Happy I'm Not In DC!

It looks like the Hat Tricks made the right call in getting out of Washington last Friday. Another blizzard is hitting the DC area today with wind and snow all day today. For the first time in history the federal government has closed for three days in a row because the area's transportation systems (most notably Metro that operates Metrorail and Metrobus) can not operated. This also means that most companies in the area have also closed due to policies that follow the federal government with regard to closure due to inclement weather.

While it will only be 53 degrees here in Sarasota today we'll take it...at least we can see the sun!

Now if only the Red Wings could figure out how to put a win together...they lost again last night to the St. Louis Blues in a shootout 4-3.

NHL Releases 2009-10 National TV Schedule

The NHL released its national television schedule on August 20 for the 2009-10 season. Thanks to the "Winging It In Motown" blog for dissecting when the Wings will be on a national broadcast.

Some interesting items:

• The Red Wings and the Washington Capitals have the most games nationally televised with Boston and Pittsburgh coming in at 21 nationally televised games each.
• The first Wings game that will be seen nationally is against the St. Louis Blues on October 2 on the Versus network.
• Last game April 11, 2010 at the Chicago Blackhawks on NBC.
• The following item is only interesting to the Hat Trick...the Wings will be seen nationally at the Columbus Blue Jackets on my birthday...December 28!

Even with lowered expectations for the Wings upcoming season the Hat Trick is happy to see that the Wings still hold fan attention for nationally televised games. The Hat Trick is also personally selfish for this since a cost-cutting measure became necessary and I cancelled by NHL Center Ice package which I had for the sole reason of seeing all the Red Wings games. Now if only the Hat Trick can figure out how to watch some of these games on CBC's Hockey Night in Canada and avoid the Versus/NBC crowd altogether!

NHL Releases 2009-2010 Schedule

The NHL released its 2009-2010 schedule this past week. The Wings will open the season in Stockholm, Sweden against the St. Louis Blues on Friday, October 2 for back-to-back games. The first game at the JLA will be Thursday, October 8 against the Chicago Blackhawks. The NHL season will officially start on Thursday, October 1 with four games.

The Wing's schedule is fairly basic and doesn’t have any excitement like the previous January 1 outdoor game at Wrigley Field in Chicago. One interesting change is that the Wings will play the Washington Capitals both at the JLA and at the Verizon Center in Washington, DC. This is unusual as they usually just play each once, either in DC or at the JLA. The Hat Trick is hoping he can gain employment by the Tuesday, January 19, 2010 game so he can see it in person!

Hard to believe we are talking about the 09-10 season already…didn’t Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals just finish?