Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

Back in those (mostly) innocent days when I was a kid, one sports story that worked its way through my Grade Four classroom was the sordid tale of a couple of New York Yankees pitchers that swapped their entire families.  Not just their wives, but also their kids and their dogs.  No word if the furniture was thrown in, or if there was a set-of-dishes to be named later.

Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson were solid pitchers for the Yankees, but to a bunch of nine-year-old growing up in suburban Edmonton, these guys were as famous as Reggie Jackson or Catfish Hunter.

It was just plain weird what the southpaws did, never mind what your personal morals may be.  Sure, it was the early 70’s, and the hangover from the technicolour Sixties was upon us, but this went beyond wife swapping.  To this day, I still scratch my head at the notion.

Hockey, being a mostly conservative sport in almost every aspect of that definition, has never publicly had the same arrangement, though you hear stuff sometimes you can’t repeat, though no doubt someone is squirreling it all away for a future tell-all book.

So it comes as a complete shock to me that former Edmonton Oilers’ owner Peter Pocklington reveals in, what else, his new book, that at one point during the early 1980’s, two National Hockey League teams almost went all Kekich/Peterson, and pulled off the most outrageous trade in the history of sports.

Having obviously squirreled away a ton of inside stories over the years, along with a map of where all the bodies are buried, Peter Puck has grabbed the attention for his new book he hoped he would by revealing that he worked out a deal with Toronto Maple Leafs’ legendary owner Harold Ballard that would have seen the two men swap teams.

Swap teams.  Completely.  Which means the fine folk of Edmonton would have been saddled with the complete roster of the early 80’s Maple Leafs, just in time to watch the young guns of the Oilers emege as one of the greatest teams in NHL history.  The trouble is, those young bucks would have been hoisting all those Stanley Cups dressed in Maple Leaf blue.  Worse, the city of Edmonton would have had Ballard within their city borders.

Apparently, for whatever reason, Ballard changed his mind and the entire thing was scuttled.

The mind is boggled at the implications of such a wholesale trade, if it had been allowed to proceed.  Since such a possibility reads like science fiction, let’s put on the Spock ears and follow the changes that would have occurred to our timeline, if that deal had actually gone forward.

It should be noted that the pebble in the pond, check that, the giant boulder in the pond that the Oilers-Leafs swap would have been to the rest of the NHL would have had far-reaching implications, that would still be felt to this day.

The Edmonton Oilers would have moved years ago, if that deal had materialized.  Most likely, the Houston Oilers would have had to wait until the death of Ballard, and the battle over his diminished estate had been settled, before they could finally concentrate on the business of hockey, and during the 1995-96 season, Houston would win the Stanley Cup.

The Quebec Nordiques would still be in the league, though they never would have ended up with goaltender Patrick Roy, and thus, to this day, the Nordiques still would not have won the Stanley Cup, and there are still concerns about building a new arena.  There are whispers the team may move to Kansas City.

Roy would remain with the Montreal Canadiens, though head coach Mario Tremblay would have lost his job as a result.  The Canadiens would make the Cup Final in 1998, losing to the Detroit Red Wings.

The Nordiques would not have been in position to draft Eric Lindros first overall in 1991; that honour went to the Edmonton Oilers, who had earlier traded the rights to the New Jersey Devils for Tom Kurvers, and it was the Devils who took Lindros first that year.

Lindros would thrive in the Swamp, and he never suffered a concussion from that devastating Scott Stevens open-ice hit, as they were on the same team.  Lindros would retire as a member of the Devils, having won three Stanley Cups, in 2000, 2001 and 2003.

A young Peter Forsberg would captain the Philadelphia Flyers to the 1995 Cup.

If Pocklington had ended up with his young team in Toronto, he would have most likely made a ton of cash over what he realized in Northern Alberta.  Even with his business problems that existed in other industries he ran (Gainers Foods), Peter Puck would have not needed to cash in his depreciating asset known as Wayne Gretzky.  Even if he later broke up the Boys On The Bus, odds are Bruce McNall would have been exposed as a charlatan by then, which means the Great One doesn’t end up in L.A, after winning five Cups with Toronto.

