On Tuesday night in Philadelphia, Jay Rosehill continued to prove his worth to his new team when he accepted New York Rangers Arron Asham’s invitation to have a go at 3:51 in the second period of the final game between the two teams in the regular season.

The right hander.

The fight takes off quickly. Rosehill grabs hold of Asham’s jersey with his right hand, dead centre in the middle of his chest and Asham gets him with a really, really good right hander.

Rosehill then proceeds to go to town on Asham. His method is simple: hold with the right and go beastmode with the left. Rosehill gets a good 15+ swings in while the two spin around, Asham stumbling at one point but getting right back up to continue on. The height and reach advantage definitely play a role in this fight, but Asham does manage to get a solid grab and hold of Rosehill’s jersey near the end which seems to be what gets the two of them together long enough to wind down the fight. On Asham’s way up he accidentally head butts Rosehill’s chin from below but there are no hard feeling, just a quick pat on the head before the two head to their respective penalty boxes.

» Continue reading “Friday Fisticuffs: Arron Asham vs Jay Rosehill”

You may remember me from such fights as:

• Jay Rosehill vs Mike Rupp on October 10, 2009
• Jay Rosehill vs Brandon Prust on December 5, 2011
• Jay Rosehill vs Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblonde on April 15, 2012
• Jay Rosehill vs Chris Thorburn on April 6, 2013

Oh, you get the idea. Rosie is pretty fantastic. If he’s been on your team you know how hard it is not to love him. When he returns as a member of the opposition, say with the Flyers, and winds up scrapping with one of your team’s heavyweights, say Colton Orr, you know it even more with all the tugging that suddenly starts happening to your heartstrings. Did I mention how fantastic he is?

» Continue reading “The Hawt Trophy: Jay Rosehill”

Score thought it could contain the mullet but Upper Deck has wisdom.

Picture it: June 16, 1990. BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, British Columbia was buzzing with anticipation as the 1990 NHL Entry Draft kicked off. Who would go when? Would the top prospects indeed be drafted in order? Would there be any surprises? Utter atrocities?

Enter The Hair. But was Jaromir Jagr’s mullet really an atrocity? From a fashion standpoint in 1990, well, not so much. And his being drafted 5th overall? That really wasn’t cause for shock and awe either, just case in point as to why NHL Central Scouting needed to include European players in their rankings.

But wow, whoever was behind one of the cameras that day taking portraits of the newly drafted players clearly had a single goal in mind: To make the rookies look like rookies. They succeeded at gold star level and in the process took massive liberties with a number of things, most notably Jagr’s sassy Czech fashion sense. Just where was his hair? His glorious mullet? Now you see it, now you don’t? If they had the opportunity, they likely would have made him wear socks and sandals, too. For all we know, they did.

» Continue reading “Hump Day Hockey Cards: Release The Mullet!”

He da man.

After a few months of stacking small piles of hockey cards all over my apartment, I finally had the chance to spend some time to properly organizing overthinking my card binder. Rather than coming up with a specific plan or actually putting any cards into the binder, I decided to look at Marty Turco cards on eBay because TurcoMania still runs wild in my heart.

It was then that I stumbled upon the “You Da Man” Marty Turco card pictured above. I had somehow forgotten about the 60 card Sidelines subset that made its appearance in the 2009-10 Upper Deck Be a Player Signature Series set. When the set was released, Sidelines cards weren’t anything new for hockey card fans or collectors with or without a sense of humour.

The 1992-93 Pinnacle Sidelines Subset (which I will get to at some point) was very informative. How would I have ever known that Luke Richardson was a rocket builder? And other cards popped up here and there with news about what players were doing off the ice, many of them related to the sport of golf.

Let’s relax, unwind and take some time to enjoy a few of the anecdotes and guffaw inducing moments brought to you by a handful of the 2009-10 UD BAP Sidelines cards.

» Continue reading “Hump Day Hockey Cards: You Da Man, Marty Turco”

1989-90 Kraft Dinner box, Jari Kurri card #29, Wendel Clark card #8

I hated Kraft Dinner as a kid. KD is Canadian code for what Americans call Kraft Macaroni & Cheese or Kraft Mac & Cheese. We Canadians sometimes think we’re clever and try to shorten things but don’t succeed as well as the Brits or Aussies. We try.

In Souvenir of Canada, Volume 1, Douglas Coupland wrote: “cheese plays a weirdly large dietary role in the lives of Canadians, who have a more intimate and intense relationship with Kraft food products than the citizens of any other country. This is not a shameless product plug — for some reason, Canadians and Kraft products have bonded the way Australians have bonded with Marmite [sic, recte:Vegemite], or the English with Heinz baked beans. In particular, Kraft macaroni and cheese, known simply as Kraft Dinner, is the biggie, probably because it so precisely laser-targets the favoured Canadian food groups: fat, sugar, starch and salt.” ¹

This Canadian alliance with and dietary reliance on KD and my dislike for it presented me with two harsh realities.

» Continue reading “Hump Day Hockey Cards: The Great Kraft Dinner Dilemma”

Martin Brodeur 1990-91 7th Inning Sketch QMJHL Edition Rookie, the very first Brodeur card ever. It’s true.

Last night Martin Brodeur was awesome again, making 24 saves in the New Jersey Devils 3-0 win over the Philadelphia Flyers, and recording his 120th career shutout in the process. 120 career shutouts. C’est magnifique!

Sure, Marty might not yet have captured the most shutouts in one season – that record has stood since 1928-29 when George Hainsworth somehow did it 22 times. And okay, he might not yet have the league’s longest continuous shutout by a goaltender – that’s Alec Connell’s miraculous feat from 1927-28 when he went for 461 minutes, 29 seconds (7 gms, 2 pds) – but Marty’s recorded the most playoff shutouts, most career wins, most this, most that, the most everything else. Just ask Patrick Roy.

To celebrate another milestone in Marty’s career, today’s Hump Day Hockey Cards gives you a chance to take a look back at both his rookie cards and his somewhat spectacular fashion sense.

» Continue reading “Hump Day Hockey Cards: Martin Brodeur, Rookie Sensation”

Someone needs to learn how to change a tire… (Photo: Bridget Samuels/flickr)

We have hockey! Which probably means tweets won’t be as frequent amongst players as they have been the past few months. That doesn’t mean we can’t find some. Here are our favorites from this week. If you found any others or feel there is someone we should keep an eye on in the future, feel free to let us know about them in the comments.

» Continue reading “They Said WHAT?!? – Tires, Weather + One Priceless Convo”

Photo by Alexis Boucher

Surprise! I didn’t die from a plague. The good news keeps on rolling as we’re celebrating the spirit of the season with today’s Hawt Trophy.

Hockey players are excellent sports. We’re reminded of this every year around Christmas time and now you will be too.

» Continue reading “The Hawt Trophy: Winter Wonderland Edition”

Since we started our weekly visits into the best of the worst hockey cards, one thing became painfully clear. The early 1990s have certainly had the most representation. Maybe it was the residual Aqua-net of the 1980s wearing off, but neon and bike shorts seemed like a good idea.

The early 1990s brought us some cards that would have gone right in our bike spokes if we opened a pack to find them as kids.

These cards are mad fly…. NOT!

» Continue reading “Hump Day Hockey Cards: 2 Legit 2 Quit”

Great job Hartnell & Richards! (Photo: Josh Smith/flickr)

The one good thing about the lockout? The boys are able to do things they wouldn’t normally have been able to do. For instance, play a charity game in Atlantic City that raised $500,000 for victims of Hurricane Sandy in New York and New Jersey. The money will be split between the Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund, New York’s Empire State Relief Fund, and the American Red Cross.

As Gary Loveman, Caesars Entertainments’ president, chairman and CEO, stated during the press conference to present the money raised:

“I think those of you who follow professional sports like I do know that when you need a professional athlete to help out in a pinch, the first call you ought to make is to a hockey player.”

I couldn’t agree more. As a hockey fan, I want to say a big THANK YOU to Todd Fedoruk, Scott Hartnell and Brad Richards for putting on this great event as it not only helped my hometown but gave me a chance to see a great hockey game. You can read our coverage of the game on It’s Always Icy On Broad Street and Black & Blueshirts.

Below is video of the check presentation.

» Continue reading “Operation Hat Trick Raises Half A Million For Sandy Victims”