Sporting Madness

I live in Surrey, B.C., and I'm not exactly rich enough to afford Canucks tickets, so most of the hockey I see live is at Abbotsford Heat (AHL) games. It's a good brand of hockey, and there's always potential for some entertaining moments. Unfortunately, I wasn't there in person for what's quite possibly the highlight of the Heat's tenure in Abbotsford so far, head coach Jim Playfair (the former head coach of the Calgary Flames, Abbotsford's parent team) melting down after referee Jamie Koharski (son of former NHL ref Don Koharski , who's of course famous for being involved in another legendary meltdown ) tossed Heat winger J.D. Watt . Here's the video; skip ahead to 2:30 for the start of the play, or 3:20 for the start of the fireworks. This is pretty impressive. Playfair yells at the ref, breaks a stick, takes off his jacket and then breaks another stick before leaving, probably enough to get this up into the pantheon of the top coaching rant...

Yesterday's news that New York Rangers head coach John Tortorella would be suspended by the league for today's Game Six against the Washington Capitals after squirting a fan with water and throwing a water bottle into the crowd [ James Mirtle , From The Rink ] was interesting, but not unique. Of course, Tortorella is famous for his temper; this video of him tearing a strip off Larry Brooks of the New York Post is hilarious, but it shows that he perhaps isn't the most controlled coach in the world. It's also worth noting that this came after he benched Sean Avery for Game Five for his own lack of control. However, the most interesting part about this story is that assistant coach/assistant GM Jim Schoenfeld is going to replace Tortorella behind the bench. Schoenfeld, of course, was famously involved in a similar situation back in the 1988 Prince of Wales Conference Finals when he was coaching the New Jersey Devils: Yep, it's that Jim Schoenfeld who confronted ...

The 5-0 thrashing Roberto Luongo and the Canucks put on Martin Brodeur and the Devils on Tuesday was one of the more impressive performances I've seen this year. It becomes even more remarkable considering the context: the Devils had won 11 of their previous 14 games, while the Canucks went 3-3-2 in a tough eight-game stretch that had them hitting the road, returning home for a single game, and going back out on the road. Luongo had also missed the previous four games with sore ribs, so some rust might have been expected, especially against his main rival for the Olympic goaltending job (who had gone 11-1-1 in his last 13 starts with a 1.68 GAA). Perhaps some sour grapes were involved as well, as Brodeur controversially won the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender over Luongo last year. Luongo was only 4-13 against Brodeur going into the game (although all of those games were when Luongo was playing with a terrible Florida team and Brodeur was with a very good New Jer...

It came out today that Canucks’ centre Brendan Morrison will miss up to 12 weeks after undergoing wrist surgery. This is merely the latest injury misfortune to strike Vancouver, as they've spent plenty of time this year without three of their top defencemen (Sami Salo and Lukas Krajicek, who have returned to the lineup, and Kevin Bieksa, who's still out) and their number-one goaltender (Roberto Luongo, slated to return in tomorrow's game against the New Jersey Devils). Yet, despite the rash of injuries to top players, they've turned in quite a successful season so far: their 38 points are good enough that they're tied with the Minnesota Wild for first in the Northwest Division, and sit fifth overall in the Western Conference. A large part of their success so far has come from the stellar performances turned in by the younger players they've called up to patch the holes: Alex Edler and Luc Bourdon did a terrific job filling in on defence (see Ben Kuzma's c...