a little chippy

IT HAS BEGUN

2011-10-06T22:22:00.001-07:00

Boston Bruins banner raising screenshot, 10/6/2011, a photo by mod as hell on Flickr.

I liked how the last NHL season ended. (Uh, sorry to leave you like that!) And thus, how this one began, as I scrambled to find a working feed online at 6 pm Central time, as I begin my third season of NHL watching still cable-less. (But now with speakers on my computer. Seriously, I've been using it, what, 4 years, with only the sound that comes out minus speakers. Sometimes I'd use headphones, but it's nice not to be tethered to the computer.) I got to see this entire Philadelphia at Boston game (which did not end as I'd like) and all minus a few minutes of the Pittsburgh at Vancouver game (I liked that one a little better.)

I can now say I've posted every day of the NHL season. We'll see how long I keep this up. Though hockey is still far and away my favorite sport, I'm watching baseball with moderate enthusiasm now as well...hoping to see more soccer and rollerderby and football in 2011 too. I make no promises about what happens with this blog, but I like the IDEA of coming back...

GAME SEVEN GAME SEVEN GAME SEVEN

2011-06-15T19:21:00.000-07:00

I'm cautiously optimistic for the Bruins in this. Sorry I didn't get a pre-game post up, nor am I able to live-blog it, or even live-tweet it on my dormant @alittlechippy account. Nor did I do a proper goodbye-to-the-Stanley Cup for the Blackhawks for their last few hours as current champs (if not "defending" champs--I assume that ended when they were out of the playoffs). I'm just trying to enjoy the moment. And hopefully only a few more minutes of the game...

okay. GO BRUINS

2011-06-13T17:37:00.000-07:00

I'M NOT READY FOR HOCKEY SEASON TO BE OVER. Even if I've hardly written about it this year, even if I didn't do very much hockey-related travel this season (some pretty great trips though--well, if you follow me on social media, you saw that), even if--eek--I didn't leave a single comment on a single hockey blog all season.

I'm still caffeinated from the coffee in this photo, at Knockbox in Chicago's Humboldt Park (awesome overlooked place, so I'll mention them wherever. Grilled cheese served with applesauce! Lowest price on bottomless coffee of indie places I know!) and I've been wearing my Boston Bruins bag (which I bought in the 2009-10 season, mind you) around town. I wish I could be in Boston watching Game 6 tonight, even just at a bar. Again, GO BRUINS (and man, am I sorry I didn't see the team this year).

a city on edge...

2011-04-26T19:07:00.001-07:00

Picasso sculpture with Blackhawks helmet, a photo by katherine of chicago on Flickr.

...AND THAT CITY IS VANCOUVER! Heh, I'm a little excited the Blackhawks managed to pull off the Easter Sunday Game 6 win against the Canucks and force Game 7 (or "a decisive Game 7!" as every report seems to need to say).

Oh, that was amazing. People have no reason to believe me on this (except that I never lie) but I got a feeling well into the overtime of that game that Ben Smith could be the hero with the game-winning goal, and quite unexpectedly to nearly everyone, he was.

Just a few minutes after the game, my Boston-area friend who took me to my first-ever hockey game (Blackhawks) called and we chatted about the playoffs so far. Twenty-some minutes about sports and then he mentioned a family member's wedding at the end of the call. Heh. It's been an exciting few days.

Obviously I'd LOVE for the Hawks to win (almost more to erase the Bruins' playoff choke of 2010 as the most recent, than for them to continue, as I wasn't honestly expecting them to go very far in the playoffs) but I am genuinely okay if they don't. Playing well, not getting swept, giving us an incredibly entertaining series, and putting fear into Vancouver (and much of Canada, even) were great; a win would be gravy at this point.

(I took this photo Saturday, before Game 6, since that could have been the end. It wound up prominently placed in a Puck Daddy post today! Which is nice, as I haven't even tried to have anything on any other sports blogs anywhere all year.)

a note

2011-04-24T18:52:00.000-07:00

First I was too busy/lazy to write about the beginning of the 2011 NHL playoffs, then Chicago fell behind 3-0 and it was too depressing, then every game INCLUDING THE ONE TONIGHT became an elimination game and I'm too nervous to say anything. If the season ends I'll be forced to write a real piece! And spend the rest of the playoffs finally posting my photos from the past year! I'm not ready! But I had to say something! Also, Happy Easter if you celebrate it! I wish I had a lot of candy right now but I don't but for one reason or another I'll be getting a lot of candy on clearance tomorrow!

