FanHouse NHL Media Watch

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

The Phoenix Coyotes haven't qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2002, and have never advanced past the first round. If you want to use last night's win in Columbus as a gut-check for a young team, the Yotes came off looking tougher than leather: Rallying from two deficits, scoring all three goals of the third period and taking a 4-2 decision from a team ahead of them in the Western Conference.

The Coyotes are, as of Wednesday morning, the No. 8 seed in the West -- a postseason spot that earns some lucky team a hasty beat-down from the Big Red Wing Machine. But they're only four points away from the No. 5 seed. I know the odds are against Phoenix actually winning the Stanley Cup -- 80-to-1 at last count -- but riding Ilya Bryzgalov to the team's inaugural second-round berth isn't out of the question. It's just too bad Coyotes management refuses to do what it takes to win and reward their long-suffering fans.

(Coming Up Next: Last Night's Losers, Guys Hugging the Stanley Cup Are Fan-tastic, Super Cool Hockey Ratings News, Tonight's Must-See Games and a Surreal Old School Hockey Fight Between the Kings and Canucks.)

Last month, Jes Golbez lit a powder keg on FanHouse with a post about the eroding attendance numbers for the once-infallible Colorado Avalanche, covering everything from the argument that the team has too few stars to the debate about the effect the League's national TV ratings have on Denver. After Jibblescribbits fired off a furious rebuttal, one thing was clear: This was a sensitive, multi-faceted issue that could say something greater about the current course of the franchise, rather than simply counting how many fannies are filling the seats.

This afternoon, Adrien Dater of the Denver Post reports the latest symptom of the Avs' decline: Upper bowl tickets for Wednesday's game against the Chicago Blackhawks have been reduced to $20. Not exactly the 2-for-1 deals or bottom-dollar ticket schemes we saw after the lockout from some teams, but Dater sees this price reduction as significant:

What does this say? It says that the Avs, once the toughest ticket in this town, are getting desperate to fill the building again, by any means necessary. We're almost into February, and the Avs are having to off-load tickets at bargain rates against an Original Six team. The Avs are not alone in their troubles, of course. I've been shocked at how poorly the Nuggets have drawn, a first-place team with two of the biggest stars in the league.

Dater writes that Denver's economic downturn is a primary factor, but it's not like the Avalanche were fleecing fans to begin with. The last Fan Cost Index from Team Marketing Report had Colorado below the League average and even the Islanders and Blue Jackets. The Avs are currently in the eight hole in the West; that, and their slew of injuries clearly have fans feeling pessimistic.

Last month, Sports Illustrated's Michael Farber identified St. Paul, Minn. as the city with the credentials to call itself "Hockeytown, U.S.A." As for previous H-town Detroit, Farber kicked some sand in its face when he said the Hockeytown moniker for the Red Wings' base of operations "seems as appropriate as, well, dipping a beef taco in a glass of milk."

Ouch. Farber's article was still on the mind of NHL.com writer Roger Phillips when he identified what he believes is a passing of the torch between Hockeytowns old and new: Jan. 10, when Craig Leipold agreed to buy the Wild and Minnesota defeated the Red Wings, 6-5, in a shootout at Joe Louis Arena. He went on to cite Winter Classic ratings in the two cities (making sure to mention the obvious, which is that the Wolverines drained the Detroit numbers), Leipold's management style and the owner's mullet as evidence to the Wild's Hockeytown prestige.

This did not sit well with Red Wings and Snapshots blogger George James Malik:

If suffocating trap hockey and organizational arrogance equal the formula to capture "Hockeytown's" title, the boring Wild can keep it. The Wings just keep on winning instead.

Me-ow. Our own Jes Golbez took a look at the Red Wings' claim to Hockeytown fame a few months ago. Phillips characterized the feud over the title as a "petty little controversy," but I disagree. It's a matter of pride and self-identity for both regions that goes beyond success on NHL ice and into colleges and general hockey culture. I think competition for "Hockeytown" honors is a good thing for the sport in the U.S.; hell, even places like San Jose and Dallas are in the conversation. Think of the implications if Detroit finally loses the title. We're talking serious maintenance for the Hockeytown Wikipedia page. And I'm certainly not the one who's going to break the bad news to the Hockeytown Cafe.

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

There are plenty of easy jobs in the world: Marty Brodeur's back-up goalie; weed wrangler for The Black Crowes; the assistant who has to clip positive film reviews for Rob Schneider. Added to that list: Toronto sports talk radio host during a Maple Leafs' season from hell. I mean, it's not like Toronto stations were offering hourly updates on the Leafs' teetering-on-the-brink front office situation.

