Morning Mashup: Kadri, Veggies, Happy Dallas!

by Matt Mistele on October 25, 2012 in Morning Mashup - 504 Comments

Photo Credit: Graig Abel/Getty Images

Remember when Nazem Kadri showed up to the Marlies‘ training camp negligibly fatter than he probably should have been all fat and ugly and gross and out-of-shape? Well, Dallas Eakins threw a big, cheesy CTRL-Z on that situation Wednesday. Apparently Kadri’s re-committed himself to hardcore fitness in the last few weeks. (While some simmer in silence, wondering what the hell he paid Gary Roberts for).

Dallas is impressed. Said Eakins, with a visual I metaphor did not need:

“He has not just dipped his toe in the water, he’s taken off his clothes and jumped in naked. He is fully ready to try this and he’s on a great roll right now.

“What happens with some of these guys is they’re so skilled that they’ve never really had to put in hard work. I think they’ll say ‘Well I always worked hard’ and they did, they worked as hard as they had to, but as you keep progressing and guys get older and they’re stronger and they come in from all different parts of the world, suddenly the base of the group is much higher than what you’re used to. I think it’s taken Naz a little bit of time to get used to this.”

Kadri says much of the same, because…what else is he going to say?

“It’s something I’ve just got to wrap my head around that the season isn’t just for playing hockey. It’s for maintaining your body strength and everything that comes with it in the gym. I think maybe in previous years the hockey season was just for playing hockey I thought, the offseason was just for working out. Now I’m starting to intertwine them both. I think I’m going to start to get some great results.”

Can we go back to this being a relative non-issue now? (And somehow, unfortunately, I feel like this week’s positive follow-up won’t generate near the headlines the initial story did. Or a Tweet from Don Cherry praising how good the Leafs are at saving prospects from themselves, as opposed to just obliterating them before they leave Ricoh).

Before we get to the links, one awesome, late night (literally!) note from Wednesday:

The President just slapped you across the [censored] face, Gary. The President.

YA’LL SHOULD BE ABLE TO GET THIS DONE!

Thursday links!

-Remarkable, awesome, candid post (with hilarious infographics!) at TLN describing the real business factors driving the lockout. This guy’s bang on right. And even though he’s saying it’s not greed, the alternative factor at play here (financial formula, essentially) makes the NHL seem so much more evil and inhuman. A $2,000,000 Renaissance-era painting couldn’t capture the lockout’s essence this well.

-The New York Islanders are leaving Nassau and will move to the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn after 2015. Where they will play. For TWENTY FIVE YEARS. Sometimes I think Charles Wang skipped one day of class in business school, and the title of the prof’s slideshow was “How to Not be the Guy Assuming All the Longterm Risk in a Deal.”

-The NHL apparently let some GMs talk to their players, presumably as a workaround to getting their message past Donald Fehr. Who ya gonna call? UNION BUSTERS!

-I’m not sure if this is an article somewhere yet, but according to a Mirtle tweet, the Marlies will play at the Air Canada Center on Boxing Day with ticket prices ranging from $10-$45. So, uh…Merry Christmas infuriated and frustrated NHL fans, I guess?

-Bettman says a full NHL season happening is no longer likely. There’s a bunch of quotes in there I could pull out and just absolutely [censored] up the [censored], but I sort of don’t care anymore.

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