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Friday, February 29, 2008
Hossa to be re-evaluated today
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You’ll have to excuse my brevity on this blog. I have a story to write and plane to Boston to catch. That was a nice enjoyable home stand, right?
In a unique schedule twist, the Thrashers have back-to-back afternoon road games. Look for Johan Hedberg to get the start against Boston and for Kari Lehtonen to come back against Pittsburgh. I’m sure you already saw this, but Marian Hossa suffered an MCL sprain while making his Pittsburgh debut. I just got off the phone with Pittsburgh GM Ray Shero and he said he couldn’t say with absolute certainty that Marian wouldn’t play against the Thrashers on Sunday, but it was most likely. He said the injury was a grade 1 MCL sprain and that he’d be re-evaluated today. “We’ll see how sore he is,” Shero said. “I would say he’s out for Sunday.”
Shero said he was really hesitant to trade two players off his roster in Christensen and Armstrong for Hossa but Don Waddell made it clear that it would be a deal-breaker if they didn’t include those two. “That was tough,” Shero said. But that’s the reason why Pascal Dupuis was sent the other way. Shero had been interested in Dupuis anyways, regardless of a Hossa deal, and insisted that Dupuis be included since the Penguins were giving up two roster players.
Lastly, I was overwhelmed with e-mails from Colby Armstrong fans in Pittsburgh. I interviewed a couple for the story, but wanted to share some that I didn’t use. Here are a few snippets of the e-mails:
“…We’re still reeling from the loss here. He was more than just a Penguins player, you know? He was the kind of guy that made us feel like we were along for the ride with him. He did radio shows and interviews for the Pittsburgh media, and he was well known for his sense of humor. His personality is what will be missed more than anything - Army is one of those guys that you want to have around regardless of whether he’s producing or not.
The fact that he’s not the most skilled guy on the bench also added to his appeal in a strange way. He worked hard for every point he got, and - especially to the youngsters - it felt kind of like if he could do it, maybe we could too….”
“…He is an amazing guy, he is a great hockey player but I can’t stress enough what he brings to the locker room. Now, obviously I have never been into the locker room but I have read many of interviews and articles, and of course seen a million youtube videos. Sidney Crosby has so much on his shoulders at all times and I can only think that having Colby as his roommate helped Sid keep things light…”
“… I have to admit there was outrage followed by misty eyes when we found out about the trade. And you know a player is special when it outrages fans that their team aquired probably the best winger in the league in exchange for a guy who probably won’t break the 20 goal plateau in his career.
I got the chance to expirence the Winter Classic in person this year, and although the Crosby shootout goal was unbelieveable, I truly think Armstrong’s first period goal captured the feeling of the day…”
“…When my wife was pregnant, we put Colby on our names list without a serious commitment to it. But it turned out that our son was born about “20” minutes after Colby’s overtime goal to beat Florida on Feb 22, 2007. So we named our son Colby Andrew…”
Hard to top that one.
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