Not Writing About NHL 09

By complete accident I have spiked my blog's readership. It seems all you have to do is type the words "NHL 09 Preview" or "NHL 2K9 Demo Review" and suddenly I have a bunch a hits! I was going to entitle today's entry "Free Sex and Beer", but that's not the readership I'm going for. I will be adding some links to some older blogs I have here at Blogspot. I have several interests other than hockey that I occasionally write about that would just be inappropriate in a Leafs Fan Forum. For an actual hockey fans hands on opinion of the PS3 NHL 09 Demo have a look at Going Five Holes' experience along with a Sex, Lies and Videotape quality video of the game in action. (A P.S. to add to this that I will be moving this weekend and will be without interweb until my ISP comes and hooks me up on 09/02/08)

Ex-Leafs Getting Their Chances

Brendan Bell, tossed away two years ago after minimal NHL exposure has resurfaced in Ottawa. They are talking like he has a chance to make the roster their, but I think it is a symptom of having nothing to talk about in the slowest part of the year for hockey news. Kyle Wellwood seems to think that he has shown up in game-shape in Vancouver and that he can contribute, especially on the power-play. I DO think that the Leafs gave up on him too soon, but Wellwood dug his own grave. No one forced him to come back from a groin injury. If he had shown up ready to play at camp he probably would have been fine and had a breakout season. But I could just be bitter because he didn't accept me as a friend on Facebook.

NHL 09 Preview

I searched the internets everyday for new information on NHL 09. I happened on this today and it has raised my excitement for this years iteration of the game(apparently this video came out on August 12th, but it's the first time I've seen it). Have a look if you are at all interested. I think I may have a new hero(for a while, anyways). David Littman, the Producer of the game, leads the commentary on the video(while playing). He seems to truly love hockey and his love shines through during the game. He is constantly saying things about little aspects of the game as they happen. At one point he gushes about an effective poke check. The other thing that I liked was the amount of fun all the people that were playing seemed to be having. You can hear one the the guys say Son of a Bitch! when his team got scored on in the background. Get ready for NHL 09 which ships on September 9th!

NHL 2K9 Review

I sat down with the NHL 2K9 Demo on the XBox 360 last night. Even though I hadn't bought NHL 2K8, I had tried it out and NHL 08 blew it away and I never went back to it. This will be the case again this year. Visual Concepts studios has basically went back to the drawing board and tried to emulate everything that was successful about NHL 08 last year. 2K9 attempts to add the right analog stick into the mix in two fashions: to shoot and stick handle when in possession of the puck and to swing your stick all willie-nillie to defend when without the puck. There are bumper button controls to either soft or hard-dump the puck. But when you get over the blue line it's almost impossible to get to the puck first. If you try to use the the controls you are forced to press the "A" button to boost(which NHL 07 got rid of to great effect). I found it I went straight up the middle (between defenseman, pressing the boost button) with Marian Hossa and did a wrist shot, the hunch-backed Marc-Andre Fleury will ALWAYS miss it. This is what supremely pissed me off in 2K7; VERY weak goals.

I found myself straight out laughing at the goals I scored. And also at the odd body posturing that the 2K series seems to insist upon. There was a time when the 2K series had such potential. During the "Lean Years" NHL 2K3 was mind blowing. They added scrums along the boards and digging the pucks out of the corners. These are things that neither series has perfected(The EA series has seemed to have given up on it). I'm going to stop being any more critical of this, as it was only a demo(and I only played it for an hour; I found myself to be getting frustrated AND bored). This demo has only gotten me upset that the PS3 owners get to play the NHL 09 demo and I have to wait until September mere days before I BUY THE GAME ANYWAYS. The one final thing I will admit is that I will be lobbying for the powers that be at work buy the Wii version so we can play some kind of hockey at work........

Mats Sundin Puts His Pants On.....

ONE LEG AT A TIME! Holy crap, people. Do we really need an update from some guys Mats probably beat up in high school? Every time something doesn't change a story shows up on three major Canadian Sports News Websites. Well, here's a video about something completely different......


PS, Jeff Finger can't fight.

STANLEY CUP!

This video may be a little over the top with the pathos, but I have to be honest, I'm pretty stoked about this season. I think the Leafs have a real underdog teram right now that could end up looking like the '05 Oilers:

Sundin Video.....Countdown

Found a nice little montage of Mats Sundin goodness. Let's start the needless heartache now with a look back at a stellar Leafs career that may or may not be over. Again, thanks to the person who put this together....I will be putting up someone elses hard work every day or so until training camp.

Dog Days

It's been a little slow around the NHL scene the last week or so. So I guess I will share these videos with all respect to Bryan McCabe:





And with awe and reverence to Curtis Joseph:


Thanks to the people who actually put these videos together!

See, They Listened!

I read on Slamsports yesterday that Cliff Fletcher has said publicly that he will basically be giving the "C" to Pavel Kubina is Sundin doesn't come back. I mentioned my two candidates a few weeks ago; Kubina and Kaberle. Now that the cat's out of the bag, I'm kind of leaning towards Kaberle getting it(just to be a contrarian, I'm sure). Fletcher also mentions having a rotating system, like Minnesota. Wouldn't that be great? They always mention Sundin as the 20th Captian of the Maple Leafs. You could one day hear "Ryan Holweg, 29th Captian of the Maple Leafs". Not sure I like the ring of that.............

A Tribute to Niklas

I found this video on Youtube and thought Leafs fans would be quite happy to have something positive to watch with their Cheerios. Hagman has much nicer hands than I thought. Check it out: