Hawks Hockey Hoiden

This was one for the books! After Dustin Byfuglien delivers a cheap shot to Canucks’ goal tender Roberto Luongo, the Hawks and Canucks go at it. Ben Eager takes out Kevin Bieksa — rips his sweater and undershirt to shreds — and Duncan Keith scraps with Alex Burrows. Notice how Burrows takes Dunc down by pulling his hair…TWICE! Not sure what Adam Burish’s involvement was, but he was also thrown out of the game. Brent Seabrook was also involved and Jonathan Toews trash talked a bit too. The penalty box was full to capacity, but I don’t think anyone felt any shame whatsoever!

Wow! That third period mêlée between the Hawks and the Canucks was the best hockey fight I’ve seen to date even though the Hawks fell to the Canucks 4-0. Still, the Hawks went out swingin! A lot of nice Greco-Roman-style takedowns that would have been more at home on a mat than on the ice. But still, NICE! (more…)

How is it that the goal that Oilers’ Ethan Moreau scored at the beginning of the 2nd period in tonight’s Hawks/Oilers game was able to stand?  All that Pat Foley and Eddie Olczyk seemed concerned with was whether it was a good goal or not.  The bigger issue was that the “goal” was as a direct result of goaltender interference by Dustin Penner on Nikolai Khabibulin in the crease.  I even looked it up in the NHL rulebook which states that a goal is disallowed, “When an attacking player has interfered with a goalkeeper in his goal crease.”  So what did I miss?  Better yet, how did the War Room in Toronto miss that?

Ugh, what was with the officiating in tonight’s 4-3 loss to the Blue Jackets, particularly the tripping call against Brent Seabrook in the 3rd period? Since when is a collision tripping? All the calls seemed to be wrong, or off. For instance, why was a high-sticking call only made against Andrew Ladd when his opponent also high-sticked and drew blood?? That should have been a major penalty in addition to a high-sticking call. And it was like that all night leading myself and others to wonder just how much these refs got paid, or paid off, to tip the game in the Blue Jackets’ favor. (more…)

From NHL.com:

Two issues dominated discussion between NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and the media as the NHL GM Meetings ended here at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort: The state of the NHL economy and the issue of fighting.

Fighting, particularly ways to change the culture of fisticuffs in today’s game, dominated the first two days of the three-day session…  (more…)

It was heartbreaking for us to hear and it was heartbreaking for us to watch him leave.

How could the Blackhawks trade James Wisniewski???  Are they out of their minds??  And how low that poor Wiz had to hear it from a Canadian radio station first that he was out!

Well Wiz, sorry the Blackhawks organization treated you so shabbily.  Know this if nothing else: Chicagoans love you and will miss you something fierce.