A Change of Loyalties in Charleston

Late July is Hell on Earth for hockey fans. It’s been a couple months since the Stanley Cup was handed out and training camps are still a couple months away. There’s the occasional big trade or free-agent signing, but apart from watching classic games from 1987 on The Hockey Network or renting the recent Seann William Scott flick “Goon” but that really doesn’t completely fill the void. I know; I did both recently…I watched a replay of the Oilers winning the 1987 Stanley Cup with a team full of legends, and I also rented “Goon”. It’s a cute & funny movie about a minor league hockey player whose seeming sole purpose on the ice is to be the team’s enforcer. It’s based on a true story about a guy who played in the ECHL for a few years.

The ECHL, you say? Yeah.

There’s the National Hockey League, the Big Show, the majors, the NHL. The often ignored step-brother of the NFL, NBA, and MLB. This is where hockey players want to be.

Directly under the NHL is the American Hockey League. The AHL is the direct farm feeder for the NHL teams, where hot shot prospects who just aren’t quite ready for the NHL get ice time and pro experience and wait for a call-up. When the parent team needs a replacement body this is where they go.

And below the AHL is the ECHL, considered a developmental league, where prospects and draft picks who need a little bit more seasoning can polish their skills and hopefully move up the ladder to the bigs.

That brings me to my local team, the South Carolina Stingrays of the ECHL. In a league that has seen many a team start up and fold just after a single season, we’re celebrating our 20^th season this year. And this year we’re also celebrating a brand-new NHL affiliation, with the Boston Bruins. For the previous 8 seasons we have been an affiliate of the Washington Capitals, which suited me just fine. I grew up for my first 14 years in the DC area and had always been a Caps fan, even through the lean years when they couldn’t get a win to save their lives. The fans of Stingrays Nation embraced their new NHL team with pride and got to a few Stingrays players move up to the NHL, most notably goalies Michal Neuvirth and Braden Holtby.

                                                       Braden Holtby against the Bruins

As much as Stingrays fans enjoyed the relationship with the Caps, however, most fans disliked the relationship that came with it, that being the AHL go-between….the Hershey Bears. The Bears had a tendency to call up our best players whenever one of their people got a runny nose or a pimple and seldom giving us anything in return. Often, our call ups would sit in the stands as healthy scratches getting no ice time in games but skating in practices daily. Such can be the nature of the beast when you’re an ECHL team but all too often to many of us fans it felt like the relationship with Hershey was all take & very little give back.

Well, after 8 years the Caps decided to sever ties with the Rays and go with an ECHL team closer to Hershey. Good luck, Reading; enjoy losing your best players and getting not a lot of love from Hershey.

That said, I’d like to send a very warm South Carolina welcome to the people of Boston and Providence. Our new affiliate is the Boston Bruins, and their AHL affiliated team is the Providence Bruins, known colloquially as the Baby Bruins. I’m pretty excited for this, because I’m also a Bruins fan. At 14, I moved from the DC area to Maine, an hour north of Boston, and my new friends at school made sure I became a quick fan of the B’s in the days of Ray Bourque, Cam Neely, Andy Moog, and Adam Oates.

                                                                     Ray Bourque

Everyone loves a winner, and the transition to new affiliates comes at a good time, when the Bruins won the Stanley Cup last year and made the playoffs again this year. In fact, one of the current Bruins players, Rich Peverley, started his professional career with the South Carolina Stingrays. He went from an undrafted free agent with a tryout in camp to having a Stanley Cup ring. Bruins goalie and future Hall of Famer Tim Thomas also started off in the ECHL, incidentally.

                                                             Rich Peverley

For you Bruins fans reading this, I think you’ll be happy with us here. You might think that hockey in the Deep South is either a fluke, or just plain wrong, or no big deal, but I beg to differ.

 In a league where I have seen teams start and fold in a year, the Stingrays are entering their 20^th season. We’re the only team in the ECHL to win the league championship three times. In our previous 19 seasons, we have only missed the playoffs once. Unlike some of the war-zone barns I’ve been to in this league, we play in a great arena. Our fans are educated about hockey and know the sport well. We’re a mix of home grown locals and transplants from all over who love hockey and love that we can often wear shorts to the rink. Our fans are just as rabid about hockey as any fan can be.

Our current team president (and former Stingrays player) Rob Concannon is a native of Southie. In fact he was profiled a few years ago in Boston Magazine. Dozens of former Stingrays have come from the Boston area or played college hockey there. Boston College grad and Arlington native Andy Powers, an Associate Coach with the Boston Junior Bruins, is a former Stingray. 

