Drives Me ________.
off the top:
To your right, you will see a picture encompassing a few of the 1500 minor league players participating in 150 simultaneous shinny games yesterday on the world's longest hockey rink, in honour of the 5th annual nation-wide Hockey Day in Canada. NEAT! Pardon me for being uncharacteristically Canadian in saying this, but I LOVE THIS COUNTRY.
the score:
FIRST PERIOD: Super-K got the start this afternoon, but almost didn't make it, as he took a shot to the groin during the warmup. There was a clip of him lying, red-faced and gasping, in a ball on the ice, with Patty leaning close enough to hear him croak, "I can play!" so two big Senators hoisted him up and put him back in his net. He already has two girls. He doesn't need any more, anyway . . .
Playing the Pens is a tricky venture for the Sens. Going into today's game, they were 1-1-1 with the worst team in the league. Scary scary . . .
The first ten minutes were all Ottawa, all the time. Aubin, in goal for Pittsburg, was not sharp at all, and, after a nice move by Pothier to keep the puck in the zone, the puck went from Payer to Rachunek to Vermette and past Aubin, giving Ottawa an early lead at 2:14 and Payer his first NHL point.
Nice to see Fisher playing his best, getting himself into all the old situations, not afraid to use his elbow. He said in an interview that it was a little sore, but much better than he expected. Cross your fingers, folks, and pray for that little joint.
Three minutes and two seconds after Vermette's opening goal, and after a straight Prusek stop on a breakaway, Langfeld made a nifty play with his stick, keeping the biscuit in the zone, which he passed to Havlat, who nailed it past Aubin for his first of the afternoon. The Pittsburgh bench called a time out at this point, which was odd, but what can you do? Play resumed, and, in the few occasions that the puck was in the Ottawa zone, Super-K was there to stop it. A game of keep-away ensued in the Penguin zone, but Aubin played keep-away himself, and kept the puck out of the net. Havlat got his ass kicked and drew a penalty on Orpick for hooking, but Ottawa had no shots on net during the power play, as they were being too fancy. Then Havlat and Jackman got offsetting minors, and Langfeld got another for interference. Phillips became a one man wall at that point, making two great defensive moves and using his size to shut the Pens down. Jackman came out of the box, however, and passed to Morozov, who went topshelf on Super-K and made his waterbottle fly high.
The nice thing about Prusek, though, is he doesn't get psyched out by goals like that, unlike Patty. The next minunte, he slid across the net, rolled over on his side, and totally shut down another Pittsburgh attacker.
Jacques Martin must've noticed the play-by-play announcers getting Hossa and Bondra mixed up when they played on the same line, because after the first, they were rarely together again.
Havlat had a beautiful play around the net, in which he passed to Phillips, who shot the puck through traffic to make the score 3-1. Then Vermette centred the puck from behind the net and Philly tried again, but Aubin made the save.
Neil got into a fight. Surprise, surprise. I was interested to note, however, that, these days, he's more careful with his hands, always ensuring that he's got his opponent's helmet off before he takes the first punch. He won this bout hands down, but then went to the locker room to get his hand checked out. He was back in the second, so no worries.
SECOND PERIOD: Do you ever watch those Hockey Heritage Moments things between periods? Today's was about the early nineties and the legacy of Lemieux and Jagr, who broke every record he could when he was young. Another one he broke:
stupidest hair. GESUS.
The faceoff in the second was delayed due to a power outage on the scoreboard. Okayyy . . . The camera cut to a shot of Leschyshyn talking to Chara. Curtis was waving something around and grimacing, and he stuck it under Z's nose, causing Z to jerk back in dismay. I think they were smelling salts, but why Curtis had them, I have no idea. He didn't look sick . . .
Fisher again made his presence felt in the second, enough so that he got completely BEANED in front of the net. No call, however. Prusek made another stellar save on a breakaway by just staying in position and not freaking out. He missed the next one, however, as Koltsov fed Kraft on another breakaway that got past him. Hossa was ill-positioned on this play. He barely caught up to Kraft at the net, and in the end, only served as a deflector for the puck, which went in off his skate. Super-K recovered well, however, and made a strong save several seconds later.
