Off Wing Opinion

Is the Dustin Penner offer sheet a mistake in more ways than one? Tyler Dellow looks at the possibilities:

From my perspective, Penner is nothing special. Moreover, there

I examine the possibilities over at the FanHouse.

Ingmar "W." Bergman remembers the great director in a way only he can.

Hilarious stuff.

First Tracks, an online ski magazine, has a really neat piece this morning detailing how the U.S. Men's Alpine Ski Team made ice hockey a part of its regular training regimen at a recent training camp in Park City, Utah:

Head Coach Phil McNichol and his staff, including Speed Head Coach Chris Brigham and Tech Head Coach Sasha Rearick, got together with U.S. Alpine Director Jesse Hunt and decided on the different approach to conditioning. Hunt, who grew up in Vermont, used hockey drills - good for footwork and balance, and good for quickness in addition to boosting aerobic capacity and body awareness in high-speed motion - when he was SL/GS head coach for four years before becoming program director in the spring of 2002.

[...]

But the buzz from the camp dealt with the daily on-ice sessions. Jason Christie, head coach and director of hockey operations for the Utah Grizzlies, a minor league farm team for the New York Islanders, and former National Hockey League player Andre Faust were the coaches. U.S. Ski Team coaches joined the alpine men for the skating and tactics drills.

"The downhill crew always travels with skates when we're in Europe," Sullivan said, "and we play pickup games every week...Canadians, of course, Swedes, some Finns...

"There's a rink at just about every stop on the tour, so some of us have skated, but a lot of the guys hadn't. I was really impressed by the improvement of the guys from the first day to the fourth. Guys' skills, their puck handling, stick handling, all of it - there was 100 percent improvement. They even learned how to pass, learned some of the dynamics of hockey.

"From the coaches' perspective, it was good dryland [training]. It was so exhausting and by the end we were all cooked...

Hockey can do that to you. Be sure to check it out.

Confessions of a Hockey Fanatic is blogging for the Mario Lemieux Foundation in this year's Blogathon. Please consider a donaton.

Once I had said my goodbyes to John and Dmitry, it turned out I had one more surprise in store for the weekend. I'm sure many of you will recall I stopped by a blogger get-together in Columbus on the night of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft where I got to say hello to a number of bloggers including Tapeleg of Jerseys and Hockey Love.

Though Tapeleg is a Colorado native, he and his girlfriend Meg live something of a nomadic existence working on a crew for a touring theater company -- not a place I'd normally think of as a hotbed of hockey fandom. In any case, Tapeleg is only working part time on this stretch of the tour, which left him with an open weekend while the tour was stopped in Charlotte.

So he gave me a call: He was thinking of taking a road trip to D.C. and was wondering if I was going to be around. I said sure, and before you knew it, another hockey blogger landed on my suburban doorstep on Saturday night.

After grabbing some chow and catching the latest iteration of Die Hard -- thanks to Greg Wyshynski for the recommendation -- we hit a local dive to shoot pool for a couple of hours and talk some puck.

On the widescreen above our table was the ESPN coverage of David Beckham's abbreviated American debut against Chelsea in Los Angeles. Though Beckham would play only the final 13 minutes of the second half in a snoozer of a match, the broadcast was predictably all about him, his wife, and their planned conquest of America.

As I'm sure many of you have already read, the debut was something of a fizzle, with the sole highlight coming late in the game when Beckham was taken down sprinting on to the attack.

Predictably, Beckham's tumble to the turf was dissected expertly by the ESPN cameras, as they grabbed a closeup of the midfielder wincing in pain as he paused before rising to his feet. Interestingly enough, somehow that clip was omitted from the SportsCenter highlight reel on the match that would air less than 20 minutes later.

In between the moments of 'Waiting for Becks', Tapeleg and I started talking again about the Hockey Bloggers Group on Facebook and how things ought to shape up from here on in.

Essentially, the latest idea is to keep membership in the organization open to anyone who would like to join, while putting a process in place for bloggers who would like to develop a relationship with a particular team or the league as a whole. For some, that won't mean more than getting some advice on how to establish a relationship with a team. For others, it might go the whole nine yards all the way to applying for some sort of media credential -- be that as a blogger, podcaster or freelance photographer.

In addition, using the guidelines I already developed with the Caps, the group can issue something of a seal of approval that lets a team know that the individual has been vetted, and is somebody they can deal with professionally. To get an idea of what might be required, go back into the Off Wing archives and take another look at the Media Credential Guidelines I published last year.

As I've said before, a lot of this stuff is awfully preliminary, and I 'm anxious to hear what other bloggers and indie media types think about it. Please stop by Facebook and join the group. I really want to hear what you have to say.

By now I'm sure many of you are wondering what the point of these three posts has been, and I don't blame you. Hockey news is thin these days, and I have to admit I've been at something of a loss as to what to do to fill these pages.

So the idea I came up with was this: The next time you get the chance, figure out a way to get together with the folks on your blogroll. I know I've written it before, but it bears repeating: The most rewarding aspect of blogging for me has always been the new friendships it has allowed me to develop.

