Game #54 -- Red Wings vs. Predators

DETROIT RED WINGS 4 - 2 NASHVILLE PREDATORS

Remember game recaps? Yeah.

• Great for J-Will, not only scoring in his first game back but making Mickey Redmond practically fill the announcer booth with pee. Mick was so overjoyed at Willy keeping his stick on the ice as he drove the net that Ken Daniels was overheard asking for a snorkel.

• Speaking of Mick, did you catch him dropping a "Holy jumpin' Jehoshaphat?" I have heard holy jumpin' I don't know how many times, but I'll be damned if I've heard him put the "Jehoshaphat" at the end there.

• Kronner was inches away from having his head chopped off with a skate during the 2nd Period. I've said it once, I'll say it again: I have no idea how these guys don't routinely die every week playing this sport. Like literally die.

• Way too many golden opportunities for the Preds. But oh what the hell, why even say anything at this point. They know. They know it's bad to turn the puck over around your own goalie and make careless decisions. Me saying anything isn't going to make a difference, despite the fact that they all read this blog for inspiration and tips on what to improve. (That reminds me: Rafalski, you left your fucking hemp sandals at my place again. I bet you think you're all edgy and shit wearing those when it's 8 degrees out. I get it -- you are capable of ordering from an online catalog. Congratulations, you hippie.)

• Johan Franzen is back in 8-12 days, supposedly the St. Louis game before the Olympic break. Jesus Henry Christ. He tore his ACL, this just doesn't seem possible. Is this the year 2093 or something? How has modern science figured a way for him to return this quickly while I can barely make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? God I hate myself.

• Andreas Lilja supposedly starting a conditioning stint in GR soon. That's so awesome. I feel like such an asshole after all that I've said about him, and to see him skate again would be great. If he makes it back to the NHL, he's going to get an amazing ovation and it's well deserved. Not because he's a terrific hockey player, but because he's a good guy who lost a year of his career because he was filling a void for an enforcer-less team last February.

• Another ridiculous night for Jimmy, posting 46 saves. On the TOV podcast, I mentioned how I'd feel better about having a hot Osgood going into the playoffs over a hot Jimmy (hey now) because of the experience factor. Well whatever, I don't even really know what that means. Jim looks so confident that if he still somehow looks like this in three months .... screw it. It's his job.

• Lidstrom is heating up, with three goals in his last three games. He's playing like he's 36 years old again.

*****

We will be down at the Joe Saturday night watching the 12th ranked Spartans of Michigan State take on some yuppies. Whether you care or not we will have a full report Monday as our brand new virgin assed podcast will debut next week, also talking about the Wings/Pens game.

Go Wings, Go Green.

TOV: Episode Seven

If you are a fan of incoherent mumbling and the sound of uncontrolled urination as background noise, check me out in this week's Obstructed View. I'm am joined by the terrifying George Malik and Ellen from Big Red Machine as Chris and Brian (who may or may not be Ken Kal -- seriously, compare the two voices) welcome us each back for a second go-around. We talk about the Red Wings.

This seems like a fitting time to announce that The Triple Deke will be kicking off our inaugural podcast in the near future. We feel the need to say, above all, that this isn't meant to be a competing thing with TOV. While they didn't invent podcasting, they are an originator of sorts in the Wingosphere and we don't want to cramp on the awesome success that they've already had. We'll probably use our show to do game recaps when writing isn't convenient, have groundbreaking original features like "Will It Float" and "Jaywalking", and there will probably be nudity. Stayed tuned and shit.

Herm to Hockeytown: Game Etiquette & Other Behavioral Tips

By now you probably know about the fan who got up onto the catwalk during Saturday night's game, causing an entire section of the lower bowl to be evacuated. Here's how it looked on the Kings broadcast:



I thought I had seen it all in Detroit. There was the termite scare of 1983 when the entire visitor's penalty box was eaten while Steve Larmer was serving a double-minor for high sticking (Remember when Nancy Reagan swooped in with her helicopter to fish him out of there? Oh man.) And of course there was that Wings/Leafs game where Terry Sawchuk made a save by catching the puck with his teeth, chewed it into the shape of a middle finger, and uncovered Toe Blake's despicable plan to use under-aged indentured servants to build a secret cross-country railroad made entirely of cheese. And who could forget the assassination of 2Pac? All happened at Wings home games and all were equally incredible moments. Now, we have "Catwalk Guy".

