Posts Tagged ‘hockey’

Young Role Models for Local Hockey Players?

Wednesday, January 16th, 2013

Ten days ago the Team USA World Junior Hockey Team won their second championship in the last four years when they defeated Sweden 3-1 in the Gold Medal game of the 2013 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships in Russia.

The tournament featured 10 countries that assembled their greatest players under the age of 20 in a two week pool play and round robin styled event that began December 26, 2012 and concluded January 5, 2013. When it comes to hockey, Canada is almost always the heavy favorite to win the gold medal. This year, however, belonged to the Americans who avenged an earlier 2-1 loss in pool play by beating the Canadians 5-1 in the Semi-Finals. Canada would not even medal this year, losing to host Russia in the Bronze Medal game.

This achievement for the young American squad piqued my interest and made me wonder if local high school players like Midview’s Austin Steindl, Manny Ceja and Brock Behler or Amherst’s Steven Morris, Avon’s Eric Novakovic and Elyria Catholic’s Stephen Donat have aspirations to play at the next stage of their hockey life in either college or potentially at the Junior level as well. It also brought to mind the fact that every single one of those players could have been looking up to that whole U-20 team over the course of those two weeks and saying to themselves, I want to be just like them and play for my country someday.

As most of you are aware, hockey is Canada’s National Pastime just like football or baseball is here in the United States. It is so popular that famous country music singer Paul Brandt wrote a song specifically for the World Junior Hockey Championships this year called “I Was There.” Here is the link to the video for the song…enjoy!

 

Can Hockey Fans Forgive and Forget?

Monday, January 7th, 2013

Andy “the Sandman” Sanzotta sounds off about the tentative agreement between the NHL and NHLPA. Read more here.

Can Hockey Fans Forgive and Forget?

Monday, January 7th, 2013

After nearly 120 days (113 to be exact) of the lockout the NHL and NHLPA have reached a tentative agreement to salvage what’s left of the 2013 hockey season. Nothing is official just yet but all the experts have reason to believe the latest deal that was proposed to the players by the owners will be accepted as of this coming Wednesday. Depending on when they decide the season will start it will be either a 50 or 48 game regular season and because of the late start, that means that the Stanley Cup Playoffs will last until the end of June.

The deal is still considered tentative at this point because the board of governors still has to give the approval, they are scheduled to meet with all 30 owners on Wednesday. According to Scott Burnside of espn.com, this is the language of the proposed CBA.

“The tentative agreement is a 10-year deal with a mutual opt-out clause after eight years and includes contract term limits at seven years (eight years for a team to re-sign its own players). For the first year, the salary cap is $60 million, but teams can spend up to $70.2 million in the transition period, while the floor is $44 million.

Sources said the 2013-14 salary cap, a very divisive issue, will be $64.3 million, while the floor will remain at $44 million. Revenue sharing will spread $200 million, with a $60 million NHLPA-initiated growth fund included.”

As all of you know I have a passion for this sport like no other and although I am still very sour about the strike in the first place and do not approve of Gary Bettman being the NHL Commissioner, I am ecstatic that I can begin watching games again when football is over. I know for a fact the die-hard fans like myself will be back on Day 1, however I firmly believe that the rest of the sports’ fans will not come back for quite some time and after a major market team like the Los Angeles Kings won the Cup last season, I personally felt like this year’s work stoppage could not have come at a worse time for the game.

In the end I am relieved there will be a season and just hope other hockey fans can forgive the league for what it did to its fans over the last 113 days. At least we’ve had high school hockey in Lorain County to help us get our hockey fix. Just a reminder, we’ve got games on Wednesday (Elyria Catholic vs. Westlake) and Sunday (Avon vs. Midview) click here for details.

Snow and Ice – That’s the Way I Like It!

Wednesday, December 26th, 2012

With the snow coming down and winter officially here, this is once again a great reminder that it’s hockey season. With the NHL season all but completely cancelled up to this point, there are still plenty of games out there for the die-hard hockey fan. Northeast Ohio alone has over 15 high schools that have a hockey program and there’s also exciting action at the professional level thanks to the Lake Erie Monsters. Next week there will be a unique combination of the two. On Thursday, January 3rd, the Elyria Catholic Panthers face off against the Normandy Invaders at 3:30pm at Quicken Loans Arena. At 7pm the Lake Erie Monsters take on the Charlotte Checkers. Having called hundreds of hockey games at all levels over the course of my career I can only imagine the level of excitement the high school players will be experiencing when they take to the ice next week.