What season is this?

So at the Isles' site, Chris Botta mentions how Wes O'Neill probably isn't getting signed. Well, if he's gonna say it... What's gone around quietly here is that the Isles would give him an AHL deal to try him out, but they don't think he's quick enough.

Just so you all know where my head is: Today, I wrote up the Fairfield Prep lacrosse game and talked about a player knocking his opponent "off the puck." Oops. At least Gino caught it.

Prep coach Chris Smalkais is a huge hockey fan. Before the game, I was checking rosters, and he walked past and told me not to write any bad stories about the Senators. One of his fervent hopes is that we'd do more with Shaun Hannah's Sacred Heart Pioneers.

Calder Cup Final begins Friday night in Hershey.

And please check out John's comment on yesterday's post, if you haven't already.

Edit: Lance Galbraith and Idaho are your Kelly Cup champs.

Is he strong? Listen, bud...

In honor of Guillermo Mota's return from performance-enhanced exile, I'm going on steroids. My mometazone was prescribed, though. Doc says that "spider bite" of mine, from the colo(u)r and the shape* of it, may just be a reaction to something. Or it may be a spider bite. We'll see. Meanwhile, I expect to become a home-run hitter shortly. Or so the hysteria tells me**.

Anyway, contain your excitement over the Bridgeport schedule format, which had all of one huge change: drop two games with Providence, add them to Portland. Great: another 200-something miles or a hotel stay. That'll go over great with the bean counters. On the other hand, still no one from the West, not even Syracuse again, and the Sound Tigers still haven't been to Rochester since Game One. Don't tell the boss, but I'd probably chip in to make a Midwest road trip. Got a couch I can use in Joliet, after all.

(Speaking of whom, I just noticed tonight that one of my brother's old sticks, received as a Christmas gift from a cousin in 2001 or '02, is a Daniel Tkaczuk pattern. Of all people.)

Hartford skips Wilkes-Barre and, again, Binghamton, but the Pack actually gets some variety: Hamilton, Syracuse, Toronto, Houston and San Antonio.

The Eastern Conference alignment is identical to last year's. QC stays in Omaha's spot; drop Rockford into the West and Cleveland into the North.

Here's Kohn, officially.

Oh -- the other thing I meant to mention last night was that the Sound Tigers are taking applications for their fan advisory board, if you're interested. Send an e-mail by June 15 to fanboard@soundtigers.com saying 1) why you're applying and 2) "a brief description of how you think the team can improve in any one aspect." (Don't pick the power play. That job's taken.) You can snail-mail it to the team, too.

Had to kill 20 minutes at Walgreens while I waited for my 'roids today. Some thoughts from walking around:

--Ever since spending time with the Cobys for that big autos story last week, I've had this weird urge to build a model car. Looked around, but no dice. This may take a special trip. And some free time.

--They were piping '60s music over the PA. Have I ever mentioned my position that the Mamas and the Papas' "I Saw Her Again" is the best pop song ever? If not, there 'tis.

--Rather limited magazine selection, but one of the celebrity mags declared that "Shiloh was no accident!" Choose your own adventure: a) Of course not; it was a surprise attack; b) Of course not; Neil Diamond is a pop genius.

*-Foo Fighters: Given the steady quality of the radio hits, underrated or not?
**-Or, also in honor of Guillermo Mota, maybe I'll just try to throw fastballs past people when it's obvious they can't handle my changeup***.
***-Bitter much?

...and pretty things

You have got to love it, I'm sure, when a kid's junior team announces your signings for you. Regardless, Dustin Kohn is "in the fold," as a confirming source said; the signing team will probably announce it Wednesday. The timing doesn't seem to have anything to do with the announcement that Mike Milbury will no longer be day to day with the Islanders, but who knows. Kohn was the draft pick they had to get done. He'll play a ton in the fall and beyond.

Around the horn: The Pack live. The new Civic Center management types will run the front office, while MSG will run the hockey. Former Pens and Devils coach is the new Houston boss. The Forechecker has some salient points on the NHLPA e-mail spying scandal, which might be one of the weirdest things ever.

Had something else in the middle here, but the computer crashed between saves. (And this is the Incredible Fighting Home Compy, not Incredible Crashing Work Computer.)

Long day covering track at Willow Brook Park. (It seems wrong that I've talked to Ashley Matakevich twice more in the past eight days than I've spoken to Mark Wotton in the past 43, but it's true.) WBP is a pretty solid facility for track; you climb up the 60 stairs (really, I counted once or twice or 10 times), and there's a sizeable press box with power and phone lines. Who needs more?

