Canada Day 2020

Canada Day 2020 from the Twitch.tv broadcast

Game of the Week - New York Rangers vs Washington Capitals (9/11 Anniversary Game)

It's once again on that somber memorial of all the people lost on 9-11 that I decide to continue simulating the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals NHL video game. I'll switch off on which team I use to control in the player 1 category and hope for the best. I've tried to get as many great goals in with some exciting highlights as best I can. It's a supplement to the "Game of the Week" feature on Twitch.tv which can be later seen by the Youtube channel community.
You can watch the broadcast here on the uploaded Youtube channel here.

Merry Christmas 2018

Merry Christmas 2016

In 2016, I had to overcome a larger role of my private family life as well as continued searching for more personal income. But my continued perseverance towards the Confessions of a Hockey Fanatic blog remain undaunted.So, this year, in light of my continued struggles, I've decided to go minimalist towards my Christmas decorations. But while I do this, I hope you're all enjoying the holiday season, I hope you're enjoying all the hockey season as well!

Merry Christmas 2015

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays in 2015!

Thank you very much for reading and watching my video blogs over the past year. I've been spending a lot of time planning new and innovative ways to express my brand of hockey blogging across the internet in 2015 and hopefully you've enjoyed it.I'm going to continue a lot of more "Game of the Week" episodes as well as more cutting edge internet blogging for 2016.

Stay Tuned!!

Happy Thanksgiving 2015

Once again, it's the annual tradition of The Pond Ice Arena Classic Hockey Tournament where young kids who travel from all around the area compete in the age-comparable groupings. I've been a fan of their graphic arts artwork, anticipating just what this year's design is going to look like.

Courtsey of The Pond Ice Arena, Newark, DE

The Pond Ice Arena

Game of the Week (Season 2) - Toronto Maple Leafs vs Pittsburgh Penguins

Happy Halloween!

St. Michael's Day 2015

On Sept. 29th, I always talk about the University programs that honor the namesake. In the past, I've kept up on a couple of programs, but since the Majors have dissolved into the Steelheads, here's the continuation of the tradition. St. Michael's University Purple Knights of Colchester, Vermont.

The Men's team have new third jerseys, they're that mustard gold color that has been controversial with another NHL team. And they've taken the Purple Knight's logo off of the jersey and just had a purple stripe across the chest. The player number on the front is smaller and less visible - almost the direct opposite of the purpose. While it's not the worst jersey in the world, it's the one with the least amount of imagination.

First off, the Men's team has taken some serious strides within their conference. They're now accomplishing things in the NE-10 post season by reaching the championship game back in February. And to top it all off it was hosted in Cairns Arena! They unfortunately came up short again, falling to St. Anselm, but hopefully the program can take this as a success and build around it for this upcoming season. It could hopefully also take hold with any new recruits out of high school.

The Men's Purple Knights finished the year at 9-16-2. AJ Pieprzak was named Northeast-10 Conference Player of the Year and also gained the respect of his hometown Barrie, ONT fans. Their goal production is 74g and 122a for 196pts.

As for the Women, they've been on a decline since the rest of the season. They lost to #1 Franklin Pierce in the ECAC Open Tournament, that they hosted! They were even routed on senior day to those rival St. Anselm girls. Their goal production is unfortunately inadequate with their last season totals 38g and 59a for 97 team points. 26 GP (5-20-1 .212). But when their opponents for the season score 188 team points for the season, it casts a harsh warning light as to where they need to improve for next season.

Some of the significant accomplishments this calendar year since the last Sept. post was how much the school can impress with their academic achievements. The Men's team have a press release on their website stating that they've accomplished a school record of 11 players earning all-academic EACA East honors, while 5 of them have gotten on that list multiple times.

The St. Michael's Men's team begins their 2015-16 season at University of New England on Nov. 16th while the Women's Lady Purple Knights start their season at home against SUNY Potsdam on October 30th.

Merry Christmas 2014

Merry Christmas from Confessions of a Hockey Fanatic.

It's been a real fun time being a hockey fan this year. There have been really significant gains in popularity and the transitions to a more skilled game. It's made for great hockey to watch and this year the rivalries are as strong as ever in the NHL.I don't know if you have any Christmas hockey traditions or not, but here's my annual Christmas greeting.
I truly hope that in these times, the spirit of human generosity finds you tonight and throughout the next year.

