Sweet Tea, Barbecue, and Bodychecks

Well whaddaya know, the Favored of Comcast actually decided to make some change near the top.

I’d have some biting commentary on this and talk about how the Flyers can now find a GM who knows how to do something other than trade for barely-mobile tree stumps and treat cancer patients like shit, but my head’s swimming like Ian Thorpe and I’m burning up thanks to something that one of my co-workers has been passing around Stop-n-Rob like a dollar blunt.
So after I get off work tonight, I’ll be on the couch being miserable for a few days and will probably have even less to say than I usually do.

I was going to post this big pithy philosophical thing about the ‘Canes and their luck and so on–but unfortunately my mind is a little fried after an all-nighter making sure the hubby wouldn’t have to be rushed to the hospital for an emergency nebulizer treatment, so I’ve decided to just open the floor up to the readership for discussion of tonight’s game and meander off to bed for a few hours.

Three things:

1) What do the ‘Canes need to do to get back on track?

2) Who’s impressed you so far among the New D00ds?

3) Babs out. Snuggles in. Thoughts?

Behave yourselves.

Aside to the Buffalo folks (even the moron that trolls from ECMC): Heard about the weather issues, hope you’re all OK and the damage to your homes is/was minimal.

OK, so I’m late. What do you expect when I work all the damn time?

Anyway. I’m at work last night, and this customer pulls up to Pump 1 wearing a Pens jersey (cos the Pens played their season opener last night). She comes in to throw some cash on the pump, and I said “Congratulations!”

“Do what?”

You didn’t hear the news? The Pens are getting a new owner.

“REALLY?! YES!”

This lady about launched herself over the counter and gave me a huge hug, she was that excited–and can you blame her? The Pens are getting a new owner, and now people can STFU about moving them to Winnipeg or Hamilton or wherever.

Congratulations, Pens fans. Y’all have suffered through this ownership nightmare for far too long.

There’s your Cup, Slugs Sabres fans. Enjoy it, and thanks for not forcing the Raleigh PD to work overtime tonight. My husband would also like to thank your team for saving him money by forcing my exile from the RBC for the rest of the season as the Official Jinx of Your Carolina Hurricanes.
328 is a fun section, by the way. If you heard “KILL IT…KILL IT DEAD!” and “CHEATERS! NEVER! WIN!”, that was Section 328.

The evening was not bad, game result aside–and why the hell did we re-sign Snuggles Tanabe again? Does his wife still think he’s a future Norris Trophy winner? Tim Gleason has my approval, also. It’s because he’s like the anti-Snuggles. When he put my fellow Nodak Paul Gaustad (I think it was Goose–somebody please correct me if I’m wrong) on his ass with one hand? I was in awe.

Scott Walker shall henceforth be known as Remo Williams–why? Because he’s got that whole Fred Ward thing going on. Don’t argue with me, I know what I’m doing.

The banner-raising ceremony was pretty neat. Since I was exiled from the playoffs (*sigh*), I kinda had to live vicariously through people that were there and whatever stuff was up on Youtube and the Canes’ website. It all brought tears to my eyes and brought me to a state of “caring, but not caring” about the game. Did I want the Hurricanes to win? Yes. Did it hurt that they didn’t win? Yes. But you know what? We are still the 05-06 Cup Champs, and that will never ever be taken away from us by anyone.

Mahalo.

Canes 2nd-rounder Hagemo forced to retire

Damn. This is a blow to the Hurricanes’ depth, but it’s not unrecoverable (thankfully).

In other news, has anyone heard from (or heard anything about) Da Chief lately?  Last I’d heard the Best Damn Branch of the Service had shipped to Newport (Rhode Island)–now I check his blog today, and it’s 404-compliant.

Get your ass back online ASAP, sailor–and pay your hosting bill, too.

A couple days ago, my buddy Nate sent me the following PM on Teh LGC:

Subj: Want your picture taken with the Cup?

I’ve got an extra ticket if you want it. My dad & his girlfriend can’t make it.

I, being no fool, replied with:

!!!

Deal me in!