Well anyway, me and Merv Griffin's other best friend (Chris Hollis) were discussing what it would be like if a member of the Herm 2 Hockeytown party tarnished the reputation of the entire online community by doing something stupid at the March 26th game against Minnesota. You know, like bringing your mom's basement with you or biting another fan because he keeps pronouncing "Abdelkader" wrong . That shit will get back to the media and we'll all be ruined.

So for those of you that will be joining us there, I've constructed a few guidelines to follow that will ensure maximum safety and keep our noses clean.

• Don't be that douche who screams "YOU'RE HOT" to Karen Newman while she's singing the national anthem. Not because it's disrespectful, but because it's insulting to her. It has to be. You don't think that she already knows she's hot? Do you think she's never seen herself? Do you think there are no mirrors in that woman's house? Are you saying she can't afford mirrors? Are you calling her poor? You just called Karen Newman a blind, stupid, homeless tramp and made us all look like ignorant dicks. I hate you.

• For your own health, it would be best if you stayed out of the middle of whatever Kyle and Matt will be feverishly debating that day. It's only inevitable that we'll order some buffalo wings and then the whole "Ranch vs. Blue Cheese" nuclear bomb will go off. They'll have a separate table in case either of them needs to draw a Venn diagram or show a Power Point presentation.

• Be nice to Herm. Don't try and trick him just because he's never been to America by telling him that it's okay to take off your pants in public in this country. Because as far as my understanding goes they're still not letting us do that yet. So Herm, if you read this, keep those pants on. (I think. I'm like 96% on that one and I'm going to contact my local congressman later today.)
  

• Don't carve your online alias into your seat to show "_____ was here".

• Nobody outside of our group is going to care or know about who "Pinky" is, so you best keep that one close to the vest. In fact the Pinkster said something about suing us all or eating our children if there's ever an awesome hat sale in Michigan and he happens to come through here. Or something close to that.

• Stay off the catwalk. Unless your last name is Van Damn and you have to climb up there in order to swing across the arena like fucking Tarzan into a press box which you just through a homemade bomb at to break the glass so that you can save your kids and beat the bad guys before they blow the whole building up. And even then you're going to need a permission slip.
  

• I swear to God, if I hear anybody say "+1" or the letters "LOL" in an effort to be ironic I'm going to punch them in the sack. Women included.
  

• Our hype man Osrt is going to be there. Consider yourself warned: he's what some of our cooler friends would call a "player". If you are an attractive woman ... a reasonably attractive woman ... a woman ... a human ... alive ... a tangible object, Osrt is going to approach you. Just let him drop the "are you tired/you've been running through my mind all day" line and he should move onto the next warm body within 10 seconds. Unless you have blonde hair, killer eyes, you can backcheck like crazy and you where #51, because then you might be in actual danger.

• I don't know if George Malik is going or not, but the answer to your question is no: that is NOT Brendan Shanahan's game-worn playoff beard from 1998. You need not ask him.
  

• All of us share this somewhat special, almost pathetic bond because each of us are the biggest Wings fans that we know. We come to this Internet thing and Twitter and liveblog with our imaginary friends because they're the only ones who truly understand. We type with fury whenever something bad happens and our keyboards and remotes take massive amounts of punishment. So with that in mind, I want you to imagine more than 100 of us together in real life at a venue that serves alcohol as we watch Brett Lebda try to do his job. I don't really know where I was going with this but basically I think that Lebda needs to be gone by March 26.
  

Game #50 -- Red Wings @ Wild

DETROIT RED WINGS 4 - 3 MINNESOTA WILD (SO)


Busy day on my end so this will be short. (I .... uh..... have homework? Yeah homework.)

It's good that I'm busy because I'd like to forget this game anyway. Not because they played terribly, but because it was the prototypical "puck luck" game. Too stressful to enjoy. The shots ended up nearly even, but the quality chances weren't; the Wings had a handful of breakaways, including a missed 2-on-0. #44 had two breakaways (one he buried, the other he fell asleep halfway through).

The Wild scored off a blind alley-oop to somebody's chest, a scramble in front where the puck went off a skate, and another in which the puck went 20 feet in the air, the Wings' D lost sight of the puck, the dude catches it/sets it down and scores to tie the game at 3 and sent it to overtime. Ridiculous game to watch.

