BoC 2.0 is LIVE

Check it out at http://www.battleofcali.com/

Incidentally, if you count the two new posts we've already published on the new site, this new-site pointer now represents BoC's 1,500th published post. Huzzah!

SUPER BIG NEWS (Let's call it SBN for short)

Yup, that's right. Some big-ass news.

Battle of California is moving to a new home. http://www.battleofcali.com/ (an SBN blog)-- though this link won't work until later today, I think. Once our new site is active, I'll add the link up above, but this does represent the final post of the blogspot site we've inhabited for some 2 1/2 years. That's right, we're selling out.

I guess the first topic to talk about is why we're moving over to SBN, and the answer is pretty much because James Mirtle asked. He's the guy who started this blog back in the day when I had no idea how to start a blog; more or less he's the reason this blog exists. Plus in the two years I've been monitoring blog traffic, roughly 10% of our traffic has come straight from his site, now at From the Rink. Mirtle has been amassing a set of team-specific bloggers to cover the 30 teams at SBN, and it's a pretty cool vision, one I'm willing to support...in spirit.

That's right. I went there.
You see, this is actually where we are letting Mirtle down, as he was originally hoping we could fill his Ducks and Kings vacancies. But I was pretty insistent on keeping our multi-team multi-author Voltron unit together -- as a blogger, I'm way too in love with the BoC dynamic. I'm very interested in the takes of Sharks and Kings fans, it turns out I enjoy writing for both Ducks haters and Ducks fans, and I'm also too lazy to carry a blog on my own.

We've arranged things to hopefully stay exactly as they are -- PJ will still be at Sharkspage, Mike Chen will still be at Kukla's Korner, James O'Brien will still cross-post at Cycle like the Sedins, and I'll still try to do a weekly cartoon at NHL FanHouse -- the way we interacted with BoC yesterday will hopefully be the way we interact with BoC tomorrow.

I'll apologize now for new bookmarks, new hyperlinks, new RSS feeds, new logins, and any other technical nonsense we'll run into because of this (which will all be entirely my fault -- the tech dudes at SBN have been kick-ass), but hopefully it's not too much a pain for anybody. There's some cool new functionality at SBN -- you can post your own FanPost or FanShot content, for one -- plus with the aforementioned kick-ass tech team, I think we'll find some benefit in the move. I do want to say though -- after two and a half years, I don't have anything bad to say about blogspot. They hosted our shit for free for years, and we'll keep this site as-is for as long as they continue that service. We are also in the process of migrating our archives over to SBN, though (one of the reasons we're not live just yet), just in case blogspot turns into a back-stabbing whore.


The last two years of blogspot traffic.
I'll update this post when the new site is fully active, but for now, while we're still just talking about it, it feels appropriate to give a little thanks. Thanks first and foremost to the commenters and fellow bloggers that gave our little website some legs -- you guys are awesome, and hopefully will continue to interact with our SBN posts with the same wit and insight as before. Also, thanks to the Ducks, Kings, Sharks, and Stars for never taking our asses to court. I don't think we've done anything terrible towards our teams, but with NHL politics, you never can quite tell. And finally, thanks to the NHL media's east coast bias -- without it, we may have never found anything in common to develop a collective perspective.

So, that's BoC's Super Big News (SBN). Feel free to react in the comments here or comments at SBN once we're up and active. Betrayed? Excited? Worried? Confused? Good, so are we.

Go BoC.

Ducks Gameday—Sleek starts a campaign

Florida Panthers (4-8-1, 15th in east) at Anaheim Ducks (9-6-1, 3rd in west)
The truth about cats and birds.

I don't have anything to say about tonight's matchup against the Cats, but I do want to recommend The Litter Box, a Panthers-themed hockey blog that I enjoy thoroughly. Whale4Ever mixes his hockey updates with plenty of awesome images and plenty of snark, and I'm much more pro-Cat thanks to his efforts. Rock on, dude.

Instead, I wanted to ride the coattails of the campaign fever that's been taking over BoC, between Mike Chen's push for Seto/Gooch to the All-Star Game and Rudy Kelly's Doughty for the Calder Trophy movement that's just picking up steam. Well, just because I'm apolitical and anti-voting doesn't mean that I don't care about important issues, and there's certainly one movement I'd like to throw my negligible weight behind. As a bonus, it's not even anything I have to convince you readers to do—the primary audience for this message is for just one person only: Brian Burke.

C'mon, Burkie, you know that Sammy would re-sign you.
As you know, Brian Burke is probably headed elsewhere next year, and I've already stated that he's got my blessing—at least he's left the team in a flexible enough salary position next year that a replacement GM won't be cap-cramped to start the new job. Here's who the Ducks currently have under salary for next year, with everyone else a free agent:

Forwards: Getzlaf, Perry, Kunitz, Selanne, Carter, Ryan + some Bertuzzi money
Defensemen: Pronger
Goalies: Giguere, Hiller

Combined, it comes to some $32.5 M, which is a bit pricy, but at least some expensive positions are pre-filled (goaltending, scoring forwards, top d-man). Well, over the next few weeks I plan on coming up with Burke's Bucket List: a list of items I'd like to see Burke do before hitting "greener pastures" next summer.