So this morning at 9 AM I met up with Nate and his wife Kathryn at the RBC Center for the “Season Ticket Holder’s Day With The Cup”. Now, I am not a season ticket holder (ah, Nortel, how I miss the $60K/year you paid me)–but I managed to get my mitts on a ticket, so I went.

The lines weren’t very long thanks to the “all-day” nature of the two-day event (yesterday and today)–and you could only go once during the two days. I’m in line with my digital camera, and Kyle Prairie (Canes ticket sales boss) comes over and says “You want me to take your picture for you AQ?” I said “Nah, I’m cool. Nate’s got it. Thanks though.”

It’s generally assumed that people south of, say, Chicago don’t understand hockey. That folks down in places like North Carolina can’t wrap their brains around the idea of hockey being like a religion.

Anyone who says that certainly doesn’t know me. To me, the RBC is holy ground and my being at a game is a religious experience akin to being on the sidelines at Valhalla. The warriors beat the snot out of each other all day, and when the battle is done they shake hands and go chill out until Gullinkambi crows and they go do it all over again. It’s my opportunity to spend quality time with my gods.

I had all these ideas in my head about what I’d do when I finally got to lay hands on the Cup. I’d cry, I’d drop over dead from the shock (which would probably make some Sabres fans happy), I’d shout praises to the gods, whatever. When I got up to the holy Cup and I came face to face with it–not the respectful 3 feet away that I’d stand every other time I saw it, but right there an inch away from my rosaceated well-scrubbed grill–all of those ideas vanished and were replaced by this feeling of awe.

I started running my fingers over the bowl and the upper part of the base, reading some of the team names on it–the old ones that came before us. The Montreal Wanderers, the Vancouver Millionaires, and the Ottawa Senators, the “Silver Sevens” who died during the Great Depression and were reborn sixty years later. All the old teams that played for the Cup before the NHL was even thought of and who were just a memory now, immortalized in solid silver.

At that moment, I understood how Mike Keenan felt in 1994 when he sat there all night letting the spirits of the Cup speak to him and tell their stories. If I’d stayed there much longer, I’d probably have done as he did and burst into tears. Nobody spoke–or if they did, I certainly didn’t hear them. It was very quiet in the East Priority Lounge, a almost reverential silence as I stood there for a few seconds that felt to me like forever and marveled at the Cup. I let my fingertips linger over the name Victoria Cougars, and then I looked up and quietly said “We really won this, didn’t we?” as Game 7 played on the jumbotron and every TV in the house.

Kathryn said “Yep, we sure did!”–and I did the only thing that I could think of doing:

And I whispered “thank you” to the spirits of the Cup.

(OK, now I’m crying.)

I’m reposting this for folk from the scout.com message boards who haven’t heard (because scout.com’s band of toolbags has decided to start bashing the guy who started the threads):

The Admins, Community Mods and Moderators of these hockey boards invite you to join us at out new home … The Scoreboards.com.

www.thescoreboards.com/forums/index.php

All you need to do is follow the link, sign up and post to your hearts’ content. The admins, CMs and mods will be familiar to you as they are basically the same people doing those jobs on these boards.

Why is this happening?

Because the people left to run this site were doing so with ever diminishing support from the Scout.com community. There was a very real risk that we would lose hockey boards altogether in the near future, and thus we decided to go ahead and make a proactive move. We hope that we can also re-establish the kind of community that we used to have back in the Hockeyboards/Fanhome days before we became part of a for-profit community with Scout.

We’ll see you at the new place … and we hope you enjoy the re-birth of the best sports message board community on the internet.

Now, I have been a poster on the fanhome/scout.com boards since waaaaaay back in the days when they were hockeyboards.com (which is how I know John F). I know that John and company had their reasons for selling out to Scout.com–but that move pretty much shattered what had been a very good community to that point. The Jackets fans are all on metroboards.com now, the Thrashers fans (who had the fourth most-active hockey board on fanhome.com–after the NHL board, the Leafs board, and the ‘Canes board) are on smirkinchicken.com now, and so on.

And, of course, since no board-move is without its drama, I present to you the rebuttal from Kevin at scout.com:

JeffBear has, in order to promote his new site, taken to spreading a rumor that “the hockey boards are going to be shut down”.

