Courtesy of Pulled My Groin comes this video of a legendary hockey fight. Warning: the violence is graphic, and it may not be for the squeamish. Especially when the one kid scurries frantically away from the other kid at the end.

If this doesn’t stop soon … someone’s going to have to tell mommy.

Cutest little bastards I’ve ever seen.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have approved the use of their team name and logo in an upcoming film (or TV show, I’ve heard both) about a “fictional” retired Maple Leaf (probably Tie Domi) who happens to be gay, and who happens to want to raise “a budding queen of an 11-year-old boy.”

SLAM! Sports tries to get some reaction to it … they talked to Anson Carter, a Columbus Blue Jacket, and a guy who understands a little something about being a minority in the NHL, seeing that he’s black.

“You’re talking about a lifestyle—homosexuality and heterosexuality—it’s a choice…but people are people from my personal standpoint.”

“We have 700 players (in the NHL) and if we have one gay player in the league, I wouldn’t be that surprised.”

Carter went on to say that it wouldn’t bother him if a teammate was openly homosexual, “as long as you’re a good teammate and a good person…that’s all that matters to me.”

“If that’s what the (NHL) wants fine…the world’s changing now…maybe people will be more open now.”

There’s probably more than one gay player in the league … but all in all, I’ll take it, Anson Carter. Another guy, though, who opted to remain nameless, had a different take.

At least one former NHL player (who preferred to remain anonymous) commented that the film “tarnished the sacred icon of Canada and the Maple Leafs’ organisation.”

“What do you expect when you have a fomer basketball guy running the league,” the player stated, in reference to Commissioner Gary Bettman’s previous tenure in the National Basketball Association.

And we have found an asshole … that didn’t take long.

I don’t understand, chief. Are you suggesting that the NBA is some sort of haven for gay sexual activity? Listen, I’m like the rest of you … I would love to believe that Mike Sweetney blows Jordan Farmar every other Thursday, but I just don’t think that’s true. I mean, the NBA has a ton of image problems, but I didn’t think rampant deviant gay sex was one of them. I thought the LPGA had the market monopolized on that particular stereotype.

And by the way, if you were looking for the sport with the most hot man-on-man action … hockey might be a pretty good bet, as long as you like your hot man-on-man action to involve a teenager and be of the “forced” variety. Canadian junior hockey has a history of sexual abuse of young boys, most notably this Graham James character, and then the extremely weird Mike Danton story, in which sexual abuse was strongly suspected.

Yeah, you wouldn’t want to tarnish hockey’s image with something like a movie about a gay, retired, hockey player.

What you’re looking at is a picture of Lil Jon and Atlanta Thrasher Kari Lehtonen. I just wonder if either of them had heard of the other as of a few minutes before the photo was taken. It looks very much like some public relations person in the room said, “Hey, you two are famous, how about a picture together?” And Lil Jon posed, Lehtonen was still confused, but he jumped in anyway and said, “I do like this?” and tried to make himself fit in. Then both of them left the room and said, “Who the fuck was that guy?”

Gracias, DeJuiced.

This is staggering. If you hadn’t heard, New York Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro got a 15-year deal from the Isles yesterday. Why he got a 15-year deal, I have no idea. DiPietro, I’m sure, has no idea. His agent probably has no idea. But when the Islanders presented them with the other, they probably glanced at each other and scribbed his name on it as quickly as they possibly could.

15 years, $4.5 million a year. Would he have not signed the same deal for five years? Hell, make it ten. I just can’t understand what made the Islanders feel like this was necessary. DiPietro and his agent couldn’t have gone to the Islanders with a contract demand more outrageous than what actually transpired. At some point, there was a failure on the side of the Islanders to understand the negotiation process.

The NHL and the players union hammered out a deal that would protect franchises from overspending, and keep salaries in a reasonable place. My hearty congratulations go out to the Islanders for finding a way to shoot themselves in the foot anyway. It wasn’t easy, and there were obstacles in place, but you found a way, guys. Incredible determination, all of you.

