Jimmy V? Brindy Camp? Training Camp?

Pfffttt... I know this is really what you've been anxiously awaiting all summer... the unveiling of the Finland trip t-shirts! Check 'em out, y'all.

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Good evening all......

I was all set for a week on the coast then a fella by the name of Earl thought different. As I watched the local news waiting for the Weather Channel to show up. My wife busied herself with the packing, we had been told to leave the island. I have lived in North Carolina for all my almost 45 years and have never fled a hurricane I did witness Hugo and the aftermath that followed, but never been told to evacuate. As I drove and filled in with the mass exodus my mind was a drift with thoughts of the storm and the omen it brought, not a omen of dread or doom but one of a positive note. There is another storm on the on way. I will take the omen of the pending Hurricane as one of future victories for our beloved Canes just as swift and destructive as Earl we will have a wining season and show the nay sayers  what youth can bring to the table. It is a promise of things to come both good and bad, we will turn a few heads this year and will stick around in the post-season.

Peace 

The Carolina Hurricanes and Fox Sports announced the broadcast schedule for the 2010-11 season, and all 65 of the games will be in high definition. Here's the release from the Hurricanes:

‘CANES, FOX SPORTS CAROLINAS ANNOUNCE 2010-11 TV SCHEDULE

All 65 games on regional sports network to be televised in high definition

RALEIGH, NC – The National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes, and the team’s broadcast partner FOX Sports Carolinas, today announced FOX Sports Carolinas’ 65-game television package for the 2010-11 NHL season. The 2010-11 season will mark the first time all Hurricanes games on FOX Sports Carolinas will be televised in high definition.

FOX Sports Carolinas’ coverage of live Hurricanes games in 2010-11 will include 35 of the team’s 41 road games and 30 match-ups at the RBC Center throughout the 82-game regular season. As always, John Forslund will handle the play-by-play duties while former professional goaltender Tripp Tracy will provide analysis.

The network’s coverage will kick off with the Hurricanes’ first game in North America on Oct. 14 at Ottawa, and will continue with each of the team’s seven remaining games in October. Following eight televised games in November, FOX Sports Carolinas will cover 10 of the Hurricanes’ 12 games in December.

As the calendar turns to 2011, 41 of Carolina’s final 46 regular-season games will be televised, including 19 of 20 road games and 30 of 32 games following NHL All-Star Weeekend. FOX Sports Carolinas’ coverage of the 2010-11 Hurricanes schedule concludes with telecasts of each of the team’s final 12 games.

The full television broadcast schedule can be downloaded here.

Having looked at the UFA

s available one month after

the the 2010 UFAs became available, let's look at the team an NHL

GM could have built with the assumption that he was able to sign any of the available choices. This exercise is quite

specific: hypothetically if an NHL GM were allowed to select from all the available players who were UFAs as of July

1, 2010, could he select a competitive team. For purposes of this exercise, the salary cap is not under consideration.

Forward Lines

Kovalchuk/Mikko Koivu/ Wojtek Wolski

Alexander Frolov/ Tomas Plekanec/Ray Whitney

Alexei Ponikarovsky/ Matthew Lombardi / Lee Stempniak

Matt Cooke/ Manny Malhotra/ Colby Armstrong

Defensive Lines

Paul Martin/Zbynek Michalek

Dan Hamhuis/Sergei Gonchar

Willie Mitchell/Derek Morris

Goalies

Jaroslav Halak

Antti Niemi

Hey everyone, I'm a long time Whaler / Caniac fan from Canada currently working in Germany and have been following this site for the last year.  My wife and I are excited to be going to the opening night game in Helsinki on October 7th and we were wondering if there were any plans for all the Caniacs to meet up before / during / after the game?  Anyone have any ideas?  I think it would be an awesome experience to meet up with Caniacs from various places.  Thanks.  Allen

   The question I pose is this: If an NHL GM were allowed to pick any of the NHL UFAs who were unsigned as of

August 1, 2010, is there enough talent in that group of players such that a GM could build a contender around them?

To avoid any possible hint of confusion: Yes, Kovalchuk is indeed an unsigned UFA on August 1, 2010. Yes, he is

unsigned. He counts. He is included. Count Kovalchuk in. Also, note the words, "build a contender around them."  That

means can these players serve as the foundation such that with trades, AHL signings, drafting, NCAA signings,

European League signings, and KHL signings, the GM would be able to have a team that is able to get to the playoffs

and go deep into the playoffs.  Also, to be absolutely certain there is no hint of misunderstanding,  the GM is not

required to win the Stanley Cup straight out of the box with the signings.

