::alio!::

Jennifer's Baby

off the top:

Jen has way too much time on her hands. In celebration of my new stapler, she found this link. Amusingly enough, this page also contains both my old and new staplers. Same colours, too!

She also hooked me up with this little addiction. That's an easy way to waste a lotta time. I've bookmarked it. So should you.

the score:

So, of course, class being class, I only saw the last period. It was intense, though. First period, no scoring. Second period, Spezza and Havlat knock it past the Cat (is it just me, or do Potvin's pads look REALLY tall?) to make it 2-0. Apparently, Smoke made a beautiful save on a shot that beat Super-K. He just made it to the net in time to sweep the biscuit away from the goal line. Then, with Jumbo Joe off four minutes for spearing, Danton dipsy doodles his way to a shorthanded goal.

Then I come home, and all hell breaks loose. North, South, North, South . . . back and forth, crack, biff, pow. The Sens look a little sloppy, spending too much time in their own zone. But the B's look even worse, often losing the puck in their skates and not knowing where it was. There was an incident behind the Bruins net where one guy came around to take it from the D who was waiting, but missed. The D, thinking the guy got it, just stood there, while the puck drifted slowly behind his legs. Ottawa's D was a lot more organized. Rachunek played the puck off his skates for about ten seconds, leading me to believe he plays a lotta soccer. And as for Hnidy, I don't know if they've bumped him up to forward now that Bonk is out with a broken foot, but he certainly looked like he was preparing it, with a nice scoring chance late in the period. Redden also had a nice offensive chance, pulling a Spezza and dipsy-doodling to get the puck around a Bruin in the offensive zone. Another good D? That would be Z. Matched up against Jumbo Joe the whole night, the "Mountain Man Dean" of Slovakia was a WALL. A forward who couldn't take it so well on the chin was Schaefer, who looked like he got his ass kicked tonight. Black eye, two cuts . . . what happened? What did I miss?

Anyway, after a total mess around the Ottawa net that left most Sens on their asses, Slegr shoves one under Super-K to tie the game in the last few minutes. A good offensive line in this game was Havlat-Smolinski-Hossa. I thought they were going to keep Langfeld there, but I guess this one works better. I like Smoke at centre. I always have, and this is my dream line. It's Scorer-Playmaker-Scorer. You can't lose with that combination.

Ottawa has never lost to Boston in the 13 games they've played into overtime. Make that 14 games unbeaten. Right off a faceoff in overtime, Havlat gets the puck and nails Felix to win the game, 3 to 2. Brilliant. I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Shoutout to Nick -- I feel your pain. No, wait -- no, I really don't. Who's bleeding NOW!

off the ice:

You wanna talk about depth? With the addition of Todd Simpson on the blueline, the Ottawa Senators now have EIGHT healthy defensemen. This is in a league where many teams can barely roll two full D lines. We can roll FOUR. And, when Volchenkov comes back from his shoulder surgery, as is expected in the next month or so, the Sens will have NINE defensemen! I can't even conceive of it. They can't all stay, however, and some of them will be fodder for trade, as Muckler needs to get Ottawa some grit on the left side, now that Varada's gone for the season. Essentially, Ottawa only has two productive left wingers right now, and that's Havlat and Schaefer. That's where the Sens are a little shallow.

Check out the neat interview with Alfie from last April. I'd stay away from him if he had a gun . . .

So, the GMs are meeting in lovely Las Vegas to discuss possible rule changes. Here's my take on the whole thing:

Why is scoring down? Why are fans disappointed with the state of the game? Why are revenues down? What's the solution?

No, it's not the size or the position of the nets. It's not about decreasing the size of the goaltenders' padding, or taking away their ability to handle the puck out of the crease {which, incidentally, is a really dangerous idea -- you wanna kill your D? Go right ahead}. It's not the blue line or the red line, or tag-up offsides or no-touch icing. It's not messing with the math and giving three points for a regulation victory (what exactly would that accomplish, anyway?). We don't need to cut down the number of teams, or increase the draft.

It's about the officials. There's talk of bringing back the one-referee system. There are two sides to this. One one hand, you'd know what was being called, because it would be consistent. However, on the other, there's one less person to not call what he doesn't see. There's also talk of giving the linesman more authority on making calls. I don't know how that'll work. The problem with scoring being down is that today's goal scorers are clutched and grabbed and grappled down and prevented, using every sneaky device the defense can think of, from getting anywhere in the net. If you cared to check, you'd notice shots on goal are also down. So you can see it's not a goalie problem.

If a referee doesn't make the right call, then players know they can get away with it, and it'll happen again. That's where this whole furor about high sticks and cross-checks and visors comes in. No calls equals no penalties. However, if players are consistently called for cheating, and penalized for it, no questions asked, no negotiation offered, then they'll start to figure out that they can't get away with dirty play. The game will clean up and air out, and players, even the gritty ones, who specialize in hard, clean checks, will be able to showcase their skills.