Get on the phone and grab a beer with a hockey blogger. For now, it might be nothing more than a pleasant evening. But sooner than you might think, it may very well turn into something far more important.

So keep blogging. In the meantime, this brother has got your back.

Previously:

Hockey Blogger Talk, Part 1
Hockey Blogger Talk, Part 2

Depends on who you talk to. As for AntiRust, mark him down as voting no on a new arena for Pittsburgh.

It's a one-year, one-way contract for $725,000. For the how and the why behind it all, check out Dump and Chase.

A bachelor party all gone wrong. Details at the FanHouse.

When I got back to Washington midweek, I was happy to find that both Dmitry Chesnokov from Sovetsky Sport, and John Keely, better known as Pucks and Boooks over at On Frozen Blog, were both up for getting together to tie up some loose ends.

On Sunday, we were all guests on the Capital Fanatic podcast, as we went on for about 45 minutes talking about development camp, the team's prospect pipeline and what look to be a number of desperate battles for players to make the squad in training camp.

Finishing up the podcast, it was hard not to come away with the feeling we could have gone on for another 45 minutes or more, which is exactly what we did for a couple of hours on Friday night at a bar downtown. One of the things we talked about was how the Caps might be able to market their Russian and Swedish stars to those local ex-pat communities.

Apparently, there are plenty of Russian ex-pats in the area, and Dmitry seems to think they'd be pretty excited to come out and support countrymen like Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin and the newly signed Viktor Kozlov if they were only asked. In cities like New York and Boston, ethnic heritage nights are a staple of the baseball promotional calendar. Maybe it's time for a Russian Heritage Night at Verizon?

At one point, the conversation turned to our favorite hockey moments. Here's a nice clip that Dmitry suggested: An Andrei Markov goal from 1999 when he was with Dynamo Moscow.

Once I said goodbye to Dmitry and John on Friday evening, I thought I was in for a quiet weekend, but it turned out I was wrong.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of hockey blogging is getting to know folks all over North America who love hockey as much as I do. But the part of this that's even better is getting to know these folks in person.

Over the past week or so, I was able to get together with a number of great people, and I wanted to share some of the things that we talked about.

At the start of last week, I had to fly to Anaheim to give a pair of presentations about blogging to an industry conference and grab a couple of interviews for my organization's blog.

But in between, I wanted to make sure I had a chance to check in with some local bloggers, which meant I got a chance to meet Earl Sleek from Battle of California and Christy Finn, the Girl With A Puck.

Needless to say, Sleek is as much of a riot in person as he is in print, while Christy is a sweet lady who loves her Ducks something fierce.

Both were still experiencing a serious contact high after watching the Ducks steamroll through the playoffs, reinforcing a notion that I've had for a while now: Seeing your team win it all, even just once, is enough to keep a fan warm through many more seasons than you can know.

Of course, with the team looking at the prospect of losing both Teemu Selanne and Scott Niedermayer, the chances of a repeat in the OC, we agreed, were looking pretty slim. Then again, after adding Brad May and Todd Bertuzzi to the lineup, while the Ducks may not be as dominant as they were in 2006-07, they may be even more entertaining to watch.

One last thought: After talking to Earl and Christy, it was hard not to come away with the feeling that Anaheim might very well be the biggest small town in the NHL. Why? Lets just say I get the feeling that the players come into closer contact with the locals in the OC than anywhere else in the league. To find out more, make sure you read Earl and Christy once training camp starts up again in September.

More, tomorrow.

Today in McLean's, Charlie Gillis and John Intini take a look at Jim Balsillie's failure to purchase the Nashville Predators and move them to Southern Ontario.

Toward the end of the piece, Gillis and Intini trot out what's becoming an old saw in the Canadian press: The anti-Canadian bias at NHL HQ in New York:

Whatever the financial motive, the events have summoned familiar accusations of an anti-Canadian bias at NHL head offices. Richard Rodier, a lawyer who has worked with Balsillie on both the Pittsburgh and Nashville bids, says the league's apparent comfort with a bid that will involve moving the team to Missouri, rather than one that involves moving to Ontario, amounts to an attitude of contempt. "NHL hockey is Canada, and Canada is NHL hockey," Rodier says.

"That's not to say there's no room for U.S. expansion. Or that Sunbelt teams can't enjoy what Canadian people view as the greatest game on earth. But to take the CBC's $100 million a year in broadcast rights, to take money from governments in the form of infrastructure funding and tax breaks, to take money hand over fist and then give us the back of their hand when we offer significantly more money than anyone else for one of their franchises is, I think, insulting to the Canadian people."

If you go back and read the article yourself, there are three words you won't ever read: Toronto Maple Leafs. And when we're talking about the possible relocation of any team to Southern Ontario, those are the three most important words in the English language.

Granted, I didn't always think of it that way, as I'm on record as saying I believed the Predators were as good as packed for Ontario as soon as Balsillie started negotiating with Predators owner Craig Leipold.

