Canadian revenu to pay US salaries and...

The world wide financial crisis is now affecting Canadian based NHL teams. As we all know, teams in Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver all receive their revenues in canadian currency, then most buy american currency to make payroll. Below is what kind of rate exchange we are talking about. That's alot of money.

Team	Payroll in US $	In Canadian $	Difference
Montreal	$53,699,667.00	$67,183,653.38	$13,483,986.38
Ottawa	$59,237,897.00	$74,112,532.94	$14,874,635.94
Toronto	$48,093,333.00	$60,169,568.92	$12,076,235.92
Edmonton	$52,567,381.00	$65,767,050.37	$13,199,669.37
Calgary	$57,700,000.00	$72,188,470.00	$14,488,470.00
Vancouver	$49,379,167.00	$61,778,275.83	$12,399,108.83
Total	$320,677,445.00	$401,199,551.44	$80,522,106.44
Avg/team	$53,446,240.83	$66,866,591.91	$13,420,351.07

This is actual payroll obligations, and not cap money, which based on the average of the contract. The numbers are based on the closing of the markets on Friday.

Dallas Stars have ceased to recognize Sean Avery as a member of the organization, and are ready to eat up the salary that goes with it, according to the Dallas morning news. The Stars can buy out his contract at the end of the season at two thirds, which comes to 10.3 million spread over six years.

Today is suppose to be the day Mats Sundin decides where he will be playing the rest of the season. The Vancouver Canucks seem to be the front-runners, as they have the cap space to do so. The offer they had made him this summer, still stands. Sundin and his agent have stated, that is what not about the money. Sundin met with the Rangers brass on Saturday. The Rangers, Canadiens, Canucks and BlackHawks are on Sundin's shorten list.

Could the Sharks threaten the 1976-77 Habs record? and ...

It's the eternel debate in hockey,when one era is compared to an another.This situation was brought up in 1995-96,when the Detroit Red Wings, then coached by the legendary Scotty Bowman, who was also behind the Canadiens bench in 1976-77,finished the season with 62 wins, which had broken Bowman's Canadiens record of 60.When Scotty's great Habs team established that mark, there was no overtime or shootout in the regular season, so they were purely obtained in the 60 minute time frame.Now of course,when Scotty's Red Wings beat the record,some of those wins came in overtime, so did they truely beat ? According to the record books, they did. But hockey historians will undoubtly keep the 1976-77 record intact, for one reason, that great season was crowned with a Stanley Cup, which was not obtained by Bowman's Red Wings. So for it to be meaningful in the end for the San Jose Sharks, they will have to win the cup this year.

You also can look at this in different angles. You can compare both the Sharks and the Canadiens team of the time, position by position, and even behind the bench. No doubt the Sharks lose out at all of the above. In goal, Dryden get's it hands down. On the defense, with the big three, all Hall of famers, no contest. Up front, again no contest, of course, what past or present coach can come close to Scotty Bowman ? It's obvisious, it just wouldn't add up for the Sharks in the end.

So Canadiens fans, don't worry,you can be assured that the record will be remembered for a long time.

What to do with Avery ?

Now that NHL commissionner, Gary Bettman, has made a joke of his league once again by giving it's worse ambassador a light sentence, what's next for Sean Avery ? Worse, he may have tied the hands of the Dallas Stars. I can understand in a way the NHLPA, is in obligation to protect of its own, the question is, can this same association vote him out ? It will be interesting to watch in the coming weeks.


Habs five away from win number 3,000

The NHL's most storied franchise is on mark to write an another great page in it's one hundredth year history. When the Montreal Canadiens hit win number 20 of the season, it will also be their 3,000th win since their existence in the NHL. Guy Carbonneau has been part of the history of this team and organization, has he is the last captain to win a cup in Montreal, but now as a coach, he will be the one that will be remembered as being behind the bench for win number 3,000. If you were to ask to Carbonneau, how he would feel about that, he would probably be flattered, but there is one win that he's waiting for and will gladly share with Saku Koivu, the one that brings the cup back to Montreal. Carbonneau being the team player that is, would pause, and thank the likes of Dick Irvin, Toe Blake and Scotty Bowman, and all others that came before and after them for the chance of being the guy that won win number 3,000.

When Guy Carbonneau became the Canadiens coach in 2006, he wanted to create a team and family spirit. So far he has done pretty well, espacially when he saw all of his players joke around after Thursday's trashing of the New York Rangers 6-2.

The greatness of our game

Long before a lot of us where born, or even our parents. The game of hockey had already been a uniting force in Canada.Thru international competition or just the backward shinny game on a Saturday morning or afternoon. In the end the love of the game conquered us all.

The passion, the desire to win, the thrill of victory, made us all champions. Even to ask the neighbour if we could borrow their aluminum garbage can, to use as the Stanley cup, imitating the great tradition of celebrating a championship with the routine skate around the rink, hoping to hear the cheers of a roaring crowd, after our shorten version of the Stanley cup playoffs.

As we would head to the frozen pound or rink, we had already written our scripts, we were going to be the heroes of our game. Often a game would be interupted by frozen faces and feet, agreements would be made to finish what we had started, or for a revenge game to tie up a series. Once home, and unthawing from the blistering cold, Mom would have a nice bowl of hot soup ready for us to gulp down. As we did this and blew on the soup on our spoon to cool it down, Mom asked us, ‘’ Did you have fun ? ‘’ No matter on how our game went, winning or losing, she wanted to know if we had fun. It’s always easier to answer that question when your winning, than losing, but either way Mom always had a way in saying things to cheer us up or to remind us, that in the afternoon you maybe on the losing end, but always cheered us on, no matter what happened.

My family and I moved to a suburb of Canada’s nations capital, as my Dad took a job with the Federal government. If people thought that the winter of 2007-08 was bad, they must of forgot the winter of 1970-71. March 4^th, 1971, on my Mom’s birthday, gave us one of the worse storms in our history. That same day, the Montreal Canadiens honored one of their most prestigious captains in history, Jean Beliveau, at the Forum. The missing piece of that great Canadiens cup run had not arrived yet, but was about to write one of the most important pages in that legendary team’s history. Just as Lyle, Ken Dryden had became my idol, and that’s when I really started to love the game of hockey. In my first year in organized hockey, I wanted to play goal, wasn’t very good, but tried. I guess it may have been because my team was called the Leafs, and got burnt for 9 goals in my first and only time as a goalie. But it never ended my love and passion for the game.

In the fall and winter of 1971-72, I had open heart surgery at the Montreal Children’s hospital, which was about a crawl away from the legendary Forum. My uncle came to see me, brought me a poster of Ken Dryden, a nurse who happened to date one of the Canadiens players at the time, I can’t remember who, arranged to get the legendary goaltender to come visit the ward I was in. Now can you imagine, a 9 year old, getting a visit from Ken Dryden. My eyes where as big as a quarter, Dryden took out a marker from his suit, and autographed the poster I had on the wall in my room. I will always remember that, just as I will remember the kind nurse that set the whole thing up. Where ever you are, thank you so very much.

The passion is still there, our memories, of those games where we were the heroes, the aluminum garbage can that served as an alternate Stanley cup, the heroes we worshiped, the game we still enjoy. But nothing will ever beat Mom’s warm soup and caring on those cold afternoons having fun.

That’s the greatness of our game.