This is, by the way, the same team that just hired their backup goalie to be their GM. And people are pointing the finger at Garth Snow, but I really don’t think he had a lot to do with it. It sounds like owner Charles Wang was the guy behind this.

“This is not a big deal,” owner Charles Wang said. “You have to have a commitment to who you’re working with. I’ve done this all my business career. Now I’m doing it in sports and everybody is like, ‘Oh my God. How could he do that?”‘

Well, not to be redundant, but how could you? DiPietro will be making $4.5 million per year. Observe:

Nikolai Khabibulin is the highest paid goaltender in the NHL at $6.75 million per year. Roberto Luongo makes $6 million a year, Marty Turco the same, Jose Theodore makes $5.75 mil, Olaf Kolzig $5.45 mil, Marty Broduer $5.2 mil, and Evgeni Nabokov an even $5 million. That’s 7 goalies who make more than DiPietro will be making. Meanwhile, there were 25 goalies in the NHL with better save percentages than DiPietro last year, and 31 goalies with better goals against averages.

So not only is it well above market value per year, it’s also at a completely absurd length. I apologize for the headline, even Isiah Thomas thinks this deal is screwy. Unless DiPietro has pictures of Wang molesting an endangered sea otter, this doesn’t make sense on any level.

There are five groups that have put together bids to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins. All of them have offered more than $150 million for the club. A group headed by Mark Cuban and Dan Marino offered $170 million. Two groups bid about $175 million, and one of them is from a guy who wants to put a hockey team in Kansas City, and another is buy a guy who wants to put a team in Hartford. The Cuban/Marino bid, which would certainly keep the Pens in Pittsburgh, has been rejected.

I guess that’s how it goes. The current owners are businessmen, and I was never a great student in any of my accounting courses, but I know that $175 million is more than $170 million. I don’t blame them, certainly, for selling to the highest bidder. But at the same time, I’d hate to see the city of Pittsburgh lose a hockey team that could be very good in the near future, because the current owners wanted to squeeze $5 more million out.

This has to be a first. The York Islanders have fired their GM Neil Smith, who had been on the job for exactly 40 days and 0 games… and then replaced him with the backup goalie. Seriously. Garth Snow, who retired from his position as goalie, took over the job as New York Islanders general manager.

As for why Neil Smith was fired… well, I have no idea. And we’ll probably never know.

“We are running this as a business, incorporating the opinions of our hockey operations staff — including Ted Nolan, Bryan Trottier and Pat LaFontaine,” Wang said. “Despite Neil’s commitment to me that he could work in this environment, he later expressed to me on a number of occasions his philosophical opposition to our business model.”

So he’s out, and Garth Snow is in. And I’m not knocking Garth Snow. I’m certainly not calling him just some English pig with no brain at all, you know. He may be an intelligent, insightful, hard-working guy who’s perfect for the job. He may, in fact, have a big cock. Like a horse!

But the fact remains that a team fired their general manager and replaced him with their backup fucking goalie. This sort of thing may have only been possible with the New York Islanders. I don’t see the Denver Broncos ever firing their GM, and then immediately promoting Ron Dayne to the position, nor do I see the Phillies doing the same with Arthur Rhodes. The Islanders could end up losing their blouse. Shirt. Shit. You make me sick when you speak, Morris.

I’ve seen Slap Shot a lot.

With the 23rd selection in the NHL Entry Draft, the Washington Capitals selected goaltender Semen Varlamov. Scouts describe him as having quick reflexes and a very sticky glove hand. It helps with goaltending, but it made the podium handshake with the Capitals GM very awkward.

Scouts also believe that Semen has a powerful, but terribly inaccurate shot, which is rare for a goalie. Almost inexplicably, when he shoots, it usually ends up hitting a defender in the face. NHL shooters cannot expect to go five-hole on Semen without also experiencing a very unpleasant mess. There are concerns, though, about Semen’s attitude, as some scouts fear he is a bit of a prima donna. Semen has starred in many low-budget movies, usually appearing at the climactic end of scenes.

