Saturday Shootaround #9

A friend asked me why I number these "Saturday Shootaround" posts if "Saturday Shootaround" isn't a thing. Well, if they become a thing, then I will know how many I typed out before officially calling them a thing. I'm still not sure if "Saturday Shootaround" is a thing, so...

1. The news are preliminary, but NHL.com reports the Montreal Canadiens fired head coach Jacques Martin this morning o_O Considering their 13-12-7 record is good for propping up the other teams in the Northeast Division, I don't blame them for making the change. This is the sixth firing so far this season, and it's not even Christmas yet! One league is firing all of its head coaches, and another league is looking to hire big name coaches. I wonder how football coach Jon Gruden would handle the Montreal Canadiens? Anyone picture Brian Billick yelling about the 'lethargic' offense from behind the bench in Los Angeles? No...okay. When he lost his job in Ottawa, Martin went to the Siberian outpost of coaching spots in the National Hockey League, which is Florida (not so cold). No doubt, after bringing the Canadiens back from mediocrity, he will have another head coaching spot in a year or so. Randy Cunneyworth is the interim head coach for Montreal in the meantime.
2. Dave Semenko must be proud ^_^ Another hockey organization retired the #27 in his honour. I'm just kidding, they retired #27 in honour of former Devils defenseman Scott Niedermayer. The future Hall-of-Famer played on all three of the Devils' Cup-winning teams in 1995, 2000, and 2003 (Wow, spanning two decades ^_^). He also amassed 172 goals, and 740 points in just 1200 regular season games for the Devils (1991-2004) and Ducks (2006-2010), with whom he won his fourth Stanley Cup in 2006 over the lousy Ottawa Senators. Niedermayer's #27 is the third number retired by the New Jersey Devils organization, and joins fellow blueliners Ken Daneyko (#3) and Scott Stevens (#4) as the only men to be so honoured. Oh yeah, in his last year of professional hockey he played on Team Canada in the 2010 Winter Olympics, and won his second gold medal (Not that we care so much about hockey up here in Canada...). No Devils forwards received honours quite like this so far, which tells you something about the brand of hockey played in New Jersey, but they don't care: How many Cups did the Leafs win since I was alive? Yea, that's what they asked me, too -_-
3. Hey, look at that! Martin Brodeur and former Devils coach Larry Robinson are in the background of that picture I embedded in the previous point! Why it was only yesterday that I saw this on YouTube...(Dream sequence). Wow, they look...exactly the same o_O

To end this post, enjoy this video from the Scott Niedermayer retirement ceremony which took place yesterday ^_^ Where did I put it? Oh yeah, there it is.