Here are all the links from around the hockey world, and what I’m reading while highly recommending Mr. Robot as a very binge-worthy show with a bad working title. You’ll thank me if you end up watching it On Demand.
*A good piece from Sports Illustrated on Shannon Szabados as she continues on her hockey career despite any obstacles thrown in her way as a pioneering women’s hockey player surviving, and thriving, in a man’s pro hockey world called the Southern Pro League.
*FOH (Friend of Haggs) Josh Cooper has the Anaheim Ducks staying away from a “woe is me” attitude after another loss to the Kings.
*Speaking of the Kings, Darryl Sutter is using his postgame press conferences to critique the media covering the Anze Kopitar contract situation, and toss out the ham-fisted, sarcastic notion that an in-game interview caused the Kings to lose. He wasn’t being serious, of course, but it’s weak to blame the media for something pros are paid to deal with.
*David Warsofsky literally injured himself when he slipped on a peel, although in this case it was referee Tim Peel. Wocka. Wocka Wocka.
*Boy, the Canadiens really seem to be swirling down the drain after another loss pushes them behind the Bruins in the division standings.
*Peter Chiarelli signs Cam Talbot to a contract extension that features enough money to make it a bad deal if Talbot becomes a backup goaltender, and an even worse deal because it includes a no-trade contract. Chiarelli and the Oilers seemed to be steering Talbot comparisons with Tim Thomas, but these are the kinds of contracts that got the Bruins into the salary cap soup in Boston over the last few years.
*Elliotte Friedman talks on Calgary sports radio about the direction that teams are going with their salary caps led by the Blackhawks and the Kings, and it’s following the model of the NBA: a few highly paid superstars and a bunch of league minimum guys.
*A solid piece by Thomas Drance that theorizes Islanders fans are warming up to their new home at the Barclays Center. That hasn’t been my experience there, but I haven’t been there in the last couple of months either. The one thing not addressed in the story about the Isles fans turning away from the team: the awful commute to Brooklyn rather than Nassau Coliseum. Fans aren’t coming to the games because it takes them hours to get to Brooklyn during rush hour for a 7 p.m. game when it was an easy commute from to Uniondale. That’s what Isles fans had relayed to me when I asked why the building was pretty empty all the time.
*For something completely different: actors that were extremely old when they portrayed teenagers on television. Of course Ian Ziering is mentioned.