::alio!::

R.S.F.

off the top:

Lemme get this straight: if Lang gets traded to Detroit, does that make Washington an official non-contender? Ever?

the score:

So anyone who expected a typical boring, low-scoring Buffalo/Ottawa game tonight was sorely disappointed. They were the only ones . . .

Buffalo scored first, which is annoying, but other than that, Patty was sharp throughout. On the whole game, he only faced fifteen shots. Not bad. Tells me the D is standing up for their goalie. Patty even played defence for a bit, coming wayyyyyy out of his net to play the puck. It made me nervous, but he made it, so all is good. Who the fuck is Mika Noronen, by the way? The score aside, he was pretty damned sharp tonight. Not sharp enough to catch Alfie, however, who scored from Schaefer and Fisher to tie up the first.

Nice offensive rushes from Hossa and Schaefer, and some blatant hooking on the part of Buffalo to both Hossa and Smolinski, which was never called. Damned REFS! They did, however, call Van Allen for hooking TWICE in the period. Interesting . . . Phillips had an awesome first period. I love him. He's so damned consistent.

I guess the Sens didn't want to look like they were running up the score, but they really couldn't help it. Many an occasion saw a Senator like Fisher wide open in front of the net, but always they opted to pass, rather than shoot. You know, if you have the opportunity, I say go for it. If the other team can't stop you, that's not your problem.

A lot of tackling of star players like Bondra and Hossa tonight, again, with no calls, but that didn't really put a damper on much. The second period scoring went as follows: first Redden scored from Spezza and Hossa, the Smolinski from Redden, then Chara from Smolinski and Alfredsson. It was like a goddamned cycle of scoring. Neat. Ottawa fans also saw the first appearance of the Rayzor in the second. He looked like he was having a great time, especially against his old team.

In the third, it was like Buffalo just stopped trying. Goals by Bonzai from Smoke and Zed, Hoss from the Flying Fish and Bonzai, and Neiler from the Spetz. Shit, I don't even think the Ottawa boys were trying at this point. But they couldn't just waste ten minutes of play. That would have made for a boring game. They had to do something, so they hung around the Buffalo net, just to make things tense. The goal by Neil was a complete accident, honest. He was just passing, and it happened to go in. Not his fault. What was unfortunate is that Payer had a nice open net and just failed to get his first goal. It would have been shorthanded on a breakaway, even . . . *sigh* Ray rounded out the period with a nice fight with Peters, which he won, hands down. He was grinning like an idiot the whole time. Boys are funny.

off the ice:

He may be cute, but he sure is DUMB. *sigh* Boys are stupid.

Except this one. Good boy.

in other news:

It gets me every time. Whenever I'm thinking about the future, I start to think about the past. And when I think of the past, I think of R.S. Ferguson, my grandfather.

He had a big nose that he'd broken more times than he could remember, and huge hornrimmed spectacles to perch on top of it. He had bushy eyebrows and silver hair. He couldn't tell the difference between right and left, but if you were speaking in nautical terms, it was all good. He was an architect and an artist, and he wrote the Canada Building Code for many years. He went to war, too, and was sunk not once, but twice, before he was able to come home. Wherever he was, he drew pictures, whether they were of squirrels, the family cottage, a warship under fire, or the Parliament Buildings in a state of renovation. Most people called him Stirling, and I always thought it had to do with the colour of his hair, not realizing that it was, in fact, his middle name. He never liked Robert, his given name. But I called him Granddad, and he was the greatest man who ever lived.

He started most of his historical anecdotes with, "when I was a little girl," which made me laugh and my brothers concerned that they could spontaneously undergo some form of sexual transformation. He had heart problems, but, no matter how big I got, or how ill he was feeling, when I saw him, he would always swing me high up into the air. It was just how we always greeted each other when we visited. I remember the last time he did it. He was standing on the cliff in front of my house, and I remember being lifted and looking at the ocean and thinking that maybe, just maybe, I was getting too big for him to keep doing this.

When I was very small and we were living in England, he and my grandmother came to visit. Granddad and my mother (his daughter) went shopping, and they passed a toy store. Granddad was captivated by this stuffed polar bear in the window, hanging from a parachute. He would not rest, according to my mother, until he had purchased it. I still have it. His name is Grampa. When I first got him, he was so big and I so small that I could ride him like a horse, holding on to his ears.

My mother told me once that I was his favourite grandchild. I don't know if that's true. There are only five of us to choose from. Whatever his feelings on the matter, though, he always made me feel like I was somebody special. It's like he knew how I felt about being the baby and the only girl in the family. I always got left out of the fun stuff that my brothers got to do. When Granddad took them places, he always took them together. But when we were together, it was just us two. He taught me how to sail a laser and how to row a dinghy, and even let me help him build the special sail he invented, which he never got around to patenting. I could never ask a stupid question, and every query was always met with the same amount of serious consideration. One day, in his workshop, I discovered a spilled puddle of some epoxy. It looked like it was still wet, but it wasn't. I pointed this out to Granddad and we were so intrigued, we set up a little experiment. We poured puddles of the epoxy on waxed paper and let them dry, and then spent much of the rest of the afternoon planting them places where people would think someone had spilled something.

Our across-the-street neighbour, Janet Lee, was pregnant with her daughter, Claire, when I was young. She had the worst morning sickness, and, although I don't remember doing this, I drew her a picture in the hopes that she would feel better. It is a depiction of her throwing up all over her shoes. On the other side of the portrait is a crayon-scrawled dedication: "I hop you hav a hapy day." Granddad liked it so much, he made a deal with Janet: my drawing in exchange for one of his. Granny still has the picture, to this day. It hangs in the bathroom of her condo.

On reflection, I think it was him who first got me thinking about other cultures and places and times. He was fascinated by sociology and anthropology, and he tried to bring the social sciences into the workplace when he was at NRC. One of his protegees from back in the day happens now to be the esteemed chair of my department, Dr. Charles Gordon. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that nifty link. I have inherited all the social science books he collected over the years. They make a pretty impressive library.

I didn't get to see him very much growing up, but I tried my hardest to make each visit, whether it was at Lavergne Bay in Arnprior, or Halifax, or Victoria, last as long as I could. I can't describe it exactly, but there was just something about him that attracted people too him. He was just interested in everything and everybody, and nothing was too mundane a topic for discussion. When I meet people today who knew him, they all get the same faraway look in their eyes when they talk about the stories he told, and the conversations they used to have.

His heart, gregarious though it was, wasn't cut out for what he wanted it to do, and he needed surgery. A double bypass. Unfortunately, the Ontario Health Care system being what it was (and still is), the list for surgery was too long, and so his application was turned down. A week later, he had a heart attack in the shower and died in the car on the way to the hospital. That was July of 1993. I was living in Victoria at the time. It was the only time I've ever seen my father cry.

The night he died, I had this dream. It was long and complicated, and I don't remember most of it, but I know he was in it, and we were having a long and complicated discussion about various aspects of life. We were walking around my hometown of Dartmouth, and we came to my old house on Tulip Street. We went inside, still talking, and started up the old stairs. The conversation at that point had shifted to the fact that he was going away, and that his visit with me would be cut short. I asked him when I would see him again, and he said he didn't know. But then he told me not to worry, because his spirit was going to go into the body of my polar bear. As he said this, he turned into a wisp of smoke and morphed into Grampa, my bear. Then my mother woke me up to tell me the news.

For the longest time afterward, I was terrified of Grampa. Then I got over it, and we were once again the best of friends. Being the toy of a child, and being a white stuffed bear, Grampa got very dingy after a while. When I was smaller, my mother would cut him open at the seams, take out the stuffing, and wash him. We didn't do this after Granddad died. So Grampa just got grayer and grayer.

About two years ago, I decided to do something about it. I carefully picked out the seams, repaired some damage here and there, and put Grampa in the wash with some bleach. When he came out, he was so white and beautiful that I cried, hanging over the washing machine. I picked the tangles out of his fur, and am now on a quest for a replacement eye that Andrew broke many, many years ago. Then he will be as beautiful as I remember him.

I have only ever dreamed of Granddad once since. It was a few years ago, and I was going through a period where nothing made any sense, I didn't know what to do with my life, and I was incredibly depressed. I cried myself to sleep, and dreamed that he was sitting on my bed, telling me that everything was going to be okay.

I don't know. I don't know if he's still around, or what. I visited his grave a number of years ago, and he definitely wasn't there, which is why I haven't been back. But it's a comforting thought, to think that he's looking out for me in some capacity. From all appearances, he wasn't perfect. Nobody is. I think my grandmother is only recently getting over being angry with him for various things. But I never saw that. He was my superhero, and, either I was too young to see the imperfections, or he never showed them in my presence -- either way, he was invincible in my eyes. He was the most important person in my life, and nobody can ever top him. Nobody.

I do worry, though. I wonder what expectations he had for me. I wonder if he saw me doing what I'm doing now. I know he probably would have been ecstatic about it. That's just the way he is. But I'm selfish, and I want to hear that affirmation from him in person. I never got to have those deep philosophical discussions with him. I never got to participate in the world in which he revelled, the one I hear about from other people. I never got to talk with him as an adult, because he never got to see me grow up. Charles wants to get together and swap stories sometime, but I don't think I could ever do that. Part of it is because I still can't think of Granddad without tearing up, but that's not the only reason. For the most part, it's because I'm jealous of all the experiences he's had with RSF that I missed out on. Shit, he got about twenty years of talks with him. I got less than eleven.

I want, more than anything else, to talk to him, to tell him my ideas, and for us to discuss things -- important things, more important than the chemical properties of puddles of goo. I want him to have a wider range of experience of my work than a scribble on looseleaf of a woman vomiting. He was the only one in my family who had even a smattering of understanding of what it is I do these days, and I missed my chance to talk to him about it. My mother says he would be proud of me, to see what I've accomplished, but it's not the same. I would give anything -- an arm, a kidney, my dying breath -- to have him in front of me right now. He always made me feel important, and I always knew that he was the only one who truly understood.

It's been eleven years, but it still feels like yesterday, and it still hurts more than I care to discuss. I don't think that will ever change. I miss you, Granddad. Tell me another story.

Nothing wrong with a boycott . . .

off the top:

I love how, on Thursdays, the boys wait for me to get into the car and turn on the radio before they try anything exciting. It's like they're watching the clock, and when it hits nine, they say, "K, Alison's paying attention now -- let's go!" I think you'll notice that, since January, on Thursdays, nothing really interesting happens until the end of the second period. Hmm . . .

the score:

I tuned into the end of the second on the way home. God bless AM radio! I heard Hossa's and Smolinski's breakaway and subsequent goal -- or what would have been a goal, had Vermette not charged the net. Not only was the goal disallowed, but Antoine got himself a goalie interference call. I wouldn't argue with that, but there were some obvious calls in the third, and some really blatantly bad ones in overtime, that were not made.

One that was called, although not in a way I would have liked, was the game misconduct for Havlat cross-checking Recchi in the face. Yeah, that's a fine call. I have no beef with that. But keep in mind that Recchi also held Marty up about five times before he got angry and nailed him. I think he shoulda gotten at least two minutes for hooking.

Five minutes is a long time to kill, especially one man down. Patty looked incredibly sharp tonight. I mean, really sharp. Playoff kind of sharp. He was really well positioned all night, especially once, when he was caught out and slid across the net to make a tricky glove save. He was also reeeeally careful with how he handled the puck, making sure he knew where it was before he gave it to someone else. Unfortunately, another sharp goalie tonight was Sean Burke. I admit that I wanted to heckle him, and wished that I was behind his net to join in all the "Buuu-rrrrrke" fun that was going on.

