Thanks to just one ceremonial puck drop with Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the National Hockey League has turned into a political football -- and a lot of the folks are working very hard trying to influence what and how you think about it.

In the last 24 hours, I've seen a pair of interesting instances of how the events of Saturday night are being reported that are worth noting. Details follow after the jump.

Here's a piece of video that's going to be over analyzed in the sports blogosphere in the next 24-48 hours -- Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's appearance at a ceremonial puck drop before the Philadelphia Flyers season opener with the New York Rangers. Was she booed? I'll let you decide:

For those of you who might be looking to make the Flyers-Rangers game on Saturday night a little more interesting, the folks at Bodog are offering odds with a slightly different twist.

With Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin set to drop the ceremonial first puck before the game, the folks at Bodog are offering a couple of additional wagers to the regular menu.

The following come from our friend Jimmy Shapiro at Bodog:

Will Sarah Palin Fall while dropping the Puck at the Philadelphia Flyers Home Opener?

Yes 10/1

Will Sarah Palin get in a Donnybrook with the Flyers Captain at Center Ice?

Yes 1000/1

Will Sarah Palin get Booed more or Cheered more when introduced onto the Ice at the Flyers Home Opener?

Booed Even
Cheered -130

Will Sarah Palin wear a Philadelphia Flyers jersey at Center Ice?

Yes Even
No -140

Those are some interesting choices to say the least. I wonder what Janet Gretzky thinks?

Ice hockey and politics will cross over once again on Saturday night, when Republican Vice-Presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin drops the ceremonial first puck before the Philadelphia Flyers home opener against the New York Rangers. Here's the team press release with all the relevant details:

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the nation's most popular hockey mom, will join the winner of the Philadelphia Flyers regional search for the "Ultimate Hockey Mom" contest and drop the puck at the ceremonial opening face-off as the home team Flyers host the New York Rangers at the Wachovia Center on Saturday, October 11 at 7 p.m.

"Because of the tremendous amount of publicity she has brought to our sport, we invited the most popular hockey mom in North America to our home opener to help us get our season started," said Comcast-Spectacor Chairman Ed Snider who founded the Flyers in 1967. "We are very excited she has accepted our offer and we are very proud of the publicity she is generating for hockey moms and the sport of hockey."

If you drop by Puck Daddy, the claim that Palin is the nation's "most popular hockey mom" seems to be in dispute. After reading a couple of the comments, it's easy to see how "most controversial" hockey mom might be more appropriate. Here's hoping the innocent winner of the contest, whoever that might be, gets a nice hand in Philly regardless of the reception Palin gets.

As for me, I'm of two minds on the subject. First off, I'm thoroughly sick of election news, and have been since around Labor Day. Once you threw the global credit crisis into the mix, I began to realize that there's really little reason to have much confidence in America's political leadership these days regardless of party. Looking over the horizon, it's hard not to conclude that the winner of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election might very well be the recipient of the biggest booby prize in American political history since the election of 1928.

On the other hand, I distinctly recall that when I first learned that U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA), the 2004 Democratic nominee for President, had played hockey in high school, I somehow managed to process the information without having an aneurysm. Go figure.

Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: A pair of ex-Islanders and no one else who is very exciting; Arron Asham, Bryan Berard, Ossi Vaananen, Glen Metropolit. Unlike last year, the Flyers did not make a big splash this summer, mainly due to cap concerns.

Who's Out: Salary dumps galore; RJ Umberger, Vaclav Prospal (who was a rental), Jim Dowd, Jaroslav Modry, Jason Smith.

What's Changed: Not a whole lot. The Flyers are basically returning the same team that finished sixth in the conference with 95 points a year ago minus RJ Umberger and his 50 points. Jeff Carter, Joffrey Lupul and Randy Jones all received contract extensions to push this team closer to the cap than any other in the NHL, according to NHLNumbers.com. But hey, at least Derian Hatcher's $3.5 mil will only count for one more year!

This team is basically going to stay the way it is for this season unless they unload some money. When they locked up $37 million on six players, you could could kind of see all this coming. Not that they're a bad team -- not at all -- the Flyers just happen to be locked into their current roster for the time being.

Every Thursday, Earl Sleek will conspire with his pen and scanner to bring you another installment of PuckToons. Hopefully you will find these amusing, relevant, well-drawn, or you're a person who is tolerant towards mediocrity.

With NHL training camps opening up in little more than a week, a few teams are still looking to shed salary to get under the $56.7 million cap. A week ago, Dan Wood of the OC Register Duck's Blog posted a list of overcommitted teams, which includes the Anaheim Ducks, the Calgary Flames, Chicago Blackhawks, Philadelphia Flyers, San Jose Sharks and Washington Capitals. "The amounts in question range from a few hundred thousand dollars to as much as $4.5 million."

Now I'm not really an expert on the CBA and the salary cap, which is entering its fourth season in the league (don't turn to your cartoonist for technicalities), but I do know there is a Long-Term Injury allowance that lets teams temporarily outspend the salary cap while a player is unable to dress.

While I fully expect that the teams in question this summer will fix their salary issues through traditional means (trades and expensive demotions), I do wonder what the future has in store for spend-happy general managers. Will they ever get to the point where a budget-dictated surgery becomes a cap-cheating strategy? It's unlikely, I suppose, but if it ever does happen, I hope they'll now cut me in on the cap savings.

