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.
• It wasn't enough for the New York Islanders to arm their Ice Girls with T-shirt rifles. No, in order to properly entertain the sold out Nassau Coliseum crowd, it takes a 10-shirt Gatling gun that makes the weaponry in "Doom" look like harsh language by comparison. Take it away, Lt. Hudson from "Aliens": "Hey Ripley, don't worry. Me and my squad of ultimate Islanders spirit squad members will protect you! Check it out! Independently targeting particle beam T-shirt tosser. Fry half a city with this puppy. We got tactical smart T-shirts, phase-plasma pulse T-shirt launchers, RPGs with T-shirts attached to them, we got sonic electronic T-shirt tossing technology! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks, T-shirts ..." [Barry Melrose Rocks]
• The highest ratings in NHL on Versus history? That would be the San Jose Sharks and Boston Bruins, which "drew a 0.54 household rating nationally (550,000 viewers) and was 69 percent above the network's average for the season." But yeah, no one wants to see West Coast teams on national television. [Puck the Media]
• Former Ottawa Senators Coach John Paddock believes GM Bryan Murray has run out of coaches to fire before he's kicked to the curb himself. "I think now he's next in line." [Courier-Post]
• ESPN's Pierre Lebrun interviews KHL President Alexander Medvedev about a great many topics, including Jaromir Jagr and Ray Emery. One important point that Medvedev sort of makes, but that we hadn't considered: In all of the hysteria over the Edmonton Oilers reaching out to Jagr, did no one consider that the NHL was doing the same kind of player poaching that it absolutely slammed the KHL for in the Radulov matter? [ESPN]
• The Phoenix Coyotes cut ticket prices by almost 40 percent for some home games down the stretch. [Sportsnet]
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• In Hartford, Sean Avery stands around and watches his teammates play hockey. Just like his first two months in Dallas. [Hartford Courant]
• Man, how powerful is the Kool-Aid in Motown? Marian Hossa calls his Detroit Red Wings teammate Pavel Datsyuk "the best all-around player in the world right now" and then says he's willing to take less money to remain with the Wings this summer. Did they strap him down and make him drink the blood of Ted Lindsay, "Temple of Doom" style? [Windsor Star]
• Every few shootouts, you learn something new. Like in the Washington Capitals/New York Rangers game last night, in which Jose Theodore learned that a puck off the iron can hit a goalie, go in and be counted as a skills competition goal. They claim this is "Rule 25.2," but we're pretty sure the NHL is just making up these rules it goes along, like the first season of "Paradise Hotel." [Blueshirts Blog]
• Steve Ovadia gives the Academy Award for best acting by an NHL head coach to Ron Wilson of the Toronto Maple Leafs for his unending string of mind games with players. He also points out that John Anderson of the Atlanta Thrashers can't seem to decide if he's worried about his job. [Puck Update]
• The 2010 Winter Olympics begin one year from today, and the Canadians and Americans are talking about putting together the best rosters and coaches in order to respectably lose to Russia. [Snapshots]
• "Volunteer hockey coach Caleb Taylor of Regina has been selected as the first Olympic torchbearer for the 2010 Vancouver Games." [CBC]
• Chicago Blackhawks super-rookie Kris Versteeg on his impending restricted free agency: "I don't really know too much about contract talks or how they start. I'll just let them take care of that." Dale Tallon just drooled a little. [THN]
• Steve Buffery believes the NHL is a haven of steroid abuse because some hypothetical former player will hypothetically come out and say, hypothetically, that he used performance enhancing drugs while playing. [Slam Sports]
• Daniel Carcillo desperately tries to finish the John Cena, "You Can’t See Me" move on Krys Barch, to no avail.
• Philadelphia Flyers bingo sounds like a good time. Do any other NHL city newspapers do this? [Philly.com]
• In the NCAA, there's talk that Notre Dame's successful program may be rewarded with a 5,000-seat arena in the next three years. [WCHB]
• Bruce Garrioch is not exactly complimentary to the referees in last night's Ottawa Senators/Buffalo Sabres game for giving Jason Smith what amounted to a six-minute roughing penalty. [Off The Posts]
• From the Pioneer Press on the Colorado Avalanche/Minnesota Wild game: "There were 11 NHL scouts at Wednesday night's game, including four from the Boston Bruins. Also represented were San Jose, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, Tampa Bay, Detroit and Montreal." You know, nearly every one of these teams could use a defenseman. Just saying. [Pioneer Press]
• Finally, there was a line brawl between the Portland Pirates and the Albany River Rats the other day that was a pretty crazy scene. The video, complete with dramatic music and video effects! (A second, fan-shot look is here. Might be some NSFW audio.)
