I’m in Chicago on business and have to travel frequently for work.  Upon arriving I was shocked to see the hotel actually carries the Versus network.  Since there’s no real time to watch anything beyond the Minnesota Twins at home, with family obligations etc, the only chance I really have to watch the NHL is when I’m traveling.  Unfortunately its rare to find a hotel that carries Versus. Which brings us to our biggest problem— the fact that Comcast owns Versus.  I can’t see the network ever reaching the saturation it needs when it has to rely on competitive cable and satellite companies for channel space.

It’s too bad because I really like the coverage they provide.  The announcers are first class and the studio show is entertaining.  In a sports landscape where people have written off hockey Versus is trying to resurrect the sport. How much have people written off hockey?  I was getting my hair cut at 11:30 this morning at SportsClips.  If anyone hasn’t been to a SportsClips you can watch flat screen TV’s playing sports while you get your hair cut.  They had the NHL network playing with the entertaining NHL Live from New York show with EJ Hradek.  Two of the other patrons had such loathing for the sport that they insisted the gals turn the TV to “baseball”.  Where they were going to find a baseball game at 11:30 is beyond me.  So we ended up watching professional bowling on ESPN.  That’s where hockey rates with the average American.  During the Stanley Cup finals people would rather tune into bowling than the mere thought of watching the NHL network.

Me?  I’ll be happily tuning in to parts of the Flyers/Penguins tonight.  In Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin the Penguins have two potential all-timers– it’s too bad the American public either can’t see them or doesn’t care.

As we were watching the evening news last night my wife looked at me in disbelief that the NHL playoffs were still going on. Neatly sequestered away on Versus you don’t see a whole lot of coverage of the Stanley Cup Tournament. Yes, the playoffs are still going on and they’re as exciting as ever. A potential Pittsburgh/Detroit final could be one of the most exciting in years, if anyone was watching. To their credit ESPN has stepped up the coverage, even bringing in the one and only Don Cherry to provide analysis. I have fond memories of watching Cherry as a child on Hockey Night in Canada at my grandma’s house in Michigan— truly one of a kind.

Since it’s impossible to describe Don Cherry to anyone that hasn’t watched him, here’s a YouTube video:

Congratulations to Nathan Gerbe and Boston College on winning the 2008 National Championship with a convincing victory over Notre Dame. Gerbe scored two goals and added another highlight reel assist to lead his team to victory. In all Gerbe scored five goals in the Final Four to go along with a couple of assists. He finished as the top scorer in the country this season, along with winning the national championship. Gerbe was not able to win the Hobey Baker award, which went to Kevin Porter of Michigan. But as I said two days ago, “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

I’ve posted on Gerbe on several occastions, most recently here.

Click this link for video of the title game

As I’ve posted multiple times in the past I’ve closely been following Nathan Gerbe and the Boston College Eagles during their quest for the college hockey national championship. Last night in Denver the Eagles destroyed the North Dakota Fighting Sioux 6-1 to advance to the championship versus Notre Dame. Gerbe was on fire scoring a hat trick to go along with one of the nicest assists you’ll ever see, setting up the sixth goal of the night. BC clearly has North Dakota’s number as they’ve eliminated them in the national semifinal for three consecutive years. In the later game Notre Dame defeated top seeded Michigan 5-4. The Irish were making their first Final Four Appearance.

Gerbe will probably lose the Hobey Baker to Michigan’s Kevin Porter, but will capture the nation’s scoring title and has a chance to win the National Championship. As Meat Loaf said, “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

Here’s a pic of Gerbe’s first goal

Hockey Happy Hour begins tonight in St. Paul as the Wild take on the Avalanche. To go along with the loss of Kurtis Foster the club was dealt a double blow with the unexpected loss of Nick Schultz. As usual great analysis on the Wild and the NHL playoffs from a number of sources.

Yesterday Dan Barreiro had another solid interview with Michael Farber of Sports Illustrated. The KFAN podcast link can be found here. Even with the depleted backline Farber is picking the Wild to advance. On the same page you can find the usual steller Lou Nanne interview, from April 2.

