Thursday, September 2, 2010

Wallpaper Download: A Pens Universe...

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Some of our readers from old may remember when our banners used to incorporate a 'universe' theme. So in keeping with this tradition we present another downloadable background to get you ready for Penguins Hockey! It's things like this that will help us all get through the month, together.

We're having some technical issues with the Chris Devivo interview on the podcast. Hoping we can get that out to y'all this week. We know you'll enjoy all the things he talks about with respect to the Pens new home, the Consol Energy Center. Real good stuff in there.
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As always, in just about every electronic format possible. This time just right click and save the image itself, should make it easier.

Desktop 800 x 600

Desktop 1024 x 768
Desktop 1280 x 800
Desktop 1280 x 1024

Desktop 1400 x 864

Desktop 1600 x 1050

Desktop 1900 x 1620

iPhone 4
iTouch

Motorola DROID

DROID Eris

LG Ally DROID

Blackberry Bold 9000

Blackberry Curve 8300

Blackberry Curve 8900

 Blackberry Pearl 8220

 Twitter Background

Twitter Profile Pic

Facebook Icon

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Winner of the Autographed Matt Cooke Stick!

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Congratulations to...

JACK PATTERSON!!


After a long summer and numerous entries into the giveaway, we present to you the winner of the coveted autographed Matt Cooke stick. We went with the ol' traditional method of picking a name out of a hat. Damian's two year old daughter Ava made the selection.

We at Pens Universe would like to personally thank everyone who participated in this unique campaign. While its not finalized, we figured we've been able to raise around two hundred dollars for the Cooke Foundation of Hope through this. For us that means a lot. We were looking for a way to be able to give back to a good cause, and this was just perfect.

We'd also like to take this time to publicly thank the Cooke family for their participation as well as their gracious donation of the stick. They were integral in helping facilitate much of the original planning. We hope to continue to bring our readers more opportunities like this as the season goes on. We do have a couple of things in the planning stages at the moment so stay tuned for updates on here, Facebook, and on twitter.

Special thanks to...

Matt Cooke, Max Talbot, and Marc Andre Fleury.

Mike and Bob from the Kiss Morning Freak Show.

WTAE, The Pittsburgh Chanel.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Nailers to partner with Canadiens

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The Wheeling Nailers organization has announced that they will enter a minor league player agreement with the Montreal Canadiens and the Hamilton Bulldogs (AHL) for the upcoming 2010-11 season.

The Candiens minor league track record is as impressive as their parent NHL club. Montreal's ECHL affiliate has won the Kelly Cup Championship in two of the past three seasons; including last years champion the Cincinnati Cyclones.

"The Montreal Canadiens have a great history with their ECHL affiliates including 3 league championships," said Nailers Vice President of Business Operations Craig Bommer. "This affiliation will give the Nailers a great chance at accomplishing our goal of bringing a ECHL Championship to the fans of Wheeling."
The Wheeling organization aren't strangers to the Montreal Canadiens. The Winston-Salem/Wheeling Thunderbirds had an nine year relationship with the Montreal Canadiens producing three Riley Cup finals appearances in 1989, 1990, and 1993 along with three Henry Brabham Cups for most regular season points in 1990, 1993, and 1995 and one ECHL championship in 1989.

For those wondering, the new partnership with the Canadiens doesn't effect the Nailers affiliation with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Nailers are still an affiliate of the Penguins, but lately many ECHL clubs use dual affiliates. The overall talent on the Nailers club will be better and it helps a great deal with in-season call ups.

"Many teams are starting to get dual affiliation to help with call-ups and Wheeling now has a great second affiliate," added Bommer.
The Nailers aren't the only ones excited about the new partnership. Canadiens General Manager Pierre Gauthier is also excited about the possibilities.

"On behalf of the Canadiens organization, I would like to thank the Nailers for accepting to affiliate with us," said Gauthier. "We are looking forward to a strong and long lasting relationship."
With the season opener less then 50 days away, the Nailers have made great strides off the ice with the announcement of new head coach Stan Drulia and now the affiliation with the Canadiens. Both should lead to good hockey in Wheeling once the season begins.

