Gretzky's not happy

Going to keep this brief and to just links, a stomach bug keeping me at home today:

With a week to go until it's time to announce Team Canada's roster, Wayne Gretzky sounds off on the schedule:

"There's no reason to name this team (on Dec. 21). I think they're wrong. I voiced my displeasure a month ago and was told this was the way it's going to be and said, `Okay, we'll accept it.' I just hope all the players understand the consequences. People are being assessed on 25 hockey games and I just don't think that's enough time. You can't just pick a team over 25 games."

More from Damien Cox: last night's matchup of Curtis Joseph and Jose Theodore in Montreal. Two fellows in the hunt for the No. 3 goaltender spot on the Olympic team, Habs win the battle, but the goalies play to a draw, says Cox.

With all these days off and trade rumours flying around like campaign jets, if anything is going to happen it'll be sooner rather than later, Mark Zwolinski reports.

I've always felt that trade rumours, like Dr. Johnson on patriotism, were the last refuge of a scoundrel. So I like this Canucks Rant post spinning off the Bertuzzi trade talk, plus it gives you a chance to look at a couple of the many good hockey blogs on the west coast.

Awww. Cujo and Quinn, buddies again. Awww.

More on the Mike Danton-Steve Frost relationship, although you'll feel like you need to shower after you read it.
(C.Y.)

Comments

[denial]

stomach bug. good, yes, very good. that's almost as good as the 'technical problems' you had in the fall.

alright, i have no idea where i've been the past few weeks. i vaguely recall watching a leaf game -- or it could have been a series of leaf games -- where they looked like a 10th place team trying to look like an 8th place team.

for now, though, since we all seem to have a stomach bug (a.k.a. paid sick days left in the fiscal year), i'll be relatively -- by my standards* -- brief.

(* i have no standards)

I'm going to vomit forth my 10 hockey wishes. what with it being Christmas and all.

i don't know if these are in particular order.

things i wish for:

1. the discovery of an actual toronto hockey commentator who works for any media source. (nb: for the purposes of this wish, and only this wish, the Toronto Sun is considered to be a media source).

2. an article (for lack of a better word) on the fact that tie domi is, by far, the most overpaid and overrated player in the NHL, and that for his salary we could have anson carter and enough left over for a defenseman who can play 20 un-belakian minutes a night.

3. the recognition that pat quinn is NOT a great coach, because he has had the tools to win at least 3 cups with Toronto and has not achieved it. this is a sport about performance. why people revere pat quinn is beyond me. what has he done? Paul Maurice has actually done more, recently.

4. someone to tell me in simple language - shapes are fine - WHAT don cherry has done in the world of hockey in the last 25 years. how much longer can this person milk a speck of a coaching career? cherry's continung ability to earn money as an NHL insider despite not having been inside the NHL for a generation -- and there is a REASON for this -- is as inexplicable as the ongoing tolerance that this country has for the sattelite hot stove.

5. speaking of which: i would like someone with a profit motive at the CBC -- maybe an intern or someone who hasn't been re-programmed yet -- to put REAL HOCKEY GAMES on between periods of leaf games. Why on earth do i want to listen to Al Strachan prattle on about western conference defense strategies, when i can watch a real hockey game? i'm positive i'm not alone here. quit with the tedious filler: put on hockey games.

6. a global understanding that ONLY insane, egomaniacal white men with very little self-esteem should be able to own sports teams, because they're the only ones who will invest ridiculous amounts of money in arenas and players and so forth, so that the girl that didn't go to the prom with them or their parents who didn't recognize them when they were toddlers will finally get what's coming to them. teachers pensions and so forth are far too rational. no rationally owned team will ever win any major sports championship. only one owned by a real retard can win.

7. a second NHL team in Toronto.

8. A clear awareness of who Trent Klatt is, and how necessary it is for him to do this in order to have people like me ask who Trent Klatt is, and more importantly, why trent klatt is.

9. Roberto Luongo in Toronto. it starts in net.

10. peace on earth, goodwill towards bloggers, and a cure for cy's stomach bug.

see you in 2006.

[Carla]

Tsk, Denial. I don't think we use the word "retard" in polite company (ie. a national newspaper) nowadays. Proper usage would be, like, from me to myself when I'm driving home on the I-15 after work: "Argh, these Utah drivers are retards!"

[Craig]

Denial, I love the list. I've been waiting for someone to point out the Domi thing. I never ceases to amaze me that he's still here. On any other team he'd have been cut loose. The only reason I think he's around is he sell jerseys, yep, he generates money for MLSE.

As for a second team, I hear Pittsburg is planning a move in '07. But the NHL won't allow a move here. Why? It doesn't expand the brand. KC, Houston, Seattle are bigger markets (not necessarily HOCKEY markets). I suspect a Pittsburg move will cause other moves (hello, Florida, Atlanta, Nashville, Buffalo).

When I want to watch real hockey (and not the HNIC Leaf love-fest) I watch it in french. It would be nice for HNIC to show Ottawa when they are playing a top team instead of the Leafs playing warm bodies.

As for all the trade talks I've heard the leaf faithful drooling about, what have you got to trade for Burtuzzi and/or Sykora? Anaheim doesn't want Belak, Klee, Allison or O'Neill any more than the leafs do.

okay I'll stop ranting now.