BlueMonk

If you want to watch an occasional game for free, go to Yahoo's NHL scoreboard page. Once in a while, one of the games is broadcast for free. In fact, I think the Wings game tonight is. Here's the link to today's games. The Wings game should become available at 10:00 Eastern time. http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/scoreboard;_yl...Ik8TvTN8ZN7vLYF

I posted about this on my Fight Thread the day it happened. Tootoo definitely milked it to draw the major penalty.

I can't believe Rob Parker wrote a column that didn't completely suck.

Man, that top line is amazing! Zetterberg won't be an underrated guy for much longer if he keeps this up. He looks ridiculous out there. Great goaltending by Ozzie tonight, too. Solid win for the Wings, nice way to start the road trip.

The bad blood from last season carried over in the Ducks-Wild game tonight. Three fights, including Brad May losing but holding up surprisingly well against Boogaard. Parros fought Boogaard too, and it looked like a solid draw, maybe even a tiny edge to Parros. Boogaard was in the middle of all kinds of stuff, with a late hit on Bertuzzi, who left the game. I didn't see it, but Boogey apparently started some s*** during the pregame skate (!) by elbowing Pronger in the back of the shoulder. I won't miss the next game between these two teams.

McGrattan-Orr easily the best fight of the young season. Two heavies throwing non-stop bombs. Outstanding! Koci and Barch just went, refs broke it up ridiculously prematurely, not sure if it was a jersey issue. The new jerseys are not cutting it when it comes to fighting techniques.

Big props to Kovie for sticking up for his teammate. I was just about to post this but I'm late to the party. How cool is this? Awesome.

Good tilt in the Nashville-Phoenix game, Carcillo and Nichol. Win Carcillo, just fed him a bunch of rights. Not a fight, but Tootoo got clotheslined and left the game. He elbowed Winnik and Weller took exception and laid him out on the ice.

Matt Cooke turtling and practically crawling between the officials' legs later in the game was equally pathetic. God, I hate that guy.

Datsyuk looked awfully good on the wing tonight. It makes sense that Babs wants to split those two up to have a couple of outstanding centers on each of the top two lines. But the synergy with Datsyuk and Zetterberg is almost impossible to get past. You put them together on the same line and it's just magic.

Hehe. Samuelsson leads the team in shots, says Ken Daniels. No way.

As much as Rafalski needs to adjust to the Detroit system, I love what he just did. The Wings struggling to clear their zone, f**king around trying to pass the puck, stick handle and do everything but put on a tutu and plié with the puck, and... Rafalski just fires it off the glass and out. Yes, it's just that simple sometimes.

Attaboy!

Seems like every goal allowed by Detroit so far this season has been on the odd man rush.

Osgood wants his clothes back after that goal. Credit to Huselius, amazing move.

Wings are not handling the Calgary forecheck well.

Downey cleared waivers, according to Ken and Mickey.

I'm not sure, but with the TV version they offer a discount half way through the season. I don't remember it being quite half off, but it's a lot lower. Since the Online version is new this year, I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if they offer something similar.

As I've complained already, I can't order Center Ice through my cable provider this year. So tonight, I tried the free preview of Center Ice Online. I must admit, I really like it. With my connection speed, it looks great. I can have 4 games on at once or one larger game or just full screen with one game, which is really good looking even on my laptop. I plan on subscribing. I can't get Comcast where I live, and the satellite companies I could choose don't carry CBC. HNIC means more to me than the Center Ice package does, so if I go with the online version, I can have the best of all worlds.

Yeah, that's because WOW couldn't reach an agreement to carry it this year. So for us WOW subscribers, no Center Ice. I'm extremely bitter.

Lowe deserves all the criticism he gets. The fact it's coming from Burke just makes it more entertaining.

Good tilt! Edge to Koci, nice to see him not afraid to open up a little with Boogey. Most fighters won't.

I guess what pisses me off the most is the NHL again trying to play hardball when it's in no position to do so. There will be viewers who stay with WOW who simply now won't order Center Ice even if they had any inclination to because switching to a new provider isn't worth the trouble to them. This is a garage league, it's really true.

The guy I talked to tonight said they wouldn't be carrying it this season. Seriously, why the hell can't I get a straight answer about this? I don't really trust the customer service folks at these places to know the real deal. If I can't get it, I'm going to switch providers. It's just ridiculous.

I'm glad Bucci suggests a correlation between the empty seats at the Joe and the lack of physical toughness on this team. Whatever people want to believe about how to build a successful playoff hockey team, I have no doubt whatsoever that the style of play the Wings embrace is at least partially responsible for a new apathy towards the team in these parts. Those 90s teams were tough and played tough. They fought and they had physical rivalries with other teams (like Colorado) who did the same. When you take that away, you lose some of the excitement and appeal of the sport, especially in this town, where fans loved the fisticuffs and bad blood.