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:

the rant re: Sunday's game

(So, the Washington Capitals at Chicago Blackhawks, March 14. Here's my recap--language advisory! Also, there's some sarcasm here, but I'll leave it to you to determine how serious, or not, this all is...This was neither written nor posted in the heat of anger, by the way.)

Fuck NBC for broadcasting this game, because I still don't have NBC reception and keep unsuccessfully begging people to record these games for me (not that I want to rewatch it...). Fuck NBC for scheduling it so early, and right after the "spring forward" part of daylight savings time. Fuck the early start because the Blackhawks have a terrible record with day games. Fuck that I had to leave after 9 to get there right after 10 to get the free hat. Fuck that a discussion I had with someone I know outside reminded me I was going to this game alone (like all but two games at the UC this season, and all games at Allstate) and put me in an existential despair. Fuck that the person with the season ticket next to me never showed up, making things worse.

Fuck Alex Ovechkin for the hit on Brian Campbell. Fuck Jordan Hendry and Colin Fraser for their penalties late in the game and the Blackhawks collapse. Fuck Nicklas Backstrom for his game-winning goal, and that I had to look up his name to make sure I didn't spell it like the other NHL'er, Niklas Backstrom.

Fuck that this was the first time I'd seen the Blackhawks lose to an eastern conference team in person, and the first time I saw them lose in overtime. Fuck that this was their first OT (as opposed to shootout) loss this season.

Fuck that Twitter died right before I left for the game so I had no way to get in touch with/try to meetup with the many people I follow who were going to the game. Fuck that a Milwaukee friend, the first person I knew of as a Blackhawks fan, was at that game (his first this season?) and I didn't know till later.

Fuck the first caller to WGN's postgame show, who said "Maybe I'm not drinking the goaltender Kool-Aid like you are..." "Which saves should Niemi have made?" "I didn't watch the game." Fuck everyone who blamed the Blackhawks losses this weekend on goalies, did THEY watch the games?

Fuck the totally packed Wicker Park coffeeshop Filter that I went to after the game, because I sat in there 45 minutes in a Hawks shirt and no one asked the game result. Fuck that they all have laptops and Blackberries, unlike me, and could check the score. Fuck that it's more likely they're a bunch of pretentious sports-hating hipsters who didn't know about the game, and the fact I spent so many years in Chicago around art school types like that is a reason I didn't get into sports sooner.

(great hash browns and coffee, though)

Fuck the comments I saw on Twitter when I got back. Fuck Mike Milbury for his comments on NBC I didn't know about till then, criticizing the penalty. Fuck Scotty Hockey and Japer's Rink (via Twitter yesterday, I don't know if they blogged it) for saying, respectively, the hit shouldn't have gotten a penalty at all (!!!) or just a minor penalty. Fuck all the rumors flying around about Campbell's injuries. Fuck that they pretty much turned out to be true later.

Fuck that Japer's Rink (Capitals blog, for any readers who don't follow it), on their game recap thread, had 800+ comments by late evening and I could count on one hand the number that expressed sympathy when Campbell's injuries were confirmed. Fuck their commenters for saying (right after the hit) that he was embellishing it, and since he walked off the ice he was obviously okay, and the penalty was ridiculous (right, because all concussions and internal injuries are immediately visible).

Fuck that after the Blackhawks matchups this weekend and what I read online from followers of these teams, I'm left thinking of Flyers fans as generally decent, and Capitals fans as amoral, hypocritical scumbags (except for a sensible one I follow on Twitter).

Fuck Deadspin for calling it a "terrible call"" yesterday (I have problems with that site but agree with most of their opinions on sports.) Fuck Ryan Lambert's Puck Daddy column today, not for anything he said about the hit, but for his "What We Learned" summation of the Blackhawks this weekend: "Chicago's goaltending: playoff-ready." Did HE watch the games?

