Big nets, bad hockey parents and Ryan Getzlaf (Wednesday Countdown)

(Ed. Note: The column formerly known as the Puck Daddy Power Rankings.)

7. Hockey parents

I think this Flint Firebirds thing might be the most egregious incident of a crybaby hockey dad embarrassing his kid in the history of the sport. Certainly, there can't be too many bigger than this if there are.

Maybe you say, like, Eric Lindros or something like that. But this is if Lindros's dad owned the Nordiques or something.

So Flint is a first-year club and it is not very good. It's not all that bad, either, at 7-9-1, but it's hard to satisfy yourself with being two games below .500 as, like, this good thing, even if you're just starting out. But hey, they beat Oshawa in a big ol' game, and yet the coaches get fired immediately thereafter.

Why? Because the owner-slash-GM's kid isn't getting enough ice time, including demanding time on the power play. Good lord. Can you imagine being such an unprofessional idiot that you're like, “Hey coach of this team in a serious development league, play my kid more or you're fired,” and then you actually fire the guy after a win over a Name Brand Opponent?

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Hey what do you know, it turns out his kid — five games played out of 17, no points, minus-3 rating — isn't very good. Hmm. That's really weird isn't it? This kind of thing never happens in youth hockey either I'm pretty sure.

Because guess what this kind of crybaby nonsense from a dumbass parent does, not only in this case but in all cases like this: Really embarrass the kid. Like, man, imagine you find out your coach who you and all your teammates really like got fired because you're kind of a lousy defenseman and your loudmouth dad is making your coach give you PK time? Yeah, good luck hitting the ice for the next game in Sarnia and still hearing all about this little incident. Good luck dealing with the same crap three years from now.

Not that the kid should be catching any of the crap, because I would bet a decent amount of money that this isn't something he brought up to his dad very often or at all. When he's not even putting up points at the bantam level, the odds that he's going to play much in the O are always going to be slim. Odds that he's even going to be on the roster without his dad running the team are pretty narrow.

And that's fine. Not everyone gets to play in the OHL and certainly not everyone succeeds mightily there. And certainly not if they're only there cuz daddy wanted to get 'em some power play time.

6. The North Dakota nickname

Fighting Hawks is just kind of stupid, but Roughriders seems pretty good. For them, I mean.

Say, Teddy Roosevelt, leader of the famous Roughriders during the Spanish American War, what are your thoughts on Native Americans?

“I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian.”

Yes, this is very on-brand for North Dakota.

5. Major injuries

Big season so far for “key players picking up major injuries. Let's see here, half the Blues. Connor McDavid. Ondrej Palat. Zach Parise. Carey Price. I'm sure there are more I'm missing.

Injuries happen, yeah, and you hate to see them happen to anyone. But when they happen to the best players in the league, the most exciting alive, it's not just unfortunate, it's a real shame. It hurts their teams' chances of racking up points in the standings and all that.

But more important, no one goes to Habs games hoping to see Mike Condon (all due respect to the Princeton man), or to Oilers games to see whoever they're using to fill out the bottom of the lineup with McDavid's injury (all due respect to that guy, whoever it is now).

If you injure a star player you should be suspended. It's that simple. I don't care about intent. Put Brandon Manning and Michael Del Zotto in jail for all I care. Or at least take a portion of the average ticket price for every fan in the building out of their paycheck.

Hockey's a contact sport, etc., but this season it seems like things have been especially hard on star players, and it sucks.

4. Bigger nets

Nothing is stupider than the “make the nets bigger” idea. Make the puck smaller! Make the goalies play with their back to the ice! Make sticks into little guns that shoot the puck a million miles an hour! Make it legal for one player to carry a sword on the ice and he can use the sword to cut people in half or lop off their hands or whatever! These are all good ideas! Please listen to me!

What's funny about all this nonsense is that it implies there's something inherently wrong with the league or perhaps the entire sport that needs to be fixed. There isn't. The product is fine, and people who want to see more scoring as a means of... I don't know, attracting more fans(?) are misguided.

What do these people think the conversation about this league is?

“Hey brah let's watch the hockey game!”

“Nah bro I don't like hockey!”

“But this season the bigger nets are resulting in an extra 1.2 goals per game dude!”

“Oh sick hockey is good to me now bud!”

3. Ryan Getzlaf's now-removed appendix

No regulation losses with an appendix-less Getzlaf in the lineup, baby.

Is it possible that his appendix was the reason for the Ducks' slow start? If “heart” can be a reason for a team to turn it around, “no appendix” can be too.

One day the appendectomy will be to NHL forwards as that en vogue hip flexor surgery is now to goalies, or Tommy John surgery is to pitchers. Soon no NHLers will be caught dead with their appendixes in them. Overzealous hockey parents will be getting their kids' appendixes yanked out before atom hockey.

2. Calder hopefuls

In the week or so since that horrible Connor McDavid injury (“Cane Manning”), it seems like a number of rookies have gotten the memo that they are once again realistically able to win the Calder trophy. Max Domi and Anthony Duclair are back at it after a quiet few games, Jack Eichel is finally recording assists, Artemi Panarin continues to play well alongside Chicago's galaxy of stars, Nik Ehlers is still unloading shots at a ludicrous rate, Colton Parayko has done absolutely nothing to expose himself at this level (all you can ask of a rookie defenseman), and so on.

It's truly a pleasure to see so many good young players coming into the league and impressing immediately, and it speaks highly to the future quality of this sport.

But let's be honest: McDavid still has a decent shot at this.

1. Hall of Famers

This class was a series of slam dunks, really. Everyone was really good and deserving. Next year, well, they're gonna really start letting the riff-raff through the door.

(Not ranked this week: Projecting World Cup rosters 10 or 11 months out.

You know this is good when Brendan Gallagher is in the discussion for Team Canada.)

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All statistics via War On Ice unless otherwise noted.)