Not To Be Trusted With Knives

So, would you believe that I won the hockey pool I’m in for December?

It’s a free hockey pool for anyone who plays in the league I’m in.  You pick a bunch of NHL players and then you get points every time they get points.  And can you guess how I picked my players?

That’s right – I went with the hotties.  Well, hotties with an exception – I took the Sedins¹.  But other than them – all hotties.  I’d love to be able to tell you *which* hotties, but I can’t remember my username and password for the hockey pool website². I know I have a card around here with it on it, but for the life of me I can’t find it ³.  At any rate, the league called me up and said, “hey, you won the pool for December. Come and get your $250 of gift certificates for the pub at the arena and we want to take your picture for the website!”

$250!!  For like 5 minutes work – which is how long I spent picking my hotties.  Not bad, if I do say so myself!

1. I guess that’s technically two exceptions [↩]
2. Really shows you how much I’ve been paying attention to this pool, eh? [↩]
3. if/when I find it, I’ll let you know [↩]

After the Winter Classic hockey game yesterday, Team USA announced its men’s hockey team roster for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and answered one of the questions I had after Canada’s roster announcement: why isn’t Patrick Kane on Team Canada?  Evidently, he’s an American¹.  And then I saw that Zach Parise – another one of my hockey hotties – is also on Team USA and realized that further analysis of Olympic hockey hotness, beyond just Team Canada, was required.  And so I put the hockey analysts here at NTBTWK back to work and thus, I bring you a list of non-Canadian Olympic hockey hotties:

Team USA
Dustin Brown, Los Angeles Kings
Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks
Mike Komisarek, Toronto Maple Leafs
Zach Parise, New Jersey Devils
Team Sweden
Mattias Ohlund, Tampa Bay Lightning
Team Russia
Alexei Morozov, Ak Bars Kazan of the Kontinental Hockey League
Team Finland
Antero Niittymäki2, Tampa Bay Lightning
Jarkko Immonen, Ak Bars Kazan in the KHL.
Mikko Koivu, Minnesota Wild

Only one hottie, Team Sweden?  I expected more from you.

1. I just assume that all good hockey players are Canadian. Unless they are redheads – then I assume they are on Team Sweden [↩]
2. bald isn’t usually my type, but I’ll make an exception for this guy! Rawr! [↩]

So, I know the question that you are all asking about the upcoming NHL playoffs.  How many of my hockey hotties will be making post-season appearances?

Let’s take a look first at those who did not make the cut:

Hockey Hotties That Didn’t Make the Playoffs:

-His Hotness, Rick DiPietro of the NY Islanders.  In factor, Mr. DiPietro’s team was the very worst one in the entire league.  Of course, this is clearly because Ricky wasn’t bringing his hotness to game as he was out due to injuries.

-And speaking of the Islanders, when I started my hockey hotties list, hottie Mike Comrie was a NY Islander.  Apparently he got traded to Ottawa, where he still didn’t make the playoffs with the Senators.

-Following closely behind the Islanders are Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis of the Tampa Bay Lightning, the second worst team in the league.  Apparently the double-team hotness of Lecavalier and St. Louis was not enough to make the post-season.

-Mikko Koivu and Benoit Pouliot of the Minnesota Wild will also not be making a post-season appearance, having just missed the playoffs being 9th in the Western Conference.

-Brad Isbister, who last I checked was M.I.A. from the minor league team to which the Ottawa Senators sent him. So no playoff hottie team for you, Mr. Isbister!

-We also say au revior to Paul Gaustad, Derek Roy, Jason Pominville and Craig Rivet of the Buffalo Sabres, who came 10th in the East this year and thus, despite all that hotness, have started their summer vacation early.

-Also joining them on the golf course will be Dustin Brown of the 14th place LA Kings and former Canuck and current hottie Brendan Morrison of the 12th place Dallas Stars.

-Sadly, Sheldon Souray and the Edmonton Oilers did not make the playoffs and so the man who got me the most hits on my blog will not be fighting it out for Lord Stanley’s Cup this year.

-Scottie Upshall got traded from the Philadelphia Flyers, who did make the playoffs, to the Phoenix Coyotes, who did not.  Sucks to be you, Scottie.  And sucks to be me, deprived of one more hottie this playoff season.

