1st round playoff preview, as promised

This thing is a monster, even after I took out the three paragraphs on comparative symbology. I will totally understand if you just skip to the boobs at the end.

When the Winnipeg Jets moved out to the barren deserts of Arizona for the 1996-97 season, they weren't exactly expected to have immediate and bounding success and draw in a large, thriving, profitable fanbase. At least, I really hope they weren't, because they didn't. They really, really didn't. The success they had was small, and the truly devoted fans they garnered were scant. But this season, despite bankruptcy, despite nearly being moved half-way across the continent again, despite years of being one of the jokes of the league, proof positive that the southern US was no place to have hockey, the team overcame, and, as 4th seed in the western conference, have a legitimate shot at Lord Stanley's Cup. As a fan of hockey, and of sports in general, I want this Cinderella story to be able to warm my heart with the fuzzy feelings only achieved by watching bands of brothers overcome adversity prehistoric tribal-style, by beating down all the bigger, meaner tribes with sticks and then hugging it out at the victory feast.

Unfortunately, Cinderella's playing the Wings first round, so there will be no such fuzziness.

The Team:

This is a Coyote venturing out onto a road to meet its ancient
enemy the flying tire in glorious battle

This year, I think the Wings' biggest threat will be not treating the Coyotes as a legitimate threat. They seeded above us, and Babcock's no idiot, so my fears are probably unfounded, but I don't think the Red Wings are used to the mindset of "ok, we're below them, so we're going to have to be really careful and try to upset", and they also have a history of not always bringing their A-game to the ice when they're playing someone they're not scared of. And you know Ilya Bryzgalov's going to be a whore.

There's also going to be a few familiar faces:


Yep. Matheiu Schneider's still in the NHL.

So is Robert Lang.

And while Ed Jovanovski has never been a Red Wing, at least one current member of the team is very, very familiar with him.


omg get a room, you two.


The Fans:

First of all, to get this out of the way, are you one of those people who love a good internet battle, but haven't been online in like three days? You should look here, here, and especially here. Now onto business.

I write this entry (and indeed, every entry of this blog) under the assumption that at least nine of the ten people reading it will accept the following as common knowledge:

1. The economy in Michigan sucks hardcore, and lots of Michiganders have been forced to move out to the booming west

2. You don't stop following the sports teams you followed as children (and your parents followed as children, and your grandparents, and your own children) just because the desert is the only place you seem to be able to keep your family fed and clothed.

Phoenix, however, seems to be under the impression that you should just cheer for whatever team you happen to live most near. Rebuttals have been undertaken by better writers than I. If that's the actual mindset of the fans and media, then I pity the Coyotes their fly-by-night bandwagon. I'd never ask any legitimate fan of any team to forgo their loyalties based on something as stupid as geography (especially not in the internet age), and I'm more than slightly offended that there are other people out there willing to ask this of Red Wings fans, who during the playoffs, I consider one and all to be family.

Furthermore, in yet another sad attempt to usurp the authority of the octopus tradition, the fans have embraced the idea of throwing snakes (I'm assuming rubber) onto the ice, to support their team, rattlesnakes being indigenous to the area. On the one hand, I'm inclined to agree with PuckDaddy - this could be the rallying point the fanbase needs. You don't hear "Winnipeg" or "Hamilton" and think "snakes live there"; you might when you hear "desert" or "Arizona". The snakes would represent the fact that this team belongs to Phoenix, belongs in Phoenix, and though it might not have the rafters filled with championship banners and retired numbers, it will bite if cornered.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure no one in Phoenix thought this far into it, and the snakes are only there to piss off Wings fans by farting on a tradition that celebrates its 58th anniversary today. Those are real unclassy intentions, guys.

Also, the comments to this post, suggesting that instead of throwing them, the fans wave them above their heads, one in each hand, make me think we're about to watch a hockey game played in an arena full of Minoan fertility idols.

