Bright and Shiny

I'm not going to mention the playoffs. I'm not going to say a word about the Avs and how they're only 4 points back now. I'm going to avoid talking about the two games left against the Flames, and, for that matter, two games left against the Oilers when the Flames only have one. I'm just not going to mention anything, because as soon as I acknowledge all of this, there will be some sort of terrible accident that wipes out almost the whole team and forces them to start Mark Rycroft, Ossi Vaananen, Toby Petersen, and two kids from juniors. No, what am I talking about? I kind of like Ossi Vaananen. He'd be killed off for sure.

The Avs continue to be a bright light in a bleak NHL. They're the goal scorers, the streak getters, the hangover curers, and the little Slovakian puck stoppers. What else is there? The Oilers finally got a point, but that's a bad thing at this point. The Bruins nearly caused me to crash my car Saturday when my friend's boyfriend called to bitch about the fact that they were losing 6-0 in the second period (the last time I had checked the score it was 1-0). Of course I'm going to be thankful that the Avs aren't trying to kill me.

For anyone who missed the game last night, it was insane; one of those games in which you have no idea what's going on or what will happen next. Both teams are lethal offensively, so to counter that both teams played great defensively. The Sharks refused the Avs any control of the puck in their zone when they were up, and used their awesome breakout to quickly transition the other way. The Avs forwards backchecked like hell, and because of it the Sharks had little time to make anything happen. Unlike Nabokov, who kept the Sharks in the game, Peter Budaj didn't play his best, but it was good enough to get the OT win. J-M Liles looked like himself for the first time since his injury. Milan Hejduk has solidified my belief that he can score from anywhere in the offensive zone with his OT goal. Tyler Arnason decided to play hockey tonight. I correctly predicted that Andrew Brunette would score, which is very likely the first time I've correctly predicted a goal scorer all year. This is all great. The best thing, though?

Marek Svatos is back!...again. Yes, before he was just on a vacation from his usual level of play, while this time he was injured, but he was back in both senses tonight. I missed his return in the game before this, but I imagine it wasn't impressive as he appeared to play with the fourth line and started there tonight. I couldn't understand why they didn't put him with Arnason again, to the point where I came up with the idea for a program where fans can text the coach, and if their idea is good then it actually gets through. This was a serious idea. That's how flustered I was, and conversely that's how ecstatic I was when they finally did put Marek with Arnason. Marek had an absolutely terrifying game, and I mean that in every way possible. He was terrifying to the other team, as he was working as hard as a person can work, forcing turnovers, and creating chances. He was terrifying to his team as he was also turning the puck over himself and had a few scary moments defensively. He was personally scaring the crap out of me because he was speeding around, throwing checks, and playing recklessly, all of which are dangerous. I didn't want him to get hurt again, as he was finally playing like himself. The Altitude announcer even pointed it out, saying, "This is the Marek Svatos that we know- he's so determined and tenacious in the offensive zone." More than that, he was dynamic. When he was on the ice, you knew, and when he had the puck exciting things happened (good or bad). That's Marek Svatos; that's why he's one of my favorite players. If he's really back this time (and I think this is actually the third or fourth time I've said he's back this year), it doesn't matter about the playoffs. Next year we'll be fine.

You know that's a lie, but maybe it'll bring them good luck. God, I need to shake this superstitious complex I have. Getting out of Boston will help. Having a hockey team win something will kill it for sure. But I'm not saying anything about the playoffs.

Ouch

Did this:
"I'm still legitimately terrified that because I've talked about him he's going to get hurt."
cause the injury to Marek Svatos? It's a direct quote from my post on Tuesday, and some pretty damning evidence that I really am a bottomless pit of bad luck. However, the true reason that Marek now has a groin injury is this, uttered right before the above quote:
"The Real Marek Svatos has been around for a few games now and, in the one redeemable event in the past few days, is developing some chemistry with Tyler Arnason."
When it rains, it pours, and right now there's a goddamn storm. All I've done for the past few entries is complain, but that's because there haven't been many redeemable events, and when there have been, they've gotten groin injuries. After a while it's kind of funny in a way.

