Actress Elisha Cuthbert, who is currently dating Maple Leafs Captain Dion Phaneuf, was spotted rolling her eyes at April Reimer, the wife of Maple Leafs goalkeeper James Reimer. The incident occurred just after the final goal was scored by the Bruins. The pair’s upset-looking glances inspired speculation in the tabloids that the pair might be having a fued:

It turns out, however, that the two are just fine, and Reimer tweeted a pic out to prove it. She states that she and Cuthbert were, in fact, rolling their eyes at “the jerk beside us,” who she claims made a rude comment:

Follow @april_reimer

April Reimer
@april_reimer

For those who were thinkin @happyelishas and I were rolling our eyes @ eachother. Was the jerk beside us #rudecommenthttp://t.co/zcZ6bEgwdS

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13 hours ago via Photos on iOS · powered by @socialditto

Cuthbert backed up Reimer with her own tweet, stating that she is “insulted and disappointed” by the comments she has gotten:

Follow @HappyElishas

Elisha Cuthbert
@HappyElishas

Things are not always what they seem. I’m insulted and disappointed by a lot of these Comments. That’s real. Not a 3 sec. Clip.

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12 hours ago via Twitter for iPad · powered by @socialditto

Upon close inspection of the video, Reimer’s explanation of the event seems true. The man sitting beside her can be seen saying something just before the eye roll, and Reimer even looks over at the man before casting her gaze up at Cuthbert. Though it’s impossible to know for sure what the man said, it’s a decent guess that it had something to do with James Reimer’s goaltending skills.

This week EA and the NHL announced that voting for the cover athlete for the upcoming NHL 14 has begun. Fans can vote at NHL.com/covervote. The voting will begin with 60 finalists that will be pared down in two preliminary voting rounds. A 16-player bracket will then determine the winner, who will be revealed during the Stanley Cup Final.

“These 60 NHL stars are excited to be finalists in the vote campaign that will see the fans ultimately select the EA SPORTS NHL 14 cover athlete,” said Adam Larry, director of licensing for the NHL Player’s Association. “Following an impressive level of fan and player engagement shown in the cover vote last year, we are looking forward to seeing how the bar will be raised this year.”

The voting will not be a simple popularity poll. Fans can vote as many times as they want, and using player-specific hashtags on Twitter can count as two votes if tweeted on Thursdays.

Despite admitting his crimes to authorities, Scurko claimed he was tricked by police into confessing to the murder. However, none of this seemed to matter in the long run, as the former NHL draft pick was convicted of murdering Marek Liptaj, and is currently staring down eight years in prison, which is the maximum sentence for this sort of behavior. Curiously, while he was awaiting trial for the stabbing, Scurko was still allowed to play hockey in Slovakia; since 2011, he has laced up for both HK Slovan Gelnica and HK Trebisov.

“After the final speech of evidence were presented. They gave the prosecutor, the injured party’s legal representative, advocate the defendant, substitute counsel and the defendant himself,” Slovakian authorities said in a statement. “The conclusions of the psychiatric examinations Ščurko act committed in a state of diminished sanity, the court considered a mitigating factor and therefore imposed a sentence at the lower rate. The court imposed a protective psychiatric outpatient treatment by a prisoner. The sentences him among the facilities for imprisonment with moderate surveillance.”

Following his stint with the Philadelphia Flyers, Scurko was drafted by the Seattle Thunderbirds. In 2007, Ladislav moved back to Slovakia to play professional hockey.

Image provided courtesy of CAS.SK

In backstopping the Kings to the cup, Jonathan Quick became the 3rd American to win the Con Smythe trophy which is given to the playoff MVP. He joins Brian Leetch (1994) and Tim Thomas (20011) in that exclusive club. In another great thing the captain of the L.A. Kings Dustin Brown joins Darien Hatcher as the only 2 American born captains to ever win the Stanley cup.

The game was never close after a vicious boarding call 10:10 into the first period led to a 5 minute major that had the Kings scoring 3 goals. “I wish I could take that play back,” said journeyman forward Steve Bernier. “I didn’t want to hurt my team. I wanted to help them. This is extremely hard. It’s been a long playoff run for us. To finish on that note, it’s not fun for sure. But there’s nothing I can do now.” They added a fourth goal in the second period and a fifth goal with the goalie pulled in the third period. The Kings also tied a record in only losing 4 games in route to the oldest trophy in North America.

The Kings shot out to an early 3-0 series lead before losing two straight elimination games. “You never know. You get to the dance, you never know what’s going to happen,” Captain Dustin Brown said. “We calmed down after losing two. It was the first time we had done that all playoffs, and we finally got off to a good start.”

“We never lost our confidence,” Goalie Jonathan Quick said. “We had to take it on the chin to keep moving, losing two, and we looked at it as, ‘Hey, we still have to win one game to win a championship. And we have two chances.’ Finally, we were able to do it at home.”

We asked David when his love of hockey fights began, and how the idea for the site came about.