Well, today, for no obvious reason, the CIAC had New Britain parks and rec keep the press box locked. Fortunately, I found a power outlet on the side of the structure under the press box, so I sat there among the ants and those weird-looking red bugs that explode in a fiery splash when you touch 'em, and I typed up my agate. And fortunately, a couple of maintenance guys took pity and let me into an office to send my story. And fortunately, no Rock Cats or Rock Cats opponents had homered into my windshield, 'cause they made us park behind the outfield at the new ballpark.

Do you care? No, I'm sure. But Tim Hortons was still open on the way home...

I almost went to wamazon.com earlier. (Afraid to do so now, just in case it's weird stuff that makes your computer crash -- again.) I blame it on the track stuff. And this weird spider bite that's changing color. (Just in case, I love you all.)

Back on track

Kip Brennan is out for the playoffs after that altercation with a fan. Thanks to Stan for finding the clip.

Hartford has sent a press release announcing a press conference about the Pack. Hmm... I'll bet "staying."

Good on Don Maloney for getting another shot at running a show, now in Phoenix. He did good things for the Rangers this past decade.

For Memorial Day, an interesting piece from the Wall Street Journal's online wing about Medal of Honor recipients.

Got us a matchup...

Hershey (no surprise at all) and Hamilton (a shocker, at least from way afar) will meet for the Calder Cup. Both finished off the series with a 3-1 win (both with an empty-netter, too), and both winning goalies took first-star honors. The final starts Friday-Saturday in the Land of Chocolate.

And since it's been a while -- what, a week? -- since we had a Steve Richmond reference, sportsagentblog.com has this Danny Richmond interview.

At the count of one...

Chicago stayed alive, apparently; it's still an unofficial final, 70 minutes after the game apparently ended. Niko Dimitrakos had the only goal and Freddie Brathwaite made some 37 saves.

Thanks to the anonymous commenter earlier, who noted this Kip Brennan incident in Wednesday's Game 3 between Hershey and Manchester. No YouTube... yet.

Steve Stirling feature in the Virginian-Pilot.

Rockford won the Colonial Cup in a last UHL hurrah.

Finished my second long story of the summer today: a week with an auto racing team. Most of what I know about cars, I learned from the Beach Boys. That's about the only reason a "pressure plate" reference didn't fly over my head.

Bouncing around

Andrew MacDonald is in the fold officially.

Omaha to Moline is done; welcome the Quad City Flames. (Maybe. Someday. We never saw Omaha come play the Sound Tigers, so why do I get the feeling that the only way we see Moline is to drive out I-80 from Joliet?)

Albany will have Tom Rowe for a while, and Geordie Kinnear will be his assistant.

Tampa Bay wins the award for the funkiest press release ever while firing an assistant (associate, anyway) coach.

Northwestern Creole French, as perhaps spoken in...

Utah*? Here's what supposedly makes this better than Pensacola: Quality of the franchise (The E Center, stronger operation); direct flights; later direct flights, which makes it easier to get guys in on short notice. It's not optimal -- there's buzz about the Islanders looking for an ECHL franchise of their own, possibly for Suffolk County, down the road, and they'd certainly have a closer affiliate if there were a spot open -- but that's what it is for this year.

Both conference finals down here are 3-0, with Hershey beating Manchester 4-1 and Hamilton winning 2-1 on goals by Stortini and Locke... Locke? How crazy was Lost? Yeesh. Anyway.

Other stuff: The BST ambassador program is up and running; apply at the link if interested. Barrett Heisten retires. It's been swell, Nashville. And my RSS reader always finds this place (name withheld) that compiles other news sources, similar to OurSportsCentral. This place (not OSC, to be clear) headlined the Bingham release with "Garth Snow named Bridgeport Sound Tigers assistant coach." That would be different.

*-Nick Reynolds**
**-Probably the biggest upset in almost two years on the blog is the lack of Kingston Trio references.

Wherefore art thou Bentivoglio?

Sean Bentivoglio has signed a three-year deal with the Islanders, the big club announced. (IHDB). He was clutch with Providence after signing an ATO out of Niagara; I had him first star in the game here April 6, when he was 1-2-3 and was stopped on a breakaway.

Meet the new boss...

