February is the time for hockey, right? Well, hold on to your hats, because on February 2, 9 or 16 in the year 2014, the Super Bowl will come to East Rutherford NJ. NFL football will be played in the midst of a typical New Jersey winter. Expect a snow bowl, a mud bowl or a thaw bowl, depending on what mother nature has in store (and considering global warming).
The venue will be the DOME-LESS new Meadowlands Stadium. Now don't get me started on the wisdom of replacing Giants stadium with another open-air bowl. Perhaps Chris Christie would like to tell all Garden Staters how much of this is costing NJ taxpayers. But the deal was done, even though Xanadu is now a thing of the past (or is it). The Super Bowl might change everything.
Now, as for some personnel developments in the true winter sport...
Devils forward Zach Parise was doing community service today. He visited the New Jersey State Library in Trenton and read a book to students from the Katzenbach School for the Deaf. Zach is apparently an avid reader.
His appearance was part of the New Jersey Library Champion program, which promotes the importance of reading to students. For details, go to the Devils website. Hats off to Zach for doing something really useful with his time off from the game. Go Zach!
The New York Rangers did an unusual deal with their rivals from Long Island. The Blueshirts acquired WHL defenseman Jyri Niemi from the NY Islanders, in exchange for a 6th round pick in the 2010 entry draft.
Niemi plays for the Saskatoon Blades. He is a 19 year old with interesting potential. Is Jyri related to Antti? They were born about 200 miles apart (Jyri in a suburb of Nokia, Finland...Antti in a part of Helsinki). Young Jyri can fire a slap shot at 97 mph and had WHL leading stats. Keep an eye on him.
This is the first of the off-season moves for NY/NJ area teams, as free agents start to consider their options. The contracts and agents will really get busy, once the Stanley Cup finals are done.
Hockey Rules.
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