Blackhawks at Bruins 2011

2011-03-29T18:48:00.000-07:00

It's the one scheduled game of the season between my two favorite NHL teams. I saw both of their games against each other last season, both Blackhawks wins. I've been following these teams all year even if I've barely blogged it, and not been too vocal on Twitter so I don't scare off my non-sports followers. (The @alittlechippy account will be back when I get a new password, I guess.) I've been a lot more pleased with how the Bruins have been this year, but still root more for the Blackhawks, since I live in Chicago and all. Theoretically I was extremely excited for tonight, but alas, didn't feel up to doing a preview. Watching it, I'm not sure I want to say anything about the game.

But this is the first time I've actually signed into Blogger to post here since, oh, late spring 2010, (I just restarted my other blog again and am updating it; can't imagine how out-of-date the blogroll here is) so there's a photo. Yes, it's kind of St. Patrick's-esque and it's late March, but I took it after St. Patrick's, a store window in downtown Winnetka (north suburban Chicago). It's a butcher shop or deli or something; have no idea what that can of "Digestive" is!

I'll be around in some form for the NHL (and other league) playoffs. Too much stuff not to post. Computer issues are better, but I need to reinstall my scanner so I can post cool weird things again.

obligatory Valentine's post

2011-02-14T21:01:00.001-08:00

dollar store Valentines
Originally uploaded by mod as hell

Well, I missed a sports-themed Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, etc. so why bother with this? Just to actually post twice in the span of one week again. And I don't THINK I used this photo last year, though I did use of close-up of these hearts. Didn't feel like going out and finding/buying anything new, either.

The less I say about actual Valentine's, the better. (Or I'll be saying in an ill-advised personal piece on my other blog.) Hope any readers I still have had a good day. At any rate, half-price candy TOMORROW!

Happy...uh...February 2011

2011-02-08T08:12:00.001-08:00

sad bike, Humboldt Park, post-2011 Blizzard edition
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

So I missed the whole blog-every-day-in-November thing, I missed noting any of the winter holidays including the New Year. And um, I've missed reading all your blogs, aside from links through Twitter. I'm still not "back" though, as I've gotten my Mac overhauled/fixed just to discover I had external drive issues and it's still a mess and I still have thousands of photos I haven't been able to upload yet and...I'm tired of discussing that. More importantly, there's been a lot of personal stuff outside the scope of what I'd try to discuss on a relatively lighthearted sports blog. But maybe on the other blog (City of Destiny) I've neglected!

Chicago sports have been a little less than inspiring recently, what with what happened to the Bears (2010-11 was the first time I ever followed the NFL somewhat regularly. Hey, I should have blogged that! I even went to a game), and the Blackhawks' struggles, and even junior hockey's Chicago Steel, who yesterday dropped their 22nd straight game (no wins since Nov. 20). Same day as the Cleveland Cavaliers lost their 25th straight (no wins since Dec. 18), setting a new NBA record. As lousy as some things have been for me recently, at least I haven't done THAT.

It's clear I'm not cut out, at least this hockey season, to do a daily or otherwise frequent sports blog covering the season of any specific team or league. I've relied on Twitter in its original concept as a microblogging site, especially since I finally got a smartphone as a Christmas gift and can at last post during my adventures. But I hope to be back here with random collectibles, photoessays of my sports trips (which have continued this year), goofy screenshots, and the occasional rant.

Oh, this photo--did you hear Chicago got a lot of snow last week? At least my bike is in a safer place than this one...

Rough sports attract boys

2010-11-02T22:08:00.001-07:00

page 92, boys play football: Talking With Your Child (Woman Alive, 1974)
Originally uploaded by mod as hell

NaBloPoMo day 2! I fell asleep listening to election returns/while restarting my computer and missing the end of a tied Canucks-Oilers game (Canucks won), so actual writing was ruled out, so I grabbed one of the limited sports-related things I've posted on this Flickr account and as far as I remember not posted here before.

From the awesome "Woman Alive" series of 1970s books--click through to the whole set if you really want to waste some time.

Whoo-hoo! I'm back! Again! Sort of!

2010-11-01T22:18:00.001-07:00

ABC Fun Fit with Mary Lou Retton
Originally uploaded by mod as hell

All right, so if you don't know, there's this thing called NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. I don't write fiction (no, not even creepy hockey fanfiction) but I signed up for it anyway, to see if I can make stuff up, or just novelize real events, or flat-out write memoir and be counted as a NaNoWriMo "rebel." I haven't started yet...I won't feel guilty if I don't make it.

I WILL feel guilty if I don't succeed in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), here and on my other blog, City of Destiny. Today, day 1, I'm starting slow with the blogging-random-crap-from-Flickr (hey, this one is sports-related, right?) but when I get my long-suffering computer going right again, it's back to the stuff a few people used to read. You know, about hockey...Blackhawks, Bruins, Wolves, etc. And other sports (hey, how about San Francisco winning their first World Series!). I've spent the start of the NHL/other hockey season wondering what to write as my first post (is it too late for season predictions?, my goals for the year, etc.?). Lots of cool things planned, plus a site redesign and drastic changes to the blogroll/links.

