Steve Yzerman gets inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame this year. Anyone who's honestly suprised must never have heard of him, but that doesn't mean I'm not excited to hear about it. It's Steve Yzerman.

Actually, being fans of Hull and Robitaille as well, Lindsay and I both realized pretty fast that our excitement for the two of them being inducted was more or less drowned out by all the 'yay Steve Yzerman' and we sort of felt bad. Sort of, because... dude. Steve Yzerman.

...

Oh, remember this? They're doing it for real now, only instead of Marian Hossa and Pavol Demitra, it's going to be Lanny McDonald and Bob Probert. This could be amazing, and it could be disasterous, but one thing's for sure - I'm watching every episode.

Summer posting

First of all, I have to ask - does anybody else feel like they know too much about Nick Lidstrom's testicles? Because I feel like I've thought more about Nick Lidstrom's testicles this week than I've thought about meal planning and the fall of the Michigan economy combined. I mean, I'm glad they're ok and all, but... damn. To think, all this time I was worried it was his knee again.

Anyway.

I know there are blogs that spend the summer making regular posts about... like, the New York Islanders' off-season moves, or whatever happens to hockey when the hockey goes away, but this probably isn't going to be one of those blogs.

Don't get me wrong, we won't disappear. There's the NHL Awards, the draft... 5,000 news articles about Sidney Crosby and classless Wings fans that sound like they were written by 13 year old girls... so there'll be things to say about that, for sure. But we'll probably be pretty scarce until the 09-10 season starts up for reals. Unless something randomly interesting happens in August, like last year when Tomas Holmstrom accidently took the Stanley Cup into a Swedish gay bar.

We'll for sure be posting something if Petr Sykora goes to a gay bar.

And it's over

I could write something bitter about the cup being stolen from us. Point fingers and blame injuries.

I could write something pseudo-uplifting about how the Wings are still awesome and we'll get 'em next year. (They are still awesome, but that won't help us again for a while.)

I could write something sad about this being another disappointment for an already sad region.

But I think all that's already being covered, so I'll just exercise my womanly right and lock myself in my room for three days with a tub of chocolate ice cream and Abba's 'Winner Takes it All' on repeat, feeling sorry for myself and Marian Hossa.

Ok, not really. For one, it would have to be an awfully big tub of chocolate ice cream to last three days.

Honestly, I'm still not sure how I feel about this. I mean, this is the closest I've ever watched the Red Wings get without them winning it. The last time they made it to the finals without winning, it was 95, and I was asleep, because I was eight. I'm still trying to sort it all out. At this point, I think I'm most disappointed at the fact that that was the last Red Wing game until they go to Sweden next fall.

*sigh* Well, at any rate... at least Gary finally got what he wanted. Cue the Sidney Crosby media extravaganza.

Take a deep breath. One more to go.

In the newspapers tomorrow, everyone's going to be talking about the epicness of Friday's game. I bet Mitch Albom wrote his article three days ago. They're going to mention the same four or five things over and over again to fill an entire sports section, because that's what they get paid to do.

I don't get paid, so I'm not going to sit here and do that. And I'm not going to pretend that I'm excited about a game seven.

Pointing fingers? The refs weren't calling much either way. Chris Osgood had like eight-thousand saves. I don't even know if the Wings had enough shots on Fleury for me to be able to point at his whorishness on this one.

So you can pick your goat, but I'm going with my dad, who made a prediction before the game.

Anyway, the Wings still aren't out of it, and they're pretty good at home. So I'm keeping my positive face on. (at least until game day, when I melt into a puddle of nervous goo.) Someone's winning the Cup by the end of the week, and I like our odds.

I don't know how you're dealing with the frustration, but as for me and Lindsay, we're keeping sane by making fun of Jim Balsillie's name. Maybe that makes us fifteen year old boys, but seriously. Balsillie.

game 6 jitters

I'm not sure if I'm excited or pukey right now. It's sort of how I felt last year. Understandibly.

