Thursday, January 24, 2008

Thursday Morning Cupcheck - Viva los Culos Malos!

By Todd Maternowski

Top of the morning, hockey fans! Last week we went over the nitty-gritty statistical details of just what it means to have a top-flight defenseman, and how the Stars cannot win a game without their #1 player Sergei Zubov. Well...good news! I was slightly wrong: the Stars were able to win three tough games, including two against hated rivals San Jose and Anaheim, without the full services of said Zubov. The Anaheim game was especially mesmerizing, considering Zubov did not even suit up, yet the Stars were able to beat the Ducks like a red-headed egg that owed them money.

The reason for this sudden dominance? The guys they did have in the lineup stepped up and had the performances they were all capable of: Stephan Robidas was a manimal on both sides of the rink, Niskanen continues to show flashes of brilliance, while newcomer Mark Fistric gives opposing forwards teeth-rattling hits without ever getting out of position. With 23 year old Nik Grossman and 24 year old Trevor Daley also providing solid 'D', the future is extremely bright for the Dallas Stars.

But there's one place in the NHL where even mentioning the word "future" will get you a mouth full of rancid, year-old Diet BBQ sauce: Nashville. Once again, the Predators are on the verge of losing their lease with the allegedly-proud city of Nashville, as their attendance figures are contractually not high enough to keep the team there. While the stadium-half-full types continue to talk up the Predator's dwindling chances of staying in Nashville after this season is over, I say we forget those losers and move the team to a real city, one which actually wants to go see a hockey team play. In fact, if all Preds players could just go ahead and pack their belongings and hop on this bus, we can get this all done over the weekend. Just the necessities: we'll send Nashville's bitches (the NHL league office) over to pick up the rest of your stuff later. Just don't get too surprised if you find Gary Bettman sniffing Craig Leipold's underwear drawer.

Nashville's last Bobblehead Night was great news for both of its fans

But where should the Predators move to? Here are some suggestions, cobbled together after minutes of painstaking research by my brand-new column assistants, The Statistical Men: a ragtag bunch of misfits, scoundrels, ne'er-do-wells and convicted felons who must overcome their sordid pasts and learn to work together, fighting long odds to overcome their differences -and achieve the impossible. Because more than half of them are on Delta Force's "10 Most Pleasant to Kill" list, I have to keep their identities, addresses and social security numbers a secret. Unless they cross me, in which case it's back to the granite quarry for 'em. Here are the cities they chose as the best possible geographic locations for the new and improved Predators team.

Houston: Canadians and Communist Chinese alike laughed when the Northstars were relocated to Dallas from Minneapolis. 15 or so years later, 100-point regular seasons and division titles are pooh-poohed by Stars fans while teams like Toronto and Montreal salivate uncontrollably over the prospect of edging out the Islanders for the #8 seed. With a small but vocal fanbase, the Stars have proven that hockey in Texas can work. And frankly, with the league's worst travel schedule, it's high time the NHL put a team within 500 miles of Dallas so they can enjoy an East Coast-esque road trip four times a year.

Can hockey in Houston work? They say football fans have the easiest time assimilating into lifelong ice ballet lovers --and forgive me, Houston readers, if I don't have the same hopeful outlook for the Texans, Rockets and Astros that .500 seasons would normally provide-- but the planets could be perfectly aligned for a hockey team in Houston. As an added bonus, Houston residents could get a do-over on voting for a team name after coming up with that incredibly lame "Houston Texans" mascot name when they get to re-name the Predators. I prefer the old-school "Colt .45s", but Houston has a wealth of mascot names ready for their incoming hockey team: The Ice Rifles, the Snow Roaches, the Frozen Oilers, the Swamp Glaciers, the Arctic Pardners, or the Frigid Mosquitoes.

Seattle/Portland: As a league executive knows, nature abhors a vacuum. As the Supersonics are leaving the area, why not replace them with an NHL team? The advantages to moving the Predators to the Pacific Northwest are well-documented: predictable weather year-round, wealthy fan base and most importantly, they rarely have to compete with long playoff runs by the Seabags. As an added bonus, that would create another Pacific Division team, so the Stars could move into their rightful place in the Central, replacing those pathetic suckas in Nashville who just lost their team.

