Let There Be Vikings.

If you haven't already heard, Jonathan Ericsson will return from a knee injury tonight against the Hurricanes. With this, the Wing's Swede count increases to three. THREE. I remember a time long, long ago when Detroit had seven Swedes on the roster...



...Oh wait, what was that? Seven? Really? This season? You mean 2009-10?

Yeah. There was a time when the red and white of the Winged Wheel and the blue and yellow of Sweden's flag were practically synonymous. I miss those days.

Speaking of international hockey, a couple days ago it was released that Brian Rafalski was named alternate captain America.




He's a defenseman, so the bulletproof shield is used to... stop pucks... or something... I don't know. There was a point in my life when I was on MS Paint, meticulously cutting around a Red Wing player's head, pixel by pixel, so I could copy/paste it onto a comic book character's body, and it occurred to me that I probably shouldn't think far enough into these things to actually come up with backstory for what Alternate Captain American Brian Rafalski uses his superhero paraphernalia for.

Sadly, that day predates this blog by about two years.

Who else felt like the US Olympic roster was subtitled "let's see how many current/former New Jersey Devils we can fit on one team"? There were less Swedish Wings in Torino.

Which brings me back to the whole point of this post, which was supposed to be: I miss our Swedes.

Dear Sweet Beautiful Hockey Gods...

When will the shutouts end?

Dwayne Roloson made 16 saves (Yep, just 16. Don't vomit too much) to blank the Wings in the final game of 2010's first road trip. But don't blame it all on the goalie - tonight the Wings were ridiculously out-played.

The first period looked like someone had spiked the gatorade bottles with NyQuil. Double-shots of Viking-strength NyQuil. I wrote it off as jet-lag and hoped they'd snap out of it once they realized they were down two goals at first intermission. I guess somewhere during the win-streak I had forgotten that hope breeds disappointment.

After Babcock pulled Larry Murphy's vote for Calder Trophy winner in the second period, Ozzie finally got some time in net. And boy, did he look rusty. Rusty like the Titanic.

A fitting metaphor for what the Wings did this evening when they hit the ice

That was to be expected though, considering that it's the first time he's played in about ten thousand years (actually, I think he did pretty good for being 36 and coming in more or less cold).

For a minute there, I thought that pulling Howard was the wake-up call that the Red Wings needed, and was going to be the turning point in a come-from-behind win.

And then the Islanders scored while our 4-time Lady Byng winner was in the box for trying to break a guy in half, and I pretty much gave up. Which is what it looked like half the team had done as well; the third period played out less like an attempt to break a shut-out and more like an exercise in damage control. I guess without a period-long concerted effort for either, neither plan pulled through.

As far back as I can remember, scoring goals has never been this big of a problem for the Wings, and this is starting to scare me.

On the bright side, Franzen is skating again and Kronner's ultrasound came back with no signs of a baby, and, maybe more importantly, no signs of damage to his knee.

Ugh. Six-nothing. I'm never watching hockey again.

... until Thursday.

TAVARES!!!

Every time I sit down in front of this blog, I have to fight against the instinct to bang my head against the keyboard and bitch about what a crappy season it's been. (Also, now that every other word out of Larry Murphy's mouth is "Calder candidate", I have to fight against titling every post "I liked Jimmy Howard before he was cool".)

At least the injuries seem to have leveled off for the time being. Of course, now that I've said that, we're going to lose half the team...

Tomorrow the Wings are playing the New York Islanders. And you kids know what that means.

That means Tavares:



Oh man, John Tavares's new nickname in this household is totally "Pooch".

Mostly because Butch, Chubby, Tiny or Ralph just don't suit him at all.

Don't worry. We weren't killed, kidnapped, or kicked off the bandwagon

We got to watch the last couple of games on swanky big-screen tvs with decent sound-systems this week. Of course, this is due to the fact that we're babysitting our aunt's cat. Who who does his business in a Red Wings-themed bonus room I could only dream of having. Underneath a picture of Sergei Fedorov, which I mention only because I don't think I could use the bathroom while I was looking at Sergei Fedorov. That just seems awkward.

