The Hockey News Dec. 9/19 - World Juniors Issue

TIS THE SEASON TO be jolly, which is desperately needed in this age of folly. The holidays are a respite, a timeout from the madness when we hopefully can call an ideological truce and agree to ditch politics for joysticks, recognize our polar views should only come from the North and concede the critical cherry debate is why on Earth we put candied ones in cakes. Blech. During the break, we’re also blessed with World Junior Championship competition, the most wonderfully exuberant hockey of the year. Ryan Kennedy, who will be podcasting from Ostrava, Czech Republic, during the tournament, tees up the 2020 WJC with scouting reports and predictions. This special holiday edition of The Hockey News also pays homage to video games of yore in a deep-dive feature by senior…

Dear readers, Last December, I delivered six copies of our 2019 World Junior Championship issue to IIHF president Rene Fasel in our Moscow hotel. We were there as speakers at the annual World Hockey Forum presented by the Russian Ice Hockey Federation. I was very proud of that issue because, although The Hockey News has been producing it for many years, it was my first as owner and publisher. And I’d been to Russia many times, most notably when I was chairman of Bauer, but it was my first trip there since purchasing the publication, and I was looking forward to reconnecting with old friends. My breakfast meeting with Rene was superb. He was thrilled to get the six issues. They weren’t scheduled to be on newsstands for another week, so it gave…

AS VETERAN DEFENSEMAN Brooks Orpik approached his 1,000th career game last season, Columbus coach John Tortorella affectionately likened him to a long-extinct species. “He’s a little bit of a dinosaur,” Tortorella said, “because he hits. And there isn’t a lot of hitting in this game.” Orpik has since retired, leaving the game without one of its heaviest hitters from the past 15 years. And as Tortorella yearns for the days of increased physicality, league-wide bodychecking continues to decline. Including the first quarter of 2019-20, hits per game have dropped in four of the past five years. The NHL is also on pace for its fewest hits per game since 2008-09. The Hockey News recently spoke with several current and former players as well as coaches and executives on the subject of hitting.…

FROLUNDA INDIANS | 2019-20 TO COMMEMORATE THEIR FIRST year in Sweden’s top division, Frolunda is bringing back the jerseys they wore during that season 60 years ago. Back then, the team was known as Vastra Frolunda (translation: West Frolunda), with the current Indians nickname inspired by the team being known for its “Wild West” tactics in the 1970s. What impresses about this throwback is the simplicity and effectiveness: the lack of ads is a treat, as is the color scheme that brings to mind Sweden’s famous national sweaters. The word-mark logo on a solid stripe is great, but the ‘VF’ and proper umlaut over the ‘o’ make it really cool.…

SOON AFTER THE FALL of the Iron Curtain in 1989, Upper Deck tested the waters with a 1992 World Junior Championship set that was sold in Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European countries. The cards, written in Czech and in English, look very similar to the WJC cards found in the 1991-92 Upper Deck set that was available in North America but includes several notable players not found in the domestic set. The Czech cards of Paul Kariya and Roman Hamrlik predate their NHL rookie cards by a season. Also in this set is Brian Rafalski, who didn’t get a true rookie card until he made his NHL debut in 1999-2000.…

NHL LOGOS HOCKEY LOGO CULTURE CAN’T be topped by other major pro sports. Who else gets to stitch big, fat, beautiful team crests on the middle of their uniforms? Logos are relegated to helmets in the NFL and often take on word form on NBA and MLB duds. In soccer, the real estate belongs to ads. We’re fortunate in hockey to get such impressive canvases upon which to display team insignia. We thus should not take logos for granted. In ranking them, we should hold them to a particularly high standard. Anything that looks like a little kid could’ve drawn it in five minutes must be punished, as should a lazy, uninspired design, a.k.a. any logo that simply consists of a word. The Washington Capitals, for instance, rocked a magnificent screaming eagle…