Alex Burrows Claims Referee Stephance Auger Was Seeking Revenge In His Officiating

There’s a lot of controversy swarming around the officiating in Vancouver vs. Nashville game last night.

In an interview following the 3-2 Vancouver Canuck loss, Alex Burrows of the Vancouver Canucks claimed that referee Stephane Auger held a personal vendetta against him over a questionable hit on Burrows by Jerred Smithson that occurred in a game earlier this year in Nashville.

“Well, it was personal. It started in warm-ups, before the anthem, the ref came over to me and said I made him look bad in Nashville on the Smithson hit. He said he was going to get me back tonight,” Burrows continued, “after he did his job in the third, I think he got me on a diving call, I didn’t think it was diving, he got me on an interference call that I had no idea how he could call that. It changed the game.”

On top of the diving and interference penalties, with four seconds remaining in regulation, Burrows received a two minutes unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and a game misconduct.

It’ll be interesting to see what becomes of this situation in the next day or two. But for now, we wait.

Jackson Oakes for NHL On the Glass.

The Rebranding of Sean Avery

After being the object of scorn and ridicule earlier this season for tasteless comments made before a game in Calgary, Sean Avery has returned to New York City and was toasted as the first star of the game on national television Sunday Afternoon.

In six games with the New York Rangers, after his return from suspension and banishment to the minor leagues, Avery has four goals and an assist and has been the consummate team player. On Sunday his two goals led the Rangers to a 4-1 victory over Philadelphia in Madison Square Gardens to avenge the Rangers loss to the Flyers on Saturday.

Avery has not been just another player on the ice in the three games that I have seen him play, one in person in Nashville, and the other two on the tube. He has basically been the hardest working player on the team, hustling and being around the play on every shift.

Last Thursday in Nashville, Avery scored a goal and was in the blue paint causing trouble for Preds Goalie Dan Ellis on two other goals. During warm-ups, Avery showed no signs of the unfriendliness and aloofness attributed to him by his former Dallas team mates.

Avery’s suspension in early December, while playing for the Dallas Stars, was based on a league rule regarding “conduct unbecoming to the game”. As part of his “rehabilitation”, Avery received “treatment” for anger management and it appears so far, some type of sensitivity training on how to fit in with his team mates.

I asked Gary Bettman about Avery’s future last month when the commissioner was in Nashville. Bettman explained, “He’s welcome back from a league standpoint. He’s served his suspension and is under contract with the Dallas Stars. It will be a club decision (Dallas) as to what to do with him. He would have to clear waivers to return to the NHL with another team since Dallas has indicated they don’t want him”.

Bettman’s vision for Avery’s return played out just as it was stated. On March third, after playing eight fairly uneventful games for the AHL Hartford Wolfpack, Avery was placed on re-entry waivers and picked up by the New York Rangers.

There was speculation that the Rangers’ new coach, John Tortorella, was not fond of the pick up and had been openly critical of Avery’s actions this year and in season’s past. With Avery’s current good behavior and contributions on the ice, I’m sure “Torts” is feeling better about the situation (for now).

With six games under his belt as a key contributor and a model citizen, questions remain. Has Sean Avery been “cured” of the problems that have plagued his career both on and off the ice, or is he a ticking time bomb waiting to explode at an inopportune time? Only time will tell.

Buddy Oakes for NHLOnTheGlass

Rangers Give Sean Avery A Second Chance

Sean Avery was sent to the New York Ranger's AHL affiliate team, the Hartford Wolf Pack, today after being out since his suspension in December over the derogatory comments he made about Dion Phaneuf and others. The plan is to get Avery around other young, motivated players and to get back into shape. Dallas has already made a statement saying that Avery would not return to their lineup. With that said, Avery's best bet would to be through re-entry waivers. Only time will tell.

"Dallas has given me a great opportunity to come and play here right now," Avery said at the Wolf Pack's practice facility in nearby Cromwell. "I'm just worrying about today and happy that I'm back playing. That's the important thing."

"Sean was a good player for the Rangers during his time here and has worked extremely hard off the ice over the last two months," Glen Sather, the Rangers President and GM, said in a statement.

We'll see if Mr. Sloppy Seconds can keep his hands clean while in Hartford. I'd say they're going to keep him on a pretty tight leash for a while.

Jackson Oakes for NHLOnTheGlass

Quotes from NHL.com

New King of Hockey Crowned

Image from The Hockey News

For several weeks I have been complaining that the NHL All Star game has lost its luster and was no longer relevant. After two days of viewing the Skills Competition and the All-Star game itself I still have mixed feelings about its relevance.

