The puck hasn’t dropped yet but this season is already shaping up to be a wild one. It feels like just yesterday that my favourite players were wearing oddly coloured jerseys plastered in ads and today SO MUCH HAPPENED. Be careful of what you wish for, right?
Earlier this morning people were still up-in-arms over conflicting reports regarding the status of Devils forward Ilya Kovalchuk. One minute he was just hanging around until the CBA gets ratified and the next he was on the KHL All-Star game line up. Russian reporters were all “WHO CARES LET STAY, SAY GOODBYE TO FANS” but like, fuck that, training camp opens on Sunday, the day of the All-Star break and he made a commitment to his team and teammates. You go to camp and you reconnect with your team and find some damn chemistry, that’s what you do. I don’t care if players want to hang around for a few more days and play one last game but when training camp opens you bloody show up. That’s how it is. You don’t like the rules, WELL TOO DAMN BAD because you signed a contract. I feel like I could have easily written this entirely in all caps. So if you’re still reading, you’re welcome. But know that I’m still yelling at you regardless of mentally stable people font size.
The kid on the far right is making a better #dregerface than Dreger himself. Scary shit out of Russia.
Oh also, your second-favourite Russian NHLer (because don’t pretend like Malkin isn’t everyone’s #1) Pavel Datsyuk is also pushing buttons. People like to forget this because he doesn’t have a $700 million contract like Kovalchuk and is a consistent producer and all around seemingly nice guy. But you know what? He’s also listed on the All-Star roster. Ok but who cares, they’ll come back eventually and we’ll all forgive and forget once they start making sick plays and notching tons of goals because they’re in prime shape and everyone else got fat as fuck. Ahem, Lucic.
Meanwhile, a story out of Switzerland trickled down to North America about 20-year-old Tyler Seguin. According to a Swiss tabloid, (because he had apparently become a minor celebrity in Biel) the Bruins centre reportedly left a shit pile of shit at his place when he left. Turns out he was a filthy boy throughout his is time with EHC-Biel. According to a cleaning company, his temp residence was littered with rotten food, a couple hundred dollars in coins and other garbage. He also (allegedly) bought paper plates when his dishes were dirty to avoid washing them. Didn’t he get the dude memo? If you don’t want to wash dishes, you eat your sandwich over the sink. I have boobs and even know this. No one actually cared that a young, rich hockey player didn’t know how to do his own laundry but he felt the need to address the story anyway, which is cool and shit except he did it as news of Brian Burke being fired was going down.
As I mentioned (and previously ranted about) Brian Burke was fired as the Maple Leafs General Manager and demoted to some title that actually has no meaning but gives him a chance to mutter something about truculence in an office on Bay Street. MLSE won’t have to pay him a hefty severence and he’ll be contractually obligated to keep his mouth sealed, at least for a while anyway.
And then Luongo rumours, because god forbid we stop talking about him for 30 seconds. BURKIE GOT FIRED BECAUSE HE DIDN’T WANT TO GIVE UP GARDINER FOR BOBBY LU. NO THAT’S NOT TRUE, NO ONE’S TRADING GARDINER. NONIS LOVES LU, HE’S TOTALLY COMING TO TORONTO. NO STUPID, STUPID PHILLY IS TOTALLY INTO LUONGO. THE FLYERS DESERVE HIM! LUONGO ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE! Wait, what? Everyone is a stupid idiot.
Welcome back, hockey.
The Attacking Zone 