Rob Little... You're Fired!

Sorry Rob but I think we've found a new coach...



Just Kidding, Rob. But couldn't you call us bitches just once?

Required Reading - Thanksgiving Edition

I have made very little secret that I am a fan of John Buccigross. Although he can come across as somewhat vain, I believe his heart is in the right place when it comes to writing about hockey.

So... I believe it to be in everyone's interest to read his most recent hockey essay posted on ESPN.com. The mailbag is optional.

You'll also be able to figure out where I got the idea for the caption contest for the previous post.

Needs a Caption

Here is our fearless leader doing what he does best, whatever that is. Can you come up with a better caption? Comment below. Thanks to the SlapShot blog at the New York Times.

DiabloHockey This Weekend... Catch the Fever!

For those who check out this blog for entertainment options in the Twin Cities, be sure to check out some DiabloHockey on Sunday night.

The C2 East leading Diablos take to the ice at their home-away-from-home, Biff Adams arena at 7:50 pm in a battle for first place vs. the Bulls (2-0-1-0). Can playoff hockey be played in the middle of November? If so, this matchup is as good as any.

If being caught in a prostitution sting doesn't appeal to you, then there's always a quick trip to the Yack. Ken Yackel's West Side Arena will host the D1 Diablos as they look to rebound from a stinging loss to the Royals against the familiar Fighting Saints. Puck Drops at 8:10 pm.

DiabloHockey Fever... Catch it!

Other successful hockey marketing campaigns...

Cal Clutterbuck is Now Utility Position Eligible

Cal Clutterbuck had his first NHL fight Thursday night against a former dance partner from the AHL, Keith Yandle.



On the plus side, he did a nice job rattling Yandle's jaw with the constant lefts to the chin. On the negative side, take off the visor, Clutter. Don't drop the gloves and leave your helmet on.

Obviously, he missed that lesson at the Boogaard fight school.

Diablo Dominance - The 08-09 Edition

The season is on. The full schedule is up and the first games are this weekend.

The D1 Squad has their opener on Sunday at 7:40 pm against the Wingmen. They are on the big rink at Wakota Arena in South St. Paul.

The C2 Squad is opening up against ShameonIce on Sunday ten minutes later at 7:50 pm. They'll be skating at the "Big Biff" in HockeyTown, i.e. Saint Paul.

Here are links to the complete schedules. D1 Diablos C2 Diablos

By the way - we need names for our teams other than D1 and C2. How about...

D1 - The Fancy Diablos!
C2 - The Zippy Diablos!

If there are any other good suggestions, please let me know!

Hockey Night In Canada - New Theme

It looks like the CBC has chosen it's new HNIC theme song. After going through hundreds of original compositions by Canadians, they finally chose this one...



Fairly bland - nothing too fancy. The song was composed by Colin Oberst, an elementary school teacher from Beaumont, Alberta. What I can't understand is the bagpipes. They may be Canadian, but they originated in Scotland and haven't we discussed how the Brits have denigrated hockey already? For Cripes Sake!

The other (better) finalist was Robert Frasier Burke, a thirteen year old from Toronto.



Either way, they both pale to the original.

And did anyone notice from both videos - the HNIC map pans out from... Minnesota. Nothing surprising there.

Frickin British Idiots

I thought the whole idea of NHLRocks two nights ago was an awesome idea. A little hockey and a little 80's Hair Metal. I didn't really care for the whole Alannis Morissette deal, but hell, she's from Canada and did a kick-ass version of the anthem in Ottawa two years ago in the Cup Finals.

But Def Leppard? Way Cool. The Hockey Hair. The One-armed Drummer. Pyromania, Photograph, Hysteria, Rock of Ages, and Pour Some Sugar On Me? Classic. How can something that takes me back to Pee Wee's be wrong?

Oh, but it was. It was so wrong when this happened.



I'll let Puckdaddy take it from here...

