New England Hockey Talk

[MGB Boy]

Save percentage is the key with goalies. GAA is a better measure of TEAM defense than of goaltending skill, but GAA is the closest approximation in hockey to a baseball pitcher's ERA, so the media love it. Goalies know better, though. Hasek has the best GAA in the league by a wide margin, but that's thanks to the Red Wings' D giving up only about 21 shots per game. His save percentage is less impressive. If you've got a save percentage over .900, you're a decent goalie, I don't care what the GAA is. Lightning goalie Marc Denis has the second worst save percentage in the league, above only Dan Cloutier (who is having an absolutely ass-clown-bad season). Hence the Lightning struggle, despite the huge numbers St Louis and Lecavalier are putting up. Can't have your starter rolling an .875 and expect to win a lot of games.

Supposedly, Sundin was taken down from behind on a clean breakaway, hence the penalty shot. Didn't see it myself, can't say if it was legit or some of the usual Toronto home-cooking. Wouldn't shock me if it was the latter.

Some folks out there, like ESPN hockey columnist/sportscenter anchor John Buccigross, have become convinced that the answer to anything which may ail the NHL is "more goals, more goals, more goals". Goals are all people want to see, goals put butts in the stands, goals get better TV audiences. Guys like Buccigross are the ones pushing for the NHL to move to larger nets so there will be more scoring. Because high scoring has really helped the NBA draw in fans. Right. Drives me nuts, because it's just so damn wrong. Sadly, I fear that there are many in the NHL head office who listen to the idiots like Buccigross. They think if they raise the number of goals per game by a couple, suddenly America will fall in love with hockey, ratings will soar, and the rinks will be packed from Phoenix to Florida. It's a pipe dream. It's just not going to happen. Hockey is continuing to grow in America, little by little. And little by little is all it's going to be. 1980 Lake Placid didn't put it over the top in America. Putting teams all across the south and west coast didn't put it over the top in America. Having an idiotic glowing puck on Fox didn't put it over the top in America. Hockey just isn't going to explode and suddenly compete with baseball or football, they need to let go of that mindset and recognize that slow, incremental growth is all they can hope for. For 100 years now, hockey has been a niche sport in America, loved passionately in some areas and ignored in others. What makes them think a couple more goals a game will suddenly change that? What makes them think that bored and boring hockey, listlessly played but with an artificially inflated score, will draw folks in like flies? Why do people care more about college basketball than NBA basketball, despite scores that are routinely half that of NBA scores? Why do "march madness" ratings blow away NBA finals ratings? Because of passion. College basketball is played with passion, energy, and effort. Good hockey is no different. I like to see good, well played hockey. Strong skating, strong shooting, strong goalkeeping, big offensive plays, big defensively plays, big checks. Passionate hockey. Don't care what the score is. I've seen amazingly lame 5-4 games and "edge of your seat" exciting 2-1 games. "Quality, not quantity" seems to be lost on many these days.

I've never seen a sport that takes it's core fanbase for granted more than hockey. The NHL seems to think that it can screw with the game, the uniforms, and the rules as much as they want and the core fanbase will always be there. They think they can do whatever they want to draw in new fans and the ones they already have will go along with it, it never occurs to them that things they do to draw in new fans might actually lose them the uber-dedicated ones they have now. Let's face it, the NHL gets way less attention and coverage in the U.S. than MLB, NFL, NBA, Nascar, NCAA basketball, NCAA football, and golf. If you want to be a hardcore hockey fan in the U.S., you have to work at it, you have to be willing to pay for it. It seems insulting to me that the NHL is willing to say to me "okay, that's nice, thanks, we're going to assume you're along for the ride no matter what, so now we're going to ignore what you like and bas-tardize the game to try to lure in a few new fans who can't be bothered to like what we're serving up right now." It's insulting.

