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Also, I would like to preface this by saying that I am NOT wearing my Colorado Avalanche t-shirt today. Quite the contrary, I am reppin’ the Wings in an office-appropriate manner with a bright red skirt. I even ironed it, which is saying something.
Anyway. If you’re anything like me and happen to be a recently-graduated, working-full-time, highly immature grownup (although even if you aren’t any of the above), you probably enjoy fun things like these to get you through the day until 99% of the population of the State of Michigan has a date with the boys wearing the Winged Wheel tonight.
There is a severe shortage of caffeine in this office today. Actually, there is NO caffeine. Sure, there’s an overflowing box of decaf coffee packets in the copy room, but there are NO MORE packets of caffeinated coffee. Which means that this girl, who doesn’t have the time or money to grab Biggby on my way into work, is thinking 9pm ET is looking pretty darned far away (although this blog post and a gigantic coffee on lunch break might help that situation).
So I’m taking quick breaks throughout the morning for hockey-related pick-me-ups that induce giggles and giddy spasms of nerves for the game tonight. Which may or may not be a good thing.
First of all. How much do we love Jimmy Howard for this? Poor guy, rendered speechless by a legend. I mean, this spry-looking old man has a statue and an entrance named after him in the Joe Louis Arena. And all he had to say was, “forwards don’t like this guy,” and Jimmy was stumbling over words and forgetting what he was going to say.
And there’s this gem of an article from one of my favorite columnists with ESPN, who lists 50 REALLY FABULOUS reasons to love the NHL. For someone who is constantly arguing with diehard, fight-you-tooth-and-nail basketball and football fans, this list is an arsenal of comebacks and things about hockey that just can’t be duplicated in any other sport.
And here’s proof of Mike Babock’s slap on the wrist to our pal Justin Abdelkader, who just can’t seem to stop taking silly, easily avoided penalties at nerve-grindingly critical times in the game. Come on, Justin. Go back to scoring in the clutch (as we all know you can do) rather than taking penalties in the clutch! How many times do I need to remind the world of THIS:
Holy moly what I wouldn’t give to see that happen again.
Random question, though. At the end of the article about Abdelkader and his penalties, Bertuzzi is quoted as saying that he’s never seen guys so excited to spend seven hours on a plane. Is a direct, chartered flight from Detroit to San Jose REALLY seven hours? How have I not known this? I would’ve said five, maybe.
Speaking of five…only FIVE…TIMES TWO more hours.
In Other News:
The Colorado Avalanche re-signed Milan Hejduk yesterday. The contract is only for one year, though. Some people were saying that they would keep doing that until he retired, because, at 35, he’s gettin’ up there. In the hockey sense, at least. Although he seems like the type who would play into his forties if you ask me. Either way, I’m glad they’re keeping him around. Now that their captain (and the last remaining Avalanche player to have played for the Quebec Nordiques before they moved to Colorado) has retired, they’re desperately short on those father-figure type players.
Hejduk aside, I already have my sights set on who I want to be the Avs’ captain next year. But I don’t really get any say in it. Hejduk would make a great captain. But so would John-Michael Liles. Laugh all you want, but he’s a Spartan and, well, you know what they say about Spartans:
“Spartans will change the course of history.”
Aside from making anybody who has called Michigan State University home for their college career feel like a total BAMF, this makes sense. After the season the Avalanche had, they need someone to turn them around. Therefore, JML, a SPARTAN, will CHANGE THE COURSE OF THE AVS’ HISTORY.
That’s supposed to be funny.
More later, folks.
P.S. A friend of mine on Twitter posted this video in regards to the outcome of tonight’s game. Watch and laugh.
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You know how they mike players for games sometimes? And then afterwards they post funny clips of things the player said during the game? I could link to a bazillion different examples. If I get bored during intermission, I’ll find some.
This, for example:
At around 00:11 in the video, little Matty admits that might have had a little too much fun the night before.
Think of this as the equivalent of mike-ing me. Everything that suddenly pops into my head is about to get typed and posted. It makes my Twitter feed less polluted so that people who don’t like hockey won’t unfollow me for all the #hockeytweets.
