Kukla's Korner Hockey
Category: Hockey-Related-Stories
Evening Line- Darryl Sydor
by Paul on 08/14/18 at 08:21 PM ET
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"It's been tough, it's something you have to look at head on, there's been ups and downs. Whether it's mental awareness or addiction, it's a hard battle and you've got to stay on top of it. I'm lucky I have a second chance. That day I don't like to look back at too often, but I do also not want to forget it. Drastic things could have happened. There's still issues that I have to deal with. Anybody in my situation, it's never forgotten, and it's never undealt with ---- it's something you have for life. It's a disease."
-Darryl Sydor, retired NHL player on dealing with alcoholism. CFJC Today has more on this.
Filed in: Hockey Related Stories, | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: darryl+sydor
Henry Boucha Takes In The Cup Festivities In Warroad, Minn.
by Paul on 07/25/18 at 08:51 AM ET
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from Brad Elliott Schlossman of InForum,
Henry Boucha couldn't resist.
After watching T.J. Oshie, his second cousin and Warroad's first Stanley Cup champion, bring the prized trophy back to the northwest Minnesota town Tuesday morning, the legendary Warrior player had to get in a jab at rival Roseau.
"As the emcee Jess Myers said, it's the second time the Cup has been here," Boucha said. "When Buff (Dustin Byfuglien) brought it to Roseau, they had to land the plane in Warroad. That's got to be a teasing point for the Roseau Rams there."
Boucha, the 1972 Olympic silver medalist and former NHL player, was full of pride in his hometown Tuesday. Boucha flew from his current home in White Bear Lake, Minn., to be part of Oshie's Stanley Cup festivities.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Washington Capitals, Hockey Related Stories, | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: henry+boucha,
t.j.+oshie
Peter Pocklington’s New Business Venture Is A Cannabis Company
by Paul on 07/19/18 at 05:38 PM ET
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from Jennie Russell and Charles Rusnell of CBC News,
Former Edmonton Oilers owner Peter Pocklington still owes the Alberta government more than $13 million from an unpaid 1988 loan for a failed meat-packing plant.
In Arizona, Pocklington and an associate have so far reneged on restitution of more than $5 million US to settle a securities fraud case involving a gold-mining scheme.
And three months ago, the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Pocklington with securities fraud in California for allegedly defrauding investors in his medical-device company and misappropriating funds.
Undaunted by creditors owed millions of dollars and a looming court fight, Pocklington is seeking investors for a new business venture: a cannabis company.
Filed in: Hockey Related Stories, | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: peter+pocklington
Drowning Accident Presumed To Have Taken The Life Of Ray Emery
by Paul on 07/15/18 at 02:52 PM ET
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via Alan Rutherford of the Hamiton Spectator,
A man in his thirties is presumed drowned after failing to emerge from an early morning swim around the docks of the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club.
The man was with a group visiting a friend's boat when they decided to jump in the water around 6:30 a.m. Sunday.
'They went out for a swim and unfortunately he did not emerge after diving in,' said Insp. Marty Schulenberg. "We responded along with Hamilton Fire and EMS. Unfortunately, our efforts on the water and in the area just around the piers were met with negative results."
The Niagara Police Dive Unit was called in for what is being described as a recovery.
"They are deployed right now," said Schulenberg. "They are starting to go into the water."
A RHYC member who knows the owner of the boat says it was part of a sailpast at the club Saturday.
"He had some friends on the boat and they were enjoying the boat and the day," said Richard Seeley. "He's pretty upset."
Filed in: Hockey Related Stories, | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: ray+emery
Three Moving Videos From Tonight’s NHL Awards Show
by Paul on 06/20/18 at 10:55 PM ET
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via the YouTube page of the NHL
Las Vegas first responders and the Golden Knights are honored on stage at the 2018 NHL Awards for their role in healing the city after tragedy struck just before the season began.
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas hockey team joins the 2018 NHL Awards in Las Vegas to present the Calder Trophy to New York Islanders youngster Mathew Barzal, after his breakout rookie season!
Filed in: NHL Teams, NHL Talk, Hockey Related Stories, Non-NHL Hockey, | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: vegas+golden+knights
Thoughts On Dying
by Paul on 06/13/18 at 08:54 AM ET
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from Nick Boynton at The Players' Tribune,
I’ve thought about death a lot over the past few years.
About dying. And what it might be like if I wasn’t around.
I’ve struggled a ton since I retired from hockey in 2011, and I’ve faced a bunch of different personal demons. But recently I’ve been unable to shake thoughts of….
Steve Montador.
Wade Belak.
Derek Boogaard.
Rick Rypien.
I knew those guys. They were real people to me.
They played the same game I did, and when it was all said and done … they were really just suffering, man.