As far as I'm concerned, there's only one thing wrong with hockey right now, and it's that there are more teams than there should be, the talent is spread a bit too thin. If they contracted maybe four teams out of existence, chopped 80 players and 8 goalies of dead-weight out of the league, I think the game would be absolutely perfect. No doubt. It will never happen, of course, for money reasons, but really that's the only thing I'd change at this point. That and make sure the refs don't backslide on the enhanced enforcement of existing rules. I'd institute an electro-shock system, with wires in the refs uniforms remotely controlled from the league offices. That way they could zap a ref right away, in real-time, whenever they miss an obvious hook, hold, or interference. Give a few thousand volts to twig 'n' berries while they're skating down the ice instead of blowing the whistle like they should be. That would keep the standard up (no pun intended).

Saw the Rangers/Caps fracas and the resulting suspensions. Seemed about right to me. Colton Orr was a meathead when he was with Boston, not surprised by him.

Minnesota Wild announcers just had another massive "homer moment". I hate when I'm reduced to yelling at my TV because the little talking people who live inside it are such idiots.

-Ricardo

[bethandlouis]

I totally understand and fully agree with you. Louis gets mad when I yell at the T.V., probably more that the 4 letter words fly.

It's a slippery slope moving teams. Look at the Pens, the igloo is old and there is no money to build a new rink. If they don't get the slot machines the best thing to do is move them out. So does this have anything to do with the imppassionate fans? No, it has to do with the new league rules post lockout. The team can't build it because it goes against them. So they need to sell the team to someone that can build their own rink. The blackberry guy pulled out because the league put a bunch of sactions on the sale of the team. "You can't move the team out of the town but a new rink needs to be put up and you can't use team money (mostly because the teams don't have any money)." But if the team doesn't sell then the NHL is going to move them. I'm not sure the problem that the Minnesota Stars faced but if it's anything like what the Pens fans face I can see why there was so many people mad. Moving the teams to the west and in the south is certainly not the answer. There was an article written about moves that the NHL should make and some that they are rumored to be making. It was written by a Thrashers fan, Scott Burnside, and he was talking about the attendance records of the teams. The reason I knew he was a Thrashers fan was that he was talking about the Devil's arendance being low "By any on-ice measure, the Devils are a model franchise with three Cup wins between 1995 and 2003. Off the ice, they remain a mystery, drawing flies even in the face of perpetual success. Just this week, they drew an announced crowd of less than 11,000 with the high-flying Atlanta Thrashers in town. We know they're scheduled to move into a new building in Newark next fall, but it's Newark. Enough said." Here's the link to the article (even talks about your beloved Whalers) http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/column...ott&id=2704122.

A lot of the problem with attendance is the price of tickets. Some owners have recognised that the high ticket gates are keeping people away so they lowered them. I was shocked at the price of the Bruins tickets I got $70 for balcony mezzanine? That's ridiculous! Those should be $50 tops. That would put the people in the seats. A couple of years ago Leonis lowered ticket prices to get attendance up. When we were going to the games a weekday game was really hard to fill up but the weekend games were usually always fullish (never sold out excpet maybe when Philly was in town and then the would all be Flyers fans). I don't know why team owners think that if they have one good player that the people will come. If your team is crap no one will come. Ovey seems to be trying to get people excited about Hockey in Washington. There's just so much that you can do to draw passion from people that didn't care about the game. When Louis couldn't go to the game I brought friends. They never watched hockey before (and being from the UK and huge football fans) the rules were completey foreign but they enjoyed themselves. Maybe the NHL should do that adopt a newbie and take them to games. I like hockey because of the great skill that the players have. The endurance that it takes to play the game and the average joeness of the players.

