ESPN’s NHL player survey results have been released for 2008/09, and Jarome Iginla came out of it looking pretty good this year.

ESPN contacted every team in the NHL and got responses from over 20% of the players in the league for this survey.

Iggy was named both the best leader, as well as the player who would make the best president/prime minister. He also garnered votes as a player that his colleagues would like to trade lives with. None of this comes as a surprise to Flames fans, but it’s good to see that he’s getting that recognition from his colleagues league-wide.

Other notable Calgary inclusions:

• Todd Bertuzzi is considered one of the worst complainers in the NHL, although he trails far behind Sidney Crosby
• We Flames fans are considered among the “most disruptive” in the league
• Kerry Fraser was selected as the best referee in the league. This would suggest that votership was low from the Flames roster

Defined: exclamation. God be praised (uttered in worship or as an expression of rejoicing)

Application: TSN reporting that Mick McGeough will not be among those officiating in this year’s playoffs after announcing his retirement earlier this season.

There’s a pretty good list of officials there, including Devorski, McCreary, Van Massenhoven, and Marouelli, all of whom I feel are generally very fair and consistent.

Aside from McGeough, there’s only one referee who I dread: Kerry Fraser. Being a veteran NHL official he will be calling games in the 2008 playoffs. I can only hope the number of these games that include the Flames is minimal. Either way, he’s probably easier to deal with than McGeough. With Fraser you just anticipate that he’ll tend to call an unbalanced game against the Flames. McGeough is impartial, but you never know what he’s going to call either way.

Farewell Mick and enjoy your retirement. I know I will.