I’ve worn many hats (or should that be helmets?) over the years as a hockey writer, largely because I’ve always felt it’s fun to tie this sport into as many areas of life as possible.
That’s included covering the launch of Wayne Gretzky’s signature fashion line at the Bay, interviewing the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” team […]

If Mike Comrie was surprised, he shouldn’t have been. When you buy Hilary Duff a $100,000 Mercedes for her birthday, expect to end up in People magazine. The same goes if Jose Theodore parties with Paris Hilton or Sean Avery flips off a photographer while escorting Elisha Cuthbert. In the end, it’s all just fodder […]

Philadelphia prospect Steve Downie laid a disgracefully vicious, concussion-inducing hit on Ottawa’s Dean McAmmond in exhibition play on Tuesday night. Was Downie sending a message that the NHL club known more than any other for enshrining violence as a tactic is back in business as the “Broad Street Bullies”?
In recent years, the Flyers haven’t always […]

King of Russia: A Year in the Russian Super League
By Dave King with Eric Duhatschek
Published by McClelland & Stewart
Hardcover, 256 pages
Release Date: October 2, 2007
Has Dave King ever met J.K. Rowling? I doubt it. In fact, I also doubt that his co-author Eric Duhatschek is on a first-name basis with the billionaire creator of the […]

I covered the exhibition opener for the Canucks in Vancouver. It’s good to be back at GM Place for NHL hockey (even of the pre-season variety). My last such experience was Game Seven versus Dallas, prior to heading off to the IIHF World Championship in Moscow. Sure, the atmosphere was just a tad more jacked […]

I didn’t have much luck in my first hockey “contest.”
It consisted of my mom taking me to Mark’s Work Wearhouse in my native Victoria for an in-store appearance by Vancouver Canucks captain Stan Smyl and goalie Richard Brodeur. This being 1982, both were massive local heroes for their efforts in Vancouver’s gallant run to the […]

NHLers, as a rule, are very accommodating interview subjects, even with buses and planes to catch, PR guys hovering nervously in the background, and sometimes a ridiculously repetitive stream of post-game questions from reporters. (After a Chicago game last season, I witnessed Martin Havlat giving almost the same answer verbatim about five times in […]

Originally published in Full Tilt in 2006
By Lucas Aykroyd
Vancouver has changed drastically over the last 10 years. Back in 1995, there was only one Skytrain line, no giant Future Shop downtown, and no wireless Internet access at Blenz. Nobody had heard of Nickelback, leading restaurants like West and Feenie’s didn’t exist, about 50,000 fewer people […]

Originally published on IHWC.NET in 2002
By Lucas Aykroyd
Like other Russian athletes, members of the national hockey team experience a wide range of emotions when they hear their anthem played at a sporting event.
As of December 2000, Russia reverted to using the music of the old Soviet anthem by assent of the Duma, the Russian parliament. […]

Originally published on IHWC.NET in 2002
By Lucas Aykroyd
Hockey is an emotional game. In a sport played at high speed, where sticks and bodies clash and tempers run high, it’s only to be expected that controversy will flare up from time to time.
And sometimes, those controversial moments linger in our memories for years after the […]