Santa Claus Is A Hockey Player

It is Christmas Eve and it does not matter what religion  you follow or if you follow; it is a time that really should not happen just one day a year but every day.

Santa Claus is about the spirit of giving and if you look around then you see that hockey is as much Santa Claus as Santa Claus is hockey.

It is all over North America where the gift of giving comes from hockey players, hockey teams and hockey fans. Hockey is about not just one day a year of giving but a whole season's worth.

It is a bunch of ladies in the Boston area known as the Chix w/ Stix who take on the Boston Bruin Alumni to raise money for cancer research. It is the Western Michigan Broncos who hold their "Hockey Cares" weekend annually to raise money also to fight cancer.

It is the Rangers holding Casino Night, it is Dylan McIlrath at a McDonalds hanging out with a bunch of kids, it is Roman Horak and his Chilliwack Bruins who are for the most part students themselves going to local schools to encourage younger kids to read. 

It is the awesome event known as the "Teddy Bear Toss" where teams all over North America do their part to make sure that children have a Christmas present. From the Teddy Bear kings in Calgary (over 23,000 bears this year) to teams in the USHL, NCAA and other levels where the game's first home team goal results in well the following:



It is the Memorial Cup which honors Canada's veterans, it is Adam Graves who never turned down a request to help raise money for one cause or another. While people are opening presents on Saturday, it is hockey that keeps giving all year long.

Hockey is food drives, blood drives, haircuts at center ice to raise money and Toque Tosses. When the saying "It is better to give than receive" was first coined odds are it was said at a hockey game.



Ho Ho Ho

(Santa Claus courtesy of the North Pole Reindeers)

Do You Feel Lucky?

Back when we were covering Tyson Dowzak of the Kelowna Rockets there was this one player who we quickly became a huge fan of in Mitch (Dirty Harry) Callahan. "Dirty Harry" can best be describe as the ideal poster child for your prototype self made player.

There is nothing fancy about Callahan as he is not a great skater, he is not going to make the highlight reels for a fancy goal but if you want a guy who will go into the corner against King Kong and win then this is your guy.

Callahan was a 2009 6th round pick of the Detroit Red Wings, he was not even invited to the USA summer evaluation camp but ask anyone who has had to face him in the WHL and they will tell you that it is no surprise that Callahan made the USA roster.

Those same folks are happy to see Callahan on the USA roster since it means he will be gone when his Kelowna Rockets return from their holiday break. Callahan has 15 goals (6 on the power play) as the 2nd leading scorer for the Rockets but when he is not scoring he is driving the other team insane with his "I am in your face do something about it" attitude.

For the other teams in the World Under-20 Championships, it is a good thing that fighting is not allowed under international rules because Callahan is not shy at dropping the goals either with already 6 fights (which would lead either Ranger or Islander prospects) in half a season.

And the best thing to us about Callahan is that he is just 5'11 but yet it has never stopped him from doing whatever was asked of him. If we are USA coach Keith Allain, we put Callahan out on the ice for the opening shift against Finland when the USA opens their defense of the gold on Sunday.

Callahan we believe is going to set the tone as well as the energy for the USA team so why wait? Send him out there and let "Dirty Harry" go.

For us, Callahan is exactly what Team USA needs as he can be used in any situation and will be effective.

Dirty Harry is going to make someone's day

Go Really Bad

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Granted that most of our time is spent covering the prospects but why do we have this feeling that a huge schism is building between Marian Gaborik and John Tortorella? Yes we don't like John Tortorela as the coach of the Rangers but we are not exactly big fans of Gaborik either. 

Even stranger is that we are like Larry Brooks wondering if Gaborik is being held out as a precautionary measure. Tortorella has been very critical of Gaborik's play this season and in the time Gaborik has been a Ranger, Tortorella has singled him out whenever the Rangers have struggled.

We can not discount the possibility that Gaborik and Tortorella's relationship is turning sour as Gaborik struggles and Tortorella is calling him out in public. If this is true then the Rangers are going to have a very serious problem that will not be easy to either deal with or worse hide from the world.

Yes it is supposedly just 1 game but Gaborik having groin issues after they were supposedly fixed when he signed with the Rangers prior to the 2009-10 season is not a good sign. It is bad enough that the Rangers have yet to see Vinnie Prospal play this season, got captain Chris Drury back only to lose Ryan Callahan to injury and now reports of Derek Boogaard is heading to see a neurologist.

