Sweet Tea, Barbecue, and Bodychecks

Colton Orr used his forearm and elbow to give Matt Cullen a nice concussion (and a busted snoot) last night.

In return, the Hurricanes gave the Rangers the game. You’re welcome.

The game was a blur to me, really. It was just a long nightmare of gaffes and goofs and a complete lack of physicality whatsoever. Lavi was clearly upset, I’m upset, the TSB Goon Squad is clamouring for the return of Jesse Boulerice (whose usefulness is long spent), and it was really not a fun way to come out of the X-istmas break.

And then we have the psycho freakshow known as Sean Avery, who decided to wait until the linesmen were holding Andrew Ladd (who stepped into the scrum to defend his teammate) to get some punches in on Ladd. Yeah, that really shows your manhood there Sean-o. And don’t get me going on the hilarity that would have been a Malik-Nolan tussle.

Tomorrow the horror continues when the Bahstan Broons come to the RBC Center for some good old-fashioned southern hospitality and probably two free points. Just cos we’re so giving like that, yanno.

As always, let’s go to the videotape.

The Pflyers are playing in Buffalo. There’s a scrum in front of the net, and Maxim Afinogenov not only slew-foots Scott Upshall, but he then tries to stomp him while dudeman is laying on the ice.

I’m sorry, what?  That’s actually WORSE than the Simon-Ruutu incident, because the risk of serious injury is actually greater given where Afinogenov aimed his skate-blade: Upshall’s side/midsection.

Those kidney-pads on the pants only cover so much, kids. The chest protector only covers so much–there’s a lot of area left unprotected, and the midsection (last I checked) contained some vital organs. But nothing will happen, because Afinogenov doesn’t have the history of bad behaviour that Simon has…and because it’s the Pflyers, who have made their reputation for being cheap assholes this season, so it’ll be excused with the lovely catchphrase “he deserved it”.

Because, of course, the innocent should always be punished for the sins of the guilty amirite?

JWillie out 4-6 months, needs surgery on his left ACL.

When I saw him go down last night in that freakish display of ill-luck, I immediately grabbed my knee in sympathetic pain. My knees, they are sensitive beasties.

In response to JWillie’s injury, the ‘Canes have called up Brandon Nolan from Albany and added a top-six forward to their short-list of needs for this season along with a new defence.

Happy Yule, folks–all I’d like at this point is to give Tampa teh beatdown in their barn and make John Tortorella’s head explode, and we’ll go from there.

Go Canes.

Well.

In the midst of all the hubbub last night, those of us who couldn’t make the game and don’t have Centre Ice missed this gem:

It’s a don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it move, but Craig Adams high-sticked Alexander Steen…and then followed it up with a bonk on Steen’s head with the butt-end of his stick.

He got a 2-minute high sticking penalty, but nothing else–until today, when he got slapped with just as many games as Randy Jones got for almost ending Patrice Bergeron’s career.

Do whatnow? OK, I can see wanting to send a message on hits to the head–but how is this the equivalent of lining up a dude and plowing his face into the boards at speed, ending his season and putting the rest of his career in question?

A game and a hefty fine, sure. CAdams was totally in the wrong and deserved to get a good swift kick in the ass. But equivocating it with a deliberate attempt to injure is complete codswallop.

Good job, Clownshoe Colin.

Note to self: (CSI + (mute + closed-caption)) + (ChuckandtheletterK + volume²) + ((Cat * 2) / (lap + tummy)) + OT game-winner = ((pain + claw-marks)²) + (band-aids² + Neosporin)

Yes, I watched CSI in the living room while I had ChuckandtheletterK on in the computer room–Mmmmm, CSI (my new favourite show) and hockey. Two great tastes that go great together.

Before the game, Dave Shoalts of the Globe and Mail decided to level yet another pathetic blast at the Hurricanes–yes kids, he trotted out the same old lame-ass NASCAR smack. Oh yeah, and he mentioned two of the three ACC teams here in the Triangle. Hey dumbass, you forgot NCSU.

