Reebok, What Have You Done Now

Have you seen the new Vancouver Canucks jerseys? Oh man. What planet do they have to sequester their fashion consultants on to get them to agree on these bad boys? So many mixed messages. They brought back the green and blue, which was inevitable I guess, but kept the exploding orca and topped it off with a big ol' reminder that hey guys, we play in Vancouver. I could have gotten behind mish mashing the two jerseys, but the nameplate kills it for me. Makes it feel hugely retro and confusing.

The new NHL jerseys have been trickling out all summer long, and while some teams have opted to keep it simple (Detroit, Nashville, LA and the Rangers) others have used it as an excuse to add some serious ugly. Poor Dipietro. The Islanders don't seem to know what they are doing on or off the ice. They riff on their upstate rival's habit of putting numbers on the front, and then they enlarge their logo because I guess they must have realized their aging baby boomer fans can't see as well as they used too. I think Long Island is the one place you don't want to be captain now. There is a lot going on there.

Tampa Bay and San Jose went for the same design philosophy: new and sleek and stylishly boring. Both have newly stylized emblems updated for the new millennium and I think San Jose might be trying to sneak some orange into their colours. I've been thinking for a while now that both of these teams could use a break from the kitschy early 90's inspired logos they were born with, and I guess I shouldn't ask for more.

It's not all bad; some of the teams that couldn't keep their secret have actually done well. The winners so far are Columbus and Boston I think. Columbus will be adopting that oh so snazzy dark blue patriotic number that had been slowly creeping more and more into Columbus' dressing room and all I can say is finally. Boston went small on their changes, adding serifs to the big B and some black outlines but all it does is make it look better. So far the Original Six teams haven't dropped the ball, but all that means is that there is a bigger chance it will be the Leafs who screw it up. They've already said that there will be changes to the leaf and while I don't think anyone at MLSE would be crazy enough to follow the lead of Tampa and San Jose and create some kind of ungodly stylized maple leaf cum ninja star, this is still the Leafs we are talking about so frankly, it could end up worse. The new Leaf duds drop in two weeks.

Florida seriously dropped the ball on their jerseys, I mean guys this is textbook how not to design a jersey. It's their whites that particularly offend my eyeballs. The Senators updated theirs too, and I will begrudgingly admit that they have made an improvement but let's all be honest with ourselves, they still suck eggs. Am I right or what.

Finally there's Washington, who I will give a tentative thumbs up for their change in direction. By change in direction I do of course mean backwards. Like Vancouver, the Caps have pulled the retro threads out for another try, except unlike Vancouver, the folks in Washington can commit to one idea at a time. Washington's new logo is just modern enough and I think their whites are particularly spiffy. The darks are maybe a little red, and I've never thought Alexander Ovechkin has looked particularly good while suiting up in the motherland's colours. Hey, do you think it's a coincidence that Washington has stepped in line with Russia's colour scheme?

We still have more than half the NHL waiting to walk down the runway. Calgary and Montreal are next and I wouldn't bet on big changes from either team. I'm still worried about my Leafs though. And while we are at it, nhllogos.blogspot.com these guys are the place for logo updates.

Jason

State of the Canadian Game

All of the Canadian NHL teams have been busy little bees this season, Montreal becoming the last to jump on the bandwagon today with a flurry of signings and trades of their own. Let's take a look at what the more northernly teams have been up to, accompanied by our expert (snicker) commentary. From east to west, here we go.

Montreal
In: Sergei Samsonov, Mike Johnson
Out: Richard Zednik

Montreal was good last year, without being great. Next season looks to be more of the same. They don't have a number one goalie; Aebischer and Cristobal Huet will have to duke it out for that honour. Samsonov is a nice addition, though he kind of went MIA in Edmonton last year at the end, he still has his goal scoring touch. Saku Koivu and Alexei Kovalev are just another year older though. And why do they still pay Radek Bonk?

Ottawa
In: Martin Gerber, Joe Corvo, Tom Preissing
Out: Zdeno Chara, Dominik Hasek, Martin Havlat, Bryan Smolinski, Tyler Arnason, Bryan Pothier

Unlike Ottawa GM John Muckler, we're not so keen on his new-look Senators. At best, this team is merely as good as the one that preceded it, but we're skeptical that it's better. We like their move in net, signing Carolina's Gerber, which gives them a legit number one, and an end to the Hasek circus (How did signing him ever seem like a good idea?). They also completed one of the more confusing trades of the off-season, sending Havlet and Smolinski to Chicago for San Jose's Preissing. We're told that Corvo and Preissing are both underrated defensemen, but do they equal one Chara? We're skeptical. We're also from Toronto. Go figure.


