You may or may not have seen this, but I think it’s worth a second look if you already have. Just for fun. Jori Lehtera, playing in the KHL east-west all-star game, gets a little fancy and little lucky. A pretty slick shootout move indeed. Thanks to Beatnik for sending it over.

Good old Alex Kovalev, the man who could dazzle us for one game and stink for the next five, is back in Montreal tonight wearing a Florida Panthers uniform. Kovalev, who was with Atlant Moscow Oblast of the KHL for the 2011-12 season, returned to North America and just after the lockout ended, signed with [...]

I must be pretty dense. All along I thought Ilya Kovalchuk was flirting with staying with his St. Petersburg SKA team because he loved his country so much and was finally eating his favourite foods again. It barely registered on me that SKA, and probably the KHL head comrades, were offering him millions to stay. [...]

I woke this morning to the news – that NHL brains have made a sharp u-turn and hockey will begin again, maybe on January 15, maybe on January 19. (Details can be found on 8,537 news and sports sites). I’m not ready for this. I’m not finished talking about Gary Bettman and rich hockey players [...]

I find myself thinking more and more about the lockout and how it’s affecting me, and I have to say it’s not affecting me a great deal at all, other than having to dig deep to keep posting here every day. I’m just sick of the whole mess, one created through greed, distrust and lies, [...]

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 [...]

My Russian stepson Denis Brel went to a KHL game a few days ago in St. Petersburg, and it just happened to be Ilya Kovalchuk’s first game at his new home rink after returning to his homeland due to the lockout. Denis says the rink holds 12,000 people, but 14,000 squeezed in, because to see [...]

This 26 minute video is a sad yet fascinating tribute to Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, the Kontinental Hockey League team that went down in a plane a year ago. It looks at families in reflection, of players involved, of players from the newly-built Lokomotiv, and of Yaroslavl itself. Just a really interesting piece, and I hope you [...]

Every so often, Rich the trucker shows up at the ferry terminal and hands me his Canadiens magazine, which I appreciate greatly. He’s a big Habs fan, this fellow, he lives in Vancouver, and when he comes through, we talk Habs. When this happens, my work effort drops from 140% down to 125%. But it’s important. It’s the future of [...]

After waiting two months for the Canadian embassy to say yes or no, the answer came this morning. They said yes, which means my wife’s two sons, a daughter-in-law, and little grandaughter are able to visit us from St. Petersburg, Russia for the month the of April. I’ve never seen Luciena so excited. She’s been crying, her hands shook, and it [...]