First Post Ever...

Ah yes, well then to the point; I have never done this before, and to be quite frank I have an excess of opinion and to be honest I think the people I personally know are a little tired of hearing it, so I shall use this as an outlet of sorts. On to my favourite topic - The Edmonton Oilers.

So Raffi, Joni, Stolly and Greener are on their way out; actually they're already gone. I confess to being a little disappointed with the fact Greene is gone, if for nothing else than his sense of humor. I also have to admit to being moderately un-impressed with the choice to move Stoll after one lackluster season, there were a lot of questions of whether he would ever recover from his concussion, and he certainly did not silence these inquiries with last season's effort; however I think I probably would have given him another shot. That said I can't say I am at all surprised that Raffi is on the outs, and after we acquired Lubomir Visnovsky in return for Stolly and Greener I definitely was not surprised when it turned up that Joni wasn't going to return to our organization.

To be honest I can't say I know much about any of the players we received in exchange, but I do remember cursing Visnovsky's name at least a few times while the Oilers were playing the Kings last season for reasons that can only be considered good now that he is to play for my team. From what I've heard he is an offensive defensemen who is an excellent powerplay quarterback he is also said to have fairly good skating ability but somewhat lacking in defensive responsibility. Okay so let me get this straight; We traded Matt Greene, one of our few stay-at-home defensemen and one of our best two-way forwards [last season excluded] who was also one of our most reliable penalty killers as well as a quarterback on our powerplay for an offensive defensemen who is a smooth skater and loves to jump in on the play. This made no sense until Joni was traded, then obviously it was a little easier to understand. Here's hoping Ladislav can step it up this season, I know he can, I see great potential in him to be a great defensive D-man with an offensive upside and if he can be a little more like what I believe he will become that would be great. [If that made sense at all.]

Alright so lets get this out of the way: To save you from trying to figure out for yourselves which players/teams are my favourites and which ones are on the other end of the stick I'll give you a short rundown.

Teams I like:
The Edmonton Oilers - Obviously. They are who I would refer to as 'my team.' Being from the Edmonton area I am obsessed with the Oilers and if I start talking about them it takes a lot to make me stop. I watch every game with the exception of games that I am away from my house for, then I have someone stationed in front of my television sending me frequent descriptive text messages explaining the current situation in the game. My family are enablers who say they think my love of the Oil is crazy and yet still buy me Oilers things all the time.

The Pittsburgh Penguins - I don't know exactly when this liking brewed, but one day I was watching a random game just because it was on and I found myself pulling for the Pens to pull it through, they were behind at the time which leads me to believe that I began to love them mostly because of the supposed 'underdog' status they had in that particular game which reminded me of the Oilers at that particular time. They lost the game, which also reminded me of the Oil.

The Ottawa Senators - I began to like this team about three or four years back, mostly because of their playing style, I enjoy watching them play regardless of the fact that they were horrendous the last half of last season despite the strong start.

Teams I Dislike:
Vancouver Canucks - There was a time when I would have placed Calgary in the top spot, but recently Vancouver has nestled itself into that spot and they don't seem to be leaving anytime soon.

Calgary Flames - I am from Edmonton and as such I was raised to hate Calgary, or at least harbour a healthy competitive dislike. Then when I moved there for a year in primary school I actually got a reason to dislike Calgary, not that this is any knock on the city or the people who live there, the atmosphere there is just much different then it is in Edmonton.

Toronto Maple Leafs - My dad loves this team, why? I have no idea, he's from Winnipeg so he can't even say he grew up there. I personally have a serious unfounded dislike for this team, why? As I said it is an unfounded dislike, thus it has no root, I just don't like the team.

Favourite Players:
On the Oilers: Ales Hemsky, Ladislav Smid, Sam Gagner, Kyle Brodziak.

On the Penguins: Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal, Petr Sykora, Kris Letang.

On the Senators: Antoine Vermette, Mike Fisher.

On other teams: Sergei and Andrei Kostitsyn, Rick Nash, Mike Green, Jonathan Teows.

I'd get into players I don't like but I don't really like to pin-point certain people or players as ones that I don't like as I often won't dislike then in about a week or two.

Any way it is almost 12:00 AM so I think I shall go and sleep for a couple hours until I'm up waiting for news on the Hossa front, which I am also torn on.
I love Hossa's upsides, as there are many, but the financial end of it worries me a little but I'm sure if the deal does go through that management has a plan for the financial stuff, or maybe I'm putting to much faith in the management.

Time will tell.