Burke's a total dick. Sure, he'd been knocked around a few times tonight, but whatever. That happens sometimes. Anyway, Alfie tried a door-crasher and ended up getting checked, right over Burke and into the net. Burke was down, too, and had him pinned in the back of the net. It wasn't Alfie's fault, really. He's just little, and the dude who hit him was big. But while Burke had Alfie where he wanted him, he got in a couple of shots that the refs didn't see. Then, with an official standing next to the net, Alfie finally gets out, but with Burke holding on to his sweater. I guess Sean wanted a fight. But how does a pacifist have a hope in hell of winning against someone who's wearing couch cushions as padding? No call on the holdup. It was ridiculous. Alfie was mad, too. He got called on a questionable offside shortly afterwards, and his face was beet red as he swore at the officials, saying, "That was fucking ON!" I love that I can lip-read.

Now, how 'bout that Serge Payer? He's like the new Langfeld -- another callup that you just can't put back down. Brilliant playmaker tonight, taking off with Vermette shorthanded, and nearly scoring. If Burke hadn't trapped the biscuit in his armpit (and only just), this game would have ended sooner.

And that Mike Fisher? What is this, his fifth game this season? His sixth? You could never tell. He looks in top form. If I didn't know he'd missed most of the season, I would say this was a career-high year for him. He looks fantastic out there.

Now, some of you are aware that I was doing a little bit of a boycott. It was partly for the team, because I thought their play of late, despite some wins, really SUCKED. So I haven't put up any of my pictures for two days, nor am I wearing any team clothing. Nor have I said anything nice about any of them. Hell, when Jon asked me today what my fantasy line-up would be, none of the players on it were from Ottawa. On a normal day, they would all be Ottawa. But that's just because I know them better. And the boycott worked. They played really well tonight. They didn't win, but that's not the point.

Most of you are probably also aware that I was especially irritated at a certain number eighteen. If you read my rant from two days ago (entitled, "Boys are Stupid"), then you'll know why. So tonight, he went all out and put paid to every word I said. He had energy I haven't seen in him for months. He ran around, scored a goal, used his size and strength, finished checks, used his afterburners, and generally played an active role in everything he could tonight. Shit, he was even good on the forecheck! Marian, are you reading this or something? Sheesh. Anyway, I haven't decided yet not to be angry with him anymore. Maybe I'll stay angry until Saturday, and maybe he'll do even better. *Ahem* Uh, that stupid Hossa. Man, how I hate him . . . yes, that's the ticket . . . D'you think it'll work?

off the ice:

I noticed this last game, but Alfie's wearing a Hossa-tinted visor now. I wonder why that is?

in other news:

I had a tremendous learning experience today. It was one of those days where you learn something and it resonates with you. It was brilliant. First, we learned about waves in Oceanography. That wasn't all that exciting, but it was logical, so that was good.

Then I went to my Culture Class. Today we were talking about the work of this guy, and what he thought about interpretation and "poaching," as he called it. I won't bore you with the details. But I totally got it. All of it. And I was able to constructively contribute to the discussion. Then we were talking about "poaching" as it related to fanzines and the like. And superfans and all that. Haha, I know you're thinking, "well, Al, that's you, hon," but it's not like that. The hardcore sports fan doesn't really fit this mould, because it's based on something real, not like Star Trek. Anyway, we got onto comic books as a mode of interpretation. Then I thought, hey, my hockey comic is like a fanzine. It's a mode of interpretation, a way people have of understanding something through life. Then I thought, hey, wait a minute: in my comic, my poorly-reproduced (and therefore perfectly typical) fanzine is an interpretation, but, instead of understanding hockey through life, it's understanding life through hockey. Blew my mind with how smart I am. I love it when that happens. It's rare, but it puts me in such a good mood.

AND

I mentioned my MA idea to Thurtle, and he was super-interested. He doesn't understand hockey at all, but he knows a lot of people who have done stuff on it, and so he's going to hook me up. I might even get him to write me a reference letter at the end, if he likes my project. Hell, I might even ask him to be on my committee.

So it was a good day in academia.

A Dream Slowly Coming True . . .

I met with the graduate advisor today. It went really well. She told me pretty much everything I wanted to know.

Basically, I have to work my ass off to keep my grades up high. I need a minimum 10.0 GPA in order to even be considered for funding. And that's not just in my final year; that's an average of all four. There are three types of funding. There's a scholarship, which is $8K a year for two years. There's the TA schtick, another $8K a year. And then there's the Ontario Graduate Students Scholarship. You have to have straight A's to get it, but it's $15K a year for two years, which is a little more than I'm making now. So I can do that.

It's ideally a two-year program, if you're lucky. The first year is course work, where you hash out your ideas with other colleagues and start working on your research proposal, and the second is your research and writing. Where you can get held up is by the Ethics Committee, and they can keep you wherever they want you for however long they desire. The Ethics Committee at Carleton is one of the strictest in the country, and the Committee for the faculty of Anthropology and Sociology is even more so. Basically, I have to come up with a proposal that is ethically sound in every way, then defend it in front of them. Very few people pass the first time. With the topic I've chosen, it's going to be especially difficult for me to pass, so I have to get it as perfect as I can each time, so as not to waste my days. I figure I can get the expectorating goobermonster to help me out with all the legalities when the time comes. See? There are benefits to working for THE MAN.

We talked about the fact that I was actually serious about this whole shebang, and how it was purely a research thing, which it is, despite what I say to the contrary. I have no intentions of jeapordizing my career to fraternize with a bunch of boys. It means that, due to the sensitive nature of my "subjects," I will not *actually* be able to smuggle any of my friends into the locker room during shower time. It'll be hard, being a girl stepping into a predominantly man's world, but I think I can hold my own.

She told me not to bother "sounding anyone out" until I'd finalized my ideas and had actually gotten funding for my degree, which is reasonable. She said I shouldn't bother them until I'm actually ready to go and work with them. We also went over what would happen if I couldn't get in with the OSHC, or if the CBA thing doesn't get resolved. I covered all my bases, saying that I would apply to another NHL team, like maybe Edmonton or Vancouver, failing that, a WHA team, in case of a lockout. If they still weren't interested, then I would try an OHL team, although I don't think their sense of superstition is as well-developed.

We also discussed various people that I could talk to about my ideas. Carleton is a hotbed of symbolic anthropology, so, fortunately, there are several around, like Ian Prattis, who has done a lot of work on ritual and religion. She even suggested I talk to Charles Laughlin, who's famous for developing the field of neuroanthropology. I told her that I'd had Charlie for a class last term, and that he was actually going to write me a reference letter. I emailed him this afternoon and updated him on the situation. He's retired, now, and lives in Arizona, fixing watches. She also mentioned looking at some papers on other organized sports, especially baseball. I'd already done some research, and so I was able to rattle off some data for her, which, I think, helped my case.

She raised a lot of issues that I had already thought of, like the whole ethics thing, so I think, on the whole, I was pretty prepared for this interview. I was nervous going in, however, and I think it showed, but it all worked out in the end. My favourite thing she said this afternoon was after I asked her if this whole deal was feasible. She looked at me like I was insane and said, "anything is possible in anthropology." I blessed her on the spot.

This is amazing to me. It's like a miracle. This is my DREAM project, and it actually maybe sorta almost is going to HAPPEN. I'm never this lucky. I'm probably going to die soon or something.

Let's get metaphorical here. It's like there's this hallway, or a room, or whatever. The way out is a door. The first door was me raising the subject with Mr. Symbol (Charlie) back in December. That was a screen door, and opened easily. Today, it was a more formal can-I-really-do-this-yes-or-no kind of thing. The door was a little heavier, but it opened. The next door is my marks, but it's already shaking in the wind, so I think it'll pop open of its own accord in a few years. I don't even know what the ones beyond look like. There's the application door, where I try to get into the program and get funding. Beyond that, there's the OSHC door, and the Ethics door. Those will be the hardest to open. I bet the Ethics one is eight-inch thick steel, with those witchy locks like in Grimwald's in Harry Potter. As I go through these doors, I'm picking up little bits, like reference letters, journal articles, contacts, which will eventually become the keys to those two last doors.

It's a very daunting task ahead of me, and it's going to be a lot of grueling work, but I'm determined to go through with it. I wouldn't even go near it if I didn't love it so much.

Now I just have to learn how to skate!

Boys are Stupid.

off the top:

. . . rocks should be thrown. Fuckers.

the score:

I'm not going to give you the tedium of period-by-period play on this one. Each period was the same, essentially. Mostly spent in the Ottawa zone. Not a good sign, especially against the low-scoring, defensive Habs. There were some good players tonight, but only one of them played for Ottawa, and that was Marty Havlat. Caitlin would appreciate the love-in he got tonight. Actually, she did appreciate it. I got an email with a lot of "mmm . . . Havlat" in it. He was super tonight, scoring the first goal from Hossa and Alfredsson, and buzzing around all night. Lalime was pretty good tonight, too, all things considered. He made some spectacular saves, and was pretty well positioned most of the time. His main problem is that he had a habit of leaving the net, grabbing the puck without listening to his D, and then passing it to a Montreal player. Maybe we should bungee goalies into their nets . . .

You could tell early on that Ottawa (with the exception of #9) just wasn't trying, and I have no idea why; they were battling with Toronto and Philly for top notch against a team that was struggling against Buffalo to stay in a playoff spot. They took a lot of stupid penalties (and by "a lot" I mean "a fucking LOT" and by "stupid" I mean "really fucking DUMB." Vermette and Hossa were the biggest culprits, taking the easy way out instead of using their size and skill to take people down. More about Hossa later.

Poor Mike Fisher tried his damnedest to win it for the boys, scoring a goal with twenty seconds left in the second. I thought this would be the big turnaround for the team. You should have seen the beam on Fisher's face after he scored his first of the year. And it was pretty, too. Well, pretty for Fisher. A typical Flying Fish goal. Unfortunately, the Sens seemed to have lost all jump in the intermission. Honestly, if they had to witness Georges Laracque doing Vanilla Ice's "Ice, Ice Baby" (just like you'd imagine a huge French black guy doing it) like I did, that was prolly the reason. So they just sucked coming into the third, and with Hossa off for tripping, that damned rookie Ryder scored his second of the night. There were some incredibly scary moments as the third wound down with the puck near the Ottawa net, but Patty always seemed to make it back in time. I began praying that there would be no overtime. Rachunek made a last-ditch effort to go down in flames, making three saves of his own in five seconds, two of which must've cost him a little. All to no avail. Begin managed a backhand in Patty's fivehole, and Montreal was winning all of a suddden. I began to wish I'd been more specific about why I didn't want overtime. Then Patty went to the bench, and Ottawa's defense sucked so much that Juneau scored into the empty net, making tonight an extremely poor loss for Ottawa.

Montreal deserved the win tonight. They outplayed Ottawa at every turn. And there were far too many turns. Turnovers, that is. The Senators just played stupid tonight, which was unconscionable, considering that they are supposed to be an elite team. Shit, I've seen a Pens-Hawks game that had more smart plays than this one!

off the ice:

Way to play like ASS, boys. I am super not impressed.

