Um... ok, I knew somebody had to go, maybe still more people, and Ville Leino was pretty damn high on everybody's hypothetical/prospective chopping block. You know, because he got scratched like every game. And his play... designated him semi-official fan scapegoat in Andreas Lilja's extended absence (don't worry guys - Lindsay saw him play in Grand Rapids last night - he's back to his shot-blocking, hard-hitting, questionable defensive choices self again).
And I'll miss him, because I was still holding out hope for him.
But who the crap is Ole-Kristian Tollefsen?
All we could find about him was that he was
a defenseman
a long-time Blue Jacket
Norwegian
incredibly injury-prone
I'm not really sure where Kenny's going with this. I really hope we just dealt Leino to get a guy, and not just took on a guy to get rid of Leino.
Today is that magical day when Bill Murray movies are showing on eight different channels and we wait with bated breath for an ugly rodent in Pennsylvania to tell us that it's spring everywhere except Michigan, where it's still going to be cold, bleak, and unfortunate until the middle of May.
still winter, bitches
On top of that, tonight the Red Wings play a west coast team until two in the morning, whereas tomorrow the Red Wings play a west coast team until two in the morning. And given what we've come to expect from the broadcast team at FSD... well, I'll be honestly surprised if we don't get at least three groundhog day jokes.
Heres hoping Todd Bertuzzi gets a birthday hat trick so that we can all go to Arby's and get some birthday curly fries.
And maybe I should clarify, because this seems to be happening a lot lately - if he does get a birthday hat trick, I want the Wings to keep the lead until the game is over. Not over like there's two minutes left. Over like all the players have retired to their respective dressing rooms and have disrobed and showered and are giving interviews to the assembled media. All the way over.
You listening Red Wings? You have to play the whole game until it's over.
I always thinks it's really funny to look at which games get picked up by Versus and NBC and then ask "why?" Like last year, when the Devils had to deal with at least two Versus feeds a month because Versus desperately, desperately wanted to be the ones to broadcast Martin Brodeur's record-breaking 603,478,021st win.
I mean, nobody came out and said as much, but it couldn't have been a coincidence. I don't love Versus, but I put hockey on as background noise, whatever the game, and every week, like clockwork, there was Doc talking about how New Jersey was holding its own while Brodeur was on the mend. (Their plan failed, but they dropped everything to show it anyway. And by "dropped everything", I mean "interrupted a Wings game".) No, not a coincidence.
Sort of like I doubt that it's a coincidence that Ken and Mickey aren't calling either of the games the Wings play against the Pens this season.
No, seriously. There's another one in March, on a Monday, picked up by Versus. The league could have scheduled one of them on a Friday night. Instead of playing into NBC's plans to break the network record for most utterances of the words "rematch" and "rivalry".
But I don't care about rivalries or rematches right now. Sure, if the knowledge that they're about to play the Penguins riles the team up into a higher level of play, if the chance at retribution helps them to win, then I want them to play the Penguins every night.
But I'm not playing in this game; I'm watching (or, more accurately, listening, because aside from not particularly wanting to watch the NBC feed, I'll be driving back up to Grand Valley for the better part of the game), and as much as I want to care that it's the Penguins my team's about to play, I don't really care who the Red Wings are playing, if it's the Penguins or the Panthers or the Olympus Mons Dust Mites, which are a fictional team I just made up who play in the Martian Senior League - I just want the Wings to win.
I could change my mind about that tomorrow, when I catch NBC humping Sidney Crosby's leg before I hit the road and switch over to Ken Kal. But as I type, I'm watching Calgary rape Edmonton as they bump us out of the eighth spot in the west, so fuck Crosby - my mind's on those two points.
Have you ever found real Wayne Gretzky lacking? Thought that maybe he needed a bigger upper body? A more luscious-looking mullet? An arsenal of pucks that turned into boomerangs and then EXPLODED? If your answer to any of the above questions was OH YES PLEASE!, then today is the day your dreams come true.
"The Perbots of Dr. Lobe" (no, I'm still not really sure what a "perbot" is, exactly), wherein Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, and Bo Jackson attempt to save a vaguely ethnic child from a mad scientist using SPORTS! and... a giant magnet? Or something? Here's part 2 and part 3 where Wayne is sort of a whiny little coward.
I highly recommend you all watch the other episodes in the related videos section.
Preferably sitting on the floor in front of your computer in your pajamas with a bowl of Lucky Charms.
I wish I could say I'm surprised, but I'm not. The Eurotwins were showing glimmers of their previous magic, Nick Lidstrom practically doubled his goal count, Jimmy was f-ing rediculous, and somehow the Wings still managed to blow a two goal lead with less than five minutes left in the game. Story of the season. Since I couldn't watch the last period of this game, Trisha was kind enough to send me text updates so at least I didn't have to sit through the pain of watching the disappointment unfold:
"LIDSTROM INSURANCE GOAL WHAT ARE YOU DOING AT DANCE THIS IS SPECTACULAR" "Helm in box for the rest of the game I hope" "Yep, there it is. 3-4 with a minute and a half" "Draper missed the empty net, wtf?" "F***ing Jovo tied it" "Shane Doan to win. I blame this on Darren Helm" "At least we got a point? I guess? Why do I keep forgetting that hockey is nothing but pain and heartache?"
