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.)