...Okay, more about Ovechkin's hit. (And remember, I'm surprisingly neutral on most things Crosby/Penguins and Ovechkin/Capitals related, unlike the folks who drag that into every topic on Puck Daddy...) I think it was a dirty hit. I'm fine with the penalties. I'm not sure about suspension or how many games it should be. It's very frustrating, especially as a Bruins fan, that Matt Cooke's hit on Marc Savard didn't even get a penalty, much less a game misconduct or suspension, when it was a dirtier hit and also ended the season for a star player. But all the people saying you can't suspend Ovechkin because the NHL didn't suspend Cooke...um, isn't there some common phrase about "two wrongs" I could familiarize you with?

Do I think Ovechkin is a dirty player? No, not like Cooke, or Steve Downie, who had a cheapshot versus the Penguins yesterday. But even if he doesn't have the bad intentions and general sleazebaggery of players like that, I can't just write off incidents like the Campbell hit as "oh, that's the risk of his style of play" or whatever. Makes me think of a older relative or neighborhood eccentric who says odd, sometimes amusing things, but "Oh sure, sometimes he'll say that women shouldn't have the vote anymore or all illegal immigrants should be shot, but that's just Jerry being Jerry! What a character!" Uh, okay...

Note: as I wrote the above, a two-game suspension came down. Not sure if I'll have more to say about this (oh, I didn't even address how having Brian Campbell out will affect the Hawks' defense now...), but I will have more about the rest of the hockey weekend (which mostly was not much fun for me).

glad I don't have to write sports headlines, #13 & 14...

as far as I know, in the NHL trades today, all the writers of NHL.com were left untouched. unfortunately. the top one made me cringe, the bottom--well, I think there's a Senators blog called "Sixth Sens" and I thought that was clever, but slapping the "E" on the end--blah. I could make a joke about the "Trick" sub-headline, but I'm too classy for that. unfortunately.

sorry, another one about winning streaks

one more about the 17-game streak of attending Blackhawks wins, which ended this week: I posted a piece at Second City Hockey, my first fanpost there. if you're a SBNation member, feel free to comment/share winning/losing streak stories. I've got a few comments but no recs...by the way, it's very different from the piece I posted here the other day.

 

yeah, Capitals are at 13 in a row now. (what's with the guy in the Blackhawks jersey? I mean, cool to see it and all, but wearing a jersey of an NHL team not playing that night always seems a little silly.) I'm starting to get suspicious of all the NHL.com posts tracking winning streaks. it seems like their "will they make it to [#]?" stories, um...come true.

 

and with a shootout loss to the Coyotes at home tonight, the Blackhawks have now lost three in a row. they were the last team in the NHL not to have lost more than two consecutive games this season. (I know, it's a shootout loss so it's not quite the same as a regulation loss, but it's still a loss, right?)

this is a brief trivial post, but I heard tonight about the tragic death of Brian Burke's son Brendan, who was 21, and his friend Mark Reedy, 18, in a car crash earlier in the day in Indiana, due to snowstorm conditions. Brendan's story from a few months ago when he came out as gay and wanted to address homophobia in the sports world was inspirational to me around the time I was starting this blog, and I kept meaning to address it. and I definitely will, when I get back from a brief trip now to St. Louis with other hockey bloggers and fans. condolences to their family and friends...please be careful out there.

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"...

"Holy guacamole, what a fight!"

okay, it's late, and I'm tired, and finishing the giant can of Molson I bought at the Albany-Renssalaer train station (but couldn't drink on the Amtrak back, unfortunately) feels like a chore at this point, as does blogging tonight...but I've gotta put up a couple fight videos, it's been a while. and it's been a busy week for NHL fights. checking hockeyfights.com for games just since Saturday, I noticed a high number of games with more than one fight. let's see:

Flames @ Canucks: 2 fights (I was watching this on a friend's computer on my trip, but only saw the 3rd, fightless period. quite an impressive Prust-Rypien battle)
Blues @ Kings: 3 fights
Avalanche @ Flames: 3, all in the 1st 4 minutes, including one only 20 seconds in! (forgot the start time on this one and missed them). this fight got a very high rating...the announcers are rather entertaining: "Holy guacamole, what a fight!" ...but you can find a more subdued feed with different announcers, one who uses the delightful phrase "haymaker city!"