Talking to Paula, I noted that the Bruins, though sucking, were still only 8 points behind the Canadiens with 4 games in hand. We play each other on Saturday, and with us playing Philadelphia before then and them playing Buffalo, it wasn't far-fetched to think that we could rise to 4 points behind with 4 in hand by the end of the weekend. I convinced myself that this would happen, despite my Bruin senses telling me otherwise. Tonight the only reason the Bruins lost in overtime to the Flyers was because Tim Thomas stopped 48 of 51 shots in regulation. You know a game is ugly when the Flyers get a shorthanded goal and immediately get another quality 2-on-1 chance on the same penalty kill, Savard sucks while Chara scores the game-tying goal, and I fleetingly wonder if we traded Brad Boyes for the Ontarian MAB. In games like these it doesn't make me happy that Tim Thomas plays incredibly- it makes me sad. Why should he stand on his head if his teammates can't stop or score on the Flyers? With the recent trades, the Bruins should at least be able to do the former. They added to their pretty solid core of Chara, Ference, and Alberts with Wideman and Ward. How does a group like that let in 55 shots in one game? If anything it's a little comforting that they did so terribly. That's probably as bad as they can do, and I imagine they'll improve soon. And if Montreal loses...ugh. This team is impossible.

I caught some of the Islanders game against St. Louis. There was an awkward moment when the Islanders announcers kept saying that Smytty was coming onto the ice, but each time another string of people would come out with no Smytty in sight. It was really funny until he finally did come out. I was shocked at how disturbing it was to see him in another uniform and how sad it made me to see him celebrating after Sillinger's goal with people on another team. Still, Smytty made a wonderful play to get Sillinger the goal, and the crowd cheered him wildly when he did something good or even sometimes when he was just on the ice. At least they're excited to have him. I switched away from the game when MAB scored, because it was a little too much to handle. With Brad Boyes playing on the St. Louis side, the whole thing just freaked me out.

Even when they're not winning, the Avs are kind of comforting to watch. I think it's because they score a lot of goals, and a goal under any circumstances is a reason to celebrate. Even if they let in goals just as much as they score them, there have still been 214 reasons to celebrate this season. They're just not a stressful team to watch, at least in relation to the other two. They don't ever give me the feeling that they're one really long, well-timed hot streak away from making the playoffs, but they also don't play so badly that it's painful. When they went down 1-0 tonight and then announced that Marek Svatos was hurt, I considered turning off the TV and pretending that my teams weren't crumbling to pieces (which is big, because usually I force myself to watch games unless I have a legitimate excuse). But they kept playing, drew me back in, and ended up winning 6-1 with a feel-good list of goal scorers. Seasons like this aren't comforting if they come in strings of four or five years, but every so often it's good to have something go a little right when I expected it to crash and burn.

Quick notes

• Jeff Woywitka has been a part of a lot of dark moments in Oiler history. They got him for Mike Comrie, gave him up for Chris Pronger, and tonight he played for the Blues in Smytty's first game as an Islander. It's either a really weird coincidence or he's the spawn of Satan. Either way we might want to kill him.
• I was happy to see Smid back, so naturally he got run at by Derek Boogaard all night long.
• At the end of the Avs game, the announcers were sympathizing with Ian Laperriere, who had an empty net but couldn't settle the puck down. This led to one of them joking, "If he had a gun he would have shot the puck- put it out of its misery right then. 'You're going to stay down!'" Maybe the weirdest thing I've heard someone say during a hockey broadcast.

