Hartsburg fired

Unbelievable.

Please refer to my past rants on firing coaches too early, I don't like repeating myself and I am literally shaking with rage right now.

I was pretty excited when Hartsburg came, but really, really hoped the Senators organization would grace him patience as he was taking on his first major coaching role in just under a decade.

This was, of course, the perfect year to bring in an inexperienced coach. This year's Senators are probably the worst team we've had in a very long time - slow defence, unproductive and single-plane offence, no goaltending. No coach could possibly be expected to really succeed with this unit at their disposal. I hate to tell you this, Bryan, but Craig Hartsburg isn't Gordon Bombay. He can't take the shittiest team ever and make them beat evil Icelanders to win the Junior Goodwill Games*.

So, after 48 games, they're giving him the boot. Another good coach gets thrown to the wolves because someone in the higher echelons of an organization can't get their shit in order. This is the season when all Ottawa's dumb management decisions finally caught up with them, and Hartsburg is being made to suffer for it.

Shame, shame, shame.

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* I don't know where all the Mighty Duck references came from, but I'm running with it

There is no original name for this sports blogpost

Oh man I'm funny*. Truth be told, there's lots in the past week that I've wanted to write about:
1) The Sens finally seemingly passing their slump by beating the Rangers and the Leafs... before falling to the Isles
2) Spurs falling into their slump by losing to Everton. My God that was annoying, Spurs had the more chances and everything *grumble grumble*
3) New Zealanders getting pissed off at Wales because they the Taffies stood up to the Haka by... staring at the All Blacks. No matter though, all Tri nation teams dominated the Six Nations and the weight of international rugby talent in the southern hemisphere was more than confirmed. Only the Aussies lost... and that was only one game. Unbelievable.

All that having been said the reason for this post is this. Up until Phil's post on the Gooners last Tuesday, this blog never had a physical picture in a post. Well, the times they are a-changin', and I'm bloody tired of seeing Cesc Fabrigas' mug everytime I open this page. As such, it's time for a shot back.



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* Re: title of this post

New Sens jersey

Well, looks like I'm the first Sens blog that I know of to show this one off.

A shitty season, a shittier third jersey, it seems.

Nothing as bad as we all thought, mind you, at least it's not as bad as the SNES jersey we thought we'd be getting

I'm pretty tipsy at the moment, so I'm not going to keep going, but here's the link from the jersey.

Milway sent me the link*, ever thankful!

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* To Icethetics....helpful nevertheless!

Eventful week for those guys who make me embarrassed to wear my jersey

I used to wear my Sens jersey with pride. Of late, I've been wearing it for appearances.

This week has been abysmal for the Sens, absolutely abysmal*. A 4-0 drumming in Montreal, followed by a game against a team they were "more evenly matched with", at home no less, and they were on the receiving end of a 3-1 whoopin'.

Also - Daniel Alfredsson, our unflappable captain, finally flapped. After the Montreal game, apparently emotions were running high at practice as the team couldn't get it right... and he put his stick through the glass at The Bank. Again - he put his stick. Through the glass. This is bearing in mind that rink-glass can usually bear the weight of Derek Boogaard skating full-speed into another big dude without breaking**. It's good to finally see the boys showing a little emotion, but it's unfortunate that it didn't carry over into the next outing.

At any rate, I'm thinking the tension in that dressing room would require a chainsaw (or an electric poultry-cutter) to cut through. Jarkko Ruutu, God love him, is a fucking idiot for the hit on Laperriere, and he bloody deserves it. There's a line between trying to draw penalties and showing off physical dominance, and putting someone's life in danger. You learn that stuff when you get taught hitting. Jarkko: keep them elbows down and my love for you shall grow - but don't make us look bad.

So tonight provides the opportunity for redemption: the second half of the home-and-home with the Islanders, the Sens will be visiting Long Island. I have but one word of advice for you, oh mighty men in red: don't fuck it up.

Lastly - for Queen's hockey fans, I'll have something up on tonight's Kill McGill game up tomorrow. For students - puck drops at 7:30 pm, be there, it's free with your student card. There's really no excuse. Unless, of course, you're going to Dylan. But still.

