SoCal connection to Wrigley Game.

From Sporting News Today:


If you’re anywhere near Battleship Park in Mobile, Alabama today at noon, check out the 53-foot trailer truck that will be leaving — with a fair amount of fanfare, no doubt — for Chicago’s Wrigley Field. Inside this truck is the NHL’s first traveling refrigeration system, and its deparure signals the beginning of what is billed by the Blackhawks as the “Road to Wrigley” tour. According to NHL.com, the truck houses the compressors, condensing tower, chillers, pumps — everything you would find in an engine room at an NHL rink, and everything the league will need to produce ice for the third new Year’s Day Winter Classic, which will pit the Blackhawks and defending champion Red Wings in this year’s version at Wrigley Field. The truck’s machinery, built by Cimco Refrigeration in Mobile, is scheduled to arrive in Chicago on Dec. 15. The 240 panels of aluminum flooring needed to build the main rink is being manufactured just outside Anaheim and will be delivered to Chicago by Dec. 12.

The first trade of the Bob Murray era is complete.

And it’s a little one, sending Joakim Lindstrom to the Phoenix Coyotes for defenseman Logan Stephenson. As trades involving two AHL players go, this is notable if only for the fact that Lindstrom was the Iowa Chops’ leading scorer (7 goals, 21 points in 21 games). Stephenson is a defensive-minded former second-round draft pick, and he might not have been targeted were it not for Francois Beauchemin’s injury that forced Brett Festerling up the ladder into the NHL.


Lindstrom has a good chance of reaching the NHL with the offensively-challenged Coyotes.

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The irony of Peter Laviolette losing his job.

The Carolina Hurricanes fired coach Peter Laviolette on Wednesday, meaning the two winningest American-born NHL coaches are without jobs. (Tampa Bay fired John Tortorella after he took the record last year; Laviolette passed Tortorella last month). The ‘Canes won the Cup under Laviolette in 2006. The story, fromsports.yahoo.com:



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