Monday, August 30, 2010

The latest...

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A few days has past since we tossed something up on the site, but that doesn't mean we've been quiet. Lots of things have been happening behind the scenes, both for the Pens and for PensU.  Lets take a look at some of the latest things happening on all fronts...

- DRAW.WING: First things first, tomorrow we'll be drawing for the autographed Matt Cooke stick. Make sure you send in your picture to damian@pensuniverse.com to be eligible. Even all of those who bought the Tangradi Trivia shirt are eligible.

- POD.CASTING: Just finished recording our third episode of the Pens Universe podcast show which should be up on the site tomorrow or Wednesday. We had special guest Chris Devivo, Director of Media Technology for the Pittsburgh Penguins join us to talk about the Consol Energy Center.

- TWO.0: We've also been working hard getting all the ducks in a row for the release of our new and improved 2.0 site. There are a lot of moving parts and we're just making sure everything is in place before we go live in a few weeks. While I can't promise everything will go right the first day, I can assure all of our readers that it will be a much better experience altogether. Lot's of new features available, so stay tuned.

- GUERIN-T'D: We all received the news the other day that Billy Guerin is not going to be in a Penguins uniform next year. While there were mixed reactions from fans on this, we at PensU stood in agreement that this was the best move. BG's age really started to show up in the latter half of the season, into playoffs this past year. It was clear to management that he was no longer able to keep up with the pace of the game in Bylsma's system. No longer is he able to keep up in the top 6 of the Pens, nor is there any room in the bottom 6. As a result, good riddance Billy. We'd like to thank you for the contribution and will never forget the stretch run in 09 that lead to the Cup.

- STAAL'D: Reports from Rob Rossi of the Pittsburgh Tribune were our late last week about some complications that Jordan Staal has been having with the severed tendon in his right foot. He had surgery to repair the injury he sustained from Montreal Canadien P.K. Subban in the second round of the playoffs last year. At this point there's speculation that he could miss the better part of training camp.

Shero said, "We'll see how he is for camp. The tendon itself is intact, strong. He just hasn't had the opportunity to be on skates much, and we're not going to rush him."

Truthfully that could mean a lot of things, but the buzz has primarily been negative in nature. We'll know more this week as to if and when we can expect Jordan to return to the ice.

- MAREK-OLD: Mike Colligan of The Hockey Writers has been following the development of a possible Marek Svatos signing. He's written a solid article on why in fact Svatos could be a good fit, but reported on twitter the other day that while there remains interest, the Penguins have not in fact been in contact with Svatos and company.

There's not much else out there on the Pens front, but much to be excited about. You can listen to episode 2 of our podcast to hear us discuss line combinations and reaction to the Asham signing. Other than that, training camp is right around the corner and we'll be doing our best to keep you abreast of the latest happenings along with our analysis on a given situation. Till then, LET'S GO PENS!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Hockey Intelligence - More Profiles

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A few weeks ago I drew your attention to the work that Hockey Intelligence has been doing. I was really excited when they reached out, particularly because of the initial profile they had set up with their analytics program, Matt Cooke. I was intrigued because of the types of information/statistics they were measuring. Personally I had not seen anything like this in the past.

Well, the good news is Eliot happily touched base and informed me there were 11 new profiles available on the site. In addition to Cooke, you can now view Adams, Crosby, Dupuis, Godard, Kennedy, Kunitz, Malkin, Rupp, Staal and Talbot. Oh and they're so on point over there, they even added the newest Pittsburgh Penguin, Arron Asham. Feel free to browse his production the last three years, including last years playoffs. I was surprised to find out that the majority (31.3%) of his shots taken in the playoffs were backhanders. Speaking of backhanders, you'll also find there that Crosby's proclivity for this type of shot has continued to drop over the past three years...


 

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