The owners of the Mellon Arena (AKA "The Igloo," because that's exactly what it looks like) are very proud of the quality of their ice-effects mics. Perhaps not so much today, as Fata grabbed Leschyshyn's jersey on a rush, and you could clearly hear Curtis yell "Fuck OFF!" Ottawa was grumpy, and it was starting to show. Then Z got speared in a serious way. I think he was stabbed in the spot where your leg connects to your torso. He went down pretty hard, but he was okay later. Schaefer was hepped up enough, at least, to beat an icing call, and Prusek did another nifty slider to keep the puck in play at his net. Hossa and Bondra, in one of their last appearances together today, had a nice rush at the Pittsburg net, but then Hossa was called for tripping. He was not having a good day, and he looked extremely grumpy.
I'm pleased with Martin's use of Payer on the PK. He did a solid job, and the shots that made it to Super-K were deflected as if they were nothing. Prusek makes it look so easy . . . So Ottawa was at least successful on that PK.
Hossa came out of the box and went in to the faceoff circle. Faceoffs are the one thing that Marian can't handle, and he lost both of the ones he took today, which is not a big surprise. NHL.com says his faceoff percentage has improved to 35.3% (I think it was somewhere around 18% last season), but it's still pretty bad, especially compared with Van Allen (53.6%), White (51.4%), Spezza (47.3%), and Bonk (45.8%). He made up for it a little later with a good burst of speed, and, when someone took a run at his lover (Bondra), he stepped in to the fray.
Grumpy is as grumpy does, and Neil did NOT look amused when he took a penalty for elbowing later on. It was nullified a few seconds later, by a blatant high stick to Chara. BLATANT. I mean, he was practically picking his nose with the blade. How high does your stick have to be to hit someone who's 6'9"? SHEESH. In the 4-on-4, Rachunek made a neat swipe with his stick to keep the puck in the right zone, and then was strong defensively on the back rush, but Spezza gave the puck away at the wrong time, and Malone had Super-K inside-out before he popped it in the net, putting the Pens back in the game. This time, the cheers of the crowd were too loud to hear Prusek's loud, "FUCK," but I'm pretty good at reading lips. Spezza knew he'd been an idiot, and nearly broke his stick slamming it into the boards in frustration.
All was good shortly thereafter, however, as Bondra took a feed from Hossa and passed it to Neil, who jammed it under Aubin to score again. The goal was reviewed, for an inordinately long amount of time, but it was an indisputable goal. Later, with Fata and Payer off for roughing, Fisher became gritty again and went straight to the Pittsburgh net, so close, in fact, that he ended up taking Aubin down in a headlock. This was not a happy move, according to the Penguins. It always amuses me how protective players are of their goaltenders. You so much as tickle one of them and you get nailed.
THIRD PERIOD: Vermette had a cute little interview in-between periods. He's quite the charmer. I can see why Lisa loves him so much. He was talking about his shoulder injury, and he mentioned that he didn't get the chance to go after Z to really test out how strong it was, but he was pretty sure it was okay. Then he temporarily ran out of English, which was very cute. Nice kid (and yes, I can say that -- I am older than he is -- just).
Right off the top, Prusek had a snappy glove save and Langfeld had a nice offensive rush, but he delayed too long, and had no scoring chance. Even freshly zamboni-ed (?), the ice looked bad, and the puck was bouncing all over the place. Apparently, Pittsburgh had some sort of children's circus there on the weekend? Anyway, the proof was in an exciting play from Vermette to Neil to Payer, where the pass was soft, but the puck went flying over Serge's stick.
Damnit, Spezza, why do you always have to try that stupid dipsy-doodle? IT NEVER WORKS! YOU ARE NOT IN JUNIOR ANYMORE! Some hard checks by Payer and a nice, but bizarre save by Prusek were drowned out in the colour commentator's musings about how Spezza's best friends were Andy Chiodo, the backup for Pittsburgh, and Ray Emery, the number three for Ottawa. He calls them 1A and 1B, and apparently, they get into a lot of goalie fights in the junior games. This went on and on, and on . . . they finally shut up when Hossa went on a breakaway, but Aubin made the save. Fata, the ever-annoying one, then hooked up Leschyshyn, so Ottawa went to the power play, which was incredibly disorganized, although the ice conditions prolly had something to do with that. Payer kept it simple, and that was good. Prusek also kept it simple, even when there was a pile of people on top of him in the net. While that got cleared up, Hossa got into a tussle with Kraft, who held him up in front of the net. He was still yelling at him after they were pried apart and sitting on their respective benches. I've never seen him look that angry. Probably, Jen, just as scary as you said I looked after I got hit by that car.
