Daily Cupcakes - December 15th, 2011

The number of star players out with concussions is growing.

It has reached the point where you might as well laugh.

They are saying that, the way things are going, NHL teams are going to have to send their fourth lines to the All-Star Game.

They are saying that, today, you could put together an all-concussion team that would be a lock for the Stanley Cup.

Think about it, the game’s best player, Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins, on a line with the NHL’s leading point getter, Claude Giroux of the Philadelphia Flyers, and the league’s top goal scorer, Milan Michalek – Michalek’s concussion just confirmed this day before his Ottawa Senators played the Boston Bruins.

The National Post also has a story about concussions.

Charles Darwin is not around to consult on this point, but there is quite a bit of scientific evidence — maybe not enough to sway the National Hockey League, but a fair amount — to suggest that the evolution of the species didn’t just happen in the past year.

The average NHL skater didn’t just add four inches, 30 pounds and 15 kilometres per hour of foot speed overnight. So the notion that concussions are happening with more frequency now because players are bigger and faster than ever is, at best, a half-truth.

The other, more damning half, is that the concussion epidemic that currently has an alarming number of the NHL’s best players living in quiet rooms with the curtains drawn likely has been going on — unreported, treated with smelling salts and Aspirin — for generations.

Matt Barnaby will be avoiding jail time.

Barnaby, who is from Ottawa and is not a United States citizen, was facing possible deportation. His plea helped him avoid that as well.

Barnaby pleaded guilty Tuesday to driving while intoxicated, refusing a breath test, driving with unsafe tires and failing to notify the Department of Motor Vehicles of his address change.

He was sentenced by the judge to 100 hours of community service and ordered to pay nearly $2,000 in fines

And here's a story by our very own Cheryl!! You should go give it a read.

With an average age of 25.6, the Colorado Avalanche is the youngest team in the National Hockey League. They must be young when 25-year-old Alternate Captain Paul Stastny is considered a veteran voice in the locker room. Their youth movement is powered by 2009 draft standouts Matt Duchene, who is on pace for a 30-goal season, and Ryan O’Reilly, league leader in takeaways, as well as rookie sensation Gabriel Landeskog. Landeskog may not be tops on the rookie scoring sheet, but he’s far and away the most well-rounded player making his NHL debut this season, matching up against some of the toughest competition in the league.