Congrats, NHL

The NHL's silly injury disclosure policy has, perhaps predictably, led to this:

"[G]oaltender Carey Price is recovering from an 'inner body injury,' which is NHL-speak for the flu."

"Inner-body injury."

Bravo, NHL, for bringing about previously unimaginable levels of idiocy. Bravo. (And isn't any sprain or bruise or broken bone really an "inner-body injury" too? Just askin'.)

H/t Rotoworld

Update: It's been pointed out that this is probably what's known as "a joke," and, upon a second reading, it's pretty clear that that's the case (though, the policy being what it is, would it shock you if it wasn't a joke?). Whatever - I'll go to the blogger box for two minutes and feel shame.

The Price Of Good Mentoring

You may recall that during the lockout of Ought-Four/Ought-Five, Olie Kolzig went back to his roots a bit and helped tutor a pair of young goalies playing for the Tri-City Americans of the WHL, Olie's former team and the squad he co-owns with Dallas Stars center Stu Barnes.

One of the goalies Kolzig worked with was a kid named Carey Price, who credits Olie with being "a big help to [his] game" and teaching him "a lot about being competitive."

Fast-forward a few years and Price is so ready to be the number one goaltender in Montreal (despite Olie's pre-season urgings to the contrary) that his back-up is deemed expendable and shipped off to Washington, where he and Kolzig now battle for starts and, quite possibly, a single contract this summer.

So when you think about it, since Price clearly would have been nothing without Kolzig's tutelage, Olie really has no one to blame but himself for the current goalie controversy - he had every chance to ruin Price ("N-n-no, Carey, you play the puck off your chest and back into traffic"), but didn't.

Ah, irony.

World Juniors Finals: Canada Vs. Russia

Remember these two crazy kids? What ever became of them anyway? In any event, a new wave of Canadian and Russian youth will duke it out for the gold for all to see (or not) tomorrow from Sweden. Caps fans will watch (or not) with particular interest as their putative goalie of the distant future, Semen Varlamov, will try to lead his underdog Russian squad to victory over Jonathan Toews, Carey Price and the Canucks. I, for one, will be hitting refresh on some website with all the anti-Canadian gusto I can muster, and I'm sure you will be too (or not).