On March 27th, Curry led the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins to a 3-2 overtime win over their storied and constant arch-rival Hershey Bears. The win clinched the East Division regular season title for the Penguins, who as of Friday night, had a 56-21 record. Curry has 22 wins in net this season, splitting his time with AHL Goaltender of the Year and former Northeastern goalie Brad Thiessen.

T0 celebrate Curry’s win over the Bears – the 100th win in his four seasons in the AHL – the team played a montage at their next game and posted it on YouTube. Thanks to the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins, I present to you the John Curry 100th win montage, complete with questionable fonts, strange lyrics, and the same sort of acrobatic saves that BU fans long for to this very day.

While I seriously lack any unique knowledge or insights, I wanted to share some of the story lines, Twitters and blogs I’m following as the draft unfolds this weekend.

- Are the NHL scouts as high on Charlie Coyle as we all are?

Could BU bound Charlie Coyle be the first college player taken in the draft? the most optimistic of projections have him going in the late first round, and even the college-player-shy Boston Bruins have worked out and dined the Massachusetts local. Will Coyle be the sixth BU player to be the first college player picked in the draft in history? (Fun facts provided by these interesting-to-college-hockey-geek-me College Hockey News charts.)

Not so fast, says SB Nation’s In Lou We Trust. While the rest of the media have been touting Coyle’s upside, this New Jersey Devils blog is a great summation of some realistic reviews of his ability. Will his offensive playmaking translate over from his EJHL days? While I believe the dismissal of the EJHL as a “weak league” is incorrect, I may agree with In Lou We Trust that Coyle’s talent on bigger stages may not be easily predictable.

I did speak with one person deep in the know in the EJHL last Friday who says that BU fans won’t be disappointed in Coyle, and that he is quite fun to watch. Could it be that Coyle is one great college hockey player – one BU fans sorely need after having all the fun sucked out of their 2009-10 season – but not first or second round draft pick worthy?

- Joe Pereira’s brother could be really good/UMass-BU games will be interesting…

UMass Amherst bound Mike Pereira, little brother of BU captain Joe, is being brandied about as one of the best New England nurtured players in this draft. His strong individual performances leading Avon Old Farms to a championship has scouts interested. According to New England Hockey Journal’s analysis, the younger Pereira sounds like the selfish, more competitive, big-playmaking version of his older brother. Both brothers have serious speed, but similar size doubts.

While I had heard snippets about Pereira here and there for the past year, I hadn’t yet found any great analysis of his abilities until this week. Most of this is thanks to @fearthetriangle, a UMass Amherst hockey blogger/Twitterer, who has been all up on the UMass Amherst player draft coverage. Two thumbs up.

- Why this Bruins fan is watching the Thrashers and Panthers this weekend?

Both the Atlanta Thrashers and Florida Panthers have new leadership – Thrashers with former Boston Bruins assistant Craig Ramsay as their head coach, and the Panthers with former Chicago Blackhawks General Manager Dale Tallon now serving as their GM.

As a Rochester Amerks fan, I want to see what talent the Panthers could send up to my hometown to develop next season. With the Amerks fan base hanging on a thread, will the 2010-11 edition of the team have enough talent to follow a great start all the way through the playoffs?

As a college hockey fan and one who is quite critical of the Bruins lack of development or interest in college players, I’m interested in seeing if Ramsay brings a similar disdain to the Thrashers. The Thrashers as a franchise keep continuing on the road to obscurity, but a team made up of dynamic young prospects is the only way their fate in the Atlanta area could change for the better.

Even as a Bruins fan, the Sequin-Hall debate is tired. Both are great players now, both with the real possibility of busting big time. Sequin didn’t make this year’s Canadian World Junior Team. While that allegedly motivated him to perform better, who is to say he won’t regress and or not be motivated to improve in the future? Hall has speed and has developed to a great all around player, but is used to making plays on his own and may struggle chemistry wise with older NHL players who won’t stand any twinge of selfishness or flashiness from a teenager. Then again, I’m not even a serviceable hockey scout, so what do I know?

What I do know is that when it is all said and done, the Edmonton Oilers effectively make two picks – their own and the Bruins’. Watching what a team’s new leadership does or what a team seeking a new identity does in a draft is more interesting to me. As a hockey fan, I’m more interested in picks that will paint the picture for an organization, not just add a stroke.

Not the Binghamton Chuck-a-Puck, but I imagine it'll be similar. (Photo: Ryan Treat's blog)

What would you do for a brand new car? For one Texan, he’ll travel all the way to Binghamton, New York to compete in a Chuck-a-Puck contest.

