Honouring A Legend

It didn't take Sergei Fedorov very long to show the world that he was a good fit in the NHL after he scored on New Jersey's Sean Burke just 3:41 into the second period in an October 4, 1990 game. His debut didn't come with a win, though, as the Devils and Red Wings finished the game in the 3-3 tie, but that goal would be the first of 483 tallies he'd collect against NHL goalies. Announced today by the team, he'll see his number next to the player's number who set him up for that first goal up in the rafters of Little Caesars Arena after his famous #91 is retired by the Detroit Red Wings this season in January.

Along with his former Soviet linemates in Pavel Bure and Alexander Mogilny, these were the players for whom NHL teams had been waiting since seeing them dazzle crowds at the IIHF World Junior Championships. It was hard not to be excited when these three players finally were announced as part of NHL rosters wit Mogilny skated for the Sabres in 1989, Fedorov with the Red Wings in 1990, and Bure with the Canucks in 1991. Speed, skill, and scoring arrived from Mother Russia as the final decade of the 1900s began.

Fedorov scored more than point-per-game through his first six seasons in the NHL as he helped pull the Red Wings out of being a middling team to being a dynamic powerhouse. A pair of Stanley Cup victories in 1997 and 1998 followed his first major individual awards in 1994 when he won the Hart, Selke, and Pearson trophies. A second Selke would be earned as the league's top defensive forward in 1996 as his game at both ends of the ice improved greatly once Scotty Bowman arrived in 1994. Fedorov was becoming a superstar.

After that 1997 Stanley Cup victory where he had eight goals and 20 points in 20 playoff games, it was clear that the Detroit Red Wings were going to have to pay a big salary to keep Fedorov in Red Wings' colours. After he signed an offer sheet with the Carolina Hurricanes for six years and $38 million, Detroit matched the offer and he remained as Red Wings centerman for the next six seasons, helping the team win the 1998 Stanley Cup and the 2002 Stanley Cup.

The irony of retiring Fedorov's number on Jaunary 12, 2026 is that the Carolina Hurricanes are the visitors at Little Caesars Arena that night, so this retirement ceremony might be a friendly jab at the Hurricanes franchise after they tried to grab one of the better centermen in the NHL via an offer sheet in 1997. Who says NHL owners can't have fun?

"I'm extremely grateful for this tremendous honor," Fedorov said in a statement. "Thank you to everyone with the Red Wings organization, especially those who helped bring me to Detroit and gave me the chance to play for such a historic franchise. I was fortunate to be part of some unforgettable teams, and above all, I'm proud of the three Stanley Cup championships we won for our amazing fans in Hockeytown. The memories made along the way - with legendary teammates, coaches, and exceptional ownership - will stay with me forever. Lastly, I want to thank Chris Ilitch for the call yesterday to share the news about retiring my number. It's a moment I'll always cherish. I can't wait to see everyone in January."

It feels like honouring Fedorov should have come sooner, but better late than never, right? One of Detroit's best players in he history of the franchise and certainly one of the main cogs in winning three Stanley Cups within a decade should be honoured beside the other two men who did the same thing in Nicklas Lidstrom and Steve Yzerman. That will finally happen on January 12 this season as Fedorov will be in Motor City for that once-in-a-lifetime honour.

And just in case you want to see that first goal, here it is.


Congratulations to Sergei Fedorov on this honour, and kudos to the Detroit Red Wings for celebrating one of the franchise's best players!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Everyone's Got A Price?

It's hard to imagine that Soviet hockey in the 1980s was anything but dominant. They won games in bunches, brought home all sorts of hardware, and were celebrated as heroes by the Soviet people due to all their successes. As we know, though, the Iron Curtain wasn't a prison with Sergei Pryakhin joining the Calgary Flames in 1989, and we'd see defections and legal player transfers follow in the years that followed with some players receiving big contracts to play in the NHL. The "western" influence on Russia would also see the 1987 Soviet Union national team do something it had never done before.

We know international tournaments often have sponsor advertising on players' jerseys as part of the sponsorship deal they sign with those respective tournaments. The Soviets had worn these types of advertisements in games before as mandated by the tournament, but the team itself had never received sponsor money from an individual company that only had the Soviets wear its name or logo. That changed on April 5 and 6, 1987 when the Soviets played a two-game exhibition series in Stockholm against Team Sweden in preparation for the 1987 IIHF World Ice Hockey Championship.

Here's the news clipping from The Brandon Sun on April 9.