Toronto
In: Andrew Raycroft, Hal Gill, Pavel Kubina
Out: Eddie Belfour, Tie Domi

Our beloved Maple Leafs are looking younger and better than ever. They have a former rookie of the year in net, plus four legitimite defensemen. And GM John Ferguson has shown the door to the old Leaf policy of hiring old timers well past their prime (Sorry Gary Roberts, not this time). The future is bright in the centre of the universe. Oh, and how many more chances does Nik Antropov get before the Leafs' brass give up on him? Four, minimum, is our guess.

Winne...oh, right.

Edmonton
In: Daniel Tjarnqvist, Marty Reasoner, Joffry Lupul
Out: Chris Pronger

It doesn't matter what the Oilers do now, they've lost Pronger. That's an imbalance no amount of signings is going to fix. Lupul is no slouch, and the handful of draft picks are nice, but they don't add up to one Pronger. And Dwayne Roloson has suckered them into giving him a three-year contract. We suspect that by the end of that, somebody is going to regret signing that contract, and it's not going to be Roloson. On the other hand, the Oilers have a bunch of great young guys, so it's way too early to write them off.

Calgary
In: Alex Tanguay, Jeff Freisen, Andrei Zyuzin
Out: Jordan Leopold

Dare we say it, but Calgary is shaping up to be a team we could actually cheer for. Our main sticking point last season was that they played old-style defensive hockey in the new goal-happy era. Mikka Kiprusoff was the very deserving Vezina winning goalie thanks to that system, which saw the Flames take one goal leads and then shut down the game. But now with another goal scorer or two on the team not named Iginla, this is shaping up as a very interesting team. Also, coach Darryl Sutter (and not, as I almost typed, Darryl Sittler) resigned as coach, for better or for worse. He's still the GM, and the new coach (the hilariously named Jim Playfair) was his old assistant coach, so we all know who's pulling the strings.

Vancouver
In: Roberto Luongo, Marc Chouinard, Willie Mitchell
Out: Todd Bertuzzi, Bryan Allen, Dan Cloutier, Ed Jovanovski

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Vancouver pulled off an amazing trade in getting Luongo, and dumping Bertuzzi. The Canucks have all the pieces now. They have the scoring, the goaltending, and most of the defense, though losing Jovanovski never helps. This team badly underachieved last year, somehow managing to miss the playoffs. Marcus Naslund needs to shape up, Anson Carter needs to come back, and Luongo needs to put up the same numbers he did with the Panthers. Vancouver should do much, much better this season. Or they could crash and burn, again. You know, whatever's easier.

So could this be the year that all six Canadian teams make the playoffs? You better believe it. Not only that, but this could be the year that the Cup comes home. A Canadian team to win it all this season? Why not.

With eleven months to go until the Stanley Cup is next awarded, we're going to go out on a limb and predict that the Leafs will win it all. Let's say in a four game sweep of Calgary, no wait, Detroit, no, no, we got it: Columbus. Yeah, Columbus. We'd be willing to put large sums of money on it, in fact.

Until then,

Jason

Of A.J's, Draft Days and Blue Jays

The NHL and NBA recently held their rookie drafts, and because the Toronto Raptors had the first overall pick (!!!!), we'll start with them.

Now, leave it to the Raptors to land the first pick in a year when there was no consensus number one. But this was a happy day, so none of that.

Three or four players could have gone first, and the Raptors went with an Italian kid, Andrea Bargnani, dubbed Il Mago and Nowitzki Jr. We can only hope, after watching the Italians flop and dive their way into the semi-finals of the World Cup, that this guy can stay on his two feet long enough to put the ball in the basket.

The Raps' pick was overshadowed by a raft of draft day trades. Portland ended the day with (give or take) eleven of the top ten picks. Seriously, everybody and their grandmother got in a trade with the Blazers. They were like the drunk chick at a frosh party, except that Portland probably came out on top by the end of it...and without the syphilis.

Moving to hockey, the Leafs, believe it or not, actually did something right.

Yeah, we needed a moment too. They shipped a Finnish goaltending prospect (Tuuka Rask) to the Boston Bruins for former Calder Trophy (that's the one for top rookies) winner Andrew Raycroft. And just today, the Leafs made it official that they will not be employing Eddie Belfour next year. So the Leafs have, in a word, solved their goaltending problems, for cheap too. And quickly. The usual antithesis of the Leafs, quick and cheap.

They also signed defenseman Bryan McCabe to the kind of contract that will ensure his family never goes hungry. Ever.

So the Leafs have decided that that their top two defense men for the next five years will be McCabe and Tomas Kaberle. We hope the big brass knows what they're doing here.

