Lightning @ Capitals, 11/10/07

It’s leg three of our day, the Game Diary Marathon ’07, and has this ever been a marathon and not a sprint. The Canadiens, Senators, Islanders and Devils have done everything in their power to make us think there’s nothing good about hockey, so let’s see if the Lightning and Caps, on TiVo delay, can make things better.

Joe B. is bringing the puns on the Caps feed, cramming about 17 groan-worthy puns into the intro. When we cut from the “previous game” highlights in the intro to a vista shot of the Verizon Center, CC says, dripping sarcasm, “Ohhh. Look at all the people.”

FIRST PERIOD

19:03 Schnookie, still feeling the sting of the Devils loss, snipes when Holmqvist makes a nice shrugging save on a point-blank shot, “Oh, so we have two goalies in this game who aren’t NHL-caliber.” CC leaps over Pookie and the entire length of stately IPB Manor’s couch to claw at Schnookie’s eyes.

17:59 Ovie wipes out on his way to the net, just as we agree that we will all be disappointed by anything less than an Ovechkin hat trick tonight.

17:46 Pookie expresses her dislike for Backstrom’s hair as he steps in on a faceoff, and CC says happily, “It’s a Swedish mullet! It’s so cute!” Pookie: “Cute? I do not think that word means what you think it means.”

Read Full Post »

Devils @ Isles, 11/10

Game Two of the Game Diary Marathon ’07 takes us to the Island for a little hot Devils-Islanders action. We’re lucky enough to get a pregame show tonight, because what’s better than bonus Stan Fischler?

Steve Cangialosi pops up to give us the plotline for the Devils, and says, “The storyline could be by night’s end that [Marty] will be going for his 500th win.” Should we take that to mean that Marty isn’t going to win this game? Because we thought he was going for his 500th win now.

The pregame show then goes to John Giannone to find out what’s up with the Rangers, and we see a graphic illustrating that this year’s Rangers are one of only four iterations in their entire history to not have been able to get two points out of their first six road games. They might be ahead of the Devils in the standings, but we’re still laughing at them.

The commercial break treats us to a lame-assed Knicks promo that elicits this response from CC: “You know, with the money these teams have you’d think they could do better than these promos. They might as well be standing in front of a bluescreen singing ‘Love Shack’ like we did at summer camp.” We decide not to tell CC that we never did this at summer camp. We’ll let her keep her dreams.

FIRST PERIOD

Doc and Chico discuss Gio and Zubrus busting out in the last game, and Chico refers to them as “The Rochester Rocket” and “The Lithuanian Freight Train”. Doc is as stunned by this as we are.

Read Full Post »

Habs @ Sens, 11/10

And so it’s time to begin the first in our Game Diary Marathon ’07, a bacchanal of sitting on our asses, drinking cocktails, and watching hockey with stately IPB Manor’s Official Game Diary Marathon ’07 Houseguest, the inestimable CapsChick. First up is the Canadiens and the Senators, and we’re picking up the Hockey Night In Canada feed. With Moscow Mule in hand, let’s sit back, relax, and let the hockey wash over us in waves.

We are astonished during the intro when Ron MacLean tells us PJ Stock is one of the in-studio analysts. Seriously? The PJ Stock? They kick us out to the play-by-play guys, then when we come back to HNIC Central, there’s the man himself. Pookie: “CapsChick, you are no longer not the smartest lightbulb in the room.”

We are not thrilled that the storyline for our Anglo-Canadian-centric feed today is that Spezza’s still out; Schnookie puts it best when she sighs disappointedly, “Jason Spezza is literally the only thing I like about the Senators.” CapsChick, though, is excited to be seeing the Habs on our big screen – they’re her secondary team, and she’s normally stuck watching them on her laptop.

FIRST PERIOD

19:43 We make CC’s day by proving we like twice as many Habs as we like Sens, since we like Higgins and Komisarek. They’re both Long Island boys, and while we we’re both true-blue Jersey girls now, we did spend much of our formative childhood years on the Island. So we’re, like, soulmates with those guys.

Read Full Post »