Editors note: I wasn't going to write at all during the summer break between seasons but that ended when I came across something today that I felt compelled to write a few words about it

So today I came across a piece on MapleLeafs.com written by Mike Ulmer. He wrote:

The biggest deal maker or deal breaker for the feasibility of a hockey career is not genetics.

It’s not competitiveness, off-ice training, affluence or bloodlines.

Turns out it’s when the kid’s parents decided to get busy. That was one of the revealing truths to come out of the World Hockey Summit at the Air Canada Centre

A study showed children born in the first half of the year routinely make up 70 per cent of the players on Canada’s World Junior Hockey Championship team.

Now the study showing that children born in the first half of the year making up a large percentage of children playing at elite levels of hockey is, well, nothing new. In fact when I read about this phenomena it was first introduced to me in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers: The Story of Success a few years ago when I got the book for Christmas. In it, Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of measured success.

Now as a hockey fan, there was a chapter in the book where Gladwell that stuck out in my memory because of the hockey example he used. He explained that since the youth hockey league determines eligibility by calendar year birth date, players with early birthdays tend to mature and grow faster, and would then be looked at as better athletes. Because they were thought of as being a 'better athlete' they also got the best coaching and training, thus increasing the likelihood that they would make an elite team. He used the Vancouver Giants roster list as an example to explain his theory. I think there was also mention of the Medicine Hat Tigers as well.

So is this really a reavealing truth that no one has talked about until this years World Hockey Summit?

No not really. In fact, it was at the top of the Globe and Mail best seller list at #1 for weeks when it first came out, so I'm willing to bet that a few people may have read the book. This is not a slight at Ulmer's writing, since I don't assume everyone has read the book. And I'm sure someone before Gladwell has also written about this phenomena; But since I've come across a few articles in the past week about giving credit where credit is due (you know the ones I'm talking about), well I feel like credit for this "revealing truth" should be given to Mr. Gladwell since he already discussed his observation a few years ago.

I do like though that the issue was addressed at the World Hockey Summit, with proposed ideas of how to reduce the selection advantage that kids with early birthdays have over kids with later birthdays in the calendar year. It will be interesting to see what, if any measures get implemented to give all kids a fair shot at playing at an elite level.

I arbitrarily decided to cover the rest of July (or at least the middle and beginning ... just go with it) so this list is even bigger than the last one.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/poll-whos-more-annoying-ilya-kovalchuk-or-lebron-james.php

I break down the elements of irritation exhibited by both. Note: Lebron James won by a landslide.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/la-kings-should-not-worry-about-luring-big-time-free-agents.php

The Kings will lure free agents who expect a little less money than $100M per year as long as they're a contender. People who say they can't clearly have problems with that whole "causation" thing.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/jaroslav-halaks-contract-better-for-halak-the-blues-or-the-habs.php

Interesting to see how many NHL goalies make more than Jaroslav Halak. Hint: A fuckload.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/2010-nhl-free-agency-is-2010-the-summer-of-the-pay-cut.php

It is the summer of the paycut, unless you're a middle pairing defenseman ... I guess.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/in-honor-of-the-fourth-of-july-the-all-time-all-american-team.php

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/how-patrick-kane-compares-to-the-best-american-born-forwards-in-nhl-history.php

My two best 'Merica centric pieces from the Fourth of July.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/the-six-best-potential-2011-ufa-goalies-with-a-complete-list.php

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/top-six-potential-ufa-defensemen-for-2011-plus-complete-list.php

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/ten-most-promising-potential-ufa-forwards-in-2011-plus-a-complete-list.php

The best defensemen, goalies and forwards who might end up being available next July. Could Joe Thornton actually hit the free agent market? (Probably not.)

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/should-someone-make-a-deal-with-satan-miroslav-that-is.php

I know, most obvious headline ever. Still, this is basically the first "What about ... ?" article.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/penguins-rank-high-maple-leafs-in-the-doghouse-of-espns-fan-treatment-polls.php

Examining where hockey teams landed on ESPN's "ultimate standings."

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/2010-nhl-free-agency-what-about-alexander-frolov.php

Glen Sather says, "Yeah, what about Alex Frolov?"

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/players-wrestle-with-the-inexact-science-of-free-agency.php

Interesting take on free agency from Justin Bourne.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/2010-nhl-free-agency-what-about-slava-kozlov.php

Breaking down an underrated but aged scorer.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/poachers-delight-this-summers-best-targets-for-offer-sheets.php

I was a little disappointed this piece didn't get a little more attention. I thought it was pretty relevant and covered a base that didn't get covered anywhere else. Ho hum.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/the-nhl-lacks-many-steinbrenner-type-owners.php

*Pours out some calzone grease in memory of The Boss*

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/the-atlantic-division-leads-easts-influx-in-enforcers.php

The Atlantic Division = "The Probert Division."