Bondra, now paired with Alfredsson, as Hossa was just having a bad day, played a neat passing game down the ice with him, but unfortunately missed the net. Fisher kept it in, but not for long. Spezza, however, took a turnover in the neutral zone, passed it to Havlat, who headed to the net and scored. The combination of those two young guys is scary. Defensively challenged, but working on it, the two boys will either score a goal or let one in. There's no middle ground. This time, they were lucky.
Hossa tried again to get into the game, making a pass to Smoke that almost went in, but which Aubin just got a piece of. It's interesting that, even when Marian's playing like crap, he still registers points. Prusek made another football save, as he had two players on top of him but still kept the puck out of the net. TACKLE!
The Penguin bench pulled Aubin with 90 seconds to go. Bondra took a shot at the empty net, but missed, and the puck came back into the Ottawa zone. Redden got his stick inextricably stuck in the boards, and so it was a miracle that the puck came back out of the zone with the extra attacker for Pittsburgh on the ice. However, come out it did, and Havlat scored into the empty net, getting his 22nd, 23rd, and 24th goals of the year to score a hat trick on the afternoon.
This wasn't received well by the Penguins, who took offense at Havlat's running up the score. After the buzzer went and Havlat was standing at the bench, talking to his teammates, two separate Pittsburgh players gave him some big shoves. This resulted in a milling crowd around the Ottawa bench, as every player on the ice came to see what was going on. On the outskirts of the crowd were the goalies: to the left, Andy Chiodo stood on his toes and tried to see where his pal Spezza was in the melee. To the right, Prusek stood hunched over, catching his breath after the last crush at the net, and probably trying to extract his testicles from wherever they'd been hiding most of the game. In the centre stood Patty and J-S Aubin, chatting like old friends, comparing notes on the group in front of them. Rather an amusing way to end a hockey game.
Prusek is my star of the day. The three goals he gave up were mostly due to the failings of his own defense. In every other situation, he was in the right position, and, as a standup goalie, he stayed in place to catch the rebounds, which have bothered him in the past. He has also improved greatly with his wraparounds, showing nice lateral motion in the net. I am very impressed.
Ottawa has also started standing up for its players, which also impresses me, as this is one of the main gripes of the slavering masses who have the audacity to write into the newspaper with their illiterate ramblings. So now they can shut the hell up.
Other than that, it wasn't a particularly stellar game. Ottawa played lazy, and it's only by fluke that they made it out of there alive. It should have been 9-0 for Ottawa, but it was pretty damned close to a loss for them in the third period. Just because Pittsburg is the last in the league doesn't mean they don't want to win just as much. Watch out for the underdog. Pittsburg was fantastic in its day, and it will be again. Ottawa needs to calm down a bit. I know getting Bondra is a big deal, but that doesn't make everyone on the team a flashy player all of a sudden. They need to relax and play it simple. Every mistake they made this aft was a result of a failed attempt at a fancy play.
A nice thought for today, though, is that, for the next five minutes or so, at least, Ottawa is first in the Norteast Division, first in the Eastern Conference, and first in the National Hockey League. Weehoo!
off the ice:
So, what are your bets on who Muckler's showcasing for the March 9 trade deadline? Rumour has it that Pothier's been playing so often because JM the GM wants to get rid of him (although I don't see why), and rumour also has it that he's been getting some calls about Rachunek. So this could be interesting. The deadline is less than three weeks away, and Ottawa is hell-bent on doing whatever it can to win the Cup this season. What changes will we see in our friendly Ottawa lineups?
in other news:
So, I'm allergic to my pants. Seriously. I'm allergic to metal, gold included. The only thing that doesn't bother me, which is odd, is the barbell in my navel. Any other surgical steel things I put in there kill me. Yes, I'm a big goob. Allergic to metal. But never before to this extreme. I don't get it. The button on my newest pair of jeans -- just the one pair, mind you -- is what gets me now. I've covered it in nail polish, so we'll see what happens. But boy, is my stomach itchy. Can't wear necklaces, can't wear bracelets, can't wear earrings . . . the only reason I still wear a watch is that it's so loose that no one part of it touches my skin for very long at a time. I can, however, wear rings. I guess I've dipped my hands in so many toxic substances over the years that my fingers have become desensitized. But rings drive me crazy. CRAZY. I'm trying to get myself used to them, as that's the only jewellery I can wear, but it's tough. Hell, even my GLASSES are plastic-coated, so they don't get me where they go behind my ears. What a goob you are, Alison . . .
