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I feel for everyone involved in the tragic loss of Canucks d-man Luc Bourdon, I have thought very highly of the player and anticipated that he would be a huge part of Vancouver Calgary rivalry for years to come. As I talked about yesterday the “angels of death” are out today, second guessing everything around the accident. I am not surprised that comments are being made to whether or not player’s contracts should ban dangerous activities such as “motorcycles”. But what ever happened to personal responsibility, live and let live, you make your own bed and you sleep in it. I’ll say this, you and I are responsible for our actions but I am not sure I want my employer to tell me what I can and can’t do in my spare time (for the record my employer does in a limited way), but that’s not the world we live in.

Should the Calgary Flames make a pitch for former Coyote prospect Blake Wheeler? Sure, why not, if you think he can play. I am surprised that this story hasn’t been bigger, but given the tragedy of yesterday it isn’t shocking. Back to the question, for a team that is desperate for forward prospects in his age range (21 years old) he looks like a good fit. Two things that jump out at me the first being I am not sure he can play right away, I have put out a number of feelers today through out the league to get a read on him as a prospect and nobody is jumping up and down raving about the former first round pick. Secondly and most important, my guess is the kid already has a short list of places he wants to play. In an interesting twist by tuning down the Phoenix contract offer, he automatically will make less in his first contract. Wheeler was drafted in 2004 and his entry level contract was tied to the old CBA, but since he walked away and chooses to be a UFA he falls under the guidelines of the CBA. So if he didn’t do it for the dollars, he clearly did to go somewhere of his on choosing, I will bet you a bag of peanuts he has chosen his destination already and I doubt that even that team evens knows yet, since that would be tampering.

I enjoyed my time with Stamps leader John Hufnagel, we played the interview yesterday on sportsline and it is available on line as we speak. 4 points came out of that conversation for me; 1. Hufnagel is going to change the style of defence employed in Calgary dramatically. 2. This team is going to be much more disciplined; they have to be considering they were worst in the CFL in penalties last season. 3. He wants this team to limit turnovers and create even more turnovers; I think that one is both simple and what every coach wants. 4. He wants a more dynamic effort from special teams, they are after all 1/3 of the Canadian game.

I go one on one with Henry Burris today at 4:45 and 5:05, and among the topics that will be touched on, his added muscle, his popularity, and his experimenting with UFC style fighting.

We are slowly starting to move away from hockey and getting into football over the next couple of weeks, while the pucks won’t completely leave the show we are certainly going to ramp up the football coverage for the Stamps and the CFL.

I am excited to have Khari Jones join us every Monday to break down the weekend action, Khari is a neat guy that I am sure will add a lot to the football talk.

Chris Schultz from TSN is going to join us every Friday to set up the weekend’s games, Chris is trusted voice nationally and I look forward to picking his brain on football stuff.

Of course Chevy and Nasty are back on Monday afternoons, I am pretty proud of those guys since I had a hand in getting them their own show. I just like the fact that they say their own thing, and do their own thing, and every once and a while they go to places in football talk that guys like mo on this side of the locker room door don’t go.

Later this week I will go one on one with Head Coach and GM of the Stamps John Hufnagel, that interview will appear on Sportsline, and then be posted on the fan960.com and podcasted too. Hufnagel is interesting to me for many different reasons, but mostly because of his resume, looked were he has worked, the CFL, the AFL, and of course the NFL. Look at who he has worked with the likes of Flutie, Manning, and Brady, this guy didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. I will point out that this is the 4th head coach and GM I have covered in just 6 years of following the Stamps for the FAN. Every time there has been a sense of anticipation for the new coach, I will take a wait and see attitude. I will acknowledge though that Hufnagel has no shortage of boosters here in Calgary both in and out of football.

I am also very interested in watching the performance of Henry Burris, Hank has a legitimate back up for the first time since he has come to Calgary, how will that affected him? I make no bones about it I am a fan of Burris the person, he is a really great guy, but the list of Quarterbacks who haven’t won in this league is getting fewer and fewer, he knows and I know he has to win soon to solidify his career.

Just some notes on the Stanley Cup Final, did game 2 not remind you of a Detroit versus Columbus game in December. The Wings are just that much better then the Pen’s, I am not surprised. My question about Detroit now becomes what will they do next season? They are going to have a much earlier summer then recent Cup Champions; their core should still be very strong, are they content to win just once or are they determined to win a series of cups. I sure thought the Ducks would be more then a one hit wonder, they don’t look that imposing 12 months later.

Thanks to everyone who has supported the FAN960 and our Team Joe Sports tonight in the annual Relay for Life, for the Canadian Cancer Society.

Enjoyed my time with Iron Mike yesterday, I have found him to be a real interesting guy to cover this year for a couple of reasons. First his reputation, it is always interesting to talk to this guy who is demonized by so many, he isn’t quite like his reputation. Second, the man has won 600 games in the NHL, he has seen it all and done it all, and it is fascinating to talk to someone like that.

His comments about Kiprusoff were interesting, a lot was made the last time anybody talked to the Flames bench boss and he admitted to having not talked to his goalie after game 7. As it turned out he talked to him the very next day. It really doesn’t matter if you believe him or not since when training camp starts in September this controversy will be revisited.

I also found it interesting that Keenan talked about change, and not just from his team, but from himself. I think that the overlying perception is that a coach entering his 25th year in the league can’t change, but according to Mike he has too.

I love working in radio, but yesterday was an instance which I wished people could have seen Iron Mike, he was really passionate and very much into the interview. It was one of those interviews were host and guest were leaning over the table to ask and answer questions. This point isn’t intended to lend credence to his answers, just more of an observation on his behaviour.

