Tag Archives: Dany Heatley

Crosby Should Be Captain, Brodeur the Goalie, Regardless, Team Canada 2010 Will be Pretty Good.

Now that Hockey Canada’s Summer Orientation Camp is over, it’s time to weigh in with another opinion.

Seems everyone and his brother has decided who should play for Canada’s national hockey team at the 2010 Olympics, so why not join the conversation…

1) Let’s start with the captain. Yeah, I have no quarrel with Scott Niedermayer or Jarome Iginla. I even think Shane Doan would make a great captain. But for my tax money, I’d like to see Sidney Crosby get the job. For one thing, he’s the captain of the current Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins, for another thing, he’s not afraid to tell an official what he thinks.

Remember, this is international hockey. Out-yelling your opponent around the officials is vital and Crosby has a reputation for being one of the biggest whiners in the NHL.

Now, frankly, I’m not sure if that’s true (most reputations aren’t), but if it is, he’s the natural and only choice for captain. Remember, this isn’t necessarily about “leadership.” Hell, there are two dozen guys who will be cut from this camp who can lead a hockey team. However, Sid the Kid is the guy who will make sure the officials get an earful of Canada’s position on penalties, penalties that weren’t called, penalties that should be called, offsides, icing, you name it. Sidney will be in the referees’ ears with passion.

And, hey, he’s not a bad player, either. However, it’s not about the most veteran guy or the guy the players look up to that will make a great international captain. It’s the guy who will intimidate the officials at every turn. That’s the type of guy the Russians will choose. That’s the type of guy the Czechs will choose. If you’re going to play that semi-crooked international game, you’d better go into it with your weapons loaded.

2) Onto the starting goalie: Martin Brodeur. And I’m not going to justify it. He’s simply the best. Roberto Luongo is No. 2 and Cam Ward is a solid No. 3 because he’s the type of guy who has won a championship before and yet, like Eddie Belfour in 2002, he’ll just be proud to be part of the team.

3) The forward lines. These are my choices, they might not be yours:

1. Sidney Crosby/Vincent Lecavalier/Jarome Iginla

2. Mike Richards/Rick Nash/Ryan Getzlaff

3. Jonathan Toews/Dany Heatley/Martin St. Louis

4. Eric Staal/Shane Doan/Milan Lucic

No. 13: Corey Perry

4) The defensive pairings:

1. Scott Niedermayer/Shea Weber

2. Jay Bouwmeester/Dan Boyle

3. Dion Phaneuf/Mike Green

No. 7: Brent Burns, Duncan Keith or Drew Doughty (all three would be fine, take your pick)

OK, so if I had to make a decision on the seventh defenceman it would probably be Brent Burns because he can also play up front. However, I do believe Drew Doughty is going to be the NHL’s next great defenceman.

Regardless, if you selected Robyn Regehr over Dion Phaneuf or Jordan Staal over Shane Doan or Brrenden Morrow over Marty St. Louis, I would not put up a fight.

This camp in Calgary had so many great players, Canada could probably send two teams to Vancouver and if they were properly coached, they could win two medals.

Some more things bouncing around inside my skull…

It was quite a week. We watched the Winnipeg Blue Bombers bring in a new quarterback, we headed off to Mankato, Minn., to watch opening day of Minnesota Vikings camp and then headed back to Minneapolis for the Twins-Angels series.

As a result, here are a few more things that went banging around in my brain this past week…

1) Last week, Blue Bombers head coach Mike Kelly was fined $1,000 for verbally abusing the officials in Week 4’s 19-5 loss to Toronto.

The Bombers were so dreadfully awful in that game that I didn’t really notice the officials much, but I will say this: CFL officials are so bad, so rotten, that somebody has to verbally abuse them. Just to keep them awake.

2) It sure didn’t take long for the Bombers to sour on defensive tackle Tyrone Williams and quarterback Richie Wlliams. Even before the team went to Toronto for this past Saturday’s game with the Argos, the two were gone. Released outright.

Wow! There was an awful lot of newspaper space wasted on those two four-week clunkers.

3) Here’s how you beat the Minnesota Twins: Walk Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau every time they come to the plate. Hell, I’ll take my chances with Michael Cuddyer or Jason Kubel.