                                              Rob Concannon (top) and Andy Powers (bottom)

The first jersey number ever retired by the South Carolina Stingrays, #12, was that of a native of Roslindale, Massachusetts, who was a standout at Boston University who also played in 32 games for the Providence Bruins and worked as an assistant coach at Harvard for two years. He was immortalized, along with former Boston Bruins player Garnet “Ace” Bailey, in the Dropkick Murphys song “Your Spirit’s Alive”. Both were scouts for the Los Angeles Kings when they lost their lives on United Airlines Flight 175 on 9/11.

 The banner in the rafters at the North Charleston Coliseum commemorating the retired jersey number of Mark Bavis and an L.A. Kings Stanley Cup cap left at the 9/11 Memorial next to Mark & Ace's names.

I encourage the fans in Boston & Providence to follow the Rays on the web and cheer us on, as Rays Nation will most assuredly be following both sets of Bruins and cheering on our new affiliates. And if ya’ll are ever down here in Charleston stop on by; you may never want to leave.

March Sadness

Mark Messier, Ron Francis, Scott Stevens, and Al MacInnis were inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame this year...


Tonight, all the talk of the sports world is the championship game of NCAA men’s basketball, the final culmination of the field of 64 teams in the tournament known as March Madness. All the prognosticating, smack-taling, filling in of brackets, and placing of wagers comes to a frothy head as I write this. March Madness, indeed.

So what…I can’t stand basketball.

While seemingly everyone else in the known universe is watching hoops, my sport is once again cast aside like a forgotten afterthought. Hockey always gets the shaft, actually. The start of the season is overshadowed by baseball’s World Series and the start of the NFL and college football seasons. Football dominates the TV and news coverage throughout, unless it’s instead being gobbled up by basketball. And now that the regular season is ending for hockey, no one seems to be noticing, caught up instead by the opening games of baseball season and the basketball championships.

Although hockey’s playoffs and the run for Lord Stanley’s Cup will carry us through to May, I’m still sad to see the season winding down. I call it March Sadness.

Yeah, I know, it’s April. Sue me.

So, since ESPN would rather show people playing poker, as if it were a sport, USA Today relegates daily hockey coverage to the back of the sports section after in-depth coverage of everything else under the sun, and the NHL’s TV coverage is provided by Versus, a cable channel that’s seen in about 12 homes nationwide, I thought I’d fill you all in on the spectacular moments in hockey that you’ve missed since the first puck dropped.

The season opened on September 29, with the first of back-to-back games in London at The O2 Arena. Both games featured the defending Stanley Cup Champion Anaheim Ducks, and the Los Angeles Kings (who are owned by Anschutz Entertainment Group, the same company that owns The O2). They were the first NHL regular season games ever played in Europe.

At just twenty years of age and in his third professional season, Sidney Crosby of the Pittburgh Penguins became the oungest captain ever of an NHL team when he was selected to that position on May 31st, during the off-season. At the time, Crosby was still about 10 weeks shy of turning 20.

Sid The Kid scores the winning goal at the Winter Classic


On November 7th Mike Modano of the Dallas Stars broke the NHL all-time record (1,233) for most points scored by a U.S. born player by scoring two goals in the first five minutes of a game against the San Jose Sharks. Modano ended the regular season with a total of 1,287 total points on 528 goals and 755 assists.

Mike Modano celebrates his milestone achievement

On November 10th, Jeremy Roenick of the San Jose Sharks became only the 3rd American to score 500 goals during his playing career. And on the final day of the regular season, April 6th (yeah, Saturday night), that feat was also accomplished by a fourth American, Kieth Tkachuk of the St.Louis Blues (Joe Mullen and Mike Modano are the other two Americans to have reached 500). Only 41 players have reached the 500-goal milestone in the history of the NHL, with the first being Maurice “Rocket” Richard in 1957.

Jeremy Roenick celebrates goal number 500 with his son. How cool is that?