Happy Thanksgiving 2014

It's the time of year again where many school kids (mites) are out of their curriculum routine and on to the holiday vacation. Those who are serious about their hockey training take part in the annual tradition of traveling to Thanksgiving tournaments all over the States.

My favorite tournament in the States has got to be featured here as one of the oldest traditions on Confessions of a Hockey Fanatic. Sharing the creative logo of the The Pond Arena in Delaware, I hope that it fits in the holiday and the hockey theme at the same time. You can check out the rest of the scheduled tournaments at this link here as well as find information about registering your teams in time. 2014-15 Pond Tourney list.

Lets take a look at this year's logo:

The logo is still a cartoon anthropomorphic, but with a more detailed facial and neck features. But the pose is almost like the one they used last year. The colors are still in the familiar autumn shades. The font is different in that they put the year off into the corner, but used the text title to focus on. The leaves are a nice touch.

Who knows,.. maybe after years and years of promoting this thing, I'd actually play in it someday.

St. Michael's Day 2014

St. Michael's College in Colchester, VT

We no longer have St Michael's Majors to cheer for since their move to Mississauga and renamed the Steelheads. So, we begin again another year in the annual tradition of updating hockey fans of the St. Michael's College on this particular day. In future years, I would like to update this annual tradition and include other schools or other teams honoring St. Michael, but for now, I have only the Men's and Women's respective organizations to introduce to my readers.

St. Michael's College is a catholic liberal arts university in Vermont. According to their website, 25% of the student body are active varsity athletes while another 40% are in recreational programs. But, appropriate that according to 2,000 enrolled students according to their facebook page, that must mean it's a campus full of jocks. The sports team mascot is a Purple Knight (as seen in the upper left). They play their home games in Cairns Arena in Burlington, TV.

I've critiqued their jerseys before, and I'm still waiting to see if I could ever add one to my hockey sweater collection.

Men's Program

Courtesy: Saint Michael's College

The men's program is coming off of a great season last year by comparative standards. They found themselves competing for the New England 10 championship against University of New Hampshire, but fell short to lose 4-1. They "shocked the world" defeating the number 1 overall seeded team Stonehill to get there. That is something to be proud of considering they went 7-17-3 overall in the season. From the news website they went down to the wire only being down by a goal (2-1) with under a minute to play.

They are going to have to do something about their defense. Overall, they've been outscored on by their opponents with a 74-105 margin.

But as determined as they are on the ice to win, they have been developing great students as well off the ice. Back in March, they announced that 7 players achieved All-academic honors in the ECAC.

Their first game of the 2014-15 season is a rematch of last year's season finale to be played on on All Saint's Day Nov. 1st against Southern New Hampshire at home. Good luck, guys!

Women's Program

The women's team is struggling these past couple of years. Their final record last year was 3-19-4. Disappointing doesn't begin to describe that.One of the telling reasons is that they went
34-86 in goals for and goals against respectively. That's almost 40% more being scored on than scoring goals themselves and the biggest loss was 0-9 at Norwich on November 8th 2013.

When they aren't doing well on the ice, at least they are doing well in the classroom. St. Michael's College lead the ECAC East in All-Academic with 12 players. Which makes it 2 years in a row.

Courtesy: Saint Michael's College

But one of the better signs of a developing hockey program is not only the academic achievements, but also how well regarded the alumni are of it. Back in April, the Lady Purple Knights held a reunion game with 20 players returning to play. I think that takes a real commitment to the 6 seniors who also played in the game.

Their first game of the new season starts on "All Hallows Eve" October 31st 2014 at home against the University of New England. Good luck, ladies.

Canada Day Cup 2014

The Canada Day Cup Trophy was created at the inaugural year of this blog and continues to be the longest running blog series here at Confessions of a Hockey Fanatic. The process was simple, once a year, a hockey tournament was held using the most up-to-date roster in the EA Sports NHL series and features all the 8 existing Canadian franchises in the NHL. Of course, I had to adjust things for Colorado and Phoenix and be sure to use their throwback Quebec and Phoenix jerseys. Each team faces off against a regional provincial rival, with the exception in the case of Vancouver and Winnipeg. Depending on the time of day and how busy I was, the games were simulated via computer and the last remaning team standing was the Canada Day Cup Champion.

