I'm not going to be long-winded tonight as I'll save that for tomorrow's edition of The Rundown, but I want to give a nod to the hockey folks in Charlottetown, PEI where I've visited and watched hockey. These are some of the most dedicated fans to the game that one will ever meet, and they are fiercely proud of their heritage on the island. Whether we're talking about Gerard Gallant, Steve Ott, Drew McIntyre, or Brad Richards, "islanders" are proud of their heritage, their differences from the rest of Canada, and their province, and they rightfully should be as they're the only island province across Canada's lands.
The QMJHL's Charlottetown Islanders embody this pride that Prince Edward Islanders' citizens possess, but they weaved a new tale tonight as they hosted the Acadie-Bathurst Titan for '90s Night at the Eastlink Centre. Some may wonder how the Islanders can host a '90s Night when they didn't exist until 2013 following the PEI Rocket playing on the island from 2003 until 2013 after the Montreal Rocket moved there in the summer of 2003, but the Islanders are jumping in with both feet tonight as they get to bring back the 1990s!
How are they doing that? Check out the Islanders' jerseys!
That's right - the Islanders are going back in time by donning Mighty Ducks-inspired uniforms! Based on the design they're wearing, they got a very close replica to what was worn in the movie. However, the logo needed to be bigger on the Islanders' uniforms by removing the CCM mark and possibly putting it on one shoulder while the Subaru sponsor patch could have gone on the other shoulder. That aside, I'd say the Islanders squarely in 1992 alongside the Ducks!
Among the other fun stuff that the Islanders are doing tonight, fans are encouraged to dress in their best 90s-inspired attire to win prizes, adult beverages will be served at prices last seen in the 1990s, and there will be 1990s-themed scoreboard features. Eastlink Centre is dialling back the calendar thirty years as the Islanders get into their 1990s theme which, ironically, happened while none of the players were even a twinkle in their parents' eyes.
I don't get excited for a lot of theme nights, but this one could be pretty fun if the fans get into it. I'd love to see two teams collaborate on a theme night idea like '90s night so both would show up in their 1990s-themed uniforms, but the Islanders get a pass here as this night was done pretty well. Even the promotional advertisements as seen to the right were fun, so full marks to the Islanders' promotional and marketing people for coming up with some fantastic posters and ads seen on social media!
The Islanders will want a win tonight as they battle the Titan, but it's pretty clear that they're be the most radical team on the ice. No one wants to see anything gnarly because that would be a bummer, dude, so here's hoping the Islanders play well because they definitely look good in their Mighty Ducks-inspired jerseys!
While this may seem like an article about someone like Leon Draisaitl, Sam Reinhart, or Alex Ovechkin, the man to the left might be one of the best goal scorers in hockey history for his position. That's Alex Nedeljkovic in his Team USA gear from last year's IIHF World Hockey Championship, and he could potentially play for Team USA this season if the Pittsburgh Penguins struggle down the stretch. That being said, Nedeljkovic is doing his best to ensure that doesn't happen by stopping pucks and scoring goals! In doing that last part, he made a little history two ways tonight as he was part of the scoring outburst for the Penguins against the Sabres!
Before we get to the history made tonight, let's go to the video.
Nedekjkovic's goal at 17:18 of the third period pushed the score to 5-2 in favour of the Penguins, and the win moved them within three points of a wild card spot in the Eastern Conference. Clearly, there's still a lot of work to do in Pittsburgh, but Nedeljkovic was helping his own cause with the 19th goalie goal scored in NHL history.
As historic as it is to witness a goalie goal, Nedeljkovic is the 16th goalie in NHL history to be credited with a goal and the eleventh goalie to shoot the puck the length of the ice into the opposite net. That's the not the history we're here to discuss despite those facts being important footnotes on the goal scored above. Instead, Nedeljkovic has done two things that no other goalie can claim at this point, and both are pretty cool if you appreciate goalie goals.
