"Rules is Rules" in Alberta College Hockey

Mount Royal University's starting goaltender Justin Cote was injured in Game 4 of the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) championship hockey series Saturday night, and was thus replaced by backup Brett Bothwell for the deciding Game 5. An emergency backup was placed on the bench.

This new backup rode the pine for 60 minutes and had the best seats in the house as his school won a 1-0 game against the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT). Mount Royal snapped SAIT's two-season long championship streak by winning the best-of-five series.

Problem was, the ACAC has ruled the backup goalie ineligible, and Game 5 will be replayed later tonight. They also apparently weren't led into an investigation by SAIT and acted all on their own.

At least we can be assured that silly decisions about collegiate sport in this country are not reserved to the CIS alone...

Is Alex Edler the best defenseman in Canada?

What makes a good defenseman? Not allowing goals against? Ice-time? Plus/minus? I think it has a little more to do with how good shooters are when they're out against you.

I'm at my parents' place, so my copy of Moneyball isn't handy, but I recall baseball historian and statistician Bill James being quoted in it as saying that he didn't want statistics to manipulate his thought. James wanted to watch a game, compile data from the game and see what gave the winning team its success.

To determine the qualities that make a good goal scorer great, you have to take the reverse to determine what makes a defenseman good. The data that I've compiled based on 15 games isn't enough to draw up totally what makes a hockey team good, but I've noticed a couple of trends:

Nazem Kadri is your saviour, Toronto

-Earlier this week, Toronto Maple Leafs blog Pension Plan Puppets went to town on potential first-round flop Nazem Kadri. The Puppets explain how poorly Kadri is playing compared to the average developmental curve of prospects and completely ignore the reasonable approach taken by the Toronto Sun.

Or something completely opposite of that.

Kadri scored twice and had an assist in the Leafs' 4-3 exhibition win against the Ottawa Seators last night. Kadri still probably won't make the team and may be better off playing a full season in the American League, but his three-point night set up for one of the stupider ledes of the preseason.

It most surely was a slump at the most inopportune time of his young career.

Oh, sure, that makes sense. God forbid Kadri ever goes a couple of games without a point in the preseason ever again.

-Meanwhile, in Calgary, Flames president Ken King has called out TSN panelist Michael Peca for calling out Flames designated problem contract Jay Bouwmeester.

The whole drama erupted Tuesday night when TSN panelist Michael Peca said he used to look forward to playing against Jay Bouwmeester, because he coughed the puck up so much.

Strong words, to be sure. And it didn't die there.

On Wednesday afternoon, in a radio interview with Rob Kerr and Dean Molberg on the Fan 960, Flames president Ken King lashed out at the audacity of Peca, a former player, saying such things.

“I think it was out of line,” King said in an interview with The Fan 960. “It was a guy talking about his peer. His colleague. Someone who he has played with.....To diss and take such a low-brow approach to laughing at or ridiculing one of the premier defencemen in the league, I just think is completely inappropriate.”

In fairness to Peca, King has probably never skated against Bouwmeester.

-In Montreal, Brian Gionta was named the 2nd ever American captain in Franchise history leading to more concerns that the captain of the Habs can't speak French. The only reasonable solution is to move to Tampa, commence covering the Lightning, drag Vinny Lecavalier down and force Steve Yzerman to trade him to Montreal.

Here's an old link on a Vincent Lecavalier to Montreal for Louis Leblanc RDS story.

This is a tall order for Gionta.

The lastest TheHockeyWriters.com post...

...is about the World Cup of Hockey vs. Olympics debate. In it, I long for a return to the good old days when men were men, women were scared of vampires and there was still respect for Sly Stallone.

White beats Red at junior camp intrasquad game

That's a shame. I'm a Red fan.

Highlights can be found At the TSN site, of course. Right at the start of the package, we see Jeff Skinner twirl around before taking a faceoff. Between that and falling over at a breakaway in practice, a lucky guess might be that he doesn't even tie his own skates.

Scores a tonne, "slightly above average skater" and undersized? Jordan Eberle 2.0?

Aah... *swoons*... Jordan Eberle...