Pat's back. He worked hard to get to this level once, and though he couldn't have asked for a better situation than Fort Wayne at a lower level, he's pretty excited to come back. I'm glad, too, 'cause Pat's fun to talk hockey with. That completes the staff. So who's ready for hockey?

On the fifth anniversary of Louie DeBrusk's (Louie DeBrusk's?) overtime goal in Game 6, Hamilton won again in OT, on a Michael Lambert goal, to take a 2-0 lead back to Hamilton. Eric Manlow assisted on the winner. Hershey won 4-1 and took a 2-0 lead as Mike Green scored twice.

Patrick Williams has been all over All Things Lowell this week, including today, as the Sun overviews the mess.

What's a "clutch"?

The short version after a week on assignment(s) (where sometimes it rains):

The other assistant coach will be in the paper in the morning. Feels like a good move for both sides, albeit an interesting one.

Dieter Kochan will be an assistant coach with the junior-A Marquette Rangers, The Mining Journal says. Islanders assistant Danny Flynn is going back to be the Moncton Wildcats' head coach. Kenny Morrow is sticking around.

Hartford should live, but there are two other teams that also need more time to firm up next year. Several reports have Omaha moving to Quad Cities. Meeting adjourned to Friday. (Quad Cities would be interesting. The rink needs some work to bring it up to AHL specs, but it looks OK from the outside -- drove to Moline during one trip to visit The Little Punk in Illinois. And then once I was in Moline, heck, I had to cross the Mississippi. Spent about 30 seconds in Iowa...)

I was gonna mention how Dave Steckel is a pretty good player, but then pretty much every other Bears player got in the act, too. Hershey's got a lead. And Louis Robitaille got dinged for diving in the last minute: Fill in your own punchline. Hamilton blew a lead Friday, then came back twice to get the lead on Chicago on Dan Jancevski's overtime winner. Garry McKay says Eric Manlow has come back from an awful and out-of-shape start. Geoff Ward is Springfield's coach.

I love the Triple Crown, but NBC's switching from Buffalo-Ottawa to an extended Preakness preview was pretty depressing.

The dark is afraid of Endy Chavez.

Willie Randolph gave the commencement speech at Fordham this morning. Vin Scully was the speaker in 2000, so that's at least two pretty solid choices in eight years. (My brother gets a Hall-of-Fame broadcaster; I got the university president at the university commencement and some depressing, preachy sociologist in the rain at class day. Exciting times. Thank goodness for Marcellus Wiley shooting the silly string all over everyone.)

Found this knocking around YouTube. The 12 guys on the ice are Steve Patrick, Mike Rogers, Tomas Sandstrom, Steve Richmond, James Patrick and John Vanbiesbrouck vs. Clark Gillies, Bryan Trottier, Duane Sutter, Stefan Persson, Paul Boutilier and Kelly Hrudey. If it is 1985-86, Hrudey's hockeygoalies.org bio makes it Dec. 20, 1985 -- and it thus would've been the last game as Rangers for both Rogers (traded that day for Larry Melnyk) and Danny's father. I'll do some research.

Around the horn

Bridgeport has a new equipment manager, and it's Mike Burkhead, formerly with Columbia (ECHL). Light reading: Bridgeport's release, Columbia's release and its bio.

The Isles profile Jeff Tambellini on the road.

The conference finals are set: Manchester moved on, and Hamilton finished off Manitoba in overtime on Eric Manlow's second goal of the night. The next round's schedules are up on the schedule page; the West begins Friday, and the East starts Saturday at Hershey.

It's upfronts week in TV. The National Broadcasting Company kicked it off. Honestly, except for Heroes and Thursday nights and the odd Giants game, I'm not on Ch. 4 that often. On paper, I don't see anything to change that.

Speaking of television, is it wrong that, when I hear Derek Roy's name, I think of this guy?* And Filip Bondy wonders why nobody covers the Jersey mob on television.

*-No, really, don't click on ANY of those sounds!**
**-Except maybe 2 (probably NSFW), 9, 12, 19.

Breaking the trend

Hamilton became the first home team to win in the North Division Final and takes a 3-2 lead back to Winnipeg. (Ajay Baines got an empty-netter, they say, at 20:00 of the third, which seems very weird to me -- it's 19:59, or it's not. But anyway.) They waste no time: Game 6 is Monday, and Game 7 would be Wednesday. (It's the same in the Atlantic Division, the only other series going.)

