A recap of things you probably already know

Tonight the Wings take on the Blues, in what I'm assuming will be a painfully empty Joe Louis Arena. About three hours ago I got a text practically begging me to buy student rush tickets (if I were home, you better believe I would be there), and rumor has it that only around 12,000 tickets have been sold for this game. If the weather in Detroit is anything like it is up here in the Grand Rapids area, I'm assuming that it's playing a pretty big role in this, but it still worries me.


-As I'm sure you've all heard unless you've been living under a rock, Darren McCarty has officially announced his retirement. Snapshots has a nice compilation of teammate's thoughts on this here.

-On a happy note, Valtter Filppula got the cast on his arm removed, and is on the road to return later this month.

-Ken Holland and Mike Babcock once again won the team competition to raise the most money for the Salvation Army yesterday. Anyone else smell cheating here?

Anyway, hopefully this game will be better than the Sweden games against St. Louis, and the Wings can come out of it with a full two points.

Sweet Swedish retribution

The St. Louis game put us in a position where, for the first time either of us could remember, so long as no Red Wings left the ice dead or injured, or as long as they scored a single goal (that counted), we would be satisfied.

The realization that this was the point to which the season had sunken our spirits sort of made me want to throw up a little in my mouth.

Watching Todd Bertuzzi skate out on the ice to take the shootout made me want to throw up a lot in my mouth, and the awful sound of the puck hitting the post that I 100% expected to hear still sort of haunts my nightmares (and I actually like Todd Bertuzzi, so I don't want to imagine how horrible that moment must have been for the haters) even though he actually got the puck in the back of the net and I danced around the living room in happiness.

The Wings are still gunning for a home ice being-shut-out record of like ten thousand minutes though.

I'd post something relevant about tonight's game against the Dallas Stars, but all I have is a rant about how I want the Eurotwins back on a line together and a picture of Marty Turco shirtless. I'll post either upon sufficient request.

But if there's sufficient request for naked Turco, I might have to retire from blogging forever.

More news on Sweden

While the Red Wings are over in Sweden next fall, hopefully bringing it to the St. Louis Blues, they'll play a game against Färjestad BK, Hakan Loob's old team (and current team. He's the GM). I don't really follow the Swedish Elite League very closely, other than being aware that it exists, and being able to name (but not pronounce) a few of the teams that play in it, but I guess Färjestad is in a sense comparable to Red Wings right now, having won seven championships since 1975, the most recent in 2006.

They're thinking this game will be played September 30th. Swedes against Swedes. Madness. Tickets are being released tomorrow at 10am. The arena only claims to seat 8,250, so if you're interested, you'll want to jump on this fast.

Not much more information can be found here, in English, and here, not so much in English, but Google Translate does a suprisingly passing job on Swedish, I've found.

Also of note - Wings 06 pick Dick Axelsson currently plays for Färjestad. So... yeah. Rock on.

Some late-night ramblings

Will Old Man Ilitch ever stop handing out the Stanley Cup rings? It's like he's been throwing them out of an airplane this year. Most of the recipients make sense: the team, the broadcasters, the call-ups on standby during the playoffs, Scotty Bowman, the HHOF, any alumnus who never received a ring, etc. Some, however, still baffle me. Like Kid rock. I guess his could have come from Cheli (they're totally bffs), but it doesn't matter how he got one, it matters that he has one, or was at least holding on to one, and that he almost gave it away to Nickleback this year.


(the story starts around 8:30)



If you live within broadcasting distance of CBC and haven't already, you should try to catch this show every once in a while (5 and 11pm weekdays). It gets our seal of approval, if that means anything. If you don't hate Sean Avery (or even if you do) watch this one too. I laughed.

The Wings play St. Louis tomorrow in an early game at 2pm. Geez I'm going to see far too much of this team this weekend. Griffins vs. Peoria (the Blues' farm club) Friday night, Wings vs. Blues Saturday afternoon, and more Griffins vs. Peoria Saturday night. If it's possible to get sick of hockey, it will probably happen this weekend. But if tomorrow's Griffins game is anything like tonight's, that won't happen. Is it possible to get sick of Darren McCarty scoring shorthanded break-away goals on Manny Legace? I think not.

I sort of felt bad for Manny by the time it was over. He had a few cheers when he first came out (some of them from us) but now he's lost more games than he's won after being sent down to the AHL mid-way through the season. That's gotta suck.

Anyway, the final score was 4-1 Griffins, which I hope is indicative of the outcome of tomorrow's game between their parent clubs. Please?