Review

Joe Pelletier, a Canadian hockey historian, the engine behind Hockey Book Reviews, Greatest Hockey Legends, and 1972SummitSeries.com and author of Legends of Team Canada and The World Cup Of Hockey recently reviewed Off The Post.

Each online posting is by itself, an experience to be enjoyed in the immediate moment. But when you pick out the best and put it into a book, Pakarinen’s contributions become an entertaining and thoughtful archive of the past couple of years. But it also offers so much more.

Read the entire review here, then check out the Off The Post site here. Get yours today!

Off The Post: hockey stories from across the world.

Archives: Jönsson

Three years ago, Kenny Jönsson came to Sweden to play during the lockout. Last night, his Rogle took the step back to the Swedish Elite League. Here’s what Jönsson had to say about things in 2005, when his NHL comrades had returned to North America and he stayed with the small club, one step below the Elite League.

Kenny Jönsson

Continue reading

That’s what I should have said

There he was, sitting by the curb, with a little cup in front of him. Well, sitting is not the right word. He was on his knees, with his arms extended, palms pressed together. He was from Romania, said the cardboard sign in front of him.

I pulled him up and asked him to come with me. I was going to the coffee shop anyway. Here we are now, I’m blogging away, and he, Hristo, seems to like brownies. He’s already had three of them, and a huge caffe latte.

But, soon, we’ll have to go. I have to go to a hockey game, and he back to work.

NHL.com: Team

I’ve been talking about winning with a lot of hockey players and coaches in the last two three weeks. The interesting thing is that winning isn’t the only thing for them. I find that comforting. When we kick the ball for the first time, or stand in the snow watching others play hockey, it’s not about winning, is it?

On that note, let’s walk down the Memory Lane, and see if we can’t find my first hockey sweater there. Keep reading it below, or here.

Bear Cats with me.

Continue reading

Rocking days

In 1977, I bought my first LP. I took bus number 64 to downtown Helsinki and walked to the pharmacy slash record store across the street from the market. Now, I already had a bunch of tapes at home, but this was the first real record I bought.

It came down to two records: The Happy Days album “Fonzie’s favorites” and Elvis’s “The Rocking Days.” After a long deliberation, I chose Elvis. I mean, he was The King, and even if I didn’t know it then, he had the record for most number one hit singles on the Billboard 100 chart back then, 17.

Then, the Beatles topped him, and got 20.

And now, Mariah Carey stepped on Elvis’s blue suede shoes when she scored her 18th number one hit.

The Fonz writes children’s books. Heyyyy!

Heyyyyyyyyyyy!!

Hockey.com: Belfour

Here’s a little something I was thinking about today. It’s a little story about Ed Belfour whom I happen to like, but who’s been a little unlucky recently.

Just two games earlier, Belfour had shut out Mora, Leksand’s archirival, some 30 miles from Leksand, and was celebrated as the savior he was supposed to be. In the away game against the same Mora, Belfour had a save percentage of .840 when they lost 4-3.
And then there was the game against Rogle.

The Eagle has not landed.

Read the whole piece here.

IIHF.com: Jalonen

Oh, here’s another one.

That would be somewhere after his monstrous 1986-87 season when he scored 93 points in 44 games but before he returned to Karpat and scored 67 points in 28 Division I games. In other words, somewhere during his TPS years when he won four Finnish championships in five years.

KJ

Read it here.

IIHF.com: All-Stars

Here’s my latest from iihf.com:

The regular season is long gone, but let’s look back for just a second and put together an All-Star team, based on the players’ performances between October and March. Drum roll, please… And the envelope… thank you… here we go.

Mattias.

Read it here.