Daily Double

[Note: Well, I bet you've noticed that I haven't updated things around here for a while. I have had a lot of issues with my Internet connectivity, so while I work on that and take care of a continued stressful work week, here is a few quick hits that I found tonight. Please come back and check out the other stories I was working on from last weekends road trip to cover the Ontario Hockey League.]

Happy 115th Birthday to the Stanley Cup! And being a nice guy, Shawn P. Roarke, has set the guest list for the birthday gala with an all-inclusive spare no expense festive occasion.

Adam Proteau writing for The Hockey News reminds us hockey fans about the real people who are suffering through the dark days of professional hockey. If the men's game gets no respect, then the women's team is even smaller and shrinking even more.

For those of us who follow professional women’s hockey, the last week has been perfectly indicative of the one-step-forward, three-leaps-back world in which the greatest female players on ice exist.

First came word the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Hall of Fame plans to induct its first female member sometime in 2008. Given that the 10th women’s world hockey championship will be held next month in Winnipeg and that women have played hockey in three Olympic Games since debuting in 1998, the announcement is long past due.

I pretty much knew how bad things were getting for the girls, but Mr. Proteau really paints a bleak picture for the women's game flirting with extinction.