AJC > Sports > Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2008 > March > 21
Friday, March 21, 2008
Piling up interviews before the weekend
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Had several conversations with players this morning since there won’t be practice the next two days. I had to pile up some information for a couple stories, including a long-overdue feature on Niclas Havelid. That reminds me, I know Havelid spends a lot of time on the ice in Duluth, especially in the summer. If you’ve ever seen him out there with the general public, or ever skated with him, please e-mail me at: ccustance@ajc.com.
But the most entertaining part was watching another reporter ask Bobby Holik some off-the-ice questions. She was asking a few players stuff like ‘who would play you in a movie?’ or ‘what’s your favorite recipe?’ Colby Armstrong is the perfect player for that kind of stuff and he seemed to have fun coming up with answers. Then she came over to Bobby, who warned, ‘I’m probably not the right guy to ask these questions to.” But to her credit, she fired away anyways. He ended up answering only a couple and passed on a majority, which is too bad, because I’d love to know who should play Bobby in a movie. Any thoughts on that one? Anyways, it was some great levity.
I waited out Alexei Zhitnik, who was the last one off the ice, although he doesn’t have a lot to say right now. He said he hasn’t spoken to anyone on the team about his future, but expects to have a better idea in May. He really didn’t want to comment on not making the recent road trip, other than to say he spent the time with his family and staying in shape. He appears to be working hard, and yesterday Kari Lehtonen commented that Zhitnik was on fire in practice, scoring from anywhere. Zhitnik jokingly called it a Hall of Fame practice. Do you think we’ll see him the rest of the season?
Caught up with a disappointed Erik Christensen who said he just plans on hanging out with the team the rest of the season. His knee doesn’t sound like it’s in great shape, especially when he described what it does when he gets in and out of a car. I felt bad, because he said he was just getting to know everyone and now he’s feeling kind of detached from the rest of the team. That’s got to be rough, because it’s obvious Christensen and Armstrong love hanging out with the guys at practice and afterwards. Some players are gone immediately after practice, those two love to hang out.
Niclas Havelid won a community service award, so I talked to him about that. Congrats, Nic. Also, Scott Mellanby will be in town tonight for Autism Awareness night, a great cause he’s passionate about. Hopefully I’ll have a minute to speak with Mel. Man, this team misses his leadership, that’s for sure.
Mark Recchi is part owner of the Kamloops Blazers in the WHL and his team is taking on Olaf Kolzig’s Tri-City team in the first round of the playoffs, so they have a sidebet going. I asked if he made an motivational speeches for his Kamloops team, and he said nope, that’s what the coaches are for. Sounds like Recchi’s team is the underdog, so we’ll officially adopt the Blazers in this blog. Here’s the pre-game breakdown on the official Kamloop’s team website. First game is tonight.
After being a healthy scratch, Garnet Exelby is back in the lineup for Kiwi. Kari Lehtonen will start in goal.
Lastly, a few of you have asked my opinion of Scott Burnside’s ESPN article on the Thrashers. I think you’d be really hard pressed to argue any of his points. I’m not ready to call Kari Lehtonen a bust just yet, because this has been a tough year for him, but that’s a small issue in an otherwise well thought out column. Scott really was spot on in identifying the issues facing this team. I also thought the anonymous comments from GMs were pretty telling. I have a ton of respect for Scott as a person and a reporter and that column made a big enough impact that people were still talking about it two days later at the arena today. What about you?