It's unfortunate to say that my PS3 hasn't been working quite right lately, and I am sorry to report that this year's plans for a Canada Cup has been put on hold until further notice. My plan is to record and make a youtube video out of it, but it's just not going to cooperate for this year.

Please check in next year as I am certain to make more videos on Youtube and going to make 2015 a new year to build on new ideas.

Merry Christmas 2013

The one only universal force that brings people around the world together more than hockey is the spirit of Christmas. So, this year, the annual Christmas tradition of a video greeting is in the all-inclusive intentions. I hope that other fans might voice themselves more in to finding what kind of content they expect from Confessions of a Hockey Fanatic in 2014.

From us here at the Confessions of a Hockey Fanatic weblog. Have a very Merry Christmas. May all your hockey dreams come true for one 24 timespan.

I hope that Santa Claus knows how to shop at Shop NHL.com.

Thanksgiving Holiday Tournaments 2013

It's that time of year again where Americans settle in for some turkey and pie and be thankful for each other and our prosperity (no matter what level). But for other families it means that hockey moms sometimes dread the long weekend of hauling off to some tournament while the kids are off of school. The Pond Ice Rink in Newark, Deleware, USA has been doing many of Thanksgiving tournaments for pee-wee teams from all over for many years.

Since considering myself a graphic arts design enthusiast, I will share this years logo with you as I have done with the yearly tradition.

This year's logo is a little different from the usual sharpness and attention to detail like the other ones have. It has a faded look, but still would look great on any brown, orange, or burnt sienna colored t-shirt. The anthropomorphic turkey is still cartoon looking compared to thee years ago which was a more formal distinguished look.
Good luck to all those teams participating in the week's festivities. - Be respectful to your teammates as well as your opponents.
Happy Thanksgiving!

New Years' Resolutions for 2013

This past year has been one of frustration and disappointments. I hate to say it, but speaking in personal terms, Twenty-Twelve served up more negatives than positives. In a lot of ways, I'm glad to see it go.

Due to the changing nature of the the blogisphere and in my private life, I can no longer keep up with this blog the way I want to. I know this has cost me dearly, but with a greater effort (and loads more confidence), I can get back to building this blog back to where it was all along.

What I Learned in 2012
• Hockey fans are the most passionate fans on the internet. We, the fans, maintain a strong appeal in the internet and social media.
• The anti-Bettman sentiment is also very very strong on the internet. Sure, the players are likable, but NHL managers aren't the ones totally to blame for this lockout.
• Other hockey leagues experienced a mini-rebirth and ticket sales reportedly grew in areas.
• Connor McDavid may be the "savior" of the Erie Otters OHL franchise.
• Florida is slowly becoming a hockey state with the return of the Orlando Solar Bears. All it takes is years of having the teams around to be allowed to build a fan base.
• It's easier to tweet out game observations and comments than to compose a whole blog draft.
• USA Hockey is finally catching up to elite status among the international programs. It could be the many kids of former Canadian NHLers starting families in the USA.

Resolutions for 2013
1. The resolutions made for 2012 are still resolvable.
2. With a deeper interest in building up a YouTube presence, I will continue to publish more regularly scheduled blog videos.
3. I reaffirm my commitment to building a hockey weblog that provides cutting edge content as well as feature unique blog ideas.
4. I resolve to become even more provocative in my blog entries as to encourage more comments and much desired feedback.
5. Advance my career in broadcast journalism by continuing to make great media connections and continue trying to crack the starting line-up of a major media company again.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays 2012 Greetings

Even though we don't have much NHL hockey to talk about yet this season, there's still a reason to celebrate in the holidays.  

So, continuing with the tradition of posting up a blog in front of the tree. I've pre-recorded this message to all my subscribers that I've been gaining over the past year. Please take a look at the video and subscribe to it afterwards.

If you want, you can even leave your holiday greetings in the comment box below or over on the channel. I've got a lot of great new things expected for 2013. Be sure to keep checking in from time to time.

