ian andrew bell

Wired magazine has eloquently attacked the new RBK Edge jerseys which adorn every player of every team in the league as of this season, which were the mastermind of huckster Gary Bettman. They actually had the temerity to suggest that the jerseys are Bettman’s latest scheme to milk the dwindling ranks of existing hockey fans for more money — far be it from anyone to suggest that this is not technological innovation solving the ages-old problem of wind resistance slowing down hockey players!

Oh … wait … you didn’t know that wind resistance was slowing down our precious pastime? ‘Zounds, it’s true! Read More

Hockey and Hollywood have never been comfortable bedfellows.  Perhaps the main reason why, is that every American’s perception of the beautiful game has been conventionalized by a certain movie-that-shall-not-be-discussed.  Hockey’s been a minor backdrop in movies like the Karate Kid and TV shows like Dennis Leary’s Rescue Me and has been trivialized in flicks like Mystery, Alaska and the Mighty Ducks 1 thru 17 (all Disney efforts).  These didn’t do much of a service as regards popularizing the sport Read More

Okay, so let’s say you’re a big Ottawa Senators fan. No shame in that, really.. the team has been in the top three of their division and made the playoffs in every one of the last five seasons, suffering heartbreaking losses to the Leafs, Sabres, and Devils in each.

So for the 2006-2007 season, this was your year. The Sens’ juggernaut march to the Stanley Cup Final seemed almost pre-ordained, and the kids just wouldn’t stop nagging you to take them to a game. Unless you were a City Hall Employee that cost was going to be daunting, so you mortgaged the house, sold the family mini-van, and bought some pricey tickets to the ScotiaBank Place to watch them, ultimately, get eviscerated by the Anaheim Ducks.
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As the Stanley Cup playoffs rage on, a select crew of Canadian players whose teams are out of the running are over in Moscow defending Canada’s great cultural hockey tradition at the IIHF Hockey World Championships. The 2007 team, which was given a pass this year by past, current, and future greats like Sidney Crosby, Joe Sakic and Ryan Smyth so they could lick the wounds of a tough NHL season, is led on the ice by one Mr. Shane Doan.

But as the quest for the cup continues and the Worlds are well underway, they’re both being overshadowed by another Canadian cultural tradition: the self-promoting protestations of… what, exactly? Read More