::alio!::

God, I love this game!

off the top:

Check this out! This is the sort of shit that I would be studying, if this all goes well. I have a meeting with the graduate director after reading week. Cross your fingers . . .

Ray's back! I wonder if he'll actually play this postseason . . . Haha, his best season was his junior year!
Oh yeah, and Jeremy Roenick can get uglier!

the score:

FIRST PERIOD: Interview with Radek Bonk before the game, which was interesting, as he never talks to the media. Turns out his foot, in its little cast, is too big to enable him to drive, so he had to get Vaclav "Gimpy" Varada to bring him to tonight's showdown. It's funny: he's Czech, but he sounds EXACTLY (accent, timbre, everything) like my colleague, Konrad, who's Polish. Hm.

Funny montage before the opening credits. They played "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" (who's that by, again?), and showed nifty shots of Buffalo, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal, scoring, fighting, hugging . . . all tinged in pink, in honour of the day.

Is it loser mcpete of me to say that there's something about the HNIC theme that gets me every time?

I'm still amazed at Koivu's comeback. I mean, WOW.

During the anthem, you could see that Patty already has his playoff hair going . . . after the song was over, Reds gave Beckie Scott, there for a ceremonial puck drop, a bouquet of flowers, in honour of the day. Awww . . .

Spezza took a stupid roughing penalty off the top, but Patty was supersharp and made some great saves when he needed to. Perhaps he's finally shaken himself out of his doldrums (btw, that's a nautical term, you know -- I learned about it in Oceanography on Thursday), but we'll see further down the stretch how that theory pans out. He has certainly improved his skating and puck handling abilities, however, and showed off his new skills in some nice passes. Smolinski had a beautiful check in the offensive zone, and Chara followed it up with a similar one in the defensive zone.

In the first, the play-by-play was muted, for some reason, and you could not hear them all that well, but so far, we have "Schmolinski" and "Prushek." Tonight, we got "Schpezza." COME ON! There was also a lot of falling in the first. I think the ice was bad, but it was pretty comical.

Some nice lines tonight were the Havlat-Smoke-Hossa line, which really works well and gets itself some good chances, and the Simpson-Leschyshyn D line, which pairs grit with skill and makes some good saves. Hnidy also works well as a forward . . .

Chara is the hero of the period, however, with bullet from the blueline (60' from the net) that ricochets off the crossbar and hits the netting at 19:30 to make the score 1-0 for Ottawa. Spezza gets the only assist.

SECOND PERIOD: I didn't watch Coach's Corner. Are you surprised? I did, however, tune in to see the Todd Simpson interview. He's quite the charmer . . .

The second was a period of fantastic forechecking on the part of Ottawa, by all the players. They barely allowed Montreal to set themselves up, or even leave their zone most of the time. Simpson got into a fight with Langdon shortly into the play, which lasted 1:20. They were pretty tired at the end, which I would say was a draw. Langdon should have gotten an extra two minutes for the fact that his sweater wasn't tied down properly, though. Both merely get five for fighting.

I'm annoyed at McCreary. I'm always annoyed at McCreary. He rarely calls anything for Ottawa, and tonight was no surprise. Major infractions to Ottawa players were ignored, even when they occurred two feet from an official, but questionable penalties were called against the Sens for minor offenses. GRR. Patty, however, was extremely sharp on defense, handling the puck well, and Smoke and Hossa had a nice shorthanded chance on a PK that went over very well.

Unfortunately, Begin fooled Patty in a scramble around the net. The play was reviewed, but, in the end, the Habs got their first goal of the game.

Two more penalties to Rachunek and Chara, and the Habs keep the puck in the Ottawa zone. No shots on goal are registered, but a helluva lotta them come too close for comfort.

Finally, we get a commercial break. And there's Patty, wearing black padding and looking very chubby, talking about "getting IN to the playoffs." I don't understand the emphasis, but it was pretty funny.

At last, Ottawa gets some calls going their way, and Redden scores on the power play from Hossa and Havlat to widen the gap.

The rest of the period, however, was more blatant no-calls (honestly, that's the trouble with the game these days), and a lot of north-south hockey, with a good many scrambles around the Ottawa net that freaked the hell out of me. Eventually, Patty just waved to Zed, who was coming behind the net to pick up the puck, to get it the fuck outta there. I laughed. Ottawa went into the second intermission with a 2-1 lead.

