Archive for the ‘Interviews’ Category

- by Jennifer Conway (@NHLHistoryGirl)

A sincere thank you from Backhand Shelf to Jennifer and Ian for sharing their conversation.

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We live in an instantaneous world. Within seconds of an event, it is tweeted, retweeted, blogged about, and judged. As poet Charles Baudelaire said, “The world only goes ’round by misunderstanding.”

A misunderstanding on several levels happened when Flyers Director of Player Development Ian Laperriere was quoted in the Philadelphia Daily News. The Daily News had written an article about Nick Cousins, a Flyers prospect, who had been arrested and charged in an Ontario court with sexual assault. The charges are still pending.

“At the pro level, teams expect you to be an adult and act like one,” Laperriere said. “He’s got a good heart . . . Let’s be honest, stuff like that has been happening forever. You can’t get away with anything now. He can’t put himself in those situations.

“He’s been in trouble with this stuff, but hopefully that’s all going to go away. Part of my job is telling him that he needs to learn from that. You need to be careful what you’re doing. All of our prospects need to learn from his situation.”

“Happening forever?” “Can’t get away with anything?” It appeared Laperriere was dismissing the victim, downplaying the charges, and acknowledging rape happens, but hey, what can we do?

Of course, this is where the misunderstanding starts. Laperriere doesn’t claim he was misquoted, only that his remarks are misconstrued because he failed to be entirely clear on what he was trying to say.

I vented on Twitter about his remarks and the article as a whole. But somehow, something felt off to me. You see, I’d met Ian Laperriere before, tweeted with him before and this just didn’t seem to be in line with his character.

After a brief discussion with Bill Metzer (who covers the Flyers for several organizations), I wrote Mr. Laperriere an email. Here’s what I offered: Read the rest of this entry »

Many NHL pundits and fans assumed they had seen the last of Wade Redden in the NHL, after the New York Rangers swept his $6.5 million cap hit under the rug by reassigning him to their AHL affiliate Connecticut Whale from 2010 to 2012.

But those critics were proved wrong after the Rangers cashed in one of their freshly CBA-approved accelerated compliance buyouts earlier this month, and used it to sever ties with Redden and the remaining two seasons of his six year deal with them. It posted him as an available, unrestricted free agent – something that the St. Louis Blues were quick to capitalize on the day after Redden hit the market.

The 35 year old veteran of 13 NHL seasons signed a one year deal with the Blues on January 20^th for $800,000 plus another $200K in performance bonuses. That’s $4 million less than what he would have made with New York this year; though he will still earn a pro-rated $3.341 million for 2012-13, and just a little less than that for 2013-14 from the Rangers.

Redden passed a physical, dealt with immigration, and suddenly found himself to be an NHL player once again faster than you can say John Tortorella.

Redden has been skating with St. Louis in the interim, and accompanied them on their recent road trip through Nashville and Chicago. He is slated to resume NHL blue line patrol as early as Thursday, when the Blues take on the Predators at home.

In the meantime, Redden took a few minutes out to chat with me. Here’s what he had to say on his new contract, his time with the Rangers, and everything in between.  Read the rest of this entry »