MulesWillFly93

The LA broadcast actually said something interesting about that last night. Apparently everybody takes longer shifts at home, trying to put on a show, but maybe the shifts are just a little too long. I wonder if they'll shorten them up now that they've realized that, and it'll be interesting to see what effect it has. And about the game, I know I should just chill out, but I just want the team to have a good defensive night so badly. They did have a frickin' awesome 50 minutes, but it's just a bummer to see all that good work go to waste with just a few minutes' lack of focus. I'll quit whining now and go do the happy dance about our 7-goal win, especially since we got shut out last time, but I gotta say, it was so nice seeing that 1 against up there for 50 some minutes. edit: Also, I'm okay with the idea that the guys shouldn't have to bust their butts when it's not necessary and wear themselves out, but the problem is, when the score is, say, 3-1 or 3-2 and they NEED to play defense, they're having trouble holding on in situations like that, too.

Once again, I thought the reffing wasn't too great, but I hardly think it was biased to one team or the other. Lombardi can shut his pie hole. Stoll cracked me up...out of all the soft calls last night, he goes off his nut about one of the most obvious good ones. Whatever, dude.

Where the media is concerned, I don't think it's a good idea because his English isn't that good. I mean, it's not like he couldn't get better, but to me it seems like it'd be a big stress on you having to face the media every game and getting frustrated because you don't know exactly what you want to say. I'd rather he just focused on playing his awesome game and didn't have to worry about that. Also, from all outward appearances, Zetterberg is more of a "natural" leader. That's not to say that Datsyuk couldn't be a good leader - I mean, Yzerman wasn't the most outgoing guy ever, and we know how that turned out - but Z's kinda already been trained for it and is used to talking to the media a lot. It's hard to say what goes on in the locker room, of course, but since he is being primed for the job, I imagine Babs & co. see those intangible things everybody's talking about present in Z, and they know he's going to do a good job. That's enough for me. I mean, if they thought Datsyuk would make a great captain, I'd be fine with that, too, but I am a little glad they're just going to let him do his thing and not have to worry about everybody else, too.

Yeah, just a little. Although I don't know, if a freak accident happened and close-callers Thomas and Jonathan Bernier had to start for the US and Canada, I think I'd give Thomas the edge. My reaction to Thomas was, "Umm, riiight..." but Bernier made me lol.

I won't be going to this one - the "boo" reason is because I'm working until 8, but the "yay" reason is because I'm going to be seeing them play the Pens at the one and only Joe in 3 weeks!! I agree, it's payback time for December! I like the Kings, as far as other hockey teams go, but not when they beat my Wings, so let's kick some black and purple butt and make them just a little more black and purple!

I might be out of my mind, but I kind of liked the Flames' HC jersey. Knowing that they were the Tigers back then, I liked the way they incorporated the stripes onto it. I also like the more gold and burgundy colors...much better than the ketchup-and-mustard ones they have now. I don't know...I can't really give it a full endorsement, but it's one of those "so ugly it's cute" kind of things. I do not in any way support the khaki shorts, however. I don't care if they're traditional - they suck. Now that you know I'm nuts, hehe, I'm also going to say I'm not a huge fan of Buffalo's thirds. They're better than the ones with "Buffalo" in that stupid baseball lettering, but the lettering could still be better - the swooshy letters don't go with the clean lines of the stripes (which bug me, too). Just do diagonal block letters like the Rangers (whose throwback 3rd jersey is farkin' great, btw), and for the stripes, either go back to the original 3-stripe pattern, or just do 2 if 3 is too much like the home jersey. That 2-sets-of-2 thing is overkill, if you ask me, especially when you repeat it on the socks. I don't like the bright blue on their 3rd as much as the dark blue on their home jersey, either, but as long as that one's the 3rd and the dark blue's the home, I can live with it.

I remember thinking during one of those shutout games that he was working his butt off when nobody else was, and I was hoping he'd get a goal because he certainly was trying hard enough to get one, but since then, he's been kind of invisible. I mean, he did finally get that goal a couple of games ago, but he hasn't been his usual physical self. I definitely agree with moving him back to winger when everybody's back...good idea. Hope that'll wake him up a little.

What surprised me about the fight was how many swings Ericcson got in (whether they were solid hits or not) before Ott tried to do anything to defend himself. I always thought for the amount of crap he gave out, he must know how to defend himself against getting some back, but jeez, the guy's just as bad as Perry! Still, props to Ericsson, even if Ott isn't all he's cracked up to be...I'm sick of that guy's BS, and E did something about it and made him embarrass the heck out of himself in the process.