On the positive side, Commissioner Gary Bettman’s prayers were answered on Sunday. I doubt he could have written a better script with an overtime eleven all game that ended with the hometown hero scoring one shootout goal and the best player in the world scoring the other.

On the negative side, no matter how the game turned out, very few folks in the United States, especially casual fans, saw the game or even knew how to watch. On a non-NFL football Sunday in January, the game should have been front and center on NBC in the middle of the afternoon not buried on the Versus Network at an odd 5:00 Central start time.

The primary thing that I learned after two days is that the NHL has a new poster boy for the game of hockey. The league has tried for three and one-half years, with some success, to anoint Sidney Crosby as the face of the sport. On paper, he was a good choice being Canadian with a boyish charm that looks great on television. Playing for the Penguins, he has been schooled by Mario Lemeiux in how to “be the man”.

Marketing can only go so far. At some point pure skill and production will rise to the top. At this point, Crosby is no longer the best player on his own team having been supplanted by Evgeni Malkin. Additionally, for the second year in a row, Crosby was unable to compete in the all-star setting due to an injury. Sitting on the sideline is not something kings are supposed to do.

The true face of the game at this point has to be Washington’s Alexander Ovechkin. He and Crosby both entered the league in 2005, after the lockout season. During their careers Ovechkin has more goals, more points and plays a more aggressive all round game. Last season, not only did Ovechkin far outdistance the rest of the league with 65 goals, he was ninth in the league with 220 hits, a category uncommon to most recent top level goal scorers.

The one final feather in Ovechkin’s cap is his magnetic, free for all personality. His “mini show” during Saturday’s skills competition was the only thing that saved the evening from being a complete dud. Granted, Zdeno Chara, broke the record for hardest shot but that is not what gets talked about at the water cooler.

Alexander Ovechkin had Russian rival Evgeni Malkin dress him in a wide-brimmed hat, with a mini Canadian flag flying to appease the fans, and Elvis like sunglasses. Malkin further anointed him as the king of cool by dusting him off and giving him a squirt of water. “Ovie” then took off with two sticks on a mission toward the goal. He tossed one stick, missed on his shot, then drilled the rebound through the goalie's five hole.

Long after the All-Star weekend has passed, the image of the young Russian, crowned with an everyman fishing hat and glasses, capturing the heart of the crowd will not soon fade. In one moment, the transformation occurred. Alexander Ovechkin went from being the world's best player to become the new King of Hockey.

Buddy Oakes for NHLOnTheGlass and The Columbia Daily Herald

NHL All-Star Game Sparkle is Dimmed

The All-Star game used to be a highlight of the NHL season but has recently taken on less importance in the eye of fans and casual viewers alike. Several factors have contributed to this slide. To the average channel surfer, the game is much harder to stumble across than it was a few years ago. Instead of being a part of the NBC weekly Sunday afternoon hockey package, it is now buried higher on the channels list of most cable systems on the Versus Network. While most hard core puck heads have a preset for Versus, it's not a channel most people come across on a regular basis. While. the folks at Versus produce a good show, the early dinner hour start time is not conducive to high viewership potential.

This year's controversial fan balloting also did nothing to enhance the credibility of a game that should have the twelve best players in the game in the starting lineup. During early balloting, ballot stuffing by the hometown Montreal fans had all six Eastern Conference positions being filled by the hometown Canadian players. After some adjustments to the process by the NHL only four Canadian players made the final six, none of which other than Andre Markov rank in the upper echelon of Eastern Conference players. The fan's ability to elect league poster boy Sidney Crosby and Penguin teammate Evgeni Malkin, the leagues two leading point producers somewhat legitimizes the final two slots. Not having Alexander Ovechkin, who I consider to be the world's best all round player, in the top six is a complete travesty.

The Western Conference team is even more problematic. With three players from Chicago and three from Anaheim, ballot irregularities again reared their ugly head. Anaheim's Ryan Getzlaf is the only one of the six players chosen by the fan's that would appear in a legitimate line up based on production. The Western goalie, J. S. Giguere, has had his worst NHL season this year and has been average, at best, in most games.

The primary issue with the All-Star game losing popularity is no fault of it’s own. The overwhelming popularity of the Winter Classic outdoor game on New Year's Day is virtually impossible to compete with as a mid-season event and has basically become the "Super Bowl" of hockey. With mid afternoon coverage by NBC on a day when the vast majority of North Americans are parked on the couch, the spectacle of the production is hard to beat. In two short years the Classic has become such a marketing gem for the NHL there is talk that in the future it could be held in exotic places like the Las Vegas strip, Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park.