This was the last chance for the juniors to perform before the team is created, except for the entire first half of the hockey season and December team-selection camp.

A roundup of today's hockey news

-The official press conference for the Heritage Classic, Canada's answer to the Winter Classic, came today at McMahon Stadium in Calgary. The Flames will play Montreal in an outdoor battle on February 20th. Check out the sweaters both teams will wear. The Flames sweaters, in particular, are absolutely spectacular, based on the old Western Canadian league Calgary Tigers threads.

Also, to quote Gary Bettman on this event: "The roots of our game emanate from frozen ponds and backyard rinks in Canada. When you have a heritage as proud and as strong as we do, you want to celebrate it."

-Meanwhile, the Team Canadian World Junior development camp kicked off in St. Johns. TSN's angle was that Taylor Hall didn't show up, and he had to be mentioned in all but two of the first eleven paragraphs, even though he was the offensive centrepiece on the first team to not win gold at the Jrs since 2005.

Kitchener Ranger Jeff Skinner, first round pick of the Carolina Hurricanes, scored the pretty practice goal that will have everybody talking for a couple of days: [Watch]]

-Move-in almost complete. CFL preview tomorrow, complete with Jim Barker delusion.

Shootout on the docket

General Managers discuss shootout, head hits

At today's General Manager meetings in Philadelphia, a surprising issue was put forward: NHL teams think that there are too many shootouts deciding games. The conversation paused awkwardly when Flyers GM Paul Holmgren was asked for his opinion.

The "Ken Holland" solution, according to Bob McKenzie, is to follow 4-on-4 overtime with 3-on-3 overtime before the shootout occurs. I have another suggestion to add to that. Between overtime and the shootout, stop scraping the ice. With a three-man format instead of a five-man format to decide games, you're already pretty much allowing for a situation where one lucky bounce can determine the outcome. Ice scraping already takes too much time, and if we come to a situation where another period of overtime comes before the shootout, we're looking at games being three hours long in the regular season.

I like the Ken Holland rule.

The other topic of conversation was the blindside hit to the head rule. It looks as if we'll have a rule next year which allows referees to call a 5-minute penalty on the blindside head hit. Not a bad idea, if you're some kind of pansy. Next I suppose players will want to wear visors.

Briefing - Thursday May 27

-The CFL has announced that a deal has been made between the CFL and the CFLPA. The deal has not been ratified so explicit terms were not announced, but the CFL presser confirms that there will be a drug testing policy as part of the new agreement, as well as a clause that sends Jason Armstead to remedial math classes on the league's dime.

-Lakers coach Phil Jackson said that his team is not having a problem adjusting to the Suns' 2-3 zone. He's probably right, and if Phoenix's bench plays for the remainder of the series as it did in Game 4, Los Angeles is proper fucked. Particularly when Derek Fisher and Ron Artest are undressed by Slovenian backup point guards while Kobe watches:



-So, uh... I did some quick calculations, and it seems that 84 per cent of the 38 players who played in the last game for Chicago and Philadelphia are Canadian. Not only that, but there's a certainty that at least two players will win both a gold medal and a Stanley Cup in the same year. Mike Richards and Chris Pronger on Philly, and Jonathan Toews, Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith on Chicago. Only three players have ever done that before, being Steve Yzerman and Brendan Shanahan in 2002, and Ken Morrow in 1980 with the New York Islanders. Also, to bring up old stereotypes, not a single Russian or Swede are in the Stanley Cup Final (UPDATE: Not name Hjalmarsson). Compare that to both team's failure to make the semifinals at the Olympics, it looks like Canada is pretty much the best country for hockey on the planet. Neener, neener, neener.

-Without playing, Toronto F.C. won the Voyageurs Cup as the Canadian Nutri-Lite Soccer Champions. Vancouver Whitecaps F.C. drew 1-1 in Montreal against the Impact, clinching the title for the Reds with still one fixture left between the Whitecaps and TFC. When asked about how it was to win such a prestigious championship, Preki said "huh?"

-The Arcade Fire have two new songs out. This one is called The Suburbs, and it's leak this morning pretty much broke the Internet: