Sens at Land’s End

Puck Lit Project Review #4: The Five Hole Stories by Dave Bidini

Plot Summary: This is a collection of five short stories about the off-ice activities of hockey players, with a focus on the bedroom, or the locker room, as the case may be. “One Hundred Bucks” is about the relationship between a … woman of loose morals and a hockey player. “Why I Love Wayne Bradley” deals with the love a goaltender feels for the star player on his team. “Joan” is again about the love between player and goalie, only this time the goalie is female. “I Am Bobby Wolf” sees a player seek out an unusual cure for a slump. “Cortina” tells the story of a career minor leaguer who plays in Italy. “The Five Hole” is all about the five hole.

Genre: Fiction, Short Stories, and I’m coining a new term here: Hockeyrotica. Look for it to be added to your dictionary within the next few years.

Hockey Content: All the stories are centered around hockey, so there’s plenty, though most of the action is off the ice, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge wink wink. There are references to real teams and players, and Wayne Bradley is quite obviously based on Wayne Gretzky.

Choice Quotation: “You know, Ronnie, once you’ve found a goalie’s five hole, they’re yours forever.”

My Thoughts: As I said in my last Puck Lit review, in which I mentioned my surprise that hockey has inspired its share of romance novels, hockey is not about love. It’s about the eternal conflict between man and his environment. It’s about life, and living on in harsh circumstances. It’s also about watching powerful, sweaty men hit each other, which, it must be said, can be pretty hot. If you had told me there was a huge market for hockey porn, it wouldn’t have surprised me as much as the romance novel thing did. And that is where The Five Hole Stories comes in.

Having said that, to call it “hockey porn” is a stretch. Each story does deal with hockey and sex, but if you’re looking for non-stop locker room action, then this is not the book for you. If you want to read a few entertaining and sometimes poignant stories about the secret love lives of hockey players (NOT the secret lives of hockey wives — that was something far less enjoyable), then you should pick it up. Some of the stories are better than others (my favourites would have to be ”Why I Love Wayne Bradley” and “One Hundred Bucks”), as is true of most short story collections, but overall it’s a good little (only 111 pages) book. Bidini, who is the guitarist for the Rheostatics, has also written a couple of non-fiction books about hockey (The Best Game You Can Name and Tropic of Hockey) and based on these stories I’d say they’re worth checking out.

Rating: 3.5 pucks out of 5. Quite good, but not outstanding.

Another new addition for the Sens today in the person of Jason Smith, most recently seen donning the captain’s C in Philadelphia. Smith has signed to a two-year deal that will pay him $2.6 million per season.

What do we know about Smith? Let’s see:

• He is 34 years old and has played 14 NHL seasons, 9 of which he spent in Canadian markets: he’s used to dealing with the hockey-mad media.
• He’s big: 6′3″, 215 pounds. As seen in the above photo, he also grows a great playoff beard and rocks the classic gap-toothed hockey player smile.
• He was not only the captain in Philadelphia last season, but also in Edmonton for the five previous years. He led the Oilers to the Cup Final in 2006 and, of course, the Flyers to the Eastern Conference Final in 2008.
• He’s got 168 points in 945 career games. A scorer he is not.
• Like Anton Volchenkov, he enjoys throwing his body in front of quickly moving pieces of rubber: he has placed in the top ten in the NHL for blocked shots in each of the last three seasons. In fact, each year he has finished one spot behind Volchenkov (they were 6th and 7th in 2005-2006, 1st and 2nd in 2006-2007, and 2nd and 3rd in 2007-2008). I foresee a good natured rivalry between teammates. Gerber may never even have to contemplate touching a puck when one of these two is on the ice and that’s just good news for everyone.
• Also like Volchenkov, he lacks the ability to feel pain. As I mentioned in my pre-free agent frenzy roundup post, Smith played for the Flyers with two separated shoulders during this year’s playoffs.
• His nickname is Gator. According to NHL.com, this is because he’s a fan of the Florida Gators (the guys they invented Gatorade for!) and not because he devours small animals in a single bite, or performs a move called the “death roll.” Still, it’s a pretty intimidating nickname and by all accounts he can be a very intimidating guy.