That is completely false. I regret that he’s taken to trying to break up long-standing communities (since 1999) with false rumors.

Please feel free to contact me or Scout with any questions. In the meantime, his spam has been deleted.

- Kevin @ FanHome.com

Gee Kevin, lie much? The move to scout.com already did a lot of the damage–but who cares about those Blue Jackets and Thrashers fans, anyway? Who cares about the people that left for a better board somewhere else, because not only was bitching about the move not allowed, but people were banned for it (and MetroBoards’ hosts were threatened with lawsuits until I helped that site’s admins find a host whose lawyers had the sack to tell you to shove off)?

The community was already fractured by the move to scout.com and their craptacular ezboard software, and JB (who I consider a friend) did not say that the hockey boards were going to be shut down. He said that “there was a very real risk that we would lose the hockey boards altogether in the near future”.

Screw you, Kevin–and screw your clown-shoe of a site, too.

Feed fixed. All in order. You may go on about your bidness.

An little bird has relayed to me the following blurblet from today’s New Haven Register:

Chip Malafronte writes:

Care to get a glimpse of the Stanley Cup? Then clear some time in your datebook because the most famous trophy in sports will be in East Haven next week. The East Haven Youth Hockey association has arranged for the Cup to make an appearance on Tuesday from 5-8 PM in a fundraiser program at DiLungo Rink. For a $5 donation, fans can get a close look at the trophy, which was won by the Carolina Hurricanes in June. East Haven High Hockey Coach Lou Pane said the league got hooked up with the trophy partly through former Branford resident Mike Amendola. Pane also has a relationship with Carolina assistant coaches Kevin McCarthy and Jeff Daniels dating back to the late 1990′s when the Beast of New Haven practed at the East Haven rink. McCarthy, who was the Beast’s head coach, used Pane’s office at the rink before and after practices while Daniels played for the team.

I’ve got it on pretty good authority that the “partly” was actually a “mostly”, if not a “wholly”–as in, Mike called this guy and said “Hey, this day I have the Cup, would you like to do a fundraiser?”

I’ve also got it on pretty good authority that neither Jake nor Kato have much of a relationship with this guy–but really, that’s neither here nor there. I can understand wanting to raise money for youth hockey, and I’m all for it. But I wish that reporter had been honest about whose idea the fundraiser was and given some credit where credit’s due.

Just sayin’.

I ask again:

Why in the Hel was this man even allowed near players?

Hopefully this latter-day Graham James will be locked away–far away–and Mike Jefferdanton will finally be able to get the psychiatric help he’s been in dire need of for so long.

Since I’ve been either too busy fending off the beer-loving minors at Stop-n-Rob or flat on my back and doped up on Flexeril, I pretty much missed a lot of stuff–like, for example, Cory Stillman’s shoulder needing surgery and Frankie Kaberle’s shoulder not needing surgery (thank Eir for that). Props to d-lee and CasonBlog for keeping the Caniac end up.

Anyway. Back around the Ides of March, Eric McErlain (who has his own set of medical woes to deal with–get well soon, bubba) about the All Blacks and their pre-game ritual: the haka. One of the clips he posted was one from a New Zealand/South Africa Tri-Nations match:

Kapa O Pango

The day of Game 3 against the Habs, I started a thread on teh LGC entitled “If this doesn’t get people fired up, nothing will”–and I posted that link. The Hurricanes won that night and the next seven games afterward. Even when the streak was broken, watching the haka (and my bumping the thread) became a game-day ritual–win or lose. It got a little silly toward the end when certain posters were told that they couldn’t post in the thread anymore because the ‘Canes lost a game, and much of the thread is just me saying “bttt” (back to the top), but it was all in good fun.

What, me superstitious? Perish the thought!

The day of Game Seven, the thread (which sadly almost got lost in the Great Board Migration of 2006 along with so many other Hall of Fame threads) became a sort of bonding ritual, as fans down here watched it along with fans in Brazil and Poland and Canada and even the Middle East (Thor keep you safe, Joe and Kevin). I still can’t watch it without a shiver going down my spine, and it’ll always be known to be as The Haka That Won The Cup.

Because if something like that doesn’t fire people up, then nothing else will.