Incidentally, I'm also allergic to the little hairs that grow on kiwi fruits. They make my tongue swell up. It's very painful. Another fun Alison Fact, brought to you by the letter F . . .
Fucker! I hate people who drive like fourteen-year-olds [more on fourteen-year-olds later]! I was driving home last night, and it was snowing again, so visibility was rather low. Plus, it was as slippery as a whore on a Saturday night, so I was being careful. Basically, if you didn't drive in the lines left by previous cars, you weren't driving in a straight line. Changing lanes was an adventure, to say the least. Anyway, it seems that every time I'm heading either to or from Hunt Club, I am beset by idiots. On the way there, there was this huge red pickup that drove seventy down the Airport Parkway. SEVENTY. The limit is EIGHTY. AT LEAST. There were about twenty-five of us behind him. Anyway, as I was getting ready to get off, he suddenly changed his mind, drove over the median, and cut me off. At a really low speed. Fine. I can deal with people not knowing their way around the Parkway. It's a pretty sketchy stretch of road, and if you don't have every turn memorized, it can be confusing and rather dangerous. BUT THEN. I was going into the turning lane to go West on Hunt Club and I was almost at the spot where the offramp and the road connect, and the dude, who was originally going to go left, suddenly changed his mind, drove over the median, and cut me off. AGAIN. On the way home, it was even slipperier, as it had gotten colder, and all the slush had frozen. I was driving down Bronson, which is a rather narrow street, if you ask me, and there was this dude, who had been obnoxious all the way along since Sunnyside, who made a right somewhere before Third. I was in the left lane, he was in the right. But he swung left before he made the turn, and nearly sideswiped me. Why do people always try to kill me when I visit the south end?
I was in Hunt Club for a good reason, though. Sarah and Caitlin and I went to see "Eurotrip." We all had our doubts, which were augmented when we discovered ourselves in a theatre full of preteens (what the hell else are they going to do at South Keys on a Saturday night?), but we needn't have worried. That movie was fucking hilarious. I feel bad admitting it, as it was incredibly offensive. Especially to Slovaks [so beware]. But so funny. Some random cameos, that worked out rather well. Kristin Kreuk, in a surprising role, and Matt Damon, in a VERY surprising role. Lots of sex. Lots of full frontal nudity. The Canadian rating system amuses me to no end. In the States, this movie is rated R. Here? 14A. I guess Canadians are just more mature . . . ;)
But yes, fourteen-year-olds. One of them, a skinny specimen buried under long stringy hair and a nondescript touque of some sort, spent the entire movie working his mojo on Caity. We had to run out of the theatre at the end, which was amusing in itself. I know she looks like she's twelve, but with Sar and I around [and we look only about seventeen ourselves], he should have been intimidated into silence. It was amusing and scary at the same time. Not to worry, however: we had a getaway car. They were not old enough to drive. So put away the banjo getaway music. It's all good.
Kids these days . . . makes me almost glad I'll be double twos in . . . holy shit -- two weeks. I should really get my act together. I have travel arrangements and assignments to complete before I leave for Rhode Island. I'm going to miss a few games while I'm gone, as Lis' computer is sketchy at the best of times, and I wouldn't trust it with FTP. So I'm thinking of leaving the colour commentary to Stefan for the weekend. What do you think?
Went skating with Chel this morning, at the Centrepointe rink. Aside from the fact that the changerooms smelled like urine, the ice was unbelievable. Zamboni-ed and everything. I didn't work on stopping today. There were too many people younger than me around and I felt stupid, but I didn't fall once, and I'm starting to feel a lot more natural on the blades, although I still have a tendency to lean back on the heel that's not there on hockey skates, like it is on "fancy" skates. I'm also starting to break in those expensive motherfuckers. My hands are only partially destroyed from the laces this time, which are starting to get longer, as I slowly get the boot tighter. I wore gloves when I was doing them up, to save my fingers. It worked. My skates are my most prized possession right now. They're my ticket to the future, man. We went to East Side Mario's afterwards for an early lunch. Now I'm extraordinarily full. Still.
School tomorrow. Can't say I'm enthused. I haven't done my readings yet. Blah.
Posted by Ally at February 22, 2004 12:00 AM