Hmm. Low point totals, shot blocking, hitting, intimidating personality … I guess we won’t get him mixed up with our other Jason S. (I say it with love.)

I really like this signing. Those who don’t will no doubt argue that the Sens’ more pressing need is for the mythical puck-moving defenceman, but I stand by my previously expressed opinion that the team needs to be much more solid defensively if it’s going to have any chance of keeping the puck out of its own net. Smith provides some stability back there for a pretty reasonable price, and this signing has allowed me to upgrade my rating of the Sens’ defensive corps from Incredibly Frightening to Actually Not Bad.

Smith also fits well in with the locker room revamp and Bryan Murray’s Plan Upstanding Young(ish) Men. See how Murray describes Smith:

“This is the ultimate character guy that was out on the free-agent market,” said Murray. “He’s been a captain, as we know, but more importantly, he’s just a guy that competes every night. He blocks shots, he hits people, he plays the game in a hard way and he’s very difficult to play against.”

Not just a guy with character: the ultimate character guy. Gritty. Hardworking. Tough to play against. And apparently not afraid to bitchslap a teammate if he’s behaving badly:

“Whatever you can bring to the team to help the team do well is what you need to do, whether that’s yell and scream or sometimes guys just need a pat on the back,” said Smith.

“There’s different situations,” he added. “There’s a lot of things needed to be dealt with amongst the players in the dressing room. Every situation is different. I think when a dressing room is functional and the guys are working hard and playing hard, a lot of that stuff keeps itself straightened out and you don’t have to really deal with that.”

Looking at Murray’s two new free agent signings, we start to see another aspect of the GM’s vision for the team taking shape as well. We’ve got Jason Smith, hard-hitting and “difficult to play against,” and Jarkko Ruutu, possibly the second most annoying person ever to put on skates. These Sens aren’t going to make it easy for anyone to beat them. No, in fact they’re going to be pretty badass, if Bryan Murray has his way.

Puck Lit Project Review #3: Twenty Miles by Cara Hedley

Plot Summary: Isabel Norris (aka Iz, named after Isobel Stanley, daughter of Lord Stanley) is the daughter of a hockey player who died young, before she was born. Raised in Kenora by her grandparents, she plays hockey on boys’ teams throughout her youth until she is recruited by a university in Winnipeg to play for their women’s team, the Scarlets. In her new situation, Iz begins to question whether playing hockey is what she really wants to do.

Genre: Fiction, Women’s Hockey

Hockey Content: Lots of descriptions of the Scarlets’ practices, locker room, and games.

Choice Quotation: “‘I’m just so thrilled for you!’ she sang. ‘Finally, a team full of girls for you!’ I’d gotten this a lot. As though I’d been held hostage by that long line of boys’ teams, as though I finally got to choose. But choice had never been a part of it. I don’t remember when I first started to play. I don’t remember not knowing how to play. … This isn’t one of those destiny manifestos – the sport chose me! We were meant to be together! No. But choice was never part of it.”

My Thoughts: During my search for hockey literature, I haven’t encountered many books written by women. I have stumbled upon (but not yet read) a surprising number of romance novels, such as the Blades series by Deirdre Martin, See Jane Score by Rachel Gibson, and more. Check out this list of the best in hockey romance from Amazon if you’re interested. Who could have guessed that the best game you can name would be such a fertile source of material for the romance genre? Hockey isn’t about love and flowery stuff. It’s about the eternal struggle of man to conquer a beautiful yet inhospitable environment. Just as there’s no crying in baseball, there’s no room for cuddling in hockey (unless you count goal celebration hugs, which obviously are very different).

Anyway, the point is that hockey is extremely manly, and most hockey books are by men and about men. In terms of non-fiction, Lorna Jackson’s Cold-Cocked (published in 2007) has been called “the first book-length appreciation of NHL hockey written by a woman,” and as far as I can tell, Twenty Miles (also published in 2007) is the first novel written by a woman about women’s hockey. (If you know of another, please let me know.)