Of course, this is the same fuckwad that said two seasons ago that we don’t deserve a hockey team down here (oh, excuse me–he said that we’re “not a hockey market”, as if there’s such a huge distinction) because an RBC securebot didn’t immediately recognize Bret of the Gimpy Hip’s father-in-law (scroll down to to the entry from 25 November 2005), so of course I wasn’t exactly surprised to see yet more effluent issue forth from his pen. Dave, you’re an idiot. You’re a pathetic execrable geographically-challenged¹ Jack Todd wannabe, except that you pilot the failboat when it comes to the ability to be petty and nasty. That, and you’re not a filthy deserter either. Actually, that last part is a plus. But you’re still captain of the USS Failing Away.

p.s. Thank you Toronto for the two points. We appreciate ‘em greatly.

^1: As I have said many times before–the closest track is in Charlotte, which is two hours away. Not only that, but the Leafs’ TV rightsholder asked the NHL to push back the start time of a Leafs game to accomodate the broadcast of a NASCAR race in the GTMA (which I will keep mentioning until the end of time, so get over it people). So take that NASCAR garbage, fold it until it is all sharp corners, and shove it where the goal light doesn’t shine kthxbye.

I would like to thank Luke DeCock for almost getting me in trouble with my boss—I read the opening line of this afternoon’s blogpost, and burst out laughing before I could stop myself.

In a nutshell: I was wrong about Stillman being out for the rest of the season. He’ll be back in the lineup for tomorrow night’s game with the Mo-ple Leafs, where he will be doing absolutely nothing on a line with JWillie and the Warchief.

And there was much rejoicing.

Let’s go to the videotape:

As you see in this clip, Jarkko Ruutu is standing by the bench jawing at an Islander (Looked like Andy Sutton, but I could be wrong). Officials intervene as Chris Simon skates up to the bench. Suddenly, Ruutu collapses as Simon stomps down on his ankle with his skate–not once, but TWICE, hard–and takes a seat on the bench.

Simon received a match penalty for intent to injure, and the Pens went on to win. The incident, according to the talking heads on On The Fly, will go under review.

Now, I’m sorry–but one has to look at past history (Simon came off a 25-game joke-suspension–”Bad boy, no preseason for you!”–for cross-checking the Rangers’ Ryan Hollweg in the face last season, and has a reputation as a cheap-shot artist) and the potential severity of the situation. Ruutu may be a smack-talking little bastard, and he may be a little on the sly-cheap himself–but his history of agitation doesn’t warrant what would have been a career-ending injury had his foot and ankle not been encased in the hard leather-and-plastic siding of a hockey skate.

Of course, this is Colin Campbell we’re talking about–so I am betting Simon gets three games and a letter in the mail saying “you are a bad boy, don’t do that again.”

Bet on it.

The good:

• Wow, our first shootout win since 2006–curiously enough, that last shootout win was also in Philly, and was also won by the Warchief.
• We had guys scoring! It’s a miracle!
• Gritty gritty game. A “watershed moment”, as Fearless Leader would say.
• Watching that game was like having some awesomely mindbending sex. It was that intense (for the record, the last time I said that about a game was when we played Dallas to a 4-4 tie in 2001 or so). It gets “save until I delete” status, along with the postgame show (which shows the Warchief’s shootout winner).
• Crackers didn’t crumble.
• Chad LaRose. Need I say more? He’s a little yip-dog, sure–but he’s OUR little yip-dog!
• Matt Cullen = money in the shootout.
• Nicky Wallin = money on defense. Heia Sverige! *waves flag*
• (T-dub for the win)
• It is raining in Raleigh right now, 2 inches forecast for tonight through tomorrow morning. Considering we’re deep in a drought here, this is a good thing even if it’s not game-related.
• The Warchief’s shootout winner, which Biron watched go up in the air, come down….only to roll off his back into the net. How the hell do you MISS that? Don’t be expecting the Phillies to give you a call come spring training there, Marteh. Oh look, there’s a YouTube:

