Postgame.

Mobileblog. Thank goodness for the lightning. 4-3. The seafood twins need a raise. Kovy's gone.

Why, Exactly, Is Sidney Crosby Hitting Boris In The Crotch?

From behind, no less?

I think it's safe to say everyone's favorite cherub-cheeked aw-shucks altarboy is not exactly as he appears to be. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone easier to hate than this wanker.


This is what I get for not watching the game.

For tomorrow, looks like Schneider's back, Kari's in, Pavs is down, X is out, and Lehman stays put. Does this all add up to a win against the more-hapless-than-us Bolts?

Stay tuned...

Off Topic, Part Two

So I thought when I woke up this morning, "I'm gonna drop a High Fideliy reference on the blog today. That'll be cool."

But I was beaten to the punch.

Being late to a party never bothered me none, and being that I want to forget the Thrashers for a little while, we'll see if this game catches on. It's caled Top 5. Name your top 5 “track 1’s” - the first track of a record (cd for the youngins), record name and artist.
In no order…

Top 5 Track 1(/Side 1's)’s

1. “ELO Kiddies”, Cheap Trick (1977)
2. “Teenage FBI”, Do The Collapse , Guided by Voices (1999)
3. “Thunder Road”, Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen (1975)
4. “No Action", This Year's Model, Elvis Costello (1978)
5. “So What”, Kind of Blue, Miles Davis (1959)

Good Lord.

Well, there's always Tampa.


Some good news did come last night. Finally, finally, FINALLY, Mats Sundin has figured out where he wants to work for the next, oh... four-and-a-half months. Now all that's left is the hand-wringing about the "under-performing Mats Sundin and the directionless 'Nucks" after an unceremonious first round playoff exit. Ah, but to dream...

I'm not a pro- or anti-fighting type, but I love me some Dennis Leary:

I don't like goons. But one of the great things about hockey is that, unlike anything else in life, if you're gonna be a jerk to my teammate, you're going to have to answer and you're going to have to answer right now in front of 18,000 people.

Freaking great.

While looking fo that Cam Neely/ESPN/"Why don't you kick my dog while you're here?" commericial (anyone got that, btw?) I found a sweet ad w/Kovy & Naslund. They really should air these around here...

This Merits A Response

Did you happen to read this? Did you catch this particularly telling passage?

“We just need to work, and we need to be consistent,” Kovalchuk said. “That’s the key, because we don’t have any superstars on this team. We have to be the hardest-working team on the ice every night. Then we’ve got a chance to win.”

Wait a second. Isn’t Kovalchuk a superstar?

“I have to win something [to become that],” he said.

This really needs to be addressed.

Recently, there have been a number of calls for Don Waddells... um... attention, at the very least. From the obvious, to the sublime, to the down-right "funny-because-it's-true," the message has been getting out publicly: Don Waddell has a no-confidence vote amongst the (even mildly) hockey-aware in Atlanta. That alone should stike one as an ominous sign. This isn't Toronto, Montreal, or even Columbus - according to Canuck media, we shouldn't even care about hockey, what with being NASCAR-obsessed cousin-marriers, and all.

My impression of the Waddell-Kovalchuk relationship has been thus: it seems Don is much more hands-on with Kovy than with any other player (and rightly so, I might add). Kovy maybe has Don's ear a little more than anyone else. From draft day forward, it has seemed that Kovy has been Don's number one priority. After all, what else would you with a potential franchise player? Hopefully, this little nugget gets through to the GM's office before too long, and nets us some kind of respectable gain. Let's hope Don wakes up in the middle of the night with the cold sweats, lingering remnants of a nightmare involving Kovy and a certain former #18 laughing as they trade SCF war stories wearing other teams' sweaters. Let's hope Don decides principles and doing a job right are more important than job security and stands up to the Atlanta Suck Group and demands a little more latitude.

Of course, this is all assuming quite a lot. This is assuming this whole mess is the result of an inept hockey-ignorant ownership group, and not an over-his-head GM floundering for anything that works. Yes, Bruce Levenson can be a pompous, arrogant, discourteous blowhard - but this mess is big enough for lots of blame to be tossed around. I've resisted saying this for quite sometime: Don Waddell is quite possibly a bigger Ringo than Ringo, and, on some level, he must know this. Yes, I know, he did come from a Detroit operation fresh off a Stanley Cup victory. Yes, I know he was picked to head this franchise instead of Brian Burke(!!!!1!). Yes, I know USA Hockey thinks very highly of him, placing him in very important positions of responsibility over the years.

So?

I like ribs alot...

Follow me here. I promise, this is going somewhere useful.

I like ribs alot. You don't? Well, then wings work too. If wings don't work for you either, you're clearly not a red-blooded North American, and should go back to eating whatever braised foie gras quiche you've got in front of you. Every time I eat ribs or wings, I can't help but make a gigantic freaking mess all over my hands. To some, this is a bad thing. To me, I just call it the cost of doing business. Anyway, point being, my tastbuds get this awesome explosion of BBQ goodness. My fingers, they get the residual mess. If you asked my fingers to descibe the flavor of the charred animal part I just consumed, they would be hard-pressed to give a coherent answer. They may mumble something about "this wing was a better wing than we had last year" or maybe some crap about a five-year rib, but nowhere, no how can it tell you how it tasted. What that means is my fingers can be right in the mix of things, looking like they're soaking in everything, but really be missing out on the most important part, the magic that makes the whole expreience worth it. Ergo, it's entirely possible that Don Waddell, even with his Detroit-system-Stanley-Cup-winning experience (consisting of One. Whole. Year.) is entirely clueless on how to build a Cup-contending franchise.

Yea, I just did that.

In conclusion, it's time for change in Blueland. Kovy knows it, the fans know it. It's time the organization knew it.

Pens Tonight

According to Helene Elliott @ the LA Times, the Kings need help in net.

No way! Really?


Hmm....


If only we had an extra goalie we could send them... maybe we could pick up a Jarret Stoll or an Oscar Moller or ANYTHING TO HELP US WIN....


Anyway, Cros & Co. at Phillips tonight. Anyone remember this?

Someone needs to make sure Letang remembers.

I'm looking at you, Eric Boulton.

Let's see more of the team we saw in Ottawa.

The Flower is back in net for the Pens, Taffe & Stone are up from trolling the Wyoming Valley Mall. Let's hope Stone is wearing clothes. Some of our guys might remember them from a small series of games last year.

Anyone know a good place in the GA400/GA20 area to get a Guinness and watch the game?

Let's make tomorrow a bad day for some bloggers.

Go Thrashers.