redeyedwings

Hahahahaha -- 3-0 Ducks! I can't tell you how much I'm loving this. And they look exactly the way the article says, and as the annoucer on CBC just described: "It looks like one team wanting to win and one team hoping to win." My boy here totally nailed it! /yes, I'm still high off the Mule's efforts, but still ... I love me some Sharks fail

Whooooooo! Who is this cup for? for Johan Franzen, who took an ugly nickname given to him by the ultimate captain in sports and made it his own. for Niklas Kronwall, who realized that it’s much more fun to hurt other people than hurt himself. And who will be putting fear into the heart of opposing forwards for years to come. for Pavel Datsyuk, who doesn’t need to speak proper English with hands like that. for Darren McCarty, who represents the best and worst of all of us, and got the second chance we all deserve when we need it. for Kris Draper, who gave that second chance to his old friend, and trusted when he could easily have turned his back.

Amen. Real fans don't complain about the Refs, or turn the game off in double OT, or lose faith with a bad bounce. That's what it's all about, right there.

And for my brother, who is somewhere in BC, out of contact with anything except via radio, and I know he's drunk off his ass in the bush, celebrating like a mofo! /had to add that //for you too, Jesse!

Kronwall, Franzen and Hudler -- not because Dats, Z and Ozzie weren't awesome, but because we all knew if we were going anywhere that the kids would have to take the next step. Those three kids stepped up, big time.

Came across this on a buddy's blog. It definitely sums up how I feel about the guy. Pretty sure some of you I saw in the GDT yesterday will know EXACTLY what dude is talking about: http://dirtygames.wordpress.com/2008/04/13...-the-dominator/

My buddy's a wings fan in Toronto an I've posted some stuff from his blog here before and people liked it. He's pissed that I guess some poeple are even debating who should start for us in the playoffs. I kinda agree with him. Osgood's a good guy, but this is Dom we're talking about!! Anyway, what do you guys think? http://dirtygames.wordpress.com/2008/01/30...-osgood-really/ "I will have a gigantic problem indeed if I tune in to round one of the Stanley Cup playoffs and see a healthy Dominik Hasek wearing a baseball cap on the bench while Chris Osgood, fresh off a 30-6-2, 1.90, .935 season, hangs between the pipes. A problem?! I will damn near have a seizure."

To be fair ... if you read the article, the guy makes clear that he really likes Osgood. I really like Osgood, too. I don't think anybody could have been a Wings fan in the 90s and not like the guy. He gives everything he has every game he starts. I just agree with the author that the mental aspect of what Dom brings to the table is far more than Ozzie. I mean, they don't tell stories around the league about Osgood refusing to be scored on in practice, do they? Stuff like that can get in a team's head.

That's what I told my buddy -- dude who wrote the blog post. I think Hasek will be the #1 by the end of the season. He said that even if Hasek's GAA is 3 at the end of the year he needs to be the starter. I want Hasek too -- I think he's one of my favouritre goalies ever. But if he s--ts the bed the rest of the season then I guess you gota go with the hot hand.

A nice Wings article ffrom 24 Hours, which is a free commuter paper up here in Canada. Wings get love as the underdog among all these 100-point teams ... http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/Playo...171581-sun.html

Oh, c'mon dude! I hate it when fans start getting pissy and sarcastic about their team just because they have a couple of bad games. That's pretty poor on your part. Unless that's really how you view the Sharks, which would make it better for me, but way worse for you. Chill out and take your defeats like a man. The Wings are outplaying the Sharks and refusing to quit under pressure. Your team can't handle that ... we'll see what happens tonight.

Another Wings essay from my buddy. I send them along because he's a professional writer with a blog, and doesn't write about sports that often, but he's a hardcore Wings fan in Toronto and when he does write about the Wings, it's usually pretty good. Anyway, enjoy: "the teams seem to embody the characteristics of their particular mascots. The Sharks are big and tough and mean. They’re the biggest team, by average size of their players, in the NHL. They’re one of the youngest. They love to attack. They rely on their strength and quickness and aggression to simply overpower their opponents, as they did to (ironically enough for the purposes of this story) the Nashville Predators in the first round. The Red Wings are not very big. Nor are they particularly fast, though they can move with great speed when an opportunity presents itself. They’re not known for toughness and relentless agression, but for thinking the game, using their experience to determine the pace of play and waiting for an opportune moment to launch a devastating counter-attack." It's nice and long, though. The rest is here: http://dirtygames.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/octopussy/

Everybody wants to know who's going to sit tomorrow so Bertuzzi can come back. Why can't Babcock just say to Hudler, Fillpula, Clearly, etc., 'listen, we won 4-1 with you guys, and as long as we keep getting that kind of effort and result, I'm not going to sit you for Bertuzzi.' I like Bertuzzi, and obviously you can't sit him for long if he's fully healthy, but wouldn't this be a great way to get another great game from Hudler and the other young guys? And can you really argue with the result of game one? I don't want to sit Hudler. Or Cleary. I probably wouldn't mind sitting Lang, but that's not really an option. And since Bert has concussion-like symptoms, wouldn't it be kind of good to get him an extra couple of days rest? You'd hate to see him rush back still a little woozy a la Eric Lindros ... And if things turn bad, we'd have one hell of an ace in the hole to pull out in Calgary, and he'd be fired up to earn his ice time and place in the lineup back. So ... I say keep the lineup as it is until we lose, or just squeek out a game we deserved to lose. Why screw around with guys who were absolutely dominating in game one? DIscuss.

I wasn't suggesting that we let Bert languish on the bench, or even that he HAS to sit in game two. But I do think that -- especially with concussion symptoms -- a couple of extra days never hurt. That, couple with the fact that pretty much EVERY forward on our team contributed in the last game (I dunno why all you guys are saying 'sit Sammy' I thought he was strong on the puck for most of the night) gives the Wings a chance to err on the side of caution and make sure Bert is fully healthy so that he can really hit without worry. But yeah, I made the topic fully realizing that it's not likely to hapen -- if only because Bert probably wants to get out there as much as anyone, injured or not. But I still don't know who I'd take out of the lineup to replace him...

My fellow Toronto wings fan has outdone himself this time. An essay on why the Flames should be quaking in their skates. People seemed to like it the last time I posted one of his, so I'm doing it again. Enjoy! They were about to get hit hard by the salary cap. Their well of talented young players had dried up. Lidstrom was too old. Datsyuk was too soft and Zetterberg wasn’t a prime-time scorer. Hasek would get hurt and quit. They were expected to finish around the No. 8 spot in the Western Conference, maybe in the middle of the pack if they were lucky. But funny things happen to talented teams when you take away some of the expectations. They feel a little looser. They’ve got a little more room to play their game away from the glare. They pull a little bit closer together. They start to get more than a little pissed off that nobody takes them that seriously. http://dirtygames.wordpress.com/2007/04/10...is-fun/#more-49

A post about Hank on a blog from the blog service I use for mine that perfectly sums up why we love him so much: "So what’s inspiring about a guy who plays good hockey and keeps his mouth shut? Not much until, you know, the game is actually on the line. Until his team trails going into the third period or finds itself in a tight match in overtime. Then  still without opening his mouth or demanding the puck or assuming that it’s his show  he flat out wins the game. It’s called grace under pressure, and it’s something very few of us possess." It's gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling. Just passing that along. It's at: http://dirtygames.wordpress.com/2007/02/26...s-not-exciting/