Puck Prospectus

野球のセイバーメトリクス疾風の中心的存在でもあるBaseball Prospectus がPuck Prospectus というホッケーメトリクスのサイトを始めました、これはホッケーを統計学的に分析したい人にはオススメでしょう。

NHL Premiere 2009

NHL がまたまた欧州のホッケー大国でシーズンを開幕します。2009年は10月2-3日にフィンランドのヘルシンキでフロリダ・パンサーズ対シカゴ・ブラックホークス、そしてまたスウェーデンのストックホルムでデトロイト・レッドウィングス対セントルイス・ブルース。それにしてもチケット代がかなり高いみたいです。フィンランドでは97ユーロから249ユーロ、Jokerit 対パンサーズの強化試合は37ユーロから115ユーロともっとお手ごろです。ストックホルムに来るレッドウィングスにはスウェーデン人選手が多く在籍してるから、チケットが売れるあてがあるけど、フロリダとセントルイスには目立ったフィンランド人スターはいないはず。初開催というだけで、満員にできるのかな？

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カナダ人男性像

自我理想図？　:P

ＮＨＬのストリーミング生中継

グレーゾーンですが、ＮＨＬの試合のインターネットストリーミング生中継は、このサイト経由で見れます（今のところは…）

ttp://sports12.weebly.com/

Japanese pizza, winter 09

Strawberry Cones pizza chain has done it again! This flyer just came into my mailbox yesterday. This time, their Napoli no Kama (Napolitan Oven) store has come up with a dandy of a pizza(?). It’s a snow/spider crab pizza with grape tomatoes, spinach, black peppers, and quiche sauce(?). This picture doesn’t make things any clearer  😛

Then there’s this strawberry dessert pizza with 

Strawberry sauce and whipped cream, mmm…? (Though those strawberry/fruit sandwiches are alright, so this may be ok, but I somehow don’t think the salty pizza dough’s not gonna match the strawberries and cream, kinda like those meal crepes like ham and cheese or chili.. yeah, not a good combination there either.)

EDIT: Well well, Strawberry Cones Pizza has opened up shop in a Vancouver suburb!

Japanese hockey wrap

The best-of-3 play-in round between 4th place Nippon Paper Cranes and High1 finished in a blowout for the Cranes, sweeping the series with 5-2 and 8-4 wins. Now the semifinals pits the rested Anyang Halla (the first non-Japanese team to top the regular season standings) against the battle worn Cranes, and soon to fold Seibu Prince Rabbits against the Oji Eagles. They both should be dandy series, and with the balanced schedule this past season, Halla’s record is for real and I’m looking for them progressing to the finals! (And for Seibu to have its last hurrah in addition to them winning the 2009 All Japan Championship in an exciting 6-5 final against the Cranes.) 

In other Japanese hockey news, with the Seibu group officially pulling the plug on its hockey team, there will be a memorial alumni game to be held at the DyDo Drinco Arena in Higashifushimi, Tokyo, on 28 March. The match should feature Kokudo and Seibu Railway legends such as the Wakabayashi brothers, Herb and Mel.

And in Harbin 2009 Universiade news, Japan won 3-2 over China, with Eri Kiribuchi notching her first win turning aside 26 of 28 shots in a much better performance from the previous day’s game where she allowed 4 goals on 23 shots against Finland in a shutout loss. Without playing any official games this season, she seems to have secured the starter’s position on Team Japan, way to go Eri! The men were lucklustre in their 1-4 loss to Slovakia on their opening game of the tournament.

And finally, the newly formed Tohoku Free Blades is going to ice a team for the first time in the next few weeks. First an exhibition match (three 15 minute periods) against the Nikko IceBucks of the Asia League on the Bucks’ fan appreciation day on 11am 28 February at the Nikko Kirifuri Arena. This event will cost 1000 yen and it will be a good measure to see if the team can be competitive in the Asia League. The Blades will also be making an appearance (normal rules) against western Japan amateur powerhouse Surpass Kagawa at 8pm 6 March in Miki City, Kagawa Surpass Sports Center Arena. Let’s hope this helps Blades pass the muster to enter the Asia League, as the uncertain future of Seibu means that a new Japanese team in the league will be a much needed infusion.

Harbin Winter Universiade 2009 and Eri Kiribuchi

Eri Kiribuchi (long bio here), whose blog is right here (Japanese), is competing in the Winter Universiade 2009 which started in Harbin, China today. We’ll see if she starts in goal, to the best of my knowledge she still hasn’t started an official game for Bemidji State University in Minnesota, where she is competing with two other freshmen goalies to be the starter.

She’s a very interesting case for a Japanese hockey player, having left Japan with her family shortly after the 1998 Nagano Olympics, falling in love with hockey, specifically Czech hockey. The whole family moved to Prague to pursue the kids’ hockey dreams. After attending an athletics high school in the Czech Republic, Eri’s managed to secure herself a scholarship in an NCAA Division I school. Eri has been the most successful one, having managed this national team call up, but her brother Yuto has been no slouch either playing in the Czech Extraliga 2nd division club HK Lev Slaný. While Eri is playing in the highest level of women’s hockey in NCAA Division I, the rest of her family remains in Prague operating a B&B (Japanese). She’s fluent trilingual, has appeared in a cosmetics commercial in Europe 😛 , is a promising goalie for Japan’s future, so it is good to see that the national hockey program is looking overseas for promising talent. Good luck!

2009 All Japan Championship

The 76th edition of the All Japan Ice Hockey Championships are going on right now in Yokohama and Higashifushimi with the latter being the main venue. The quarterfinals featured 4 university teams against the seeded Asia League teams with Kansai U and Meiji U putting up the best results with 2 goal losses.

You’ll be able to find the results on this page
http://www.jihf.or.jp/jihf/data/schedule.php?id=160

Team pages should have some sort of updates as well

http://www.icebucks.jp/

http://www.ojipaper.co.jp/hockey/

http://www.np-g.com/cranes/

http://www1.princehotels.co.jp/icehockey/

You can run them through google translate and probably get somewhat of coherent results.
http://translate.google.co.jp/

バンクーバー五輪予選終了

３つの男子アイスホッケーの2010バンクーバー五輪予選のグループは、ホスト国のドイツ、ラトビアとノルウェーがそれぞれオリンピック出場権を獲得しました。日本は格上のスロベニア相手に５－４ SO勝ちと健闘しましたが、やはりドイツとオーストリアは強敵でした。

ラトビアのリガで行われた予選でのハンガリー戦のハイライト集です。

ハンガリー対イタリア

ハンガリー対ウクライナ（去年の札幌での世界選手権ディビジョンＩ のリベンジですね）

ラトビア－ハンガリー

ラトビアのリガで行われているバンクーバー五輪予選の別のグループの初戦のハイライトです。ハンガリーは日本と同じく一次予選を勝ち抜きこの最終予選に来たのですが、初戦でいきなり強豪のホスト国と当たり、同じく3-7と惨敗してしまいました。ハンガリーといえば、去年札幌での世界選手権ディビジョンＩのグループ優勝が記憶に新しいですよね。