Archive for January, 2010

January 29th, 2010

Winter Olympic Ice Hockey Odds

The folks at Bodog.com just passed along the odds for Men's 2010 Olympic Ice Hockey Tournment in Vancouver.  Unsurprisingly, Canada is the favorite to win Group A as well as the gold; Russia and Sweden are also heavily favored to win Groups B and C, respectively.

Remember, we don't dispense gambling advice here at Off Wing.  But given the results of previous Olympic tournaments, the Czechs are looking awfully interesting.

Gold Medal Odds

Canada 1/1

Russia 2/1

Sweden 11/2

USA 7/1

Czech Republic 15/1

Finland 16/1

Slovakia 40/1

Switzerland 125/1

Germany 400/1

Belarus 500/1

Latvia 500/1

Norway 500/1

Odds to Win Group A of the the 2010 Olympic Ice Hockey Championship

Canada 2/9

USA 5/2

Switzerland 50/1

Norway 400/1

Odds to Win Group B of the the 2010 Olympic Ice Hockey Championship

Russia 1/3

Czech Republic 9/4

Slovakia 18/1

Latvia 400/1

Odds to Win Group C of the the 2010 Olympic Ice Hockey Championship

Sweden 1/2

Finland 7/5

Germany 50/1

Belarus 150/1

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Posted in 2010 Olympic Hockey, Gambling, Hockey, The Olympics by Eric McErlain | No Comments »

 
January 26th, 2010

Not So Unique After All

Over at ESPN.com, John Buccigross is sharing some of his memories from previous NHL All-Star Games:

2001 in Colorado: It was like 70 degrees in Denver and the West won 14-12. I think Bill Guerin had 10 goals or something and was the MVP. I also remember Thomas Dolby rehearsing "She Blinded Me With Science" the morning of the game; only the NHL would hire a guy to sing a song in 2001 that was released in 1982.

Unless of course you're NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. After all, he hired The Who, to play the Super Bowl halftime show. And when you take a look at their set list, you'll see that the most recent song there was recorded in 1978.

As for the rest of the column, he's got some pretty good ideas to liven up a moribund All-Star format.  Considering how low the television ratings are at this point, I'd be up for just about anything.

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Posted in Hockey, Music by Eric McErlain | 1 Comment »

 
January 22nd, 2010

Ian LaPerriere’s PSA Outtake

Thanks to my old buddy Gil Edwards at Red Lasso for digging up this local clip from the Fox affiliate in Philadelphia.  In it, we've got a local news personality interviewing Riley Cote of the Flyers.  Towards the end, they cut to an outtake of Ian LaPerriere gamely trying to shoot a public service announcement even though he's without his false teeth.  Let's just say the attempt was less than successful.

As was previously reported by CSN Philadelphia, somebody swiped the new bridge LaPerriere just had made after he took a puck to the face earlier this season.

Posted in Uncategorized by Eric McErlain | No Comments »

 
January 20th, 2010

What’s It Like to Watch Alex Ovechkin Play Hockey?

Screen shot 2010 01 20 at 3 18 40 PM

Apparently, it's a lot like watching LeBron James play basketball.  Here's Bill Simmons musing on the feeling he gets whenever he sees James playing in person:

If you were ever fortunate enough to have season tickets for a memorable athlete in his prime -- Gretzky, Montana, Jordan, Magic, Bird, Pedro, Koufax, whomever -- then you know exactly what this means. It's not just about the winning. It's about heading to the stadium or the park feeling like you won the lottery. It's about the buzz in the crowd, the way everyone seems like they spent just a little more time getting ready. It's about the ceiling being removed for the night. It's about the chance that, 50 years later, your grandkid or your great-grandkid will ask you, "What was it like to see HIM play every night?" ... and you'll have an answer for him. It's about the familiarity of excellence -- constant exposure to someone who's better at his job than you will ever be at anything -- and how that superiority ebbs and flows from night to night.

Yeah, that's pretty much on target.