Step One: Turn mic on. Step Two: Put your junk in that box Open mouth, say, "Leafs." Step Three: Sit back and let the waves of hate, despair and false hope crash over the phone lines. It's the same kind of lazy convenience that conservative talk show hosts enjoy, only replace "Leafs" with "abortion," "guns" or "Hillary." The faithful just get fanatic when it comes to Toronto's failures and cloudy future, from Internet mailbags to lengthy letters to the editor about why Damien Cox is "officially the biggest jackass in Canadian sports media." So even as the Leafs snag a 5-4 win over Carolina last night -- featuring that Haley's Comet of hockey moments, a game where both Chad Kilger and Ian White had goals -- we still have Maple Leafs fans who are ready to drop their fan allegiance after many years and fans anticipating a public hanging of the coach and general manager.

So here's my question: What if the Leafs actually, you know, make the playoffs?

(Coming Up Next: Last Night's Losers, Sabres Fan-tastic, A Tribute to the NHL's All-Average Team, Tonight's Must-See Games and why the Leafs' GM is Fergalicious.)

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

Yes, it was the final game of a road trip that saw them swing through Western Canada and then to the opposite side of the Keystone State. No, they did not have Marc-Andre Fleury between the pipes, shielding his sterling 2.90 GAA and .902 save percentage from the carnage. But let's toss whatever limited and rather inconsequential excuses aside like they were Mark Recchi bobble-heads, and acknowledge the truth: The Philadelphia Flyers beat the snot, the stuffing and the hell out of the Pittsburgh Penguins last night.

The 8-2 loss on national television -- OK, on VERSUS -- saw a hat trick for Joffrey Lupul, whose six-point night was the first for the Flyers since Eric Lindros posted a six pack in one of his rare non-concussion games back in 1997. R.J. Umberger completed a second Philly hat trick late in the third period, marking the first time since Tim Kerr and Dave Poulin in 1986 that a pair of Flyers drained the crowd of its headgear.

But perhaps the most shocking development in last night's game: The Philadelphia Flyers were on the ice, yet it was Pittsburgh coach Michel Therrien and his players that came off as the most undisciplined, thuggish team in the NHL last night.

(Coming Up Next: Last Night's Losers, Scandalous and Hilarious Puck Headlines, Life as a New York Rangers Fan, Games You Need To Watch Tonight, A Handy Guide To Fake Trades and a "Special" Christmas Carol For the Hartford Whalers.)

A good buddy of mine recently landed a journalism job that made me equal parts proud and insanely jealous: He's going to be an assistant editor for DRAFT magazine, which he describes as Cigar Aficionado for the beer enthusiast. An editorial office filled with an unending assortment of promotional beer schwag and "review" brews? I haven't asked him yet if he's paying them to work there...

He pointed me in the direction of DRAFT's Nov./Dec. issue and its cover story on Jeremy Roenick. Titled "Jeremy Roenick: He's Good" in honor of his immortalizing in the movie "Swingers," the Q&A by Bonnie Siegler covers two of Roenick's business ventures -- the Phoenix-based Muze Lounge and a line of designer shirts, Muze Clothing -- as well as his famous dust-up with Patrick Roy in 1996 (you know, the one that ended with Roy saying he couldn't hear what Roenick was saying because he had "two Stanley Cup rings plugging" his ears), his near-retirement via text message ("It was taken out of context."), the fact that Alexander Ovechkin reminds him of his younger self and, of course, beer.

The story doesn't appear to be available online, so here are some choice excerpts from the mouth of Jeremy:

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

Wait, Jose Theodore Did What?
The incredible decline of Colorado Avalanche goalie Jose Theodore's reputation has been well-documented. Winning the Hart and Vezina trophies, and then ending up as a $6 million bench-warmer, with the stats to match. Propecia-gate before the Olympics. His public tryst with noted scholar Paris Hilton.

Last night, all of that was back-burnered, if at least for a game. After the Calgary Flames chased Avs starter Peter Budaj with four goals, Theodore came off the pine and stopped 17 shots, winning the game in a glorified skills competition the shootout, 5-4. "I was trying to keep it simple, give my team a chance to win, and they showed a lot of character coming back," he said after the game. Don't you love it when the male models play humble?

I found it interesting that the Associated Press led with Theodore's unexpected performance, but that Adrian Dater of the Denver Post didn't drop his name until the eighth paragraph and downplayed his efforts while lauding those of the team in front of him. Perhaps he knew other publications would be playing the Theodore angle. Perhaps Dater, and Avs fans, have been conditioned in the post-Roy years to expect a goalie to lose a game and a team to win one. Or perhaps even on a redemptive night, Jose Theodore will always be seen as a cap-killing financial albatross and an unqualified bust between the pipes in Denver.

(Coming up next: The Hartley/Waddell Death Watch continues, Marty Brodeur's afraid of his own stats, Most Embarrassing Stat Line of Last Night, this week's "Aitch Effy," and Tonight's Games You Should Be Watching.)