A Saturday In The Life

So we’re sitting here on a rainy, dreary February afternoon, with a day of hockey stretched out before us, and suddenly Pookie says, “Let’s do an all-day Woolgathering!” It’s been a while, Gentle Reader, and we’re sure that there’s nothing anyone wants more than to spend an exciting day with us.

1:22 pm Our chicken taco lunch has been cleaned up, our stitching is all in hand, and Jack Edwards is trying and failing to sound chipper about the Bruins after they’ve given up a power-play goal to the Sharks. It’s a good day to be alive.

Pookie’s pile of things to work on today. Admit it — you’re jealous of the wild lives we lead.

1:38 pm Looch has rather dramatically missed a great chance to tie the game at 1 late in the first period, and we decide it’s as good a time as any to add the picture we got earlier today of what is obviously Looch’s midgame snack. He pops these things like M&Ms on the bench during play:

1:56 pm NESN has just had a feature during the intermission that they said was in honor of funny Superbowl commercials. They were looking back at funny old hockey commercials, and they came up with this:

Dude, we remember that commercial. Well. Ha ha. It’s funny because it’s old. Sigh. (Oh, and spoiler! Two such different players didn’t play well together. Heh heh heh.)

2:36 pm The Sharks are still up 1-0 after two periods; this game is a real barnburner. In more pressing news, why don’t we have any cheetos in the house?

2:48 pm Coming back from the second intermission, NESN’s sideline reporter gives us an update from her conversation with Doug Houda during the break. Wait, Doug Houda? How did we not know he was involved in this match? Every mention of Doug Houda needs to be followed with an enthusiastic repeating of that random dude Pookie knew at NYU’s immortal remark from back when Houda was an Islander: “Houda fans? We da fans!” Har har!

3:07 pm We might not have cheetos, but we do have dark & stormy lollipops.

3:30 pm The Sharks/Bruins game ended up being a real snoozer. When it mercifully comes to an end, we change channels to the Ducks feed of the Anaheim/Colorado game. As soon as the Ducks announcers start speaking our collective IQ plummets. They’re just that stupid.

3:36 pm Just as we’re remarking on the stupid-inducing powers of the Ducks announcers, they promise us a visit with Getzi and his dad during intermission, so we can get the “Getzlaf perspective” on things. We can’t wait!

4:10 pm We’re not sure where we get off thinking the Getzlafs are going to be stupid, since we just spent about five minutes cracking ourselves up by talking with our lollipops in our mouths. It’s nothing but highbrow humor around here. (And for the record, the Getzis comported themselves surprisingly well, if a bit stiffly. Neither one of those men is a natural in front of the camera. But no shirts fell off, so kudos to them.) (In other news, while we were cracking ourselves up with how funny we could talk, the beans we were cooking were busy boiling over in the kitchen. We are very smart.)

4:42 pm At the opening of the third period of Ducks/Avs, we’re proud to say we’ve watched five periods of hockey today and have seen only two goals. It’s been a thrill a minute.

5:15 pm Don’t worry for our boredom — CoreyPerry CoreyPerry scored another goal to make this game into a 2-0 end-to-end thrill-a-thon. Meanwhile, Schnookie is working on making a felt-and-sequin golden clockwork owl to be a bosom companion to Hooters H. Puffinstuff.

5:20 pm CoreyPerry CoreyPerry gets a hat trick with an empty-net goal. Yay! It turns out there was actually a second goal in the Sharks/Bruins game, also an empty netter. So we are COMPLETE LIARS about how little offense we’ve seen today. It just feels like we haven’t seen any goals.

5:23 pm There’s no more hockey until 7, but you better believe we’re not getting up off the couch. Now it’s time for some Mary Tyler Moore show on DVD. It’ll be a seamless transition from the Ducks announcers to Ted Baxter.

5:47 pm Boomer’s been holding out on us — there are cheetos in the house! They only expired in August, so they’re still delicious.

7:02 pm Whoops! The Trannies/Stars game is on! We almost forgot!

7:53 pm It is a tremendous challenge to take Bobby Clarke’s in-studio analysis seriously. As difficult as it is to believe, Comcast has managed to find someone who commands even less respect than Mike Milbury.

