1. The commercial features a goaltender who’s got a grudge against Mats Sundin, to say the least. Aired for Nike in the mid-1990s, it shows a burned out Montreal goalie turned cab driver thanks to Mats Sundin.

2. Another commercial featuring an ex-goaltender who was mentally dismantled by the play of Detroit’s Sergei Fedorov. The goaltender now works at Burgerama. The guy on the right is also Eddie Kaye Thomas, who was in American Pie and Harold and Kumar.

3. Yet another commercial with an ex-goaltender who … definitely has issues with Rod Brind’Amour of the Philadelphia Flyers. As opposed to earning his pay, he’s turned to a life of crime and decides to rob a bank … with a skate.

4. The last commercial features yes, another ex-goalie. This Boston Bruins netminder has been beaten left, right and centre by Phoenix’s Jeremy Roenick and unlike the other goalies, he’s on the streets begging for change and another shot at the NHL.

You know, the more of these I watch, the more I think Dan Cloutier should be featured in a commercial with Nick Lidstrom… “I didn’t see the 80-foot shot from centre ice coming!”

You know what to do: Watch and cast your vote!

Alexander Ovechkin - Sure, his English isn’t great, and the guy is definitely no Brad Pitt, but Alex The GR8 knows how to sell a commercial. In this ad, his money gets eaten by the evil vending machine and he’ll do anything to get that bag of chips. Maybe call up Mark Messier for some Lays?

Peter Forsberg - Talk about creepy. Imagine having a guy like Foppa in bed with your wife in full hockey gear. I don’t know if he’s impersonating Jason Voorhees or if he’s trying to get some. This commercial was filmed for the NHL Network when the lockout ended.

Vincent Lecavalier & Brad Richards - Vinny and Brad are playing NHL 07 and it looks like Lecavalier has the edge on Richards simply by pushing the same button. This is the ad for anyone who hates playing against someone who keeps hitting the same @#$%ing button!

NHL Road Trip - This commercial was greeted with a lot of feedback. In too many commercials we’ve seen players who are on the ice or featured with heavy music and great plays, but in this one we get to see today’s best on the road.

After this, there will be one remaining bracket and then we will have our six semi-finalists. Those six will be divided into two brackets of three, where the surviving two will face off against each other for the title of best hockey commercial… EVER!

Bracket 4 features the best of the serious, intense and the epic. We’ve seen them before — myNHL has featured some of the better commercials around playoff time. Below are four of the best epic commercials. Watch and cast your winner!

1. One Play - Part of the NHL’s Live Every Shift campaign, featuring hockey’s legends and the legends in the making. Sid, Gretz, Orr, Yzerman and Howe are prominent figures in a commercial which highlights the best of our game.

2. Cup Raise - Unless you have the NHL Network you’ve never seen this commercial, which features the Stanley Cup in all its glory. In 33 seconds the commercial shows just how much players give and take in the Stanley Cup playoffs all to win professional sports’ most prestigious trophy.

3. Sidney Crosby, Reebok - Another one of Sidney Crosby’s best commercials which aired shortly after he made his NHL debut in 2006. Done for Reebok, Crosby shows how much time he put into becoming the player he is today.

4. NHL: 300 - When that great movie ‘300′ showed up in theatres and wowed the male demographic, the NHL quickly got in on the action. Last spring they aired a commercial which was shown only on the NHL Network merging lines and music from the movie and integrating it with the game’s best.

Get out and vote!

Call him a Drama Queen if you want, but the experts are right when they say Sundin has earned the right to wait and carefully make a decision. But while he is contemplating his future in Sweden, there are half a dozen NHL teams (three being Canadian clubs) whose teams are being held hostage while Mats waits on making a decision.

For Mike Gillis and the Canucks, the wait significantly handcuffs the team. By refusing to spend that $10M in cap space, the club missed the boat on a ton of free agent talent. And if the season started today, the Canucks would be heading into training camp without a legitimate second line.

I’m hoping the team has a real good Plan B or C in the event Mats Sundin does not sign, because it seems like the longer he takes to make a decision, the more likely it seems he is leaning towards retirement. And clearly, when you have an offer for a deal which would make you the NHL’s highest paid player annually, it seems money isn’t what is most important.

