The dreaded offseason always brings a cavalcade of stories that seem to be set on a loop, designed to run from the time the Cup is lifted in June until the puck drops again for preseason.

Granted, some of these do actually have a newsworthy quality to them…for the first few days or so. And naturally hockey minus the actual games leaves a fairly small pool of things to fill those column and blog inches. But at some point you just want to turn off the news feeds and focus on something that is actually new.

Sadly, thanks to the assorted members of the media (and yes, that includes us crazy bloggers), that’s just not possible. Here are some of this year’s stories that could disappear off the Google reader anytime and not be missed…

Long-term contracts
This obviously isn’t just a “this summer” type of thing; contracts stretching out over a decade or more have been the subject of discussion since DiPietro’s fantastically brilliant deal with the Islanders years ago.

But ever since the salary cap came into existence, lengthy deals have been talked about more and more. Not the Ovechkin/Richards/Crosby deals of the world, mind you, but those designed to pay older players more money with minimal cap hit by stretching out until said players are hobbling around in walkers.

So basically we’ve discovered that, in a salary cap system, people are finding and using/abusing loopholes. I’ll alert the media. Oh, wait…

I’m not sure how I feel about these long-term deals crafted to circumnavigate the cap. I know that Luongo probably won’t be playing until he’s 43, and you know that Hossa probably won’t either. But until the league actually closes the loophole to prevent this kind of thing or enforces the rules they’ve got already (aside from looking into who “tampered” with whom), it fails to be a story…at least not a story we need repeated every two days.

Phil Kessel
He’s a former first rounder who saw his stock fall slightly before being drafted by Boston, a kid with great potential but who has yet to prove himself as a superstar, and a restricted free agent who wants upwards of $5 million+ a year during a recession from a cap-strapped team.

The Bruins want him; he wants to stay in Boston. Except the Leafs are interested…no, wait, it’s the Sharks. The Oilers? But oops, the Bruins still want to keep him. Except they can’t afford him. And talks aren’t going well, apparently.

Caught up now, right? Exactly.

I get that it’s been a rough year on the RFA front, with some notable names including Kessel still waiting for a contract with just a few weeks left until camp. Kessel is just one of many who isn’t willing to be realistic given financial times, cap struggles and the likelihood of that cap going down next year. I single him out because…well, frankly I’ve never really liked him.

But how about this concept: reporting on the trade/contract/deportation to Siberia if and when it actually happens instead of wasting my time with another article about how nothing has happened. Just a thought.

Twitter Wars
This is more of a general sports story, thanks to the NHL’s fairly open relationship with all things new media; doesn’t make it any less annoying, though.

Amazingly I am on Twitter, and while I don’t use it to the point of diarizing my every move, I do find it useful at times – particularly when I just want to see how brilliantly funny some people can be with 140 characters. It’s remarkable, really.

Still, even as a tweepette or a twitoid or twhatever I don’t see the need for this new form of media to be the subject of so much other-media attention. It’s fun but kind of stupid, pointless at times and highly useful at others.

It’s a Facebook status without that pesky Facebook part – it’s 140 characters, for crying out loud. It’s not a sign of the apocalypse, nor is it the tool that will change the world of the internet. How athletes, reporters and even fans can be banned from using it is beyond me, but I’m also baffled by Twitters seemingly constant presence in my sports headlines these days.

Oh, and don’t even get me started on how you regulate that sort of thing. Try telling a stadium full of college students to put their phones away…you’d have better luck getting Dany Heatley to play in Edmonton.

Dany Heatley (nice segue, right?)
It’s not the popular stance right now, but I’m going to go ahead and blame this one entirely on the Senators’ organization. If they don’t leak Heatley’s trade request in the first place, none of this happens and we all have to deal with one less obnoxious story.

It’s not hard to see why they did it, of course – if a trade went through,they wanted it known that it was because Heatley wanted out and not because the team didn’t want him. But they unleashed this story that would not die on us at the worst possible time, right when the offseason started and there was nothing else to talk about.

They also attempted to trade him, publicly, to a team that was not on Heatley’s list AND gave him the dumbass contract with the NTC in it that allowed him to make said list in the first place. Not to say Heatley doesn’t share a lot of the blame in the situation itself – he absolutely does, this doesn’t absolve him of that.