The folks at TSN in Canada made their playoff predictions with a split on whether the Wild will advance. Bob McKenzie and Darren Pang see the Avalanche advancing, while Mike Milbury and TSN host James Duthie predicted the Wild to move on.

The big question in town is whether the season is a disappointment if the Wild don’t advance. In his morning mix Dan Barreiro weighed in:

1. THE PUCK STOPS HERE — The Mix continues to be in the camp that in order for 2007-08 to be defined as a successful season, the Wild cannot be one-and-done. Yes, they are dealing with injuries, but they are seeded higher, have a resurgent goaltender, and are playing the team that the hockey wonks said they needed to play.

I agree with Barreiro. Injuries to Foster and Schultz aside the Wild are division champs, they have home-ice advantage so anything less than at least the second round would be a disappointment.

Meanwhile, over at the Strib Pat Reusse is also in agreement, saying that only victory is acceptable for the Wild.

The experts have spoken but at Super Terrific Happy Hour we just want to entertain. In the spirit of the start of the playoffs here’s a classic clip from Slap Shot that features some famous Carlson’s from Minnesota. How about Boogard, Simon and Fedoruk on one line Jacque?

Warning: There’s a couple of instances of foul language

As I’ve noted several times in the past month I’ve been closely following Nathan Gerbe and the BC Eagles during Gerbe’s quest for the Hobey Baker and the Eagles push for a national championship. As expected, Gerbe has been named one of three Hobey Baker finalists along with Kevin Porter of Michigan and Ryan Jones of Miami. Porter is expected to win the award.

Prior to this morning I didn’t know much about Ryan Jones, not even the fact that the Minnesota Wild had his rights. Well, the Wild signed Jones to a contract yesterday and he looks like the kind of player who’ll be a good fit in St. Paul. You’ve got to love the hockey hair in the picture of him putting a crushing check on a BC player (not Gerbe).

Here’s a quote from his father– evidently he comes with a ready-made nickname:

“He was always fairly heavy set,” said Tom Jones, Ryan’s father. “We called him Scud Missile when he was young. Once he had the puck, he always went to the net.”

Though not actually a mullet, the hair reminds me of the classic “Hockey Falls” NHL commercials. Here’s my personal favorite, complete with Bill Clement in full mullet mode.

Editors Note: I realize I’m a day late on the Gordie Howe birthday, but yesterday was a busy one with the Twins opener and all. Plus that thing called work…

Nice move by the Wild: A real classy move by the Wild in offering injured defenseman Kurtis Foster a one-year, 1 million dollar contract. The Wild were under no obligation to offer Foster a contract but chose to do so to allow Foster to recover with peace of mind about his future. For a GM and an organization that took so much heat for the Chris Simon acquisition, here’s hoping the same pundits recognize this gesture. Great weekend by the club as well, sewing up a playoff spot and most likely locking up the division. With the T-Wolves DOA we have a spring playoff team to follow. By the way, is there anyone a better interview than Lou Nanne? The KFAN “Where in the World is Lou Nanne.” bits are fantastic. It’s not only his knowledge of hockey, but the quality of questions from the fans. Hats off to Lou. Plus I’m just jealous that every time he gets interviewed he’s in some far off warm locale while I’m slowly crawling up Highway 252.

Mr. Hockey is 80: I’m a big fan of Canadians named Gordon as those who know me can attest, specifically Gordon Lightfoot. So a big Happy Birthday to another Canadian “Gord”, Mr. Hockey Gordie Howe. There’s been lot of eloquent prose written on Gordie so I’m not going to try to add to it, but just to add this little nugget from Youtube and a couple off comments.

Here’s Gordie playing in the World Hockey Association at the age of 49

Gordie started playing in the NHL in the 1946-1947 season. He finished his playing days with the Hartford Whalers of the NHL in 1980. When he started Harry Truman was President– he finished under Reagan. There were six US presidents in between. In his final season, at the age of 52 he scored fifteen goals to go along with twenty-one assists. In all he played thirty-three years of professional hockey. Wayne Gretzky is only 48 right now and retired eight years ago at the age of forty. Chris Chelios who many consider a freak of nature, the Julio Franco of hockey, is a wee young lass of 46. Howe’s longevity was remarkable.