THIRD PERIOD: Satellite Hotstove was actually very entertaining, as comments by Al "ToadBoy" Strachan were kept to a minimum, and guest Brett Hull made some interesting points about rule changes and Mike Modano.

Rachunek, having a strong night already, made some good passes, and some nice defensive moves to start off the last period. Smoke, heading to the net, took a pass from Havlat and nailed it from the blueline past Theodore. He was so happy that he fell over. I laughed. Hossa had a nice breakaway chance, but missed, as did White. Then it was Langfeld to Spezza to Redden to make the score 4-1 for Ottawa.

The Habs pull Theodore, who looks pretty upset, and replace him with Garon, who is suffering from the worst case of goalie-ass I have ever seen. And his diapers weren't even tied to his shirt! He should have gotten a penalty for that right away.

Anyway, after that, Montreal woke up a bit, and that pesky Begin scored again on a shorthanded breakaway. Grr. With Chris Kelly out of the game with an injury (this can't be a good thing, if your injured callups get injured), the only good news was that Buffalo had come back from a three goal deficit to tie Toronto 3-3. The Sabres later won the game 5-3. MWAHAHAHAHA.

Too many penalties to Ottawa in the last part of the third. Too many breakaways, too. And Hossa kept being wide open and losing the puck. Then he gets called for tripping in the last two minutes. Montreal calls a time out and Garon gets pulled, giving the Habs a two-man advantage.

HOWEVER

On a nifty shorthanded breakaway, Van Allen takes careful aim and lets it go, knocking the puck neatly into the empty Canadiens net. Jacques Martin actually smiled. I laughed.

A very tense game tonight. Very back and forth, with lots of scrambles that really stressed me out. I've finally figured out the way I'm going to die. I will be eighty-five, and watching the Senators in the Stanley Cup Final. Glass seats, right at the corner. It will be Game Seven, seventeen minutes into triple overtime. Some young whippersnapper Sen will go topshelf and spill Gatorade (or whatever they're drinking in sixty years) all over the ice. The crowd will go insane. And I will quietly have a heart attack. TADA.

off the ice:

I have issues with Americans and their attitude towards hockey. I mean, personally, I think that, if you got world leaders to duke it out on the ice, the Earth would be a better place.

But hockey is my game. Shit, it may have even been invented in my hometown. So the Americans can't have it, not if they're not going to appreciate it. If they're just going to make fun of it, or try to make it all apple-pie shiny (apple pie, by the way, is CANADIAN), then they can go play football or baseball or basketball (baseball and basketball, by the way, are also CANADIAN).

Check out Conan and his introduction to the game. It's pretty funny. The funniest is that NBC felt the need to clarify that the Toronto Maple Leafs, who have the largest fan base of any professional sport IN THE WORLD (and I'm not exaggerating -- as much as I hate them, they are the embodiment of what hockey means to the world), were an ICE HOCKEY TEAM! SHEESH.

Basically, my rant today is that I think this "Miracle" movie is a waste of time. There's no respect from Americans for this game. They don't even understand what it's about. Why make a movie that no one's going to watch? Here is the Disney page for the damned thing. First of all, you can't DISNEYFY hockey. You just can't. Yeah, they've tried, and the Ducks are a serious embarassment to the League. But what's with this "the greatest moment in Olympic history" bullshit? If it was so important to Americans, why is there a link on this site to "Hockey 101"? If it's your game, you'd think you'd know how it was played, right? I mean, for fuck's sake, does it need to be explained that "ice" hockey is played on an "ice" rink? GESUS. Ali Norton, a contributor to my school's newspaper, essentially says the same thing. It's ridiculous.

And, for the record, nobody gives a flying fuck. Not the Russians, and certainly not the Canadians.

Everybody -- and this is everyone who knows ANYTHING about the game AT ALL (like, even my MOTHER knows this) -- knows that the greatest moment in hockey history was the 1972 series when Canada, the underdog, kicked some serious Russian ass. The Russians still don't want to talk about it, and it was over thirty years ago! That's big. The only good thing to come out of the 1980 Olympics was Herb Brooks, rest his sweet soul.