And then you had The Gimmick, in which the Wings finally ended it on their 7th or 8th opportunity to win the thing. Drew Miller is now Jimmy's running mate for President of Space.

Let's get the hell out of Minnesota and wait for the Kings on Saturday. (<---- BIG GAME)

Game #49 -- Red Wings @ Capitals

WASHINGTON CAPITALS 3 - 2 DETROIT RED WINGS


So be honest. If the first thing you heard was "Wings 46-23 Capitals" in shots, and then you heard Ovechkin was held shotless for the first time since the 1989 Father & Son "Soviet Russia Hockey Plays You" tournament, you'd cut me off in disappointment because you knew the Wings lost, right? Right.

To borrow one from Osrt -- that 3rd period sucked taint tit. This will be short.


... Recap ...

• Ozzie wasn't terrible but he didn't save the team from imminent danger. As is the case much of the time that Oz is in net and it's not the playoffs. If he were a superhero, he'd be good enough at it to fly and see through shit but when it came to actually rescuing some hostages from a burning building, he'd probably just drop off a bucket of water and wish them luck.

• Zero shots allowed by the Wings through the first 14 minutes of the game. Still skeptical of Babcock denying him playing time, Osgood called the team's awesome play "quite a coincidence."
  

• (read this if that joke went over your head.)

• While I haven't written about it a lot -- or at all -- in recent weeks, I've come around on #44 to the point where I think his name will be spoken here soon. (I mean, I still don't really like him, but I'm growing increasingly indifferent!) And then, after a pretty strong performance, he takes a momentum killing penalty deep in the offensive zone, and three seconds later the Wings give up two goals and lose the game. Bah. He really does pick the best time for those.

• Jimmy gets the start against Minnesota, which isn't making me quite drop the "thank God"s like some of you are doing. I don't really understand the logic of having Jim start twice in a span of like 18 hours -- coming off an O.T. and a shootout -- throwing Oz out against one of the scariest offensive teams in hockey two nights later, and then going right back to Jimmy again after Oz didn't go all out to lose the game for us. He didn't win it obviously, but I didn't expect him to stand on his head anyway under the circumstances.
  

Maybe this is all part of Babs' plan .... Oz had gotten too comfortable after the last two seasons and he feels the only way to get his goalie to respond is to infuriate the hell out of him. I know these are all "playoff games" from here on out but I'm not buying (yet) that Babs has already decided to ride Jimmy through the rest of the season.

Game #48 -- Red Wings vs. Blackhawks

CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS 4 - 3 DETROIT RED WINGS (SO)

I had my answer from the moment we entered the parking garage: Joe Louis Arena, at 12:30 on a Sunday afternoon against the Hawks, was as electric as a night playoff game.

I would obviously rather see the Wings at 48-0-0 right now, or at least have us back to the point where we're bitching about how the 2nd seed in the West feels like an underachievement. (That sound you hear is a Maple Leafs fan somewhere lighting himself on fire.) But the extra jolt of excitement for regular season games now is awesome. It was January 17th and the place felt the same as it did for the Wings/Ducks game we went to last May.

It was a great game, albeit heartbreaking. The Wings had a handful of opportunities to blow the roof off the place and fell short. A weekend that nearly saw them capture four huge points turned into only two.


... Recap ...

• I think it's Ozzie's turn now. He's been stewing long enough and Jimmy has been on one helluva run that nobody outside of maybe Kyle at BDS thought was possible. I hadn't read anything about who was supposed to start either Saturday's game or this one, so I was shocked (SHOCKED, I say) to see Jimmy starting this game, especially considering the Dallas game ended like 25 minutes before this one started.
  

• Brad May: 4:47 TOI; 6 shifts; minus-2. I'm beginning to think that Ville Leino got caught in bed with Babcock's wife.

• Lidstrom is so great to watch in person, when you can see what he's doing at all times. There's nothing original that I can add here, but you know what I'm talking about. Is there a better word for "crafty" that I'm blanking on? Because Nick is that. Crafty to the n-th degree. He's too smart for other humans to compete with.
  

• Of course I'm biased because I was there and saw it live and had a complete out-of-body meltdown when it happened -- but dammit, Datsyuk pulled off the ballsiest, most awesomest shootout/penalty shot goal in the history of the National Hockey League. I'm going to have children for the sole purpose of telling them I saw this shit.

