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

The NHL fine police came out in full force with the NHL levying charges on the Mighty Ducks' and Leafs' coaches Randy Carlyle and Pat Quinn for complaining about the officiating. Ah, let them complain, if they keep it up I'm sure the referees will start seeing their side of the story and have less calls made against them. Then they can all live in harmony holding each others hands, skipping along the yellow brick road while singing: ♪ La-La-La-La ♪...Poker is everywhere, even in hockey. You can now order 500 chip sets of 6 different NHL teams (no Senators or Team Canada sets so SBP saves his cash)...The toughest division is without question the Northeast division, with all 5 teams having at least a .500 record...The worst? It's a toss-up, but I'll go with the Central. Sure, Detroit and Nashville are playing like nobody's business, but if you add up the point total for the three remaining teams (St. Louis, Chicago, and Columbus) they can't even cover Detroit's 22 points..."Hello, this is the agent for G Nikolai Khabibulin of the Chicago Blackhawks calling. I'd like to remind team management at this time, or any time for that matter, that there are no refunds"...Pittsburgh finally landed their first win of the season. God bless the Atlanta Thrashers for being a confidence booster for every struggling NHL team in the league...Nice job by the Edmonton Oilers for snapping their long losing streak by beating one of the hottest teams in the league, the Nashville Predators. Now there's a real confidence booster...I had to get a barf bag after seeing Spezza score in OT against Montreal on Thursday, that goal was sick...You may have heard about the University of Moncton's Sebastien Savage, the player who was paralyzed from the chest down after he crashed head-first into the boards during a game against Acadia. In a very classy move, the Ottawa 67s and Senators are starting a trust fund for Sebastien; details to be announced shortly...Carolina's Eric Staal has turned me into a believer. I thought his point tally was a result of just playing lousy teams, but he's been scoring against the elite, too...How did Jaromir Jagr get his passion for the game back? And I why didn't he tell me before I made my pool selections?...Avalanche fans have clearly NOT forgiven Todd Bertuzzi for the Moore hit, with some fans actually dressed up in jail garb and wearing neck braces when Vancouver visited (and got spanked by) Colorado on Thursday. Then again, Halloween is tomorrow: maybe they were just dressing for the occasion...Keith Tkachuk is out indefinitely with broken ribs. Insert any joke about Montana's or Bar-B-Barn here...It was weird to read about Sheldon Souray getting visited by the cops for a "domestic disturbance"; weird because in the same week of the incident (before it was disclosed to the public) Souray appeared on TSN's "Off the Record" and host Michael Landsberg was asking him to bring his wife to the show. Sheldon was all smiles and said he'll try his best to bring her on. I have a feeling he may not follow through...Congrats to G Manny Legace for being the first goalie in NHL history to win 10 games in a month. Legace was always overshadowed by the Red Wings' big free agent goaltender signings like Curtis Joseph & Dominik Hasek and thus was always stuck with second string duties. It's now his time and he's taking full advantage...There are some people still grumbling about shootouts and suggested increasing the OT time from 5 to 10 minues so that there's still a "team" effort in winning the game. Sure. As long as there's no tie at the end, it's an idea worth exploring.