First and foremost is re-signing Sammy Pahlsson, who of course I could write volumes about (as we'll see once this campaign really gets rolling), but for now, let's just focus on the penalty killing. Since Burke took over the team, the Ducks have taken strange pride in their ability to take penalties, and Pahlsson has quietly shouldered the brunt of that. Since the lockout (regular season only), Sammy has played nearly 1,103 shorthanded minutes, which is the seventh highest total in the league behind Bouwmeester, Phillips, Lidstrom, Havelid, Chara, and Keith -- all defensemen. His total is 222 more minutes than the next highest forward, Ottawa's Chris Kelly (note: this was a hasty study just looking at just the top 90 minute-getters for each season, but I think it's correct).

So Burke, you owe it to Ducks fans, Ducks players, and especially to Sammy himself -- four more years, dude. I'm not even going to make a recommendation on dollars; whatever it takes is fine by me -- even if it's an overpayment, we still probably owe Sammy for the harsh service he's endured for the past four years.

So anyway, that's the start of my campaign; more to come in future posts. Feel free to lend your support in the comments.

* * *

More Tragedy in the Oilogosphere: You'll of course recall last month's incident between DMFB and the Oilers pressbox that led to Dave's departure from hockey blogging. Well, now the damage is doubled. Mike W, another CiO contributor and inspiration for my hockey blogging has likewise decided to give up his posting, and again, I am crushed by the news.

Mikey, please keep visiting, and trust me, I'll post anything you draw. And don't give up the Chamber of Comics -- it's sheer awesomeness, at least the parts that Internet Explorer will let me see.

I would be remiss if I didn't link to this -- pretty much the best thing any hockey blogger has ever done, ever.

* * *

And lastly, part two of my interview with Tom L. and Tapeleg from The Rink Podcast has now been posted, and this time it's Sleek from start to finish. Lots covered there, from some philosophy of what this blog is all about to remeniscing on the 2003 Cup run, and some follow-up thoughts about Paul Kariya. Enjoy!

Prediction: Ducks 3, Cats 1. Goals by Kunitz, Pahlsson (shorthanded, I'm sure), and Carter.

Go Ducks.

When blogs battle, everyone wins

Battle of California (0-0-0) vs. Behind the Jersey (0-0-0)
Round One -- Single Elimination

I really should have been promoting this semi-event more (I've had it in the sidebar for a few weeks, I think), but I guess BoC was one of the last entries in the field. Anyhoo, the NHL Arena messageboards are running an online Battle of the Blogosphere, where 128 blogs are stacked head-to-head in an NCAA-style vote-off for a champion. You can read about it here.

Before I link to the list of match-ups, though, I do want to mention a few things, and first is a quick profile of why you should vote for BoC's first round adversary, Behind the Jersey. If you're unfamiliar with the site, Christy Hammond is a Red Wings blogger, and if information is your game, she's all over it. Take a scan of her posts, and check out her profile page, and you'll see that she loves her Wings pretty dearly. And while I'm a guy who holds plenty of hate for Wings fans, that's never an issue with Christy.

You may notice that I've had BTJ in an exclusive group on the sidebar called "BoC Inspirations", which I guess I should explain a bit. It's not meant to be a "best of" list or anything (there's plenty of blogs not listed there that you should definitely be tracking -- Puck Daddy, The PensBlog, FHF1, FHF2), but it definitely includes some of the best. Really what the "Inspirations" listing represents is the sites that turned Sleek into a blogger today (plus I added Fanhouse when they paid me to draw cartoons). The primary reason why BTJ made that list was because of the series that Christy ran, Behind the Blog. It's one series that I'd recommend any aspiring blogger to read (especially the questions about "Why do you blog?" and "What advice would you give?"), because I think it offers plenty of great perspectives -- I know I was influenced especially by the BoA take and Mirtle's offering, plus here's one by our pal Mike Chen (and one on PJ here).

Anyways, I've been stalling long enough -- here's the Battle of the Blogosphere. Be warned, it is a long listing, and I don't recommend voting for each and every contest. My advice? Scan the list, pick out your favorites, cast a vote (registration is free), and when you're satisfied, stop. Here's where you can win, though -- if you catch yourself on the trailing side in any poll, it's probably worth giving the other entrant a read. Of course, I don't assume that this Battle of the Blogosphere will categorically determine anything (popularity contests rarely do), but that's not to say it's a waste of time; it does at least offer a wide glimpse of the variety of fan sites out there. What's stunning to me, actually, is how many quality blogs aren't even in the running -- this blogosphere experiment grows and improves by the week, it seems.

If you'd rather skip all that and just push BoC to round two so I can campaign for another quality opponent, though (or eliminate BoC so I don't write about this again), here's the direct link for BTJ vs BoC.

Go Blogs.

Wow. One of the legends hangs them up

I didn't see this coming at all, but the infamous Jes Gőlbez, founder and propietor of Hockey Rants (plus a better contributor to Fanhouse than I am), has decided to hang up the ol' blogger skates and become an everyday fan again.

I don't even know what to say, other than definitely Hockey Rants was one of the inspirations for this blog, that Jes was one of the real pioneers in hockey blogging, and despite his modesty, we're a worse off blogosphere without him.

Good luck in whatever you do in the future, Jes. Don't be afraid to drop in sometime in the comments here, and no matter what happens, we'll always have the memories.

