Marty Turco and Dallas Stars Hockey

Joe Sager | pittsburghpenguins.com

Darryl Sydor found a new team, but he’ll be searching for a new nickname.

That’s because “Syd” just happened to join a Penguins team with another famous Sid – NHL scoring champ and MVP Sidney Crosby.

“I think I might have to get my nicknamed changed,” Sydor said with a laugh. “His name has gone along further than mine.”

Darryl Sydor

It’s not like the veteran blueliner has had an unsuccessful career. Sydor is a two-time Stanley Cup champion (Dallas 1999 and Tampa Bay 2004) and has 471 points (94+377) in 1,097 career NHL games. He hopes his experience pays off for the young Penguins squad.

“I have been able to learn under players like Charlie Huddy, Craig Ludwig, Guy Carbonneau and Mike Keane,” he said. “I learned from Charlie in LA and these other guys in

Dallas where I took a lot of learning experiences from and then I’ve been thrown into some situations where I have been able to take my game to the next level. Now, being an experienced defenseman, you’re relied on a lot more in important situations.”

Sydor is thrilled to join the Penguins and help further the team’s growth.

“The Penguins were very interested and I felt like I was wanted. Talking to the coach and talking to the GM, I was very excited about coming here,” he said. “Having players call and saying I’d be able to help them out a lot and I’d be a good fit meant a lot to me. They are one of the teams that was interested right from the start, so I am glad we were able to get something solved.

“It’s very exciting to watch these guys. It seemed like there was something new every night watching the kids play. At the other end, we have to keep the puck out of our net and be a team and that’s what they’ve been. From what I hear, they are a close team with a lot of good people.

“Obviously, watching them, I saw last year was a good year, but then again, that was last year and this is a new year. So, we need to regroup and focus on achieving more.”

Sydor brings reliability, as well as experience, to the Penguins’ defensive corps.

The 35-year-old will enter his 16^th season in 2007-08. Yet, he’s missed very few games over his career. He’s appeared in at least 74 games each season since the 1994-95 campaign, which was cut short due to a work stoppage.

“If you have injuries, you play through them. That’s what hockey players do,” he said. “I have been very lucky and fortunate throughout my career to not have many major injuries. You just try to stay in shape the best you can.

“If I am not out there getting hit and battling and getting in people’s faces…I am not the biggest guy, but if it’s a slow game, I am not doing something right. Skate, move the puck and be physical. I think that is my game.”

Sydor has spent most of his career with Western Conference teams in Los Angeles, Dallas and

Columbus. However, he spent half of the 2003-04 season and all of 2005-06 with

Tampa Bay, so adjusting to the Eastern Conference’s playing style won’t be a major obstacle.

“There will be some adjustment, but you just have to understand the team concept and what you do and then you go out and play the game,” he said. “There is a difference in the conferences, but I am looking forward to it.”

And, he looks forward to being on the ice with

Crosby.

“I am very excited,” he said. “Being able to break into the league and play with guys like Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri and then to be able to come across another player of this caliber that is doing outstanding things is very exciting for me.”

NASHVILLE — Todd Tayes had been working in his grandmother’s pastry shop, saving his money for a flat-screen television set. When the 12-year-old boy heard the Nashville Predators needed to sell more tickets, he changed his plans.“I wanted to buy some tickets,” he said.

Tayes and his uncle Chris Turner teamed up yesterday and each bought a 13-game package each - their first ticket purchase - for next season during a 15-hour rally held by a local group trying to sell enough season tickets to keep the Predators’ lease in effect after the 2007-08 season.

The team’s future ownership is still undecided. A local investors group has been given the chance to keep the Predators in Nashville after meeting with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman in New York on Wednesday.

Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie’s $220-million (U.S.) bid stalled after a letter of intent was signed in May.
Whoever owns the team would have to spend millions of dollars to break the arena lease if the Our Team effort helps the Predators average a minimum of 14,000 in paid attendance this season. The franchise averaged 13,815 for 2006-07.

NHL officials and owner Craig Leipold monitored the rally to see how Nashville would respond.

Our Team chairman Ron Samuels, the president of a local bank, said the group’s original goal was 300 season tickets sold yesterday. They upped it to 500 after reaching 250 with seven hours left.

“I can’t imagine this is not a strong message when you consider that last year at this same time total new sales for tickets from what I understand were somewhere around 600 to 750,” Samuels said. “We’re well over that now at almost 1,500 tickets.

“That’s a 100-per-cent increase. That’s pretty strong. I would think this is certainly showing the NHL and others that Nashville’s thirsty for hockey.”

The Our Team group would like to break the 14,000 minimum and hit 16,000 to help the club’s eventual owner field a more competitive team.

The Predators are coming off a season in which they finished third in the NHL regular season with a franchise-best 110 points, only to lose to the San Jose Sharks for the second consecutive time in the first round of the playoffs.

