Schoney's rock and roll fights

Classic clip from a December 1972 battle btwn Buffalo and Boston, with the famed "through the Zamboni doors" incident between Jim Schoenfield and Wayne Cashman:

More women playing fantasy sports

Hat tip to HP for this one - today's New York Times has an article on how women are becoming an increasing presence in fantasy leagues. Although from personal experience it isn't new to me - one hockey league that I've been in for nearly 15 years had a woman as a charter member (and we weren't shy about ragging on her for drafting Ulf Samuelsson late one draft). My wife also joined me for one year in an NL-only league and finished ahead of me. Naturally, I disbanded the league.

(aside: the infamous knee-on-knee hit delivered to Cam Neely by Ulfie was deemed so dirty back when it happened, but how many times have we seen that same kind of hit in the past 10-15 years, and most of the time much worse?)

Absence

OK, summer hockey writing is better left to folks like Eric McErlain at Off Wing, James Mirtle, or NHL Numbers to keep up with the salary cap. I'll be back fulltime once pre-season begins. Too many vacations, reunions (family, friends, high school) this summer to do the job that the aforementioned (and others) are already doing.

However, starting by the end of this week I'll have some previews of the Northeast division here - my "assignment" for the SportsGrumblings.com NHL preview Sourcebook.

Steve Sullivan heckles injured fan

Big hat tip to Parlayer.com for this one: Steve Sullivan gets heckled by a front-row fan after taking a stick to the grill. Sullivan has the unreal luck of being able to "repay the favour" later in the game.



Brilliant work Steve (no, really).

Kind of reminds me of the Seinfeld episode when Jerry goes to Elaine's office to heckle Kramer's girlfriend (and chases her into the street where her pinky toe gets run over...)

Home, Home Again

I had the (dis)pleasure of being in the general Western New York region during "Black Sunday" when the Sabres lost both Daniel Briere and Chris Drury to free agency. The text messages I received were frustrating and hilarious all at once... (the displeasure came from subjecting myself to 10 minutes of the local sports-talk radio)

Anyways, I obviously missed the free agent frenzy which was covered to extremes by virtually any/every blog in the blogroll to the right.

Possibly the most interesting hockey site over the summer is the increasingly-important NHL Numbers which dutifully has kept track of every team's salary cap commitments. For the big splashes they made this month, the Rangers have some work to do in getting that payroll down at least USD$1.4million by September (this not even considering that Sean Avery and Marcel Hossa are unsigned...)

As for the rest of this month, I'm beginning work on the online SportsGrumblings.com 2007-2008 NHL Sourcebook, something we did over at the now-extinct SportsBlurb.com last season. We'll have the usual: detailed team/division previews, rookie previews, and a bunch of fantasy content - from fantasy 101 articles, breakout/bust players, and a detailed forecast on hundreds of NHL players. We were a little late on it last year but after working out the kinks we should have it ready by late August - keep checking back here for previews and ultimately a link to the final product. 100% free, btw.

NOTE: SportsGrumblings.com requires (free) registration - gives you an account/password. Yes, it stinks and I'm not generally a fan of the concept. But - and this is my Smooth Jimmy Apollo Lock of the Week - you'll never get any spam from them and your e-mail address isn't given to anyone. Which begs the question 'why bother' but that's not my call to make. Anyways, just some info to hopefully encourage people to check it out.


UPDATE: some conflicting reports about the Rangers' salary commitments - the NHLSCAP.com site lists New York as having USD$2.8 million wiggle room.