Fantasy Monday

Every Monday we will reveal our fantasy players for the past week, as well as our players to watch out for in the upcoming week for various types of pools and leagues

Eric Staal highlighted the 2011 All Star Game this week



Sunday Recovery

After an eventful Saturday of hockey, and probably heavy drinking, its time to relax and recover on the action across the country. Catch up on some teams and highlights you may have missed while trying to get that blonde's phone number last night.

The players are not saluting last night's television coverage

It's been quite an All-Star weekend. Friday entertained us with the first ever fantasy draft to pick the teams. We celebrated the occasion with a drinking game that made for a Zdeno Chara-sized hangover. Then last night, there was the Skills Competition. With many highlights of the event, there were also lowlights. The camera work by CBC was atrocious to the point that viewers were unable to see key parts of events (i.e. accuracy shooting, one timer challenge). The Breakaway Challenge needs to be dropped or tweaked. The NHL's answer to the Slam Dunk Contest is not going so well. If anything, Marc Andre Fleury deserved the win for his spinoramas and push ups. I'm actually looking forward to the All Star Game today and seeing who will take the MVP and car home. It will be fun to watch the two Toronto Maple Leafs representatives as well: Phil Kessel and The Maple Leaf. Here are your headlines across Canada.

Why You Don't Sell Snow Tires in Havana

This is a guest post by our bud Miles H., a man who enjoys a nice stiff drink… in the morning.

Sparse crowds in weak markets are commonplace in the NHL this year

Sitting in an economics and finance lecture last week, a debate turned to the topic of the NHL and I thought it was one of the more interesting discussions I’d heard in a while, so I started writing along.

The professor began with the premise that,

“the NHL has excess capacity, their ability to produce hockey and hockey merchandise exceeds the demand for these products in the market.”

2011 All Star Fantasy Draft Drinking Game!

The stage is set for the first ever NHL All Star Game Fantasy Draft

The rules are simple:

Pick the available players in the order you think they'll go in the draft from 1-36, then sit back with your friends or alone at the bar and play the Dirty Dangle 2011 All Star Fantasy Draft Drinking Game! Remember, goalies have to be picked by the end of the 10th Round, and defencemen have to be picked by the conclusion of Round 15!

Flashback Friday

Every Friday we will be adding one of our favorite hockey videos from over the years. Some might be painful, some might be just plain dirty, but they all have a story behind them that make them downright awesome and great to watch over and over again.

Owen Nolan had a true "All Star" moment calling his shot

Hoss Hall of Fame Induction: Cam Neely

This will be a feature in which we will pick a player or coach who best personified being a Hoss, and the Hossness that comes with it, and place them in the Hoss Hall of Fame

Some claim he was the definition of the term power forward. He could do it all: score, pass, dangle, hit and fight. With this said, Cam Neely is an easy induction into the Hoss Hall of Fame. At 6’1" and 215lbs, Neely owned the ice when he played scoring clutch goals, knocking you out of the game with a clean hit or just dropping the gloves and beating you with uppercuts to the chin.

The Great One Turns 50

Wayne Gretzky is 50 today. It's pretty crazy to think about his age and it makes me feel pretty old. I can still remember watching him play in the 1980's and even had his blonde curly locks flowing out of my hockey helmet just like he did.

Reijo "Rental Rexi" Ruotsalainen and Waiver Rules

Little guy Reijo Ruotsalainen is the reason for Evgeni Nabokov's waiver problems

There's was a lot of talk about Evgeni Nabokov and waiver rules this past weekend. For those unfamiliar with waivers, please read Pension Plan Puppets Waivers 101: A Guide to the NHL Waivers Rules. While making my daily round of reading hockey blogs at work, I was given fond memories of Reijo Ruotsalainen - the reason the waiver rule was created.