I hope you haven't jinxed things by making personal celebratory plans, because this thing isn't over yet. Out of five Stanley Cup finals games played at Mellon Arena during the last two years, the Red Wings have only won 2. None of them have been in this series. I don't want this thing to go to seven games, but I'm not going to make the assumption that it won't.

Still... it could be over tomorrow. And if it is, I want to see how many Pens fans stay to boo Hossa.

I don't know where you'll be watching the game, but I can tell you where you won't be. You won't be at Joevision being treated to awesomeness like last year. Two quotes from the Free Press article sort of stuck out as douchey to me. "...the NHL asked NBC and CBC not to allow the Wings to broadcast the game," and "...one of the league's contractual agreements with NBC is that clubs will not hold viewing parties in their arenas".

So, if you weren't sure before, there's your proof that NBC is Satan and Gary Bettman is the antichrist.

Lindsay and I are going to go tye-dye at midnight to keep from worrying about where we may or may not be in 24 hours.

It's not over yet

Today, I was in a car with a close friend of mine, a photographer. He asked me if he could borrow some Wings gear for a photoshoot because he had a model from Ohio who wanted to royally piss off some friends in Pittsburgh. I was all for pissing off people in Pittsburgh.

"But I hope the series isn't over until after this weekend, because that's the only time I have to shoot," he said.

So that game you just puked over? Was what he wanted. And all the anger, pain, and frustration built up within me? Will probably be taken out on him. Maybe that's kind of bitchy of me. But I think our friendship will survive.

You know, for a minute there, you probably could have convinced me that the only reason Crosby stayed down after that slash by Maltby in the third period was to get Wings fans' hopes up that he would be out of the next game.

But I don't think he was thinking that far ahead. I think that was just your average, run of the mill dive.

That game did, in fact, push me over the edge into a curled-into-a-ball wimpering panic, but if you don't want to follow me into the fetal position and actually feel like trying to remain positive, you're well in your rights.

The Wings aren't out of this one yet.

I'll still be spending most of game five trying not to puke.

Are you ready for number four?

I'm sort of riding that fine line between bouncy excitement and curl-up-in-a-ball, wimpering panic right now. The outcome of tonight's game will go about 5,000 miles in determining which way I fall.

Datsyuk might be back in tonight... but then again, he might not. What's wrong with him? "I no score for like 12 games. Is problem." Well no kidding.

I don't think I really need to tell you how important this game is for both teams. A lot of people talk about "momentum" in regard to hockey games, and a lot of times I'm pretty sure it's just another canned response that coaches learn to fill time during interviews between periods because they're not politicians and they don't have anything else to say. But tonight that's exactly what these teams are fighting for - momentum. And I don't want to see what happens if the Red Wings let the Penguins catch their breath.

It was a year ago today. I'd be surprised if the Penguins didn't use the memory of slumping over on the bench in defeat as motivation tonight.

But I'll also be surprised if Hossa doesn't either. And he's scored every one of his playoff goals so far in pairs in game fours.

So here's hoping our team keeps the momentum tonight. Go Wings.

Holy crap

I get terrified every time I see anything I think might injure a Wing like Henrik Zetterberg. I mean, Hank especially. He gets a love-tap from someone half his size and I cover my eyes and yell OH-NO BACK SPASMS!

But I thought this was awesome.

Completely unnecessary, and the result of a bunch of ridiculously cheap shots by a frustrated Penguins team (seriously, Max Talbot, stop being a whore and lay off our goalie), but awesome.

And after seven (now eight) Stanley Cup finals games against them, that kind of end-of-game shenaniganery is just what I've come to expect from Pittsburgh, so it's not like I was entirely surpised.

But seriously, that picture is going up on my wall next to the picture of Franzen punching Malkin in the end-of-game corner-scrum from last year. I think Malkin needs to stop trying to beat up vikings, because it's not working out for him very well at all.