If you let the “New M&M Boys” hit, they will. They’ll beat you. But if you never face them, they’ll score a couple of runs, but not enough to hurt you. After all, that Twins pitching staff is awful. It’s going to give up 8-12 a game (especially if you’re the Los Angeles Angels) and a couple of Twins runs won’t even dent that.

4) My old friend George Sherrill was traded from the Baltimore Orioles to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday. He didn’t want to go, but he’ll now have a legitimate shot at winning a World Series. Not bad for a guy who spent 2002 and 2003 with the independent Winnipeg Goldeyes.

Asked by the Los Angeles Times after Friday’s game (where he struck out three of the four batters he faced) if he ever saw himself “reaching this point while he was toiling in the independent leagues,” Sherrill said: “I didn’t know what this point was. I just wanted to keep playing. I guess that’s why some girlfriends took off.”

5) There is a great deal of gnashing of teeth these days over “The List.” That’s baseball’s notorious list of people who were voluntarily and anonymously drug tested in 2003. It’s a list with 104 names on it, but only seven names have been leaked.

It’s a list that allows the mob-like mainstream media to continue to attack the game even though the mob-like mainstream media was a big part of the cover-up of steroid us in baseball when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were saving the game in 1998.

Because most members of the mainstream media have no idea what steroids are or what they do, they use the leaks from the list to vilify athletes and attack baseball’s credibility.

It’s unfortunate that commissioner Bud Selig is just a liar. He, of course, claimed that the people who agreed to be tested in 2003 would never see the results of those tests and that tests would never be made public. Now, the results are being leaked out bit by bit, most often to the New York Times, by someone who obviously has an agenda.

For the mainstream media, steroid use by athletes is always big news. For baseball fans, however, it’s meaningless. They really don’t care.

In fact, if I’m paying $100 for a ticket (remember, the mainstream media doesn’t pay for tickets and therefore doesn’t know what we’re paying to watch baseball these days), I want my jocks to be 6-foot-8, 300-pounds and have the ability to hit a baseball to the moon. I don’t care if fat, old Babe Ruth, a man who never hit against an African-American pitcher, has all his records broken, I want to be entertained when I pay exorbitant prices to watch a stinkin’ ball game in August.

6) The Ottawa Sun, home of the hopeful and silly Bruce Garrioch, a really nice guy who seems to go out of his way to create trade rumours that don’t exist — and never have — came up with a doozy this weekend. Even TSN and Rogers Sportsnet picked up on the story without checking out anything.

The latest rumour goes like this (and remember, this is the same Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun who had Vincent Lecavalier going to the Edmonton Oilers, Chris Pronger off to St. Louis, then Chris Pronger off to New Jersey, then Chris Pronger off to Boston, then Chris Pronger off to Toronto, Jay Bouwmeester to Edmonton — sheesh, he loves Edmonton — Scott Niedermayer off to Boston, Evgeni Malkin to the L.A. Kings, Ilya Kovalchuk to Montreal and on and on and on): The San Jose Sharks have offered F Jonathan Cheechoo and D Christian Erhoff to Ottawa in exchange for F Dany Heatley, but the deal won’t take place unless Montreal steps in and sends Mike Cammalleri (the free agent that Bob Gainey just signed) to San Jose to get Patrick Marleau (where did he come from?) and his $6.3 million contract.

The San Jose Mercury News called Sharks GM Doug Wilson. He denied he was interested in making a deal with the Senators. Meanwhile, if Garrioch had checked out the Habs payroll situation, it would become evident to him that the Canadiens couldn’t handle the salary cap hit.

At some point does the mainstream media look at Garrioch and say, “The Sky is Not Falling Today?” Or not? Do they just keep eating this stuff up.

If he was right once…

Crosby, Brodeur lead the way: Camp Invitees Named for 2010 Canadian Men’s Olympic Hockey Team

I love this list. I would add a couple of names here and there, especially an indigenous Canadian such as Jonathan Cheechoo or Wade Redden, but for the most part, the players named to the tryout camp should give the coaching staff a chance to pick a 2010 Team Canada that has a chance to win.

I would liked to have seen Vancouver’s Kevin Bieksa invited as a defenceman, but I’ll have no problem with the final lineup.