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Devils @ Sabres, 10/13/10 — Woolgathering And Open Thread

Whew! We just got home in time to plop some cheese and bread onto our plates and settle down in front of the TV for the game! It’s hard to believe it’s that time of year already, where friend hates friend and the Devils play the Sabres. Join us for some woolgathering and open threading, will you?

FIRST PERIOD

– At the outset of the game, we get the screen graphic showing us the Devils’ paltry lineup. It is hilariously three full lines, and then centered in the middle of the screen, surrounded by a sea of empty redness, is just “Mair”. Good luck and godspeed, Mairsy.

– Oh, and ew, Gel-O. Sigh. Like Devils/Sabres isn’t bad enough on its own.

– Two power plays in, we’re comfortable saying all the Devils (yes, all six of them) are fired.

– Late in the first period, Travis gets a penalty for taking Kaleta down in front of the benches, and the replay leaves us incensed. We have been hockey fans long enough to stop hoping that diving divers will eventually get theirs (they never do), but we can still hope that diving diver head-butters will.

SECOND PERIOD

– It seems, in the early going, that neither team is looking particularly hungry coming out of the intermission. Meanwhile, Chico is starting to expound on the Pominville/Hjarmawhateversson hit, and we know better not to listen to whatever it is he’s going to say. We focus doggedly on our cheese, and when we tune back into the game, Gel-O is talking about the play. Whew. Dodged a bullet.

– The Sabres get their first sustained pressure about five minutes into the period, and for a moment it looks like Taormina is trying to deflect a Buffalo shot into his own net. However, the puck stays out, thereby proving that Taormina is not a real Devil yet. Real Devils score there.

– Midway through the period we get a little video snippet of Zach’s batting practice with the Twins this past summer. He is in full sparkling-smile “DING!” mode in the video. Chico tells us, as we watch Zach beaming and laughing and being his most effortlessly The Cute One, that when asked about his experiences as a ballplayer in his youth, Zach chortled that he was “more of a contact hitter” than a slugger. Ohoho! He’s so dreamy.

– Pookie makes this amazing realization shortly after the Zach video: when you space out a bit when he’s prattling over the play about all the simple things the Devils need to do in order to become winners, Chico sounds an awful lot like Phyllis on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

– In the first period the Devils seemed inclined to shoot the puck whenever they were in the offensive zone. In this period, on the rare occasions when they’ve had the puck, the Devils have opted to pass. And all of those passes have been broken up. Is this the Adam Oates Effect? Should the Devils not have one of the all-time great passers encouraging their offensive development? Is it just giving them all bad ideas?

– On the last shift of the period the ZZ Chuckles line gets some pressure in the Buffalo zone, but it peters out when Travis turns the puck over on a backhand pass off the boards directly to a waiting Sabre. We have this exchange about the play:
Schnookie: “That’s the second time he’s done that today.”
Pookie: “He’s all thrown off because he got head-butted.”
Schnookie: “Yeah, he probably has an inner ear problem.”
Pookie: “It’s his old war wound. It acts up around fucking pussy divers.”

– We get an interview at the end of the period with Taormina. It prompts this exchange:
Pookie, who keeps exclaiming that everyone involved in this game looks like Karel Rachunek: “He doesn’t look like Rachunek.”
Schnookie: “He looks like Tim!”
Pookie: “Well, I’ve never seen Tim and Taormina in the same place.”

THIRD PERIOD

– Things are continuing at their torrid pace when, after a whistle, Tallinder trips over his own feet and falls over. The crowd gives him a good-natured jeer, and from our vantage point, it looks like he gets up laughing. Heather will be pleased to know that he’s growing on us, despite his history of — ahem — having inappropriate chemistry.

– Creeping up on the midway point of the third, we go to commercial break. Pookie takes this opportunity to pull her hair back into a ponytail, and when she’s done she notices a hair has fallen out in her hand. “Oh no,” she laments, “One of my gray hairs.” Pause. “This game is so boring that…”

– Some zero-zero ties are the kind that Doc and Chico talk about at every single opportunity for the end of time, the kind that result in legendary halved and autographed game pucks, the kind that make you argue that goals aren’t the only exciting thing in hockey. And others are like this one.

OVERTIME

– WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! And some zero-zero ties end in 1-0 OT wins thanks to sassy Taormina’s work on the puck, then Chuckles finally kicking off the Chuckles Era with a little “fuck this shit” goal-scoring.

