My wife and I are back in NH (we got home about 2 this morning). We had an absolutely wonderful time in St Maarten - an odd little island where you'll find gorgeous resorts (like the one we were at) wedged between some seriously low-income housing. I'm glad to be home and reunited with our kids, but I'd definitely love to go back some day (not that I could afford it - this trip was all on the company's dime). It was certainly a strange experience to start the day at 6 am last Thursday waiting for our plane's wings to be de-iced and then landing in the 80° Caribbean about 10 hours later...
Meanwhile, it looks like I've missed a little bit here. I had no internet access on the island (I declined the outrageous charge of $14.95 per day for internet access in the room), and all the hockey news I had on the island during the trip was seeing Ryan Smyth getting hit into the boards and carried off on a stretcher. Scary stuff.
So, if I have all this correct, I have missed the following:
- Smyth is out indefinitely with a separated shoulder and a concussion. I know there's no timetable, but I do recall that Kurt Sauer missed exactly 2 months with his whiplash / concussion injury. Guh.
- Marek Svatos has earned another punch on his frequent injury card with his latest season-ending injury (ACL this time). One more punch and he gets two free tacos. In his AHL / NHL career, Svatos' GP totals for each season are: 30, 15, 72, 61, 66, 62. A discouraging injury as much for Svatos as it is for the team.
- I guess Clark is officially done for the year as well, not that anyone is surprised by that belated announcement.
- Peter Forsberg practiced and may play tonight. I'll admit, I selfishly was hoping that I'd be able to see Foppa's return. Thanks for waiting, Peter!
- The Avalanche won both games while I was gone, which, of course, means I need to take a vacation more often. And, for the first time since February 18th (7 games), the Avalanche had a game decided by a score other than 3-2. Variety, you are the spice of my life.
- The Sandy Clough saga seems to have fizzled before reaching a boiling point. Dario had a great post on it while I was gone. I'm never really 100% sure where I fall in the blogger vs media argument. I just know that I'm most curious to see how Foote and Salei are working out, and the place I'll go to find that is a blog. I general, I'm finding that I go to my RSS feeds of the Post or the RMN for the team news, and to the blogs for the analysis of that news. To borrow the MHH titles, that makes Dater, Frei and Sadowski my play-by-play guys, while Joe, Shane, Jibble_cribbits and the rest (it's a long list) are the color guys. I still haven't figured out which one is Kyle Keefe, but there's always time to work on that...