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I dealt with Matt a fair bit over the years, particularly in the early stages of CapGeek as he was first building the site in the summer of 2009 (as I go through my old correspondence, the contract of former prospect Mikael Johansson was among the early things we discussed). He was always helpful with some of my out of the box questions about the most minute of details as well as straightening me out on LTIR calculations. We also had some interesting talks about some other CBA interpretations. He was a big part in helping me provide and understand a lot of the cap and CBA data you see on the site today. He's certainly going to be missed.

I don't mind penalizing diving and fining embellishment. Hockey isn't soccer and shouldn't allowed to degenerate to that point. What drives me crazy is the exaggerated importance that old-school guys place upon this, as opposed to, say, head-shots or deliberate attempts to injure. The latter are 'just parta tha game' while diving is the greatest atrocity in human history. Listening to NHL discourse over the past few years, the 2011 Canucks were the Most Evil Team Ever because they had a rep for diving and yapping. Oooo, how heinous. Similarly, the Habs, routinely accused of diving to excess. Meanwhile, Marchard can deliberately break Raymond Mason's back and Chara can commit attempted murder on Pacioretty, and they basically get hand-written letters of congratulation and bouquets of flowers from the commentariat and league bigwigs. For that matter, Crosby can suffer repeated head-shots that nearly destroy his career. Or Weber can head-smash a star player against the glass. Kreider can regularly 'accidentally' slide into goalies feet-first. All of that is just hunky-dory with the dickheads that run the league. They're just 'hockey plays' by 'good guys.' Then there's the double standard on Subban. Yes, Subban has an agitating aspect to his game. So sue him. I've said this before and I continue to believe it: if PK were white, he would been nowhere near as polarizing a figure. After a few seasons, he has mostly been accepted, but the attitude that he's a 'punk' still lingers, at least in the refs' minds. Personally, I'd love to see a day when NHL refs and disciplinarians stop acting like it is their prerogative to issue calls based on their personal opinion of players' (and teams') characters and instead judge the actions, period. Unfortunately, this minimum level of basic professionalism is beyond the comprehension of both the refs and the league as a whole. Justice is blind, but not in the NHL; in the NHL, 'justice' is 99% personal preferences.

If a team is scared of mediocore Ottawa and can't beat them, they don't deserve to win the Cup

One of the more embarassing moments in my life was around New Years day. I was in South Carolina.. golfing. In the elevator I'm in at the condo building, a couple is talking about how the "canes" were whuppin' my Habs. I'm not ashamed to say, I cried. Ok. I'm not ashamed to say I just lied, I didn't cry. I'm not ashamed to shut up now. I've got other great stories like that that I'm trying to sell to the film industry. Sales are not robust.

Good evening everyone, the new website will appear in the next few hours. Please feel free to post your comments or suggestions if there's anything you don't like or that you would like to see ! We hope to make the most useful and interesting site for all Habs fans !

Carolina goalie is a rebound machine... Keep shooting and drive the net.