it's finally happening

IT'S HAPPENING. IT'S HAPPENING. IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING. The dream Stanley Cup Final match I wanted from the time I started this blog in late 2009, Boston versus Chicago. And I didn't post during this shortened NHL season at all. Oops. Well, I'm reasonably excited. If only I'd been saving money for this since I started the blog...barring a miracle, I'm not attending any games. And the threat of a massive storm kept me from getting shots outside game one at the United Center tonight.

My boring prediction: Blackhawks in six. There are things I wouldn't mind about a Bruins win, but I'm much more going for the Hawks, of course. If for no other reason that unlike 2010 I have a smartphone and I'd love to post live from a parade, or from seeing the Cup in a bar. Whatever happens, I'm able to enjoy this much, much more given that both teams are relatively recent Cup winners who ended a long drought. And it has an odd feeling since tonight's game is the first West-East game this season!

GAME SEVEN GAME SEVEN GAME SEVEN

I'm cautiously optimistic for the Bruins in this. Sorry I didn't get a pre-game post up, nor am I able to live-blog it, or even live-tweet it on my dormant @alittlechippy account. Nor did I do a proper goodbye-to-the-Stanley Cup for the Blackhawks for their last few hours as current champs (if not "defending" champs--I assume that ended when they were out of the playoffs). I'm just trying to enjoy the moment. And hopefully only a few more minutes of the game...

okay. GO BRUINS

I'M NOT READY FOR HOCKEY SEASON TO BE OVER. Even if I've hardly written about it this year, even if I didn't do very much hockey-related travel this season (some pretty great trips though--well, if you follow me on social media, you saw that), even if--eek--I didn't leave a single comment on a single hockey blog all season.

I'm still caffeinated from the coffee in this photo, at Knockbox in Chicago's Humboldt Park (awesome overlooked place, so I'll mention them wherever. Grilled cheese served with applesauce! Lowest price on bottomless coffee of indie places I know!) and I've been wearing my Boston Bruins bag (which I bought in the 2009-10 season, mind you) around town. I wish I could be in Boston watching Game 6 tonight, even just at a bar. Again, GO BRUINS (and man, am I sorry I didn't see the team this year).

Blackhawks at Bruins 2011

It's the one scheduled game of the season between my two favorite NHL teams. I saw both of their games against each other last season, both Blackhawks wins. I've been following these teams all year even if I've barely blogged it, and not been too vocal on Twitter so I don't scare off my non-sports followers. (The @alittlechippy account will be back when I get a new password, I guess.) I've been a lot more pleased with how the Bruins have been this year, but still root more for the Blackhawks, since I live in Chicago and all. Theoretically I was extremely excited for tonight, but alas, didn't feel up to doing a preview. Watching it, I'm not sure I want to say anything about the game.

But this is the first time I've actually signed into Blogger to post here since, oh, late spring 2010, (I just restarted my other blog again and am updating it; can't imagine how out-of-date the blogroll here is) so there's a photo. Yes, it's kind of St. Patrick's-esque and it's late March, but I took it after St. Patrick's, a store window in downtown Winnetka (north suburban Chicago). It's a butcher shop or deli or something; have no idea what that can of "Digestive" is!

I'll be around in some form for the NHL (and other league) playoffs. Too much stuff not to post. Computer issues are better, but I need to reinstall my scanner so I can post cool weird things again.

History Will Be--OH EFF YOU

Not much to say now. My beer-of-cautious-optimism which became my beer-of-triumph is now my beer-of-shame-and-regret. (Er, it's just one large beer, which I didn't open till after the game. Let me get back to it.) I've had a post-game phone call with my Boston friend Dan (the one who's also a Blackhawks fan). I've read plenty from Bruins and Flyers fans and neutral observers on Twitter.

