Here are three quick hit stories from the hockey world for Monday, August 22.
- Dave Scatchard announced his retirement from the NHL via Twitter today. Scatchard revealed that he decided to hang up his skates because of concussion issues.
The rugged forward played 659 regular season games, most recently playing eight with the St. Louis Blues in 2010-11. He hasn’t been much of a fixture in the NHL the past three seasons, playing just 16 games for the Nashville Predators in 09-10 and 46 with the Phoenix Coyotes in 08-09. Scatchard played most of his career with the Vancouver Canucks and New York Islanders. His final regular season totals are 128 goals and 141 assists for 269 points with a -38 rating and 1,040 penalty minutes. He appeared in 17 postseason games - all with the Islanders - scoring two goals and two assists for four points with a -8 rating and 34 PIM.
- NHL 12 will ship with nine legends, but the in-store copies won’t include the Winnipeg Jets’ new uniforms. The new jerseys will reportedly be included in the game’s first roster update, however, although it’s unclear when exactly that first update will occur. The game will be released on September 13, so it’s no guarantee that the Jets will share their new design by then. It’s an understandable issue that EA Sports must deal with, although it could be an especially big bummer for the small subset of fans who have video game consoles but no Internet access. (Any leftover fears that this screenshot included the new Jets logo can now be put to rest, if EA’s denial of the logos wasn’t enough already.)
On the good news front, those with Internet capabilities will be delighted to know that EA is scheduled to premiere the game’s demo tomorrow on Xbox Live and Playstation Network.
- Shelly Anderson reports that Pittsburgh Penguins grinding forward Craig Adams will be out for about a month after undergoing an appendectomy on Friday. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report indicates that he should be ready for training camp. (H/T to Kukla’s Korner.)