This Game Was Ridiculousness

First of all, RIP Orange Hat Guy. It's a rare thing in major league sports when a fan garners as much notoriety as you had, and rarer still that it wasn't for doing something mind-blowingly idiotic in an attempt to draw attention to yourself. All you did was show up to every game in headgear the color of pure, unfiltered awesome. For that you were known, and for that you will be missed.

...


Alright, the Wings won, so I'll be a good sport about this.

Congratulations to Teemu Selanne on tying Bobby Hull for 15th place in all-time goals scored. Actually surpassing him's probably going to be a bigger deal for everybody involved, but Selanne's unlikely to do that against the Red Wings, and I'm not going to find out about it until three weeks after its happened, so this is my only chance. 610 is a heck of a lot of goals to score, but according to the Jets, Selanne's been the "Boss" for the last five hundred and fifty-six of them. Although maybe at some point between then and now he scored enough to take the quote marks off "Boss" so reading it out loud didn't make it sound condescendingly sarcastic.

Who was the old boss I wonder? Was it Tie Domi?


Yeah, I bet it was Tie Domi.

Also tied tonight was the goalie record for most consecutive non-losses in regulation since the lockout (which seems like an awkward thing to keep track of, but whatever). Jimmy tied Ozzie. Do you know what that means?

That means the Red Wings are awesome.

But not so awesome that I don't get to complain about inconsistent play. (When the Red Wings aren't winning games, like the first half of last season, I look back on posts like this one, read what I've written, throw up a little in my mouth at what a spoiled brat I must be to ask for more than two points, and pray to the hockey gods that my idiocy never astrally contributes to the rise of a second Dead Wings era. But this blog hasn't been updated regularly in a while, so I'm risking it.)

There were so many moments in that game that were so spectacular that it gets hard to remember all the awful, cringe-worthy moments that sat between them. Which is part of what makes it frustrating. Howard actually said it best in his post-game interview on Thursday - that when the guys decide to play, they're scary. (I don't know if he actually meant to call the whole team out in front of the media, but... he was saying what we were all thinking.) Can they make the playoffs by only doing the bare minimum required of them to succeed the whole year? Yeah, they can. They showed that they can this week, by pulling points out of games they didn't show up to for the full 60 minutes. But that's not what I want to see all season.

It's like that genius kid you knew in high school who failed all his classes because he was too bored to pay attention. I knew that kid. He never went to college and now he's 25 and (bear with me here) still unemployed, living out of his mom's basement and making me weep for his wasted potential.

The playoffs are college. And if the Red Wings get bored and lose all their regular season games, I'm going to be 24 and curled up in my mom's basement, weeping for their wasted potential.

Why do I start freaking out about this kind of stuff in October? Last October my soul died a little every game the Wings lost, which was almost every game. I would have killed for this October. Forget everything I just said, you guys. I don't care how they do it. Let's be happy for the win.

The next games on Thursday. Thursday. Have you ever woken up on Monday morning, screamed into your pillow because you had to go to school/work, and thought about the endless, unceasing, infinitely long string of hours you have to live through to make it to Friday? Add a day to that. That's how long it is until the next Wings game.

Are the ridiculous schedules a byproduct of having to coordinate 82 games for 30 teams? Is it because of the conference/division system? Is it the network tv slots? Bettman? Is it old? Is it new? Am I imagining it? I'm serious. The scheduling process is, given all the varied aspects of hockey as a game and a business, probably the thing I'm least-informed about, which is stupid, because as a fan, it usually affects me the most directly. If any of you guys have better insight into this, please - enlighten me.

Hockey & Death Glares & Birthdays, Oh My.

Boy, does it feel good to have hockey back (not that I've really been able to enjoy it yet, because I've been running around this semester like a crazy person). But I can honestly say that nothing feels as good as walking up to a pop machine and scaring away the huge guy in the Blackhawks shirt when he catches a glimpse of your Red Wings attire.

That's a lie- This was better:



And since it's Wednesday, I wish I could leave you with a WTF moment. But since I can't, I'll leave you with this:

Today Hockeytown Static turns 24. Well, not the blog, but the main person behind the blog. Happy birthday, Trisha!

Two points to start the year off

Some of you might remember a few years back when Corey Perry promised Pavs that he was "gonna get it too".




Well tonight Pavel got it, and "it" turned out to be the long-missing piece of a Gordie Howe hat trick.


(There's a better quality video on YouTube, but it was the Duck's feed, and no one needs to hear that)

(David Guralnick)

(Which means that he's tied with Gordie Howe now. Awesome.)

It's almost not fair that something this ridiculous happened tonight, because I feel like the internet coverage it's bound to get will far outweigh the four goals and Howard's shutout, which alone would have made this a more spectacular start to the season than I could have hoped for (or would have hoped for, because me thinking positively before the start of a hockey game bodes ill for my team). This game went above and beyond all my long, hockey-starved summer-fed hopes, dreams, and expectations.

Some thoughts on the actual gameplay:

I'll be honest - there were long stretches during that game that I was busy trying to figure out how to fit the circumstances leading up to things like the entire top line hitting the penalty box into a text (because Lindsay was at the Griffins home opener. I swear, every time something like that happens, I have to figure out how to get the story to her in under 200 characters), so I'm pretty sure I missed some important stuff, like whether the Wings were legitimately dominating or if the Ducks had been replaced by Windsor Timbit hockey kids, but if you're coming to this blog for Serious Sports Commentary like what the big smart men do on ESPN, you're in the wrong place anyway.

(And if you're looking for hockey commentary on ESPN, then you're wronger than Darren McCarty in an Avs jersey.)

But most of what I did see I'm excited about. Jimmy looked pretty strong out there, especially in the second period. Dan Cleary was getting knocked around out there pretty good and getting right back on the ice, but that's sort of like saying today ended in a Y. And I like that the Wings were giving back all the physicality that the Ducks dished out.

On the other hand, I don't know if I want that to become a trend. Part of me still hopes that Franzen and his trick knee sit out tomorrow's game in Chicago. And the thought of Henrik Zetterberg spending the season getting cross-checked in the back sort of makes me want to vomit. Ericsson left tonight's game at some point with back spasms. I keep going back to last year's injury list and shuddering. And I still haven't seen Osgood play yet, just watched the preseason box score refresh and hoped the shots on goal stayed significantly higher than the goals allowed. I have a bad feeling that I'm going to be spending the winter banging my head against a wall while he loses games again. I don't know why I couldn't have been a normal kid and had my man-crush on Sergei Fedorov or something.

But whatever. The Wings got their first win on the season tonight, and that fills me with unending joy. Which I should savor while I have the chance, because I think we get to watch the Hawks raise a banner tomorrow night. (You know FSD'll cut to that thing every time they come back from commercial. And then Ken'll have to talk about it. And then I'll die a little inside.)