All-Star Game

Puck Junk Podcast: January 22, 2020

The Upcoming 2020 NHL All-Star Game, plus Patrick Kane and Gerard Gallant

In this week’s episode of the Puck Junk Hockey Podcast, Sal Barry and Tim Parish talk about the upcoming 2020 NHL All-Star Game — including the 3-on-3 women’s game that will take place during the Skills Competition. Plus, Gerard Gallant’s firing, Patrick Kane joining the 1000-point club, and more. This podcast is 1 hour and 5 minutes of pure hockey goodness!

Show Notes and Links:
Here is what the 2020 NHL All-Star Game jerseys look like (picture).
And here is a visual history of NHL All-Star Game jerseys (pictures).
Did you see Dougie Hamilton’s leg injury? Ouch! (video)

Follow Sal Barry on Twitter @PuckJunk.
Follow Tim Parish on Twitter @TheRealDFG.
Podcast intro and ending music by Jim “Not the Goalie” Howard.

Subscribe to the Puck Junk Hockey Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Podchaser, PocketCasts, Castbox , Castro,
Overcast, TuneIn and SoundCloud.

Support this podcast and buy a shirt from the Puck Junk Online Shop. ■

Puck Junk Podcast: January 6, 2020

John Tortorella & All-Star Game Selections

Sal Barry and Jim “Not the Goalie” Howard talk about John Tortorella’s epic postgame rant — and subsequent fine by the NHL. They also give their two cents on the 2020 Winter Classic, Corey Perry’s suspension, the Canadiens signing Ilya Kovalchuk and the 2020 NHL All-Star Game rosters.

Show Notes and Links:
Possible Names for Seattle’s NHL Team (article)
John Tortorella’s Postgame Rant (video)
Pierre McGuire eating a foot-long corn dog (picture)
Corey Perry Suspension (article)
Canadiens Sign Ilya Kovalchuk (article)
2020 NHL All-Star Game Rosters (article)
2020 NHL All-Star Game “Last Men In’ ballot
Greenville Swamp Rabbits team website

Follow Sal Barry on Twitter @PuckJunk.
Follow Tim Parish on Twitter @TheRealDFG.
Podcast intro and ending music by Jim “Not the Goalie” Howard.

Subscribe to the Puck Junk Hockey Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Podchaser, PocketCasts, Castbox , Castro,
Overcast, TuneIn and SoundCloud.

Support this podcast and buy a shirt from the Puck Junk Online Shop. ■

Puck Junk’s Top Articles of 2017

Happy 2018, party people! As is my annual ritual, here is a look back at the most popular Puck Junk articles from the previous year. 

Well, almost. I gotta make a small confession here. The most popular article on this site during the 2017 calendar year was actually “Every 1990-91 Hockey Card Set Ranked,” which was published in 2016. It just goes to show how significant the 1990-91 season was for hockey collectibles if people are still reading about those cards more than 25 years after they were made. 

Anyway, here are the top 10 most-read articles on Puck Junk that were actually published during 2017.  Continue reading “Puck Junk’s Top Articles of 2017”

Justin Bieber Custom Hockey Cards

The NHL held a celebrity hockey game, called the 2017 NHL All-Star Celebrity Shootout, prior to the All-Star Skills Competition on Saturday. Unfortunately, the game was only shown online, and while the webcast could have been so much better, the game was still fun to watch. 

Singer, songwriter and pop icon Justin Bieber was among the celebrity hockey players, and while I am not a fan of his music, I will admit that he did very well for himself in the game. Bieber’s skating was solid, and though his slap shots left a lot to be desired, he drew a penalty, assisted on a goal and popped in an empty-netter at the end of the game. 

So, I decided to make some custom Justin Bieber hockey cards, because he was arguably the most-skilled celebrity at the All-Star Celebrity Shootout.

Continue reading “Justin Bieber Custom Hockey Cards”

NHL Bungles Its Own Celebrity Game

Some guy with 91 million fans played in the Celebrity NHL All-Star Game. Too bad it wasn’t on TV.

Sometimes, the level of amateurishness displayed by the NHL in 2017 surprises me. The league held a celebrity all-star game on Saturday prior to the NHL Skills Competition. One player in the game was international pop sensation Justin Bieber. And yet, the NHL didn’t even bother to televise this game — not even on the NHL Network, which just ran a bunch of talking heads in that time slot.