We went to a Capitals appearance (it was at a mall in Sterling Virginia). It was Matt Pettinger (when he had long hair) and Stephen Peat. We arrived early and decided to walk around a bit. It had gotten pretty close to the time that they were supposed to show up and there was a line forming. I was standing in the line and looked over the courtyard and there they were walking like 2 guys in a mall. There wasn't a huge mob behind them and if you didn't know that they were hockey players then you would assume it's 2 guys at the mall. It was only a couple of us that spotted them. They signed my jersey and my hat. They were really nice and seemed to enjoy meeting the fans. Football and baseball players can't do that (at least I don't think they can).

I also think that the hockey players give a lot back. The Cam Neely foundation. Olie and Elliots great saves. There are several players that buy a block of season tickets and give them away. Olie works hard to raise money for Cure Autisim Now. It makes them like real people, reachable. I'm not a die-hard any other sport fan so I would be surprised if other sports have people as human as hockey. (I'm sure that they have the charities and what not but they don't seem reachable).

The league needs to keep the fans they have and not toss us to the wayside because we are the ones keeping the league a float. We were here after the lock-out. We're the ones who aren't going to leave. Stop trying to get fairweather fans and pay attention to the people who have been on the wagon the whole time. I started to love the caps when they were awful. I didn't start paying attention when they went to the finals and then say hey, there's a team. I am a reformed Pens fan. I became a die-hard fan when we had good players with great skill (but we lost every game!) That's what makes a hockey fan.

[bethandlouis]

Finally a Ricardo length post. I was feeling like I wasn't contributing enough to the banter. But I think that's a good length.

[MGB Boy]

Well it's about time!

I'm not too interested in moving teams around at this point. Okay, maybe one or two, but that's it. I thought the Jets never should have left Winnipeg, and I thought the Nordiques never should have left Quebec. Of those two, I think Denver did deserve a team, but Phoenix didn't. The North Stars left Minnesota due to years of idiotic ownership that destroyed the relationship between the fans and the team, getting a new team back there was imperative. It is difficult to explain just how hockey-mad a state Minnesota is, they pretty much blow away any other place in America for hockey passion.

So now we have a team in Anaheim, just 28 miles from another team in Los Angeles. I say one team is enough for southern Cali. Yes, there are other areas of the country that have similar or higher team concentration (i.e. NY/NJ/Long Island, Buffalo/Toronto). But Buffalo and Toronto can easily support their teams, so that's fine. Frankly, New Jersey can't, they've had one of the best teams in the league for a decade now, and they still can't get fans to turn out. They are the Atlanta Braves of hockey. I say move 'em or dump 'em. New York can have the Rangers and the Isles, and the few dozen folks in Jersey who care about hockey can decide to be either Flyers fans (like the few Jersey-born hockey fans I know are) or Ranger fans. In the south, we have teams in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and two in Florida. Does Florida need two teams? Really? And I'll be generous, I'll let Georgia, Carolina, and Tennessee have two teams between the three of 'em. They can have a celebrity deathmatch to determine which of the three goes.

So let's add this up. We whack one of the two southern Cali teams, the Devils, the Coyotes, the Panthers, and one of the three GA/NC/TN teams. That's five. I say throw a team up in Seattle or Portland, cover the Pacific Northwest, maybe set up a nice cross-border rivalry with the Vancouver Canucks (the same way Buffalo-Toronto and Buffalo-Ottawa have developed into nice rivalries). Washington state currently supports four Major Junior teams in the WHL, plus a fifth down in Portland, so they can support hockey. The area has a better history of support for a variety of different sports than Phoenix, so I say move the team there. Plus the Seattle Metropolitans were the first American team to win the Stanley Cup, so that's gotta count for something, right? So that way we kill off four teams, move a fifth to an under-served region, and all is well. And no, Hartford, you can't have a team again. Not gonna happen, just forget it.