In a press release today, the AHL Binghamton Senators announced that Michael Supulski, of a town outside of Austin, Texas, will be making the 1,700 mile trip to participate in the finals of their season long Chuck-a-Puck competition, with a brand new car at stake. Supulski won a game’s Chuck-a-Puck contest during the Senators’ New Year’s Eve game, qualifying him to face all of the other home game winner’s in their last regular season home game.

Odds are, the majority of those individual game winners are from the Triple Cities. But the odds that one of participant would be from Texas, and even be able to return to Binghamton for a random weekend in April, were much higher. When you have the chance to win a brand new car, however, I guess the outlay in plane tickets and accommodations is worth it – especially if you have excellent aim. Best of luck on Saturday, Mr. Supulski.

NHL: St. Louis Blues

Last night, the St. Louis Blues mixed their St. Patrick’s Day commemoration with environmental awareness, and gave away a “Green Game” t-shirt to all fans in attendance (quite a risky claim to advertise – from personal experience, you should always give an exact number of giveaways, a la “first 5,000 fans”). The shirt giveaway was sponsored by Monsanto, a Cambridge, MA based agricultural innovation company with an emphasis on sustainable practices. This was the second year for the Blues promotion.

Shirt Grade: B I like the muted, antiquey kelly green shirt and faded style of the print. It also helps that the Blues’ team colors happen not to horribly clash with green. Kudos for using that to their advantage and not changing the logo’s colors for the holiday’s sake. Environmental awareness initiatives during games are the new “it” thing to do in sports marketing – trust me, I participate in one – but the giveaway needs to be backed up with sustained, but subtle, green initiatives, otherwise it is just a t-shirt giveaway.

AHL: Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins

The Baby Pens (speaking of, we are long overdue for an edition of The Everyone’s Favorite Goalie Watch, but that’ll be another post) are selling two St. Patrick’s Day long sleeve shirts in their online store. The 2009 edition ($20) features their mascot, Tux, skating with a four leaf clover in the background on the front. The back reads “Happy St. Patrick’s Day.” The 2010 version ($22) features the logo in what appears to be a very dark green (nearly black), with a four leaf clover on the sleeve. Long sleeve shirts are always key in that part of Pennsylvania, where the damp gray chilly days seem to out number any other weather.

Grade: C The effort is there, but the execution is not. The 2009 version is too campy, and the 2010 version shows promise, but the green seems too dark. Kudos, however, for the 2010 edition’s four leaf clover on the sleeve.

ECHL: Gwinnett Gladiators

The ECHL Gwinnett Gladiators teamed with Old Time Hockey, the same Salisbury, MA based company who partnered to create some of the NHL’s 2010 St. Patrick’s Day gear, to create a green t-shirt to sell this March. The shirt ($20 with free shipping through today) features a rather disturbed and surly looking leprechaun brandishing a hockey stick, with a small Gladiators logo by his right foot. The all-caps font is rather 1950s style, and arches above Surly Leprechaun’s head.

Grade: A This is the first ever St. Patrick’s Day shirt I would ever consider purchasing, and not just because I’m in the market for a shirt from the team where two of my most favorite former BU hockey alums play. What sold me was the 1950s fonts – I’m a sucker for fonts. Plus, I feel like Surly Leprechaun is going to hurt me with that hockey stick if I don’t like the shirt.

ACR5GWEKYTEQ

Maksim Mayorov (Photo: Syracuse Crunch)

Lindsay Kramer of the Syracuse Post-Standard is one of my daily must-read journalists. He is not only one of the most prolific hockey journalists in the US (he also has a regular NHL.com beat in addition to his newspaper work), but his dedication to covering minor league hockey exceeds that of many of his counterparts on NHL beats.

My favorite part of Kramer’s coverage are his Notebooks of leftover material from Syracuse Crunch games. The following was buried at the bottom of his Friday night Notebook from Syracuse’s 5-4 shootout win over San Antonio:

(Starting Crunch right wing) Maksim Mayorov’s father, Oleg, is still visiting from Moscow, although Maksim has stopped being all warm and fuzzy about it.

“I’m so tired of him already,” Max noted. “You have these problems with parents. I just want to come home, sit on the couch, relax for a couple of seconds. Sometimes he asks me some questions. But that’s OK. I think everyone has those problems.”

Isn’t this quote felt at some point in every teenager’s life?

Yahoo Sports Puck Daddy also featured the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers’ March promotion where their team will be dressed up in special Girl Scout jerseys.

Las Vegas's Girl Scout tribute jersey (Illustration from Puck Daddy.)

