John Scott: Top of the Pyramid

Ok, it was only an NHL All-Star Game and therefore an exhibition game, but how can you not be excited to see how John Scott did?

John Scott himself said he expected his all-star game to be "in the background, enjoying behind the scenes."

Well, good sir, you certainly didn't spend long behind them. He earned the MVP honors after he played a significant role in the All-Star Game, scoring 2 goals and helped the Pacific Division in winning the first 3-on-3 All-Star Game tournament. The MVP chants were loud as they can be inside Bridgestone Arena, and maybe that's why Scott ended up walking away with the trophy.

In my last blog post, I talked about fan voting and now it has led to some unusual results. But John Scott himself has made the NHL pay for what its done in trying to get him out of the All-Star Game. John Scott today is at the top of the pyramid. It doesn't mean he'll stay there for long.

Apparently, John Scott was not even on the MVP candidate list, so fans had to write him in and why not? Scoring 2 goals in the All-Star Game and you're an enforcer? Yeah, that spells MVP to me.

Enforcers don't get enough credit for what they do because everything is centered on those who score goals, but for me, it's nice to see someone like John Scott earn a little bit of glory for what he did. Not only did he beat the NHL in coming back for the All-Star Game, but he made them pay for it. He went from enforcer to goal scorer to MVP. That's saying something.

Sharks player Joe Pavelski said of Scott, "I think (fans) saw his character, what a fun guy he is." John Scott doesn't appear to me to be a goon outside of hockey. He seems like this guy who is willing to get in a few pictures with fans and to be a good samaritan towards others. On the ice, quite the opposite. When he was with San Jose, I saw him a few times and all I saw of him was beating up on other players and trying to prevent them from going after the big stars. But now, this is something I'm sure he's grateful for.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had met with him before the All-Star Game and decided to welcome him back with open arms and I hope John Scott is welcomed back for the second half of the season.

John Scott currently plays with the Montreal Canadiens, since he was traded by the Coyotes when he found out he was an All-Star. So now I'm hoping that on this team, he somehow manages to help them get into the playoffs and ultimately get to that goal of a Stanley Cup. I think Scott has the potential and after what he did in the All-Star Game, I'm sure he's ready to get back to it!

For the USA Today article about John Scott's transformation, go to http://usat.ly/1WW6goz.

Have a good night, puck heads! Hope you enjoyed the All-Star Game!

Is Fan Voting Worth It?

The NHL All-Star Game has come and gone. The NBA All-Star Game is on deck. Want to know what both of them have in common this season? Fan voting.

That's right. This year, both all-star games had fan voting so that the fans (you puck heads) could vote in your favorite player. Some of the choices were pretty clear, like Patrick Kane for the NHL and Stephen Curry for the NBA. However, it is the unlikely picks that got in. John Scott, an enforcer and a goon in the NHL, not only got to the All-Star Game but was picked to be a Captain. Because of that, it is believed that the league tried to get him demoted to the AHL to get him out of the All-Star Game.

For the NBA, the fans voted for Kobe Bryant to be a starter. Now, although I don't argue against that pick because this is Kobe's last season, Draymond Green, another superstar on the Golden State Warriors with Curry, was snubbed as a starter for the All-Star Game because Kobe has it. And Draymond has been playing a lot better than Kobe and on a team that are the favorites to win the championship.

All this comes to one critical question: Is fan voting really the answer for the All-Star Game? The leagues want their fans to be involved in the All-Star Game and with the players. The MLB has also tried this but somehow ended up having Royals players start that All-Star Game before the other votes came in and those numbers were dwindled. So maybe my answer should be no. I love fans and they want to be involved in sending players to the All-Star Game, but the fact of the matter is that there is always gonna be someone that ends up on the All-Star Game that probably shouldn't be there.

If I were in the league, I would probably go back to the old format, which was to pick the players that made the most sense, like the stars and the other players that are having good seasons. John Scott, for example, had only 5 goals and 6 assists so far this season, and that to me doesn't say All-Star capable. For Kobe Bryant, he hasn't played well at all. He can't shoot as well as he used to and the other players are not helping him by improving their game. So, even though Kobe should be in the All-Star Game, it shouldn't be as a starter. I want to be able to send the right players to the All-Star Game and I want them to be in the right positions for when they play the game. So Kobe would start on the bench and Draymond would be the starter. John Scott would probably not be in the NHL All-Star Game and it would probably go to someone more deserving of it.

