Hockey, equipment, and skills

 The Chicago Blackhawks glory days are over, but man those years were something special. The Blackhawks made hockey fun again for the city of Chicago. It all started with Patrick Kane. You can read more about him in my blog post "3 reasons why Patrick Kane is the best American born player in history". He was a catalyst in all of the team's success. It is just crazy to imagine that if we did not draft him, the Blackhawks would possibly be in another city right now. I go more in depth on that in my blog post "a bizarre hypothetical". Winning three Stanley Cups in six years, they solidified themselves as a dynasty of that time. No other team in recent history was able to accomplish what they did in the same time period. During that run, the Blackhawks produced some of my favorite hockey players of all time. You can read more about that in my page post "My favorite NHL players". It is very sad to see how the dynasty came to an end. But, there is a new era ...

 Before the arrival of Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, the Chicago Blackhawks had a very grim future. Fans would not go to the games and their games would not even be broadcasted because of how bad the team was. The owners were on the verge of selling the team. In 2006, Jonathan Toews was selected third overall, and in 2007 Patrick Kane was selected first overall. Chicago won the draft lottery to acquire Patrick Kane. What if these generational talents were not drafted by the Blackhawks? I can say right now if we did not draft them, Chicago would be the laughing stock of the National Hockey League. The Blackhawks would not have won any Stanley Cups like they did in 2010, 2013, and 2015. Their attendance and viewership would have remained so low, Chicago would have probably had to move the Blackhawks to a thriving hockey market like Seattle. Nobody would even consider going to a Blackhawks game for fun, they would be classified as a joke. There is a possibility they would have chan...

 Since 2004 there have been mainly two players that have been considered the best of their generation. Those two players are Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. Both of these players are prolific talents that every franchise would love to have playing for them. In 2004, the Washington Capitals selected Alexander Ovechkin with the first overall pick. The following year in 2005, the Pittsburgh Penguins selected Sidney Crosby with the first overall pick. The question is, who is a better player? To me, the answer is simple. It's Sidney Crosby. This is not a knock on Alex, but Crosby has just had a better career. Sidney has led the Penguins to three Stanley Cups, while Alex has only won one with the Capitals. Sidney has proven to be an elite leader and excels in all aspects on the ice. Alex is a tremendous player, but to me he is just too one dimensional. For example, Alex has 273 more goals than Crosby, but Sidney has 286 more assists than Ovechkin. Alex is the best goal scorer in NH...

 Knowing how to control the puck on the ice can put you at a competitive advantage on the ice. Having silky hands can lead to having elite stick handling. One player that has elite stick handling in The National Hockey League is Patrick Kane. The way he can deceive defenders with the way he controls the puck is second to none. Players across The National Hockey League have even voted that he is the best stick handler in the league. An article by LauraGSpeaks titled "The Best Hockey Stick Handling Drill" provided some insights to how you can improve your stick handling. "To do the drill, the player should stand with his knees slightly bent, the same way he would on the ice, the left hand should be on top of the stick and the right hand about 12-14 inches down so the hands are shoulder width apart" (Speaks) This should be vice versa if you shoot the other way. " The key is to practice the way you would play on the ice. Practice touching the hockey ball back and f...

 Around the world, there are some pretty gorgeous sports trophies like the Commissioner's Trophy in the MLB, The Lombardi Trophy in the NFL, the World Cup trophy for soccer, and the Larry O'Brien won in the NBA. While all these are nice, nothing compares to The Stanley Cup in the National Hockey league. It is the only trophy in the world that is not made every year for the winner to keep. Once a team wins it, they have to give it back before the next season starts. I was reading an article named "The Stanley Cup: Oldest Trophy in Professional Sports in North America" By Fran Rooks, and she had some fun information in her article. She went into the history of the cup, and stated "Stanley then purchased a decorative punch bowl made in Sheffield, England, for 10 guineas, equal to $50 US dollars." (Rooks) It is crazy that the best sports trophy in modern history started out as a fancy punch bowl. What makes The Stanley Cup so unique is that it is the largest tro...

 I was browsing the internet just casually and I came across this article on hockey skates I thought was very insightful. The article is called "Hockey Skates With a Special Purpose Just for You" by William Yule. Yule goes into detail talking about how each hockey skate is constructed differently, what material is used, and how understanding this will help you make the best purchasing decision for your skates. A quote from the article is "The durability and safety features of each skate are the most important things that goes into the making of each one." (Yule) While looking for skates, it is great to understand which ones will fit you the best while offering you the best protection for your feet. Skates are expensive, they should be able to withstand years of blocking shots. Finding durable skates is a great thing to point out. While finding the right durability in skates, finding the right price is important as well. " We want to make sure that if you have o...