I said yesterday that I think the most interesting comment he made was about chemistry, and how he wanted to improve it. I will be watching that with great interest, as that has been a constant complaint about this team the last few years.

The Flames have a street team that is going to be traveling all across Alberta and Saskatchewan this summer at local exhibitions and rodeos. I think this is a great idea, and if I had a freakin RV I would probably take Pete and Mike and join them at some of these events.

The slow down in the economy hasn’t necessarily translated into a slow down for Flames tickets. Calgary is currently at 98 % renewal for season ticket holders that is slightly ahead of where they were last year at this same time. In addition the flames currently have around 4000 people on a waiting list, for any tickets that come available.

Over the weekend it was reported that former Flame Chris Simon has signed in Russia for the upcoming season, I am not sure what to make of this. Simon’s game is really not conducive to the Russian game; in fairness his game really wasn’t conducive to the NHL last year. It seems to me that Simon is just hanging on, but I am not sure Russia will be the answer.

Detroit versus Pittsburgh comes as no surprise considering how these teams have rolled through the play offs so far. A couple of pre series points: I lived through the young Oiler’s of the early 80’s and I am not sure that the comparison of Pittsburgh to Gretzky’s crew is fair. With all due respect to both Crosby and Malkin neither has shown the complete explosiveness of the Great One, they maybe the closest we have scene in a decade or so, but I think we are all forgetting how Wayne re-wrote the record book as a young player. I think the Pen’s have some nice complimentary players, but not the quite at same level as Kurri and Anderson.

The comparison isn’t really worth getting fighting mad over it happens all of the time in the media, and in fairness to Pittsburgh it might not be that long before we are comparing other young team to them. Detroit will win the series in my mind because of their blue line, as far as I am concerned in Nick Lidstrom there hasn’t been a better defensemen in the league since Bobby Orr. I know there have been some good great ones by the names of Coffey, MacInnis, Niedermayer, and Pronger, but I really believe Lidstrom is the best of my generation. Behind him on that wing blue line is Rafalski who well not in the same sentence as Lidstrom is a bona fide number 1 d-man on most teams.

Brad Stuart has been a nice pick up at the trade deadline has regained his form he showed in San Jose a couple of years ago. The Pens blue line is good, but I don’t think it is as dynamic as the Wings and I believe when it is all said and down that’s why Detroit wins again.

Just a note, Thursday on the program, Darryl Sutter will join us for a full hour from 3 till 4pm.

The Flames have been fairly quiet the last couple of weeks, over the next couple of weeks I expect they will announce the Langkow contract extension, as well Mark Giordano will likely be signed to a new deal.

With all of the coaching jobs floating around out there I have been asked about a couple of Flames coaches who have been head coaches before, Jim Playfair and Wayne Fleming are both under contract. If a team wanted to talk to either for any reason they would need to get permission from the Flames. I would anticipate that both will garner some interest when you consider the sheer number of jobs that are going to be affected around the league.

The Conference finals have been a bust from an “edge of your seat” perspective, I think we have learned more about Detroit and Pittsburgh then anything else. The Red Wings I believe are the real deal and if they play the Pen’s will likely win that series very easily. You can’t dominate the Red Wings physically you can’t intimidate them they are that good. I have not seen a team how can move the puck and retain possession like Detroit since the Penguins of the early 90’s and quite frankly the Wings are probably better.

This year’s version of the Penguins is far grittier then most think they have two superstars that are second to none, but my god Hal Gill is playing well for them, come on! The Pens are young and should stick around for a while, but they don’t have the demons of past play off failure like the Wings do. In the end they will likely need to lose on the big stage to get the appetite that Detroit has.

Updated - 3:29 Mikael Backlund has been signed by the Flames to entry level contract, and is expected to be at the summer prospect camp as well as main camp in the fall. Let the speculation begin, but I’ll start by saying I would think he will get a very long look.

A couple of notes from this week, mostly to do with prospects:

Talked to Mark Giordano earlier this week as he prepares for the World Hockey championships in Halifax, and said he would love to come back to Calgary. So based on Darryl Sutter’s comments last week it looks like both deals want to get a deal done, unlike last year I think the Flames need to get this deal done before July 1st. Giordano is a Restricted Free Agent and maybe a tempting target for a team looking for a young puck moving defensemen add to that the Flames tight budget situation and a offer sheet could complicate things.

I also talked to Ryan McGill the head coach down is Quad City and he had something interesting observations of a few Flames prospects. David Van Der Gulik is a guy who quietly made huge stride this year, according to his coach David is a guy that doesn’t do one thing really well but does a bunch of things very well. I got the feeling that the Quad City coach feels the exact same way as his GM, last week Darryl Sutter noted that both Matt Pelech and Adam Pardy were close to the NHL, McGill echoes those comments. He noted that Pardy played about 6 games on a broken ankle, and it may have been some of his best hockey of the year.

Maybe the most interesting thing McGill said was about veteran forward Grant Stevenson, when I asked if there was one guy that he really appreciated but didn’t get the attention he brought up Stevenson. Grant led the team in scoring and according to McGill deserves a chance to play at the next level. He was never called up during the season, did get the nod after Quad City’s season ended, but he wasn’t really brought up by either the media or Darryl. Considering the Flames salary cap situation he very well may get a shot.

Later on in May we are hoping to spend some time with Darryl, I due intend to ask him about Stevenson, as well I will inquire about Dan Ryder and what his status is.

I am off for the next 10 days or so, I will update the blog when I get back.