Road Trip, Day 9: No Sleep Till… Long Island

Weather on Long Island? Cold, but clear.

Weather in Calgary? Snowy.

But as of 8:30 local time, I’m told this won’t affect our 2,500 mile flight back home to Farmingdale’s Republic Airport. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

That will bring our total miles traveled on this excursion across North America and back to approximately 7,600 miles.

We’re scheduled to return home at 6:00 AM on Friday. Does that make it a 10-day road trip? If everything goes according to plan tonight, I’ll settle for calling it a nine-dayer, but who’s counting.

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One odd note I want to pass along. Aside from the 24-hour Yule Log channel at the hotel, we also received WPIX 11. Nothing exceptional, just wasn’t expecting it. Typically, Canadian cities and hotels will carry some American channels. Usually they pick up the ones that are in close proximity. For example, in Montreal we got Burlington, VT channels. Usually, there’s in the same time zone. But we got our 7:00 showing of The Family Guy at 5:00 local time.

1 on 1 with Mark Streit

I interviewed Mark when we got back to the hotel after the morning skate this afternoon.

Albatross? Don’t think so…

Just like the day after the NHL draft when they attempt to name the “winners” and “losers” of the event, journalists think they can name the “busts” and “steals” the days and weeks following the free agency boom in July.

Granted, Mark Streit wasn’t a household name on Long Island on June 30th. But he’s becoming one.

Signed for five years and $20.5 million, GM Garth Snow was getting a quarterback for the power play and someone to patrol the blueline on a regular shift. But there were doubters everywhere that Streiter wasn’t worth the money.

On August 23rd – a month and a half before the regular season even began – Adam Muir of Sports Illustrated labeled Mark No. 5 as the 2008 free agent most likely to bust.

Here’s a link to what he said and here’s what he said:

5. Mark Streit (five years, $20.5 million)

The Islanders might as well have declined the extra man most nights last season, so ineffective was their 29th-rated power play. Streit, whose 34 PP points ranked second among all blueliners, seems like an ideal free agent addition. But did the success of the top-rated Montreal power play revolve around the 31-year-old, or was he the beneficiary of an established system that had led the league without much help from him the previous year? And how much of an asset will he be defensively considering he was minus-six at even strength for a team that was second overall in goals scored? Streit might earn his keep, but the potential for this deal to be an albatross is there.

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Not only offensively, but defensively as well, the star of Switzerland has proven otherwise.

Mark Streit isn’t going to the All-Star Game because every team has to have a representative. In fact, that’s not even a rule – but to the League’s credit, they do try to include at least one person from all 30 teams.

The bottom line is that this isn’t the year of Mariusz Czerkawski or Scott Lachance at the ASG.

As of today, Mark is tied for the league lead among defensemen (and leads all Eastern Conference defensemen) in points with 32. He flat out leads all NHL d-men in power play points with 20. His defensive play can’t be measured in numbers, but everyone around the league is taking notice. Just in the past week, there have been stories in both Edmonton papers about his superb play and Logie has taken notice all season of Mark for Newsday. The Canadian Press named Mark a starter at the game if they had it their way.

So bust? Nah. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, if there needed to be an injury replacement in the staring lineup, I can’t think of a better choice than Mark.

So, on January 25, Mark Streit will show the hockey world (his former team who said he couldn’t be regular defenseman and SI who labeled him a bust and all the other teams that didn’t make him an offer) that he’s the real deal on the blueline.

Oh, and what a better place than in the city that told him he can’t be a regular defenseman in the NHL.

The Islanders have him locked up for another four years (at a bargain of a price compared to the other free agent signings last July). And Mark is first class off the ice as well. That’s something we “love” as an organization. Mark Streit loves being on Long Island and an Islander for the next four years.

And the Islanders nor Streit wouldn’t have it any other way.

Way to go Mark. You deserve to play in the All-Star Game.

Road Trip, Day 8: Practice Day in Calgary

Here for our second of three days in Calgary, it was time to get back to work. The team practiced in the mid-afternoon and nothing exceptional to report.

We meet up with Assistant GM Ryan Jankowski, who hails from the Calgary area, today. It’s always a pleasure to catch up with him and see how our young prospects are doing.

One of the cool perks of the job is that you find out some information before everyone else. Today I got an e-mail from the NHL PR office informing me who our All Star Game representative would be. [I’m sure everyone has it narrowed down between two guys.] So, after I got the message, I passed it along to Garth, who told the player. The announcement comes out at Noon EST exclusively on NHL.com.

The team will have a morning skate tomorrow, the game is at 7:00 local time and hopefully a flight back home afterwards. The road is always fun and I love traveling with the team – wouldn’t trade it in for anything – but it would be hard to find someone on the trip who doesn’t miss home at this point.

Road Trip, Day 7: Cal-Gary

After a 45-minute flight from Edmonton to Calgary, we arrived at hotel at around 12:30 last night. It’s substantially warmer here in Calgary. And by warmer, I mean it’s about 16 degree Fahrenheit compared to the 0 degrees it is in Edmonton right now.

We only traveled 190 miles from the two cities, our shortest journey of the trip. That brings us up to a total of 5,150.