(caveat: the duplication of many posts in that LGC.com thread came as a result of a db error when migrating the board from phpBB to vBulletin. Trust me, it wasn’t intentional.)

The Penalty Killer: Team allegiances

Chris’ post (and Da Chief’s commentary thereon) struck me as interesting, mostly because with two exceptions I’ve stuck with the same teams my whole life.

I already talked about my childhood love of the Oilers (according to some bitter smacktard in Buffalo, this apparently means that I’m insane–puck ‘em).

All my other teams, though, were from Los Angeles (where I was born and lived until I moved to North Dakota at age 10). Except the Rams. I was an NFL fan without a team after Carroll Rosenbloom died in ’78, because I flat didn’t like Georgia (his widow)–and for a kid who thought Vince Ferragamo was the MAN, that says a lot. I really didn’t like the woman. Still don’t like her, never trusted her, just the mention of her makes my skin crawl and my hair stand on end even after 28 years. So I forsook the Rams and went teamless until I was 12, when Fourth of Four (my dad’s fourth wife) got me hooked on the Redskins. So I’ve been a Redskins fan ever since, and despite their current idiot of an owner–the Redskins are why I tend to get along so well with most Capitals fans, even though I loathe the Capitals.

But beisbol and basketbol (when I bother to watch the NBA, anyway)? Still the Dodgers and Lakers. I barracked for the Twins in 91, because they were playing the hated Braves (who are second only to the Giants on my list of hated MLB teams). I even barracked for those damn Yankees when they played the Braves in the WS–and I loathe the Yankees.

I’ve been a Lakers fan since before Showtime, I was a Lakers fan after Showtime, and I’m still a Lakers fan despite Kobe Bryant (who I hate, frickin’ primadonna) and despite Mitch Kupchak’s foolishness in not getting rid of Kobe to keep Shaq. I hate the Pistons almost as much as I hate the Red Wings. If I were as much an NBA fan as I am a hockey fan, I’d probably hate the Pistons even more. I have nightmares about a Dodgers-Tigers World Series (unlikely as that might be), because the Dodgers getting pwned would be so me (and because I am thoroughly convinced that Detroit hates me, even though I’ve done nothing to that damn city).

But then, the Hurricanes won the Cup (I no longer feel wierd saying that), Shaq beat the crap outta the Pistons, and my beloved Azurri won the World Cup (despite a huge scandal involving half the players on the team) in the same year, so maybe my luck’s changed for the better.

Or it could be the Tramadol talking. Who knows?

Anyway: There is nothing that bugs me worse than revisionism. If you forsake one team for another, be honest with your reason. Don’t act like you’ve been a fan of a team your whole life, when you’re a recent convert. Be honest about why you converted, even if it’s “because they’re on top”.

I may be a raving nutter in the eyes of some Buffalo Bittermen, but at least I’m an honest nutter.

That’s why, back in May, I fired a broadside at 850 The Buzz program director Adam Gold, who bashed the Hurricanes every chance he got for the first five years of their existence in North Carolina (and would hang up on and then proceed to insult anyone who called in to his radio show to take issue with him). Adam denies it on a regular basis–but I trust my memory and the memory of every O.G. Caniac that had to put up with The Buzz and their shabby treatment of the ‘Canes at the start far more than I’d trust the ego of some arrogant little nebbish who can’t handle the truth.

There’s a reason why 850 The Blog doesn’t have me on the ‘Canes blogroll–and it’s not because of the salty talk I use every now and then.
And finally….

Perhaps somebody with a WordPress blog (especially one hosted on DreamHost) can help me out here. For some reason that I haven’t been able to figure out, when the blog first gets loaded in Firefox, it loads a blank page–but when you reload, everything comes up properly. Not only that, but for reasons I can’t divine some feedreaders can’t parse the RSS feed (and I know damn well that I have it set up right).

I’m stumped. If anyone has insight that doesn’t amount to “setting up an RSS feed isn’t that hard”, drop me a line.