But as awful as this sounds, I don't really want to talk about the Red Wings right now. And here's why:

It's not really a secret to the people who know me that I have a hard time relating to the United States as an institution. It has to do with the fact that, being such a huge and hugely diverse country, there's room in the definition of 'American' for everything and everything's exact opposite, and it always seems to be the people opposite of me who try to speak for me on behalf of the entire country. It means that for most of my life, there's been a disconnect between me and my native land, with nothing for me to really hold onto. That, and the fact that I only live about twenty minutes from the border and spent a solid quarter of my childhood across it, meant that I would have been pretty happy with the Canadians winning World Juniors tonight.

But it was the US in overtime, after a spectacular, fast-paced game of amazingness, and when the team sang the Star Spangled Banner (horribly, but it was awesome), I had something in this country to connect to, and I felt more like an American than I probably ever had. I'd hardly heard of any of those guys before New Year's eve, but they felt like my team. I was a bundle of emotions.

And then I had to turn back to the Wings game, which after that sort of felt like a regular season game played on California ice against one of my least favorite teams where I don't even get to make fun of Chris Pronger and half my team was injured and we weren't in the playoffs if they started today and the Wings were down two goals half-way through the second and I could scream "WELL IF TODD BERTUZZI AND TOMAS HOLMSTROM CAN'T SCORE ON HILLER TONIGHT THEN THIS GAME IS ALREADY OVER" at the television and not be sarcastic at all.

Because... that's what it was.

And given my choice between the two, I'd much rather be thinking about the badassery that is the World Juniors Battle Cry. (No, seriously, you should watch that.)



(ETA: Apparently this victory was just important enough to be featured on ESPN's website until the next blurb of football news came up, when it disappeared forever. So nevermind, I hate America again.)

Even our aunt loves Todd Bertuzzi

No, really. I mean, at first it was sort of cute, you know, like aw, our crazy lady aunt has a crush on Todd!, but then he started scoring every goal in the game again, and no, my aunt loves Todd Bertuzzi.

Like, when they interviewed him in postgame it was "Shhh, my boyfriend's talking! Isn't he cute!" And our aunt's not the cool aunt who's only seven years older than you are. She's like your mom. I mean, I never understood those people who would melt from embarassment over their mothers having gushing crushes on George Clooney, but I get it now. I definitely get it now.

Not that I can really blame her - admit it: if Todd Bertuzzi keeps being the only Red Wing who can consistently win us games, you'll be in love with him before too long too.

By the end of that game, I wanted to say that it was the greatest game in the history of the franchise, but that's only because it feels like it's been three years since the Wings have walked away with a point. In actuality, that was pretty gross, but I'd rather the team win gross games than lose at all.

- Howard was pretty good from where I was sitting. I understand going with the hot goalie, but Ozzie's four wins away from 400, and as happy as I am with Jimmy's performance, I want him to make there. He's been my favorite forever; it makes me sad.

- No, seriously - holy crap Todd Bertuzzi. I don't even know what's going on.

- I could bitch about the first period, but if the Red Wings are going to spend a third of each game sleeping, I would much prefer they choose the first and not the third. I miss the days when the Wings would mount a spectacular win and I would sit down at the computer and complain for three paragraphs about defensive coverage and lack of secondary scoring. I like that better than lamenting the end of the universe because they played alright and lost.

- I watched every replay of Helm's save, but I'm still not sure how he did it. I think he must have been moving faster than the cameras could pick up.

Do we really have to watch the BJs again? Twice in a row? This schedule is janky.

So because two games in a row against Chicago makes me sad, I'm not going to talk about it.

I'm going to talk about other things I hate.

About a week ago, Lindsay found this post on her internet travels. It sparked a little discussion (and a lot of ranting) about what makes a truly obnoxious seat-mate. It's all pretty subjective - some of our death-by-fire game-ruiners might be your colorful ambiance-providers and vice versa. Hell, we couldn't even agree on most of these, and only agreed to include them all because they managed to add up to ten, which is generally the most accepted number of items to put on one of these things. You're probably going to disagree with a few of these.

So with that in mind, here are Hockeytown Static's Top Ten Most Obnoxious People at a Hockey Game:

10. People with whistles. Actually, neither of us have ever been to a hockey game where they were blowing train whistles (which is probably a good thing for the people blowing them), but it's a fear we have for the future.

