I wish I was in Sweden, but instead I'm learning Russian preposions...

So today at 1pm is the last game before the season starts, and oh man am I thankful that I screwed up my schedule so that I have a five hour break between classes. The game is being streamed online, and if you're lucky enough to not be at work, you can watch it here.

Also *drum roll, please* Hockeytown Static is officially on Twitter. Mostly it will be ramblings by Lindsay, sometimes comical and usually about (what else) hockey.

The regular season starts in two days. Go Wings.

Wings arrive in style

...If Chris Osgood didn't already look like a child...

...the pillow doesn't help. Good morning Red Wings, and good luck Wednesday.

That was spectacular

Ok, so it was preseason, and it didn't really "count" for anything. I don't care. The Wings beat the Pens.

Oh, but Crosby and Malkin weren't there! Yeah? Well neither were Nick Lidstrom, Henrik Zetterberg, Dan Cleary, Valtteri Filppula, or Chris Osgood - we still got it done. And it wasn't close, either.

Man, am I glad I caught the replay.

I just got back from what was apparently some sort of bubble entirely outside the influence of hockey. It was sort of bizarre. Radio stations not coming in, and televisions that only went up to the first twenty channels, and walking into restaurants just as the last fleeting seconds of Red Wings live postgame reports faded into blackness... and I was cruising the internet on this, which isn't so much a complaint as it is me passing the hilarity of my sad life down to you. This is what happens when you use all your college graduation money to buy a Jimmy Howard game-used glove instead of a laptop. I call it "Henrik Zetterberg Dancing With A Giant Ink Monster".

Speaking of Swedes, the Free Press put up the single most mesmerizing thing that I have ever seen in my life yesterday. I can't stop watching it. I fear greatly that it hungers for my soul.

The Wings are playing Farjestad on Wednesday. I admittedly don't know an awful lot about teams in the Swedish elite league (although, according to my dad, I know more than most girls my age should), but from what I've been able to gather, it's the Elitserien equivalent of the Wings lately or the Canadiens. I wish it was being broadcast somewhere I could catch it because it sounds like the kind of carnival of Swedishness that would make for an interesting game.

Thursday randoms

A lot has happened today. The Red Wings sent seven players to the Griffins, Nicklas Lidstrom was named the best NHL player of the decade, I learned how to swear in Russian, Wayne Gretzky left the Coyotes, and Brad May got a Red Wings try-out.

Griffins first-
Travis Ehrhardt, Sergei Kolosov, Sebastien Piche, Jamie Tardif, Tomas Tatar, Francis Lemieux, and John Vigilante were all released from Detroit and rejoined Grand Rapids for their first practice Monday.

Also the Griffins are having fans pick another bobble head. Your options are:

- Head Coach Curt Fraser (bobble fists)
- Broadcaster Bob Kaser
- center Darren Helm
- goaltender Daniel Larsson
- Duke (Zamboni bobblehead)

Go vote. Trisha wants the Zamboni driver, but she's always had a strange fixation on Zambonis. I'm hoping for bobble fists. It just sounds silly.



And with that as our segue...

CBC's Battle of the Blades starts October 4th, and I'm pumped even though I won't be able to watch it. I will say that I'm a little worried, though, because if skanky Claude Lemieux (honestly the last person I'd ever want to see in spandex) lasts longer in the competition than Bob Probert, I might cry (unless it's because Skank Prime is actually a great figure skater, and then I'll just laugh, and imagine him going out for coffee with Johnny Weir).

Just in case you've been living under a rock, the US Olympic team had a photoshoot. Patrick Kane got violent.


Look out cab drivers of the world - this man has an icicle.

Wings lose 5-2

... with Ozzie in net and is it bad that I'm having flashbacks to last season, when he let in four or five goals a game? Granted, the Wings managed to score five or six goals most of the time that happened, effectively canceling it out for the standings, so it's not like he drug us out of the playoffs (in which he totally pwned, again, so what do any of us really have to complain about?) or anything but... I think preseason's almost-hockey, the kind you can't always find broadcast and that doesn't actually count, is sort of making me antsy about stuff I probably shouldn't be worried about.

Like goalies. Whatever happened to my endless, child-like faith in Red Wing goalies? Chris Osgood let in six goals against Chicago last year and I would convince myself it was bad screening and poor defensive coverage and that he'd shutout the next game. The third goalie down in our depth chart lets in one preseason goal behind a team of prospects who haven't even cracked the AHL yet against a team we play once during the regular season, and I'm curled up in the fetal position. There's something not-right about that, and I need it to go away by October.

On a happier note, it looks like the playoffs weren't a fluke, and that Jonathan Ericsson can indeed score somewhere that isn't Rexall Place. I'm really excited about that. Look out, teams that aren't Edmonton - here he comes!

Off to a good start...

Wings 3, Flyers 1

Alright, so it was a pre-season game, which means it didn't really matter, technically, but I don't care. The Red Wings won a hockey game. This time of year, that's all it really takes to make me happy.

And that's really all I have to say about it.

I mean, I'm trying to keep a certain level of quality present in this blog, you know? Trying to keep it classy, and informative, and stuff, so I'd like to be able to say something, to present an intelligent opinion on something, but I... I've got nothing. It was a preseason game against the Flyers that I had to listen to on AM radio and my radio had a broken tuner, and I didn't even know about it until the start of the second period, so aside from being able to tell you who scored and gushing aimlessly about how excited I was to hear Ken Kal's voice and the sound of the goal horn and all 500 people at the Joe booing every time Pronger had the puck, I've got nothing.

But do I really need anything? The playoffs last year felt like they stretched on forever, game after game after game, the pressure mounting and mounting until... it was over, and I was almost relieved that I would get a break from hockey, from the tension and uncertainty and having to face the truth of how much the outcome of those games affected my mood every day. And then the off-season came, and a short three months felt like forever (part of it was probably me wanting a fresh season to start, so I could put the finals behind me) and I thought it would never end. And now the Red Wings are playing real hockey games again, against other hockey teams, in a hockey arena, and tonight they won.

Tonight the Red Wings won a hockey game. And it does matter. Because, dammit, it made me happy.

We're back!

As the start of the season draws nearer, we here at Hockeytown Static will get back into the swing of things and start posting more often. We are incredibly sorry that there were so few posts over the summer, but our dial-up internet sucks more than having to watch Sidney Crosby lift the Stanley Cup in the Joe Louis Arena.

In Red Wings world, not much has been happening. Jiri Hudler is definitely going to Russia, and Andreas Lilja might actually play, and soon. So, question of the day- Which defenseman is being shipped out to LA to make room for Lilja?

Second question of the day- What the heck are these?

I'm officially terrified.

In other news, the Prospects Tournament got underway this week, and our newest little Slovakian seems to be tearing things up.

I wish with every fiber of my being that I could have been there, but instead I was stuck at school, listening to my professor lecture about the Great Lakes drainage basin. My time would have been better spent looking at Mike Green's new website.