Some News And Notes

I'll admit right off the top that most of what I'm posting today isn't very newsworthy on its own. There are some interesting tidbits of information, but I'm not sure anything would be an eye-catching headline by itself. Instead, I'm plugging all of these little stories under one collective "News and Notes" headline. One note is pretty awesome, one is more of a personal "told ya so", and the last one is a bit of a head-scratcher when it comes to their fans' reaction.

The Sweaters Inside Are Frightful

The ECHL has a tradition of having some pretty awesome promotional jerseys. There have been a ton of great promotional sweaters sold off for charity, and the ECHL should be proud of the money they raise with these jersey auctions. I'm sure how much it costs the individual teams to run one of these promotions, but I'd love to be a part of a team that has a run of promotional jerseys just so I could score a few of my own. In saying that, though, the Reading Royals are taking their Christmas promotional jersey to a whole new level.

According to TheScore website, the Reading Royals will face-off against the Elmira Jackals on December 14 in these "ugly Christmas sweater" uniforms. Amongst other things happening that night, the Royals will be giving away to their fans a "Reading Royals 2013 Kelly Cup Champions" holiday ornament and will be holding their annual teddy bear toss for charity. But those sweaters? Magnificent in their hideousness. As TheScore stated on their Facebook posting for these sweaters, "[t]he ECHL's Reading Royals unveiled an ugly Christmas sweater jersey that would make Bill Cosby's heart smile." I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people who are smiling at the sight of these jerseys. Well done, Reading!

MacArthur Has Game

I was questioned by a number of people why I would drop Philadelphia's Wayne Simmonds for Ottawa's Clarke MacArthur in our TSN Fantasy Pool at work. I've always liked MacArthur's work ethic, and Simmonds, for all the hits, penalty minutes and powerplay goals he scores, delivered poor ice-time minutes and little in the way of actual scoring. To me, it was less of a risk in dropping Simmonds for MacArthur than it was in allowing someone else to grab MacArthur who has been given more of a scoring responsibility in Ottawa.

Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I feel slightly vindicated. Check out this amazing setup from Clarke MacArthur against the Minnesota Wild tonight.

I'm not saying that carrying Simmonds was a bad idea, but look at the stats. It's pretty easy to see why I made this move.

Fantasy Hockey Metrics

Name	Games	Points	+/-	PIMs	TOI	SOG	Hits
Clarke MacArthur	20	4-10-14	+11	16	18:31	46	31
Wayne Simmonds	20	3-6-9	-7	33	16:05	45	42

You won't hear me complaining if MacArthur continues to use moves as seen above to add to his already-solid stats totals this season. MacArthur, along with Tampa Bay's Alex Killorn, has been a valuable addition through the waiver wire.

Winning Is Everything?

The ECHL's Toledo Walleye are unveiling two brand-new jersey designs tomorrow as they prepare for next year's Walleye Winterfest games. There's nothing unusual about a team unveiling a new jersey for an outdoor game in any way, but it appears that the people of Toledo, Ohio could care less about the Facebook announcement.

Wow! Tough crowd! This is a team that's 4-6-2 after just 12 games! There's still 60 games in the season, yet Jason is all over them for their win-loss record! And poor spelling aside from Chris, has he ever seen an outdoor game in his life or is this his first season being a hockey fan?

Who needs opponents when you have fans like these?

Teamwork Of The Year

There's not much needed to be said here as the Penguins show the Capitals how to move the puck before scoring on the powerplay.

TIC-TAC-WOW

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!