• The always-awful Sportsnet (Hockey Night in Canada) broadcast—universally agreed as mostly awful—will once again be awful, because Sportsnet doesn’t think it’s awful.
• C’mon, Montreal… trade one of the Xhekaj brothers—let them face off and fight each other three times in the same game.
• Watching Tampa Bay’s tough guy, Scott Sabourin, punch out Florida’s Aaron Ekblad was pure hockey karma. For years, Ekblad has perfected the fake-tough-guy act—arriving late to scrums to attack non-fighters from behind with his trademark strangulation/facewash combo.
• Memo to Gary “USA” Bettman: If you can put three teams in the New York region, two teams in the Los Angeles area, and new teams in strange places like Arizona, Utah, Columbus, Carolina, and Nashville, you can just as easily restore the Quebec City franchise—pronto. Do it… before you retire. Or retire now.
• Which NHL team will be the first to fully analyze the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, find the loopholes—and start cheating? No doubt, the dudes in Las Vegas and Tampa Bay are already on the case. Our agents will be watching—closely.
• Question for older NHL fans: Did you ever dream there’d be a day when young girls would stand up in class and tell their teacher that when they grow up, they want to be a professional hockey player? Ballet schools across the country are freaking out.
• If professional tennis can use the Hawk-Eye system to determine if a ball is in or out, and the NFL can use technology to spot the football, why can’t the NHL figure out when a puck has crossed the goal line?
• NHL hockey players love to play golf. While it’s impossible to provide exact numbers, our agents have determined that approximately 93%–95% of golfers play right-handed. Why, then, are right-shot hockey players always in demand in the NHL—especially right-shot defencemen? According to a 2024 study of 7,478 NHL players in history, about 63% shoot left and 37% shoot right. Go figure.