     My answer to that question is yes, as of August 1, 2010, among the group of human beings living on planet earth,

who were considered unsigned UFAs, they had sufficient talent that around them an NHL GM could build a contending

NHL team. Although permutations of players and lines are entirely proper, one set of lines includes the following as

version #1:

Maxim Afinogenov/ Mike Comrie/Ilya Kovalchuk

Ruslan Fedotenko/Eric Belanger/ Raffi Torres

Lee Stempniak/Kyle Wellwood/Clarke MacArthur

Evgeny Artyukhin/ Tim Kennedy/Jim Slater

Defensemen:

Shaone Morrisonn/Willie Mitchell

Andy Sutton/Brendan Bell

Jay McKee/ Marc-Andre Bergeron

Goalies:

Anti Niemi

Marty Turco

This is what happens when I don't have hockey to watch:

Just flipping through some player stats on eliteprospects.com, I stumbled across the fact that Jussi Jokinen has a younger brother named Juho that's a defenseman in the Finnish league, Kärpät. I didn't know this, did anyone else?

Anyways, just thought I'd share my findings. I didn't do much research, but here's a picture.

October can't come fast enough...

From my email....order form packets are going out late this week. Prices are:

1) Upper Level Package: $200 per seat

2) Lower Level Package: $260 per seat

My questions are still:

a) Are we going to be able to order more than our seat numbers? I thought before no, but the wording of the email makes me think otherwise. (for instance: "order forms")

b) Are "packages" including tickets for both days?

I don't know what I was expecting price wise, but I think the answer to b) will hopefully settle if I think this is fair or not.

Thoughts?

Last night I was surfing different blogs and articles of the Canes like most of us do in the summer to pass the non-existent  hockey time by and I left the denial world and came to reality world that Ray Whitney is really gone.  I understood the dynamics of why we could not resign him with his age and the contract that he demanded, but the reality is our Wizard is gone.  Not only do we not have one of our leading point’s scorer, but we no longer have that veteran with his wit and humor to look forward to in interviews and most of all behind the camera man during Tripp Tracey’s interviews of the players down on the ice prior to the games.  I will miss him making faces at the camera behind the players being interviewed by Tripp, constantly non-saliently skating by behind the player being interviewed, stretching right beside the interviewed player, tapping the player’s leg trying to make them stumble with their words or not laugh while Tripp Tracey’s interviews them, and especially those oh so subtle remarks directed to Tripp while being interviewed by him (“ugh Tripp I hope you’re not planning on sitting down on the ice beside the bench tonight, because we always lose when you do”).  Those days are gone.  Rosey has his own style of humor that is ‘out there’, but Whitney’s was unique and special which I will miss.

This makes me wonder that with very little >30 yr old veteran presence in the locker room for our new young players, the fact that Whitney was still a dynamic player even at 37, did we make a mistake and not resign him?  Phoenix is a young team too, but was smart enough to snatch a veteran like Whitney up for their young locker room.  When he played for the Canada in the World Tournament  this past spring/summer I saw an interview of one of the coaches taking about how important Whitney was to the young players and that is why they made him the Captain of that team.  How many times in the playoffs  do we hear the hockey analyst say the young players can’t hang through three playoff rounds and the SC round without some key veterans around to get them through it?   I don’t consider <30 years old players as key veterans for the new young players. 

I’m just sad I guess that the Wizard is really gone and grasping at straws as to the reality of what we have done.   I hope that hind-site doesn’t bite us in the bee-hind.  Just Saying...

Oh well what is done is done, I will just put my little tribute to him here and know that we must go on without him.

My very favorite interview with Whitney was with NBC.17 sports back in the summer of 2008…

http://wake.mync.com/site/Wake/news/story/8889/sports-penn-holderness-has-humorous-interview-with-ray-whitney/

One of my favorite assists that I witnessed in person by ‘The Wizard’…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAGEjNtZAKU&feature=related

One of my favorite goals that I witnessed in person by ‘The Wizard’…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESHcjZq4fzg&feature=fvsr

C

Note: This article was originally published by the same author on another site.

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During the NHL lockout that cancelled what would have been the 2004-2005 season, the entire rules of the game were re-evaluated and changed to make hockey an overall better sport. The biggest changes regarded adding in the offsides rule and the shootout, but plenty of other revisions were also made.

In the five seasons since then, the NHL has been an utterly different game than it used to be. However, as discussed and tested in the NHL's Development and Orientation camp last week, the league is beginning to see some more changes, and also some reversions to the pre-lockout rules, might be becoming necessary.

An investigation into the factual reasons behind their suggested modifications took us into a world of calculations in determining an array of trends and streaks through the last five NHL seasons

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