On the Rangers, Team USA and Jagr

                Belated New Year's resolution: Take more vacations in February.

                Especially in Olympic years if I'm not on site. It's been a nice hiatus so far.

                Yes,  I have been offering some commentary on the Games (but seriously, it's just from watching on TV; I don't have the pre and post-game access and schmoozing without being in Vancouver) at twitter.com/stevezipay, but not much here at Blue Notes because I'm really, really trying to unchain meself from the laptop for a week.

              After providing coverage and stories from Hartford last week,  we decided to spend much of this week outdoors before returning to the snowy Northeast.

              Anyhow, the Rangers resume practice today and I suspect Newsday will have someone pinch-hitting for the next couple days. In the meantime, U.S.-Switzerland and Canada-Russia today. 

                And I hope Jaromir Jagr's shoulder allows him to be effective for the Czechs. Absolutely would hate for him to bow out on the world stage this way.

              I'm thinking the U.S. prevails 3-2 or 4-2 over Switzerland and Canada somehow edges Russia, perhaps in another shootout when Sidney Crosby makes three attempts. (Both the shootout regs in which a player can shoot more than once and penalty-shot replacement rule should be dumped. Let's not get even farther away from  the team aspect of the game.)

             Til' later....