Fantasy Monday

Every Monday we will reveal our fantasy players for the past week, as well as our players to watch out for in the upcoming week for various types of pools and leagues

Zdeno Charasaurus Rex Celebrates His 1st Career Hat Trick

The Toronto Maple Leafs NHL Guardian

The NHL's Guardian Project has taken a lot of shots since it's release of NHL team superheroes over the last few weeks. For those that don't know what the Guardian Project is, it's pretty simple. The NHL has teamed up with Stan Lee to create 30 superheroes for each of the teams in the NHL. Fans have been voting to see which team Guardian will be released each day. While the target demographic is obvious, fans of the game can't help but criticize these creations. Not only are some not very imaginative, but you can find so much humour behind the drawings and bios as they relate to a teams history. With the release of "The Maple Leaf", brought a storm of comments from Twitter about the creation (Hey! It has Chlorokinetic Communication!).

Sunday Recovery

After an eventful Saturday of hockey, and probably heavy drinking, its time to relax and recover on the action across the country. Catch up on some teams and highlights you may have missed while trying to get that blonde's phone number last night.

Jon Quick Does His Best 1930's Goalie Impersonation

Fun night in the NHL last night with lots of goals and great performances from goaltenders. Braden Holtby stole the show in Toronto (despite an OV hat trick), Calgary defeated the Canucks in a shootout that went to video review, and Columbus came back with 5 unanswered goals to beat the Blues. Some bad news around the league as Marc Savard was hit into the glass and appeared to leave the game with a head injury. Here are your headlines across Canada on this "colder than Jonas Gustavsson on the bench" Sunday.

Remembering the MHL

While you may be unfamiliar with the Miniature Hockey League, or the MHL as it was most often called, you are probably familiar with a variation of the league or game commonly known as “mini sticks”. Played in basements, arena dressing rooms, and in hotel hallways; ministicks has been played and loved by many.

In highschool, a few of my friends and I, bored on a Friday night, began shooting around with some mini plastic sticks in a basement. It was fun, we had a little tournament and it was competitive. The next Friday night, we couldn’t find anything to do (we didn’t drink yet), so we decided to play mini sticks again. That night, the MHL was born.

Flashback Friday: Wayne Gretzky's Ninety Nine All-Stars Tour During the 94-95 Lockout

Every Friday we will be adding one of our favorite hockey videos from over the years. Some might be painful, some might be just plain dirty, but they all have a story behind them that make them downright awesome and great to watch over and over again.

Who remembers the Ninety Nine All Stars Tour? During the 1994-95 lockout, Wayne Gretzky assembled a team of some of his friends to tour around and play other professional club teams and local All-Star teams. The purpose of the tour was to stay in shape during the lockout, raise money for charities, as well as promote hockey around the world. We're sure it was a bit of a European vacation for some players as well...

How a Yahoo! Hockey Pool Made Me Hate My Brother

Fantasy Hockey Pools Can Get Out of Hand

OK, hate might be a strong word. But I dislike him a lot these days. My family and friends Yahoo! hockey pool has been going on now since 2002. We usually get around 10 to 12 guys in it every year and for the most part it's been the same core group. I have been a dynasty, winning it 5 out of the 7 seasons we have being doing it.

LikeALebda

It seems Leaf Nation is turning sour on Brett Lebda. He is on pace to be the next Bryan McCabe or Larry Murphy and get booed out of town.

Every game he plays for the Maple Leafs he seems to be trending on Twitter. This is a 6th dman (or crappy winger when the Leafs need him to be) and he is usually one of the top 10 trending people in Canada when the Leafs are playing.

A popular and very amusing hash tag is #LikeALebda. At one point the #LikeALebda topic was the 7th trending topic in the World. Yes, THE WORLD.

Is Martin Brodeur Doneski?

Things must be bad when you see Martin Brodeur being dropped by thousands of fantasy general managers in Yahoo! hockey leagues. I recently made the same move this past week.

Martin Brodeur is having his worst professional season since he was playing in the AHL for the Utica Devils back in the 1992-1993. For a lot of our readers they were in diapers still or just learning to shoot a puck when Marty first broke into the league. Some are wondering at the age of 38, is Martin Brodeur done?

Girls In Hockey Jerseys

Saw this beauty on Puck Daddy this morning.

HockeyGods, the same people who brought you (Maple Leafs) Love to Hear the Boo's, have once again made another hilarious video. This time its an Enrique Iglesias cover of "I Like It". The song that got stuck in your head because of Jersey Shore, now has girls bouncing around in hockey jerseys to go with the beat.