Yeah, you didn't know this post was going to be about anthropology, did you? (And before you get excited about all the Coyote fans showing up topless, remember that they're Coyote fans, so they'll be wearing white shirts.) (and they'll mostly be guys.) (and they won't like you because you're wearing red.) (You'll be wearing red, right? You have to wear red.)

The puck drops at 10pm eastern. We'll have our coffee in one hand and our barf bag in the other. Go Wings.

Can we have another game like Tuesday?

We'd like to be able to say something profoundly intelligent about the way the Red Wings played that game in Vancouver, but Trisha was on painkillers at the time, and I was half asleep in a post-midterm haze. And no, neither made the dark, sad portions of the first period any easier to watch, I'm sorry to say.

But it did look like Jimmy Howard had the goddamned game of his life out there. I only wish it didn't take pulling Ozzie to wake the team up (and hopefully pulling Ozzie woke up Ozzie). That was probably the most intense October game I've ever seen. Again, maybe it was the three hours of sleep and the painkillers, but if it could keep us both conscious until 1 a.m., then it had to be pretty good.

Today the Wings are in Edmonton for the second to last game of the road trip, and the world is freaking out about the Swine Flu. I know it's kind of a big deal, but I don't think Gary will have a repeat of 1918 until Sidney Crosby is on a respirator. Still, all the hype (and continued lack of sleep) is giving me trippy mental images of Piet Van Zant's daily lectures about the proper use of hand sanitizer and I somehow imagine the whole team walking around like this:

It looks like the freaking zombie apocalypse. Be careful not to get Swine Flu, Kronner. We can't afford to lose anyone else at this point.

Game today (and probably a little bit of tomorrow) vs not Jim Balsillie

The little break the Wings have been on since Saturday has felt like an eternity. It's like the off season all over again. I guess on the plus side however, Pavel hopefully has had time to heal from his "cough shoulder sprain cough" and will be back tonight to play the Coyotes in Phoenix. In honor of the first of the season, let's break down the pros and cons of west coast road trips -

The Good:
1. Laughing when the Hockeytown West shows up in droves and out-cheers the home crowd.

2. ... Yeah, pretty much only Hockeytown West.


The Bad:
1. Having to stay up until 2am even when we don't go into an endless shootout against the other team. (Seriously. I'm young, and I still have the sleep schedule of a 20 year old college student, but when I have to have two cups of coffee just to make it to pregame...)

2. No Mickey Redmond.

3. Too much Larry Murphy.

4. Have I ever mentioned that Jim Balsillie's name reminds me of either some round-shaped, Sesame Street-themed, Playskool toddler toy, or something that Family Guy fans would spend three hours giggling at? It used to make me break into hysterics at a mere moment's notice, but lately the joke has been wearing pretty thin and something worries me that tonight we'll be hearing it enough times for me to develop a nervous tick.

5. (and what might be the worst of them all) No more laughing at Gretzky dropping f-bombs from the bench on camera because his team just let Brett Lebda get a hat trick.

No major disrespect meant to Wayne, but I really used to look forward to that.

Sigh. This is what we have to live with until Halloween...

Go Wings.

Lucky number seven?

The word pukey just came out of retirement. I don't know what the hell that was, because I'm asleep right now, but I know that it wasn't anything good.

I've heard a lot people talk about how much they love game 7s in the playoffs, because I guess they're intense or something, but I don't know - the prospect of watching creepy old-man Neidermayer try to take on Datsyuk is maybe kind of funny, as an abstract thought, but it's not exactly my idea of an awesome Thursday night, especially not during what might be the last Wings game of the year.

Maybe that makes me a bad hockey fan, but I don't care. I'm a Wings fan before I'm a hockey fan; one of those terrible people who doesn't care how boring the games are so long as the team wins. But anyway, we're not out of it just yet. Both of these teams can remember the taste of going all the way, and I guess we're about to see who wants to taste it again the most.

Apparently Justin Abdelkader's new nickname is "Abby". Am I a terrible person for giggling at that? We had a kitten named Abby once. She was fluffy and adorable and we said things to her like "Abby can has nummy chicken? Om nom nom nom".

