The captain post....for other teams

There has been a lot of talk about captains for the Wild, so I thought I'd post about other captains in the league and my thoughts on them.

Anaheim-Special Nieds (Scott Niedermayer) he's a very good player, even with his half season vacation. He lost a step, but that just put him only 1-2 steps ahead of everyone else instead of miles. I think he's been a pretty good leader for them, especially since they had kind of a circus for a while. I try to hate him, but in the end I fail.

Atlanta-Ilya Kovalchuk...all I know about him is that he has a horrible sweet tooth and had to have most of his teeth pulled when he came to the US from Russia.

Boston-Zdeno Chara is probably a great captain, because everyone is too scared to cross him. They just do whatever he says so he doesn't eat their children.

Buffalo-Craig Rivet, again, don't know enough about him to pass judgement. Sorry slug fans.

Calgary-Jarome Iginla- as much as I love to hate him, I have respect for him. Mostly because people have been comparing him to Joe Sakic.

Carolina-Rod Brind'Amour-kill me now. Better yet, kill him.

Chicago-Jonathan Toews-I don't think I really have to say what my thoughts are on him, even though he played for the Sioux. (barf)

Colorado-Adam Foote-I was unaware they had named another captain, but Foote will get the job done...just not as well as Joe Sakic.

Columbus-Rick Nash-well he must be doing something right...they sort of made the playoffs.

Dallas-Brendan Morrow-meh, as long as it's not Alvin the chipmunk, I don't actually care.

Detroit-Nicklas Lidstrom-he's not what he used to be, but he's still pretty good. He's now slightly less robotic than he used to be, and he's done a pretty good job filling Steve Yzerman's shoes.

Edmonton-Ethan Moreau-I have to admit, I don't know if this is the best choice, but I don't know who I'd name in his place. He's even more fragile than I am, and that's saying something. Hopefully something goes right this season for the Oilers, and maybe he'll show off his leadership under a new coach.

Florida-no captain...Bouwmeester maybe? McCabe would not be a good choice I feel. As Buddha pointed out to me, Bouwmeester went to Calgary. Clearly he will not be captain of the Panthers. In that case, I have no idea.

LA-Dustin Brown-from what I gather he's pretty young, but so is the whole team, so whatever, right? I like the Kings, so I hope he does a good job.

Minnesota-I think we all know what's going on here. If you want to read about it, my fellow Wild bloggers have pretty much all written something. We all know that Mikko Koivu is the captain of our hearts, so wearing the C is just a minor detail.

Montreal-I'm not sure what's going on here, but I imagine it's not very fun to be the captain of the Habs. So much pressure it's insane. I'm sure something will be worked out before the season starts.

Nashville-Jason Arnott-personally I think he looks like kind of a douche, but I think the Preds should not exist, so that's fine.

New Jersey-Brendan Shanahan-I'm surprised that JL would replace Langenbrunner, but I've been hearing here there and yonder that Shanny is the new captain. That's cool by me, he's a good leader, and it may be his last season. Nice way to end his time?

New York Islanders-No captain at the moment, they better hope the team doesn't take a page out of Vancouver's book, otherwise the team will not have a captain on the ice 99% of the time.

New York Rangers-Chris Drury-he's kind of a wuss, but then when you look at the rest of the team, he suddenly seems a bit tougher. Hasn't been the same since he left 20 Cent's hometown.

Ottawa-Daniel Alfredsson-he makes a really ugly woman, but other than that, he's alright. Not my favorite, but I largely ignore the fact that the Sens exist.

Philly-Mike Richards-from what I hear, many people approve of his being captain. Seems like he has a couple of good alternates, too.

Phoenix-Shane Doan-I don't like him at all, but apparently he's a great leader. I wouldn't follow him if my life depended on it.

Pittsburgh-Cindy Sidney Crosby-ok, I lied. I dislike Crosby more than I dislike Doan. The only place I'd follow him is to a cliff...then I'd shove him off.

