Fan Excitement Builds For The 2005 National Hockey League Season
By Austin Culley, Thu Dec 8th

With the ratification of the Collective Bargaining Agreementcompleted, devoted fans of the game breathe a sigh of relief.With each new week that goes by, curiousity grows to see whateffect the new rule changes will do for the game, and themovement of players in all directions due to an implementedsalary cap brings a very real excitement and anticipation forthe upcoming 2005 NHL Season.

The work and sacrifices that the league, owners, and playershave done to make the new season a reality is to be commended.Gary Bettman, never with due appreciation it seems, has done afantastic job at the helm of the league for over a decade.Owners and General Managers of teams such as the Edmonton Oilersand Calgary Flames now have the opportunity to compete, for themost part, on an equal playing field.

A Summary of Rule Changes for the 2005 NHL Season:

1) The goal line will be moved two feet closer to the endboards, and the blue lines moved two feet further away from thegoal lines to give an extra four feet in the offensive end.Tension during powerplays will increase for the fans ofshort-handed teams.

2) The red line will be disregarded for the two-line pass rule,giving rise to a faster game and more breakaway opportunities towatch.

3) The tag-up rule will give offensive players who’ve overshotthe blueline into the opponents zone before the puck a chance tocircle back to the blueline and then continue back into theoffensive zone to play the puck. This will reduce whistles foroffside infractions; once again speeding up the game.

4) The instigator rule has changed to penalize fights startedduring the last five minutes of the game. One game suspensionsand a $10,000 fine to the instigating players’ coach aremanditory penalties. Fighting will always remain an excitingpart of hockey from a fan’s perspective, regardless of bleedingheart support to stop the act of throwing the gloves off.

5) Changes to the way linesmen approach icing will hopefullyreduce the worrisome issue of dangerous end board collisionsthat occur during races for the puck.

6) Goaltender padding will finally be reduced. The days ofseeing ridiculously large equipement on goaltenders are over.Scoreboards will no doubt show the effects of this rule change.

7) The elimination of tie-games due to the incorporation of ashootout is a welcome addition by most fans of the game. A tiegame at the end of regulation will be followed by a four-on-fourfive minute overtime, and then followed by a three man per teamshootout if both teams are still deadlocked. If still tied afterthis, then a sudden death shootout will begin to produce awinning team. The winning team will receive two points: theloser in overtime or a shootout one point; and the loser inregulation zero points.

A Summary of Player Movement:

Mike Peca, Jeremy Roenick, Darian Hatcher, Peter Forsberg, TonyAmonte, Paul Kariya, Bobby Holik, Scott Niedermayer, NikolaiKhabibulin, Sergei Gonchar, Brian Leetch, Chris Pronger, MikeRathje, Adam Foote, Gary Roberts, and Joe Nieuwendyk are but afew players who have moved on to new teams.

The new Collective Bargaining Agreement, all rule changes, andall player movement can be viewed at http://www.nhl.com/.

About the author:Austin Culley is an avid fan of the NHL, and Vice President forOil-Net.Com Inc. http://www.oil-net.com

Locked Out Nhl Players Skate In The Beer Leagues
By Glen Trainor, Thu Dec 8th

The most recent entry of an NHLer playing adult recreationalhockey is Benoit Hogue, having fun in the beer-league in LongIsland. He joins others including; Matt Cooke, Joey Kocur andCliff Ronning, who are also featured in this ever expandingarticle.

NHL players are all locked out. They are not allowed to play orsign for any NHL team. They are, however, free to play for anyother team in any other league that they choose. Some have goneto Europe and Russia, some will play in the minors, but manyaren’t playing anywhere. Or are they?

As Tom Cochrane once crooned “My boy’s gonna play in the BeerLeague.”

Benoit Hogue Benoit Hogue, a former New York Islander whose nameappears on the Stanley Cup, is just one of the boys. After 15years in the NHL Benoit is now playing for the fun of it.

As reported in the Long Island Press, Benoit Hogue, 38, hasjoined with his friends on three different teams. One of themthe Rinx Ratz of the no-hitting Midnight Hockey League. “I havea good time. I love to get on the ice. I love to play, ” he says.

By all reports he’s a class act on the ice, using his skill tomake the others around him better, rather than taking over thegame for himself.

Matt Cooke In February of 2005, Matt Cooke played for the AdtekRockets out of Burnaby 8 -Rinks in British Columbia. No pointsin a 5-2 loss but he did manage to get a body checking penalty.Called in as a spare to give the Adtek Rockets 12 skaters on thenight, Matt Cooke was playing in a Div 3 game out in Burnaby,BC, Canada.

But as usual the stats only tell half the story. Apparently thedifference in quality of hockey between him and the balance ofthe players was very noticebale, and as for his bodycheck, well,let’s just say that when you are an NHLer playing the beerleagues, theres always one in the crowd that tries to provethemself against you.

Most people would say the open-ice hit was justified.

Joey Kocur This 2004/05 lockout isn’t the first one where NHLplayers ended up playing in the Beer-Leagues. The Al Dittrichrecreational hockey team out of Pontiac, Michigan added JoeyKocur to their line-up during the NHL lockout in ‘92.

Later that season he joined another Detroit team, the Red Wings.Two years later he returned to the Al Dittrich dressing room andbrought with him a token of appreciation - The Stanley Cup.

This isn’t the only time an NHL’er has joined the beer leaguesto keep in shape. Its just one of the rare instances that it hasmade the press.

Cliff Ronning Another instance of note comes from Cliff Ronning.”I was skating with beer-league players — guys who play thegame for the love of it,” he says. “I was paying $10 a night togo and skate — it shows how much I still wanted to play.Playing with guys who were 40 and 50 and never got the chance toplay in the NHL was a fun experience. You get back to whathockey really is, where you’re playing for the love of thegame.” The 38-year-old Ronning, signed with the Islanders Jan 9,2004 as a free agent after sitting out the first half of theseason… playing beer league hockey.

Cliff was also seen playing pick-up hockey in Vancouver lately(February 2005) as a goalie. The impression he gave was, as aformer professional he didn’t want to take over the game, so hechose to play goal where he could let his competitive natureflourish.

About the author:Glen Trainor Communications Major, Online Publisher, and AdultHockey Enthusiast. http://www.beerleaguehockey.com