Ivana Humpalot!

Also out: Yelle. That's no small subtraction either.

What's giving the Oilers and all Canadian teams more confidence to spend is that the Canadian "dollar" is so strong against the US dollar. Pre-lockout, Canadian currency was weak against the US dollar. As it is now, Canada is carrying the NHL market.

Man, the fickle, spoiled, uneducated, unwashed heathens of Denver still watch hockey Jes?!

http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2007/12/17/where-are-all-the-avs-fans/

No, I'm not letting it go :)

MisterHyde,

Draper lead the entire NHL in boarding calls this year. What does that make him? If just one of his six or so boarding attempts this year resulted in a fractured jaw then we could call the entire Detroit team evil right? Sweet, sweet irony.

Hey Bruce, Kizla may in fact be a hell of a hack. He writes maybe five hockey columns a year. One year he even had the balls to claim the NHL should step in and void the Selanne/Kariya signing.

But at this point you got to realize something, Kizla not only knows how to drum up contraversy and get attention but he's also a prophet at this point. Several Minny journalists have already written that Kizla was right. What say you Bruce?

It's amazing to me that one columnist with a long track record of contraversial material could get a whole hockey community distracted. So much so that radio stations in Minny were calling Denver, newspaper comlunists were opining about it and most of all Minny fans were quick to label all of us Avs fans and hockey know nothing idiots. Way to jump the shark there Minny fan. If only we had a "solid knowledge of hockey" in our city! Please, we are literally starving for knowledge, save us!

Anti-Gay sentiment in New York? No way!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iostRmxlixc

Foote continues to be one of the most underrated defensemen in the NHL. He's already the best defenseman on the Avalanche and it's obvious after two games. Foote has been flat out great against Calgary and Vancouver. He's barking out directions and putting communication back in the blue line. This is a team that went from Roy, Foote and Keane as vocal leaders to church mice known as Sakic, Stastny, Clark, Skrastins, Brisebois, Theo, Budaj, Liles, Leopold etc... Those guys are all talented but NOT leaders.

This team, despite going from defacto NW winners to missing the playoffs has never had a player only meeting since Foote left. The reason is obvious, Foote was the one that called them. The Avs are a much, much better team right now.

I'd like to believe that Theo is back but this streak of wins has been in the South East and some pretty poor goaltenders at the other end of the ice. That was Theo's first shutout since the lockout and he's past his mid 30s. I'm not holding my breath. Especially considering the fact that the coach will yank him in a heart beat as soon as he loses a game with a poor outing. There is no starting goaltender in Colorado. Coach Q somehow believes this Avalanche team can win the cup with a goalie rotation, something that hasn't been done since the 1980 Islanders..oh wait, check that. The Islanders benched Chico and road Billy Smith to a cup and dynasty after. So really, NO TEAM has ever won the cup with a goalie tandum. Coach Q is just that good.

In low whistle games TV timeouts come after icing all the time.