The future of the NHL All-star game needs to be evaluated and will have to undergo adjustments in order to remain a viable entity in the world of NHL hockey. This year’s NHL All-Star game is set to be played next Sunday January 25th at 5:00 PM (CST) and can be seen on the Versus Network. The game is being hosted by the Montreal Canadians to help celebrate the franchise's 100th year of hockey.

Buddy Oakes for NHLOnTheGlass and The Columbia Daily Herald

First published in the Columbia Daily Herald on Monday, Jan 19, 2009

Was Jarkko Ruutu Hungry?

There's never a dull night in the NHL. This is up there in the top five weird things of the year along with the Scott Hartnell glove throwing incident. Ruutu says the finger was in the mouth but he didn't bite it. If he didn't Andrew Peters should receive an award for good acting.

Buddy Oakes for NHLOnTheGlass

New Year's Day Tradition of the Future

What could be better than sitting in front of an HD TV on New Years Day watching two of the best teams in the NHL playing high tech pond hockey in historic Wrigley field?

Growing up in the South as a child in the sixties, New Years Day was set aside for the Rose Bowl Parade and four of five college football bowl games on a grainy black and white television. With few games being televised during the regular season having a full day of action was nirvana for a kid with a limited view of the world outside of small town Columbia, Tennessee.

Over the years, with cable and satellite TV and the digital revolution of the Internet, the uniqueness of college bowl games has diminished substantially. From a slate of 10 to 12 traditional bowls in the 60’s to a list of 34 mostly insignificant match ups with compelling names like the “Magic Jack” bowl you can watch a game or two every day from mid December well in to the New Year. Games affecting the national championship have been removed from New Year’s Day and spread over a period of a week, mostly during prime time at the whim of network dollars and ratings.

As the landscape changed a void was created for something compelling and entertaining for the masses of folks sitting a home on a cold winter holiday. Last year, for the first time, the NHL and it’s television partners gambled that a new fangled pond hockey game featuring league poster boy, Sidney Crosby, at Buffalo’s Ralph Wilson stadium would attract a few viewers and improve ratings for NBC’s limited weekly NHL coverage in the US.

What they got far exceeded any marketer’s dream. With the backdrop of a sold out football stadium, beautifully decorated with gently falling snow arriving almost if on the director’s cue, the game on the midfield frozen pond was scripted perfectly. If I didn’t believe in the absolute integrity of the NHL and the best athletes in the world of sport, I would have thought it was planned out in a room full of Hollywood’s best writers. How else could you have it come down to Sidney Crosby winning it all on a penalty shot after sixty five minutes of action.

As well as Winter Classic One was received both in and out of the world of hockey, there was still debate and a feeling that an outdoor game should only be held every few years so that it would not lose it’s “uniqueness”. The smarter folks in the home office prevailed and Winter Classic Two was spawned and placed in the heartland of America with an original six traditional match up between the Wings and Blackhawks.

The decision to make it an annual event may be what brings the NHL back to a true “big four” pro sports status in the United States. With the NHL being buried on cable and an occasional NBC weekend game, there is little chance for a non-hockey fan especially in non-traditional markets to acquire a taste for a game that is better viewed in person than on television. On New Year’s Day the Winter Classic is becoming a must see for sports fans everywhere. From an event standpoint, what the Super Bowl is to football, and Daytona is to auto racing, the Winter Classic is to hockey and now it is the poster child game of the NHL.

From the first time I saw the “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” video promo until now as I sit and watch the rendition of “Take Me Out to the Hockey Game” and the aesthetic beauty of the Wings and Hawks playing the game as competitively as any Stanley Cup final, I have been in hog heaven enjoying every aspect of the build up and the game itself.

For the players, it’s a game that they would kill to be a part of as demonstrated by the return of Nick Lidstrom and Chris Chelios from injuries ahead of schedule specifically in order to participate in this special game. From early in the first period when Brent Seabrook drilled Dan Cleary and knocked him over the boards to the floor of the Hawk’s bench to the handshakes at center ice at the end of the game there was never a lack of intensity or focus on winning. The defending Stanley Cup champ Red Wings fought hard to come back and win over the hometown favorite Blackhawks by a 6-4 margin.

The Winter Classic game last year was an “event”. This year’s Winter Classic II (now worthy of a Roman numeral) is the birth of a “tradition” that will be instilled in the fabric of the hockey season for years to come. Mid-day on New Year’s Day will now mean one thing for hockey fans and future fans, who may be checking out hockey for the first time, the annual Winter Classic. With rumors of interesting settings and top quality teams in future games, the old school college bowl games of yesteryear have been replaced with the tradition of the future, the NHL’s marketing superstar, the Winter Classic.

Buddy Oakes for NHLOnTheGlass