Backhand Shelf Podcast: Carter and Richards are friends, illegal hits are illegal, and much more
| Today’s Backhand Shelf Podcast involved a rare moment: Pizzo and I agreed about the severity of a hit. We touched on: * The Kings dominance * What Paul Holmgren thinks of Carter and Richards’ success * Carter and Richards living together * Shane Doan’s hit on Trevor Lewis * Hanzal’s on Brown (as well as [...] |  |
Martin Brodeur’s “scorpion save” made Mikka Kipruoff’s look “meh” at best
| On February 9th, the San Jose Sharks were playing the Calgary Flames, and were down in the game 4-3 in the third period. Mikka Kipruoff got clipped somehow and went down, and the puck flipped over his head – to stop it, he did the scorpion: he kicked his legs up behind him (assuming the [...] |  |
Mike Smith’s slash on Dustin Brown last night was just terrific
| This Mike Smith slash may very well have been my favourite part of last night’s game, and I have nothing against Dustin Brown. It presented very little chance of causing real injury, plenty for real pain, and was just so, so old school (I did grow up watching Billy Smith, for context). While Brown definitely took his time getting [...] |  |
EA’s NHL 13 is going to be awesome
| There’s an interesting portion of the video gaming population that plays hockey in the virtual world, but doesn’t play (or watch) in real life. The games are just that good. The always highly-anticipated NHL games from EA, in particular, are a major reason for that; this year is no different. The press release for the latest edition of the game [...] |  |
Turns out comedian Louis CK is a hockey fan
| Louis CK is, at present time, the best performing comedian on planet Earth. The debate about who was before him – Jerry Seinfeld, Mitch Hedberg, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor… whoever - is not really the point here. He’s today’s current best, and hey look, he attends NHL games. That he’s a Rangers fan [...] |  |
Niklas Kronwall Kronwall’d the bejezus out of Latvia’s Kaspars Saulietis
| It’s one thing to be an NHLer and get “Kronwall’d,” and quite another to be a 24 year-Latvian who’s never played the guy and get hit like this. I’m not sure why entirely, I just feel like you’d be a little more surprised. At least when NHLers are in a crumpled heap on the ice [...] |  |
Travis Zajac’s skate of shame to the penalty box last night took forever
| When Travis Zajac of the New Jersey Devils took a penalty last night, it couldn’t have made his coach Peter DeBoer too happy. What’s worse for Zajac, is that the penalty box door was jammed, leaving him to stand - namebar facing his bench, no less - for eight minutes while the staff at Madison Square Garden tried [...] |
The Reasonable Puritan: Untangling Hockey’s Complex Relationship with Booze
| It is not really all that surprising that Patrick Kane is in trouble again. I’m not going to go into the details of the trouble, because the details are as yet all gossip and hearsay, but the gist is that, just like the last time, and the time before that, and the time before, Patrick [...] |  |
A Cup of Joe In the Morning – Will Days Off Catch Up to Kings?
