The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

Training camp opened this week, and I don’t know anyone who isn’t pumped for this season. Canadians will be back in droves, and that’s all who I’ll vouch for...The primary reason why I’ll never take Peter Forsberg in any hockey pools: he’s already injured and will be out for a couple of weeks. This guy is simply too fragile these days. Coupled with his moaning about “maybe” heading to Sweden to finish his career, I’m not ready to hand over the Stanley Cup to the Flyers yet….The Flyers made obvious improvements on D acquiring Rathje and Hatcher, but what about up front? Their top scorer, Recchi, along with Amonte, Roenick, and Leclair in my view have not been adequately replaced...As much as I loved landing Heatley in Ottawa, the bottom line is the season is over for the Sens if Hasek doesn’t perform and we have to rely on Ray Emery for goaltending, who’s coming off a sub-par season in Binghamton…Toronto may just have acquired enough talent to be competitive night in and night out. I say that statement before they signed underachieving Mariusz Czerkawski…Question: If Pittsburgh could barely afford spending $20M before the new CBA, why all of a sudden can they afford a mid-$30M payroll with reduced ticket prices? They still aren’t guaranteed the new arena Mario & Co. have been looking for…If I’m an Eastern Conference team and I’m heading for the playoffs, I’d give L.A. a call and see what they’d want for Jeremy Roenick. I don’t think there’s anything more he’d like to do than stick it to Bobby Clarke and the gang, and he’d have the fire to do it…Speaking of fire, teams are playing with it by signing these star players to long term deals for $6 to $7M a season. If revenues fall below projections so will their cap room which is so vital in the post-CBA NHL…Nice to see Edmonton trade some youth for an established veteran star. Before now it was always the reverse…The Oil must must must must resign Ryan Smyth long-term…If Chicago and Pittsburgh, who were bottom of the barrel squads can now ice a decent team, why can’t the Rangers do the same? That “rebuilding” phrase Glen Sather talks about just doesn’t wash with this guy…The columnist I loathe the most but keep reading: Al Strachan...What is it with Russians holding out and wanting to play outside the NHL? Not interested in playing in the best league in the world? Goodbye and good riddance…Any big-market team fan who thinks the new CBA is unfair and has cost them all their good players, hey, this is the way the rest of us have felt like for a decade…The NHLPA had no business agreeing to an “escrow” fund, where if revenues aren’t met the players have to return some of their salary to the owners. The owners got the cap they wanted; it’s up to them to deal with it from that point on…I have no problems with Todd Bertuzzi returning to the ice to play again. I do have a problem with the NHL continuing to ignore the increasing violence (not necessarily fights) in the league and failing to come up with a strategy to curtail it. The players do not respect each other in the manner they should, and the old school guys who claim the players can police themselves, well, the Moore and Brashear incidents make it clearly evident the status quo does not work…Mark Messier, we are going to miss you. Trent Klatt, you chose the wrong day to announce your retirement.