Doyle's Law

I was going to devote this entire post to bitching about the Columbus announcers, but luckily slept on the idea and decided against it. In my defense, they made it nearly impossible to enjoy a good Oilers' win. They spent the entire game repeating that the Vyborny goal should have counted (even on their replays you could see his stick was high), that people have been taking liberties with Rick Nash all season and he's had enough (even though Thoreson barely touched him), that they couldn't believe Hainsey got an extra minor for defending Nash (though they didn't have a problem with Roy's misconduct defending Gilbert), that these teams were battling for not only points but for pride (?), that Stortini had been headhunting all night long and Shelley was just fed up with him (Zach had one clean hit, while Shelley got a misconduct for his unnecessary stupidity), that players could get hurt by some of the hits the Oilers were dishing (again no mention of Gilbert), and that in addition to Ethan Moreau and Fernando Pisani, Jarret Staal is also out for the Oilers. I was pretty much ready to kill them. They were overdramatic, insanely biased, and the only time they mentioned anything about Gilbert was to tell us he had a concussion. They called him "Matthew".

They couldn't entirely kill my happiness, despite their best efforts. I'll always be happy watching a game where Horc and Smytty get three points each, Raffi shows some dangling skills, Joffrey actually tries, and my lover Laddy Smid scores. Most impressive was the way that Raffi and Lupul owned the ice together. I mistook both of them for Ales at different times because they were destroying the Jackets de so handily (Lupul especially at one point, where he ruined the defenders, drove to the net, and passed it away). Even if Pouliot didn't have his best game, I like him on that line. In some weird way, it seems like he helped those two get going. A few games ago Pouliot was busting his ass, playing very physically and energetically, and Raffi was gliding. Since then Raffi's picked up the pace, and now Lupul was really working last night. Energy is contagious. I get the feeling that this is a major reason why Tyler Arnason started flying. Playing with Brett McLean and especially Lappy will put a jump in your step. Also, he's the most skilled player on the line, so they know enough to get the puck to him when they can. I noticed this last night when they switched the lines up. Arnason was on a line with McLean and Ben Guite. They were all in pretty close quarters around the net, but McLean made a desperate effort to push the puck to Arnason, even though Guite may have been closer. I don't hate this.

I did hate that the Avs switched things up so much with the forwards, though they came close enough to winning to justify it. They had 7 de and 11 forwards, apparently because they would mostly be running 3 lines at this point in the season (according to my Altitude buddies). What ended up happening was that they sent out a completely random assortment of 11 forwards in a pretty steady stream. While this was maybe even more confusing for the players than it was for me, what it did do was keep the forwards fresh, enabling them to attempt a 3rd period comeback despite going in down 3-0. With the Avs 3rd period play this year being so questionable, I never expected them to come as close as they did, even after Ken Klee got the first goal. They didn't draw me back in until Brad Richardson scored and they completely took over the game. Even when Finger broke his stick and the Wild came down and scored I wasn't out of it, and rightly so. The next goal* confirmed that they weren't done, and made the end of the game all the more heartbreaking, with the Avs losing 4-3. The game was heartbreaking in every way that the 2004 ALCS vs the Yankees wasn't. When the Sox went down 3-0 in the series, much like when the Avs went down 3-0 in the game, I convinced myself not to get my hopes up. After Game 4 (the Klee goal) I was still cautious. Game 5 (the Richardson goal) made me a complete emotional wreck. I broke down and cried at least 3 different times during Game 5, once because Curtis Leskanic was warming up in the bullpen and, as he had been used a lot lately, the announcers said his arm was "hanging on by a thread". I don't know who he is anymore, but at the time he was clearly very tragic. That's where the comparison ends. After Game 5, I knew the Sox were going to win and wasn't worried or crazy anymore. The Avs spent the rest of the game in Game 5 limbo, not near enough to a win to be certain but not near enough to a loss to be hopeless. Luckily, I didn't have an emotional breakdown during this one, but the loss was still painful.
*MAREK SVATOS MIGHT ACTUALLY BE BACK. I'm not getting my hopes up too much (lie), but that goal last night was not only his second in two games but a Marek Svatos goal. He got it and buried it, despite not having much to shoot at. That was him last year, and the reason why I'm so enthusiastic right now. I really do miss having the Real Marek Svatos around. Despite having an awful year, he's still one of my favorite players and I still have faith that he can come back. I've got Paula hooked on him now. She kept insisting that everyone from Slovakia, including the women, looks like Zdeno Chara and Milan Jurcina ("very tall and dark haired with large noses and awkward facial expressions"). I used Marek as proof against her, and upon looking up pictures of him she agreed that he's very sexy but "definitely has a Slovakian adam's apple...they all stick out their necks and have adam's apples". I don't really know what to do with her.

