Hockeyworld!

If you're a hockey fan, you're probably pretty excited about the next few days. Not only are there four Grizzlies games coming up, but there's a lot going on in other hockey news too. First up, let's start with the Grizzlies...

The boys are meeting up with the Victoria Salmon Kings twice at home (Wednesday, Dec. 30 and Thursday, Dec. 31), followed by a break on New Year's Day. After that, it's Vegas, baby, for two games against the Wranglers (Saturday, Jan. 2 and Sunday, Jan. 3). Looking for something fun to do for New Year's? How about a road trip to Vegas?


The Salmon Kings have a home winning streak of 11 games right now, so the Grizzlies should be happy to be playing them at the E Center right now. The Grizzlies' home win streak currently stands at... one game.

Wooooo!

The Wranglers have won their last three games, including a midnight match up with the ISH, which proves nothing, except maybe that everyone in Idaho has a bedtime of 8:30 pm.

Now let's take a look at some other hockey news...

ECHL

• The ECHL announced their National Conference All-Star roster today. Two Grizzlies are included on the roster - AJ Perry and Ryan Kinasewich. The ECHL actually lists Vic Bartley as being from Utah as well, but he was recently called up to Bridgeport of the AHL. Maybe he'll be returned in time for the All-Star game. Kinasewich has been chosen as a starter.
  
• Goaltender emergency? Just stick a fan in pads.
• Supposedly, the Grizzlies received Brock Wilson in a trade from Toledo today. Is anyone surprised? (We hear the next trade is Grizzbee and a Kinasewich jersey for the Hanson brothers.)

• Ryan Cruthers of the Reading Royals is the Sher-Wood Hockey ECHL player of the week.

AHL

• The Sound Tigers have put together a highlight reel from 2009:

Is it just us, or does it look like some of the fights were choreographed to the music?

NHL

• The New York Islanders beat the Columbus Blue Jackets last night in a shootout (final score 2-1). Columbus had just come from a win over Detroit, but may have been a little distracted, considering this happened during the game:

At least it wasn't an octopus.

• We would be completely remiss if we didn't mention the NHL Winter Classic. It's a regular season NHL game that is played outdoors. This year's game will be the Boston Bruins hosting the Philadelphia Flyers at Fenway Park. That's right, they've built a rink there for a day or two. That's coming up on January 1st at 11:00 am if you're in the mountain time zone, and it will be on NBC. If you haven't watched it before, you're missing out. Tune in to this hockey event and you won't be sorry.

• And random story of the week - the Pittsburgh Penguins had a little trouble with the weather in Buffalo (sound familiar, Utah?) when their bus got stuck in the snow on the way to their hotel. No problem - the coaching staff jumped out and helped push the bus out. What, no players? "It was crazy seeing people outside in suits and ties trying to push a bus," goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury said. "I just put my big biceps on the bus, and it didn't take long after that." Teammate Matt Cooke interpreted the situation differently. "I'm sure his intentions were good," Cooke said. "But I'm not sure he even touched the bus." Any guesses on how many snowballs were tossed?

2010 OLYMPICS

• Canada named their Olympic roster today for Vancouver 2010. No real surprises on who made the team, but a few on who was left off. Of course, when you have most of the NHL to choose from, we guess someone has to be cut. They'll be hard to beat.
• USA is expected to announce their Olympic roster during the Winter Classic on Friday. There's another reason to tune in.
• For some of the other country's rosters, click here. We just want to point out that every player on Latvia's roster ends in "s". (We're counting Gints Meija because of his first name.)

WORLD JUNIOR TOURNAMENT

• If you have NHL TV, you can tune in to the World Junior Championships from Saskatchewan. (That's hard to spell.) This is an exciting tournament where you can see future stars of the NHL. USA Hockey's website has some great content, including live game logs and scoreboards.

No shortage of hockey this weekend. Or weather. Happy New Year!


Go Grizzlies!