 In the year 2016 when I played high school hockey, my team was in a unique situation. The team only had enough players for either a junior varsity or a varsity team, not both. Most high school teams gather enough players to have two teams, even sometimes three. With the situation being assessed, our organization decided to label the team as a varsity team. This means our season would be an uphill battle from the start. The league that we were in was a very competitive one, and all the teams wanted to win badly. Our season got off to a rocky start as we won one game out of our first four, and the three games that we lost were blowouts. This trend continued of us losing a lot of games followed up by a win or two. The season was looking bleak and disappointing. Our team never gave up and battled every game like it was our last. Come time of the playoffs, surprisingly we did not finish with the worst record. Anything can happen in the playoffs and that was our team's mindset headed in...

 The year is 2023 and times have certainly changed in the National Hockey League. Back twenty to twenty five years ago, the league was run by enforcers who loved to check and rack up the penalty minutes. That is how it was, an extremely tough sport that only a select few can handle. There were fights every day and relentless body checks were a normal occurrence. Now, the league is filled with a ton of smaller skilled players who do not really like to throw the body around, check, or fight. The art of the brute play style is slowly fading away. It is becoming more difficult for these players to stay in the league as no team wants a player that is going to rack up over a hundred penalty minutes a season. It just does not fit into the play style of the modern era. It is sad to see but understandable. Hockey separates itself from the others by allowing players to fight each other. That art form is slowly dying out of the game. However, a brute player is still needed to protect a team's...

 In almost every level of hockey, players are required to wear some type of face protection. The protection can either be a face cage or a bubble screen. Growing up, I always wore a face cage and never a bubble. I had many teammates that have worn both throughout their careers. It all comes down to personal preference. Players elect to choose the face bubble because there are no metal wires obstructing their field of vision. As this is somewhat true, I have heard about a prominent problem regarding face bubbles. That problem would be that the face bubble would fog up quite frequently when the player starts to breathe heavily. It also starts to fog up when the player gets sweaty, causing condensation on the inner part of the bubble. Although this is not a huge issue, it can be an annoying one. I have come across a few solutions to this issue. One solution may be bringing a towel on the bench, and wipe the bubble down quite frequently while you are not skating. This provides a short ...

 In the past few years, hockey has made its return to ESPN. In the beginning we all thought this would be great for the sport, but we might have been wrong. ESPN is the largest sports broadcaster, and everyone knows about them. The company tends to treat hockey like they do not even care about it. I read a lot on social media how the broadcasting team for regular games during season is just lackluster. It kind of seems like people are always complaining about it. During intermissions, people seem to enjoy the intermission shows, so they have that going for them. Another thing that bothers the public is how ESPN prioritizes other sports over hockey. For example, during a recent playoff game ESPN showed a split screen game of the playoff game while also showing a blowout game occurring in the MLB. This angered a lot of fans. People were calling for ESPN to move either of the games to their secondary channel, EPSN2. They did not listen and waited for the MLB game to end to show the ho...

 It is now that time of the year, the Stanley Cup finals will officially be underway in a few days! The Florida Panthers will be battling out the Vegas Golden Knights for the most coveted trophy in sports, the Stanley Cup. The Panthers have had one of the most magical runs in recent post season history. It started with them making playoffs by a margin of one point! They currently sit at 12-4 eliminating three of the best teams in the league by pure muscle with a hint of luck. Vegas has proven themselves as solid contenders with a postseason record of 12-5. With all factors coming into play, I predict the Florida Panthers will win the 2023 Stanley Cup, beating the Golden Knights in a series record of 4-2. The Panthers just have the perfect recipe of grit, skill, luck, and finishing ability. Their goalie is playing at an extremely elite level, while the entire offense of Florida has gelled at the perfect time. All their players are adding what they need to in order to win, whether it...

 I cannot stand how expensive this sport is! Every company producing gear should be ashamed of themselves. It is ridiculous that a "top of the line" hockey stick costs around 350 dollars. It is just blasphemy. On top of that, new skates are around 600 dollars without them morphing the skates to your feet, which is even more money. Shopping for a goalie is even worse, with the grand total of equipment can be around 3000 dollars. With these prices, many families are steering clear of this sport, which is sad. A player could fall in love with the game but would never get the opportunity to play because of the insane cost of everything. For all we know, the next generational hockey player could be out there but would never get the chance to play because the cost of equipment alone is too much. Historically, hockey has been a very expensive sport, and that needs to change. The hockey world has been trying to grow the game, and it starts with making the cost of playing less expensi...

 This time of the year for hockey is by far the most exciting with the playoffs coming to an end soon, so I decided to read around and see how other people are feeling about the current state of hockey. The one that suck out the most to me was "NHL late nights starts hurt fans, players, and more" by Sam Nestler. Here's the link so everyone can understand what I am talking about. " https://www.sportskeeda.com/ice-hockey/nhl-late-night-starts-hurt-fans-players " One thing that stuck out a lot to me was when Nestler said basically a game did not start at least until 9:30 PM eastern time, which is rather late to start a game. Since the playoffs started in April, I did notice a few games having this same start time. I understand if there is scheduling conflicts with television deals and time slots with other sports like MLB and the NBA, but for people on the eastern time zone must dislike this approach. Every NHL game is at least 60 minuets long, what is going to hap...