Local radio stations WTSB and WDUR fold, Radio Bristol seeks new Triangle home

Now, these two stations were the Triangle’s last best hope for good sports talk radio. Even lower-powered and with a smaller radius than 850 The Buzz/620 The Bull, but better than either of them (mostly because their program director isn’t a revisionist who can’t handle the truth). Now they’re gone, and The Mighty Forslund has to find a new home for his weekly ‘Canes radio show–more than likely 850 The Buzz.

More commentary later.

Proof positive that Alex Ovechkin is a badass…

…for sufficiently Vanilla Ice-like values of “badass” anyway.

…yeah.

Had a chance to look at the TV schedule yesterday, after I got home from work. Nice to see that the Champs will actually be on national TV on Opening Night (but that’s only because they didn’t beat the Favored of Comcast on their march to the title)….but since they’re a small-market team, they still get skroobed.

Here’s the breakdown of OLN’s schedule, courtesy of a poster on the scout.com ‘Canes board:

Anaheim 3
Atlanta 3
Boston 8
Buffalo 7
Calgary 0
Carolina 4
Chicago 5
Colorado 7
Columbus 3
Dallas 6
Detroit 7
Edmonton 0
Florida 1
Los Angeles 2
Minnesota 4
Montreal 3
Nashville 1
New Jersey 6
NYI 2
NYR 7
Ottawa 0
Philadelphia 7
Phoenix 1
Pittsburgh 7
San Jose 6
St. Louis 3
Tampa Bay 2
Toronto 1
Vancouver 0
Washington 2

Wow–even the Leafs get the shaft this year. I guess they gave San Jose and Buffalo more games so that they can say “Hey look, we’re paying attention to the smaller markets”, but overall OLN pays little if any attention to any team that isn’t in a Northern US market (and the Islanders). It’s the same small handful of teams getting the lion’s share of the games, with two additions (SJ and Buffalo), and everyone else (including the Canadian teams) gets told to step off.

And NBC? Not much better (schedule breakdown courtesy of the same poster).

Anaheim 1
Atlanta 2
Boston 4
Buffalo 1
Calgary 0
Carolina 2
Chicago 3
Colorado 3
Columbus 3
Dallas 4
Detroit 4
Edmonton 0
Florida 0
Los Angeles 2
Minnesota 0
Montreal 0
Nashville 0
New Jersey 3
NYI 2
NYR 4
Ottawa 0
Philadelphia 4
Phoenix 0
Pittsburgh 4
San Jose 2
St. Louis 2
Tampa Bay 1
Toronto 0
Vancouver 0
Washington 1

Gee, that looks kinda familiar. Boston, Dallas, Detroit, New York Rangers, Philadelphia, and Sidney Crosby get the bulk of the games. And who gets hosed? The little guys and the Canadians, as usual.

I am willing to give OLN and NBC the benefit of the doubt regarding the Canadian teams–there might be some rights issues with Rogers Sportsnet, the Ceeb, and RDS that are preventing the Canadian teams from being shown on US networks.  I can understand that the NHL wants “marketable” teams getting the bulk of the schedule–but since when the Hel did Boston have anyone “marketable”?
The more things change….

newsobserver.com | Forslund will do OLN games, too

It just won’t be the same Tripp Tracy next to him holding forth on comestible materials and various other little bits of insanity–but any game that the Mighty Forslund calls, I’ll watch.

I was gawking at Tom Benjamin’s page the other day, reading back over some old entries, when I noticed this comment from David Johnson (who runs Hockey Analysis):

I think the 2004 Tampa team was one of the luckiest teams ever and far luckier than Carolina this year. They played in the easiest division, never had a single serious injury (regular season or playoffs), and had an extremely easy playoff schedule playing the 8th seed (Islanders) in round 1, the 7th seed (Canadians) in round 2 and a beat up injury riddled 3rd seed (Flyers) in the 3rd round only to meet a 6th seed in the finals.

The only “real” difference between Tampa 2004 and Carolina 2006 is the injury bug. And the single dumbest part of that comment, IMO? The “easiest division” crack. Sorry Dave, but it can more convincingly be argued that the Central is the easiest division–just ask the Red Wings, who fatten their standings point totals on the Blue Jackets, Blues, and Blackhawks every season.