Tabernac! Il est dommage que Pittsburgh ait signé Neal...il sera très bien avec les autres sur l'équipe, je crois. Sopel pourrait être bon pour Le Canadien, aussi, mais je dis que des conneries - je voulais juste parler en français. I can't believe that they would trade Stastny...well, or Liles, for that matter. I know they've been having a heck of a hard time, but Liles seemed pretty darn good when we played the Avs.

Friday, February 25 Pittsburgh at Carolina NY Rangers at Washington Phoenix at Columbus Ottawa at Buffalo New Jersey at Tampa Bay Florida at Atlanta San Jose at Calgary St. Louis at Edmonton Minnesota at Anaheim Saturday, February 26 Nashville at Dallas Colorado at Los Angeles Detroit at Buffalo Carolina at Montreal Washington at NY Islanders Philadelphia at Ottawa X2 Pittsburgh at Toronto Boston at Vancouver Sunday, February 27 Tampa Bay at NY Rangers Columbus at Nashville New Jersey at Florida Toronto at Atlanta Phoenix at Chicago St. Louis at Calgary Boston at Edmonton Colorado at Anaheim

He doesn't sound threatening to me. Maybe I'm not reading between the lines enough, but it sounds to me like somebody asked him what he thought of the situation, so he gave them an honest answer, which is that he agrees Edmonton needs a new arena. I agree that it's none of his business what the taxpayers and government of Edmonton decide to do with their money, and the fact that he IS putting his nose in Quebec City's business bugs me, but it doesn't sound like it's gotten to that point yet here. It sounds like it's the Oilers who are forcing the city to do something by saying they won't play at Rexall Place after the lease is up in 2014. Somehow I really doubt the Oilers would leave Edmonton. Don't they have some of the best attendance numbers in the league, percentage-wise? I mean, I would imagine that's why Bettman wants them to build a new stadium, right? If the Oilers can suck that bad and still fill 17,000 seats, those are some enthusiastic people you've got there, so why not see what you can do with 20,000 seats? I mean, I know QC has some enthusiastic fans, too, but hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It makes a lot more sense to me (at least in my pea brain) to take a team like Phoenix, who has awful attendance, and relocate it, rather than doing the Canadian Team Shuffle.

Yeah, I think it's going to be regional. For a few days this week, my channel guide said "regional coverage" in the program info before it switched to NYR-PHI, the one I'm going to get. Thanks, NBC. I don't know how they figure this crap out...why not give the West the WESTERN CONFERENCE game? I don't think Center Ice is showing jack schitt, unfortunately. Also, the NHL Network is re-airing the Winter Classic, so we're screwed there, too. Argh, a stream would be ok, except I was really hoping to record this so I could watch the Daytona 500, which comes on around the same time, live. NBC strikes again.

I was against it before it was a sure deal the Pens would get another go, but now that it's happened, heck, why not, we might as well go again if everyone else is going to. I think they should maybe save it for a couple of years down the road instead of this very next year, though; there's got to be some combination of teams that haven't gone yet that's halfway interesting. Oh, and Big House for the venue, obviously. Another reason to wait at least another year - I might actually be a student there by then, God willing and the creek don't rise.

Oops, forgot again, hur. Sunday, February 20 Washington at Buffalo Philadelphia at NY Rangers Detroit at Minnesota X2 Pittsburgh at Chicago Montreal at Calgary

Yeah, looks like there were a couple of 6 ft lobsters in the boat with Hudler, too.

Hahaha, I just played back Bert and his silent movie scene a couple times. (yes, I am five)

Good to know - thanks! Cobo roof sounds like a good deal if I don't end up going to a casino first. I'm not a huge fan of crowds/waiting in line forever myself, but like Sergei said, I'll probably take a ton of pictures and wander around after the game, so I guess I'll just wait and see. Yeah, I HAVE to go to Hockeytown Authentics for sure! I don't think I'll buy a jersey since apparently the numbers on the back are smaller, but I know I'll find something good. I'm so excited. Everybody thinks I'm nuts for going to Detroit in March, but I really couldn't care less - it'll be like Paris in the springtime to me!

Is it hard to get in and out of the arena garage before/after the game? The casino/Nemo's idea sounds good, though...hmm, so many options. (I'm coming for the Wings-Pens game at the end of March, woohoo!) Does anybody know anything about the Holiday Inn Express in Allen Park? I've been thinking about staying there. I really want to go to Hell (I love saying that), but I don't know if I'll have time. Is it worth seeing? Also, does the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame have a lot of Wings stuff?