The League says at the beginning of every year that they're going to crack down on obstruction in the players, but they should really crack down on consistency in officiating. They're the ones who make the call, after all. I think that's the solution, and it's such a simple one to make. You don't need to repaint your ice, move your nets, shave your pads, or anything. You just need to have more vigilant officials.

Then, skating teams, like Ottawa, won't have to risk serious injury to get goals, and goon teams, like Toronto, will realize that they have to shape up if they want to be number one. Right now, Toronto and Philly don't deserve to be where they are in the standings, if they got there by dirty play. That spot is reserved for people who play the game right.

And that's my take.

{since writing the above, I've read that it's also Alfie's take, as well. So I know more about it than I thought I did, if I'm backed up by a professional ;)}

in other news:

Shit, now is not the time to miss a class. I didn't go to last week's lecture, for obvious reasons. And I didn't do the readings for this class because I was working my ass off on the midterm (it's done. It makes no sense, but it's done). As a result, I had NO idea what was going on. I did, however, find out two very important things:
1) Cute Guy is a grad student, so that a) makes him god knows how old; and b) makes him inaccessibly intelligent.
2) Cute Guy has a name. Are you ready for it? Are you really ready for it? IT'S WAYNE. AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Remind me never to develop a crush again without having done some research first . . . *grumble* *grumble* *grumble*

There are these two girls in my class, however, that I'd really like to be friends with. I don't know one girl's name, but the other one is Julia. So be nice to any Julia you see. The other one is an ex-legal secretary, so we hit it off right away. Be nice to legal secretaries, too.

Speaking of research, I haven't done any. Ever. That's a lie. But I haven't studied for my major midterm tomorrow in Oceanography. Most of it is review from the course I took in first year, but that was three years ago. Well, I have four hours from the time my last class ends tomorrow until the midterm begins. That should be sufficient, right? *gulp*

Every year on my birthday, I go to Providence, RI, to see my friend Lisa, who has the same birthday. The normal flight plan from Ottawa to Providence is through Newark, Toronto, or Detroit airports. Not this time. I'm flying through PHILADELPHIA. I picked this flight, partly because my layovers are only three hours instead of five (I guess no one really wants to fly to either Ottawa or Providence, so I get screwed over), and partly because I've never seen the Philly Airport. Another hockey town, another hockey airport. Actually, the only airport, besides Ottawa's, that I've seen hockey stuff for sale is Toronto. Even Vancouver doesn't have any. But LOOK how far out of the way it is! I'm flying 986 km (613 mi) to get there, and Providence is only 783 km (487 mi) away, if I drive. And it would only take me eight hours. Weird. Almost as long to fly there, if you count the stopovers.

I HATE the telephone.

I spend all day answering it, so the last thing I want to do when I get home is talk on the phone. I also don't like it because it doesn't have that wholehearted connectedness of face-to-face conversation, nor does it have the complete emotional detachment of text messaging. It's a sloppy medium, and it makes me uncomfortable.

But what I hate more than talking on the phone is people who call and don't leave a message. I stayed home Wednesday afternoon to work on my midterm. I locked the door and didn't answer the phone. I didn't want any irritating people distracting me from abstract thinking. Once I get into a writing groove, I do not want to be removed from it against my will. Anyway, the phone rings and rings and rings and rings -- all afternoon and evening. And it's the same group of people. I have call display, so I could see this. One of them was Sears Canada. They just kept calling and calling . . . from my records, they called nine times while I was home, and three times before I got back from work at noon. If it was that important, do you think they could have left a message? NO. They haven't called back since I picked up the receiver and then slammed it down really hard. I mean, if it was a problem with the fridge or the stove or one of the other applicances, they would have left a name and number. They didn't, so I'm assuming they were just trying to sell me something. But if you're just making nameless, faceless calls to someone you don't really care about, would you bother to call TWELVE TIMES? A few other people called that I knew, and I just didn't answer the phone. But again, if it was important, they would have left a message. They didn't. They just called OFTEN. So it couldn't have been important. SO WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU CALLING ME WHEN YOU KNOW I HATE THE TELEPHONE? LEAVE A MESSAGE. Is it that difficult? Do you not have the time to hang on an extra ten seconds to say a few words, having already waited through the eight rings it takes to trigger my voice mail? GESUS.

I guess this week is Canadian Black History Week. Not that I knew about it. I guess it isn't as much of an issue up here. I could be wrong, though. Lemme know.

Damn. They were playing King's "I Have a Dream Speech" on Radio Two this afternoon when I was home for lunch. The whole thing. I've heard it so many times that I can say parts of it along with Rev. King, but it's still a most powerful set of words. I could go into my social movement theory and tell you all about how MLK is a "Charismatic Leader," and how he was inspired by Ghandi and his nonviolent protest tactics. But I won't. Just appreciate him for who he was and what he accomplished. Man. It still gets me. Think how POWERFUL words have to be to still be strong, 41 years later. Oscar Peterson's "Hymn to Freedom" played immediately afterwards, from a recording made in 1962, was very fitting.

Posted by Ally at February 12, 2004 12:00 AM