So here we go. Everything you read after this point is a random in-game thought. Some of them might be intelligent. Some of them might be just plain stupid.
——
-Nick Lidstrom eye doctor commercial: how much would YOU like to say, “the same guy that pokes around in my eyes also pokes around in Nick Lidstrom’s?” Mmmmm.
-Kid in a pre-game video with a Sharks jersey with a red circle and slash painted through the logo on the chest. Question: why would you buy a jersey and then destroy it? I mean, I realize they’re a rival team….jerseys are damn expensive!
-Mike Modano is playing tonight. All I think about him when I look at him is his little cameo appearance in Mighty Ducks when they went to a Minnesota North Stars practice and game.
-FUN FACT: Mike Modano was the FIRST OVERALL draft pick of the 1988 NHL Entry Draft. I did not know this. Apparently is IS possible to be a first-overall draft pick and not have the whole universe collectively drool over you like people drool over Sindy Crosby. Oops. Did I misspell that?
-THEY’RE PLAYING LOSE YOURSELF. I can hear it over the TV.
-National Anthem: is Todd Bertuzzi chewing on his helmet or kissing it? Also, I love Justin Abdelkader. But you already knew that.
-I follow Logan Couture and Devin Setoguchi on Twitter. I have to keep reminding myself that as fun as they are to follow on Twitter, they’re the bad guys tonight.
-I LOVE replays of Kronwall hits. He’s a freakin’ monster out there.
-They say Clowe has the flu, but are skeptical over why he didn’t travel? I have to intervene here. If he had the vomit kind of flu, I wouldn’t have let him travel either. A) that’s gross B) I bet it spreads like wildfire. Wouldn’t want the whole team being sick right now, would they? Although…it’d be great for Detroit!
-DID CLEARY HIT HIS HEAD?! He’s lookin’ a little spaced out. Or maybe he always looks like that? No…he’s just got some crazy eyes.
They look like lasers.
-There should’ve been a goal there.
-WHOAAA. So the shot from the blueline should’ve gone in.
-I’m trying to decide what’s better: putting a lot of pressure on the Sharks in their zone so early in the first…or getting a lot of pressure in our own zone during the first and then coming back to apply pressure to THEM later. What tires a team out less? Applying pressure, or fighting it off?
-Wait. Are Cleary’s eyes Photoshopped in that picture? Because they definitely weren’t that blue in that interview clip they just showed.
-Kronwall just…really likes to knock people to the ground. It’s kind of awesome.
-I’m starting to talk to the TV screen. #ohboy
-Penalty kill after the commercial break.
-The Motor City Casino commercial is really cool. It’s one of those things that makes me hope that 50 years down the road Detroit is a sparkling mecca of awesomeness like Chicago or New York. But it’ll probably take longer than 50 years. And I do think that even if it does become a sparkling mecca of awesomeness, it needs to keep some of the grit and abandoned car factories. They’re so beautiful in such a derelict, urban kind of way. I’ll stop now. #easilydistracted
-WOOO! 4-on-4!!
-13 seconds of powerplay? Get itttttt.
-I only like Devin Setoguchi because we have the same name. Minus that one pesky letter “I” that should be an “O.” That’s why I liked Devin Thomas on the MSU football team so much my freshman year, too.
-Sharks being outshot 17-5 and took 9.5 minutes to make their second shot after they finally made their first one. Like I said…this might be a good thing, provided the Wings have the stamina tonight to keep applying pressure like this and the Sharks don’t have a second wind.
-Don’t touch Datsyuk!!!!!!! Jerk.
-I love Brian Rafalski. And I also wonder if media coaches teach players to always say the same things. This is a legitimate question. If I ever meet an NHL player, I will be asking him that question.
Second Period
-Someday, I want to be cool enough to stand in that little gap between the benches. I’d be way less annoying than Pierre McGuire is when he stands there.
-I’m surprised at how many empty seats there are. Is it because it’s a Tuesday night? Or because people are still in line for the bathroom? If I weren’t poor, I would’ve totally helped out with the empty seat situation by going to this game.
-If Drew Miller had been five inches back from where he was when he made that shot, it might’ve gone in. Rats.
-Twitter just told me that there’s a livestream of the Glendale City Council meeting that will decide—
-Oh wait. A fight! I can’t decide who did more damage in that one.
