Puck Headlines: Calling for an All-Star Game boycott

Here are your Morning Puck Headlines: A glorious collection of news and views collected from the greatest blogosphere in sports and the few, the proud, the mainstream hockey media.

• See what you've done now, Montreal Canadiens fans? Your scurrilous robo-voting and ballot-stuffing has forced Pittsburgh Penguins blog The Penguins Experience to call for an NHL All-Star Game boycott. "The automatic voting has stopped since the installation of a captcha and a one-vote-per-minute voting rule, but all this has done is make the Canadiens' players' leads insurmountable. It is irresponsible, and just plain bad business, that the NHL set up an online vote without installing any sort of features that would prevent automated voting." [Penguins Experience]

Philadelphia Flyers prospect James vanRiemsdyk will wake up this morning and discover that he's (allegedly) featured on Deadspin, shirtless and with a penis drawn on his face. And he will remember that he is, in fact, from Jersey. [Deadspin, and thanks to Puck Daddy reader Sunny for the tip.] (Ed. Note: We've had a few people saying this isn't vanRiemsdyk but a friend of his. So grain-of-salt, and remember it was featured on Deadspin's "stuff we didn't use" post.)

• A couple of shameless plugs. You can hear my appearance with Bob McCown on Prime Time Sports last night, regarding the NHL vs. NBA popularity debate, over on the FAN 590 homepage. Thanks to everyone who heard it and who shared some kind words about my typically over-verbose performance. Meanwhile, Millian from Blueline Radio had me on to chat about everything from the shootout to the general workings of this blog. Check out the mp3 here. Thanks to both shows for a good time.

San Jose Sharks GM Doug Wilson wants everyone to know that Claude Lemieux has been signed to an AHL, rather than NHL, tryout contract. [Snapshots]

• Patrick Roy claims his minor league team's management has asked him not to speak publically about his sons being unrelenting hockey thugs. [Canadian Press]

• Happy Thanksgiving, Nashville Predators fans: "It's a complicated and torturous route to navigate, but there exists a legal road map that could lead billionaire Canadian businessman Jim Balsillie into the ownership suite of the Nashville Predators." [Globe & Mail]

• How the NHL can learn from the current NHL vs. NBA debate. [Jibblescribbits]

• Good news for the Flyers: Defensemen Randy Jones and Ryan Parent are on their way back, and on track for a December return. [Philly.com]

• Speaking of Philly, Flyers chairman Ed Snider deserves some major love from puckheads this week. "Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation would take over operation and programming at three rinks that officials said were targeted for possible closing amid the city's budget troubles." Awesome. [Philly.com]

• The Washington Capitals have been pummeled by injuries lately, and the hits keep on coming: Both defenseman Jeff Schultz broken finger) and forward Chris Clark (stress fracture in his right forearm) have been placed on long-term injured reserve. Mike Green, Boyd Gordon, Sergei Fedorov, Alexander Semin and John Erskine are all injured, too. So the Caps have called up defensemen Karl Alzner and Sami Lepisto and forwards Chris Bourque and Graham Mink from the Hershey Bears. Which gives us a great opportunity to remind everyone that Alzner carries around a fake mustache, once owned by Snoop Dogg, as a good-luck charm. And to re-run one of these wacky NHL Draft photos where it looks like the kid has a few grand's-worth of blow in front of him. [Capitals Insider]

Ben Eager has replaced Dustin Byfuglien in the Chicago Blackhawks' lineup, and his line with Andrew Ladd and Dave Bolland hasn't skipped a beat. Which, one assumes, just makes Big Buf all the more expendable. [Sun Times]

• The Toronto Maple Leafs are bracing for the wholesale changes one assumes Brian Burke will make when he finally takes over the franchise. [Globe & Mail]

• Congrats to our good friends Japers' Rink and St. Louis Game Time as they join SB Nation.

• Finally, and via UniWatch, here's a rather cool video about the creation of a hand-painted bubble hockey game featuring the 1974 Broad Street Bullies against Philadelphia Flyers alumni, as well as some other bubble hockey highlights. The time-lapse photography that shows a Team USA player morphing into a New York Rangers bubble boy is both amazing and a little blasphemous.

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