Our hotel in San Jose is right down the street from Zoom’s head office. I’m tempted to stand outside and shout “Thanks for taking the conference call and making it infinitely worse, you f*****s!”

Woke up to the hotel swaying in San Jose last night. www.sfchronicle.com/california/a...

A stick tap to our United Airlines pilot on our flight this morning from Fort Lauderdale who announced before takeoff that due to incoming weather, we would be sitting out a ground hold of at least three hours. He paused and followed it up with “April Fools.” Most—but not all—of us laughed.

There will be talk in Toronto that the Leafs need an experienced General Manager, but it’s also worth pointing out that some of most successful GM’s in recent years (Julien BriseBois-TB, Kent Hughes-MTL, Kelly McCrimmon-VGK, Chris McFarlane-COL, Pat Verbeek-ANA and Bill Zito—FLA) are first time GMs.

On his 73rd birthday, IIHF president Luc Tardif announces that he will not be seeking another term. He guided the IIHF through the challenges of Covid and the fallout of the Russian invasion of Ukraine with a steady hand, while also successfully negotiating the return of NHL players to the Olympics.

No Nikita Kucherov or Nick Paul in the warmup for Tampa as the Lightning play host to the Senators at 1pm et.

I don’t think he could hear me 😊

Sincere condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of the two Air Canada pilots who were tragically killed last night in the crash at NY’s LaGuardia Airport. If you’re traveling in the near future, keep in mind that Air Canada employees are working with heavy hearts.

The @iihf runs 40+ men’s and women’s tournaments over the course of a season in various divisions, like the recently completed MU18 Div IIIB in Hong Kong. They don’t get noticed a lot and they generate very little revenue but they’re a big part of supporting and growing the game globally.

Troy captained Canada to its’ first ever World Junior Championship in 1982, was a heart and soul NHL player, a terrific broadcaster and an absolute joy to be around. RIP 🙏

Ranked by Pts %, Edmonton is currently 9th in the Western Conference standings: Central 1. COL .762 2. DAL .694 3. MIN .667 Pacific 1. ANA .589 2. VGK .571 3. SEA .549 Wild Card 1. UTA .565 2. SJS .542 ——————— 3. EDM .540 4. LAK .525 5. NSH .516

As we mark the 4th anniversary of the full scale invasion of Ukraine, the people there remain defiant and strong. I was proud to partner with the Canada/Ukraine Foundation to raise funds to send 125 parahockey sleds to Ukraine to help men and women of all ages continue their rehabilitation journey.

Correction: Canada played in three of the four Gold Medal Game Shootouts, Sweden defeated Switzerland at the 2018 Men’s worlds.

There were fears of multiple OT periods, which would cause trouble for international broadcast partners and in the case of the Olympics,overlap with the closing ceremony. The IIHF decided to adopt the NHL's 3 on 3 OT format, which makes multiple OT periods highly unlikely. 3/3

Canada played in all four of those games, and led the push to have gold medal game OT's continue until a winning goal was scored, the feeling being that shootouts are a bad way for GMGs to end. 2/3

Here’s how the IIHF's 3 on 3 OT format in gold medal games came to be. Prior to 2019, tied gold medal games had one full sudden death period of 4 on 4 and then a shootout. The gold medal games of the 2017 WJC, the 2018 MWC, the 2018 WOG and the 2019 WWC were all settled in shootouts. 1/3

Tomorrow everyone will be asking: when will the Russo-Ukrainian war end? The right question is: what can we do to make the Russian invasion fail?

The charter flights carrying the Canadian and American NHL players back to North America were originally scheduled to fly from Milan to JFK airport in NY Monday morning, but they’ve been diverted to Miami due to the storm hitting the east coast. The players will disperse from there.

QF and SF games have 10 min OTs and a shootout if necessary, gold medal games are played until there’s a winner, so there is an intermission before OT starts.

Well, no lower seeds won today, but 3 of the 4 QF games did go to OT 😊

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 35+ years covering @iihf.bsky.social events, it’s that in a four game quarterfinal format, at least one lower seed will beat a higher seed in the QFs.

Greatest female player of all time.

A great escape last week to Runaway Hill Inn on Harbour Island, Bahamas. Terrific location, great staff and the innkeeper puts a lot of passion and effort into it. No surprise there, it’s owned by Mark Messier.

