Wings/Pens SCF – Game 4

After a terrible night of having to watch baseball, we’re finally back in the warm embrace of hockey tonight. Of course, it’s still just the Wings/Pens SCF, so… open thread it is.

Read Full Post »

Pens/Wings SCF – Game 2

Here we go again, more stupid Wings and stupid Pens. Yawn. Join us, will you, for the all the thrills and chills?

Read Full Post »

Pens/Wings SCF – Game 1

On the surface it may seem like we haven’t progressed much in a year, what with the same stupid teams in the Stanley Cup Final again and all, but that’s just looking at the surface. Dig a bit deeper and you’ll find a crucial difference: this time we’re cheering for the stupid Pens. So… yay, go Pens.

Read Full Post »

Stanley Cup Final, Game 6 Open Thread

Here we are, Gentle Reader. What we’re all hoping will be the end of this merciless slog of a playoffs. Or, if you’re a Pens fan, the penultimate game in this merciless slog of a playoffs. We’ve completely run out of bloggerly stuff to say (actually, let’s be honest. We ran out of bloggerly stuff to say two months ago), so we’re just going to be enjoying an open thread tonight.

Read Full Post »

Stanley Cup Final, Game 5

It could be the last night of the 07-08 NHL season, Gentle Reader. Just as we’re typing that the Cup is in the building, Doc, ever the stickler, points out that the Cup won’t actually be in the building until it looks like the Wings have it in the bag. Wait… Don’t they already? In any event, we’ll be here, updating our thoughts and opinions as the game goes along.

– During the Wings’ early power play in the first, Doc makes his first mention of the evening of how Cleary will be the first Newfoundlander to get his name on the Cup. Boomer: “I bet there are a lot of things that no Newfoundlanders have ever done.”

– Pierre reports that the winning Pennsylvania Lottery ticket today was 7171, and brings us this information with all the gravitas one would normally use when a devastating injury has just happened. “I’m serious,” he insists. Pookie, who spends most playoff years reporting on hilariously convoluted omens and signs she’s seen during the course of her days, says, “He sounds like me talking about that hawk catching a mouse last year that meant the Senators were going to win.”

– After coming back from commercial, Pierre reports from between the benches about the relative invisibility of Petr Sykora in this series. Sykkie is sitting right next to him and watches dumbly as Pierre gesticulates emphatically while reporting that no one’s talking about it, but Sykkie is clearly very injured. He concludes that Sykkie’s a hero, because he’s not complaining about his “upper body” injury. Schnookie: “Yeah, because he’s got you complaining for him.”

– Hossa’s really making himself cheaper by the minute, isn’t he?

– Boomer has had it with the Playoffs and is ready to move on. At the top of the game she vowed this will be the last game she watches this season. As Kronwall shoots the puck perfectly over his own goalie’s shoulder (the goal is credited to Adam Hall), Boomer mutters, “This was not what I was hoping for tonight.”

– Even when not paying attention, Schnookie never gives up the role of angry hockey fan. While doing some research on Lansing, MI for IPB Irregular Myra, she reads off a history of the town from Wikipedia: “Lansing was founded in 1835 when several settlers came from AND SOMEONE NEEDS TO SHOOT THE PUCK, RED WINGS!!! Where was I? Oh yes, settlers from New York State…”

– Pierre interviews Sid Crosby and asks him if he’d like to play more minutes. Sid narrows his eyes and says “Whatever we need to win.” Take that, Pierre! That Sid, what a pro!

– In the pregame banter, Edzo mentions he spoke to MAF that morning who asserted that he would have to be “perfect” this evening. That puck slowly trickling through his five hole was… not perfect. Heh.

– Fleury must read IPB (uh, during games — he’s a good multi-tasker, ok?) because he just shouted “perfect this” on a spectacular save.

– Malone takes a slapper directly to the face in front of the net. Pierre shouts, “He had no option but to take that in the nose.” Except, you know, wearing a fucking visor.

– The Wings tie it up with 13 minutes to work with. The play is a gorgeous tip in front, and surely that will destroy the Penguins’ remaining hopes and dreams. Hey! Just as we type that, NBC gives us a long, slow-motion shot of the Pens bench reacting. Just like with Ralphie Wiggum and the valentine, we’re fairly sure you can see the exact moments when their hearts break.

– After Rafalski puts the Wings up 3-2 midway through the third, is it time to start unpacking the Cup?

– We finally get the money shot of the Cup being taken out of its box. PandoNation feels compelled to point out that the name Jay Pandolfo appears on that beauty twice! EEE!!!

– Well, that was unexpected! With less than a minute left Talbot ties it up sending us to overtime. The Hockey Gods just want Boomer to see as much hockey as she can in her final game of the season. The Joe Louis Arena, for a handful of seconds after the final buzzer, was the quietest place on the planet just then. We predict a quick, painless, no-nonsense OT from Detroit.

– Pierre runs up the stairs to get to the studio set a few minutes after they go to air. Milbury gives him “gentle ribbing” about Pierre’s flushed faced and heavy breathing. Pierre sniffs, “I ran up the stairs and I made it!” Wow, Pierre’s delusional about everything, including the most insignificant of his own accomplishments or lack thereof. This explains a lot.

– It merits mention every time we see a playoff OT, because we worry the NHL isn’t always paying attention — there is nothing in all of sports that’s better than NHL playoff OT. NOTHING. And that first OT? Was a prime example of it.

– Being Devils fans we can’t help but snicker at Pierre’s report that Petr Sykora tapped the glass and told him “I’m going to score”. Pierre, we’re pretty sure he said, “I”m really sore” as a prelude to taking himself out of the big game when the going gets tough.