Letters from Switzerland, Part II

Introductory Side Note: We all here at Battle of California would like to extend a hearty congratulations to our fellow contributor Mike Chen, who watched as his own blog exploded a few weeks ago, but then turned that into a mega-opportunity with Kukla's Korner Emporium. He's joining the heavyweights: Kukla, the Chief, and Alanah, plus new additions Bethany, Forechecker, Red and Black, SensHobo, Goal Line Report, and Puck Stops Here, and should provide a good California perspective on all things hockey. Don't forget us little guys, Mike! We'll always think of you every time the Sharks fire their head coach.

Actually, Chen makes for a nice segue for this post, because it was in the second installment of his All-Time Sharks Team where he said this (while discussing centerman Sergei Markarov):

Side note #2: Todd Elik, the second-leading scorer on that squad, put up a whopping 98 points in 53 games for an Austrian team in the 2006-2007 season at age 40, beating out much younger former NHLer Tavis Hanson.

Have you ever heard of Todd Elik? I'll have to admit; I hadn't heard of the guy, but then again I'm a guy who started following hockey in the latter half of the 90s. Elik is a former King and a former Shark (and heck, even a former North Star), so he certainly fits the BoC theme, and our good buddy Markus has sent us an Elik-themed installment of "Where are they now? (In Switzerland.)" If you recall from his earlier Josef Marha update, our pal Markus is an overseas Ducks fan who's brushing up on his English while we brush up on our understanding of former NHLers in Switzerland. It's a win-win. As before, I've gone through and fixed a few things here and there for readability, but my aim is to keep things as real as possible.

As I mentioned, I've never heard of Elik, so this might be mostly for you Shark fans. Still, based on Markus' account below, he certainly sounds like a guy I could heartily root for. Here's Markus:


Enjoy a few seasons in the country of
chocolate, watches, and the alps
Part 2: Todd Elik
And no, it’s not Sweden, folks!
He reminds me of a gangster in an old Hollywood movie. Big, scary, with a scar on his cheek. And after seeing him, nobody would be surprised if he actually were involved in organized crime.

But let’s go back a few years, as it was a hard and long road to Europe. Elik was never drafted, and his junior coach made it clear to his team how bleak their future really was. “When you’re done with the last year of junior hockey, two or three of you will make it to the NHL, half of you are gonna work at a gas station and the rest will live on welfare.”

Todd was one of the 3 lucky ones…he played in over 500 NHL games over 8 seasons with the Kings, Sharks, North Stars, Oilers, Blues and Bruins. His best season was 93-94, when Elik led the Sharks in assists and was the 2nd best scorer behind Sergei Makarov. But he lost a step in the following years, and as he spent more and more time in the AHL, he decided to leave his last team, the Bruins, and joined a team in the south of Switzerland, the HC Lugano.


The decision between Boston and Lugano wasn’t that hard for Todd…
Nobody in Switzerland could have expected that this player would turn out to be one of the most special players the Swiss league has ever seen. One night Dr. Jekyll, one night Mr. Hyde. His stats his first season: 39 games, 66 points, 222 PIM!

Giving opposing fans a beating, showing his fans the finger, cursing and attacking referees, starting a team brawl...he was immediately the ultimate bad boy of Swiss hockey!


How do you like my new nail polish?
But he was better than all other players in the league, and he knew it! Often, he told rookie to carry his water bottle from the dressing room to the ice, or made them bring him other stuff. And it was once, and only once, that a rookie refused to do so…the next morning, the rookie came to the practice only to realize that Elik had used his skate as a toilet.

Another night, Elik went to a local pub, demolished most of it, took out a few thousand dollars, and gave it to the owner with the words “Sorry, that’s for the trouble we caused…” Todd Elik at his best.


2 minutes?! 2 minutes?! I deserve at least 5!!!
Despite these escapades, he will always be remembered for one game in 1999. Game 7, Chur vs. Langnau (Elik’s team at the time). The loser gets relegated, the winner stays in the league.

Elik had hit a visiting fan in the stands with his stick in game 5, and should have been suspended for 2 games. But Langnau’s appeal against the suspension was approved and he was cleared to play.

Before the puck was dropped, Elik went to the nervous referee and told him: “Don’t worry…I won’t cause you any problems…today, I’ll play hockey.” The start is a disaster for Langnau, trailing 2-0 after a few minutes. After the 2nd goal, Elik takes over the game with one of the most brilliant efforts Swiss hockey fans have seen in ages. Elik scores one goal himself and assists on all 6 other goals! 7 points were and still are a record for points in one game. And despite finishing at the bottom of the standings with his team, Elik earned MVP honors that season. He single-handedly kept Langnau in the league.

But his career in Switzerland ended 3 years ago, as he and his coach (Mike Posma) were charged with drunk driving after a game in the playoffs. And honestly, we would have been disappointed if Elik had kept his mouth shut. Elik insulted the police so much that he was charged with defamation of a police officer.


Elik: Hey, can I call you asshole?
Officer: No, that’s an insult.
Elik: OK, can I call an asshole “police officer” then?
Officer: I don’t see a problem with that.
Elik: OK, Police officer…
The next season, he signed a contract with a team from the Austrian league, where he is still playing…and it looks like he can still play the game…when he wants to!