Former Girl Scout me would like to point out that that jersey is based off the Junior Girl Scout uniform, which when I was a Scout, came with the option of either the sash or the vest. In true Western New York fashion, I was forced into uniform hand-me-downs, so I wore the 1979 edition – flared paints and too-wide insignia prints! (Explains a lot, doesn’t it?)

Lastly, the ECHL Utah Grizzlies will be celebrating a pair of unique promotions over the coming days. Saturday is “Guns and Hoses” night – a charity game between local police officers and firefighters will take place Saturday afternoon, and during the Grizzlies’ evening game, the team will don special “Guns and Hoses” jerseys (picture not yet available.)  I thought the name of the promotion was quite suspect, until @QuickFacts, one of the sources of hockey knowledge I totally defer to, informed me that many teams have such games annually. You learn something new everyday. I’m still interested in seeing how the Grizzlies will include both police and firefighter imagery in the same jersey.

Monday night, the Grizzlies are hoping down-on-his-luck and recently jail sprung Utah resident Gary Colman will join the team for the ceremonial puck drop. “The organization has reached out to his agent and attorney in an attempt to bring him to the E-Center and is hopeful to have him in attendance Monday for a ceremonial first puck drop,” read a Grizzlies press release on Thursday. Adrian Denny, the team’s Vice President of Communications and Broadcasting added, “Gary has struggled a bit since his move to Utah, but we’d like to take this opportunity to introduce him to Grizzlies hockey.”

Something tells me Gary’s not going to be there…

So given all that has happened to me sports-wise in the past year, I have nearly too much fodder for a “What I’m Thankful” for post. I’ve whittled it down to some of the most amusing or important points – I apologize if I’ve left out anything or anyone.

Thank you, Rian Lindell (#9). (Photo: BuffaloBills.com)

- Like last year, I am thankful for Rian Lindell. He is the only consistent part of the Buffalo Bills. I still do not understand why more baby boys born in the Western New York area are not named Rian. He’s made 90% of his field goals this season, and is a perfect 100% on point after touchdowns. He’s trick play savvy, and may actually be a better quarterback than any other quarterback currently on the Bills roster (just kidding…I think.)

- I am thankful for the Penn Quarter Sports Tavern, located in Washington, DC. This tavern became our home base while in DC for the Frozen Four. The bartenders were accommodating, hysterical, and can handle large crowds of somewhat rowdy college hockey fans extremely well. When I was back in DC for some work travel in August, I went inside and the bartender – who is known to wear either a UNH hockey jersey or a Normar green Red Sox jersey when he tends bar – remembered me and got excited because another New Englander was at the bar. Penn Quarter, hands down, is my favorite sports bar of all time. Thank you for taking good care of us college hockey fans.

- Thank you to Curt Styres and the Rochester Amerks for making AHL hockey relevant again in my hometown of Rochester, NY. I attended an Amerks game at Christmas time last year, and while it was the one of the highest attendances of the year, it was anemic compared to the crowds of my youth.

This season, the Amerks have turned it around. After owner Styres contracted Ted Nolan to work for the franchise over the summer, forked over thousands of his own wealth for player salaries, and seemingly convinced Florida (their parent) that it was important to grow quality players in Rochester, the team has gone 15-2-1. 15 wins, including 11 consective wins. This is Amerks hockey, folks – they’re back, and the rest of the AHL needs to get used to it.

- I’m thankful that I can listen to WHTK, Rochester’s young sports radio station, online. It’s important that I perform my Boston-sports-blogger penance and listen to WEEI and The Sports Hub on a regular basis, but listening to anything more than the bare minimum of both stations leave one screaming at their radio dial and lamenting the downfall of society. To reaffirm my faith in human sports-fan kind, I’ll turn on WHTK online. It doesn’t always work, but when it does and I get the opportunity to listen to the John DiTullio Show, I am a happy camper. People talking about sports – all kinds of sport, all teams, all genders, with a understanding of sports history thrown in – in an intelligent, civilized, indoor-voice manner is wonderful.

- Thank you to the Food Network for keeping me company while I was recently dignosed with H1N1. Your channel was the only one I could watch in my fever induced dizziness. I am especially thankful for Sandra Lee, whose programming may be funnier than anything on Comedy Central. (I’m a lazy cook, don’t get me wrong, but Lee takes it to new levels of laziness.)

- Thank you to the 2008-09 Boston University men’s hockey team. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Their season not only gave me awesome blog fodder, but convinced me that there is no better sport in this country than college hockey.

- Thank you to every blogger, Twitterer, writer, journalist and editor that I have worked with or who has promoted my work in my first full year of actively pursuing freelance sportswriting as a large hobby/second job. Thank you for giving me venues to share my writing. I may not be the world’s best writer, but regardless, I’ve been given so many opportunities to contribute.

