1) Just finished writing a Red Wings book. Here’s a leftover bit about Gordie Howe from former teammate Bryan “Bugsy” Watson.
“One of the greatest goals I ever seen scored,” starts Bugsy. “Gordie had this long piece of hair, he didn’t have much up there but he had this one long piece that dangled down. We were in Toronto and Kent Douglas had run into him again and again and Gordie was ticked off. He mussed Gordie up. So Gordie is coming in with this long piece of hair hanging down, and he’s coming in on a breakaway for Christ’s sake, he’s stickhandling with one hand, his right hand, and trying to push his hair back in place with the other.
"We’re thinking, ‘what the hell is going on here’. He goes in, he freezes Johnny Bower, pulls it to his right with one hand and fires it up in the top corner and then says something to Bower. Bower is pissed right off and chases him halfway to the blueline. So I was working with Johnny in the summer at Haliburton hockey school, and I said ‘Johnny, I have to ask, what in the hell did Howe say to you. ‘Happy New Years Johnny!’ is what he said.”
2) Maritime follow-up part 1: Entries are still available for the 4th Annual Pavilion Cup Pond Hockey Tournament on Lily Lake in Saint John, New Brunswick. There are about 70 teams right now for the event the weekend of February 4th. There are five different divisions of four-person teams available for the games that start on Friday. Info at pavilioncup.com. Timmy Hortons is a sponsor; hopefully that means lots of free coffee.
3) The long awaited return of “Three Questions From Simmer” returns this Friday during the noon hour with Boomer and Thistel on XM Home Ice, live from the All-Star festivities in Ottawa. My guest emcee is Hall-of-Famer Ray Bourque. Let the trivia competition begin again!! After this week, it’ll normally be on Thursdays.
4) Timmy Thomas: Hockey, the ultimate team game, and politics don’t mix. Politics and anything don’t mix, at least anything remotely legitimate and logical.
5) Happy 50th Birthday (Wednesday) to future lock Hall-of-Famer Chris Chelios. It’ll be a hell of a party with a terrific guest list if he so chooses.
6) No one will ever touch Howe’s record of 23 All-Star Game appearances. The games don’t mean anywhere near as much as they did back in the day (often times it was All-Stars versus defending Cup champs), and if a player is good enough to earn it that many times, these days there’s a strong likelihood he wouldn’t always show up. Howe never missed a chance to play hockey.
7) Quickie current events challenge for you, (answer in a bit): How many New York Islanders are in the top-30 in NHL scoring?
8) Maritime follow-up part 2: Speaking of pond hockey, the Long Pond Classic happens February 11th in Windsor, Nova Scotia as part of Hockey Day in Canada. I’m stoked and honored to be playing in the Saturday round robin on the pond at the Dill Farm where, until proven otherwise, hockey was first played by the rich kids from Kings College school two hundred years ago.
Any hockey fan and/or historian should plan on including Windsor in any future visit to the Maritimes. In fact, you can win a trip Visit
longpondclassic.com. Great people and a great place.
9) Here’s their
folk song , just released today.
10) Here’s one I’ve wondered about. If Nicklas Lidstrom wins his eighth Norris Trophy and/or another Cup, do you waive the three-year wait rule when its time for Hall-of-Fame induction, and put him in the year after he retires? See Gretzky, Orr, handful of others.
11) In 17 total games played, Ray Bourque never scored a goal against the Boston Bruins, the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Minnesota Wild, or the original Winnipeg Jets. (He did score against them after they moved to Phoenix)
12) “Torts” has done a fantastic job. Everyone’s on the same page. They buy in. They work hard. But if the season ended today, it should be a toss-up with Barry Trotz as to who gets coach-of-the-year.
13) There are a few candidates, but Buffalo is the biggest disappointment of the first half.
14) In 36 games, Brad Boyes has 11 points and is a minus-7. He’s making $4-million dollars this year; unrestricted next.
15) Wow, the rookie Calder Trophy race is really getting interesting: Ryan Nugent Hopkins (EDM), Adam Henrique (NJD), and Matt Read (PHL), who we told you to watch out for at the beginning of the season, now have 35, 34, and 31 points respectively. Cody Hodgson (VAN) and Craig Smith (NSH) both now have 29. Read easily has the best plus/minus of the bunch at +12, Hodgson is next with +7.
16) Here’s another leftover story I won’t be using, from Yzerman’s first Red Wings head coach Nick Polano (1982-1985), who says he’s told this one a few times, about Stevie’s first camp:
“I didn’t see any of the kids we drafted play because I was in coaching by then,” says Polano. “So all the kids we drafted came into Detroit in the summer and our trainer Jim Pengelley, who was new to hockey, but was really good on the medical side and with the strength training, called me up in my office. He listed off all the guys, Joe Kocur, on and on, and he loved all the guys, but he said ‘you have one guy here who can’t bench press his own weight, so you’ll have to send him back (to juniors)”.
"And I said, ‘which kid are you talking about?” He said, “Steve WHY-zerman.” I said, “You mean Steve EYE-zerman, not WHYzerman, and if this guy goes back to junior, I’m in real trouble.” So that was my first impression until we went to training camp in Port Huron and we picked teams and I sat in the stands with my assistant Danny Belisle and we had ref’s and we were going to have our first scrimmage.
"Steve got the puck deep in his own zone, he went through the whole team and drew the goalie out, Greg Stefan I think, and put the puck right up underneath the crossbar. So I hustled down to the bench to Jim Pengelley and said, “That’s that WHY-zerman guy you wanted to send back to juniors.” He said “don’t worry; I won’t ever mention that again.”
17) Answer: As of Wednesday morning, there are three Islanders in the top-30 in NHL scoring. John Tavares is 12th, with 49 points (20 goals) (+2); Matt Moulson is 22nd, with 43 points (22 goals) (+9); and PA Parenteau is tied with Moulson but listed at 27th, with 43 points (10 goals) (-4).
18) Yes, many of us rave about that 41-year-old defenseman in Detroit … but how about that 41-year-old winger in Anaheim. Teemu Selanne leads the Ducks in scoring this year with 45 points (15 goals). And he’s a plus-seven. Next on the list is defending Hart Trophy winner Corey Perry with 39 points (22 goals), but he’s a minus-8. He gets 4-minutes more a night than Teemu. Can we please talk the Finnish Flash into another season?!
19) Looking forward to going for a skate on the Rideau Canal; one of life’s great, simple pleasures. Enjoy All-Star weekend folks. All the best.
Feel free to follow Simmer on twitter @simmerpuck 
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