– This win came as such a surprise to us that it took us a good 10 minutes to remember that Chuckles didn’t just score a goal there…

…he scored for a case of Chuckles.

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Devils vs. Bruins, 3/30/2010: Woolgathering

Here’s what we all need to do after that suckfest in Philly — we need to just get back up on the horse and watch the Devils try to beat another lower-echelon Eastern Conference playoff-ish team. We can use tonight’s game to gauge how well we think they’ll fare against the actual lower-echelon Eastern Conference playoff team they’re going to face in the actual playoffs. It’ll be fun!

AFTER THE GAME, THE WOOL WE GATHERED:

We are fairly confident the playoffs, from a Devils perspective, are going to be nasty, brutish and short.

(Oh, and even though the game-losing goal was all Kovalchuk’s fault, in most egregious fashion, we still love him and hope he re-signs with the Devils and never changes his ways.)

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Devils vs. Maple Leafs Woolgathering At High Speeds

Good evening, Gentle Reader! It was a traumatic afternoon here at stately IPB Manor as Pookie picked up her first speeding ticket. Mazel tov, Pookie! Nothing like going 15 mph over the speed limit when the cops are trying to fill their monthly quotas. Let’s hope the Devils are a bit more conscientious tonight as they take on the Maple Leafs. (Let’s also hope that if their play is the equivalent of zipping past a speedtrap at high speeds, that they at least realize the window lock is on when they go to greet the nice state trooper outside the passenger side window. Otherwise they’ll be mighty embarrassed when they keep hitting the “down window” button and nothing happens. At least, we think that would be embarrassing. Not that we’d know anything about it.)

PREGAME

Our assigned color for this week in sixty-four colors is sepia, which is a lot darker brown than you’d think. Doc and Chico seem to be on board with this project:

Also, EggNation is celebrating BoogerforsNation’s loss today. As are we. Stupid Boogerfors, with his statistics falling off a cliff. Hmph.

FIRST PERIOD

–About five minutes in, MSG+ gives us replay of Gustavsson making a post-to-post pad save. Chico says, “His legs are his strength,” to which Pookie responds in stride, “His legs are his strength and his voice is his passport. He’s a monster.”

– About six minutes in, we feel like we’ve hard this song before. 1-0 Leafs.

– About seven minutes in, who is this team and what did they do with the Devils??? 1-1 game.

– Of all the long-term Devils injuries this season, Zubrus’s was the one we were least concerned about, because of all the guys who could return to the lineup after a long absence, he was the one we figured had the least to offer. Well, we were wrong. Lemaire has created a ZZ Z line tonight (or perhaps ZZ Zops?), and it’s looking awesome. They connected on an edge-of-your-seat passing sequence for the Devils first goal, and do it again about ten minutes later. Both goals by Zach, both primary assists by Zubrus. 2-1 Devils, and Pookie’s suggesting maybe calling this line “Showdown at the Triple-Z Ranch”. If “ZZ Pops” could catch on, surely this could too.

SECOND PERIOD

– The age-old question of whether Colin White could beat Colton Orr in a rink-length footrace is answered here tonight. Decisively in Whitey’s favor, thank goodness.

– We love the Showdown at the Triple-Z Ranch line! They’re awesome! Zach’s putting on a hustle clinic tonight, and for some crazy reason, Zubrus can totally keep up with him. Who knew Zubrus had it in him? When Travis feeds Zubrus on a pretty passing sequence to make it 3-1 Devils, we’re almost wondering if this is some elaborate prank, like the one the Comcast people pulled on Steve Coates last night. It should be noted, though, that the one drawback of the Showdown at the Triple-Z Ranch line is that when they have goal celebrations with Whitey on the ice, Zach looks miniature.

– The age-old question of whether Mark Fraser could beat Colton Orr in a breakaway footrace is answered here tonight. Decisively in Orr’s favor. 3-2 Devils, and Pookie sighs, “The Devils might as well have had their window lock on.”

– This game is crazy! We’ve got an effective Dainius Zubrus, a breakaway-threat Colton Orr, and now wee bairn Patrick Davis getting his first NHL goal. 4-2 Devils, and we’d love for this game to go on all season. (Of course, as soon as we type that, Langer takes a stupid penalty behind the play in the neutral zone. Never mind. We’d like this game to end right now.)

