Low Tide, Nothing Doing

You know what they say, "boredom begets blog posts."

- Off-topic. Write this down: Fiction Family is worth your time.

- Hats off to the Crabb Shack. Joey Crabb pots 3 in last night's victory against Peoria, as the Wolves jockey for playoff positioning. Machacek & Lavallee with the remaining goals. My gut tells me that young Joseph was sent down more because of his contract flexibility than anything else, and it's good to see him contributing.

- All this technology's getting out of hand. Is that the real Alfie on Twitter? YOU make the call....

- Who's house? Gabby's house! Tarik El-Bashir examines the Caps winning home record, and the reasons why. Some quotage:

Winning consistently on home ice and making Verizon Center an unpleasant environment for opponents have long been among Boudreau's priorities. In his postgame news conferences, he often makes mention of an arena's "atmosphere" and how it played on the Capitals' emotions -- and ultimately affected the outcome of the game. After Tuesday's 5-2 win in front of a sparse crowd in New Jersey, for example, Boudreau said the subdued mood at Prudential Center negatively affected both teams but that it mostly dragged down the Devils...

"If there's no fans, there's not that energy," said Boudreau, who has a 42-11-4 record at home. "And if you're not winning, there's no fans. You can't have one without the other."

Hmm. Y'don't say. In all seriousness, I was expecting the Nasty Nest road trip to spark our guys a little more. Who wouldn't like 150 crazy fans following you to an opposing town and screaming like nutjobs? But what we got was... another shutout. Any feasable reason will be accepted.

- Something useful on TSN.com? The Eastern Conference Trade Dealine Playbook. For those (like myself) who will be in front of a computer hitting 'refresh' the whole of March 4.

- Something stupid on TSN.com? That's more like it... From the Canuckistani Ministry of Manufactured Propaganda:

"[Vincent Lecavalier is] not being traded today, he's not being traded tomorrow or anytime soon."
-- Tampa Bay Lightning GM Brian Lawton, Jan. 15

Look, I know how the GM-speak game works. But for some reason, I believe Lawton when he says he doesn't want to trade Vinnie. To me, that adds up to "It would literally give me a coronary to trade Lecavalier, but the right return could afford me a lot of asprin." The problem is, for Lawton to trade Vin, I think the return would have to be able to buy an asprin factory. So why is TSN making him the posterboy for their "Tradecent(e)r(e) '09" coverage?

EDIT: ...and that face on J-Bo? Priceless.

- Moment of Higher Culture. For us heathens, Mortimer Peacock with today's Moment of Higher Culture.