It was all in slow motion. I thought he was going for his signature Turco-undressing move (which previous to this was the coolest goal I had ever seen), and as it happened I thought Niemi out-waited him and was there for the stop. Then it happened. The "Pimp Chip". He not only had to manipulate a goalie into moving the direction he wanted to while maintaining forward motion and absolute control of the puck -- but to top it, he put an impossibly delicate, arching, floating touch over him while skating by. I was honestly so bat-shit after it happened that I didn't even see the Hawks score on their first shootout attempt. Then #44 had an OK goal.

(I'm kidding, it was awesome too.)

• I'm envisioning a world where Patrick Eaves re-signs in Detroit next year. They'll give him a couple more seasons to kill penalties and hustle over every inch of the ice. He'll continue to play his ass off. He will continue to block shots that look painful enough to break bones, then somehow suck it up and kneel down for another block three seconds later. He will score a few big goals as more sneaky-good shots continue to come out of his stick. He will be endeared by Detroit for many years to come.

Does that sound too crazy? I hope not because I really enjoy watching this dude play hockey.



This changed how the game felt. Eaves was bloodied and Versteeg scored the takedown but the Wings got more out of this fight than the Hawks did.

• I'll leave you with a little story. We sat in the 2nd to last row of the lower bowl in 103. I was on the aisle. During the 1st period, I hear some murmuring going on behind me.

"...murmur murmur murmur murmur TED LINDSAY murmur murmur..."

I turn around. It's Ted fuggin' Lindsay. He's watching the game, as he often does, standing where the ushers do on the concourse level. Like 6 feet behind me, smiling, just chillin' like he's common folk. Terrible Ted looks like he's about 5'1"/95 lbs, yet one glance at him and I can tell that he could kill me with his bare hands. I was flipping out a tad.


"OHMIGODDUDE .... TED LINDSAY IS RIGHT BEHIND US" (I'm Mikael Samuelsson when I'm nervous.)

"WOW, go shake his hand or something!"

"NO WAY"

"Come on, you're a huge Red Wings fan ... It's TED LINDSAY"

"NOPE NO WAY, UH-UH"


A few minutes of hockey passes before us. I'm hardly paying attention as I say say the words "THAT'S TED LINDSAY" seven more times. Then play stops for a whistle. I turn around again.


Me: "Uh.... hey Ted ..." /waves hand.

Ted Lindsay: "Hey."


And that, my friends, is the story of how Ted Lindsay and I became best friends.

Weekend News and Note

Wings play the Stars for the 75th time this season at 2 o'clock. I've got a busy real life weekend and it's going to look like I'm about to ignore Dallas altogether, not blogging and such. God I hate that word. "Blogging" -- totally gross. Sounds like a venereal disease I picked up while plowing through the VIP room of Merv Griffin's yacht with Chris Hollis.*


*Probably the opposite of a regular day for me. I'm more boring than Nick Lidstrom talking about refinancing a loan.


The Wings/Hawks recap will be a firsthand account. If you hear a nasty rumor that I guaranteed victory because I'll be in attendance, just ignore it. 70% chance that it's a lie.

And I'm interested to see just how loud the Joe is at 12:30 on a Sunday afternoon.

Red Wings / Canes Pregame

CAROLINA HURRICANES @ DETROIT RED WINGS

7:30 -- Joe Louis Arena

Canes: 14-24-7 (35 points), last in East | Wings: 23-16-6 (52 points), 9th in West
_____________________________________________________________


Hurricanes blog of choice: Yeah.

We don't read a whole lot of Carolina. For whatever reason, we have always hated them. It's likely that there are petty and southern-ist reasons behind our feelings, but they exist nonetheless. Like tonsils or something.

A lot of it is the jerseys. Another good chunk of it is North Carolina (completely unjustified). An additional reason is Rod Brind'amour. I mean, Jesus, just look at this man:





He looks like he's giving our blog chlamydia.

