Hockey results for November 3

 ...2011. I said I wasn't really missing the NHL season and it's still true while I have many other things to occupy me this fall (...winter? ...spring?), a random look through what was happening exactly a year ago in the NHL does hurt a bit. I'd grab a few screenshots from every game I watched online, and the NHL.com posts at the end of the night. I haven't looked at NHL.com in months now.

Chicago Blackhawks were at Tampa Bay Lightning, and it was an uneventful game until the second:

Then...too eventful. Damn, I'd forgotten this one. Eight goals in one period, including a hat trick for Steven Stamkos:

And Lightning won in overtime, 5-4. Wait, no goals in the third either? That doesn't sound like a good game exactly, but it's the kind of ridiculous one I miss.

Meanwhile in St. Louis, it was the game with an appearance by recent World Series champion Cardinals (a World Series that was actually exciting, unlike the final series in 2012):

The NHL.com headlines. There was a 7-6 OT game too? Damn.

And the little thing showing the top video highlights. There's a typo, not uncommon, but I was always impressed everything was up so fast on the site:

I'd always screenshot the three stars of the night. Two hat tricks!

I also liked getting screenshots of the standings at the end of the night. Yeah, 2011 started off very strangely. The top of the table shows many teams that didn't make the playoffs, and defending Stanley Cup Champion Boston off to a rough start:

And this was from the night before and concerns the offense struggles of Islanders and Red Wings, but I winced. I'm sure those fans would prefer that to the extremely dead NHL October we just had.

what's another loss here or there, NHL?

there are mistakes, and then there are overused-internet-words-like-EPIC-mistakes:

minutes after another lousy Blackhawks game (and I thought they'd win this one! I was headed home on the CTA bus from my Greyhound trip when it started. Patrick Sharp scored the first goal of the game right as I passed Blackhawk Street! fights, hits, energy, etc., then it fell apart) I found this on the NHL.com main page.

tonight the Blackhawks lost their third consecutive game in regulation for the first time all season. they'd had a 3-game winless streak twice, I believe. but only three, not four, NHL! I immediately fired off a polite correction to @NHL on Twitter. (and today when I got home from the trip I noticed @GreyhoundBus is also following me on Twitter, and even sent me a direct tweet. now I'm kind of on edge about complaining about NHL or Greyhound...but also kind of excited and wondering why Amtrak or Megabus or the AHL don't follow me too).

the greatest winning streak in sports is OVER

first, to the St. Louis Blues: hey, you took my advice in the last post about not starting a bunch of fights in last night's game. however, I didn't mean NO fights in the game. also, did not mean to imply you should beat the Blackhawks the other way--by, uh, winning the game.

second: Blackhawks. I did not address you in the prior post to say "please win this game." because I was going to be attending, and your winning the game was implied by my attendance. I THOUGHT WE HAD AN UNDERSTANDING.

everyone else: that's right. after a 13-month* stretch of attending 17 Blackhawks games, in four different cities**, I FINALLY SAW THEM LOSE A GAME. I'm in shock.

this seems like a good image to repost

obviously, I'm being snarky with all this, because I know longtime fans of the Blackhawks (and of virtually any sports team) are used to seeing losses. it's not seeing them lose that bothers me (though it was a sloppy, discouraging game), it's the end of "my" winning streak. SEVENTEEN CONSECUTIVE GAMES, folks. and to lose in game 18? well, actually I prefer it to making it to 19 wins and losing the 20th (I was starting to get invested in the idea of seeing 20 wins in a row).

I had a fine run here, pretending that I was a good-luck charm for the team (hence the "self-congratulatory nonsense" tag I put up when bragging about seeing another win. now I have to reserve that for say, this blog winning something, or someone saying I'm "hot". so...it was a nice tag while it lasted). also, I enjoyed the novelty of a sports blog written by someone who'd never actually seen their favorite team lose. it's a wonder I wasn't much more arrogant. the only upside? I no longer have to spend time in phone calls to my friend who took me to win #1 as he tries to calculate the odds of my attending 12, 13, 16... wins in a row.

this provides a good point to finally get around to writing the story of my first hockey game and the story of my first year as a fan. which I'll get to when the shock wears off. oh, and I'll be at the Blackhawks game IN St. Louis this weekend, hoping to start another winning streak.

*one game in January 2009, then a bunch starting in October 2009. I'll explain the gap sometime...
**one visit each to Pittsburgh, Boston, and Columbus; the rest at the United Center

a reminder to the St. Louis Blues

more from Hockey (1969), to preview the two Blackhawks-Blues games this week. yes, again with Penguins in the photos. oh well.

Blue Ray Fortin (19) and Noel Picard (4) are foiled by Penguins Binkley (30) and Price (right). In his frustration, Picard almost hooks Price.

so, I happened across an item that the St. Louis Blues' D.L. King, referred to as the team's enforcer, would be returning to play after being out since October with an injury. and my thoughts were approximately:

ADKLFHDSLFHDSFJDSJFHKJJKFDSJAK seriously OMG you mean this is what the Blues are like WITHOUT their enforcer? 