To blow a 3-0 series lead and then a 3-0 GAME LEAD, and lose both 4-3--yes, I guess that is historic. The Bruins didn't try hard enough, the Flyers wanted it more, road teams are doing spectacularly well these playoffs, Bruins have trouble with game 7s, NHL.com ruined it with all their hype about a possible huge comeback (actually, I thought that would jinx it)---whatever. I'm disappointed to say the least. I'm thrilled the Bruins made it as far as they did given how rough the second half of their season was...but once they did make it that far I was hoping again my long-ago dream of a Blackhawks-Bruins Stanley Cup final.

Instead, the 7th and 8th seeds in the East will square off for who gets to face the 1st or 2nd seed in the West. For a while I've been disgusted at the thought of the East winning...even more so now. I agree with the people joking that San Jose-Chicago is the de facto SCF, or that the East finals should be cancelled to make it the SCF. But then...no matter how bad their regular season record or how they just barely squeaked into the playoffs (Flyers because of a friggin' SHOOTOUT, on the last day of the regular season--I wanted them to lose just for that injustice)...Montreal and Philadelphia have been ferocious in the playoffs and I'm a bit scared.

The Bruins fan side of me is crushed, but the history-and-statistics-loving side of me (the same part that, when the Chicago Cubs lost horribly in their home opener in Atlanta, was amused at how, at least, it was a record-setting loss) is impressed that the sixth and seventh 3-0 playoff deficit comebacks in professional hockey history happened in the same week and involved losses for the Bruins and their ECHL affiliate, the Reading Royals. (The Bruins AHL affiliate in Providence didn't make it to the playoffs this year, for the first time in many years.) At least the Red Wings didn't do it this year too.

I want to say thanks to the Bruins fans whose blogs and Twitter have kept me informed and entertained this year, my first season truly following the team. I'm disgusted with how it ended, but I'm not a bandwagon fan; I'm not bailing on them. (Next season I'm following and sort of rooting for the Atlanta Thrashers in the East because of their Chicago Wolves affiliation, but Boston is my East Coast favorite.)

edited to add: READ THIS from Hockey Gone Wild. READ IT NOW...please.

game 3, Vancouver

needed to get this up as fast as possible, from @stevewsop on Twitter, symbolizing the Vancouver Canucks' loss to Chicago tonight (why hadn't I seen a Canucks fail-whale sooner? coincidentally, Twitter was down for a bit after the game tonight and fail-whaled for a while...):

(no kidding: I just had to try uploading that twice, because the first time I got a "failed" message, which I haven't gotten the entire time I've been putting images on this blog)

but more important than the Canucks losing...Blackhawks winning 5-2, with a hat trick by...Dustin Byfuglien?! his first points of the 2010 playoffs (photo via official Blackhawks Facebook page), and the Blackhawks first road-trip playoff hat trick since Denis Savard vs the St. Louis Blues in 1988:

I heard Boston won 4-1 vs the Flyers, making them the second team in the 2010 playoffs to be up 3-0. the first team? well, I saw that game in person...if there's ever a time to get photos up in a timely manner, it's for that--I'll see if my computer will even let me upload them. seeing a game in person meant I couldn't get back in time to see much of Wednesday's NHL games, but it was well worth it!

victory! victory! victory!

I haven't been totally honest here--it's not just that I've been lazy or overwhelmed during the playoffs, it's that I've been oddly superstitious about saying much about playoff series while they're going on (yeah, gonna have to fix that in round two). but now I can say....YESSSSSSSSSS! THE THREE HOCKEY TEAMS I'VE BEEN ROOTING FOR ALL YEAR ALL WON TONIGHT! AND ALL ADVANCE TO ROUND TWO OF THE PLAYOFFS! it was too excruciating to say that before or during the games, but now I can.

at 6 pm Central, the Buffalo Sabres-Boston Bruins game started. Bruins won 4-3!
at 7 pm, the Milwaukee Admirals-Chicago Wolves game started. Wolves won 2-1!
at 8 pm, the Nashville Predators-Chicago Blackhawks game started. Hawks won 5-3!

