Giving It To You Straight

This article contains no paragraphs of filler... besides this opening, I suppose. With the off-season being so slow for hockey, I understand that people are taking vacations and some time away from the game to compose themselves for the 2009-10 NHL/AHL/ECHL/WhateverHL season they're following. However, the lean times are often when some of the best writing comes out, so I want to draw some attention to a few articles that I've read recently. So this article comes straight down the pipe at you. It's a point blank look at the sites I stop at because of the writers who are working overtime this summer. I'll have some news mixed in these articles, so we'll see you at the end.

• Puck Daddy's Greg Wyshynski had his radio on today, listening to Wayne Gretzky talk about how he'd like to see the Coyotes built into a team in the same way that Pittsburgh has built their team. While I admire Gretzky's idea, there are serious flaws with his dream. The biggest one is believing that NOT having a downtown arena in a major city is a good idea.
  
• Adam Proteau of The Hockey News brings an interesting perspective to the forefront in the examination of the cliché. Pretty funny, and it certainly calls Brian Burke's vocabulary at press conferences into question.
• Paul Lukas of UniWatch Blog discovers the NHL Patches site, and falls in love with the database. While I'm not removing Paul from any Christmas card list because he's a solid dude, I will say that the author of the NHL Patches site and I have discussed patches via email. The result? He's a great guy, runs a fabulous site, and it really deserves to be linked to every blog out there as a reference source.
• Strange and unsettling news coming out of America where the American Needle clothing manufacturing company is taking the NFL to the US Supreme Court. ESPN's Lester Munson has written, in my opinion, one of the best articles of the summer - maybe even the year - in regards to the future of sports as we know it if the NFL is allowed to circumvent the anti-trust rules in the US. And to think that this all started over American Needle's claim that the NFL was preventing them from making more money by operating as a single entity. Now, American Needle's claim could essentially shift the balance of sports in an unrepairable manner of the NFL wins. Cross your fingers, kids. This fight could affect us all in ways you can't even imagine.
• To the bloggers on my drop-down list on the right: you have until Saturday to post something. If there has been nothing written within a month, you're taking up space. Sorry to those who do get deleted, but if you can't post anything in 30 days, you're not helping hockey's new media effort, nor are you giving me anything to read.
  
• My test load of laundry using the new WIN High Performance Sport Detergent was fairly successful. All my clothes came out smelling good, and none had any noticeable marks or stains on them. I'll be doing the major tests this weekend. Get ready for grass stains, mud, various sports drink stains, and me sweating it up in the heat for some serious odor. Ok, you don't have to put up with any of that. That would be bad. But the shirts will, and they'll get run through the WIN High Performance Test... as conducted by moi.

There are a few things that are keeping me occupied today and, with the laundry tests, for the weekend. If you want to see me add anything to the tests, hit me up in the comments. Basically, I was looking for common sports situations that clothes get involved with, so don't come up with motor oil or something. It has to be a sports-related situation. Ok? Ok.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!