The first is a new mark for goaltenders in general as Nedeljkovic's goal made him the first goalie in NHL history to record a goal and an assist in a single game! Nedeljkovic was awarded the secondary assist on Cody Glass's second-period power-play goal at 11:43 to give him his first assist of the season. There have been other two-point nights for goalies in the NHL, but none have ever been achieved through a goal and an assist. Nedeljkovic can now boast that he's the first to hold that historic mark in NHL history!
Secondly and perhaps more importantly, Alex Nedeljkovic stands alone as a goal scorer for his position now as Nedeljkovic became the only goaltender in hockey history to score at the NHL level, the AHL level, and the ECHL level! On December 30, 2016, Nedeljkovic scored the fifth goal in a 5-3 win for the ECHL's Florida Everblades over the Atlanta Gladiators. He followed that goal up by adding an AHL goal on March 10, 2018 when he scored on the Hartford Wolf Pack at 17:55 of the third period as a member of the Charlotte Checkers in a 7-3 final. He'd add a second AHL goal while stopping pucks for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins at 18:56 of the third period against the Providence Bruins to make it 4-2 on November 17, 2023.
Say what you want, but Alex Nedeljkovic is one of the top goal scorers for his position that hockey has ever seen! He now adds his name to the illustrious list below:
Billy Smith, NY Islanders – Nov. 28, 1979 at Colorado
Ron Hextall, Philadelphia – Dec. 8, 1987 vs. Boston
Ron Hextall, Philadelphia – Apr. 11, 1989 at Washington*
Chris Osgood, Detroit – Mar. 6, 1996 at Hartford
Martin Brodeur, New Jersey – Apr. 17, 1997 vs. Montreal
Damian Rhodes, Ottawa – Jan 2, 1999 vs. New Jersey
Martin Brodeur, New Jersey – Feb. 15, 2000 vs. Philadelphia**
Jose Theodore, Montreal – Jan. 2, 2001 at NY Islanders
Evgeni Nabokov, San Jose – Mar. 10, 2002 at Vancouver***
Mika Noronen, Buffalo – Feb. 14, 2004 at Toronto
Chris Mason, Nashville – Apr. 15, 2006 vs Phoenix
Cam Ward, Carolina – Dec. 26, 2011 vs. New Jersey
Martin Brodeur, New Jersey – Mar. 21, 2013 at Carolina***
Mike Smith, Phoenix – Oct. 19, 2013 vs. Detroit
Pekka Rinne, Nashville - Jan. 9, 2020 at Chicago
Linus Ullmark, Boston - Feb. 25, 2023 at Vancouver
Tristan Jarry, Pittsburgh - Nov. 30, 2023 at Tampa Bay
Filip Gustavsson, Minnesota - Oct. 15, 2024 at St. Louis***
Alex Nedeljkovic, Pittsburgh - January 17, 2025 at Buffalo
Some quick notes: the italicized goals above were scored in the playoffs. The single asterisk denotes a shorthanded goal, the double-asterisk goal denotes a game-winning goal, and the triple-asterisk goals were scored on the power-play. 14 different teams have had a goal scored by a goaltender while 15 different teams have been victimized by a goalie goal. Pittsburgh joins Nashville as the only teams who have had two different goalies score for them.
Just for the record, Nedeljkovic made 40 saves tonight to pick up his eighth win of the season in the 5-3 victory. His goal was scored unassisted, and it's the first goalie goal surrendered by the Buffalo Sabres in their history. Buffalo's lone goalie goal was credited to Mika Noronen after Toronto's Robert Reichel centered the puck from behind the net to no one, and the puck slid the length of the ice into the vacated Toronto net. Aren't goalie goals fun?
Congratulations to Alex Nedeljkovic for putting his name into the hockey history books with his goal tonight! I'm quite certain that Nedeljkovic would trade those records for a Stanley Cup, but the Penguins are still in the hunt when it comes to securing a playoff spot. Nedeljkovic will play a role in that push, and he could be a key part of the offence if he keeps scoring like he did tonight in Buffalo!
