At the World Championships in Sweden, P.K. Subban ended up joining Team Canada for a game, Raphael Diaz’ Swiss team captured silver, and Alex Galchenyuk copped a bronze with the Americans. On the home front, Michel Therrien was snubbed as a coach of the year candidate, which I disagree with, and Toronto’s Mikhail Grabovski has [...]

I noticed these on the back of a newspaper clipping I have from when I was a smallish-yet-shifty second baseman on my championship-winning Orillia peewee baseball team. It’s the beginning of the 1963-64 NHL season and it states that Ulf Sterner was set to play his first NHL game, but he actually didn’t suit up [...]

It turns out that Eve Pearce, who wrote a guest post a few weeks back, is British and lives in England. I didn’t know this until recently. I wonder if she (a) likes the Beatles, (b) eats bangers and mash, (c) realizes she drives on the wrong side of the road, (d) has been to [...]

Recently a woman named Eve Pearce wrote and asked if she could write something that I might post. I love to hear this, I wish more would come forward as Eve has done, and all I said back to her was that it probably had to be hockey-related. Soon after, her essay showed up and [...]

There goes 2012. Maybe it’s a good thing. The Habs were disturbingly mediocre in 2012, finishing 15/15 in the Eastern Division, one point behind 14th place Islanders and two behind the Leafs. I still feel nauseous. Along the way, Hal Gill and Andrei Kostitysn were shipped to Nashville and I miss Hal. The other guy – not so [...]

Team Canada found themselves down 3-1 to the Slovakians midway through the second period before switching to fourth gear, pumping in five unanswered big ones, and ending up with a nice, convincing 6-3 win over this somewhat disciplined Eastern European club that favours a bottling-up type of game that can often be effective, as shown [...]

It’s the time of year to think of others less fortunate, and my heart goes out to Russian World Junior ticket scalpers, who might have to soon think about another occupation. How can they sell overpriced tickets to games in an arena where there were so many empty seats, elephants would be free to roam? [...]

Should Paul Henderson be in the Hall of Fame? Damn right he should, although Henderson didn’t exactly have what one would call a Hall of Fame career, racking up 236 goals and 241 assists for 477 points in 707 regular season games divided between the Leafs and Detroit Red Wings. These are decent numbers, not [...]

Denis Brel in St. Petersburg has written a fine piece about what Alexander Semin is up to in Russia. So I’m just going to put my feet up and let my terrific stepson take it away. Many thanks to Denis in “The City that Peter Built.” By Denis Brel – Alexander Semin signed with the [...]

There was a strong contingent of Montreal Canadiens on Team Canada ’72 - Ken Dryden, Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe, Frank and Pete Mahovlich, and Yvan Cournoyer, and all, in their own way, contributed mightily to the cause, including Dryden who struggled at times but showed enough to coaches Harry Sinden and John Ferguson to be called [...]