it was agony to have all three of my teams play the potential series-clinching game the same night, but I managed, and now this frees me up to write my recaps (which I will do, I swear. and my playoff preview becomes more of a round two thing). I've especially been anxious to talk about the AHL games since they don't get a lot of coverage. it's funny (well, except for Nashville fans) to think how the Chicago teams (both division leaders with a 100+-point season) beat the Predators and the Admirals, their AHL affiliate, the same night. honestly, I was the most nervous about the Wolves game because I entirely missed seeing them live in round 1, and this was a game 7. I've got to go to round 2 (the only downside to all this is that unlike regular season games, Blackhawks and Wolves playoffs are often the same night). and the Canadiens forced a game 7 against the Capitals, and Tuesday I've got ECHL, AHL, and NHL games to keep an eye on...

glad I don't have to write sports headlines, #20 in an ongoing series

...first up, I'm retiring that unwieldy name for this series (even if it's a prompt I don't have to type out every time)--I've used it enough. also, hitting item #20 is a nice place to stop numbering them and worrying what counts as an especially bad/silly headline. but of course I'll still post headlines and mistakes. jumping over some other playoff ones from NHL.com I'll get to, here's tonight's:

it's not that Miro/Hero is all that bad, it's that I think this is also supposed to stand in for the joke they can't make. Miroslav Satan scored the goal against the Sabres 7-plus minutes into double overtime, the first double OT of the 2010 playoffs, and Twitter, and I'd imagine message boards/live-blogs/etc. erupted with "HAIL SATAN" and "Satan worship" and the like. of course it's not pronounced the same way, but it'll never not be amusing in print. since he's joined the Bruins well into the 2009-10 season, Satan has scored some game-winning or otherwise hugely important goals (for his Olympic team, too), and there's a round of "Could it be...Satan?" and "worshipping Satan," etc. every time.

anyway, FANTASTIC game, two huge wins in a row at home for the Bruins to take the series lead 3-1. more screenshots, fight videos, etc. when I get a chance. I almost went to an AHL game tonight...if I had I'd have been disappointed by the game itself and then enraged when I learned what I'd missed. (yes, it's one of those nights when watching TV [online] turned out to be better than going out). big AHL update tomorrow, and maybe something about the disappointing team I've been following in the playoffs, too. (I wasn't kidding about computer trouble in previous post, it's been two more nights of it since I wrote that. I might need a trip to the Apple Store Genius Bar...)

glad I don't have to write sports headlines, #17 & 18 in an ongoing series

a lot of weekend hockey excitement (and baseball!) but I've been working on getting non-computer stuff done so a quick one for now, after the hugely important Bruins @ Capitals game tonight:

that was the late-night version, and this was the immediately post-game version. I've heard "I Laich it a lot" used on blogs/Twitter or somewhere...is NHL.com getting inspiration from jokes out there, or vice versa?

anyway...I didn't like that the Caps' first goal was a questionable one. and that the refs missed an obvious high-sticking double-minor against DC (I was in the kitchen briefly, came back and saw blood on the ice onscreen, found out it was Zdeno Chara's). at least the Bruins tied it 1-1 with 1.6 seconds left in the first, and got the point for going to overtime 2-2. could have been worse.

bonus from the NHL.com front page:

SHUTOUT! SHUTOUT!