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* Abysmal is a great damn word
** Boogaard putting himself through the glass in a rookie game between the Blues and Wild a few years back. After they replaced the glass, they put a masking tape man on the glass, I guess so he'd see the glass? Who the hell knows. Point is - Derek Boogaard only breaks glass when he makes contact with nobody. I'd love to see a fight between him, Chuck Norris and Vin Diesel. That would be awesome.

Ovular domination ends so soon, but continues so strong

So, Queen's dominating ovular-ball-game-teams went 1 for 2 this weekend. (For non-Queen's sports stuff, scroll down).

Our football team had a pretty shitty performance at Richardson in the semifinal, falling to the University of Ottawa GeeGees 23-13, ending Yates and Vanier dreams.

This brings up my major problem with this first-round bye business. Yes, it's nice to not have to play a game when everyone is, but it makes for some serious focus issues. Games allow teams to center and focus in a way that practice can't. Queen's hadn't played a game for two weeks before the game against Ottawa, and they came out absolutely flat. A play-by-play rundown of the game can be found here. I was hoping that the punt-block safety at the end of the game would be the momentum turner our boys in gold needed, but unfortunately they just never got it going and fell into shambles. Dream season turns into nightmare I suppose.

Our rugby team, on the other hand, continued it's kickassery with a convincing smashing of the Western Mustangs, in a repeat of the game I traveled down to London to cover (see game report here and here). Western played the exact same game it did during the regular season, but Queen's didn't react. This gave Western no opportunity to exploit Queen's being a man-down, and the Gaels pushed forward for a 19-8 win, setting up a second final featuring the Gaels. They'll be playing in Markham against the McMaster Mauraders next weekened - I encourage all Queen's sport fans to travel down on the fan bus to watch what must be Queen's best varsity squad.

In pro-sport news:

Spurs are rolling! 'Arry is fucking fantastic, we took a 2-1 win over Keano's new side Liverpool at the lane over the weekend. Mind, it was on a late goal by Pavlyuchenko, and the other Spurs goal was a Carragher (sp?) own goal, but whatever, I'll take it! 7 points on 3 matches is a definite improvement from the start of the season, where the Lilywhites couldn't be counted on to get 3 points from 7 matches. On a related topic - how on-target were Phil's predictions?? Jesus!

The Leafs (I hate to, but I have to put it in*) had an amazing comeback against the Rangers on Saturday, one that actually got me out of my seat. I like the Rangers (see below), don't get me wrong, but that was one hell of an exciting performance. The Leafers have been putting on a pretty decent show this year, and I couldn't be more pissed.

The Sens took one point out of the weekend after a shootout loss to Tampa, leading to an incredibly interesting article on the Sens Army blog regarding the game and our shootout lineup which, frankly, is retarded. Also, I've come to like Ruutu. The world might be imploding.

Finally - my dominance in NHL 09 has been qualified by a tournament win. The Rangers (Yours truly), Sabres (Apps), Capitals (Eric) and Flames (Conal) went head-to-head in a round robin/knockout tournament over the weekend. The Rangers were weak on defense, but the offense was their saving grace, allowing 10 goals but scoring 13 in the round robin, this compared to most games ending 1-0 or 2-1 over 3 games. The final was fought out between the Rangers and Sabres and, in a dramatic overtime plagued by ill discipline by the Sabres, the Rangers put the game home to take the first ever NHL 09 gold. Another tournament should follow, here's hoping the result is the same!**

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* That's what she said
** This entire paragraph was unneccesary

The Sens changed their entrance song? Also known as the 'Every Link is a YouTube Link' article

Quoi le merde??

So apparently the Sens have changed their classic entrance song to some ditty by a band called Rev Theory. This ditty, in fact.

Now, I must ask - double-you-tea-eph? It seems to be in a long line of weird pre-game fuckups the Sens organization has been getting up to in the past year.

Is it just me - or is he the biggest fail soldier ever? His helmet almost falls off a few times, the mic keeps cutting out, he's not all that ripped, and he doesn't look like a fucking CENTURION, which is the bloody point, isn't it? Fuck, I'm still bitter.

At any rate, I don't really understand the point of changing the song. Or at least, to that particular Rev Theory song, who have a much better hockey song that someone put to hockey clips, and is awesome.

Anyways, there's an increasing (dare I say it) Americanization of everything we're doing over at The Bank of late. The Spartan: from California. Rev Theory: from Massachusets (sp?*). Most of this wishy washy ridiculousness? Things you'd expect to see at a game in Tampa to try to excite fans who aren't already excited.

