Old Milwaukee and cheese versus Primanti's and Iron City!

Good day my friends! It's that time of year again... it's Super Bowl Sunday; and for most hockey fans, hopefully you watched the games that were on this morning because there ain't none on tonight. I, however, do like football a lot and will be watching the game. Not sure who I want to win though, because I'm still pissed about the Seahawks having their rings stolen five years ago against the Steeler; but the Packers are not only in the NFC, but they had Brett 'SwampThing' Farve for a million years. So, I'm sure I'll be watching mostly for Troy Polomalu and his glorious hair and that's about it. :)

In the spirit of Super Bowl XL and the two teams involved, I have two candidates for Boy of the Day, one from each state: David Steckel out of Milwaukee, WI and George Parros from Washington, PA.

Dave Steckel, drafted by the LA Kings as the 30th overall pick in 2001, played one season with the Team USA Developmental team and the US National team before heading to Ohio State University. Four years later, Dave joined the Manchester Monarchs where he spent one season. The next season, he signed with the Washington Capitals where he played a few games spent the rest of the season in Hershey. The next season, he made the big club and he's been centering the third line along with being a top member of their penalty kill.





George is a boy who combines brawn as well as brains as a forward for the Anaheim Ducks. Also drafted by the Kings as the 222nd overall pick in 1999, he graduated from Princeton University with a degree in economics and was voted 4th smartest professional athlete. He's also very involved with charities including growing his hair each season to be donated to Locks of Love; and his teammates love him so much, the Ducks petitioned to have his name added to the Cup in 2007 even though he hadn't met the game criteria.

a puzzler

So you are an NHL GM of a team that has some dandy players on it. So you say hey nifty player A, we're going to sign you to an EXTENSION! Hats and Party horns! Wooot! But wait, it's only for one year.

Player A has been somewhat hampered by injuries but he's been well, less than stellar. Is this a way of saying you've got one more year on this team to prove himself before he's cut free? A way of motivating him to carry this team to the playoffs and you know, show up?

Here is hoping for the Caps fans, McPhee knows what he's doing.

Well that was interesting....

Gonna start out this morning on a bit of a serious note, the NHL alumni lost one of it's own. Peter Zezel lost his long fight with a blood disorder. There is a lot of praise about him today and what sort of good man he was. It's too bad he's gone. "In his typical character of generosity, Peter donated his organs through the Trillium Gift of Life Network." Good to the end.

Now to the game: I had to work last night so I missed a large hunk of the game last night and came home in time to see Billy G score the third goal. With apologies to Friend of Chuckers Jenni...what a game. I know you were there cheering on your boys and I'm sorry that it had to end that way but at least they made it that far, right?

When Sid picked up the trophy I thought for sure he'd lost his ever lovin' mind. I mean really, last year when he skated up to the little table, he looked as if he was seeing Tara Reid covered with cooties (who would have thought those two things were not mutually exclusive?). But this year, he wanted it - took it with two hands and everything. Good on him for trying to change things up.

As Chucker Amy said (and by said I mean sent an IM as she is across the nation from me) to me while we were watching "Sid is kinda short." She pointed out this little tidbit as he was standing next to Geno and Gonch. Very astute! :)

Puck Daddy has a story this morning about a possible Craps/steriods link. I was about to get all "look, look, cheaters never prosper!!" but then thought, why bother? *shrugs*

Wings play tonight and with some luck they will close it out. If they do, game one of the final will be on Saturday. If the Hawks pull out a win, the Final wont start until THE FIFTH OF JUNE. What's up with that? Stupid NBC is up with that. Why do they have hockey if they don't care about it?

So to sum up: Hockey lost a good guy, the Pens are a decent hockey team, the Craps are funny, and NBC sucks.

HERE WE GO RED WINGS, HERE WE GO!! *clap clap*

two series are over, will there be a third tonight?

The Boston Bruins and Amy's Vancouver Canucks are through to the second round with pretty tidy sweeps (no pun intended) of their first round opponents. I think the Blues just had to push so hard to get in, they were worn to the quick (and I think their injuries throughout the season finally caught up with them). I'm not gonna lie (Amy, cover your ears and eyes), I was rooting for the Blues. Not only because their captain is a favorite of CaP, but darn it all, they are/were a scrappy team fighting when no one game them an ounce of credit.

And as for the Habs...did anyone really think they'd win 4 against Boston?

I wish the things I said about the Blues could apply to the Blue Jackets. Even if they manage to get a win tonight, I think, as they say, you can put a fork in them. I just can't see them winning four straight right now. Not with Nash not scoring (or anyone not scoring for that matter) and Mason looking very much like the rookie he is (which on a side note, he was nominated for Rookie of the Year and if there is any justice he will get it).

