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Now that the New Year is upon us, Hockeyoutsiders unloads their random parting shots/thoughts from the old year in anticipation of a rather odd and certain to be weird second half schedule, with the Olympic break taking up most of February. As you know, HO was in attendance for the Winter Classic and we'll do a wrap up of that below. For our live blog during the game, please go here. Pittsburgh Penguins In December, we were amused to read a story about the Pittsburgh Penguins team bus getting stuck in the snow. The short story noted that team trainers and equipment men were forced to help dig out the bus. If this were the juniors or any other hockey league, you can bet the players would have been out there, making us recall fond memories of our hockey days, when us players, no matter how ill-prepared we were (yes, mom, we purposely didn't bring mittens with us) were forced to get out of the bus/van and help push it out of a snowbank. We can just envision now Crosby, Staal, Malkin, Kennedy et. al standing behind the bus giving it the old heave ho, dressed in their light jackets sans gloves or toques (or tobaggans or whatever the [expletive] they are calling those knit caps you wear on your head now). Now that would be a story to market the NHL. Our athletes aren't above pushing their own bus out of the snow. Winter Classic Another stellar effort was put into this year's version of the Winter Classic by the powers that be in the NHL. The atmosphere was incredible and the people of Boston were fantastic. Our experience was second to none and the money that was made on merchandising, ticket sales, TV exposure was off the charts. The thing we cannot figure out and we're surprised more people aren't talking about is the suspect officiating at the end of the game. We know, we know, write this off as just another bitter Flyer fan, but the power play with less than 3 minutes to play was suspect at best. It was almost as if someone called down to the officials and mandated that somehow the game needed to go into overtime. From our vantage point, which was admittedly not too good, there were at least 3 other non-calls that should have been calls in the closing minutes of the period and in overtime which if the game was even remotely called consistently would have been penalties. Secondly, and not too many people are talking about it, because again, it's more bitter, sour grapes, you lost, get over it talk, but why isn't more being made of the Bruins having too many guys on the ice...oh right, we forgot, teams like the Canadiens and Penguins are allowed to play with an extra guy, that's in the leagues rules somewhere. All in all, fantastic game, nothing against the Bruins or Flyers who did not disappoint, especially with treating the fans to the first ever Winter Classic fight, but can we please have a little more consistency in officiating? We think it's safe to say, that part of the game is and will always be a joke. On a side note, concerning the fight, the stories of Carcillo's drunken bragging to fans that he was definitely going to throw down during the game at the hotel bar on New Year's Eve were stellar, even though it probably irked the hell out of Flyer, GM, Paul Holmgren who has been trying for a year to curb his young team's partying ways. Gary Bettman 
Is this not the face of a douchebag? Speaking of drunks, Hockeyoutsiders was also able to attend a Broadway show during the weekend. During the opening narration to the show, Whitesnake, lead singer, David Coverdale stated; "Please turn off your cell phones, if yours rings during the show, you will look like a total douchebag." Of course, everyone in attendance greeted Mr. Coverdale's statement with laughter. However, as we found out the day before, not everyone in New York is amused by the use of the term douchebag, even if everyone knows exactly what you're talking about. Case in point, on the airplane ride over from Boston, we learned that a young lady on the flight worked for the NHL. Of course, fueled by alcohol and our deep resentment for the current state of the game, we asked that she tell her boss, Gary Bettman that we thought he was a douchebag. This was not greeted with much enthusiasm or laughter from her or any of the surrounding passengers. Rather it seemed to illicit much rage even to the point that one elderly gentleman and his wife from Tampa wanted to "kick our ass". Fortunately, we were among friends who agreed with our assessment of Mr. Bettman and lent their support to our rhetoric. In retrospect, we were probably a bit over the top to the point of being drunken assholes, and if that young lady reads our site, we apologize for being arrogant pricks, even if your boss is a douchebag. We were clearly out of line, that or we need to work on our English accent because perhaps the term "douchebag" is much funnier if someone British says it. World Juniors As has been already mentioned by several other sites, clearly the only two competitve teams in this year's tourney were the USA and of course, the Canadians. If I'm a Canadian today, I'm not worried about the streak of gold medals being broken or losing. In both games to the US, they were down 2 goals with about 5 minutes to play and in both games, they went to overtime. Yes, they lost, but in overtime, it's basically a coin flip anyways. Willing in 4 goals in the final minutes of games you clearly should lose in regulation speaks a lot to the heart and determination of Canadian hockey players. Going back to last year, when John Tavares scored with about 3 seconds left in the third period in the US vs. Canada game, it shows that there is something in the water that is clearly reeking of hockey awesomeness up in the Great White North.
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