| I’ve spent enough words on the Kings’ absolute domination of the 2012 Playoffs so far. Last week, I wrote about how this team should never be referred to as an underdog story or an overachiever. On Wednesday, I wrote about the Kings’ 10-1 start to the post-season and how it was one of the best [...] |  |
Martin Hanzal gets 1 game for hitting Dustin Brown from behind
| After doing a season’s worth of hockey podcasts, it’s recently come to my attention that I would suspend players more like Brendan Shanahan, and less like fans. From what I can tell, fans want to see them go longer, and in reality…their case is better than the League’s (and mine): longer suspension would curb more [...] |  |
The 10 best hits from the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs
| We’re starting to distance ourselves a bit too much from the second round, so here’s the final best-of video: the 10 best hits from the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. |  |
Vote for Scott Hartnell for EA’s NHL 13 cover now, for cat’s sake
| Those who’ve become familiar with my work (and Twitter feed) know I’m an animal guy. Right now my wife and I happen to have cats (as those who used to read jtbourne.com know all too well – here’s Tyson and Jiggsy, by the way), and we’ve taken enough pictures of them that our families should be reasonably concerned about [...] |  |
The Dino Ciccarelli Award for best rookie in the playoffs
| Back in 1981, Dino Ciccarelli was 21 years old, playing in his first season with the Minnesota North Stars. He appeared in 32 games for the North Stars during the regular season, scoring an impressive 18 goals and 30 points. But what he did next was even more impressive: Ciccarelli scored 14 goals in 19 [...] |  |
Backhand Shelf Podcast: Gaborik gets benched, Kovalchuk can shoot, and smelling salts
| The Devils beat the Rangers last night, and the Coyotes face the Kings again tonight, so we talked about… * Marian Gaborik getting benched * Ilya Kovalchuk’s shot * Marty Brodeur’s scorpion save * John Tortorella being John Tortorella * The Rangers and shot-blocking * Martin Hazal’s suspension * The Coyotes chances * Why guys [...] |  |
Backhand Shelf Podcast: Tippett thinks the Kings dive, Patrick Kane’s beerability and more
| The Kings took a 3-0 lead in their series with the Coyotes, which left us to talk about: * Dwight King has more playoff goals than who? * Dave Tippett thinks hockey is becoming more dishonest * Which head coaching vacancy is most appealing? * Devils/Rangers predictions * Beerability – really fun one today. Derek Snider [...] |  |
Shot blocks: The Rangers can’t win
| Everybody and their dog knows by now that the New York Rangers were the fourth best team in the NHL in shot-blocking, their prowess widely discussed in the first two games of their series against the New Jersey Devils. It’s become the series of shot blocking. The CBC crew have theorized that certain Devils forwards [...] |  |
A Cup of Joe In the Morning – A Little Humour, A Little Tension
| The deeper and deeper we get into the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the greater the tension gets for the players, the coaches, the management teams and even the fans. Sometimes it’s good for all involved to get even just a few seconds of tension-breaking humour to lighten the mood. Well the Devils and Rangers got it [...] |  |
5-on-5: Pizzo and Bourne answer 5 twitter questions in 5 minutes
| In our latest edition of 5-on-5, Pizzo and I quickly covered: * Shot-blocking * The World Championships * Dean Lombardi * John Tortorella * And each remaining team’s x-factor Agree, disagree? Email us at backhandshelf@thescore.com |  |
This Los Angeles Kings pump-up video is like something out of Hollywood…fittingly
| I’ve mentioned this before, but a great person to follow on Twitter (especially during this particular playoff season) is @TheRoyalHalf. Earlier today he shared a new video from the YouTube channel of ajweinstein96, which predictably was of the ”Let’s Go Kings” themed variety. The video is called “Los Angeles Rises,” and it’s awfully dramatic. It makes perfect sense [...] |  |
No injuries? There’s always Kesler.
| It’s awfully hard to write about NHL injuries where there aren’t any. Somehow this year’s playoff season has been fairly uneventful, leading to me staring at my computer for at least an hour willing it to come up with something to write about (it didn’t, but the good news is there’s still funny cat videos [...] |  |
Stacking the Kings against other dominant teams
| Inspiration: ‘Juggernaut‘ by Ellen Etchingham Check out these two paragraphs from the AP post-gamer of Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals: Indeed, Los Angeles is on the brink of its second Stanley Cup final after leaping to a 3-0 lead over reeling Phoenix in the Western Conference finals. The eighth-seeded Kings are on an unbelievable 11-1 [...] |  |
Juggernaut
| In India, at Jagganath temple, there is an annual festival called the Ratha Yatra. The core of the Ratha Yatra is a parade, a procession of chariots through the streets, each chariot carrying one of the gods of the temple. It is considered a great blessing to see and be seen by the gods as [...] |  |
Fox 11 news reporter struggles with hockey hightlights
| I genuinely feel bad for this woman, I do. If you don’t cover a sport routinely, calling the highlights can be hard, especially live. But still…don’t you give the names/pronounciations/general-things-to-say a double-check before you go on-air? Anze Kopidor? Brad Doty? The ball? “Doesn’t matter who’s playing at Staples, there are celebrities around…” Cringe. (Stick-tap to @mirtle and [...] |
