Daily Cupcakes - December 9th, 2011

CBC covers five questions, one involving the locations of the Winter Classics.

Why is the Winter Classic always in the United States? If they can make a rink in Boston, why can't they figure out a way to do it in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver or Ottawa? - From Terry Bunder

The NHL puts on the event in big stadiums and some of the Canadian cities you mention lack the infrastructure. Here is an example of what I mean. You can't have a game in BMO Field in Toronto because the NHL believes it's not big enough. The Rogers Centre in Toronto will not open its roof in winter so Toronto is not a perfect fit. Television factors in also in a huge way and the reality is NBC want U.S. matchups.

Porter is suspended for four games and is losing a tad over 18,000$ for the hit.

Colorado Avalanche forward Kevin Porter has been suspended, without pay, for four games for kneeing Vancouver Canucks forward David Booth during NHL Game #399 in Vancouver on Tuesday, Dec. 6, the National Hockey League's Department of Player Safety announced today.

Pat Quinn wants to coach again.

At the rate NHL coaches are being let go, Quinn should wait by his phone for another opportunity.

"Having been in the profession, you don’t like to see it, you know how hard these men work," Quinn says, alluding to the recent firings of Bruce Boudreau, Randy Carlyle and Paul Maurice.

A former head coach of the Edmonton Oilers, Leafs, Vancouver Canucks, Los Angeles Kings and Philadelphia Flyers, Quinn blames tight races and high expectations for the added pressure on modern coaches.

At age 68, would he leap back into the fray?

You bet.

"When it’s your life and suddenly it’s not there, it’s a big hole," says Quinn, who watches at least a game per night on television. "I’d love to be involved with some team some place. I think I still have something to offer. I don’t know what level . . . coaching always appealed to me, but I’m experienced in other areas."

Players seem to like the new NHL realignment.

When it comes to their league’s grand plans for realignment next season, NHL players seemed to be mostly onside with the plan on Tuesday.

Some were in favour of the fact that travel will be lessened for what was formerly known as the Western Conference.

Others questioned the conference-only format of the first two rounds of the playoffs.

NHL still wants to keep fighting in hockey.

In the wake of yet another discovery that a deceased player was in the advanced stages of degenerative brain disease, the NHL still refuses to consider a ban on fighting.

Derek Boogaard, an NHL fighter who died last May at the age of 28 from an accidental overdose of alcohol and painkillers, may have had advanced chronic traumatic encephalopathy, but NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and many of the league’s governors refused to draw a line between the latest example of brain damage and fighting.