The NHL streamed the 2017 NHL All-Star Celebrity Shootout on its website, and did a lousy job of it too, wasting the opportunity to raise the game’s profile and hopefully get a few new fans in the process. 

The two teams — named Team Gretzky (home) and Team Lemieux (away) — had a lot of retired greats in the lineup, like Joe Sakic, Luc Robitaille, Sergei Fedorov, Peter Forsberg, Borje Salming and Larry Robinson. Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux served as the coaches. Current stars Patrick Kane and Connor McDavid played, too. Celebrities like actor Cuba Gooding Jr. and movie director/producer Jerry Bruckheimer also laced them up.

And did I mention singer/hearthrob Justin Bieber? Bieber has 91.5 million followers on Twitter — about 86 million more followers than the NHL. He even tweeted Continue reading “NHL Bungles Its Own Celebrity Game”

Book Review: A Guy Like Me

Scott’s “storybook ending” gets a book

All-Star. Author. MVP. Enforcer. John Scott may be the only one who can claim to be all of the above. In his new autobiography, “A Guy Like Me: Fighting to Make the Cut,” Scott takes us through his journey on how he went from a fourth-line enforcer to All-Star MVP. Anyone who wanted a tell-all about last year’s drama surrounding Scott’s controversial inclusion in the NHL All-Star Game will get that here — and more. 

Continue reading “Book Review: A Guy Like Me”

Puck Junk Podcast #9 – February 2, 2016


Player not working? Listen to the podcast on SoundClloud.

After a long hiatus, the Puck Junk Podcast is back! In this episode, Tim (@TheRealDFG) and Sal (@PuckJunk) talk about the 2016 NHL All-Star Weekend, including:

  • John Scott, the surprise All-Star and All-Star Game MVP
  • The All-Star Media Day
  • The All-Stars Skill Challenge – what was great, what could be better
  • The All-Star Game and its new 3-on-3 format
  • We also comment on the commentary (how meta!) by Mike Milbury, Jeremy Roenick and Pierre McGuire

Total time is 35 minutes, so grab a doughnut, hit play and enjoy!

PODCAST INTRO AND ENDING MUSIC CREDITS:

“Iron Bacon” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

A History of Enforcers in All-Star Games

John Scott’s selection to the 2016 NHL All-Star Game is not without precedent. Having a guy known more for punching than puckhandling play in the NHL All-Star Game, while rare, has happened on several occasions.

Then there is the curious case of Chris Nilan, whose near-appearance in the 1991 All-Star Game was, until now, the most controversial selection ever made.

But neither Scott, or Nilan before him, would have been the first pugilist to play in an NHL All-Star Game. Continue reading “A History of Enforcers in All-Star Games”

John Scott Trade is a Punch in the Face for NHL Fans

john_scott_asg
John Scott [PuckJunk.com photo illustration]

When I started watching hockey as a kid, I latched onto the Chicago Blackhawks because I lived in Chicago, and that made sense to me. My younger sister decided that she was going to be a Pittsburgh Penguins fan because she was 11 years old and liked penguins. That sounded silly to me as a kid, but now I wouldn’t judge.

People decide to become fans of teams for different reasons. Likewise, our reasons for liking certain athletes are varied, too. As a kid, I looked up to Dirk Graham because he was a hard-working player, and would have loved to have seen him play in an NHL All-Star Game. And even though he won the Selke Trophy as the NHL’s best defensive forward, he was never selected for an All-Star Game. If he ever was, it would probably have been at the expense of a more offensively-gifted player. But who cares? Graham was my guy, and I wanted to see him succeed.

Fans should be allowed to like what sport, league, team or player they choose, for whatever reasons they wish. That said, no matter why fans voted for John Scott to be in the 2016 NHL All-Star Game, the NHL owes it to both the fans and to Scott to honor their end of the deal  — regardless of whether Scott participates as a member of the Arizona Coyotes, the Montreal Canadiens, the St. John’s IceCaps or  the Tallahassee Warthogs.

Continue reading “John Scott Trade is a Punch in the Face for NHL Fans”