The Magic 8 Ball tells all

I asked the Magic 8 Ball about the San Jose Sharks and Rick Nash.  This is what it told me, slightly reformatted to fit here:

The Black Knight lost

Who doesn’t admire Monty Python’s Black Knight? That never-say-die, I-won’t-lie-down, no-quit-all-go attitude is something a hockey team needs to get the job done.  The thing is, the Black Knight did lose the fight.  He had all his limbs cut off, and–I don’t remember– did Arthur finally cut off his head, or just leave him there screaming at the Fates and all comers?  Anyway, he lost, because he ran out of resources to fight with.  But he was still valiant.

So I’m not at all disappointed with the Flyers this season, even less so with their performance in Detroit.  Maybe I’m star-struck, maybe I think too highly of the Red Wings, but consider who scored for the Wings tonight: Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, some guy named Kronwall, with help from Lidstrom and that guy Zetterberg again.  Wow.  He must be pretty good, that Zetterberg.

Zetterberg made me think of the Road Runner once.   It was a playoff series against Phoenix, and he left several Coyotes sliding down the glass after they tried to hit him.  “Eyes in the back of his head” I thought.  And Holmstrom? His extra eyes are somewhere else, even more unusual and very useful for screening a goalie.  Sometimes Bertuzzi borrows them.

A Typhoid Mary kind of day

I have a cold or sinusitis or a persistent allergy turned into something… I don’t know.  I have the sniffles and sneezes and cough.  Yesterday morning I felt a lot better and decided I could drag myself to Sharks practice and then the press conference for Owen Nolan’s retirement announcement.  I have been so wanting to go to a Sharks press conference.  I am such a geek, I love the rows of chairs and little stage and everyone in their places.  It reminds me of school.  It would have been perfect if in fact I were as healthy as I thought I was, and not all fuzzy-headed from cold meds.

I wonder what it’s like, doing one thing professionally for so many years, working from the time you’re a child until you’re too old to do it anymore, working at the same thing.  They say that retiring can kill a man.  I think they mean men of advanced age, not someone under 50.  Evidently women don’t tend to die from big life changes.  But it’s still a shock, change always is.

Bruins @ Flyers, me @ airport

That the Flyers and Bruins are tied right now in the third with 5 goals each is proof positive that no matter how much money you throw in the crease, a goalie can’t win on his own and he probably won’t play better just for being paid more.  There was a shit load of salary in those creases.  The difference between the two is that one of them is getting used to letting in so many, the other is just having an off night.

I was at the airport early for a flight that was delayed.  I was twice early.  The first early was because I misread my itinerary.  The flight number was 1145, the departure times not written with colons, so I was fueling up my rental car to turn it in around ten am.  That’s when I checked my voicemail and email and discovered that my 3:45pm flight was cancelled and I’d been reassigned to a 7:40pm flight. I was able to go away and come back early again because the car was still due by three.

I was going to remain calm because I had a hockey game to keep me entertained on my phone that would last almost three hours.  How bad could it be?

Motown and The Joe

I was surprised that the audience stood for the shootout at the Joe.  I haven’t been to that many arenas but it’s the first time I saw that.  Seemed incongruous, since “real” hockey fans are supposed to hold the shootout in contempt as a sort of circus act that should not determine the outcome of a hockey game.  So much for that theory.

It was welcome.  If you sit through three periods and an overtime, even if you do get up and move around during intermission, standing up for the last few minutes is a good idea.

I like the big painted row numbers on the stairs.  It’s silly to make people read little dainty numbers on seat arms.  Just paint them in big yellow digits on the floor.  It’s cheerful looking too.

Detroit and before that

It is colder here. I think it might be colder here than it was in the Voorhees practice rink, but there is not an aluminum bench in sight, thank god.

They took my car away from me. That’s what valets do, they take your car away just when you’ve gotten to know it a little, have even started nesting as some people do in their cars.  I don’t know where they put it.

Before I talk about Detroit, I should back up a little.  There really isn’t much to say about Detroit yet except that I did find my way from the airport without crashing while driving and tweeting and emailing and texting… As if to reward me for this accomplishment, when I arrived, they gave me a cookie.  I would share a picture of said cookie but I ate it.

All 4-1, 1-4 all, again, but not the same

@petshark47: All right. Over *that* game. Next: Go #SJSharks.

Okay, I lied.  I am so not over that game.  Nabby is perfectly capable of winning a game, he didn’t need the Flyers to let him win.  I guess the blowout on Tuesday was too much for the Flyers to stomach.

Positives: Nabby looked so cocky and casual out there.  I swear he could have polished his boots between saves.  He got lucky a few times but not 40 times.  That’s how many saves he made.  Sure, the Flyers couldn’t screen him to save their lives, couldn’t seem to control the puck without all men on boards. If you let Nabby see it, he will usually stop it, and the more he stops the more he will stop.