Mishmash Musings

Coming into the season, most experts agreed that this was the Chicago Blackhawks’ year to win the Stanley Cup. They were a very talented, skilled, young hockey team with more depth than any other squad in the NHL. And thanks to the salary cap era, they had a very small window of opportunity to keep this group together.

Well, the Hawks played with the kind of urgency required in this situation, and won their Cup. Now the summer negotiations begin, and we can be sure that we’ll see a vastly different team when the puck drops on the 2010-11 season in October. There’s simply no way to keep everyone around and stay under the $59 million salary cap.

Kane, Hossa, Toews, and Keith are signed long-term, of course, but the Hawks will have to part with some big, significant players. Guys like Patrick Sharp, Kris Versteeg, Troy Brouwer, Brent Seabrook, Brian Campbell, and Dustin Byfuglien could be moved in order to free up cap space. While I think the Hawks could survive the loss of Brouwer, I would HATE to see any of the other guys go. I think they need to find a way to keep Sharp and Seabrook especially, and then work on Versteeg and Byfuglien.

Niemi needs a raise, Huet is gone, Madden is gone, Burish is gone, Eager is probably gone, Fraser, Sopel… And who knows what’s going to happen with Hjalmarsson.

The only good thing here is that Stan Bowman has known (hell, everyone has known) that the day of reckoning is coming, so he probably already has a plan in place. At the very least, I’m sure he and the coaching staff have identified the players they want to keep and will work around that.

The bottom line here is that the Hawks and their fans need to savor this moment. The team will not be the same in October, so enjoy the great memories that the guys delivered last season.

(Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

I used to watch Cagney & Lacey back in the ’80s, and absolutely loved Sharon Gless’s character. I had no idea that she was already 40 back then, so imagine my surprise when I saw her turn up on Burn Notice a few years ago. She looked (and still looks) positively stunning for someone her age. Seriously, she must have a medicine cabinet full of the best rated wrinkle cream because her face looks amazing! It’s hard to believe that she’s 67!

Anyway, Burn Notice is a pretty cool show and Gless’s Madeline is a hoot. Check it out on USA Network next Thursday night if you’ve got nothing else to do!

Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of American teen Natalee Holloway, has confessed to killing a woman in Peru last week. Van der Sloot had been in custody for three days before finally admitting to Peruvian authorities that he beat 21-year-old business student Stephany Flores to death because he caught her using his laptop to look up information about van der Sloot’s connection to the Holloway case.

According to an AP report, van der Sloot came back from buying breakfast to find Flores on his laptop. He became angry, and that’s when the beating commenced. Van der Sloot insists he did not mean to kill Flores, but that he did it because the girl “intruded” on his private life when she “had no right”.

Wow, what a fucked up excuse for killing someone. I mean, obviously it’s never right to kill anyone, but this — if true — is such a bullshit reason. Van der Sloot needs to just rot in prison now.

(AP Photo/Karel Navarro/file)

I’ve decided to start chronicling a few of the random things I search for on Google, along with some of the answers I find. I’m calling this section SAQ (Seldom Asked Questions).

My first one:

Q: How many feet/meters tall is a typical story (for buildings and houses)?

A: Most of the answers I found said that a typical story ranges from 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 meters), with 10 being the most common answer.

I wanted to know this for a rather grim reason, as I read a news story of someone plunging to death from the 15th story of a downtown office building.

I’m sure most of you have already seen photos of Jake Gyllenhaal’s beefed up body in his new film Prince of Persia, but I wanted to post one here anyway. I think his transformation was incredible! He has always appeared very skinny and lanky to me, so getting ready for his role as Dastan involved more than adding ephedra diet pills to his daily regimen. I mean, this wasn’t just about losing weight, it was about bulking up.

As good as Jake looks in this movie, I have no desire to see it. Really? Another movie based on a video game? As though Hitman and Max Payne weren’t warning enough about how wrong that concept can go? Ugh!

I jsut read that Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama has resigned a mere nine months after taking office. The reason? Because he failed to keep a campaign promise to remove the U.S. Marine base from the island of Okinawa. Wow!!

Can you imagine if U.S. politicians resigned for failing to keep campaign promises? We’d have special elections every month! I’m not sure what Hatoyama’s resignation means for Japan or the rest of the world, but this is definitely a story I’m going to keep an eye on.