Let’s say, instead, Gretzky is traded by the Leafs to the Rangers.  It is he, in 1994, that hoists the Stanley Cup over his head, as the Broadway Blueshirts end their 54-year drought.

As for the Kings, they continue to flounder, though the NHL props them up financially.  As a result, there isn’t a mad rush to pan fool’s gold in the U.S. south, meaning that the likes of the Anaheim Ducks and Florida Panthers never come-to-be.

The NHL still would expand to Ottawa and Tampa, though the Lightning are moved to Minnesota, and that’s where they win the Stanley Cup in 2004 over the Flyers.

The Thrashers and Predators never see the light-of-day, though Penguins’ owner Mario Lemieux threatens to move his team to Nashville if he doesn’t get a sweetheart arena deal from the city of Pittsburgh.

The league is impressed with the Nashville bid, and promises to consider expansion to Tennessee, and Kansas City, in the near future.  Canadian billionaire businessman Jim Balsillie, by now a personal friend of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, is often mentioned as the owner of a Nashville NHL franchise.

No-one ever hears about William Boots Del Biaggio.

The Islanders still need a new arena, and threaten to move to Hamilton, which Pocklington blocks.

The Winnipeg Jets still move to Phoenix, as the NHL is emboldened by the relative success of the Houston Oilers and Dallas Stars, though even in this alternative timeline, the Coyotes still lose a ton of money.

The North Stars have moved to Dallas, setting up a great rivalry with Houston, but overall, the NHL have dipped a tentative toe into the expansion waters, instead of diving in headfirst, and ending up with the fractured neck they have now.

Which only goes to prove that in every scenario, no matter how bleak, no matter how wacky, there is always a sliver of hope.

Makes me wish Ballard didn’t get cold feet.

- Mick Kern

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

The first NBC Game-of-the-Week this season featured the Penguins and the Rangers.  During the second period, Sidney Crosby was hooked from behind, negating a good scoring opportunity.  The referee gestures towards centre ice.  There’s gonna be a showdown in Steel City.

Sidney Crosby one-on-one against Henrik Lundqvist.  Two marquee players face-to-face.  And on U.S. network television.  This is what you want.

Or do you?

If one looks at it from a marketing angle, the answer is a resounding yes.  Crosby is one of the young superstars of the National Hockey League.  Lundqvist is one of the top goaltenders.

Often called “The Most Exciting Play In Hockey”, the penalty shot has lost some of its lustre with the implementation of the shootout.  Even so, it’s still a relatively rare moment when a penalty shot is called.

In all the NHL games I’ve attended, it has only occurred twice.  The first one was at Madison Square Garden, as the Rangers hosted the Detroit Red Wings in February 1987.  Petr Klima took the shot against John Vanbiesbrouck.  The joint was rocking as Klima lined up all alone at centre ice.  It was hockey theatre at its finest.  The decibel level rose even higher when The Beezer stoned Klima.

Second penalty shot I witnessed live was at Maple Leaf Gardens in the mid 90’s during a Leafs-Canadiens exhibition game.  Joe Sacco took the shot, and I can’t recall who was in net for the Habs.  Hey, it was an exhibition game.  From what I do remember of that sleepy affair, the penalty shot was the highlight of the evening.  Oh, Sacco didn’t score.

Last season, there were 64 penalty shots.  Only 19 of them found the back of the net.  Valterri Filppula of Detroit scored twice in a week; the first goal on Nashville’s Dan Ellis, the second against Florida’s Tomas Vokoun.  Vincent Lecavalier also converted two penalty shots last season, albeit four-and-a-half months apart.  Eric Staal also scored twice.

Lundqvist faced three penalty shots in the 2007-08 campaign, stopping Jordan Staal, but yielding goals to Lecavalier and Sergei Kostitsyn.  He got the better of Crosby on this day, getting Sid the Kid to shoot the puck into his chest.

The Rangers were trailing 2-0 at the time of the penalty shot; could this have been a turning point?  Not this time.  The Penguins would score the next goal, and won the game 3-0.