So the Finns tried to make it a game at the end, but Tournament MVP Rick Nash's second goal finished it off as Canada won gold for the third time in five years. Bergenheim was minus-1. Russia got out quickly and took the bronze. The old Tigers did little that appeared on the scoresheet. Here's the final rankings.

And happy Mother's Day, if you're a mom.

Capuano feature: DVD Extras

Well, 35 inches seems like a lot until you talk to seven or eight people and have all kinds of stuff sitting on the cutting-room floor. Here's some of the the deleted scenes:

--I asked everyone for a Cappy story. Only one person said "nothing printable." (And he was kidding.) Howard Saffan had two, the one that was in there and this one: "He's the most superstitious person I've ever met in my life, to the point of which everything must be the same as the prior night if they won, everything, you name it. The time he drinks his coffee, if he's wearing a headset or if he's not wearing a headset, if he's wearing a certain tie, everything."

--He studied business and physical education at Maine before leaving with a year and change to go for his degree.

--I had a whole section planned about his influences. Then I realized 35 inches wasn't as long as I thought. Here's the raw material of that section:

From Cranston East, where he played for Rhode Island legend Dick Ernst, Capuano went to Kent when he was 15, playing hockey under Tom Army as well as football and baseball. He played three years at Maine under the late Shawn Walsh and assistant coach Jay Leach before turning pro.

Walsh and Leach:
"You watch and learn their focus, their intensity, their preparation, strength and conditioning, every little element they give you to try to become a better player," Capuano said.

"You hear guys that say a team plays with the personality of its coach," Capuano said, "but a lot of coaches didn't play. You always take a little bit of everyone you have. The communication factor."

"Over the years, the way I played as an offensive defenseman: Do I want all my defensemen to jump up in the play? I think D jumping up into the play is something you'll see from our team," Capuano said. "I think sometimes it's a (defensive) deficiency of a forward, he loses the responsibility of his player. That's the way I played. I do want to see that. We'll see our D jump up. We've got some good young prospects, (Drew) Fata, (Dustin) Kohn I think will be here next year, Jamie Fraser.

"The new NHL, the way it is now, there's a lot of four-man attacks," Capuano said. "That's my philosophy. I don't want to take away from our defense, but the best defense gives good offense as well."

--On the "change" at New Year's: "Anybody who knows me (knows) I just try to come to work every day and do the best job I can do," Capuano said. "They asked me to change a little bit of the roles and responsibilities, to change the voice a little bit. Danny took over the (defense and penalty killing), I took over the power play. It was a job they asked us to do, and we did it."

--A bit more from Snow on the choice: "He's been successful wherever he's been, as a coach or a GM. He's earned his stripes," Snow said. "I know the first half of the season, when he was predominately working with the penalty kill, it was No. 1 in the league, so he did a great job there. ... He's a perfect fit to help us develop players to come up and be Islanders."

--"The one thing about this profession, obviously, is to have a very supportive family, especially wife," Capuano said. "She's been a champ. She understands my love of the game, my love to teach and be around the sport of hockey. Without her, I don't even know if I'd be sitting here today."

--He was continually thankful to Wang, Milbury, Stirling, Snow, Saffan, for all the chances he's received the past two years with the Islanders organization.

--Wednesday, Capuano and Bernie Cassell were in Providence to watch the Bruins play Manchester. Thursday, he was looking for a place to watch the Ottawa-Buffalo game.

"If he's not at the rink working, he's sitting there watching a game at night, picking up the X's and O's of each team in the NHL," Cassell said.

--On being a GM in the Coast: "Any time, it's people skills and communication," Capuano said. "A lot of times you're dealing with agents, with players maybe in a little different capacity. You're even dealing with your staff. ... It's something I wanted to do to diversify myself. If I had to go back and do it all over again, I wouldn't change anything."

--A bit more from Steve Stirling on Capuano's early days on the Island: "First and foremost, I'm thrilled for him," Stirling said. "He's a quality individual and a good young coach with a bright future ahead of him. ...

"Behind closed doors, with the coaching staff, he felt a little behind. He shouldn't have," Stirling said. "I think he felt, 'I'll be respectful.'

"Finally at Christmastime I pulled him aside and said, Cappy, it's been three months, and you have too much to offer. He proved to everyone he had something to offer."

