You Know What I Hate?! – Jan 30

Captain Kirk is angry today. And so am I.
Photo courtesy some Star Trek episode or movie or whatever.

This week, I spit on the ground in front of ASG over-analysis, lazy reporting (Hi Spec!), and signing goons in today’s NHL.

You know what I hate?! The ridiculous over-analysis of the NHL All-Star Game. The game is useless anyway, but TSN had TWO separate panels analyzing the Fantasy Draft! TWO! And of course Sportsnet had their own panel as well. Not to mention the over-analysis of the skills competition. By the time the game actually rolled around, people were so sick of hearing about the All-Stars that the presentation of the game was a massive let-down (which it always is). Can we please stop this for next year?We don’t need to analyze a weekend-long event designed now to be nothing more than a corporate schmoozefest. Hey look, Chara didn’t take any Canucks. Hey look, Alfie picked a bunch of Swedes. THE END. See? That took 7 goddamn seconds.

and while I’m at it…

You know what I hate?! The ridiculous over-analysis leading up to the NHL trade deadline. I can’t wait for a 15 minute segment on That’s Hockey! today breaking down the Brendan Morrisson trade to Blackhawks. Yeah, it’s come to that. And the insane number of fake trades and fake twitter accounts that will undoubtedly pop up for the next 4 weeks. My advice on this: try to avoid watching the sports analysis shows for the next month. At least limit your sports news watching to a single show per day so you’re not inundated with unnecessary amounts of analysis. And if you’re following on Twitter, and I know that you are, here’s what you do to avoid the frustrating number of bogus trade rumours – You listen to Pierre LeBrun, Darren Dreger and Bob McKenzie… AND THAT’S IT. However, while I’m pissed off that TSN and Sportsnet and The Score will an ungodly amount of time breaking down trades involving AHL’ers…

You know what I hate?! There are no awesome trades at the Trade Deadline! The cap system, in concert with the point system the NHL uses, has made it almost impossible for teams to act as true sellers at the trade deadline, because very few contending teams have cap space and 12 teams in conference are contenders (or at least think they are contenders because they’re close to a playoff spot. While the cap system was a necessity, I think, to offer more of a level playing field to both teams and players, the point system is just plain stupid. Change it now. Either make every game a straight win or a straight loss, or make EVERY game a three-point game. 3 points for a ROW, 2 points for a SOW, 1 point for a SOL and 0 points for a ROL. Now every game is worth the same, and you’ll start to see more separate in the standings. Having bad teams think they’re contenders doesn’t draw more people into the stands. And it doesn’t make them better teams. They’re still terrible, even if their position in the standings make them think otherwise. It just creates a false sense of hope, and therefore keeps teams for trading assets because they "think they’ve got a shot!". Change the point system, and make bad teams fall off the map sooner. It will get them more active in the trade market and THAT will bring more interest to the NHL.

You know what I hate?! Incredibly lazy reporting. Mark Spector wrote a post recently where he claimed that Manny Malhotra had lost his third line center role to rookie Cody Hodgson. In writing this article, Spector proved that he has absolutely no idea how Alain Vigneault and his coaching staff deploys its players. While Spector thinks that he is going to get on the good side of Canucks fans, and it must be en vogue to write about the Canucks lately. he showed that he has no business writing about the intricacies of the Canucks lineup. Jonathan Willis wrote a brilliant response to Spector’s uninformed nonsense. You should go read Willis’ piece now… Well, at least wait until you’ve finished with my post. Please?

You know what I hate?! Professional sports teams signing "meat". Today, the Washington Capitals signed Joel Rechlicz to an entry-level contract. Who? Exactly. Rechlicz has played a grand total of 23 NHL games and amassed 1 A and 95 PIMs (all with the New York Islanders). Oh, and he currently leads the AHL in PIMs. And if you think that he’s a tough guy who just can’t score in the NHL , think again. He’s played 105 games in the AHL and has (… wait for it …) 2 goals and 2 assists and 562 PIMs. Good lord, this guy shouldn’t even be allowed to buy a ticket to a Caps game, let alone play for them. What on Earth are the Capitals thinking? He has absolutely no value in the NHL. In fact, he has such a lack of value that even the New York Islanders gave up on him!!! In a day where the NHL is shifting to having players actually PLAY, and not just in the lineup to act as bouncers, this signing makes no sense whatsoever. Is this a signal that George McPhee and the Capitals management team has lost the plot? It sure looks like it.