Just thought I’d post this 'cause I know there are a couple here who are suffering. 
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| Defending champions eliminated fromm playoff race April 4, 2007 The defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes will be watching the playoffs from home this season. The Hurricanes blew a two-goal lead and lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-2 on Tuesday night to become the first defending Stanley Cup winner to miss the playoffs the next season since New Jersey in 1996. ADVERTISEMENT “We’re completely frustrated as a team. Embarrassed,” Carolina center Eric Staal said. “We wanted to be in the playoffs. We wanted to defend the Cup we won last year, and we didn’t get it done tonight. It’s unacceptable for the guys we have in this room and the amount of talent we have. Everyone feels just terrible.” Vincent Lecavalier and Dan Boyle scored just under two minutes apart early in the third to lift Tampa Bay. Eric Perrin also scored for the Lightning, who trail Southeast Division-leading Atlanta by one point. In other NHL games, it was: Buffalo 4, Pittsburgh 1; Washington 1, Florida 0; Montreal 2, Boston 0; Detroit 3, Columbus 0; Toronto 3; Philadelphia 2, in overtime, New Jersey 2, Ottawa 1, in a shootout; New York Islanders 3, New York Rangers 2, in a shootout; Minnesota 3, Edmonton 0; Chicago 3, Nashville 2, in a shootout; Colorado 4, Calgary 3; St. Louis 5, Phoenix 2; and Vancouver 4, Los Angeles 2. Ray Whitney and Rod Brind’Amour scored for Carolina, which has dropped four of five. It was just the third time in 30 games Carolina has lost when holding a lead entering the third period. “It’s not something we do a lot of,” Staal said. “It couldn’t have been a worse time than right now for that to happen.” “This is the biggest loss of the year,” Hurricanes forward Cory Stillman said. “Tonight gave us an opportunity to stay in the playoffs, and we let one slip away.” |
Go ahead and kick us when we’re down, rub salt in our wounds, make spectical of us before the multitudes of the crowds! 
Just wait til '08!
Hi Gents:
That’s a shame for that market area… It’s good for the league, for that to happen…
The Big Game is this weekend… It’s the Leafs and the Habs… It’s the Winner-Take-All for the last place in their division… OR… has the last place been decided…yet? There’s a real rivalry going on between the fans of Montreal and Toronto… Whoever wins that game still don’t matter much… Either team doesn’t have enough depth to their benches… That’s what it’s gonna take to win the Stanley Cup…
As a matter of principal… I have to back Crosby and Pittsburg… Crosby is the Home-Town Kid…
In-the-End… We’ll see… 
Bill…
Still up in the air for 6th, 7th and 8th seeds in the East - with 2 games left! What a great season! Crosby for MVP, absolutely!
I’m looking forward to the Toronto/Montreal game… But Junior Hockey has stepped up a notch around here… The Mooseheads has moved on from the first rounds in the “Q” League. by winning the seventh game in double overtime over Moncton, Tuesday night, in Moncton… They start the second round with the team from Maine… You know, they can’t sell any other hockey except junior play, around here. The Moosehead’s Coach is Cam Russell… He was drafted to the Blackhawks, way back when… My young fellow skated with him in Pee-Wee and Atom Hockey… Wally Deveau was the Home-Town coach for Cam, Sydney and a number of other kids that grew up around here… I see him (Wally) every morning at Tims… Hockey comes into the conversation a few times during the week… What else is there to talk about at Tims when the weather is ugly 
Bill…
Your son played with Cam? That’s pretty darn cool.
Here’s a fun one for you: Buffalo Sabres have a problem if their Rochester affilate goes too far in the payoffs, since there are limitations on how many guys they can call up while the farm team is still going. How’d ya like to have that problem? 
With that same age group and on that level there was a goaltender… His name is Daren Beals… He was drafted by the Sabres Organization… He may very well have played on the Rochester Bench… He was brought up for several games and he sat on Scottie’s Sabre’s Bench as a back-up tender… I don’t think he rose to the ranks of the NHL… I’m not so sure he’s around hockey, anymore… He played with Cam and my young fellow (The same age)… He was one of the better goalies at his age around these parts. A “google” might bring up his name… My young fellow was brought to the team because of his playmaking and scoring abilities… He could skate like the wind but his size eventually became his downfall…
Bill…
Darren had a shortish OHL-AHL-IHL career:
http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php3?pid[]=258
Don’t you love the web?
Ain’t that great Tom? Thanks… How quickly you loose track of the kids in your neighbourhood… His father was a fireman… He was so energetic around the kids hockey… I don’t know if he ever slept… He eventually had heart trouble and died… I was talking to him (at the market) the day he heard he was gonna be called up to the NHL Game… I asked him if he was gonna go see his Daren play… He said… “What?? to see him sit on the Bench??” Anyway, I wished him and his youngster well… That was the last time I saw him… Too Bad…
Bill…
Well, there are still three teams in the mix in the east. I’m pulling for Ted Nolan;s Islanders to pull it off. That would require Tornoto to beat Montreal in regulation, and the Isles to win both of their games, one against Philly and one agaisnt NJ, IIRC. I hope I analyzed that right.