But anyway, here are two golden finds that we haven't seen despite spending an inappropriate amount of time on the Internet:

AaronWard.com ("WHATEVER HE HITS, HE DESTROYS"), and what the hell, a Braszilian Canes blog, A Voz dos Caniacs

"Na derrota por 4-2 frente aos Predators, em Nashville, o time levou gol em desvantagem numérica de J.P. Dumont. Patric Hornqvist fez dois gols em vantagem numérica. Rod Brind'Amour descontou, e Tom Kostopoulos fez seu segundo gol shorthanded da temporada (ele está hot?). Resumo: o Predators matou os Canes via PP. É a terceira vitória seguida dos Predators frente aos Hurricanes nos últimos três confrontos."

Word.

*****






Not even going to say anything about the game. Over the last seven, the Wings' victories have come against teams ahead of them in the standings, and their losses have been to teams below them.

You know times are different when you would rather play anyone else than the worst team in the league at home.

Game #45 -- Red Wings @ Islanders

NEW YORK ISLANDERS 6 - 0 DETROIT RED WINGS


I'm going to kick this off by copy-and-pasting the intro to my Wings/Ducks recap from the other night:

Larry Murphy made a comment earlier this year, after the Wings had played a particularly dreadful game, that it was one of those that you just ball up, throw in the trash and forget about. He said you're going to have 3 or 4 of those every year.

Everybody who heard it flipped out because at the time it was already like the 7th one of those games. And this was at least a month ago. The point being that any more than maybe, oh, one of those through the rest of the season and you're defining "unacceptable". We're well past that now.


Good, it still applies.

But hey, at least we could see it coming after one minute in. A harmless looking play behind the Wings' net, in which three of them were standing in position to do ... something .... resulted in a goal. 1-0. A minute in and that goal would've been enough.

Luckily, Jimmy Howard was kind enough to be mic'd up for the game and we were able to hear what exactly was going on around him during that play. Because it certainly wasn't hockey.

(Puck rolls along boards below the goal line)

Jimmy Howard: "So what did you do this weekend, Drew?"

Drew Miller: "Not a whole lot. Got an oil change, saw Avatar."

Howard: "Hey me too! What did you think of it? I was blown away. Probably the best movie I'll see this year."

Miller: "Meh, I don't know, it was alright."

Howard: "What?? 'Alright'? Come on man, the way they combined 3D effects and live action to perfection wasn't thrilling to you?"

Miller: "Yeah that was cool, but it's the same Hollywood story recycled over and over again. White people seek new land; hero white man infiltrates primitive group of strangers; hero white man falls for primitive female; hero white man saves primitive people from the overbearing white race. The end."

Howard: "Oh I get it. You're a movie snob."

Brad Stuart: "Yeah Drew quit being a fag." (shotguns beer)

Miller: "No, I'm not a snob, I would just prefer to see something more original, as opposed to seeing a movie jack itself off with special effects for two hours and throw in an already-used script. I mean there are literally like a dozen movies that have used the same concept. Doesn't that bother you a little?"

Stuart: "Sounds pretty faggy." (belches)

(Puck is centered from behind net, goal is scored)

Howard: "I don't know Drew. Maybe I just didn't care all that much and saw the movie for what it was. It was a great theater experience and probably meant to entertain visually more than it did to stimulate the brain intellectually. I mean people were actually clapping at the end, I've never seen that before. And don't give me the 'dumbed-down America' bullshit either -- I'm not a drone just because I enjoyed the movie. It was entertainment to me and nothing more. Not every movie has to provide some amazing social commentary."

Miller: "But it does provide that. And it's painfully obvious. Industrialized white guy has to help primitive natives because they're not smart enough to do it themselves -- doesn't that seem a bit racist to you?"

Howard: "Racist? Are you serious? If anything the movie was about acceptance of different cultures and races -- not the opposite. The white people were CLEARLY the lesser species in this movie. It's practically saying that industrialization is a bad thing if it turns your people into greedy environmental rapists and closes your mind to everything else."

Stuart: "Okay you're both fags."

Miller: "Well it doesn't surprise me that you wouldn't think anything is racist with this movie, Jimmy. After all you were supposedly the only one in the team meeting this summer who vetoed idea of Mike Grier signing in Detroit."

Howard: "What the hell Drew -- I told that to you in confidence!"

Kyle Okposo: "I heard that."

Miller: "I'm just saying. You clearly have a bias here as you are blinded by your prejudiced ways. It's not your fault, Jimmy. You were probably just raised by terrible, neanderthal, mouth-breathing parents."

Derek Meech: "Hey guys what are we talkin' about?"