------------------------------------
Nicely done, Markus.

Go Ducks.

Summer Resolutions

Ah, blessed summertime, when the days get long and hockeyless. How I loathe thee.

Still, I guess it's not all rotten. I've been furiously packing and preparing for my move to Irvine, which should get really underway next week. Once I get my head above water, though, I do have one project that I'd really like to get done. Really, it's been sitting on my plate for something like five months, and it's well overdue: a Battle of California t-shirt.

The ever-awesome guys at The Pensblog asked me back in February to draw up a t-shirt design to merchandise in their impressive Storeblog, and I lied and said, "For sure, right away!" Since then, I've sat down with a blank paper and pen quite a few times, fully intending to put a masterpiece together worthy of public display, but I keep coming away unsatisfied with the result. I mean, it's one thing to put together cheap cartoons for a free internet, but I guess I'm holding myself to a higher standard for product with an actual price tag.

Here's one of my recent efforts, which is probably close to what I'm imagining:

Whoops, forgot the Star.
Now I'm not exactly sure on how copyright rules work in a money-making* venture like t-shirt sales, but to be safe I'm hoping to fully create the whole thing -- no stealing from Bill and Ted or Itchy and Scratchy, for instance. I'm pretty sure Pensblog will allow more than one design, so I'm certainly open to concept ideas. What would you like to see a duck, a king, a shark, and a star doing on a BoC t-shirt? I'd love to hear some reader ideas, and I'll probably run some design ideas throughout the summer just to take a reader pulse.

* I'm not really planning on making any money, but there will be a cost.

So anyway, that's one thing to look forward to. On a different note, yesterday I made a brash, stupid, awesome decision (one that I haven't done anything towards and still might back out of). If my loose plan works out, I think I'm going to spend New Year's with my kid brother in Chicago, and then freeze my ass off at the Winter Classic at Wrigley. I'll keep you guys updated as this plan really gets developed (or scrapped), but for now, the loose plan is that myself, the lucky green shirt, and up to a dozen other layers of clothing are going.

And who knows? Maybe by then the green shirt will be replaced by a BoC t-shirt I can be proud of.

BoC announces roster cut

Well, I blew it. Just a month after bringing in the Puck Drop’s Ken Armer to help cover the Ducks end of this blog, we’ve already parted ways. It’s entirely my fault for not doing any actual research on his newspaper-like writing style, but I think stylistically it created a clash of sorts, and I decided to pull the plug.

Nothing against Ken, who's definitely been enthusiastic about blogging for the Ducks, but if hockey blogging can be equated to a cereal box, Ken provides the straightforward listing of the FDA recommended daily allowances per serving, while BoC’s legacy is in providing the idiot kids’ puzzle on the back of the box. Both are certainly valuable functions, but it’s a wide open internet, and I decided that BoC should stick to its strong suits—creativity and original content. I don’t want to get this blog confused with “press release” sites; we try to keep it obvious which side of the glass we sit on.

Also factoring in: my “time-crunch crisis period” is nearly over. I’ll be moving down to Irvine over the next couple of weeks, but with a significantly shorter work commute I should be freed up considerably to devote a bit more time to Ducks writing and blog art.

So unfortunately, Ken got “Bochenski’d”—a short-term fill-in who didn’t fit in the grand scheme. Could this whole thing have been handled a lot better by Blog Overlord Sleek? Undoubtedly—I hate playing blogmaster if I don’t have to, and making a decision to part ways wasn’t easy on either of us, but I figure it’s for the best. Really, my lazy hiring was the culprit, and it boils down to the fact that I’ve been spoiled on this blog; I didn’t do hardly any research to investigate the writing of the other contributors, but we’ve evolved into a fairly blended style, none of which you’d find in a sports page or official site.

Anyways, full props to Ken for his contributions to this blog and handling the break-up very well. Ken’s certainly kept his chin up, and has already taken the BoC dream to the next level by starting up the Battle of the Pacific, which is in the process of recruiting contributors, but already has something we’ve never had—a voice for the Phoenix Coyotes. Go check it out; it certainly promises to break news faster than BoC’s laid back approach.

-------------------------
As for the Ducks, there’s been some minor news of late, but nothing that’s terribly post-inspiring. In terms of "big picture", after the Ducks were eliminated last spring, I listed out my five major questions for the summer, and most of them have been addressed. I’ve marked in bold the questions that still need resolving:

1. Is Scott Niedermayer going to retire, and if not, can the Ducks find a trade partner to take Mathieu Schneider off the payroll?

2. How much will Corey Perry sign for, and for how long?

3. Is Teemu Selanne going to play another year? If not, when's the retirement ceremony?

4. Is there any truth to the rumors of Brian Burke pursuing a GM position in Toronto or Vancouver?

5. What does the future hold for Jonas Hiller?

Other than the Lowe-Burke media feud and the unforeseen Bertuzzi buy-out and subsequent B-Mo signing, the summer’s gone very according to projection, I’d say. I keep getting in trouble for calling it a “boring summer” for the Ducks (we didn’t fire our coach or have any real money to spend), but considering last year’s shortest summer ever and next year’s mostly-empty roster, it’s probably a nice change of pace.

Still, with only two major issues remaining and two months until training camp, expect some more Sleek nonsense as the summer drags along.