"Def Leppard's Joe Elliott redefined the concept of embarrassment during one of their NHL Face-Off Rocks segments at the Fox Theater in Detroit. This is what you get for booking a band from England: Drive on the wrong side of the road, place the holiest of holy hockey grails on a pedestal upside down. Epic, epic fail. Even Draper's kid had the good sense to poop in the thing right-side up.

This was the proverbial slow-motion car crash; like on "The Price is Right," when a contestant is about to put the $199 price tag on the tube of toothpaste and the crowd simultaneously shrieks "NO! NO!"

You saw him turn the Stanley Cup the wrong way, and you just wanted to reach through the television and flip it back before he put it down. If only someone on stage had helped him. Why couldn't the drummer have lent a ... bit of moral support?"

Good stuff from the daddy.

I have a problem with the NHL letting any stupid idiot carry the cup, let alone kiss it. I'm 38 years old and am playing beer league hockey but I will never touch the cup because I know that if I touch it, there's still no way that I'll ever win it.

I mean, you never know.

Desparate Attempt to Hide a Scar

Clint Malarchuk's neck is in the news again... Do you remember this?



Apparently he was cleaning out his .22 rifle with the butt in between his feet. You can figure out the rest. Fortunately, he's on the mend and should be o.k. The (tasteless) question I have is, "Will he be able to connect one scar to the other in order to make them both less noticeable?"

Best Wishes, Clint!

Let the NHL Season Begin

Since we are starting the season in Europe this year, let's bring out the best rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner ever. This version screams kick-ass, bloody-mouth, balls-to-the-wall hockey. Ladies and Gentlemen of DiabloHockey, I present to you, Burton Cummings, best known as the lead singer and keyboard player of the Canadian born and bred band, The Guess Who.




Tears streaming from my face keep me from seeing the screen.

A Little Tip For You Youngsters Out There

I embedded a fight last season of Adam Burish for the Blackhawks and Byron Ritchie and I heard a funny story about it.



One of my brother's friends works as an attorney at Burish's dad's law firm in Madison. All of my good stories come from my brother's friends (not to say that any of you don't have any good stories, but you never tell me them).

Apparently after Burish and Ritchie sit down in the box, Ritchie asks him why he wanted to drop at the beginning of the game. Burish explained that Denis Savard got him so jacked up during the pregame and then started him. Burish told Ritchie at the face-off that he wanted to drop the mitts right there. Ritchie replied that that was dumb because he hadn't skated a shift or two yet. Ritchie told him that his legs would be dead the rest of the night. Sure enough, Burish had a horrible night, was a -1 with one shot and 12+ minutes of ice time. His legs were dead all night long.

So kids, remember that before you drop the gloves on the opening face-offs. Get some blood into your legs before it starts pouring out of your nose.

Payback is a Bitch

Remember Torrey Mitchell? He's the San Jose scrub winger who charged into Kurtis Foster on a delayed icing and caused Foster to break his femur - & possibly ending his career. Well, he broke his leg today.

Now, granted, he'll only be out for two months (unlike Fozzie who will most likely miss this entire season), but I think this will be the first of many bad karma moments where Mitchell will miss games for various reasons. It reminds me of a Scrubs episode I once saw...



Catchy tune.

Holy Crap - It's Been More Than a Month!!!

I just visited the blog for the first time in a while just now and I looked at the date on the last post: Aug 17th. Frickin' A - that's a whole flippin' month!?! So what's new?

- The Wild have opened camp at the Ralph (Nelson is getting sick right now).
- Gaby hasn't signed anything resembling a new contract.
- The KHL's season has started.
- Sabre's GM Darcy Regier signed an extension prompting this guy to go batshit crazy.
- St. Louis Blue's former #1 draft choice and former Holy Angels student of mine, Erik Johnson sprained his knee trying to put the brakes on a golf cart - no kidding.
- There's a new DiabloHockey fantasy hockey league. If you'd like to attend the draft, it will be at Joe Senser's in Roseville on Tuesday, Sept 23 at 8:00pm.
- Jacques Lemaire still wants to coach, but does he want his team to score?
- Mats Sundin has worn out his 15 minutes of "Shall I retire or shall I play for Vancouver". (If that was the choice, I'd retire)
- Smelts (with Nelson & Blas & the orange sock version of the Hansons) won the Div 4 AHA Summer League.
- Bucci and I are counting down the moments to when we go to the record store (I'll be heading to the Electric Fetus) and pick up Ben Folds - Way to Normal. On sale Sept 30th.