Howard: "SHUT THE FUCK UP DEREK. Drew, you're a dick. I'm never telling you anything ever again."

(Puck is taken to center ice for faceoff)

*****

The Wings play the worst team in the league on Thursday night in Detroit. If they don't win this game, then I don't know what to think. Even my optimism after the Anaheim game won't last through another clunker like this. It is the ultimate Must Not Lose.

Red Wings / Islanders Pregame

DETROIT RED WINGS @ NEW YORK ISLANDERS

7:00 -- Nassau Coliseum

Wings: 23-15-6 (52 points), 9th in West | Isles: 19-19-8 (46 points), 10th in East
________________________________________________________________


Islanders blog of choice: Light House Hockey


Plenty of stuff to get juiced up on today at the always great Light House Hockey, including defining a dynasty, the age of the Wings playing into injuries, Kronwall karma and memories of Joey MacDonald. Now if this were written by a fedora-wearing Pinky man I'd counter it with some frivolous point-by-point argument that would surely waste 45 minutes of my life, but I like the Light Housers so I'll brush it off.


"More importantly, the Red Wings' run faces the same challenges of any dynasty: The stars that lead it age, and success has unavoidable effects. To combat these, the Wings have done the only thing they can do: Groom and introduce new blood to supplement the stars who have already won. Keep the hunger as strong as possible. The question is, with all the other forces going against repeat success, is that new blood enough?"


I think it was J.J. at Able to Yzerman who, when the Wings' injuries were at their apex, posted the list with the player ages, and Dan(ny) Cleary -- 31 years old -- was the elder statesman of that group. From their down you have Hank, Fil, Kronner, Johnny, and I'm already getting sick so I'm going to stop. But for the bulk of these, I don't buy the old age claim. If we were hearing about muscle strains and the like after games and practices, then I'd consider it. But so many of the injuries have been collisions and freak accidents that would hurt anyone, not just old Red Wings players.

With a win tonight, the Wings could slip into the 8-spot of the Western Conference. It's also notable that every team ahead of them has played at least two more games.

*****

Islanders fan:


Funny videos

A Completely Hetero Ode to Bruce MacLeod

I have made no attempts to hide my appreciation for Bruce MacLeod's writing talents. When I first went to Michigan State I was a journalism major and had every intention of changing my pen name to Tyler MacDevereaux just to feel more like him. He is a literary demigod, a cleverly subtle humorist, The Highlander, speaker of mysterious tongues and has bedded over 50 women in the last 12 nights. How do I know that? Because I'm lying. He's probably a wholesome family man who doesn't know me from the bum picking old rough drafts of his memoirs out of his trash at night. (Hint -- we're the same guy.)

Since many of you probably read his blog, Red Wings Corner, you do not need me to tell you about how Bruce has been forced to scale back on his Wings writing over these past months because his newspaper hates us personally and wants to deprive us of his genius. That's what they told me after I didn't take the whole "economy/budget cuts" bullshit after the first 9 letters that I sent them. Ironically, that's the kind of persistence that I learned from Bruce (or pretended to learn), as I spent many moons imagining what it would be like to study the craft from under his gentle wing; we'd be in the office after hours, after all the other writers had earned their bare minimum of flair for the day and gone home to their stupid families, and Bruce would give me a wink and tell me to put on another pot of coffee because we had a story to turn out by 6 AM. That's the kind of person that Bruce MacLeod is (might be?).

I will now take a look back through the finer moments of Red Wings Corner, as Bruce grew from an awesome writer to an even awesomer writer, in an Ode to the best of the Wingosphere.

*****


THE FIRST POST AT RWC



Emmerton sure as shit went on to join the Griffs, as Highlander so intuitively reported. Two playoffs games in '07 with G.R.: No goals, no assists, and no making a fucking liar out of Bruce MacLeod. Good on you, Cory Emmerton. You're work here is done.



LINE COMBINATIONS



Is there anything more appealing to the eye than line combinations? If you answered "yes", please report your face to my fist.

I doubt Brucey was the first to write them out like this, but man does it look cool when he posts those. I feel like I'm in Top Gun and I'm reading the names of all the pilot pairings on the wall. (See that analogy right there? Absolute dog shit. MacLeod would never submit that weak ass effort. I am lower than scum.)