I’m just wondering if maybe the NHL gets a little too much media attention. This probaly isn’t going to be popular, but… I think it’s a legitimate question to ask. Everyone knows how bad hockey’s TV ratings have been. I’m not trying to twist that knife, but… given the general disinterest of the general populace towards hockey, perhaps ESPN and other sports media outlets are giving it a little bit too much attention.

Game Seven led SportsCenter… and ESPN.com did one of those special half-page graphics for it. It was the big story of the day, and while it doesn’t quite get the same SportsCenter treatment as the Super Bowl, World Series, or NBA Finals… it’s not that far below. Is that as it should be? I don’t know what the Game 7 ratings were, but… Game Six of a very competitive series got an embarrassing 1.2. That’s like a UPN number. No need to rehash all the individual ratings, but hey, Game 7 notwithstanding, they’re turtle’s dick low.

I’m just wondering if, for example, Arena Football fans get pissed off when the NHL leads SportsCenter, while Arena Football brings in better TV ratings. On the surface at least, they’d seem to have a point… as would fans of the WNBA or women’s college softball. Maybe the TV ratings aren’t the end-all, be-all…and maybe there’s something to be said for the intensely loyal nature of hockey fans. But I still think it’s fair to at least ask if maybe ESPN should move it down the list a little bit.

The New York Islanders, never afraid to make a splash, are hiring former Rangers GM Neil Smith as their new GM, and Ted Nolan as their head coach.

Well, this is good news. Almost a decade overdue, but hey… here’s another chance for Ted Nolan. He was fired in ‘97 after winning the Coach of the Year award in Buffalo, and has since been blackballed. He had a beef with his GM in Buffalo, John Muckler, and got labeled as a GM-killer. And hockey’s old boy network has had it in for him since. It’s been so long, in fact, that I have vague recollections of being a hockey fan at around the time it happened.

So, good for him. I’m happy he’s finally back in the league, and I’ll be rooting for him… as much as anyone can actually root for a coach without actually watching his games.

Once upon a time, this was the sort of thing that I wouldn’t have missed. A Game Seven in the Conference Finals… that doesn’t happen every day. It is a worthwhile experience. But I’m almost certainly going to miss this Game Seven this evening, for three reasons:

1) Basketball.
2) I just don’t care.
3) Even if I did care, I don’t get OLN.

So that settles it. I just… you know, I feel a slight twinge of regret for missing this game. I love sports, I watch all I can, and there’s a Game Seven on, and… I’m not the least bit compelled. And the fact that I’m not is probably a pretty good sign that I’m done with the NHL forever, and I just don’t think it’s possible for them to get me back. Anyone else feeling like that? Like, “I probably should care, but I just don’t?”

I’m trying to think of things that hockey could do to get me back, and… the one thing that keeps occurring to me is the lack of compelling personalities. I need people to root for, I need people to hate. Hockey players are like stormtroopers. Seen one, seen them all. If I try to think about someone in the game right now with a discernable personality, the only person who comes to mind is Jeremy Roenick, and he’s a complete douchebag. I can’t even stand to look at his face.

Look, for example, at the two young stars in the game, two guys who everyone should be excited about, Sid Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. I’ve seen them on SportsCenter 50 times each, and I couldn’t tell you one thing about either of them that isn’t about what they do on the ice. There’s about a 98% chance that they’ll both end their careers without uttering as much as one memorable soundbyte.

Anyway, I kinda went off on a tangent there. That certainly isn’t the whole reason that I can’t get excited about hockey… I have other major issues related to the game itself that aren’t really worth discussing. But yeah, that’s one of them. And maybe that’s shallow of me. Maybe I shouldn’t need any personality to accompany things… but I can’t think of a single reason to care about who wins tonight between Carolina and Buffalo.

