Season preview ran today, with a nice display package from David Wells on the front. Run out and get yours! Or if you’re cheap:
The big bigness story. Breaking down by position. Five questions for the season. We didn’t do player capsules this year, but there’s a little-more-detailed-than-usual roster. And a glance at the league. Name change, perhaps.
Status quo at practice. They did some hard-working, one-on-one things.
Received the new rule book today. Not too many changes, and I think they were all out there earlier:
- 5.1, the veterans rule, adds the one-player exemption for a guy at 320 games or fewer.
- 24 is eliminated: Gross misconducts are eliminated and merged into game misconducts.
- 25, penalty shots: 25.1 isn’t marked as new, but it explicitly permits the lacrosse-style goal (as long as the puck stays under the shoulders, and the player releases it below the crossbar) and the spinorama goal (as long as there’s continuous motion).
- 25.8 allows a penalty-shot call in the neutral zone or the offensive zone, rather than just over the red line. (This is also noted in Rule 57.3, tripping.)
- Similarly, 26.1, for awarded goals, makes the same change: if the player is in the clear from his own blue line or forward, and a foul takes it away, a goal is awarded. This also used to be from the red line in. (Again, this is also noted in Rule 57.4.)
- 56, interference, allows a major penalty with sufficient violence to the infraction in Rule 56.4; 56.5 requires a game misconduct to go with a major.
- 76.2 puts all faceoffs on a dot.
- 86.6: Warmup is 16 minutes.
Those are the ones that were marked and/or I caught, anyway.
Luch Aquino surfaces in Fort Wayne.
Wanna do my job for me next Friday? Gary might frown on that, actually, so strike that. But buy the right things and the Sound Tigers will bring you to a press conference. You have early deadlines and rampant “new media” commitments. Good luck.
Editing to add a really nice Frederic Cassivi story from Tim Leone, and Daryl Reaugh’s account of what we missed on Versus last night because of the shootout.