The Hangover: Nov. 9

NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
N.Y. Rangers 3, at Ottawa 2
At Tampa Bay 2, Philadelphia 1 OT
Nashville 4, at Anaheim 2
Standings are here
Summaries are here

AMERICAN HOCKEY LEAGUE
At Manchester 4, Portland 3
Rockford 5, at Grand Rapids 3
At Hershey 3, Binghamton 0
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 4, at Norfolk 2
Standings are here
Summaries are here

EAST COAST HOCKEY LEAGUE
Chicago 7, at Toledo 4
At Trenton 5, Reading 2
At Elmira 3, Gwinnett 2 OT
At Florida 4, Wheeling 1
Utah 2, at Colorado 1
Standings are here
Summaries are here

QUEBEC MAJOR JUNIOR HOCKEY LEAGUE
Russian Selects 5, QMJHL Selects 4 SO
Summary is here

WESTERN HOCKEY LEAGUE
Brandon 4, at Prince Albert 1
At Swift Current 5, Saskatoon 2
Tri-City 5, at Kootenay 4
Seattle 3, at Lethbridge 2
At Vancouver 4, Edmonton 1
Red Deer 6, at Kelowna 4
Standings are here
Summaries are here

Eyeglasses? Yes, That Would Help

I went to a movie with the family on Tuesday night and then came home in time to watch the Nashville Predators play the Los Angeles Kings. Movie, big screen. Game, iPhone screen.

The mobility of the iPhone allows me to take the game with me. I can flee a noisy discussion in which I have no interest. I can escape a recitation of household chores for which, again, I have no interest. But it takes a toll on the eyes. On Sunday, I went from big screen to small screen and back for all five games. And did the same for portions of both games on Monday night.

Now the printed word looks small and the billboards across from the office seem like just the right size of type.

And now for a few big ideas, or perhaps just some small-time thoughts:

-- More people are coming around to the notion that Steve Mason of the Blue Jackets is playing his way out of the NHL. Hockey Prospectus has been less than optimistic, and an even dimmer view of the goalie's skills has been posted on Kuklas Korner by the Puck Stops Here.

The blogger buried the lead, so I will lift it up to a point of prominence:

Steve Mason has played very poorly so far this season. He is one significant reason why the Columbus Blue Jackets are mired in last place. I think he has been the worst player in the league so far this season.

Any other write-in votes?

-- Chris Pronger is supposed to return to the lineup tonight when the Flyers play the Lightning.

-- Nashville allowed the Kings to get a big lead, then it caught up. And then, just to prove they can, they gave it all away before making things close at the end. Think the Predators will want to prove something tonight when they face the Ducks? A late start for viewers in the East.

-- Chicago is not playing well, and Columbus, in case you skipped over the Steve Mason note above, is just plain terrible. All of this makes Thursday night's Blackhawks-Blue Jackets game a must see. We should gather in the Lounge to compare notes afterward.

The Hangover: Nov. 8

NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
At Buffalo 6, Winnipeg 5 OT
Florida 5, at Toronto 1
Dallas 5, at Washington 2
At New Jersey 3, Carolina 2
Edmonton 3, at Montreal 1
At Detroit 5, Colorado 2
At St. Louis 3, Chicago 0
Minnesota 3, at Calgary 0
At Los Angeles 4, Nashville 3
Standings are here
Summaries are here

AMERICAN HOCKEY LEAGUE
Chicago 4, at Hamilton 1
At Oklahoma City 3, Toronto 1
Standings are here
Summaries are here

EAST COAST HOCKEY LEAGUE
At Ontario 4, Bakersfield 1
At Las Vegas 3, Idaho 2 SO
Standings are here
Summaries are here

ONTARIO HOCKEY LEAGUE
Oshawa 7, at Peterborough 4
Standings are here
Summary is here

WESTERN HOCKEY LEAGUE
Calgary 4, at Swift Current 3 SO
At Saskatoon 5, Brandon 2
At Medicine Hat 6, Seattle 3
Edmonton 8, at Victoria 2
Standings are here
Summaries are here

UNITED STATES HOCKEY LEAGUE
Lincoln 6, at Sioux City 2
Standings are here
Summary is here

The Hangover: Nov. 7

NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
At Boston 6, N.Y. Islanders 2
At San Jose 4, Los Angeles 2
Standings are here
Summaries are here

QUEBEC MAJOR JUNIOR HOCKEY LEAGUE
Russia 2, Team QMJHL 0
Summary is here

ONTARIO HOCKEY LEAGUE
Kingston 7, at Ottawa 4
Standings are here
Summary is here

On Writing, Then and Now

There are those writers whom I deem worthy of my spare change and hardly-earned cash. It's a simple transaction of they write and I pay to read it. And then there are those writers who spend more time on Twitter, trying out their bad comedy acts and or transmit intermittent play-by-play as a slower, less articulate alternative to radio.

For those writers, I wish that they would stop playing with their mobile devices and take the time to read Roy MacGregor's excellent piece from The Globe and Mail on Saturday.

The obsession with “content” has meant next to no time for substance. In far too many cases, tweeting and blogging have become a form of public masturbation, where size matters – as in number of hits or followers one can attract. Hits, newspapers will one day realize, are not circulation.

Mr. MacGregor would be wise to pass this along to his fellow professional writers, many of whom enjoy large numbers of followers.

