Well folks, as soon as I hit 'save and publish' on this post I'm officially on vacation until Sept. 2. Technically I'm already on vacation but I just finished up an Eric Perrin Q&A that I wanted to post before I take off for a few days or relaxation in Mexico. If anything happens in the hockey world between now and Labor Day I will be blissfully unaware until I get back. If anything happens on the Thrashers front Micah or Jon will let you know.

In the mean time I have a homework question for you. In the Q&A Perrin talks about how he thinks the absence of Hossa is a chance for some players to get out of the mindset that Hossa (and Kovy) will take care of the scoring and give them the chance to step up and play a larger role. Do you agree, and if so, which players do you see stepping up? I'll share my list when I get back.

By the way, Eric Perrin is one of the easiest guys in the world to work with. I chatted with him on the phone on Friday afternoon and he was happy to talk despite getting absolutely no notice that I was calling. He dropped whatever he was doing and gave me his full attention for about 15 minutes. Great guy. See you next week, and play nice while I'm gone.

How about we wait until a few games are played to start handing awards for free agent busts?

When I went to grad school in North Carolina I had a subscription to SI because it was useful for keeping up on ACC football and basketball. When I moved back to Canada I couldn't get ACC football or basketball on TV (except for the occasional Carolina or Duke games- blech!)  so I didn't renew the subscription when it expired. I got a call from their renewal office asking why I didn't re-up. I was blunt.

"I live in Canada and your hockey coverage is terrible. I can't follow college sports up here so I don't have much use for your magazine."

"Good points. I can't blame you."

The sales rep actually said that. Seriously. Seven years later not much has changed and the only times I find myself on SI.com's hockey page are when I check out Darren Eliot's column every Monday or when someone sends me a link to another ridiculous quote or comment from one of their other writers.

I told you I'd have some real hockey content for you this week. My Q&A with Don Waddell is up on the homepage. If you've been following the team all summer there won't be anything shocking in it but it's still worth a read. Waddell mentions Bogosian and you can expect him to sign sometime in the next few weeks. With Drew Doughty locked up in LA there won't be much for us to discuss with Bogosian's agent (Bobby Orr). He'll get a rookie max contract and probably have very similar bonuses to Doughty. the sooner he signs the sooner you can get your #4 jersey, right?

There's plenty of talk around the office of fantasy football which I don't care about at all, but it has me thinking about fantasy hockey. We were told at our meetings in Chicago that the NHL will be announcing a new fantasy partner before the season and while they wouldn't give us any hints about who it is, they did say that it's a company you'd want to be partnered with. As soon as that's unveiled and ready to go I'm all for setting up a Blueland Blog league. Some of you tell me on a regular basis that I don't know what I'm talking about. If you're right you should be able to whip me in fantasy hockey, right?

The blog Illegal Curve scored an interview with Craig Custance this week and it's worth a read. I've mentioned it before but i'll mention it again- Craig is doing great work with The Sporting News, and if you aren't subscribed to their daily electronic newspaper you're missing out. No, I'm not getting paid to endorse it. I'm willing to listen to offers though.

I have absolutely no Thrashers news to share with you aside from this link to The Falconer's post about average NHL team ages (the Thrashers are getting younger, and that average age will drop more once Bogosian signs).

If you're like me you've had the Olympics on every night for the past week and a half, and if you're like me wife you got hooked on women's gymnastics. If so you might be interested to know that the Nastia Liukin, Shawn Johnson, Bridget Sloan and a whole slew of other gymnasts (including the Hamm brothers) will be performing at Philips Arena on October 17 with the 2008 Tour of Gymnastics Superstars. Click here for tickets and here for more details about the show.

I promise I'll get you some hockey news soon. Really.

All's quiet on the Thrashers front, so here are some tidbits from around the hockey world.

This might be the first time you've seen a picture of Zach Bogosian in a Team USA uniform but I doubt it will be the last. The hulking defensemen just finished up a US Jr. Evaluation Camp in Lake Placid in anticipation of this year's World Junior Championship. The third overall pick in this year's draft had two assists in the friendly tournament that featured two American squads and a team each from Sweden and Finland.

Bogosian wasn't the only Thrashers prospect in the tournament though. Native Georgian Vinny Saponari had a goal and two assists and Nicklas Lasu (taken 121 spots after Bogosian at this year's draft) had three goals and two assists in one game for the Swedes. This is the guy that said "I like to hit people" when asked to describe his game. Niklas Lucenius was also at the tournament, representing Finland, and while I don't have complete stats for him I can tell you that he had a roughing minor, a fighting major, and an OT assist to set up the game-winner in a 5-4 win over the American blue team. He fought again the next day, so it isn't exactly something he shies away from. Prospect John Albert attended the Team USA camp but he didn't participate in the games.

It's been a busy, busy summer for these guys. Bogosian and Lasu were drafted in June, then the two of them joined Lucenius and Albert at our prospect camp in mid July. Three weeks after that they were in Lake Placid for a full week of on-ice workouts, scrimmages and games and now they have less than a month until they either go to the Traverse City Prospect Tournament in Michigan or to their respective European and college training camps. It's a good thing these guys love hockey.