– Ah, another OT intermission, also known as “nap time”. Wake us up when the hockey starts again, okay?

– Pookie declared during that intermission that she’s got at least two more periods of hockey left in her. Then, when we returned to see the teams on the benches, a lingering shot of Dallas Drake on the Detroit bench makes her say, “Oh no. I just thought that was Dave Andreychuk. I think that’s a sign that I don’t have two more OTs in me.”

UPDATE:

– Oh for FUCK’S SAKE. Petr Sykora? The Red Wings owe us HUGELY for having sat through this crap. Seriously, Petr Sykora. That’s just shameful.

Read Full Post »

Stanely Cup Final, Game 4

Is it Game 4 already? Guess so! We’ll be here, Gentle Reader, not with a full diary but just a smattering of our thoughts as the game goes along. If we believed in signs, we’d be a little confused today. All day long a day-or-two-old baby deer has been camped out next to our garage, all spindly legs and fluffy white spots. That suggests the helpless, hapless Pens of Games 1 and 2 might have something in store. Of course, the fact that when we turned on the TV for tonight’s hockey, the channel was set on NHL Network, which was showing highlight clips of Scott Stevens leveling Kozlov, Lindros, and Francis, suggests the juggernaut Wings might return to form. We’ll just have to tune in to see which portent wins out — cute baby deer, or Scotty Stevens’s elbow.

– Hossa gets the Pens on the board and our feed quickly flips over to the not-so-subliminal messages suggesting we buy Flyers season tickets. We see visions of what the Flyers would do if they were facing down a baby deer and decide we’ll skip those season tickets, thanks.

– We become deeply engrossed in Baby Deer Watch ’08, and spend several long moments watching breathlessly as the baby deer makes its adorable, wobbly way across our backyard through the gloaming, disappearing silently into the woods where its mother is waiting. When we come back, the score is 1-1. We have no regrets; the baby deer is a million times cuter than this hockey game, no matter how good the game is.

– As the period winds down, still 1-1 and with the teams trading chances off some turnover-filled, end-to-end wheeling, Pookie waxes nostalgic: “I’m just thinking back to the Devils’ Sykora trade, and all it gave us… A Stanley Cup with Jeff Friesen, and then the joy of not having Friesen or Tverdovsky on our team anymore, while still not having Sykora! It’s the trade that keeps on giving!”

– It would behoove NBC to tell Pierre to stop thinking “X got into Y’s kitchen” is a cool thing to say.

– We also wouldn’t mind if the MSM would quit thinking that we care about a player’s nationality. We don’t care any more about Lidstrom being the first European captain to win the Stanley Cup than we do about Modano being the highest scoring American. They’re all just hockey players. We’ve past the point where anyone is going to like or dislike Lidstrom more or less because he’s a “furriner”.

– We don’t watch much of the Red Wings, so we were very excited to get to see these Datsyuk and Zetterberg fellows we’d heard so much about. But you know what? They kind of seem like piles of puke. Madden totally should win the Selke over those two guys.

– Boomer spent the first intermission complaining that she’s ready for hockey to be over, that the playoffs have gone on too long.

Boomer: You know what I’m tired of? Pierre McGuire!

Schnookie: But we didn’t even seen him in the second and third rounds.

Boomer: So? I’m tired of him!

That, NBC, is the power of Pierre McGuire. Please, use that power sparingly.

– The second intermission studio segment, with its “banter” and “analysis”, leaves us in a state of stunned silence. It’s finally broken by Schnookie asking, “Was that just a new nadir for intermission shows?” Boomer: “I hope so. Because if it can get lower than that…” She trails off ominously.

– Hudler scores to put Detroit ahead. We didn’t get a great look at the play thanks to the difficult-to-decipher weather warning map our local NBC feed put up. We think they’re might be a severe thunderstorm warning for our county, or it might be in Maryland. Damn our US educations, not teaching us geography better! (Marc-Andre Fleury, however, has no such excuse for not getting a good look at the scoring play. What the hell?)

UPDATE:

– The Wings ended the game with some prevent defense, but proving hockey pundits everywhere wrong, it did not prevent them from winning. The final thirty seconds looked like we might be in for some OT, but mercifully the Pens couldn’t quite put the puck in the net. Monday night the Cup will be in the building. Given how much better the Wings have looked than the Penguins, we’ll almost forgive the fans if they start chanting “We want the Cup” before the 3rd period.

– So, in the end, it seems Scotty Stevens’s elbow won out over the baby deer. Better luck next time, Bambi.

Read Full Post »

Stanley Cup Final, Game 3

So we’ve decided to show up to diarize tonight – does that mean the Pens will show up, too? Whatever happens, we can be pretty much guaranteed the presentation of it will suck, because it’s on NBC. We’d say something like, “Buckle your seatbelt, Gentle Reader,” but with the way NBC presents hockey, we’re afraid we’ll all be dozing by 9:00.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! After Doc’s intro seems to imply that Sid invented the white-out, we then cut to an “outside the dressing room” interview with Marion Hossa (who we suspect didn’t bother going to Detroit for the first two games), and it’s Pierre McGuire doing the interviewing! Oh Pierre, how we’ve missed you! Of course, we take all our jubilation back if it turns out that Mike Milbury’s reign of terror reporting from between the benches hasn’t ended.

We ignore most of the rest of the pregame stuff as we try to figure out whether the HD picture is better on the cable or satellite. We decide we like the cable picture better, in case you’re wondering.

Comparing NBC to Versus, it’s actually hard to say which commercials for the network’s other programming are worse, Extreme Fighting and/or rodeo, or “Celebrity Circus”.

Read Full Post »