Fan voting might've an experience the leagues were trying to use, but the results have been close to disastrous. I think the leagues need to rethink how they send players to All-Star Games, or even if the All-Star Game makes sense. Some players, like Alex Ovechkin, don't even like going to the All-Star Game. They would rather take the three days to rest their bodies after the injuries they've had in the first half of the season. Even the NBA had to extend their All-Star break to allow players more rest. So maybe the All-Star Game is not a good thing to have. If they want one, they should probably put it at the end of the season and not in the middle of it. Either way, the All-Star Game and its fan voting might not be the best thing for the leagues, after what has happened this season concerning them.

The NHL should be embarrassed by what they have done, doing this fan voting, because I think it sends the wrong messages to players. Players now have to hope the fans vote them into the games and some of them don't get it, even though they said. So I think it's time for a change. We already had the experience and it didn't work out. It's time to go in a different direction and to figure out exactly how to get players to the All-Star Game or even if we need one at all. After all, for the NHL and the NBA, they are exhibition games.

Dennis Wideman In Trouble?

Looks like a Flames defenseman won't be seeing the ice anytime soon.

If you all don't know this story already, Calgary Flames defenseman Dennis Wideman appeared to have checked a linesman into the boards in Wednesday's game, although he has denied it was intentional. Wideman had just received a hard check from a Nashville Predators player seconds back, so it could've been that he was dazed and confused, or maybe not.

Either way, the NHL has suspended him indefinitely pending a review of the incident and a sit-down with the league for that incident. If he is found to have intentionally hit him, he will be suspended for a minimum of 20 games, maybe even more.

The video that's out there of this hit can't help him in any respect. Based on it, it felt he did do this deliberately and we really can't take anybody's word for it. Now maybe he was confused and hurt and trying to get off the ice, but I think he was conscious enough to know that the linesman was in the way and could've avoided him at all costs.

Now, to the other side, to the linesman, I think he needs to be more aware of his surroundings. I understand that you're trying to keep your eyes on the puck to make sure nothing happens, but he also needs to understand that he needs to look behind him to see if there are any other players coming towards the bench, which is what Wideman tried to do. But officiating is probably one of the hardest things to do, and I can understand why the linesman didn't look back, because he was focused on where the puck was.

I don't know what the league is going to believe, but video evidence is probably gonna trump any explanation, so it's probably gonna happen that Wideman is going to get 20 games or more for this. Obviously, this was a bad incident that probably shouldn't have happened, but it did and now Wideman is gonna head to the sidelines for a bit while the league figures out what to do about this. Yes, Wideman is in trouble and it'll probably cost him a couple of games. We'll just need to see what the NHL decides.

What do you think, puck heads? Do you think it was deliberate? Check out the video here at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj4PoDrqv-E 
and tell me what you think should happen to Wideman.

The NHL's New Training Initiative

Looks like the NHL is taking a new step in educating its players about how to conduct themselves.

The NHL and the NHL Players' Association have agreed to launch an initiative to help educate players on domestic violence, sexual assault, and sexual harassment issues.

The first presentation educating these issues was delivered on Monday to a number of teams in the league. TSN was the first to report about this initiative.

The league has also hired an outside firm to help deliver the message and to make the presentations to the team, which I believe will really help players get the message. If this information came from the NHL's own people, perhaps players would be less receptive to the issue. If it came from the outside source, like a lawyer or someone involved in these issues, maybe players will perhaps listen a little bit more and learn how to conduct themselves when around others, especially women.

Much like the NFL went through, the NHL has been under recent scrutiny as a result of multiple players entangled in sexual assault and domestic violence investigations.

The first presentation for this initiative was delivered in Buffalo, where a Buffalo Sabres player, Evander Kane, is under investigation for an incident last month in a Buffalo hotel room. The Blackhawks star forward Patrick Kane was also subject to a similar investigation over the summer after a woman reported an alleged sexual assault to the police. Then there was Slava Voynov, a LA Kings forward, who was in an October 2014 incident involving his wife. He received jail time after a no-contest plea in a misdemeanor domestic violence charge in July. He has since moved back to Russia after being suspended by the NHL and there's no chance he will be coming back to the NHL soon.

I think this initiative was inevitable. If there is these many domestic violence charges over a short period of time, the scrutiny would definitely be on the NHL. I think the initiative will help educate players about how to conduct themselves and when they should leave the situation or not be involved. Sports always gets the publicity when it comes to these sorts of issues because they are expected to perform at high standards and we, as a public, will not tolerate play if it isn't all at 100%, and I think the pressure on the players doesn't translate well into their personal lives and they are involved in stuff like these. So the NHL definitely did the right thing in helping put this together to help educate the players about sexual assault and domestic violence, so it'll be interesting to see if the players will get the message and be taught a little bit more about how to act and when to leave the situation.