Regardless, a penalty shot featuring two marquee players is notable.  If Crosby had scored, the clip may even have made a few sports shows that don’t usually linger on hockey.  The penalty shot is one of the signature events of the game of hockey.  Unlike soccer, the goaltender has a reasonable shot at stopping the shot.

So it was intriguing when Pierre McGuire, working on the NBC telecast, suggested that coaches should have the option to decline the penalty shot, and take a two-minute powerplay instead.  The reasoning was something to the effect that the penalty shot is only one chance, and as earlier discussed, arguably the odds favour the goaltender.  If a team were to decline the shot, and take the powerplay, odds are that they would get more than one chance at a quality shot.

Then again, the argument the other way is also convincing.  Many times, a team fails to generate a quality scoring opportunity on the powerplay.  Sometimes it looks at though the team with the man advantage is trying too harder to set up the perfect tic-tac-toe goal.  Why surrender the clear cut scoring opportunity that a penalty shot provides?  Like they say in football, never take points off the board.  The equivalent in hockey being, never deny yourself a scoring chance.

McGuire maintains that the option to choose should be there; let the head coach make that decision.  While I see this point, I still think the penalty shot as it is now should stand.

If Michel Therrien had elected to decline the penalty shot, and went instead with the two-minute powerplay, a number of things would have changed.

First and foremost, hockey fans would have been denied the Crosby-Lundqvist matchup.  Depending on which team you’re pulling for, the result was either wonderful, or a disappointment.  But that’s not how to judge the moment.  The anticipation was wonderful, something a two-minute powerplay rarely generates.  It was perfect for television.

Second, the fact the penalty shot featured one of the young guns of the league allows sports media outlets to isolate this moment, as opposed to just another powerplay.

Third, the Penguns were pretty much guaranteed a good scoring chance, unless the player taking the shot loses control of the puck, or falls.  (Even then, that play would have lived in infamy for years).  If the Pens had taken the two-minute powerplay, they may have never generated a similar scoring opportunity.  Sure, you take your chances; Pittsburgh might have manufactured a half-dozen good chances.

Or, they could have had their power-play time cut by being called for their own penalty.  So many variables, some good, many not so good.  By taking the penalty shot, you’re pretty much guaranteed one stellar scoring opportunity, which is what it’s all about.  Giving back to the player the scoring chance the defence illegally took away.

Keep the penalty shot the way it is.

- Mick Kern

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

Christmas came and went with astonishing speed, as it does every year, leaving behind a jumble of packages and boxes, ripped paper and the spectre of New Year’s bills.

By the time Boxing Day rolled around, we all needed a break from the festive cheer, so the wife trooped us outside into the backyard for a game of hockey.

Two years ago, during a consistent stretch of frigid weather during February, we iced the backyard and fashioned ourselves a rather ragged rink for about three weeks, before the first stirrings of Spring took it away.  Last year, the weather was too unreliable to even consider undertaking such a task.

As for this Winter, no-one seems sure how the season will unfold.  Here in Toronto, we got hit with three major snowstorms in the ten days before Christmas, which not only guaranteed a Bing Crosby Yuletide, but also resuscitated the wife’s romantic notion of having a backyard rink.  The trouble is, the forecast for Saturday, December 27th was for rain and more rain, which gave us a window of only one day to prepare, flood, freeze and enjoy our own Winter Classic.

Time for Plan B.

Around 2 pm that afternoon, the whole crew moved into the snow-covered backyard, shovels-in-hand, and proceeded to clear a sizeable area, large enough for our regulation-sized net and three hockey players.  The wife supervised the work, assigning herself to the snow pick, while I cleared the debris.  The four-year-old quickly lost interest in the proceedings, and instead practised his Bill Barber dives into the nearest snowbank.

After about a half-hour, we had the semblance of a backyard rink…minus the ice.  The only effective way to pat down the surface of snow into a consistent packed base was to tread on it.  The four-year-old and I began a game of keep away, and I’m not embarrassed to say I kicked his ass!