Go Ducks (eventually).

Free Agency starts early at BoC

Ah, the complicated life of Earl Sleek. I'm a busy guy lately, though it may not be that obvious from the front-end of a blog. This past March, I started a new job that actually requires my daily attention, and because of work hours and commute time I'm daily getting home two hours later than I used to. As such, my blogging time has been cut into, which is why I'm announcing a new tag-team Ducks blogger who will be joining our BoC staff.

Mostly I'm going to let him introduce himself, but Ken Armer contacted me recently about this possibility and I decided that it was worth a shot; there's certainly Ducks stories that need some more attention than I'm giving them. I haven't had the time to post anything about recent M.A. Bergeron trades or Jonas Hiller contracts, and I'm swamped trying to put together a good Niedermayer/Selanne post before their retirement decisions are due next week.

Now I don't know Ken at all (really that's true of me and all our writers), but he has been writing about the Ducks all season at Bleacher Report and at The Puck Drop, which gives him more credibility than I had when I started blogging. Ironically, in the same week where I decided not to change the blog name to accomodate Stars coverage, I hire a 21-year-old kid from Texas to assist in Ducks duties. Go figure. Anyways, Ken tells me he plans to move to SoCal when he's able, and aspires to one day write for the L.A. Times (side note to Ken: BoC may help with exposure, but not with credibility).

I do want to stress that I'm not going anywhere. I've still got plenty to say about these Ducks, but instead of presenting them in a rushed and sloppy way, I can now take the time to make them well-thought-out and sloppy. Also, I am starting to pack up my Redondo home in preparation for an eventual move down to Orange County where my new job is (I'm house-hunting later today), and when that move gets done my commute will disappear, and I'll be freer and even more local to the team I cover.

So anyways, once all the technical nonsense is worked out, Ken will probably start posting next week, and we'll see how it goes from there. Welcome aboard, Ken.

Sidenote: Sometime next week I am going to do a cleansing out of our blogroll, removing links that haven't been updated in a while. If you're an owner of a lazy blog, you may want to write a post or shoot me a note to let me know your blog's not dead. Also, if ever I'm missing a link, don't hesitate to point it out.

Thank you Pronger and Patton

Holy smokes! Hurry up and get your formalwear on. It's awards night!

While the NHL may have already tipped its hat as to who's winning its awards tonight (link credit: Japers'), I'm not talking about that award show. Instead, I've just been informed that today is also the day that We Bleed Teal presents its Bloggies Awards.

And wouldn't you know it? BoC took home the coveted "Battle of the Battles Battle" award! Woo hoo!

Earl Sleek's statistical prowess, Rudy Kelly's cut-to-the-chase ideals, PJ's timely analysis, and O'Brien's pop-culture references make BOC the best place (besides the Sunset Strip during the glam rock days) to be when you're touring the sun soaked West Coast.

Go read the whole thing, as several great blogs took home some hardware. Great job, Mr. Plank!

When you're done with that, you can also check out today's PuckToon, which offers a theory why Marc Crawford was fired this week. As always, alternate theories are welcome.

So, Battle of the Pacific?

Well, I guess I should get back in the blogging game here at BoC, and what better topic to come back on than official blog business? Specifically, while I’ve been distracting myself with GTA4 and Galactica after the Ducks got eliminated, James O’Brien has been offering thoughts on the Dallas Stars most of this postseason, and has been as subtle as a Pronger-elbow-to-the-head in hinting that this blog should be renamed “The Battle of the Pacific” in the not-too-distant future.

I’ve gone back and forth on this issue, and I think in the end I’m against the notion of blog re-branding at least at this point in time, though I am willing to listen to counterarguments in the comments. For one, there’s the matter of blog contributors—if this blog’s purpose is to be a somewhat even-handed approach to the Pacific Division, that would require definitely a strong Coyotes voice and possibly even another Stars voice—and I’m not even sure that this blog has a glaring need for any more regular contributors.

Secondly, from a technical standpoint, I’m not the savviest blog administrator on the internet, but I do put a huge priority in preserving this blog’s archives. I’m confident that Blogger has the capability to mass-transfer old BoC posts to a new “Battle of the Pacific” domain, but I really don’t want to go around and try to get other sites to update old links, whether in blog listings or in actual posts.

Also, I think I have a bit of a philosophical hurdle to overcome. While the Stars perspective is certainly relevant to the BoC’s Pacific Division standings, there are still some geographical differences that continue to differentiate fans of the two teams, namely two time zones—nobody on the east coast is complaining that they have to stay up too late to see Stars games, or that their team has to travel as far west as Texas. I mean, certainly we’ll have similarities being mocked as non-traditional hockey fans, but Texas is nearer to the NHL’s east-coast bias than any CA team will ever be. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like I empathize with the plight of the Kings fan or the Sharks fan much more than do a Stars fan, and idealistically it’s probably that commonality that this blog promotes.

Suffice to say that there’s a fair amount of work to be done in representing a “Battle of the Pacific” blog, and I don’t think I’m up to it anytime too soon (heck, I’m not sure I’m ready to stop saying “BoC”). Even if Stars and Coyotes posts become regular features, I don’t think that it demands a blog rebranding; accuracy has never been our strong point, why try to start now? So unless I hear of any particularly compelling comments, my plan is to just continue operating under the Battle of California web address, and we’ll continue to write about whatever we want, including opinions on the Dallas Stars.