Hotties That Did Make the Playoffs:

-Taylor Pyatt of the Canucks, of course, made the playoffs. But I’m not sure if he’ll be playing in the playoffs as his fiance died recently in a car accident in Jamaica and the team told him to take as much time as he needed to be with his family.

-The other Canuck on the Hockey Hotties list = Mattias Ohlund.

-Zach Parise’s NJ Devils not only made the playoffs but won their division, so he should be in for a few rounds of playoff action.

-Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang and the Pittsburgh Penguins came in a respectable 4th in the Easteern Conference.

-Jarome Iginla from that team my Canucks beat out for the Northwest Division championship, the Calgary Flames, makes the playoffs and scores a spot on the list o’playoff hotties

-Martin Biron of the Philadelphia Flyers will be my playoff hottie goalie, since His Hotness Rick DiPietro is unavaiable for the role.  The Flyers came in 5th in the east with a respectiable 99 points. Marty’s teammate Joffrey Lupul also makes the cut.

-Markus Naslund is playoff-bound as his New York Rangers came in 7th in the East.  Mark Bell is also a Ranger, having been claimed off of waivers from Toronto, but he’s not going to be playing in the playoffs because he’s (I’m assuming¹) still down in the minors.

-Mike Komisarek, Josh Gorges and Georges Laraque will all be in the post-season as their Montreal Canadiens just made it into the playoffs in the 8th spot in the East. (Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens can be my backup playoff goalie).

-Chicago Blackhawks players Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane² are in contention as their team came 4th in the West.

A Playoff Team of Hotties?

Now, Darren challenged me to pick 12 of the hotties to see how they fair against the teams in his pool.  So, I pieced the following team together based on (a) whose teams are actually in the playoffs, (b) hotness and (c) the need to eliminate two of the 14 remaining hotties to get me down to the allowed number of players³.  And this is what I came up with:

My Playoff Hottie Team:

• Mattias Ohlund  -Defense – Vancouver
• Zach Parise  – LW – New Jersey
• Sidney Crosby – Centre  – Pittsburgh
• Kris Letang – Defense – Pittsburgh
• Jarome Iginla – RW  – Calgary
• Martin Biron – Goalie – Philly
• Joffrey Lupul  – RW  – Philly
• Marcus Naslund – LW – NY Rangers
• Mike Komisarek -  Defense – Montreal
• Georges Laraque – RW – Montreal
• Jonathan Toews  – Centre – Chicago
• Patrick Kane – RW – Chicago

My Playoff Predictions

This team, of course, leads me to my playoff predictions.  Unlike Darren, who tried to figure out which teams he thought would go the furthest in the playoffs and then used those predictions to choose his players, I’ve chosen my hotties and will use those players to decide which team I think will win each series.

First of all, the Canucks are going to win the Stanley Cup (even though they only have one hottie on my list⁴).  Which means a Canucks victory over the Blues.  The Blues, of course, have no hotties, so that works.

In the Blackhawks-Flames series, we have two Chicago hotties to one Flames hottie.  And I hate the Flames anyway, so the series goes to Chicago.

In the Red Wings-Blue Jackets series⁵, we have no hotties.  But I had a crush on Steve Yzerman when I was little, so the series goes to the Wings.

The Sharks-Ducks series is also devoid of hotties and so I’ll decide it the only reasonable way that one could – in a fight, a shark would totally eat a duck. Sharks take the series.

Over in the Eastern Conference, we have the following matchups:

Bruins (no hotties) vs. Canadiens (two hotties). So I’m calling an upset – the series will go to Montreal.

One Ranger hottie beats zero Capital hotties – that series goes to NY.

Similarly, one NJ hottie beats zero Carolina hotties – the Devils takes that series.

And, finally, the Penguins vs. the Flyers.  Two hotties a piece. What to do, what to do?  I think I have to pick the hotness that is Biron & Lupul over Sid the Kid and Letang.  The Flyers will win.

This will make the second round showdowns as follows:

• Canucks beating Detroit, as predicted by the 1 hottie to 0 hotties (and the fact that the Canucks are going to win the Cup, of course)
• The Blackhawks (2 hotties) will upset the hottie-less Sharks.
• The Habs will pull another upset in the second round with their 2 hotties beating the lone NJ hottie.
• The Flyers will beat the Rangers, two hotties to one.