I'm not a superstitious person (about sports or anything else), but I'll say that, and then tell you one thing I quickly learned as a hockey fan--DON'T say (or type) the word "shutout" when your hockey team is winning and the other team hasn't scored. I've seen games jinxed. even thinking too hard about a shutout, like in the Blackhawks' 5-1 win over the Devils (who didn't score till the very end), could ruin it. I believe the WGN radio Hawks announcers are observant of this superstition, but various TV hockey announcers have been known to blow it.

so as I sat there at the United Center tonight watching the Blackhawks play the Phoenix Coyotes in their last regular-season match, a team they have lost to in the other 3 season meetings; a game that was going to decide the #1 spot in the Western Conference...and I kept my eye on the other NHL scores, checking in on Boston visiting the Atlanta Thrashers, a game that was going to decide the #8 spot in the Eastern Conference...I watched the Coyotes and Thrashers at "0" and said nothing (and I had @chiblackhawks' extra Hawks ticket, so this time I actually had a person there I could say things to). then I saw the "F" next to the Bruins-Thrashers game, 4-0 and mentioned it. and the Hawks beat the Yotes, 2-0, and I yelled "SHUTOUT!" a couple times.

two huge wins against conference rivals. two shutouts by the Finnish goalies (Tuukka Rask, his 4th this season; Antti Niemi, his 6th) who started the season as backups but have been used as #1 goalies a lot in 2010. when I got home, I checked; yes, it's the first time in the 2009-2010 season that both teams I follow got shutouts on the same night!

I haven't looked at my warmup/game photos yet, or watched any of the Bruins highlights (they do seem to have a knack for winning games I'm not able to watch live), just wanted to immediately share my excitement. here's a list of each team's shutouts for the season (sorry I don't have it broken down by goalie; obviously Cristobal Huet and Tim Thomas got some too):

Blackhawks shutouts:
vs Panthers 10/3 * vs Nashville 10/24 * vs Vancouver 11/22 * vs Tampa Bay 12/13 * vs St Louis 12/16 * vs Detroit 12/20 * vs Detroit 12/23 * vs Columbus 1/14 * vs Los Angeles 3/18 * vs Phoenix 3/23

Bruins shutouts:
vs Dallas 10/16 * vs Edmonton 10/31 * vs Pittsburgh 11/10 * vs Ottawa 12/21 * vs Atlanta 12/30 * vs Montreal 2/7 * vs Atlanta 3/23

oops, I didn't note the scores. but Chicago has shut out Detroit 3-0 twice, and Boston shut out Atlanta 4-0 twice. each team has gotten two shutouts of teams from the other conference.

a couple serious things

I got home Sunday afternoon from a game and caught the last half of Boston @ Pittsburgh. all of a sudden I saw a Bruins player down, and as he was being checked out and put on a stretcher, I learned it was Marc Savard after a hit by Matt Cooke. terrible...

 

 

if you read this blog and you follow hockey you've almost certainly seen video of this incident elsewhere, and seen the debate over what the NHL should do about a dangerous hit like this. at first I thought almost no one was defending Cooke, not on Twitter or blogs I read, but as the comments piled up on the Puck Daddy piece on the hit, a lot of disgusting commenters showed up. the Boston Globe's Bruins blog commenters (and the comments section there--I read it after both Blackhawks-Bruins games this season--seems fairly reasonable) wasted a lot of space chastising the Bruins for not taking immediate retaliatory action (late in the season trying to secure a playoff spot, in a 2-1 game?). I wouldn't have been bothered by retaliation, and I won't mind at all if something happens when these teams meet again March 18, but the macho posturing and name-calling of the Bruins (and of any fan who didn't think they should have attacked right away), got tedious. anyway, I don't feel I have much to add to this discussion. friend of ALC, Bruins blog Hockey Gone Wild has this page cataloguing Matt Cooke's history of dirty hits now.

non-hockey but sports-related: I haven't tried to read much yet about recent rape allegations against a certain well-known football player, but on Twitter I stumbled across a link to this piece on the sports humor blog With Leather. um...it's not that I think the story is 100% off-limits mentioning on that site (and yes, I get the movie reference in the title), or Deadspin, but that piece is a complete and total misrepresentation of why rape happens (hint: it's NOT about being "allegedly horny"). the commenters, whether they think the incident may have happened or not, are as full of inane misunderstanding. I had to hold back to not put this all in caps with many exhortations to STFU.