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/which-teams-kind-of-sort-of-make-sense-for-marty-turco.php

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/despite-his-recent-struggles-marty-turco-is-still-a-slightly-above-average-goalie.php

I tried to make a few educated guesses on where Turco could land and why he should land somewhere. Sorry brah.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/ilya-kovalchuk-marty-turco-other-free-agents-could-learn-from-marian-hossa.php

Can't get the deal you want? Why not postpone it 'til next year?

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/2010-nhl-free-agency-what-about-lee-stempniak.php

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/2010-nhl-free-agency-what-about-willie-mitchell.php

What about? features on rugged but concussed defenseman Willie Mitchell and possible flash in the pan Lee Stempniak.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/atlanta-thrashers-being-re-built-in-the-image-of-their-imposing-new-gm-rick-dudley.php

I don't know if Dudley will make the Thrashers a contender, but he already accomplished something Don Waddell rarely did: making them interesting.

So the last two posts more or less cover July, excluding the next couple days. Hope you enjoyed them.

Hey there, Internet. It's been quite a while and - let's be honest - you probably won't see much of me outside of my day job. In fact, this post is basically a nod to said job.

It occurred to me that I've written more than 1300 posts for NBC and most of them evaporated into the Internet ether. That's fine and dandy, but for my own purposes (but hopefully a little entertainment for you) I've decided to archive some of my favorites here at CLS. I've not-so-scientifically decided to pick and choose my favorites per 100 or so. Sometimes I'll be super picky. Other times I'll pick anything that sounded like a good idea. I'll try to gear stuff toward the "timeless" but some of the timely stuff will be in there too.

Feeback is always welcome, although "Don't post these links" will fall on deaf ears. I'm going to be lazy and just paste the URLS right in here. To be a man of the people, I'll put a little blurb under most of the links. This list is drawn from my last 100 posts at PHT.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/la-kings-might-regret-missing-out-on-gagne-more-than-kovalchuk.php

I'm not the world's biggest proponent of giving Kovalchuk a bunch of money in hopes that he'll be something more than a guy who scores a bunch of meaningless goals.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/2010-nhl-free-agency-what-about-maxim-afinogenov.php

As Laura Astorian points out, the Afinogenov photo might be the best part of the article. I think it sums up his career in a single image.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/phts-list-of-players-who-must-prove-theyre-fluke-proof.php

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/nhlcoms-seven-players-attempting-to-prove-last-season-wasnt-a-fluke.php

NHL.com produced some great summer reading fare already and this was the lastest one I reacted to. The first link includes my player list while the second one features wordy reactions to theirs. Among the best stuff in this first edition.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/penguins-gm-ray-shero-discusses-team-building-salary-cap-strategies.php

I'm not sure how strong this piece is, but the subject matter is pretty interesting.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/phts-2010-11-breakout-player-list.php

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/nhlcoms-seven-breakthrough-players-for-2010-11.php

Before the one-hit wonder post, I reacted to their "breakout players" list. Also some of the stronger work I've done lately.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/a-look-at-agent-eustace-king-and-the-nhls-slow-growth-in-diversity.php

Hockey and diversity might always be an interesting subject to me.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/beware-of-the-fan-poll-how-each-nhl-team-received-its-name.php

The link within this post is probably the most worthy of your reading, although I think my pithy comments are pretty solid.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/milestone-watch-some-significant-numbers-players-can-reach-during-the-2010-11-season.php

With the assistance of hockey-reference.com, I put together some of the more interesting possible milestones for the 2010-11 season. Good for bookmarking, especially if you're a team blogger.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/the-nhls-off-the-beaten-path-records-including-one-that-alex-ovechkin-could-break.php

"Off the beaten path" records. Another NHL.com story reaction. Like I said, I've been a sucker for those lately.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/hockey-in-mexico-growing-the-sport-in-a-rare-location.php

Hockey succeeding in Mexico? Dios mio.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/taking-a-look-at-the-nhls-unbreakable-records.php

Yup, another post inspired by NHL.com.

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2010/07/proof-that-officials-put-away-their-whistles-late-in-games-a-list-of-the-worst-offenders.php

This is some intriguing stuff. Great work by Igloo Dreams.

So that's the first set of my posts. Expect these to pop up very irregularly, when I have the energy and interest. It could be in big waves or a steady stream. Or, most likely, a leaky sink dribble.

