Kira

Hey, if you were told you were the leader of your country's team at the most prestigious event, wouldn't you be happy? I think he has every right to be that way, and more power to him!

I think part of it is because he's captain for his home country. He has a lot more ability to get the point across to his teammates if he can talk to them in their own language. I think that makes a big difference.

Actually, Ovechkin said that Pasha should be captain. He's played in four Olympics, and has a bronze medal. That gives him the most seniority on the team, I think. So why not?

This is an honor indeed for Pasha. His body of work speaks for itself. We should be very proud of both our captains.

Maybe people are wising up and seeing through the BS that is pro basketball. It's egos and paychecks fighting to see which one can get bigger first. It's hype and silliness. It's arrogant little bastards who forget who is paying their paychecks. I want to say something else here, but it will get me in trouble, so I won't. Give me hockey any day.

Hmmm....he gets teeth knocked out. Did it knock some sense into him? Nah, he's still here.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who shed a few tears when the Russian 5 reunited. That was so bittersweet. The two games brought back a hell of a lot of memories, and names I haven't heard in years. What a wonderful set of games they put together. This is definitely getting added to my DVR collection. I thought miking Manny was hilarious...he is really funny sometimes. I'm glad to see him doing so well on color analysis for FSD on college hockey.

I don't know how this discussion got this far without the mention of one name... Aaron Downey, anyone?

When a judge in Florida told Fox Noise they didn't have to tell the truth, that kind of sealed it for me. 24/7 isn't disappointing, but it's just concentrated on two teams who are more concerned with their product on the ice than anything else right now.

A lot of the "Country" now is what would have been called "Rockabilly" back in the 50's/60's. I haven't heard much lately to make me think it's any good. Is it just me, or does most tv seem like a waste of intelligence?

First of all, let me also extend a welcome handshake (or hug, if you prefer). Welcome to Red Wing Nation! As far as history, like someone said, it depends on how far you want to go back. Me, I go back a long way, but that's because I'm a lot older than most of the people on this board. There are some great DVD sets out there, including one that has three documentaries about the '97, '98 and '02 Cup runs, and 5 of the best games ever - May 16, 1996, which ends with a Steve Yzerman blast in double overtime; March 26,1997 - a date that lives in Red Wings legend; June 2, 1997, the last game against Philadelphia for the Cup; May 31, 2002 (I remember that game and laughed my ass off); and June 3, 2002, triple overtime in game 3 of the Finals (I remember it went on til 1AM). There is also a book called "What It Means to be a Red Wing". It's a very nice book with short essays written by players from the 50's until now, including Ted Lindsay, Red Kelly (and the more you dig, the more you'll find about those guys), and Ken Holland. The 90's section is quite good; Nick Lidstrom, Kris Draper, Chris Osgood, Tomas Holmstrom, Brendan Shanahan and Chris Chelios. It also has current players with Pavel and Henrik. It's a beautiful book. I remember the first time I saw it, I sat in the middle of the bookstore reading Pasha's essay. And he has autographed my copy. I hope I didn't scare you off with all this, but happy hunting!

I'm sick of Christmas movies on Hallmark Channel. Enough already.

Happy Christmas to all of you. Thanks for keeping my sanity intact at times when I've doubted I have any.

Only 40 years? For that punishment, I say it should be never. I don't blame Mike Babcock for throwing out the cameras, and venting his anger. I mean, hell, if anyone deserves to vent, he does. And we did start winning after that, you know. So maybe it was a good thing. A friend of mine said she was surprised to hear Pasha saying he wasn't playing good enough. He's always been so hard on himself, that's normal with him. But you can't expect to be 100% after taking a whack to the head like he did. It's gonna take time. He's coming back around, but something like that, it's to be expected that he'll take a little time to readjust.

Uwe Krupp? Or maybe Max Kuznetsov? At least he could translate English to Russian for Pasha in his rookie season, so he did serve a purpose.

I don't know about being a misfit, but I always loved Andreas Lilja. And though he never made it on the Wings, how could you not have loved Darryl Bootland? What a riot he was!

I was at the game last night, and if I could have come down lower I might have considered it. But I was at the top of the lower bowl behind our goal. The one problem I have with that place is their handicapped/wheelchair seating. It stinks. There isn't enough room for a wheelchair to negotiate easily. Of course a lot of people don't help much. They push, they don't look where they are going, they run into my hubby's chair (and him), and they just don't care. I hope this new arena (proposed) does better with handicapped/wheelchair accessibility. As far as the game, though, I thought Pasha was great on that 5-on-3 situation. They were crap calls (especially the one on Brendan Smith), but we made as much good out of it as was possible, I suppose.

I can live with it. It's honestly more than I thought he'd get considering who he plays for.

DUMP CLEARY! I know of an organization who does not pay unemployment insurance for its employees. It claims to be a church and doesn't have to. I also know they blackball certain former employees for miscellaneous, unexplained reasons. I know this because it happened to a very dear friend of mine. They also treat LGBT people as if they were lepers. I will not name this organization. Suffice to say I will never cross their doorway ever again, nor will I ever support any cause they do. If you want to know who it is, a little research will get you the answer. The point of this is, no one, not a person or a company or an organization has the right to treat anyone else like they are the scourge of the earth.

That is a treasure... To those of you who thought it was boring...if you want drama queens, go back to Pittsburgh and film there. They have a plethora of divas there. We're just wanting to get work done and win some games.

Bert drinking the Corona...I can't stand the stuff, but whatever... I liked the picture of Pasha sound asleep on the plane...I wonder what he was listening to that put him out? Maybe I need to get a hold of it to be able to sleep at night. It's been so long since I've had a good night's sleep I wouldn't know what one was if it came up and kicked me.

I would have gone for someone else. I mean hell, if you're gonna be out for that long, it should have been you know who. If anyone deserved to have their face rearranged... I guess that means we better not even breathe on those precious pansies.

I'm glad Patrick and Luke are back. Now if you could only get rid of Cleary. As far as the guys in GR, you've got a nice bunch there, but I think some of them need a bit more seasoning.

Oh, how well I know that. But I want him to have fun while he's there, and ask to come back. No fool am I.

Me too. I'd love to take him out on our boat next summer and let him fish to his heart's content. I told him about it when we were at camp, and his eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas. When I told him the boat was big enough to sleep on, his eyes got wide and he said, "Really?" I think I peaked his interest.