In other news, did anyone else hear Andy Brickley say during pregame that Datsyuk and Zetterberg "have tremendous sex"? He was trying for "success". I mean, I know that when the Eurotwins are on the same line a lot of this
happens, but geeze man, watch your Freudian slips on live tv; I almost choked on my baked potato.
No one except Drew Miller's mom was thinking "Oh, Zetterberg, Bertuzzi, and Cleary couldn't score? Don't worry, Drew'll get us out of this one." Maybe they should have been, but they probably weren't.
It took the events of the last week, but Lindsay's finally been cured of her desire for every hockey game in the history of ever to end with a shootout testing the skills of every player on each team including the back-up goalies. Now she at least agrees that the Red Wings should stop that sort of ridiculousness immediately.
The Red Wings winning a game is an occurrence more rare this season than I'm accustomed to, so when it's happened lately, it's like it was a playoff game or something and I'm jumping around the house forgetting how either team played and am suddenly at a loss for anything to say besides some variation on "Yay we won".
But I can say that I don't really like the Minnesota Wild.
I'm not just throwing that out there, either. If I came on here and put the hate on all 29 other teams and fanbases that weren't my own, you wouldn't be surprised at all, because this is a fan blog, and I'm allowed (by some, expected) to be a ragingly biased, blinders-wearing homer.
But that's not what's going on here. I like players who aren't with the Red Wings. Some of them are legitimate superstars. Some of them are rugged role players. Some of them... make me question my own taste in hockey players and I really can't explain.
I DON'T HAVE AN ANSWER
And in the same way, I like teams that aren't the Red Wings too - granted, much less than I like the Red Wings, but so long as they aren't playing Detroit that night (playoff series and ugly incidents notwithstanding), I like them quite a bit.
But Minnesota isn't one of those teams.
Maybe it's because of the whole "stealing the name ofHockeytown" business a couple of years ago (which was an asinine argument anyway - it didn't start out as an awarded nickname, it started out as a marketing ploy, and Ilitch probably has the damn thing copyrighted, so... yeah, good luck with that), or maybe it's because they look like Christmas elves out there, which I find obnoxious. Or it could be because they make a big fricking deal about their arena selling out every night while there's empty seats in the Joe, even though the X-cel Energy Center seats less people than Detroit pulls in on an average night, even with the empty seats (and curse me for not bookmarking these statistics when I found them, but they're out there, somewhere).
Or maybe it's because I remember reading somewhere that the ethnic make-up of the team was actually designed to mirror the ethnic make-up of the state in which it plays (with strong French Canadian and Finnish ties), and that just sounds a little too racist to me, I don't know. "Sorry Petr Sykora, you're too central European to fit in our system. Good luck on waivers."
Ok, so that last one doesn't quite hold up to strict journalistic standards of citation, but I'm trying to find a rational reason why I hate that team so much, and I can't find one. Isn't irrational hatred bad? Doesn't it tend to lead to hate-crimes and genocide and...
You know what? I'm willing to deal with that risk and any bad karma if it means I can enjoy the following to its fullest and most spectacular extent:
So, the Red Wings haven't been doing so great lately. I mean, alright, they played pretty well the last few games, but... they didn't win them, as close as they came, and come playoff time, the real season, winning's what matters. Maybe you're getting a little disillusioned. A little frustrated. Maybe you're starting to turn your gaze elsewhere for your hockey needs (stay with me here) and this last week's epic-tacular bout against the Chicago Blackhawks caught your lonely eye.
*I don't know, maybe that's just Patrick Sharp's face. I try not to look at Patrick Sharp too closely since last spring, because even though a lot of players are different people on the ice, I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around the thought that someone who looks like such a nice guy almost speared off Nick Lidstrom's balls.
But if he does look tenative about the situation in that photoshoot, it's probably because the author of the second article I linked is there behind the camera, drooling.
We were planning to postpone the post about the Dallas game until after the Chicago game in hopes that we would have something more substantial and pleasant to write than:
"Grumble grumble argh complain... I hate Steve Ott... grumble rant... NHL officiating... ugh bad photoshop complain... suck it, Toronto... vomit."
Well, after the game against Chicago, the only substantial thing we can do is take that and add:
"argh... 20 cent... why, Marian?... vomit more."
The Wings lost two games in two days, both decided by a shootout. And while they were painful to watch as a Wings fan, I can't say that I wasn't at least entertained.
That game was far from perfect. But it was the closest the Wings have come to it in weeks, and I'm not going to argue with 2 points.
With 2 points, I'm going to dance around the house jubilantly, like it was a playoff game or something. Except it's January, so that's kind of sad.
I guess the big news of the night (because I refuse to consider the Red Wings winning a game in a decisive fashion "news") is Nick Lidstrom scoring his first goal since practically his rookie season. Talk about getting a giant-ass monkey off your back.
No, not a giant ass-monkey
Also, did anybody else catch Mickey Redmond calling Jimmy "King James" tonight? Yeah, I'm still undecided on whether I want that one to catch on.
You can thank (blame?) the photoshop on the abysmally long time it took for me to load the gorilla picture on dial-up.
Trisha and Lindsay still don't know what they're doing on the internet. Lindsay currently attends Grand Valley State University, FSN broadcaster John Keating's alma mater. Trisha is a recent GV graduate currently undergoing treatment for her uncontrollable addiction to adjectives. There might have been a time when they were not Red Wings fans, but neither of them have any memories of the womb.