The Flint Generals made the playoffs in the highly regarded UHL. Start on Wed. We’re going to see their last home game tonight. Should be a big crowd - maybe even 3,000!
Isn’t that great for Ted Noland? What a lift for that market place… He was the Moncton Juniors “Q” League Coach last year… or was it the year that the NHL player’s strike was on? Anyway, if you remember… he was Booed at a game where the hometown fans poured beer and popcorn over him and his bench for being American Indian, and not worthy to coach Hockey… or something like that… That story got a lot of local media time… around here… What a great motivator, he is, behind the bench… The owners of that organization made the right decision by putting him on their bench… to turn that team around… in my opinion…
Anyway, tomorrow night’s Hockey Night in Canada is gonna be the game-to-watch… if you can hook up to that network… In case you didn’t hear… The CBC has been given the contract to televise Hockey Night in Canada for another 8 year term… So I guess Don MacLean and Grapes has a job doing their “Game Colour” for at least some of that time… It would be a loss to Hockey Night in Canada not to include their Show in the Contract… That’s just my opinion…
Bill…
They did that to Ted Nolan? Some people are more than stupid. 
That’s not the first time this sort of thing happened.
He’s one heck of a good coach - you’ll recall he was the Sabres coach when Hull scored that “no goal” goal…that was a decent team, and certainly Hasek had a lot to do with it, but IMHO most of their success was coaching. Then he got Muckler fired and there were wild accusations of him coming drunk to practices and sleeping with players wives - all of which were crap, and he said something then about racism - and Hasek said he didn’t respect Nolan - so Nolan was out of a job. And out of the NHL. That Buffalo team was mostly young players, lots of rookies - anyway, I want to see him succeed with the Islanders. He was treated very, very badly. IMHO.
You know we get all the games here - every single one of them! And the TV is already set to record that one tomorrow night, jsut in case I miss any of it!
Great end of the season for the eastern conference - I can’t remember a better one.
Here’s an older article from when he got his job at Moncton:
Ted Nolan
I never knew the details as to what happened to him, his career, and how he got to Moncton and the “Q” League… and all… That’s quite the story there… The Metro Center down here holds maybe 10,000, or so… When Moncton comes to town the place is full… We are Oh-So-Close to being able to support an NHL Team… One day… either Moncton or Halifax will have a team… Either Moncton or Halifax is gonna have to build a 20,000 seat arena… We’ll have to think about paying $100.00 or so to get into the Barn… That’ll be for the cheap seats…
Bill…
Halifax needs NHL hockey.
Meanwhile, back in the highly entertaining UHL - let’s just say that the first fight was not quite 3 mins in, and it was a rough but actually pretty skilled game:
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| THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITIONSaturday, April 07, 2007By Brendan Savage What a way to close out the home portion of the regular season. The largest crowd of the season turned out Friday and the Flint Generals didn’t disappoint, beating the Quad City Mallards 5-4 in a sudden-death shootout before 4,438 fans at Perani Arena. It was the first sellout of the season. Quad City erased a 4-2 deficit in the final 4:37 to force the shootout. Then Mike Kinnie, Jordan Fox and Sean Kotary scored to end the longest game of the season, one that didn’t end until after 11 p.m. because of some of the most unusual circumstances you’ll ever see in a game. “It was weird,” admitted Flint coach Kevin Kerr. "It’s amazing how guys play in front of bigger crowds. I thought we played very well even if they did tie it up in the last few minutes. It was a great game. “That was playoff hockey.” How strange was it? Well, in the first period Quad City forwards Jeff Petruic and Justin Chwedoruk went down 52 seconds apart - on the game clock, at least - and were taken to the hospital in the same ambulance. Petruic suffered a compound fracture in his left leg with 12:47 left in the first period after crashing awkwardly into the boards. The game was delayed 27 minutes while an ambulance was dispatched to take Petruic to McLaren Regional Medical Center. Play had barely resumed when Chwedoruk went down after a fight with Flint’s Martin Ondrej. The ambulance still hadn’t left so the attendants were summoned back and Chwedoruk was taken away after a 12-minute delay. One of the Generals doctors said Chwedoruk’s injury appeared to be a bad sprain. With the two delays, the first period lasted 64 minutes, easily the longest of the season. And let’s not forget the second-period fight that involved normally mild-mannered Generals forward Bobby Reynolds, who had just 22 penalty minutes entering the game. It was Reynolds second fight in seven seasons with the Generals. Things were even interesting in warmups, when goaltenders Jason Tapp of Quad City and Bryan Worosz of Flint - who fought back on