I'm especially not impressed lately with the play of a certain number eighteen. It's like he's realized that he's getting held up, and so he's not even trying any more. Every time he has the puck, he either passes it to someone else and goes off on a change, or dumps it in and goes off on a change. And when he has the opportunity, either offensively or defensively, to use his ridicu-speed, he doesn't bother. Most shots of him these days are of him standing off to the side, away from the play, half-heartedly digging along the boards, or sitting on his ass on the bench. What the hell is wrong with my favourite player? He only has four goals in his past nineteen games. I mean, he'll have to score more than a goal a game from now on to beat his record of last year. I know he's better than that. I'd like to meet him so I can kick him in the butt and tell him to stop playing like . . . well, like me. Sheesh.

in other news:

*sigh* A long day in legal land today. This trial we've been frantically preparing for these past two months has been adjourned to May because the sister of the solicitor for the Applicant has a sister who's DYING. Generally, I'd be more sympathetic to her, but it's lung cancer, so obviously she's been dying for some time. She could have told us before this. She's just ill-prepared for the trial. We've been trying to get documentation from her for ages now. And we had our witnesses summoned and everything . . .

On the plus side, there's this guy in the plaza who works for one of the jewellery stores here. When I worked downstairs, he would come in to get copies for his jewellery designs. Now, we say "hi" to each other whenever I come across him in the hall, or when he's downstairs having a cigarette. For four years I've been doing this, but I never once knew his name. And *somebody* I know thinks he's cute, so I was determined to find out what it was. Today, I did it. It's Anthony. Suits him. We shook hands. He knew my name, because I used to have to wear a nametag when I first started downstairs [I refused to wear it after a while, and, when I became manager, I threw it out.] We talked for a while. He asked me how I liked working upstairs for the expectorating goobermonster. I told him it was irritating. He suggested I take my boss out to a bar, maybe get him to loosen up a bit. I said no way, he already tried to get me drunk often enough as it was. Anthony laughed and said, "Oh, one of THOSE kind of bosses . . ." So I was pretty pleased with myself. Made an interesting cap to a rather boring afternoon.

The goobermonster, however, is still in high spirits after his vacation, so there were only brief periods where he was blatantly obtuse and I wanted to throttle him. One of them, I was listening to a dictation on the headphones and he was standing next to me and talking to Jen, and I couldn't hear a damned word. It's HIS voice on the tape, and HIS voice right next to my ear. Makes it hard to distinguish between the two, but he gets grumpy if I tell him to go away. It's okay, though. Jen and I have the same opinion about him, so we can vent when we're out of the office.

I have SO MUCH TO DO before I leave . . . and absolutely no inclination to do any of it. At least for today. I'll do it tomorrow. Or not --

RHODE ISLAND IN T-MINUS NINE DAYS AND COUNTING . . . I'm stoked. It's gonna be RAD.

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.

IT'S HOCKEY DAY!

off the top:

Check out our new splash page. Stefan did the obnoxious caption. I did the artwork. This is what happens when you sit me alone in an office for a week with nothing but schoolwork, solitaire, and paint for Windows to keep me entertained. Chel liked my artistic skills so much that she made me do one of her, which she now has as her desktop. I'm quite pleased with both of them. You'll also notice a large orange flower floating somewhere to your right. Relax. If it moves, it's okay. It's not going to bite you. It's just a back button. Use it to go back to the splash so you can view Stefan's handy dandy new 'do.

the score:

FIRST PERIOD: I thought Lyndon Slewidge was going to explode, with the way he held the last note in "O Canada" today. Nice to see Fisher back on the ice. Even nicer to see him back to his old physical game. He was really good this afternoon. Hossa drew a penalty right off the top, but Havlat nullified it a few seconds later with a penalty of his won. This was a very physical check, with good hits by Fisher, Hossa, Neil, and Redden. Neil's was particularly good, as he got totally beaned in the head afterwards and drew a high-sticking penalty. Of course, that was quickly nullified by a too many men penalty shortly thereafter. The officials this afternoon were extremely diligent in calling stuff. That might be because their boss was watching. Fisher had a brilliant shorthanded chance and Vermette, back from injury himself, did a good job keeping the puck in the offensive zone. Unfortunately, Calgary regained possession, and Leopold let a soft one go, right past Lalime's right foot. I'm sure he wishes he could have that one back. Nice pokecheck by Redden broke up a scoring chance, and Lalime made a nice save. What wasn't nice about it was the huge juicy rebound he let off after that, but the resulting mess around the net led to an Ottawa power play, which, thankfully, they converted. Alfredsson took a sweet pass from Hossa, cross-ice, one-timed it, and it bounced off Smolinski and over Turek to tie the game. At the end of the period, with Hossa off for holding, Bondra had a beautiful shorthanded chance, but unfortunately didn't make it to the net. It was good, though, and there were no shots on goal for Calgary in that last power play.

SECOND PERIOD: Patty had two more terrible rebounds to start out the second, but quickly improved, thanks to some nice checking from Serge Payer. Watching the second period, I finally came to understand exactly what a neutral zone trap is. It was a neat thing to see, as Calgary is really good at it. I think the western teams generally are, but I'd never seen so much of it before. The second period was even more physical than the first. Neil got into a mini fight, and Rachunek made some brutal checks. Patty again made some pretty saves, and Ottawa drew a penalty for holding the stick. During this power play, there were some brilliant offensive moves by Redden and Alfredsson, but then Smolinski, who was getting his ass kicked in front of Turek, got a penalty for tripping. I don't blame him. I woulda done it myself. Interesting role reversals on this PK: Payer made a pretty pass to Schaefer, who did one of his trademark shorthanded rushes. Iginla turned it over and started back down the other way, but Alfie made a great defensive play to keep him away from Patty. No scoring in the second.

THIRD PERIOD: Right off the top, a Langfeld pass to Spezza and then to Havlat, who did the splits as he slid to the net and knocked the puck over Turek's left leg, made the score 2-1 for Ottawa. This is where things got tense. This was like the Atlanta game the other night, where Ottawa was leading 2-1, then blew it and ended up losing 3-2 in OT. The game really opened up at this point. Chara ripped a bullet from the blueline that cracked off the cross bar, and Bondra had a nifty offensive chance right after that. More good offense came from Smoke, Leschyshyn (damn, I wish he had a nickname -- it's so damned hard to spell!), Havlat, and Payer, who did a neat forechecking job. Spezza got called for roughing in front of the bench, and Redden had a nice shorthanded break. Spezza came out of the box and had a nice chance himself, helped, no doubt, by the superior checking of Chara. Patty made some nice saves in the dying minutes, but then lost his stick, so Alfie gave him his. That must've felt weird. Play was eventually called on that harrowing situation, and viewers were treated to a television break. When the game came back on and play resumed, it seemed Ottawa was too much out of position, and it made me really nervous. Then Neil took the game into his own hands with a rush to the net, a check, and then a nifty backhander that went through Turek's legs, but didn't cross the goal line. I was impressed with the officiating this game. Schaefer was held up behind the Calgary net, and the refs let it go once, twice, in order to keep play moving, but called it the third time. In the ensuing power play, Spezza tries a dipsy-doodle -- AND IT WORKS! Odd. I bet he thought he was back in junior . . . a turnover, however, sends the puck back into the Ottawa zone, where a flying goalie saves the play. Schaefer worked his mojo around the boards, and Chara did his in front of the net, sending Iginla flying, and then number 19 for the Flames. But he got called, as #19 was about half his size, and big Z knocked him FLAT. Everyone watching held their breath, as a Chara penalty was what cost Ottawa the game on Thursday night. It was up to the PK unit to be magical. Turek was out of the net, and there was an extra attacker on the ice. Ottawa just had to keep it out of the zone. Schaefer tried twice to score shorthanded into the empty net, but shot it across the ice and just wide both times. Then, in the last few seconds of the period, there was a scramble at the Ottawa net, and Patty saved the day to win the game. Smolinski gave him a hug. It was cute.

off the ice:

Martin reaffirmed for the public interest today that Lalime is still number one, in his opinion. He said that the "bottom line" was that Prusek has no playoff experience. Okay, fine, but how the hell is he going to GET any playoff experience if you don't play him? Honestly . . .

Todd White's number 12 was retired by the Kanata Lasers yesterday. It was cute.

I've been muddling this over in my head for a few days now. The problem with one-piece lumber sticks is that they don't have the flexibility and rebound power of a composite stick. The problem with composite sticks is that they break easily. So I was thinking: what about YEW? Yew is the most durable wood on the planet. The oldest wooden tools found by archaeologists are made from yew. Yew is the only wood that becomes STRONGER after being exposed to fire. For hundreds of years, archers have used fire-hardened yew for its flexibility and its durability. So why not make a hockey stick from the stuff? It would be flexible, but it would never break. I need to find a stick maker somewhere and find out if that's a feasible idea. Maybe I'll patent it. DON'T STEAL MY IDEA!

I'm totally jealous of Peter Bondra. Hossa's fascination with him goes back to when he was TEN. Grr . . . I can't compete with that. I'll have to move on, I suppose . . . I just -- can't. Fucker. I'd hate him, but he's just too damned good.

in other news:

Got my hair cut today. It's a few inches shorter, and more layered than before, so it looks more like it does on the splash page than it did before. It took an hour, though, because my hairdresser and I were catching up on Plaza gossip, as I used to work on the street level, and now I work upstairs, so I get the high-end drama, and she gets the low-end stuff. We spent most of the time complaining about our landlord, who's a complete and total bitch. I remember when I was about seventeen or so, she came into my store, with my boss on vacation, and told me that if I didn't pay the rent that day, she was going to repossess all of my equipment. What the hell was I supposed to do? I've been working, in various capacities, in this plaza for four and a half years now. I know each and every single person who works here, if not by name, then in the nodding-in-the-hallways kind of way, and I know that each and every one of them HATES her. Grr . . .

Went boot shopping last night with Chel. There were two pairs I liked, but they didn't have one in my size, so I got the other pair instead. They're pretty shit-kicker-y. They were stupid on sale. I love them. I also got the two belts I have been searching for for some time. All was good.

Saw this movie last night with Chel, as well. It wasn't bad, for a piece of teenaged fluff, but it made me realize how little I could identify with the situation anymore, and that made me feel old, and not in a good way. What was really upsetting was the sheer enormity of Lindsay Lohan's breasts. The poor girl is only seventeen and tiny, and her boobs are already as big, if not bigger, than mine. Shit. Poor girl . . .

Surprised?

off the top:

How 'bout this fantastic story? It's great, even if she is a Leaf's Fan. Reminds me of my grandmother. She's 94 herself, but she's still good at trash talking over the dinner table.

the score:

FIRST PERIOD: Bondra (wearing number 10, as 12 belongs to Fisher) tonight was matched up with Smoke at centre and Hossa on the right. He got a loud cheer the second he stepped on the ice for his first shift. This was the only line, incidentally, that didn't get switched around tonight. It's like Martin was rolling dice or something. An interesting combo he came up with at one point is Alfie-Vanner-Neiler. Hm. Chara tied up some dude behind the Ottawa net and Hossa swung by, jumped over the two other players, and stole the puck on a speedy breakaway. Unfortunately, he didn't make it to the other end. Havlat and Spezza had another nice breakaway opportunity, but one put the other offside and play was called.

I noticed a beautiful defensive move by Pothier tonight. Chased down to his own net by a Thrasher, he flicked the puck both behind him and behind the Atlanta player. Then, just in case the other player happened to catch it, he flips around and put his stick down, right in the path the puck would go if the other player did get it. It was a very smart move.

