Updates that you needed to know
Nothing overly hockey substantive to share today—it’s August after all—but did want to provide some updates to what I’m doing and what’s going on and what’s to come. Since that’s a lot of what Noted Hockey has been to this point, my apologies for being repetitive.
Personal: I’ve been on the DL since July 11 with an upper-body injury. Sorry, force of habit. I had right shoulder surgery done on the 11th. I had arthroscopic remplissage (explainer of it) done on it. Why? Since 2004, I’ve dislocated that shoulder north of 30 times, close to 40 is my guess. I’ll spare you the majority of the more squeamish details of it all, but just know that when my doctor (Dr. Michael Binkley at UBMD) showed me the MRI results, what I thought was a massive amount of scar tissue in there was actually where there should’ve been bone on the humerus joint.
Yeah.
It’s work I wish I could’ve done long ago when I wasn’t already at middle-age but suffice to say how healthcare is here didn’t really lend to that being a financially viable idea. Things are a little different at this time, so it was the right time to correct a painful and more rapidly debilitating situation. For six weeks I’ll be in a sling and, as of this writing, I’ve got 11 days to go before it’s off for good. Then for six-to-eight months there will be physical therapy and after that ideally I can get back to doing a lot of physical activities I’ve been too petrified to do. I’ll probably still be nervous to do them. The shoulder injury PTSD may never go away but I’m sure whoever my physical therapist is will work on that almost as hard as making sure it works well.
Hockey
Along with the more Sabres-related writing I do and will continue to do here, I’ve also added Bleacher Report to my repertoire where I’ll be doing occasional pieces on the NHL for them. It’s very cool to get back to doing league-wide pieces again and to be part of a media rightsholders’ menagerie. B/R is owned by Turner Media who runs TNT who carries NHL games.
It’s also bittersweet to start there now at the same time NBC Sports essentially closed up shop on Pro Hockey Talk where my professional career began. It still exists there but only as a place where AP NHL wire stories will flow. Which could be really funny considering I do some work for them as well and my name winding up on PHT eight years after departing there would be something else. You know what they (read: Nietzsche) say…
I’ve got some work up on Bleacher Report already (Worst Decisions From Last Year, Lehner’s injury highlighting a Vegas problem that’s been brewing) — if you’re not following me on Twitter, I shamelessly share my work there all the time. I am my own RSS feed.
If you haven’t started listening yet, Lance and I are continuing to put out weekly episodes of Maintenance Day on the Buffalo Sabres and anything that remotely touches the Sabres universe. We’ve seen consistent growth with it through the summer which we’re very proud to see, especially since this is the “dead time” for all things puck. If you haven’t given us a listen yet, please do, you can find links to all of the outlets where you can find podcasts here. If you’re not a link clicker, we’re on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Google Podcasts, and we’re hosted at Buzzsprout. Plenty easy to find. Would like to add a Twitter account for the pod but the name was claimed by a Dutch resident who’s yet to tweet in the seven years they’ve had it. It’s a well-managed social media outlet there.
On the Sabres coverage front… I’ve finalized some ideas in my head for what to do here in that regard. The how is something to be discussed a bit closer to the start of training camp. That said, there will be a paid subscription level here and I will make it well worthwhile to sign up for a multitude of reasons to be announced when it’s “go” time.