On January 1st, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Buffalo Sabres played an historic outdoor game at Buffalo's Ralph Wilson Stadium, home of the Buffalo Bills football team. The AMP Energy NHL Winter Classic was the first time an NHL regular-season game had been played outdoors in the United States, and it set an NHL attendance record of 71,217 people in subzero weather conditions. (http://mojosteve.blogspot.com/2008/01/playing-ice-hockey-in-snow-ice-how.html)

On January 8, Chris Chelios of the Detroit Red Wings became the second oldest player in the history of the NHL, at 45 years, 348 days. Only Gordie Howe, who played until age 52, was older. Now in his 24th NHL season, Chris is older than his coach, Mike Babcock, who turns 45 later this month.This coming weekend, in Game Two of a playoff game against the Nashvile Predators, Chelios will become the NHL’s all-time leader in playoff games played. Incidentally, the Predators squeaked into the playoffs after a dramatic overtime win with a goal scored by a former South Carolina Stingray, Rich Peverley.


Methuselah? No, Chris Chelios!!!


Richard Zednik of the Florida Panthers was severely injured after having his external carotid artery in his neck accidentally cut by the skate of teammate Olli Jokinen in a game against the Buffalo Sabres on February 10. Zednik is expected to fully recover from the injury. (http://mojosteve.blogspot.com/2008/02/huge-scare-in-buffalo.html)


Richard Zednik, one lucky dude.


On March 21, Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals scored his 59th and 60th goals of the season against the Atlanta Thrashers, becoming the first NHL player to score 60 goals in a season since 1996. He is the 19th player ever to reach the 60 goal plateau during a season. On March 25, Ovechkin scored his 61st goal to hold the Washington Capital's team record for regular season goals, and broke Luc Robitaille's record for most goals by a left winger in one season on April 3, by scoring two goals, his 64th and 65th of the season. Ovechkin finished the regular season as the leader in points (112) and goals (65), and today was awarded both the Art Ross Trophy and the Rocket Richard Trophy for the respective achievements. Moreover, since the Capitals won the Southeast Division, Ovechkin is a frontrunner for the Hart Trophy and Lester B. Pearson Award as the league's MVP via selection by the media and the National Hockey League Players Association, respectively. Twenty-two year old Ovechkin is in only his third NHL season.


Alexander Ovechkin. You can call him Ovie.


The NHL also celebrated a very special anniversary this year. It was 50 years ago that a young man named Willie O’Ree broke the color barrier in major league hockey. In 1958 O'Ree made his debut with the Boston Bruins. He was with the Bruins for two games before being sent back to the minors. In 1961, after two more years in the minors, O'Ree had a longer stay with the Bruins--41 games. O'Ree never played another game in the NHL, but stayed in the minors till retiring in 1974. He came out of retirement in 1978 for a final hurrah; at age 43 he laced up the skates one more time. Incredibly, Willie missed only a half-dozen games of the 70-game season and scored 50 points.

The most fitting tribute to Willie's career came when the NHL created an all-star game for young minority hockey players and named it in Willie's honor. The Willie O'Ree All-Star Game is held every year at the World Junior Championships. On January 17, 1998, during ceremonies before the NHL All-Star game, the NHL honored Willie O'Ree for his pioneering efforts and named him the director of youth hockey development for the NHL/USA Hockey diversity task force. He travels all over North America helping to establish programs.

Willie O'Ree while playing for the Bruins



A little closer to home, our very own South Carolina Stingrays have wrapped up their 15th season and are once again heading to the playoffs, the 14th trip of their 15-year franchise history. First year head coach Jared Bednar now holds the Rays’ record for regular-season wins with a team made up mostly of young rookies, a couple of returning core players, a couple upstart college players signed at the last minute, and a part-time defenseman who catches crooks at a local Target store. The goalie tandem of Davis Parley and Josh Johnson combined for six shutouts. Rookie sensation Travis Morin’s 34 goals and 50 assists not only led the Rays in scoring but was also good enough for third in the league. Their first-round action against the Augusta Lynx kicks off Thursday night.


Pierre-Luc O'Brien and Scott Romfo of the Stingrays celebrate another win.

A huge scare in Buffalo

Above: Richard Zednik shortly before Sunday's accident.





There are a lot of inherent dangers in playing sports, especially contact sports. Depending upon the sport the injuries can range from muscle strains, pulls, and sprains to torn ligaments and tendons. I’ve seen myriad broken bones in football tackles, skiing accidents, and I’ve even seen a broken arm and a broken leg in baseball. You can get struck by lightning playing something sedate as golf, which I kinda consider more of a game and less of a sport, and of course folks have died in crashes in auto racing (again, not so much a sport as a skill). I saw a guy die from his injuries once in a boxing match, too.