More fantastic production by the 10-21-18 line, but no conversions. Other players who had great chances were Alfredsson, who was so red-hot tonight, I think he was steaming, and Langfeld, also pretty warm. Hnidy, still getting used to being a forward, had some nice chances, as well, but I liked his defensive play better, as he finished some nice checks and he and callup Payer stood up nicely for their teammates.

Two of the most disorganized Ottawa power plays I have ever seen rounded out the end of the first. I was embarrassed. Then Langfeld got himself a penalty, which they managed to kill. No score at the end of twenty minutes.

SECOND PERIOD: Bondra does an interview between periods. He talks really fast, but I think he was just nervous. It occurs to me that, with him taking number ten, what will Toni Dahlman wear the next time he's in town? It then occurs to me that, with a possible NINE defensemen on Ottawa's roster, Dahlman's future visits to the big city are going to be few and far between, anyway.

Nice checks in this period by Chara, Neil, and Hnidy, and some good breakaways by Havlat, Phillips off a defensive play, and Alfie, although he should have taken a shot way earlier than he did. Chara was strong with his poke-checking skills and Martin used Payer on the power play, which I think was a good choice.

There was a brief lull and the colour commentators took an opportunity to explain Hossa's man crush on Bondra (I think I've mentioned this in a previous post). Turns out Hossa's dad coached Bondra when he played for the Slovak National Team (that's what Hossa's dad does for a living). Little Marian was only twelve at the time, and idolized big Peter. Then the camera cuts to a shot of Hossa standing near the bench, staring at Bondra in something resembling awe. Peter turns to him and starts talking, and the boy grins like it was Christmas Day and he'd just seen Santa Claus. I thought it was pretty funny.

Anyway, play resumed and there were some more nifty offensive chances, like the three shots ripped, one after the other, by Hossa, Phillips, and Smolinski, and like Hossa shorthanded shortly thereafter. I've noticed, through watching him these past few years, that when he turns on his afterburners, he switches legs, just like a horse does. Watch him. You'll see it happen. Two nice offensive plays by Spezza and Langfeld, then

BONZAI!

Bondra got around some Atlanta players twice his size and scooted down the ice to nail it past Nurminen, unassisted. He crashed into the boards, but you could see that his butterflies were all gone. Hossa swooped in to pick him up. The first goal of the game by Ottawa's new star, on his first night, in his life, of being anything but a Capital. The cheering was so loud that the players couldn't hear the next offside call whistle. One fan held up a sign, which read, "SLOVAKIA VALLEY NORTH."

Something weird happened in the Ottawa zone, and it took me a while to figure it out. The puck went high, and when it landed, two Thrashers went after it, but stopped short. Chara made his way slowly towards the puck, then finally tapped it, and play continued. Then I realized that the puck had been in a Thrasher's glove, and if one of them had touched it, it would have constituted a gloved pass ahead, and play would have been called. And Chara just decided to let them dangle for a bit. Neat.

They used Payer on the PK as well. I'm pretty impressed with the kid. Then all of a sudden, Van Allen had a clear path to the net. He shot it right on, but Nurminen let off a rebound at a right angle to his right. Schaefer, nearly standing on the goal line, used his freaky stick to make another impossible-angle goal, upping the score to 2-0.

THIRD PERIOD: Too much time was spent in the Ottawa Zone (can I get away with calling it the O-Zone?) in the third. There were more great chances by the 10-21-18 line, but in the end, Cowan crashed the net to make it 2-1. Patty was pretty strong in this period, making a spectacular save against McEachern, and there were many chances on the power play.

But Ottawa kept making dumb mistakes. Spezza kept giving the puck away, for instance. They completely failed to convert any of their power play chances into something that you could put down on paper. And Atlanta got dirtier in the third. They flattened Alfie twice in a very painful manner because they could get away with it, as the refs had put their whistles away. Except against Ottawa. Chara got a penalty for standing up for Bondra, which apparently wasn't cancelled when Kovalchuk got a flukey goal with about four seconds left. So the Senators went into overtime shorthanded for 1:25.

OVERTIME: Going into this period, the Sens were 0-2-2 in overtime against the Thrashers. Then McEachern, I suppose to get his own back, knocked it by poor Patty, who really didn't have a chance, bless his little heart. Make that 0-3-2. BOO.

Serious beefs with the refereeing in this game. Patty gets slashed in the head with an official facing him. No call. Hossa was tripped so that he went flying. No call. Schaefer took a high stick to the throat, with a ref RIGHT FUCKING THERE. No call. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

off the ice:

Okay, so after everyone telling everyone it wasn't going down, it went down! Aw, poor Laich. I liked him. He was super. We lost him and we might not even get Bondra next year? I would've held out for Lang, at least . . . Maybe part of my dislike of him stems from jealousy that Marian Hossa has a man-crush on him. *sigh*

What I don't understand, though, is, if he's Ukrainian, why does he play for Slovakia? Does the Ukraine not have a hockey team? I know they have a junior team, because our boys beat them 11-1 this year, but do they have a senior team? I'm confused. Help me out, here.

I think that, someday, Ottawa should try for Kovalchuk. He's mega-skilled, and not too expensive at the moment. Then we'd have someone for the A-Train to talk to . . .

Aww . . . MUFFIN . . . I really feel for Naslund. Honest. Sarcastic? Me? NEVER.

in other news:

Because I only watch hockey, I only see five types of commercials on television. They are for cars, beer, fast food, hockey equipment, and other sports-related things. So tonight I saw the same Coors Light commercial three times. I also saw Patty's "Get IN to the playoffs" commercial, which I can't watch without peeing myself laughing. I saw Alfie's jewellery commercial. THEN I saw this fantastic skate commercial with Joe Thornton and Vincent Lecavalier. They were skating on a halfpipe painted like a rink. It would have been cooler if it weren't CG, but it was pretty neat, as it was.

I'v accomplished so much less than I thought I would this week. I hope to at least have all my readings done and my Sex Proposal ready for Monday. I have done a substantial amount of research for Sex and for Theory, and I've gotten a few frames down for my Culture comic, so it's not a complete lost cause. Also, I get paid tomorrow. I've worked 58 hours this week, so that means a ridiculous amount of money is coming my way. And that's never a bad thing. Unfortunately, I can't spend any of it, but that's besides the point. Although Chel says there's a sale on at Aldo right now, where everything is 50% off . . .

Now, I am DETERMINED to go to bed before midnight tonight. Tomorrow is my last day of solitary confinement at the office. I want to be fresh for it. Good night!

. . . so . . . sleepy . . .

off the top:

Is Anson Carter's hair safe? I mean, it doesn't look like his helmet fits properly. I'm afraid for his brain.

the score:

FIRST PERIOD: Not an exciting game, not really worth the price of admission, or so said the millions of fans who weren't at the game. I saw so many empty seats. There couldn't have been more than five thousand people there in Washington tonight.

Ottawa dominated from the first, and its defense got long shifts, because they didn't have a lot of work to do. By sheer fluke, Washington killed off two penalties, in between which a remark was made about Super-K's puck handling skills. It was not favourable, but I would protest. Firstly, he can actually skate (when he doesn't fall over, that is). He can handle the puck, and his rebounds have gotten much better this season. These rebounds showed nicely in the first. Super-K was strong when he needed to be, which wasn't often, because his defense, mainly Chara and Pothier, stepped in to keep the play away from the net. Another goaltender who was strong tonight was Olaf Kolzig. He was the sole reason there was no scoring in the first, although when he's swimming around in his net, he looks a lot like a frog from above. I laughed.

SECOND PERIOD: More strong defense from Ottawa. More fanschmastic saves from Super-K. They were very patient, waiting for Washington to make mistakes. Alfredsson had a nice breakaway, but missed in his attempt to go top shelf. Chara made some appropriate poke checks, and Phillips used his size and speed to keep the puck in the Washington zone. In one of the many messes around the Caps net, Hossa was spun around and accidentally elbowed Redden in the nose. He was apologetic, though, Jen, so you can't send him hatemail.

Bondra hooked up Chara and pulls him to the ground. The officials called Bondra's interference, and also gave Chara two for diving. I guess they figured that some little dude can't easily pull down a big dude. Seeing as I have never seen Zed take a dive, I think he probably just overbalanced and fell. In the resulting 4-on-4, Hossa took another two for holding, and, in the following 4-on-3, Gonchar scored on Super-K, a goal he would probably like to have back, given the angry way he pitched the puck from the net. A beautiful move by Phillips prevented it from being 2-0.

THIRD PERIOD: Another strong period for Ottawa defensement. Pothier, exhausted at the end of a shift, stayed on and made some nice moves to put the puck back in the offensive zone. A lot of almosts mostly from messes around the Caps net, especially from Hossa, who was strong on the forecheck and the backcheck. Phillips nearly did the same thing in another mess at the net. Bondra, on a breakaway, nearly made it 2-0, but missed, thank God. Super-K is good, but not that good. There wasn't enough traffic around the net to solve Olie the Goalie, and too much around Super-K's net. There were some tense minutes in the third. The Caps resorted to a clutch-and-grab game, and this didn't help matters. Nice positioning by callup Denis Hamel led to a nice save by Super-K on Carter, however. Then Havlat, on a nice offensive rush, did some dipsy-doodling and some dangling and then got taken down right at the net. In the resulting power play, Hossa scored, from Havlat and Spezza, to tie the game in the dying minutes of the third.

OVERTIME: Boumedienne's name is too long. It doesn't fit on his jersey . . . HAHAHA. But that was the only funny observation I made in this period. A stupid high stick to Schaefer's face left blood running down his cheek, so the instigator got four minutes. That was the first good call tonight.

HOWEVER

Two minutes later, Spezza got a penalty for . . . for what? He didn't actually do anything. I think we're all still confused about that one. Damned officials and their desire to even things up. So then there was 3-on-3 hockey for a bit. Kind of shinny-ish. Lots of back and forth -- a definite nailbiter. With four seconds to go, Hossa got into a mess at the Caps net and just barely failed to get it past Kolzig. Shots were 48-19 in favour of Ottawa. I don't understand how they didn't manage two points out of that. They dominated throughout, but just couldn't figure Olie out . . . *sigh*

off the ice:

White took a shot to the foot tonight, which means that Ottawa has four missing centres: Bonk, Vermette, Fisher, and now wee Tad. The good news is that Volchenkov could be back within a couple of weeks. I'm stoked. I love him.

in other news:

Went to see Andrew WK last night with Rachelle.

We got there mega early, probably around 2030 or so, and so sat around for a while, scoping out the boy situation. As we were two of maybe a grand total of twelve women there at the time, we had a lot to look at.

There was this one guy, in particular, whom we thought was cute, because he looked kind of like Kyle Avery.

Then we waited, and waited, and waited. And waited some more. I think the opening band came on at around 2115 or so.

And what a piece of shit they were. They were called something like The Daiquiri, and they were from Chicago, IL. There was a guitar player, a weird sort of beatbox that sat on a chair, and the lead singer -- if you could call that singing.

He had a reverse mullet (that would make it "business in the back, party up in front"). His face was obscured with a generous wrapping of French caution tape and a big-pimpin' pair of dollar store special sunglasses. He wore a white blazer over top of his mother's blue cow-spotted apron and the most peculiar shirt I have ever seen.

He spent most of his time on stage engaged in a frenetic, but poorly-executed form of the Robot (or, at least, that's what I think he was trying to do), while his cohort threw his equally poorly-coiffed head around so much that I was convinced he was going to snap a vertebra or something.