One interesting side note on Gordie is that he’s become even more famous because of the “Gordie Howe Hat Trick”, the term for a player who has a goal, an assist, and a fight in a game. It’s interesting to note that he only recorded such a hat trick once in his career.

Earlier this week I posted HERE about Nathan Gerbe and the BC Eagles taking on the Golden Gophers. Minnesota fell a bit short, losing 5-2. Gerbe had an empty net goal at the end and finished with an assist as well, to put him at fifty-nine points for the season.

The young man he’s going to likely lose the Hobey Baker award to this season, Kevin Porter of Michigan, absolutely blew up this weekend. Porter scored five goals over two games to lead the Wolverines to the final four. If BC wins today versus Miami they will join Michigan in the final four. Here’s a nice breakdown of all the Hobey Baker finalists.

All in all a solid finish to the season for Minnesota. They have clearly found a rock between the pipes in Alex Kangas, and have a solid recruiting class coming in including Aaron Ness from Roseau to shore up the backline. I’m sure “The Don” will have his team back on top next season.

I’ve posted here and here on 5′5″ Boston College hockey star and distant relative Nathan Gerbe. He’s leading the nation in scoring, is a Hobey Baker finalist and he’ll be facing the Golden Gophers in the northeast regional finals on Saturday. I imagine you’ll see some more write-ups on Gerbe in the Star Tribune before Saturday’s game.

Here’s a Hobey Baker highlight video for Gerbe:

Considering how hot Alex Kangas of the Gophers has been of late Boston College should have their hands full on Saturday.

As I wrote last week I’m pulling for Nathan Gerbe to win the Hobey Baker award this season. This evening Boston College defeated New Hampshire 5-4 in three overtimes to move to the Hockey East tournament finals. Gerbe did not light the lamp but did assist on three goals. Gerbe now sits just one point behind Kevin Porter of Michigan for the nation’s scoring lead. More importantly the Eagles move into the Hockey East finals to face the winner of the Vermont/Boston University game. BC overcame a three goal deficit to put the game into overtime.

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I’ve been pulling for Nathan Gerbe of Boston College to win the Hobey Baker award this year for a couple of reasons. First he’s an amazing story, a dynamic offensive player who stands only 5′6″. Second, he’s kind of a distant relative. He’s my uncles cousins nephew. He’s received a lot of deserved attention this year, with the spotlight increasing because of a penalty shot goal he scored this weekend. Here’s the YouTube Clip. He does the Pierre-Marc Bouchard spin-a-rama.

Gerbe helped lead BC to the National Championship last year and is second in the country in scoring after tallying three goals this weekend versus Providence.

There’s even a website pushing his Hobey Baker candidacy.

Here’s another nice article

My favorite sporting event is upon us once again. The Minnesota State High School hockey tournament. I’ve got bits and pieces of the tournament in recent years, but used to watch it pretty religiously. Many favorite tournament moments over the years. My fondest is probably when a friend of mine mailed a VHS copy of the tournament to me in Arizona in the 90’s so I could watch Dave Spehar score three consecutive hat tricks for Duluth East.

This year I’m cheering for the Roseau Rams who are once again taking on the big schools. Roseau has a student body of 400 but yesterday they easily dispatched Blaine, who has a population of 2600. The Rams haven’t lost since January of 2007 and are riding a 38 game winning streak. Their top player is the incomparable Aaron Ness, future Gopher recruit and soon to be NHL draft pick. As an offensive defenseman he reminds many of former Minnesota high school greats Phil Housley and Mike Crowley. Ness went right out and scored a first period highlight goal. They also have a goalie that’s never lost a high school game, 38-0. The Rams are going to have quite a battle on their hands. Benilde St-Margaret’s and Edina will face of tonight, pitting the number two and three ranked teams in the state. Roseau has a game against another classic power, Hill-Murry at 8 PM tonight.

UPDATE: Roseau lost last night to Hill-Murray, 6-2. Hill-Murray had a great gameplan using their size and physicality to really disrupt Roseau and not allow them space offensively. Personally I thought the game was a bit chippy. A pretty ugly game to watch. Sets up the championship game of privilege, Edina vs. Hill-Murray.