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Love the Hawks, Wouldn’t Be Hurt With Flyers Upset

Posted on May 28, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

As a Winnipegger, it’s difficult to pick a side in the Stanley Cup final.

After all, if the Hawks win the Cup, the trophy will come to Winnipeg with Chicago captain Jonathan Toews and very likely stay here for a week or two. If the Flyers win the Cup, captain Mike Richards will bring it to Kenora and spend a few days with it in Winnipeg and then Arron Asham will bring it to Portage la Prairie and then I’m sure I’ll run into him — and his little trophy — on the golf course someplace.

When you stop and consider that the captains of the two teams in this year’s final are from Winnipeg (Toews) and Kenora (Richards), you start to get the sense that in the same year Canada won both Olympic hockey gold medals, the game has really, really, really come home.

In fact, if you check the rosters of the Hawks and Flyers, it’s hard not to look at them as Canada’s teams. The Hawks have 15 Canadians while the Flyers have 17 (and that’s just on a list of the regulars). It’s great to cheer for Canadian-based teams at playoff time, nothing wrong with that at all. But if you like to cheer for Canadian hockey players, cheer for the Hawks and Flyers. They have a boat load of ‘em.

And that’s why it’s tough to pick a side. Sure, I’ll go ahead and pick a winner, but I really don’t care who wins. I have no trouble cheering for both of them. And, because I’m 8-6 in series picks this spring, I have nothing to brag about.

The Stanley Cup Final

Chicago Blackhawks (Western Conference Champion) vs. Philadelphia Flyers (Eastern Conference Champion)

Let’s make one thing clear: Both these teams have good players. The Hawks and Flyers didn’t get this far in the NHL’s two-month post-season tournament because they won 12 games by some fluke of nature. Yeah, it’s a great story how the Flyers reached the playoffs because they won a shootout against the Rangers in the final game of the regular season, but at this stage it’s nothing more (or less) than a great story. The Flyers have earned their ticket to the final just as the Hawks have earned theirs. But here’s why I like the Hawks to win: they’re just as tough as the Flyers, they have just as much heart, they skate better, they have more scorers, they have equally qualified special teams (probably a better power play) and a better goaltender. End of argument for me.

Chicago Blackhawks in six games.

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A Big Night For Our Local Jocks Out in the Wide World of Pro Sports.

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

I’m off to Tampa tomorrow. Hockey, football, Disney, my daughter, all the things that make Florida great. When you live and work in Winnipeg, MB., it’s October and the snow is on its way, heading off to sporting events where it’s 40 degrees C. is better than a morning on the Tom & Joe Show on 92-CITI-FM — and that’s about as much fun as a human being should be allowed to have.

Speaking of Tom & Joe, we had Chicago Bears defensive tackle Israel Idonije on this morning talking about his fund raising raffle for both the Bisons and Sister McNamara School. What Izzy still does to raise money for the right causes in Winnipeg is way past commendable, but he does it and we love him for it.

This past week, Idonije was tremendous in a 48-24 Bears win over Detroit. He had a tackle and a forced fumble and then, on Monday, went out and had arthroscopic surgery on a minor knee injury. Interestingly, one of our local bird-cage liners carried the headline “Idonije Could Be Out For The Season.” The story came from AP, so you can’t blame the fishwrap, but come on, it was minor arthro. Think before just blindly running an AP story on a local guy who isn’t as injured as the Associated Press (which doesn’t know him and didn’t know the injury) tried to make him out to be.

“I’m doing great, heading off to work, I’ll be ready to go in the Atlanta game,” Idonije said. “It wasn’t a big deal. Just a little clean up. I’m fine.”

Look, the Bears might hold him out an extra week, but he says he’ll be ready to go Sunday night, Oct. 18 against the Falcons. The reason he had the procedure this past week was because the Bears are on their bye-week. Have people suddenly become stupid?

But hey, Izzy is just another extremely talented Manitoba kid caught up in the nasty and high-paying world of big-time pro sports — which might not be as nasty or as messed up as the media types who follow it.

In fact, Thursday was a great day for Manitobans and folks with close ties to the province. Let’s review:

1) In Los Angeles, former Winnipeg Goldeyes reliever, George Sherrill, pitched another scoreless inning against the Cards and earned the win in a 3-2 Dodgers victory. The Dodgers lead the series 2-0 and Sherrill has been almost flawless in two appearances.