PST. Sens organization! Canadians already like hockey! We're already excited! Really, I promise. The kitchy bullshit isn't neccesary! You don't need to try to excite us with fancy laser-light shows and Spartans and all that jazz. Just the montage of our team during the classic Roman-themed badassery track is nice, that's all. Really. I promise.

Thanks to James Gordon at Hockey Capital for posting his article where I found out about this and finding the clips that I ultimately borrowed.

Oh, and for your enjoyment. God Bless Hocky indeed.
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* My english teacher used to put "sp?" besides words that weren't spelt right, I've kept the tradition alive. Even on MSN.

Hockey does the splits while rugby steamrolls

Pretty decent two day show for the campus teams I was watching.

Rugby
Gaels 70 - 3 University of Toronto Varsity Blues

Rugby performed the steamroller act we all know only too well against the lowly Varsity Blues over at Richardson Stadium. No one felt it necessary to tell me that as I stood shivering against the weather at Kingston Field before finding out about the location switch. A short cab ride over, and I asked a fan the score. The game kicked off at 1, I arrived at 1:20 - the fans had already lost count of the score. Now the scoreline isn't much of a surprise given the outcome of the last Gaels v Blues rugby match, but I thought the weather might have actually made an impact today.

Let me paint this picture the best way I can - miserable. Absolutely miserable. High winds, freezing cold, pouring rain (my notebook fell apart), not dry even under the makeshift tents set up at the endzone. The field was in such poor condition that a few tries were missed as a result of players sliding through the try zone and not getting the ball down in time. Absolutely. Fucking. Miserable.

But the talent prevailed, and the Varsity Blues' season (unsurprisingly) came to an end on the rainswept fields of Richardson Stadium. Next match for the Gaels - the Western Mustangs. This time they'll be visiting here, I went down to London to cover the last Western match (a dramatic 12-12 draw). Since we drew that one on a last-play try, I'd be interested to see how this one goes. There's some bad blood between the teams, many of the players know each other pretty well, suffice to say I'm really looking forward to next weekend.

Hockey
Gaels 2 - 5 Carleton Ravens
Gaels 4 - 1 University of Toronto Varsity Blues

Friday night against the Ravens was an unfortunate game for the Gaels. They forechecked tenaciously, took the body hard*, and all-in-all just made life hell for the Ravens. Then they scored on a goaltender's mistake, and the Gaels lost their tenacity. Queen's started to regain their confidence towards the end of the period after a short burst of Carleton dominance, but couldn't buy a goal and, late in the second, Carleton made it 2-0 on a powerplay goal. The third period was just flat unfortunate for the Gaels, they pulled one back 1:20 in, and allowed three goals (scoring one halfway through).

Saturday night, Queen's seemed to figure it out. U of T is a formidable opponent (as far as hockey goes), there's a divisional rivalry and, judging by the hits and the talk of the players (I was sitting near the penalty boxes), personal rivalries there too. Some iffy refereeing throughout the game, a lot of no-calls and over-calls, but somehow the refs didn't lose control of the game. Queen's had one hell of a first period, scoring two goals in less than a minute and their third goal 8 minutes after that, taking a 3-0 lead into the period break (after killing a minute-long 5-on-3). The second period was largely a stonewall by Queen's. Toronto took 10 shots on goal (their lowest, believe it or not, period shot-count of the game), but Queen's survived. The third period saw UofT pull one back about halfway through, but Queen's pulled it back on an empty-netter with 39 seconds left (yeah, the OUA got it wrong there - they said it was with 30 seconds left. Pft). Solid night overall, though.

My biggest concern with the hockey team after this weekend is the defense. The Toronto game was hallmarked by some exceptionally clutch saves by goalie Brady Morrison, but it could have easily gone the other way. The Gaels were outshot 41-29 against Carleton and 38-18 against the Varsity Blues. Something that definitely needs to be remedied, as it's been said before - Morrison's good, but he's no Gibb**.

Oh, and also - the Sens fucked the bed tonight. That's about all I have to say about that.

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* That's what she said
** I can't find any of Gibb's stats from this season at Laredo, but then the CHL season is about as fresh as the OUA one so, watcha gonna do. At any rate; this is what they say about him on the team page.