Oh, and while we're at it, the NHL should try to work the "eminent domain" laws to take the Blackhawks away from Bill Wirtz and the Isles away from Charles Wang and put the teams in the hands of people who aren't idiots. Then we'll enforce a league-wide 20% rollback in ticket prices. Once upon a time, hockey was a people's sport, a working class sport. That was the old stereotype in Boston, corporate types went to Celtics game, and Johnny Lunchpail went to Bruins games. The NHL can fret all it wants about goal production, they can add any amount of idiotic noisy shiny blinky flashy pre-game and intermission and TV time-out stuff they want, but the math is so stupefyingly simple: Attendance is down because ticket prices are obscene. Flat-out obscene. They've priced it from being a "go to every home game" sort of thing to a "go every once in a while as a special treat" sort of thing. It's a joke. $176 will get you a seat on the glass at the Garden, another $6 for a beer, another $4 for a pretzel. Johnny Lunchpail would need a second mortgage to get season tickets. The owners loudly claimed that the salary cap would give them "cost certainty" and allow them to lower prices. They got the salary cap, then "lowered" prices by an underwhelming average of about 2%. Then this season, most of 'em raised prices right back up. According to the demographic stats, the NHL has the most affluent and well-educated fans of any of the "big four" major league sports in America. That's not an indicator that the NHL attracts smart, rich people, it's simply an indicator that rich people are the only ones who can afford the game at this point. It's just sad.

-Ricardo

[bethandlouis]

As previously stated, Louis and I had season tickets for the Caps. I was really surprised at how cheap they were (for season tickets anyway). I had it in my head that they were thousands of dollares (many more than the $2500 a piece that we paid). We didn't have the seats on the glass. We were the mezzanine end balcony 2nd row. Face value for the tickets were $35. These are the same seats that I got for the B's game that we went to. Except that I paid twice that. Full season plan for those seats puts it at $17 a game. Not bad at all I think. I have no idea what the price for season tickets at Boston are but I'm sure that they are not as reasonable as the Caps.

I agree with the cuts that you would make. I know that the Whalers were undersupported in Hartford so a move made sense (also that would make the markets way too close together). It's strange when you talk about teams that are close together and kind of hits a place in my heart. The Baltimore Colts left in the dead of winter. Loaded up everything and moved to Indy. It was heartbreaking for every Baltimore Football fan. We saw teams leave other markets and they would have a new team (either through expansion or through a move) and we would be left. Tagliaboo always said that it was because the Baltimore Market couldn't support a team (because Washington was so close and that it would take away from the Washington fans (The Washington Redskins don't actually play in Washington (haven't in a long time) the play in Maryland in the same area that the Caps/Bullets played before they built the new rink)). Well Baltimore got a team. They seem to be thriving and the Redskins haven't filed for Chapter 11 yet. The one thing that this tangient says is that if the market is a large market and there are people that are passionate about something (Baltimore is a football town (they cant' fill up that baseball stadium to save their life)) they will come. So the Seattle team (even though it's pretty close to Vancouver) makes sense.

Here are a couple more.

1) Move or cut Phoenix. They have the worst attendance in the league despite having one of hockey's greatest at the helm. They have the most PIM in the league too.

2)Move or cut a team out of Florida (and let it be the Panthers). They were dumb enough to trade away Luongo so let them be gone.

3) Get rid of the Thrashers. No more second chances (this rule would not apply to places that actually have ice). Why did the Flames move?

4)Do people actually watch the Blue Jackets or the Blues? Maybe move them their team name is too similar.

5)They shouldn't move a team to a market that has never had a hockey team. Apparently the Stars move to Dallas was something of a phenomonen but that's it.

6) Move the Devils. They are building a new rink in Newark which will create the New York triangle of hockey.

7) Move the teams out of L.A. They lost all their football teams. Besides I still can't take a team seriously born out of a movie that starred Emilo Estevez.

Markets that I think could support a team: put a couple in Canada (the birthplace of hockey). Maybe they can put one in Saskatchewan and call them the Bigfoots. Wisconisn (Milwaukee) didn't they win the NCAA last year?, and Seattle.

