Sportswrap fashion special

It’s a fashion special this week, and no, we’re not talking about Owen’s Gene Hunt, Life on Mars, 1970s suit selection.

Click the headline, press play and join us for an intimate sale of Italian jewellry, a rustle through the racks at Germany’s most exclusive clothes shop and a little spice out on the ice.

Written by Kevin Fylan, presented by Owen Wyatt.

Who will be the new Captain Canada?

It’s hard to predict who will become Captain Canada, when Canada hasn’t even picked a team.But who will lead Canada’s men’s hockey team into battle at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics will spark more debate than who will be the hockey mad country’s next Prime Minister.

With 46 of Canada’s best taking part in last week’s national team orientation camp you could not swing a hockey stick without hitting a worthy candidate.

There were captains of 11 NHL teams in Calgary but only one man will be called forward to try and lead Canada to the gold medal the host country covets more than any other.

Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Phil Esposito and others have worn the Captain’s C above the Maple Leaf into international battle and sometime before Canada’s opening faceoff on February 16 against Norway another name will claim that singular honour.

We interrupt this music to bring you some ice hockey

The official name for the tournament is the International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship. But its real motive seems to be to cram 10,000 people into a covered a arena and then subject them to over two hours of Euro-rock crowd pleasers.

Imagine a soccer match being interrupted at every free kick, corner, throw-in and goal by a burst of music, usually of questionable taste, and you start to get the picture.

At the world ice-hockey championship, each of the three 20-minute periods will typically be halted between 20 and 30 times.

The playoff beard grows into a Stanley Cup tradition

One of the great Stanley Cup traditions is the “Playoff Beard” and with the post-season just underway, you can already tell who might not pick up a razor again until their run at the famous mug ends.

As hockey traditions go, the Playoff Beard is relatively new, the New York Islanders widely credited with starting the fad during the 1980s when they won four consecutive hair-raising Stanley Cups.

Hockey players, being a superstitious lot (the winners of the respective Conference finals avoid the trophy presentation like Superman avoids Kryptonite, believing if they touch it their Stanley Cup bid will be jinxed), drew an instant line from the Islanders scruffy appearance to their Stanley Cup success and a tradition was born.

During playoff hockey there are no close shaves. Over the course of the playoffs you can watch players turn into human Chia Pets, those animal figurines that sprout green foliage that resemble the animal’s fur when watered.

Carolina Hurricanes storm towards playoffs

The hottest team in the National Hockey League rests atop neither the Eastern nor the Western conference these days.

Like their name implies, the Carolina Hurricanes are the ones blowing away the opposition.

Carolina, an Eastern Conference contender, stormed to its seventh successive win with a tough 4-2 victory over the New York Rangers on Thursday. The triumph, before a sellout crowd in Raleigh, was a team-record 10th consecutive home win.

Strong netminding and improvement elsewhere have turned a team that two months ago was trying to find itself into the leader of The Hockey News’ NHL power ratings.

Ice hockey-Japan’s ‘Bunnies’ boiled by economic crisis

I just love the headline on this one.

Japan’s Seibu Prince Rabbits have disbanded and pulled out of the Asia Ice Hockey League (AIHL) due to financial problems, Japanese media have reported.

I didn’t even know there was a pan-Asian Ice Hockey League but you can understand how the current climate would be bad for business. Seibu’s departure leaves only six teams in the AIHL and none in Tokyo. Three of the remaining clubs are Japanese with two from South Korea, along with the Shanghai-based China Sharks.

Amusing team names are great. What do Rabbits and Sharks have to do with ice?