As a woman who enjoys watching and writing about hockey, I was hoping this apparently pioneering book would be good, and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s very well-written, and it’s a really interesting take on the traditional image of the hockey playing boy whose father is his biggest influence: this time we’ve got a hockey playing girl, and the father is nothing but a memory for her to contend with. Iz and her grandmother Sig, the two main characters in the novel, are both easy to identify with and care about, while Iz’s Scarlets teammates are funny and likeable. Author Cara Hedley played university hockey and I think it shows in her descriptions of the games and the team’s interactions with each other. Despite all my focus on the fact that this is a woman’s book about women’s hockey, I don’t feel like the gender issue is the overwhelming theme of the book: the story is more of a coming of age type thing, with Iz’s need to figure out what she wants for herself and how that fits in with what her family might want for her being the central problem.

Rating: 4 pucks out of 5. Great read!

According to the TSN Free Agent Signing Tracker thingy, there has only been one signing in the NHL in the last 36 hours! There are still some unsigned players left out there so I can only assume that this lack of activity means there has been some kind of power outage or other disaster in Tampa Bay. No doubt there will be more moves to come (rumours of a trade involving the Sens and a currently California-based defenceman continue to surface), but it seems that the most intense part of the offseason is now done.

Sens fans now officially have to bid farewell to a player who meant a lot to the Ottawa franchise during his 11-year career here: Wade Redden, who signed a six-year, $39 million contract with the New York Rangers.

…

Okay.

We’ve also seen the last of two players whose impact in Ottawa was far less significant: Cory Stillman (3 years, $10.6 million with the Panthers) and Mike Commodore (5 years, $18.75 million with the Blue Jackets — Team of the Future). I’d have liked to see Stillman stick around, but I certainly wouldn’t have tried to keep Commodore at that hideously inflated salary. Sometimes when you see these contract figures, all you can do is shake your head and try to remember that people are allowed to spend their money however they want, no matter how stupid it might seem to you.

The lone Sens free agent who has been re-signed by the team so far is Shean Donovan, who returns to us with a two-year contract and a very positive outlook on next season. So great was his desire to stay in Ottawa that he has apparently taken a fairly significant paycut to remain with the team. All I can really say about this signing is it’s about freaking time!

A brief review of our list of Sens free agents:

Gone: Redden, Stillman, Commodore
Returning: Donovan
As Yet Unsigned UFAs: Emery, Robitaille, Lapointe, Richardson
As Yet Unsigned RFAs: Vermette (he has filed for arbitration, which means no other team can now sign him to an offer sheet), Meszaros, Hennessy

The Sens have also gained two new faces from free agency. First, they signed Alex Auld, a new goalie to replace Ray Emery. Auld, signed to a two-year deal by the Sens at $1 million per year, was most recently seen backing up Tim Thomas in Boston, where he ended up after finding himself the odd goalie out when Phoenix acquired Ilya Bryzgalov off waivers early in the 2007-2008 season. Before that, he’d been traded to Florida from Vancouver in the Roberto Luongo deal. Auld told the Sun he’s very happy to have found a new home in Ottawa:

“It was an exciting day. There were lots of goalies in play and Ottawa is the team that I wanted to be with” said Auld, who was 9-7-5 in 23 games with Boston last season while sporting a 2.32 GAA. “I just hope it works out. I was really just excited about this opportunity. Everything looks good right now.

“I love the fact that it’s a great market for hockey. It kind of reminds me of when I played in Vancouver with the energy and the excitement.”

On the Sens’ official site, he says:

“There were other teams (that showed interest),” he said. “But at the same time, I believed a lot in everything to do with Ottawa, from the team, the organization, playing in Canada, the money, the term of the contract and the opportunity that it presented to myself. And being able to live and hopefully live for a long time and raise a family in a city like Ottawa was also very desirable.”

Well that’s good to hear. Auld is by all reports a very nice guy and Bryan Murray says he thinks he has found a goaltender who fits in well with his new vision of the Sens as a squad of Upstanding Young Men:

“We like his character and we like his ability. We know if he gets called upon to go into the net, he can do (the job). The other thing is, he’s a really good guy and he’s a real straight competitive person. We think he’ll be great in our locker room and that’s the type of atmosphere we want to create.”

