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KenWarren 179 days ago
1-SMALL-TIME LIAR OR JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG? In case you missed it, a steroid dealer arrested in Tampa on Tuesday sang like a parrot (or made up something out of thin air), claiming that he sold the drugs mostly to professional athletes, including members of the Washington Capitals and Major League Baseball's Washington Nationals. Take the words of Richard Thomas with a grain of salt, but once they were out of his mouth, there was no way to stop all the speculation about who might have been using them. Naturally, the comments will lead people to wonder about Capitals star (and NHL poster boy) Alexander Ovechkin. The NHL has always maintained the squeaky-clean image of its players when it comes to the possibility of steroids in the game — Sean Hill and Andrew Peters are among the select few who have ever tested positive — but the limited testing procedures do make it difficult for players to get caught. Tuesday afternoon, both the Capitals and the NHL issued statements, ...
KenWarren 187 days ago
1-HOW MANY OTHER SECRETS WILL BE REVEALED IN THE DESERT?: Of all the ugliness that has come out of the Phoenix Coyotes bankruptcy hearings, how about the gem about Wayne Gretzky making $14.5 million U.S. to coach the team over two years? That alone is enough to make me lose any sympathy for Jerry Moyes and the rest of the former (or are they current?) owners. It comes back to that old discussion about why businessmen choose to run their sports franchises like toys, rather than like the businesses which earned them their money in the first place. Gretzky's experience as an NHL coach before joining the Coyotes was legendary, remember? Outside of coaching Canada at the Olympics in 2002 in Salt Lake City, he had been behind the bench in...where was that, again....oh, yeah, NOWHERE LAND. I understand the marquee attachment of trying to bring in a name coach to sell tickets. Obviously, nothing else worked. Surely, though, the Coyotes didn't have to back up the Brinks Truck to ...
KenWarren 206 days ago
1-WARD'S CUP RUNNETH OVER: Gloucester's Aaron Ward is experiencing yet another intriguing turn in what has been already been a colourful, wildly successful 14-year NHL career. Ward, who will once again be paired alongside Boston Bruins defenceman Zdeno Chara against the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round, can safely call both Boston and Carolina home. Ward, who won the Stanley Cup with Carolina in 2006, lives outside Raleigh, N.C., in the summers and trains in the off-season with Hurricanes players. However, he's also a Boston boy in the sense that he's becoming more and more noticeable in the Bruins' success, a shut-down defenceman who has some chemistry playing with Chara. It's early yet, but Ward, who also won a pair of Stanley Cups with the Detroit Red Wings earlier in his career — long-time Wings fans will remember him as being one of Scotty Bowman's favourite whipping boys — could join exclusive company if the Bruins do succeed in advancing all the way. He could join ...
KenWarren 213 days ago
1-MEANWHILE, ROME BURNS: Bob Gainey apparently is interested in adding magician to his titles of Montreal Canadiens general manager and coach. After all, his post-sweep outburst against the Tampa Bay Lightning for apparently leaking the names of players involved in talks about acquiring Vincent Lecavalier in a trade is akin to trying to hide the elephant on the stage. Hey, I'm no fan of the Lightning brass, who have irked much of the NHL establishment for their questionable behaviours dating back to last summer. But for Gainey to use the distraction of trade talks to help explain away his club's collapse in the second half of the season? Come on. It's ridiculous. I could go on and on about everything that has gone wrong, but Gainey has to take responsibility for what has happened — and what's going to happen. He fired former coach Guy Carbonneau in large part because Carbonneau refused to anoint the number one goaltending job to Carey Price. When Gainey took over as coach, ...
KenWarren 219 days ago
1-SHED NO TEARS FOR MARTIN HAVLAT , but the Blackhawks (and former Senators) right winger might find it difficult to land the huge, long term contract which would normally go to a pending unrestricted free agent with his offensive numbers. Havlat scored 29 goals and 48 assists in the regular season (I triple-checked to make sure the oft-injured Havlat indeed played 81 games) and he answered some critics in the series opener against the Calgary Flames. He took his lumps, but made the Flames pay with the controversial overtime winner in Game 1. All that said, the economic ice age is coming for the NHL, with the salary cap expected to drop as much as $10 million U.S. in the 2010-11 season. In the past, teams seeking the instant hit of a proven, skilled, but sometimes inconsistent (again, the oft-injured tag figures to travel with Havlat everywhere he goes) star wouldn't think twice about throwing big dollars his way. Now? The pool of teams willing to open their wallets wide has ...
