Puck the Media’s NHL Tournament of Announcers, Round 2, Match 3, Danny Gallivan Bracket: Paul Steigerwald vs. Dave Strader

 

 

 

 

 

Round two rolls on, as Ralph Strangis defeated Joe Beninati, and he’ll meet Mike Emrick in the elite eight.  Now, we have our cinderella man so far, Paul Steigerwald of the Penguins, vs. Coyotes/VERSUS play-by-play guy Dave Strader.  Voting lasts 24 hours, so get it on!

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Puck the Media’s Top Ten Hockey Stories of the Year, #9: The Rise and Fall (Especially Fall) of the Dallas Stars

Welcome to Puck the Media’s “Top Ten Hockey Stories of the Year”, which will run over the next couple weeks, counting down each of the big headlines that defined 2008 in hockey.

Believe me, we will talk a lot more about Sean Avery as we move through this countdown, but now let’s talk about the team he signed with over the Summer.  This was an absolutely fascinating year for the Stars.  The Dallas franchise, since it’s 2000 near Cup-defense, has been seemingly dormant, suffering through a string of first-round playoff defeats, with stalwart goaltender Marty Turco almost always taking the blame for the poor performance.  That way of thinking started to diminish after Turco’s stunningly good performance against Vancouver in their seven-game Western Quarterfinal series in 2007.  But he would shatter it this year.

Re-Hashing: Our Post From Barry Melrose Rocks Last Week

Editor’s Note: In case you missed it, this was a post titled “NHL, TV Partners Should Act Swiftly to Show Sharks” that we did for Kevin Schultz at his wonderful Barry Melrose Rocks while he was on vacation.  Enjoy.  But visit Kevin at his site, too.  He’s good people, for a Long Island guy.

Hi everyone.  Hopefully you know me if you read this fantastic website, but if you don’t, I sure hope you’ll check me out.  Today, I had a whole Kevin Schultz in Vegas Drinking Game (Complete with me referencing the entire script from “Swingers”) planned out, but instead – much to all of your dismay – I’m going to talk about hockey, and hockey on TV.

As most of you reading this site know, the San Jose Sharks are hockey robots this season.  Not these hockey robots, but hockey cyborgs.  Unfortunately, due to the fact that the NHL and it’s TV partners seem so uninterested in teams west of Detroit, the Sharks have been largely ignored by most of the casual hockey viewers.  All six of them.

This isn’t just a VERSUS thing, by the way.  Though VERSUS won’t televise a Sharks game until February 10th when the Sharks are in Boston (and how the hell did VERSUS luck into getting that game?) and will air two more San Jose tilts before the year is out.  CBC and TSN will only air a total of 7 Sharks games this season.  This for a team that might be headed for a record-breaking NHL year?

Well, we realize that VERSUS can change it’s schedule for the rest of the year starting in January.  So here are some suggestions to the network for changes that would involve the Sharks, and the entire NHL in general.  Let’s go through the rest of the VERSUS schedule, beginning in February, after the NHL/NBC regular schedule kicks in and the All-Star Game is over.

Puck the Media’s Top Ten Hockey Stories of the Year, #10: The Mis-Adventures of Oren Koules and Len Barrie in Tampa Bay

Welcome to Puck the Media’s “Top Ten Hockey Stories of the Year”, which will run over the next couple weeks, counting down each of the big headlines that defined 2008 in hockey.

What the Tampa Bay Lightning needed at the start of this calendar year was a solid, capable starting goaltender, and perhaps another top four defenseman.  They were down and out in the Eastern Conference race near the end of the 2007-08 season, but most certainly any team that can build off Vinny Lecavalier, Brad Richards, Marty St. Louis and Dan Boyle and a potential #1 draft pick must not be too far away, right?

Clearly, they weren’t, at least some of the folks at the top felt.  Jay Feaster traded Richards for Dallas Stars backup Mike Smith and recently waived Jussi Jokinen and spare parts.  Amazing how that trade really flopped for both teams, eh?  More on the other side later in the countdown, though.  Feaster and then coach, John Tortorella, were fired after the season when Bill Davidson sold the Lightning to Saw/Two and a Half Men producer Oren Koules and former NHLer Len Barrie, and so began one of the more bizarre Summers in any franchise’s history, let alone one that started off with Phil Esposito and a group of Japanese businessmen running it.