there was a piece on the political blog Pandagon I had in mind for the next time a story like this broke. but I didn't think I'd have to use it for the exact same athlete (who I haven't named, to avoid this turning up in searches). from summer 2009: "Sports culture, rape, and why it’s not about being hard up". it dissects the common view, when a celebrity is accused of rape, that "he didn't have to rape, he could get any woman he wants."

and the final paragraph sums up things I think about a lot and rarely address here. (I agree with what she says, but would add that I see many female sports bloggers with similar "ugly views" and also using problematic language.)

The world of sports has a lot of great things to offer---I’m not even really a sports fan, but I can appreciate the thrill of competition, the wonder at the limits that the human body can push, the grace and skill of the athletes, the highs and lows for the fans.  I am a political blogger, after all, and my enthusiasms aren’t that different.  But for reasons that are admittedly complicated, the world of sports has also become a sanctuary for misogynists who want to let their hair down.  It’s not just one thing that makes this so---the routine objectification and disdain for women’s full humanity you see in sports exists in all sorts of environments, from video gaming to business to rock music.  But for some reason, when it comes to sports, it’s just heightened dramatically.  In fact, it seems a lot of men love sports precisely because it’s a venue where they can just indulge some of their uglier views with the secure realization that no one will call bullshit.

well...time to lighten the mood up next with some relatively frivolous posts--a lot of exciting stuff has happened and overwhelmed me from writing much...

big night for the blue & white

...no matter what this screenshot from NHL.com shows. so earlier in the season I made fun of a Maple Leafs game 3 Stars with Phil Kessel still in his Bruins uniform. well, this tops it, in a big way, although in this case it's understandable--all the NHL trades of the past 3 days happened so fast, there's barely time for new photos. I wonder if this has ever happened before--all 3 stars from one team, and all shown in their now-outdated uniforms.

as you may know, in their first game with the new goalie and new star defenseman (and Sjostrom), the Maple Leafs shut out the Devils 3-0 (Devils, by the way, were using the goalie who isn't Martin Brodeur). and:

 

note: that's the "official" Hartford Whalers Twitter. I was already going to mention it here...and today because I mentioned Whalers in a tweet, they started following me. I was elated. people with a public Twitter feed are used to getting spam followers based on words they use (I was telling someone about a tweet that got real estate spam--and got two more real estate spam followers because of that one), but I definitely don't mind this. 

anyway, besides the shutout, Phaneuf got into a fight about 6 minutes into the game, so he's got the "truculence" and all. this also ended a long winless streak for the Leafs. meanwhile, the Canucks' 7-game winning streak was snapped in a 3-2 loss (yay! even though it was by the Canadiens). and Boston...scored first against the Capitals, then went on to lose 4-1 (the last was an empty-netter--pffftt, I always think of those as half a goal at best). that's 8 losses in a row...and a record 11 wins in a row for the Caps. 

  

I think I forgot to point out that after the beating by the Flames Saturday, Edmonton finally won after 13 losses...against Carolina. and note that the Flames' first game after the player trades, they got shut out 3-0 by the Flyers.  tonight, I also watched an exciting Red Wings @ Sharks game (Detroit won 4-2 after Sharks blew their 2-0 lead), even though I didn't want either team to win. and I'm glad I caught the end of the Coyotes @ Predators--a scoreless game went to shootout, and the shootout went so long that I watched extra little boxes pop up on the screen to record attempts. after 10 rounds, Phoenix won.

something a little older, now. through Maple Leaf game threads, I'd heard there was a Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi edition, but never encountered it. the New York Times' hockey blog Slap Shot happened to post a fight in the Punjabi version recently, and through YouTube I found another: a decent Colton Orr vs Shawn Thornton bout (right off the faceoff, which is always absurd/entertaining) from Dec. 2009. I can only assume they're talking about "haymakers" and "heavyweights"...

