Sidney Crosby – AllPuck

Five Olympic tournament MVP candidates.

Ryan Kesler was at his best at the 2010 Winter Olympics playing for Team USA | Photo by Dan Hickling

Ever since the Winter Olympics featured NHL players for its 1998 edition, four men, including three goaltenders, have taken home the honor as the tournament’s best player:

1998 (Nagano, Japan): Dominik Hasek, Czech Republic
2002 (Salt Lake City): Joe Sakic, Canada
2006 (Turin, Italy): Antero Niittymaki, Finland
2010 (Vancouver): Ryan Miller, United States

Who will be top player in Sochi, carrying his team to glory? Here are five names to keep an eye on:
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The Secret Season begins.

Part two in a series. Read part 1 here.

DATELINE UNKNOWN – It probably wasn’t a good idea to house the Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins in adjacent buildings. Players from both sides engaged in a war of words in the village commons that transpired into fisticuffs and caused a ruckus so crash-banging loud, it awoke the entire complex.

Sigh.

We’re new at this, but what a numbskull decision.
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Predicting the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The puck drops on the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs in a few hours. The cast of characters includes some new faces (Brian Elliott), some familiar faces (Sidney Crosby), and some faces that are just plain old (Nicklas Lidstrom).

AllPuck.com breaks down each of the first-round series, and offers its first prediction for a Stanley Cup champion.

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Book Review: “Fighting the Good Fight”

Eavesdropping on the debate about physicality in the NHL in 2011 is not unlike flipping your TV to an episode of “Divorce Court.” It only takes a couple seconds to gauge the emotional temperature in the room, which usually falls somewhere between “lukewarm” and “Elin Woods.” "Fighting The Good Fight" The facts should speak for themselves but they don’t – at least the two parties, charged with emotion, rarely let them. The endgame is clear: They’re breaking up. It’s just a question of who gets what.

Headshots? Yes, gone.

An all-out fighting ban? Let’s talk about that.

In “Fighting the Good Fight,” Adam Proteau comes out swinging with the the golf clubs, and he wants the yacht.

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The case for Don Cherry as Commissioner (or, how hockey lost its edge)

It’s time to channel my inner Martin Luther King.

I have a dream.

The NHL Board of Governors fires commissioner Gary Bettman and appoints Don Cherry, who fires chief disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan and immediately hires Scott Stevens. Then there’s more collisions. More brawls. More excitement. More ratings. More fans.

More old-time hockey.

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Sid the Kid returns, and small schools rise in college hockey

This hasn’t been a very joyful year in the world of hockey. Three NHL players (Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien and Wade Belak) died. A tragic plane crash in Russia decimated the KHL’s Lokomotiv team, taking the lives of former NHLers Pavol Demitra and Ruslan Salei among 44 victims.

However, as we gather with our families and friends this Thanksgiving, we can be happy that there were two pleasant surprises this week: The return of a superstar and the rise of previously unheard of schools in the world of college hockey.

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