One game to go

Manitoba is really threatening to go all BPT-WBS last year and make it an all-road series. And of course the Moose hope that, if it does go seven that way, it stays to form and the home team wins Game 7. A couple of goals for Patrick O'Sullivan in a victory for Manchester, which takes a 3-2 edge into Monday's Game 6. Chicago finished off the Stars behind a coupla guys named Haydar and Krog.

Mikko Koivu scores in overtime to move the Finns past Russia (Sean Bergenheim gets a major and a game for kneeing Andrei Markov); then Canada roared out early and beat Sweden 4-1. These teams met for gold in 1994, the year before Finland won its only title.

It's Finland's seventh trip to the final since 1992; their only World Championship medal before that was thanks to their silver in the 1988 Olympics.

Weird Wired* Magazine has a piece about the guys who test baseballs for MLB and the stunningly loose specs under which they operate. (Hat tip: Phil Birnbaum at Sabermetric Research.) And series-leader Ray Emery, though not named, makes an appearance at the very bottom of the always-hilarious "Sic!" section of Michael Quinion's "World Wide Words" newsletter this week. (Subscribe, even if you do it just for the "Sic!" section. It's good stuff.)

*-"There's no magazine called 'Weird,' is there?" (AABF20)

You never forget... I hope

I'm in the middle of what I've been calling my longest story since college. It's probably just my longest story in seven years. But still. You get used to saying what you need in 12-14 inches (500 or so words), and spewing 35 becomes a little tricky.

Anyway, Nygel Pelletier assessed something like 72 power plays (23, whatever), including four in the first five minutes of overtime, and that's how Hershey finished off the Penguins tonight. John Walton got through the goal and the series being done and then spent the next minute or so describing how Wade Skolney and Dennis Bonvie were going after Pelletier. "One of the more bizarrely officiated games in the history of hockey," Walton said to begin the postgame show. Alex Giroux scored his second overtime goal of the series on the Bears' second five-on-three of overtime. That's right, their second five-on-three of overtime. Hmm. Both teams had a short-hander. Scott Barney had three goals for the Bears, and Tomas Fleischmann had five points. Marc-Antoine Pouliot had three points for the Pens. And Hershey is the first team through, but it won't know its opponent until Monday or Wednesday.

Hartford seems likely to be back, Bruce Berlet reports. Meanwhile, Callahan didn't play in Russia yesterday because his gear didn't make it to Moscow, reports the Rochester D&C.

From the Toronto Sun, Bryan McCabe reacts to the Ted Saskin canning.

This popped up on eBay: a 1976-77 New Haven Nighthawks season ticket flyer. That opening bid seems a bit steep, but then again, I'm cheap.

The list of what I don't get about the NBA is surely longer than the list of what I get, but somewhere atop that list is the league's association's penchant for leaking awards winners.

Oh shoot

So the United States falls in a shootout, and Finland moves on to play Russia in the semifinals. (No shootout rant today. It'll just sound jingoistic, and besides, it's not nearly as offensive in an international quarterfinal*. But let's see if Jere Lehtinen gets himself a stamp.) Former Fairfield Minuteman editor and Sound Tigers PR man Andy Hutchison scored the tying power-play goal. (Who? Carolina? No, I don't buy that.) Looks like the U.S. finishes fifth, its best finish since the bronze in 2004. Ryan Callahan went over there for the game, but he didn't play. That's a long trip just to turn around. (Hope he gets the frequent-flyer miles.) The Rangers also said Fedor Tyutin could play for Russia in the semis. Canada methodically beat up on the Swiss and gets Sweden next.

One interesting thing learned today while working on something else: It's likely the Sound Tigers will bring in just one more assistant to go with Bernie Cassell under Jack Capuano. Howard Saffan last week said the Islanders had approved a third assistant if Capuano wanted one.

A tale of two franchises: Dave Baseggio's contract extension in Peoria became official today. (Dave Eminian had it last week.)

Update: Iowa stayed alive.

*-And yes, that last statement itself makes me either hypocritical or jingoistic...

Hip and happenings

Been waiting on some details on this, but Masi Marjamaki had hip surgery last week. He'd had occasional soreness for a while and had seemed to respond to treatment, but at the end-of-season physical, they decided to go with the MRI and found some trouble. The surgery was apparently done by the same doctor who did DiPietro's, and the hope is that Marjamaki will be ready for the season. It could be longer. From just a couple of people, I've heard about four possibilities of where the injury came from, but that's the deal.

Also, Paul Camelio won't be back as equipment manager. He's looking for something closer to Rochester.