Hockey Day in Canada, in odd screenshots

I posted a nonsensical preview of Hock--excuse me, Tim Hortons Hockey Day in Canada a couple posts ago. here are the almost equally nonsensical screenshots of a day spent watching all 3 HDIC games (plus some others) online and following along on Twitter, which as of last week offers the glorious option to look at trending topics by country/US city. (Canada has had at least one, and as many as 8, of the 10 TT's be hockey-related virtually every time I've looked, and Tim Hortons has trended at least 3 times in the past week). but I did in fact go out for a couple hours that afternoon! so, not yet a total shut-in!

 

  

lots of quaint outdoorsy stuff. OMG a Nordiques jersey sweater!

  

HDIC is #1! first up was Canadiens @ Senators. I actually wanted Canadiens to win, because Sens were coming into this game on an 8-game winning streak, and 3 of those wins were against Boston & Chicago, and that just pissed me off...

  

 

 

Sens took the lead, but Habs eventually tied it and it went to overtime. Sens won (9-game streak) and the Habs' Cammalleri was injured and will be out for weeks.

  

 

 

yeah, uh...next up: Canucks @ Maple Leafs. this was...um. I wanted Leafs to win regardless, and I especially wanted them to beat the Canucks because of Chicago's loss in Vancouver, and just on general principle. Leafs were off to an amazing start--2 goals by Phil Kessel in the first few minutes. a fight about 4 1/2 minutes in. Leafs went into the second period 3-0, and Canucks pulled Luongo (always fun to see) for Andrew Raycroft, and--

  

Leafs lost the game 5-3. at home. 5 unanswered goals. I'm glad I was too busy commenting on the Blackhawks game online to follow along with the Leafs fans...

  

  

 

I have NO IDEA how Raycroft was a TT in the U.S., after a game involving two Canadian teams.

 

  

  

not Canada: a scene from the Wild @ Sharks game. Minnesota took the early lead, went on to lose 5-2.

 

late game: Oilers @ Flames. I heard this was some sort of record for losing-est teams facing each other--Oilers with 12 in a row, Flames at 9. one of them HAD to win, giving Alberta a grand total of two wins for January. I wanted it to be Oilers because I felt sorrier for them, and because if Flames lost then both teams would have hit double-digit losing streaks...

  

Flames won. boy, did they win. 6-1. Jarome Iginla got his 900th NHL point in this game. and, perhaps inspired by the recent NHL.com Gordie Howe hat trick story, got two goals, two assists, and one fight (against Sheldon Souray, who broke his hand. ouch) 

  

it also meant they swept the 6 games of the "Battle of Alberta" this season, first time ever. 

in other news: I never found an online feed of the Kings @ Bruins game. I would have seen a shootout loss if I had. at least Bruins got a point. and Mark Stuart had a very impressive hit on Anze Kopitar (except now he's out for 4 weeks due to an injury from a fight after the hit). I'm sorry I missed Jack Edwards confusing Johnny Bucyk and Johnny Boychuk during the game, as mentioned at Fire Wagon Hockey (now I'm wondering if Boychuk is of Ukrainian descent, by the way--could be).

oh, and the Blackhawks lost the last game of their 8-game road trip. to CAROLINA. oh well, Hurricanes have been on a winning streak, and a 4-2 loss isn't the worst (it was exciting to see Hawks tie it late in the game, 2-2, with a goal by former Hurricane Andrew Ladd. then Canes scored two more goals in like the next minute or so). for more on the game you can see the story of a Chicagoan who made the trip (braving a snowstorm in the Raleigh area) at Blackhawks Down Low, a new addition to the blogroll.

so...on Hockey Day in Canada all 3 Canada matchups turned out the opposite of what I wanted. and the two teams I follow (well, 3, you can sort of count Leafs) lost, all in games where they had a lead or were at least tied at some point. and I learned I do eventually get tired of listening to Canadians talk about hockey...

