It’s been known for a while that the National Hockey League was getting a new team in the Seattle Kraken for the 2020-21 season. After the remainder of the 2019-20 season and the 2020-21 season were both impacted by the pandemic, having an expansion draft this week is a sign that the league is getting back to normal for the 2021-22 season.
You gotta give it to the NHL. They beat the NFL, NBA and MLB when getting a franchise in Las Vegas, and they now have 32 team. That is the same number of teams currently in the NFL and two more than the NBA and MLB.
As for the latest team to join the NHL, the Seattle Kraken are not waiting until the expansion draft to unveil their home jersey…
There were a lot of fan-made versions, and most were spot on. It’s not a bad jersey, as its colors do go well with the Seattle area. Perhaps a little darker teal green to match the Seahawks and Mariners would have been nice.
The expansion draft is going to be interesting, especially after watching the Vegas Golden Knights in 2017 make picks and put a team together that made the Stanley Cup Final in its inaugural season. Not only did Vegas have their pick of talent, but for the Seattle expansion draft, they are exempt from it. The Golden Knights are definitely on a heater going into their 5th season.
If you have seen the new Apple TV+ show “Schmigadoon“, this screen grab captures how fans feel going into Wednesday night.
Was I OK when the Penguins put Marc-Andre Fleury at-risk knowing he would go to Vegas? Sure. Am I now, in hindsight, wanting him to come back to Pittsburgh after the success he has had out there and the goalie struggles his old team has had? Well, yeah. Maybe he’ll do the farewell season in Pittsburgh before his retirement.
Here’s your Mix & Match Monday: Week of July 19 Edition
-Going into the first weekend after the All-Star break, Reds fans here in Cincinnati were hungry for a three-game sweep of the Brewers, who coming in, were four games ahead of the Reds for first place in the National League Central. By late Sunday afternoon, Milwaukee left with a three-game sweep, erasing the ground Cincinnati made up before the break.
The Mets are in town this week. Let’s see how that goes.
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-I joined TikTok this past week. I had two-straight days off, I was bored and had to see what all the hype was around it.
I’ve been on Facebook since 2008, Twitter since 2010 and while I downloaded Instagram around 2011, I didn’t start using it fully until a few years ago. After spending some time on Tik Tok and making a few videos for my page from old videos on my phone, I’ve come to realize that while there are some talented people making videos, a majority are just annoying. Also, the thirst traps! ALL THE THIRST TRAPS!
Anyway, my page is “gallagherradio” if you wanna follow.
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-If the Summer Olympics in Tokyo over the next two weeks teaches us anything, it is that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over. It is easy to sit in the U.S. and think “well, everything’s open again so it must be done”. Nope! Cases are up because people continue to dodge vaccinations and the delta variant is infecting them, while other countries deal with the variant and are trying to secure vaccines.
The people who are simply avoiding the vaccine out of ignorance make me angry enough, but the fact that the U.S. secured enough vaccine doses for every resident, and we just let them go to waste while other countries suffer could make me rage.
It’s the old “there are starving people in Africa” line from your parents when you wouldn’t eat your vegetables as a kid. Now, too many people are pushing vaccines aside as people die. Not a good look, America.
Back to the Olympics. Why are we doing this? I understand the notion of these athletes training hard for years to make it to the games, but they will compete in front of nobody in a city where the majority of people didn’t want the Olympics to go on as planned.
Instead of looking forward to the events, we have to hold our breath every day hoping no American athlete gets booted due to a positive test.
If it wasn’t the International Olympic Committee’s greed that destroyed the spirit of these games, COVID is doing it.
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-Ending on a happy note, weather-wise, it is supposed to be nice this week and I won’t feel like I’m melting every time I step outside with lower humidity.
SEAN GALLAGHER HAS THOUGHTS 