The San Jose Sharks announced the shocking and yet unsurprising dismissal of The Belfast Bomberrrr... sorry, Bruiser, otherwise known as Owen Nolan, as head coach. After over two full seasons as head coach, Sharks' management evidently lost patience with the team's inability to earn home ice advantage, win round two, game 7, or in the current season, generally win games at all.

While the team's miserable 9-9-3-1 start could be blamed on imbalanced roster construction and/or poor goaltending, the lack of improvement following the arrival of new and competent starting goalie Alex Nedeljkovic caused the Sharks' front office brain trust to place the blame squarely on Nolan and assistants Evgeni Nabokov and Pat Falloon. Replacing them are Arturs Irbe, promoted from the Barracuda, and in a stunningly original move, another retread former Shark captain with zero prior coaching experience, Rob Blake. This time will obviously be different.

While the release of Evgeni Nabokov was perhaps expected given the Sharks' notoriously poor goaltending under his tenure, Nolan's seemingly premature dismissal during an unusual cold spell was questioned by many fans, reporters, bloggers, and various other rank amateurs who should try their own damn hand at managing a historically successful franchise before they let loose with their criticism, eh? >> Full story