NHL Summer Reading List

"So I tell Carkner, Oh yeah?
Well you don't even know
the basic principle behind
quantum mechanics!"

Only 56 days until the season opener, but who's counting? Probably not the players listed below, because they're too preoccupied catching up on those books they've been wanting to read. Here's the reading list for some of your favorite NHL players and teams from this summer...

Martin St. Louis - The Little Engine that Could

Kyle Wellwood - The Hunger Games, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Who Moved My Cheese?

Brad Richards - Great Expectations

Nikolai Zherdev - The Giving Tree

Vancouver Canucks - A Series of Unfortunate Events

Daniel Carcillo - The Ugly Duckling

Dan Bylsma - So, you want to be a stanley cup and Jack Adams winning Coach in the NHL? A guide for young fourth liners.

Mats Zuccarello Aasen - Every J.R.R Tolkein book that has ever been written

Roberto Luongo - Holes

Trevor Gillies - How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines

Evander Kane - A Tale of Two Cities

Edmonton Oilers - The Chronicles of Sarnia: Prince Yakupov

Semyon Varlamov - Caps for Sale

Jaromir Jagr - Oh the Places You'll Go

John Tavares - Fodor's Guide Book to Brooklyn

Keep Your Head Up - Best Hits from '10-'11 Season

Well it's August, quite possibly the most boring time of the year for hockey fans. I've run out of comedic material so I'm just going to compile a list of the top clean hits from the 2010-2011 NHL season (although I guess some of these could be considered comedic anyways). Let me know if you agree with the rankings / if you disagree with the rankings / if you think I'm missing any big ones / if you enjoy long walks on the beach ... in the comments section below:

11. Marc Staal on Wellwood (Honorable Mention)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc4K_gl5ICU#t=00m03s
This hit is impressive when you consider the fact that Wellwood has at least an 100-pound advantage on Staal.

10. Rome on Smid (Vancouver Hipcheck #4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGRQFjhZanM
Rome starts off the Vancouver hipcheck highlights.

9. Ovechkin on Subban
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fp_Hg9z2rc
Would've been ranked higher, but it wasn't really a hit as much as it was Subban trying to play leap frog.

8. Ballard on Miller (Vancouver Hipcheck #3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoqPLIhykXA
At first glance there doesn't appear to be much here, but then you realize it's an open ice hip check. Miller can clearly see Ballard, the boards aren't there to use as leverage, and Ballard still up-ends him.

7. Hamhuis on Murray (Vancouver Hipcheck #2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q599OC7UM-4&feature=related
Douglas Murray is listed as 6'3", 240 lbs. Just sayin'. It should be noted now that this wasn't even Vancouver's best hipcheck of the year.

6. Doughty on Hall
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6oj0JGQpgY
To Hall's credit: he picked his head up after the hit.

5. Phaneuf on Ruutu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkpbxl36Cb8#t=00m20s
It was a tough decision of which Phaneuf hit to feature on this list... until I saw this one.

4. Ballard on McGinn (Vancouver Hipcheck #1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhrtvlVlVJQ
Topping the Vancouver hipcheck rankings. From the crowd's reaction you'd think the game was in Vancouver.

3. Subban on Marchand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rpk0JlVZ4I#t=00m02s
I'm not sure if you can classify this as an open-ice hipcheck.

2. Staal on Stajan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qHibz-pZ0o
Sure, you could argue there's a Rangers bias in these rankings, but try telling that to Matt Stajan.

1. Tootoo on Frolik