2) The Calgary Flames beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 in a shootout. Winnipeg’s Nigel Dawes scored his first goal of the year for the Flames and also added a goal in the shootout. Finally, Dawes is getting a chance to play on a scoring line in the NHL. The Flames might have the best $750,000-a-year player in the game. By the way, former Jets goaltender, Nikolai Khabibulin, was the best player on the ice for the Oilers

3) The New Jersey Devils beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-3 in a shootout in Tampa. Winnipeg’s Travis Zajac scored his second goal of the season and added an assist. His goal came at the 19:59 mark of the third period and sent the game into overtime.

4) Pittsburgh beat Philadelphia 5-4, but Portage LaPrairie’s Arron Asham finally got a chance to play and gave the Flyers 11 solid minutes.

5) The Anaheim Ducks massacred the Boston Bruins 6-1 as former Winnipeg Jet Teemu Selanne scored twice, 82 seconds apart, in the second period. Head coach Randy Carlyle’s Ducks (Carlyle is a former Jets defenceman and Manitoba Moose head coach) blasted the Bruins right in downtown Boston.

6) Detroit beat Chicago 3-2, but Winnipeg’s Jonathan Toews, the Blackhawks captain, played 26 minutes. There is pretty serious talk now that with three of their biggest stars in the final years of their respective contracts, the Blackhawks might be forced to make a trade to free up some salary cap space for next season. Toews, Patrick Kane and Winnipeg-born Duncan Keith can become restricted free agents next summer, however the Blackhawks intend to keep all three. If a deal is done, it won’t be done until next year’s draft and yes, defenceman Cam Barker from Winnipeg (he has a $3,25 million per year salary) appears to be the most likely player who would be involved in a deal.

7) Atlanta beat St. Louis 4-2 but once again former Winnipeg Jets leftwinger-centre, Keith Tkachuk, had a terrific game. Tkachuk had a goal and an assist ad now, at 37, has three goals and three assists in the Blues’ first three games.
icon cool A Big Night For Our Local Jocks Out in the Wide World of Pro Sports. And the Nashville Predators beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-2. Jordin Tootoo from Chruchill and Colin Wilson, the son of Winnipeg’s Carey Wilson, were scratched with injuries Thursday night, but Neepawa’s Triston Grant got a chance to play and did a good job in 11 minutes of action.

In a week in which Todd McCullough, the former NBA star from Winnipeg’s Shaftesbury High School, was inducted, with the first class, into the Manitoba High School Athleltic Association Hall of Fame, it was a pretty great for Manitoba’s athletes.

Keep coming back here for regular updates. Unlike AP, we’ll make an effort to get it right.

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Is this the end result of the lockout? There could be more than 200 unrestricted free agents by next Tuesday.

Posted on June 25, 2008 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

By next Tuesday, July 1, the National Hockey League could very well have more than 200 unrestricted free agents. 

Included on the list are Buffalo defenceman Teppo Numminen, Anaheim forward Teemu Selanne, Calgary forwards Kristian Huselius, Craig Conroy, Owen Nolan, Daymond Langkow and Stephane Yelle, Calgary goalie Curtis Joseph, Colorado veterans Peter Forsberg, John-Michael Liles, Jose Theodore, Andrew Brunette, Adam Foote and Joe Sakic, Detroit defencemen Andreas Lilja and Brad Stuart, L.A. Kings defenceman Rob Blake, Rangers veterans Sean Avery and Jaromir Jagr, Ottawa defenceman Wade Redden, Pittbsurgh’s Marian Hossa and Gary Roberts and two Manitobans from the New Jersey Devils, Arron Asham and Bryce Salvador.

Roberts and Hossa have already made it clear they won’t be re-signing with the Penguins, a team that must get long-term deals done in the next couple of years with Sidney Crosby, Marc-Andre Fleury, Jordan Staal and Evgeni Malkin.

Sakic won’t make a decision — and neither will the Avs — until Sakic becomes a free agent.

Jagr will probably sign with the Rangers, but Avery is headed to free-agency.

Calgary could be a completely different team season. 