The Bad:

• Cory Stillman’s out for the season. Bet me? Bet me. That knee injury was, in the words of Fearless Leader, “Theismanesque”–really it wasn’t, since no snapping of the tibia and fibula occurred, but it was still bad. Very very bad.
• Bret of the Gimpy Hip needs to retire. That’s just it, he needs to retire. He’s not making good decisions out there, he’s gotten slower this season (which tells me that the hip is gimpier than he and the rest of the tribe is letting on), and he’s just becoming a liability out there. Love you like a brother man, but it’s time to mosey off into the sunset.
• Our power play has once again reached a level of futility not often seen since 15 December 2003.
• Our penalty kill is still blowing chunks–this is a “constant bad” that is an unfortunate side-effect of the puck-pursuit system that the Hurricanes play, but still gets a pro forma mention here.

The Ugly:

• Derian Hatcher and his nice little stealth elbow. Fuck you, you nasty-ass neanderthal.
• Did I already mention our power play?
• And, of course, the same people that were all “BOOOO, WE SUCK! TRADE EVERYONE! FIRE TEH COACH ZOMG!!!!!1eleventy!!1″ last night are all “YAY GO CANES WOOOOOO!” tonight. Pick a freaking lane, people. Sheesh.

So the guys are currently en route back to Raleigh, and will be off until Tuesday when Chairman Mo (the winningest and losingest coach in Whalercanes history) comes to town with the Leafs. Should be an interesting one.

There is dark irony that I did some reading on the 2007 Farm Bill (with two amendments that Smithfield and Tyson wanted turfed because it helps small meat producers compete with Big Agribusiness*) while the Hurricanes played catch-up all night against the Calgary Flames, losing despite putting in one mother of an effort.

Anyone who says the Canes mailed it in tonight needs to get the hell off the bus and turn in their fan card right now. Fucking frontrunners. Go cheer for Detroit or something.

I wish I could have gone tonight, I really do. Hells, I park at the Carter-Finley lot and take the Wolfline to work–how hard would it be to get off work, take the bus to C-F, and walk across the road to the RBC?

Nevermind that my car would get towed. We’ll just ignore that for the moment. I COULD HAVE BEEN THERE DAMMIT, BUT I HAVEN’T BEEN PAID BY THE NEW YOB YET AND I AM BROKE.

And so, I find myself again wishing that I could afford to be at the arena every night, just like I wished it in 2002-2003 when the Hurricanes were having difficulties after a game with those damnable Red Wings. I blame Detroit for this–of course, I blame Detroit for everything from the price of gas to the demise of Skylab, so take that as you will.

What to do, what to do? What to say, what to say? The power play is anemic, the penalty kill is meh, and the whole team is just…just…I don’t think that they’re mailing it in…much. But I do think that the frustration is getting to them. Has gotten to them. You people know what I mean. The team is in a steady downward spiral right now, and management is saying “no trades” (though I know damn well that JimR has something up his sleeve, even if the Fairweather-fan Idiot Brigade can’t figure it out).

But I’m not turning my back on the ‘Canes. I can’t do it. I’m too much of a fanatic to do it. I could die tonight, and I’ll be in the visiting team’s locker room before every game cutting skate laces and making sure that Icy Hot magically appeared in everyone’s jockstraps. It would take something really serious to make me turn my back on this team–and the chips being down? That ain’t it, kids. Being on a slide is small potatoes.

Everyone else can punch out, some random moron with no ball-sack can tell me that I’m sanctioning mediocrity by refusing to pull the D-ring–which I know he’d never do to my face, whatever. Fuck ‘em, cos I’ll be on this ride all the way.

‘Canes to the Bloody Bitter End, Baby!

I’m not a friend of Big Ag companies like Tyson, Smithfield, et al. — especially Smithfield.

OK, what the effin’eff is going on with the Hurricanes?