For a team name, there are endless possibilities: The Seattle Stoners, the Portland Facsists, the X-Treme, the Quirks, the Seattle Volcanos, or the Eugene Hard Ducks.

Toronto: It's been some two decades since Toronto had an NHL team, and it's a shame the league has not addressed this in some way by rewarding this hockey-mad city with some semblance of NHL talent. Reportedly, 41 times a year insane, hockey-crazed fans fill a stadium in downtown Toronto, hoping and praying that an NHL team will somehow, someway, show up. NHL teams around the league have taken notice, and occasionally show up in Toronto to showcase their mad goal-scoring abilities in impressive skills competitions, as well as displaying dazzling speed as they skate unimpeded around the rink. Unfortunately, the effect of all this showboating is to make the citizens of Toronto want a hockey team all that much more: reportedly, more than once this season, Torontian citizens have been spotted across the border attending Sabres home games. Bettman's callous disregard for these fans is just remarkable. For shame!

What would we name an NHL team in Toronto, though? Not terribly familiar with their exotic culture or alien ways of life, I decided to keep this one simple: The Toronto Mudrats. The Towels. The Fightin' Trees. The Heavy Thinkers. The Backcheckers. The Sons of Mordor.

The introduction of a two-minute minor for having your mask ripped off will be a sure hit with the fans

Mexico City: Of all of The Statistical Men's suggestions, this was by far my favorite. Why not move a hockey team to Mexico City? Canada and the U.S. have been done to death by the other major professional sports leagues, and it's high time the NHL beat someone to the punch, for once in its miserable existence. Can you imagine the home field advantage of 100,000 Mexican converted-soccer fans screaming fight songs in a massive stadium built precariously over an ancient lake? You could spot the team all 41 home wins right off the bat in their inaugural season, which would make for even more hockey-crazed fans. Travel would be an issue, as would making sure the ice wouldn't cause players to get explosive diarrhea, but the positives in this case far outweigh any perceived negatives. Plus, if the NHL acts soon enough, they can nip this whole "baseball" thing in the bud, before MLB moves the Red Sox to Matamoros next year.

For a team name, no place on earth provides such a rich list to choose from: the Mexico City Cajones Mas Grandes, the Dead Virgins, the Machetes, the High Priests, the Lake Monsters, the Culos Malos, the Machos. If the NHL had a lick of sense, they would put Spanish-language tapes in every Predator's locker tomorrow and get to work on the most garishly colorful pastel uniforms you could possibly imagine. Gooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!

Memphis: The final suggestion was to move the team to Memphis, and re-name them the Successful Predators, just to fuck with Nashville for being such dicks. Part of the plan would be to not tell Legwand and Arnott the bus was leaving, and catapult them into one of Nashville's many famed tar pits, as a warning to the others.

Well, that's it for this week's Cupcheck. Tune in next week when I write my annual column decrying the lack of player injuries incurred during the All-Star game.

Related stories

• Thursday Morning Cupcheck - The Finished Flash’s Dick Move (Jan. 31, 2008)

See more stories in:

• Hockey > NHL > Stars

Comments

Justin Smith Staff

The Aeros in Houston have had a strong following for years. They almost got an NHL team a couple of years ago. Hmmm, fourth largest city in the country. Its actually a surprise cities like Tampa Bay, Phoenix, and Atlanta have NHL teams and they don't.

5 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Todd Maternowski Staff

SonyaBlade, I understand your frustration with Trevor Daley... but at 24, it's unfair to say that the guy has shown all he can do at the NHL level. He shows flashes of brilliance, especially on 5-on-3's, and has tremendous upside, provided you're not expecting the Next Zubov. I'd give him at least 3 more years to show his stuff before moving on. And I suspect by then, he'd have rounded out some of the rough edges in his game.

5 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

OpusthePoet Anonymous

Ummm, last time I checked, the Mapleleafs were home based in Toronto. Did something happen while I was watching the Tour de France instead of Hockey Night in Canada?

5 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

DC Anonymous

Yes. Sardonic was invented.

5 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )