Hammond Trade, Watson Suspension, Olympic Updates and More

Things are about to get interesting, with a little over a month to go until the NHL trade deadline we may start seeing some movement happen already. We bring you some player movements, player suspensions and more in this week’s edition of the Monday LNN.

• Remember when Mike Hoffman destroyed a tight knit Senators family group? The Hammonds were quite vocal supporting the Karlssons in the whole mess and now they will need to face the Hoffmans once again. Yesterday, the Montreal Canadiens announced they have traded for Andrew Hammond from the Minnesota Wild on Saturday for forward Brandon Baddock.
• Ottawa Senators’ forward Austin Watson has been suspended for his interference on Jack Ahcan during Saturday’s game.
• Who would have thought Eric O’Dell would be Team Canada’s MVP 3 games into the Olympics? After losing 4-2 to Team USA, the Canadians came back with a 5-1 against Team China. Due to unfavourable results elsewhere, Team Canada will have to play one more qualification game against Team China to advance to the next round. Let’s hope we don’t see some miraculous upset by the host team.
• If you’re wondering why Team Canada didn’t win by a larger margin against a team that everyone said didn’t even belong in the Olympics; it’s because Team China has spent the last 2-3 years exposing every loophole the IOC has (and they have a few) in order to ice a team that can compete and that means many of these players are actually North American including Chris Chelios’ son Jake. It’s really interesting to read about how much effort it took the Chinese to make sure they had a team to compete.
• Women’s hockey has been the talk of the Olympics for hockey fans and it’s not just because both Team Canada and Team USA have been playing extremely good. For those watching the rest of the teams, you will realize the improvement across all the nations competing. There’s still a lot of work to be done for women’s hockey and it starts in North America and ensuring that there are opportunities for everyone to play. In North Bay, a new senior women’s hockey league has been developed starting with just three teams. The league will operate under the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association and hopes to grow significantly in the next few years./