Sorry!

On the subject of Sorry!, does anyone actually remember how to play it? I'd love to get my nostalgia on.

Anyways, this apology is for the lack of articles recently.

Both Milway and I have been getting our collective ass handed to us by midterms and essays and whatnot - interrupted only by copious drinking.

This is, of course, why we haven't put up anything new since 7 days ago - typically something of a sin in my eyes for a sports blog. Especially when there's been so much going on in our little world.

Summary:
Queen's football - perfect 8-0 season
Queen's rugby - undefeated 5-0-1 season
Soo Greyhounds - had their asses handed to them by the Fronts :(
Sens - mixed results
Spurs - got beaten by Stoke in probably the worst match I've seen in my entire life
England - beat Belarus, have turned the tide, quickly starting to play up to their potential

Anyways, sorry for the lack of posting lately, we'll try to get back into the swing of things immediately following this busy period. Please refer to any or all of the blogs posted on the right-hand side of the page for further time-wasting!

Game the second and Queen's sport stuff

Sorry for the delay folks.

Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to watch the game yesterday as I was covering Queen's lacrosse, so I'm not going to bother with a game recap because... well... the one I'd give would be a lot less useful than this, this or this.

That said, it was 3-1.

On to Queen's sport:

Football
Queen's 80 - 0 York

The starters came out midway through the third quarter... and the second/third strings beat up on the Lions too. What is it with Toronto-area universities being so shitty at ovular-ball related sports?

Next weekend sees the CIS #2 Gaels take on the U of O GeeGees at Richardson. It'll be on The Score... which is unfortunate because the stadium the student side will be empty... before and after halftime. That said, it is fortunate because (hopefully) I'll be able to watch the game on TV. It'll be the Gaels' last real test before playoffs start, and hopefully it'll be a huge confidence boost. That said, week 8 is against Waterloo so I can't imagine we'll be going into the playoffs on a low.

Men's Rugby
Queen's 106-0 Trent

Men's ovular-ball-sport for the win! It would appear our rugby team is chugging along nicely, and setting an OUA record along the way. That said - Trent got beaten 99-0 last year (the game was called to avoid further embarrasment), so this wasn't much of a test. The test is this Friday, when the Brock Badgers (last year's OUA finalist and the team that beat us) is coming to Kingston Field. Be there! Brock's lost some of their key guys from last year but their core is more or less still together... it'll be one hell of a game!

Men's Hockey
Queen's 0-2 Western

Looks like there was no party-spoiling - we beat them on our Homecoming and they beat us on theirs. The men's home opener did not have a strong scoreline (for a Queen's fan), but I wasn't there... so we'll wait for the home opener this week to see how they're playing. Wait, fuck. Thanksgiving. I won't be there for that game either, but if you're in town, our boys have their home opener against York this Friday night and that weird Oshawa school-like thing on Saturday afternoon.

Women's Soccer
Queen's 0-1 Ottawa
Queen's 6-0 Trent

Solid split - Ottawa's one hell of a team, but Trent isn't a team we should be losing to... and we didn't. Good result for a young side, but I didn't see the game. That said, Andrew will have more analysis in The Journal tomorrow.

Men's Soccer
Queen's 5-0 RMC
Queen's 2-0 Trent

Holy fuck. Men's soccer finally had a weekend worth talking about... and I wasn't there. Again, Andrew will break it down later, but this has been a really unsuccessful season for the boys and this will be a good confidence boost for them.

No Queen's wins (that I know of) happened in sports that I don't typically cover, so I'm not going to get into it - but in short, women's hockey lost, women's rugby lost, men's lacrosse won, women's lacrosse lost-lost-won... that's it I think.

Sens v Pens in Stockholm - game the first

(Updating will occur during period breaks)

Period 1

Pittsburgh scored a shite goal, Gerber should've been all over that. Luckily he recovered, because he's been absolutely crucial... what's the deal with the Ottawa penalties!?!?!

We've taken 5 penalties in the first period. 10 minutes of penalties!!! Fuck!

Donovan's goal to tie was pretty decent, another case of weak goaltending but it'll do.

This is hilarious to watch: the rule where they changed the location of the faceoff when a penalty is called. The commentators don't seem to understand the rule in a 4-on-4 situation, nor do the refs, players or coaches. And hell, we don't have a fucking clue either.

