Hey! It’s been less than a week since the NHL season started! Let’s talk about it!

The first big thing that happened re-sparked a debate that’s been going on for longer than I’ve been around. On opening night, “The Mustachioed Cat” George Parros fell on his face during a fight against Toronto’s Colton Orr, leaving the ice with a concussion. So, should we take fighting out of hockey? To that I will only say this: Nope, it has an unquantifiable effect on the momentum of a game and anyone who has witnessed this in action would want to fight anyone who wants to take fighting out of the game. THAT’S IT!

Going from stale to fresh, the second winningest American coach of all time Peter Laviolette, was fired by the Phiadelphia Flyers. He was the second victim of circumstance in the Philadelphia sports world (we’ll miss you Charlie!) in a matter of months. Much like the beloved Philadelphia Phillies, Laviolette’s team was bad due to more than one folly of GM-itude. Since he’s been around since ’09, he had to take the heat for it. The good thing about it though is that the Flyers are now 0-3-0, starting a whole new system with a rookie coach, they have a terrible defense and an even worse goaltending tandem. They’re going to suck! And that makes us here at T-bone and the Hockey Doggz pret-tay pret-tay happy. Flyers Suck!

Finally: a rant.

Hey! You know what I’m sick of? Well I’ll tell you. I’m sick of people talkin’ shit about the shootout. You know what else I’m sick of?! PEOPLE NOT TALKING SHIT ABOUT THE TRAPEZOID! Since the last lock out, it has been deemed that a hockey game needs a winner, and quickly! No more ties, dammit, we wanna see some fancy stick work and there’s no better way to see that than a shootout. So along the same vein, why don’t we want to see fancy stick work from a goalie?! There’s no valid reason a goalie shouldn’t be able to handle the puck. “Because he’s too good at it” is not a reason. Stick-handling to a goalie is an added skill, one that all goalies have the option to work on. Everyone knows that Martin Brodeur is one of the best stick handling goalies of all time. Who else is there right now? Mike Smith? Brodeur is on his way out. After he’s gone, will we see another great puck moving netminder? I know I would like to, but with the trapezoid, there’s no real reason for a goalie to polish his stick skills, and I hate that.

GET RID OF THE TRAPEZOID!!!

So, everyone, it’s a new NHL season and a new season for T-bone and the Hockey Doggz. Get ready for a new podcast coming up in the next week or so wherein we will have some new awesome segments involving 2 cases (yeah around 500 cards) of ’91-’92 NHL Pro Set Series II hockey cards. There’s also going to be more smart, funny, provocative insight from me T-bone.