Bloggers get the cold shoulder from hockey teams

Teams slowly reacting as bloggers hit the NHL
It seems like the NHL under Gary Bettman just keeps getting PR wrong. As media outlets in the US decrease the number of reporters covering NHL teams, hockey journalists and enthusiasts are starting to cover hockey as independent bloggers.

While blog coverage has grown in politics, entertainment and other sports over the past few years, bloggers have been slower in covering hockey. Unfortunately, it seems like the kneejerk reaction from many hockey teams has been to shut the door on this new kind of media coverage.

Why you should care about the 2008-2009 hockey season

10 Reasons to Care About the NHL This Season - Maxim
The 2008-2009 NHL season is just around the corner, and Maxim (yuck) has a guide to why you should care about the new year of hockey. They should have replaced "New Third Jerseys" with "New Chance to Win your Fantasy Hockey League."

Who's going to make the NHL playoffs?

Sports Club Stats - Your Team's Chances of Making the Playoffs

Sports Club Stats calculates your team's statistical chances of making the playoffs by running simulations of all the remaining games left in the season. Sports Club Stats has statistical analysis for the NHL's Eastern and Western Conferences, the NBA Playoffs, NFL Playoffs, NASCAR Sprint Race for the Chase, European Football, and MLB.

I'm currently working on my other website Fantasy Hockey Pool Stats .ca, and developing predictions in a spreadsheet for how each hockey team and player will do in the 2008 NHL Playoffs, and Sports Club Stats is going to be helpful with that.

Where to watch MLB, NFL, NHL, NCAA and NBA online

Where to watch NFL, MLB, NHL & NBA online
From Last100, there is a list of all the official sites to watch pro and amateur team sports, like football, basketball, hockey and baseball, on the internet.

How much is your NHL franchise worth? : Forbes magazine

Forbes Special Report: The Business of Hockey

How much is your city's NHL team worth?

Which NHL players deliver the most value to their teams?

For some people the business of sports is even more interesting than the games themselves. For these folks, Forbes has done a really good job of analyzing each NHL hockey team's value; based on their team, their market, their gate receipts, the broadcast revenue, their stadium contract, their brand and other financial factors.

FYI The Vancouver Canucks are the ninth most valuable team in the NHL at $211 Million.

Play NHL 94 hockey online

NHL '94.com
Longtime fans of hockey videogames recognize that Electronic Arts' NHL 94 was the best hockey game of all time. There were all the fights, one-timers, screens, monster hits, the players' and teams' real names, not to mention some of the all time great players, like Mario and Wayne.
Now you can play NHL 94 hockey on your own computer or online in leagues against others.
This is why they created the internets!

Legal victory for Fantasy Sports fans

Appeals court rules in favor of fantasy baseball company
The courts came through with a ruling against Major League Baseball, that Fantasy Sports companies can publish players' statistics and names as facts, without permission. Thank you for letting common sense prevail this time (pdf). Analysis here.

Today's Link source: Boing Boing

Best Links for Hockey Pool GMs

Hockey Pool Links and Resources - Fantasy Hockey Pool Stats .ca
Free Online Hockey Pools

They've dropped the puck!!
It's the first day of the NHL's 2007-2008 Regular Season, as the mighty Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks take on the Los Angeles Kings in London, England, and it's not to late to start a fantasy hockey pool. My hockey pool draft happens tonight, and I've been in pools where the picks weren't made until a week into the season, so there's still time.

For many Canadians, the start of the hockey season means that it's hockey pool time.
For many Americans, it's fantasy hockey time. Why the difference? I'm not sure.

The Free Online Hockey Pools link has a list of free fantasy leagues to try out your hockey predictions with total strangers. There are also templates for free bracket- or category-style fantasy hockey pools, which are the easiest type of leagues to host because you don't need everyone together in the same room.

The Hockey Pool Links and Resources has a list of the best places on the net to keep track of hockey statistics, injuries, rumors, news, player salaries, the season schedule and scores.
There are also team-by-team previews for the 2007-2008 NHL season. He shoots, he SCORES!!!

NFL Player writes about the experience of getting cut from training camp

si.com "The final cut - First-hand account of an NFL career coming to a close"

You might not believe that I'm not a huge football fan (actually, I love hockey and hockey stats), but when the stories are this compelling and good, I have to represent.

This is an autobiographical story of Ross Tucker, an NFL player that went into training camp, fearing that he would be cut from the team after playing 6 seasons in the NFL. It turns out that pro sports aren't always as glamorous as they seem on TV.

It's the gripping true story from the person that lived it.

Canucks re-sign Trevor Linden

Vancouver Canucks - Canucks Re-Sign Forward Trevor Linden

The NHL's Vancouver Canucks' annual dilemma about their heart and soul comes to an end.

The Canucks re-signed their most popular player today to a one year contract. At 37 years old, he might not have the best stats for your fantasy hockey pool, but he's an excellent supporting player.
Go Canucks! Go!

Yahoo Pipes tutorial - with NHL examples

How to Mash Up RSS Feeds with Yahoo Pipes - MacLife

About a month ago, Linkjockey published a story about Yahoo! Pipes. The link that day explained the Pipes really well, but today's link will hold your hand through the steps of creating your own RSS feed mashup with Pipes. The tutorial takes you through the steps.

It IS really easy to use the Pipes, and get start remixing content from the web.

My goal was to create an uber-RSS feed for sports teams. It would be an aggregation of news stories from around the world. As a proof of concept, I figured that I could pick the two hockey teams battling for the National Hockey League's Stanley Cup: the Ottawa Senators and the Anaheim Ducks. See the examples on the sidebar, or click the links below for full feeds.

Ottawa Senators RSS news feed
Anaheim Ducks RSS news feed

This could have a lot of value for drafting picks in hockey pools. Let me know what you think!

Today's Link source: MacLife magazine

NHL Trade Deadline

Yep, I'm Canadian and I love hockey.
The 2007 NHL trade deadline is Tuesday, February 27 at 3 pm ET / Noon PT.

Track all the transactions on the following websites:
NHL - News - Yahoo! Sports
TSN : NHL Trade Deadline
Sportsnet - NHL Trades

Hopefully, my beloved Vancouver Canucks will make a fantastic deal, and finally make a run at the Stanley Cup.

Live streaming NHL games

NHL.com - Radio

As the NHL prepares for the All-Star game today in Dallas, today's link lets you listen to every single NHL game live.

No matter where you live in the world, you can listen to your favourite team play every game over the internet. As so many sports leagues try to increase their "revenue stream" by gouging their fans for every penny they can get, it's uplifting that the NHL is doing something so right. The NHL is using this technology to make it easy and free to be a fan.

Through the miracle of Windows Media Player (also for Mac), every game's play-by-play is streamed live over the internet, using the same feed from each team's radio broadcast crew. If you're listening to a Montreal Canadiens game, you can even listen in French!