This coming season, the salary cap will rise to $57 million. That’s quite a significant number and proves that having salaries tied to league revenue is a concept that makes incredible sense (too bad that dummy Bob Goodenow didn’t understand it and we lost an entire NHL season). In fact, when the NHL gassed a season to get a collective bargaining agreement, the league paid out $1.2 billion in player salaries. In 2008-09, it will, potentially, pay out $1.71 billion in salaries. And Goodenow didn’t like this idea? One gets the sense that if Goodenow wasn’t a lawyer, he’d qualify for Special Olympics.

Still, with $57 million to work with (and, granted, not all teams will use all $57 million in available salary cap money), many teams are watching closely how they spend their cash. Some teams want to get younger. They’ll let high-priced veterans go elsewhere. Some teams feel they are on the verge of a Cup run, they might chase a Selanne, Sakic or Hossa.

Regardless, there are more than 200 free agents because teams are counting their dollars before they make offers and those 29 teams that didn’t win the Cup are figuring that the players they had weren’t good enough so it might be time to look at somebody else.

This week, the Toronto Maple Leafs allowed Mats Sundin to negotiate with Montreal, released goalie Andrew Raycroft and forward Kyle Wellwood and bought out veteran winger Darcy Tucker. The Leafs are breaking down before they re-build and the one thing Cliff Fletcher said he would do, is find the money necessary to take a serious look at what’s available on hockey’s version of e-Bay.

This year, there will be plenty of free-agent action. In fact, it will be more fun than the draft. But the reason so many players have come free is that so many teams want to make sure they have the cap money available to get better.

On Tuesday, we start the NHL’s second season and it might be more interesting the the first. We’ve come to this point because the league now has a salary cap and the salary cap, at least one tied to revenues, is good, not only for competitive hockey, but for the players wallets.

Now all the league needs to do is get some of those financially weak U.S. teams to re-locate to Canada and then everybody will be better off. 

 

 

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Rangers steal home ice, Gomez terrorizes his former team

Posted on April 9, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

nigeldawes Rangers steal home ice, Gomez terrorizes his former teamAs the first round of the playoffs progresses, we’ll try to take a close look at, at least, one game each night.

On the opening evening of the 2008 post-season, last night, we spent most of our time watching three Manitoba kids – Travis Zajac and Arron Asham of the New Jersey Devils and Nigel Dawes of the New York Rangers – as they faced each other in that beautiful new building in Newark, New Jersey.

Now back on Sunday night, we picked the Rangers to win this series in seven games and, as it turned out, we picked the Rangers for every reason the Blueshirts won last night’s game – they have more pure scorers and those scorers came through, and Henrik Lundqvist outduelled Martin Brodeur.

Fact is, if the Rangers are to win this series, what happened last night has to happen three more times.

In the first period, the Devils did a great forechecking job and, for the most part, had territorial control, but there was just a sense that the Rangers would ultimately win this game simply because New Jersey had a couple of great breakaway chances and couldn’t finish.

No finish, no win. Especially in the playoffs when good chances usually are quite dear.

In the second period, Brendan Shanahan opened the scoring for the Rangers and the Devils answered 12 ½ minutes later. That goal seemed to spark New Jersey, but the third period was all New York, thanks in no small way to a huge gaffe by Brodeur.

Then again, it was really more than a gaffe. He should have smothered the puck, but instead, handed it to Ryan Callahan who was alone in front. It was a shorthanded goal and a complete screw up by a guy who doesn’t screw up very often.

After the goal, you could see New Jersey sag. When your leader, your superstar, screws up, it can be more costly, psychologically, than anyone knows.

New York added a goal by Sean Avery at 17:07 and then Lloyd Dawes young son scored his first playoff goal, thanks to a classy pass from Shanahan.

In the end, Scott Gomez had three assists against his former team and played a whale of a hockey game while Shanahan, Martin Straka and Jaromir Jagr were solid and the Rangers’ did a nice job of keeping the Devils off balance – at least, after that shaky first period.

Still, this game was a lot closer than a 4-1 score might indicate. Both teams had 27 shots at the opposing goaltender (Dawes’ empty netter gave the Rangers 28 shots, officially), the Devils had more hits (34-27), the Rangers won more faceoffs (31-25) and New Jersey, which ultimately DID have territorial control missed more shots (15-7).