- Thank you to the bloggers and journalists out there who I am not huge fans of. Just because I don’t like their work doesn’t mean I don’t respect it. Additionally, many of them have much larger audiences than I have, meaning they have to be doing something right.  As someone still working up the ladder, I can learn from every single one of them, even if I do not agree with them.

- Lastly, thank you to my fiance and my cat. They put up with me writing lacrosse stories until 2am after coming home from my full-time job at 8pm. I have no idea why they let me do what I do, but I am thankful they do so.

Marblehead to Lynnfield, MA is a short distance geographically, but Marblehead native Cory Schnieder and Lynnfield’s Chris Higgins couldn’t be farther apart in their professional hockey careers this week.

For Higgins, the starting left wing for BU last year (and the LW in my most favorite line ever – Higgins, Wilson, Lawrence), Labor Day weekend will bring about his first NHL rookie camp with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Higgins, who is expected to spend the start of the season in Syracuse with the AHL Crunch, has the opportunity to be a part of a unique NHL training camp experience.

As Yahoo Sports’ Puck Daddy detailed on Wednesday, the Blue Jackets have made the beginning of their training camp a “fantasy tournament.” Owners of the franschise get to assemble their own teams for use in a two day tournament from the actual roster of the Blue Jackets training camp. According to the Columbus Dispatch, Higgins was selected by majority owner John P. McDonnell for his tournament team. Considering he had little buzz around him as he was about to enter BU in the summer of 2005, Higgins has made the best of every opportunity during his college hockey career, and it will be interesting to watch how he does in training camp.

For Cory Schneider, on the other hand, discouragement must be the primary feeling this week. Schneider, a goalie for the Vancouver Canucks, and the college hockey example of Bill Simmons’ Ewing Theory (“he’s so talented, he’s so wonderful, oh, BC will win it all this year…”, and then they finally win the national championship the year he leaves college early to go pro), is now the backup to a goaltender with a new 12 year long contract. Once goalie-extraordinaire Roberto Luongo signed an over-decade long contract this week with the Canucks, with the earliest escape clause being five years in according to the Canwest News Service, Schneider became somewhat dispensable.  Not that Schneider isn’t used to being thought of by dispensable by the Canucks organization – he was frustratingly name-dropped as trade bait nearly all last season.

The Canucks also enter training camp with Andrew Raycroft on the roster, leaving a real possibility that Schneider could be sent back to the AHL’s Manitoba Moose to start the season again. Schneider told the Salem News on Thursday that he’s not taking Luongo’s mega-deal as a death knell for his career in Vancouver. “It really doesn’t make a lot of difference as far as my situation goes; (Luongo) was still going to be here even if he hadn’t signed an extension,” said Schneider to the paper. “If you’re always striving just to be a backup goalie, you’ll never be a No. 1.”

Schneider’s lessons in hard work and humility might be needed by his former Eagles teammate, Buffalo Sabre and Portland Pirate Nathan Gerbe. According to an interview with HockeyBuzz.com, Gerbe thinks he has done all he can in the AHL, and is out for a full-time call up to the Buffalo Sabres. “I’m not going back there ( to Portland ). It’s not going to happen. I’ll play whatever position they want me to play. I’m not going down.”

As much as I root for the little guy, and as much as I like to see young players with determination, one might want to tell Gerbe that one season in the AHL doesn’t necessarily make one a full-time NHL forward. Especially when he spent a portion of the season injured, and was relatively quiet during the small amount of time he was called up to Buffalo. Gerbe may want to prepare to spend at least the first few weeks in Portland with the Pirates, given that there are a few centers ahead of him on the Sabres depth chart. And anyway, Portland’s not that bad of a city. Sure, it doesn’t have buffalo wings, but it still has Tim Hortons.

But then again, I’m a BU fan – I’m biased against Gerbe. Maybe he will crack the Sabres roster full-time….

For more hockey news, stay tuned later this weekend, as I kick off another regular series, one sure to rival my always popular, “Everyone’s Favorite Goalie” updates. Yes, it might have to do with Kane’s Donuts, Kowloon, the giant orange dinosaur, and the Hilltop Steakhouse (or the “Hilop Seakhos,” as its dying lightup catcus sign on Route 1 likes to call it.)  Stay tuned.

