All-Star Saturday Open Thread

Gentle Reader, welcome aboard IPB’s All Star Saturday Open Thread! We’re gearing up for a fantastic night of All Star super skills — okay, a diverting night of super skills — okay, a passable night of super skills — okay, seriously, there’s nothing else on TV tonight and at least the super skills happens in a hockey rink, right? We’ll have a game diary (updated every few commercial breaks, perhaps; we’re not sure just yet how it will play out) and an open thread during the event. Of course we’ll be watching on… drum roll please… VERSUS!

We really, really, really want that magnet board. At this point, nothing else will make us happy.

This morning and afternoon, though, we thought we’d revisit something we did before the final game of last season’s playoffs. We invited readers to introduce themselves so we could all get to know one another a little better. We’ve had quite a few new Irregulars come on board since then, and we have reason to believe there are a few of you Gentle Readers lurking off to the side. If you feel so moved, we have a few ice-breaker questions we invite you to answer in the comments. We encourage anyone and everyone to jump in!

1. What is your name?

2. Who’s your favorite team?

3. Where are you from or where are you now?

4. What is your favorite All-Star moment?

5. Who is your favorite Devil and why?

Bonus Question 1: Jay Pandolfo — Great player? Or greatest player?

Bonus Question 2: If Boxworthy is walking from NJ to Atlanta at a rate of speed of .006 kilometers per hour, and Mrs. Pancake is walking from Atlanta to NJ at a rate of speed of 1/4500th of a mile per minute, exactly how hot is David Clarkson?

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IPB Programming Alert: VERSUS All-Star Weekend Edition

Attention Gentle Reader! We are excited to swagfully announce that we are planning a blowout weekend of diarizing all the All-Star programming Versus and NHL Network have to offer. Be here or be square! Please help us in our quest to get a Versus playoff tracker magnet board by being here for our open threads all weekend. What’s in it for you, you ask? A sense of community! Sparkling conversation! The vicarious joy of knowing how dearly we will love that magnet board!

(Note: Pookie is working on Saturday, so anything that gets broadcast before 6 p.m. Eastern on Saturday will be witnessed by us on TiVo delay. Not that that affects the Versus programming, but we have no idea what the NHL Network has in store. They’re not offering swag, so we can’t be bothered to find out what their lineup looks like.)

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Devils vs. Canadiens, 01/24/08

Tonight’s matchup features two teams coming off huge wins against division opponents they’ve owned of late. We don’t think a 7-goal outburst against the Flyers on Tuesday should stand as any kind of sign of things to come this evening, but we’ll see. We’d like to take some solace in the whole “Marty almost never loses to the Canadiens” thing, but we try not to take that for granted. But it wouldn’t be a Devils game without our pessimism, would it?

Our pregame kicks off with a shot of Devils fans arriving at the Rock, one of them wearing a Holik sweater. Should that be considered a bad sign? Anyway, the pregame features a bit of chitchat about Alex Kovalev, and his mug shot looks like it was lifted off a 1950’s hockey card.

FIRST PERIOD

19:58 The picture tonight is all kinds of fuzzy and murky. Like it was lifted off a 1950’s hockey card. We are hopeful that a few more glasses of wine a piece will make us care less.

19:09 We get a closeup of Huet during a stoppage, and Chico says cutely, “He’s had a lot of company, losing to the Devils in a Canadiens sweater.” (And for the non-Devils fans reading this diary, here’s the skinny: the Habs have won exactly twice in New Jersey in the last 15 years. On a shutout by Theodore, and then one by Patrick Roy. Ouch.)

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Biting Commentary (See What We Did There?)

It is an indisputable fact that the victim of a bite from Derian Hatcher will soon start feeling symptoms of increased scoring touch and sensations of general offensive dynamism. But what about the bites of other NHLers? If a biting epidemic were to sweep the league, should we all be concerned, or is the venom of the average NHL player a generally benign thing? Fear not, Gentle Reader — we’re putting our years of medical study to good use today, and have compiled a list of several notable NHL figures to give you an idea of what to expect should you be the victim of a bite from them.

