Musing About Yesterday's NHL News Items

So yesterday I was busy at work, I mean very busy and focused. To the extent that the things I do to make a living were what I thought about exclusively between about 6AM and really this morning at about 11:30AM. In other words I've been "out of the loop" re: my hobbies and personal life items, including following what's been going on in the NHL. No big deal, it is after all "the off season," in fact as far as the calender and NHL hockey goes, this is really the "off-off season.' I mean the big news should have been the NHL schedules for the regular season were released. In most months of June that's it after the Stanley Cup Parade - you've got the awards show, and the release of next season's schedules, and usually nothing but rumours. Yesterday, apparently that wasn't the case we've got some real news items:

1) Nathan Horton to the Bruins for Dennis Wideman;

2) Nabakov given, as my late father would say, "his walking papers" by the Sharks;

3) Tomas Plekanec signs a 6 year, $30M extension with the Canadiens;

4) Former Capital "Bad Boy" Dino Ciccarelli elected to the HHOF;

5) The Pens sign Matt Cooke to a three year, no word on terms or if he gets extra bonus money for cheap shots;

6) It's not a big money deal, but the Canadiens also agreed to a one year contract with Mathieu Darche who opted to forgo Free Agency this year;

7) Scott Niedermayer announced his retirement; no word if Methuselah who it seems like broke into the league at about the same time as Niedermayer was present to offer his congratulations to the 36 year old, who in addition to leading the Anaheim Ducks also led Team Canada to Gold this past season, at the press conference.

8) The Edmonton Oilers named former Rangers Coach Tom Renney their new head coach.
9) According to his agent Allan Walsh, Capitals' Blue Liner Milan Jurcina is set to become an Unrestricted Free Agent. No real details on what that means other than it probably means there are no meaningful talks/negotiations ongoing between Walsh/Jurcina and the Caps.
10) Mike Green is working out hard and doing yoga this off season. Okay is that really all that news-worthy, no but I found it interesting.

11) Willie Mitchell says he is now symptom free from the concussion he suffered in January and vows to play next season. I'm not that up or down on Willie but I think it's great news to see a guy come back from an injury. So even though this is the sort of story that usually only gets picked up and talked about on a "slow" news day, I'm going to pass it along in case you missed it.


My only real musing on all this is basically - "wow, that's a lot of stuff for ~24 hours in the "off, off season" - what's this all mean?

Is it September yet?

LETS GO CAPS!!!!