If I want to remember something when I'm watching a game, I'll jot it down somewhere. This morning I realized that I wrote down some weird things. I'm blaming this on the fact that we were getting some carpets put down and the fumes started to get to me. Some from the Oilers game:
-put Ales through electroshock therapy to make him shoot
-announcers just went 5 minutes without a verb
-RAFFI FUCK YEAH
-even stupid Columbus announcers figured out powerplay
-oil finally getting physical, killing bitches
-Ales just "bitch pleased" someone
From the Avs game:
-23-26 on pk together, wedding next week
-Marek on powerplay MAREK ON POWERPLAY
-Marek w/a hit, love it when he plays rough
-40 w/19-15 HE DID HIS FOOT THING I'm happy
-Marek doing something I'm in pain from the excitement, actually
Almost everything I wrote was either about Marek Svatos or hurting the Blue Jackets and their announcers. Anger at Columbus+obsession with Marek Svatos+carpet fumes=some really strange and discomforting notes.

Quick notes

• I'm extremely upset to see Gilbert go down. Is there any timetable on his return? He was playing well and this time is pretty valuable to his development. Also, now we have to dress Matt Green again. This isn't awful, I guess, but I'd really, really, really rather have Gilbert there, if not just to get a better idea of what he can do.
  
• Does Zach Stortini have a catchy nickname yet? It doesn't feel right to just call him "Zach", but his last name is hard to get anything good from ("Storts", for instance, sounds like an STD).
• There are't any people on the Avs as random as Paul Mara, and I credit Altitude with this. They're starting to freak me out with how much they're in tune with what I'm thinking. For example, this past game they specifically explained what Brad May brought to the Stastny-Hejduk line (toughness, giving them room) and noted the success those two have had since he joined the line. In addition to toughness, I noticed that he's usually the one to go deep in the defensive zone and feed them the puck. So yes, he's the third wheel, but an effective one.
  
• J-M Liles is up to 17 minutes of ice time, which is still low but definitely comforting.
  
• There was a hilarious moment when Smytty lost his stick and the ice-level Columbus announcer tried to jokingly give him one they had there. Smytty was thoroughly not amused by this, making me love him even more.
• Carolina just acquired Anson Carter for a 5th round draft pick. If he plays well, this could really hurt the Bruins, who are trying to catch the Hurricanes for that last playoff spot. They're now 7 points out with 4 games in hand. If Carolina should pick things up, hopefully Montreal (8 points up of the Bruins, who have 4 in hand) will drop off again.
  
• Tonight I'm having an Ed Norton marathon with my friend Eliza. We're watching The Illusionist, 25th Hour, Primal Fear, and American History X. The only one I haven't seen is The Illusionist- any reviews? I trust anything with Ed Norton in it but I want to make sure it's worthy. We're taking this very seriously and only allowing two other people (at most) to join us. We might even interview them for a spot. I'm not kidding.
  

Ignorance is Bliss

Last night was a depressing night for my hockey life. All three teams lost. I was at the Bruins game with my older sister Liz and her friend Paula (who is unhealthily and hilariously obsessed with Patrice Bergeron). Despite the B's playing a game against a good divisional team (Buffalo), the place was far from packed. We moved down to seats in the corner, three rows back from the glass. The older, drunk couple behind us warned us that they were sniffing out seat-grubbers, but we managed to blend in well enough to stay there for the whole game. The woman asked us if we moved down to see the hot players more closely, and of course Paula confirmed that and started ranting about Patrice. Liz and I tried to convince them that we actually liked hockey and played ourselves, but just then Andrew Alberts skated by with an enormous black eye. They had to get a mop to clean up my drool, and my dignity. Am I the only one that finds hockey players that much more attractive when they look like they were hit with a crowbar? Pretty boys with twinkly eyes and pouty lips do nothing for me, but when I see a guy with missing teeth, black eyes, and blood trickling down his face, my heart skips a beat. Is this normal, or am I secretly sadistic? Whatever, it's amazing, whether it's weird or not.

