So I went with the Caps Road Crew to Nashville yesterday. Or rather, got tickets through them and sat with them. As I had to work Friday, flying to Nashville seemed like the better option. Thoughts on the area and the arena below the jump.

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(Last updated: 4/12/10. Added: Buffalo, Edmonton)

I love Jose Theodore's story and I think his story is compelling enough to make a good case for the Masterton Trophy, but I have to wonder - what other stories are out there? There are a lot of amazing people in hockey and a lot of good stories, and it's hard to guess at who might win and who should win without the stories behind the nominations. 

James Mirtle's list of Masterton nominees includes the names of the nominees, but I've gone and done a little digging into the stories of the other nominees. See below the jump - I'm going to continue to update this as I get more information - if a team isn't listed here, they haven't named their nominee yet. If a team does and you find a link to it, by all means share and I'll be grateful.

Note: Special thanks to sk84fun_dc for sharing a lot of her links with me. Some I also found on my own prior to getting around to checking my email; some are hers. Thanks!

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So this came out of a Twitter discussion tonight. I've been jonesing to throw dead flesh on a grill for a couple of weeks now, and it looks like weather Saturday is going to permit exactly that activity. However, I don't want to deal with all the leftovers I had last year after the Hershey tailgate.

THEREFORE -

1. My grill, my cooler, and I will be somewhere in the back of the parking lot near the drive-out exits starting about 4:30 PM on Saturday, April 3rd. I have plenty of propane and will bring plenty of foil for the grill. I will probably be in a black recent-model RAV4.
   
2. I will fire up the grill about 5:00 PM.
3. I will only bring enough meat and fixings and so forth for myself and the two people I will be with. I guarantee no leftovers, though I do tend to bring a bit more food than I need as a rule.
   
4. If you would like to come by, say hi, hang out, etc., I'd love to see you. Bring dead flesh or veggies or what have you and it will have a place on my grill. Bring beverages and they will have a place in my cooler for the duration of the hangout. (Just to be clear: I do not grill anything that is still living at the time. Don't try it.)
   
5. You bring it, it goes home with you at the end of the night. I don't mind keeping it in my cooler during the game, but you'll have to come back and get it at the end of the game. 
6. I will also bring a Frisbee for entertainment. Other activities are more than welcome.
7. Last items go on the grill at 6:00 PM; I want to be packed up and ready to go inside by 6:30 PM. 

Come on by if you're so inclined!

Okay, so not all of us play hockey yet. While it's kinda fun to watch the Rats play pickup, not all of us have the equipment and/or skills to join in. Some of us would like to acquire equipment/skills to do so, and that means getting out on the ice and skating. A few of us were mentioning interest in a plain old skate.

I know that Kettler has open and public skates for this purpose, and maybe getting together some afternoon for a public skate would be fine, but the problem to my mind with public skates is that the presence of large quantities of small children, most of whom are either skating faster than their skill level can control, are skating fast and weaving in and out, or are struggling along, make any sort of speed drills or backwards drills difficult to impossible to pull off. If we can get enough people, I'd like to see about buying an ice time slot of our own for us to just mess around with.

Who's interested?

UPDATE: I added a poll - please answer if you're interested so I can get some idea of a headcount and maybe price this thing out.

From rockthered.net:

In two weeks, the Manitoba Moose will come to the Giant Center in Hershey for a two-game series.  The Moose (more specifically, the Moose coaches) have been known to complain about the Bears’ faithful in the past, and have recently started up again in Winnipeg newspapers.  Should be interesting…

I have yet to find a link to them doing so, but all the same, one would have thought that Manitoba would have learned about talking smack about Hershey fans the first time. I know we were talking about going in February during the Olympics, but Manitoba comes to Hershey January 22nd and 23rd, the latter being a Saturday night. Anyone else up for a wander up to Hershey that Saturday, possibly a couple of drinks before the game, for a Moose smakedown?

Inspired by this discussion over at PPP, I went to the trouble of hitting up NHL.com's stat pages and Behind the Net for a little bit of argument fodder. And if that inspiration was the desire to defend Mike Green's defensive skillz from a bunch of ignoramuses, well, who can blame me?

Boy did I walk into a world of interesting numbers.

Knowing that I was looking for guys who were good in all situations, I compiled a spreadsheet (found here) of all the Canadian D-men in the discussion for Canada's Olympic team, their current +/-, and their TOI, GF/60, GA/60, and +/- at 4v5, 5v5, and 5v4. Just for fun and because someone brought up the name, I tacked in Jeff Schultz for good measure.