For those of you who loved the clip as much as I did, you can now celebrate with the commemorative t-shirt. The same design is available on a thong, as well, for female readers… or male readers with unusual habits. And just so you know, I didn’t mark the price up at all… it’s not possible for me to make any money. I just thought the world would benefit from the existence of this shirt, much as it has benefited from the existence of this clip:

Check this out. In the previous game back in Anaheim, the fans booed the Canadian national anthem. Here’s how they responded in Edmonton…

I’ve been to my share of live sporting events. Not a ton, probably fewer than most of you, but I’d say I have about my share. And the things I remember most aren’t big plays or big shots, but those moments when you really feel something… and yes, that can come from a big play in the game, but it can also come from a shared sense of pride, or a shared sense of anything, really, and knowing that thousands of other are sharing it with you… that’s what makes it worth going. The actual watching of a game, you can do anywhere. A moment like that one… that’s why you go. I doubt that many of the people in the audience are going to forget that.

Fuckin’ A, Canada. Credit goes to a lot of people. Whoever thought of it, of course. And then, all those who jumped on the bandwagon, and helped spread the idea. And to all of those who sang their healthy Canadian lungs out. And especially to the guy who was hired to sing the thing, but got the idea quickly, did the right thing, and just let the fans take over. A very slick move. My hat is off, Canada.

This sort of thing just couldn’t happen in America. One, no one really has that much nationalistic pride. Just having a magnetic ribbon on your car doesn’t qualify. And two, I doubt that many people really know the words to the national anthem. Myself, I prefer the Enrico Pallazzo version.

Anyway, big big thanks to “oiler” in The Sports Frog’s Swamp for the find.

By almost all accounts, the NHL has been fantastic to watch this year. The flow of the game is much better, there are exciting young players, and scoring is up, and those things are great. But ratings? I knew it was bad, but… I didn’t know it was this bad. Some factoids from a Darren Rovell article at ESPN.com…

• OLN averaged 117,000 viewers for their NHL games this year.
• In 2003-2004, ESPN’s games brought in 416,000, while ESPN2 games brought in 209,000.
• The Heads-Up Poker Championship, the lead-in to hockey, more than doubled the ratings for playoff hockey on NBC.
• More people watched WNBA games on ESPN2 last year.

It’s one thing to have low ratings… it’s quite another to be outdrawn by the WNBA. The WNBA, man. Let that sink in for a minute. ABC could broadcoast 2 hours of Hubie Brown reading aloud from an Ayn Rand novel after seven apple martinis, and I’m more likely to watch that than a WNBA game.

I don’t know what this means for the future of hockey. I hope most clubs were at least profitable this year, under the new CBA. I hope this was anticipated. You’d have to think that they were prepared for pretty low ratings. But if their viewership doesn’t start to grow, I think you can expect the NHL to be covered on SportsCenter less and less, and get less general mainstream media coverage in general. It’ll become the kind of thing that gets mentioned in the second half of SportsCenter broadcasts, after “The Ultimate Highlight,” and Stu Scott’s super-dope poetry jam.

My suggestion to improve ratings? Players mic’d at all times, and Brian Bellows always hovering somewhere nearby. 114 viewings later, and I still can’t enough.

I know I also ran this over the weekend at Deadspin, but… it has strangely captivated me, and I can’t stop watching it. I’m not sure what that says about me, but it can’t be good. I feel like I should send the Airing of Grievances a Hallmark card for finding it. I love how Brian Bellows just stands there and takes the abuse like the titfucker he is. I’m not sure I know what that means, by the way. Enjoy, and… you know, turn your volume down if you’re at work.

I have a new favorite hockey player… Tampa Bay Lightning right winger Evgeny Artyukhin. In a fight last night, he pulled Antoine Vermett’s helmet off… and then beat him in the head with it.

That’s the most creative thing anyone’s done in the NHL since Gretzky retired.  The NHL is back.