Jarkko Ruutu has won me over, his play's been tenacious but not douchebaggy. Volchenkov's been throwing his weight around, and the top line (in the few times they've all been on the ice) have been clicking. That said, I still worry about putting the three of them on the same line, full-time.

More to come at the second intermission.

PS: Watching the CBC first intermission -- Mike Milbury has his tongue so far up Sidney Crosby's ass it's unbelievable. HEY MIKE! There's more players on the ice than the boy from Cole Harbour. We know he's good, so stfu. It's now been 5 minutes of talking abouy Sidney. Even when they're talking about Gonchar's injury... it goes back to Sidney. Fuck.

Period 2

Ottawa seems to have worked out its defensive problems. Killed off all the penalties in the first, and they're dealing with all kinds of pressure from the Pens without a huge amount of problems.

Kuba's dump-in hits Neil and goes right to Malkin... unforch. Unforch-er, beauty of a move by Malkin, Gerber can't get his pad all the way down and an annoying fucking SH goal to score.

Heatley seems to be shooting a lot more... if he could get some more on target it would be nice, but the Pens are giving him a lot of attention, he's finding all kinds of space on the ice. Alfie seems really tired, he's not showing much intensity.

Fleury's rebound control is fantastic. Even when he doesn't swallow up the puck, he pushes the puck to where there's no one in a red shirt, it's really impressive.

Heatley just took a really stupid penalty. The commentator made the comment and it was a solid observation, since scoring, Malkin's been fantastic. This PK is gut-check time.

Pittsburgh is getting really hard pressure, even after the PP ended, this is really unpleasant. For the 10 seconds Ottawa will get on the attack, Pittsburgh will have a minute. It's very, very unpleasant.

Chris Neil is a beast, smashign the shit out of Cooke then forcing Godard into taking an incredibly dumb penalty. Nice one. But the powerplay is about as successful as the rest of their play, no sustained press...

NICE! Heatley scores off a Spezza pass, beauty goal on the PP. Thanks Neiler for forcing that penalty! 2-2

SPEZZA SH goal. GORGEOUS! Fuckin' beauty, goodness gracious. Flew down the right wing, pause, pause, pause, defenseman down and a beauty wristshot over Fleury's glove. Beauty. 3-2. Pittsburgh has now gone 14 minutes on the powerplay without a goal, about a minute of that 5-3. That's just poor.

Period 3

Elliot Friedman made Sidney Crosby human in an taped interview shown during the period break. ♥!! THANK YOU CBC ZOMG LULZ! Fuck off.

Sens start the period 5-3, and were it not for a huge diving pokecheck from Alfie, it would have been unfortunate. Oh, another chance from Pittsburgh. FUCK! Come on!

For me, the Neil-Ruutu-Foligno line has been Ottawa's best. They sustain pressue, keep the Pens in check, and have been absolutely shutdown in defense.

Fuck, Crosby puts a perfect pass on Scuderi's stick and he scores... Gerber lets in his second softy of the game. My confidence is waning quickly. That was Scuderi's first goal in 95 games.

(Sorry I was ordering food)

Vermette seems adamant to keep trying these wraparounds, the Pens are starting to predict it.

I wish Ruutu's last name started with a W, so we could call Neil, Foligno and Ruutu the NFW line... NO FUCKIN WAAAAY! Foligno has just drawn a penalty for holding on Chris Letang, putting the Sens back on the powerplay. This is the third penalty this line has drawn, I like it.

VERMETTE JUST THREW A HUGE HIT! Holy shit! Letang lost his stick, he's shaken!!! Sorry, it wasn't a huge'y game-changing deal... other than the fact that VERMETTE JUST THREW A HUGE HIT!!

Though I like Ruutu now, that little dive after the slash to the hand was ridiculous and excessive. There was absolutely no need to fall there.

Neil lays out Cooke to end the game - 3-3 the score, we're going to OT folks!

OT

Tenacious play form the Sens, they're not looking for a shootout they want to end this now. Voracious forecheck and quick turnarounds, the play is almost exclusively in the Pittsburgh end.

Spezza's passes have been very poor.

Kenneddy catches Ottawa's defense on the change, Spezza trues to beat 4 guys in the d-zone, loses the puck, and there was an open walk on goal and an incredibly light goal in OT to give Pittsburgh the win. Gerber and Spezza have been very poor.