THIS IS WITHOUT THEIR ENFORCER?!!! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

really? the nasty game I saw at the United Center in December, and the infamous four-fights-including-Toews'-second-NHL-fight-ever game Jan. 2 in St. Louis? those were without their designated tough guy? (although Cam Janssen seems as much of an enforcer, maybe they have two?) they're in the top 5 teams for fighting majors in the NHL without King...oh boy.

yeah, so I admit I wasn't paying close attention to the Blues until soon before the Hawks finally played them this year, not till December, so I forgot who wasn't playing. well, whether King is in this week's games or not, I just want to remind the Blues, to adapt a phrase from the Cookie Monster:

Hockey fights are a sometimes treat

obviously I like them and so do the hockey fans I know. a game with a lot of tension and roughing and near-fights can be entertaining. a fight or two at the right moment--after a questionable hit, or to spark some energy in your team and its fans, or just to give your fans something to enjoy when the team is hopelessly behind (you certainly know what I mean)--is fine.

Blue Jimmie Roberts (6) fails to get past Penguin Noel Price.

but there's such a thing as too much, when the game just gets slowed down by all the fights, and you don't look good, you just look like you're covering up for your lack of skill, and that's what the January game was like. (to be fair, the Blues have been winning games recently after a lousy start with the new coach...)

so...resist the urge to constantly goon it up, okay? or if you must, just save it up for a bench-clearing brawl. I'm fine with one every once in a while...

vintage Blues

 

Face-off! Red Berenson, St. Louis, vs. Lou Angotti, Pittsburgh

Hockey (1969) has a lot of material on each of the then-12 teams in the NHL. perhaps I'll post the whole chapters on each team (and finally have a blog post with an "read more after the jump" in it). for now, a couple from the opening section of color photos. these are for the two games the Blackhawks are playing vs. St. Louis Blues this week--Wednesday's in Chicago, and Saturday's in St. Louis (the big Second City Hockey-organized Chicago fan/blogger trip). I'll be at both. no shots of Blues vs. Blackhawks in the book, unfortunately.

St. Louis goalie Jacques Plante splits to his left a split-second too late.

goalies gone wild!

if the most wonderful thing that can happen in NHL hockey is winning some sort of giant shiny trophy, then the second most wonderful is...a goalie fight. even better than a hat trick or thrilling overtime victory--I mean, c'mon, those happen pretty often (well, for some teams). best of all is of course goalies fighting each other, but any sort of goalie-related scuffle is exciting. here's two (neither of which are technically fights, so I had to find non-hockeyfights.com video)...

the one that got a lot of attention was this, Wednesday night in St. Louis Blues @ Montreal Canadiens (Blues won the game):



but thanks to this post at Sportress of Blogitude I found out Monday night in the Minnesota Wild @ Dallas Stars game (I was watching a different game, and I think I never found a live broadcast of this one), the Wild's backup goaltender Josh Harding battled the Stars'  Steve Ott:



Harding had fought a goalie in the minor leagues, according to a linked article. Wild lost 4-3.

in other hockey news, some sort of giant shiny trophy was briefly "lost" this week. OOPS.

news roundup, mostly World Juniors and Blackhawks

first off: I'll be in Boston for the Blackhawks-Bruins game this Thursday. see the 5-day preview I did for the Hawks-B's game here (I know, still haven't posted a recap/photos), I guess it applies again! I'll be at the Providence game Fri., possibly the Worcester game Sat. but right now I have an Amtrak ticket to leave before then.

I only caught a little of the World Junior championship until the big USA vs. Canada gold medal game tonight. I found both US and Canadian online feeds and had them both going, while also keeping an eye on the Hawks and Bruins (and also the Maple Leafs), all of who won tonight. I wish I could have paid closer attention, it was very exciting, back and forth goals, then US finally had a real lead (5-3) then Canada tied it at the end. overtime didn't go on for too long, as I noticed the Americans were hugging each other, so I realized they'd scored and won. the most fun of it all was watching on Twitter. first Canada was a trending topic, then #WJC, then #WJC and USA when they won. so USA was trending when Canada wasn't--I was surprised. I was amused but also a little sad at how despondent and desperate the Canadian tweets were during the game. hopefully no riots are going on.

the championship is in Buffalo next year, and I'm seriously interested in going. (I like Buffalo, and no passport issues!) oh, and this piece at The Two-Line Pass, Suck It Canada, It's Our Game Now, cracked me up so much I had to edit this post to add it late. oh boy, what are things going to be like around Olympics time?

this is a sad and frustrating one...and I'll admit being on Twitter (and checking in on it a lot, if not necessarily posting) is useful to get breaking news. so I heard about the Chris Chelios DUI arrest (which actually happened 12/28, but just got out now?). obviously we'll be hearing a lot more about this.

kind of silly, but, wow, a game thread on Second City Hockey reached 1000 comments tonight, despite being a regular season game against a team people aren't that excited about (Minnesota Wild) and don't have a huge rivalry with. and not that much happened in the game, and it's a weeknight. WJC commentary was a large part of this, but I'm still amazed. (for the uninitiated, all 30 NHL teams have blogs on SB Nation and some have much busier game threads than others. Chicago is lucky to get in the 300-400 comment range.) I contributed, if you can call it that.

something very different on SCH: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend, a personal story that was also posted on the St. Louis Blues blog on SBN, and you'll see why if you haven't read this yet. just read it...

as I first saw on Kukla's Korner, the Blackhawks have hired an official team historian. I'd love to help...

and check out this piece in New York Times on the oldest hockey arena in the U.S. (actually, the world's oldest indoor hockey arena still in use), Matthews Arena in Boston.