Anyway, let me open it up to the comments: How important is it that the blog name align with possibly expanded coverage? Also, is anybody interested in supplying Stars or Coyotes posts?

[Author’s note: Earl does plan on covering the Ducks again real soon. First issue to be discussed: why I am not panicking about Brian Burke Leafs GM rumors.]

BoC Turns Two!

Happy 2nd birthday, blog!
I know the unwritten code for hockey bloggers is to avoid unnecessary profanity, but HOLY FUCKING MONKEYSHIT! IT’S BEEN TWO YEARS?!

Hard to believe, right? What started as one of uberblogger James Mirtle's internet pranks has escalated into this collection of assholes?! Amazing.

Well, what can we expect from BoC in its Terrible Twos? If child development is any indication, we’ll probably see an increase in temper tantrums, control-freak tendencies, and aggressive testing of our boundaries.

Frankly, that sounds fantastic. I can’t wait.
------------------------------------As a complete aside, one of my friends just sent me this link, and I think it's a hilarious dilemma: Will this traffic cop take the fall to keep Ryan Getzlaf out of traffic school? More to come, I'm sure.

The Official Thousandth Post

Well hot damn. Mike Chen thought he had hit the benchmark a week and a half ago, but this is officially Battle of California's 1,000th post. Thanks and congrats to Mike, PJ, James, Rudy, and Cheechew for all their contributions, and all the lost souls on the internet who have stopped by.

I wonder what the future holds for the next thousand posts. Predictions / suggestions are welcome.

Blog News: So, anybody got any basketball tips?

(Also called "I almost wrote a whole post without talking about Pronger!")

1. Battle of California gets challenged.

Hoo boy, I may have gone and screwed us over in a bit of a blog bet. Six sports blogs will each be submitting an NCAA college basketball bracket into a machine, and whoever wins will get authorship of all the losers' blogs for a 24-hour stretch.

Here's the problem: I know almost nothing about college basketball; I pride myself in that ignorance. Other than hockey, the only sport I marginally follow is Ninja Warrior, and I'm pretty shaky there. As such, I managed to talk it down from 5 brackets per blog to just one bracket per blog, figuring that would increase our chance of an upset and hoping that one of our merry cast of writers had some clue towards bracket-busting. Still, we're going to get creamed. Here's the opposition BoC is up against, and my one-minute-glance summary of why they'll beat us. Where appropriate, I linked to their pre-gloat post of how excited they are to murder us BoCers (in most cases, not very).

The Play in California (multi-author, multi-sport) -- These guys started up this contest, and they're sure to beat us. Plus, any blog that claims to be "weak on hockey" has to be super-strong on college basketball. We're toast.

Gossip on Sports (single author, multi-sport)--I knew we lost this one just looking at the categories. Jodie's written about every sport, including cricket and cycling! Damn! There's bound to be a lot of bracket-savvy there.

The Sports Lounge (single author, multi-sport)--Hoo boy, this guy has written more about this bracket than I have ever written about basketball. This guy could probably beat me straight up with half of his picks blank.

Bears Necessity (single author, single sport)--A college football blog, from the looks of things, and doesn't seem too concerned about the hoops side of things, but you can never be too careful with these collegiate sports: they're always talking. We're doomed.

Apples and Moustaches (multi-author, multi-sport)--I say "multi-sport" very loosely. I caught a football and a baseball reference, but really this blog's charm can be found in its subtitle: "Because nothing says 'What the fuck' like an apple with a moustache." With cockiness like that, we're ruined.

So essentially, I am playing Maggie the Monkey to the cast of experts, and hoping that my Monkey-like ignorance can help me cruise to a stunning victory. I've filled out a bracket with all favorites, and it's up to commenters to help rig it into something presentable. Feel free to throw any upset tips you like, please, and maybe we'll luck our way into fifth place. Lookin' forward to my day off.

2. Battle of California gets recognized.

"Dear Earl, our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it an 8.5 score (out of 10) in the Sports/Hockey category of Blogged.com. This is quite an achievement!"

Well, if you say so. First way you can spot that this formula-driven list is bogus, though: we're one spot up on Mirtle (even if it is alphabetical at that point). There's voting buttons available, so it's probably the last time you'll see that.

3. New blog alerts.

Being such a "great" blog, I'm always happy to link to some new golden-state-devoted hockey blogs (and actually, if there's any I'm missing in the sidebar, I'm all ears). Two that have caught my eye lately are MaverikHockey and We Bleed Teal.

MaverikHockey is a Ducks-based blog that's been around all season, but I'm sort of internet-blind and didn't discover it until recently. Maverik has a lot of good material and a nice chat feature that we enjoyed after losing a shootout to Phoenix. Sorry I'm delinquent in linking, but welcome aboard.

We Bleed Teal is a new entrant for the Sharks, from BoC commenter Mr. Plank who just couldn't sit around while Rudy and Earl cross-posted the Sharks into afterthought status. I'd worry about that blog title, though. Blood isn't naturally teal, you know, and you may have just made Chris Pronger curious. Speaking of which...