Oh yeah, it's also my BLOG ANNIVERSARY! Er, last Friday. And yes, it's one year, minus four months of inactivity. Many thanks to everyone who's supported me over these months (even if I feel like I've fallen off the face of the earth now...). My first year as a real sports fan, and sports blogger, was a rather eventful one. Which I will tell you about someday...

(Mary Lou Retton image is from my wildly popular set of 1980s Barbie Magazine scans on Flickr.)

OOPS.

2010-09-22T20:21:00.001-07:00

Cubs/Blackhawks decorated barrel, LaGrange, IL
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

I didn't mean to vanish for the entire summer (I'm writing this where it's still technically summer for a little bit more, the Central time zone). Especially not in the middle of a game! Every Monday (and yes now it's Wednesday) I've thought about the last Monday I wrote here, and wondered what brief "Sorry I've been away" message I could post and what silly blogged-from-Flickr image I'd use because I'm still having lots of unfixed computer problems (which I'd better fix before I try to watch multiple hockey games online).

Anyway, I've been away and now have not just much of last year's hockey season and postseason but a summer's worth of hockey news AND multiple other sports to discuss--in fact, I was in person at an amazing sporting event just last night!

How soon I'll get all that up, we'll see, but expect some sort of regular posting here again...and a new look/new tagline/new blogroll. In the meantime, encouragement to get this going again wouldn't hurt, hint hint...ahh, never mind, that didn't work the last time I tried it in the spring. (But my gmail is kofchicago, as is my Twitter. Which is where I've been all this time...)

IT'S ALMOST OVER

2010-06-14T18:01:00.000-07:00

Barring a miraculous comeback, the 2009-10 hockey season will end in 20 minutes (or 20 minutes that's actually 40-some minutes), with the Calder Cup game on right now. Hershey Bears up 3-0 in the game and 3-2 in the series. After this...I have no excuse (except, you know, personal and computer problems I've alluded to scores of times) not to catch up on my hockey coverage, go through the 1000s and 1000s of screenshots and photos and post the highlights this summer. Wow. It's really ending. The first season I've truly paid attention to any sport. Thanks for reading this, your support, etc. etc.

"Blawkhawks," part 2

2010-06-13T10:22:00.000-07:00

Go to Puck Daddy today! Go there NOW! Okay, at least to this story. Man, I was already excited that this morning @wyshynski started following me back on Twitter (and a couple days after Richard Roeper tweeted at me...there was a misunderstanding. More on this later!), and I thought that photo might get linked in a Puck Headlines roundup, but it got its own piece. (To bring out the "slow news day?" comments...uh, well, it IS Sunday.)

I had to reset my password to sign in (because I comment there so infrequently), so I could say a little about the photo. Not gonna lie, all hockey season I felt like getting linked on Puck Daddy would make me feel like I was a "real" blogger. I don't think it ever happened (someone would have told me, right? even though no one's said anything about this to me yet)...till now! Why I need attention from famous (or at least Internet-famous) men to feel "validated" here is a fair question of its own but never mind that now...

Been feeling overwhelmed/depressed lately ("why haven't I seen the Cup at a bar yet?" "why didn't I get ANY happy/congratulatory text messages or emails after the win?" etc.) but this perks me up a bit, I'll admit. I'm finally in the mood to get my content of the past few days up, but today I've got to nerd it up at the Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago, the one annual festival here I never, ever miss...

congratulations!

2010-06-11T23:43:00.001-07:00

mistakes were made, Macy's, Chicago Loop
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

Well, this about says it all. Wait, no it doesn't, unless you're trying to make FUN of Chicago and say we don't deserve a Cup because our most famous institutions (the Macy's, i.e. Marshall Field's, flagship store in the Loop) can't, uh, get the name of the winning team right. Look, we're not used to it, okay?

Note: this mistake was on two or three doors on this side facing Wabash Ave. I didn't check the rest of the store as I had a little victory parade to go to...rest of the photos later. Yeah, I've been home for hours but I still feel exhausted and overheated and emotional about all this...seeing the Stanley Cup in person for the first time ever. Then being too tired/antisocial to go chase it around Chicago bars it might be at...

it's Blackhawks Day in Chicago! (pt. 1)

2010-06-11T07:06:00.000-07:00

Still no time to blog. VICTORY PARADE TO GO TO

...Okay, not the first sports victory parade/rally I've seen in Chicago. But the first I've ever been to for MY team!

