The Seven Days of Scary continues today, and this article could simply be about last night's Toronto Maple Leafs-Anaheim Ducks game. Toronto won for the first time this season, and Anaheim looked like they had no clue what the object of the game was. Officially, the Leafs are now 79 points away from beating their point total from last year. As you may have read on this very site, if they get more than 81 points this season, I'll raffle off one of these. They have 73 games remaining. Mathematically, it is easily possible, but realism says differently. Keep your eyes on the Leafs, kids. It could mean a new Maple Leafs jersey for someone if they can pull off the seemingly impossible. Here is Three of our Seven Days of Scary.THUNDEROUS HIT
Last year's Western Conference Final is still a bit of a sore subject with Red Wings fans. Niklas Kronwall seeks and destroys Chicago's Martin Havlat, leaving Havlat out cold on the ice. And most likely seeing stars. Was it worth a five-minute major and a game misconduct?
SCARY UNIFORM
Hockey jerseys are supposed to evoke fear and intimidation in the opposing team. The logo is supposed to be fierce and aggressive. The jersey colours are supposed to be bold. When you mix those elements together, you usually come up with a great looking uniform. The AHL Cleveland Barons from their first incarnation were opposite of both of these.
The logo looks like Mr. Moneybags' skinny, shaven brother. Mr. Moneybags is not fierce or aggressive. And while the jersey colours are great together, they don't invoke a lot of fear. It's just blue and white. So there is your un-scary Halloween hockey costume: the Cleveland Barons.
BLOODY FIGHTS
This fight doesn't have a lot of blood spillage in it, but two legitimate heavyweights in Minnesota's Link Gaetz and Detroit's Joey Kocur throw bombs at one another. It is widely known in hockey circles that Joey Kocur threw the hardest punches out of all the enforcers during his time in the NHL. Gaetz's face is slightly cut at the end of this, but watch the power that Kocur throws his punches with. Very scary.
We have two days of scary stuff to go. Keep your eyes on this site as we progress towards Halloween. All Hallow's Eve will have a special post, and October 30 will feature something unique as well!
Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!
first of all, anyone who thought that was interference doesn't know hockey. Anyone who thought that was a dirty hit and worth five minutes, doesn't know hockey. The puck was in Havlats skates. Does the NHL want it to become womens hockey where there is no contact allowed?
ReplyDeleteGood clean hit. Kinda what the NHL used to be like... when men played the game.
I wouldn't go so far as to say women's hockey. Maybe more like soccer on ice. Hit looked clean to me. A dirty hit would be something like what Dave Brown did to Tomas Sandstrom (Brownie was my favorite player when I was a kid...I still wear the "21" on my sweater).
ReplyDeleteIf this were 80's NHL, after that hit he would be taking punches from Behn Wilson. I suppose Enforces kept the game a bit cleaner back then (and a hell of a lot more entertaining...not for nothing, but they did call it the Chuck Norris Division).
Kudos for the Kocur pick. Easily top 15 if not top 10 NHL fighters of all time in my book (some embarrassing losses against Uwe Krupp and Vladimir Malakohv of all people...but hey, we all have off-days at work). There were rumors that while he was in Juniors, he punched a guy so hard he cracked open the guy's helmet. Single-handedly ended Jim Playfair's AHL career with a devastating KO (I hear that a lot of people confuse that video clip with Larry Playfair who was a top NHL heavy weight in my opinion).
Gaetz on the other hand was pure crazy (Sasha Lakovic or Kerry Toporowski crazy). There are some unbelievable stories while he played for the K-Wings. I've seen very little footage of his minor league bouts, but there are some nutty stories that make him out to be a mental case on and off the ice (not sure if they are all true).