“In one of the first few games I went to as a kid there was a fight. It’s impossible not to notice the energy it brought to the arena. It was just like a goal. I didn’t appreciate fighting until I was a little older and understood the role it could play in a game (something that’s been forever debated). I wanted to track fights the way others track goals and other statistics. Penalty minutes were always being kept, but I wanted to know how many times someone was fighting, and who they were fighting. I started keeping some numbers and talking about local teams. It snowballed from there.”

Moving on to the popularity of his site the question of his daily visitor numbers growing exponentially in post-lockout hockey came up. “It took a couple of years post-lockout for the site to have bigger growth,” said Singer. “The first, and most obvious reason, is there weren’t as many fights in the seasons after the lockout. A close second was just re-gaining the hockey community in general. Many, especially the diehard fans that visit hockeyfights.com, were turned off by the league shutting down for a season. While the league has rebounded, some have never come back.”

This brought me to wondering if his site sees a bigger uptick in views when 2 heavyweights go at it, or when there is an incident like last year’s Islanders v Penguins brawl, or maybe when a star drops em like Crosby or Ovetchkin? “The site is definitely event-driven. A brawl can trigger traffic.” He went on to say, “Some stars can, but it’s not as predictable as one might think. Sometimes a player from a European country that usually doesn’t fight drops the gloves and I’ve got a huge influx of traffic from his home country and ex-pats everywhere. Just as much as a fight, big news can do the same. There is the hockey in hockeyfights.com and big trades or signings or any other big news can drive visits.”

One of the more publicized things this year has been head shots and how the NHL is dealing with them. Many players have gotten suspensions. I wondered what is the one thing that could get rid of them? Smaller pads? The repeal of the instigator? David had a thoughtful answer about this touchy subject.

“Repealing the instigator would help in my opinion, but it would take time and lenient coaching. I’m not sure most teams have that sort of patience anymore. Either way, I don’t expect it to happen, even though I’d like to see it. Ironically, I think it’d curb fighting in the long-run. As for head shots in general, especially those that cause injury, I think there are a few things that can be done to help. Equipment should be an easy fix. Too many use it as weapons, or consider it armor. With technology today, there has to be a way to protect players without allowing that protection to hurt others. However, I don’t think that’s the main cause. A lot of it is players looking for a huge, video game-style hit. They’ve been taught to do that from the earliest of lessons. ‘Finish your checks.’ I can’t think of a coach that hasn’t said that. Sometimes, you don’t need to wipe a guy out to do that, but in a day of sprint shifts and the fourth line always wondering if they’ll be scratched or sent to the minors, they’re rarely going to let up on someone. I think it’s something that needs to be adjusted at the lowest levels and the higher leagues need to make sure they keep with that approach. Adding to that are players that put themselves in bad positions looking to draw a penalty, something else they’ve been taught. It’s a bad combination.”

For years all we see is talking heads on ESPN saying that fighting in Hockey is ruining the game and that if it ever wants to go mainstream they need to get rid of it. That got me wondering about who really wants to get rid of fighting in hockey? Is it just non-fans and journalists? Could we really see a day when there is no fighting in hockey? He said, “You’ve hit it: non-fans and some of the media are the largest supporters of trying to take fighting out of hockey, or adjust the penalties for it. Poll after poll shows the players, ‘hockey people’ (non-media, in the business) and most of all, the fans, like it in the game the way it is. I don’t think trying to remove it would benefit the game, and I don’t think it’ll draw in more fans, either. I don’t know if you’ll ever see a day with no fighting whatsoever. No matter what the rules are fights happen in all leagues and all sports, just at varying levels.”

Fights are good for hockey, whether people admit it or not, when stuff like this happens on the opening faceoff, not one single fan leaves that arena while play is going on for any reason, even if it is a blowout:

Devils vs Rangers start of game line brawl Mar 19, 2012.

With over 45,000 likes on Facebook, he gets a lot of attention that was recently brought to the forefront by his posts on Facebook saying Goodbye, (Enter Team) when someone was eliminated from the playoffs. When he posted this, it gave him a barometer of fan hate towards a team. His assumption, by looking at the data, is what you would expect. That the teams with the longer record of being good have the most vocal fans and the most detractors means those posts get the most like and comments.

Every year Hockeyfights.com posts a little award type show with several categories for things like Best feud and best old school moment. Well the main category as one can expect is the fight of the year. This year’s list is pretty good:

Tanner Glass vs Cody McCormick

Jay Rosehill vs Brian McGrattan

Eric Boulton vs Chris Neil

Cam Janssen vs Micheal Haley

Mike Brown vs Kris Newbury

The voting process is very simple. Just go to Hockeyfights.com and join. You can then vote on any fight, how good it was, how rested the players are, and you will never be the same. I know I have gotten caught in this website for hours at a time.

Fred Weiss says that he signed up to recieve texts that included special offers on ticket prices, and important developments like trades and breaking news. He says that he began receiving texts in excess of what they said they were going to send when he signed up.

Weiss complained that the team intentionally broke their own rule about the number of texts they would send. The team set a weekly limit of three texts per week. Weiss says he received five on the first week and four on the second.

In a complaint, he says the Penguins violated the Telephone and Consumer Protection Act by overstepping the agreed upon number of text messages. He filed it on May 25th with the Central District of California District Court.

