Lalala...

Nothing interesting in hockey + no tennis + no football = me rambling again.

1. Another coach bites the dust today. Peter Laviolette, head caoch of the Carolina Hurricanes follows Denis Savard and Barry Melrose as the latest coach to be fired. At least he lasted 25 games. Savard lasted just 4 and Melrose got the boot after 15 games (or was it 16?). Laviolette gets replaced by former Hurricanes coach Paul Maurice who was jobless following his firing by the Leafs last May. Or something along those lines. Despite winning the Stanley Cup with the team following the lockout, Laviolette's team has been struggling with inconstistancy this year. Sound like anyone else you know? At least we've done better. Although if what I hear is true about the practices being a total mess.... I won't even say that we need a new coach yet...
2. Dallas now says that they don't want Avery. Haha. They should have thought about that when they signed him. Dolts.
3. The Sens are beating the Thrashers 4-1 with 12 mins to go in the game. I'm sad.
4. But not as sad as this: I went to look at the University of Ottawa today and I liked it a lot. The one huge downside I see to going there however would be I would have to put up with 4 years or more of the Sens. Heaven help me!
5. Hockey Canada announced 38 players who have been invited to the National Junior team's selection camp. John Tavares was among those invited. You may have seen him when his OHL team played against the Russian team who came over and played a pile of games (and lost most of them). Apparently two of the Habs's prospects were named to the US junior team.
6. Team Canada blanked poor Germany to win the Deutschland Cup/TUI Nations Cup. I feel kind of bad because I have to wonder if Germany has ever won it. Later: They one it twice Russia, Czech Republic, Canada, Slovakia and Switzerland have won it a lot. So sad. Switzerland won it last year. Yay!
7. Pens just lost to the Rangers in shootouts. I'm just praying that the Pens were actually flat tonight and that the Rangers aren't really as good as I think they are. The Habs need to remember how to play 60 mins of good hockey....
8. About this whole All Star thing. I have been reading a lot about how people think that those who vote for the Habs on the ballot are embarassing their team and "true fans". Their reasoning is that it is wrong for people to vote for the Habs because they don't believe that most of the Habs don't deserve to be on the ballot and it's just embarassing to put them into the lineup. You know what? The whole idea that the best people in the League are supposed to be playing in it is a joke. Voting started in November. While you may have a good idea of who some of the best players in the League are, you can't say for sure that those best players from last year will come back and be the best players this year. You're telling me that after only a few weeks of playing we already know who the best players are? Pleeeaaaase. I'm not saying that Crosby, Malkin and Ovechkin are suddendly going to forget how to play (although in Ovechkin's case, I have to wonder what's going on with him). What I'm saying is, I'll bet you a rotten carrot that by the end of the year we will be talking about people who have been fantastic and were not on that ballot.
   
   So now that we've established that this thing really should be called "The Game for the Promotion of the NHL" instead of the "All Star Game", now what do we do? Well, we vote for the Habs of course. I personally would love to watch the home crowd go bananas as the Habs go out onto the ice. We already go crazy during regular games. Can you imagine what it would be like for that game? If I was a player, I would love to see and be a part of that. The whole atmosphere would be amazing. I really doubt that the players think that the best of the best are out on the ice - especially when the roster is determined by public voting. We're not saying that Kovalev is better than Crosby or Ovechkin, we're just saying that we want to see him skating around on home ice for some event that's supposed to be fun. Fuuuuun. Remember that word? Quit taking it so seriously, people. And yes, I would still be saying that if Toronto was hosting the event and they were trying to vote six players in which would result in the Habs not making it. No, I'm not swearing to that statement.