Sporting Madness

Photo: Jaromir Jagr, with mullet [Photo from James Mirtle's blog ]. Perhaps the NHL can only tolerate one mullet at a time these days. In seriousness, Jaromir Jagr's decision [Eric Duhatschek, The Globe and Mail ]to sign with Avangard Omsk of the Continental Hockey League (KHL, to use the Russian acroynm) is only partially surprising, but it should serve as a wake-up call to the NHL that they aren't the only league in town any more. We've heard this song somewhere before: a new league pops into existence, featuring plenty of wealthy businessmen with money to burn on their clubs, and they suddenly make a large contract offer to an aging NHL star to give their league instant respectability. That Bobby Hull contract was the key factor that launched the WHA off the ground: with him on board, the league was taken seriously and became a viable alternative for NHL players looking for a bigger payday. Interestingly though, few media sources are making the suggestion that th...

Scott Niedermayer's recent return should elevate the Anaheim Ducks back to their former levels of might. Even without him, they're still a solid team that has put up 32 points thus far, good enough for seventh place in a jam-packed Western Conference where they're only two points out of second. With him, they have most of the pieces that led them to last year's Stanley Cup championship. It's uncertain whether Teemu Selanne will follow Niedermayer's example and return for the remainder of the season, but the Ducks' younger forwards have done a nice job of filling the void, with Getzlaf, Perry, and Kunitz all recording over 10 goals so far. Anaheim's had its problems so far, though. One of the most prominent is the absence of scoring depth, as no one except the three previously mentioned forwards has more than four goals and the Ducks have only averaged an anemic 2.35 goals per game, 25th-best in the league. They also haven't been amazing defensively,...