That leaves us with some interesting series. Chicago and Calgary. Man, that one is getting down right dirty. I LOVE IT! It's great playoff hockey and I hope it goes 7 games. Not in the way I hope the Craps and the Ranger$ go seven games. I'm actually enjoying the Calgary/Chicago series. I could give a rat's ass about the Craps or Ranger$ and hope for bloody long triple overtime games to wear them out for round two.

But since I opened that door, I might as well walk through it. Henrik has been stellar, no surprise there. He seems to play better in the playoffs. Granted, I have no stats to back that up with... it's just a hunch. Avery took a stupid penalty? I'm shocked! SHOCKED. Ok, not really, but I am sorta surprised that combined, Ovechkin and Green have one goal. I mean come on, OV has 209,732 shots. Well fine, 35 but still, since he's the greatest player EVAR, I'd figure he'd have more to show for all that. In comparison, Malkin has 4 goals on 13 shots.

More open doors: Pittsburgh has looked really strong in most of their games against the Flyers. I think Sunday's game was an exception really and they'll get back on track tonight to hopefully close out the series. Philly could surprise me, but I'm hoping not.

I'll save the California series for Amy to chat up (since I've been bang on with my prediction of "too bad I will miss most of it being in the Eastern time zone"; she at least can stay awake to see the end of the games). And hopefully she'll have some fun new clips to share too (she's so much better at finding that stuff than I am!)

Oh, did you know we (Amy and I) are both on Facebook? She's been there a while and I'm just joining the cool kids and started yesterday. Hit us up!

Until next time, happy hockey!

Is it 4 o'clock yet?

Happy Friday everyone! Lisa is entertaining one of our good pals this weekend; so I'm rolling solo today. Be kind and don't throw rotten produce!

So, we're done with game 1 of all 8 series and things are par for the course for the most part; but there have been two surprises so far.

The Rangers eeking out a win against the Craps was definitely not something I expected; and last night with the Ducks and Sharks was also one that I thought would turn out so different. That was one that I knew would be good, especially being at the Tank in San Jose; but I can tell you as a Duck fan and having been on the other end of the SJ attack, this shutout was a bit of a surprise.

The rest of the games from the last two days were won by the teams that were supposed to win, and that is good I suppose; but I am hoping for a few more upsets. I'm the girl who always seems to lost the basketball pools because I will choose the higher double digit seeds just in case they might squeak it out. lol But I can't wait for the rest of this round because it's gonna be good no matter who wins.

But anyway... for your viewing pleasure tonight:

Pens vs. Flyers, 7pm EDT/4pm PDT, showing on Versus and the Ceeb
Devils vs. Canes, 7:30 EDT/4:30 PDT, showing on Center Ice and TSN
and the night cap, Nucks vs. Boos, 10pm EDT/7pm PDT, showing on Versus and the Ceeb

And for a little viewing right now are a few little tidbits I've gleaned in the last few days.

A very happy Chris Kunitz after the game Wednesday night talking about his new baby Zachary James, who was born that morning...

http://penguins.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?catid=19&id=39940

Bill Patrick calling the goal scorer for the Hawks/Flames before it happens...



and the best of all...Calgary TV doofus Roger Million drops a naughty phrase on live TV and I think the editor of this clip is going to be looking for work...



That's about it from me today... Oh, I do have one thing more. Mike Keenan? You evil piece of shit? Karma is coming to collect, it's from Trevor Linden and it's COD, bitch! Oh, and that goalie interference? Jordan Leopold bumped Ladd into Kipper... suck it!

Have a great day kids!

Miss a few days and everything goes to hell

Lately some real life crap has kept me away from the computer, but I think that's all past me now so on we go.

Checking out the scores from last nights games, I see on off ice note of interest but I'll get to that in a few. First up the games of note:

Pittsburgh v Islanders. I hate how the Islanders seem to be showing up now. Why can't they continue to suck and just let teams I want to beat them soundly do it? They played a hell of a game last night (which by the by, DVR are awesome - I got home after the game started so I just started the recording over from the beginning and go to buzz through all the annoying commercials - watched the A&L motors ones though because no matter how bad they are, I still laugh) only to lose it in the last two minutes.... I long for another 9-2 game. Ah well, still a good showing for missing Sid and Whitney (which overall, isn't probably a loss because it 1. got Tanger back in and 2. Whit really isn't all that good right now).