But when you’re talking about media coverage reaching a breaking point? The blame falls solely on the Senators.

Versus versus DirectTV
Okay, so it’s a relatively new story and doesn’t really count as an offseason-dominating one per se. Still counts, I think.

Maybe it’s because I’m not a DirecTV subscriber. Maybe it’s because I am secure in my knowledge that Versus isn’t leaving my lineup anytime soon. Maybe it’s because the two parties involved have resorted to using Twitter-based snipes (come on…seriously?). Whatever it is, this story is shaping up to be the most annoying one in the fastest time in a summer chock full of annoying stories.

It’s also a continuation of a bigger battle that seems to be pitting cable and satellite companies against poor, innocent hockey fans. We’re not asking for the kind of coverage football gets, but maybe some semblance of quality, consistency and availability would be nice. So many people don’t even have access to Versus, or if they do, they can’t find it. ESPN dropped the NHL and ran; NBC treats it like a glorified lead-in to horse racing and actually pays guys like Mike Milbury to be an “expert”.

Think of the fuss that would be raised if TNT, carrier of the NBA playoffs, suddenly disappeared. Or what if ESPN was there one day and then *poof* gone the next? Oh…if only wishing made it so.

All the same, it’s another one of those issues that everyone with a computer is weighing in on – and I get it, if you are a DirecTV subscriber and you’ve suddenly lost a good chunk of your hockey programming, you’re probably pretty pissed and rightfully so. But then we get the analysts dissecting the battle and the Twitter arguments being published in columns and the corresponding websites pleading with the good people to take their side and…argh. ENOUGH.

Paul Kelly vs. the NHLPA vs. the League
Another newbie, this one has produced a chain reaction of opinions and new revelations about the inner workings of the players’ union. What’s worse, there is nowhere to turn where this issue is talked about without mentioning another potential lockout.

A threat like that is seemingly always imminent these days; in a post-lockout world we’re not innocent enough to believe that they would never cancel a full season of hockey, and we all know more about the CBA nowadays than we probably ever wanted to.

But hockey is just a few weeks away! I’m in a good mood, I want to enjoy the coming season and savor it and be mentally piecing together the opening night roster – not predicting the end of the NHL and delving into why Paul Kelly was fired. I don’t even want to read the name “Chris Chelios” anymore, and seeing one more thing about the so-called old guard of the NHLPA trying to take over the union and take on the evil empire of the NHL.

The Ongoing Saga of the Coyotes, or Bettman vs. Balsillie III: This Time It’s Personal
It’s a battle for the ages, isn’t it? You can almost hear the announcer now: In this corner, weighing in at about $1.6 billion, the Blackberry Billionaire, Jim Balsillie! And in this corner, at a mighty 4 foot 2 inches of pure mean, Gary “the Commish” Bettman! And in that other corner, CC! Who…couldn’t care less.

The whole thing is just ridiculous. Actually it’s passed ridiculous and gone straight to ludicrous speed, surpassing all logic with a bunch of fancy legal words and “he said, he said” crap. While the fate of a team hangs in the balance, we’re getting play-by-play from inside the courtroom, details about Balsillie and the league’s plan to save Phoenix as a hockey market. Sometimes it feels like there’s so much information that it’s reduced to a series of clicks and a steady stream of desert-tinged white noise.

And what’s troubling is that the people stuck in the middle, besides all of us, are the actual fans of the Coyotes. Every day they’re forced to seenew stories about bad arena deals and money mismanagement splashed across every sports section, jokes made at their expense – from which this corner of the interweb is admittedly not immune – and articles decrying their region as “bad for hockey”. No fanbase should have to go through what they’ve gone through, no matter what. And the rest of us shouldn’t have to be bombarded by it while they do.

The Penguins and the Cup
What, you were expecting something else?

We get it, they won. Now drop it already. Sure, we’re all lovers of hockey and admirers of the Stanley Cup – but there are only so many Penguins fans out there, and the rest of us are just over seeing them parade around with it…and some of us were over it the second that final Game 7 ended.

If people aren’t talking about the above topics, any hockey-related article that does come out seems to be accompanied by a nice, juicy shot of the Cup celebration that I have tried so valiantly to avoid for months. Not like we need another reason to be grateful for the return of hockey – but not having to hear/read anything else about the Penguins and their summer desecrating the most beautiful trophy in sports is tops on that list, too.

Of course, now we’re going to be subjected to a season of the Pens being referred to as “the Champs”…but such is life, I suppose. Come June (April?) that all comes to an end. Mwaha.

Just a few assorted Thursday thoughts as the finishing touches are put on what you, the readers, had to say…and as preparations begin for a mini-feature that I hope will be as entertaining as it sounds in my head.

Few things are, of course, but you never know.

- First and foremost, heartfelt condolences to Jose Theodore and his family on their tragic loss – thoughts and prayers of hockey fans everywhere are, I’m sure, with Jose at this sad time.

And one would hope that with the story having been reported already, the media coverage of this will fade away as quickly as possible so they can be left to grieve in peace. Being a celebrity and having to be in the spotlight should have its limits, ones that go with basic human decency, and a tragic time like this is a time for respect and boundaries. It almost feels like having as much information as we do about the situation is prying to some extent, but such is the age we live in.

Anyway…

- The TV schedule for next season came out yesterday and yes, there is a healthy heaping helping of Caps goodness on Versus (…woo). Usually now would be the time to bitch about the Penguins getting one more appearance – but I suppose this year we can let it slide. You know, since they’re…that thing…that we’re not going to mention ever, ever again.

Back to the Caps, though, who will be on everyone’s favorite hard-to-find, low budget, bull-riding, ultimate-fighting, bass-fishing channel a grand total of seven times, including two of the first three games of the season. Add that in to the 17 times the Caps will appear on TV sets up in Canada, plus up to 5 games on NBC, and we’ve got some serious network presence.

Among the matchups that seem to be attracting the attention of all four US and Canadian national networks (or “national” in the case of Versus) are the Caps taking on the Flyers, Bruins and of course the Penguins. Not bad choices, really. CC gives her seal of approval.

- Is it really football time again already? Didn’t we just finish with all of that nonsense?

- With the start of national team training camps all around the world, there is understandably a lot of talk right now about Vancouver 2010. But honestly, I just can’t get excited about the Olympics just yet; that’s coming from someone who eats, sleeps and breathes the Olympics once they come around.

I’ll get there, particularly knowing that a handful of Caps will probably be at the Games. Right now, though? NHL, baby. That’s where it’s at. And we’re tantalizingly close, with players trickling back into town every day and training camp kicking off in just over three weeks.

Three…weeks. Can you feel it? Can you feel the excitement??

- Out of habit from my days up north, I have a special place in my heart for five of the six Canadian teams so I tend to keep tabs on them – and I just can’t be the only one who feels like the Ottawa Senators have done way too much off the ice and not nearly enough on it this offseason.

Granted, the whole Heatley saga tends to cast a bit of a shadow on anything they did try to do. But let’s be honest, this is a team just a few years removed from a berth in the Finals that has since fallen to pieces and they’ve spent the better part of the summer bitching at each other, bitching at the media, bitching at crazy wannabe owners, etc.

Are there new players to play alongside guys like Alfredsson and Spezza? New management to freshen things up? Nah, not really. Kovalev’s in, I suppose. But hey, at least Heatley will be breaking his silence tomorrow. I’m sure whatever he has to say will be riveting. Maybe he should have said it three months ago.

- D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) Beautification Day is without question a great cause (and you can find out more about it here), and we’re all thrilled that Boudreau and Pothier will be taking part in it. Still, you know it’s a slow news day in the hockey world when something like that shows up on NHL.com.

Although it’s somewhat understandable since I’m amazed I’ve come up with this many things to prattle on about on this lovely Thursday evening.

Quick programming note – be sure to tune in tomorrow for questionnaire responses from the guys over at Four Habs Fans (put the kiddies to bed for that one, folks, they tend to work a little R-rated) and…oh, yeah, from you!

Yes, even you three naughty people who sent in your responses after the deadline. I swear sometimes I’m so kind and generous it hurts.

As tends to happen this time of year, the lists and polls are popping up like pretty little wildflowers all over the NHL media landscape. Sun Media, a conglomerate of news outlets spanning across Canada, has been busy on a two-prionged poll that actually yielded some interesting results.

On one side we have the “Cream of the Crop” poll, which asked all of the Sun Media hockey writers to vote for who they thought was the best current NHLer. The entire list is here, but I’m sure Caps fans will be pleased with how the voting turned out:

2. Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins (157 voting points)

For the first time in the three-year history of this top-10 poll, Crosby is not at the top of the list, though it’s through no fault of his own. Sid the Kid is just 21 and yet he already has a Hart Trophy and a scoring title, is captain of his team and is on pace this season for 119 points. With tremendous lower-body strength and on-ice vision, Crosby can carry the puck and dish it and would likely be a 50 goal-scorer if he would just choose to shoot more often. Will be a key cog on Canada’s Olympic team in 2010.

1. Alex Ovechkin, Washington Capitals (162 voting points)

Few players in the history of the NHL have a better ability to dominate a game than this 23-year-old Russian. Ovechkin is a born goal-scorer, who tallied 65 times en route to winning the Hart, Art Ross and Maurice Richard Trophies in 2007. He also plays with a remarkable amount of toughness and is not afraid to throw his 6-foot-2, 213-pound frame around. He has an absolutely deadly shot, which he will use from anywhere on the ice, and is a human highlight reel who is on pace for 50 goals and 111 points this season.

But we knew that already, right? Of course, one of the panelists was the infamous Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun…maybe he just thought the question was “who is going to be traded to LA by Valentines Day?”.

The other Sun Media poll involved the hockey writers asking 25 questions of more than 50 players, scouts, coaches, executives and media members. They then compiled the results and created a list of superlatives, everything from Most Overrated Player (Sean Avery shockingly won that one) to Best Dressed Coach (where some blind person actually voted for Bruce Boudreau).

There are some interesting results, with Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin and Mike Green peppering a number of “also-ran” lists and Donald Brashear tying Derian Hatcher for second slowest skater in the league…poor Brash. Boyd Gordon even gets a little notice for his excellent faceoff work. And there’s no consensus to be found anywhere, with no #1 choice getting anything near 50% of the vote with the exception of Georges Laraque’s 24 votes as best fighter.

Check out the entire list – agree? Disagree?

You know, just when we think we’re making some headway, gaining respect around the league…they spell our name wrong. Big leaps in the power rankings, sure, but who the heck are the Capitols? My kingdom for one of those people who checks things over, makes sure spellings are correct…what are they called? It’ll come to me. In the meantime, it must be time for a spelling lesson!

This is a capitol, with an ‘O’:

And this? This is a Capital, with an A:

Any questions?

Next week…Fedorov vs. Federov.

While the US is light years behind Canada in both coverage and grassroots support of hockey outside the NHL (and sometimes within the NHL, depending on your location), it’s nice to see that steps are being taken to improve both.

Per Kukla’s Korner:

“USA Hockey announced today a three-year partnership with the NHL Network that includes unprecedented coverage of the International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship and coverage of the upcoming Qwest Tour, featuring the 2009-10 U.S. Women’s National Team.”

More details can be found by following the link, but basically we can expect to see more than just the medal rounds of the WJC, as well as some always exciting tilts between the US women and the Canadians. It’s just great all around – the fact that we’ll now get to see the future stars of the NHL in one of the better tournaments around is a major plus for growing the sport across the country. The fact that women’s hockey will now be granted national coverage can only be good for growing women’s hockey programs, another vastly overlooked area.

The NHL Network has so much potential to help spread hockey through the US – this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Oops. Somehow I missed the memo that today was supposed to be Happy Hockey Day…is it too late to pop that last post into yesterday’s archive?

It’s actually a grand idea by uber-blogger Paul Kukla, encouraging MSM writers and bloggers alike to embrace the good and positive things about hockey, getting away from the negativity that seems to dominate so much coverage these days.

Never in these parts, of course. I’m Miss Optimistic Happy Pants, 365 days a year.

Keeping up with that tradition, here’s a bit of happy for your hockey Monday: Ovechkin is the NHL’s player of the month for November.

There obviously wasn’t too much suspense – the guy did have 75 bazillion points in about 3 games or something ridiculous like that – but suspense is overrated, because it’s always nice to see our boys honored this way. And if you recall, Alexander Semin was last month’s player of the month, giving the Caps a delicious early season sweep of the monthly honors so far.

So who gets it this month? Backstrom? Laich? Sloan?

Time will tell…