Ice hockey is the sport I follow the most; in fact it’s the only sport I follow closely at all enough to carry on a reasonably intelligent conversation. Hockey is most assuredly a contact sport and the potential for injury is pretty major at times. Instead of on nice soft grass, you play on cold hard ice, balanced on top of razor blades about 1/8 of an inch wide. Yes, you play armor-clad in shoulder/elbow/shin pads, gloves, and a helmet, but injuries still happen from such things as errant sticks, flying pucks, getting slammed into the boards, player on player collisions, and occasional fisticuffs.

I’ve personally seen several puck-related injuries, from deep bruises to broken foot bones. Remember, that thing is a little over half a pound of frozen vulcanized rubber hurtling about at nearly 100 miles an hour. Additionally, I’ve seen broken noses and bloody lips from high-sticking, at least one broken leg from hitting the boards wrong, and more than a few teeth lost (what we old-school fans call “spitting out Chiclets”), all right here in Charleston at the Coliseum during Stingrays games. Just a couple weeks ago Ilya Kovalchuk of the Atlanta Thrashers missed a couple games after a knee on knee collision with Jarkko Ruutu of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Think of how that would hurt, knocking knees while skating at full-tilt.

But on Sunday, Richard Zednik of the Florida Panthers suffered an even more horrifying injury when his carotid artery was sliced open by the skate blade of his team mate Olli Jokinen in a freak accident during a game against the Buffalo Sabres. Zednik was circling the net behind the play and skating into the corner when Jokinen was upended by Sabres forward Clarke MacArthur. Jokinen fell headfirst to the ice, and his right leg and skate flew up and struck Zednik directly on the side of the neck. Doctors said the skate blade just missed cutting the jugular vein. Zednik lost five units of blood (almost a third of the body’s total volume) and required over an hour of emergency surgery to close the wound, but is currently listed in good condition as of 5:00 PM Tuesday.

It was eerily familiar to me, though, to hear about a player’s throat being slashed during a game in Buffalo. On March 22, 1989, Steve Tuttle of the St.Louis Blues collided with Buffalo’s Uwe Krupp in front of the goal net, and Tuttle’s skate caught Sabres goalie Clint Malarchuk on the neck, severing his right external jugular vein. With a huge pool of blood collecting on the ice, Malarchuk somehow left the ice under his own power with the assistance of his team's athletic trainer, Jim Pizzutelli. Many spectators were physically sickened by the sight, with nine fainting and two suffering heart attacks, while three teammates vomited on the ice. Malarchuk's life was saved by Pizzutelli, a former army medic who had served in Vietnam. He reached into Malarchuk's neck and pinched off the bleeding, not letting go until doctors arrived to begin suturing the wound. Amazingly, after receiving more than 300 stitches to close the wound, Malarchuk returned to practice four days later, having spent only one night in the hospital. And about a week after that, he was back between the pipes against the Quebec Nordiques, having missed only six games.

Now a goalie coach with the Columbus Blue Jackets, Malarchuk immediately contacted the Panther organization to offer his support, and to pass on his phone number in case Zednik wants someone to talk to, someone who understands like no one else.

"There's nothing anybody can say to make this go away," Malarchuk said, "But I'd tell him he should get back as quick as he can -- I've extended my phone number in case I can help."

But according to doctors, there’s no comparing the injuries, similar though they may seem. They say Zednik's injury was much more life- threatening.

"Clint actually cut his external jugular vein, which is quite different from your common carotid artery," Dr. Leslie J. Bisson said. "Your common carotid artery, when that's lacerated, it can very quickly become a fatal injury." Bisson is the Sabres team doctor.

The four doctors who treated Zednik used words Monday such as "profusely," "devastating," "hanging by a thread" and "lucky" in a press conference to describe the sliced carotid artery injury suffered by Zednik on Sunday. They described a scene that likely would have been fatal if not for a sequence of fortunate events.

The blow could have been deadly if:
*Zednik hadn't skated immediately to the bench, a 100-foot journey that left a wide trail of blood. That allowed trainers and doctors to reach him quicker.

*Bisson hadn't been positioned next to the bench. He was able to hop out of the stands and meet Zednik near his bench. Bisson immediately put pressure on the gushing artery, slowing the bleeding.

*The artery had been completely severed. It wasn't, allowing Dr. Sonya Noor and Dr. Richard Curl to quickly find the injury and reattach it cleanly. If the artery had torn fully, it would have retracted and moved, causing further complications.

Well-wishers can leave Richard a get-well message at www.floridapanthers.com. I purposely left out any links to the footage of either Zednik’s or Malarchuk’s injuries, out of respect to both players and their families. Trust me, they’re out there and easy to find if you really want to see.