Now, hang on a minute. I don't want you to take this as an Anti-American rant. It's not. Americans are nice people -- most of them. At least, the ones I've met have been absolutely lovely people. I don't like your administration, but I don't like my country's administration, either. I don't agree with certain strong-armed tactics employed by the government, but what I really don't like is this neo-colonialist attitude the American culture-bearers have that urges them to Americanize everything. Can't they just accept that somethings didn't come from USA, A-OK, and deal with diversity?

Like that bloody "Seabiscuit" movie. THE JOCKEY WAS A CANADIAN!

I'm not really saying this in the most articulate way I can, because it's hard to say what I mean without offending anyone. Basically, what I mean is, the States are not the only places on Earth -- we're here, too. Hell, we're bigger than you are. Sure, our entire country has a smaller population than the state of California, and the number of regulars and reservists in our Armed Forces is less than the card-carrying members of the LAPD, but we're still here, damnit.

Canadians came up with Plate Tectonic Theory. They invented the zipper, and facilitated the discovery of penicillin. They figured out what the speed of sound was. They developed lacrosse, baseball, basketball, and hockey, and modernized American football, as it is today. Five-pin bowling. The Laser Sailboat. The green garbage bag. Trivial Pursuit. Paint rollers. The Underground Railroad. Art Banks. Superman. The Canadarm. Greenpeace. Gingerale. Chocolate Bars, especially Coffee Crisp (come on, chocolate and caffeine? OBVIOUSLY Canadian). Pablum. Anti-smoking campaigns. Same-sex marriage. Decriminalized marijuana. The CN Tower. Radio signals. The telephone. The lightbulb. The longest skating rink (Rideau Canal). The longest street (Yonge Street, Toronto). The longest highway (Trans-Canada). Snowmobiles. The snowblower and the snowplow. Hydrofoil. Green ink. Abolition of slavery in 1833. Uncle Tom. STANDARD TIME.

We eat poutine and some of us speak French. Or Mandarin. Or Japanese. We know how to walk in snowshoes and can tell the difference between a touque and a hat. We use a parliamentary system and have the most culturally diverse population in the world. We are Canadian. And no, this is not a beer commercial.

Okay, what's my point? I'm not sure anymore. It just irks me when people, especially people from America, try to foist Canadians off as historically unimportant, financially inviable, and generally ineffectual as a people. It's such a lie! I'm not trying to put other people down -- I'm trying to let other people know that other people are here. You can do what you want, America -- it's not like Canada can stop you. Bomb Iraq. Dam the Rockies and steal our water. Make everyone who comes to your land where the streets are paved with golden opportunities swear wholehearted allegiances to the one Great God that is Lady Liberty. Praise conformity and stamp out aberrations. Do whatever you want. It's a democratic system, and if you don't like it, you can move. That's fine. I have no beefs with that. America is a great place to be. The people are nice, and there's so much to see. Just not all of it is American. I have issues with some aspects of America, as you can see. But you can say what you want against Canada, and I'll agree with you on those points, as well. It's just that damned movie . . .

Do what you want. Land of the free and all that jazz.

But don't you dare try to take my game away from me.

The stupid and hypocritical part about it is that I'm probably going to end up seeing that movie, if only in tribute to the memory of Brooks. *sigh*

Don't even get me started on the cuts Ottawa is making to City spending . . .

in other news:

You know, these posts are really long. I apologize for being verbose. But I work on the non-score-related stuff on off-days, when I have time, and when something strikes me as noteworthy, so it all sorta builds up after a while.

What I wish I could do at work . . .

I am on vacation. I finished my oceanography exam last night, and I'm done. Except that I'm going to be a total nerd this week and spend every day, 830-1630, in my office, doing homework. The plus is that I may be able to get four out of five of my papers done. The minus is that I have to spend eight hours a day by myself. I'm going to go crazy. Feel free to visit me, if you're in the neighbourhood. Just call first, so I don't lock you out. I don't want any of the goobermonster's evil clients to come in and kill me.

It'll be nice, though. Monday, I can tune into NHL.com and listen to the game, unimpeded. And I will actually be inspired to get work done. It's not like I will have anything better to do.

Okay, this is hilarious. I'm trying to get a sense of how comic segments flow, so I've been looking at a lot of online versions. I found this comic and I read the whole thing, which goes back to 2002. Anyway, Stef, you would be Ethan in this strip. Replace Lucas with a buxom hockey addict, and you've got what would happen if I moved in with you. They even say "eeee," like I do . . .

Posted by Ally at February 14, 2004 12:00 AM