In the third round,  the Canucks will beat the Blackhawks, of course, but what will happen in the Flyers v. Habs series? Biron & Lupul vs. Komisarek & Laraque. Tough call.  Clearly this series will go to overtime in the 7th game, but when the dust settles, I think it’s going to be a Montreal victory.

And look at that – an all-Canadian Stanley Cup!

¹Research, sme-search.
²According to some random who called in during open phones one morning on CFOX radio (surely a reliable source, no?), Patrick Kane was seen making out with a women at the Roxy after the Blackhawks-Canucks game this season.  Methinks there was a very happy cougar in Vancity that night.
³I’m not including Taylor based on not knowing if he’ll play given the death of his fiancee and I’m eliminating Gorges based on him being the least hot of my four remaining D-man – I figure 3 D-men are sufficient (and I have no idea what the required number of D-men are for a hockey pool team). See footnote 1.
⁴It’s my blog and so I make the rules.
⁵Henceforth known as the Battle Of The Primary Colours.

My Hockey Hotties post seems to have taken on a life of its own!  The first sign of this was when a whole bunch of people I didn’t recognize left comments on that posting. I mean, I know that there are always a lot of people who read a given blog regularly but don’t comment, but it seemed unlikely to me that all these lurkers were reading me for years, just waiting to comment on my opinions of the attractiveness of various hockey players.  Where were these people coming from?

The next sign was when I noticed a really drastic spike in my stats.  Like, I usually have 50-100 views per day, but on Sept 26, I had 460.  Wowsa!  Investigating further¹, I discovered that 237 of those came from “Puck Daddy” on sports.yahoo.com.  And I quote:

Drafting a fantasy hockey team by how good-looking the players are. Sadly, Yahoo! has yet to install “beefcake” as a scoring category. [Not To Be Trusted With Knives]

I have no idea how Puck Daddy found me, but I’m glad he did!

And the third and final sign that Hockey Hotties was some sort of breakthrough posting for me was when I discovered that I was listed on the WordPress “Blog of the Day” under “Growing Blogs” on September 27.

Of course, the problem with getting a spike like that is the inevitable crash. What goes up must come down and suchlike.  Today I logged into WordPress and noticed the pretty much linear decrease² since 26 Sept:

Oh, those heady days of last weekend – we knew they couldn’t last forever!

On the plus side, Hockey Hotties has now been viewed 761 times – topped only by my about page, which has been around since I first put my blog onto WordPress. Hockey Hotties  – Now With Photos! has only been viewed 106 times, which is a shame, because there are some damn fine photos on there.  But I digress.  Back on the whole stats thing for just a minute, I usually don’t pay too much attention to stats. I’m not into blogging for business³, so how many people come to my site isn’t a huge concern. It’s more like, “Cool! 100 people dropped by to hear about how often I wash my hair!”  But once you get a taste of the big numbers⁴, it’s sad to see those numbers drop. Discussion of hot boys is enough to bring the readers, but apparently videoclips of me shredding Canadian election brochures is not enough to keep them coming back for more.

Also, I should point out that the whole point of compiling a list of the hottest men in the NHL was to be able to draft a hockey pool team that I wouldn’t mind being trapped on a deserted island with.  The draft for this hockey pool was supposed to have taken place after BarCamp on Saturday but a bunch of the people who were going to take part bailed.  And thus, no draft.

But fear not, people who love hockey player hotness! Darren is now going to run a virtual draft for the hockey pool.  And so the team of hockey hotties will come to be!  And you can be sure that I’ll provide you with detailed info about which hotties end up on my team, and I’ll keep you appraised of their hot, goal scoring⁵ action all season long!

¹a.k.a., scrolling down on the WordPress Stats page
²I guess blog postings about decidedly boring historical British Columbian Premiers just isn’t as excited as blog postings about hawt men. Who knew?
³Which is a *really* good thing, because I’d be starving if I were.
⁴Those of you who get 460 views per minute may guffaw now.
⁵Or goal saving, in the case of my goalie. Who I really, really hope will be His Hotness, Mr. Rick DiPietro. Rawr!

