Former NHL journeyman left winger Donald Brashear has made a great career decision as he approaches his 40th birthday — he’s getting into mixed martial arts. USA Today is reporting that the currently semi-pro hockey star has signed a contract with promoter Ringside MMA for a minimum of one fight, with possibly as many as three fights set to take place, including a rumored bout on the Ringside 11 car at the Quebec Coliseum on June 4th.

The 6-foot-3, 237-pound Brashear played for the Canadiens, Canucks, Flyers, Capitals and Rangers throughout his NHL career, and is mostly famous for that one time when he pissed off the Boston Bruins so badly that Marty McSorely slashed him in the back of the head with his stick. He’s also semi-famous for a 2000 assault charge wherein he roughing a guy up at the gym for complaining about a baby crawling on the exercise machines. This combination of brain concussion and irrational anger makes Brashear a perfect candidate for MMA.

I guess the major challenge is going to be learning how to fight without pulling on somebody’s sweater. Maybe he’ll innovate the sport and figure out how to pull someone’s sponsored jam shorts up over their head.

With his Philadelphia Flyers down 2-0 very early in the game against the Carolina Hurricanes, coach Peter Laviolette needed a way to motivate his team and get them to score goals. After bringing them to the bench during a timeout, did he have any kind of new strategy for them to try? No. I guess that means Laviolette needed to fall back to plan B: yell a lot, get really angry and punch one of your players in the head. I honestly don’t see how that wouldn’t work.

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With the Philadelphia Flyers on the verge of Stanley Cup elimination on their own ice at the Wachovia Center, the attention has been turned away from tonight’s Game 6 in Philly and focused on the Chicago Tribune’s latest attempt at sports rivalry humor – a graphic portraying “Chrissy” Pronger in a skirt, and declaring that he “Looks like Tarzan, skates like Jane.” Despite the distraction, Pronger has mostly ignored the jab, which makes one of us. I just can’t tell where his legs stop and his neck starts.

With the Flyers down 3-2 to the Chicago Blackhawks and facing their fourth elimination game of these playoffs, Pronger told reporters that he doesn’t bother reading anything that’s written about him – good or bad. The Tribune’s editorial staff, in the face of accusations that the image and accompanying copy are sexist, responded that the intent was all in harmless fun, and that nobody should be upset about some good, old-fashioned tomfoolery. Besides, with sexy pictures like that, it’s not like anyone reads the Tribune for the articles.

Photoshop my bikini line, USA Today:

Tribune sports editor Mike Kellams told the New York Daily News that the paper did not intend to be offensive but “there is no other guy in orange who commands attention like Chris Pronger does…he’s the villain, he’s the enemy. We were just trying to tap into that emotion that is unique to sports, and we were just trying to have some fun in the paper. I don’t think that’s against the law.”

Team USA women’s hockey captain Angela Ruggiero doesn’t see anything funny in the Tribune’s efforts, though, responding:

“I’d like to see that editor out on skates. I’ll take them one-on-one on the ice any day,” Ruggiero said. “They obviously have never seen women’s hockey and are living in the dark ages. … Obviously it’s offensive. It’s disappointing more than anything.”

As the one-time owner of a Manon Rheaume rookie card, I am offended as well. I can’t believe I paid $6 for it. Tribune sports editor Mike Kellams said he’s received mixed reactions to the graphic, adding: “Johnny Weir LOVED it!” Ruggiero is hosting her hockey camp for girls in Illinois this month and has said that she refuses to purchase a Tribune newspaper, making her no different than 90 percent of Americans.

After a high flying game one that severely deviated from both teams’ style of play, game two of the Stanley Cup playoffs reverted back to the hard nosed brand of hockey everyone was expecting.

Early story lines revolved around the controversial decision by Flyers coach Peter Laviolette to bench prized rookie James van Riemsdyk in favor of the, well, angrier Danny Carcillo. A healthy scratch for the last three games, Carcillo was activated so he could do what he does best, which is run into stuff at high velocities. And boy did ever. Alas, his most notable victim wasn’t a Blackhawk playmaker but teammate Jeff Carter.

As a botched head hunting expedition midway throught the first period intended for Tomas Kopecky went awry, Carcillo plowed full bore into a helpless Carter for a bone crushing gore of the worst variety. Unfortunately for the Flyers, Carcillo decided that if he couldn’t put down a Blackhawk on the ice as he intended, he might as well pull out his bag of wits and engage in some old fashioned verbal bench to bench sparring with Blackhawk Adam Burish. After Burish cracked that the incident was Carcillo’s “First big hit of the year,” NBC cameras caught Carcillo shooting back a garbled stream of brainless f-bombs that had Flyers fans shaking their heads in disgust. Read the rest of this entry »

The Stanley Cup Final will deliver a marquee matchup for the third straight year. After the Philadelphia Flyers managed to dispatch that pesky Montreal squad in five games, they’ll face the Chicago Blackhawks in Game 1 starting on Saturday. Whoa…Saturday? They’re gonna take four days off? What kind of hotel is this?

Anyway, if you’re not a fan of hockey, here are a couple storylines that everyone is following: Flyers captain Mike Richards actually picked up the Wales conference championship trophy, which traditionally has been a no-no, but they’re from Philly. They specialize in unruliness. And then there’s Patrick Kane leading the Blackhawks; he and teammate Jonathan Toews are third and first in playoff points scored, respectively. You might remember Kane as the guy that punched out that cab driver last year. That was fun. I mean…not for the cabbie, obviously.

In one of the less shocking stories in sports history, Philadelphia Flyers fans trashed a car after Philly’s Sunday night thrashing of the Montreal Canadiens, presumably because it had Montreal plates. On any given gameday, it’s just another case of empty beer cans littered on the opposing team’s car. But since it’s Philadelphia, throw in a slashed tire, broken hubcap, stolen bug guard, vanished license plates, and the fact that it belongs to Montreal Gazette hockey writer Pat Hickey. Sacre bleu!

Hickey apparently missed the opportunity to park in the designated media lot, thus having to park in general population. His Quebecois license plates then became chum to a sea of sharks. The vandalism to Hickey’s 1999 Honda Accord (line forms to the left, ladies) has drawn a great deal of media attention in the wake of a post-game riot in Montreal when the Habs beat the Penguins. Hickey is using the vandalism to his car as a battle cry to sports fans: “GET OFF MY LAWN, YOU PUNKS!”

Whip some batteries of justice at me, Pat:

There were several incidents at Game 1 of the Flyers-Canadiens series here Sunday night. I saw fans in Canadiens jerseys heckled, which is fair game. I also saw several of them being bumped around, which isn’t acceptable.

Some vandals pulled the plug on a pregame telecast by Radio-Canada and another Canadian TV crew was harassed. (Montreal Gazette)

Hickey’s biggest problem with the vandalism to his car was the theft of his license plates, because that means he’d have to deal with people at customs when crossing the border back to Canadia. He even had a good sense of humor about it when Canadiens coach Jacques “Strap” Martin asked him, “Hey Pat, you got a car I can borrow?” Added Martin, “Aw haw haw, zee comedee!”

Citing Philadelphia’s most popular moment of fan discretion, Hickey likens the vandalism to Eagles fans hurling snowballs at Santa Claus. That’s really unfair to Philadelphia fans, seeing as that happened in 1968. Most of Philly’s violent fans weren’t even born yet. Give them time to blossom, Pat.