THIRD PERIOD

– Midway through the period, Doc informs us that there will be a special on-the-road version of Chico Eats! next week in Toronto. Chico promises that they will be introducing a “new food” during that episode. We can only assume that Chico is going to be inventing an entirely new food element, previously unheard-of in human experience. Pookie: “It’s going to be ‘U-chic-mi’. Like umami, but Chico.”

– IronBoarsylvania will never forgive its emperor-god for the way he passes the puck late in this period to Ponikarovsky right in front of the Devils net to make this game 4-3 Devils. Ew. And BOOOO!

– During intermission, Gel-O cracked that the Devils had to win this game, because to lose to a lowly opponent like the Leafs, at home, with a two-goal lead going into the third, would be devastating. To which Schnookie wondered aloud whether it would be as devastating as, say, losing a playoff game 7 at home in regulation after holding a one-goal lead with 80 seconds left in the third period. Ah, how well we know our team. With 91 seconds left, they collapse in their own zone and give up the tying goal. 4-4 game.

OVERTIME

– We’d cheer for that OT acorn, but honestly. Devils? You guys are a sad, sad sight. 5-4 Devils.

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Devils @ Penguins, 12/21/09 — Woolgathering

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Devils vs. Islanders, 11/06/09

It’s paint cans playing chess time, as the Devils and Islanders face off! Join us as we woolgather the game away.

– Early in the first, Clarkson and some Islander get into a fight well behind the play. And when the penalties are announced, it turns out that Clarkson was guilty of the infraction that started it all, in this case, holding. Wait a sec — since when would anyone beat Clarkson up for holding them? That Islander was so lucky!

– Before Clarkson’s penalty is over, Whitey gets called for interference on what Chico calls “a crushing hit” on an Islander well after the Islander had let go of the puck at the blue line. Replay clearly shows that more than three seconds had passed after the puck left the scene before Whitey made contact, but Pookie thinks that’s hardly an excuse: “Whitey can’t count to three! He shouldn’t be penalized for that!”

– Nielsson scores for the Islanders and we have to admit that any love-affair we might have had with Yann Danis is effectively nipped in the bud as he loses his chance to get Marty’s record-setting shutout.

– Being Friday night and being that no one wants to cook dinner on a Friday night, we opt for frozen pizza. The oven was turned on to pre-heat at the start of the period. At 7:40 Schnookie got up to check the progress of our gourmet meal only to discover the oven has only gotten up to 230 degrees. That’s right — Devils-Islanders match-ups are so boring, even household appliances are made sluggish in the face of paint cans playing chess.

– Exhibit A in Brian Rolston’s case that he is not the worst hockey player on earth is Marty Biron giving up a goal on a long, unfluttering, unscreened, untipped point shot from Cory Murphy. Cory. Murphy. That’s just shameful. But WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

– Exhibit B in Brian Rolston’s case that he is not the worst hockey player on earth is him scoring on the power play late in the second period. We might concede that for at least tonight, Marty Biron is definitely worse than Rolston. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (As we are writing this bit of gathered wool, Pookie remarks, “I hope we get up to Exhibit Z tonight.”)

– Rolston’s spirits must be flagging — when he’s interviewed at the end of the second by Stan, he doesn’t wink at the camera. We know, we know, it’s probably just because he’s now stuck slaving away in the Lemaire-run salt mines, but still! He was the guy who wanted Lemaire here in the first place! So what’s his excuse?

– Just as we are about to remark that Devils/Islanders games on Friday nights don’t really inspire us to much commentary (and that’s more our fault than the Devils or Islanders, to be fair), Martinek has to leave the ice after suffering a leg injury on a hit by Zach. Suddenly the living room at stately IPB Manor is filled with a chorus of “I say, man! I killed a man in the ring tonight.”

– You know what? The Devils just seem zestier with Patty back in the lineup. Just imagine how zesty they’ll be when Patty and Paulie and Pando are all playing!

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Devils vs. Sabres, 10/28/09 — Woolgathering

Please join us tonight as we enjoy an open thread and some woolgathering for the much-anticipated debut of IronBoarsylvania.

– Before this game starts, we have to ask — what is it with the Sabres always being the team the Devils play right after they lose a crucial player to an injury? Last year the Sabres were our first post-Marty opponent, and the Devils gave up 20 shots in the first period. We can only assume the Devils are giving up 40 shots in the first now that they’re reeling from losing Paulie. Because Paulie is twice as important to them as Marty, right? Right?

