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.

Star Wars at the Science Museum of Minnesota

I went to the new Star Wars exhibit at the Science Museum in St. Paul and took this video. WTF???

Happy Father's Day from the Diablos

Happy Father's Day from a bunch of muthers...

Here's a list of the 12 Worst Father's Day Gifts.

Hopefully you don't receive a treadmill - not that most of you guys don't need it.

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.

Stanley Cup Finals: Broken Down a Little at a Time...

so that the season doesn't end so abruptly.

Here's a tribute to the Conn Smyth Trophy winner, Hank Zetterberg.



This is so awful that its tasty. Like Zamboni fumes.

Also, a required read from the Slap Shot blog put on by the New York Times. If you watched the last seconds of game six, you'll know exactly what they're writing about. Tick...Tick...Tick...

Stanley Cup Finals: Game Six Preview

Jarkko Ruttu's contributions to yesterday morning's game are documented by the fine folks at Knob Hockey.



I would pay big money to walk inside the ropes with a Tiger / Ruttu twosome.

diablohockey.blogspot.com - your leader in occasional hockey coverage.

Tiger, Have You Met Ryan Malone?

Poor Tiger Woods. He's been injured for a month now with a broken something or other. Perhaps its his vagina. He, for some reason or not, cannot play a full round of golf without his va-jay-jay hurting. I write this as my 68 year old neighbor is driving into his driveway after playing a full round this morning.

So what does Tiger do yesterday? He has a press conference, presumably called to discuss his snapper. When a reporter opened up the questions with a fairly harmless, "Wings or Pens?", here's what he said...

"I don't really care," Woods replied. "I don't think anybody really watches hockey any more, do they?"

Tiger, have you met Ryan Malone?



This occurred with 1:21 to go in the second period. Malone immediately went to the lockerroom. So you'd think he'd be done for the evening, Tiger? That's a pretty wicked injury - much worse than a stinky bajingo, huh?

Nope. Malone started the next period. He looked like twelve miles of bad road and had cotton coming out of one nostril, but he went back out and smiled. He played like he had a mouthful of bees - hitting Wings, laying down in front of shots, and creating the traffic in front of the net which helped Petr Sykora net the game winner in the third OT. His expression afterwards is why the Diablos play the game.



More from Tiger's favorite paper, the Beaver County Times - Malone's Heart Was Not Injured.

Epic!!!

Petr Sykora scored a power play wrister at butt-crack thirty in the morning to bring on Game 6. Hockey Lives For One More Night!!!

Pens / Wings Game 4 Preview

Tomas Holmstrom will be back in the lineup and the Cup will be in the building as the Red Wings will try to hold off the Penguins to complete the series. Let's go to the guys at Knob Hockey for an in depth look at the keys to the game.



Fleury ought to try putting googly eyes on Holmstrom's jersey.

If You're Scared of Plants...

Diablo Season in Review

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



Thanks Sarah.

Nelson went to Vegas

While the Diablo Hockey Club was gritting out a third place finish at the USA Hockey National Recreational Hockey Championships, Steve Nelson was scouting out possible team watering holes. He found a possible site in Vegas.







What a douchebag.

USA Out at the World Championships

In what could be called "Deja Vu all over again", the young USA hockey squad lost in the quarterfinals of the IIHF World Championships for the fourth straight year last night in a 3-2 overtime loss to Finland.

The team's average age was around 23 or 24, but they played fairly well during the qualifying rounds - they never got beat by more than one. Last night, they were down 2-0 with six minutes to play in the third but cracked two past Nick Backstrom within a minute. I normally like it when he keeps goals out. USA had a chance to finish it in overtime when Bloomington, MN native Zach Parise got the puck on his tape at point blank but his wrister went inches wide. Finland scored about a minute later and it's tee time for our boys.

The final four teams will play on Friday in Quebec City - Canada vs. Sweden & Russia vs. Finland. More info can be found at iihf.com or usahockey.com.

Fire Up with Cannibal Corpse

Those guys can swing!

Todd 2.0

Hopefully after the tournament, J.D. can help Todd upgrade his computer software.

USA Hockey National D1 Championships

Here is the schedule for this weekend. All games are at the Schwan Super Rink in Blaine, MN.

Friday, May 16. Diablos vs. Nemesis 7:45 pm Rink 4.
Saturday, May 17. Diablos vs. Royals 10:45 pm Rink 4.
Saturday, May 17. Diablos vs. Fighting Saints 5:45 pm Rink 2.


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Minnesota Mullets: Nelson a Close Second

Brady Arneson is this year's winner of the 2008 Minnesota Mullet competition, however Diablo centreman Steve Nelson represented by narrowly missing out on the honor. The fact that Brady was wearing a North Dakota jersey did leave a bitter taste in Nelly's mouth, but fortunately Nelson averted a significant meltdown at the Hasting Eagle's Club and was escorted out peacefully. Read more from the Red Wing Republican Eagle. Great Job Brady!

Congrats Ovie! Moving up to the Big Time

NHL Star Called Up To Big Leagues To Play For NFL Team

Playoff Preview - Detroit vs. Colorado

Update 4/24 @ 2:35 pm: Apparently I'm not the only person fired up for this series. Wings-Avs: Blood feud is getting renewal, by John Niyo from the Detroit News. Can't wait to read the Kizla rebuttal.

One of the best rivalries of the "new" NHL.

Some history: During the 96 Cup Playoffs, Claude Lemeiux from Colorado clobbered Kris Draper into the boards. Similar to Steph Veilleux's hit on Stastny during game four of the last series except Draper's head was crushed.

I couldn't find a video with only the hit - it's in the middle of this sequence - although you can see the style of Lemieux.



Colorado ended up winning the game and went on to win the Cup. After the series, Dino Ciccerelli (no stranger to thuggery) said "I can't believe I shook the guy's friggin' hand".

The next year they played four times. The first three were without incident, but the fourth and final game had a certain chippiness to it. When Peter Forsberg and Igor Larionov began a fight, Darren McCarty took the opportunity to settle the Draper score with Lemieux.

Here's the whole brawl.


McCarty ended up scoring the game winner in OT. Quite the night.

The Red Wings came together as a team and ended up winning the Cup in 1997. The next season, in their first regular season game, McCarty and Lemieux dropped the gloves on the first puck drop and settled the previous season's score. Lemieux didn't turtle this time.



The feud didn't die after that. Patrick Roy fought Chris Osgood on the following April 1st and almost fought Dominic Hasek five years later in 2002.





Disclaimer - used a lot of Wikipedia for this research.