Hawks: ESPN the Mag and the Cap, Sky: eh

Four Hawks made the cover of ESPN the magazine (Toews will eat your babies), and as Yahoo points out, that's not a good thing.

ESPN The Magazine has featured hockey on its cover 12 times since 1998
...

If you're one of those folks that believes an image on the cover of a magazine (or video game) can inflict some sort of voodoo curse on an athlete or team, you might be interested to know that only one of the 12 cover subjects went on to win the Stanley Cup

Yahoo also calls out the rag for making the statement that even signing two of their three best players (Duncan Keith, Jonathan Toews, and Patrick Kane) "nearly impossible".

It's going to take some mountain-moving salary-wise, but negotiations will be ongoing with the trio and there's a chance two of them could be signed before Summer 2010 even hits.

Keeping three of them? Really, really tough. Keeping two of them? We'd file that under "likely," wouldn't you?

So which two do you bring back? Obviously all three would be lovely but that just ain't going to happen. My vote goes with Toews and Keith--but by Merlin's Beard do I love Kane and his ability to handle the puck. Makes my peepee tingle.


The Sky extend their GM and head coaches contract by two years. In other news, I just learned that the Sky have a GM and head coach.

Key managed improvements in the Sky’s overall record in each of his first two seasons as head coach. In his first year, the Sky went 12-22. In his second season, he improved team depth by bringing in several new athletes to complement the all star line up of Candice Dupree, Jia Perkins and Sylvia Fowles. Despite Fowles missing 10 games in 2009 due to injury, the Sky under Coach Key’s leadership finished 16-18, establishing a new franchise record for wins in a season and nearly making the franchise’s first playoff berth.