I also forgot to say that rigging electrodes to refs sounds like a great idea. There should be a penalty for refs who intefere with the games. There was a game that I was watching where someone on the team had a breakaway (not clean but could have easily beaten the blue liner that was back there) if only the ref didn't hold him and then make him fall. It was crazy. All the refs and linesman should have to sit out for 2 mins then there would be 2 minutes of no holds barred hockey. That would draw the people in.

It's really nice to have someone to talk about this with. Thank you for being my hockey friend. BTW sorry I haven't sent your soap. I will get to the Post Office today and ship it off.

[MGB Boy]

I got soap today! Pucks of soap! Soap and chocolate! And chocolate soap! I'm so confused, I may accidentally bathe with the chocolate and eat the chocolate soap. And now I have a puck of pear berry deodorizing my hockey closet. Woo-hoo! Used some of my xmas money to order up a couple things to put in my hockey closet too, I ordered up an AkBars Kazan (Kazan Snow Leopards) jersey and a Moscow Polar Bears jersey, both in big-ass size 60 to fit over my goalie gear. Should be here sometime in February, they're coming from Russia. Good clean fun. They'll go well with the other jerseys in my regular on-ice rotation (Macon Whoopee, Lada Togliatti, 1972 CCCP/Tretiak, and an old UVM practice jersey). And now I have soap to keep it all smelling pear-y! Thanks, hockey friend!

According to the kids at TD Banknorth Garden, season tickets in Loge are $3066-$3570, and Balcony are $798-$2520 (those $798 one are the crappy back rows in the corners). Row 1 in Loge (the $176 seat) isn't available as a season ticket. Those prices represent a bit of savings over face value, something like $10 off a $70 ticket. Oooh. It's still ridiculously expensive. You don't attract new fans or make casual fans into hardcore fans by making it punitively expensive to actually see the team. Just plain silly.

People used to go to Blues games. They are currently dead last in attendance, as the team has collapsed into irrelevance since the lockout. In the four seasons prior to the lockout, they were consistently in the top five in the league in attendance, averaging 18500 - 19500 a game, at or near capacity. It's amazing how sharply they've dropped off, it's worse than anyone else in the league. Of course in the years leading up to the lockout, they were consistently a top team, posting 100pt seasons and making decent runs in the playoffs (although never quite getting over the top). I'm willing to give the Blues one more chance to turn it around, if they can get the team to stop sucking, then I think they'll get the crowds back. But I'm only giving them four years, that's it. Columbus, on the other hand, I'm not so sure about. Maybe move them up to Minnesota, too. Imagine that, rival teams in Minneapolis and St Paul, wouldn't that be something. Scary part is I bet both teams would sell out all their games.

I do think the Ducks should be punished for their new uniforms. I have no problem with getting rid of the "Mighty", and I have no problem with getting rid of the cartoon duck thing either. But the third jerseys they had in the past few years, the black, purple, and gray one, I kinda liked that. Don't much care for the new black, gold, and orange look. Nope.



According to wikipedia, Saskatchewan sends more players per capita to the NHL than any other province or state. Unfortunately, Saskatoon, the largest city in Saskatchewan, is only the 17th largest city in Canada, with a population not much larger than Manchester NH. The biggest city in western Canada without a hockey team is Winnipeg at about 620K, which makes it larger than Vancouver and almost as large as Edmonton (although that's just a technicality of municipal borders, if you throw in the suburbs, Vancouver is huge). And yet the NHL walked away for the disaster in the desert. Go figure. I still say the NHL is badly under-represented in the Canadian Maritimes, with no team east of Montreal. That leaves Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfie, and PEI without a team to call their own. Put a team in Halifax, that would be fun. Decent size little city, unofficial capital of Atlantic Canada, plus they could have bagpipers at the games. Good fun.