That's the game - 4-3 Final. No guarantees with a "live"-blog tomorrow, but I'll probably do a game recap.

Jason Spezza somehow got second star. Wait, CBC fuckup - Dany Heatley is second star. Makes more sense.

Clear eyes, full hearts, and there's some hockey at the end

If they can do it, so can I.

A new season of Friday Night Lights has begun, and I for one was a little skeptical, after the train-wreck that was their last season. Murder (er.. manslaughter... self-defense... what?), ridiculous stories of teenagers running off unchecked to another country for magic shark cells of some kind, adoption, a set of over-tumulus love triangles, squares, etc... it was ridiculous.

But, like any good fan, I'll watch it regardless. And the new episode is probably their best since the first season. Looks like they're getting back to more realistic situations for the characters... and a whole lot of football. Oh yes, in yesterday's episode there were multiple practice scenes and a game scene! Hurrah! Mo' football, says I!

Now, the only hole left is that Hispanic kid from last season, who Buddy Garritty adopted. Where'd he go? Lyla seems to have decided to stay (I thought it was her senior year last year, but whatever) with Buddy while her mom, stepdad and (presumably) siblings all went to Northern California (hippies!!), but Lyla's staying with her dad. Okay. But, like I said... what happened to the Hispanic kid who Buddy adopted?

As for interesting twists, I'd like to see how this whole thing plays out with the freshman quarterback and Matt Saracen. Badass! And hooray for Tim Riggins continuing to hook-up with Lyla Garrity, attaboy!

Anyways, the show seems to be good again, I'll keep watching.

Oh - and by the way: staying with football, the Gaels are ranked number two in the country! WOO! Queen's Silver Gaels? At any rate, this is a bye week for the Tricolour (err... York, bye week, tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to), then next week will be the last big test before playoffs. Ottawa, at Richardson. Should be a barn-burner. Or, a barn-wrecker? At any rate, it'll be on the Score, and I for one will be watching!

Touching briefly on hockey: the Gaels had a pretty unsuccessful preseason in the Atlantic provinces, but will be looking to shake it off with their first regular season game at Western... on their Homecoming. Wow, the Queen's v Western Homecoming games just keep on rolling, don't they? At any rate, in the words of jead coach Brett Gibson, "We're going there to spoil a party". Them's fightin' words, I love it.

Oh, continuing to briefly touch hockey *whistle whistle*: the Sens beat Frolunda today 4-1. Alfie got a standing O from his hometown crowd when he notched a beautiful backhand over the Indian's goalie to make it 2-0. Jason Smith deflected the puck into the net for Frolunda's only goal... it'll happen. I unfortunately won't be able to watch the season opener on Saturday against Pittsburgh, if someone would keep me posted I would be most gracious.

Well, I might as well continue to briefly touch hockey: The Soo Greyhounds are in Kingston on October 17th. I'm fucking jacked.

Is someone going to paint Nikolai Korolev on his helmet?

Okay, truth be told, I'm not some Russian boxing legends know-it-all, I searched "famous russian boxer" on Google, and came up with this.

All to say - Ray Emery is the second NHLer, after Jaromir Jagr*, going to Russia. Emery will be playing for Atlant Mytishchi in the Russian Continental League during the 08/09 season (holy shit, SpellCheck hates me for these Russian team names!!!).

I feel for Rayzor, but maybe this move will get his career back on track. He's young, he's undeniably talented, and he can flat-out play. Unfortunately he got more than distracted this year, and the Ottawa media and citizens (though I guess Ottawa media and Citizen are one in the same?) were absolutely merciless when he started fucking about in his personal life without backing it up with solid play on the ice.

I don't know if the pressure of expectations, or just ego, got to him, but this was not the same goaltender that backstopped the defensively-questionable Sens to the Stanley Cup final in 2007. He got a beast of a contract after that season, some would say deservedly, I said (and still say) he was too young for that kind of contract (3 years, $9.5M), then faltered horribly and, after one disaster game and event after another, he got bought out by the Sens.

Russia could do one of two things for Emery. It might save his career, he goes to Russia, starts at Atlant Mytishchi (is the city Atlant, or Mytishchi?) for the next year, regains his reputation and confidence as a goalie, drops the ego, and makes some sort of Hollywood-esque return to the NHL as a last-chance goaltender for a failing team (*ahem* Tampa) where he'll single-handedly take them to the top, with his new appreciation and respect for the game and team spirit**.

