip-flops on the ice (kind of dangerous but whatever).
Erik Erlendsson of the Tampa Tribune wrote:  “After a near two-hour practice on Tuesday, and just after the coaches all vacated the ice, the players took a tongue-in-cheek approach in order to lighten the mood by playing a round …read more

Did you catch the Columbus Blue Jackets at Calgary Flames game last night?  The Flames won 6-3 and, while I was happy with the result, it was the goal by Fredrik Sjostrom that served as the highlight for me.
Sure, Calgary didn’t really need it with 4:05 left in the third since they were already up two goals but since Sjostrom is new to the team, I haven’t really seen what he can do and last night I was totally surprised.

He approached the net and couldn’t get a shot away, faked out Columbus goalie, Steve Mason, and then did a spin-o-rama …read more

As if the Carolina Hurricanes aren’t already off to a bad enough start, they’ve now lost Erik Cole for 4-6 weeks.  The power forward seems to have bad luck with injuries and now he’ll be sitting out after an MRI showed a fracture in his lower left leg.
The break happened after he made contact with Boston Bruins defenceman, Dennis Wideman, during their terrible loss on Saturday night.
There was so much action during that game that I have to admit that I had almost forgotten about this injury and I’m disappointed that it is this serious.  Honestly, though, you can pretty …read more

It was a big night in my neck of the woods.  Last night was the first Battle of Alberta and was the first home game of the season for the Edmonton Oilers.  I’m not even going to go into how lame I thought their whole pre-game celebration was (I’m sorry but it was really stupid to me) since I was really just interested in their starting lineup.

After the Calgary Flames were stonewalled by goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin in the Stanley Cup playoffs against the Tampa Bay Lightning, I’ve always hated playing against him.  I wanted to see how Miikka Kiprusoff would …read more

A few days ago during a pre-season game between the Calgary Flames and the visiting New York Islanders, Flames defenceman, Dion Phaneuf, laid into forward, Kyle Okposo, in what many feel was a clean hit, although some believe it was unnecessary.

Okposo had to be taken off the ice on a stretcher after remaining motionless for several minutes afterwards.  Immediately, Pascal Morency (Islanders) jumped onto the ice and went for Phaneuf but was intercepted before he could get to him.  A small fight broke out as guys tried to restrain Morency and, ultimately, he was given a game misconduct and, since …read more

I spotted a demo showing the Battle for the Cup gameplay for NHL 10 and I thought I’d share.  The start of the new season is still more than a month away but at least I can start to enjoy hockey in some form when this game gets released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on September 15, 2009.
There are a lot of cool new features that have been added since NHL 09 so I’m looking forward to seeing how it changes the feel of the game.  I know that I’m definitely going to enjoy the more physical …read more

Former NBA star, Charles Barkley, had some encouraging words for his friend, Jeremy Roenick, who announced his retirement earlier this week.  Barkley knows how it feels to have to leave the game you love when your body says it’s time to quit. 
It’s great because in this little video (which appears to have been filmed on a private plane?), Barkley congratulates Roenick on this rite of passage and welcomed him into the group of retirees.  I know it’s got to be hard to leave hockey but, hopefully, Roenick can look back at his career (and his great reputation) and feel …read more

Alexander Ovechkin is undeniably one of the best (if not the best) hockey player in the NHL right now.  I’m sure there are a lot of young aspiring athletes who look up to him and, fortunately, Ovie has decided to share some of the trade secrets he uses to improve his game – sex.

Russian interviewer, Sophie Shevardnadze, asked him “How do you prepare for the game? Is it true that you can’t have sex before the match?” and he answered “sex really helps, actually.”  So she followed up by asking “is that before or after the match?” and he said …read more

The 2008-2009 season brought some incredible shootout goals throughout the year and last week the NHL released a collection of what they consider the best ones.  Watching the video was a lot of fun and it just made me more anxious for the new season to begin.

This video’s highlights include the following goals:

Zach Parise (NJD) vs. Jose Theodore (WSH)
T.J. Oshie (STL) vs. Tim Thomas (BOS)
Lee Stempniak (TOR) vs. Tim Thomas (BOS)
Wojtek Wolski (COL) vs. Roberto Luongo (VAN)
Hagman (TOR) vs. Martin Brodeur (NJD)
Jason Blake (TOR) vs. Scott Clemmensen (NJD)
Tomas Vanek (BUF) vs. Manny Fernandez (BOS)
Anze Kopitar (LA) vs. Marty Turco (DAL)
Mike …read more