INTERESTING AND VALUABLE INFORMATION


Takes astute observations from game + quotes from head coach --> blows my fucking world.

Matchups and how lines combine to form matchups are a inner-game intricacy that MacLeod has mastered a hold of. Hardly anyone else writes with as much attention to this detail as he does. He gets the "game-within-a-game" thing. While you're paying attention to the moving objects and bright colors, he's reading the brain of the suited gentleman behind the bench. Always a step ahead.

I bet this dude crushes in Monopoly.



THE FUNNY

Anytime you can bring the wife into it, that's funny. Doesn't matter what it is. "My wife was taking down the Halloween decorations this morning ..." what a hoot. Women is crazy.



STATS THAT COMMON FOLK DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO


Bruce will once in a while post some random collection of stats that you typically won't read about. Whether it's penalties drawn or even strength points/60 minutes or the like, he's never one to shy away from numbers. This is refreshing considering most newspaper writers don't compute anything more than "Goals", "Assists", and "Canadianness."



KEEPING IT REAL



Game 5, 2008 Finals. You either remember it and you vomit, or you vomited so much that night that you don't remember it. It was a black day in Red Wings history, as there may have never been a more heartwrenching defeat. I don't care what the status of the series was, that the Wings were up 3-1, that they still had to lose two more games to not win that Cup. It was awful not winning on that night, because of how epic the game was and how Babe Ruth Sykora ended it.

And what was the first sentence out of Bruce MacLeod's fingers? "...an absolutely great game." That's balls right there. No wait -- it's better than that. It was straight up uterus to type that. He could've opened with basically the same blubbering emo drivel that I spew whenever this game comes up, but oh no. B-Mac doesn't play that. He was so classy with that post that he wrote it in a tuxedo.


BEING HUMBLE

It's totally cool Bruce. You're allowed one of those after nailing it so many times. I even dig the way he's slightly making fun of himself. "In fact, ..."

If you dedicate an entire post to your own mistake, that's some serious respect points right there. On a scale of 1 to 10 -- 10 being "maximum respect" and 1 being "no respect", Bruce would be the polar opposite of Jay Mariotti. (Fuck you it's my scale, I know it doesn't make sense. Even though it does.)



COMMENTER OWNAGE


Fact: Somebody once told Bruce that Santa Claus didn't exist, and within 15 seconds he used a protractor, some Neosporin and MS Paint to prove otherwise.

Truth be told, you shouldn't go toe to toe with Bruce even if it might appear that he's wrong and you're right. Last year he explained his reasoning for thinking Mike Green should win the Norris; if it were anybody else, I would've thrown my computer in the dumpster after reading it. Because it was MacLeod, I nodded politely and spent the next 48 hours heating my weight in faux hawks. My body is still digesting hair product to this day.



SIMPLICITY


(calling my parents to admit that I'm a complete failure)

Herm 2 Hockeytown 2

For the first commercial, click here.

For the second commercial, turn the lights off and hit play below.

Game #JimmyHoward -- Red Wings @ Kings

DETROIT RED WINGS 2 - 1 LOS ANGELES KINGS


The Wings managed to play a time traveling version of themselves from one of those horror-iffic playoff rounds, like Edmonton '06 or Anaheim '03. They give up 50+ shots and win a hockey game. I don't know how, but it happened.

I listened to it from my car, as I tried to avoid careening off the road in a snowstorm with each save, so that prevents me from doing the usual recap. Unless you want me to describe Ken Kal and Paul Woods' voices, which at times I think are too good for radio. Ken himself almost caused my colon to burst into flames because of how tense he made the game feel. The Kal/Woods team is simply the best in the business.




I went to bed shortly after it was over, woke up about ten minutes ago and said "I can't keep sleeping without saying something about this game." So here's your due, Jimmy Howard. You too Darren Helm, you incredible manslut. Phenomenal performances.

*****

... Stay tuned ...

The next Herm 2 Hockeytown commercial will be unveiled later today.

Game #42 -- Red Wings @ Ducks

ANAHEIM DUCKS 4 - 1 DETROIT RED WINGS


Larry Murphy made a comment earlier this year, after the Wings had played a particularly dreadful game, that it was one of those that you just ball up, throw in the trash and forget about. He said you're going to have 3 or 4 of those every year.