It’s always at times like this when I wish most for season tickets, because I have this insane need to know what makes things tick–especially when they’re broken. I want to know what’s going on, I want to find out where things are going wrong, and (in the case of the Hurricanes) I want to get a feel for the general mood on the ice–and it’s pretty hard to do that just through a TV screen.

So, what to do?  Realistically, our only tradebait is Erik Cole–and he’s not going to go cheap. Some idiot wants Stillman to go, but I don’t see that happening because of that lovely little NTC that JimR doled out to (him) all the vets like Xmas prezzies. Commodore?  Meh. Trading him would be like trading a spare part.

Anyone who seriously suggests trading the Warchief will die horribly.

Rosie?  Man, Rosie Rosie Rosie…I love him and would miss him terribly, but if trading him meant that we could shore up our defense I’d do it.

Ladd won’t go anywhere unless it was some egregious blockbuster that was heavily tilted in our favour–no way would JimR trade away somebody that he drafted at the RBC and with such great fanfare, unless he wound up being Jeff O’Neill 2.0 or something.

One guy suggested stripping the Warchief of the C, which actually made me laugh.  Did this guy clamour for Ron Francis to be stripped of his captaincy during the Season From Hell?  No?  Then what’s changed here?

All we know is that something is broken, and it needs to be fixed tout suite.

I hate making these posts, but what’s right is right amirite?

Let’s go to the videotape.

The Hurricanes were getting pwnt by the Sens last night (and rightly so–any team that comes out and plays that slacktastically deserves to have its headed handed to it). Scott “Remo Williams” Walker gets tangled up with Martin Gerber (NO, I don’t think Remo ran him despite what the homers at TSN say in that clip) at around :41 into the second.

Mike Fisher went off and got into a brawl with Walker, who foolishly administered a headbutt as the linesmen stepped in to separate the combatants.

Way to go, shithead. Remo, what the hell was going through your thick head right then? What the hell made you think that it was a good idea to do that? Yeah, the headbutt was rather mild–but a headbutt is still a headbutt, it’s still dirty, it’s still a hit to the head (which the league has been making noise about cracking down on, though I have my doubts) and I hope your ass gets suspended for it you big goob.

Hope you’re proud of yourself.

Luke DeCock: Hurricanes send struggling Ladd to Albany

This was a smart move–the kid wasn’t getting enough ice time on the 4th line, and he hasn’t been playing well enough to be on any higher line. He needs to get clear of R’lyeh and get some ice time in the AHL and get his head back together.

In other news, the Hurricanes have made Tom Barrasso their fulltime goalie coach as Greg Stefan has left to go coach the OHL’s Plymouth Whalers. This will be interesting.

I was rather expecting that loss, given two things:

1) The WhalerCanes’ record at the Nexus of Evil (winless streak going back to 1989)

2) The continuation of the win-lose-win-lose-win-lose pattern that goes back about a month and a half.

I didn’t bother watching the video stream of the game–thanks, I already know that Ken Daniels and Mickey Redmond are under a standing order to never say anything nice about my team as long as Pete Karmanos owns them. I don’t need to have it shoved in my face, and monitors (not to mention ER visits for gashed-up fists) are expensive to replace anyway. Of course, that little factoid didn’t stop other Hurricanes fans from watching it and commenting on the aforementioned never-saying-anything-nice. Really Mickey, bringing up Eric Staal’s bachelor party escapade? Can we be a little more bush league, please? Seriously, I’m wondering here.

So, I listened to ChuckandtheletterK while playing some World of Warcraft. Vented a little to my guildmates (who are mostly Sens and Oilers fans, for the record), went on a couple Shadow Labyrinth runs, and I felt better. Marginally.

And the Wings fans are still pretending they know me better than I do. Quelle grande surprise–at least they’re one up on the average fans of the Buffalo ASBOs in that most of them understand hyperbole when they encounter it.

And at least on Wednesday we’ll be playing a team with civilized fans.