In preparation for this afternoon’s hockey pool draft, I decided I should figure out what position all the hotties on my list actually play, given that we need to have one goalie and to pick a certain number of defenseman. And then I thought I should have photos of these boys handy to help me to decide during the draft. Here is the result of that research!

Hottie	Position	Age	Jailbait?1
Rick DiPietro, NY Islanders	Goalie	27	No
Mikko Koivu, Minnesota Wild	Centre	25	No
Taylor Pyatt, Vancouver Canucks	Left Wing (note: scores points for his pretty blue eyes)	27	No
Zach Parise, NJ Devils	Left Wing	24	No
Scottie Upshall, Philadelphia Flyers	Right wingloses points for going by the name “Scottie”	24	No
Brendan Morrison, Anaheim Ducks	Centre	33	hell no
Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins	Centre	21	hell yeah
Mattias Ohlund, Vancouver Canucks	Defense	32	No
Mike Comrie, NY Islanders	Centre	28	No
Benoit Pouliot, Minnesota Wild	Left Wing	21	Yup
Vincent Lecavalier, Tampa Bay Lightning	Centre	28	No
Mark Bell, Toronto Maple Leafs	Left Wing	28	No, but apparently he has recently been in jail
Jarome Iginla, Calgary Flames	Right Wing	31	No
Paul Gaustad, Buffalo Sabres	Centre	26	No
Martin St. Louis, Tampa Bay Lightning	Right Wing	33	No
Martin Biron, Philadelphia Flyers	Goalie	31	No
Joffrey Lupul, Philadelphia Flyers	Right Wing	25	No
Derek Roy, Buffalo Sabres	Centre	25	No
Brad Isbister, Ottawa Senators	Left Wing	31	No
Markus Naslund, New York Rangers	Left Wing	35	Nu uh
Georges Laraque, Montreal Canadiens	Right Wing	31	No
Kris Letang, Pittsburgh Penguins	Defense	21	Uh, yeah
Mike Komisarek, Montreal Canadiens	Defense	26	No
Josh Gorges, Montreal Canadiens	Defense	24	No
Jason Pominville, Buffalo Sabres	Right Wing	25	No
Jonathan Toews, Chicago Blackhawks	Centre	20	Indeed
Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks	Right Wing	19	Yikes!
Dustin Brown, LA Kings	Left Wing	23	No. Just squeaks by the cutoff age!
Carey Price, Montreal Canadiens	Goalie	20	Yes
Sheldon Souray, Edmonton Oilers	Defense	32	No
Craig Rivet, Buffalo Sabres	Defense	34	No

Thanks to all the wonderful readers who suggested hockey hotties for me to consider.

I’ll be sure to let y’all know who ends up on my team o’hotties!

¹Where “jailbait” = below my cougar age
²Out of curiosity, given that all the suggesters were not my usual commenters – how did you find my blog?.

Image credits:

• Rick DiPietro photo by Francis Larrede.
• Taylor Pyatt photo by John Bollwitt
• Zach Parise photo by Jen Kang.
• Scottie Upshall photos by neat1235 and Alison B.
• Mattias Ohlund photo by
• Mike Comrie photos both by MPR.
• Vincent Lacavalier photo by kaatiya.
• Jarome Ignila photo by Dinur Blum.
• Paul Gaustad photo by Maureen Landers.
• Martin Biron photo by Maureen Landers. And the other one is also by Maureen Landers.
• Joffrey Lupul photo by neat1325. And Joffrey Lupul is bringing sexy back is by Alison B.
• Derek Roy photo by alygirl20.
• Brad Isbister photo by John Bollwitt.
• Marcus Naslund photo by Richard Eriksson.
• Georges Laraque photo by Natalie Litz.
• Kris Letang photo by Dan4th Nicholas.
• Mike Komisarek photo by Fedayee.
• Josh Gorges photo by Robin Rodrigues and Elliot.
• Jonathan Toews photo by David Kindler.
• Dustin Brown photo by Nichole.
• Craig Rivet photo by Dinur Blum.

