Back Woods Reporter Heads to Vegas and Mid-Week Updates

This will be a short post today for a couple of reasons. The off season appears to have kicked into full gear this morning as we appear to be in the 'tweener stage before things pick up with the Awards tomorrow, the draft next week, and free agency the week after that.

Secondly, this is a full day for me, putting in a full day at the office before flying to Las Vegas tonight for the awards show. I posted my prognostications for the disputed awards last night in a story for the Daily Herald that was limited to 500 words. I really have a problem trying to do anything in that amount of space.

I'm looking forward to the awards since I have not participated in an NHL big event as a member of the media before. All help will be appreciated so that I don't come off as being the hillbilly from the God-forsaken non-traditional market that the media elite would love to see.

Inside Hockey's Kevin Greenstein gave me salient advice yesterday in an email saying, "make sure to button up your overalls when you go out in the evenings. ;-)" It got me to wondering, how did he know I will be in overalls? Anyway, its a big deal so I'll wear shoes and everything.

XM204 is already on the scene represented by Jamie Shalley and Joe Thistle. They have some interviews posted from last nights video game shoot at Caesar's Palace with Alexander Ovechkin, Ryan Kesler, and Randy Hahn. Here's a story from the Las Vegas Sun on the event. Great series of pictures are here.

Sean Leahy found the following gem on YouTube that includes Ovie's "hot stick" that looks like it will be "in the game".

In the Predators world...

The big news yesterday, that we touched on, was the Predators hiring of Martin Gelinas for Head of Player development that has been lauded as a great choice from all over. Marty was on XM204 yesterday and sounded really enthusiastic about the opportunity. John Glennon checked in with this piece this morning.

David Poile comments on the Wild's choice of Todd Richard as their new coach at the City Paper. Richards was an assistant at Milwaukee for several years before his most recent position as an Assistant in San Jose.

The Preds announced several Draft Party locations. The Twitter crowd of @predfans members appear to be headed to the Franklin location along with Pred's announcer @PredPAPaul. Paul also has a new post today at HockeyBuzz.

In the "don't screw up in public" arena, long time sports writer for the Tennessean, Joe Biddle, is taking a beating for his attempt at hockey commentary. Unfortunately, this is the type of stuff that gives "non-traditional market" a bad name and in this case the truth hurts. Forchecker and Stars Scene give old Joe a good thrashing over it. I'm sure it was all in love and was effective since it has been corrected at the current location.

Around the league...

Something hockey related came out of Phoenix for a change as the CBC has this interview with Don Maloney that was pretty good and worth a listen. He covers a wide range of topics on what is going on outside of the courtroom in Phoenix.

The fallout from Monday's court ruling in Phoenix includes this article from the Globe and Mail that has a great quote from a legal expert “I think they’re losers, and I think his legal team is getting rich on Mr. Balsillie’s tab while fighting a losing battle.” Imagine a bunch of hired guns drawing out a case on appeal to get more money. Hard to believe isn't it ;). It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Our Hockey Zen friends, the Nadeau brothers, have a new video up on wine and hockey with Gary Vaynerchuk.

Mario Lemieux will be knighted today as he receives the National Order of Quebec.

Stay Classey compares the value of Dany Heatley to a bucket of pucks. You really wonder how someone making eight million a year can't get better advice than to go public with a trade demand as opposed to working with his employer to accomplish the same thing in a more orderly fashion.

TSN has a free agent tracker set up show who is available and to help follow the signings.

Eric Smith at BlueJacketsBuzz points us to a Steve Mason blog on his NHL Awards trip. Steve should pick up the Calder on Thursday night in my opinion.

Here's something interesting I saw after following a Sean Leahy link on Puck Daddy. It's a blog that follows the Stanley Cup as it travels with all the Pens players this summer.

More later... (Maybe)

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass

Additions...

New edition of one of my favorite podcasts is up. The One Percentile with Mick Kern and Eric Gage is all the way up to it's 12th episode. I got to spend a couple of hours with Mick on The Program on BTR Sunday night. He really will talk hockey all night. He's one of my favorites.

A programming note, Chris has moved the mid-week edition of The Program up to 8:00 Eastern starting tonight for the off season.