9. Puckbunnies. Ok, so we're girls - we understand if you want to look good when you go out, even to a hockey game. And we understand if you appreciate the physical attractiveness of the players on the ice - that's biology. Hell, I guess we can even concede to tolerate all the "PUCK ME" and "Lebda your (sic) a hottie!" signs, even if it means that, again, us being girls, among a lot of fans we have to work twice as hard and dress twice as frumpily to prove our credibility.

But when I'm glowing with childlike glee at finally getting a chance to see the players I worshiped as heroes as a child and you push past me and block my view of Lidstrom or Hank or Ozzie during warm-ups so that you can try to slip Jonathan Ericsson your number through the crack in the glass? Bitch, you've crossed a line.

8. The Griffins $1 beer crowd. I've never really had a problem with the people at Van Andel who were there for the hockey and really excited that the beer was just a buck (actually, the best time I've ever had at a hockey game was when the guys in front of us got wasted and two of them nearly went to blows over whether or not Wayne Gretzky was the greatest hockey player of all time). But the arena fills up every Friday night, mainly with people just there to get drunk. They're loud, obnoxious, and usually have no idea what a puck even is, but they can get wasted and eat a whole meal for under $20 (including tickets), so they're there. And while I think it's great that you're having a good time and all, I don't really want to spill beer on me, hit on my sister during second intermission, and then cheer for the wrong team during the shootout.

7. People who stand during THE WHOLE intermission. Not get up and stretch a little. Not head out to the concourse to pee out five dollars worth of dollar beer and then come back a little while later. Not jump up when there's a chance to catch free t-shirts. People who actually stand up right in front of their seats and chat for a solid 15 minutes. I know the intermission entertainment is lame. I don't care. Maybe my kid's out there with his mini-mites team. Maybe my best friend's trying to throw frisbees into the net for a free jersey. Maybe I've got a thing for juggling Elvises. And maybe I paid good money for my $10 standing room only ticket and want to watch the Stormtroopers dance. Sit the hell down, dammit.

6. People who wear jerseys of teams not playing in the game you are attending. We understand that there can be exceptions - like teams that have some kind of personal or geographical tie to one of the teams playing (like wearing a team Sweden or an old Vipers jersey to a Wings game, or a Shane Doan Jets jersey to a Coyotes game), or like a Chiefs jersey (which no hockey game is really complete without). But if you go to a Wings vs. Flames game in Detroit wearing a Crosby 2010 Olympic Team Canada jersey, you are just a prognosticating tool. The roster hasn't even been finalized yet, and obviously you're just doing it to brag, but you've come to the wrong place.

5. That one guy who steals the goal light after the final game at Olympia and makes it into an honest to God lamp. Then they give the lamp away, with no thought at all that maybe in a few years they would have two daughters who pretty much worship the Detroit Red Wings. Thanks, Dad.

4. Grown adults who are at their first hockey game and still don't quite get it. I appreciate your effort sir, but I don't want to sit next to you for three hours while you tell your friend (and their friends are never all that knowledgeable about the game) how it's like football on ice. No, it's not. It's like soccer on crack on ice. But you don't know that, because you don't watch soccer either. And I'm talking about the people who aren't ever going to watch hockey again, who spend third period on their cell phones because they got bored of not being able to follow the puck. You're not obnoxious because you don't know what icing is - you're obnoxious because you're yelling over the hockey-noise, right in my ear, about how you totally almost scored the other night with some hot chick.

3. That guy who spends literally the entire game standing two rows in front of you on his cell phone trying to get the attention of his friend on the other side of the arena. Ok, cool - make sure your buddy knows where you're sitting, have a wave, point him out to the guy you're sitting with - if you can't find each other in less than five actual minutes, give up, because you're not going to pick each other out among the other 8,000 people at Joe Louis Arena wearing red shirts and black baseball caps, half of whom are on their cell phones waving across the ice right along with you. And you don't need to continuously stand up and signal to each other via semaphore during actual game play - cross-arena communication is what the Finns invented texting for. Don't make me spend the entire game with your arms waving around my line of vision, listening to you say "No, over here! Yeah, I'm over here, in section...um... the one like two down from the left goal. No, MY left. Yeah. No, that's not me. I'm waving! Can you see me? Where are you?"

2. People who get drunk enough to fail at insulting the players so epically that I almost don't hate them, but love them for the entertainment. Most of this I've experienced thanks to dollar beer night at Van Andel (why would you yell 'GO BACK TO STATE!' at Jimmy Howard? He went to University of Maine), and is part of the reason I don't like the people who only come for the dollar beers. Can you tell that dollar beer night is a complicated love-hate relationship for me? It confuses my emotions toward alcohol.

1. People who yell "SHOOT!" when there is clearly no shooting lane open. I mean, I get it - it's frustrating when you're stuck watching your team pass the puck to each other at the blue line during a powerplay in the last dying seconds of the game. And sometimes hockey players don't do enough getting the puck to the net (back when he was with the Griffins, Ville Leino, I swear to God, would back-pass on a breakaway. I saw it happen! More than once!) and you want them to shoot - I want them to shoot too. Maybe enough to shout a little encouragement every once in a while. But I can promise you that Nick Lidstrom has a better idea of when to shoot the puck than that drunk guy sitting three rows behind me. So drunk guy three rows behind me yelling "SHOOT IT!" every thirty seconds? Unless your name is Steven Gregory Yzerman, and I know it's not, keep your freaking mouth shut.

Good lord, hockey makes me angry.

blegh

Well, that was a depressing weekend. The Wings lost all 4 of the possible points they could have skated away with in two games against Dallas and Chicago.

I honestly stopped paying attention during the third period of the game against Chicago. I don't know if it was just the game, or it was a combination of the game and the season, or if it was all of that and this wicked caffiene headache (lack of caffiene headache?) I've been nursing most of the day, but at some point around second intermission, I had lost the will to live. The Wings were playing that way too. The defensive coverage was bad, the goaltending was questionable, and the offense was so horrible that it was nonexistant.

On the bright side, there's only about 50 more days until Franzen comes back.
(I might have just vomited on my keyboard after typing that. I don't think I can handle this season anymore. It's just too ridiculous.)

Why am I blaming everything on voodoo this year?

Top five reasons why the Hockeytown No Limits commercial might be cursed:

5. It's not actually cursed, because Franzen and Williams weren't in it, and Kronner only in a highly diminished capacity - but Mattias Ritola and Jakub Kindl have been holding voodoo doll parties in Grand Rapids.

4. Steve Yzerman should have been in it.

3. Allowing the universal spread of the "Hockeytown" moniker, while only fair to faraway Wings fans, has spread the magic too thin.

2. Tempting fate - "No limits? Lets give them some!"

1. The director was actually an Avs fan.

Babcock better be glad it's not the same curse as last year, when every team that went to Europe to start the season had a different coach by the end of it.

Why are there two hockey teams in Florida anyway?

Tonight's ugly sweater night at the Joe!

Trying to find the ugliest sweater in hockey led me to some very dark places. The Vancouver Canucks of the 1970s. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Nabokov. Henrik Zetterberg's penchant for wearing questionable sweater vests to press conferences.

But the winner, as with most things, has to be Steve Yzerman.

yeah, you wish your sweaters were as ugly as his

As for the game... to tell you the truth, I'm not overly fond of Tampa Bay in the first place, since (with maybe the exception of Nikolai Khabibulin (although, who knows what sort of crippling personal issues he might have walked away with)) that team seems to eventually destroy everything it touches. The Vipers... Gary Roberts' career... Vinny Lecavalier and Brad Richards' guy-love... to the point where I blame them for causing the lock-out by winning the Cup in 04.

Of course I want the Red Wings to win this one. They haven't won four in a row yet this season, and not only would it probably be a confidence thing for the team, it would make me feel better about life.

But to be perfectly honest, I'm more worried about winning the next six. It's the Tampa Bay Lightning - I'll get over it if the Wings lose. I care more about beating Dallas, Chicago twice, Columbus twice, and Colorado.

Ugh, happy holidays. Who the crap is responsible for this schedule bullshit?