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.

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"...

glad I don't have to write sports headlines, #10 in an ongoing series

eh...okay. Shane Doan definitely deserved a headline, though, after the spectacular Coyotes win against the Red Wings tonight, coming from 2-4 with about 90 seconds left in the 3rd to tie it, then winning in overtime. I had this on, it ended just after the Blackhawks game was starting. originally I'd thought I might even go to Detroit today and finally take a friend who moved there to her first game at the Joe, but that'll be later. this would have been a terrific one to see.

news & self-promotion for 12/09

a little roundup. looks like the Penguins stuff will have to wait till after the Blackhawks-Rangers game tonight, oh well. first: OMG PUCK DADDY USED ONE OF MY PHOTOS. (here!) I've slogged along here for oh, six weeks or so, and now I've made it! well, it didn't credit me or link to the photo (from Tumblr; though I posted it on Flickr and here too). I finally delurked there to comment (I'm "kofchicago"). I think they're the most popular hockey blog, right? at least that's what I've said to impress non-hockey-fan friends...

so yesterday Brendan Witt, defense for the Islanders, was hit by a truck. but decided to play in last night's game anyway. here's a brief Deadspin piece and I'm giddy that I at least know enough about hockey to get all the jokes in the comments. well, nearly all. the Flyers broke their winless streak in that game; I half-watched it online. so much scoring: "Interesting box score from Tuesday's Islanders-Flyers tilt, as Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, John Tavares, and Claude Giroux each scored back-to-back goals, in that order." (Puck Daddy)

 

I'll watch most any game I find online. Stars at Ducks was on late; I don't care much about those teams but it was a very high-quality feed. Stars were ahead 3-0 in the third, but Ducks went on to tie it. with the 2nd and 3rd goals scored with about 6 minutes and 1 minute left, both by Dan Sexton, playing in his third NHL game. those were his first two NHL goals. damn! the feed disappeared in overtime and when I came back the stars of the game were being announced. Ducks won 4-3. 

Monday I had the Wild @ Coyotes game on.  it was one of the 4 shutouts in Monday's 9 NHL games, Coyotes winning 2-0. not that exciting (but since then Coyotes defenseman Ed Jovanovski was suspended two games for a hit to Andrew Ebbett's head. I missed this. I saw Ebbett in at least one of his games with the Hawks before he went to the Wild recently). but there was a relatively rare (at least I hadn't seen one yet this season) post-game fight; it goes from a scrum to a fight between the Coyote's Vernon Fiddler and the Wild's (very attractive--hey, I had to research this) James Sheppard. not sure if anyone's gotten in trouble for this (I know starting a fight in the last 5 minutes is penalized; what happens for one after a game?)



more Ukrainians in hockey! I wasn't looking for past players, but I just added Greatest Hockey Legends to my Bloglines and a new piece on the Boston Bruins led me to a page on Johnny Bucyk: 
Given lots of ice time, Bucyk immediately stepped in and established himself as the star the Bruins had hoped for. Starring on the "Uke Line" with fellow Ukrainian-descent players Vic Stasiuk and Bronco Horvath, a former junior teammate. For six years their line was as good as any in the National Hockey League, however team success would not follow. The Bruins only made the playoffs twice.

the "Uke Line!"
housekeeping: at the bottom of the righthand column, below the blogroll, archive, and tags, I'm now keeping a list of every arena and ballpark, major or minor league, I've been to, and the teams I've seen. right now these don't link to anything because I haven't posted all the ballparks on my Flickr account yet. there's also a list of favorite Wikipedia pages on sports; handy for trivia, settling bets, wasting time...how amazing/depressing is it that 13 of the 30 current NHL teams have never won the Stanley Cup? or that the Yankees have won more than 25% of all the World Series ever played? (as a Cubs and Red Sox fan? very.)

FAIL in today’s Red Eye

we lost to Phoenix, dammit! losing to Colorado is for Monday’s paper not going to happen! c’mon, I expect better from a mediocre free paper that devotes maybe a tweet’s worth of space to the Hawks every week.

oh, and same issue, the “five on five” (non-Chicagoans: where 5 people answer 5 sports questions with jokey answers). look, I appreciate an “Americans don’t watch hockey LOL” joke as much as anyone, but “How big is Jonathan Toews’ return to the ice?” answered with “It’s huge for the two people that actually watch the sport of hockey” might work better if it was referencing a city that HASN’T sold out (I think…) every home game for weeks? months?