Advertising on European teams is nothing news, but the state-funded Soviet team had never been billboards for any company, let alone "a Swedish computer firm". Obviously, there are questions that need answers here in order to make the stry complete, so let's take a deep dive into Team Soviet Union's first foray into the world of advertising.

According to the Los Angeles Times on April 19, "[t]he Soviets surprised the television audience during two friendly ice hockey matches in Sweden April 5-6 when their ususally [sic] all-red outfit had a white patch on the back saying 'WM Data.'" WM Data was founded by Thord Wilkne and Hans Mellström in Stokholm, Sweden in 1969 before being acquired by Logica PLC in 2006. It seems they're more than just a "Swedish compuer firm" as they expanded into a vast number of industries by offering IT-related services to banking, telecommunications, and data centers. In 1987, WM Data may have been less, but I'd guess they were still focused on IT-related services.

That answers the "who" part of "who sponsored the Soviets".

According to the Los Angeles Times article once again, "[t]he Scandinavian data consultancy company, WM Data, paid 100,000 Swedish kronor (less than $16,000) for the two matches." That seems like a pretty low sum of money for a team that normally carried 20 players, coaches, and team staff, but Per-Olov Wester, the Swedish public relations agent who signed the sponsorship deal between WM Data and the Soviets, said the Soviets weren't in it for the money.

"The Russians don't need sponsor money," Wester told United Press International. "But the opponents wear ads on their jerseys and the Russians want to look like they do."

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it seems the Soviets craved Europe's advertising patches more than they wanted money. With each player and staff member splitting that less-than-$16,000 among them after the Soviet government took it's cut, there wouldn't be a lot of Swedish meatballs going home with the players.

Kristian Gerner, a Swedish expert on the Soviet Union, told United Press International, "They used to fight everything Western, but it has changed totally in the last two years, coinciding with the Gorbachev years. They first learned to understand our way of living and that was new. But the big difference is that they now try to act like us."

As we know, the Soviet Union formally dissolved on December 26, 1991. However, there had been growing protests in the years leading up to the dissolution of the country as Soviet citizens looked outside their country and saw the wealth and riches that the rest of the world was accumulating. Hockey players weren't immune to this reality as they travelled to European countries for games and tournaments, and rumblings about defections began to swirl at every tournament. That western influence was certainly setting in with the Soviet hockey team, and the advertisements on their jerseys in Stockholm might have been the first metaphorical domino to fall.

"It seems like they have decided that if you can't beat them," Gerner added, "join them."

Obviously, the history that followed wasn't borne out of the Soviet hockey team wearing advertisements as the political and cultural changes within the republic eventually forced the dissolution of the Soviet Union. If Miss Gerner's assessment about the Soviets in 1987 was accurate, it sounds like the Soviet team simply was ahead of their countrymen when presented with a "western" opportunity.

As stated, it wasn't about money when it came to this sponsorship. Instead, it was about fitting into a changing world.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

A Circus Bumped By The Circus

The World Hockey Association had many stories of franchises who got in over their heads when it came to finances and running up debts, but the New York Raiders were supposed to be that one team who was going to be a cornerstone of the WHA. With the team aiming to move into Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Long Island, it seemed like they could have been the major hockey competition to the NHL's New York Rangers had things turned up favorably for the Raiders. Instead, things continually went sideways for the Raiders, from 1972 second-overall pick Al Sims signing with the Boston Bruins to original owner Neil Shayne selling shares of ownership to Richard Wood and Sy Siegel only to have all three run into financial problems. With the Raiders on perilous financial ground, the final blow almost came from the annual Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus show in New York.

As you can see on the ticket above, the Raiders played games at Madison Square Garden. Madison Square Garden was the home of the New York Rangers, and it wasn't a secret that the NHL and the WHA weren't exactly friendly. The Raiders originally tried to secure an arena lease with Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, but Nassau County didn't view the WHA as a professional hockey league so they denied the Raiders from acquiring a lease to play at the arena that would compete with the expansion New York Islanders of the NHL. As such, the Raiders were forced to make a deal with Madison Square Garden, and let's just say that the costs for that ice rental were astronomical.

With the aforementioned Shayne, Wood, and Siegel running into money issues, the WHA assumed control of the team midway through the season. The league's takeover of the team didn't help the squad attract more fans or add more talent, and the Raiders wallowed near the bottom of the standings for the entire season. The team, though, continued to play hard and found itself in a four-way battle for the final two playoff spots. With their focus on making the playoffs, the Raiders found out in March that their home games wouldn't actually be played at Madison Square Garden if they made the playoffs.