I wish I'd caught that mistake (uh, it was actually Wild vs Blackhawks), but Puck the Media noticed the above. not sure why Versus showed TWO Wild-Hawks games this season...

 

but hey, I found this one with mistakes in it by myself. I know they were in a hurry to post this, and I'm happy for how fast things show up on NHL.com, despite the occasional typo...

Toews got in a fight, Zenon scored a goal...

...and yet, the sun rose again this morning, it's January so all the top TV news stories in Chicago are about the cold, and I drank lousy coffee later in the day than is a good idea. the world goes on.

one of my favorite cliched sports phrases is "You know, these teams don't like each other very much." having seen the extremely chippy Blackhawks first game against the St. Louis Blues this season (in person), and their first road game against them on Saturday (online)...well, it's all I can think of. I already posted the penalty minutes summary, and a screenshot of the five (!) fights that ended up on hockeyfights.com. (9 fighting majors, so it's more like 4.5 fights?) this game also was the front page story there to start the week (the first time I've seen the Hawks mentioned in one since I started looking at that site, I think).

Saturday, I didn't find an online feed till more than halfway through the first period, and a lot had happened by then. Tomas Kopecky, who Hawks fans have been complaining about (as "useless") scored the first goal. and the second. his first 2-goal game...and he'd only had one prior goal this season. (he almost got a hat trick later. Blackhawks haven't had one this season, and it'd have been hilarious if he was first.) you may have seen real game recaps, so you know about how the Hawks got tons of penalties and the refs missed some on the Blues. Blues were on a seven-minute power play. Blackhawks got 63 penalty minutes in this game (they'd had 436 total in the previous 40 games). Patrick Sharp was knocked down in a possibly clean hit...no penalty. he came back later to score two goals himself, the best revenge. Brent Sopel, also not a favorite of Hawks fans this year, was very useful in the game. a Blues fan taunted him--I don't have a shot of that, but I tried to keep up with the fights. it was exhausting.

oh yeah, the Jonathan Toews vs. David Backes fight, right near the beginning of the second. I'm not sure what that was about, but...well, good for Toews for standing up for himself and "sending a message" and all, but he didn't do well and let's hope he doesn't make a habit of it. I had to check--it was only his second NHL fight, the first in Nov. 2008 vs. a Phoenix Coyotes player.  the Toews-Backes fight page is here (once again I had trouble embedding the YouTube version); all 5 fights have both the Blues and Hawks broadcast versions on hockeyfights.com.

meanwhile, on Twitter, some random guy (not a follower, I found this searching #Blackhawks) who probably doesn't watch hockey much happened to catch THAT game...

Saturday was the first game for the Blues' new coach Davis Payne. I'm not even going to count this in my bad headlines series because it's just so obvious:

 

in other news--I totally missed Zenon Konopka's birthday. he's less known as a forward for the Tampa Bay Lightning and more for being the NHL fight leader so far this season, as chronicled on his hockeyfights.com fight card. but on his 29th birthday, 1/2/10, in a game that was ultimately a 3-1 defeat of the Penguins, he scored his second goal of the season (and first goals since 2005...!)

The Hockey News recently posted Getting To Know: Zenon Konopka, in which I learned...his father is Zenon Sr.! and he thinks the Oakland Raiders have the best uniform in any sport. and chocolate chip cookie dough (yes!) is his favorite ice cream flavor. and he tells of the time he got pelted with beer bottles and fish heads (uh, at a game). I don't exactly have a high opinion of the Lightning after seeing them play in Chicago, but that was a fun read, anyway.

I have to quote this post at Sabre Kollisions: "Do you think Zenon gets depressed when he Googles himself and auto fill kicks in with 'girl of the 21st century?'" (I was not aware of this. yep, it's true. it was a movie)

oh, and did you know the Blackhawks' Antti Niemi has the same birthday (Aug. 29) as me? you do now, because I found it out recently and will post it many more times to come.

some games are "a little chippy"...

and some are an absolute fucking bloodbath. and I'm not even counting the horrific puck-to-the-face injury in this one...I mean the 107 penalty minutes (63 to Chicago) racked up in tonight's Blackhawks @ Blues (more on this later):

 

re: the above list of fighters? for some reason "one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong" is in my head...

I already had a ticket to the next Hawks-Blues game. I'm looking forward to it...and a little scared.