There's also something else that the league and the public are missing. We need to stop holding players to such high standards. I understand that, from a GM perspective and a fan's, you want your players to perform day-in and day-out at 100%. But people can't go 100% on a day-to-day basis. Believe me, I've been through it in my work life. Being able to perform at such a high level can drain you, and sometimes, we need rest before we are able to perform at such a high level. So I think the league would also need to address that aspect of the game, because if players are feeling the pressure to perform at such a high level, we need to help them relax and recover. Like Will Smith in Concussion said, "Men are not machines. We must honor our warriors." (Concussion) That's what I feel the league is not doing. They are doing the right thing in educating the players about sexual assault and domestic violence, but they also need to address the high standards that the players are constantly put through and expected to perform at. I love people a lot, and I just want them to have a good life without feeling the need to perform at high expectations. We're all human, and we need to remember that.

The NHL still has a lot of work cut out for them, but they are starting on the right foot by educating players about the current issues they are facing. But they also need to let players get their rest or cut back on the high standards that the leagues set out. We're only humans, not machines. So good for the NHL to get the ball rolling on the domestic violence and sexual assault issues, but they are not done yet, in my view.

Happy New Year!

Hey puck heads!

Happy New Year! I hope you guys all had a great Christmas and an even better New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. I went down to Los Angeles from the 29th til the 4th and boy, did I had a good time. I spent a couple of days at Disneyland, trying to enjoy myself and get the most out of my Disneyland pass. I haven't been able to use it much since I graduated from Whittier College and had to move back to Northern California. But hey, I had the time of my life there, spending New Year's Eve enjoying the midnight fireworks to celebrate 2016. That was a great three days leading up to the New Year.

For New Year's Day, I spent it watching the Rose Parade and boy, there were a lot of great floats, such as the Miracle-Gro float, which showcased what typical Los Angeles life was like: pretty with a lot of palm trees and great scenery and entertainment all around. The other float I liked was the Disneyland float, where they put Frozen on the front of their floats with the characters, Mickey, Goofy, Donald Duck, and Minnie on the middle float, and then the Star Wars float on the back, showing the new Star Wars characters like the First Order stormtroopers and Kylo Ren, as well as an awesome model of the Millennium Falcon attached to the top of the float. This was a great Rose Parade, and it was the first Rose Parade I saw since I was probably five or six. I could've been younger or so, but hey, this was the first Rose Parade I do remember and it was something special.

After the Rose Parade, I watched the Rose Bowl in person with my Dad, his girlfriend Julie, and a couple of colleagues and friends of my Dad, watching Stanford crush Iowa from the first play of the game on. Let me tell you something, Christian McCaffrey is a beast. When he starts running, he just rolls people over. He commands the football, he is patient with his run, and he knows exactly when to move and how to move to avoid tacklers and get to the end zone. I look forward to seeing him next year back at Stanford where I'm guessing he'll do the same thing again and hopefully get Stanford to the College Football Playoff. It was just one, fun parade that I enjoyed and loved.

The rest of the New Year's weekend was just hanging out and relaxing. I managed to go see the LA Kings matinee game against the Philadelphia Flyers, and it just helped me prove that the LA Kings are back to their winning days and are deep enough to possibly win the Stanley Cup again. I managed to meet up with an old friend of mine from Whittier, who just happened to be a ticket executive for the LA Kings. Good for him, wish I had that kind of guts and prowess to do that, but I'm an English major and I'm only good with words and writing, not exactly with people and money and that sort of thing. But, other than that, it was one fun game that I got to enjoy this weekend. Hopefully, there'll be many more Kings games in the future, like the January 19th game against the Stars that I'm going too. (assuming El Nino doesn't delay my flight down there that day)

I left LA yesterday to come back up here, where I spent most of the day thinking about where I'm going next. Hopefully, with 2016, I can concentrate a little bit more on my writing and my blogging and making sure I'm up-to-date with all the info coming from the NHL league. I know I haven't exactly been doing that of late, especially with school and where my life is trying to go, but hopefully I can find some way to pull myself together, get my writing in gear, and hopefully get back to what I love to do best: write about hockey (and maybe football). So I will do the best I can to make sure I get you all the latest news and stories about the NHL and what I feel might be the best course of action. If I decide to blog about something else or open up a new blog, you'll be the first to hear about it. And don't forget to follow my blog: Reid's Poetry, where I try to post some of my best poetry that I've written. As an English major, I'm always open to anything.

Anyway, I hope you do have a good 2016 and that this year will be even better than the next. I will always be a writer, wherever I am. Even if people convince me to do something else, I will not budge. Writing, and especially writing about hockey, will always come first so I will make sure that comes first, no matter what. I hope you all have a good night and a good new year and I hope to be talking to you a lot over the next couple of months or so.

With encouragement and dedication,
Reid Urban

P.S. I will post pictures in the future of the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl Game, when my computer stops acting so slow when it comes to uploading pictures.