Well a bunch of the Posse and I splurged and purchased tickets to Pucks and Passports. Hang on, don’t give me that wth? look. Let me explain. But those of you lookin for REAL Coyotes news may wanna skip this entry… be sure to come back tomorrow for the Season Preview though

Pucks and Passports is a classier more intimate version of the player’s luncheon. The Yotes used to do a charity gig where you could purchase a seat at a table and sit and eat with the players and coaches. It was one of those rubber chicken events where the basic saving grace was talking to the players and staff in a comfortable setting, like you would friends at dinner. This year the Yotes flipped the script and held a dinner instead. Everybody dressed up and the fare was a selection of dishes from countries that our players are from.

The event was held at the Job and the arena was all duded up like a restaurant. Pretty lighting, linen table cloths, some pool tables, a live band (featuring a couple of Doug Moss’ sons! and man they weren’t bad at all)plus uniformed servers, both at the food tables and wandering around offering samplings of food. There was a stage and a few small presentaions and the introduction of the team. (poor Pang murdered Z’s home town pronunciation too and now I dont feel bad cuz Z wouldn’t pronounce it for Pang either). The boys were sportin one of a kind hometown jerseys that were later ponied up for the silent auction. Then the fun started.

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Ok… Are Wayne and Co slicker than snake snot or crazy as bat shit?

Seriously… if you listened to the game last night you know whereof I speak. The first couple of games were a nice mix of vets and youth… very young goalies though, so expectations weren’t too high. We did okay… nothing spectacular, Bodz, KT, Ports and Ahne all had pretty decent runs once the jitters wore off. So we sent some kidz home to the minors (where they can develop at a nice pace, hurry back Brodie you did quite well ) and that Monty gave a us a wee taste of why GMDM is so crushing on him.

But last night’s game against the Flambe must have been the sorriest roster I have seen in a looong time. Seriously… horrible.

13 L DANIEL CARCILLO
14 C CHAD KOLARIK
15 C MICHAEL ZIGOMANIS (A)
16 R BRIAN MCGRATTAN
18 R ENVER LISIN
21 D DAVID HALE (A)
23 C KEVIN PORTER
24 D JONAS AHNELOV
36 D LOGAN STEPHENSON
39 C GARTH MURRAY
41 R VIKTOR TIKHONOV
44 D KURT SAUER (A)
56 D DREW FATA
59 R JEFF HOGGAN
62 R DAVE SPINA
73 R STEVEN GOERTZEN
75 D ED STONE
85 R ALEX BOURRET
32 G MIKAEL TELLQVIST
35 G AL MONTOYA

VS

4 D JAMES VANDERMEER
6 D CORY SARICH
7 R TODD BERTUZZI (A)
8 D ANDERS ERIKSSON
12 R JAROME IGINLA (C)
13 L MIKE CAMMALLERI
18 C MATTHEW LOMBARDI
20 L CURTIS GLENCROSS
23 L ERIC NYSTROM
27 R ANDRE ROY
28 D ROBYN REGEHR (A)
33 D ADRIAN AUCOIN
42 L BRETT SUTTER
60 C MIKAEL BACKLUND
61 D JOHN NEGRIN
62 R KRIS CHUCKO
63 C WARREN PETERS
75 C JOHN ARMSTRONG
1 G CURTIS MCELHINNEY
34 G MIIKKA KIPRUSOFF

When DHL is your point on the PP? C’mon you know thats a bad roster, the poor guy hasn’t gotten a goal in 215+ games? on your PP point? Hale on the PP aside, the only thing last night’s roster had goin for it was Telly and try though he might he had no help in front of the net most of the game.

So with a roster that smelled to high heaven and still managed to hang with the Flamers (of which I am very proud they did not get completely slaughtered… w/ Kipper in net for most of the game) is Wayne a genius for never quite showing our full hand? Hell I been watchin these boys for the last 5 weeks in various formats and I’m still not quite sure what exactly we have goin for us. So good luck to anyone scouting us.

Or has TGO lost his everloving mind? I’ve heard of getting your feet wet approach, but it never involved throwing of the entire body of a novice swimmer into the deep end and expecting Michael Phelps to emerge.

I’m torn… well I wasn’t last night when I was yelling at the online feed, Fools! charlatans! crazy summabitches what are you doing? But now that my adrenalin and blood pressure have both lowered a bit… I have to wonder.

Kudos: Lisin w/ 2 goals (and almost had the hattie), Tiki w/ the face saving goal last night, Porter for a very poised couple of games, Monty for a couple of very decent performances, KT and Bodz for holdin their own and then some. Keefe vs Ivanans? speaks for itself that he not only survived but came back into the game to harrass the big enforcer again. Ahne, lookin good back there.

Razzberries: Tordjy… dude just brutal. Jones/Yandle combo on the blueline…should never even be thought of by any rational human being. Rossi… get some intensity… steal it if you have to.

Ok this is getting really crazy… I can’t keep up LOL

Two more players sent down to their minor teams today… Nick Ross to Kamloops (WHL) and Jared Staal back to Sudbury (OHL) there will be many more to come in the next few days I am sure.