(pt. 1 implies I'll do pt. 2 with the rally photos soon, though maybe I should do the Wednesday night photos first. and the Thursday photos. arrghhhhh. anyway, see what I can do tonight if I'm at home watching the Calder Cup and the World Cup and listening to the WGN radio rebroadcast of Game 6 at 9 pm)

this. THIS

2010-06-10T07:55:00.000-07:00

THIS HAPPENED

LET'S GO HAWKS

2010-06-09T17:17:00.001-07:00

let's go
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

How am I supposed to blog at a time like this?!!! Well, I won't, because my thinking was if I knock myself out putting up a big pre-game, what-this-blog-and-team-and-season-and-hockey-mean-to-me post, the Blackhawks won't win Game 6. So, superstition or laziness means I'll just post this sign I photographed in the Wicker Park neighborhood a few hours before the game...

uh, not necessary, Tribune

2010-06-08T13:07:00.000-07:00

You can probably tell from recent posts I'm operating on a short fuse, and I was already feeling lousy today before the Chicago Tribune's attempt at humor/trash-talk of the Philadelphia Flyers turned up. I'll just post the shot showing it and what it's kind of ripping off (not that it was original then either, I imagine):

(screenshot of picture on Twitter, to give proper credit)

I don't mind seeing Pronger looking silly, or trying to taunt him, that's for sure. It's that I thought this was unfunny sexist bullshit in the Post example, and I don't need to see Chicago papers resorting to it. (Also, looking like you're ripping off the Post is somewhere far below scraping the bottom of the barrel).

I'd say "surprisingly" if it was but it's not, it's depressingly predictable--I saw lots of female sports fans passing this around with amusement on Twitter today (lots of male ones too, of course). (And a few men and women critiquing it, but none from Chicago. Oh good, not only do I dislike this, I get to have a "no one here understands me!" moment, too.) Why so few women seem to mind the women/women athletes = inferior implication of so much trash talk in sports (and why so many men, many/most of whom presumably like the company of women, participate in it) is an eternal mystery to me, and the subject of multiple unwritten posts. I'll get to it eventually. Just wanted to post this while it's "news."

In other OH MY GOD IS IT A SLOW NEWS DAY IN HOCKEY "news," this screengrab from NHL.com in the past hour:

ONE! finally

2010-06-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

Meaning more, finally posting about "one game needed for the Blackhawks to win the Cup," not that it's finally down to one game. I had about five minutes in the past week or so when the malaise keeping me from wanting to blog lifted, and it was soon after Sunday night's game...but Blogger was down (at least for the Midwest, it turned out) then...and for the next 18 or so hours (!!!!). So by the time it came back...not feeling it. (Sorry, I should keep my transparent attempts at getting encouragement to keep this blog going off on the blog and on Twitter where they belong. And are completely unsuccessful. But, you know, people, by all means keep tweeting on and on about how many views YOUR blog gets...) Anyway, Sunday was extremely exciting, and I've finally gotten past my resentment at not being able to go to Finals games into joy at the Blackhawks' success. (Yes, what a hero!)

Hmmm...I don't have any good "One"-related pun headlines handy. Still working on a feature about some of the whoppers the Chicago papers have come up with...but I've been remiss in not featuring According Twomey's "Blackhawks Numerology" series: here's the entry for One.

The other big sports news Sunday, at least to me, was @eyebleaf (as I know him on Twitter, where I wish I'd given him Chicago and Greyhound and Megabus tips) getting to the 30th major league ballpark in his #TBRTOAL project (The Baseball Road Trip of a Lifetime)--visiting all 30 in 60 days. Seattle's was last, as noted on his blog. So much for me following it along on here...but he hasn't written up all the entries for his Stealing Home series at the Globe and Mail, so I've got time to relate it to my own ballpark adventures (14 MLB parks in two years, mostly by myself).

quick note I'll delete later

2010-06-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

If you wind up doing nothing tonight, as I might despite multiple sports and non-sports things to go to in Chicago, I've learned you can find AHL Calder Cup games online (in the usual places I find to get major league sports feeds online). Just saying. Game is a 6 pm Central, so I'd miss a bunch since I'm actually going out for a little bit. Game 1 was a surprise and this could be an exciting series to watch.

Still feeling incredibly depressed about doing this blog, and this has nothing to do with the Blackhawks losing their past two SCF games (sure, that doesn't help, but I wasn't feeling up to it during the Sharks series either). Ugh, I hate asking for encouragement/help (i.e., email. I'd say phone calls but the friends I talk to on the phone don't read this blog).

silly headlines (Chicago newspaper edition)

2010-06-02T23:42:00.000-07:00

As one of the few American cities to still have two daily newspapers, Chicagoans are treated to TWICE the chances for silly sports headlines. At first I thought these were the same paper, because I've often mixed them up after the Tribune partially switched to the Sun-Times' tabloid format. But nope, they BOTH did it. Here, actual photos of actual newspapers I bought!