The title of this post is Tampa’s record vs. the Southeast Division in the 03-04 season. 13 wins, 8 losses, 3 ties. Ten of those 13 wins came against two teams: Washington, and Carolina. And they didn’t even perform the best against that division–they performed the best against the Atlantic Division, with a record of 16-4-0-0. They lost thrice to the Isles and once to the Rangers, and ran the table with the Pens, Flyers, and Devils. Perhaps the Atlantic Division was really the “easiest division”, since the Lightning had such a cakewalk.

Just out of curiosity, during Ragnarok I decided to re-seed the playoff teams by only accounting their games vs. teams not in their own division–and this is what I came up with:

EAST:

Ottawa: 79 pts (1st) (record v. own division: 9-10-4-1)
Tampa: 77 pts (2nd) (record v. own division: 13-8-3-0)
Toronto: 75 pts (3rd) (record v. own division: 13-9-2-0)
Boston: 73 pts (4th on tiebreaker with MTL) (record v. own division: 13-6-2-3)
Montreal: 73 (5th on tiebreaker with BOS) (record v. own division: 9-13-1-1)
New Jersey: 70 pts (6th on three-way tiebreaker with PHI and NYI) (record v. own division: 14-7-2-1)
Philadelphia: 70 pts (7th on three-way tiebreaker with NJD and NYI) (record v. own division: 13-6-5-0)
NYIslanders: 70 pts (8th on three-way tiebreaker with PHI and NJD) (record v. own division: 8-11-3-2)

WEST:

Detroit: 77 pts (1st) (record v. own division: 15-7-1-1)
Vancouver: 74 (2nd) (record v. own division: 10-7-6-1)
Dallas: 72 pts. (3rd) (record v. own division: 9-8-6-1)
San Jose: 71 pts (4th on tiebreaker with COL) (record v. own division: 15-6-3-0)
Colorado: 71 pts (5th on tiebreaker with SJS) (record v. own division: 12-7-4-1)
Edmonton: 70 (6th) (record v. own division: 7-12-3-2) (Ouch, Oiler fans)
Calgary: 66 (7th) (record v. own division: 11-7-4-2)
Nashville: 65 (8th) (record v. own division: 11-9-2-2)
St. Louis: 64 (miss playoffs) (record v. own division: 12-9-2-1)

What does this show? Division games are important, but winning against teams not in your division is just as important (the Lightning were a dismal 9-7-2 vs. the Northeast Division, including being swept by Ottawa–that’s what hurts them in this model, in my opinion). And really? There wasn’t a whole lot of difference between Tampa ’04 and Carolina ’06, save for a lack of injuries for Tampa in ’04 and the fact that the Devils were the third seed in the East in ’06. Buffalo was just as decimated by injury this season as Philadelphia was two years ago, and the Oilers were an eight seed this year.

Does that mean that the Hurricanes were “just lucky” as Tampa supposedly was during their Cup season, or that the Hurricanes did a better job of following the informal Special Forces motto “Adapt, Improvise, Overcome”?

Really, every team is lucky when you think about it. If Tomas Kaberle didn’t cough up the puck to Jaro, Diet Cola of Evil during Game 6 of the 2002 ECF, he may not have passed it to Marty Gelinas for the game-winner. If Patrick Roy hadn’t decided to be his usual showboating justice-dodging self and pull his Statue of Liberty act during Game 6 of the 2002 WCF, the Red Wings may not have wound up winning that game and humiliating the Avs in a Game 7 at the Nexus of Evil. If Steve Smith hadn’t own-goaled in Game 7 of the 1986 Campbell Conference Final or Claude Lemieux hadn’t scored in OT of Game 7 in the 1986 Wales Conference Semifinal, then the epic matchup we saw a little over a month ago may have first taken place 20 years ago. If Scott Norwood hadn’t sent that kick wide right, the Bills would have a Super Bowl ring now. If Maurice Richard hadn’t been suspended for something he probably shouldn’t have been suspended for, maybe the Canadiens wouldn’t have been so fired up to win 5 Cups in a row starting the year after his suspension ended. Who knows? Who can say?

And by the way, if you ignored all the division games this season, the ‘Canes would have been first in the East by a good four points or so and the Oilers would have been third seed in the West. Interpret that as you will.