Super Warm-Up
It was a wild Sunday afternoon in Montreal earlier today.
Ryan Hollweg, who was visibly irked after being on the receiving end of a stiff elbow courtesy of Alexei Kovalev, took out his frustrations on rookie Sergei Kostitsyn with a hit from behind along the boards.
The hit sparked a melee in the Rangers’ end. Josh Gorges was the first Canadian to reach Hollweg and ended up getting some shots in from behind while the linesmen tried to separate them. Colton Orr and Francis Bouillon dropped the gloves away from the pile.
Those calling for Hollweg to be suspended won’t have to wait at all. The game misconduct for hitting from behind was Hollweg’s second of the season, giving him an automatic one-game suspension. The NHL will likely rule on a possible extension of his punishment later this week.
As for the game, the Rangers overcame a 3-0 deficit to win 5-3.
Shelley to fight on
Ross McKeon of Yahoo! Sports writes about Jody Shelley‘s new spot out west in San Jose. Shelley’s already looking forward to a meet-up with another California team, the NHL champion Ducks:
“That’s the team that won the Stanley Cup; that’s the team that walks around with a lot of swagger because they think they are the toughest team in the league,” Shelley said. “That’s fine, but when they come to San Jose or we go to Anaheim, we have a job to do. That’s to do it our way and to let them know that’s not the way it is.”
McKeon then touches on the rise in fighting this season:
Teams copying the champs could be a reason why fighting is up. Fighting majors dropped from 789 in 1,230 games in 2003-04 (before the lockout) to 466 in the same number of games in 2005-06. The number jumped modestly to 497 last year. But with 401 already through the first 783 games this season, the league is on pace for 630 fighting majors.
Those numbers, which match our stats page, are fights, not fighting majors (the majors numbers are roughly double those).
Commenting returns
Blog commenting was temporarily disabled for a week. After a few minor tweaks, commenting is now available again.
Videos added
Colton Orr vs Francis Bouillon Feb 3, 2008
Jesse Boulerice vs Jeremy Yablonski Feb 2, 2008
Matthew Spiller vs Paul Bissonnette Feb 1, 2008
Ashton Rome vs Peter Zingoni Feb 1, 2008
Some reads
Ranking the Hockey Hotties
Zack’s impact drawing rave reviews
Ailling Islanders yet to make callup moves