The team has a full off-day today and they took the hour-and-a-half trip to the resort town of Bamff, which is like the Vail, Colorado or Miami of Canada.

There will be a team practice at the Saddledome tomorrow afternoon.

The Flames are playing tonight against the San Jose Sharks (remember them?). A lot of the staff and some of the traveling media will be attending the game.

Road Trip, Day 6: Orange & Blue vs. Copper & Blue

It’s cold in Edmonton and Calgary isn’t going to feel much better later tonight. Up in the press box at Rexall Place and it feels as cold up here as it does outside.

Doug Weight is out tonight with a leg injury. The Oilers are putting together a tribute for him about scoring 1,000 points in the NHL. The former Oiler captain scored 577 points with Edmonton. Weight has to be ready for it by the 14-minute TV timeout of the first period. Then in the second intermission, Sportsnet will be interviewing him. Doug is scheduled to be on MSG-Plus during the third period. It might have been easier if he just played through in the injury!

When the Oilers were announcing the starting line-ups for the Islanders, the accidentally put up a headshot of Andy MacDonald when announcing Joey MacDonald as the goalie.

The Oilers entering the ice through an oil rig is still one of the entrances in the NHL.

And if you can’t tell on TV – or if you’re not watching or listening on the radio – Edmonton fans have not forgiven Mike Comrie for leaving all those years ago.

Road Trip, Day 5: Welcome to Oil Country

The Islanders traveled to Edmonton today to begin their five-day quest through the great province of Alberta.

In a rare move, the team stayed over in San Jose last night. With the built in off-day to the schedule after playing tough back-to-back games, there was little reason to rush out of San Jose just to fly for three hours and then lose an hour on the clock by going from Pacific Time to Mountain Time. By the time the team would have checked into the hotel and settled in, it would have been close to 4:00 AM.

Nothing new to report on the team today. The team will be back on the ice for their traditional 11:30 morning skate at Rexall Place tomorrow morning.

We traveled about another 1,750 miles today.

Total distance traveled so far: 4,960 miles.

Road Trip, Day 4: In San Jose

We go to the hotel last night in San Jose at around 1:15 AM local time. The city has a curfew for the local airport, which we missed by a while, so we had to land in Oakland. That added an extra 45 minutes to our journey. The bus getting lost on the way to hotel added another 10 minutes or so.

The only players who skated this morning at the Shark Tank were the ones who didn’t play last night – Jon Sim, Joey MacDonald, Radek Martinek and Frans Nielsen.

No word on the line-up for tonight. The team will get together as a full unit for the first time today when they get to the rink in 30 minutes or so.

We traveled another 710 miles last night to the west coast.

Total miles traveled so far: 3,210.

Road Trip, Day 3: This is Westgate

Greg Logan posted his thoughts on the Glendale, AZ WestGate City Center development project this afternoon and (for once!) I wholeheartedly agree with him.

In case you don’t know what Westgate is, here’s a quick explanation:

The Coyotes have a beautiful five-year old arena, which for the first three years was in the middle of very little. Now literally just steps away from the entrance of the arena, there’s a shopping, food and housing center that screams “Lighthouse”.

There are over a dozen sit-down and fast-food restaurants along with plethora of retail shops. There’s also an awesome double water-feature/fountain. Also within a quick two- minute walk from both the arena and Westgate is a Renaissance AAA four diamond hotel & spa. The University of Phoenix football stadium is also right next door.

The bottom line is that there’s a destination place for people to go to not only before a game, but seven days a week in an area that doesn’t have too much else around.

With that said, you can't tell me something like this wouldn't be great on Long Island... On New Years Eve, this place was buzzing. All the restaurants and bars were packed and the live band they had in the center of it all was great.

Tonight -- on a game night -- Coyotes fans were enjoying dinner and the great weather down here before going in. The place wasn't overly crowded, but the game isn't sold out. If there was another few thoughands fans at the game, Westgate would have been jammed packed tonight.

Here are some photos I took today and tonight of Westgate. Enjoy.

Road Trip, Day 2: Western Swing: Travel to Phoenix & Happy New Years

Right after the home game yesterday afternoon/evening, we flew out west to Phoenix. Scheduled to take off at 6:00 from Farmingdale’s Republic Airport, we took off 65 minutes late at 7:05 Eastern Standard Time due to the weather.

The flight from Long Island to Phoenix usually takes five hours on one shot. But with strong headwinds that the plane had to fight through, we had to refuel in Kansas City which took about 30-45 minutes.

On the plane, most everyone celebrated the Eastern Standard Time New Years, although we were well into the Central Time Zone by then – but who’s counting. Then there was some who also celebrated the Central Standard Time New Years, although once again we were well into the Mountain Time Zone.

Since Arizona doesn’t partake in Daylight’s Saving Time, we’re currently two hours behind Long Island.

We finally landed at 11:30 PM local time. Got off the plane and left the airport by 11:45 PM. We were 10 minutes away from the hotel when New Years struck in Arizona.

Last season the team was someone over Washington, DC when the New Year was rung in as we were coming home from a game in Carolina.

Last night, we traveled approximately 2,500 miles.

I’ll keep track of the journey this week.