Stay tuned for our musings during tonight’s game:
PREGAME
– We might be totally off-base here, but we’re thinking we might have gotten a sign about winningness being in the air — mere moments ago we received notice that we won a big fabric giveaway from our favorite online quilting store! We won some very spicy, foxy fabrics, and that can only mean the Devils are going to win a very spicy, foxy game tonight. Right?
– The MSG+ intro includes this fun factoid: the Devils and Penguins are the winningest teams in hockey. We literally had no idea about that.
– The game can start now that we’re all caught up on Carol Browne’s fantastic “XMAS Bandit” blog series. If you combined the charm of V.E. Mats, the fun of Christmas spirit, and the genius stylings of Carol, you’d get the XMAS Bandit.
FIRST PERIOD
– Look who’s back! It’s ol’ butterfingers Oduya! How charming was that when Doc had to call during some frantic Devils backchecking, “Someone has lost their stick… It’s Oduya…”? It felt like the good old days.
– WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Just when we’re saying to the TV, “Give it to Travis — he’s a beast in this building,” the Devils give it to the Iron Boar and he scores from the point. Well, it’s not Travis, but we’ll take it. And meanwhile, they are loading kindling into cars to set fire to them all across IronBoarsylvania.
– Our Geico Quotebook is something about Marty talking about how much more pressure is on Sid in Canada than on the rest of their Olympic team right now. In it, Marty says, “We’re all superstars.” We hope when he said that he turned to teammates like Egg and Hambone and Pando and said, “I mean, you guys know how it is to be a superstar, right?”
– Doc tells us the Penguins PP is 30th overall. We’re very suspicious of these numbers — winningest teams, 30th-best power play, etc, etc, etc. During the commercial, we determine the only possible explanation for this is that Pookie, who is notoriously bad at math (let’s just say she may or may not have shown up to a house closing with a check that was significantly short due to a little problem with decimal points), was the one reading the stats sheet. As if on cue, Doc says, “The Penguins are 4 for 20 on the PP, which is easy enough math that even I can tell you is 20%”. Pookie, “Wait, lemme carry the two… minus four… divide by… uh… sure, Doc, sure. 20%. *shifty eyes*”
– We are discussing how much Hambone might possibly be transcending just being pleasantly surprising. After he attempts a power move to the Pens net, Pookie suggests that Hambone County is pleased with its emperor-god. Schnookie then suggests Hambone Township, or the Incorporated Village of Hambone. Pookie then floats that the District of Hambonia is growing so rapidly in population that it might be getting its own train station soon. Boomer: “A train station isn’t that big of a deal. It would be more impressive if it was getting its own cellular tower.”
SECOND PERIOD
– BoogerforsNation doesn’t even bother rioting anymore when its emperor-god scores, because it’s just such old hat. And Sid is obviously not a citizen of BoogerforsNation, because after Boogerfors scores to give the Devils a 2-0 lead, Sid lashes out by petulantly flicking Niedermayer (the Lesser)’s stick out of his hands and getting called for interference on the play. Pookie: “Sid has such a short fuse when it comes to the Devils.”
– Good grief! We’ve managed to go 34 games this season before the word (“word”?) “rabbydoo” gets pulled out on a Devils broadcast. And it’s Doc who brings it up. Chico sounds surprised by it, almost as if this time around it’s his mind being blown.
– One of our favorite gauges of how shitty the Flyers are on their broadcasts is their power play contest for the fans. Each power play chance will net a lucky selected fan $25 if the Flyers score, and with each PP on which they don’t score, the $25 accumulates. So if they fail on a PP, the next lucky fan will win $50 if they score on the next one, and if they don’t score then, the next lucky fan will win $75, and so on. At one point this season, the kitty was up to almost $700. Anyway, the point of this is that when the Devils take a too many men penalty early in the period here, Pookie remarks that the Devils could have had their own similar sweepstakes, but where a lucky fan wins the kitty every time the Devils take a too many men penalty.
– Gronk gets a faceful of puck when he decides to lean into Whitey’s clearing attempt behind the goal line with his head about a foot off the ice. He explodes, with blood everywhere. The fans figuratively shower the ice with beer-soaked mousepads, and we wonder why Gronk doesn’t wear a shield (not that it would have helped there, but maybe we should be wondering why Gronk was trying to stop that clear with his head at knee height).
– During the absolutely kick-ass shift by the newly-minted Z.E. Hambone line that yields the Devils’ third goal, Schnookie mercilessly derides Oduya for passing when he should have taken a chance at an open net down low. Then she mercilessly derides him for having a history of dropping his stick. After the goal, Chico exults, “That was a great shift by Oduya!” Schnookie, shiftily: “Yeeeaaah. That’s exactly what I was saying at the time.”
– And Z.E. Hambone does it again with its sheer, unmitigated awesomeness, Fraser makes it 4-0 Devils, and Doc says, “Perhaps it’s time for a change.” Chico then gets the line of the night by saying, “Yeah, but how many guys can you change?” What a rabby-doo!
THIRD PERIOD
– The period starts a little quiet and tense. Finally we realize the problem: things just aren’t the same since Hambone got that 10-minute misconduct.
– With 7:12 left in the game, we’re all officially well past the point where we are so tense we feel like we’re going to puke.
– That. Was. Awesome. It was dead silent in the arena for the entire third period, as well as dead silent at stately IPB Manor, and even Chico marveled at how nobody wanted to do anything other than just shut up and watch to see if it would happen. AND IT DID. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! 104th career shutout for Marty!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! What else is there to say? It just Marty, and it just WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