Yes, I know, how sad is that?  A grown man in his mid-forties bragging about outplaying his four-year-old son.  But c’mon, Father Time was sitting on the snow-covered picnic table, taking notes.  I know my window for channeling my inner Rick Nash, going around some pylon defenceman, is very narrow.  With each passing season, the pylon will grow and gain more confidence.  Sooner than I think, we will have switched roles.  Heck, he’s already got a better shot than I had at that age, or when I was eight.

Okay, it’s still sad.  And the boy let it be known he didn’t appreciate it, either.  He enlisted his mother, and suddenly my puck handling skills were put to the test.  I still ruled!  Everyone knows girls can’t play hockey.  Right?  Right?

The wife would exact her hockey revenge later.

As for the puck, we were using one of those bright orange street hockey jobbies that I picked up from Canadian Tire for a buck each.  Loaded up on about a dozen two years ago, and after banging a bunch of them off the goalpost during that deep freeze, we only have a couple left.  My wrist shot will never strike fear into the heart of any goaltender, still it was rather satisfying to watch the puck explode into two pieces after rattling it off the crossbar, allowing me to pretend I was some backyard Kent Nilsson.

After about twenty minutes of action, the snow surface under our feet was finely packed down, in perfect condition for the wife and I to later lay down the first layer of water from the trusty old garden hose.  But the weather forecast hadn’t changed.  Today it was a perfect late December day.  Tomorrow, it would look like March 29th.  There would be no need to use the hose.

But that was all in the future; at the moment, the three of us were immersed in a serious game of shinny.  One game pitted me against the wife and child.  The objective was to see who could score on the unguarded net.  Sounds easy, but you’d be surprised how difficult that can be when one has to navigate two hostile bodies, a finite amount of space, and an unpredictable playing surface.

At one point, the wife had possession of the puck about halfway towards the net, and my only recourse was to bodycheck her into the snowbank, tie up her stick with mine, and then extract the puck with my boot.  This was going rather well until the four-year-old saw that his teammate, his Mommy, was in need of help.

With all the speed he could muster, he slammed into me, which resulted in me losing the puck, and the little guy falling to the ground.

Suddenly, we snapped back to being concerned parents.  As we went to help him up, he brushed away any helping hand, and picking himself up off-the-ground, muttering something to the effect that I had knocked him to the ice.  If there had been a referee on duty, no doubt the kid would have made his way over to him, petitioning for a penalty.  And he may have been right; maybe I did knock him down.  How sad is that?

Then again, if one adheres to The Gospel According To Bobby Clarke, I was innocent.  The four-year-old entered the scrum, and got what was coming his way.  His mission was accomplished; I lost possession of the puck.

The boy showed that everything was alright by dropping his plastic stick, and his winter gloves, and charging at me, gleefully shouting out “Hockey Fight”.  The fight was a draw; he got in a few good left hooks, while I managed to sneak in a noogie before the wife separated the combatants.  I’m not a big fan of hockey fights, nor do I let the kid watch The Loud Man, as he calls Don Cherry.  Somehow, he just knows that hockey guys drop the gloves every so often.  Apparently, a four-year-old understands The Code.  Make of that what you will.

The sun was beginning to drop low on the horizon, and thoughts turned to supper and hot chocolate.  But first, time for Showdown.  Mano-a-mano, or, in this case, Mano-a-Womano.

I went to the mudroom and retrieved my old Mike Richter goaltender stick.  Last used it on-ice as a pickup goaltender way back in June of 1995.  Lovingly taped it to perfection, and then took to the ice on that steamy late Spring evening.  Which meant that my glasses steamed up terribly, which meant I battled to stop even the most rudimentary shot, which led to the spectacle of me violently chucking my goaltending equipment, piece-by-piece, into the corner, accompanied by every swear word I ever learned in the playground during grade school.

Since that day, I haven’t played ice hockey.  Do I miss it?  Sometimes very much.  Then again, after a while, I grew tired of fighting over a black piece of rubber.  And fighting was the word; often, the action would grow far too heated for a friendly pickup game, and the fun would be drained out it.  This even happened during our weekly Sunday morning ball hockey game, which I used to live for.  A person can only take so much testosterone-fueled macho crap before he’s had his fill.