By the way, there's a Zach Bogosian feature on the front of the Thrashers site (or you could just click here). I can't wait for him to suit up for a couple games so we can get some new photography of the kid.

Click here to find out (hat tip to Puck That Hit).

It's a shame that the Whalers were also on the list, since in my opinion they had one of the best kits ever, but at least it was only because they tried out the dreaded Cooperalls, as did the Flyers.

But that jersey and logo? Classic. The only questions is which version of their jersey was the best.

Speaking of uniforms, a few people have asked me for an update on our third jersey. Trust me- as soon as I have something to share, I'll share it. Right now I've got nothing.

It's said that every hockey fan remembers where they were when they heard the news of The Great One getting traded (or sold as some still maintain). I was somewhere on a country road on Prince Edward Island in the family station wagon listening to CBC radio. I wasn't a huge hockey fan at that point but I'd watched Gretzky and Lemieux take on the world the year before in the 1987 Canada Cup. I didn't follow an entire Stanley Cup playoff until the next season when Calgary beat Montreal and I became a full-fledged fan the following season when I gobbled up every word written about Ray Bourque, Cam Neely, Andy Moog and the Boston Bruins.

Links:

If you happen to live in the Barrie, Ontario area you can watch Bryn Little play on August 14. If not you'll have to settle for reading this article about the charity game the Thrashers center will be playing in against members of the Canadian Parliament (I wonder if Ken Dryden is suiting up for them). The game pits current and former pros against politicians to raise money for the building of the Simcoe-Muskoka Regional Cancer Centre at Royal Victoria Hospital and Little will be taking to the ice in fine company. The former Barrie Colts captain will suit up with the likes of Rick Nash (Blue Jackets), Brad Boyes (Blues), Wojtek Wolski (Avalanche), Brent Tully (Canucks) as well as former NHL players Peter Zezel, Kris King and Mark Osborne and Hall of Famer Mike Gartner who scored 40 or more goals nine times in his NHL career.

- In other Thrashers-related news, rumor has it (via a Laval, QC resident on our message boards) that Eric Perrin has been skating and scrimmaging with Thrashers prospects Angelo Esposito and Danick Paquette. If the three have chemistry it might make sense to stick them together on a line in training camp and see what happens. Paquette isn't expected to go pro this year but Esposito has a chance if he has an outstanding camp. Would this be the most skilled trio of French-speaking players the Thrashers have ever had? I can't think of three that would be better. Belanger, Dupuis and Vigier might be the closest.

- In Pittsburgh mondesishouse.com is weighing Marian Hossa's legacy as a Penguin. I don't think he was there long enough for it even to be open for much of a debate, but feel free to check it out. I'd say the same of Keith Tkachuk's time as a Thrasher. The biggest impact of either player might be what their team's gave up to get them (and I think we gave up a lot less for Tkachuk than Pittsburgh did for Hossa).

- Stan Fischler has a wealth of news (some new, some old) in the latest edition of the Fischler Report.

Puck Daddy is on a roll. Here Greg has Craig Custance's five suggestions to make the NHL better (Puck Daddy is doing a series all through august) and here he has an interview with Chris Snow, the 26-year-old director of hockey operations for the Minnesota Wild.

August is easily the quietest month of the year when it comes to hockey new, so I'll do my best to find interesting stuff for you to read, even if it has nothing to do with the Thrashers.

The below post is for entertainment purposes only. It turns out my counting was off, thus everything I wrote below is pretty much irrelevant. I'm leaving it up so you can openly mock me. I can take it. the actual trade deadline will fall on (if I got the math right this time) March 3 which features an evening game at home against the Panthers. So we could still be short a guy or two, but the drama won't be at the last minute.

Thanks to Puck Daddy for the pointer.

Thanks to my new morning habit I came across an interesting little nugget.

Did you know that the KHL (the upstart Russian league that lured Radulov away from the Predators) approached Ilya Kovalchuk this summer? And did you know that he told them (via his agent Jay Grossman) that he wasn't interested?

Craig Custance had the details in The Sporting News Today on Sunday. The Sporting News Today is a free daily email that delivers a wealth of sports information to your email inbox every morning. My only qualm is that you can't copy and paste the text, which makes it hard to quote, but I can see reasons for setting it up that way.

Anyway, according to Grossman Kovalchuk fully intends to honor his Thrashers contract, which isn't news in itself, but it's still good to know. Grossman also highlighted what drives Ilya, and it's not money (I could have told you that).

Despite what some people might say (I'm looking at you John Kincade) I think Kovalchuk would prefer to stay here and help the Thrashers find success rather than jump ship and join a team that's already in the upper echelon. I think Ilya takes a lot of pride in being a difference-maker and there's more satisfaction to be gained in helping this team get to the next level than there is in going to the highest bidder in two years when his deal is up. If the Thrashers be in the mix this year I think there's a very good chance you'll see Kovy stick around for the long haul. I have no inside information there, but that's my gut feeling.