November 29

No NHL Olympics in 2014

In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman explained that the league may not give it's players permission to compete in the Sochi, Russia games. "It is a strain on the players, on the schedule and on our fans here. It has an impact on the momentum of the season and the benefits we get tend to be greater when the Olympics are in North America than when they're in distant time zones" Bettman told Reuters and that the NHL players will be participating at the Vancouver games in 2010, "Vancouver was an easy call because we're going to play in the games in Canada. I think after Vancouver we'll have to take a deep breth, debrief and make sure we balance the pros and cons from going to the Olympics".

This does of course leave the possibility for the NHL to allow it's players to participate in World Cup of Hockey, last played in 2004 with several of those games at the Xcel, when they do decide to pick up that tournament next. The difference with the WCOH being that it's played just prior to the regular season as opposed to right in the middle/ two-thirds in.

It wasn't until the 1998 games that the NHL leased it's players to participate in the Olympics, due in part to the success of the WCOH, won by the United States in 1996 and as a trial for the 2002 Salt Lake Games in the US.

I'm in agreement with Commissioner Bettman on this in that it's a strain on the NHL players and kinda takes away from the end of the regular season when many teams are in the hunt for the Stanley Cup playoffs and getting to that chance to hoist the "Holy Hockey Grail". The Olympics are for the non-professional athletes, at least in team sports, which is why they have them in the first place. While it was fun to watch the 2002 Gold Medal game between the US and Canada, it didn't have that same flair with the pros on the ice who had only played together as a team for a few weeks, and the same was true about the 2006 games. The thing that made the World Cup of Hockey great was that every eight years you had the chance to see the Pro's play, and while every six years might work better, the Olympics have a better feel to them when it's the young talent before reaching the NHL and other Pro/Elite leagues around the world playing in that setting for their country's, just like with the Juniors before they turn Pro and progress in their careers.


Lidstrom, Zetterberg Lead West

Detroit (dee-troy-it) Red Wings teammates Nicklas Lidstrom (158,349) and Henrik Zetterberg (115,543) are the top two all-star vote getters in West followed by Calgary (cal-gary) Flames defenseman Dion Phaneuf (111,940) in third for the second straight week.

Leading all vote-getters among defenseman are Lindstrom and Phaneuf. The front-runners among forwards are Zetterberg, Jerome Iginla (81,739) of the Flames and Pavel Datsyuk (79,590) of the Red Wings. Netminder Pascal Leclaire of the Columbus Blue Jackets is the top goaltender in votes with 76,665.

For the Minnesota Wild Marian Gaborik slipped one spot to 11th among forwards with 40,725 votes and Brain Rolston is 26th with 10,612 and goalie Niklas Backstrom is now in 5th with 33,567 tallies.


Coburn Extended for Two Years

The Philadelphia Flyers granted defenseman Braydon Coburn a multi-year contract extension on Wednesday. :Braydon is a good young defenseman that we believe will contuine to get better," said Flyers GM Paul Holmgren. The extension will last two years and is worth $2.6 million paid out over the next two seasons as $1.2 million and $1.4 million, respectively, and the salary cap hit to Philly will be $746,100.

The Flyers traded Alexei Zhitnik to Atlanta in exchange for Coburn back on February 24, and the 22 year-old has eight assists in 23 games this season, and has registered three goals and 20 assists in 81 career games over parts of three seasons with the Flyers and Thrashers.


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