So LaBarbera lives, and so too do the Monarchs. Gabe Gauthier potted the winner in the first minute of the third. And the Pens live, because Kurtis McLean scored (after a call that Jonathan wonders about in his blog ) in the first minute of overtime to dodge the sweep.

Sweden came back from two early deficits and beat Slovakia 7-4. Some damage from two units and some trouble from the other two (including Tarnstrom's), from the looks of the box. Russia (Which now won't go in on the transfer agreement again) shut out the Czechs 4-0. Three goals in the third, and Grebeshkov had an assist. Russia will play the U.S.-Finland winner.

And jeez, how about Lost tonight?

Best. Bobblehead. Ever.

I'm debating whether Roy Oswalt, courtesy of commenter BCrisp at the Uni Watch Blog, should usurp Kashiwada on the desktop.*

Now that Wade Dubielewicz has an NHL gig, when is Scott Gordon getting one? The Bruins went ahead 2-1 in the series on T.J. Trevelyan's late power-play goal (two penalties in the last three minutes up there...) Jason LaBarbera missed his second game in a row with the knee. Manitoba scored twice in a minute in the second to take Game 3 and make this a WBS-BPT-style series through three, with all road victors. And Chicago, well, they're not bad. Darren Haydar had two assists and is now seventh on the league's all-time playoff scoring list (39-50-89), one point behind both our old pal Gordie Clark (42-48-90) and the legendary Glenn Merkosky (39-51-90). (Stats from the league's nifty "Morning Skate," which doesn't seem to be online anymore...) Jody Gage's 51 goals are the record, and Willie Marshall was 48-71-119 for the all-time assists and points leads.

*-When I sent the link to a buddy, he said that seeing "Astros" made him wonder if it was a Clemens reference. I said no, if Clemens was involved, they'd put him in front of the bulldozer.**
**-And then Ford Prefect shows up...

Dubie Dubie done

Deal's done: One year, one-way. Newsday says it's for $500,000.

Save the cheerleader, save the Worlds

Night off after Hamilton and Chicago both won for the second time in their series last night, but a bunch of things around the league today. Joey Tenute of Hershey is out for the playoffs, the Bears say, after he broke a rib and punctured a lung when hit by J.F. Jacques in Game 2. Ouch. (The league retroactively gave Jacques a boarding major and a game misconduct, which only matters for future suspensions.) Joe Sacco will indeed coach Cleveland. (Lake Erie. Whatever.) Former Rangers defenseman Sylvain Lefebvre will be his assistant. The Marlies slashed ticket prices.

Overseas, Canada beat up on the United States to clinch first; they get the Swiss, while the U.S. gets Finland. Russia beat Sweden and faces the Czechs, so Sweden meets Slovakia. The North American teams are expected to play Thursday, Canada first.

Germany won to finish ninth; Denmark beat Italy to leave the Italians in 12th*. Frans Nielsen had an assist. And here's your Relegation Round recap.

*-Dov'e la Vittoria? Except for one fortunate rules change, certainly not in Moscow.

"...you always leave a note"*

And that's why I wanted to wait until today. Canada needed overtime to bounce the Czechs -- not without a bit of controversy, either -- and so has a two-point lead over the United States instead of three. The Slovaks avoided overtime only on Belarusian desperation -- Belarus pulled Andrei Mezin because it needed three points, not two, and Pavol Demitra put the puck in the empty net for a 4-3 win. Belarusian desperation had worked OK in the second period on the way back from a 3-1 deficit; former WBS Penguin Konstantin Koltsov -- I'll pause while you recover from the Game-7 memory -- tied it. On the other side, Sweden nipped Finland 1-0 (Bergenheim was zeroes-across, while Tarnstrom had a second assist), and Russia beat Switzerland 6-3 (an assist for Kharitonov), outcome never appearing to be in doubt, though Alex Ovechkin picked himself up a one-game suspension.

So it's actually pretty simple now. Two games mean anything. Canada clinches first in the pool with a win of any kind, or just by getting to overtime. The U.S. would win the pool with a regulation win. The first-place team gets Switzerland in the quarterfinals, while the second-place team gets Finland. Meanwhile, and I mean that literally, Sweden and Russia (minus Ovechkin) will meet for first place in the other group. Winner gets the Czech Republic; loser gets Slovakia.