So, to recap: no rage issues and a salary that isn’t ludicrous past the point of belief. This is a signing I can get behind.

The Sens also did their part in the league-wide effort to decimate the Pittsburgh Penguins’ roster by signing Jarkko Ruutu to a three-year, $3.9 million deal. I know what you’re thinking: not that Jarkko Ruutu! Not the Jarkko Ruutu who didn’t get called for diving after embellishing on a high stick by Ottawa’s Martin Lapointe in game 3 of the playoffs this year which resulted in the penalty that cost Ottawa the game and any chance at the series? Not the Jarkko Ruutu who eventually scored the goal that eliminated the Sens from the playoffs?

Yep, that Jarkko Ruutu. If I had to guess, I’d say the top five adjectives used to describe Ruutu are “annoying,” “irritating,” “obnoxious,” “super” (but only combined with the noun “pest”), and “vexacious.” Okay, maybe not vexacious, but some other word that means he’s generally a pain in the ass. This is the guy who finished third behind only Sean Avery and Chris Pronger when Sports Illustrated asked 365 NHL players to name the dirtiest player in the league. Remember when Chris Simon got suspended for 30 games for stomping on Ruutu’s leg? Don Cherry then went on Coach’s Corner and basically said Ruutu had it coming. While I don’t condone this “blame the victim” crap, Cherry’s comments give us an idea of how really and truly hated Ruutu must be.

On the other hand, there are those who love him. He doesn’t appear to be as close to pure, undiluted evil as someone like Pronger. I did wonder when I heard about this signing how Murray could justify bringing Ruutu aboard with the Upstanding Young Men plan in full swing, but Murray told the Citizen Ruutu won’t compromise that vision:

“A big body, a strong guy, strong character,” said Murray.

“Good guy. His brother works for us, and he’s a good guy. Certainly a guy that plays, I think, a good role, kind of an agitator. A guy that shows up every night and plays well.

“I don’t think he scores like a Sean Avery, has that sort of offensive ability, but he’s bigger, he battles and he’s an agitator.

“The most important thing for me along with that is that he’s a good guy, and I think he’ll be quite popular now in our room.”

Well okay, that made me feel a bit better. Then I saw this post at Black Aces which includes video of the Frustrating Finn beating up not only Darcy Tucker, my most hated player ever aside from Pronger, but also Steve Downie, the vilest specimen of that vile segment of humanity known as the Philadelphia Flyers. Alright, maybe he’s not so bad. Maybe I can see how having someone like him on the team could be a good thing. Maybe I can even stop calling him Jerkface Ruutu and welcome him to Ottawa.

As I watch the first lot of free agent signings and trades come in, I think about what might have been. Back in September, today looked like it could be a type of doomsday scenario for Sens fans with Mike Fisher, Dany Heatley, Wade Redden, and Chris Kelly set to become unrestricted free agents and Jason Spezza a restricted free agent along with Andrej Meszaros and Antoine Vermette.

Then Bryan Murray was able to sign Fisher to a five-year extension on September 17, and things looked a little less bleak.

Heatley had set a deadline for a new deal, saying that he didn’t want negotiations to go on during the season. It looked as though the deadline would pass with nothing settled, but finally, just before gametime on opening night, it was announced that Heatley, too, had re-signed with the Sens. Big relief. (And while I’m on the subject, I will note that his no trade clause has now officially kicked in, so he will be scoring boatloads of goals for us for the next six years unless he wants to leave. I don’t know about you, but I feel pretty good about that.)

And in early November, Murray signed Spezza to a seven-year extension. Phew!

That’s half the core players on the team we don’t have to worry about being poached by some other team, probably the Lightning, who seem hell bent on signing an entirely new roster to back up Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis. I’m still hoping Murray will be able to make a nice signing to get us in better shape for next year (Nothing so far! Come on now Murray, at least get a cheap backup goalie before they’re all gone!), but all in all I think we can all be thankful that the Sens fan is not the new Sabres fan, watching helplessly as our biggest star players walk away for nothing.