[Author's note: Power rankings are usually three things: Bad, wrong, and boring. You typically know just as well as the authors which teams won what games against who and what it all means, so our moving the Red Wings up four spots or whatever really doesn't tell you anything you didn't know. Who's hot, who's not, who cares? For this reason, we're doing a power ranking of things that are usually not teams. You'll see what I mean.]

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8. Sabres' denials

Are the Sabres planning on tanking to get Connor McDavid? The players say, “No,” but the lines say, “Yes.”

7. Garbagemen

The Flyers recently made the decision to get rid of their ice girls crew, and replaced them with a bunch of guys who come out and shovel ice while not wearing short-shorts and showing off their cleavage.

At their first home preseason game, this change was met with boos. And boy does that ever tell you something about, A) why ice girls exist in the first place, and B) the kinds of misogynist pigs who actually care about ice girls one way or the other.

Teams which still employ ice girls, such as the San Jose Sharks, do so because they appeal to the stupidest people who buy tickets, for whom the lowest common denominator is something toward which they can aspire to one day climb. Everyone who has heard of them knows on some level that this kind of thing is sexist and disgusting, but the degree to which they care about such issues is ultimately what colors their opinion. If a guy just wants to see pretty girls dressed as little as possible, then he's going to be Very Into ice girls and teams having ice girls and looking at ice girls. And the thought he puts into it beyond that never goes beyond that point.

However, to actively root for ice girls to come out, and be disappointed to the point of booing that a bunch of guys — not even scantily-clad guys — came out and did the thing you were expecting the girls to do is repugnant. Let's put it this way: If you are excited to see ice girls, you're disgusting. If you're mad when you don't see ice girls, you're even more disgusting.

Because there's a pretty simple solution to your problem. If you need to see pretty girls at the hockey game (and you're disgusting for that as well, by the way) then they have cellphones now that allow you to access the Internet. You can pull up a web browser and you can type whatever gross term you use for “women” into it and then look at all of them you want. Or you could just stay home from the games.

In fact, only stay home. And never leave your house again.

6. 24/7

No Power Rankings last week, so I didn't get to address the move of the NHL's uncensored look at the run-up to the Winter Classic from HBO to something called Epix (a network name that in and of itself is annoying).

The thing with having it on HBO was that it was an ultra-reputable name in the realm of “uncensored material.” And for a premium cable channel, it had a loooooot of subscribers (more than 32.4 million through the end of last year). The move to Epix, meanwhile, brings potential viewership down to — and this is a real number here — 9.5 million.

That number could go up in the near future, though. One of the big problems with Epix right now is that it's not carried by Comcast. You know, the company owned in part by Ed Snider, specifically. Ed Snider who also owns the Flyers. Comcast also owns NBC Universal, which you'll recall has the NHL's TV contract. So maybe everyone with Comcast (about 30 million people after the Time-Warner deal last year) starts getting Epix soon. Or maybe not.

(To be fair, the league is increasing availability of the show because of Epix's small reach. Streaming, free online trials, stuff like that. But still.)

Either way, this has to be seen as a huge step back for the league. It's the “documentary with swear words” equivalent of moving from ESPN to the Outdoor Life Network. And it's flat-out embarrassing.

5. Itchy and Scratchy money

What are the Senators doing? Besides doing the most Canadian thing of all time, I mean.

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