After game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals:

Not just a groaner, but he's, uh, SLOVAKIAN. Sure, maybe it was one country when he was born there, but you're supposed to say Czech Republic or Slovakia now, right?

After game 2:

I haven't seen puns like this since NHL.com during the Olympics (did I post much then? bet I have some extras I didn't use). Maybe the recent world championships had some too. I can accept it when the competition is between different countries, but it seems extra-silly during NHL playoffs.

Oh well, the Chicago newspapers just aren't used to having to write THIS much about hockey, are they? Today was the latest date the Chicago Blackhawks have ever played.

I don't know if the papers will have anything good for game 3, but the postgame from NHL.com:

Did I post a Giroux one already? I know they have fun with Leighton, too.

before the first-ever Stanley Cup Final game, United Center

2010-06-01T13:53:00.000-07:00

I let my disappointment at not being able to go to a Final round Blackhawks game, after dozens of regular season and playoff games, kind of keep me from participating in hockey blogging much last week. But I wouldn't let it stop me from going by the United Center Saturday evening, before the 7 pm game. The building opened extra-early, at 5. I made it there after 5:30 and stayed for a few minutes, then got two buses back to get home before the game. The sunlight was harsh (some 90 degree weather last weekend) so these aren't quite what I wanted, but they're historic and all, right? The first Stanley Cup game played and won in this building, and Chicago's first SCF win in 37 years.

I took a photo of this sign before every game I attended. (All the UC signs say "Home of the Bulls." I'm guessing we'll see at least one "Home of the Blackhawks" next year.)

If people say "meet at the statue," this is usually the one they mean:

First Flyers fan sighting (there was a taunt about giving his sister her shirt back) (not by me):

You shouldn't judge people on appearances. Unless it's these three--then go right ahead:

I usually enter on this side because my tickets were usually through TicketExchange. Sam from Second City Hockey sells The Committed Indian bulletin nearby. I said hi (nice beard!) and bought a copy--not the first time I've gotten one for a game I couldn't attend.

Couldn't resist sneaking this shot on the Damen bus north, even if with her hair and Kane jersey she probably (right or wrong) fits the stereotype of a Chicago "bandwagon" fan. Whatever, I've seen a lot of people who aren't stereotypical hockey fans or bandwagon fans...I just can't always get a quick photo of them!

I didn't go before yesterday's game; I wanted to run some errands and besides, Chicago was cloudy and rainy for nearly all of Memorial Day. (Until I was out running errands in a hoodie and the sun came out and it went up to 75 and humid.) I saw many people online refer to a pregame nap; well, I had a pregame ritual of taking photos of West Side/Oak Park vacant storefronts and shopping at a Mexican grocery, instead. The sun came out right before the Flyers-Blackhawks game...how ridiculously symbolic. (Er, for the home team.)

Note: the updated version of the post before this one still holds. I figured I could post something though, and I wanted to at least blog before I went to my next sporting event. Tonight's my first White Sox game of the year, and somewhat incredibly my first night baseball game in Chicago.

Stanley Cup Final game 1: WOW.

2010-05-29T21:32:00.000-07:00

WOW. That is all for right now--I've got photos (not, not taken at the game, of course) and more, but I figured I should go out briefly, but post something technically on the actual day that the Blackhawks won the first Stanley Cup game played in the United Center (I knew that, that's why I had to take photos beforehand) and their first Stanley Cup Final win in my lifetime (last was 1973...somehow I didn't think of this before the game).

I didn't hear any cheering erupt in my neighborhood (or see any Blackhawks gear there today--strange, since I saw four jerseys in the previous week), so I want to find a place where more people care...

edited to add: was in Wicker Park (main intersection with lots of bars) for literally five minutes. If you're not drunk, that's more than enough time to spend there on a Saturday night. Also, not really that many people in Hawks clothes around.

**********

edited to add, two. I almost wanted to post instead of the above: I wish I'd picked a better time (than the hugely exciting and historic playoffs of my favorite team) to be hit with crippling depression. Uh, yeah. Just can't get much of anything done these days (except for a successful story and literary reading for my non-sports work). Computer trouble (still!) is a big part of it, but I haven't had enough enthusiasm for this blog (or much of anything, besides reading) recently. Besides a core group of supporters (thanks!) I'm not sure who reads this thing or why I'm writing it. I know I'm just supposed to be doing this because I like it, not to get certain approval, but, well, I wish I liked it more now. We'll see...

tickets! (no of course I don't have any)

2010-05-26T22:23:00.000-07:00

Yeah, no luck getting tickets to Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Upper-level seats were $500-ish on TicketExchange after the conference win Sunday and still are. I doubt other ticket services are much better, and Craigslist is exceedingly strange: a mix of very expensive tickets with $100-120-ish ones. If anyone legitimately can buy those, I'd go in for one, but I'm not sure what to believe on CL...especially since I saw Hawks vs Sharks tickets still listed after the series sweep on Sunday...and some on Monday...and some on Tuesday. A few minutes ago, I found this:

Wait, someone had to write out "laugh out loud"?!