Senators @ Thrashers: 2 fights
Blue Jackets @ Blues: 4, all in the 1st period
Canucks @ Wild: 3, all in the 3rd period
Bruins @ Ducks: 2, both in the 1st period
Capitals @ Lightning: 2, both in the 3rd period. one was (OF COURSE) Zenon Konopka, who actually got a win

and THIS one, where Ovechkin (!) moves to fight Downie (despite what the idiot announcers say about him not answering the bell) and Bradley hilariously jumps in. lots of debating about this one...I don't have strong feelings about these teams so I'm not going to offer much of an opinion (but I kind of wish Eager had done this for Toews in that Blues game the other week)


 
I finally noticed that not only is the Western Conference leading the NHL standings, but it looks to be leading in fights, too. not that there's a direct correlation; both the Sharks and Blues are in the top 10 of fighting majors, and they're having very different seasons. I know people keep stats on fights, but does anyone calculate those against other hockey stats? this all bears further investigation...maybe even by me.

(successfully resized these videos after the original post had them too large--thanks for the help)

bloglove, mistakes, stuff I'm too lazy to come up with a decent title for

before I post today's Boston vs Chicago countdown, a roundup. lots of good stuff here.

Jeff of Blackhawk Up got to do the Five Reasons [He] Loves Hockey at Puck Daddy. I posted a defensive comment directed at another commenter about "bandwagon" accusations and, as happens anytime I post anything remotely personal and/or political and/or angry on the Internet (including some recent posts here...), I got all wussy about seeing if anyone responded (never sure what's worse, being attacked or being ignored) so I didn't check back.

Kukla's Korner asked today about Your Favorite Hockey Related Websites/Blogs and invited readers to promote their own blogs, too, so of course I did. I named a bunch, but not any specific Blackhawks blogs because I'm too petty and vindictive that only one is blogrolling me so far I didn't want to play favorites. oh, and I'm wracked with guilt about those of you I didn't mention there, don't worry...I mentioned that Third String Goalie posts so much good stuff it's hard not to link every day. look, I'm linking today, because Dec. 15 is the anniversary of the first game played at the old Chicago Stadium (I'm ashamed of not knowing that already) and he's got a nice piece up, vintage postcard and all.

Oklahoma City might be getting an AHL team next year. I'd noticed the Anaheim Ducks don't have an AHL affiliate this year...but OKC's team would take over the Oilers affiliation. I'm confused already.

watched the Leafs-Caps game online Sat. night. I actually predicted (to myself) they'd beat the Capitals last time (they did, 2-1), but seeing them come from losing 2-0 going into the second period to win 6-3 was pretty impressive. the 29th-place team beat the 1st-place team (and the Leafs are up to 27th now!). I read the NHL.com recap and saw...something not quite right:

heh. I think you can get your portrait taken for a few dollars at Walgreens, if you need a new one. I left the feed on and saw Canadian nightly news for the first time! there were two stories about hockey before they got to the sports results. wow, that country should get another NHL team or something.

some town where there's a battle over allowing pond hockey, and later a story about concussions in youth hockey

not to detract from a serious story, but: pink hair = awesome. I left it on and the Caps-Leafs game was rerun (a shorter, intermission-less version) afterwards; I didn't even know they did that.

NHL.com posts so much material and has to do much of it so quickly, that I'm not bashing them for making the occasional mistake. but I will point them out!

that word made me think "fiesta" first, then "fiery," but I realized they meant "feisty" (which my dictionary defines as "lively or flamboyant in manner or appearance." flamboyant? okay, they probably meant the second definition, "spirited").

tonight I saw Scott Hartnell, The Guy In the NHL Who's Actually Uglier Than Brent Sopel, and the rest of the Flyers play the Penguins. there were 2 goals and 3 fights within barely the first 6 minutes of play! (someone Twittered to the effect: "hey Flyers, 1975 called, they want their style of hockey back") Pens won 6-1. Flyers were in Boston last night, and as noted, my friend Dan attended as his first Bruins game this season. I'd hoped to watch it all online because he had a good seat and I could have maybe got a screenshot of him, but the feed (it was NESN! yes, #getjackedwardsontwitter!) vanished after the first few minutes and I didn't find one again until the painful third period. (then it ended before the NESN Blackhawks preview).

 

he saw the Bruins lose, but he did get to see the kids' hockey during intermission result in a fight (there were no fights in the actual game). and he'd seen the same thing happen (but with younger kids) during a Providence Bruins game. I love New England! I mean, of course it's awful in some ways...but funny in others. not sure if video has turned up (and I wouldn't feel okay posting it if it did), but it's worth noting.

so here's a New England fight that turned up on hockeyfights.com this week, a brief Whalers-Bruins fight from 1992. I know very little about these teams circa that era, but I did like the old jerseys, the utter indifference of the fans in the front row seats, and the nugget of wisdom at the end:

the HNIC report for 11/21/09

I got this blog finally up and running (i.e., moved nearly all my Tumblr content to Blogger) yesterday, and celebrated with...a Saturday night exactly like my past few. Discovering how to watch Hockey Night in Canada online = precipitous decline of Social Life in Chicago. But it was a good one last night. (And since I'm here now, I can promote my other blog by linking to how I got free beer at my local liquor store. It's relevant--I was drinking some of it last night.)

Capitals @ Maple Leafs and Red Wings @ Canadiens both started at 6:00 Central, but it took a long time for me to find working feeds for those (and I lost the Leafs one for a while). The feed I found for the latter game was in French, the first time I've ever watched sports in French. It's the "LNH"! I'm still learning hockey lingo in English, honestly, so I'm not sure what everything above means. I understood the Boston Pizza ad in French, later. Have I mentioned I'm obsessed with Boston Pizza? That ad was the most exciting part of the game for me, not that the French shouting wasn't entertaining...

The Habs had somewhat surprisingly beat the Caps the night before, and the Leafs had surprisingly beat the Wings two weeks earlier, so I was actually prepared to NOT be surprised if both Canadian teams won last night, too.  I hadn't before tried a screenshot of two games at once, but when both games went to a shootout at the same time, and I noticed it was two games of underperforming Canadian teams wearing blue and white (Habs were in retro jerseys again) versus highly ranked (well, not so much the Wings right now) American teams in red, I couldn't resist.

Canadiens lost. I wasn't rooting for them but against the Wings, of course. Oh well. The 30th-place Leafs beat the 2nd-place Caps. I had a hunch that could happen, even with Ovechkin playing, but I never jumped into the game thread discussion on Pension Plan Puppets, not wanting to jinx it somehow. Then the Blackhawks-Oilers game was on, and I listened to the WGN radio broadcast while watching a feed of the game that ranged from being about 30 seconds behind the radio to about 1:15 behind. Well, at least I don't miss any of the goals that way, which is more than I can say for the games I've attended in person. 

Questionable goal with 0.01 seconds left in the second period. It was overruled (both the Hawks and Oilers SB Nation game threads agreed it should be) but the incorrect score was up for a while, at least on the Oilers site. Oops. Hawks won 5-2 (Toews' first game this season with two goals), and I was so hyper when I checked the standings and saw Chicago 3rd in the entire league (2nd in Western as long as the Sharks keep winning--I had my eye on the Sharks-Ducks game at the same time as the Hawks one) I didn't get around to writing this last night.