Somehow, the contract that the Raiders signed with Madison Square Garden didn't include dates or scheduling for playoff dates. That posed a major problem as the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was scheduled to set up their production in Madison Square Garden from March 27 through to May 28 from this billboard according to the Facebook post. Outside of Knicks and Rangers games, the circus officially became third in line for dates at Madison Square Garden. This, of course, left the Raiders scrambling.

to host it On March 24, 1973, the Winnipeg Free Press reported that the New York Raiders had reached an agreement with an arena to host its playoff games. The catch? The arena still didn't want them.

According to the article, if the Raiders made the playoffs, they'd only get one round of hockey at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum after both sides settled out-of-court following the Raiders' lawsuit against Nassau County. They couldn't go back to Madison Square Garden, so the New York Raiders were metaphorically flying by the seats of their pants when it came to playoff scheduling and home playoff games.

In the end, none of it mattered as the New York Raiders finished last in the six-team WHA Eastern Division, missing the playoffs by six points. Over the summer, Ralph Brent purchased the Raiders franchise from the WHA and renamed the team the New York Golden Blades. Brent quickly found out that the lease at Madison Square Garden was an anchor, and he also relinquished the franchise back to the WHA who moved them to Cherry Hill, New Jersey with help from Jack Maxwell. From there, the newly-named Jersey Knights would miss the playoffs once again in 1973-74, and the team would be relocated to San Diego. The WHA's New York circus was over.

I find it baffling that Neil Shayne would forget to book playoff dates in his lease with Madison Square Garden only to lose any chance at playoff dates to the annual Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus event. It's hard to understand why the WHA, both before and upon taking over the team, wasn't more diligent in ensuring that its New York had playoff dates prior March 24, 1973. Whatever those reasons might be, it didn't really matter in both cases since the Raiders didn't need those dates anyway after they missed the playoffs in 1973.

It isn't often a circus of a hockey team is bumped from an arena by an actual circus, but that was the WHA in a nutshell in that first year.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Are The French Going U SPORTS?

While there may be U SPORTS teams in the province of Quebec that compete at a high level, it seems we could have French U SPORTS team, of sorts, playing in France this season. Les Rapaces de Gap are based in southeast France in the city of Gap in the prefecture of Hautes-Alpes, and the team plays in the Ligue Magnus in France. Based on its geography, the city experiences warm summers and cold, snowy winters, so the Canadian lads heading to the city to play hockey this season should feel right at home.

I don't usually talk about the Ligue Magnus as a place where former U SPORTS players land, but les Rapaces de Gap seem to be attracting some solid talent this season who have skated at the U SPORTS level. In seeing some of the landscape that Gap and other French cities have around the centers, it might be wise for more U SPORTS players to look to France as a great place to play and live. Whether it be Paris's upscale life, Grenoble's access to the Alps, Marseilles's location on the Mediterranean Sea, or Bordeaux's surrounding wine country, France offers a little of everything for those players who may want to play hockey while exploring the diverse French culture.

When it comes to the "Birds of Prey", though, Gap may have an insider when it comes to U SPORTS players. No less than three players with U SPORTS ties will suit up for Gap this season, and all of them have been involved in big games during their university careers. Two of them, in fact, played for a U Cup-winning team, so it seems Gap will have a couple of former U SPORTS champions on their roster!

We'll start with the player who has been out of school longest as former Calgary Dinos defender Ryan Gagnon will don a Rapaces jersey this season. The former WHL Victoria Royals defender played three seasons with the Dinos from 2017-22 before playing with both the Allen Americans and the Idaho Steelheads of the ECHL. Gagnon's best U SPORTS season came in his senior year when he scored 15 points in 18 games while being named to the U SPORTS All-Star team that played the 2021 Canadian World Junior team. He's a solid addition.

One of the two U Cup champions joining the Rapaces is former Ottawa Gee-Gees forward Mathieu Desgagnés. Desgagnés hit double-digits in goals in three of his four U SPORTS seasons after a solid junior career in the QMJHL with the Chicoutimi Sagueneens and the Acadie-Bathurst Titan. He only got into one U Cup game with the team last season, but it was a big one as Desgagnés recorded five shots in the 3-2 overtime victory over the top-ranked UNB Reds. Desgagnés should bring some decent scoring to Gap this season.

The second U Cup champion to land in Gap is former Ottawa Gee-Gees centerman Anthony Poulin. Known more for his playmaking, Poulin did light the lamp eleven times in 2023-24, but he was instrumental in helping Ottawa win U SPORTS's most important trophy as he had a pair of assists in the game against UNB while playing solid defensive hockey in all three games. His work with Ottawa helped him land a contract with the AHL's Laval Rocket where he skated in one game. If Poulin brings the same work ethic and hustle he showed in Ottawa, he'll make a difference with les Rapaces!

