– John Tortorella is about to be revealed as the head coach of the 2016 World Cup of Hockey Team USA head coach.  That’s according to this:

John Tortorella will be named head coach of Team USA's entry for the 2016 World Cup of Hockey tonight after MNF. #TSN

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) September 21, 2015

Torts behind the bench might be fun for the media, unless you’re Larry Brooks (and even then it might be a good time), but how is it going to be for the players?  The WCH is a money event for the NHL, not a huge world stage like the Olympics and World Championships.  Even the World Championships are filled with players who didn’t make it to the NHL playoffs or were booted after the first round.  This isn’t a huge “playing for your country” event.

So who is going to look at Team USA and Torts and say, this is how I want to spend my off-season?  How is this an incentive?  Torts is a winning coach, mostly, but he has displayed some fiery and bombastic tendencies.   That’s putting it mildly, of course, but the dude has shown his character.  Is that the character players choose to play under when they aren’t in the NHL and have a choice?  Should be interesting to see who does and who does not sign up.

– The Colorado Avalanche unveiled their new third jerseys for the stadium series.  They are much better than the things that leaked the other day from the NHL store.

What do you think? ?? pic.twitter.com/NQy1XJMM7r

— Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) September 21, 2015

So much better.  I’m guessing the captain’s C will change to the regular one we see on Avs jerseys, but the look is a lot better, and the numbers are nice, even if they don’t have all the dressing up of the regular numbers.  I’m sure they will stand out at a distance.

My guess?  The Avs heard the negative reaction to the leaked jerseys and changed the look quickly.  And since the leak came from NHL.com’s own online store, it’s pretty hard to imagine those weren’t the original designs.

Yep, looks like a hoodie without the hood.

– As further proof that Jaromir Jagr is still the man, this headline from the Toronto Sun:

Jaromir Jagr ‘blackmail selfie’ surfaces online: Report

The long and the short of it:

An alleged attempt to blackmail Florida Panthers winger Jaromir Jagr didn’t go as planned.

Czech tabloid Blesk reports a photo of the 43-year-old NHLer in bed with an 18-year-old model surfaced on social media over the weekend, though it is unclear how the photo came to be online.

The model, named Catherine, took the selfie as Jagr slept in the background.

Jagr, by the way, is single.  Hard to imagine what the blackmail angle here was.

– The leaks in the Patrick Kane sexual assault investigation need to stop. How is it fair to anyone involved to have information that may or may not be true leaked to the press?  Enough already.

And I’ve kept quiet on the matter mostly due to how hard it is to really express yourself clearly in these things without being misinterpreted.  It’s an awful thing for everyone involved, full stop.

– Hey, it should go without saying, but since I stopped looking at twitter (and the tweets above are from other posts and following up on that, so la-ti-da), if you try to respond to me on twitter, favorite, link, whatever, I won’t get it.

But I did just link my Instagram over there (hopefully that works), and everything else updates there, so you can follow if you want, or not. Your call.