Here are your Morning Puck Headlines: A glorious collection of news and views collected from the greatest blogosphere in sports and the few, the proud, the mainstream hockey media.
• Before the season, we discussed the potential for Nicklas Lidstrom of the Detroit Red Wings to be unseated as the NHL's best defenseman. Well, USA Today has decided both Nashville Predators defenseman Shea Weber and San Jose Sharks defenseman Dan Boyle are more worthy so far this season. And they ask the Wings players exactly how they feel about the decline of Lidstrom's stats. [USA Today, via Snapshots]
• The Chicago Blackhawks are scheduled to set up remote voting stations around the Chicago area to help forwards Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane and defenseman Brian Campbell get elected as all-star starters. Kane now leads all Western Conference forwards, but Ryan Getzlaf is closer than Toews to entering the Top 3 as of noon. It's a disgrace to Chicago politics that they haven't found a way to "fix" this yet. [Blackhawks]
• Examining the racial disparity between reactions to fights in basketball and fights in hockey. [Sean Morgan]
• The shootout is named the second-worst rule in sports, trailing only "MLB All-Star Game determines home field advantage for the World Series." Have penalty shots been tarnished by the shootout? [Examiner]
• Creepy bobblehead alert. [First Cuts]
• Hilary Duff claims she never told Maxim she was a virgin, that she doesn't know how to give a lap dance and that she isn't engaged to New York Islanders center Mike Comrie. "The truth is, I just like to wear rings!" Comrie doesn't know the feeling. [Fox News]
• One-time Colorado Avalanche forward Steve Moore and current Calgary Flames winger Todd Bertuzzi met with a mediator on Monday in order to deprive us of an incredible sports-related trial filled with drama and juicy revelations on an OJ-scale. [CBC Sports]
• Will Germany set a new hockey game attendance record in a stadium that seats 75,976 people? [Bangin Panger]
• The National Post tracks the actual amount of time athletes "play their sports" in relation to how long the game is supposed to last. No surprise here: You get slightly more "bang for your buck" in the NHL than in golf or baseball. [National Post]
• Minnesota: Trying to put the "winter" back in Winter Classic down the line. [AP]
• Can Marian Gaborik solve the offensive problems for the Minnesota Wild? [Star Tribune]
• Very interesting media news from Detroit, as the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press cut back their print editions and move more to the Internet. [Kukla's Korner]
• Andrew Raycroft is still causing Toronto Maple Leafs fans much pain. "I was dreading this day. The day Cujo's save percentage is actually lower than Raycroft's. It has arrived, and I think I'm going to be sick." [Sports and the City]
• Drunk, stumbling, fighting an inflatable Penguins in front of a fire station. Haven't we all been there? [Pensburgh]
• Finally, we've seen people video tape their games of NHL 09 and Nintendo Ice Hockey; but never had we seen someone take the time to document their Mattel Electronics handheld video hockey game. Until now:
