Knuckle Puck: Return of the Whale

Each and every weekend this season I'll be taking a look at the random happenings and absurdities that occur in the world of hockey. Feel free to suggest stories, complain or otherwise babble at me via electronic mail.

Starting this November, the Federal Hockey League plans to provide hockey fans in Ottawa, upstate New York and Connecticut with an affordable option for viewing "Class A" minor league hockey. I'm not really sure that there is a need for this or that any suitable demographics exist for it but, hey, I guess more hockey is always a good thing.

The league plans to start with a 60-game schedule that features four teams (so far). If that's not getting to know your opponents, I don't know what is. The positive to come out of that is we should have a lot more entertaining minor league fight videos to watch. Hopefully this league is liberal with their marketing as well. Someone needs to challenge the Las Vegas Wranglers who, in my opinion, currently hold the title of best minor league marketing department.

On Tuesday, the league's Danbury franchise announced their name and logo through a press conference at the Danbury Ice Arena. They're going to be called the Whalers, and feature a logo that's similar to the old Hartford Whalers' logo. Of course, all of this was with the blessing of the Hartford Whalers Booster Club and random local fans. The press release on the league's site declared in all capitals "Danbury Whalers Surface," which is kind of an odd title considering that whalers don't really come up from under the water. But I digress. With a four-team league and 60 games it should be interesting to see how well the league draws, considering the same movie will be showing almost every weekend (promotions, marketing and fan experience are really, really important here).

For now, we're all left to eagerly await the unveiling of the Thousand Islands franchise on Jan. 6. But, if you're like me, you can be nosy and take a gander at the spoilers for all of the franchises on Wikipedia.

YouTube of the Week
While New Year's Eve can result in late night fights after the festivities are over, New Year's Day is usually more about recuperation and good will towards others. However, the Flyers and Bruins aren't exactly friends, so they brought a little bit of the Eve to the Winter Classic at Fenway. This week's video is the first fight at a Classic thanks to Daniel Carcillo and Shawn Thornton.

Knuckle Pucker of the Year Nominee
Each week, we'll nominate someone who deserves to be recognized for their outstanding service and commitment to giving me something to write about. By the end of the year I'll come up with some way to declare a winner. Today's nominee is...

... Olympic rosters! No one will ever agree on your make-up and now I have to read everyone complain about you on the internet for the next six weeks. Woohoo! To celebrate you, here are some of the choice quotes from commentors around the internet.

Team Canada:

there's no leafs on the team........wats sup wit dat!!

Somehow I'm not surprised that having no Leafs on the team isn't making some people happy. But that's what happens when Matt Stajan is your best candidate and has to compete with guys like Jonathan Toews and Brenden Morrow for fourth-line spots. Maybe someone forgot to tell this guy Phil Kessel is American.

And to some people, if someone plays on an American team, they shouldn't count. But this commentor gets +1 for referring to Brett Hull as former WWE wrestler Brett Hart.

I wish we had more Canadian playing guys than what I am seeing hear? LOL oh well if we lose then we can say it was america 2 (except louongo & Iginla) that lost. I see NO Leafs NO Sens, NO Oilers, NO Habs...to bad for these cities. We would have had a more unified team Canada is all I am saying. If we are gonna use americain players then Shane Doan was screwed there i said it! (the new brett hart)

The sentiment is similar amongst some Americans: