AJC > Sports > Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2007 > February > 08
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Revenge not on Hartley’s mind
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re here in Denver — the first leg of a four-city road trip. First, let’s put to rest any discussion that Bob Hartley is looking for revenge on the home ice of his former employer. If he is, he’s not saying so publicly.
“It’s business,” he said. “The first time you play your team, it’s always special.. but after five years — the Beatles have split, Elvis is dead, you have to move on.”
You’ve got to appreciate a hockey coach who can incorporate the Beatles and Elvis into his chats with the media. But the big news tonight won’t be Hartley returning to play his former team, it’ll be Colorado’s Karlis Skrastins playing in his 487th consecutive game tonight, a new record for NHL defensemen. Sure, it’s not as big a deal as Cal Ripken, but if you think about what an NHL defensemen goes through in the course of a game, well, that’s pretty impressive. Greg de Vries was saying this morning that he was chatting with someone in the Avs organziation about Skrastins, whose nickname is Scratch (love the irony there), and evidently he plays through anything. I guess so.
He’s breaking the record held by Tim Horton, who founded the great Tim Hortons coffee and doughnut shops in Canada and parts of the US. If you believe Wikipedia, Tim Hortons has passed McDonalds as Canada’s largest food service operator. Just some useless trivia for you.
For the Thrashers, we’ll see Glen Metropolit centering the Marian Hossa/Slava Kozlov line which hasn’t exactly been lighting it up lately. Metro prefers to play center, although I know he liked playing on the wing with Kovalchuk. But a few of you had been calling for Hartley to make this move, we’ll see if it gets extended action.
Niko Kapanen won’t play tonight - he’s a healthy scratch. Eric Boulton will be playing for the first time since Jan. 9th.