Anticipating a lower budget for next season, the Predators let top scorer Paul Kariya leave as a free agent and traded top goaltender Tomas Vokoun, defenceman Kimmo Timonen and forward Scott Hartnell.

Yesterday, fans had the chance to enjoy a live band at midday, eat $5 box lunches provided by neighbouring hotels and check out seats they wanted to buy while watching highlights on the scoreboard.

A bigger event last night was to feature the team’s mascot, Gnash, unveiling the Predators’ new sweater.

source: globeandmail.com

source: thestar.com 

 

Canadian Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., the operator of XM Canada, is betting its exclusive deal with the National Hockey League will lure more subscribers in the second half of this year after it slashed its third-quarter loss by 35 per cent.

Hoping to score on a breakaway with men aged 25 to 45, the company will ramp up advertising this fall, saying the deal gives it “an incredible competitive advantage.”

XM Canada will spend $62 million over 10 years for the NHL rights, while its U.S.-based counterpart invests about $38 million.

“I think you can expect us to be very loud and proud with the NHL,” chairman and chief executive John Bitove said during a conference call yesterday.

The 2007-08 season will mark XM’s third season of NHL coverage, but its first as the league’s exclusive satellite-radio provider for more than 1,100 games. The partnership runs until 2015.

Earlier yesterday, the company reported a smaller third-quarter loss of $13.2 million, or 28 cents per share, compared with a year-ago loss of $20.4 million, or 43 cents per share.

Revenue for the three months ended May 31 improved 144 per cent to $5.7 million. Total subscribers reached 269,900 during the quarter, up from 237,500 in the previous quarter.

The company’s shares gained 44 cents, or 8.2 per cent, to close at $5.79 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The stock, however, has fallen sharply since it debuted at $16 in December 2005.

“As a key stakeholder and chairman, I am not happy with our stock performance,” Bitove said, adding the current price does not adequately reflect the company’s progress.

XM Canada is affiliated with U.S.-based XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., which is trying to merge with rival Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. Sirius Canada is a private company owned by the CBC, Standard Broadcasting and Sirius.

The two U.S. companies are still seeking government approval for their deal. That makes it too soon to speculate how the merger will play out in Canada, Bitove said.

source: San Jose Mercury News

Sharks special consultant John Ferguson, who made his mark in the NHL as an enforcer for the Montreal Canadiens and went on to become an NHL coach and front office executive, died Saturday at his Windsor, Ontario, home after a 22-month battle against cancer. He was 68.

“We have lost a very beloved member of the San Jose Sharks family today,” General Manager Doug Wilson said.

Ferguson was the most feared player in the NHL between 1963 and 1971 when he was the backbone for a Montreal team that won the Stanley Cup five times with him in the lineup.

“He was the best by far of that breed,” said Red Fisher, the Montreal Gazette sportswriter who has covered the NHL for more than five decades. “When this guy came out crashing and hitting and fighting, a lot of people on the other side were intimidated.”

Ferguson retired at 32, then put his hockey smarts to use in new roles. He became coach and general manager of the New York Rangers and Winnipeg Jets. He served in the Ottawa Senators’ front office before joining the Sharks in 1995 as part of their player evaluation network.

Former Sharks G.M. Dean Lombardi hired Ferguson, explaining in a 2002 interview that he did so because he wanted San Jose to be a tough team to play against.

That was Ferguson’s NHL reputation from Day One.

Montreal teams in the 1960s and 1970s were known for their speed and skill, relying on players such as Jean Beliveau and Yvan Cournoyer for offense. But it was Ferguson

who added the toughness that made them champions after a four-year Cup drought - an eon back then in hockey-crazed Montreal.

Ferguson was skating in the minors in 1963 - still the Original Six era - when the Canadiens sent a scout to Cleveland to watch him play. In warm-ups, as Fisher tells it, the scout saw Ferguson fire the puck at the head of a teammate who was mingling with an opponent at center ice - a cardinal sin in Ferguson’s book.

“He missed him by about a centimeter and that was the end of any talking to the opposition,” Fisher said. “The scout came back with a glowing report.”

At 6-feet and 178 pounds, Ferguson - known in all roles as Fergie - wasn’t particularly big, though the hands he used to pummel opponents were enormous. He came out swinging in his first NHL game and never stopped.

“John Ferguson was a consummate team player and he defended the 20 guys in the room every night,” said Derek Sanderson, a longtime Boston Bruin who traded punches with Ferguson. “You knew if you did something dirty or untoward toward a goaltender or a Beliveau, you had to deal with Fergie.” Read the rest of this entry »

source NHL.com 

NEW YORK (July 11, 2007) – The Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks will open the National Hockey League’s 90th anniversary season with a two-game series against the Los Angeles Kings in London, England, the Cup’s ancestral home, Sept. 29-30. The most cherished trophy in professional team sports, purchased at the Regent Street shop of silversmith G. R. Collis & Co. 115 years ago, returns to its birthplace in the arms of the 2007 champions to open the 1,230-game season before sellout crowds at the spectacular new O2 Arena.