It should be noted that Gap is basically overhauling their entire roster. They signed 18 new players this season as the team looks to improve on the 15-24-5 record they posted last season while finishing in 11th-place out of 12 teams. Gap hasn't finished higher than 11th in the last two seasons after they finished in fifth-place in 2023, so this appears to be a complete overhaul from Marton Vas's team last season after he was fired midseason, leaving assistant coaches Sébastien Rohat and Mickaël Perez to complete the season.

Luciano Basile will return to coach Gap this season after having been the head coach from 2014-19 where he guided les Rapaces to two Coupe Magnus titles in 2015 and 2017 as well as earning the Camil Gélinas trophy for best coach in 2015. Basile also spent time with the Briançon Red Devils where he added a French championship 2014, a Coupe de France in 2013, and three more Camil Gélinas trophy honours in 2009, 2010, and 2013. Clearly, les Rapaces are getting a top-notch coach this season when it comes to French hockey!

No one should be awarding les Rapaces with anything at this point in the summer as they were nearly relegated in the past two seasons, so major changes were needed if they are going to climb the Ligue Magnus standings. Basile, who remains as the sporting manager, will now put the team's fortunes squarely on his shoulders as he's putting together a new team compared to last season's roster. The additions of Gagnon, Desgagnés, and Poulin should help Gap in their efforts to reclaim their spot among the top teams with leading scorers Chad Langley and Dmitri Thillet and goaltender Antoine Gilbert all returning for another season. Perhaps the Birds of Prey will soar!

It should be noted that les Aigles de Nice also dipped into the U SPORTS pool as they signed former U Cup champion and Ottawa Gee-Gees forward Charles-Antoine Roy as well as former McGill Redbirds goaltender Alexis Shank. Les Dragons de Rouen grabbed high-scoring, former UQTR Patriotes forward Simon Lafrance while les Boxers de Bordeaux added former UQTR forward Pier-Olivier Morin. Perhaps with the upcoming expansion of U SPORTS hockey in Quebec, we'll see more U SPORTS players opting for a professional career in France!

The Ligue Magnus may not have the same elite status as the EIHL, the SHL, the DEL, or the Swiss League, but France is showing that they can attract good talent with a number of U SPORTS National Champions and All-Stars making the jump to the professional ranks. And, if things go well, a handful of these player may represent France on international stage one day. C'est vraiment possible!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Prototypes Aren't Final Designs

I'm not one to criticize anyone's designs since my artistic abilities are limited to stickpeople and colouring books. I will fully admit that the people who design logos are incredibly talented, but those who often design jerseys seem to lose their way when it comes to capturing a team's identity. It's no secret that there were a lot of less-than-impressive designs when Reebok took over the league-wide NHL jersey contract, but seeing some of the prototypes for what could have been often has me shaking my head. While there's nothing particularly wrong with these designs, there's nothing that makes them good or impressionable either. Thanks to a Twitter account, we got to see a Vancouver Canucks prototype that's... something else.

Full marks goes out to the Vancouver Canucks History Twitter account who, on Tuesday, decided to drop these beauties on social media.

These two prototype images were taken from the SportsLogos.Net Forums who had posted them from a Worthpoint auction listing, but let's just jump into this and say that I'm fairly happy that these never saw the lights of an NHL arena. They do have a little of the colour scheme that 1997-2001 Canucks were using, but let's call a spade "a spade" and say these are pretty terrible in design and execution.

Again, these are prototypes, though, so seeing the Canucks trying to resurrect the red-silver-and-blue scheme while sporting zero green should be considered a crime. The Canucks started as a green-and-blue team, so that's part of their history that shouldn't be forgotten. I realize that the Canucks wore red, yellow, and black for many years, but those colours should only be used if the skate logo is involved. Otherwise, stick to the original colours and wear them proudly.

It took them awhile to finally go back to their heritage colours full-time, but the return to the green-and-blue scheme in 2007-08 just looks better than all the other designs they've worn. Again, I like the skate logo being used as an alternate jersey because a lot of people in Vancouver and who are Canucks fans grew up with that look, but that green-and-blue look is uniquely Vancouver Canucks.

I'll say it again: prototypes are never final designs. In fact, a lot of designs are only steps in getting to a final design that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing. In Vancouver's case, it took them ten years to go from the red-yellow-black colour scheme to the green-and-blue colour scheme, so just remember that teams may wear more misses than hits when it comes to uniform designs.

Those prototypes above? Classify them as misses in the process.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!