Whilst at the Thrashers' draft party with a friend last night, I came to a conclusion about something.  Sometimes, people in real life really do look like cartoons.

Yes, this is worse than Wysh tweeting "Hey, look, a little Wang!"

I'll just let the picture speak for itself:

Don't lie.  You see it too.

...or maybe I'm just easily amused.  Any way you look at it (and I'm sure that it's been brought up and looked at before) Daniel Birere looks just like Paul McCartney.  Seriously.  I've been dwelling on this as Briere's playoff beard has grown in - and I'm not the only one that caught this.  Good bud Jim Neveau of Paint it Blackhawks called it out on Twitter the other night.  2010 Playoffs Daniel Birere = Let it Be Era Paul McCartney.  Don't believe me?  Here.

I don't know if everyone has seen this story yet, but if you are like me you are a sucker for feel good stories.

This one is about two brothers, Ken and Geoff Moyse, who are Flyers fans from St. John's Newfoundland that roadtripped out to Montreal to watch the Flyers play the Habs. From CBC News:

The brothers from St. John's headed to the Bell Centre for the playoff tilt wearing their bright orange Flyers jerseys.

"We had to walk from the hotel all the way from Ste-Catherine Street to the Bell Centre and we debated whether we were going to wear the jerseys," Geoff said.

The Moyses got some heckles from Habs fans but when they arrived at the arena, they happily made their way to their seats in the nosebleed section.

What the men didn't know was that their seats happened to be near the luxury box reserved for the visiting team's owner, Ed Snyder.

They heard someone behind them saying: "Good to see you guys. Glad you could come and cheer our guys on."

It was Snyder.

The Flyers' owner had spotted the two orange jerseys among the sea of red in the Bell Centre.

Speaking with the brothers, Snyder found out they had come from Newfoundland and invited them to join him in his booth.

The guys got to watch the game with the Flyers' top brass but the biggest thrill was yet to come.

When the Flyers won the game, they were swept along with the party into the team's dressing room.

The two brothers are going to be flown to Philly for Game 3 and 4 courtesy of the Flyers organization. Well done Flyers, well done.

and the hockey world get its panties in a bunch.

God I hate that expression, but that's exactly how I felt after reading through twitter tonight after the game. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here is what all the fuss was about:

So Pronger went and retrieved the puck at the end of the game and skated off with it. Of course Ben Eager couldn't help but chirp him as he went off the ice, suddenly wanting the puck that Pronger has. Yeah yeah, Chicago won the game so maybe they have more claim over it, but really who the f-ck cares? This wasn't such a big deal. I found it rather funny actually.

CBC showed a clip of Pronger retrieving the puck at the end of game 1 as well and Gino Reda from TSN tweets (via Darren Dreger) that Pronger told Philly beat reporters that he threw both pucks in the garbage. I love that Pronger is such a jerkface about something so small as the game puck.

In fact, I've found Pronger rather comical these last few days with all his press conferences and interations with the media folk.

I love this. Love all the chippiness and the animosity that builds between the two teams. And really isn't this part of what makes the the SCF so awesome? And Pronger's antics has the media asking him questions about pucks instead of asking him about the team being down by two games.

The Stanley Cup Finals begin tonight, and that means it's time to see what the random number generator predicts. As I did with the first round, second round, and third round, I've harnessed the power of random.org to select the winner and predict how many games the series to go. At the end is my own pick. So far the generator is thoroughly defeating me, but hopefully this round I can save some minor dignity. With that, here's what the random number generator has to say:

Stanley Cup Finals

(2W) Chicago vs. (7E) Philadelphia: Philadelphia in 7.

The Flyers become the lowest seed to ever win a Stanley Cup. Michael Leighton picks up another shutout and is relatively solid, but is blown out of the water at least once. Marian Hossa has his best series of the playoffs but ultimately falls short again in his attempt to procure the Cup. Philadelphia wins the first game and Chicago goes down 1-0 in a series for the third time this playoff season. Flyers fans will mockingly sing Chelsea Dagger in unison during home games.

Bonus: Chicago loses, but Jonathan Toews still wins the Conn Smythe.

My own predictions: Chicago in 6.