Few ever associate Canadian cities and low class "projects" in the same breath, but Canada, like any other country, has its share of communities where people barely scrape by on welfare and minimum wage jobs.

Regent Park, an area of Toronto, is the picture of a typical "American" inner city: Drug dealers, prostitutes, public housing, and rampant crime. Not the type of place you expect NHL players, who generally come from Middle Class background, to have grown up in.

Glen Metropolit was one such person, having endured a rough childhood as an oft moved around foster child.

Knowing what a challenge living in such conditions can be, Metropolit, together with the NHLPA, decided to bring some sunshine to the lives of the kids in Regent Park with a large donation of $45,000 worth of hockey equipment.

"It's rewarding to help children in my home town participate in the sport of hockey," said newly signed Philadelphia Flyers' centre Glen Metropolit, who attended the event this morning on behalf of NHLPA Goals & Dreams. "Players are proud of their Goals & Dreams fund and pleased to be making a difference in the lives of young children here in Toronto and around the world."

I know the story is a bit sappy, but I live to post about stuff like this. All too often, us hockey fans vilify the NHLPA and its members for being greedy shills. This story isn't unique by any means, but it's the type of thing that gets very little press compared to some player's contract holdout.

Last season was a refreshing change for NHL fans as we only had to put up with TWO different sweaters for each team: One home, one away, just like the good ol' days.

Of course, this was due to the release of the ill-advised Rbk jerseys that were chalk full of operational issues and just plain ugly design. Looking at the Flyers players above, you can tell that they are less than impressed with looking like football players.

Well, now that the NHL has gone a whole year without producing a new sweater design, the league has been preparing an assault of new third jerseys for each and every club to milk every last penny out of us fans.

Howard Berger of Hockeybuzz.com (I am loathe to link there for obvious reasons) claims to have seen designs and taken photos of all the new designs.

My favorite thus far?

Kudos to the Penguins for staying with the jersey the club wore during the Outdoor Classic in Buffalo last Jan. 1st. It's a replica of the home jersey the Penguins wore starting in 1968-69, their second year in the NHL: Predominantly light-blue in color, with broad white stripes trimmed in dark blue on the sleeves and uniform base. A large, dark-blue stripe is at the tip of each arm. The neckline is dark-blue with the lace-up feature. The dark-blue, circular Penguins' logo is on the front.

As feared, there appears to be a LOT of black in the new designs ... *sigh* ... didn't we leave that trend in the last century? There is also a lot of blue, with very few teams opting for lighter colors in their new designs.

Over the next few weeks, we'll see if the new designs are as Berger says they are, and if they are as ugly as some of the other Rbk designs that made us want to vomit. Please, no more stupid thin piping!!!

Mark down another former NHL player as trying to make a go of it back home in Russia. According to Sovetsky Sport, defenseman Alexei Zhitnik, who was bought out of the last year of his contract by the Atlanta Thrashers just a few weeks ago, has joined Dynamo Moscow on a tryout contract. Details of the deal were confirmed for FanHouse by Dmitry Chesnokov, Sovetsky's Washington correspondent.

According to Chesnokov, the contract expires at the end of Dynamo's training camp. If at that time Zhitnik opts to stay in Russia, Dynamo will have the right of first refusal on any contract that he's offered.

To say that stock in the veteran defenseman has dropped over the past two seasons would be an understatement. Back at the beginning of the 2006-07 season, Zhitnik started the year as a seemingly important cog on an Islanders team full of veterans.

Despite this, he was traded to Philadelphia in a salary dump for Freddy Meyer IV. Then, at the trade deadline, Philadelphia GM Paul Holmgren somehow convinced Atlanta GM Don Waddell to part with Braydon Coburn in exchange for Zhitnik. The deal has since become known as one of the most lopsided in recent NHL history. After a more or less anonymous season in Atlanta where he missed some time due to injury, Waddell was happy to buy out Zhitnik and erase the physical evidence of the biggest mistake in his career as a GM.

After the Flyers told Patrick Thoresen to "Take it or Leave it" with a final contact offer, the young Norwegian decided to head back to Europe, rather than toil in the minors and work his way up to the NHL the "traditional" way.

"I wanted a so-called one-way contract, which is to say the same salary regardless of whether I played in the NHL or a farm team," the 24-year-old Norwegian told the state radio network NRK on Tuesday. "That makes things more predictable for me and my family."

Predictable? How is life in the NHL ever predictable for a fringe player? What would stop the Flyers from trading Thoresen tomorrow? The argument is pretty weak, too, considering the Flyers' AHL franchise is in PHILADELPHIA. Oh noes!!! He might have to travel an extra five minutes if he was called up to the big club!!! If anything, the Flyers are a good organization to be a prospect in.

Thoresen is the type of prospect that needs to prove himself worthy of a one-way contract. Undrafted and once-waived lower-end prospects that have scored only 24 points in 106 career NHL games certainly aren't necessarily entitled to a one-way deal.

It certainly doesn't speak highly to his level of commitment that he'll run back to Europe simply because he isn't spoiled with a contract that he hasn't earned yet. It's not as if the Flyers can't find a dime-a-dozen replacement for cheap.