Hill is a hunk

With all the doom and gloom surrounding the Blue Jays and how their bubble has burst, we could use a little levity.

Towards that end, I picked the brain of the lovely and talented Jennifer Rolnick who produces Hockeycentral at Noon and Prime Time Sports on Rogers Sportsnet. The Jays game day souvenir program is filled with mug shots of all the players and I asked Jen to identify the best looking Jay.

In the end, she narrowed it down to a pair of finalists: Casey Janssen and Aaron Hill.

The lucky, and good-looking, winner?

We'll leave it to Jen to explain.

"I'll go with Aaron Hill because he's hitting."

Something that, based on their nine-game losing skid, most of the Jays have forgotten how to do.

A cheap shot, yes, but don't forget we're trying to keep things light, right?

Shero the hero

If the Conn Smythe trophy was handed out today, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin would get a lot of votes.

But another Penguin might be more responsible than anybody for Pittsburgh's success.

.

General manager Ray Shero did a remarkable job re-structuring a club that was in grave danger of missing the playoffs half-way through the season. From firing coach Michel Therrien, who the players had tuned out, to bringing in veteran grit in the form of Craig Adams, Bill Guerin and Chris Kunitz, Shero gave his team the necessary boost to get them back to the Cup final.

While Shero obviously can't be named playoff MVP, it's a crime the NHL doesn't have an award for GMs. The Jack Adams trophy honours the coach of the year and GMs should receive the same type of recognition.

If there was such an award, Shero would definitely be one of the three finalists.

And the name of the hardware?

You can't go wrong with the Sam Pollock trophy, honouring the memory of the former GM who led Montreal to nine Stanley Cups.

Mixing up the media

Thank the hockey gods that the Stanley Cup final will begin on Saturday.

There was some talk that the Red Wings and Penguins wouldn't start their series until June 6th, but common sense has fortunately prevailed. One of the best things about the quick turnaround from the Conference finals is that the public will be spared from the lengthy Super Bowl-style coverage leading up to the championship affair. There's nothing worse than two weeks of media reports telling the same old story ten times over.

The redundant tales of the battling brothers, Eric and Jordan Staal, were bad enough during the ‘Canes-Pens series. But with a ton of time on the media's hands, can you imagine how many trees would have been killed documenting the tale of Marian Hossa facing the Pittsburgh team he left behind because he believed Detroit had a better shot at the Cup?

To try and avoid getting scooped, reporters from opposition media outlets often have a ladies and gentlemen agreement; "Hey, how about today we all do the Hossa story?"

That's why you'll often open up the various papers in a city only to see the same story in every publication, and the same holds true in television as well.

So, for all of you who read this blog and often accuse the ol' Tother of playing hockey upstairs with a warped puck, I'm actually just a mixed nut trying to mix things up a bit.