Anyway, it's not looking too hopeful. I'm acclimating myself to the possibility of not getting to games 1 OR 2. (Doesn't help that I have to hear about someone who doesn't even have the Hawks as their #1 team, who's getting to fly here from Canada and see both Game 1 & 2, in the 100 level, while bloggers who've blogged about the Blackhawks dozens, hundreds of times this year can't get into the game. [And they're not a journalist or celebrity.] But oh well, I should have put aside money for finals tickets every time I was going to a regular-season game...) I'd totally be up for a ride to Philadelphia if anyone was driving...and if tickets were easier to get there, which I'm guessing they're not.

*****

If anyone wants to do a favor and be an amazing friend who'll get, I don't know, free advertising on this blog or a free place to stay on Chicago visits or homemade dinner--I need someone to DVR the games (or burn copies of DVRs). Still no NBC, still no functioning TV/DVR, and, well, can't buy a new one right now for some reason. I have ways to watch the games, of course, but I'd rather not wait until the Stanley Cup 2010 box set comes out (wait, do they make SCF box sets?). It's gnawing at me to think of all the apathetic Chicagoans (and there are some...I may have gotten a little cranky at someone on a social network about this) who have the ability to watch and record the games but won't, when I want to, and can't.

*****

I'm actually in a much better mood than this post indicates, because hey! I've signed back into Blogger again and can upload things. I'd be posting epic posts catching up on the weekend but I'm just posting this quickly in the midst of writing my story for this event in Chicago Friday which I've plastered all over the internet multiple times, but not on this blog yet. My first literary reading (and I call it "performing") in almost FIVE YEARS! I hope to get back into reading and even hosting an event or two (hmm, has anyone ever done a hockey blogger literary show? Maybe in Canada?) before long...

hastily made Chicago-Philadelphia preview

2010-05-24T21:39:00.001-07:00

end of the Broad Street Line, Philadelphia
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

Or not a preview (I'm afraid to make predictions, and I leave the previews to the experts. Oh, and I've got till Saturday anyway) so much as a quick reaction to the Philadelphia Flyers winning the Eastern Conference Finals tonight, in Philly. I was rooting more for Montreal to make it--partly for an Original Six SCF matchup (the last was Canadiens-Rangers in 1979), partly for the Blackhawks to avenge some SCF losses of the past, partly because I thought the Habs were easier to beat. But their Cinderella run finally ended, and now we've got the Flyers in the finals for the first time since 1997. And both teams have a large percentage of fans who weren't alive the last time their team won the Cup.

And of course the horror we should never, ever forget--THE FLYERS ARE ONLY IN THE PLAYOFFS AT ALL BECAUSE OF A SHOOTOUT ON THE LAST DAY OF THE REGULAR SEASON. AND NOW THEY'RE IN THE STANLEY CUP FINALS. That's reason enough for any non-partisan hockey fan to root for the Blackhawks,

By the way--posting from Flickr again (I knew I had an obnoxiously orange Philly photo somewhere!) rather than signing into Blogger because I need to take care of some computer stuff before I risk my computer freezing and losing things again. Also, wish I hadn't written such a negative piece yesterday, although it still hurts that I couldn't get to that game, and I can't quite get past it unless I get to a Stanley Cup game. Maybe. I did wake up feeling great about the Blackhawks but still lousy personally--won't dwell on that here. A few more thoughts:

As someone with nowhere to be tomorrow morning, I was REALLY hoping for tonight's game to go to, I don't, know, quadruple overtime? But Flyers had to have a 3-2 lead and score an empty-netter at the end...just like Chicago.

It was sad to realize that this is the last game of the NHL season where I didn't really care who won. From now on, every game will be too stressful to truly enjoy. (As with some things I said yesterday...yeah, 28 other fanbases wish they had this "problem.")

Seriously, STFU about the Hossa "curse," people! If you need something else to throw at Chicago fans, how about that Chicago sold Stanley Cup finals tickets before even the second round was over...and tonight it looked like Philadelphia SCF tickets weren't even for sale yet. Hubris! That's as bad as showing up to Game 4 against the Sharks with brooms...oh, wait.