The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, is back with a full house tonight as there isn't a seat in the studio that isn't occupied! As you may have heard, UMFM will be calling games at the 2025 Female World Sport School Challenge from Janaury 30 until February 2 at the Hockey For All Centre, so we welcome some of the hosts who will look to capture the gold medal at the tournament! Our hosts welcome in the leadership group of the Flames prep hockey team who aim to be the last team standing at the tournament as we chat with them about hockey, life, and more tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!
Tonight on the program, Teebz and Jason meet, from left to right, captain Maggie Nicol and alternate captains Joanna Braun, Camryn Falloon, and Hannah Marks-Arnold who make up the leadership group of the Flames team! Our hosts will chat with them about their hockey careers, how their seasons are going, favorite memories, what we should expect at the Female World Sport School Challenge this season, and much more! These four women have done and are doing incredible things, and they all have extremely bright futures no matter what the future holds! We'll hear their stories and experiences tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!
If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The new UMFM website's online streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store. It's a solid app.
If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard! And because both Teebz and Jason are on the butterfly app where things are less noisy, you can find Teebz here and Jason here on Bluesky!
Tonight, Teebz and Jason meet Maggie Nicol, Joanna Braun, Camryn Falloon, and Hannah Marks-Arnold from the Flames prep hockey team as we get set for the 2025 Female World Sport School Challenge exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!
UPDATE: Camryn and Hannah couldn't make the show. In their place, leading scorer Payton Henwood sat in on the interview, so you'll hear Maggie, Joanna, and Payton on the audio below!
No one is putting them alongside women's hockey superpowers such as Canada and the US just yet, but it appears that the next country to emerge with a generation of solid talent might be Denmark based on their recent showing at the 2025 U18 Women’s World Championship Division I Group B tournament. A perfect record at the tournament where they surrendered just two goals in five games should give everyone a reason to keep an eye on the Danes, and I'd expect a number of NCAA scouts to start doing research on Denmark's players.
Denmark finished 5-0 with 15 points to capture gold and earn a spot at the U18 Division 1 Group A tournament in 2026 which is one level back of the U18 Women's World Championship that Canada just won. The location of that tournament has yet to be named, but we already know that Japan will replace Hungary at the tournament next season while Denmark replaces Austria. The other four teams will be Italy, Germany, Norway, and France, so Denamrk will be up against some solid competition after being promoted.
Denmark began the tournament with a 4-0 over China before beating Australia by a 6-0 score, downing Korea by an 8-2 score, stopping host Poland with a 5-0 win, and finishing the tournament with a 4-0 exclamation point over Spain. The two goals that Denmark surrendered to Korea came after Denmark had built a 7-0 lead through 43 minutes of play before Hyeonjeong Jang broke Mila Petersen's shutout. Anja Poulson played the other four games without surrendering a goal, so the two netminders for Denmark were incredible throughout the tournament.
Of the seven players with six-or-more points, Denmark had four of them, including tournament leading scorer Nikita Bergmann who finished the five-game event with five goals and eight assists. The Korea game was a bit of a breakout for Alma Madsen-Mygdal who recorded a hat trick and an assist in the 8-2 win while Olivia Ranum had an excellent tournament with four goals and three assists. Klara Holm was the top-scoring defender as she recorded one goal and five assists, so Denmark had the highest-scoring forward and defender and the top goalie. Those are pretty solid honours to boast!
Teresa Christensen, who had two goals and three assists, plays in Canada as she attends the Ontario Hockey Academy in Cornwall, Ontario where she's having a monster season with the OHA Mavericks prep team. She currently has 16 goals and 14 assists in 39 games for OHA where she's fifth in team scoring at age 15! It might be worth keeping an eye on her game because she'll be back over the next couple of year to help Denmark move up the U18 ranks on the international stage. Clearly, Denmark is producing talent.