Nope, I'm American. I mean, I'm part Ukrainian by ancestry, but none of my living relatives speak Ukrainian or Russian or anything. I've just been taking it in college for fun. Yeah, ы was definitely the hardest one for me to get, too. I'm trying to think how to explain it, but I think you just have to hear it. Another hard one is щ . They tell you it's like shch, as in fresh cheese, but it's not...it's a lot more run together and ends up sounding more like sh to me. Here's a site with audio pronunciations of all the letters if you're curious: http://masterrussian.com/russian_alphabet.shtml

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the -sch, sorry. The letter after the D and the A makes a "ts" sound, just like in "pots" or "cats," so there's no sh sound in there. I know in some languages (like Norwegian and Swedish) if you put an s and a consonant y sound together (written as sj in those two languages, for example), it makes a sh sound, but not in Russian - all the sounds stay separate. So yeah, when you've got tsyu all together it's a mouthful, but that's Russian, hehe.

If Babcock wants to do the "one game at a time" thing, that's fine, it's a good strategy for the team, but I always have to think about the big picture. I'm not ready to give up on them, and there is no reason that they can't get back to where they were in the first part of the season, IF they want to. I know that's a big if, but if they're going to improve and be in good shape for the playoffs, it's got to start now. I, too, would like them to win one game, and that's a good start, but it takes getting into a rhythm and getting a little chemistry back to do that, and it takes time to develop it. Anyway, I guess Babs didn't work them too, too hard in practice since they have to play a game tomorrow. From Abel to Yzerman: As much as I thought they kinda deserved the skate & puke treatment, that works better when you have a whole year to train and don't have to play a game until the Olympics.

Actually, I don't think this article is talking about putting Russian names in Russian letters; I think they're just talking about changing the Latin (English) spellings to better reflect the right pronunciation. For example, Fedorov would become Fyodorov, not Фёдоров. I think this is a good idea. The only thing that really sticks out to me as wrong are the pronunciation of three letters in particular: e = "yeh," not "eh" (I'm talking about a short "e" sound, here, like in "pet," not Canadian "eh," just to be clear) ё = "yo" (Looks pretty darn similar to an e, right, but makes a completely different sound. Hence, Fyodorov, not Fedorov) o = "oh" (as in "poke") when it's in the stressed syllable, somewhere between "uh" and "ah" when it's not (Ovechkin = uh-VYETCH-kin) I like the IIHF's transcription. It gets as close as possible without being totally confusing. For instance, the two letters that don't make any sound (although they do change the sound of the letter before them) are just left out completely, and I think that's a good move since they don't make that much difference in the word. It's close enough without making the announcers take Russian lessons. Now, the other thing that this does not address is that they need to get the stress on the right syllable of the name (like var-LA-mov instead of VAR-la-mov). There are no rules about where the stress falls on words in Russian, so if you haven't grown up speaking it, it's hard to know where the accent is. In my textbooks, they put a mark over the syllable that gets the stress so we poor students can figure it out...maybe the NHL could do something similar, too (I mean on the announcers' guide sheets, not on the jerseys). Actually, it's: Дацюк Basically, what you've got going on here is D-a-ts-yu-k. ц - this letter makes a "ts" sound. I don't know why that sound needs its own letter when they have corresponding T and S letters too, but that's how it is. ю - this letter makes a "yoo" sound. If you were to use the Russian letter "y," that would only make an "oo" sound. Also, the accent is on the second syllable. Hence, the correct pronuncation should be dat-SYOOK, not DAT-sook.

Man, that was great! I just happened to record it on a whim, and what a show! 6 players crammed into the boxes, the refs trying to make a list of who all was involved, Thomas and Price having a good ol' time tearing up each other's sweaters and chuckling about it afterwards...pure entertainment. The crowd reaction was great, too, though if you don't get excited about a game like that, I don't know what you're waiting for.

Here are some quote from him, for the time being: http://redwingsfront.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/mike-babcock-rips-wings-play/ If there was ever a time to rip them a new one, it's now. This just HAS to stop. No more "oh well, we'll just make it up at the next game" crap. It's February, and we need to start thinking about the playoffs. I don't want them to wear themselves out trying to play every game like it's a Finals game (not that we have to worry about that right now!), but they need to start getting into a routine so they can have some confidence come playoffs time. Datsyuk, Cleary, and Holmstrom are back, so right now is the time to get started. Like titanium2 said, I hope Babcock's been playing it cool and saving up for an absolute Mt. Vesuvius-sized blow up because they need a little shock and awe.

I guess we need some old time hockey, then, heh. One more goal, please, just so it looks like you tried. In other words, stop acting like a bunch of fainting goats or I'll kick all of you in the yambag.