Nitzy's Hockey Den

Matt Frattin was a fourth round draft pick, 99th overall by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2007. He was coming off a rookie of the year performance in the Alberta Junior League, scoring 83 points for Fort Saskatchewan. Frattin progressed through his first two years at the University of North Dakota collecting 15 and 25 points. Prior to his third year with the Fighting Sioux Frattin had two run-ins with the law. In July of 2009, he and a friend were arrested for throwing various items from the roof of a house. One month later, just before the school year began, he received a DWI. UND suspended Frattin and he went home to Edmonton to face his parents and friends. He got a job pouring concrete and took advice from family members and friends. He went back to North Dakota in December without his scholarship and had to earn his way back on the hockey team. His teammates, and more importantly his coach saw a change in him and accepted him back into the fold. Frattin scored 11 goals and 19 points...

Last week, Henrik Sedin recorded his 70th assist of the season for the third time in his career. He is only the 16th player to notch 70 helpers at least three times, Gretzky leads with 16 such seasons. Some unexpected guys that never did this are Bobby Clarke, Ron Francis, Steve Yzerman and Joe Thornton. As well it is the fifth consecutive year in which Henrik has tallied at least 60 assists, joining an even more exclusive group. Only 13 players have done this, and only six of them have done it more times than Hank's five straight. Most Consecutive Seasons with at least 60 Assists Wayne Gretzky, 13 Bobby Orr, 6 Guy Lafleur, 6 Peter Stastny, 6 Bernie Federko, 6 Adam Oates, 6 Joe Thornton, 5 Phil Esposito, 5 Doug Gilmour, 5 Bryan Trottier, 5 Ray Bourque, 5 Paul Coffey, 5 Henrik Sedin, 5 On Monday night, two other milestones were achieved. Teemu Selanne, with his third point of the game and 73rd of the season, assured himself of finishing with at least one point-per-game this year. He...

This past Thursday night I played in a four on four tourney called the Pacific Hockey Artists Tournament or PHAT for short. We had six teams of six guys and played each other team in eight minute running time games. All the participants were from the arts community including guys like Craig Northey (The Odds), Dave Ogilve (Skinny Puppy), Brent Belke (SNFU) and Grant Lawrence (The Smugglers & CBC Radio). However, the biggest star we had out was ex-Canuck goaltender "King" Richard Brodeur. Brodeur is an accomplished painter in his post-playing career and was more than willing to come out and support the local arts/hockey community. The picture is right after I brought The King a pop at the time keeper box where he was watching the action. He was more than appreciative. I had a chance to chat with him at greater length after the games were done at the post-tournament gathering. About thirty of us went to a nearby watering-hole to eat, drink and trade stories and verbal jabs...

James Reimer. The kid looks to be for real. If only Burkie brought him up in November instead of January. Now that he has played enough games and qualified for goaltending categories (at least 1/3 of a teams games) Reimer is showing up on the NHL leaderboards. He sits tied with Jonas Hiller for fourth overall in Save Percentage with .925 behind only Tim Thomas, Pekka Rinne and Roberto Luongo. The number is far and away the best among rookie tenders. His Point Pct. from a 16-7-4 record rank fourth league-wide behind Thomas, Luongo and Michal Neuvirth. Since the All-Star break "Optimus Reim" is fourth in the NHL in Wins with 12, behind Antti Niemi, Ilya Bryzgalov and Mikka Kiprusoff and his 3 shutouts are only one back of leader Carey Price. Those three white-washings are only two off the Toronto rookie record and the most by a Leaf rookie since Mike Palmateer had four in 76/77. Before that it was the two rookies with five shutouts, Ed Chadwick in 56/57 and Al Rollins in 50/51...

Matt Cooke comes across as a little prick. I can safely say that most anyone who follows hockey on an even semi-regular basis would share that opinion. I can tell from actual experience that this is the truth. You see, just over six years ago, the one and only Matt Cooke (then of the Vancouver Canucks) played against my squad in a regulation beer league game. It was January 31, 2005, a Monday night game. A Monday night game at 10:30 no less, at Burnaby, BC's Eight Rinks Facility. I was playing on a team in the third tier of men's hockey, third out of sixteen divisions so not quite elite beer league hockey but better than most. About ten minutes before puck drop, a league official came into our room and asked if we'd be fine with the other team dressing Matt Cooke. I'm not sure if they asked out of common courtesy or what, because anybody can play in that league seeing as it wasn't a playoff game. Even locked out NHL players. The rink was also the home to the Canuck...

I found these cool shots in an old program. Some great pictures of the building of Maple Leaf Gardens that I had never seen before. It still amazes me that Conn Smythe built this place in six months, during the depression no less. Below is the corner of Church and Carlton Streets before the Gardens took over.

44 years ago today, Lorne "Gump" Worsley was knocked out of an NHL game after being hit in the temple with an egg thrown from the stands. It was at Madison Square Garden in New York and Gump had just surrendered the first goal of the game to Jean Ratelle in the third minute. The Montreal Gazette reported, "The Gumper was hit flush on the right temple by the egg which was thrown from about 100 feet away...the egg-tosser, a 25 year-old fan who had a bag of them when caught by Garden police, got off lucky when Worsley refused to press charges." The next day Worsley took part in a voluntary practice and it was thought he would be ready if called upon for the next game. Gump described the incident, "It hit me flush on the temple just after the goal was scored. I didn't know it was an egg until I felt the gook. The doctor said it was a mild concussion and I still feel a bit dizzy." The concussion would prove to be somewhat more than mild as the Gump would i...