stupid Ottawa. arrghhh

I don't have anything much more profound than that to say now. I was in Indianapolis briefly today (weird, I saw lots of people wearing jerseys for a sport that isn't hockey!) and then tonight was discouraging for many reasons, including the Blackhawks' one game vs. the Senators this season (sadly, the first away Hawks game for a Chicagoan I've met through a blog). I could discuss it but this sums it up:

 

yes, I've used this EXACT SAME bit before...the other time this came up onscreen in a Hawks game this season, that was a painful loss too. anyway, Blackhawks lost 4-1. the lone Hawks goal was by former Senator Marian Hossa (hey, at least I think he didn't get booed in this city, unlike Pittsburgh and Detroit) when they were down 2-0.

this was the 3rd game on an 8-game trip, and I figured they'd lose some. but they played so badly tonight. AND it probably bothered me a lot more because the Senators beat the OTHER team I follow, 5-1, yesterday in Boston. possibly the only good thing about that one was this girl who did a fine job singing both national anthems.

maybe some other game notes later. I've also accumulated quite a few links to share, and they're not even all about hockey...

January 18, 1958

damn, I meant to post when this showed up on Twitter this morning, but the day got away from me. I knew about Willie O'Ree and had favorited the clipping below on Flickr a long time ago, from the photostream (actually stream of tons of cool scanned vintage stuff, with a focus on African-American history) of vieilles_annonces. but I didn't realize that O'Ree's debut in the NHL (becoming the first black player in league history) was on January 18, 1958, with the Bruins in a game against the Montreal Canadiens.

here's his Wikipedia entry. when I learned Boston had the first black player in the NHL I'd already read Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston, which tells how the Red Sox were the last MLB team to have a black player. I don't downplay the racial problems Boston has had at all, but feel the city has been an easy target as a racially troubled Northern city when Chicago and many other cities hardly have a better history. this is getting off-topic for this blog I suppose, but I highly recommend Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (and a lot of other books if you see my Goodreads link on the blogroll).

also, Kat of Kat's Stupid Hockey Sketches blog had a post today (I liked her explanation/disclaimer). (I've had the urge to get back into visual art due to my hockey obsession. I can barely draw, so I've got some much more abstract ideas...)

Blackhawks-Bruins, part 2: Hawks win 5-2

hey, that's not a bad headline (and bonus points for "Could it be
Satan?," regardless of how that name is actually pronounced). this was an exciting game to be at, though very different from Bruins @ Blackhawks last month. since it'll be a few days before I'm at my own computer, no real recap/photos yet. but I will say this: my Boston-area friend (who got me into hockey in the first place), who is also a Bruins & Blackhawks fan, wore his Duncan Keith jersey tonight (Keith is his favorite NHL player) (and loaned me a Hawks away jersey I wore for a while tonight), and I wore my Keith shirt (because I haven't saved up for any jersey yet), and damn if Keith didn't score TWO goals (only his second 2-goal game; the first was 2006) AND get an assist AND become #1 star of the game. (along with Kane and Toews, which just felt like rubbing it in to Boston--"hey, look, ALL our big-stars-with-new-contracts!") I'm not sure he's even scored in a while...but he did it for us! oh, and Blackhawks had to continue their streak of always winning when I see them--every Chicago game, plus Pittsburgh and Boston. (sadly, Boston has lost every game I've seen them play, but two were against the Hawks.) I wanted the Blackhawks to win (though I'd have felt fine if the Bruins won), but didn't want to see the B's lose that badly. as a nice Midwestern girl (uh...) I feel a little guilty.

oh hey, you should read this post at Hockey Gone Wild since it mentions me! and you should read the other posts there because I enjoy that blog quite a bit; if I hadn't ended up a Bruins fan due to the friend mentioned above (and past family connections to the Boston area), HGW might have been enough to convince me...