National Hockey League News and Notes

It has been a while since we have been able to keep you up to date here with our site, and please forgive us for that as we continue to decipher through new plans and ideas for both the site and the show.

Earlier this afternoon, I was able to join in on a conference call with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman as well as NHL COO John Collins and HBO’s Ross Greenburg.

The basis of the conference call was to discuss the outline behind the new 24/7 reality series presented by HBO which will have “The Road to the Winter Classic” as a new show – similar to the NFL Hard Knocks show with the New York Jets – which will take you inside both teams on and off the ice as well as the production that goes into the Winter Classic.

Greenburg went on to state that it will not be the Sidney and Alex show. Fans on twitter were very prompt in their responses as I tweeted the conference calls highlights.

Gary Bettman is, as he stated, delighted to partner with HBO Sports and thanked Russ for his partnership and friendship as well. The trio felt this would be a “fantastic opportunity to see players and games like never before”.

John Collins is incredibly excited, more so for the fans. I’ll leave me thoughts and comments until the series concludes.

So fans, the writing is on the wall.  Stay tuned to HBO on December 15th, 2010 for the “puck drop” of “The Road to the Winter Classic”. Let’s hope it’s as good, if not, better than the Hard Knocks show.

Quick hits:

Pre-season is obviously underway and teams are taking some final observations of their rookies and minor league hockey players who look to get a shot at the NHL this year with their respective clubs.

Kirill Kabanov of the New York Islanders seems to need a new alarm clock or to develop a quicker route to the NVMC. He has already been late to training camp twice since it’s opened, thus causing quite the stir.  As a 3rd round pick, it is a low risk / high reward type of pick but if he can not get himself to mature quickly, he could see himself back in the mother land sooner than one expected.

The other Kirill who is property of the New York Islanders, Mr. Petrov that is, seems to be stuck in his contract with Ak-Bars of the KHL. If there could have been one partner to motivate Kabanov, Petrov could have been the ideal candidate.  Stay tuned to see how all this develops from the Islanders organization.

Marc Savard is suffering from post concussion syndrome and is reported to be out indefinitely.

Colordao Avalanche forward Peter Mueller suffered his second concussion in a six month span and is out indefinitely.

Johan Franzen of the Detroit Red Wings is suffering through a Charlie Horse and will miss three pre-season games.

And finally, for those of you following the Mandi Schwartz situation, James O’Brien of Pro Hockey Talk on NBC updates us on her recieving a stem cell transplant in her battle against cancer.

Stay tuned for updates on this weekends show to our Twitter which can be found by clicking here: The Hockey Guys on Twitter or right here on the website.