Gretzky Comes to Chucktown

Wayne Gretzky conducts a team practice Friday at the North Charleston Coliseum.



How often in the course of your lifetime do you get an opportunity to be in close proximity to one of your lifelong heroes? Probably once in a lifetime, if ever. Sometimes we manage to get close to, or even meet, famous people or people of greatness, but those people may or may not be heroes of yours just because of their fame or deeds. A couple years ago I met South Carolina governor Mark Sanford at a golf tournament; a nice guy but not my hero. In 1996 I was about 75 to 100 feet away from President Bill Clinton when he stopped off & gave a speech in Bangor, Maine. A man of greatness, but not my hero. I said hi to author Stephen King as we passed each other in a grocery store parking loot, but he’s not my hero. I talked to Cal Ripken for a few minutes in the airport in Bangor during the baseball strike in 1994, but while he was one of the nicest and most genuine guys I’ve ever met and he’s in the Baseball Hall of Fame, but baseball’s not really my sport. Hockey is my sport. Ergo, it would be safe to say that the hero I had a brush with on Friday was connected to hockey, no?

-----------DING! DING! DING! ---------------you win a prize!!!!!---------------------

Friday afternoon I had the distinct pleasure of seeing Wayne Gretzky, the Great One, arguably the greatest player ever to strap on skates. Gretzky is now the coach of the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes, and by a stroke of great fortune Wayne and his “Desert Dogs” were in town on a breather during a road trip. They just needed a day or two away from hockey to relax as a team, play some golf and tennis on Thursday, and in the afternoon on Friday they did a light practice at the North Charleston Coliseum, open only to some press and season ticket holders of the South Carolina Stingrays. That meant that me and Crys would definitely be in attendance.

There were perhaps 200 people in the stands, since not every season ticket holder could get away from work in the middle of a Friday afternoon, but I recognized most every face who was able to be there. Us ‘Rays fans are a pretty tight group. It was absolutely fascinating to watch famous NHL players like team captain Shane Doan, defenseman Ed Jovanovski, and goalie Ilya Bryzgalov working through puck drills and sprints. As fast, accurate, and fluid as many of the Stingrays are, these guys from the highest level of pro hockey looked even more so.

Their goalie coach, Grant Fuhr, is an NHL legend himself, winner of five Stanley Cups, an inductee to the Hall of Fame, and a former team mate of Gretzky during four of those Cups. Fuhr was there in the thick of the practice as the skaters did shooting drills against his charges, starting goalie Bryzgalov and his backup Mikael Telqvist. And of course, in the middle of it all, directing the action with a quiet intensity and occasionally doling out advice, wisdom, and the occasional grin, was The Great One himself. The hair’s a bit longer, the face a bit older, and the #99 jersey he wore was only visible on fans in the stands, replaced by a burgundy Coyotes windsuit, but the same ready smile and aura of mystique surrounding was the same I remember from his playing days.

In his 20 years of pro hockey, Gretzky held or shared 61 NHL records, won nine Hart Trophies for the NHL’s Most Valuable Player, ten Art Ross Trophies for scoring champion, two Con Smythe Trophies for playoffs Most Valuable Player, and four Stanley Cups, scoring 893 goals and 1,963 assists. Wayne Gretzky is the consummate ambassador to the world for the sport of hockey.

At the end of the session, the players handed several sticks and pucks over the glass to eager kids, which I thought was very cool. After the practice was over and the crowd cleared out, a few of us opted to try our luck for an autograph by standing outside by the team bus. Sure enough, after about 30 minutes, people started to trickle out, like Coyote’s commentator and former Chicago Blackhawks goalie Darren Pang, and Grant Fuhr, who was kind enough to sign my Edmonton Oilers t-shirt when Crys got close enough for an autograph. Eventually, Gretzky came out surrounded by five security guys, who tried to keep everyone at bay and tried to rush Wayne to the bus like we were in downtown Baghdad. It was a little off-putting, actually, but Gretzky was very gracious in signing as many things as he could and even stopping for a couple quick pictures. I tried to hand him my shirt to sign but kept getting scooted back by his handlers, but somehow Crys managed to weasel her way close enough to hand both my shirt and a picture of Gretzky up to our friend Jackie, who got both of them signed for us. I now have an Oilers shirt signed by two Hall of Famers who won four Stanley Cups with that team. Needless to say, the shirt is officially retired and will probably be framed soon.

