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PHX @ CBJ GT: Sadly, Not Game 31

Of course I made a Binary joke on 1/11/11.

With the Coyotes in town, I’m looking forward to Paul Bissonnette actually getting some ice time against the Jackets, if the projected roster from the Dispatch is to be believed. While he’s not a world beater on the ice (he describes himself as a plug pretty often), he’s developed quite the following as BizNasty2.0, and you have to enjoy a bit of color. (Admit it, when you watched HBO’s 24/7, you were a little sad they didn’t show his reaction to the locker room prank by Matt Cooke.)

Social media has become the brave new world, and the NHL has done a decent job of adapting to it at an organizational and team level, but players, as a whole, have been slow or inconsistent – false accounts are rampant, and many players will create an “official” account, but leave it idle or hand it over to their teams’ public relations staff.

Alternatively, there are guys like Bissonnette, George Laraque, David Perron, Mike Commodore, and Tom Sestito, among others, who use the tools to inject humor, personal causes, and a bit more of the human behind the uniform into the minds of fans, giving a look at what happens outside of the game. It’s an interesting change, and one that tends to create a lot more fan reaction when they start getting attached to a player – just look at the response to Tom Sestito’s reassignment.

I don’t know if it’s totally a good thing – after all, sometimes a player will hold opinions that make fans or their team uncomfortable, and services like Twitter and Facebook make it all too easy for “oversharing”, but in general it’s a neat way to learn more about what it’s like to be an NHL player.

…anyhow, where were we?

Ah, right, yes. It’s game time, and one way or another, it’s time to drop the puck. Go Jackets!