This article has been submitted by Tieja MacLaughlin.

Working our way into mid-July, unrestricted free agency continues to be the only real hype the NHL garners at this time of the year. With all the trades, deals, and new contracts being signed, I thought I’d focus on gaining some insight into the league’s future stars. I got the chance to speak with three fresh NHL draftees last week; Zac Dalpe, Justin Schultz, and Brandon Burlon, and each was eagerly excited about their up and coming careers in the National Hockey League.

Justin Shultz went 43rd overall to the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Zac Dalpe to the Carolina Hurricanes 45th, and 52nd to the New Jersey Devils was Brandon Burlon. Since being drafted, the boys have been busy getting a lot of attention. Aside from celebrating and receiving much praise and congratulations, they’ve been lending their time to answering interview questions, have witnessed their Facebook accounts light up with many new requests, and already have friends thinking they owe them free tickets. But they don’t seem to mind it at all, Dalpe is nonchalant, saying it comes with the territory and, “it’s flattering”. Justin Schultz would agree, “it’s all been fun”.
More after the jump!

This article has been submitted by the debuting (and female) Tieja MacLaughlin.

So it‘s official…CBC has dropped its legendary Hockey Night in Canada “dunt-da-DUNT-da-dunt” theme song, and in turn, killed a small piece of each and every Canadian. No longer can we Canucks look forward to the excitement of getting all jacked up at the first sound of this heavenly music; because there will be no more humming along, there will be no more intoxicated sing-alongs, and lets just face it, you might as well just loose the Saturday night hockey hype all together without an anthem we can all get excited about.
More after the jump!