With like a minute left in the second period, four people showed up with front-row tickets in front of us and kicked out this guy and his two sons, who were celebrating a birthday. These people clearly weren't hockey fans (the women were there to be watched, not to watch). The drunk woman behind us started a mini-fight with them while her drunker husband tried to get her to sit down. While the people disgusted me, they did have tickets. She was just drunk and belligerent. On that note, I have yet to go to a Boston sporting event without being surrounded by drunken, belligerent people. We really are the Athens of America, aren't we?

The Avs' game started at nine, so I caught the last two periods of it once I got home. It was one of those games where I kept thinking we were winning. They dominated so completely in the third period that I still find it strange that they lost. God damn Minnesota strangled them with defense. There was one good thing about the game (other than the fact that I keep thinking they won)- Marek Svatos scored! I love him, so this would be good news any time, but it's especially good news now. Anyone who watches the Avs has to be puzzled with Marek this year. Last year he awed me pretty much every game. He was the most dynamic player I've seen in a while. When he was on the ice, I couldn't help but watch him. That crazy thing he does with his feet was so adorable that I started doing it on the ice in practice when I got bored. But this year, he's not the same Marek Svatos. If he got the puck in the slot last year, he was money, no matter how many people were covering him. This year he's failed to bury point-blank chances. He just hasn't been himself. Part of me wonders if it has anything to do with his shoulder problems, but it seems unlikely that it's anything physical. Anyway, last weekend, I had a dream that he had an awesome game and was the Marek we know and love. He blew by people (mostly on his heels) and drilled home a puck in the slot. When I woke up I thought, "I'm so glad that Marek finally had a good game. He did everything he needed to do." Then reality set in. Last night was my dream- I swear. His goal was the goal from my dream and his game was the game from my dream. I could have cried. But damnit, they still lost.

The Oilers game confused me a little. There were times when they seemed dominant, and the one-goal deficit was miniscule, but there were even more times when I was shocked that we were only down by one and had little hope for a win. The end of the game was too emotionally exhausting to write about. It probably didn't help that CenterIce chose to broadcast the Vancouver station. It can really ruin a hockey game when you have to listen to the opposing announcers whine the whole time. I've had to mute the San Jose announcers more than once. Luckily, CenterIce favors Canadian stations and shows almost all of the Avs games on Altitude, which is my favorite broadcast after HNIC. Altitude does everything right. They show interviews in between every period, the announcers are likeable, and they don't try to get too fancy. In general, they make it easy to love the Avs, like a network should.

It depresses me when all three of my teams lose. A few weeks ago, my real-life team suffered a tough afternoon loss on a Saturday. I told my friends that I needed to stay in and watch hockey to unwind, or else I wouldn't sleep well (this is why they hate hockey). That night, not only did all three teams lose, but all three teams embarrassed themselves with awful losses. At least last night none of them openly sucked.

Tomorrow we're playing Lexington, who has been the dirtiest team around since youth hockey. They have one girl, #11, who's been wrecking people for that whole time, and last game she took down one of our freshmen. After the game I promised that I would devote our next meeting to hurting her. Being the Littlest Defenseman, this isn't as easy as it sounds. I'm normally a very calm person who avoids confrontations, but during games I get completely psychotic. I've tried to hit people before out of raging fury, and it doesn't work. This girl, though, deserves it more than anyone else. We'll see if I can pull it off.

Tonight's Games: none
Tomorrow's Games: 3:00 PM--Winchester vs. Lexington
3:00 PM--Avs vs. Oilers
8:30 PM--B's vs. Hurricanes