Dec. 30 - exchanged words several times only to see nothing materialize. “It’s the longest game in history,” Reynolds said. “I feel bad for the two guys. You don’t want to see an injury to anybody. But how freaky and flukey is that? You want to play tough but you don’t want that to happen.” The Generals never trailed after Kinnie opened the scoring on a power-play midway through the first period. Kinnie scored again in the third, his 21st goal of the season, while Kotary (2) and Rick Smith (2) also tallied for the Generals. Jan Jas had two assists. Blake Stewart (8), former General Brent Currie (3), Brett Pilkington (28) and Chad Woollard (35) also scored for the Mallards, who had beaten Flint five straight times before losing their last two matchups. Before the game, the Generals handed out their team awards as selected by the players. Jas was named the Most Valuable Player, Ondrej the best defenseman and iron man, Jeff Zehr was the most improved, Jordan Fox the rookie of the year, Reynolds the most popular and captain Jason Selleke the unsung hero. Tyson Turgeon won the community service award. The Generals (32-34-9) close the regular season tonight in Bloomington before opening the playoffs Wednesday in Kalamazoo. IN GENERAL: Flint fowards John Osborne (flu) and Bodgan Rudenko (personal business) did not play. … Selleke (wrist) didn’t play but said he expects to suit up when the Generals open the playoffs. … The large crowd was the result of vouchers being given to students at several area schools. … The Generals will hold a playoff preview for fans and media from 5-8 p.m. Monday at bd’s Mongolian Barbeque in Flint Twp. … During the first intermission, the Generals presented the Muscular Dystrophy Association with a check for $20,188, the proceeds from their Spaghetti On Ice dinner |
Hi TomS:
That’s the kind of hockey that should bring the Hometowners out every time they’re in town… It’s a shame injuries like that happen… But that’s Hockey… and the kids know that…
The Mooseheads went down in the first game. The series favours the Mainieacks… Three hometown games and two over here… They both have to win away games… That’s the way it is… The second series is the series to win, in any League… that’s if you want ta be the team-to-beat… If only the Mooseheads could play three periods of Hockey… I think they play one period for the coach one period for themselves and one period for the girls in the stands…
Bill…
They obviously need more girls in the stands.
OK, the Islanders beat Philly this afternoon, so now Toronto MUST beat Montreal, adn then tomorrow the Isles play NJ - and if they win that game, they are in. Man, the Leafs/Habs game is going to be a thriller. Looking forward to what Grapes has to say. Best end-of-season ever.
It’s all over but the cry’in for the Habs… Sorry Montreal…
We are gonna have to shovel tomorrow… We had a 10" snowfall here… It’s that wet-heavy stuff… the kind that the snowblower wouldn’t throw… The kind that only comes down along the coast… The temperature was right on the freezing point. I hope I have enough fuel left… and the snowblower will fire up… The snowplow driver knows I have a snowblower… Cause he dumped about two tons of it at the end of my driveway…
I hope the Easter Bunny didn’t forget his snowshoes…
If you listened really hard, Bob Cole put his finger on IT… He said… Whoever wins the game they had better not play like that in the playoffs… OR They wouldn’t even last three games… I think it was around a minute-and-a-half left in the second period… when he said that… The game was played for the fans… and next year’s ticket sales… Well, that’s what I saw… Lots of excitement… It was more like a table tennis score… I remember when a hockey score used to be something like 2 - 1, or something…
The only thing I can hope for is that Ted Noland the Islanders win tomorrow…
Grapes showed his true colours… He’s a Maple-Bud Fan… 
I think the players on both benches were playing for a seat on next season’s team… Ya know… you’re as good as the last shift you play… that’s if you skate for Montreal or Toronto…
AND… did you hear? Sitting in the Owner’s area of the stands and (they panned the camera past him) was the owner of the Liverpool Football Team… If I heard correctly… they said he is part owner of the Montreal Organization… Did you happen to hear that?
Bill…
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That was a great game out on the west coast… San Jose should have won… The played well enough to win…
Hey Bill - too bad about Pittsburgh’s poor start - folks in Canada pulling for Crosby and the Pens or for Ottawa? - but how about that Dallas Vancouver game? I personally couldn’t stay up that late - but everyone was worried about Luongo’s lack of experience - he stopped 72 of 76, and made it last into the 4th OT - they should get credit for 2 games on that one.
Oh - and Don Cherry is going to be on NBC down here in the states this weekend - last time they tried to put him on the air in the states, he made a comment about Lemieux and Jagr when they were playing together on the Pens - “Here’s Mario and here is his kid sister” - for some reason that comment didn’t go over with the US audience.