Here's "Highly Unlikely"

Fantasy Monday

Every Monday we will reveal our fantasy players for the past week, as well as our players to watch out for in the upcoming week for various types of pools and leagues

Bergeron has just been flying this year, good to see him healthy and scoring

Sunday Recovery

After an eventful Saturday of hockey, and probably heavy drinking, its time to relax and recover on the action across the country. Catch up on some teams and highlights you may have missed while trying to get that blonde's phone number last night.

Sorry, Corey Crawford, not even "inconclusive" can save you on this one

Not a great night for goalies with 7 teams scoring 5 or more goals. Made for some exciting games (better than the Leafs/Flames snoozer that didn't have any action for 58 minutes) that featured a John Tavares natural hat trick and Simon Gagne scoring 2 goals to reach 6 goals on the season. Other highlights included Henrik Lundqvist losing it on Max Pacioretty and Steven Stamkos scoring 2 points to get within 5 points of an injured Sidney Crosby. 

Hockey Night in Canada Slipping on Ice?

Hockey Night in Canada is a huge part of my life and my childhood. From watching the games as a kid with my Dad to now having a few pops with my brothers and friends while we watch. I used to dream of making the NHL, and how my first game would be on a Saturday night in Toronto for Hockey Night in Canada and I would get interviewed at intermission. I would have been the new hot rookie and gotten to say hello to my family and thank my old coaches. Yup, just a dream.

Flashback Friday

Every Friday we will be adding one of our favorite hockey videos from over the years. Some might be painful, some might be just plain dirty, but they all have a story behind them that make them downright awesome and great to watch over and over again.

12 guys had double digit penalty minutes this game. Wow.

These are the player stats from March 5, 2004 in a game between the Philadelphia Flyers and Ottawa Senators. In case you missed it, there were a great deal of penalties that game. So many penalties, that it set a NHL record for most penalty minutes in a game with 419 PIMs total. A week before this game, Martin Havlat of the Senators was suspended 2 games for a high stick on a then 36 year old Mark Recchi, and his first game back from suspension was against the Flyers. Recchi said this about Havlat:

"It might not come from our team. But he better protect himself."

Ron Wilson's 600th Win Pays Off

After watching the Leafs defeat the San Jose Sharks for Ron Wilson's 600th career win on Tuesday night, there was some rather interesting footage as the game ended. Here's what went down: Clarke MacArthur scores an empty netter, Ron Wilson props Rob Zettler, Tim Hunter ignores Ron Wilson's props, Ron Wilson gets the game puck for his 600th win (unlike when he got his 500th win and Christian Ehrhoff gave it to a fan), a couple pats on Wilson's rump by Leaf players, Francois Beauchemin hands Wilson a wad of cash, and Brian Burke meets the team in the hallway to the dressing room to congratulate them. Wait. Francois Beauchemin hands Wilson a wad of cash?!? Watch the video for yourself (the drug deal happens at 2:12).


We asked around after the game if anyone knew about, or why the exchange happened. Our guess was it was for his 600th win, and Jonas Siegel from Eat. Sleep. Leafs confirmed it was the age-old hockey tradition of putting a bounty on the game to motivate teammates.

Will Alex Ovechkin Score 35 Goals This Year?

It has been bothering Alex Ovechkin that he hasn't been scoring as much this year. So much so, that he is starting to look a lot older. Here is a picture of him last year, and on the right a picture of OV at a New Year's party.

(Maple Leafs) Love to Hear the Boo's

The Toronto Maple Leafs for their standards are playing a little better, but it’s still very hard to be a fan of this losing club. Another year we have to sit here and look up at the Montreal Canadiens in the standings.

Dirty Dangle Mid-Season Awards

These two were not in attendance at the mid-season awards

 With the NHL officially past the halfway mark, we decided to suit up and go to a local bar to announce our 2011 mid-season awards. With lots of confused faces watching two drunk guys ramble on about where Guy Boucher's scar probably came from, we compiled our winners for the first half of the NHL season.