4. Oh yeah, and Pronger.

One of my Canuck buddies, who went with me to G1 of the VAN series, sent me a link to an entirely new angle, likely taken from a fan's camera. I think it's definitely worth a look:

I'm expecting a re-ruling by Colin Campbell any day now.

Ducks Gameday—On a personal note

Calgary Flames (29-21-8, t-7th in west) at Anaheim Ducks (32-23-7, 3rd in west)

A few items that don’t have that much to do with hockey:

• First off, I want to wish my kid sister a happy birthday today, living the fast life in NYC. The odds that she sees this note are slim (she’s no hockey fan), but I know she’s name-dropped this blog before to Canadian guys while bar-hopping, so good work, sis!



• In other non-hockey news, it’s actually a big week for me personally. After nearly seven years, this will be my last week with my current employer. It’s good news and bad news, probably, as the new job will eventually bring me back to Orange County and pay me more money for the NHL’s annual ticket increases. The bad news is that my old job really gave me a lot of leeway—my workday was finished very early and my boss lived halfway across the nation.
  
  I’m not really sure what the new job’s workload and hours will do to my blogging productivity; it’s entirely possible that I may start a search for another Duck voice on BoC within the next month to share the load. Nothing will be decided until I really get into that new job schedule and see what it's really like, but if you’re a Ducks fan who’d be interested in a BoC voice, you might want to start thinking about creating a submission and hoping my new boss works the hell out of me. Don’t worry if you can’t draw or crunch numbers or anything; this wouldn’t be about replacing Sleek so much as complementing Sleek, and you’ve seen our contributors' work. We’re all about variety.



• I know a lot of Ducks fans will be rooting for Teemu Selanne to score a point tonight against the Flames (he is tied with Paul Kariya for the franchise scoring lead), but I’m not one of them. Why not? I snagged a pair of Row B seats for Wednesday’s game, and selfishly I think Anaheim's greater good needs to make room for my petty desire to see that achievement in person.



• Lastly, if you start noticing a decline in the quality of my hand-drawn cartoons in the next couple of weeks, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation: yesterday my roommate came home with Devil My Cry 4, and if any of you are familiar with that button-mashing gameplay, you’ll appreciate the cramping in my right hand this morning.

Prediction: Teemu values the greater good more than my personal schedule and takes the franchise scoring title to himself tonight. Ducks 4, Flames 2. Goals by Beauchemin, Sutherby, Pahlsson, and Selanne.

Go Ducks.

AOL Sleek: It begins

Well, it took a couple weeks since I first announced it, but finally after a lot of paperwork and blogducation, I was able to contribute my first cartoon post to the AOL Fanhouse today.

I know I am supposed to be sticking with the west coast (and actually I have a Niedermayer post somewhat underway that was intended to be my first post), but how could I pass up a shot at former Ottawa cup-loser Mike Comrie and his starring role in the tabloids? Especially since the story was assigned to me.

Anyway, I'm still getting my feet wet there, but at least I've gotten over the initial hurdles (logging in, creating post, drawing cartoon to avoid photo-altering lawsuits). If you are feeling generous, why not head over there, leave a comment, and make me look like a superstar?

I've also added a link to the sidebar under "Anaheim Ducks" that will go straight to the Earl posts (more useful once I write more of them). Enjoy!

Earl sells his sAOL

Question: What do Earl Sleek and Dustin Penner both have in common?

Answer: We both signed offer sheets that way overstate our value.

Indeed, it appears there is a new chapter developing for me and my alias, as I have been offered and have accepted a hockey blogging gig at AOL Fanhouse. I actually spent a little while Niedermayering on this decision, but in the end, how could I really pass it up?

Seriously, check out this roster:

• Eric McErlain
• James Mirtle
• Greg Wyshynski
• Jes Gölbez
• Jon “JP” Press
• Tom Luongo

That's a pretty strong lineup; a pretty good who's who in hockey blogging. And really, that was one source of my qualm; do I even belong in such an all-star cast? (Feel free to tell me "yes"--I am nothing if not gullible.)

Well, I'm not too sure what the near future holds--I'll be submitting my paperwork this weekend. I figured I'd break the news now, though, as a heads-up. Here's how I think it might work out:

At the Fanhouse: I'll definitely be feeling my way around there a bit at first, but I'm hoping to settle in for 2-4 posts a week (we'll see). As for content, I'm still thinking about that, but I'm mainly going to stick to the Ducks, Kings, and Sharks--one of my key assets was that I could provide some California coverage. I'm going to bring an extreme western-conference bias, which works pretty well; since the unbalanced schedule that's pretty much all I've been watching anyway.

As for style, well that's the thing--Earl was brought on to be Earl. For sure there will be restrictions (I just watched an hour-long video on how not to get AOL sued, and it only covered photographs; I'll probably get to watch another one soon about cartoons), but I'll do what I'm allowed to do. It will be kind of strange to do a cooperative blog with structure, but I'm sure I can manage that. But seriously, if everyone could promise not to sue AOL over my first few posts, that would be real cool.

At BoC: Sorry haters, Earl's not leaving town just yet. In fact, everyone else on the AOL list is still keeping their blogs up to snuff, and I'm hoping that we'll see no real interruption in Ducks service here. I mean, part of what struck me watching that video was damn, I really enjoy the non-legalism we got here at BoC. They'd have to pay me a lot more to give this up. Besides, I'll need an outlet to put cartoons and drinky posts that are too racy for AOL.