And the music? I wouldn't really call it music, although I'm sure it was something Stefan would enjoy. To me, however, it sounded like what would happen if you took Billy Talent, the Beastie Boys, Foreigner, Fantastic Plastic Machine, and a large cat slowly being ground to death in a trash compactor, and you stuffed them all in an industrial-sized clothes dryer and turned it on while they were performing. Call me a philistine all you want, but whatever they screamed was unintelligible, and I didn't even recognize the Kelis cover they did at the end. What was even weirder was that there were so many people there who were singing along to their songs!

Towards the end of their set (which dragged on interiminably -- they even had an ENCORE), I suddenly became aware of the sensation of being very cold -- and soaking wet. It was a pint of beer that had poured all the way down the front of my sweater and my jeans, and all the way down the back of my sweater, and was in my hair. I turned around to reprimand the culprit -- and saw pseudoKyle, who said something stupid, like, "did I do that?"

"Uh, I think you owe me a beer for that," I said, ineffectually brushing foam from my chest.
"D'you want this one?" he asked, handing me his now nearly empty plastic cup.
"No, I think I deserve a fresh one," said I, more than mildly irritated to be standing, fermenting in stinky Molson Canadian crappy-assed beer.
"Okay, I'll be right back," he said, and disappeared. And never returned. Meh. Whatever. Anything to get him away from me. I was dripping, and irritated.

So, Andrew WK comes on around 2230 or so, after we had waited and waited -- you know the drill. They were their typical selves, Trailer Park Trash of the first degree, Andrew himself with tight white jeans and a white tshirt he soon made transparent after emptying several bottles of water over his loooooong hair. I felt like he looked. Except it was just water, in his case. He threw some at us, too. So Andrew and crew start rocking out, he at his little piano. It gets boring after a while, as all of his stuff sounds the same. But the crowd got interesting, as this was when the moshing began. Chel and I stood on the edge of the pit, puching those who fell out of it back in While this is fun, as it releases a lot of pent-up frustration at being used as a beer repository, it takes a toll on you. I have a bruise on my knee, another on my shin, a swollen toe, and my shoes are destroyed. Good times were had by all, however.

Except when pseudoKyle showed up again. He decided that the area in which Chel and I were standing would be a good place to move the centre of the pit, so he began throwing himself around, crashing into people who weren't part of the pit, and being so drunk when he did so that he couldn't get back up again on his own power. Then, apparently, he went too far, and this girl, who couldn't have been much bigger than Caitlin, had him by the throat, her tiny fist pulled back to nail him one. Out of nowhere, this huge man in leather materialized and separated them. Then about four bouncers appear, and two of them stick around for a while. I leaned over to one of them (more like leaned up to him, as he topped me by a good six inches) and said, "any reason you have to take that guy out, I will support you 100% -- he's a total asshole." The bouncer nodded and replied that they'd been watching him all night.

Undeterred by the presence of two hulking men (probably too drunk to see the bright orange tshirts), pseudoKyle continued to aim the majority of his flailings in our direction. It's like he was going out of his way to annoy me. It worked. I gabe him a good shove, and Rachelle got a couple of good ones, in as well. So the other of the two bouncers, a ridiculously hot chunk of meat (even Rachelle thought so, and he wasn't her type -- dark skin, no piercings or tattoos above average) stepped in front of us to run interference. Chel said, rather plaintively, "but we wanna be in front of you! So he turns around, gives us a blindingly brilliant smile,and ushers us ahead with a "by all means, ladies." It seemed to us that, as long as we were on the floor, we were the target of chivalry from all fronts. Every time things got rough -- although nothing we couldn't handle, of course -- big boys would automatically appear and take the trouble away. Odd.

We eventually left the floor in favour of a better vantage point. While Chel took pictures of AWK, I watched the crown and pseudoKyle's multiple attempts to crowdsurf, which was strictly outlawed at this venue. We stayed for the encore in order to hear "Party Hard," then booked it out of there as people started climbing on stage -- pseudoKyle included -- so we could avoid a line at coat check. We had had it, and we were exhausted. What an evening!

We down in MSG, yeah, you know me!

off the top:

I guess you'd have to have seen that particular episode of "In Living Colour" to fully appreciate that title. If not, it's still kind of funny, with respect to today's game.

A new definition for Canada's tourist industry?

the score:

FIRST PERIOD: Pesky Barnaby keeps harassing my players . . . a very physical period, involving a lot of players being squished into the boards. I couldn't see the checks, but I could hear them over the radio stream . . . *crash* *bang* *slam* Chara got into a fight during the commercial, so he was gone for five. Not that it was a big deal. Ottawa has a helluva lot of defensemen. Both the Rangers and the Senators seemed to be having difficulties getting the puck out of their respective zones. Havlat had a nice rush with Markkanen out of position, but his shot hit the leg of a defenseman. Hamel had a nice rush as well, but again was unable to convert. Then Kovalev had a nice break to the Sens net, but was taken down with a high stick to the face by Reds. "The Rangers have a nice back-door play that involves Brian Leetch . . . Known as a back-door expert, Brian Leetch can sneak up on you any time." Ah, Gord Wilson, are you inferring something? Hossa shut him up shortly thereafter, by nailing a puck that missed him by about seven inches. Yay, Marian. What a way to kill a penalty. God, these play-by-play guys are seriously on CRACK most days. They make too many BAAAD puns. I think for this game, they were sitting between the two penalty boxes, as they kept making remarks about how close the players were, and how they were making faces at Perry Pearn across the rink. Does the MSG not have a press box? Again with Barnaby being annoying. Hell, he almost got it in, but hit the mesh on the OUTSIDE of the net. Go to another commercial break -- and you learn why hockey players make bad actors . . . Havlat tried to send another puck in the direction of the colour commentators when play resumed after the adverts, but unfortunately, he hit the glass. Nice rush by Spezza, but he was caught up by a stick on the ice. The puck remained in the zone, however, and the shots were in favour of Ottawa (6-5) by the end of the period. No scoring leading into the second . . . The Sens now have five games in the next seven days, and they're trying really hard not to get themselves more injured than they are now, so they're avoiding fights and stupid penalties, as they don't want to tire their special teams. The Rangers seemed to ignore this, however, trying to irritate the Ottawa players as much as humanly possible, spearing Chara in the chest and Simon, who fought Chara earlier in the first period, giving Alfie a little bit of a rough-up. Don't piss him off -- he's little, but he can nail you good. The Rangers played a cautious game, not wanting to have a 9-1 embarrassment on home ice, and Ottawa did the same, not wanting to tire themselves out.

SECOND PERIOD: Reds took another penalty for hooking almost right off the draw. Dope. Lalime made some nice saves by staying in position, and Pothier bailed Leschyshyn out of a bad defensive move, so the penalty was over, no damage done. Holik got a minor for unsportsmanlike conduct (I guess he said something mean), and Ottawa went to the power play for themselves. Against the second-worst PK in the league, one would hope Ottawa would be successful. Redden compounded his errors of the afternoon with a no-look pass and wasted some useful seconds. And it was like that for the rest of the power play. Schaefer suffered an "upper body injury" and didn't make it back to the bench. Neil got a huge check and then a stick to the face, with no call made on the play. Simpson took issue to this, and took on Simon in a scrum. They both go down and the fight lasted a grand total of maybe ten seconds. They got five each. Another brilliant period by the callup Denis Hamel. He's gonna make it someday soon . . . More good production by the 9-21-18 line, but alas, no scoring. They seemed to have changed the pace of the game, however, and things started to lean Ottawa's way a little bit. No calls on some strong plays screwed up a nice rush by the Havlat line -- again. As an aside, what's with people firing pucks at Super-K? It happens at least once a game. At least with today, the pucks were more going into the audience, but still . . . Both teams tried to be too fancy, passing instead of shooting, and that's why the score is so damned low. At least, for Ottawa. Holik, left all alone because Hossa thought the puck was somewhere else, put the same puck into the net behind Lalime. Then he requested the puck. It's not like it was his first. Fifteenth of the year, 271st career. Hmm . . . milestone? Apparently, it was for Tyutin's first career point. Ottawa made up for it on the power play following the goal. Chara did a trademark shot from the point from Alfredsson, and Havlat nailed the rebound past Markkanen to tie the game at 1-1. Someone checked Hnidy in the face, and Ottawa got another power play. Redden was strong on the offense, getting some nice shots on net, but no conversion by the end of the period.

THIRD PERIOD: Holik and Smolinski got offsetting slashing penalties over to the third, and then Hossa drew another one, so Ottawa was back on the power play -- no scoring. Holik became the pest of the third period, irritating Mountain Man Dean with some slashing to the giant's feet. What a tool. *CLINK* New York hit the post after a Spezza giveaway. Then there's a mess of White, Smolinski and Leetch at the Ranger goal resulting from a chuck from Hossa to Chara to the net, and a deflection, and it goes in. Chara got the goal, Hossa and White the assists. Mironov knocked Spezza into Markkanen and the goalie got angry, nailing poor Jason with his paddle. Then Van Allen won a face-off, passed it to Leschyshyn, who passed it to Neil, who then deflected it off Langfeld to make it 3-1. HAHA, then after some more back and forth, Hossa nailed some dude flat, which knocked the puck free to Havlat, who feathered a backhand to Smolinski. Smoke went top shelf and makes it 4-1. Then Alfie got into a fight. Dope. Then the colour dudes mixed up Hnidy and Lalime. ON CRACK. New York fans are not pleased. Are they ever? Simon ran at Redden, and Pothier stepped in to say, "um, no, I don't think so. I'm not bigger than you are, but I'm annoyed." Pothier and Simon went off for the penalties. It's good that Pothier went instead of Redden, though. Smart move by Pothier. HOWEVER: Barnaby, the annoying goob, got a penalty shot. Man, Havlat shoulda gotten one in the first period when some dude stuck his stick up his shirt. Barnaby, the goob, missed, though. I think we should get Chara to beat the shit out of him again. Sarcastic cheer from the Ranger faithful at the final-minute-of-play announcement. *CLINK* Leetch hit the post. Aw, shucks. Final score: OTTAWA WINS. Yeehaw.

Holy referees, Batman! If they bring back the one-referee system, leaving three officials on the ice, maybe they'll lift the ban on the organist playing "Three Blind Mice." Dopes. That was a boring game. Really. I mean, listening to it is hard enough. Then they don't SCORE for nearly two periods, and it just gets DRY. Meh. At least they won.

off the ice:

Rob "Bob Vila" Ray had an interview with Dean Brown when he arrived in Ottawa yesterday. Apparently, he's expecting his first baby. That would explain the paunch . . . he made some good comments about the "real world" versus the "fantasy world" of the NHL. He knows what's expected of him, so, despite detractors saying his acquisition was a waste of money, he and the team think the whole deal was a great idea.

Belfour's back is still bothering him, so Kidd's still in net for the Leafs. This is a good thing for Ottawa, because Kidd sucks. Ottawa can easily pull ahead of them in the division, as long as the Eagle remains grounded.

After working out some visa problems getting over the border, Schastlivy has made a turnaround in Anaheim, scoring the game-winning goal last night. So I guess this trade worked well for all concerned parties.

in other news:

Well, day one of hell week hasn't been so bad. After dealing with some clients in the morning, I was able to lock the door for the afternoon and listen to my hockey game. I've got my music and my books, and I'm hoping to get something accomplished this week. I didn't really get anything done this morning, as Jen (we had an escrow closing and she was grumpy, however) was here and I actually had some pseudoreal work to do, and then with the game this afternoon, I was pretty useless. I even got my ass kicked at solitaire and freecell. *sigh* But there's always tomorrow. I'm going to leave the game open all week, and see how much money I lose. I'm at -$696 right now. I can fight back from that, right?

