AJC > Sports > Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2007 > June > 04
Monday, June 4, 2007
Get your plaid ready
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I think I’ll be wearing some plaid today in honor of Don Cherry. Cherry will be returning to American airwaves tonight during the second intermission of Game Four between the Ducks and Sens. Here’s Cherry’s response to his NBC appearance tonight, provided in a release by the network:
“A lot of people have written that what I say up here I would never get away with it down in the States.
“I’ll just go on and do what I have to do. In the States they wanted me to go on one time in Pittsburgh. Jaromir Jagr, it was when he had long hair and he was with Mario Lemieux and I said, ‘there’s Mario and his daughter.’ It didn’t go over too good. That was my last time in the States.”
Should be interesting, and if nothing else, draw some attention to the telecast. He already said he’ll be openly rooting for Ottawa, and I’m guessing the network is too since a series knotted up at 2-2 might help ratings. I still stand by my prediction of the Ducks in six.
Other interesting NHL news, comes from ESPN.com where E.J. Hradek reported that the NHL is planning another outdoor game for the upcoming season. If you remember, Montreal played against Edmonton outside in 2003, drawing nearly 60,000 fans. This time, according to Hradek, expect at least one American team in the mix. It’s got to be Atlanta, right? An outdoor hockey game in the South would be a huge success. (Does sarcasm translate in a blog?)
I think, and this is just speculation, but Sidney Crosby and the Penguins would have to be the front-runner. Or what about the Rangers and Toronto - two big markets? Spartan Stadium successfully hosted an outdoor hockey game between MSU and UM a few years ago and that drew well over 70,000 fans. If I remember correctly, Ryan Miller was in goal for the Spartans and Jim Slater scored at least one goal. So maybe, the NHL will look to East Lansing for a game between the Red Wings and a Canadian team. Either way, it should make for some good TV. I wish they’d do more of that stuff. Just for fun, where in Atlanta do you think a game like that could be played?
A few of you asked why I wasn’t in Ottawa or Anaheim covering the Stanley Cup. The Associated Press recently moved a story that addressed the lack of coverage by newspapers at the finals. I think this paragraph pretty much summed it up:
“The cost of covering a series that requires long travel over a two-week period makes newspapers think twice about committing resources to an event that was watched in the U.S. on Versus by an average of 485,000 households through two games — a 20 percent drop from last year.”
It’s pretty quiet here on the Thrashers front. GM Don Waddell was planning on attending the draft combine in Toronto. The draft is the next big event for the Thrashers. It starts June 22nd and goes through the 23rd. It’s in Columbus and right now the Thrashers don’t pick until the third round. But shortly after dealing away all those draft picks around the trade deadline, Waddell said he usually finds a way to get picks back, so don’t be surprised to see some trading done in Columbus. After that, the next deadline is June 25th - the Thrashers need to make qualifying offers to their restricted free agents by then. Restricted free agents from the NHL level include: Jim Slater, Steve McCarthy and Garnet Exelby. With the higher cap number, there are a lot of rumors circulating that teams might start targeting RFAs, which typically didn’t happen in the past, so that is something to watch.
Other team news from around the web:
Holly Gunning at Hockey’s Future rates the Thrashers 2002 draft, one that included Lehtonen, Slater and Oystrick.
Jeremy Rutherford did nothing to slow the Keith Tkachuk-back-to-St. Louis rumors in this assessment of the Blues off-season game plan.
In this hockey round-up, we learn the Chad Denny was too sick to celebrate his signing with the Thrashers. Also, while I’m thinking of it. There’s now some talk that the Thrashers might look to move Denny from the blueline to forward. They’ll bring him into camp as a defenseman, but there are some people who thinks he projects better as a forward.
