Lockout-Shortened Season Begins Saturday, Chaos To Ensue « The Book of Loob

Lockout-Shortened Season Begins Saturday, Chaos To Ensue

January 16, 2013 by Ruhee

NHL hockey is back! The regular season in 2013 will be about half the length we’re used to, but the Flames are comfortably set to be as astoundingly mediocre as ever, so don’t worry too much–it’ll still feel just as long.

You might have forgotten (or repressed it), but Dennis Wideman is now part of the Flames blue line making a tooooon of money. Kent Wilson at Flames Nation is more optimistic about that than many of us have been, risk and all, and if he turns out to have a decent few seasons hopefully it’ll have been sort of worth it?

Jay Feaster is still the GM (drink!) but my favourite dude Martin Gelinas is now the assistant coach, and that is absolutely The Best.

Other folks that are The Best include Jarome Iginla, who’s back skating at camp after sitting out with a groin strain (precautionary measures, I’m told) and Sven Baertschi, because, of course, he’s Sven. SVEN!

Here’s a bit of what you might have forgotten about elsewhere in the Northwest:

Obviously the Minnesota Wild had the biggest offseason in the division, signing Ryan Suter and Zach Parise to insane thirteen-year, $98-million contracts, as well as adding Mikael Granlund. That’s thirteen years and over a $15-million cap hit between the two of them–RIDICULOUS, and pretty bad news bears for the rest of the division.

Vancouver extended coach Alain Vigneault’s contract and so far haven’t managed to deal Roberto Luongo. Cam Charron has a great piece at Canucks Army outlining why he might be best suited to stick around on the left coast this season, though it would be significantly funnier for him to be a Leaf. Lu apparently isn’t interested in staying in Vancouver long-term.

The Canucks are also dealing with the prolonged absence of Ryan Kesler, and have signed MORE THAN ONE hilarious former Oiler, including good old Cam Barker!

Elsewhere, the Colorado Avalanche — well, nobody cares.

Edmonton has a crop of young kids that are going to be terrifying soon, and three of them–Nugent-Hopkins, Eberle, and Hall–are listed in TSN’s top 50 players for this season, however much stock you might put in that. Fortunately, they are still a useless franchise (hat tip to Thomas Drance for that).

Training camp is on now, though, and the Flames are set to face the San Jose Sharks in their season opener at the Saddledome Sunday afternoon at 4:00 PM. The time’s been changed from 5, so cancel your afternoon plans accordingly! Hockey’s back, and we are GOING FOR IT.

Ruhee is a displaced Calgarian living in enemy territory (otherwise known as Toronto). She can be found on the internet on Twitter, writing about baseball, or tumblr-ing, and is a member of Entire Cities and Del Bel.