There are also fifth-place games and relegation games. I hear Raimo Helminen may stand up in a luxury box during the Denmark-Italy game to announce his return for Finland. Stay tuned.

Reuters says Russia may actually sign this IIHF transfer agreement.

There are two Western Conference games tonight. Those teams are rumors, so if they inspire us tonight, we may pop back.

*-Is Jason around here? I know he'd get the Arrested Development shout-out...

Shootin' the rock

It is incredibly weird for me to sit downstairs at the Arena at Harbor Yard. That's where I was for the Connecticut Sun WNBA exhibition game tonight. (It's fine when the story writes itself.) I sat right in front of where the home penalty box would be, give or take, which is about, what, 20 rows down and a section or two left from usual. And the action on the ice court was substantially different. At least I had Chris Elsberry and Jim Fuller there to help me out and talk about killing five-on-threes and pulling the goalie, and especially Elsberry announcing the last minute of play in the periods.

If the Liberty had only trapped, the game was theirs.

But anyway. Mentioning that I saw former BST staffer Gwen Pointer, who's now director of marketing with the Sun, we'll transition back to the ice, like Hershey's 2-0 win over the Penguins in WB. Granted, I'm a lot more lucid this time around, but this doesn't seem nearly as surprising as last year's 3-0 lead did. Maybe it was just from watching six incredible games between Bridgeport and those Penguins; maybe it's Hershey's Cup championship last year with a bunch of the same guys; maybe it's because Games 2 and 3 last year were sizeable victories, as opposed to this year's one-goal game, overtime game and two-goal game; maybe it's Hershey's minuscule edge this regular season; maybe it's seeing it happen last year, in and of itself. But I'm just not as shocked.

Meantime, Hamilton got the drop on Manitoba.

The biggest shock in Russia was that Frans Nielsen took another penalty in Denmark's 4-1 loss to Switzerland, but more on that in a moment. There's all kinds of intrigue in the other group, helped by the United States' 3-0 win over Germany; Paul Stastny had two goals and an assist, and Eric Cole assisted on all three goals. The big score was Slovakia 3, Czech 2, which tightened up the group in a hurry. Switzerland's win eliminated the Danes and the Italians, who lost to Finland 3-0 (nothing for Bergenheim).

Nielsen has six penalty minutes in five games in this tournament. He had 10 in 69 combined AHL and NHL games this year. (Apples and oranges, but still.)

The order has a ways to go, and the Czechs haven't even clinched a berth yet; if they lose to Canada and Germany beats Belarus in regulation, the Germans will sneak in ahead of the Czechs. here's the page with the tiebreaker rules. The overtime/shootout problem makes this tricky, and I'm not even really supposed to be blogging it, so y'know what? I'll wait till tomorrow to sort it all out. Chicken! you cry, and I'll admit it.

Also from Russia, they're extending the transfer agreement between the IIHF and the NHL.

Punch in the gut

Hershey came back from 3-0 down to beat Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Alex Giroux's goal in double-overtime. The Bears are up 2-0 with Game 3 tonight up I-81 in Wilkes-Barre. This isn't the time of year to ask why Giroux, who tied the game with 7:29 to go, is in this league, so let's just say he shouldn't be in this league next year. Robert Nilsson had two assists and picked up the third star.

Iowa came back strong in Game 2 and beat Chicago 5-4. Paul Szczechura, a rookie out of Western Michigan, scored twice, with the second proving to be the winner.

So Captain Non Grata notched a hat trick in the second period as Canada came back to beat Belarus 6-3. The Russians wrecked Italy's run at the medal round.

It seemed to me that teams who have scored first in this thing have gone on to lose at an abnormal rate, but that's wrong. In the AHL the last few years pre-shootout, teams scoring first had about a .680-.690 winning percentage, give or take. (In the shootout era, that's up to about .730.) Teams scoring first in Russia this spring have won 21 of the 30 prelim- or qualifying-round games. That's .700.

There were relegation-round games today, but we'll worry about them when someone gets ranked down to No. 17.

Meanwhile, I've been linking a ton off the Variety RSS feed lately, but gotta post this one about Robert De Niro and Bridgeport.