The complaint seeks statutory and punitive damages of an unspecified amount and for the Penguins to stop sending texts to its fans in excess of the agreed limit. He is seeking class action status for the suit, so the Penguins could owe for all the excessive texts they have sent to fans, not just Weiss.

If the Penguins send texts in excess of what they said under contract, they could very well be liable for the data service the consumers had to pay for those texts. This is just one man’s opinion, but a punitive amount seems frivolous in this case, as no significant harm was done. They only exceeded the text limit by three in Weiss’ case. If he didn’t like receiving that many texts all he has to do is unsubscribe. There are other ways of following the news on your favorite team.

He obviously isn’t that big of a fan, anyway. He’s trying to cripple the team financially with a frivolous lawsuit.

[source: Mashable]

The court record can be viewed here.

The board of education got word of what happened and stepped in with punishments for the offending students:

“Students involved in a stream of racist comments targeting Joel Ward — the Washington Capitals’ player whose goal eliminated the Boston Bruins from Stanley Cup play April 18, and one of hockey’s few black players — would “lose participation in a sport for a considerable length of time,” and any of them with “leadership opportunities in extracurricular activities, or sports,” will forfeit those as well.”

The hammer was thrown down because the board felt like these students were poor representations of the school, so now this seems like a rule now that while you are a minor in school you cannot do anything without the fear of being suspended. Even in your own home.

Last night during the game 7 overtime, Washington Capitals forward Joel Ward, who is black, scored an overtime goal to eliminate the defending champion Boston Bruins from the playoffs. What followed is nothing short of disgusting. On Twitter the racism started spewing from Boston fans about Ward. Saying things like “Of course it’s the f***ing n***er. White power!” and “that n***er deserves to hang.” This is real unfortunate because it puts hockey into an unfortunate light. These days it seems like the only time the NHL is on the news is when there is a head injury or some talking head is trying to get fighting banned. This is so much worse than that though. This racism came from Boston fans in the US, other times it has happened in Canada.

I am a huge hockey fan, I have been a New York Rangers fan since 1996, this makes me sad because I want hockey to be the #1 sport.I cannot believe that people still do that! Listening to talk radio it seems that people in boston tend to be a little racist. I don’t really buy into branding an entire town or people as any one certain thing, but I do have to say that this is not the first time that I have heard the racist thing and Boston thing in the same sentence.

Below are some of the offensive tweets.

Be warned

that they are graphic and do contain racial slurs. There is a site called Chirpstory that compiled a lot of the tweets if you want to see about 50 of them. The majority of the offending Tweets have been taken down, but here are some that are still up:

It’s simple – all you have to do is follow the NHL on Foursquare and check-in at certain times, with certain shoutouts to get the badge:

Follow NHL on foursquare to get insider tips about your favorite teams, players, and arenas. And, even though you may never get to touch the The Cup, you can unlock the Stanley Cup badge by checking in to any playoff game, or by checking in anywhere during one of the games and mentioning your favorite playoff team (make sure to follow NHL on foursquare first!). Don’t forget to share photos when you check in!

The NHL is also promoting more Foursquare specials, including buy one get one free hat deals at the NHL store in NYC.

Tonight, last year’s champion Boston Bruins take on the Washington Capitals in Game one of the Eastern Conference finals. Make sure you put down your beer and check-in for this exclusive badge.

Crosby missed the first 20 games of the 2011–12 season due to the lingering effects of his concussion. He returned on November 21, 2011 against the New York Islanders, scoring two goals and two assists in a 5–0 shutout win for the Penguins. However, after playing another seven games, for a total of 12 points in 8 games, Crosby’s concussion-like symptoms returned in December 2011, possibly following an elbow hit by David Krejci in his eighth game of the season. Despite passing a successful ImPACT test, Crosby decided not to return on the ice until he felt perfectly fine, stating that he also needs to “listen to [his] body”. Crosby returned to action once again on March 15, scoring an assist in a 5–2 win against the New York Rangers.

Yesterday marked the 10th time in 48 games that the Flyers held Crosby without a point. Crosby was a minus-1 with seven attempts at the net and no hits in 17:37 of ice time in his third game back since suffering a concussion/neck injury on Dec. 5.

Crosby entered the game with 36 assists and 26 goals for 62 points in 36 career regular-season games against the Flyers. It was his first game in Philadelphia since Dec. 14, 2010, when the Penguins also had a lengthy (12-game) winning streak snapped

In response to his team’s subtle defeat, Crosby stated, “I had a couple of good chances in overtime. We just need to execute, hopefully those go in. We did some good things, but probably left it to the back end a little bit there in the third [period]. It’s just a matter of executing. But they are a good team and they battled back.”

But the Penguins are a force to be reckoned with: “Yesterday was just the 13th time over the last two seasons that Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and defenseman Kris Letang all played in the same game. That trio could spell trouble for the Flyers in the playoffs, as the two teams remain each other’s most likely first-round opponent in a 4 vs. 5 matchup.”

The Flyers have kept Crosby scoreless in only two of 11 career playoff games, as compared to eight times in 37 regular-season games.

Hopefully Crosby’s health will stay in tact for the remainder of the season.