Other minor stuff: Vancouver now has a legitimate numero uno goalie in Roberto Luongo, and Roberto Luongo now has a legitimate numero uno team in Vancouver, so both parties have now officially run out of excuses for their failure.

Vancouver missed the playoffs last year despite being overstuffed with talent. They blamed their goaltending, or lack there of for their shortcomings.

In Luongo's five years in Florida, despite putting up solid numbers for a crappy team, he never once made the playoffs.

So now the two are together, for better or for worse. No more excuses.

For the Blue Jays, A.J. Burnett is (finally!) back, giving the Blue Birds an almost legitimate starting rotation. With Roy Halladay, Ted Lilly and now Burnett, the Jays can start making some noise. The other two pitchers who were projected as starters all those months ago, Gustavo Chacin and Josh Towers aren't going to be doing anything soon. Chacin is still two months away from playability, and Towers is in the minors, trying to forget about his 1-9 record.

The Jays have also (finally!) started to take advantage of their interleague games, sweeping both the Nationals (Note to MLB: The Nats no longer play in Montreal) and the Braves.

The recent sweep of the Nats is important, because it saw Burnett, Lilly and Halladay all pitch in succession, letting the Jays flex some of their pitching muscle. Burnett won 6-0, followed by Lilly's 6-1 smadackering and capped off by Halladay's 8-4 piece. For those scoring at home, that's an aggregate score of 20-5 over three days.

It hasn't meant diddly in their quest for top spot in the AL East though, due to Boston's twelve game win streak, largely greased by crappy NL teams.

The Jays are going to have to win the division if they want any post-season pie; the wild card is most assuredly going to either the Tigers or White Sox.

That's all for now,

Jason

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

The Jays took a tough loss today in Chicago against the White Sox. The game was called in the fifth due to rain with the Pale Hose up 6-4 over Toronto. And because the game had gone the full five, it was considered official. That is of course a bunch of bollocks. The game should never have even made it that far in the first place. It was raining hard enough in the fourth that the game should have been ended then and there. The only reason the Jays had those four runs to speak of is because the Sox pitcher Freddie Garcia was having such a tough time in the rain. It's a tough loss to swallow. Call it sour grapes, call it whatever you want, but that was some unfair stuff going down in U.S Cellular today. Now, I'm not accusing anybody of anything here, but let's not forgot, this is the same team that gave us the Black Sox Scandal. I'm just saying...

And the Leafs were back in mid-season form today, by which I mean they were smacked around 6-0 by Buffalo. It must be hard to concentrate with all those visions of pristine golf courses floating through their heads.

They have one game remaining against the Pittsburgh Crosbys, which if nothing else, should be completely meaningless. Sidney "Calderless" Crosby sits at 97 points on the season, so here's hoping Aubin or Tellqvist or whoever the Leafs shove in net goes easy on the kid. I really hope Crosby hits the century mark. A lot of people have been ragging on him, especially in light of Ovechkin more or less running away with the rookie of the year award, so it would be a great way to cap off what has been really a great year for him.

And in other hockey news, the Vancouver Canucks will miss the playoffs this year. Excuse me a moment, I need to savour that last sentence.

This not only means that the Leafs are not the only Canadian team to miss the big dance (misery, as they say, loves company) but it also gves us a story that could overshadow Toronto's shortcomings. I mean, by all accounts, Vancouver is (was?) a good team, a lock for the playoffs, where as T.O was maybe 50-50 from the start. But Vancouver blew up in a big way, and here's one guy who's not afraid to say he's happy to see it.

I don't like the Canucks. Period. They're stocked with talent (Naslund, Morrison, Sedin 1 and Sedin 2, Carter Jovanovski) but they are oh-so lazy. Sure, you Vancouverites might say, "Oh but Jason, there were the injuries, so many injuries!" to which I say, put down the blunt, and take a good look at your team. The first mistake was letting Brian Burke go to Anahiem. That man is hockey genius. How many GM's could trade Sergei Fedorov, Sandis Ozolnish and Petr Sykora, and still end up with a better team? Secondly, employing Marc Crawford as a coach has seriously angered the karma gods. You can only go so long with that hair before bad things happen. And thirdly, Danny Cloutier?! What were you thinking? It didn't work the first three tries as a starter, and yet you guys went to the well one more time, and look where he is now. He missed the final 60 games of the season. Cloutier is not a top flight goalie, so stop pretending he's something that he is not.

Here's you homework for the offseason Vancouver: Go out and find a real goalie. None of this "Oh look, we got Buffalo's third string goalie! Stanley Cup, here we come" bollocks. I swear, if you guys start Alex Auld or Mikka Noronen next year... You know, I hear Curtis Joseph might be available. And hey Eddie Belfour needs to feed his kids too, you know.

West Coast Dazed,

Jason