Filed in: NHL Teams, NHL Talk, Hockey Related Stories, | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: nick+boynton
NHL Ref Garrett Rank On His Way To The US Open
by Paul on 06/12/18 at 09:04 AM ET
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from USOpen.com,
Garrett Rank, 30, is a National Hockey League referee who happens to be pretty good at golf. The native of Elmira, Ontario, is a three-time winner of the Canadian Mid-Amateur title who also reached the final of the 2012 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship, losing to Nathan Smith. A former hockey player, Rank overcame testicular cancer at age 22, and he worked several seasons as an American Hockey League official before joining the NHL staff in 2016. Rank, who qualified for the 2018 U.S. Open by shooting rounds of 71-71 in sectional qualifying on June 4 at Ansley Golf Club in Roswell, Ga., is sharing his experience this week with usopen.com.
As I walked off the 18th green at Shinnecock Hills after my first practice round on Monday I was in a bit of a rush, because I was scheduled to attend the Amateur Dinner that evening. I wasn’t really paying attention, and as I started toward the clubhouse, Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker were coming off the 14th tee, and we crossed paths.
Just to see the fans following Tiger on a Monday for a practice round, all the cheers and encouragement from the crowd, was something you can’t experience until you’re there in person and see it firsthand. It was surreal to be inside the ropes and playing in the same competition as Tiger, a guy I watched for a long time on TV and grew up idolizing. I stopped and thought, whoa, this is a pretty cool moment.
Filed in: NHL Talk, NHL Officiating, Hockey Related Stories, | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: garrett+rank
Hockey Can Heal
by Paul on 06/10/18 at 12:01 PM ET
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from Lora Polowczuk of The Good Men Project
Seven other season ticket holders loved me like I was their own daughter. They bought me Dove ice cream bars when we were down a goal. We cheered together and threw popcorn at each other in fun play....
I hid my pain from these seven lovely souls. Deep inside I was a lonely, severely depressed young woman that was on the brink of suicide. I was Daddy’s little girl and felt abandoned by his death.
He was my first male connection. I lost the person that took me on school field trips, hugged me and smothered me with attention. I was only eleven years old when he died; when you are that young, you do not really know what depression is or how to cope with it.
I slowly withdrew from life. I did not want to play and found friendships difficult to maintain, especially as my hormones were also changing. I hid in my bedroom.
I became unfocused in school and my grades quickly plummeted in parallel. I isolated myself which only drew me deeper down into the spiral of depression.
I once took a swig of my mother’s Crown Royal whiskey; that sat on the kitchen counter next to the window. I was knocked out cold with a fast onset drunkenness and only to wake-up in time for dinner with a hangover.
I thought suicide was my way out of this deep pain that I could not describe. I would sit on my bed contemplating whether I should take a bottle of pills.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Washington Capitals, Hockey Related Stories, | KK Hockey | Permalink
Remembering Clare Drake
by Paul on 05/14/18 at 07:48 AM ET
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from Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal,
Clare Drake, whose voluminous wisdom was gladly and graciously imparted to a legion of young and old coaches who would hang on his every word, passed away Sunday morning.
The long-time University of Alberta Golden Bears head coach, who was inducted in the Hockey Hall of Fame last November in the builder’s category, died in his sleep. He was 89.
Coach Drake, who is survived by wife Dolly and two daughters Debbie and Jamie, was a towering figure to long-time National Hockey League coaches Ken Hitchcock, Mike Babcock and Barry Trotz, who all said they wouldn’t have made it to the best league in the world without the gentle soul who only put on his game face when the puck was dropped.
The same goes for former bench-bosses Tom Renney, Dave King and George Kingston along with a legion of contemporaries like Billy Moores, part of the all-encompassing Bears’ family....
“What Clare said had a profound impact on all of us … I would go back to Edmonton after NHL seasons (coaching) and I would talk to him for hours and hours,” said Hitchcock, the third-winningest NHL coach of all-time. “We’d be at symposiums, and we’d be talking so long, we’d miss some of the (other) presentations.”
Terry Jones of the Edmonton Sun with his article on Clare Drake.
Filed in: Hockey Related Stories, | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: clare+drake
CTE Needs To Be Addressed By The NHL
by Paul on 05/04/18 at 08:39 AM ET
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from John Branch of the New York Times,
To the family of the former N.H.L. player Jeff Parker, the posthumous diagnosis of C.T.E., or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, was the predictable conclusion. All those hits to the head, including that final one that knocked him out of the game altogether, and all those subsequent years of struggle? In the final, difficult years before Parker’s death last September at age 53, the family figured that it must be C.T.E.
“It just makes me sad,” John Parker, Jeff’s younger brother, said through tears. “It doesn’t bring him back. It just makes you feel sad, that he was living with this, and it’s a thing. It’s a real thing.”
To the N.H.L. and its commissioner, Gary Bettman, the diagnosis is likely to be the latest piece of evidence to dismiss or combat. Even as links build a chain bridging the sport to C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease associated with repetitive head trauma, and some of the game’s most revered names push the league to take a more open-minded approach, the N.H.L. has denied any connection between long-term brain damage and hits to the head.
Filed in: NHL Teams, NHL Talk, Hockey Related Stories, | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: jeff+parker
About Kukla's Korner Hockey
Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.
From breaking news to in-depth stories around the league, KK Hockey is updated with fresh stories all day long and will bring you the latest news as quickly as possible.
Email Paul anytime at pk@kuklaskorner.com