True - its no Slayer or Cannibal Corpse, but he does sing the word "blood".

End of July Update

Hockey, Hockey, Hockey - All things Hockey.

Jarick isn't the only superstar working out this summer. Some of the Russian NHL'ers are working out in St. Petersburg, Russia and they are looking old-school. Read about it here. Check out the tan lines on Malkin's (upper) thigh.

It's good that Malkin and Ovechkin are working out since last season this happened.


Elk River native, Dan Hinote, was able to shed his status as "NHL's most eligible bachelor (who plays for St. Louis)" by marrying Playboy's CyberGirl of some month (does it matter?), Amy McCarthy. Yes, she is the sister of Jenny McCarthy. They were married in Keystone, CO & the groomsman across from sister Jenny? Peter Forsberg. Apparently, he fell down halfway through the procession.

There are two hockey blogs that have gone through a bit of a change for the better. Third Jersey information can be found at icethetics.blogspot.com & Illegal Curve is raking over the hockey blogs with information, and has a great interview by my mentor and facebook friend, Michael Russo of the Star Tribune and more famously, Russo's Rants.

**Addition** - ESPN still thinks they cover hockey. Therefore, their one hockey employee who isn't named Buccigross, Scott Burnside, put together a August Power Rankings. Mmmm. If I had to guess, I'd say Detroit in the West and Pittsburgh in the East. Unfortunately, both the Wild and the Devils drop. Wild slide to ninth considering they lost Rolston and Demitra but picked up Owen Who??!!? Devils slide two to sixth which means they'll most likely win the division. The three new DiabloHockey teams to watch fared better: Washington (e5), Tampa Bay (e8) and Chicago (w6) look to improve.

Farewell Former Captain Grumpy. It's been bittersweet.

Lil' Sid

UFA Signings - Day One Recap

Welcome Back, Bruno.



The Wild also traded away college uber-star, Ryan Jones to Nashville for an (gasp!) offensive minded defenseman, Marek Zidlicky. They also signed Craig Weller (??) to a two year, $1.2M contract. (UPDATE - YouTube video of Craig Weller being badass.) Look for the Wild to make moves for at least one more guy with most signs pointing to Calgary wing Kristian Huselius, but also possibly Sean Avery or Brendan Morrison. Huselius was kicked off of the Swedish national team for "allegedly" raping a 22 year old woman in 2005. (I'm sure that everyone who damned Risebrough for signing Chris Simon will continue their outrage if the Wild signs Huselius. What, you don't think so? Me, neither.)

Brian Rolston, as expected, vanished - although in a pleasant surprise, was signed by Diablo Hockey's second team, the Devils. The Devils also resigned Jay Pandolfo and brought back Bobby Holik from Atlanta. Rolston is 34 and signed a 4 year $20 million dollar deal while Holik is 37 and signed for 1 year and $2.5M. Sensing a trend, I was able to get a hold of Devils GM, Lou Lamorillo last night and inquired about signing John Driscoll. Lamorillo wasn't interested until I told him that JD just turned 40. Lou's listening now! JD's been offered 2 years at $1.4M, but I'm holding out for at least $2.5.

Aaron Voros signed with the Rangers and Todd Fedoruk signed for 3 years (3 years?!?) with Phoenix. Whoa, that Wayne Gretzky really knows how to build a team!

Back to Bruno - nice to have him back, but more interesting was Risebrough commenting that it was nice to be able to "correct a mistake". Mmmm... which mistake are you referring to Dougie? A.J. Thelen? Benoit Pouliot? Kyle Wanvig? Alexandre Daigle? Roman Voloshenko?