Chel came at the end of the day and harassed me for a while. There was this ominous rattling at the door and we froze, waiting for the creepy whoever it was to go away. Turns out it was actually my dad. So I had to explain to him that I didn't open the door to people when I'm by myself at the office. I already had a bad experience this morning with a Jehovah's Witness, and that was while Jen was there. So you have to identify yourself when you knock.

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 . . .

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.

Um, excuse me? I believe you have my stapler . . .

off the top:

I am officially addicted to Riesen.

Did you know Spartacat has his own webpage? He scored the opening goal in the AllStars mascot game on Saturday. I don't know whether to be proud, or highly amused.

Seems the Sens are coming under Hockey-Humor.com's scrutiny more and more these days. Here's a little jab at Patty's problems.

the allstar score:

So I caved and watched the AllStar game Sunday afternoon. It was either that or write a ten-page midterm on Marxist Ideology as it relates to the Society of the Spectacle (if you know the answer, lemme know. The paper's due Thursday night).

Anyway, I'm kind of glad I did. I got to see some pretty passes and some nice moves by the likes of Kovalchuk and Sakic (hat trick), and Alfie scored two goals, the first and the fifth, in the Eastern Conference's 6-4 win over the Western Conference. Jagr still sucks, though, even when it doesn't count. At least Luongo didn't see as much rubber as he normally does. Heehee! Martin St. Louis is TINY. I find it hard to believe he's even the 5'9" they say he is. Theodore was wearing the wrong pants during the second period. I wonder if anyone noticed . . . Messier had an amazing game, even more amazing considering that he just turned 43. What's with his helmet, though? This has been bothering me for years. No one else in the league has a helmet like him. When it's red, like it was Sunday, he looks disturbingly like a Tootsie Pop.

I didn't know Eric McCormack (of Will & Grace fame) had dual citizenship. A nice singing voice, too . . .

Weird things about the AllStar game: seeing a face-off from UNDER the ice. Also, the weird remote control camera that swung around over centre ice made me feel like I was in a video game. Rather an odd sensation . . .

Ron MacLean had a nice little conversation with Bob Goodenough after the first period. They raised some nice points and you could really tell that Ronnie was on Bob's side in this whole thing. Then, after the second, he went on to talk to the Commish, and this debate didn't turn out so well. Every time Ron brought up a factoid he'd gleaned from somewhere, Bettman shot it down and ridiculed Ron's research, then complained about discussing the CBA on the AllStar Break. I wanted to smack him, and you could see that Ron did, too. He restrained himself, however, and merely commented that this was one of the few times he got to speak to the Commish, and this is what the fans wanted to know. Gary Bettman is a jerk. That's what I know now. I, for one, am very interested in what's going on in the negotiations (see "off the ice," below), and I think that part of Bettman's job is dealing with the media in an informative and polite manner. There was absolutely no call for him to be as childish and whiny as he was this afternoon. Bob answered the same questions and faced the same sort of heat with perfect aplomb. Makes me wonder who's going to win all this . . .

the real score:

FIRST PERIOD: The boys are back in toooooooooown! The Sens come out of the starting gate with a jump I haven't seen in many a game. They show up the clutching and grabbing Blues by using some physical strength of their own, particularly from the likes of Chara and Langfeld. The first is also a key example of Ottawa's superior stick handling skills, as even Rachunek shows his improvement by looking before he passes . . . Alfredsson scores 97 seconds in for his 25th goal of the season from White and Rachunek. Hossa gets some amazing chances before he scores his 24th from Phillips and Langfeld, and, shortly later, on an amazing breakaway, he hesitates just long enough to bring G Osgood out of position, and pots his 25th. Osgood, whose old-school mask doesn't cover the back of his neck and makes me nervous, gets pulled for the last minutes of the period. Young Kelly is having a nice night for his second NHL game, putting himself where he should be and creating lots of offense. Defense is also super in this period, and poor Patty doesn't have a lot of work to do. Shoutouts to Chara and Redden for standing up when they should, and to Leschyshyn, who keeps getting his ass kicked into the boards and remaining in the game. Ottawa 3, St. Louis 0.

SECOND PERIOD: Osgood is back in net, and seems to have recovered from his earlier malaise. The second is a Peter Schaefer show, with him amazing on the forecheck and even shorthanded, on three -- yes, THREE -- Ottawa penalties. None to STL, who are the third-most penalized team in the league. As Marty Havlat takes his seat in the penalty box for a stupid penalty, one happens to notice he's trying to emulate his best friend, Marian Hossa (read: the dude needs a haircut). Amazing offensive chances by Smolinski, Hossa, and Alfredsson, who rings a bullet off the crossbar, the second dinger of the night. An odd lineup that I noticed: Alfredsson, Spezza, and Havlat. Hmm . . . A period in which STL's best player, Chris Pronger, barely announces his presence. An Ottawa blueliner who does: Simpson. Heehee! He sticks out his tongue when he's working hard. Lalime was strong on all three power plays tonight, keeping it simple and making textbook saves with utmost confidence. This looks more like the Patty we saw last May. And you'd never notice that Chara was not at 100%, as he admitted yesterday. Playing hard, skating hard, hitting hard, he's looking good. Flagrant high stick to Alfie and then an embarrassing dump that wasn't called leads to high tensions at the end of the period. Ottawa 3, St. Louis 0.

THIRD PERIOD: What's with Danton? The wee 5'9" forward spent most of the evening trying to pick a fight with Chara and Simpson. At one point, Chara looked at him, smiled, and shook his head. He couldn't believe it. I wouldn't personally pick on someone who is over a foot taller and nearly a hundred pounds heavier than myself, if I were Danton. As it is, Chara is fourteen inches taller and well over a hundred pounds heavier than me. I would be very nice to him. The refs finally called some penalties in Ottawa's favour, but they couldn't convert on the resulting 5-on-3, although Schaefer was wicked around the boards, and Hossa rang one off the crossbar. Bonk was conspicuously absent for the third, which would explain that odd line that I mentioned before. Apparently, he took a puck off the skate, and was last seen on crutches, with an ice pack strapped to his foot. At one point, the camera cut to a prolonged shot of Schaefer and his ridicuStick, staring off into space with a dreamy smile on his face. I wonder what he was thinking about . . . Well, Danton being annoying actually worked. He got Chara off his game enough to ruin Patty's shutout bid and make the game 3-1. I think I jinxed Patty, though, as I caught myself thinking the "s-word" shortly before he was scored on. The Senators slowed down a little in the third, and were a little sloppy with their puckhandling. A guilty party was Alfredsson, although he made up for it in the dying minutes. The officials were also a little sloppy, failing to see an obvious high stick to the face of Chris Phillips, and not taking any notice of a Spezza skirmish at centre ice. There was a tense moment as Rachunek let one fly, but there was no one to catch the rebound, and Neil's later attempt was ruled a no-goal. Then, with Osgood on the bench, White, who hasn't scored in ten games, took a shot at the empty net and really missed. Patty, on a clearing attempt a few seconds later, nearly netted his first of the year. And he only missed a little bit. It was a good way to snap the three-game losing streak, and we saw the kind of play by Ottawa that we're supposed to see.

The shot to Hossa's head and his subsequent rest period is the best thing that could've happened to him. He was superb tonight, as were the rest of his beleaguered teammates, Patty included. Schaefer didn't register a point, but was everywhere at every time, working around the boards, backchecking, forechecking, checking . . . And Patty? Well, he showed us tonight why he's number one. No fancy stuff, but simple stops with no rebounds, saves made with the utmost confidence, and no scrambling. You could see it in his face. He knew he had this game down. Let's just hope it continues. I mean, as much as I love Super-K, it's hard to lose a number one.

off the ice:

So Ottawa isn't the only city with goalie trouble. Hasek's out for the rest of the season in Detroit with a recurring groin injury, and Philly's Jeff Hackett was forced to retire last night, because he has been unable to recover from the situational vertigo plaguing him since his last concussion. Now, I'm not going to get all Don Cherry on his ass. I will simply say, so long, Jeff. It's been good to know you.

I'm really worried about the 15 September 2004 expiration of the CBA between the NHL and the NHLPA. It's not just that it means I might not be able to watch hockey for a year or two -- this directly affects me.

For the maybe two of you who read this and don't know me, I'm an anthropology student in Ottawa. Next year, I will graduate with an honours degree, and it is my hope to do my masters degree in Ritual and Symbolism in Professional Hockey. It's rather a grand thesis title, and I'm quite pleased with myself for coming up with it. What it would entail, essentially, is studying the inner workings of a professional team, asking the players questions, and examining what their every day rituals are regarding the game and how they play it. Like Super-K talking to himself between the pipes, and Neil changing of his laces before every game. Stuff like that. As for the symbolism, hell, it's everywhere in this corporate climate of ours. You just have to look at the logos on the sweaters to see that. There are other symbols, too, like the various gestures a referee performs when he's making a call. You know what I mean. Ideally, I'd like to do this research with the Senators, and, also ideally, if they like me enough, I'd like to do my PhD with them -- a full-scale ethnography of the organization.

This is my dream. And, strangely enough, for a girl who never gets the dice rolling her way, this dream might *actually* come true. There are very few obstacles preventing me from getting what I want. I have a few connections I can work on, and, even if they fall through, it's great PR for the team. I don't see why they wouldn't want me to come and talk to them.

HOWEVER

This CBA trouble could fuck me over, big time. If they're out for a year, I guess I could go in after that, but I probably need to have this all present and accounted for by January of next year, when I send in my application for grad school. The administration at my school is notoriously vague for explaining exactly how I do this, but I hope to be illuminated soon.

So, here's my question: do I contact them before the playoffs this season, telling them who I am and what I'm interested in doing, sort of sounding them out on their opinion? Do I wait until after the playoffs? During the playoffs? If I wait until next year, I'm afraid that I won't have access to the kind of people I need to talk to to get this done. No CBA equals no workers, right? I suppose, if worse comes to worst, I can hook myself up with some WHA team, but even that's still a nebulous possibility.

I still have a month and a bit before the playoffs. I don't want to bother anybody during that time. I also feel squeamish about writing to them after the playoffs, and not just because of the CBA. I feel like, if they win, the organization will just think I want to latch on to the champion team. And, if they lose, they'll be that much more disinclined to acquiesce to my request. So I should do it soon, right? First, I gotta think of what to say . . .

Maybe I should set up an appointment with the grad school department.

in other news:

This midterm is going to kill me. I'm not too worried about my oceanography midterm, as most of it I remember from first year geoscience, but this Marxist ideology crap has really got me confused. I mean, I understand it all when we're discussing it in class, but in no conceivable way could I recreate, from my hopelessly unintelligible notes, what was said at any given time. For example, I have, from my first class, "HEGEL --> lack: the object is outside of us, and that's what drives the whole thing." Then I have an altered thesis/antithesis/synthesis diagram about being and nothingness. *sigh* I think I'm screwed. I can't possibly write ten pages about something I barely understand. There's only so much I can pull out of my ass at any given moment.

I'm vaguely annoyed with my Winamp. I have my four thousand plus collection on random, but I'm mostly getting a weird combination of Cecilia Bartoli, AFI, and Dashboard. It's like my computer is deciding what I want to listen to. I would prefer a Platters/Foreigner/Miles Davis/Rachmaninov combo, but it's ignoring me . . .

I woke up this morning thinking about my friend Lisa, and I had this odd thought that, hey, wouldn't it be nice if I got an email from her today? AND I DID!