– The potential for Johnny Oduya to take over as the temporary emperor-god in place of Paulie suffers a serious blow when he stands around watching while some stupid Sabre scores a stupid goal to make it 1-0 Sabres. Sure, other Devils might also have been at fault, but we both had crappy days at work and are drinking wine with dinner. We’re blaming that on Oduya and moving on.

– Schnookie is extremely cranky tonight, and has also guzzled the aforementioned wine. In response to watching Boogerfors and Clarkson wheel around the Sabres zone with no purpose shortly after the early goal, she snaps, “Gah! I hate the Devils! Let’s watch the Blue Jackets instead. At least they’re in HD.”

– This game just keeps getting stupider. We have no idea how it happened, but suddenly it’s 2-0 Sabres. We were busy showing Boomer how to download a Battery Bar for her laptop, and missed the goal. From what we could glean from the surprisingly unillustrative replays, it was stupid. How long before Paulie comes back?

– Okay, so after the game got pretty far out of reach there in the first period (honestly, do the Devils look like they can overcome a two-goal deficit tonight?), we spent until intermission focusing our attentions on ordering an extremely exciting Devils-related holiday present for Boomer. Don’t tell her, though — it’s a surprise! Anyway, when we look up, Patty Elias is on our TV screen. Pookie squeals happily, “Patty! He is alive!”

– How far has Andy Greene come since losing Sutter as his coach? So far that when he scores on the PP to make the game 2-1 Sabres, Doc calls him Parise in his play-by-play. Then, when he realizes it wasn’t Parise, announces with complete disbelief that it was Greener of all people. Greene! Scoring on the power play! Who ever would have thunk it (other than us way back when Rafalski signed with the Wings, and we were all, “Pfft. Andy Greene is the younger, cheaper, BETTER Rafalski!”)?

– Late in the second period, Langer leads the Devils on a possible shorthanded odd-man chance, on which he is being defended by a guy with no stick. And when he goes to dish his telegraphed pass, he very carefully makes sure that it’s placed so that the defender can easily block it with his feet. Pookie wonders aloud, “Has Langer made a single good play yet this season?”

– Tonight’s “Chico Eats!” features Chico trying to defraud a local coffee establishment by using his comp tickets to get their Devils fan discount. Chico is such a rapscallion!

– SHOUT OUT! SHOUT OUT! Chico leads us in after a commercial in the third period with a little featurette about Crunchy’s mask. (Like we’ve never seen that before, just by the way. Find some new material, MSG+ 2.) And first he walks us through the “exploded Buffalo” on the front, then, when he gets to the back, he says, “‘Miller Time’. It’s a play on words.” (Okay, it probably doesn’t count as shout out when we’ve just been making fun of Crunchy all this time. Maybe it’s just hilarious that Crunchy is still, four years later, claiming that “Miller Time” is a “play on words”.) For the record, after the mask feature, Chico finds himself completely stymied trying to describe the hat Crunchy was wearing while showing off his mask. It wasn’t a fedora, but apparently had a “beak”. Chico, you can just leave it at “Crunchy was wearing a toolish/dumb hat”. We know what you mean.

– Also dumb? This game. Midway through the third, it’s 3-1 Sabres.

– When Goose tries to take Zach’s face off with his stick, Pookie realizes something we all should have known ages ago: Paul Gaustad can’t handle the Devils who are prettier than he is. That’s why he’s targeted Paulie and Zach. (That’s her theory and she’s sticking to it.)

– How many too many men penalties can one team take before someone on the coaching staff gets fired? (Pookie, ever single-minded, says when the Devils get called on the too many men during their power play, “When Lemaire was complaining about the too many men calls last time, I thought he was singling out Paulie for not paying attention. So at least this time I’m like, ‘It’s not Paulie’s fault!’”)

– The Devils take another penalty mere moments after killing the too many men one, and we finally decide life is too short to be watching bad hockey in standard def. We move on to find a different game in HD, ostensibly just during the commercial break. Not to watch for good, mind you. Just a nibble.

– We come back after the “commercial break”. It’s now 4-1 Sabres. Pookie, who mans the zapper at stately IPB Manor, says, “Whoops. Sorry we missed the goal. I’m going to assume it was Oduya’s fault.”

– Welp, that game was poopy. Thank heavens we’ve got Yodels and ANTM to fall back on.

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