Gaborik has struggled with the Rangers in part because the only player who has consistently has shown chemistry with him has been Vinny Prospal and Prospal has his own issues staying healthy. But not that we are trying to start anything but guess who has 3 more seasons with a 7.5 million dollar hit per year?

Guess who also has a "no-trade" clause in his contract? Guess who better learn to get along better with his best player or guess who might find himself on the outside looking in?

Let's be realistic here as which is easier to do: move a guy with over 3 years remaining on his contract with a nasty salary cap hit or replace a coach?

John Tortorella might not like the answer to any of those questions.

(Callahan/Marissa Baecker, John Tortorella/New York Rangers)

Hello World The USA is Back

Surprise the US Under-20 team are not only the depending champions but also the favorites to repeat as champions when the World Under-20 Championships begin on Sunday. What is not a surprise is that this is the dividends of a process that was 15 years in the making.

It started when USA Hockey came up with the National Team Development Program (NTDP) back in 1996 in order to help identify and develop the very best American born hockey players under the age of 18. It has taken a while but the results are finally showing up in gold medals not only at the Under-20 level but also at the Under-18 and Under-17 levels as well.

The NTDP is without a doubt the best investment that the United States has ever made into the men's hockey program  and why the United States is no longer anyone's doormats. Ryan Bourque (NYR 2009 3rd) is a great example of how the program has worked as Bourque is looking to earn his 3rd straight gold medal as a member of a USA hockey team (4 total medals in a row going back to 2008).

Ryan Bourque won a gold and a bronze as a member of the Under-18 team prior to winning the gold with the Under-20 team last year. Bourque is an example of the NTDP program that is showing visible progress thanks to last year's gold medal winning team.

The final roster for this year's USA entry in the Under-20 Championships will be announced via Facebook here at 9:10 AM EDT. We do not need to wait that long since we will be shocked if any of last year's gold medal returnees are not included.

In addition to Ryan Bourque and Chris Kreider, the other 2010 gold medalists include goalie Jack Campbell (Windsor Spitfires); defenseman John Ramage (Wisconsin Badgers), forwards Jerry D'Amigo (Toronto Marlies), Jeremy Morin (Rockford Ice Dogs), Kyle Palmieri (Syracuse Crunch) and Jason Zucker (Univ. of Denver).

We will toss in Boston College's Phillip Samuelsson (son of Ulfie) and Brian Dumoulin (6'4 defensive whiz), North Dakota's Derek Forbort (6'5), and Boston University's Charlie Coyle (watch him as he is going to be huge for USA). (A scary thought is if 6'7 240 lb D Jamie Oleksiak makes the roster as yesterday was his 18th birthday)

All of these players have played for or been a part of the NTDP program at one time or another so most have played with each of their USA teammates which gives the USA a huge edge over their competition.

Credit also has to be given to a couple of guys who will not be in Buffalo in Danton Cole and Ron Rolston  as they coach the USA Under-17 and Under-18 teams respectively.

The work they do in coaching those young players today is going to keep the USA at the top of the Under-20 ranks for a number of years. Who knows maybe not in 2012 but if the NHL continues to send players to the Olympics then we will see Olympic Gold be added in the future.

The Crystal Ball 

It took some serious looking at the other teams and when we got past Team Canada's "pity us we need to be blue collar" that we decided to say the 2011 World Under-20 Championships look like this:

Group A: The USA's road to a gold medal is a lot easier this year as their group is nothing like Group B. The lamb for slaughter is Germany so there is 1 win, the biggest threat is Slovakia who after years of fighting it has finally embraced those players who left Slovakia to play in the Canadian Juniors.

We thought Switzerland would be a dark horse but while they will bring the most entertaining individual players in Nino Niederreiter and Sven Bartschi of the Portland Winterhawks; they are going to on the average be one of the smaller teams which will haunt them.

Our darkhorse out of Group A is going to be Finland as they are bringing some size to match up with the USA but they always play a strong defensive game. Too often people forget about the Finns but experience has taught us not to.

1-USA
2-Slovakia
3-Finland
4-Switzerland
5-Germany

Group B-Canada did a great sell job about having to claw and scratch for every goal until they blew out Switzerland 8-0 and then defeated a very fast Sweden 4-1. Canada is going to bring out the hankies with their pity party as they prepare their country for a 2nd year without a gold medal.