On Twitter, I can read David Shoalts of the Globe and Mail make fun of nearly everything he sees -- he must travel with a photo of Gary Bettman so that the NHL commish is always in his view -- and this writer's Twitter feed only detracts from whatever serious work he might do for The Globe and Mail.

A question. When professional writers are limited to 120 characters, why is sarcasm the first thing on their minds when they hit Twitter. And then why is play-by-play their alternative?

Not that sarcasm is bad. But it requires a good set up, and you can hardly get that on Twitter when one writer's Tweets mingle with/are buried by thousands of other incoming Tweets per second as you try to compose your next 120 characters.

(It reminds me of the scene in "Barney's Version," where Mordecai Richler writes of Barney Panofsky trying to read a newspaper account of the previous night's Canadiens game as his second wife attempts to discuss something with him. I don't have the book in front of me anymore, but you should run out and get it and flip to the point where Richler has Barney reading one word, his wife gets in five, another word, another five from his wife, etc. Classic and, I would argue in a court of law, quite realistic.)

To see a real pro attempt and deliver on sarcasm, take note of this line, set up, attribution and all, from Charles S. Pierce, who was writing about The National Sports Daily on Grantland:

But the point was that, for perhaps the last time, a publication launched itself with the proposition that its journalism would be something of great value, and that, therefore, it should pay people in a fashion commensurate with the value it would place on their work. This is what sent America's sports editors straight to the fainting couch, clutching their pearls and moaning like Aunt Pittypat Hamilton at the fancy-dress ball. The National wasn't shy about raiding people's rosters, and even a lot of writers who didn't come aboard were able to leverage the offer into handsome new deals with their current employers. Pretty soon, the bellowing from the Associated Press Sports Editors was audible on Neptune, and the APSE was pretty much a dog's breakfast as regards The National for the entire 18 months of its existence. Very few of our pieces were considered for the organization's annual awards, and, when we finally folded, Bill Dwyre of the Los Angeles Times, one of those people who (to borrow a line from Christopher Hitchens) fancied himself a wit and was half-right, assigned one of his columnists to dance on our freshly dug grave. A couple hundred people thrown out of work, and this guy decides to spike the ball in the end zone. Stay classy, big guy.

You cannot successfully pull that off Twitter, at least without your main thought, in this case, Mr. Pierce's views on Mr. Dwyre, getting lost in a sea of bad jokes and play-by-play, perhaps like these from Mr. Shoalts:

Mark Messier introduced to big MSG cheer. He did NYC marathon today in 4 hr, 14m. Wonder what D. Byfuglien's time would be.

Jets D Oduya put a nice long pass right on the tape of Ranger winger Fedotenko. Pavelec bailed him out with a big save.

Tanner Glass good thump on Rangers D Jeff Woywitka.

Mr. Shoalts is by no means the only one doing this. Adrian Dater and Damien Cox are two others that come to mind, and I am sure if you wanted to spend the time, you could think of a few more. But don't. Instead, go out and find more work from Charles S. Pierce and Mordecai Richler.

Messrs Pierce and Richler, some of that money you earned was from me. Your work is/was worth every penny.

Now I am putting away my soapbox. Back to work.

The Old Game Never Looked So ... Slow

I was minding my own business, trying to decide if now was a good time to dip into my leftovers file for some chicken wings when Kukla's Korner passed on this post from the desk/blog of Ted Leonsis, the owner of the Washington Capitals.

Seems as though Mr. Leonsis wants everybody to spend nine minutes of their lives going back in time to 1967, when there were few helmets, few goalie masks, few headshots, few hits from behind/boarding calls and a time when the skating could be described as, well, not so precise. Still, it was the best we had at the time and I, who was six when this season was underway, was more than happy to spend nine minutes or more just watching the game.

But what strikes me now is the free skate approach to the old game. Sure, some will spot a system in all this. But from this barstool, I see a lot of players trying to negotiate their own skating limitations, sometimes failing to get out of the way of a teammate.

The best moment of all in this short film is watching the rink crew cleanup winter snow gear from the ice after what I presume was fight. Was that Montreal, perhaps? Nice touch, regardless of the rink. Too bad Los Angeles was not in the league yet. Cheap flip-flops and vans on the ice would have been even more colorful.

Get Ready for Canada-Russia Tuneup

Last year around this time, Russia sent a touring team of juniors across Canada to face teams from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, Ontario Hockey League and the Western Hockey League. The Russian touring squad took the bulk of the Super Series challenge games, and then several members of that squad were on the team that defeated Canada for the gold medal at the World Junior Championship tournament in early January in Buffalo.

Canada, which will have the upcoming World Junior tournament in Alberta, wants to get off on the right foot starting tonight when the 2011 Super Series challenge begins in Victoriaville, Quebec, with a team of QMJHL players facing Russia. Russia will face the QMJHL team again on Nov. 9 in Quebec City before moving to Ontario to face an OHL squad on Nov. 10 in Ottawa and Nov. 14 in Sault Ste. Marie. The Russian team will conclude the series with two games against a team Western Hockey League selects in Saskatchewan. Those games will be Nov. 16 in Regina and Nov. 17 in Moose Jaw.

(Update: The QMJHL selects will have to do without Jonathan Huberdeau, the captain of the Saint John Sea Dogs and a Florida Panthers prospect.)

Rosters for the QMJHL, OHL and WHL are on the web site of the Canadian Hockey League, which comprises the three junior leagues that have teams across Canada as well as teams in Oregon, Washington, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The Russian selects roster is here.