The regular season ridiculousness is finally over

To commemorate the ending of this season and the Wings' sendoff into their 19th consecutive playoff run, Hockeytown Static is pleased to bring you our first annual Static Awards. What makes this completely arbitrary list of players we thought did good for 82 games any different from any other blogger's completely arbitrary list of players they thought did good for 82 games?

All ours are named after Disney songs. You already know this is gonna be awesome.


The Zero to Hero Award for most dramatic turnaround: Jimmy Howard



This goes to Jimmy Howard, who went from a shaky back-up goalie everybody inexplicably hated to our number one guy for the playoffs with fans threatening to break the axels on his bandwagon in half.

The Perfect Isn't Easy Award for perfection: Nick Lidstrom


I shouldn't have to explain myself here.

The One Jump Ahead Award for most breakaways: Darren Helm


And he's damn lucky the award wasn't for most breakaway goals.

The Gaston Award for prettiest face and hair: Jonathan Ericsson


What a rockstar.

The I Just Can't Wait to be King Award for leadership by a player not currently wearing the C: Henrik Zetterberg


The argument could actually be made for a few different people to win this award, but I'm giving them out, so I say Hank gets it. The end.

The Whistle While You Work Award for officiating excellence: Dennis LaRue

Due to, among other things, his intent to blow waive off of what would have been Brad May's only goal.



Keep up the good work, dude.

The You Can Fly You Can Fly You Can Fly! Award for most gratuitous air caught: Patrick Eaves



He created a new word with this tumble. I think it deserves commendation.

The I'll Make a Man Out of You Award: Brad May

For staying after several practices to teach Justin Abdelkader the finer points of fighting. (He really did this. They even showed it during pregame a couple of times, but I couldn't find the video online.)


They were lessons that served him well.

The It's a Small World After All Award for worst English during interviews: Pavel Datsyuk



Pavel Datsyuk - making near-incomprehensibility super cool since 2001.

And finally - The Steady as the Beating Drum Award for dependable consistency is a tie between Tomas Holmstrom and Brian Rafalski.


Because sometimes these two fly a little under the radar, but they're out there every night, being exceptionally awesome.

We're going to have what for this blog passes as a series preview for the Wings first round series against the Coyotes up tomorrow. And I'd also like to give a belated thank you to everybody who reassured me in the comments of the last WTF Wednesday post that no time I ever spend photographing Patrick Roy on the back of a unicorn is wasted time. You guys are awesome.

Go Wings. (and let's all try not to puke too much during the playoffs.)