Alex Vesia addressed the media today for the first time about his daughter’s death during the World Series. He thanked the Dodgers and Blue Jays for their support, and encouraged people who are struggling to seek therapy. Hat tip to @fabianardaya.bsky.social for transcribing Vesia’s full statement.

Marie-Philip Poulin needs to get healthy. Quickly.

This was complete domination by the US. Some of the numbers from Sportlogiq: USA CAN Expected goals 3.05 0.61 High Danger Chances 13 3 O Zone Time 28:20 18:38 Puck Battle Win % 71.4% 28.6%

I was ridiculed on the other site several years ago for suggesting that the IOC was going to have to take some kind of action because climate change was severely limiting the number of countries willing/able to host the Winter Olympics. Well, here we are: apple.news/ABndY28nlRA6...

Awful news. An absolutely brilliant performer and a kind, generous human being.

Just dropping this here.

Sens G Linus Ullmark sat down with TSN’s Claire Hanna and discussed his leave of absence from the team. Full sit down will be posted to TSN's YouTube channel and TSN.ca later today.

I predict stormy seas ahead for the Bills…

At the @iihf.bsky.social Women’s U18 tournament, Hungary defeated Finland 7-5 in the relegation game. This will mark the first time in the history of the IIHF that a Finnish team will not be in the top division of a men’s or women’s competition.

The key moment to tragedy is when the audience can not only recognize that the protagonist is doomed, but why.

It begins…

I have resigned myself to the fact that my on-air admonishment of Tusky the Utah Mammoth mascot for blocking my view while I was calling the game (“Dude!”) is going to go very viral tomorrow.

Salt Lake City tonight.

As a friend of mine who works in sports often says: “Nightmares are dreams too.”

I stopped interacting on the other site a year and a half ago. I knew then it was the right decision, multiple events in the past week have strongly served to reinforce that. Unfortunately, it’s usually very easy to see who uses the other place as their primary source for news and information.

Happy New Year! Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and peaceful 2026. There will likely be some tough times, let’s stick together, be kind to one another and most of all recognize those who are struggling and give them our support. And let’s continue to push back against injustice and unfairness.

The IIHF ruling on the unsuccessful Canadian challenge is that Carter George's glove was outside the crease and that Saaralainen was legally trying to swat the puck when he inadvertently hit George's glove. Had his glove been in the crease the goal would hae been overturned

Do we repeat information as the tournament goes along? Yes. We don’t assume that everyone watches every minute of every game.

Preparing to embark on my 25th #WorldJuniors as the play by play announcer. Here are some reminders of our approach to this tournament: First off, the pronunciation of the players names. Each team has given us an audio recording, we will use them as a guide, recognizing linguistic differences.

34 World Junior Championships…hard to believe. For the third straight year I’ll call games involving players whose dads also played in tournaments I’ve done: 2024 Jorian Donovan (Shawn 95) 2025 Ethan Gauthier (Denis 96) 2026 Tij Iginla (Jarome 96) I don’t plan to do games involving grandkids.

Christmas/Picture/practice day for Canada at the #WorldJuniors

A Christmas gift from Latvian head coach Artis Abols at the #WorldJuniors. It frightens me a little.

Merry Christmas from St. Paul, MN to all my followers, their families and friends. Hoping it is a time of joy and peace 🎄

Scores from the final day of competition at the IIHF WJC Div 1A tournament in Bled, Slovenia: Ukraine 🇺🇦 3 France 🇫🇷 2 Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 5 Austria 🇦🇹 4 Norway 🇳🇴 9 Slovenia 🇸🇮 2 Norway finishes first, is promoted to the 2027 World Junior Championship in Edmonton/Red Deer. France is relegated to Div 1B.

Standings through 4/5 rounds: Pts Norway 🇳🇴 11 Austria 🇦🇹 9 Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 6 Slovenia 🇸🇮 6 Ukraine 🇺🇦 3 France 🇫🇷 1 Top team earns promotion to the 2027 IIHF WJC in Edmonton/Red Deer, bottom team is relegated to Division IB

Scores from day five of the IIHF WJC Div 1A tournament in Bled, Slovenia: Austria 🇦🇹 9 Ukraine 🇺🇦 2 Norway 🇳🇴 10 Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 2 Slovenia 🇸🇮 5 France 🇫🇷 4 (OT)