Sporting Madness

Photo: Trevor Linden celebrates his game-winning (and series-clinching) goal against Dallas in the 2007 playoffs (Photo from Matt Gunn's blog ). The TEAM 1040's Jeff Paterson announced tonight on his blog at the Georgia Strait 's website that Canuck forward Trevor Linden will offically announce his retirement at a press conference tomorrow, 20 years to the day after he was drafted secondoverall in the 1988 NHL Draft by the Canucks (behind only Mike Modano). It's somewhat fitting that he played such a key role in knocking Modano and his ilk out of the playoffs last year. This retirement was perhaps inevitable, especially after Alain Vigneault's contract to coach the Canucks was extended. There have been several suggestions [Brad Ziemer, Vancouver Sun ] of Vigneault-Linden disagreements over the last couple of years, especially when Vigneault continued to inexplicably bench Linden in favour of inferior players like Byron Ritchie, Mike Brown and Jeff Cowan. Linden wa...

So, Round Two's officially wrapped up and I went 2-2 with my predictions , continuing my .500 mark (now 6-6 overall). I got the Penguins and Stars, but flubbed on the Avs and Habs. For this round, I tied with Bob McKenzie , Eric Duhatschek and Maggie the Monkey, lost to Allan Maki (who's now a ridiculous 11-1 overall), Darren Dreger and David Shoalts (3-1), but beat James Mirtle , Matt Sekeres and Zanstorm (1-3). Most of them are beating me overall, though, due to my 4-4 first-round efforts. Here's my picks for the conference finals. East: Pittsburgh versus Philadelphia: Penguins in six. Nice to see the biggest Battle of Pennsylvania since Gettysburg reinvigorated. I like Pittsburgh here because of their overwhelming offense and great goaltending from Marc-Andre Fleury. Philly will try and run them out of the rink in the old Broad Street Bullies model, but ultimately, that won't be enough to prevail overall. Look for home-ice advantage to play a big role in this on...

Lots of news going on at the moment: here's the highlights. Hockey Flapping in the breeze The Dallas Stars apparently think Roberto Luongo's equipment is controversial. According to Grant Kerr of the Globe and Mail , Marty Turco and Mike Smith both took to the practice ice this morning wearing exaggerated cardboard flaps to question the flaps on Luongo's pads that supposedly extend wider than the maximum width permitted by the league. This surprised me a bit, as Luongo isn't one of the goalies regularly mentioned in the same paragraph as bulky equipment, unlike a certain Stanley Cup-winning netminder . It will be interesting to see if anyone at league HQ takes notice. Related: Alanah's take on the issue. Simon's attempt to save himself According to a Roy MacGregor piece in today's Globe , Chris Simon is planning to appeal his 30-game suspension. "I don't think it was fair," Simon told MacGregor. "I'm not a complainer. I've never ...