C-TownWing

I actually think Simmons is an excellent writer, but it's a rarity to catch him writing about anything not spelled N-B-A, which is an unfortunate and utter waste of his talents. Even in this one, he couldn't resist a couple paragraphs of NBA commentary. He also manages to reference Rocky in just about every single one of his columns, but I don't mind that nearly as much, I like Rocky too.

The "right time" is when you don't have your heart in it and/or someone's not willing to pay you to fill a roster spot. Cheli, Nick or anyone else doesn't owe it to you to retire while still at the level of a top 2 or whatever the arbitrary standard is there. I'm in the "scared to death" club. Minus Nick, the Wings are just another good team (on the ice). He's not hurt often, but when he has been, we've seen glimpses of life without him, and it ain't pretty. The good news is that I don't think it'll happen at the end of this contract. I see him signing short deals for less money and just taking things year to year. I think we still have him for another 3-4 years.

Erik Cole was on Jim Rome's radio show yesterday. Not only did the Canes lose, but Cole hurt his knee. Here's hoping the Jungle Karma (if it even exists for the TV show) works a little better for Babs.

I really think this game is going to mean the difference between a short series (in our favor, obviously) and a long series (that can go either way), so let's do this thing.

I say no, because once they finish transitioning to their younger guys in a couple of years, "I hate the Ducks" will really just be "I hate Corey Perry."

Now THAT'S interference.

Just thinking the same thing, he had plenty of time there and passed to a guy in a much worse spot. I was just going to say that if the Canes get the next one, they're right there because they're playing well, then they score, so...

I hope we remember this come 7/1 and don't act like a bunch of bitchy Pens fans about it. I have faith in you guys.

Nice job doubling Chicago to you locals! Considering the excitement over the team there, that's damn impressive.

Point taken...obviously, you can't play in the NHL (or do anything at the highest level) if you don't know how to self-motivate.

...and somewhere, Tim Cheveldae heard the chants and threw his TV out the window.

Agreed...he's still young obviously, but it's time for him to live up to the hype, and he's not really there. He's decent, but not a guy I'd put in my top 5 or maybe not even 10. I wouldn't take him over Osgood right now (maybe if I was investing in the future, but I'm talking here and now). I like that most people disrespect Ozzie, because like others have said, the chip on his shoulder seems to drive him. As soon as Pierre asked him about the doubters after the game yesterday, I was like "uh oh, it's ON now." Gut feeling: he'll be awesome tomorrow. The people who know what they're talking about know how important he is to us.

Homer's not getting the ice (and has been bad anyway)...I'll go with Datsyuk. He's been good, it just hasn't shown up on the scoresheet for the most part.

I noticed that Anaheim uses it, except when the opponent goes on the PP. I guess cause they're they bad guys or whatever. I kind of roll my eyes when I see a Wings game from 15 years ago and we're playing mostly the same music, but never really cared enough to be outraged or anything like that. Like someone else said, gotta cater to the majority. I remember when I was at PSU, our club team would play Friday nights at 9 and Saturdays at 3:30. The Friday games were 90% students and we'd play a lot harder stuff. The Saturday games were 90% families and we'd play pretty much what you hear at the Joe. That's just how this stuff goes. Detroit's got such a rich music heritage though, spanning both eras and genres...it'd be kind of cool to play exclusively those people. That's something that maybe only 3-4 other cities could pull off and would give us kind of a unique twist.

Anaheim won the Cup two years ago. This year they were a #8 seed, barely making the playoffs. I slept on Anaheim's "it factor" and shouldn't have, I'm not making the same mistake with Khabi...it should've been about 5-1 in the 2nd period yesterday. But Q-Stache sounded perfectly normal to me, to answer the question.

I remember hearing about something from the mid-90s (didn't see it firsthand, but read it once) where we had the Russian 5 on the ice in St. Louis, and the Blues fans started chanting "USA! USA!" We scored right in the middle of the chant.

My response to that was always "I guess the Ilitches just want to win more than your owner." Like the one above me said, most of the "best" insults come straight from here. From other teams' fans, it's mostly crapping on Detroit these days, with an occasional jab at empty seats/non-sellouts or the team being old.

I'll be honest, I'm kind of surprised things like this don't happen more often...

Beat me to it.

Our NBC affiliate does the games of our crappy local baseball team on Sundays, so that always screws me including right now. I'm hoping that they're done losing in time for the 3rd so I can drop the horrible online feed, but the game's going slow. Ugh.

I saw that crap on NHL Net too. I don't know who that guy they have on is or his resume, but he's an idiot. His prediction of the Pens-Canes series was "The Penguins win because they have Crosby and Malkin. And they have momentum. But I wouldn't be surprised if Carolina wins either." Probably not an exact quote, but close to it. On our series it was like you said: Ozzie's not as good as Kiprusoff or Luongo and Khabibulin will play well. I've found that people who oversimplify things to be entirely about the goalies usually don't know the game all that well.

Fox Sports Ohio also said that this isn't too many men: You'll understand if I wait for someone else to refute the story

Jamie Pushor DID win a Cup. Two of them actually. Your point's well received, but Ozzie's name's on the thing three times. He wasn't exactly a bit player on that team either--he started most of the RS games, don't forget. Where do you draw the line for something like that? Are 4th liners allowed to say they won the Cup? Do we just identify the five most important players to a Cup run and tell everyone else to quit gravytraining it? What about someone like Hasek last year? Yeah, he was benched, but he still won two playoff games for us, which has to count for something. Also, it's kind of weird that you say that the system failed with other established goaltenders but also say that 1997 belonged to Vernon. Throw in Hasek in 2002, too. So basically, of the Wings' primary goalies since the mid-90s, more of them won Cups (Vernon, Osgood, Hasek) than didn't (Joseph, Legace).

What's his catch phrase? I know he says "if you wanna score goals, get to the front of the net!" at least 17 times during every game he does...was it that or something else that I've missed to this point?