My hockey world has hit the crapper of late. Ugh. Since a nice xmas, my Bruins have apparently completely forgotten how to play hockey. For three straight games now, they just flat-out have not shown up. At all. 10-2 to Toronto, ugh. As the Boston Herald put it, Timmy wasn't spectacular, but he wasn't *that* bad, but the whole team in front of him sucked sucked sucked. They asked Timmy if he thought they bottomed out. He said he hoped so. Meanwhile, they sent Miss Finland (Hannu) down to Providence again to get somemore AHL action. Putting all that behind me, I had high hopes for my Catamounts tonight against UNH. Of course that didn't work out. They absolutely stank out the building. Just awful. From the opening face-off to the final whistle, they were out-worked, out-played, out-everythinged. As Coach Sneddon put it after the game, they were bad from the net out, not a single player had a good game. Starting goalie got pulled midway thru the first, then put back in after the second when the back-up was even worse. It's been several years since I've seen them play this bad. They get to do it all over again Saturday night against UNH, they'd better do a bit better this time. Couldn't do worse. But hey, as tonight's free give-away, I got my 9,000th free UVM t-shirt (always good to wear to the gym) and yellow "rally towel" (which are handy to throw in the hockey bag, I use them to wipe down my blades after games). So it wasn't a total loss. Plus I got to see Ray Bourque again (he comes up from time to time to press the flesh for TD Banknorth). He is surprisingly short when you meet him in person...

-Ricardo

[bethandlouis]

The Catamounts game was on NESN so I got to see the stink first hand. I also got to see Ray Borque. He likes to mention TD Banknorth a lot, they must have him on the payroll . It was difficult to watch that game (not being a fan of either team) I hate to see blow outs. I didn't watch the B's game but at the period breaks in the UVM game they would talk about it. Hopefully it won't get worse with Chara and Patrice out of the mix (Patrice took a bad "fall" that looked like it hurt a lot).

Observations of college hockey:

1) no trapezoids. Now I'm not a huge fan of the whole trapezoid thing but oddly enough I've gotten used to them, visually. It's wierd seeing hockey without them now. (and the area behind the goal nets looks bigger, optical illusion?

2)There was a UNHer that put a big hit on a UVMer and it wasn't being called so like any good teammate someone came over and put him down. There's the whistle. Nice to see that both of them got called for it. (i.e. the UNHer got a minor for roughing although I think the UVMer got a double minor). I've seen in the NHL where something that warrants a penalty and there is some retaliation that they don't call the original infraction.

3) Same penalty UNH has the power play and another UVMer has a hooking call (I think it was hooking). The man in the penalty box came out and another went in. I wasn't sure that the orignal penalty had been served. So I thought that was strange.

4) Not so much commentary on the play but the players look a lot smaller. I'm not sure if they are breeding them smaller or if I need a larger TV. probably the latter.

5)Looked like a packed house but they of course don't take pictures of anything but the lower bowl.

That's all that I've got for you on that. It seems that they couldn't stay out of the box and that UNH capitalized on it. I was making cookies while I listened to the game and they said that the largest lead to hang onto was a 2 goal lead (it was 2-1 at the time. The next time I turned around they had 3 more goals.

[bethandlouis]

How's the soap treating ya? I gave you a sheep shaped one, right? The sheep one should bring in the ladies. It says I'm sensitive and fruity. Well, maybe it won't bring in the ladies but it will bring in the "ladies"

[MGB Boy]

I have three puck shaped ones and an apple pie scented sheep. If I wake up with a strong sense of regret and shame and lots of wool in my bed and mutton snoring away next to me, I'm blaming you and the seductive powers of your sheep soap.

