It all happened so fast!

Here's what has gone on since my last post:
The Jackets picked up Scott Howson as their new GM
The Ducks win the Stanley Cup
The draft is just three days away
I got a job! Downtown even!

I feel like I missed the boat on a lot of these events, so I'm not going to dig too deep in hindsight. Here's my thoughts in a few sentences:
I'm disappointed about the Sens' performance in the finals, but Anaheim proved to be the better team on both ends of the ice. Despite that, I thought for sure that Alfredsson, Heatley and the rest of Ottawa could put on an offensive clinic and keep it close.

Scott Howson seems to be an alright guy. He's only a year removed from a Stanley Cup run, and has been fully exposed to the pressure of a major franchise. This is unlike MacLean, who came from Florida where hockey isn't a mainstream sport. Howson has worked in the front office for over ten years, including working in the NHL since 2000. Only time will tell how Howson will perform for the CBJ organization, but we should see start to see his impact immediately. With the draft just a few days away, the Jackets' front office will need to select their picks and then make some moves over the summer to turn this team around.

And I got a job. I'm working in the IT department for a mental health facility downtown, just a few blocks from the arena district. I smell trouble for my pocketbook as soon as hockey season starts. I'm going to want to attend every game...

Why Sergei Fedorov is my Hero

It got me pretty excited when Sergei Fedorov started playing for the Blue Jackets. When I first learned that he had been traded to Columbus (which is a funny story in itself), I gathered a few friends and made the drive up to Nationwide Arena (lived in Athens then) to see his first appearance in the CBJ sweater. I obviously didn't have a #91 CBJ jersey at the time, so I dug up a Blue Jackets promotional tee shirt I had and used a red sharpie to put his name and number on the back.

While my maturity has generally raised me above the level of having 'favorite players', Sergei continues to be as close to that as I have. He always was, after all, going back to the early 90's. But why? Why have I developed an affinity for this Russian superstar? I never really sat back and thought about it. Do I really need a reason to favor a particular player? I wouldn't suppose so, but there certainly must be some cause.

I started watching Fedorov play in the early 1990's, not long after he defected from the USSR to play in the United States. I was a youngster living in a Detroit suburb and caught onto the game of hockey through several friends who followed the Wings. (One friend's dad was a particularly big fan and went so far as to coordinate a group of our friends into a floor hockey team that competed as the Blues- but I digress, that's a whole other story.) We regularly watched games together and played NHL '94 on Super Nintendo pretty habitually, so we were always current on the Red Wings roster. Fedorov played alongside the likes of Stevey-Y and Paul Coffey- three players we collectively thought were, well, awesome.

Maybe I admired Fedorov because he won not one, but two Selke awards, which is given to the league's best defensive forward, proving his all-around ability. He also won the Hart trophy for league MVP, and the Pearson award, which is basically MVP of the regular season. Even this season he's playing both sides of the puck for the Jackets.

Off the ice, I couldn't help but admire (or maybe envy) Fedorov's marriage to Anna Kournikova, and has been seen dating Tara Reid- both celebrities I once fancied as an adolescent. Talk about living the dream, sheesh.

Those may all be good-enough reasons to favor #91, but it's not the greatest reason.

Back when I lived up north, my friends and I one rainy day decided to write letters (by hand, of course. I remember the lined paper) to our favorite sports stars. Some wrote to Cecil Fielder of the Detroit Tigers, others may have written to Barry Sanders, rushing extraordinaire of the Detroit Lions. I wrote to Sergei in a letter that probably looked just like you'd think:

"Dear Sergei, You're my #1 favorite hockey player on my favorite team. I watch all your games and think you're really cool..."

Enclosed was a 1994 Upper Deck hockey trading card and a self-addresed stamped envelope. I asked Fedorov to autograph the card and kindly mail it back to me. I selected a particular card that had him dressed in an Upper Deck Rookie Team jersey, which I'm sure wasn't the best card of him I had, but I doubted that I would ever get the card back and I wasn't about to throw away an especially good one.

Off the letter went in what I thought was a futile effort to reach out to my favorite athlete. Even at that age I was aware that getting any response was a long shot- but that same inexperience allowed me stay hopeful.

It was only a few weeks later that my parents brought a piece of mail to my attention. I couldn't believe my eyes:


I have cherished this card since I found it in my hand-written return envelope over a decade ago. I have always kept it under plastic (except this one time to scan it), never to gum-up the sharpie. Over the years, I have been told that this card probably wasn't signed by him, and since I didn't witness it being autographed, that some nobody at the Red Wings organization may have done it, and so forth. I don't care. I'll always believe that this is the real deal- it means too much to me to ever doubt it.

Getting that card back in the mail was one of those childhood moments that I'll carry on forever. For my life, it has been a moment of innocence for professional sports that have become so littered with the controversies of gambling, steroids and violent crime that I'm conscious of today. Even if it's only in my mind, I like to relish in the imaginary world where pro sports are purely about the game and nothing more- no contracts, no crime, and the athletes play their hearts out to win games for their fans.

Whether he knew it or not at the time, a few strokes of sharpie created a lifelong fan. Thank you Sergei for taking the time to drop that card back in the mail- it did and still does mean a lot to me.

If I played in the NHL...

I saw this on EOB and Army of the Ohio, and I had to get in on the action. I’ve never played any sort of league ice hockey, but I did briefly play on a roller hockey team and a couple of floor hockey teams, and Yoder and I used to play on the ice at OU after hours. If I could go back and do it over again, I would have made more of an effort to start playing hockey in the youth leagues. I always wanted to, but the parents wouldn’t let me. They were always worried about injuries and cost.

C’est la vie.

If I were an NHL player:

• Team: The Blue Jackets, of course
• Jersey number: 21
• Position: Defense
• Nickname: Don’t really have a hockey-esque nickname. One of my friends called me T-Spizzy in college, so we’ll roll with that.
• On my line: Zdeno Chara. I’m not what you’d call a tall guy, so the contrast would be pretty amusing.
• Rounding out the power play: Sergei Fedorov is a must because of his all-around ability, then probably Anson Carter for his playmaking and timeliness, and Alex Ovechkin for style points
• Job: Sliding around the blue line on offense setting up the perfect assist.
• Signature move: Sudden rush to the net from the point when the opponent’s PK line is tangled up.
• Strengths: Speed, ability to slip in-between attackers to break up a play.
• Weaknesses: Weak slapshot from the point, pretty lightweight
• Injury problems: Nothing reoccurring, but more than likely a bunch of bumps and bruises from flying pucks
• Equipment: Standard issue helmet with clear plastic visor, extra long stick with a medium curve.
• Nemeses: Todd Bertuzzi (gotta watch my back), Sidney Crosby, Marcus Naslund, Keith Tkchuk.
• Scandal involvement: None. I’m pretty clean-cut. Definitely no ‘roids. I might back date some stock options a-la Steve Jobs, but hey, nobody gets two minutes or a suspension for that.
• Who I’d face in the Stanley Cup Finals: Toronto Maple Leafs. Their tradition makes them a fierce opponent for any team. On the way to the cup, I’d love to go through Detroit though… and have given Nashville the smackdown during the season.
• What I’d do with the Stanley Cup after the victory: Eat ramen noodles and macaroni and cheese out of it. Then take it to the C.I. (Athens bar) and drink beer out of it all night while shooting pool.
• What would be the media’s opinion of me: A solid player, though not an All-Star. Hard worker, student of the game, but not a trouble maker. Always up for sharing my opinions on-air and ready to make a public appearance.

Alright Yoder, your turn.