Next year, I'm rooting for the SCF to be my team versus whichever team has the most apathetic fanbase, and is located on a Megabus/Greyhound route. (Go Atlanta!) Because yeah, it's probably cheaper to travel to another city than to try to buy tickets in Chicago (or Boston).

Yes, I desperately want to go to Game 1 (or any, but especially Game 1), if there's any possible way to get into the building for under $200. Because I hate that I saw two terrible playoff games, and missed Sunday's. And that I've put so much effort into this blog all year, and...But I think longtime fans deserve to see these games MUCH more than a relative newcomer like me does. Unfortunately it's not about who's deserving, it's who has the ridiculous amount of money for tickets. Those longtime fans would need to have been putting away money since the last Cup win...

Honestly, 99% of my anger and resentment will be going towards Chicago fans who can get into games. Any left over goes towards the Flyers and their fans.

I think we're going to have a good Chicago-Philadelphia mayoral food-bet-thing (better than Vancouver's, anyway). A Flyers fan asked what Chicago's equivalent to Tastykakes is, and I'm still pondering that (not just any Chicago food, but something "sweet" and/or "packaged")...

Stanley Cup Finals! (from a sore winner)

2010-05-23T17:21:00.001-07:00

after the game
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

Yes, the Chicago Blackhawks have made it to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1992! With an improbable (at least to all the people who said Blackhawks or Sharks in 7) 4-game sweep over the San Jose Sharks! (Who did not "choke" in the playoffs--c'mon, the Hawks games were close, and they nearly swept the Red Wings--but jokes about Joe Pavelski and Joe Thornton's underperformance in this series are fair game). THE ONLY SWEEP OF THE 2010 PLAYOFFS!

And since I last posted, the Cincinnati Cyclones won the ECHL Kelly Cup after an incredible playoff run! And the AHL playoffs--well, aren't going quite how I'd like.

But...uh, I'm so negative about so many things right now I shouldn't post at all (I just thought I should get something up quickly). The two Blackhawks playoffs games I went to, one in each of the first rounds, were absolutely horrible. I didn't know if I'd make it to this round but then a ticket opportunity seemed to come up. I spent the week thinking I was going and then found out last-minute (well, too late time and money-wise to try to get another ticket) that I DIDN'T have the ticket. I was really hurt and angry. I definitely would have gone to Cincinnati for (what turned out to be) the Kelly Cup game if I'd known I'd wouldn't be going to Blackhawks. (Well, I maybe could have anyway, but I felt a little tired and I didn't think the weather there was good enough for a daytrip.)

Ending up seeing neither game (on top of a really horrible week personally, and I keep thinking I might get a little consolation if I post things like that on Twitter, but I don't) kind of made me the bitterest person on earth today. Not gonna lie, if I couldn't be at the United Center, I was hoping for a loss. I suppose this makes me a terrible person and bad sports fan, but it is what it is. (Oh, and still no NBC reception at home so I couldn't record the game either.)

I'm grudgingly starting to feel happy about the win, combined with hopelessness at whether I can get to a Stanley Cup game. After blogging about hockey nearly every day for over six months, after attending lots of home games and traveling to see the Blackhawks in five other cities, I don't know if I can get to a game. I guess I shouldn't worry about that now. I know, I know, fans of 27 other teams would love to be having this dilemma right now...

The hate the Blackhawks are starting to draw (from other than the few typical rivals) is starting to get to me (seriously, what is up with some of the Penguins fans?!), and the Marian Hossa curse jokes were tedious months ago. That's when to get off the Internet for a while, I suppose...so I will.

Oh, and the reason this has a nonsensical photo blogged from Flickr (though it is from my first Blackhawks game at the United Center) is because every time I've signed into Blogger and tried to upload this weekend, the computer has frozen and I've had to shut it off and lose stuff. I tried to get a Chicago Tribune typo posted right after the Friday game, no luck. I'll try again later. If anything, my computer is worse now than it was before I got it "fixed" weeks ago.

fun with translations, playoffs edition

2010-05-20T23:23:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of intentional sports humor out there on the Internet, and I'm trying to keep up with favorites like Down Goes Brown, The Heckler, Intent to Blow, etc. (linked on the sidebar, okay?), but I stumbled across a few other things Thursday...

I. Great Moments in Canadian Sports Journalism

Toronto sports reporter Damien Cox's tweet below:

linked to this; it was passed around on Twitter with "his best column ever"-type comments. Ooops!

II. Here are the darkest hour of the playoff suck

Windy City Hockey has been back for the playoffs and posted this great bit recently, When Translation Goes Horribly Right, on Googling the Finnish word for hockey (jaakiekko) and "Antti Niemi" and then Google-translating the Finnish articles back into English. Producing amusing results, like the piece he linked on the Blackhawks-Sharks series mentioning "evil Nabokov." Of course I had to try it...