Dear Red Wings fans,

I see your IP addresses. You’re here hoping to hear me sling some good old-fashioned hate at your beloved Red Wings.

You’re hoping to see me drop an angerbomb or two about 2002, possibly wind up soiling yourselves with glee at seeing me rant nonsensically about how much I hate you personally, hate your team, hate your town (Congratulations on being named the Most Dangerous City in America, by the way. I’m sure y’all are SO proud), and how mortally ashamed I am at half my maternal relatives being fans of that gods-cursed team with the second-assiest fans in the NHL.

Whatever.

I think that five years of hearing “oh, you’re just jealous that we’ve won three Cups in the last ten years” and “oh, you’re just upset over 2002″ despite signed affidavidts from my closest relatives that I’ve hated all the sports teams in Detroit (including and especially the Red Wings and the Pistons) since I was a child is more than enough. I’m tired of being told how I really feel by a bunch of arrogant besserwissern that have known me all of two years (and even then, not all that well). I’m tired of the disrespect that comes with the attitude that everyone else should just roll over and die for the Mighty Detroit Red Wings–especially when that disrespect comes from frontrunning mouthbreathers that wouldn’t know Alex Delvecchio if he walked up to them on the street and cross-checked them. I’m tired of the frontrunning attitude, tired of the excusemaking and double-standardization associated with the attendance woes in Detroit, tired of little two-faced bitches like Mitch Albom that come here and enjoy our hospitality one day only to turn around and trash us the next.

Suffice it to say that I hope the Hurricanes win tomorrow in much the same manner that they won tonight–through the unrestrained use of excessive force. A few small incendiary devices wouldn’t hurt either, but I’ll take what I can get.

Now fuck off back to your slums and your decaying auto plants and your self-important assholery. And please take my mother’s father’s relatives with you.

Go Canes.

Of course, it could only get better after that embarrassing performance on Saturday. I watched that game last night and couldn’t find much wrong with the Hurricanes’ performance–even Avi Tanabe was good (and from me, that is saying a lot).

Some brief specifics:

*Dennis Seidenberg showed why he deserves to be in the lineup.

*Matt Cullen showed the Rangers how they slotted up by misusing him and then letting him go (how’s Andrew Hutchinson working out for you there, Slats?)

*Cory Stillman did nothing ¹.

*The Hurricanes played about as complete a game as I’ve seen them play since October, and they showed what they can do when they actually play their game and make the other team have to adapt to them.

Hopefully they can do it again on Thursday in Tampa and Sunday in Detroit. I’ll sacrifice Saturday, if it means that the tribe will scalp the Menses Munchers the next day. Just sayin’.

^1:It’s a joke. Roll with it.

OK, this every-other crap has got to stop. Mind you, Friday’s win over the Capitals was no great shakes either–I’ll take that two points thank you kindly, but really. A little consistency would be good. Hells, the October ‘Canes would be good.

I don’t know what’s more frustrating to me, our sputtering power play or the toolbags IN OUR OWN FANBASE that are pissing and moaning that they’ve lost respect for Lavi or that the team sucks or that half the team needs to be traded RIGHT NOW.

Of course, these are the same idiots that piss and whine when we lose, and then turn around and say “YEAH GO TEAM GO WOOOO” when we win. So whatever.

The Hurricanes aren’t hitting anymore–except for Dennis, und Herzlichen Dank für ihn. OK, and Timmay too.  Almost forgot him. But it’s like everyone else has suddenly decided to take a powder or something, and it makes me tear my hair out in frustration because I know what’s wrong, and I know that the team must know what’s wrong, but they’re not doing anything about it. They’re not skating. They’re trying to go for the cute pass and the “perfect” shot and all this other crap. They’re better than that. They know that, I know that, everyone except the biggest idiots from X Random Messageboard knows that.

But until knowledge translates into action, this team is going to keep sputtering and flaking out and driving me even more insane than I already am. Maybe this 8-1 beatdown will wind up being what the doctor ordered.