Sunday Recovery

After an eventful Saturday of hockey, and probably heavy drinking, its time to relax and recover on the action across the country. Catch up on some teams and highlights you may have missed while trying to get that blonde's phone number last night.

Tim Thomas Does His Best Team Canada World Junior Impression

Some great goaltending performances from last night, Pekka Rinne, Ryan Miller and Dwayne Roloson all helped their teams win 1-goal games. Unfortunately for the Bruins,Tim Thomas only played a solid 57 minutes before losing his shutout, and the game for them in overtime. Other games saw John Tavares score in overtime to beat the Avalanche, as well as Jose Theodore shutout the Sidney Crosby-less Pittsburgh Penguins. Here's some more headlines from across Canada, Luke and Brayden Schenn as fat kids pictures, and your highlight of the night.

The Former Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey Team

It's always fun to look back at how former players on your favourite team are doing. A fun topic around my house is talking about how this guy is doing or where that guy is now. Finally, we got around to checking in on some of the active ex-Maple Leafs. With the players currently still playing in the NHL, we present to you:

The Former Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey Team

Flashback Friday: World Junior Recap

Ok, so Canada lost and we all were pissed and upset when it happened. Now, I gotta say I feel fine. It was a tournament that is so over hyped in Canada and played by 18 and 19 yr old kids. It's not that big around the rest of the world and most countries only show interest in it when then win.

At work today I heard some kids talking about how Canada sucks now... It made me think a little

Canada has made it to the final the last 10 years. Yes, the last 10 years, Canada has had the chance to win gold. They've won 5 consecutive gold medals in those 10 years. Is this tournament too easy?

Failed NHL Bestsellers

This is a guest post by Nick, an Ottawa Senators fan living in Toronto.

Twitter has quickly become the new home to the breaking hockey news universe. The workload is primarily shared between TSN analysts, Bob McKenzie and Darren Dreger. Smaller roles are shared by some of the usual rumour mongers such as NHLSourcesSay (a.k.a. mystery man Eklund #2), various teams’ beat writers, as well as even some players. In my mind, the comedy of hockey on Twitter took off earlier this year when Dan Ellis (formerly: @33dellis) pronounced his displeasure with the NHL taking 18% of his $3 million contract. Ellis’ rant led to the popular hashtag: #DanEllisProblems. Of course, in the wake of the aftermath, Ellis deleted his account, but hockey on Twitter lives on.

The Whale Is Alive and Well... in Quebec?

A slap in the pads to Dirty Dangle reader Laura for passing this video on to us.

Things You May Not Know About the World Juniors

Every year there are story lines that emerge from the World Junior Championships. It could be a goalie who seems unstoppable, or even a player who has overcome insurmountable obstacles in their life to reach that moment in their career. Here are some things you may not know about the World Juniors:

Fantasy Monday

Every Monday we will reveal our fantasy players for the past week, as well as our players to watch in the upcoming week for various types of pools

Old Saint Nick still has it

Sunday Recovery

After an eventful Saturday of hockey, and probably heavy drinking, its time to relax and recover on the action across the country. Catch up on some teams and highlights you may have missed while trying to get that blonde's phone number last night.

NHL Gimmick Gets Rained On

 Was anyone else disappointed with last night's NHL Fall Winter Classic? The ice looked terrible, the NHLers looked uncomfortable, and the play was not very exciting. Sure the NHL won big time in the ratings, but the fans lost. Aside from a few camera shots that make the event look amazing, the calibre of play decreased so much, that hockey fans missed out on seeing the two best players in the NHL play to their full potential. How often do you see Sidney Crosby or Alex Ovechkin miss passes because of pucks skipping over their sticks or have trouble stickhandling? Make the outdoor game less frequent, and have it in February. That's our opinion, here's some headlines from across Canada.

The Buck Stops Here

Right now my hangover feels like what Eric Lindros' head must feel like all the time. The only difference is, my wallet is empty right now and his is about to explode like Scott Stevens getting ready to hit.

It's interesting to see just how much money players have made over their careers. We found a cool site that shows player's salaries and totals throughout their career. From time to time we'll update you on some players.