But what I didn't consider at the time, and should have taken into account, is that moving a new team to Southern Ontario is a lot like the process of moving a new baseball team to Washington, D.C. -- problematic at best.

For a number of years, Peter Angelos, owner of the Baltimore Orioles, did anything and everything he could to keep baseball out of Washington, a market that he and a number of other Orioles owners considered their own once the Senators picked up and left town after the 1971 season. Eventually, in order to move the Montreal Expos to Washington, the league had to bribe Angelos with a percentage of the Washington's television revenues in order for him to stop fighting the relocation.

And don't doubt for a second that Angelos, one of the most successful trial lawyers in the U.S., would have found ways to drag the process out in the courts, regardless of the merits of the case.

So while I believe Ontario could support a second hockey team in much the same way that the Baltimore-Washington area could support a second baseball team, that doesn't mean that the folks at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment have to like it.

For them, plunking a second team in Ontario would mean having to compete that much harder for television advertising and even ticket sales. It would mean more competition over time for the Leafs TV cable package. And with another hockey option suddenly nearby, the enormous pricing pressure on Maple Leafs tickets that we always hear about would be eased a bit, as folks on the outskirts of Toronto and closer to Kitchener opted for the new team. All of these issues are also in play, albeit to a lesser extent, with the Buffalo Sabres, a franchise that was always drawn a significant percentage of its gate from across the Canadian border.

So here's the deal: If you want another team in Ontario, figure out a way to buy off the Maple Leafs. I'm sure that at some level or another, that must seem incredibly unfair, seeing as how they're the most valuable team in the entire NHL.

Well, it wasn't fair when Angelos got his cut of Washington's television money a couple of years back. And it wasn't fair back in 1976 during the ABA-NBA merger when the relatively penniless New York Nets had to pay off the mighty New York Knicks either.

Fair was never part of the equation. But it was part of the cost of doing business. If Balsillie wants his team, he better make room for a budget line for cash that will head straight for Toronto. Otherwise, he can just forget it. And that would be a real shame, as Balsillie is just the kind of owner the NHL needs more of.

UPDATE: Larry Brooks handled a lot of this in his Sunday column.

A few weeks ago I took my younger sister to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. While walking along Yawkey Way before the game, we saw broadcaster Jerry Remy doing his pre-game show on a platform set at the end of the closed-off street. He was joined by play-by-play man Don Orsillo, as well as two young men wearing Sox jerseys and sporting flowing locks coming out from beneath baseball caps.

My sister asked me who they were, and, not knowing myself, I took an educated guess. "I don't know, but I know that hockey training camps just started, so maybe they're the Bruins' draft picks or somethin'."

30 minutes later, as one of the two young men from the pre-game show strode to the mound to deliver the ceremonial opening pitch, the stadium announcer came on to introduce "The Bruins' top pick, the #8 pick overall in the 2007 draft, Zach Hamill."

While I made an educated guess, it shows that the long, mullet-style hair synonymous with hockey is becoming more widely recognized as such. For several years the Manchester Monarchs of the AHL have been running a Mullet Night as well as the Mullet Hall of Fame. Hopefully hockey can turn that look into some sort of marketable entity, following the lead of the Monarchs, as well as other non-hockey teams that have done so, such as the Chicago White Sox.

But for now, let people rejoice in the beautiful hockey hairdo that is the mullet, also known as the "short-long", "10-90", and most importantly, "hockey hair".

Some thoughts of my own, over at the FanHouse.

From Neil Best:

NeuLion, a company that specializes in Internet video and whose CEO is Nancy Li, wife of Islanders owner Charles Wang, has struck a deal with the entire NHL to supply high quality video for team Web sites.

The company started with the Islanders last fall. The Rangers joined in near the end of the season. Now everyone is aboard.

Congrats to Neil on scooping the WSJ, or at least that's what he says.

UPDATE: Maybe not. Thanks to the ever-vigilant Dmitry Chesnokov for the pointer.

Over the weekend at the Hockey Blogger Group at Facebook, I kicked off an initiative that I've been working on behind the scenes for a number of months, namely, coming up formalized process to help hockey bloggers get press credentials from NHL clubs.

We've been talking about the issue all weekend long, and it's important that as many folks as possible have their say. If you're not already a member of the Hockey Bloggers Group at Facebook, please join. And please join in the discussion.

While I'm sure the Islanders organization has moved on, it had to hurt just a little bit to see Brent Sutter, one of the heroes of the Stanley Cup era, take the job as head coach of the New Jersey Devils.

It was only a year ago, after all, that Islanders owner Charles Wang made a point of recruiting hard to bring Sutter to Long Island. Eventually the job went to NHL exile Ted Nolan. And while it's hard to argue that anyone would have been able to do a better job with the Isles patchwork lineup last season than Nolan did, Sutter would have been a heck of a prize for the organization.

What does it say about the Islanders that a favorite son like Sutter would say no to such an offer?