-Anyway. The city council meeting in Glendale, AZ that decides whether the Phoenix Coyotes stay or move back to Winnipeg next season is being livestreamed tonight. Might watch that. Because I’m legit interested.
-CLEARY…how in the WORLD did that not go in?! I was already starting my goal celly!
-The Wings have had Niemi beaten SO many times in this game and just can’t seem to get it in! Weird! Come on, guys!
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I’ve noticed something interesting about hockey blogs. Ninety percent of the hockey blogs written by females have a rather suspicious bias towards the Pittsburgh Penguins. If you’re looking for paragraphs of pontification about the sexiness of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin’s “endearingly crooked smile and horrible grasp of the English language” and Kris Letang’s hair (okay, I give here…he does have great hair), this is NOT the blog for you. Sorry folks.
Anyway. Welcome back.
Some people read the New York Times while they drink their coffee every morning. Not me. I scroll through NHL.com and The Hockey News online, get Bleacher Report sent to my email inbox, and follow NHL teams on Twitter.
And now that I’m a Real Person, I can do things like spend hours and hours after my 8-5 job (professional internship is my preferred description of it, as it is only a continuation of my internship from the past year, filling time until I move away in July and get my dream job sometime in August) staring into space and thinking about things like the NHL Draft, how I’m going to afford hockey tickets next season to the pro team in whatever city I end up in, and other silly things like whether Claude Giroux and Danny Briere are in love and whether David Koci will ever read MY book once it’s published.
So. Just to ease y’all back into What I Think About Hockey, I’ll start small.
I am a Colorado Avalanche fan. How? Long story. Involving a solo trip to Denver last winter to research for my book, $35 eleventh-row seats to the right of the goal, John-Michael Liles (like I said, I was traveling alone, so seeing another Spartan was like seeing a friend), an exciting OT win over the Senators, and the thinner air in the Mile High City causing my brain to go haywire long enough to fall in love with the team that happens to have (or perhaps HAD) the most bitter rivalry ever with my home team, the Detroit Red Wings.
Oopsie.
Don’t worry. I sat on my hands in front of the TV when they played each other in January. I didn’t root for either team. I wear my Red Wings sweatshirt over my Avalanche t-shirt (hideous color combo, by the way, but I never said I was a fashion expert). And next year, when Denver is my hometown (hopefully) and the Avalanche play the Wings at the Pepsi Center, I’m going to wear an MSU hockey jersey to the game instead. Because both teams have Spartans, and Spartan hockey is where it all began for me anyway.
So.
Last night, the Nashville Predators were knocked out of the playoffs at the hands of the Vancouver Canucks. The Canucks have been pretty interesting this year. For awhile, they seemed like some kind of maniacal powerhouse lead by the scientific anomalies named Henrik and Daniel Sedin, who clearly share a brain, can’t function without one another, and are kind of creepy (a friend of mine of Twitter actually said they were the reason he’s wanted Vancouver to lose since the beginning). The thing is, in the playoffs, Vancouver hasn’t been that impressive. If they were REALLY impressive, they would’ve swept Chicago then swept Nashville (who wasn’t even supposed to make the playoffs anyway). But they didn’t.
And as gimmicky as Nashville is…
(quick tangent: don’t even try to tell me they wanted Mike Fisher because of his mad hockey skillz. That trade had Carrie Underwood written all over it. And the close-ups of her up in the stands during the brief ten minutes I actually managed to catch of the game last night solidified that)
…I love a good underdog story, and it would’ve been cool to see them keep going, especially if they could’ve beaten Vancouver and the Creepy Sedins in the process. Not to mention the fact that if I were a team that wasn’t supposed to make the playoffs and I suddenly found myself facing the Red Wings (who are going to tie the series, win it in Game 7 and advance to the conference finals. Confidence!) who have made the playoffs for 20 consecutive seasons, I would shrivel up in intimidation and let them take me in four games. Unfortunately, that’s not going to be the case. Blame it on the Sedins. The Western Conference final is going to come down to Vancouver and whomever wins the SJS/DET series.
I will be in front of the TV tonight, mark my words.
More later.