San Jose-what a mess. I'm guessing Thornton won't get it....

St. Louis-Eric Brewer-I think he's a fine leader for the young team. I have a lot of respect for him, and I hope they do well.

Tampa Bay-Vincent Lecavalier- I think Vinny's a great player, but I'm not sure what kind of a leader he is. He could be Wayne Gretzky and that team would still have struggles, so I'll reserve judgement on his leadership abilities round two. (He had the C when he was first in the league)

Toronto-another storied franchise without a captain. Sad.

Vancouver-Luongo. I don't think this is a good idea. I mean there's a reason they made the rule that goalies can't be the captain, and I think it's a good rule.

Washington-Chris Clark-who now? I'm sure he's lovely, but I have no idea who he is.

I'm such a good Minnesota sports fan

Coach Richards back in the day. Nice hair, Coach.

Image courtesy of Google

They say hope springs eternal, and I say this phrase was probably invented for Minnesota sports fans no matter the sport. Generally if we didn't have hope, we wouldn't have anything at all. (We can't really complain though, most Minnesotans are cheap, so why would our team owners be any different?) I find myself thinking this to be very true as we stand on the cusp of a new NHL season. I'm really excited for this season to begin. From what I hear, I like the new coach. Granted I heard this from my friend's housemate, whose dad played with Coach Richards for the Gophers back in the day. Regardless, he seems pretty chill, and ready to make a good impression. As a bonus, he's from the better side of the river.

I particularly like the fact that he wants to name a permanent captain. I'll like him even better if that captain is Mikko Koivu. I'm also excited to see the fans back in the game. I think we started to lose our trademark enthusiasm towards the end of the old regime, and that made me sad. Even if the game sucked, the crowds were usually fun back in the day. On top of that, the first thing anyone asks me when they find out where I'm from (after they ask if it's winter year round and to repeat the word Minnesota) is if I'm a hockey fan. It gives me so much street cred for some reason, so I need my brethren in MN to keep up the hockey rep for me.

Besides, it's new. I like new things that are not school years, so anything new is exciting. Exception: the new jerseys. I like the fact that they're green, but they're not quite as cool looking as I was hoping for. My all time fave Wild jerseys are the original green ones. The logo is pretty cool, and it means something with the trees, star, river, and colors. I guess you can't win them all, and green is a much more flattering color for the highly Scandinavian population than red, so it's a step in the right direction.

I'm sure I'll write something a bit more focused in the near future, but I'm back in school and it's Sunday, so that means I have essays/lab reports to write and books to read. I think they stole my focus.

Patrick Kane is a huge douchebag

As I'm sure you've all heard, he and his cousin got arrested and charged with a felony and several misdemeanors. Whoops. They didn't mention underage drinking, but I would be willing to bet that will be included, since he's only 20, and at that hour coming from the nightclub district, was probably smashed. At this point, though, underage drinking is probably the least of his worries.

This was all over 20 cents. I mean co'mon, you're supposed to tip cabbies, I would've handed the man a 20 and been done with it. At the very least just let him keep the change from the 15. THEN he not only took the 15 back, but stole another 100 dollars. Taxi drivers don't make much, help the man out.

The best part of all this in my mind is how much of a jerk this makes him look like. After spending all his time talking about how much he likes being treated like a regular kid (considering how often he says it, he clearly like the attention), he goes out and beats a taxi driver while asking him "don't you know who I am?". Wow. Smooth. I hope Toews rips him a new one for this, because after their awful summer, the Blackhawks really don't need this kind of publicity. I hope if he doesn't have to go to jail, then the judge at least orders some anger management for him. At school, this would be mandatory alcohol abuse counseling, anger management counseling, and possible expulsion. At any other job, he'd get fired, and if convicted of a felony, have a hard time finding another.