Phil Kessel's college style of play could hurt his chances of staying in Boston. (Photo: Flickr user egasbarino)

Two Sundays ago, Kevin Paul Dupont’s Boston Globe Hockey Notes column led off with a discussion was whether or not the Boston Bruins will resign restricted free agent forward Phil Kessel. Said Dupont:

“For all his flash, dash, and goal scoring, Kessel has some troubling holes in his game. It’s a contact sport, one full of one-on-one battles, and in most cases, Kessel prefers to motor around those battles. When he is forced to battle for a puck, he usually looks for a different option….

Remember, this is a team that puts great weight in what Cam Neely thinks of players, and No. 8′s standard read on a skilled-but-soft contributor has been, “That dog won’t hunt.”

Having listened to Neely’s reads for more than two decades, and knowing both Kessel’s strengths and shortcomings, I think the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls for Kessel.”

Despite his breakout season, the Bruins appear not to hold signing Kessel a priority. Front office supporters may argue that the proposed amounts of $4.5 – 5 million are quite high for a 22 year old who has quite awful luck when it comes to injury and illness, who needed benching to shake up his game during the 2008 playoffs, and who has only “proven” himself for one year.

But what concerns me about the Bruins’ discussion of Kessel is the parts of his game they are picking on – very much the college aspects of his play.

Kessel played one year at Minnesota, and prior to that, played with the US Under 18 team when it was stacked with name players in 2004-05. Although he played less college hockey than a lot of players out there, it still influenced his play. College players are passionate, skilled players – but they have to play a different style of hockey than their major junior counterparts. Fights are avoided.  Players aren’t going to put themselves in circumstances where a fight could develop because they know they’ll get tossed if one does. It affects the game – maybe a college player doesn’t engage in that “one-on-one” battle for a puck as much.

That style of hockey might take longer to get out of one’s system than others, or some, particularly those with a combination of injuries like Kessel’s, is never going to be a style that they engage in. What the Bruins have to decide is if this difference in playing style is something they can live with.

I believe that the way the Kessel matter is resolved will set the tone for the Bruins’ dealings with other college-raised players in the future, such as Blake Wheeler. Wheeler also plays a college style of hockey, and has been treated similarly to Kessel – being benched during the playoffs for “poor performance.”

NHL teams seem to be heading in two directions right now – those, like Pittsburgh, who embrace college-raised players, and those like Detriot, who do not. There is not nesscarily a right or a wrong to this. Some teams have more luck with college players than others, and some would rather pluck talent out of major junior and develop them at a younger age.

If the Bruins get rid of Kessel, then is that a statement that their system doesn’t value the college style of play, and that any college player in their system needs to lose that style of play quickly? Further, does this then set the developmental mindset with their AHL affiliate in Providence and future player acquisitions towards one of a major junior path rather than taking a chance on college players?

The decision on Kessel could end up having little to do with his college style of play, and be a more straight numbers decision. Or it could have everything to do with his style of play, as Dupont seems to warn in his column. But in an era where we have reached a hay-day in college hockey and it continues to grow as a popular option for some of the most talented youth hockey players, is the eschewing of the college style of play a message the Bruins want to send? And if they do, will it screw them out of college talent moving forward because they don’t value the style of play those players accustomed to?

My favorite college hockey player makes a pro roster.

The AHL’s Providence Bruins are currently battling the evil Hershey Bears (the Bears dismissed John Curry’s Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins from the playoffs in the last round…but more about Curry later this weekend), and need reinforcements due to a few injuries here and there.  The Baby Bruins looked no further than Boston University, and signed Jason Lawrence to an Amateur Tryout Contract (ATO) today. Lawrence brings a nice dose of American-ness to an otherwise Canadian and European exclusive forward roster (see the list above – ON, ON, ON, AB, Serbia…Saugus, MA. It sticks out like a sore thumb.)

What does this mean? Well, an Amateur Tryout Contract allows a pro team to essentially engage a player who had never played within the NHL/AHL/ECHL system in an extended tryout that may include game play. The Providence Bruins, and in some regard the Boston Bruins, needed to strengthen their forward ranks for the rest of the playoffs, and wanted to take a look at Lawrence for the future, thus they signed him to a short-term contract with no obligations past the end of this season.

Now, don’t you all feel more knowledgeable?

This does not mean my favorite college hockey player will actually see game time – he might not even dress. This does not mean I can purchase a “Lawrence 18″ Providence Bruins jersey just yet…I mean, not that I would. That was hypothetical, of course…

It’s always good to see an athlete find success for his hometown team, and that’s why Lawrence’s chance with the Bruins is such a good story. He played with the Boston Jr. Bruins as a kid, so to play for the AHL Bruins has to be a dream come true.  I always say you should live your life making 12 year old you proud – that’s one of the reasons why I write this blog – and that’s definitely what “The Saugus” did today with his Bruins ATO.