Action Off The Ice Too

On a night that could see the Pittsburgh Penguins sweep out the Hurricanes in 4 straight and send them back to the Stanley Cup finals in a probable rematch of last years finals with the Red Wings there are some other very interesting happenings off the ice that are worth mentioning.

In the City of Champions the Oilers have announced that they have solidified their bench by hiring both Pat Quinn as the new head coach with former Rangers coach Tom Renney being named an associate head coach. It was much rumored that Quinn was a front runner for the job, but it is a little surprising that Renney would be hired too as an associate. With all the openings for coaches one may have thought that he may have opted to take a run at a Head coaching gig. Maybe he did and there was no interest but he is a good hockey many and you would have thought that he may have at least been interviewed a few places first. In any event the Oilers have a pretty solid duo to lead the young team going forward and maybe this will help the recruitment of some free agents this off season.

Next up is the Calgary Flames where Darryl Sutter says he’s the best man right now to coach the Calgary Flames but will look at other candidates before making a final decision. It was an interesting decision to go public with comments like this. If he does hire someone other then himself he is already telling them that they are at best his second choice. Sure He may like to get brother Brent to take the job but that is very doubtful to happen with his position within the Devils.

The KHL may not be the safest place or the highest level to play but it just keeps attracting some native Russian talent. Jaromir Jagr went back last season and Alexander Radulov went back home too. Now it looks like Viktor Koslov and Sergei Federov are both planning to apply their craft back home. At the very least it opens up some positions and could possibly weaken the team a bit in Washington and also keeps the door open for other players to follow them and head over. LA Kings Jack Johnson has been linked to have some interest in that for at least a season. Things could be worse it could be more devastating to loose top level veteran talent to this league if it weren’t for the great development and influx of youth from the junior ranks that can more then make up for the loss of some ageing talent at the pro level.

The Cost of an Autograph

It is nice to see that there are still good guys in the NHL. Coming off the Sean Avery fiasco a somewhat positive story is a nice change of pace. Alex Burrows, Taylor Pyatt and Ryan Kesler said they will pull out of what could have been a controversial signing session near Metrotown on Dec. 21.The three Canucks players were to be the main attractions for an autograph signing at a supplements store at a cost of $30 for a small Item and $40 for a large item. This was not at a convention or card show either just a promo event that usually brings in people to get foot traffic into a store not try and make a lot of money from the fans.
It isn’t just the fact that they were charging for the autographs but the high cost that they were to be asking $5-$10 max...$30 is ridiculous, especially for less then "premier" players. It is good to see that they had the common sense to get out of that deal or they would have run the risk of looking bad.

I collect autographs myself and have gotten cards signed by Kesler at least and have had no trouble and got them back through the mail (TTM) in a timely fashion at no cost (except postage of course). I would have been disappointed had he followed through and this tarnished him in any way. Burrows said of his autograph: "I don’t think I’m worth $30, not my autograph. You can’t even recognize my autograph, so I don’t think it would make sense. I don’t want to be the kind of guy to do something like that."

Apparently, Andrew Cogliano and Sam Gagner of the Oilers had a similar problem that garnered national attention when they were at a card show that was charging $25. Gagner is another player that I have gotten an autograph from in his junior days so at least then he was very forthcoming. Perhaps as a pro things have changed.

In my experience hockey players in general are some of the best at signing and returning autographs both from the NHL level to the Junior ranks. It goes to show that for the most part they are a pretty decent bunch and it is good that we can include Burrows, Pyatt and Kesler in that group.