I won a major battle against redundancy today at work. I felt really proud of myself. I just clearly and politely outlined the many ways in which it was a dumb fucking idea, and how it was pointless, seeing as I had been using an efficient system all along, and ignoring his.

AND

I got a new stapler. This is momentous. I love it. It's liddle and gray. I wanted a red one to match all my other desk accessories, but they didn't have one that wasn't a million dollars. Baby steps, people . . . (Yes, I realize I'm a loser mcpete, but it's a NEW FREAKING STAPLER, goddamnit!) I also got my T4, which means I can file my income tax as early as next week, and therefore get my return super soon. *shudder* My ever-creepy ex-boss, Gary, showed up in the office today. Whatever beefs I have with the expectorating goobermonster, he's a far sight better than Gary. Chel called the office this afternoon, so I got to speak to her, albeit briefly. So, all things considered, it was a good day.

Ottawa weather is weird. Today, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, a soft breeze was wafting along . . . and it was snowing heavily. Hmm . . . and then one of those huge fat snowflakes managed to bypass my scarf and my sweater and went straight down my cleavage. I don't know how snow does that, but it's incredibly annoying. Especially when you have to explain to a boy why you suddenly yelped and jumped six feet in the air.

I'm so pleased with myself! During the game, I attempted something I have never tried before: a French braid. I was aiming for pigtails, but I lack that much skill. I'm pretty impressed with my first attempt, though. I suppose it would have been better if my hair was all one length, and I had a mirror, but what can you do? Good night, folks! Drive carefully and sleep well!

All Star BOREDOM

off the top:

I might tune in for a bit tomorrow to see some of the skills competition, but I've lost all interest in watching the AllStar game now that only Alfie's playing in it. My bets are he'll be benched for most of it anyway {Pat Quinn hates him}, so it's not going to be a real thrill-ride.

the score:

Who the fuck cares? It's not real hockey, anyway!

off the ice:

Stuff to keep you entertained until the next game:

Looking around Ebay one day, I came across this, a Marian Hossa PEEWEE trading card. NICE MULLET!

So, even Hawks fans, forever introspective, have noticed that a muppet leads the Sens in scoring. I got this from Hockey-Humor.com

More goalie talk went on today. This dude in the Citizen said exactly what I wanted said about Super-K. I applauded over my Cheerios. Anyway, and I was looking at old Blueline comics and I found this one about Patty's troubles last year. It's just fitting, because I know they'll be exactly the same ones this year.

in other news:

Let's get interactive here . . .

I'm doing this project for my Intro to Culture Studies class. It's a media project, and it's supposed to be based on some aspect of culture. Rather vague. So, this is my plan. I'm drawing, with my limited artistic skills, a hockey comic. HAHA, biiiiiig surprise, Ally. Anyway, what I've noticed is that, in Canada especially, you can pretty much explain any life situation using a hockey analogy. So, through this crude medium, I plan to outline various hockey situations that symbolically represent real life circumstances. I have five main characters, which you can see in my preliminary doodle in the top right. They're all loosely based on NHL hockey personalities. There's Neil [Chris Neil], a cheerful ragamuffin who spends most of his time in the penalty box. He's the dude with the boxing gloves and the Canadiens touque. There's Kerry [Kerry Fraser], Neil's younger brother, who is too young to play, but acts as the unofficial referee for the group. However, being only a child, he often gets distracted and misses important calls, which is greatly annoying to Ty [Tie Domi], a short man with an inferiority complex, who spends most of his time getting his ass kicked by Neil. When the boys (men?) aren't fighting, they're shooting pucks at Marty [Martin Brodeur], who has a perfect save percentage, purely by virtue of the fact that he is so chubby, the rubber can't get past him. He's always tired, despite his sedentary position, and would rather be down the road at the bar, adding to his gut. The only member of this little shinny group who can actually play is Mar [Marian Hossa], but he often doesn't get the chance, as he spends most of his time breaking up arguments and being frustrated by the inadequacies of his "teammates," who compensate for their lack of skill by tackling him every time he moves.

Essentially, it's a group of stupid guys being stupid. You know the type. I'm sure you either know, are related to, or ARE somebody just like these boys.

The people who annoy me are going to be blue, or have blue things on them (like Ty), in deference to the hated Leafs. The people I like are going to be red, like my Ottawa boys. Where this gets interesting is in the two brothers, who wear both colours. I think that's because I still can't decide how I feel about the Habs. Partly due to the fact that I can't draw people, the boys are sticks, as you can see. However, that's more than just a result of my lack of skill. I need them to represent the Everyman, a result of cultural influence. So, the backgrounds and articles are all going to be fully detailed, right down to the way each individual tapes his stick (and I'm actually going to research this. I know how Marian and Marty tape theirs, and I'm going to match 'em up), but the individual himself is going to lack a little bit of individuality. You'll be able to tell them apart from the stuff they have, not from what they actually look like. Sort of a Nature vs. Nurture meets Marxism kind of thing.

Here's where I need your help, though: I need situations to hockey-fy. Situations like the collapse of a relationship, politics (Canadian only, of course), beer, weather . . . Every day sort of stuff. The project's due at the end of March. I look forward to your opinions.

I now know exactly what a thermocline is

It's this. off the top:

I had a dentist appointment today. My hygienist, Heather, is a Leafs fan. It's very hard to trash talk when your mouth is full of dental tools . . .

I wore my wee jersey to class today. There were a few others, and a few Leafs jerseys . . .

the score:

AAAAAAA.

Hockey stresses me out. This was like the playoffs all over again. A nailbiter to the bitter, bitter end.

NB: Injured Ottawa players before the puck drops are Fisher, Volchenkov, Varada, Spezza, Vermette, and Chara. Redden is scratched due to the flu. This means that Kelly and Hamel are recalled from Bingo, and Simpson, not due to play until after the AllStar break, are shoved into the depleted lineup.

Fearful for the health of the players after Saturday's goonfest, the league puts its two best and oldest refs on the ice: MacCreary and Fraser, along with two veteran linesmen. It helps. I have no beefs with the officiating tonight.

FIRST PERIOD: Alfredsson scores at 00:13, a franchise record. He now has 24 goals on the season, one more than sniper Marian Hossa. Alfie proceeds to get booed every time he has the puck. What? I thought we were at the Corel Centre, not the ACC. It's amazing to look at a home audience and see so many blue and white sweaters. Not to be outdone by Alfie's early prowess, Havlat and Hossa team up and get into the game with an amazing offensive chance. Feeling jealous of all the attention on Kidd, Patty steps into the game at this point. Now, I have to say this for poor Patty: he doesn't have many games like this, but when he's good, he's really good. However, then there was a disastermobile. Hossa got hit in the head with a puck, and even before he hit the ground, you could see the blood spraying. He must've left a cup and a half of it on the ice, and had to be helped to the dressing room. He did not return. It took staff a few minutes to scrape up the blood and shards of visor that remained on the ground. The Sens pretend that they haven't actually lost their star shooter, and proceed to score two more times before the end of the period. The first was courtesy of Havlat, from Langfeld and Alfredsson on the power play. The second was a Pothier shot with eyes, from Rachunek and Schaefer. A fantastic offensive line in the first was the hastily constructed Langfeld-Bonk-Havlat line. They should keep that one in mind for future games.

SECOND PERIOD: Simpson showed us all that he was there by getting into a wrestling match with Domi that didn't go anywhere, but at least proved that Muckler made a good move. A glance at the bench, however, showed that there were a few players who weren't there. Rachunek didn't show for the second. Some others, among them Van Allen, Niel, and Hnidy, kept getting up and going to the locker room, likely to puke, as most of the team has the stomach flu. Lovely. At one point, there were only seven players on the Ottawa bench. The second was another Schaefer and Langfeld show, with Peter making chances everywhere he was, and Langfeld making use of his new linemate, Havlat, by scoring Ottawa's fourth unanswered goal of the night. Patty made some unbelieveable saves, and was really strong for the first half of the period. There was a downturn about halfway through, however, when Neil got into a fight with Perrott. It turned out to be a draw, but Perrott got in a good many hits before Neiler recovered. That should be a sign to all that something was afoot on the Ottawa bench. Neil has never lost a fight on home ice this season. Despite beautiful efforts by the Bingo Boys, Kelly and Hamel, Tucker scored on Patty's short side, Renberg scored on Patty's short side, and Stajan added another one to make an already tense game even more tense.

THIRD PERIOD: Havlat was outstanding on the forecheck in this period. He had to be, however, because everyone else was just too tired. The Ottawa players spent most of their time in their own zone, just struggling to get the puck out and down the ice. These efforts proved fruitless, however, as Sundin knocked one past Patty's short side (AGAIN) to tie the game. Marty Havlat was strong both offensively and defensively, as was Alfredsson and Lalime, which showed merely that they were the only three players WITHOUT the flu. Smoke and Langfeld also made a good effort in the third, but it was obvious that both of them were tired. And fatigue makes for stupid penalties, as Curtis Leschyshyn found out. The look of utter desperation on his face said it all when he was called for high-sticking. Philly just looked plain tuckered out, and Hnidy spent most of his bench time with his head between his legs, trying not to pass out. The other players on the bench gave him a wide berth, and I'm sure his isolation didn't help his game at all.

OVERTIME: Hnidy did try, however, and made a strong effort in the fourth. However, he lost his stick at one point and Patty was forced to make some strong saves. Simpson and Leschyshyn also pitched in with some good defensive one-on-one. The two older D's make a good line. Alas, Nolan got his own back with the game winner, and the Senators lost to the Leafs 5-4 in overtime.

I watched this game with my dad. Now, my dad was a sailor in his day, but he's very mild-mannered and soft-spoken, and is always rather offended at my swearing when I watch hockey. For someone who grew up in Toronto, he sure hates the Leafs, though. But he was born in Montreal, so I guess that helps. Anyway, you should have heard the noises coming out of him. He and I kept standing up and sitting down and yelling and carrying on. My mother was at the other end of the house, and she knew exactly who scored and when. My dad's exact words at Nolan's OT goal were, "shit-piss-fuck-shit-piss-fuck." It went on, but it was pretty much the same thing. That was a VERY stressful game. I knew, though, that we would lose, There was this turnover, about a quarter of the way through the third, when I just sort of sensed the Sens gave up. It was downhill from there.

In their defense, however, that was an amazing game for them, considering that half of them were playing with the flu, the other half were out injured, and the third half (I'm an anthropologist, not a mathematician) had to pick up the slack and was completely exhausted by the end of the second period.

Langfeld had an outstanding game. He was where he should be, both offensively, and defensively, and, without him, Ottawa would not have made it as far as they did. He drew some good penalties that his team made use of -- all in all, he would be my first star of the night. Other players who had a good game would be Schaefer, who was always up on the forecheck, and had a few shorthanded chances; Kelly, who almost had his first NHL goal in his first NHL game in the first; Hnidy, who looked very ill but still played hard; Phillips and Pothier, who were the only healthy D pair on the ice, and played more than anyone else; and, finally, Patty, who did very well, considering he had no D to protect him. I noticed, though, that three of the five that got past him were on his short side. That seems to be the case more and more these days.

I'm amazed, and rather proud, that my boys made it as far as they did tonight, lacking as they did most of their defense and three of their top forwards. Good job, boys. You all get gold stars, in my book.

off the ice:

So, Schastlivy is GONE! Some say Muckler should have simply promoted Brian McGrattan from Bingo, but we'll see how this Todd Simpson fella works out. I think we may have gotten the better deal.