But while Gomez put three points on the scoresheet and received most of the kudos from the TSN broadcast crew, the real stars were Lundqvist and the Rangers’ backcheckers. New York players blocked 16 shots and when you toss in New Jersey’s 15 misses and the four posts they hit, it becomes apparent that New Jersey had plenty of chances to put this game away and couldn’t get the job done.

After Game 1, I still think this is going to be a long series.

However, if the Devils don’t bear down around the Rangers’ net, New York might put this one away quickly. See the highlights on YouTube below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OEJGCAfgSc]

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Here’s to our local Manitoba boys in the Stanley Cup playoffs!

Posted on April 8, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

TylerArnason Heres to our local Manitoba boys in the Stanley Cup playoffs!If you’re a casual, or even regular, visitor to www.rivercitysports.com, you might not know – or care (we certainly understand that) – that River City Sports is a proud Winnipeg company.

OK, so we’re not particularly proud of the fact that Winnipeg gave up its beloved NHL franchise, but some things are out of our hands.

The fact remains, that here at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, we’re deeply proud of the hockey players who learned their craft in this province and we’re especially proud of the 14 players and one head coach who will participate in this spring’s Stanley Cup playoffs.

As the first round opens on Wednesday, April 9, we want to wish the best of luck to…

• Shane Hnidy of Neepawa, a defenceman with the Boston Bruins.
• Dustin Boyd of Winnipeg, a forward with the Calgary Flames.

Dustin Boyd Interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOKa10TNVQY&feature=related

• Tyler Arnason of Winnipeg (OK, so he was born in Oklahoma City, OK., when his dad, Chuck, played in the Central League, but he and his family are Winnipeggers) a forward with the Colorado Avalanche.
• Cody McLeod of Binscarth, a forward with the Colorado Avalanche.
• Derek Meech of Winnipeg, a defenceman with the Detroit Red Wings.
• Jordin Tootoo from Churchill, via Nunavut, via the Brandon Wheat Kings who lives in Winnipeg and is a forward with the Nashville Predators.
• Barry Trotz of Dauphin, head coach of the Nashville Predators.
• Travis Zajac of Winnipeg, a forward with the New Jersey Devils.

Travis Zajac Goal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2WJm5Ru-MQ

ArronAsham Heres to our local Manitoba boys in the Stanley Cup playoffs!• Arron Asham of Portage, a forward with the New Jersey Devils.
• Bryce Salvador of Brandon, a defenceman with the New Jersey Devils.
• Nigel Dawes of Winnipeg, a forward with the New York Rangers.

Nigel Dawes goal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7hDFSdsfM&NR=1

• Colton Orr of Winnipeg, a forward with the New York Rangers and a recent winner of the Players’ Player Award in New York.

Orr-Cote Fight
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tS8EaB9SSzU

• Riley Cote of Winnipeg, a forward with the Philadelphia Flyers.
• Jody Shelley of Thompson, a forward with the San Jose Sharks.
• Eric Fehr of Winkler, a forward with the Washington Capitals.

It wasn’t that long ago when there weren’t 14 players and a coach from Manitoba in the entire NHL. However, thanks to the wonderful programs run by Hockey Canada, Hockey Manitoba and the National Coaching Certification Program, the NHL is now loaded with Manitobans and we get to watch 14 of them play on the most important stage in the game – the Stanley Cup tournament.

If you happen to be in Manitoba this week, don’t forget to join two hockey dads, Lloyd Dawes and Doug Orr for their big parties at Boston Pizza. On Wednesday night, for the opener of the Rangers-Devils series, they’ll be at the Boston Pizza on McPhillips and on Friday night for Game 2, they’ll be at the Boston Pizza in St. Vital.

Manitoba has some great hockey memories and many more to come. Remember Teemu Selanne’s rookie goal record in Winnipeg? Watch it below and get excited all over again.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vtk6yVqDy3Q]
 

It’s Cup Time, it’s Winnipeg and while we don’t have the Jets to cheer for anymore – even though former Jets’ Teemu Selanne (Anaheim), Randy Carlyle (Anaheim’s head coach), Aaron Ward (Boston, the Jets No. 1 pick in 1991), Kris Draper (Detroit), Dallas Drake (Detroit), Paul MacLean (Detroit’s assistant coach) and Stu Barnes (Dallas) are all in this year’s playoffs – we do have plenty of local guys on the Road to the Stanley Cup.

Let’s party!
 

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