My fellow IIHF.com columnist Risto Pakarinen has been busy on the podcasting circuit lately, promoting his new book, Off the Post. Listen to his chats with Andrew Findlater and Paul Kukla. Meanwhile, Joe Pelletier of GreatestHockeyLegends.com ventures a little further off the beaten path with articles on Muhammad Ali’s 1983 fight with Dave Semenko and […]

If Mark Recchi’s NHL career ends in the same city where it began, it won’t be by the former Pittsburgh winger’s choice. The NHL’s 23rd all-time leading scorer, who cleared waivers Wednesday, is likely to get bought out and signed by another club seeking the kind of veteran leadership that he delivered in Carolina’s 2006 […]

Here are seven hockey stories from both mainstream sites and blogs that made an impression on me this month. 1. The Globe and Mail: “Speed kills”: Has the NHL gotten too fast for its own good? Eric Duhatschek investigates. Interesting to see Al MacInnis admit that sometimes he’s preferred watching international women’s hockey due to […]

No NHL teams. (Too familiar to be “strange.”) No junior teams. (Sorry, Lewiston MAINEiacs–you have to be able to drink in the US.) No teams with foreign-language names. (“Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk” might look funny to North Americans, but so what? “Manchester Monarchs” looks funny to Russians.) No teams with regular animal or force-of-nature names. (Nice try, […]

On top of the Hockey Hall of Fame inductions, this past weekend in Toronto also featured the official launch of World of Hockey: Celebrating a Century of the IIHF. The International Ice Hockey Federation is gearing up for the 2008 IIHF World Championship in Halifax and Quebec City (May 1-18), which will mark the organization’s […]

When Joe Pelletier of GreatestHockeyLegends.com challenged me and other bloggers to pay tribute to a favorite retired hockey player to mark the upcoming Hockey Hall of Fame inductions, I thought it was a great idea. I also thought: “Wow, who am I going to pick?” Growing up in British Columbia in the 1980’s and 90’s, […]

Gretzky to Lemieux: The Story of the 1987 Canada Cup By Ed Willes Published by McLelland & Stewart Hardcover, 256 pages Release Date: October 6, 2007 Considering how many books have commemorated the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union, it’s almost unbelievable that until this year, no one had given the same […]

One of the NHL’s top young offensive forwards inadvertently jabs his stick into the eye of an emerging American star. Does that sound horribly familiar? It’s what happened when Marian Hossa’s follow-through clipped Bryan Berard in an Ottawa Senators-New York Islanders game on March 11, 2000. It’s also what happened when Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby had […]

For starry-eyed Leksand fans, signing goalie Ed Belfour may have given them a billion reasons to believe their Swedish second-division club could secure promotion to the Elitserien next season. But with the news that the former Vezina Trophy winner’s current physical condition is less than impressive, they’ll just have to pray 19-year-old Leksand prospect Eddie […]

Joe Pelletier’s got an intriguing read over at Greatest Hockey Legends about some of the greatest penalty-killing experts in NHL history, including a run-down of the top all-time shorthanded goal-scorers. (It looks like Wayne Gretzky has a lock on that record with 73 goals, especially since his closest active competition is Sergei Fedorov with 36.) […]