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May 16, 2011
The Hockey News has been providing the most comprehensive coverage of the world of hockey since 1947. In each issue, you'll find news, features and opinions about the NHL and leagues across North America and the world.
Building On The Fly
Paul Holmgren has the crew cut of a drill sergeant, the lantern jaw of a guy who looks like he works out a lot and the raspy voice of somebody who has probably taken more than a couple of serious punches to the throat in his day. And when he made a rare appearance in the Philadelphia Flyers dressing room as the team was stumbling down the stretch, let’s just say it took some of the players out of their comfort zone. “Paul Holmgren can be a scary guy,” Flyers winger Scott Hartnell said at the time. Holmgren can be scary, indeed, and it has nothing to do with the roughly 1,800 penalty minutes he piled up during just a 10-year playing career in the NHL and the World Hockey Association. In…
Where Has Parity Gone?
With apologies to Christmas tree huggers, the two months when the weather and hockey heat up simultaneously is the most wonderful time of the year. For all the fun we have, however, it’s also the most challenging period for the editors at The Hockey News. Storylines are frenetic and fleeting, changing daily. How do we remain relevant with our long shelf life? This week, we’ve opted to go with our Awards Issue, presenting pointed arguments for the players we’ve selected as hardware winners. That package, in all its contentious glory, begins on pg. 20, followed by our team-by-team honorees. For a moment, we thought about getting all boastful by presenting ourselves with our own award for being so smrt. Er, smart. We correctly predicted five of this season’s six division winners and…
Blue-collar Buddy
Former tough-guy Steve Webb made a living out of being a good, albeit tough, teammate. And now, even though his professional hockey days are behind him, Webb still looks out for other people – he’s just not using his fists now. Webb was drafted 176th overall by the Buffalo Sabres in 1994 and spent three seasons in the Ontario League with the Windsor Spitfires and his hometown Peterborough Petes. He broke into the NHL in 1996-97 with the New York Islanders and spent the majority of his 321-game career with them. From a young age, Webb knew he’d have to play the enforcer role if he wanted to make a career out of the game he loved. “When you have limited ability at the age of 16, you’re a little bit behind…
Snowed Over
What if… the plane had taken off? It was 1998 when Detroit scout Hakan Andersson made a trip to Yekaterinburg, Russia to catch a game between the home team and Chelyabinsk Traktor. Andersson was interested in a blueline prospect from Traktor named Dmitri Kalinin. But it wasn’t long before a player on the home team caught the scout’s eye. He was small, but very skilled and thoroughly dominated the game from start to finish. By the end of the contest Kalinin was no longer the focal point of the trip – it had instead turned to this unheard-of forward. Even though it was late in the season, word got out about this shifty little Russian. But while there had been a little talk about him, he was still considered undersized and not an…