Everybody who heard it flipped out because at the time it was already like the 7th one of those games. And this was at least a month ago. The point being that any more than maybe, oh, one of those through the rest of the season and you're defining "unacceptable". We're well past that now.

And I still can't shake this optimism. Oh this retched fucking optimism. Wake up everyday smiling, wondering what great things are in store for my favorite team. Talk with you bastards about how I still feel fine about our chances and how in a few weeks time, everything will be fine. Then it'll be that one game in every four or so that the Wings spend 2 1/2 hours trying to wrangle out a turd instead of playing hockey, and somebody probably left the game with a knee injury. I'll feel bad about it, sort of sad and depressed but never angry, really. Always turn over that new leaf in the morning and get my hopes up for another turnaround.

That's where I'm at. So many players looked so bad last night that I couldn't even find one good thing to write about today. Flip scored and that was cool, good on him. Datsyuk still possesses genie-like powers (phenomenal cosmic powers, for you 90's junkies) but I still wonder if #44 is giving him swirlies during each intermission. Nick made some gaffes that made me wonder if the 3 hour time difference had taken hold of hid old bones and put him to sleep. Whatever ... we'll get some guys back soon and I'll blindly, ignorantly assume that everything is going to be okay.

Because I'm a spoiled bitch who has never seen the Wings miss the postseason. Since I was old enough to watch this team on a regular basis, they haven't so much as had to go on the road to start the playoffs. That's ridiculous. Swear to god this thought crosses my mind at least five times a week. So I don't know what else to do but assume this shit will turn itself around and eat ice cream with a goofy smile on my face until it does.

Instead of the typical recap breakdown, I'll post a happy video and fall asleep.

Go Wings

Wings/Ducks Pregame

DETROIT RED WINGS @ ANAHEIM DUCKS

10:00 -- Honda Center

Wings: 21-14-6 (48 points), 9th in West | Ducks: 16-19-7 (39 points), 13th in West
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Ducks blog of choice: Earl Sleek at Battle of California


There's an important issue that I have failed to bring up around here -- one that is very important to me.

"Twenty-Ten."

It's not Two fucking Thousand and Ten, let us be clear. Two Thousand and Ten takes like 25 second to say out loud. Especially when you add the "fucking".

I haven't seen anyone lead the crusade for this better than Sleek, as he did last week when he put the goofy Twothousanders in their place.


"I guess I'm just a stickler to a convention that existed back when I grew up, in a decade we used to call "The Nineteen Eighties". Back then, we weren't silly; we never referred to it as "The One Thousand Nine Hundred Eighties", because the words we'd use to describe years had its own separate convention from the words we'd use to describe four-digit numbers. It was an incredibly convenient system for most everyone, and I thought for sure the tradition would last throughout my lifetime. And for the most part, that convention did hold strong, up until the waning moments of December 31, Nineteen Ninety-Nine."


The other day at work, somebody literally asked me if they had to write out the entire "2010" or if they were still allowed to shorten it to '10. Swear to Christ. You see how crazy this whole thing is making people? It's like humans have advanced further through time than we were meant to.

*****




Below is the donation dealy for the Herm to Hockeytown project, which has gone so swimmingly that there appears to almost be enough $moneys$ to get him here. The way I'm picturing it, Herm's story is going to snowball and take off like Ferris Bueller's. In a couple month's time there won't be a 9th grader alive who hasn't heard of this dude.

Remember that all money raised past the goal will go to the Children's Hospital of Michigan.

Click to donate.

Goodbye, Old Friend

DETROIT RED WINGS @ PHOENIX COYOTES

8:00 -- Jobing.com Arena

Wings: 20-14-6 (46 points), 10th in West | Coyotes: 25-13-4 (54 points), 4th in West
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Today, we weep. We are retiring the use of the Shane Doan video on The Triple Deke. We will post it below, one last time (and not so coincidentally, one last time I will feel the subsequent power to survive a stab wound through the heart.)



The video is dressed in black, for we are in mourning. And thirsty for Pepsi.

It is unquestionably a work of art on par with Citizen Kane and Nintendo's Contra. But Shane Doan chose the Path of the Douche, and waived goodbye to the All TTD-non Red Wings team when he turned Johnny Ericsson's knee into a wet bag of broken penises (quite literally, in fact, since Ericsson is so manly that his legs are made up entirely of dicks.)