Detroit v fishies: As much as I'd love to see SJ go all the way, it's still good to see the home boys put another dent in the Sharks' armor. Granted it was at the expense of losing Hossa with "concussion like symptoms". Wonderful. Babcock says he's fine but we'll just have to wait and see how the Wings best scorer does in the next few days.

Now, the off ice stuff that made me go WTF. The Craps seem to have this female fan club going. "Dedicated to the Caps' female fanbase" this site gives women a closer look to the players and offers special educational events to help them learn the game. At first blush, this was sorta ok - we need more women as fans of the game to support one another against the crush of male bias. Then I got to thinking about this and it pissed me off. Yes, sometimes it's hard to be taken seriously as a female hockey fan because men sometimes don't get it that we're all about the game. But is this sort of thing really gonna help? Are beefcake shots of the players really going to help educate women to know what a decent power play looks like? This just smacks of glittery "I heart so-and-so" signs and posters offering marriage or other services from bunnies who think they are cute.

Look, I'm all for finding the players attractive, but seriously, that's a book/cover sort of thing. Is Adam Foote any less of a defenseman because he's not OMGHOT? Hell no. I'd take him on my team any day. Does Roddy Brind'Amour win face offs because he's cute? Um yeah, no. He does it because he works his ass off every single day.

I've said for a long time the league needs to showcase the players more - not just in a my what a handsome boy he is, but some of these guys are down right characters and I love that. The NHL Network has a show called "Day in the Life" which shows an average day of certain players. This is a great show because you get to see the players interact with each other and their personalities (not muscles or tattoos) shine.

Teach women how awesome this GAME is and the love for the players will follow. It rarely works the other way around.

/sandbox moment.

That being said, I give you this: after watching the Sabres against the Ducks the other night....damn they need Miller back in a big way. Not that I don't think LaLa is capable, but they are a much different team with Crunchy in net.

one day off, one day on, one day off....

Hopefully Amy is feeling better and back at work today because I'm home. A combination of too little sleep, too much stress, and fighting off the drek for too long has finally caught up with me. So home I sit.

Buffalo won a nice game last night. I missed the first part (hurrah for DVR) but hear that Ryan Miller kept them in it at the start. I'm not shy about admitting how much I've grown to adore him (this is a man who in his blog said Besides, this a blog written by a professional athlete and I don't want to undermine the stereotype that we are all dumb jocks... We worked hard for that stigma so that when people underestimate our intelligence we can make them look really stupid. It is one of the perks... That and naps. We nap a lot. Nap are a big perk. This after saying he'd like to keep politics out of his blog. The fact that he even is AWARE there is a political landscape out there is big. It's also no secret that smart guys are instantly more attractive/interesting to me anyway). I'll have to watch that today and see how well he really did. That and the puck seems to keep finding Stafford. I'm all for that!

Interesting news out of Montreal. When you tell the player who has been one of your top scorers to stay home on your roadtrip without him being injured, that's a big sign of trouble. Calling him ineffective to the press just tosses a whole can of lighter fluid onto the fire. Gotta think he's not long for Montreal. I bet I could think of some takers. Also in the Habs world - the players are partying too much. Like this is a shock to anyone? Find me some young men who make lots of money who don't party (other than Sidney Crosby I mean)? There is a big deal about seeing Carey Price smoking....wasn't there a photo of Kiprusoff chain smoking with some ladies of .... lets just say, most likely, "negotiable affection" a few years back? Chalk that up to saying boys will be boys.

The kitties are at it again. Playing the devils and coming out with two points is big - bigger when the devils don't get any. Nicely played.

Going to dip into the west pool again and talk about two guys. First up, John-Michael Liles. Seems that he's got some sort of hand/wrist injury that will keep him out for the next few days. Man the hits just keep coming for that team. Hopefully he'll be back before we know it.

PattyMarleau (you just gotta say that in a sing song voice PaaaatyMARleau) is on fire. This pleases me a lot. Seeing him damn near broken and talk of trade rumors and hearing how he wasn't a good captain really ..well, hurt. I like Patty a whole bunch and think there are 29 other teams out there who wouldn't drool for a chance to have him on their roster. I'm sorta rooting for them to win it all this year just so I can hear The Count say "Patrick Marleau, come get the Stanley Cup" and know that somewhere Ron Wilson is seething.

Mike Green won't give his record setting stick to the Hall of Fame. A douchebag move? Color me shocked. Reason number 9,862,621 to dislike the Craps? Boudreau, who appeared as an extra in “Slap Shot,” was happy to learn that a studio is planning a remake of the 1977 classic hockey movie. Sorry Bruce, you don't remake that sort of movie. Tool.

Oh one more thing: