Home
Publications
I get to sleep in a little on Monday mornings. Not too much, but I can curl up a little longer because I work the evening shift. So when the phone rings, I barely move. People know that I stay up a little later to write, relax, whatever. This morning the phone rang, then stopped and I was back to sleep again right away. Then it rang again. This almost never happens unless it's something of interest or importance.
Hartsburg Canned
And so it began. My fiance Mel tells me Hartsburg's been canned, which I find odd because I was wondering silently if Super Bowl Sunday would be the best day to do it - not many stations would have that as the top story, get away from a little of the spotlight.
I'm excited because I think we're getting a bad-arse. I'm thinking the worst thing that could happen is we get Hartley or Quinn. Best case scenario, we get a Torts or someone of the ilk. Instead, it's another kid.
Clouston...
Granted, the more I read about this guy, the more cool he sounds. Because if there's one thing we were missing, it was any kind of organization and outlet strategy. It's one thing to say we have no PMD, it's another to have all forwards coming back to accept short, quick outlet passes. Hartsburg couldn't get the Sens to 'get this' and they often looked confused, defeated and lost. And to add to that the forwards were getting frustrated and when they finally got the puck in the offensive zone, they would panic, realizing that if they relinquished the puck, they'd never get it back that shift. We weren't hard on the pucks, we didn't check for an entire 60 minutes, the team looked sullen and pistol-whipped.
Clouston's resume is decent enough, but it's his work ethic in practice and in game (or promise thereof) that had me a little less upset.
...We have a problem...
However - and not enough has been said about this IMO - we have raped and pillaged the Binghamton Senators. Gone are their all-star goalie Brian Elliot, gone is all-world Brian Lee, Brendan Bell, one of the highest scorers on the team - and he's a D-man, gone is Peter Regin, a guy who had picked up considerable slack for the team when Ilya Zubov was called up.
Gone is Bass. For the year. Sorry 'bout that. And soon M.Karlsson, Z.Smith, possibly Zubov again and hopefully Shannon will be back up with Ottawa.
And they're expected to compete huh? Good luck...they have to still be in a playoff spot by the time the playoffs roll around - and what did we give them? Not exactly the plague, but close - Martin Gerber.
Cronie's Heroics
So, I'm still fairly groggy when all of this is going down. I've made myself a nice cup of coffee and I'm staring at whatever sights I can get going. I look at the chat and realize at that moment in time that Cronie was on the Team 1200. I managed to catch the entire conversation - missing the beginning when I actually thought he was from TSN. He called out our site's name GMHockey.com in a solid and unmistakable voice. 'Did he just say that?' I thought. Then he says: "I think Hartsburg signed his death cert. when he benched Jason Smith." I look down at the chat and I had written that minutes earlier. I smirked, this was too good. Cronie was getting our name out there - from Nova Scotia!
I scrolled down and saw what I thought was a 36 - which was the previous high for people on this site at one time. I wondered if it would pick-up thanks to Cronie. I refresh, wondering if that was what it was.
143 people on. Over 100 guests.
Way to go Cronie! And to all the people who checked us out - come on in! We're always talking hockey (albeit usually Sens).
Hartsburg Canned
And so it began. My fiance Mel tells me Hartsburg's been canned, which I find odd because I was wondering silently if Super Bowl Sunday would be the best day to do it - not many stations would have that as the top story, get away from a little of the spotlight.
I'm excited because I think we're getting a bad-arse. I'm thinking the worst thing that could happen is we get Hartley or Quinn. Best case scenario, we get a Torts or someone of the ilk. Instead, it's another kid.
Clouston...
Granted, the more I read about this guy, the more cool he sounds. Because if there's one thing we were missing, it was any kind of organization and outlet strategy. It's one thing to say we have no PMD, it's another to have all forwards coming back to accept short, quick outlet passes. Hartsburg couldn't get the Sens to 'get this' and they often looked confused, defeated and lost. And to add to that the forwards were getting frustrated and when they finally got the puck in the offensive zone, they would panic, realizing that if they relinquished the puck, they'd never get it back that shift. We weren't hard on the pucks, we didn't check for an entire 60 minutes, the team looked sullen and pistol-whipped.
Clouston's resume is decent enough, but it's his work ethic in practice and in game (or promise thereof) that had me a little less upset.
...We have a problem...
However - and not enough has been said about this IMO - we have raped and pillaged the Binghamton Senators. Gone are their all-star goalie Brian Elliot, gone is all-world Brian Lee, Brendan Bell, one of the highest scorers on the team - and he's a D-man, gone is Peter Regin, a guy who had picked up considerable slack for the team when Ilya Zubov was called up.
Gone is Bass. For the year. Sorry 'bout that. And soon M.Karlsson, Z.Smith, possibly Zubov again and hopefully Shannon will be back up with Ottawa.
And they're expected to compete huh? Good luck...they have to still be in a playoff spot by the time the playoffs roll around - and what did we give them? Not exactly the plague, but close - Martin Gerber.
Cronie's Heroics
So, I'm still fairly groggy when all of this is going down. I've made myself a nice cup of coffee and I'm staring at whatever sights I can get going. I look at the chat and realize at that moment in time that Cronie was on the Team 1200. I managed to catch the entire conversation - missing the beginning when I actually thought he was from TSN. He called out our site's name GMHockey.com in a solid and unmistakable voice. 'Did he just say that?' I thought. Then he says: "I think Hartsburg signed his death cert. when he benched Jason Smith." I look down at the chat and I had written that minutes earlier. I smirked, this was too good. Cronie was getting our name out there - from Nova Scotia!
I scrolled down and saw what I thought was a 36 - which was the previous high for people on this site at one time. I wondered if it would pick-up thanks to Cronie. I refresh, wondering if that was what it was.
143 people on. Over 100 guests.
Way to go Cronie! And to all the people who checked us out - come on in! We're always talking hockey (albeit usually Sens).
