I was pleasantly surprised to find the San Francisco 49ers hired former fullback Tom Rathman to instruct their running back corps. Being a Niner fan it is always great to see a member of the old Empire return and bring back an element of that Bill Walsh culture. His running style was always fun to watch and you knew nearly every time he had a reception out of the backfield with those reliable hands he was going for positive yards. Beauty hire and another small step towards respectability for the wounded Niner Empire.

Rathman in action!

Fight of the Night

With only two games going last night there is no surprise that we are not walking in tall cotton with an abundance of fights.

There was brief scrap that produced a decent clip between Mattias Ohlund and Shelden Souray.

Though Souray is a highly skilled defenseman and is not very active at all as a pugilist, he is more then capable with his fists and has taken on monsters like Paul Kruse, Jim McKenzie and Louie Debrusk in past seasons. Considering Ohlund has only dropped the gloves 7 times in 688 regular season games, this one was really kind of a mismatch.

Apparently, Souray deemed Ohlund's hit on Eric Cole cheap and felt the need to respond to this perceived, shoddy play to the body.

I don't think it was a dirty hit, but it is not my place to decide, it happened on the rink and the boys addressed it in a tasteful manner.

My respect for Ohlund went up as he answered the bell and did not turtle or Semin it up (estrogen laced bongo slaps).

It will be interesting to see what happens when these two teams meet again on April 4^th, certainly a long ways away, but hockey players have long memories and I'm sure guys like Darcy Hordichuk and Shane O'Brien will be more then happy to address this fight with Souray.

 -MB

Souray vs Ohlund