TSN has an article and interview with the taxi driver here. I thought this was a joke when I first heard about it by text. None of this is proven, but Jesus, it's not really good for your career to have allegations like this made against you. Even if he gets off, if anything like this happens again, no judge is going to find him innocent twice.

I vote they change his goal song to "Jailhouse Rock" and take him off the cover of NHL '10. He's scheduled to appear in court the day USA's camp opens, I wonder what will happen there.

Alexander Ovechkin is one Crazy Dude!

Haha, I think the title pretty much says it all.

The NHL can't count?

NHL.com is doing a "30 teams in 30 days" thing for August, except as the Ladies... pointed out, there are 31 days in August. Good try, NHL, but that seems kind of awkward unless you have something spectacular planned for the 31st? That being said I'll probably read most of them even though they won't tell me a whole lot, it's good to get a refresher in before the season starts, especially with the amount of info not weather or fishing related that makes its way to me lately.

In other news, the Twins actually won a ball game yesterday, beating the Tribe 10-1 in Cleveland. LOLAH and 18,568RW favorite Kevin Slowey is done for the season with a wrist injury. I definitely feel his pain (2 wrist surgeries) on that one. Feel better soon, dude! Wrist injuries are hard to heal from, but I'm sure you have a good doctor or two on hand to help.

My brother earned the rank of Eagle Scout, so congrats to him.

Housekeeping

Due to my long neglect of the blog, some things needed to be changed, as the blogosphere is a very fluid and ever changing place. I've added, deleted, and changed some links, but if you have a blog and you don't see it on the blogroll, or your link has changed, let me know! I tried to remember who all has changed it up, but y'all are much less lazy than I am and it's hard to keep up sometimes. Also let me know if any of the links don't work. Hopefully I will find the time to update the layout, too.

Thanks!

Summer book club

As I'm sure you know by now, I am interning for the DNR this summer. Because the DNR is a statewide operation, I have to live someplace awfully boring, so therefore I have more time than usual to read. I have finally recovered from the school year, so I've started picking up books on random subjects that I don't normally read about. I've decided to write about a few of the books I've read this summer and what I thought.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com
"Don't Swallow Your Gum!" by Aaron Carroll MD and Rachel Vreeman MD is an amusing book about random health myths and FAQs. Ever wonder if you really do eat spiders in your sleep? This is the book for you. For how informative it is, it's actually a quick read. It's light and fun, and I grabbed a copy off of Amazon to bring back to school for my sorority's bookshelf we are putting together. (Every girl is supposed to bring a book back to school with them on an assigned topic to be put on our house bookshelf. Mine was health.)

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

image courtesy of Amazon.com

"A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn is a fantastic read even for people who are allergic to books about history. It tells the history of the United States from the perspectives of people who aren't white, rich, and Protestant. (Not that I have a problem with those people, but I've read enough books about them.) Women, minorities, slaves, immigrants, the poor, Native Americans, you name it. It's kind of a cool yet depressing look at history from a perspective we don't always hear about, but at the same time it's not whiny. Caution: it's long, and I think he has certain pet subjects that he likes to go on about...

Because some sections were kind of slow I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

"The Book of the Moon" by Rick Stroud is an excellent overview of the moon. It's not particularly deep, and if you have a strong background in science you might get bored, but it's a nice introduction. The book outlines the history of exploration, myths, astronomy, art, and other human connections to the moon. I did a large project on the geology, origin, and exploration of the moon for a geology class, but I still learned some things about the social aspects of what the moon has meant to mankind throughout the ages. A good book if are curious about the moon and don't want to read a really heavy, scientific work. (There is still good information, it's just presented in a manner that won't bore those of you who aren't science majors.)
It was a quick read and I liked the style for the most part, but it does like to repeat itself a lot to make sure you get it, so I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

How about you guys? Have you read any good books this summer? I'm definitely looking for ideas. I don't tend to read fiction, but this summer might drive me to it.