I still find the system for hockey as to the jr aspects and the limbo effect it has on peoples lifes the worse aspect of the sports development.

Al and I talked about this once. These kids finish highschool but can play jrs till age 20. They often have to leave home to do this. At the end of this some very few move on most dont. This is the one of the things that scares the crap out of me about letting my son play. Of course there is no guarentee he would ever be good enough to be anything but this sport unlike any other has a strange limbo period that slows down the regualr progression of a persons life if they are good enough. You dont see this in football, baseball, soccer, hell any other sport.

Then you compound this with the issue of how to get kids noticed, or some would say get more money out of parents is also increasing. If you dont live in minnesota most parents are required to do high level travel teams to hope their child gets noticed. This is 15k for just the kid to do this not if you want to go with them. Funny I spent some time thinking about this over the weekend while at work. I pretty much came to the conclusion I could neve let him play AAA travel.

Just noticed this http://naphl.net/about.cfm seems it is an attempt to compete with Tier 1 elite. San Jose Jr. Sharks decided to join this. Wonder how much more expensive this will be.

It seems like the worse aspect of this sport for kids is the issues getting kids noticed in the US when they dont live in a very few states. Parents end up paying a ton of money to attempt to achieve this. This is only usually to get them onto a jr team.

I dont have this kind of money and likely never will so even if my son was good enough one day he would never get the exposure needed to get noticed. Just seems kind of a bummer. Growing up playing baseball I had a legitamate chance of playing college ball but didnt really want to. All I did was play little league and HS ball. Didnt cost my parents much of anything.

Hossa to Chicago for 12 years? That's crazy! Congrats, Tom!

Here's hoping my Kings go for Gaborik, but they are not going to give him a long term deal like that.

I saw this on hour ago, holy crap! Guess they wanted insurance in case Havlat fled for other pastures.

Big rumor in Chicago now is that the Hawks are trying to move Huet and his ginormous contract so they can resign Khabibulin (please please please please). I am guessing there is little chance the Hawks will resign Havlat now unless he is willing to sign a one-year deal, which is doubtful.

Christ, Brashers in now a Ranger.

Sather has his head up his a$$.

How can we get rid of Sather is the burning question! :-)

I was going to say... Sather fleeces Montreal yesterday and then signs Brasher for 1.4 per over 2 today. What was wrong with Orr at 1.0 per over 4 years?

Had Pronger not been traded to Philly, Brash wouldn't be a Ranger. Ugh.

Dale Tallon...what the hell is wrong with you?!

Khabibulin to the Oilers

Khabi to EDM is being reported as almost done deal...

Someone else must be watching TSN via NHL Network. :-)

*EDIT* Or maybe you are north of the border and get the real TSN. If so, lucky you...

4 yrs 15 mil

Great, we lost our #1, and picked up a huge contract. Good luck getting under the cap next year Dale.

Saved 12 million between Havlat and Khabbi (though I wanted to keep the Wall for sure and trade Huet).....picked up $5.3 mill with Hossa, 1.2 mill with Kopceky and 3.3 mill with Bolland. So far we are 2.2 mill to the good....if we could dump Sopel, even better.

True, but I felt both Havlat and Khabbi were a huge part of our success last year. Would like to keep both around, however I don't see that happening. Also with Kane, Toews and Barker needing new contracts next year it will be tough to fit under the cap.

We can't find the back of the net with a GPS and Sather gets Brashers. Brilliant!!

He's got to be going hard for Gaborik, or if all else fails, Heatley.

The Heatley offer is gone I think.

Lets hope he is going after Gaborik and if he lands him we can keep him healthy.

Frankly, with Sather being Sather I don't hold out much hope.

Good luck on that. The Wild couldn't figure it out. He's fantastic when healthy, but he's rarely healthy.

And Gaborik it is for the Rangers!

The defensive muscle being moved around this off-season is incredible! Pronger, Boumeester, Komisarek...

damn tom I wanted to post that.

If I were the Hawks I would be sweating. Hossa is now a Hawk. Cursed the Pens then cursed the Wings. Now its your turn. hahahahahahahahahah. Actually very suprised to see him leave after he took a little less to go to the wings for the cup. That said I think he may have looked at Osgood and who they have in the system and been a little uneasy.

Nice to see some bombshells going off on day 1. As usual the Sharks are nowhere to be found.