Hockey

Patrick Roy is suspended for five games from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. I’ve said before that fighting is the worst thing about hockey, and I’ll say it again: allowing fighting is dumb and it slows down the games.

Since I Haven’t Posted about Hockey (or anything) For Awhile

There’s probably something to be said about good players on bad teams not getting the recognition they deserve, but I just like watching this.

It’s Playoff Season!

Must. Not. Take. Hockey. Playoffs. So. Seriously.

(Although, seriously, NHL management, could you please have a word with the Predators to make sure their checks are about getting the puck instead of giving game-ending injuries to other players? Two in two games is a bit much. When Marty McSorley — the fourth most penalized NHL player ever AND someone who faced criminal charges for one of said penalties — calls it a cheap shot, you know something’s up.)

I Went to the Fights and a Hockey Game Broke Out

theCultFigurine pointed me to this story about why the Pittsburgh Penguins need an enforcer. I’m linking to it here because I think the first point is spot on: that the league *should* be taking a zero-tolerance stand but there’s no way in hell that they will.

Birth Month and Hockey Skill

I ran across an old post on the Freakonomics blog that talks about how NHL players tend to have their birthdays during the first three months of the year. A Canadian hockey commentator comments (…heh) on the post:

Most elite hockey players from North America are born in the first three months of the year. In fact, approximately 3/4 of the players in the Hockey Hall of Fame were born in January, February or March.

But it’s an entirely different case among elite level European players, especially those from the old Eastern Bloc. Why? Because unlike North America, hockey programs in those nations are part of the school system, and thus use the school calendar as their basis. When looking at the highest scoring European players, we find mostly September, October and November birthdates.

I thought it was interesting.

They’re The Future of Hockey. Just ask the Network.

TheCultFigurine rightly takes Versus to task for the fake drama they created around Monday’s Pittsburgh-Washington came. The fact that a week earlier they only wanted to talk about the Pittsburgh-Washington game instead of the one they were actually broadcasting at the time (Chicago-Minnesota) just made it worse.

Look, the NHL has had its problems lately, particularly since it’s losing popularity. They’ve been trying to make Sidney Crosby the savior of the league by promoting him as the next Wayne Gretzky* for the last two years. This Washington Post article about Monday’s game has two relevant quotes:

Crosby said afterward that he didn’t believe he and Ovechkin had to rescue the league or their franchises.

and

Alex the Great and Sid the Kid have basically been entrusted with taking away the financial and marketing sins of all the adults who messed up the sport, the people who absolutely see Ovechkin and Crosby as their last hopes for an NHL rebirth.

My basic take on it is: if your marketing has to be that heavy-handed, then people are going to smell the desperation. No one likes desperation. Crosby’s quote shows he gets that.

Now if we could only get Versus to lay the hell off.

* Although it’s interesting to note they’ve stopped calling him “the next one.” Maybe that was too obvious.

Two Links

• First, if you haven’t seen this New Scientist article about how long it would take Earth to completely obliterate any evidence of people if we all just disappeared tomorrow, you should read it.
• Second, I first heard that — gasp — a woman was a commentator for Hockey Night In Canada (and WHY, DirecTV, do we not get the CBC?) whilst reading theCultFigurine. One of the Canadian sports websites has an article about it, with this quote: “And, in case you are counting, Cassie Campbell’s two Olympic hockey gold medals are one more than belong to any living Canadian male.”

Hockey Hockey Hockey

It’s the start of a new hockey season today! Tomorrow, both the Atlanta Thrashers and the San Jose Sharks play their respective first games. We’ve somehow managed to not buy tickets to any Sharks games yet; I’m not sure how that’s happened.

In other news, my husband was looking over the Thrashers roster yesterday, and they’ve apparently replaced their entire offensive line (except for Kovalchuk and Hossa). It could just be us, but we were under the distinct impression that the Thrashers main problem wasn’t getting goals last season (it wasn’t; they scored plenty), it was stopping other people from getting goals (it was; their opponents scored just as many). Now, I know they’ve got Kari Lehtonen in goal, and he’s the next Brodeur if you listen to the team tell it. But don’t you want a good defense to help out the goalie?

