Hope everyone had a great holiday and have been enjoying the New Year.

As a team we started the New Year on a high note by stringing some good wins together. I think our competition level has been higher and probably stems from the divisional games against Toronto, Boston and Ottawa. Those games were very physical and our team reacted very well to that kind of a challenge. Looking forward to seeing how we handle ourselves in a very tight Eastern Conference.

I am trying to track down some new music and haven't been real successful. I am a big fan of Ryan Adams (the alt. country/rock guy... Not the Canadian singer/photographer better known for 80's pop) and was hoping to be blown away by his new album, Cardinology. So far I am not blown away but he has some good songs on there... It is a little slow and a little too country for me at the moment... But who knows? I may be in that mood soon and the album will sound great.

If you haven't heard of Ryan Adams I think it is a good idea to listen to some of his stuff. I like to listen to his albums straight through while we are on the road. We have a lot of time spent on an airplane or a bus so it is good to have some music that I classify as "chill." He has his moments where he plays a good rock song, but most of his stuff is very simple, slow guitar songs with good lyrics.

I also picked up a few books since we are on the road for most of January. I just finished reading "Night" by Elie Wiesel. It is a very short book about the author's experience as a young Jew in German concentration camps during World War II. It is an interesting memoir where we get to read about what Wiesel was feeling during some amazingly difficult situations. The Holocaust was a piece of history that I had not thought about in a long time and I think it was more powerful to think about those events now that I have a better understanding of the world in my ripe old age of 28... I will save you from any political statements... I just found it amazing how Wiesel adapted and coped with such terrible events.

P.S. I really am going try to stay away from being too political because I am just not well informed on a lot of subjects and probably wouldn't be able to defend my views as well as I would like, especially in a public forum. Besides, this a blog written by a professional athlete and I don't want to undermine the stereotype that we are all dumb jocks... We worked hard for that stigma so that when people underestimate our intelligence we can make them look really stupid. It is one of the perks... That and naps. We nap a lot.