The following is a list of notable players drafted after A.J. Thelen(12) with the overall draft position in parenthesis.

Drew Stafford(13), Alexander Radulov(15), Travis Zajac(20), Wojtek Wolski(21), Andrej Meszaros(23), Mike Green(29), Chris Bourque(33), Brandon Dubinsky(60), Alex Goligoski(61), Johan Franzen(97).

Other notable signings - Rangers sign Wade Redden and re-sign Rozsival, Columbus signs Mike Commodore, Washington signs Jose Theodore, Chicago signs Cristobal Huet and Brian Campbell for 8 years and $56 million (bust - Campbell's soft and will get pounded because he'll have a huge target on his back. In the meantime, I'm getting Wild / Blackhawk tickets as soon as they come out).

And finally, since guys like Eric Godard, Matt Cooke, Georges Laraque, and Jeff Finger have left or are leaving the Northwest conference, it's tough to really bring the hate to the X night in and night out. Fortunately, the Avalanche signed former Maple Leaf, Darcy Tucker, who's hated by everyone in the Northeast (Adams?) Conference, and that includes most of the Maple Leaf fans.

The Zen of Melrose

Highlights of 13 years of Mullet on ESPN.



Mullet being interviewed by former partner, Steve Levy.



The Diablos will be keeping an eye on the Lightning next season, for sure.

Okay... Melrose.

Barry Melrose will be named the head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning this morning. The 51 year old former ESPN analyst and Saskatchewan native will be named in a press conference this morning in order to replace the deposed John Tortorella.

Melrose played over three hundred games, splitting time between Winnipeg, Toronto and Detroit between 1979 and 1987 and amassed 728 penalty minutes. He won the Memorial Cup with Medicine Hat in his first season as a head coach and led the Los Angeles Kings to the Stanley Cup Finals by coaching some guy named Wayne Gretzky. He is also a major movie star with his newest film appearance in "The Love Guru" where he plays the main love interest of Jessica Alba.

In an unusual move, the new Tampa Bay ownership released video of the selection process which resulted in Melrose's hiring. The other candidates, Brian Engbloom, Tony Espisito, Bill Clement, and Melrose were evaluated by Vincent Lecavilier.

Hockey News of the Day

Lots of little hockey updates - none of which have to do with opening night of the AHA Summer Season.

The Wild traded a third round draft choice to Anaheim for defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron. Let the offseason season of free agency, trades, and drafts begin!!! Here's the poop from Russo.

The "Dominator" has left the building. Dominik Hasek retired yesterday and should be elected to the Hall of Fame in about a week or so. He doesn't have as many rings as Marty or Roy, but has the Vezina's. Here is a good video from TSN.

Speaking of TSN, their parent company CTV in Canada purchased the rights to Canada's Second National Anthem, the Hockey Night in Canada theme song (which used to be Diablo Theme Song on your Right - copyright infringement). There was talk that the song was going to be shelved because the song's owner was pissed with the CBC. TSN owns the rights in perpetuity which means they will play the song for every show from now until the end of time.

Someone else agrees with me about Tiger Woods.

Fozzie's Coming Around... Kurtis Foster got a write up on Wild.com about his recovery. Good Luck Fozzie.

Another Wild player who had a devastating injury, Branko Radivojevic will be rehabbing his knee Rocky style because he signed a contract to play in the Russian Premier League. Great f'ing movie.



The Avalanche's are dipping in the Minnesota well again as they pick up former Roseville Raider and Hobey Baker winner Marty Sertich.

Finally, the NHL entry draft is right around the corner and the obvious #1 pick for the Tampa Bay Lightning is Steven Stamkos. Wanna see some sick moves?



Don't forget that the NHL awards will be given out Thursday night. That's it from the DiabloHockey newsdesk.

Diablo Season in Review

Sarah Suerth took a bunch of pictures and made this kick-ass video.



Thanks Sarah.