Cannon Blasts: Post-Anaheim Loss/Sunday Open Thread

Happy Sunday, everyone! What is on your minds? What do you wanna talk about?

How the third jersey continues to be the best sweater in hockey?

How it was 63 degrees in the middle of December in Tallahassee?

A place to talk about today’s football slate with hockey fans?

Let’s have a good time. Here’s some news.

Blue Jackets News

• The Blue Jackets took Anaheim to overtime but lost on a Daniel Sprong wristshot from beyond the faceoff circle. Our full recap, here.
• Our fearless leader, PD, did a really good job of explaining how the expectations that have been set by the Blue Jackets are, in a way, ruining how we are watching them.
• On Friday, Team Canada released CBJ prospect Liam Foudy.
• Union and Blue’s William Espy asks the question - is it time to part ways with Sonny Milano?
• You’ve heard stories of teams having inside-joke fines and stuff. As someone who has worked in pro sports, I can tell you it’s 100% true. Sometimes it’s in good fun, sometimes it’s from the coaching staff in a more fascist manner. Anyway, Alison Lukan does a great job diving into the Jackets’ fine culture.
• Does Sergei Bobrovsky deserve to be in San Jose during All-Star Weekend? Newly named Jackets Insider Jeff Svoboda makes the case for him./

Hockey News

• Patrick Berglund has been suspended for failing to report to the team. Publicly, the team said he had been dealing with an illness but now it seems...like there’s more.
• The Stadium Series logos have been released for Philly and Pittsburgh. They’re...okay, I guess?/

Sports News

• I know I’m a week late on this but ATLANTA UNITED ARE MF’ING CHAMPIONS AND ALWAYS WILL BE. I don’t know if I’ve ever watched a professional sports game (yet alone a pro playoff or championship game) in which, from before the first whistle blew, I knew the team I was pulling for was going to win. It was...I don’t know. There are tons of articles about it, and I know most of you are tired of hearing about how United has really taken over Atlanta and has done so by embracing the culture of the city, but everything that’s been written on it is true. It’s amazing and while I’m not expecting to repeat next year (although I don’t think there’ll be that huge of a decline by the Five Stripes), I really hope what the club has built in terms of support over the last two years doesn’t fade. It’s true - Atlanta is such a fickle professional sports town that United might fall the same fate as other teams, but I think this might be different. Might be.
• It is officially BOWL SZN and I celebrated by watching cricket and indoor lacrosse yesterday. Go figure.
• Speaking of indoor lacrosse, the NLL season began yesterday after having the season delayed a couple of weeks due to a labor dispute. Our Georgia Swarm won their opener against New England, 16-12, and all was right with the world.
• Also, speaking of cricket, there are currently two Test matches happening right now - the second test between Australia and India and the first Test between New Zealand and Sri Lanka. If you wanna chat about either test, let’s do so below. All I can really say that’ll make an inkling of sense since both tests are kind of in the middle of going is that Australia looked a lot better in their first innings this test than they did in either innings in their first one with the Indians.
• Christmas jerseys for NBA games used to be a time honored tradition. Until Nike came along.
• Friday night, the biggest news on Twitter was that of an NBA trade. I’m not going to pretend like I paid attention to anything past that, but for those interested parties, click here.
• Not news, but my alma mater, Western Kentucky, is playing basketball today with a five-star, Top 10 center in Charles Bassey. Tip off is at 3 p.m. ET on ESPN+ if you want to watch. I’ll have live tweets here./