Up front, I can’t believe Dany Heatley is on the list after the stunt he’s pulled with Ottawa and Edmonton this week. There is a real integrity and character problem there. If Hockey Canada was going to take an Ottawa Senator, I really can’t believe they took Heatley ahead of Jason Spezza. At least Spezza’s a decent human being who doesn’t hurt others around him. Steven Stamkos should probably be on the list and if you’re going to take Dan Cleary, how about Darren Helm? Of course, the list has to stop at some point.

Chris Osgood should also be on the list. Fleury? Mason? Osgood? I’ll take Osgood every time. However, I still believe Brodeur and Luongo should be the Top 2 goaltenders anyway.

Here’s the list of invitees to the 2010 Men’s Olympic Hockey Team. Team Canada’s camp goes Aug. 24-27 at the Pengrowth Saddledome in Calgary:

Only five of the 16 defencemen invited have Olympic experience: Jay Bouwmeester (Calgary Flames), Dan Boyle (San Jose Sharks), Scott Niedermayer (Anaheim Ducks),  Chris Pronger (Philadelphia Flyers), and Robyn Regehr (Calgary Flames). Rounding out the list of D-men are: Dion Phaneuf (Calgary Flames), Marc Staal (New York Rangers), Shea Weber (Nashville Predators), François Beauchemin (Anaheim Ducks), Brent Burns (Minnesota Wild), Drew Doughty (Los Angeles Kings), Stéphane Robidas (Dallas Stars), Mike Green (Washington Capitals), Dan Hamhuis (Nashville Predators), and the Chicago Blackhawks pairing of Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook.

Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby heads up the list of forwards. The list of 25 has 11 from the 2006 Olympic team roster, including Shane Doan (Phoenix Coyotes), Simon Gagné (Philadelphia Flyers), Dany Heatley (Ottawa Senators), Jarome Iginla (Calgary Flames), Rick Nash (Columbusn Blue Jackets), Joe Sakic (Colorado Avalanche), Martin St-Louis (Tampa Bay Lightning), Eric Staal (Carolina Hurricanes), Joe Thornton (San Jose Sharks), Vincent Lecavalier (Tampa Bay Lightning) and Ryan Smyth (Colorado Avalanche). The rest of the list includes Jeff Carter (Philadelphia Flyers), Ryan Getzlaf (Anaheim Ducks), Milan Lucic (Boston Bruins), Patrick Marleau (San Jose Sharks), Andy McDonald (St. Louis Blues), Brenden Morrow (Dallas Stars), Corey Perry (Anaheim Ducks) Michael Richards (Philadelphia Flyers), Derek Roy (Buffalo Sabres), Patrick Sharp (Chicago Blackhawks), Jordan Staal (Thunder Bay, Ont./Pittsburgh, NHL) Jonathan Toews (Winnipeg, Man./Chicago, NHL) and Dan Cleary (Detroit Red Wings).

The list of five goalies includes three-time Olympian Martin Brodeur (New Jersey Devils), 2006 Olympian Roberto Luongo (Vancouver Canucks), Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins goalie Marc-André Fleury, Steve Mason (Columbus Blue Jackets) and Cam Ward (Carolina Hurricanes).

If Heatley says “No”, it’s Bad for Hockey and the NHL Needs to Intervene.

Free Agent Frenzy, Day 1…

Granted, there is a chance Dany Heatley could still end up as a member of the Edmonton Oilers, but let’s get something straight here: When you ask for a trade and then decide not to waive your no-trade clause (Who’s the idiot GM who puts that crap in a contract anyway?), you have a problem.

Sure, Heatley told his agent J.P. Barry, the “he wanted to sleep on it,” and that’s fine, but only a tremendously selfish prick with no consideration for three other hockey players, two franchises, the league and the game would pull a stunt like that.

Here’s the deal: Heatley was going to get what he wanted. He asked for a trade out of Ottawa and even though he went public with his demands and put the Senators in a bind, forcing them to go begging to teams to take the alleged superstar off their hands, Bryan Murray did the best he could to get the trade arranged.

For the Senators, the best deal was with Edmonton. The Oilers were going to send 22-year-old forward Andrew Cogliano, 26-year-old forward Dustin Penner and 23-year-old defenceman Ladislav Smid to Ottawa in exchange for the disgruntled 28-year-old Heatley. It was a good deal all around. The Oilers would get the sniper they need while the Sens would get three young players with plenty of upside.

