What happened?

So we are reaching the half-way point in the season time to review my third annual absurd and bizarre but fundamentally correct predictions for the 2017-2018 nhl season that I posted in September: 1) Connor Mcdavid, Auston Matthews, Nathan Mckinnon, and Jonathan Drouin will challenge for the Art Ross. Will they get 100 points? Every year I expect a 120 point season and it just doesn't happen. Kinda pleased with this prediction. I can see Mackinnon and Mcdavid catching up to the leaders and surpassing them by year’s end. The young legs and talent will take over. I am especially pleased with my Mackinnon choice that many were calling a dud. The concussed Matthews may still make the top ten. Now for Drouin. Maybe I was one year too early and was not expecting the total mess that are the habs. I also did not expect the Pacioretty meltdown and Weber to be injured. 2) I predict a 3 way fight for the Norris. My choices from last year are back in PK Subban and Victor Hedman. My surpri...

Ahh it was forty years ago...In September 1972, Jean Beliveau one of the classiest hockey players of all time had been retired for over a year. I mention Jean Beliveau because in September 1972 Canada won the historic series against the Soviet Union but class should not be used to describe the victory. This series was incendiary, traumatic, and barbaric. It pitted Soviet athletes who were well-disciplined educated soldiers trained in a totalitarian regime versus barely educated junior-trained professional athletes raised in a capitalist regime. For Canada the series was a revelation in that we saw Canadian players we had grown up with and who we believed to be vastly superior demi-hockey gods turn into mere mortals. The once demi-gods also wilted to extreme and bizarre behaviour patterns. The first four games in Canada created severe stress for the rabid hockey fan and some went into shock. It wasn't that the Soviets won but my god how they won. They toyed w...