Vancouver Canucks goaltender Dan Cloutier to miss remainder of 2005-06 regular season due to knee surgery. Something tells me that Brad is crying in his beer.

Brad was right, dammit.

Bruins Trade Thornton for Sturm, Stuart, and Primeau.

And no, I don’t especially want to talk about it. I’m still in shock.

My day today will largely be spent in silence, because our boys pulled off a third-period, four-goal comeback to win 5-4 last night. Four goals in eight minutes … with the crowd more and more raucous with each goal. We were whipping the student section into a frenzy, but I gotta tell you … keeping folks fired up and chanting is hard, hard work.

But hey, I wasn’t running the flag like Greg.

Ever since I came to UAH, I’ve never seen UAH hockey signees become public before summer prior to their arrival on campus, but … welcome to the Charger hockey family, Davide Nicoletti.

Man … cheap air travel makes traveling to see UAH play too tempting! We have this week off, and the boys play next week in Rochester against RIT before coming home to face Niagara. I could fly HSV to ROC for $225. Must … not … buy … tickets …

Yeah, I’d say that Paul Kariya showing up in a Predators uniform is a sign that the new NHL really is re-making the face of the league.

I still don’t like the Preds, though. Frickin’ Western Conference.

Lil IM’d me to let me know that former UAH hockey player Karlis Zirnis got married July 30, 2005. Congratulations, Igor!

“I thought you could use something to blog about today” is a common sentiment I’m getting. I love it when people feed me stuff …

Looking at the roster of my beloved Bruins, I’m seeing the lines looking like so, figuring that Thornton will be back:

Samsonov – Thornton – Murray
Isbister – Zhamnov – McEachern
Axelsson – Scatchard – Fitzgerald
Huml – Bergeron – ???

I wonder if Isbister or Axelsson could make a switch to RW. I’d love to see John LeClair back in New England.

Defense still needs some bodies, but man … Leetch, Gill, Girard, Boynton, Kutlak, and Moran is a good start. I’m also curious to see if Steve Shields wants to come back to Boston to backstop Raycroft, or whether we’ll be looking at Arty Irbe or Chris Osgood.

Division champs, just as soon as Thornton signs for next season.

Scott Burnside writes about how hockey’s traditional “small markets” are benefitting from the new collective bargaining agreement. While he’s right on that score—it’s great to see Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton in a place to compete economically—the Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks are also working on making splashes in the new NHL economic structure. Both franchises were loathe to overspend in the 1990s and early 2000s, and as a result, both suffered. [The Blackhawks suffered more, as Mark Smiley will tell you.] Now the ‘hawks have Nikolai Khabibulin, and the Bruins seem to be involved with most every big-name free agent on the list.

It’s gonna be good for the league as a whole. It’s just a damn shame that it took destroying a season to do it.

You know you’re hockey-addled when you’re watching regular-season games from February between two NCAA teams [UMich and Sparty] that you don’t even begin to care about.

LET’S PLAY HOCKEY!

Oh, and it’s still ten weeks from the start of UAH’s hockey season. :twitch:

I like most of the NHL’s new rules changes, save the stupid shoot-out thing. Ties are a part of hockey, like pitchers hitting in the NL. But it’s all good.

Yay for tag-up offsides and no two-line passes!

My boy Jared Ross, who went pro after last season was up and proceeded to kick all sorts of ass, has signed with the ECHL’s Gwinnett Gladiators.

Jeff and Dougal: Do yourself a favor and go see young Ross play. He’ll be the small kid you’ll think can’t take the hit the big defenseman wants to give him, yet he does … or dekes the guy and scores.

Kennesaw State University is looking to join the ranks of D-I men’s ice hockey.

Yeah, I woke up after I passed out.

Since Jared Ross turned pro, he’s done pretty well for himself: 3-5–8 in 12 games, +7, only 2 PIM, 10.3 shooting percentage. That’s pretty impressive for a skinny little guy who played his college hockey in Alabama. That +7 is third-highest amongst centers on his team; when you’re third behind Bryan Smolinski, it’s not too bad for a 22-year-old fresh out of college. [Go +/- on a per-game stat, and he trails only Smolinski, who's averaging a +1 a night.]

Huntsville’s proud of you, Jared.