But who am I to judge what they call the kid - since mom couldn't actually say Abdelkader, we just called him Waffles.

Still no coherant thoughts

I waited for something to come, but by now I'm thinking that I just lack the ability to say anything intelligent about last night's game. It's like my whole range of communication has been reduced to a series of grunting noises and expressive faces.

I guess it's for the best. That way if I met Chris Pronger in the street, he would understand what I had to say about him.

Of course, reading this didn't really help with my non-coherent English problem. I'd say something snarky about it, but when Scotty Bowman says he thinks Patrick Roy coaching the Avs is a good idea, my response can only be "What?"

"He's done a good job in junior," Scotty? Really? Didn't he order his son to go to the other end of the ice and beat down the other goalie? I... what?

Game 6 is tomorrow at the ungodly hour of 10pm again. I'd love to be able to make promises to everyone about how the team isn't going to go and lose two straight, but my predictions usually end badly, and anyway, the only promise this blog has been able to keep so far is that the posts would drop in quantity and quality once Grand Valley let out for the summer. I'll believe we've got this series in the bag when the Wings are smiling their way down the handshake line.

Are you pissed? You should be.

I understand that the referees are in the game for a purpose, and that they're important or something.

I just... WHY IS THE OFFICIATING DECIDING THE GODDAMNED SERIES?

I don't just mean that goal that was a goal that somehow wasn't counted as a goal because I guess the ref just didn't feel like calling it a goal because he had indigestion or a bird was in the arena rafters and pooped in his eye or he was staring at Neidermayer's ass or something, I mean the fact that half the goals that were counted as goals this series were powerplay goals too. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I remember some idyllic time long ago when hockey was played without penalties being called, because I don’t, actually. Refs have been making mistakes since before I was born, and the world keeps turning. But in this series it feels like the officiating is making an extra effort to impact the final outcomes of these games. Now, I’m not saying that if these two teams had been allowed to play 5-on-5 grab-and-grapple hockey for three games that the Wings would be on their way to a sweep or anything. I’m just saying that I want to be able to someday look my children and grandchildren in the eye and tell them, whatever the outcome, that yes, during the 2009 western conference semi-finals, the better-playing team won.

And since that was so ridiculous and it’s already Wednesday in Michigan, you know, when normal people would be sleeping, and not watching hockey games that end like that, unable to yell at the television for fear of waking the rest of their family, who have to get up and work in the morning, you know, like normal people, that call was hockeytownstatic’s WTF Wednesday moment. That and Nick Lidstrom holding back Pronger at the end of the game. Which we laughed at. Really hard. Harder when we figured they weren’t going to hurt each other.

Is that a total cop-out? Maybe. After those two games, I’m not going anywhere near our crappy dial-up internet again for at least a week. I’m stressed enough, and I don’t think my family would understand if I put my fist through the screen screaming I HATE CHRIS PRONGER.

Part of me is almost thankful that it was just over quickly though. I’m a nightowl, but I don’t want to be up until 3 in the morning watching the Ducks wear us down again in overtime.

Dammit, this is so fricking ridiculous. I’m so struck by the ridiculousity of the whole thing that I can’t even tell how angry I am.

The internet finally worked...after a day and a half...

So there's not much going on with the Red Wings, in terms of breaking news at least. Rafalski and Draper are still out with what I'm guessing is exploding chicken pox, and Andreas Lilja still isn't close to playing yet.

Game three is tonight in Anaheim, and judging from the last two, it's going to be gross, but entertaining. Personally in the playoffs, I'd prefer boring games that lead to shutouts for Ozzie and don't make me want to pull out my hair. But in reality, that will never happen.

So here's hoping that the Wings can get a win tonight an pull ahead in the series. Really, really, hoping. The less we have to hear their horrible goal horn, the better (I swear it's the most annoying noise in hockey other than the Dallas Star's "One Minute" announcer). I'm thinking a ten'o'clock coffee run may be in order for the next two games. Who came up with the idea of different time zones, anyway?