Odds and/or Ends

Odds and/or ends on a nondescript Thursday morning in January:




First, brothers from the same mother? You be the judge:

One of my all-time favorite fantasy hockey team names (which I could never use, because it won't fit in the space allowed) is Starring Tie Domi as Sluggo and Peter Forsberg as Nancy.

Moving on...

Much has been written already on the Auger/Burrows Affair, so I will add only one (brief) thought: Yes, referees are human (mostly), so we shouldn’t be surprised when one allows his emotions to cloud his professional judgment…HOWEVER, when that happens, the League must discipline the referee. Officials must be held to a higher standard; the integrity of the game depends upon it.

Yours Truly is just over 24 hours away from boarding a plane to catch Saturday’s Blackhawks @ Blue Jackets game. It’ll be my first game at Nationwide Arena, and I’m looking forward to it. As usual, I’ll be Tweeting, blogging, and sending up smoke signals throughout the whirlwind 36-hour tour of Columbus, so follow along @OGAs_BigTex. Here’s hoping the game turns out more like Gettysburg and less like First Manassas for the Blue Jackets.

After achieving near-total domination over the East in the early going, it appears the Western Conference is finally coming back down to Earth. At one point, the projection was an unheard-of 99 points would be necessary to make the playoffs in the West. Now, they’re back down to a more realistic 95 points…Interestingly, though, the Eastern Conference is still projecting at about 84 points to qualify. While the Western Conference is quite selective – much like a country club – the Eastern Conference will clearly let anyone in the playoffs (except Carolina or Toronto – they have low standards, not no standards).

Last, but not least, here’s an idea I’ve been kicking around for awhile: As far as I can tell (without doing any serious research on the subject), the reason one team wears white and the other wears (dark) colored jerseys is to provide the best possible contrast for TV…Black & White TV, that is. Now that even my 100-year-old grandmother has upgraded to a flat-screen HD (do I even need to say it? Color) TV, perhaps the NHL can loosen up this outdated edict and let us see, for example, the Rangers (in blue) play the Canadiens (in red). Mr. Bettman, I promise you we won’t have any difficulty telling them apart. And I’m willing to bet the added color on the screen will grab the attention of casual viewers. Anyway, that’s my good idea for the week. Do with it what ye will.

Take me back to On Goal Analysis.