Carolina Hurricanes

Rudy Staal

Jared Staal is set to make his NHL debut for the Carolina Hurricanes tonight. The Canes, whose Captain is Eric Staal and who acquired Jordan Staal from the Pens last summer, are playing the New York Rangers. Marc Staal plays for NYR. So much Staal! Unfortunately, Marc Staal is injured and will not play. Although Eric Staal joked to media that maybe Marc would take the warm-up so they could all skate around together. Don’t toy with my emotions, Eric.

In case you haven’t figured it out, I am a Staal fanatic. They are my favorite players in the NHL. As excited as I am to see the youngest Staal make the NHL, I can’t help but think it’s not actually a  debut so much as a swan-song. Jared Staal is 22 and he peaked before his NHL draft. He has struggled so much on the Charlotte Checkers, his first year he spent some time in the ECHL  and then spent most of last year as a healthy scratch. Although he’s done better this year he was only brought up because the Canes thought it made more sense to send Riley Nash down to help the Checkers in the AHL playoffs. Also, Jared’s in the third year of his AHL contract and there are serious doubts it will be renewed. So is this his Rudy moment? I think it might me, sadly.

Duncan “Sexist” Keith: Is he jealous of Sedin’s Choppers?

Was it sexist to tell Karen Thomson, the female sports reporter, that ‘she probably can’t play either.’ Yes. Why? Because he wouldn’t have said it to a male reporter. End of story. Then Duncan later told reporters that “I respect everybody. I respect everybody’s job,” …except, well, you didn’t, Dunc. Can someone just teach this self-proclaimed sore loser how to say I’m sorry? What’s more sexist than Keith’s infantile attack on the female reporter, in my opinion, is the males on twitter who declare it’s not sexism. You can’t make that call, boys because you are BOYS. It’s like me telling a gay person what they can find homophobic. I can’t. One guy even snarkily told me that I should just let it go and blamed political correctness for people’s anger at the comment. Guess what? The only thing more sexist than assuming a girl can’t play hockey is a guy blaming political correctness and telling a woman to get over it.

But let’s get back to the real issue here – Keith’s inability to control his anger towards Daniel Sedin. This time he kept his elbows down but took a two-handed whack at Daniel’s back with his stick after Sedin scored. What’s causing Duncan to act like a trantruming toddler every time he plays Daniel Sedin? Is he frustrated that Sedin’s raw talent clearly outweighs his own and that Sedin can score goals without needing to injure people first? Or is he angry at that Sedin managed to get all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals and didn’t lose one tooth, where Duncan had to lose seven? Hmm…

Bryzgalov: Journalism For Dummies

Ilya Brygalov’s quirky personality has become a problem for him. I saw it coming. Sure, it’s all fun and games when he’s talking about tigers and the universe, but the media has crossed Bryz’s proverbial line and he’s not happy about it. Recently a rumor surfaced, and the media ran with it, that Brygalov was benched for a game because he fell asleep in a team meeting. Sounds hysterical, but not to Bryz. He chastised the media, called the claim ridiculous, said they needed better sources and told them they needed to do their job better. Bryz needs to understand he created this monster. He’s never once tried to be anything other than outrageous since being traded to the Flyers. His erratic performance and high salary already make him a target, add to that his outrageous personality, and you can’t blame the media for believing he’d catch some Zzzs