Snowman On Fire

Not a reference to the Red Wings, nor a reference to some bizarre Sopranos inside joke. It’s this:

Octopus Pie is a very New York attitude online comic that mixes equal parts Sully Erna, Rachael Ray, Dorothy Hamill and Sean Avery. Seriously. It can’t be explained, so click away. But yes, I did choose those avatars so I could tag this post with “Godsmack” and “figure skating”, a most statistically unlikely skating pair. Click on the smaller image above for the full-sized desktop version.

The NHL has put up a rather short and edited blog roll on nhl.com. I’ve been of the impression that blogs are the vox populi, what the average puck head offers as an assist to the other hockey fan. Or just blunt commentary on why it costs $25 to feed two people at the Meadowlands, or why the Devils keep holding out for Scott Stevens to return to the team even though they’ve announced a date to retire his number.

It’s not the the NHL blogs are bad — Robbie Merrill (bass player for one of my pre-game fave bands Godsmack) is funny and articulate. A recent post about Guy Kawasaki captures some of the very reasons I started playing again after an 18-year off season. But what about the other millions of fans, worldwide, who have something to say?

Note to NHL online execs: open up the blogosphere. Run ads in our blogs, it’s fair, but give the fans a voice and an outlet again. Otherwise the NHL blogs are simply columns written by folks who miss a sports beat.