| I missed most of the early action on Saturday night, I was at Gutterson watching UVM dismantle the US National U-18 team, 7-1. Frankly, I thought it would be a lot closer, the U-18s have a really good team this year. They've been cleaning up against the other junior teams they've played, as well as the NCAA-D3 teams they've played, and of their D1 games they'd beaten UAF, Michigan State, and Clarkson, and lost in overtime to Michigan, BC, and North Dakota. The only other blow out losses were a 7-1 pantsing by UNH back in October and a 9-2 loss to UAA in September. So I was surprised by how things went, it wasn't even as close as 7-1, there were three solid pings on crossbars thrown in as well.
Got home in time to catch the end of the Hawks-Wild game, Chicago made an awesome comeback late in the third but then ended up losing in OT on crap-angle goal that shouldn't have been able to sneak in between the leg and post. Oh well. Heard on XM Home Ice tonight that your old pal Bondra has come out of retirement to join the Blackhawks. That whole franchise is such a trainwreck (bad owner, bad GM, fans that long ago bailed, etc.), I mean really, what kind of owner in this day and age still won't let home games be broadcast in the home area because they still cling to the badly outdated notion that televised games would hurt attendance? So the only way people should be able to see a home game is by paying $50 a pop to go see them in person? Yeah, that's gonna encourage people to get interested in the team, that'll help get the kids on the bandwagon, that'll help grow new fans. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. Sheesh. Chicago is currently claiming an average home attendance of 12740, and by most accounts at least a third of those people on any given night must be invisible or perhaps wearing a cloaking device of some sort (what is perhaps more appalling is that they are ahead of the Devils in average attendance by 55 per game, despite the Devils leading their division. The Devils never ever ever sell-out until the final round of the playoffs, those fans really don't deserve a team. But I digress).Chicago needs to just go away completely for a year and come back as an expansion team. Start fresh, new administration, new scouts, new coaches, some high draft picks, the whole deal. Picking up a vet like Bondra at this point in the season, I'm not sure I even get it. Who knows. They beat Edmonton tonight, but they could just as easily turn around and lose to the JV team from the Little Sisters of Mercy Home for Wayward Girls tomorrow night.
From what I saw on "Bruins in Two" at midnight, Boston took most of the first period off, Timmy kinda got hung out. Coach didn't fault him for either, said it was a "we need to fire up the skaters" pull, not a "bad goalie" pull. Hannu played well in the second, but then he let in a super-softy in the third to make it 3-1 and the team just collapsed after that. Yuck. I'll be interested to see who they start in Montreal on Tuesday. At least we know we can always beat Toronto...
-Ricardo
"2 minutes by yourself and...you feel shame, you know...and then you get free" | 