But then Heatley decided NOT to waive his no-trade clause. He could still change his mind and some believe he will, right after the Senators (not the Oilers) pay him his $4 million bonus. But that’s even more selfish, more greedy and more childish.

If Heatley doesn’t come to his senses and go to Edmonton, the league has to take action. This was a trade  made in good faith and the players involved all knew they were moving. We’re dealing with people’s lives here, but then again rich, selfish jock pricks don’t care about other people. The League, in order to save the credibility of its franchises, has to tell Heatley’s people that he’s going to Edmonton and then if he doesn’t like it, he can go ahead and ask for a trade there.

Heatley, who should know better, has just told the world that Edmonton is a dump. “I’m not going to play there.” It’s wrong. It’s wrong because you don’t ask for a trade and then not accept the trade after it’s done.

In order to save its own credibility — that is, if Heatley insists he’s not going — the league must force this trade.

In the meantime:

1) Great news for old friend Colton Orr. Four years, $4 million from the Leafs. Orr’s rise to the NHL is a great story and this is a great opportunity for a hardworking 27-year-old player.

2) Mattias Ohlund, 32, gets seven years in Tampa. Seven? Wow.

3) The Sedin Twins go back to Vancouver and Ohlund heads south. That’s a debatable decision by the Canucks. Wouldn’t you rather have Ohlund and, say, Marian Gaborik, than the Sedins?

4) Three goalie moves: Dwayne Roloson goes from Edmonton to the Islanders, Ty Conklin goes from Detroit to St. Louis and Craig Anderson goes from Florida to Colorado. Zzzzzzzzzz.

5) Marian Hossa, 30, goes to Chicago for 12 years, $62 million. He was awful in the Stanley Cup final. He’ll be just a peach when he’s 42.

Our Selections for Hockey Canada’s “Team Canada 2010″

OK, so everybody else is doing it, we might just as well weigh in.

 

Although, our 2010 Canadian Olympic team might not look a lot like the others that have been selected in the national media, we’d like to see a little discussion before the next head coach takes his club into the 2010 Olympic hockey tournament in Vancouver.

 

After all, the 2006 team seemed like a done deal a year before the Olympics and we all know how that team finished. We must take the best and brightest  — and the smartest, as well — to Vancouver.

 

So let’s look at a few players who might not have made some of the other lists — just so Canada can get a little younger, faster and mentally tougher.

 

By the way, in deference to the likes of Red Fisher and Pierre McGuire, I’ve only seen 47 NHL games live this season, so rip me accordingly.

 

GOALIES:

 

Roberto Luongo, Vancouver Canucks

Martin Brodeur, New Jersey Devils

Steve Mason, Columbus Blue Jackets

 

 

DEFENCE

 

Kevin Bieksa, Vancouver Canucks

Dion Phaneuf, Calgary Flames

Duncan Keith, Chicago Blackhawks

Shea Weber, Nashville Predators

Mike Green, Washington Capitals

Brian Campbell, Chicago Blackhawks

Dennis Wideman, Boston Bruins

 

FORWARDS

 

Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins

Jonathan Toews, Chicago Blackhawks

Jarome Iginla, Calgary Flames

Rick Nash, Columbus Blue Jackets

Mike Richards, Philadelphia Flyers

Shane Doan, Phoenix Coyotes

Ryan Getzlaf, Anaheim Ducks

Dany Heatley, Ottawa Senators

Jeff Carter, Philedelphia Flyers

Joe Thornton, San Jose Sharks

Vincent Lecavalier, Tampa Bay Lightning

Patrick Marleau, San Jose Sharks

Marc Savard, Boston Bruins

 

I’m a big fan of Martin St. Louis, Jason Spezza, Mike Cammalleri, little Derek Roy and even Winnipeg’s own Travis Zajac, who is having a great year in New Jersey. I also like Dan Boyle, Robyn Regehr, Brent Burns and even the older stars such as Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger, Sheldon Souray and Rob Blake.

 

But it’s 2010 and 2006 was a huge disappointment. It’s time to go down a new road on defence, stick with Marty Brodeur (maybe the greatest goalie of all time) in net and make sure Jonathan Toews is wearing a C or an A on this hockey team. 

 

Hire someone like Mike Babcock, Barry Trotz or Andy Murray to coach the team and this group should win gold in a walk.