Saturday, December 16, 2006

I realize this is very early in his career, but Sidney Crosby certainly looks to be one of the all-time greats in the NHL. As a rookie last year, he garnered over a hundred points. This year, he already has 51 and is leading the league in points. The other amazing thing, is the guy in second place in the point standings, is Jaromir Jagr, the Penguins number one draft choice in 1990 or 91. And when you throw in Mario Lemieux, you've probably got three of the best players ever to play in the NHL. All three of these guys have, or will (barring serious injury) lead the NHL in scoring for several years during their careers.
This year's version of the Penguins is really starting to come together. I believe they have won their last four games, with another tonight. In the last two games, Crosby has gotten 10 points. It would really be interesting to see how many points Jagr might have gathered during his career had the NHL enforce the rules during his first 12 years the way they have in the past two or three years. With the enforcement of the current rules, the NHL has become what it always should have been, a wide-open, fast-moving, exciting game. The current crop of rookies second third and fourth year players (Crosby, Kovalchuk, Ovechkin and Malkin), are extremely talented and exciting, and will make for an extremely entertaining product for the NHL in the next couple years. I would love to see the NHL back as a prominent sports league
James A.

2 comments:

PTO said...

An interesting thing about the observation on Crosby is that he has not really been in the Pittsburgh media that much. Now granted the only Pittsburgh media that I really follow is the Trib, but the only headline I've seen on Crosby has been a couple of days ago about him being the league's leading scorer. The local media has been all over the Malkin hype. Since I hadn't seen anything on Crosby, I wondered if he was even having a good year. And I guess he is.

And speaking to the issue of the resurgence of the NHL, why is it that the NFL is so far beyond most other sports in terms of popularity? What is it they are doing right? Why can't other sports replicate this success? Possibly an interesting topic for the fuzzy brain.

Anonymous said...

Dad,

I love the blog title and the idea of you writing a blog. Speaking of the NHL, Dominique and I attended a baby shower on Saturday night for another couple whose baby is due in February. The host of the shower had a 62" Samsung HD TV. They put on the Phoenix-Calgary hockey game (in HD). I know you have an incredible TV, but it hit me that I don't think I've ever watched hockey in HD on your TV. Anyway, as I was watching the game, I realized the rule changes complement the technological improvements in watching TV. Watching that hockey game in HD was awesome. The puck was perfectly clear, and with a 62" screen (or 50" or 42") it is such an awesome picture. Now with the game being even more fast-paced and explosive, HD allows a viewer to really follow all the action like never before.

At any rate, whether it is the Penguins or some other team, I sure hope KC gets an NHL team. At least the NHL (as opposed to the NBA) knows how to handle the brawls that break out during their games.