Weekly Catch-Up 10/20

Wow. Quite frankly I'm surprised Blogger has not deleted my account considering its been so long in between posts. Sorry about that, I've had a ton of school work to do, my obligatory 30 hours a week at the rink with the ladies and my sister visited last week. Enough excuses. I cant even contemplate the amount of interesting stuff I missed in my absence but I'm going to try to catch everyone up with what happened last week and in the first few games of NHL regular season action.

1. The NHL season officially opened in Europe somewhere. No one noticed. The only bonus to this is that it gives my conspiracy theory more credibility.
2. The Sabres are awesome.
3. Thomas Vanek is a beast.
4. Tampa Bay stinks. No Joke. Even having 23 NHL-calibre forwards cant save this team from losing a ton of one goal games.
5. Rangers 19 year old prospect Alexei Cherapanov died on the ice in a KHL game and was unable to be revived due in large part to terrible medical response including not having an ambulance at the game and a defibrillator with dead batteries. It was a terrible day for hockey fans of any nation and does not bode well for public opinion of the KHL. Good luck trying to find players who want to play where they wont receive adequate medical care.
6. The Blackhawks fired head coach Denis Savard after a 1-2-1 start. That was mighty quick and relatively surprising. so surprising in fact that Pat Kane was teary-eyed at the press conference. His replacement is Joel Quenneville formerly with the Avalanche and Blues.
7. Red Wings great Steve Yzerman was appointed the Executive Director of Team Canada for the 2010 olympics in Vancouver. No surprise here.
8. Fabian Brunnstrom, a Dallas Stars rookie scored a hat trick in his NHL debut becoming just the third player in NHL history to accomplish the feat.
   
9. Fighting is Back! I'm told that fighting was the focus of a good Sports Illustrated piece that I have yet to read but plan on doing so at a cost to my wardrobe. No explanation needed, Indy. There have been 58 fights through 77 games according to HockeyFights.com and you are starting to see some bigger names like Jarome Iginla throwing hands. In my opinion this is great for the league. It garners exposure on TV outlets and will ultimately attract more fans.
10. Andrei Kostitsyn will miss a bit of time after taking a nasty hit against the Coyotes. The video will be in the video section.
11. The Flyers sent classless goon Steve Downie to their AHL farm-team. All of the NHL including league disciplinarian Colin Campbell breather a collective sigh of relief. I believe I have expressed my thoughts on Downie before.
12. Sidney Crosby scored his 100th NHL goal and recorded his 200th NHL assist on Hockey Night in Canada against the Leafs in a 4 point effort. I swear, the Kid loves to show off on CBC because he knows all of Canada is watching.
13. J.S. Giguere has been terrible for the Ducks so far, as has Peter Budaj for the Avs.
14. The Flyers stink right now and I couldn't be more happy about it.
15. Marian Gaborik will not be with the Wild by the end of the season, I guarantee it. If Leafs GM Cliff Fletcher pulls his head out of the toilet he might realize that Gaborik is just the kind of player his franchise needs... a good one.
16. Marian Hossa recorded his 300th Career NHL goal and first with the Red Wings against the Rangers.
17. Steven Stamkos has seen his ice time reduced to around 9 minutes a game and has been with different linemates almost every game. In unrelated news Barry Melrose is a fool.
18. Marty Turco has not been very good thus far this season. All you suckers who picked him first in your fantasy teams are screwed.

Pictures of the Week

Wikipedia vandalism will never get old.

In a word: Sacrilege. I will never listen to Def Leppard again. Oh wait, I never did in the first place and you shouldn't either... seriously. 

Barack Obama is fighting Sarah Palin on all fronts. First she claims to be a hockey mom, Obama responds by putting up ads in NHL09. I love it.

If I don't end up owning this shirt, both my mother and my father will disown me.

Videos of the Week

Your obligatory Coaches Corner of the Week.

Heres the Kostitsyn Hit.

Great scrap between Georges Laraque and Shawn Thornton.

Good old fashioned line brawl between the Sabres and Islanders.

Matt bradley gets all scrambled eggs courtesy of Paul Bissonnette.

A sad reminder that things in other countries are not always as rosy as they are here in the U.S. and Canada. This is the kind of medical care a top athlete receives and ultimately led to his death. RIP Alexei Cherapanov. This video may be disturbing to some viewers.

Marty Havlat scores a sick goal against the Coyotes. Poor phoenix always seems to have the most amazing goals cored against them. Dont believe me? Ask Alex Ovechkin.

Finally, rookie T.J. Oshie scores a dirty shootout goal against the Blackhawks in his NHL debut.

Thats it for this week. I'm thinking I will be doing this kind of weekly catch-up thing with pictures and videos every week on Mondays but I refuse to do it without a catchy title and a cool picture to accompany it. Any ideas? I might even consider buying the person with the best title suggestion a Mighty Taco... maybe. Until next time, don't stand in front of the net with no pads while people are ripping slapshots from the point without looking.