This Saturday I’m going to be participating in a draft for a hockey pool.  Since I pay little to no attention to teams that aren’t the Canucks, I’m not overly familiar with non-Canuck players.  In fact, unless someone is a mega-star a la Sydney Crosby, I’ve probably not heard of them.  Thus, my draft strategy will be: draft the hottest players.  If I can’t win the most points, I may as well have the prettiest boys on my team, right?

Rick Dipietro. Rawr!

So far, the pretty boy hockey players that come to mind are: Taylor Pyatt (of course) Zach Parise Rick DiPietro Scottie Upshall Brendan Morrison Sidney Crosby Mattias Ohlund Mike Comrie Benoit Pouliot Vincent LeCalavier Mark Bell Jarome Iginla Paul Gaustad Martin St. Louis Martin Biron Joffrey Lupul Derek Roy Brad Isbister Marc Chiounard (although I don’t think he actually plays much in the NHL) Marcus Naslund Mikko Koivu (props to Ms. Conduct for bringing this mega-hottie to my attention!) Georges Laraque (props to Rebecca for pointing this one out!) Kris Letang(props to Bianca for suggesting the rest of the hotties on the list!) Mike Komisarek Josh Gorges Jason Pominville Jonathan Toews Patrick Kane Dustin Brown Carey Price (he’s no Rick DiPietro…) I want to add Sam Ganger, but he doesn’t appear to be playing in the NHL? My research, thus far, has been watching videos of the “10 or 20 or 30 or 50 or 62 Hottest Hockey Players” on YouTube. I’ve noticed that these videos all seem to have the following things in common: very poor production values a plethora of copyrighted images being used music that makes no sense (e.g., what does “I Kissed a Girl” have to do with hockey hotties??) each contains at least 2 of the Staals, none of whom are good looking each contains at least 4 fuglies for every decent looking player

Also, any “hottest hockey players” list that doesn’t include Taylor Pyatt and/or does include Evengi Malkin or Scott Gomez has some serious problems.

OK, blog readers, now help me out.  What hockey hotties are missing from my list?

Image Credit: Posted by Francis Larrede on Flickr.

This media release just appeared in my inbox:

NONIS RELIEVED OF GENERAL MANAGER & SR VICE-PRESIDENT DUTIES BY VANCOUVER CANUCKS

The Canucks didn’t make the playoffs and now the heads must roll, and it looks like Nonis was at the top of the head-rolling list.

It will be interesting to see what other moves the Canucks make in the next few months in response to this lackluster season. Over on Darren’s blog he mentions a prospect that is being looked at as a potential linemate for the Sedin twins – Fabian Brunnström. Darren mentions Brunnström’s recently career history and stats, as well as the suitability of Vancouver as a place for this young Swede.  But he neglects one important piece of the analysis that must be undertaken on all new Canucks prospects, especially one that will be playing with the Twins.  Hottie or non-hottie?

My extensive research into the topic comes to the following conclusion: Hottie.

When I was in Vegas last weekend, as we drove by “Wayne Newton Blvd.” on the way to the airport, I said, “I wonder if they will name a street in Vancouver after Trevor Linden?” You see, this season was Trevor’s last in the NHL and with the Canucks not making the playoffs, Vancouver had seen his last game on Saturday night.

Trevor is well recognized for being a great hockey player, an inspirational leader and a humanitarian. I even forgive him for being born in Alberta because although, like me, he may have been born and grew up elsewhere, he is truly a Vancouverite.

I have no doubt that his number will be retired by the Canucks and I hope that he will stay on with the team in some capacity now that his playing days are over. And, as both Darren and Rebecca suggest, I’d love to see a Trevor Linden street here in our city!

Sign the petition to name a street after Trev. You know you want to.

Tonight, we won the championship game!

Some photos from the post-game celebration in the dressing room:

Next stop: Vegas tournament. And then it’s on to provincials in Kelowna in May!

My recap of last night’s Canucks game:

Taylor Pyatt scored after a beautiful shot by Brad Isbister hit the post, bounced off of Taylor and went into the net. A Pyatt-Isbister double team – it’s like my dream come true!

Then some other stuff happened, but we don’t need to talk about that.

In other Canucks news, I want these earrings, which I just saw over on http://www.miss604.com/. The thing is, I don’t $73.99-plus-tax-want them.

Seriously, 80 bucks? Seriously?