from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- Being a hub city for NHL games matters for money and business, not necessarily for hockey. By my rather rudimentary calculations, an NHL hub city will have to be able to provide some 15,800 nights of hotel rooms over eight weeks and 47,400 meals before the Stanley Cup final is even played. That’s a whole lot of local business and incoming taxes at a time when there isn’t much of either.

- Gary Bettman has to be happy about what he sees around him. The NBA is struggling to figure things out. Baseball is fighting with itself. Football season is far away. For once, the NHL looks like the smart guys in a world of confusion … It’s an August night. And on television you have a choice — playoff basketball, playoff hockey or, if it comes back, regular-season baseball. For me it’s easy: 1. Stanley Cup playoffs; 2. NBA playoffs. 3. Baseball.

- Alex Mogilny should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame conversation this year, but his uneven career makes his case something of a challenge. He had eight pure Hall of Fame seasons and eight that might be considered so-so. What matters more, the dominant years or the other half of his career? The only sure-thing in this year’s class is Jarome Iginla. After that, there will be some push for Marian Hossa and Daniel Alfredsson and there should be a push (I say this every year) for the seemingly forgotten Doug Wilson … And then there are the goalies — Mike Vernon, Tom Barrasso, Curtis Joseph, Mike Richter — none of them sure things, all of them candidates you could make a case for.

a few more hockey related notes