After the media/coaches bus left, the players themselves came out and got on their bus, with players graciously signing autographs and posing for pictures. And then all too soon, it was over, and once the bus was gone, we all parted ways for a couple hours to get ready for that night’s Stingrays game, which was a 5-0 victory over the Gwinnet Gladiators. Over all, Friday was indeed a great day for Lowcountry hockey fans.


Grant Fuhr signing my t-shirt

It's the most wonderful time of the year....

Summer’s over, or so the calendar says. Then again, in South Carolina the weather stays nice almost till Thanksgiving. It’s not quite like New England, where there’s already frost on the pumpkins. It’s still hitting 85 during the days, but the humidity is a little less and the nights are certainly nicer.

Most people I know are deeply entrenched in football mania, both college and pro, the NASCAR fans are watching their final few races, and baseball fans are catching the pennant races. Not me. I don’t really follow football or baseball much more than cursory glances at the standings, and I just can’t get into watching folks drive in circles.

Nope, my attention is fixated and riveted upon a 200 foot long by 85 foot wide sheet of ice surrounded by a 40-inch tall wall topped with Plexiglas. I’m one of those weird people. I’m a hockey fan.

Some people subscribe to Time, or Rolling Stone, or even Cosmo. Most people watch “Football Night In America” on NBC on Sunday nights oblivious to the fact that NBC stole the idea from traditional Saturday ritual of “Hockey Night In Canada” on CBC. I get weekly deliveries of The Hockey News. My co-workers ask me if I saw that 99-yard punt return for a touchdown, and I shake my head “no”, and ask if they saw that guy steal the biscuit off a rebound in his own defensive zone, one-time it to the winger, who skated coast to coast, deked the d-man at the blue line and tossed a wicked wrister over the keeper’s shoulder, top shelf where Momma keeps the Vegemite. Of course, that always gets me a funny look. And when football ends in January, with the Super Bowl, I’ll be watching the All-Star Game and still have half a season left of action.

Instead of NFL football’s 16 once-a-week games, NHL hockey players endure an 82-game season. Both sports ostensibly play a 60-minute game with potential for overtime. Many footballs games, and all baseball games, are played on grass with players wearing cleated shoes. Hockey players don their gear and then balance on skate blades only 1/8 of an inch wide on a hard-frozen sheet of ice.

Hockey is fluid poetry, speed and agility, and elegance in motion, combined with brute force. Players strap on armor plating and helmets, lace steel razor blades on their feet, and wield 5-foot long sticks. In the normal course of play, one can expect to be slammed into the boards and glass, knocked to the ice, shoved and jostled, and sometimes struck by the puck itself, which is a 6-ounce disk of frozen vulcanized rubber 3 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick, easily reaching speeds of a hundred miles an hour. And then there’s the fights.

Fighting is a normal part of the sport. It’s penalized, and not an every-game occurrence, but it happens as an accepted aspect of the game. It’s a brutally honest way to handle on-ice “differences of opinion”, and once the tussle is over, it generally leaves no outstanding animosities. Two guys have a “heart to heart” and then sit out 5 minutes. Unlike other sports that degenerate into brawls that ooze into the stands. That’s just tacky.

So yes, it’s that magical time of the year when I dig into the front closet & pull out the hockey bag full of cowbells (You gotta have cowbells!), spare hats to toss for a hat-trick, and some of the props I use to do my now-famous Mojo Dance in the third period of Stingrays games. Time to break out the jerseys, hats, and t-shirts with the team logos. Time to see friends I haven’t seen in damn near six months in some cases.

Up in the NHL, things are off to a great start with plenty of surprises. As of the time I write this, the Washington Capitals are 2-0 and Alex Ovechkin scored his 200th career point. Sid the Kid Crosby is the Penguins captain at 20 years of age. The Bluejackets blanked the defending Stanley Cup champion Ducks 4-0, and then the Pens’ beat the Ducks. Only winning one game out of your first five isn’t really a great start, Anaheim.

Promising rookie Patrick Kane had the shootout game-winner for the Blackhawks over the Red Wings. The 2006 #1 draft pick, Blues rookie defenseman Erik Johnson, scored his first NHL goal only 2 games into the season. A third Staal brother is playing in the NHL now. Jeremy Roenick showed the tiger still has teeth by notching 2 goals in his first regular-season game as a San Jose Shark after a miserable season on Phoenix.

Oh yeah…it’s the most wonderful time of the year.