MulesWillFly93

Radio is dead, not Hockeytown.

A little late, but I am damn glad we've got Howard buttoned down.  You know what I want out of a goalie?  Consistency.  And I believe Howard is consistent.  Sure, he has a bad game every now and then, but all goalies do.  What he doesn't do is go all bipolar like Fleury, and I appreciate the heck out of that.  Nor does he have self-confidence issues like Luongo; when he plays bad, he accepts it, gets over it, and bounces back.  Another thing unlike Luongo: he flips the switch in the playoffs, even when the rest of the team forgets to.  And come on, if he can play decently in front of THIS defense, he'll be just fine in front of a real one.  Rask's contract is up this year, and Lundqvist's is up next year.  Obviously they're going to re-sign with the same teams, but I wonder what you'll all say when you see how much THEY get.

I was born and raised in San Diego in a family that wasn't into sports, period, including me for a long time.  I always liked the idea of hockey, though.  It sounded so exotic - the largest amount of ice I'd ever seen was in an ice cube tray, so a sport played on a large sheet of it definitely piqued my curiosity.  Watching the Mighty Ducks movie is probably what originally opened my eyes to its existence.

 

Also, around '97-'98, I started talking to this girl online who was from Michigan and was a Wings fan, so that made me aware of the Wings, who were obviously doing really great at the time.  I've always had a romanticized view of the Midwest, since my family is originally from Nebraska, and I grew up hearing stories about farm life and stuff, and somehow through this girl, the Red Wings kind of worked themselves into my vision of the Midwestern world.  I still didn't get into hockey at that time, unfortunately, but it was always there in the back of my mind.

 

What finally did it was reading a story in French class about a kid who was a Habs fan in the '50s.  After the class was over and I was on Winter Break, I was bored out of my mind and looking for something to watch on TV.  I flipped by a hockey game, and I thought, hey, I just read that story about hockey - maybe I'll give this a shot.  It stuck.  I should've been a Ducks fan, I guess, but I'm a sucker for history, tradition, and nice-looking uniforms, so I couldn't commit.  Plus, they're not in MY city/county, so I don't think I owe them any loyalty, anyway.  Then I thought back to the Red Wings fan I used to know, and the more I learned about the Wings, the more I realized they were exactly what I was looking for.  I wanted to watch hockey in its natural habitat, in a cold climate, where they'd been playing it for around 80 years and took pride in it - not as some sort of weird anomaly out here in the desert that popped up around Disneyland when I was 8 years old.

 

Sure, I liked their winning record, too, I won't deny it - I don't think I would've ever considered becoming a Blue Jackets fan, for example - but it's more than just the winning, it's the commitment to excellence, self-respect, and personal responsibility embodied by guys like Yzerman and Lidstrom that I know will serve as an example that will last long after they're gone, even if the wins column starts to take a turn for the worse (which it has).  That's what keeps me going today - the organization knows how to do things the right way, and it will continue to pass on that culture to our future.  Like it or not, we're at the end of an era, and it's not easy to start a new one, but we've got the know-how and pride to pull it off.  Jeez, I wrote a lot, sorry.

I gotta say, this is pretty disappointing.  There are a lot of circumstances where I could cut him some slack - if his BAC was borderline, if it was the first time he'd gotten arrested, if he'd had a bad childhood and needed some extra help getting his life in order.  I can't say anything either way on that last one, but he's not making any points with me on the first two.  If his first run-in with the law didn't make an impression, how many times is it going to take for him to clean up his act?  I want to see him change, of course, but if I were the Wings brass, my patience would be wearing thin at this point.

Dang, Jimmy, tell us how you really feel!  The players are cattle on the owners' cattle ranches?  If that's true, then they best be taking good care of their cattle, or else no one's going to want to buy their product.  I get that the owners are running a business and not a charity organization, but I think that metaphor is taking it a little far, and I think the players deserve a little more credit for what they do.

Also, I don't buy his argument that the players should be so incredibly grateful and bow down to the owners for what they receive from them.  Let's face it, both sides are grubbing for as much money as possible, so one side can't play the victim and say the other is being greedy and unfair when they both have the same goal in mind - making money.  I just find it a little hard to swallow that he tries to justify the owners making bazillions and then criticizes the players for going to Russia when a) they have jack all else to do and b) have just as much right as anyone else under the capitalist system to make as much money as possible.

I might be biased, I might not be - but I'll vote for Datsyuk every time.

Currently playing?  None.  The only person I've been able to find from San Diego is Craig Coxe, who retired in 1992.  Of course, my favorite person to claim is Chris Chelios, who went to high school here.  Yeah yeah, I know he's firmly rooted in everyone's mind as a Chicagoan, but cut me some slack, we don't get a lot of hockey glory out here.

Teemu Selanne (high five to my fellow Selanne fans)

Doan to Detroit.  Not that I really super want him; I just have a feeling for some reason.

Does Biznasty also have the name of her plastic surgeon so I can remember NOT to go there?

Technically, we weren't a favorite, let alone the top seed.

Plus we've actually won something in the last 40 years.

Sharks and Pens BOTH out of the mix?  Schadenfreude is at an all-time high, my friends.

This makes me feel 1,000% better about the future.  I'm so glad Babs is smelling what's cooking, and I hope that means Holland is, too.  I don't have any specific suggestions for Kenny (although I'm definitely on the Suter/Parise party boat), but as long as they know they have work to do and get down to it this summer, that's enough for me.

he didn't smash his head against the glass, it jsut wasn't hard and he sold the injury, he wasn't injured.

So because Zetterberg sold it and wasn't injured, that kind of play is no big deal?

he got a penalty, it was definitely goon like behavior. And yes it matters, diving is an atrocity to the sport.

Yeah, diving is TOTALLY the problem here.  Darn that Zetterberg, smashing his own head against the glass!  It's an abomination!