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Tonight’s game in Winnipeg, rosters look like this

Forwards:
Dustin Boyd, Rene Bourque, Mike Cammalleri, Craig Conroy, Kyle Greentree, Daymond Langkow, Matthew Lombardi, David Moss, Wayne Primeau, Brandon Prust, Andre Roy, David Van der Gulik
Defenceman:
Mark Giordano, Adam Pardy, Matt Pelech, Dion Phaneuf, Jim Vandermeer, Rhett Warrener
Goaltenders: Matt Keetley, Curtis McElhinney

(Cammie wont be in according to 960 and alas, no Iggy to pop but there’s always Neon Dion! or Frankenhead Phaneuf if you prefer)

VS

Forwards:
Shane Doan-Kevin Porter-Enver Lisin
Daniel Carcillo-Kyle Turris-Mikkel Boedker
Jeff Hoggan-Garth Murray-Chad Kolarik
Francis Lessard-Mike Zigomanis-Brian McGrattan (guess Lessard is stickin around despite acting like a double strength straight jacket might be required in the last practice I saw.)

Defense:
Mathieu Brodeur, Matt Jones, Ryan Lannon, Dylan Reese, Kurt Sauer, Keith Yandle.

Goalies: Al Montoya, Josh Tordjman.

May be able to listen on Rogers sportsnet west or hockeywebcasts.com or am960 hopefully one of those will work to get you some audio.

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Congrats to BillyT our former forward (the Pens have shaved their roster down to like 29 and Billy Thomas is hanging in there!)

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Articles everywhere! How the hell are we supposed to stay under the radar if everyone keeps shining spotlights on us?

http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/JimGintonio/34008

http://coyotes.nhl.com/team/app/?service=page&page=NewsPage&articleid=383113

(gonna have a show on tonight right after the game is over, don’t miss it)

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=250326

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/coyotes/articles/2008/09/23/20080923yotenb0924.html

(special nod goes out to Adam Keefe who took on Ivanans in the King’s Preseason game… the boy has a pair of cojones on him, thats for sure)

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news?slug=rm-phoenixpreview092308&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

(Jovo and DMo on a pairing? ummm nope can’t even see it…)

Okay thats all the news and notes I could get coherently in a single post… and since I still have tuns of other stuff that I haven’t finished writing up… I will leave you here with all this Yoties goodness…

For more sources of discussion and/or information, check the blog roll, PB is back in action over at Onefan’s Perspective, Tracey is back in Love w/ our Yotes over at TrueCoyotes Love and the kids in the AZSportshub Lockerroom are back on track as well as theNHLArena.com (congrats to Paul, who will be developing the Yoties section of the arena for the future)

Monday 9/15/08 was another great event. You have to love an opportunity to hobnob w/ our insanely friendly #1 goalie. Not to mention a much more relaxed Enver Lisin and fan favorite Derek Morris. Lots of laughter and smiles and even some parenting advice from the Bryz.

Breezy was blinged out and sporting super fly sunglasses, California style goalie chic. DMo was in his super favorite Tee and shorts (I think he basically has that Tshirt in his truck and drags it on for fan events so sticky kids and perfume from hell won’t get on the shirts he really likes) LOL

The Caravan stops are interesting this year in that they are all supporting Ice Arenas and bringing awareness to the valley that there are places to ice skate and lots of local ice leagues for all ages in the desert.

Coyotes seem to be following a blueprint of grass root growing of the sport. Thats a great thing. Shows they are becoming very forward thinking and long term in their planning.

BTinAZ got some more great photos HERE.

*** Looks like Wheels has landed. In Beantown. Lots of reports that the BigRig has chosen Boston as his team of choice. Since this entry is purely informational I will save you all from my vitriol and leave it at this barebones announcement.

*** Tampa Bay has apparently asked for permission to court Toc for an assistant coaching position. Many discussions out and about on whether thats a good thing or bad.

*** The Yotes have finally dumped 1060 for xtra 910 as the radio home of the team. Good riddance. You couldn’t hear 1060 across half the valley anyway. Many of us complained about the poor reception plenty of times, good to see the organization respond. Hopefully the radio hosts will be more proactive and proCoyotes at this station. The former flagship station mostly made fun of the team when they bothered to mention hockey at all. it looks like we’re even getting a new host for the extra shows and behind the scenes stuff.

Phoenix Coyotes Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Michael Bucek and Clear Channel Radio/Phoenix Vice President/Market Manager Joe Puglise announced today that they have agreed to a new radio broadcast partnership. with this agreement, XTRA Sports 910 will become the “Radio Home of the Coyotes,” covering the NHL club on 910 AM and on the web at www.xtra910.com.”We’re very excited about the coverage XTRA Sports 910 will provide to our fans” said Bucek. ”The Coyotes are proud to be a part of the station’s powerful lineup of local and national sports talk and high-profile live national radio play-by-play coverage.”

XTRA Sports 910, “The Valley’s Sports Leader”, will serve as the flagship station of the Coyotes Radio Network. Puglise also added, “We’re thrilled to be the new home and destination radio broadcast partner of the Phoenix Coyotes. As one of only a few top-tier major professional sport franchises in town, we look forward to a successful relationship and working well together for some time to come. This agreement makes complete strategic and financial sense for both XTRA Sports and the Coyotes.”

Broadcasters Bob Heethuis and Louie DeBrusk will continue to call all of the exciting Coyotes action. In addition to coverage of Coyotes games, the station will air pre and post-game Coyotes programming and a weekly magazine show hosted by XTRA Sports 910’s Luke Lapinski, who enters his first season as a Coyotes radio host.

More Bullets below

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