I used to marvel that most of my friends in Ottawa stopped playing hockey during their mid-20’s.  A couple of these guys were very good, having played Junior “B” hockey, and when we’d organize a pickup game, they looked like Bobby Orr and Mike Modano out there, cutting through the rest of us scrubs.

Why weren’t they playing in a recreational league?  One friend explained that, while he missed the competition, what he didn’t miss were the guys who came straight from work, loaded up on beer, and then took to the ice in an effort to work out whatever frustrations they were experiencing with the wife or the boss.  It wasn’t worth the chippiness and the petty violence.  They’d much rather slum it with wannabee’s such as myself.

The trouble was, soon they grew bored by the lack of competition, and invited a few acquaintances who were also pretty flashy on a pair of skates.  Within weeks, the ringers began to crowd out the ankle-skaters.  While the level of play rose accordingly, the original purpose of getting all the guys together to have some fun soon was forgotten.  And before you knew it, many of the guys stopped showing up.  In my experience, this dynamic happens every time, another reason I don’t play ice hockey anymore.

These days, my hockey playing is reserved for when the two older neighborhood boys knock on our door, and invite the four-year-old and I to play street hockey.  The kid puts on his Pavel Bure Rangers’ jersey and I usually slip on my Canucks’ sweater, though this Christmas the wife got me a very nice Washington Capitals road jersey circa 1985, so I can now channel my inner Pat Riggin.

Which is another way of saying, I’m terribly out-of-shape; most my exercise these days consisting of running for the bus in an effort not to be late for The War Room.

Which brings us back to Backyard Showdown, Husband vs. Wife.  Me in net, the wife with her Sidney Crosby yellow stick.  Three shots.  Winner gets bragging rights.

Sometimes I’ll throw on the old goaltending equipment, in part because the kid loves it, but also because I love it.  Today, no such protection, not even a jock.

First shot, the wife unveils her world-famous move…stand about fifteen in front of the net, and hack at the orange puck, missing it completely the first time, which sends me into a twisted, body-protecting position, which frees up a good portion of the net.   She then reloads, takes a second swipe at the puck, and sends it towards my exposed shins.

I stop the first stop with my right leg, the brighly coloured orange frozen plastic puck feeling like a shot from Bobby Hull.  Regardless, I stopped it.  One for the good guys.

Second shot, the wife follows the same game plan.  She whiffs on the first attempt, which again sends me into a spasm of body protecting motions, which leaves most of the net uncovered, which allows her to deposit the puck into the bottom right-hand corner of the net.  One for the bad guys, err, girls.

Next shot would determine everything.  If there had been a crowd watching, they would have been on their feet, particularly since all of our lawn furniture was buried beneath the snow.

I clenched my teeth, gathered up my Mike Richter goaltender stick, and vowed to not flinch this time, summoning up the courage of yesteryear, when getting hit with a puck or an orange street hockey ball was a badge of honour.  This time, I would be ready.  Thou Shalt Not Pass.

At this moment, the four-year-old, having had enough of this middle-age drama, enthusiastically reinserts himself back into the action, steals the puck and sends it sailing towards my unprotected shins; this time the puck looked like a Dennis Hull slapshot.

Luckily for me, it skittered wide left, and it was time for hot chocolate.  The Showdown grudge match would have to wait until tomorrow.

Correct that; it would have to wait until the next extended cold snap and snowstorm.  Turns out the weather watchers were right.  It rained all day Saturday, and the next.  By Sunday afternoon, it would have been more appropriate to play football in the backyard.  The leaves I never got around to raking were exposed, mocking me from beyond the grave.

Our hockey net looks out-of-place on this muddy field, where once it was the crowning glory on a modest backyard hockey “rink”.

The three of us stared out the back window, a little sad at how things turned out, but very grateful we went outside on Boxing Day.  Maybe it was the first in what would become a family tradition.

Weather permitting.

- Mick Kern

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s