Boo, Chara is injured, and so won't be put in as a replacement in the AllStar Game. He's being replaced by New Jersey's Brian Rafalski. I'm going to watch it this year, I think. If only to see the dynamic between Eastern Conference coach Pat Quinn and the two boys he's been slinging mud at for the past two weeks: Daniel Alfredsson and Marian Hossa. Both players jokingly suggested that they might be benched for Sunday's game.

Since writing the above, it's now questionable as to whether Hossa's going to make it. Same with Redden. Perhaps they'll replace Hossa with Havlat, and maybe Redden with Phillips?

The Roger's House telethon went well. I was surprised to see an old acquaintance on the screen. Jocelyn Lamont, director of the Candlelighter's Childhood Cancer Trust, was there to talk about her son, Connor's, struggle with cancer. I did a lot of work with Jocelyn in my years at Mailboxes, and I have never met someone so nice, nor so dedicated to a one cause. She'd told me about Connor before, but it was amazing to see her tell it again with such composure. Nice to see you, Jocelyn.

in other news:

In my new quest to download a full version of Francesca Blumenthal's "The Lies of Handsome Men," I have only so far been able to find partial versions on album-selling websites. I repeat my offer: if you can find me a) the full mp3, or b) the sheet music, I will owe you big-time.

Amusingly enough, in my explorations, I came across this. It's rather amusing in a Douglas Adams meets Elizabeth George kind of way, and it makes no sense. I'm sure there's more to it, but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

Another random plug. I've never met this man, but I've followed his work across several sites, like Darryl's Advocate and It's All Been Done, and I think he's STUPER. So I'm stoked to see what he's going to do with this new comic.

AUGH!
{Sorry about that -- Dashboard came on my Winamp alluva sudden, and they're way too depressing. I had to change it pronto. Now I'm listening to the Hollies.}

Okay, so I spent a goodly amount of time on the internet yesterday, researching porn. That's right -- RESEARCHING. I'm doing this paper on views of hirsuteness and sexuality. I do have some referenced sources, but a lot of it is websites that spell things out and leave a lot of x's at the end. Anyway, during my explorations and exclamations of annoyance at those stupid porn pop-ups, I cam across this article. It's not porn in itself, but it's very revealing -- in other ways. I recommend the read, if you've got the time. It's pretty long. Very powerfully written, and it gives you a viewpoint you don't normally see. Hm. Makes me think. About what, I don't really know. I never really had a viewpoint on pornstar rights before I read this article. I don't know if I do now, but it did make me think.

Also, a very ethnographic tale of a pornstore clerk. Also makes you think. And in the end, that's all that really matters.

Okay, I promise I'll stop talking about porn now . . .

WHERE'S MY HOCKEY?

off the top:

I don't fully understand the whole Groundhog Day Myth. If the little dude sees his shadow, wouldn't that then imply that it was sunny, and therefore that spring would be coming earlier than if it were cloudy and he didn't see his shadow?

the score:

Well, I wouldn't know. I get all ready to watch my team kick some ass, and I check the schedule. Some of the papers say it starts at seven on Sportsnet. Others say what I've heard, which is seven-thirty on the New RO.

Guess what?

It's NEITHER.

NO TV. What the bloody hell? Even worse than watching my team lose, I can't even WATCH my team. This just caps a terrible day {see below}. So I start listening to it on the radio, because it's too late to make it to a bar, and it's snowing like a mother fucker outside. But the radio keeps cutting out because of the weather! GRAUGH!

FIRST PERIOD: I spent the first realtime fifteen minutes of this period trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I didn't miss much, however. Shots were 15-6 in favour of the Devils at the end of the first, and, while Ottawa's defense started out good and then tightened up, Patty was sharp -- for once.

Ottawa 0, New Jersey 0.

SECOND PERIOD: Damn that Rob Schick for always getting in the way and screwing up the plays. It's a pity you can't legally check an official . . .

Ottawa's first power play came after an exciting Havlat/Smoke breakaway. Not much happened on it, however. Philly has a bad finger and is battling the flu, so his bullet from the point was lacking a little bit of mustard. Another nice play came from Rachunek, who shot the puck right on, then booked it back to the other end to dive in front of a pass. Redden dove in front of the rebound and made the save.

As an aside, you'd think with the number of sticks Alfie breaks these days, he'd make the move back to lumber . . . His composite tonight shattered when it intercepted a New Jersey pass.

AH! Then all was good. An amazing play by the rookie Langfeld that made use of his strength, size, and puckhandling skills led to a pass to Redden that made it over to Bonk and then past Brodeur.

Unfortunately, Langfeld's luck didn't hold. He tried to protect his goalie, but, with less than a minute left, Elias got past him and made it a 1-1 tie. Shots are 9-5 for Ottawa.

At least the Leafs are losing 4-1. TO THE HAWKS! HAHAHAHA!

QUOTE OF THE EVENING: During the out-of-town scoreboard between periods, the announcer mentioned the Ottawa 67's 7-5 loss to the Peterborough Petes this evening. This is what he said, to be precise (and I quote): "The 67's could not put a finger in the dyke" in the "interesting" loss to their rivals. Stand back a moment and consider the deep meaning of that statement.

THIRD PERIOD: Just as Brodeur is the answer to the few (the very few!) failings of the Devils' defense, Patrick Lalime is the problem with Ottawa's. After a few minutes of end-to-end races, the Devils spent most of the period in the Ottawa zone. The Devils, 14 and 6 in one goal games, made it 15 and 6 with a Friesen shot from Brylin and Langenbrunner at 13:47. They actually made it a two-goal game, for about thirty seconds, when Langenbrunner knocked another into Patty's empty net. Thankfully, it was disallowed after being considered as a two-line pass. Not that it really mattered. The Devils have now won the season series with the Senators three games to one.

Woo-frikkin'-hoo.

off the ice:

I want everyone to appreciate the picture that Jennifer sent me on Monday. It's great, and I think I'll leave it up for the rest of the week. I sure as hell hope there's some serious Toronto ass-kicking on Thursday.

Congratulations to Dany Heatley for getting his first goal of the season tonight.

Can I please shoot the play-by-play boys? I swear they were on crack tonight. They made fun of everything and everyone, from Brodeur's calling Gord Wilson "Gordie Baby," to bringing in the Williams sisters on defense, to comparing Paul Martin and his team to our prime minister, to mocking Peter Schaefer's hometown of Yellowgrass, Saskatchewan. ON CRACK.

in other news:

My prof is going to email me my midterm, so I can give Thursday's class a miss. *sigh* . . . cute boy will just have to survive with out me for a day . . .

Ugh. I'm not looking forward to going to school tomorrow. I had one of those major claustrophobic moments in class on Monday, where I felt totally trapped and was irritated at every one and everything. I just had to get out of there. The walk home was peaceful enough. I had a small nap when I got home, and then everything was rosy.

I found my idea book. It was really stressing me out that I'd misplaced it. It's blue and scribbled on and torn and contains all the storylines that come into my head. I hadn't needed it for a while, as I haven't actually *written* anything since god knows when, but I had this idea in my head recently and it was just itching to come out onto paper. But I found the book, so it's all good. I'm working on a children's story right now about a forgetful magician. It's a little more complicated than I would like it to be right now, because I think my target audience is too young to understand some of the time and POV shifts I go through, but I'm working on it. I have a basic outline, and the first sentence down (which I'm not happy with, but whatever -- you gotta start somewhere, right?)

I'm also listening to the Weakerthans, mostly their new album. You should check out the solo session that John K. Samson did for Radio Three. It's awesome shit. If I could write one paragraph the way he does, I would die happy.

Two songs I am currently obsessed with:

This one comes off a horrible Harlequin Romance movie, but I want to learn it. If you can find it in full, I will owe you big-time. It's called "Lies of Handsome Men" by Francesca Blumenthal.

The other one is in the 2004 Mitsubishi Galant Commercial. It's called "Do You Realize?" and it's by the Flaming Lips. It's pretty.

MY DAY TODAY:

I wake up, turn on the crappy excuse for a radio station that is THE BEAR (why did you have to leave me, X?), and find out that it's going to snow. FOREVER. I have the constant threat of an English midterm tomorrow afternoon hanging over my head, one which I'm not really all that ready for, and which requires a hellish amount of memorization.

Then I get hit by a car.

Seriously, I'm not kidding.

Nono, don't worry, I'm fine, just very angry. The twit was pulling out of a parking lot and was looking everywhere but where he should look, and, as I walked along the sidewalk in front of his car, he decided that was a good time to pull out into traffic. It wasn't a hard hit, just enough to jolt me and cover me with filth from his huge-ass Buick. When I walked over to the driver's side to find out what happened, he had the nerve to say he didn't see me. The twit didn't even roll down his window to talk to me. He just mouthed at me through the glass. I was so angry that I couldn't say anything except, "YOU DIDN'T SEE ME?" in ever-increasing pitch. Jen was with me. She said I was pretty scary. All I wanted was an apology, and the twit didn't even get out of the car! Eventually, I gave up and walked away, ostentatiously brushing crap from my pants. I'm glad I was in office mode this morning, otherwise I probably wouldn't have intimidated the twit as much as I did. As it was, he looked pretty scared. Stupid fat middle-aged twit. I'm saying "twit" because I want to say something unprintable.

Then the office day from hell. My boss is getting over the flu, and so every five seconds, he coughs like an emphysemic who has just run up a flight of stairs, and clears a quart of mucous from his lungs. WITHOUT COVERING HIS MOUTH. BLECH.

Then studying like mad for English and hoping to God that my team wouldn't disappoint me tonight. That would be the worst that could happen to an already crappy day.

And then . . .

Hell, the Second Sound Shift in Germanic Languages at 600 AD is more surprising than the results of tonight's game. I think I'll go study some more English, and maybe salvage some of my wasted time tonight.

Still Grumpy.

off the top:

There was far too much negative energy in last night's post, so I'm obliterating it with a post mortem.

the score:

Alfie's not happy with Domi. Domi's not happy with Alfie. Van Allen's not happy with Sundin. Domi's not happy with Van Allen. Chara hates McCabe. McCabe is still trying to figure out how Chara was able to pick him up and throw him around, and is maybe considering not starting another fight with him again. Domi's not happy with Chara. Or Redden. Or Hossa.

Essentially, Domi has issues.

off the ice:

INJURY REPORT: Leschyshyn still has a huge mofo scar running diagonally across his forehead. Chara's got a shoulder injury (probably incurred whilst benching leafs). Spezza's knee might be sprained. Hossa has a very swollen nose. Van Allen already had a busted jaw. Now it might be even more busted. Alfredsson and Lalime took heavy blows to their self-esteem.

The players get the day off today to nurse their various bumps and bruises before they play the Devils in East Rutherford on Monday.

I wonder who's going to be in net against Brodeur?

in other news:

Here's my dilemma:

Thursday night, I have class from 6 to 9. I have several friends in this class, and the class itself is rather entertaining. There's also this cute boy there. I don't know his name yet, but I'm working on it.

HOWEVER,

Thursday night is also the rematch for the Sens and the Leafs, and the Roger Neilson telethon. And what a wreck it's going to be. Those boys hate each other. But the game starts at 7, and will be almost over by the time I get home.

So what do I do?

I guess my decision will have to be one made on game day, considering how they play on Monday, and who's starting in net on Thursday. If it's Lalime, I might as well go to class . . .

Oh, if you were wondering, this is what you can get me for my birthday! ;)