Well, UVM played a lot better tonight, passed better, checked better, shot better, everything better. Outplayed UNH for two of three periods, I thought. Outshot UNH 34-27, and our goalie Joe Fallon bounced back with an excellent game. And yet they still lost, 2-1. Key stat of the game: UNH powerplay - 1 for 4. UVM powerplay - 0 for 7. Seven powerplays, no powerplay goals. They had their chances, they just didn't put 'em away. UNH got a powerplay with about four minutes to go in the game, got the goal to break the tie and win the game. Ugh. Nevertheless, they rebounded quite well from the Friday night debacle, so that's something positive. UNH isn't 12-1-1 in the conference for nothing, they're looking like they're just going to flat-out run away with Hockey East this year. They've already got a ten point cushion in the standings. Yikes. Game was on CN8, don't know if you're Comcast people over there. Next weekend they travel to Northeastern for a pair (the Saturday night game is on TV), then it's back home for the big BC series and MINI2's Hockey Night in Vermont.

It's alway a packed house at UVM. Tonight was the 50th straight sellout (a college team has about 15-16 home games per season), they've sold out 227 of the last 309 games. The season ticket waiting list is currently pegged at about 20 years (I've got mine, my dad put in for them when I was still in junior high). The friendly confines of Gutterson Fieldhouse at UVM only has a lower bowl, the only balcony spots are all pressboxes. The old barn was built in 1963, renovated in 1990, and seats just over 4000 loud fans. The university is in the early stages of putting together plans for a new arena on campus, something more in the 7000-8000 seat neighborhood that could hold concerts etc along with hockey. Plus that would mean there will be two rinks on campus, which would open up some precious icetime, a valueable commodity in these parts. There are currently five rinks right in and around Burlington, and all of them are occupied from around 5am to midnight most every day, icetime is a hot commodity around here. Given that the UVM men's and women's teams occupy the ice at the Gut for about about five hours a day, every day, having a new rink for them to play and practice in would open up a lot of icetime. Which would be nice.

As a joke, at least once in every single UVM game when the goalie goes into the corner to retrieve a penalty-kill dump-in, I yell "he's outside the trapezoid!", and my brother laughs every single time. Every single time.

The perfect cure for what ails a troubled hockey team: A game against the god-awful Flyers. That put the Bruins back on track, even with Big Z sitting out the game with an "undisclosed minor lower body injury". Whatever Patrice had, he played thru it. Good win for the boys. They looked shaky again in parts, but Timmy bounced back to save the bacon when they faltered. Great game for Savard, too.

-Ricardo

[bethandlouis]

Caps beat the "high-flying Thrashers" 3-2 in OT. Semin scored the goal with 17 seconds to go in OT. It was a nailbiter. Lehtonen nearly broke his stick after the goal got past him. Olie walked away with an assist (tying Donald Brashear with assists). Amd was awarded the King Clancy Trophy last night. A good night for Olie (except for the skate he took to the back from Vigier.(http://www.washingtoncaps.com/news/PostGameVideo.asp clik on Olie stops a penalty shot). It was pretty scary but he gets up to make the stop. Glad to see the B's win one after the loss to the Leafs. Was between Caps/Thrash and Isles/Canes. Then I caught 1 period of the Stars/Flames game. We did get the UVM game on CN8 (terrible quality!). Watched it until 7pm then switched to the Caps. During intermissions I would turn it on. (but honestly I wasn't sure if it was a replay from the previous night (I thought they said that UVM would be playing UNH on Saturday at UNH)). So I'm sorry that I didn't get to see that.

Yesterday we went out for some shopping (and so I could get a well deserved haircut (I was starting to look like a beatle). I found some silicone cupcake cups and thought that I would make cupcakes for our soiree on the the 20th. I will not promise pink icing but they will be iced with jimmies. I was going to make sugar cookies but I forgot how hard they are.

And by the by the "hockey puck" shaped soap are made in a muffin tin. (I'm brilliant ). How'd you like the penguins? (chocolate not the team)

[MGB Boy]

So far I've eaten two of the penguins (the chocolate, not the team). Tasty!