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There have been a lot of pixels on the Rink lately devoted to cheers and chants ... or more specifically, the ones that either the Rats don't like or the ones that are used inappropriately (there have been a good smattering of both lately). While there has been some discussion of what we do like from college / minors and other stadiums, that's been drowned in comments of a critical and disapproving nature.

Without getting into a discussion of who is or isn't overly uptight about such things, my momma taught me that when you're faced with something you don't like or don't approve of, you've got two choices: b**** about it or do something about it. For all the complaints about the "All Your Fault" chant, at least they're doing something besides making random noise. So, if we don't like what they're doing, then maybe we should do something ourselves. Both of the Rink's previous initiatives to make our opinions known (red poncho love, Free Alex) have been well-received by the media, so why not try it?

I personally like the "who cares" chant after an opposing goal and will join it myself at the next game. But I'd like to see us start one of our own instead of just complaining about other people's. Here's a few ideas, and I'd love to see yours contributed in the comments. 

• When an opposing player goes into the penalty box, they need to be showered with a little (verbal) love. Maybe a "you can't do that *clap, clap, clap clap clap* or a "na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye".
  
• Last minute of a game, if we're up by more than one goal, or after an empty-net goal that ices the game, pull out your keys and shout "Start the bus! Start the bus!" while shaking them.
• We need a goal song or a goal chant of some kind. I don't have a lot of ideas here - anyone? Bueller? 
• I don't have a problem with sing-songing the goalie's name when we're up or tied - as long as it's the right goalie.
  
• Anything else you guys can think of?

I know we've got some Rinkers up in the New York City / New Jersey area. I need to get out of Dodge for the weekend, so I'm going to shoot up to Newark, rock Caps red at Prudential Center on Saturday night, and pray I'm not horrible luck for the Caps this season. Are any other Rinkers going to be there, and if so, do you want to meet up somewhere for beverages / chow / chatter. etc., either before or after the game?

(EDIT: Changed the name of this post because I liked it better.)

Last night, Rob Scuderi sent Jason Chimera skates-over-teakettle during the Kings-Jackets game. Video of the hit is available on Puck Daddy, and I won't steal his hit counter from him, so go here and watch. That's okay, I'll wait till you get back.

Scuderi was not called for a penalty, but the Jackets were outraged and Derek Dorsett jumped off the bench and went after Scuderi; Chimera ended up pulling two officials to the ice trying to get to him. Chimera ended up with a 10 minute misconduct, Dorsett with a too-many-men-on-the-ice bench minor and a game misconduct for leaving the bench.

Per the NHL rulebook, rule #45:

45.1 Clipping - Clipping is the act of throwing the body, from any direction, across or below the knees of an opponent.

A player or goalkeeper may not deliver a check in a “clipping” manner, nor lower his own body position to deliver a check on or below an opponent’s knees.

An illegal “low hit” is a check that is delivered by a player or goalkeeper who may or may not have both skates on the ice, with his sole intent to check the opponent in the area of his knees. A player or goalkeeper may not lower his body position to deliver a check to an opponent’s knees.

Moreover, because Chimera was injured - he was lucky it wasn't worse AFAIC - if this rule is invoked, Scuderi hits the showers.

45.3 Major Penalty - If an injury occurs as a result of this “clipping” check, the player or goalkeeper must be assessed a major penalty (see 45.5).

45.5 Game Misconduct Penalty - A game misconduct penalty must be assessed anytime a major penalty is applied for injuring an opponent by clipping.

I doubt intent to injure - I'm not sure Scuderi fully had his balance on this one. But, all the same....

UPDATE 10/27/09 - NHL.com reports that Scuderi has been fined for the hit, but doesn't say the exact fine.

We're still on, folks! If you can't get Versus (thanks, DirecTV) or just want to come out and be social and Springfield is too much of a headache, I'll be at ESPNZone in downtown DC for the Caps / Bruins opener Thursday night, October 1st, to consume some chow and drinks and watch the boys in red, white and blue take the Bruins to the woodshed (knock on wood). 

I expect to be in the bar area somewhere, though if they show it on the big screen I'll be looking for a spot where I can see it. I'm a tall brunette and will be wearing jeans and a red Steckel jersey. I'm hoping to be able to get a good-sized picture of that Rink Rats jersey that I can print out and hang up somewhere where people can find me.

Hope to see you there!