Thanks again, guys and gals.

See you again soon on BlogTV. Of course, I'll film a little of the party over there as well.

Happy Thanksgiving Tradition Continues

It's always great to share and indulge in your interests on special holidays. I am thankful that I still have people that continue to keep up on my blog through facebook and twitter.

Many years ago, I started the tradition of posting up the logos for the The Pond Ice Arena in Newark, Delaware. They always debut a new cool looking logo to match up with their traditional hockey tournament played every year during United States thanksgiving. Being an enthusiast for logos designs and other related artwork, I've featured their work here on this page.

Courtesy: The Pond Ice Arena

This year the Pond's thanksgiving logo has a real throwback style to it by using a lot of tan and kachi brown colors. You don't really see much of the actual turkey bird in this logo, but it is still a fixture feature. It looks like they put a lot of thought and hard work into this one.

You can check out the past history of the Ice arena's logos as I have posted a few back in 2007.

For all those participating in hockey this weekend, Confessions of a Hockey Fanatic would like to wish you good luck!

St. Michael's Holiday 2012

http://www.mississauga.com/sports/article/1361600--move-over-majors-here-come-the-steelheadsThis year, 2012 starts a whole new set of updated changes for the September 29th blog post. It started as an inspired post to continue the special Catholic day honoring the legend of my own namesake. So, every year on this day, I spend some time to reflect on how to become a better person. But that's enough about me.

There are two university schools in North America that share the Archangel Michael's name that have a rich tradition of intercollegiate hockey programs. One in Toronto and another in Vermont. Only one problem. When I started this yearly blog custom, The Toronto St. Michael's Majors of the OHL morphed their identity along with their new owners.

One half of this blog's team recap capsule has now come to and end with the sad report that the St. Michael's Majors hockey program as it existed last year in the OHL is no longer. Earlier in the year, I missed the story that the Majors program had again been sold to Landmark Sport Group and were to be renamed. However, the naming rights went back to St. Michael College School in Toronto. I don't know if they will choose to rebuild a new program in a new athletic conference. But moving forward, I will certainly honor the team's long tradition of developing many players for the professional ranks.

COHF would like to wish the new Mississauga OHL team good luck going ahead into this season.

SMC Logo

St. Michael's College program is a Div-II team in the Northeast-10 conference. They have both men's and women's teams. They don't win very often, but they continue to be awesome representatives of the university.

The men's team is looking to fill the continuity gap with the resignation of last year's head coach. Alumni Chris Davidson had hung on to the program for 5 years as head coach while placing 16 total years with the hockey program. That news came in July and it took a month to find Damian DiGiulian in August as a suitable replacement.
It seems like every year that I use the cliche of "nowhere to go but up". The men's Purple Knights team will have to do better than the 6-18-2 of last year's record. While examining their season last year, they did string a few wins together at the end of January of 2012. However, the last few games they lost by a large goals against margin.

The women's team last year didn't have much of anything to be proud of either. A 3-22-1 record is what happens when the team gives up 113 goals (4.34 GAA) all season long. Amazingly, that is the same number of goals against that the men tallied. But as long as they keep up their GPA's, then perhaps their futures after graduation will be be a lot better. Perhaps what they need is an infusion of Div I instruction as the Lady Purple Knights have hired former University of Vermont captain Chelsea Rapin as assistant coach.

Good luck this season, St. Michael's College. I will be praying for you.

Canada Day Cup 2012

Hockey fans across the entire continent are sure blessed to have the sport we love to unite us across the border. After 10 years of covering hockey, I've come upon meeting many people around the world. So, therefore, I celebrate in a special way July 1st in support of them. It was 10 years ago today, in this annual tradition, that I take the time in my activities to simulate a hockey tournament on my Playstation 3 system. So, let me break down the history of this "prestigious" championship.

The first year I chose a format with an East-West 1 game elimination where each Canadian team started the first round against their provincial rivals. As it was my hobby, I would make sure I would be using the most up-to-date rosters.

