"New England Hockey: A Life at the Rink" on DVD

I wouldn't send a non-hockey fan to watch it, but for hockey fans who have Netflix, I highly recommend watching "New England Hockey: A Life at the Rink" on DVD (with Netflix page hyperlinked).

It's an hour or so documentary on hockey in the Boston area with various vignettes about the game in the community. Those topics that stood out to me the most are listed below:

- High School Hockey: storyline about Catholic Memorial and it's rivalry with Boston College High as played out in the Super 8 State Championship Tournament.

- Beanpot Tournament: the annual Boston-area college mini-tournament featuring Boston University, Boston College and Northeastern.

- The Bruins during the season of the Joe Thornton trade. Funny to see what I imagine are smart hockey fans who think Joe should have become like Cam Neely in Boston. Simply not that type of player, people!

- Jack Falla and his backyard rink, the Bacon Street Omni. I wrote this blog post about Falla's book "Open Ice" earlier this month and it was interesting to see footage of the guy and rink... and a shame to know he has since passed away.

All in all, definitely worth watching for all hockey fan types.

Bruins / Sharks Story from Sports Illustrated

Interesting (and almost haiku-named) story "Two Strong [Boston: 33-8-4 / San Jose: 33-6-5]" from the Jan 26 issue of Sports Illustrated.

Written by Michael Farber, the piece looks at the top two teams by record in the NHL (each leading their conference) and draws some fascinating parallels between them. Most hockey fans know of the Joe Thornton connection... he being traded in Nov 2005 for Marco Strum, Keith Primeau and Brad Stuart.

However, this Farber story brings out something else the top players for each team have in common... a reputation to overcome. From the the story itself, Sharks players looking to shed past labels are "Joe Thornton-'uninspiring' & Patrick Marleau-'undependable'" and Bruins players in the same boat are "Phil Kessel-'soft' & Marc Savard-'selfish'".

Intriguing stuff and while there's a lot of good teams out there, it would be great to see the two match up in the playoffs. Oh yeah... that would be in the Stanley Cup Finals if they meet!