It's really strange to think about how this all came together. Two years ago, coming out of the lockout, was when I first stumbled onto hockey blogs, notably Tom Benjamin, mc79hockey, Battle of Alberta, and others. I was sort of a lone Anaheim commenter back then, so when Mirtle started this karma-killing blog and I got nominated to be a voice for the Duck fans, well, who really knew how long this blog-joke would run?

In general: Hell, this may even be the motivation I need to go get Photoshop software, instead of my idiot's method of making graphics.

Anyway, a big thanks to those who stop by and comment. And of course to Mike, PJ, Rudy, and the gang for helping balance things out. It's for sure an honor to be invited, and hopefully I can deliver something worthwhile in a sanitized MSM environment.

So, anyone got any good ideas for a first post?

Wicked Widget of the West

Attention Mac-using BoC supporters! In the grand tradition of outsiders improving this blog's services for free, Kelly Phillips of HockeyWidgets.com has built a Battle of California widget as part of his NHL 3.0 Icetime Dashboard.

Now I should be clear for those who are unaware--I am a techno-idiot. I'm a guy who still needs to make quotation marks with his fingers whenever he says the word "widget", and I've never been cool enough to be a Mac user. So while I can't offer any first-hand testimonial about how awesome this is, I have been assured that once I get widget-savvy, I will love it.

The widget (which sometime soon will be available for PCs) not only provides BoC RSS feeds and a link to the blog, but generally can serve as an NHL scoreboard / schedule with league and team statistics as well. Here's how the BoC front of it will look:

Anyway, in order to upload it, you may need better instructions than what I can offer. You can read more about it at Battle of Alberta and Battle of Ontario, substituting in "California" where it seems appropriate. If you have any questions or issues, leave a comment here and I will pass it along to Kelly, who deserves a ton of thanks for putting in the effort of designing widgets for all the Battle sites. Kudos!

Newsflash: Sports Blog Index likes BoC's blend of idiocy, non-idiocy

As first reported by Mr. Mirtle, some website we've never heard of has been dutifully studying hockey blogs in order to provide a top ten ranking, and stunningly, BoC placed fourth:

Sports Blog Index Top 10 Hockey Blogs:
1. Off Wing Opinion
2. James Mirtle
3. Pensblog
4. Battle of California
5. Barry Melrose Rocks
6. Bfloblog.com
7. Waiting For Stanley
8. Battle of Alberta
9. Japer's Rink
10. Behind the Jersey

Now I know blog listings are as fickle as a Conn Smythe winner in training camp, but according to Sports Media Challenge, the criteria used for this list were Influence (I assume this means "blogging under the influence"), Community (they must like how BoC writers never communicate with each other), and Relevance (oh yeah, by the way, the Ducks now lead all NHL franchises in shootout losses since the lockout).

I really should stress: there's a lot of better hockey blogs not on this list--we have probably benefited from a bias towards half-assed cartoons and Stanley Cup champs, but wow. We are big shits now.


...just in case you needed to see what I meant by "big shit"
Anyways, a serious congratulations to the other blogs on this list, and a bunch of thanks to PJ, Mike, and Rudy for their awesome contributions (and James for not posting anything harmfully irrelevant). Also we'd like to thank the state of California for being such a wasteland for hockey coverage; we couldn't have done it without you.

Rudy and Earl: Drinking Buddies?

Isn’t it great how an internet blog-venture with no planning, no organization, no communication, and no leadership can still manage to run smoothly? Case in point, Saturday afternoon, after nearly six months of having Rudy Kelly posting on this site, I finally decided to actually meet the guy and have some drinks. Seeing as we’re both into Eklund-level anonymity, I “neglected” to bring my camera, but the scene looked something like this:

"So, those Sharks sure choke a lot, huh?"
As for impressions, considering the team-rivalry aspect it’s good that we didn’t immediately hate each other—I was impressed with the fact that Rudy plays hockey outside of a video game setting, and Rudy was probably impressed with my willingness to pick up the tab. Besides, in talking we found we have many similarities—we both hate Chris Chelios, we both hate the Avalanche, and we both agree that the Kings franchise had better get its act together—it would be a real kick in the teeth for L.A. fans if their team became the last California team to win a cup.

Anyways, it was a pretty fun meet-up with Rudy, now the fifth blogger I’ve been able to drink in front of (Finny, Cassie, PJ Swenson, and Eric McErlain can all attest to my liver abuse too). There wasn’t very much in the way of “blog business” discussed, but we did both agree that there was no need for any aggressive ambition when it comes to BoC—we’re pretty content in whatever niche we’ve fallen into.

(On a serious note, though: Like Mirtle, from time to time I get e-mails from emerging bloggers looking for advice. As a guy who (a) didn’t even start this blog, or (b) doesn’t have a lot of “vision” or “expertise”, I usually don’t know what to tell them. If you are looking for guidance, the best collection of hockey blogger advice I’ve found is in Christy’s Behind the Blog features—dig through those and you’ll find plenty of good tips from plenty of good bloggers.)

As for us? Look for more of the same rudderless brilliance, I guess, although now that I’m assured that Rudy’s not a monster, we’ll probably be catching a game together this coming season.

Anyone want to fly us to England?