How confident would you be going into the season with Michael Grabner and Cody Hodgson anchoring the second line? Or could you see Mike Gillis making moves to try and keep the club competitive?

So much for the August 1st deadline.

Up next is Bracket Three, featuring part one of the New Ones:

1. McDonald’s Mini Sticks: Aired only a few months ago, McDonald’s had a commercial for its Mini-Sticks, where people could collect miniaturized goalie sticks. Featured in the commercial is JC Petit, the new hotshot goaltender from the minors. All I can say is “Nice try, No-Goal-ov”.

2. Verizon aired two commercials in the United States featuring the slogan “You Wouldn’t Make it in the NHL”. In this commercial, a fan shows just how tough he is.

3. This is Verizon’s second commercial, which was also aired this year. Continuing with their slogan, this commercial shows how tough a fan can be when he’s playing ice hockey with some of the guys.

4. Sidney Crosby is featured in one of his first of many Gatorade commercials. In this commercial, a bunch of kids on the street are deciding teams the traditional way when Sid the Kid shows up to play. Soon, everyone else is getting in on the action, including the Rimouski Oceanic and the elusive Hanson brothers.

Make sure you watch and cast your votes!

Bracket Two is here, and it features some of the Canucks’ best commercials:

1. The Sedin twins appear in their first of hopefully many commercials. Not only are they talented on the ice but they’re a pretty good dancing duo. This commercial was filmed for the NHL Network’s myNHL.

2. One of the Canucks’ first commercials with Nike-Bauer focusing on one player, Markus Naslund broke the barriers for the team as he teamed up with Atlanta Thrashers forward Ilya Kovalchuk in an advertisement for Nike.

3. Markus Naslund’s air time didn’t end there, as the summer after he joined up with Calgary’s superstar Jarome Iginla to promote Nike’s “Ready for Your :45?” campaign. The commercial gives new meaning to the word “Snipeshow”.

4. In an ad not shown on television, Roberto Luongo does a brief 15-second commercial for NHL.com. Here, he learns how to tackle the opposing player in a shootout with some help from a fan.

5. Sportsnet teamed up with Roberto Luongo last summer to do a nice and clever spot showing that “Perfection Matters”. It was a commercial for Sportsnet’s “Hockey That Matters” promotion that was a big hit with local fans.

Go out and vote!

Here’s what’s bothering me this Monday morning (Aside from being awake at 9AM):

• Jay Bouwmeester has just re-signed with the Florida Panthers to a one-year, $4.8M deal, but don’t think that Bouwmeester is a lock to start the year with the team. Word around the media is that Bouwmeester has rejected multiple long-term contract offers from the Panthers, including a deal worth over $5M a season for three to four years. It’s clear he’s sick of the Panthers rebuilding year after year and would like to get out of Miami. I’m pretty certain management knows he’s not going to be a Panther by the end of next season either, since they acquired Keith Ballard and Nick Boynton for their blueline.

• I’m very impressed that the Saskatchewan “Roughed-riders” have been able to go an astounding 5-0 despite their numerous injuries. With Marcus Crandell, DJ Flick, John Chick, Weston Dressler, Leron Mitchell all out, things got worse last night when they lost second-string QB Darian Durant and star receiver Andy Fantuz. That is absolutely ridiculous. That is like the BC Lions losing Jarious Jackson, Paris Jackson, Jason Clermont, Javy Glatt and more. The Roughriders’ ability to continue to win with their current lineup shows how deep the team is.

• You know who I’m not impressed with? Casey Printers. The ex-Lion has yet to throw for a touchdown this season, and despite the limited corps of receivers on the Ti-Cats, Printers should have had at least one by now. He continually hands the ball off to leading rusher Jesse Lumsden and opponents are keying in on that. Printers doesn’t seem to have the running game he had two years ago with the Lions. Now faced with a thumb injury and the possibility of missing the next game, Printers’ stock is sagging.

• He may not have won the RBC Canadian Open this weekend, but Mike Weir certainly gave the Canadian hopefuls in the crowd something to cheer about. He finished a respectable 5th and was in the hunt from start to finish. His play in the 2nd round back nine in particular was exceptional.

If you haven’t done so already, make sure you keep voting for the NHL’s Best Commercial!

1. Mats Sundin and Wayne Gretzky w/ McDonald’s. In a commercial that was filmed sometime in the mid to late 1990s, Sundin and Gretzky show off their skills in order to find out who will buy lunch at McDonald’s.

2. Former Buffalo Sabres tough guy Rob Ray (Who once punched out a fan) takes his enforcer skills to a different workplace. Filmed for ESPN, Ray takes the words ’security guard’ to new heights.

3. Another commercial featuring The Great One, but with his old pal Mark Messier along for the ride. The two are squaring off against each other in an intense game of Chess. Filmed for NHL Network during their “Coolest Game on Earth” campaign.

4. Eric Lindros is featured with his Philadelphia Flyers jersey needing to be washed. Except the team geek quickly gets himself into trouble with Big 88. This commercial was filmed for IBM Computers. Like Eric Lindros, IBM also did not live up to the hype.

Exclusively from FanInVan.Com is the Best Hockey Commercial contest! We’ve got the best 25 NHL commercials and we’re putting them head to head. Your job is to vote for which commercials should move on to the finals and take the prestigious award of Best Hockey Commercial.

Six brackets, 25 commercials in total. Each week I’ll post one bracket and you will vote for the best commercial using the polls section to the right. The winner of that bracket will take part in a semi-final of THREE commercials. The winners of the semi-finals will then go head-to-head in the FanInVan Final to find the one and only winner of Best NHL Commercial.

Starting tonight, the first bracket will be revealed and you’ll have access to four commercials from YouTube. Once you’ve picked the best commercial, cast your vote!

So in case you’re still confused, here’s what you’ve gotta do:

1. Keep checking FanInVan.com for updates on the Best NHL Commercials.
2. Watch the commercials, which will be included in the post. All you’ve got to do is press play and let it load!
3. Cast your vote in the POLLS section to the right!
4. Repeat!

• It looks like Boston veteran Glen Murray could find himself without a contract in the next while, as according to the Boston Globe he has been put on waivers with the possible intention of buying him out. Murray is a player who’s game was transformed for the worst after the lockout, managing only 69 goals in 186 games. At 35, it may soon be curtains for Murray’s NHL tenure. Sounds like he should take ex-Bruins teammate Jason Allison and Jeff O’Neill to the KHL.
• How bad do I feel for Ryan Didwiddie? Well, pretty bad. The guy has a grand total of two CFL starts at quarterback with the Blue Bombers, and his first came in last year’s Grey Cup final. His second start will come Thursday night against the Stamps, as he tries to right the floundering ship in Winnipeg, his team being 0-4 in the process. Tough odds, and tough luck for Dinwiddie.
• There’s probably not one Canadian athlete more deserving of carrying the Canadian flag than Adam van Koeverden. As one of kayaking’s best, van Koeverden has worked extremely hard to accomplish what he has done in his career. With a gold and bronze medal in his trophy case, he is a sure bet to compete for podium finishes this summer as well.
• With the Olympics fast approaching, look ahead to 2010 and you have to think this will probably be the last time the NHL will allow its players to compete in the Olympics. Having professionals play in the Olympics is a bit of an issue with me; when you have the World Cup of Hockey, what point is there to have pros compete in the Olympics? My solution is to take professionals out of the Olympics and allow young kids from junior leagues to represent Canada, and let professionals compete in the World Cup. It gives other countries a better chance at competing for the podium in the Olympics.
• Who is number one in men’s tennis? Federer or Nadal? After watching one of the best matches in tennis history at June’s Wimbledon final, I have to say it’s pretty close. Federer has held the #1 seed for over five years but so far he’s been beaten in both the French Open and Wimbledon by Nadal. It goes without saying that the number one seed will be revealed after August’s US Open in Flushing Meadows.

All that said… Mats Sundin, make up your mind soon, because some of us are ripping our hair out waiting for your decision. Is it August yet?