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The PUCKHEAD MAILBAG By Ethan Calof Welcome to the fourth
edition of the Puckhead Mailbag, and welcome to the very first
edition broadcast primarily to InformativeSports.com! Before I begin, I have to
relay the not-so-recent news that Ottawa Senators have fired head
coach Craig Hartsburg. Cory Clouston, their minor league head coach
who was named the interim coach, becomes their fourth head coach in
two years. I’ve always been a hater
of sorts towards the entire Ottawa Senators organization, especially
their management miscues that left whoever’s at the helm with an
un-coachable team. Hartsburg was a dead man walking from the moment
he accepted the Senators head job. GM Brian Murray is prone to
firing the coaches to cover his own behind and his own mistakes: his
bad player choices, his poor hiring decision with former coach John
Paddock, and his poor handling of the team as a whole. The reality is that Hartsburg is not a bad coach. He just needed players willing to listen to him, and a management team willing to let him enact his system. The precipitous decline of the team’s record is not at all related to his coaching. In a way, I kind of feel happy for Hartsburg, because he’s not saddled with a doomed team anymore. He can go back to Junior, where he can work his magic all over again. Before I delve into this
week’s questions, I have to recant a statement I made in my last
issue. Responding to a question about the worst team to have ever
won the Stanley Cup, I erroneously fingered the 1907 Kenora
Thistles. Upon further contemplation, however, I have to cast my
vote for the Cup winner that truly stands above them all: the
1937-38 This team ended the regular season with a record of 14 wins, 25 losses, and 9 ties, by far the worst among Cup winners. They scored the fewest goals in the NHL that year, and allowed the second most. And yet, in the playoffs, they caught fire behind the sterling play of goalie Mike Karakas. Karakas, however, was
injured heading into the Stanley Cup Finals against the Toronto
Maple Leafs. The Leafs, probably scoffing at the Hawks’ hopes,
allowed them to use Leaf minor leaguer Alfie Moore in nets for the
first game, and he played brilliantly in the first game, a 3-1 win.
The Leafs then pulled away Now, onto your questions, which mark the return of The Captain to the mailbag… Has anyone ever died playing hockey? -The Captain, Saint Leo There are quite a few people who have died due to an on-ice injury. I’ll only discuss the North American professional players who have passed away due to on-ice injuries. Owen McCourt was the very
first. His death came via mass bludgeoning on the head from opposing
players’ sticks during a brawl between his Next came Edgar Dey, a
member of the famous Dey family in Likely the most famous
on-ice death came in 1937, when Hall of Famer and The last death to occur during a North American professional league came in 1968, when Bill Masterton passed away following an on-ice head injury. The Minnesota North Star had just made a pass to his teammate when he was checked by two members of the Oakland Seals. He fell backwards, and hit the back of his unhelmeted head hard on the ice, causing severe damage. His death sparked the movement for helmet use in the NHL, which eventually became mandated ten years later. Now, time for something less morbid… After a fight, do teams go four-on-four or five-on-five?
-Clueless in After a fight, the teams go five-on-five, with the two offending players going to the penalty box. The players only return to the bench at the next whistle after their penalties end. Back to morbid… G’day! You will
probably find this hard to answer, but does -The Aussie Hockey Fan, Warragul After consulting my
handy-dandy Aussie-North American Dictionary, the question became
clear to me. Why do I think that To be honest, I have very
little clue as to why the Fighting Averies have been so successful
over As for what other teams can learn, it has to be that in order to hop on the Red Wings, you need to force them to play your style instead of being wrapped up in theirs. You need to jump on them early to stop them from setting up their enormously successful passing webs. Basically, you can’t let them budge. To continue this Dallas-heavy mailbag, here comes a question from a new reader… Is Mike Modano still an elite two-way centre in the NHL?
-The Only Polar Bear in The short answer to this one: no. Of course, you aren’t reading this mailbag just to see short answers, though, so I’ll elaborate. When watching Modano play nowadays, it’s quite clear that he’s lost more than a step from his glory days. His points totals are down, his speed is down, and his overall effectiveness is down. What he hasn’t lost, though, is his grit and determination, which makes this question valid. At this point in the twilight of his career, there’s absolutely no comparison between him and the elite two-way players on the league today. Guys like Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, and Mike Richards are all better offensively, faster, and better defensively. Modano just doesn’t belong in that group. Time for another set of questions from a regular contributor… In your last mailbag, you
talked about the ECAHA. Was that the first hockey league ever? If
not, what was? And who were the original teams in the NHL?
-The Rookie, The ECAHA was definitely not the first hockey league. It was founded in 1905, but disbanded in 1909 over a dispute between team owners and businesses. These short-term leagues were common during the early history of professional ice hockey. The honour of the first ever
hockey league goes to a local league formed in As for the NHL, the original teams were not actually the Original Six. The league was founded to block out hated Eddie Livingstone, the owner of the Toronto Blueshirts, and consisted of the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, and Toronto Arenas. Time for one last question… Why do hockey fans hate Gary Bettman so much? -Know-It-All, Dagobah There are very few names
that universally boil the blood of all hockey fans, whether from Consider the fact that no other commissioner in NHL history had ever been in charge of a labour stoppage before Bettman. Now, consider that Bettman has been privy to not one, but two labour stoppages. One wiped out half of a season, the other wiped out an entire season. Most hockey fans enjoy actually watching their hockey, as opposed to reading about why it isn’t there. Then, you need to look at
his failed quixotic quest into the There are many other lowlights of his tenure. There’s the fact that he actually knows very little about the game of hockey. There’s the fact that he’s been accused of being anti-Canadian. But there is one central fact: he truly believes that the NHL isn’t a top-tier league. He’s leading the league into a wasteland, and no true hockey fan will support that.
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