Moscow Nights*

Nothing tonight in the 'Merican League, but the 'Mericans beat Slovakia (couple of points for Phil Kessel and Brandon Bochenski) and saw the Czechs go down to Germany today. Roman Cechmanek faced just 18 shots. The Czechs still have to face the Canadians and their former countrymen, the Slovaks. (Of course, the Americans still have to face the Canadians and, um, the Germans.) Sweden stood up to a challenge from Denmark, came back from 2-0 down in the first 6:40 and beat the Danes 5-2; Frans Nielsen had but one shot on goal, while Tarnstrom had an assist, and the Jonsson Brothers combined for the first goal. And Finland beat Switzerland 2-0.

Although the Italians could still throw a monkey wrench in at some point, Switzerland-Denmark could be essentially an elimination game Saturday morning.

Hip surgery for Rick DiPietro; he's supposed to be ready for next year.

The Virginian Pilot wraps up seven years of Blackhawks prospects in Norfolk with a few seven-deep lists: memorable moments (headed by the brawl with Lowell, a pic of which was by accident briefly on the lead story), top players, and, um, awards winners.

*-Song's been in my head lately. Don't think it has to do with the tourney...

Some local stuff, actually

Frans Nielsen gets a pop on the Isles' Web site. Eurohockey.net has Tomas Malec back home to HC Ocelari Trinec. It also has Eric Meloche off to Germany, and maybe most interestingly, it has Gerry Cantlon reporting that Hartford captain Craig Weller will play in either Germany or Austria next year. Bruce Berlet says the same thing in the Courant, along with some fun and straightforward speculation about Ken Gernander taking over as head coach.

Looks like a kooky finish to Game 1 in the East: WBS cuts it to one on a short-hander, then allows an empty-netter, then scores with under four seconds to go -- too late. Robert Nilsson had a couple of points, including the second assist on the short-hander. Elsewhere, Manchester came back strong, and Iowa probably would rather forget this. Two Stars were on the ice for more goals than either goalie.

Remember Jason Cirone? Today, he led Italy to the second round of the Worlds with two goals, including one in overtime. This, notes the AP story, is the first Worlds with overtime in the round-robin; Cirone and Italy would have been dead without it. Germany sneaked past Norway, too; former Wolf Packer John Tripp got the winner. Up in the big time, Canada avoided uproar with a 5-4 win over Slovakia, pending Parliamentary investigation; Rick Nash scored the winner after the Slovaks came back from 3-1 and 4-2 deficits. And Sweden uncomplicatedly beat the tar out of Switzerland. (David Aebischer picked up a misconduct for the Swiss, which doesn't seem very neutral of him.)

Germany, Slovakia and Canada are in the United States' second-round pool. Canada and the Czechs are 2-0; the Americans and the Slovaks are 1-1; Germany and Belarus are 0-2. And as today's result makes it timely to remember, three points for a regulation win, two for an OT win, one for an OT loss.

Still minus-1

Got to love a country where the Parliament takes time to analyze the captain of the national team. The country, if not the Parliament.

The fans in Bingo don't have Dave Cameron to kick around anymore; Cameron is off to Toronto to coach the St. Mike's Majors again.

Winnipeg advanced with a 4-1 win in Game 7; Jason Jaffray finished a hat trick into an empty net. It's Manitoba-Hamilton in the division final, the first time two Canadian teams have met this deep into the playoffs since those two teams met in 2003.

Providence won, too, to start the second round and keep the momentum going.

Frans Nielsen assisted on the first goal as Denmark advanced to the second round of the Worlds with a win over Ukraine. The United States played a wild but fruitless third period, almost salvaging a point before Jaroslav Bednar scored the winner with 1:08 to go. Former Wolf Pack centerman Chad Larose had scored a short-hander with 6:01 to play, and Andrew Hutchinson had put one in on the power play 1:38 later to tie it. So the U.S. is 1-1 in the second round. Belarus advanced behind five different goal scorers we've never heard of. Russia beat Finland, and Denis Grebeshkov finally made an appearance, assisting on Petr Schastlivy's winning goal. Sean Bergenheim was scoreless and penaltyless. (By the way, did you know that if you change that last number in the name of the PDF file, you can get the second-period summary, for whatever that's worth? Found that one by accident when I almost posted the wrong thing...)

Hadn't known that onetime Ranger Miloslav Hořava had a kid by the same name playing in Sweden, until today: Joe Dumas posted this clip on Eric McErlain's Off Wing Opinion. Take a look. (It's short, so it loads quickly even on dialup.)

And a sad couple of days in lots of different places: RIP, Tom Poston, Zola Taylor (the "lovely dish" to go with the four Platters), and Dabbs (Rev. Alden) Greer.