A Game Diary To Remember 2, NJ vs. TOR 10/12/06

We’ve settled in to watch, on TiVo delay, the second installment of “15 To Remember”. Tonight Pookie is testing the limits of her newly discovered “lack” of superstitions; all year she swore her “What Happened To Whitey In Outer Space” t-shirt was bad luck, so she’s wearing it in defiance of the Hockey Gods, since she knows the Devils win this one. Schnookie has her doubts about this exercise, because she knows the Devils win this one, but suck while doing it.

This game was the Devils home opener, and the intro, narrated by Doc, gives us chills all over again — it’s a delightfully Doc-ish, purple prose-y Devils history montage. Awww… We’re suckers for that.

FIRST PERIOD

19:46 You know what our summer really wasn’t missing? Darcy Tucker. But now here he is. Rats.

18:44 Patty is still skating with Langer and Zajac, and he’s looking a little petulant about it.

18:02 Apparently it’s not interference when Pando gets hauled off his feet a rink away from the puck! We demand justice!

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Reasons We Love Hockey Part 15

The 15th in our 118-part series.

LarionovBucks Night

On a day that saw Scott Stevens voted into the Hall-of-Fame, we here at IPB want to take a moment to honor a player who fell short on the ballot this time around as a reason we love hockey: Igor Larionov. Way back in the 2003-2004 season, the Devils still had ol’ Igor on their roster, and he was driving us crazy. It was an odd season for the Devs — they were the defending Stanley Cup champs, to be sure, but there wasn’t a single person watching the NHL who suspected they were going to repeat, and for the first time in years there was upheaval on the blue line. Dano was gone. Nieder was was on his way out via free agency. And Stevens was concussed, but still ostensibly with the team, and no one was supposed to talk about it and [Lou's voice infiltrates the consciousness now to say: "FORGET YOU EVER HEARD ANYTHING ABOUT THIS"]. (It was very strange.) This was also our last year as season-ticket holders, so we went to almost every game, perched high in the last row of section 227, and tried to stave off slumber. The Devils were really that boring.

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