Drew Stafford: Excessive badassedness; symptoms include the ability to rock in high voltage areas and an increase in muscle growth in the bicepal region.

Corey Perry: An increased and irrepressible need for falling over dramatically with no real encouragement.

Patrik Elias: Hepatitis Patty, which manifests as an insatiable hunger for foecal oysters and an massive decrease in hockey skills.

Jason Arnott: Spontaneous pregnancy, restless leg syndrome, brain tooth and any and all other symptoms caused by Vaxadrin.

Chris Pronger: Loss of finger.

Jason Spezza: Uncontrollable giggles and severe loss of fashion sense.

Ryan Getzlaf: Sepsis. Seriously. Look at those teeth.

Chris Drury: Robot herpes, crossed eyes and painful aversion to spiciness and bold colors.

Zdeno Chara: Giontaphobia.

Rick DiPietro: Bananacremephilia.

Cam Ward: Watery eyes, degenerative hip problems, lowered IQ, and weak chin, a.k.a. “Puppy Mill Syndrome”.

Olaf Kolzig: Enlargement and slowness of five hole.

Jacques Lemaire: Tanorexia.

Sean Avery: Brain worms.

Dominik Hasek: Glassification of the groin.

Scott Gomez: Mediocrity.

Ted Leonsis: Inability to make rational financial decisions, loss of long-term perspective.

Chris Chelios: Death.

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Devils @ Flyers, 01/22/08

Our feed tonight opens with the startling news from Steve that the Flyers are the “hottest team in the league since Christmas Day”. They’ve won 10 of their last 12, apparently. There is a chorus of, “Huh. Who knew?”s in the living room of stately IPB Manor. Even worse, we find out that Gagne is back. That’s right, the Atlantic Division’s best Marty Killer whose name doesn’t rhyme with Bligel Blawes is healthy again. Crap. On the bright side, though, we are informed that Marty has 40 career wins against the Flyers, which is the most wins against any one team by any one goalie since the days of Gump Worsley. You know what we love? When FSN drops a new “You have no idea how awesome Marty is, do you?” stat on us.

Dano tells us a key to the game this evening is for the Devils to come out with energy and intensity to match the Flyers. We spend a moment trying to remember when was the last time we saw the Devils play with energy and intensity. (Jan. 10 against Carolina, we decide.)

FIRST PERIOD

18:57 So far no biting. This is disappointing.

18:02 A nifty bit of cycling by Patty, Zubrus and Clarkson comes thisclose to scoring, but Patty’s shot beats Niittymaki only to hit the pipe.

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We Also Think Hockey Is Hard, But Still…

As always seems to be the case, the Devils are among the league leaders in team defense and goals-against average this season. And because this is always the case, we’re sure there are a lot of casual observers out there who are thinking it’s just more of the same in New Jersey. But in a column by Rich Chere in Sunday’s Star-Ledger, we came across a quote that we feel should put to rest any misconceptions people might be having about the caliber of players the Devils are skating on their blue line this season. While praising Colin White for playing so well after returning from a catastrophic eye injury, Mike Mottau said:

“It’s hard enough to play with two eyes.”

That’s right. This is the guy we call Mike Motherfucking Mottau. Applemotherfuckingsauce. Do you think Scott Stevens ever said anything like that? Scott Niedermayer? Ken Daneyko? Okay, Dano probably did, but that’s not the point. The point is that this is not your grandfather’s Devils blue line.

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IPB Programing Alert Part 2

Gentle Reader, we’re back on terra firma, comfortably ensconced at stately IPB Manor. Our TiVo is about to up and running so we can find out what happened in tonight’s Devils-Leafs game. Thanks to two early mornings and two plane rides in about 36 hours, we’re too foggy-headed to write a diary. As soon as we’re caught up and spoiler-immune, we’ll be here, eager to be filled in on what we missed by being hockey-less for a whole weekend. Oh, and thanks to the IPB Irregulars for not burning the place down in our absence!

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