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Posted in 2009-2010 Washington Capitals, Basketball, Hockey by Eric McErlain | No Comments »

 
January 12th, 2010

More Canal Hockey Footage

Here's some more footage from Saturday's "canal" hockey game.  You won't see me in this footage because I'm the one behind the camera this time. More details here from John Keeley.

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Posted in Hockey, Video by Eric McErlain | No Comments »

 
January 9th, 2010

And Now for Some More Outdoor Ice Hockey

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Posted in Hockey, Video by Eric McErlain | 2 Comments »

 
January 6th, 2010

Team USA Gold Medal Winning Chant

Thanks to hockeycardshow for digging up this clip of Team USA celebrating in the locker room after their 6-5 OT victory over Team Canada at the 2010 World Junior Championships:

It's fun to be a teenager -- and a world champion. Congrats again.

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Posted in Hockey, Video by Eric McErlain | No Comments »

 
January 6th, 2010

John Carlson Stabs Canada in the Heart

This kid can't get to Washington fast enough.  For more, and there's plenty more, see John Keeley and Brian McNally.

And for those of you who might be keeping score, that's a pair of world titles that the U.S. has won in hockey in the past week when you count the win by the under-17 team.  Something tells me that ought to provide some extra incentive in Vancouver in February.

UPDATE: How does Canada feel today.  Click here to see.  Thanks to the fine folks at PPP for the heads up through Twitter.

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Posted in Hockey by Eric McErlain | No Comments »

 
January 4th, 2010

And Now You Know Why

If you ever wonder why Washington Capitals fans seem to have a collective chip on their shoulder concerning how the franchise and its players are treated by the rest of the hockey world, you might want to read this passage from Ted Leonsis that appeared this morning on his blog:

Then while the league was gearing up for the wonderful Winter Classic, we went out on a crazy two game West Coast swing over New Year’s break. We were as far away from Boston as possible, weren’t we? And Mike Green was left off the Canadian Olympic team which I think was the wrong decision by their team management. I believe Mike Green is a unique and spectacular talent and one of the top D men in the NHL. We have Mike’s back. We believe in him. I know this snub will motivate Mike for the rest of the season. We as a franchise sometimes don’t get the respect we have earned yet but the only way to right that wrong I believe is to win a Stanley Cup. We get the joke. We have collective chip on our shoulder. And I guess I will be rooting harder now for the USA team and for the Russian team to light up the Canadian team at this year’s Olympic Games.

He's not the only one annoyed by the snubbing of Mike Green.  On one level, I can understand that of all the hockey-playing nations in the world, only Canada could afford to leave a player as talented as Green off of their Olympic roster.  Then again, it was hard not to notice over the weekend that when Don Cherry talked about the team on Saturday night, he went out of his way to point out that if any Canadian defenseman was injured between now and the start of the Games, that Jay Bouwmeester, and not Green, would be more likely to get a callup.

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Posted in 2009-2010 Washington Capitals, Hockey by Eric McErlain | 1 Comment »

 
January 4th, 2010

The Caps Rap

Over the holidays, I got an email from Mike Shwedick asking for some help from OffWing Photo on a video project he was working on.  He was kind enough to give me and OWP's Allen Clark an early look at the video, and we came away incredibly impressed.  With that, Allen got to work digging through our photo archive on Flickr and provided some of the images that you see below in The Caps Rap.

Wow.  I think this might be a good time to remind everyone that all of the pictures at OffWing Photo are available for use for free by any independent blogger as long as you credit us and link back to the site. 

UPDATE: Puck Daddy talks to the man behind the video, Andrew Bowser.

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Posted in 2009-2010 Washington Capitals, Hockey by Eric McErlain | No Comments »

 
January 2nd, 2010

A Look Back at Some Predictions

Before the start of the season, the good folks at the D.C. Pro Sports Report asked me to answer a couple of questions about the upcoming season.  Now that the Caps have hit the 41-game mark, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look back at that Q&A to see how those predictions held up against what has transpired thus far.  Click here for a look at things at full size.

DC Pro Sports Report
Looking back, this might deserve a C.

Posted in 2009-2010 Washington Capitals, Hockey by Eric McErlain | No Comments »