Taylor Hall Warns Incoming Teammate Via Twitter

In all the pomp and circumstance of the traditional NHL entry draft broadcast, a little bit of news got under the radar of some of the hockey writers, bloggers and other shows. It was wall-to-wall talk of Connor McDavid and just how things would play out after he was the presumptive #1 overall consensus choice.

They're no strangers to building a hall-of-fame riddled Stanley Cup winning dynasty before in the 1980s, it looks like this roster will contain a few more stars that could pan out in the same way. I bet this is what they are thinking. 

This is now the ticking clock of doom to the Oilers franchise. What I find wrong with this scenario is that the Edmonton Oilers have been stocking up on #1 overall draft picks for the past 5 years. In today's salary cap league, it has been known to give a "casualty" to teams trying to keep all of their stars on the same roster happy. A few players drafted within the top 5 for the last 5 years or more have already been traded to a new team. Once the rookie contracts expire, they are set to negotiate a higher salary commensurate to their production.

Via Twitter

Taylor Hall actually lets the cat out of the bag here in this tweet that was re-tweeted 3,000+ times and no one on the NHL Network or Rogers media affiliated stations this day. Completely glossed over.

How are we to interpret the Taylor Hall tweet. Sure, reading text on a computer is open to the reader's context, but I personally can not see any other intention as the sentence was constructed. This is a hostile and cold response to his team drafting Connor McDavid.

Questions still remain on this tweet. Is Taylor Hall expected to be pushed asside for the attention that McDavid will surely garnish? Will McDavid be quickly given the "A" or even "C" during his time in Alberta? Just whom will McDavid push out of room on the salary capped roster?

Little Boston Bruins Fan Immortalized With Card

The little fan who got to bump fists with his hockey heroes got another honor by the collector trading card company Upper Deck today as it was announced on their twitter page.

Remember fist bumping @NHLBruins fan Liam Fitzgerald? He was honored with an @UpperDeckSports inspiration card. pic.twitter.com/m91vqcBxAx
— NHL (@NHL) March 27, 2015

It's a really great looking card and captures the impish nature of a young boy enjoying his favorite sport.

Dallas Stars Get Last Laugh in Twitter Altercation With Cowboys

The Dallas Stars were clever enough to get the last laugh recently in an altercation on Twitter with their local NFL team the Dallas Cowboys. It seems that the anti-Hockey bigotry had reared it's ugly head on the Cowboys twitter page.

Via: Stars Twitter

There can be no better description to the Stars' classy retort - "Epic Burn". But, later on in the day, the two representative twitter accounts made amends.

[Via: NESN (New England Sports Network]

Two Iconic Female players will join NHL 13

When I've always claimed that Confessions of a Hockey Fanatic is a blog of unparalleled pioneering, I was not kidding. Since investing in the EA Sports series of video games, I have steered the games persuasively through my critiques published here. As the game is soon to arrive on the retail shelves, two new players were given the opportunity to break the news on twitter about being specially included in NHL 13.

Source: Twitter

EA Sports-Canada, can claim all they want that a little girl was their inspiration last year for finally adding the female gender option for the create a player in NHL 12. In staunchly written truth, it was THIS BLOG (as early as 2009) along with several other published critiques in other appropriate websites.

I continue to advocate for many more subtle changes to the game. I believe that EA Sports does listen to all their feedback while trying to produce the biggest and best game year after year. I believe that NHL 13 will be no different.

But as for the new Legends package as included in the NHL 13 game, I would have to say that it's a fresh new take on the game. They've begun to capture the imaginations of a whole new demographic of hockey fans.

Angela Ruggerio is widely known as being as one of the top familiar faces in womens hockey. Thanks to her appearance on reality tv, her advocacy on the US Olympic committee, and ever presence on social media (see screen capture), she is definitely a popular hockey player among the fans. She's won numerous IIHF and Olympics medals, but also has one game to her credit while suiting up for the Tulsa Oilers along side her brother goaltender.

Haley Wickenheiser is no stranger to play amongst the boys as well. Though she wasn't the first female credited to break the gender barrier, she's the first female to register a point for Kirkkonummen Salamat of the Finnish Elite League. But she is also known as a pioneering spirit on the perpetually-winning Team Canada.

I am looking forward to having both ladies in NHL action real soon!

Leafs Patriots "Unfriend" @DamoSpin Damien Cox

Even when the Internet is the new "vast wasteland" or "uncharted final frontier", many of it's users are trained in communications and use it to reach a mass audience. But sometimes there is a generation gap that gets revealed to show those people who are immature, but old enough to know better.

I can't keep up with a blog post that talks about one "twitter-bomb" scandal after another, but this one intrigues me as something worth commenting on. The popular Toronto-based hockey blog Pension Plan Puppets recently launched a campaign against Toronto Star columnist and TSN and Fan590 contributor Damien Cox. They claim that Damien's Twitter comments were too inflammatory as well as criticized the Toronto fans in attendance at a game against the division rival Boston Bruins for booing recent villain Zedeno Chara.

I would only have to side with the Puppets here. The argument, as I am trying to understand, that the long-suffering fans of Toronto want to be loyal to a team is their choice and theirs alone. They feel it is within their right to express themselves collectively and delete or "unfriend" Cox from their twitter and other social media accounts. The myriad of accusations by the Puppets claim that his trolling extends even across the country to other teams and fans.

Damien Cox, in short, is the epitome of all that is wrong with sports journalism. He holds the game in contempt, he sneers at its fans, he believes that he is the only truth teller in the business. The funny thing is that opposing fans have started to realize this.

I don't quite understand what Cox's strategy is with instigating fights with passionate hockey fans, especially fights with Toronto fans who are some of the most passionate in North America. As someone who presumably learned the rules to responsible journalism at some point in his life to be hired by a major news organization, he should know how to play it safer. Is his ego that large that he must make his name important?

Damien Cox's defense is that he is engaging in "fan interaction" and that "smart people don't enjoy pablum". He's only stirring the pot combating the bland with bold rhetoric.

Unfortunately, the Pension Plan Puppets are only giving Cox more attention he craves.

I have never networked with Mr. Cox and now I don't expect myself to. I've only heard of him when I listen to the Fan590 podcasts.

[Via: Pension Plan Puppets]