This is a very tough group to go through as Russia and Sweden showed that they can hang with the Canadians toe to toe. The weak sister here is Norway as they will try but they are in a group that will be full of speed but they just do not match up against the very physical play.

We will see if the Czech Republic got the message from their poor performance last year as they invited 13 players who play in the Canadian Juniors this year which makes them the wild card out of this group. If the Czechs let the CHLers play like they have then this could be the most dangerous team in the tournament as a mix of North American/European styles is a scary sight.

Oh will we get trashed for our prediction in this group but we do feel that Canada make several mistakes by not including players like Joey Hishon, Ryan Howse, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Ryan Murphy. We never believe a team should be built to defeat one other team but rather to bring their very best so others are forced to beat you.

Canada is going to struggle without a sniper for the power play and that we believe is what is going to be their eventual undoing. Russia was embarrassed last season by blowing their game against the Swiss and sent a big message in the Subway Super Series.

And if the cards fall the way we think then the anger that Canada has toward us will be nothing compared to what they will direct towards Hockey Canada. In our eyes Canada had a panic attack first losing to the USA last year then 4 out of 6 to the Russians in the Subway Super Series this year.

1-Russia
2-Czech Republic
3-Canada
4-Sweden
5-Norway

They built this championship trying to insure a USA/Canada gold medal rematch but we think at best Canada and the US will meet in the semi-finals. The Gold we believe will come down to USA/Russia which to be honest would do more to gain the average US fan interest more than a rematch with Canada.

Oh in case you did not know; Buffalo is just 350 miles from another place where USA hockey history was once made in Lake Placid. Sorry Canada but 2012 is the year you will realize that the way to win is to be your best by bringing your best.

(IIHF logo courtesy of the IIHF, Ryan Bourque courtesy of USA Hockey)

Today's Special Campbell's Soup

The last game before the holiday break has various names but our preference has been "the sugar plum" game. We like it because it could be really sweet when you win or badly sour for a loss.

For Ranger prospect Max Campbell (2007 5th) this Christmas will be much merrier than it was last season. Last year Campbell was struggling, finding himself in th doghouse, the press box and finally the outhouse as instead of a breakout season, Campbell regressed to 6-13-19 in 34 games.

Merry Christmas Max as his Western Michigan Broncos finished their 2010 part of their season with a weekend sweep of 10th ranked Union College with a 3-1 win. If you read us yesterday then you know that this sweep could pay huge dividends coming down to NCAA selection time.

This win alone moved WMU up to 18th in "Pairwise" rankings that are very key when it comes to "at large" selections. Even better is that at 10-6-4 with a 5-2-1 record against ranked teams after last season's 8-20-8, this season is an improvement.

Campbell on the personal side got WMU going with his 9th goal of the season at 10:41of the first period for a 1-0 lead and the Bronco never looked back. Campbell is 9-9-18 in 20 games as he fights to rebuild his prospect status.

Maybe Santa will leave Campbell an ATO for the Whale in his stocking.

On Sunday, Christian Thomas (NYR 2010 2nd), Tony DeHart (NYI 2010 5th) and their Oshawa Generals went with the "it is better to give than receive" mindset against the Ottawa 67's on Sunday. The Generals gave away a 3-0 first period lead at home and lost 4-3 in the shootout.

Thomas and DeHart were gift givers in this game as the duo teamed up twice to set up back to back Oshawa goals 30 seconds apart. First Thomas and DeHart set up Lucas Lessio for a power play goal at 17:25 and 2-0 Oshawa lead.

Then exactly 30 seconds later at 17:55, Thomas and DeHart did it again but this time it was Andy Andreoff who got the goal for a 3-0 Oshawa lead and at the time it really looked like a rout was on.

Uh no as Ottawa showed why they lead the OHL's East Division as this was a traditional 4 point game as instead of cutting Ottawa's division lead to 4 points, the Generals find themselves down 8.

Thomas enters the holiday break on a run as while his 4 game scoring streak end, it turns into a 5 game scoring streak at 25-19-44 on the season which also makes him the leading scorer among Ranger prospects.

DeHart improved to 2-16-18 as he makes a case to stay with Oshawa or become attractive to another team.

We are going to take a day off so we can spend time watching video of the European teams playing in the upcoming World Under-20 championships. As soon as we have breakdowns to share we will because our gut is telling us this is not the year of North America.

(Campbell/WMU, Thomas/Oshawa)