But as the years went on, EA Sports continued to grow their hockey game franchise and adopted a more true to life scenario whereas they allow users to make their own tournament pools and schedule preliminary games to seed them. To make the tournament even, I had to include the two Canadian franchises that moved to the states, but with thanks to EA Sports, used Colorado and Phoenix in their retro Nordiques and Jets jerseys. But now that the NHL 12 includes the new Winnipeg Jets (formerly known as the Atlanta Thrashers) it left me up to an interesting conundrum.

2012 Results:

So, do I use the Phoenix franchise in the tournament knowing that they have the original Jets in their lineage or do I use the team called the Winnepeg Jets. After careful thought, I decided that the new Jets were going to make their debut into this tournament simulation.

Both Eastern and Western conference pools were simulated with preliminary rounds and got to the featured 8 teams in the brackets. With it being a single KO tournament, the final game came down to another Battle of Alberta as the Edmonton Oilers faced their rivals Calgary Flames.

The first period was pretty tight. There weren't any goals until Edmonton lit the lamp twice. There was actually more physicality than goals. That's what playing in a rivalry game is like. I want to believe that a real life tournament game would look just like this. With 3 mintues left in the game, the Flames did manage to get one past Khabibulin to cut the lead in half. But Edmonton killed off the clock and got awarded the COHF Canada Day Cup (see pictured). The Oilers Taylor Hall was the MVP of the tournament coming up with 9 total tournament points.

Previous Canada Day Champions
2002: Toronto Maple Leafs
2003: Edmonton Oilers
2004: Quebec Nordiques
2005: Montreal Canadians
2006: Montreal Canadians
2007: Winnipeg Jets
2008: Calgary Flames

2009: Vancouver Canucks

2010: Toronto Maple Leafs

2011: Quebec Nordiques

Thank you for reading this part of the blog. I'm going back to read up on the free agency news.

Confessions of a Hockey Fanatic 10 Year Anniversary

Well, I've made it here one more year. It's been a long ride towards this very anniversary. This blog has been the roadway for many opportunities as well as meeting new people across the blogisphere. When I first started Confessions of a Hockey Fanatic, I didn't know that I would be becoming a blogging pioneer as my initial foray into blogging. I thought that I would just use it as a hobby, but this year, I am celebrating it's 10 year publication history.

The story of my blogging career was this. I was IM chatting with a dear female friend from Tyler, TX who told me about a website that publishes diary journal entries. She wanted me to join her and hope that I could become involved with the already blogging community. Blogspot.com, before it was sold to Google, was indeed user friendly with several different ways to edit the blog page format. For it's content, I would just enter into the form square my thoughts and publish them. But instead of writing journal entries about my personal life, I chose to practice my journalism skills on the game that I love so dearly - hockey. My first blog entry was published today and discussed the playoffs as the Carolina Hurricanes had won the Eastern Conference Championship and followed up with some comments about how Patrick Roy had made a critical error allowing the Detroit Red Wings to tie up the Western Conference series.

COHF circa 2002

The Wayback Machine has helped out on this Internet nostalgia trip. The first blogspot publication was almost prehistoric with very little to look at. It was all text on a blue background. It had my PSU page link up there and a brief form listing my bio stats substituting as a real writers biography. Even though I knew basic HTML, it was still pretty frustrating to edit the page. There were some frustrating moments as the blog didn't look the way I wanted it to look. But as the years went on, I incorporated many programming language tricks I learned along the way.
 I did my best to put as many interests and shout-outs as I could to the many people that I encountered in my early days of using the internet. I wrote about what I knew at the time and featured my blog journal entries on the games I saw on TV.

As many more bloggers were starting up with their own publications, I saw myself in competition with them. So, to counter their attention, I became once again an innovator to the blogisphere. I was the first to incorporate a YouTube video directly into the blog article in 2006 and again including podcasting embedded within the blog source.

The pinnacle of the current blog technology is to incorporate live streaming video and audio content on the page. I'm going to be celebrating live on BlogTV.com website to mark the anniversary of 10 years and 100 episodes on the blogging channel. You can stay here and watch me broadcast live or come in to the chat room and ask me questions pertaining to anything hockey.



10th Anniversary + 100 Ep- Broadcast your self LIVE

Of course, I've got plenty of new things in store as well as continuing on the legacy of this blog. It's been a great 10 years - now let's make it ten more!

[Via: Internet Archive - Wayback machine]