The Rookie Season
Monday, April 11, 2005

Posted by Kerrzy

On a cold winter night about this time last year, I was asked to throw down my picks for the WHL playoffs. They called it the Kerrzy Report. The next thing I was asked to write about was the Mike Danton situation,which happened not soon after and from there the rest is history. It's been a full year of Kerrzy Reports now, and while there hasn't been much hockey going on, there's been more than enough to keep me busy...

Mike Danton and his ongoing situation gave us all a good laugh but just to ensure that he wasn't a runaway for plug of the year, along came Alex Perezhogin and his mid-game Mark Mcguire impression.

From the yearly choke of the Senators, to the breasts of Calgary in their first-time-in-15-years-past-the-first-round playoff run, it was good times before the lockout. Canada won the World Championship, Tampa Bay won the cup in game 7 OT and Mike Danton was the only player signing a long-term deal before the summer...

Then there was the resurgence, failure, resurgence and failure of the WHA; something we're all still waiting to see, which was supposed to "take over" from the NHL...which brings us to the lockout.

This was the start of a lonnnnnnng six months of arguing, and the eventual cancellation of the whole season; but there were some bright lights in that dark sky, like the World Cup victory for Canada, (although the jersey they wore in the first game were a bit questionable) and then the World Junior triumph.

Sidney Crosby ran away with another scoring title and signed a big deal with Reebok hockey, the London Knights shattered records left and right and Gordie Howehad a street in Saskatchewan named after him; all the while Swedens national team for the World Championships lost Salo, Forsberg, Sundin and Naslund, while Canada named Tambellini as GM after Wayne Gretzky couldn't take the job.

Where it's going from here we'll have to just sit back and watch, but with the junior leagues all across the country in playoff mode, the Memorial Cup fast approaching and the World Championships coming up in a month there'll no doubt be plenty to talk about.


Moral of the Story: As far as I can deduce, the plug of the year is up for grabs between Mike Danton, Gary Bettman, and Rob Ray; three gentleman who all did their part to look like complete meatheads in the public eye long enough to earn a nomination.

Thanks for reading what I've had to say for the first year here, I appreciate the support. If you'd like to check out the archives, they're right HERE.