If I were a U SPORTS women's hockey program, these are the countries to whom I'd be talking as the talent shown by some of these players may not land them on NCAA rosters, but they're certainly good enough to qualify for U SPORTS rosters. The elite level women will always be scooped up by NCAA teams because they have the resources to do so, but finding those players who are coming out of emerging countries is where U SPORTS can unearth some gems like Norway's Mathea Fischer was for UBC.
Congratulations to Denmark on their promotion to the second-highest level of U18 women's hockey on the international stage, and my hope is that more programs begin looking at the women playing at the other divisions as potential recruits. There will always be Canadian and American girls who will be recruited, but those international roster spots should be used when it comes to growing the game.
The Danes are coming in international U18 women's hockey, and that's an exciting development when one talks about the growth of game.
There have been a slate of creative, fantistical names given to recent minor professional hockey teams, and some of these are good while others could use some tweaking. For every Savannah Ghost Pirates franchise, there's a Tahoe Knight Monsters franchise. Of course, we can chat about the Henderson Silver Knights, the Grand Rapids Griffins, and the Coachella Valley Firebirds as being more fantasy than real-life creatures, but today's announcement for the ECHL's 30th franchise might be the first one to involve statues.
Sticking with that theme of fantasy creatures, the new Greensboro, North Carolina franchise announced their team name today, and the Greensboro Gargoyles will break free from their perches atop buildings in the greater Greenboro area to hit the ice in the evenings! I'll be honest in saying that I don't know how many gargoyles are part of the Greensboro skyline, but gargoyles were normally seen on things like castle and cathedrals throughout history as people believed their presence would frighten away evil spirits. Thanks to the Disney cartoon, they have more heroic traits than being monsters, but the idea of the stone creatures coming to life as night falls is a far more recent development in the history of the gargoyle.
Gargoyles were originally designed in 13th-century French architecture as a means of removing water from roofs and flat surfaces before eavestroughs were a thing. The gargoyle was simply the architectural addition to the pipe or spout used for runoff of water, and they were a key addition to the Cathedral de Notre Dame where they not only hid the spouts where water was kept off the sides of the cathedral, but they were seen as creatures who prevented evil spirits from settling in the building. It should be noted that no two gargoyles are designed to be alike, giving each one its own unique look and "personality". Architecture is pretty cool!
Historical aspects aside, tonight's unveiling saw the newest team unveil its new colours as the Greensboro Gargoyles will wear Gargoyle Grape, Greensboro Gold and Midnight. I'm not a fan of naming colours like Victory Green and Gargoyle Grape, so we'll have to see what the Pantone colours turn out to be in the next few days. I like the wordmark seen below despite it feeling very Disney feel, and my hope is that it can be incorporated into the jersey in some way.
The logo, shown above, is cartoonish enough for a good mascot to be created from it, and there are enough elements to make the arena experience fun. I imagine Halloween games will kick things up a notch or two, but the potential for good merchandise and good concessions to be created from the name and logo is certainly there. According to the release, "[t]he logo was created by The Barn Creative" and the name was selected from "community input, including submissions from over 2,000 fans."
A quick reminder that Zawyer Sports & Entertainment own the team and will run the franchise, but it was announced today that the Spittin' Chiclets group - Paul Bissonnette, Ryan Whitney, Mike Grinnell, and Keith Yandle - have bought a portion of the ownership stake in the franchise. I'm not saying that this new part-ownership group will steer decisions made by Zawyer Sports & Entertainment, but expect the Gargoyles to get a lot of chatter on Spittin' Chiclets whenever those four can plug the franchise.
For those interested, the Gargoyles' website is already up, and the team store has limited offerings at this time for merchandise. Deposits for season tickets are already being accepted by the club as they look to fill the 22,000-seat First Horizon Coliseum in October.
I'll admit this name is growing on me after kicking it around for a few hours. I'm not sold on potential cheers suggested on Reddit that can urge the players on, but the imagery and the colours work well for hockey. The franchise now has nine months to get ready before the Gargoyles rise in Greensboro where we'll see if they fly high!
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