But what do we know? We’re just the (now not-even-local) fans from the cheap seats.

Go Edmonton!

I had to wait until today to come out in favor of Edmonton because if Buffalo had won, my family would have rooted for them. Alas, no. Now it’s all about the Hurricanes losing. People, we can’t have two Stanley Cup champions in a row from the Southeast Division — over Canadian teams, nonetheless! Not to mention that, as the 8th seed in the Western Conference going into the playoffs Edmonton is the underdog, and rooting for the underdog is the American Thing To Do.

Hockey Season Sort-of Wrap Up

The Thrashers didn’t make it to the playoffs. I sort of expected that, but it’s still kind of a bummer. Still, they did break a bunch of team records. Apparently, the players are pretty cranky about how the season turned out*.

But, since we’re moving to San Jose, we’re looking forward to seeing how the Sharks do.

My daughter’s going to have to learn a whole new set of names and faces, though. We’ve got a couple of old game programs, and she can spontaneously name about a third of the Thrashers from their pictures. She does like to say Cheechoo already. =)

* Jimmy Slater is still pretty happy about playing in the NHL at all though, which is totally adorkable — and kudos to him for using the summer to finish up his college degree.

College Hockey Chants

We went to the Thrashers game last night,* and after the home team scored their second goal, the crowd started chanting “It’s all your fault! It’s all your fault!” at Kolzig, the opposing team’s goalie. I hadn’t heard that one since I went to Wisconsin hockey games.

It’s still not my favorite college hockey crowd chant ever — that goes to “Sis boom bah, sis boom bah, hit him on the head with a kielbasa. Oy!” — but it was a nice flashback.

* Somehow, thanks to Hossa, we won. Thanks to Tampa Bay’s current three game losing streak, we’re somehow still in the playoff hunt with three games to go. Of course, Tampa Bay has to lose all three games, and we have to win all of ours. Luckily, two of their games are against Carolina, the division leader.

We Won! We Won!

Apparently, I didn’t jinx the UW men’s hockey team last week by mentioning that they were in the final four. They won last night in an absolute nail-biter of a game. Which means that my alma mater has both the best men’s and women’s college hockey teams in the country. Yay!

Hockey!

While the Atlanta Thrashers pretty much blew their already slim playoff chances by losing tonight, the Wisconsin Men’s hockey team beat Maine to go to the NCAA finals on Saturday! Yay!

My Alma Mater

The Wisconsin Women’s Hockey team won the NCAA tournament! Yay them! Now for the men to follow…

(Who I’ve probably just jinxed by mentioning it.)

Women’s Hockey

W is for Wickenheiser
and women who lead the way
because of them there are more girls
playing hockey everyday.
- from Z is for Zamboni, aka The Hockey Book.

Yay for the Canadian Women’s Hockey team winning the gold.

Random Hockey Post

I feel like I should commemorate this moment. Atlanta is sixth in the Eastern Conference of the NHL, ahead of Toronto, for the first time in its relatively short franchise history. If I were a good hockey fan, I’d watch all of tonight’s game against the LA Kings that started a few minutes ago. Alas, I’m tired.

Instead, I’ll tell you that my two-year-old has reached that point in her developmental history where she likes to pretend to be other people. According to the books we read, this helps her figure out her personality. One of her favorite people to pretend to be? Ilya Kovalchuk.

NHL

Finally. It took them long enough.

I Miss Hockey

Apparently, the guy who recaps Lost over at Television Without Pity also misses hockey:

But other than that, wooooo-hoooo! Lost is back, and — okay, I’d also trade Jack and Kate and Sawyer and everyone else for, like, one period between the Oilers and the Stars.

Yeah. Me too.