McLellan's day with the Cup

Reason #7158 why the Stanley Cup is vastly superior to any other trophy in the wide world of professional sports: Each of its victors is awarded an entire day in full possession of the silver chalice. While this tidbit may not rank as high on the list of evidence stressing the Cup's irrefutable superiority to all other constituents of the sports trophy landscape as the fact that the team captain, not some moribund owner fresh off their fourth botox who couldn't give a rat's ass about their team's performance as long as it generates revenue, is the first to touch the Cup, it's still yet another unique tradition firmly entrenched in puck lore. Today was Todd McLellan's day with the Cup and the Red Wings assistant turned newly anointed Sharks bench boss elected to spend it in his hometown of Saskatoon, where it appears he received a parking ticket from an officer who had the veracity to subsequently request a photo with Lord Stanley (those crazy Canadian cops!) and had lunch at the Sheraton Cavalier with the mayor of Saskatoon.

Yes, if you haven't noticed, news indeed is that slow around the hockey world. But fear not, fellow puckheads: the preseason is a mere 34 days away! In news of a tad more consequence (albeit not much more), The Hockey News remind me why I canceled my subscription to their fine publication by posting their standings predictions. I'll have my own predictions a little closer to the season when questions regarding Mats Sundin, Joe Sakic and Martin Havlat's groin are (presumably) answered, but THN's projection of the Wild as Northwest Division champions is just one of many absurdities perpetuated by the magazine. Also, our good friends at The Battle of California inform us that the Golden State might as well be the Rickertale State as far as Versus (God's gift to upper-tier cable sports programming) is concerned. Finally, I realize I'm a little late to the boat on this one (that's an expression, right?), but as evident in this gameplay clip, it appears that our very own Randy Hahn and Drew Remenda are lending their broadcasting talent to 2K Sports' NHL 2K9 video game (the redheaded stepsister of hockey videogaming).