It might, of course, ruin him. After arguably the biggest nightmare of a season possible, he's been signed in the Continental League for 1 year at $2M+ (plus bonuses). To put this in perspective - recent free agent goaltender signings:
Jaroslav Halak- 2 year/$1.55M with Montreal
Patrick Lalime - 2 year/$2M with Buffalo
Alex Auld - 2 year/$2M with Ottawa
Olaf Kolzig - 1 year/$1.5M (plus bonuses) with Tampa
Christobal Huet - 4 year/$22.4M ($5.6M/year, only $3M more than Ray) with Chicago
Curtis Joseph - 1 year/$700K with Toronto
Ty Conklin - 1 year/$750K with Detroit
Dan Ellis - 2 year/$3.5M with Nashville

All these guys had better seasons than Ray (even Lalime!), and yet only Huet is being paid more than him. In the list of all these skilled goaltenders, Ray Emery is second on the pay-chart for 2008-2009. His ego is big enough as it is, if he takes his salary the wrong way, continues with his stellar lack of work ethic, and continues to believe he is the shit, he won't be finding his way back to the NHL any time soon. GM's are looking for character guys***, even in the minor leagues, Ray Emery is anything but a character guy.

So, now is the fork in the road, let's see if Rayzor can pull it off. I really, really want to see two things next year though. Firstly - Jagr's highlight reel goal against Emery. Secondly - Emery's brand new mask. Also, how they deal with a flashy, rich black guy in Russia (someone's got to say it).

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* Both names linked, as both names link to a different report on Jagr leaving - Mike's near-obituary to Jagr's defection, and Andrew's comparison of Jagr to the great Bobby Hull.
** How's that for a run-on sentence?
*** Note the quote near the end of the story from Buck's GM Terry Ruscowski (yes, that was about as shameless a plug for my own work as I could muster).

Hartsburg to Ottawa!

Well, it looks like my two favourite (non-international...see profile) hockey teams are about to be connected in the strangest (and potentially, most harmful) of ways...Craig Hartsburg, coach of the Soo Greyhounds (OHL team out of Sault Ste Marie) is apparently on his way to Ottawa.

A little background on Hartsburg. From 1979 to 1989, he played defense for the Minnesota North Stars (he was their first pick), and captained them from 1982 till his playing retirement. From 1995-1998, he coached the Chicago Blackhawks, then moved on to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (as they were still known) and coached there from 1998 till 2000. Since 2001 he's been coaching the Greyhounds (in separated stints), and served as head coach for the Canadian Juniors over the past two years.

He hasn't had much success coaching in the NHL thus far, but his OHL and Junior record is pretty fantastic (141-91-8-23 with the Hounds, not to mention Coach of the Year in 1995 with the Guelph Storm). The Greyhounds won in their West division this year, came second in the conference and made it to the conference finals in the playoffs, to be bumped by the Kitchener Rangers. Last year, they made it to the conference semi finals and lost 4-3 in a thrilling series against the London Knights (3-0 down, got it to 3-3 and forced a game 7 in London).

His Juniors record ain't too shabby either. He was assistant coach to Brent Sutter at the 2006 championships, before becoming head coach in 2007. His boys destroyed the Russians in the Super Series, and they've won gold the past three years at the IIHF World U20 Championship under Hartsburg (as head and ass't coach).

I guess the biggest positive point to him coming to Ottawa - jeez I don't really know. Fresh face I suppose, and he's certainly proved himself at the junior level - but look what happened with John Paddock. Failed former NHL coach, went junior, did really well, came back to the NHL and crashed again. Hartsburg has achieved substantially more at the junior level, mind you, but his NHL record is still a little worrying. He's also rumoured to be quite the badass, doesn't take any crap from his players - but then...neither did Paddock(?)

That said, having watched Greyhounds hockey for the past few years, it gives me confidence that Hartsburg is the man for the job in Ottawa.

Problem becomes - new coach needed for the Hounds! And the Canadian juniors...but I'm pretty sure they could still win everything with a mule behind the bench.

Mike has (and apparently will continue to do) a little coverage of the move, ici