I've been trying to sit down and write a post CLS for weeks now. But after the playoffs, my routine of blogging all the time evaporated and it's been so hard to just back into a normal routine. So I thought I would start small with a little links post since we'll have the next four days to analyze and over-analyze the Blackhawks and Flyers series. When you need a break from all that analysis reading (and bitching about the four day break) here's a little reading on some other stuff:

Jibblescribbits wrote the Sharks eulogy on Puck Daddy today. You know that you've written a good eulogy by the how much hate spews from the PD commenters. There should be an award at the end of the playoffs to wrap up how many times a writer gets called a hack in the comments and then award a PD prize for best writer

Matt from View From My Seats has some info about the 2010 NHL Entry Draft in LA if you are thinking of going

Elliotte Friedman discusses whether Roberto Luongo should re-invent his style of goaltending since it clearly hasn't worked for him these past few seasons

Arik from the 4th Line blog puts together 5 things that Flames fans have to look forward to through the rest of the playoffs

The Royal Half has a fine collection of puns from NHL.com collected during this past round of the playoffs

Our CLS founder James O'Brien has Part 1 San Jose Sharks' salary cap outlook for next season

Obviously big questions for Doug Wilson, some post season thoughts from Mr. Plank and Fear the Fin and Mike Chen at From the Rink

Joe Sakic threw the ceremonial first pitch for the Rockies last week last week and according to this picture over at Anyone for Detroit well he looked pretty good doing is (or at least better than Dany Heatley does)

Yo. Herein lies a feature that we've dubbed "Cycling". You know, to play off the blog name? Every so often, the venerable editors of this here blog will be passing the proverbial puck around on various NHL topics. Read on, and bash us in the comments.

1. Playoffs are halfway through. Which player was your biggest surprise and why?

Dani: I saw Halak's performance at the Olympics in Vancouver, so I'm not going to say that he has been the biggest surprise as he already blew me away then. Since the Sharks have been on such a long break it's easy to forget about the team but for me the biggest surprise was Joe Pavelski. He was so clutch in so many games, scoring when the big line didn't. Not only did he have multipoint games, many of his goals were game winners and he's certainly a reason why the Sharks are still in the playoffs.

Laura: Good or bad?  Bad wise, I'll have to go with Heatley.  He's got 2 goals and 9 assists so far, but he just doesn't have that feeling of "oooh, no, Heatley's on the ice!  We need to watch out!" to me that he probably should have.  He's just kind of... there.  Maybe it's because he's setting stuff up better, or that he's changing his game a little bit to not always have to be Dany F'n Heatley all of the time.  Who knows  I just haven't noticed him much.

Positive wise, Mike Cammalleri has impressed me a bunch.  I've seen him on the scoresheet about 100x more than I ever assumed I would.  Maybe he finally underwent that growth spurt... as a player.  Who knows what the cause of all of this is, but 12 goals to lead scorers in the playoffs is mind-boggling.

Steve: I don't follow the Toronto Maple Leafs for the same reason I don't eat at the sushi/poutine diner near my house. It doesn't interest me and there's also a good chance I may end up with Hepatitis B. So colour me excited when I found out the Penguins had traded Martin Skoula and Luca Caputi (who lives on the second floor) for Alexei Ponikarovsky. 6'4 220 lbs and averaging just below a point per game had me expecting Ivan Drago in a Jofa and the power forward that Malkin or Crosby needed on their wing to make some room and bury the garbage in front of the net.

While in the midst of planning my looting spree for the Penguins inevitable second consecutive Stanley Cup no one told me that Ponikarovsky would play like a kitty with a ball of yarn around the net. To say his playoff performance was underwhelming is like saying the plot to LOST is "kind of" confusing. "Poni" only had 4 assists and 1 goal in the playoffs and was a healthy scratch during the Montreal series.  Ray Shero has made some shrewd moves at the deadline in years past to help complement Crosby and Malkin but this year's pick up of Ponikarovsky was a huge disappointment.

Ryan: Brian Boucher. I know he's injured now, but goaltending was supposed to be the weakest link for the Flyers and it turned out to be one of their strengths. Philadelphia was six games above .500 during the regular season, Boucher was nine below. The Flyers' record when Boucher played? 9-21-3. When he didn't? 32-14-3. His save percentage in the playoffs was .915, up from .899 in the regular season. His GAA was a full 0.43 better. Nobody expected Boucher to play this well. I'm not sure even Boucher himself thought he could.

Chris: Mike Cammalleri. We knew Halak was good and Pavelski was clutch, but where did this come from? The little guy has turned in a postseason performance for the ages, leading the NHL in playoff goals and taking the Canadiens' offense on his back, small though it may be. Calgary looks less intelligent by the day for essentially choosing Jay Bouwmeester over this goal scoring machine, and one wonders if Cammalleri is sticking his foot in the door that leads to the Habs' captaincy.

Coming up: The panel talks about who needs to step up their game, and what their predictions are. Click on that little "Read more" link next to the "Add comment" on the bottom-right to, well, read more.