Making Them Work
Making Byfuglien work
Tired of Byfuglien. Tired of being cranky with Byfuglien. Blew off so much steam I can’t even see, through the fog, why I was so cranky. I am a fickle foe, or just memory challenged. Maybe it will flair up again after this evening’s game. For so many reasons, I hope not.
Digging
Pronger. That “for now” didn’t last long. First stop, his wiki page.
No-no #1: beat Jágr for Hart trophy by one point. That is retroactively irksome.
No-no #2: stomped someone’s leg as a Duck. Blurb says the player was not injured, which I find hard to believe. If true, it suggests that Pronger is very much an aficionado on the subject of how to stop without maiming his subject. I may have to start calling him Bulldog. His type is closer to a Great Dane but bull-dogging is more his style.
No-no #3: threw a bad hit on Holmstrom:( Meanie!
He also elbowed someone in the head (and was caught doing it). He was suspended for that one and also the stomping, and this all before the latest hubbub about playing nice. So those must have been fairly ugly.
I do not care about bar room brawls or drunk driving, so long as no one got hurt… well, more than usual in a brawl anyway. He was a wild child.
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Run and Gun, and Shy
No words.
Totally insane, absolute chaos, everyone’s D in a shambles, goalies thrown to the wolves, audience tossing hats for no reason. No doubt there were dancing giraffes and circus acrobats out of camera range.
Byfuglien didn’t score. Before the game, NBC asked him how he was going to deal with Chris Pronger. He said he would sit back and wait to see what Pronger would do. I got so excited about that, I thought “yay! That nincompoop thinks sitting back is a good idea.” In fact, he did seem to sit back for a while, then he started throwing his weight in some new directions. I was thinking that Pronger was spending too much time wrastlin’ Byf when maybe he should be… and the Hawks scored.
D Fall Down, Go Boom
Year of the Tiger
Tigger's big brother? The teal was in the original graphic, I can't help it if the stars agree that there is some cosmic connection between the Flyers and the Sharks.
I tried really hard to watch NHL on the Fly interview some Blackhawks. A couple of them sounded fine, said the usual stuff: we’ll be playing a tough team, gonna be a great game, we’ve worked hard to get here, yadda yadda. Everyone talking about these two brave young teams, all those young guys… Leighton was the only one who suggested that his team was “older” than the other team. Certainly the marquis names are. (more…)
Conflicting Reports
So very quiet here on the western front. Regardless of what I said in my earlier post, Chicago is not in the west, it is way east of true west, somewhere in the middle muddle of the continent. It’s west of Philly but still middling. So whatever racket is going on there doesn’t count and can’t be heard out here anyway.
I found a tidbit about the Sharks, from Doug Wilson: (more…)
Let The Stars Be Your Guide, or Not
Patrick Marleau: Starry Knight?
Prompted by the Sharks message board, I spent some time trying to figure out who would be a good Captain for the Sharks, if Blake retires. I’m not entirely clear on what the Captain’s duties are, though obviously facing the press, when no one else wants to, is one of them. Also, sportscasters seem to make a big deal of Captains who perform brave or inspiring feats on the ice, or dole out retribution on behalf of their teammates.
I’m not inclined to think those last two need to be done by the Captain. Anyone doing something impressive will get the blood up. Seems like getting hit in the face with a puck works well, as it did for the Flyers and also the Blackhawks. I don’t imagine anyone would counsel a Captain to go around doing that on a regular basis. (more…)
The Match Up
Warning: this essay has something in common with this guy.
There are many reasons that the match race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral is arguably the most famous horse race in US history. It isn’t just because the American public was feeling really lousy about themselves and needed a boost. It isn’t merely because everyone felt abused by big money and abandoned by their leaders. It isn’t really because Seabiscuit was such a friendly guy or his owner was so charismatic. It is because the result of that race was an upset. A result like that is not to be expected. Usually, the big fancy champion beats the smaller less spectacular champion, regardless of the quality of their respective back stories.
But there might have been a way of predicting the outcome of that race. Most race horse breeders and owners look at pedigrees. So I will do the same to determine if someone could have predicted it that way. (more…)
Game Five
Tigger team captain Mike Richards. Don't know much about him but this is a nice picture.
About 5pm PST
The Flyers and the Habs seem to have each other’s numbers today. Both have been knocked a little off balance and the 2nd period hasn’t started yet. The Habs scored in the first minute of play, preventing Leighton from adding to what must be, for the Habs, a tiresome number of shut-outs.
During one of the already many power plays the Habs have had, Halak made the wildly bold move of coming way out of his goal crease, I want to say half way to the blue line, to send a stray puck back in.. hm, I guess “the” would be more appropriate. Having more than one puck to choose from would be cheating. Anyway, he came roaring out after it, only to collide with another Hab, Hamrlik, who was chasing it back. Hamrlik was in a hurry because Flyers captain Richards was attentively keeping him company, perhaps even blazing the path for him. When the Habs collided, Richards went down too but was less tangled up in goalie gear. So he scrambled out of the pile of bodies and scored on an empty net. I think both teams are feeling a little skittish by now. This is unfamiliar territory for this series: neither team is running away with the game yet.
What a mess. If it had worked it would have been very cool for Halak.
petshark 