Back on the ice tonight for the first time since December 18. Ugh. Typically I play 52 weeks a year, but since this time of year I play on Sundays and Mondays, and we had two consecutive weeks where both Sunday and Monday were holidays (xmas eve, xmas, new years eve, new years day), that meant no hockey for a few weeks. First night back after a layoff that long is always fairly traumatic, everything feels weird and wrong (and since so much of goaltending is psychological, how things feel is a huge part of the game). I would have preferred to "get my feet wet" getting back into the swing of things with a pick-up game, but no, it was the last regular season game for the IBM league. After sucking ass at the start of the season, we'd clawed our way all the way back, and if we won tonight and one other team lost, we'd finish the season in first. Well, tied for first, but since we have a 2-1 record against the other team (and that's the first tiebreaker), that would make us the first place team. Immediately before our game, the other team complied by losing 4-1. So a win and we're in first going into the playoffs. For pretty much the whole first period, I felt like I had two left feet, but I settled in, and ended up getting my second shut-out of the season, 2-0. So from worst to first, we're the #1 seed. And it definitely felt good to get back on the ice. Afterward, everyone was pretty beat in the locker room, they'd all had similar breaks as me, and were all likewise exhausted. Every game, I seem to end up getting a song stuck in my head while I play. Tonight's song: "Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced" by the Dropkick Murphys. Could be worse, one night it was that damn pina colada song. "If you like pina coladas, getting caught in the rain..."

Got home just in time to see the OT and shootout in the Pens/Bolts game. Sweet move in the shootout by Marty to get the game-winner. And Holmqvist should definitely be elevated to #1 over Denis. Holmqvist's numbers aren't that spectacular, but he's better than Denis.

Luongo just gave up a softie to put Florida up 2-1 early in the third. They'll still find a way to blow it, I suspect.

Ugly, flukey hit on Kolzig. Not much in the way of padding on the back for a goalie, there's a spine pad up the center of the back and a bit at the top of the back, but nothing like the front. Everything a goalie wears is designed assuming you'll face the shot head on, not much padding on the back, the backs of the legs, the backs of the arms (except the elbows), etc. Wouldn't care to take a skate to the back of the ribs like that.

Vancouver just tied it up. Eddie Belfour was a great goalie once upon a time, but he's past his sell-by and playing on a bad team.

Ooooh, cupcakes with sprinkles!

-Ricardo

[bethandlouis]

Glad to see that your rink rust didn't get the best of you. I can understand where it would feel wierd. People don't move like that normally so it's not motions that you do a lot.

I missed the ends of all the games last night. I was being a good wife and made Louis dinner (Pot Roast with potatoes, Fresh bread and molten Lava cake) and fell asleep at 8:00. I'm sorry I missed a Shoot Out. I really like those.

Went to the store today to get all the supplies and found pink coloring so they will be pink iced cupcakes with Rainbow jimmies. Now I have to figure out how to carry them up there. What are we doing for the day? When are we going to meet? I need details

[MGB Boy]

Cupcakes with pink frosting!!

Gotta figure out the details. I'm not up on the details yet. I'm an ideas man, ya see. Yeah, that's the ticket. Hmmm. Details. Gotta think about this...

-Ricardo

[bethandlouis]

Most;ly need to figure out when to make the cupcakes. If I should make them Friday or Saturday. We have the pet sitter coming to take care of the beasts in the evening so we are free pretty much all day. It would be pretty cool to get a free skate somewhere. But if ice time is such a hot commodity then that's probably out of the question. Maybe I should build an ice rink in the Burlington area. Sounds like a sound investment to me . I was pretty amazed when I found pink coloring. I was going to use red (with white frosting) to acheive pinkness (it never really comes out pink it's more like a bright/neon pink . But I travelled over to the cake decorating section and found pastel food colors (one of them being petal rose pink). So well see how they come out. Ordered the cupcake carrier (doubles as a cake carrier so it's something that I can use frequently and it means I can make cupcakes;/muffins more often. I was going to make 24 cupcakes, do you think that's enough? or is there really only 5 of us going?

[snid]

If it were a normal winter, we could go skate on the lake... but it's not.