The story below was not the only one translating San Jose Sharks into "San Jose State." That is a real school with a hockey team, but...Also, does "goalie" translates to "paint" somehow? Please click on these (you'll find the title I used--I'm not sure what it was supposed to say).

So, "Vancouver did not win even once kotihallissaan" and "we were unable to perform swing at home."

Also, "Antti Niemi was shot in black and blue"; and re: injured Canuck Sami Salo, "Quality to injury ounasteltiin everything from testicular crushed."

These are nice too:

Now, I've tried fun-with-translation before, but it's just been going to the French version of the official Canadiens website, translating it into English, and comparing it to the English version. It's amusing on more of a clumsy-wording level, not a "what the hell were they trying to say?" level. I tried it today but didn't get much...except for a wholly unnecessary translation:

III. Green!

This new "Green League" stuff debuted on NHL.com today (or maybe yesterday). Not actually funny, and I'm glad they're doing whatever it is they're doing...but I wondered, is this background supposed to give the feel of reading a website on recycled paper? Or maybe it's just me, I'm no design expert. (Also, no real reason for that photo--I'd rather see "Niedermayer's electric car" that's mentioned!)

news of the minors: podcast, Oklahoma City Barons, etc.

2010-05-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

So, of course I'm following the ECHL finals and AHL conference playoffs (no sweeps this round, and curiously, two matchups that feature Montreal vs Dallas affiliates [Cincinnati vs Idaho, Hamilton vs Texas]). And doing a not-so-good job of following the other minor leagues (I do know the Fort Wayne Komets of the IHL won their third consecutive Turner Cup. Congrats to them, but now I'm even more disappointed that Indiana is the only Midwestern/Great Lakes state I didn't see a hockey game in this season).

And yesterday I put in a brief appearance on The Rink Podcast (with my phone acting up a little) to talk Chicago Wolves and other mostly non-NHL stuff. This show is by @Tapeleg, of the blog Jerseys and Hockey Love, which I've followed for a while because it's by someone who likes hockey road trips and minor leagues. Other guests discuss Predators and Bruins.

Yesterday was also the day the Amarillo Gorillas ceased operations in the Central Hockey League. I heard via hockeyfights.com. They had been in the CHL since 2002, but Amarillo, TX has had minor league teams since 1996. (I've never seen teams in these leagues; I definitely want at least one trip to Southern hockey markets next season.) Quickly grabbed the shot above--by the way, does anyone archive websites of defunct sports teams?

In happier news, yesterday Oklahoma City announced the name, logo, and jersey designs for their new AHL team (and Edmonton Oilers affilate--formerly it was Springfield): the Oklahoma City Barons. The name wasn't a well-kept secret, though their were rumors of oths. I've kept up via @puckchk (a Blackhawks fan in OKC) on Twitter. Here's the team's new official Twitter. I got all these within an hour or so of the press conference:

Someone immediately went to the new Facebook page to express their unhappiness with the name; this is just...wow. (By the way, if you see the "People Like This"? I'm pretty sure FB didn't use to post full names when you'd click on a page without being signed in. One of the many annoying changes to the site; I'd prefer not to post strangers' full names here.)

Presumably OKC will be division rivals of the Chicago-area and Texas teams. Checking my Flickr stats yesterday, I noticed views from an OKC board, linking to one of my Wolves photos (I've really got to get more of my minor league shots up. And my NHL ones too!)

The Barons logo was not on theahl.com yet; here's their banner with the 29 teams that operated in the 2009-10 season. There'll be other changes (Charlotte, and I'm still not clear on the Albany/Lowell/Devils affiliate situation) before long.

playoff headlines, finally

2010-05-18T23:46:00.000-07:00

I have a backlog of these from the entire NHL playoffs (and possibly a few from the regular season). Stupid computer trouble tonight sapped my energy to write an essay I needed to, so just this quick post for now. A nice thing about these unpredictable playoffs--new stars have emerged! AND NEW PUNS!

Two consecutive playoff shutouts for the Flyers' Michael Leighton. Flyers up 2-0 over Canadiens. And now have a ridiculous 13 unanswered goal streak. This was the headline after the first game, pointed out to me by @antistrophe on Twitter (from the Flyers' website, not the NHL.com front page--I'd been forgetting to check team sites):

Meanwhile, another fantastic Blackhawks win to put them up 2-0 over Sharks--but no amusing headlines, dammit! I'll just have to be content with their tying the NHL record for most consecutive playoff road wins (7), and setting a new franchise record with that.

brief pointless announcement

2010-05-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

Okay, there's some juicy news and debates and such going on in hockey right now I've got to address, and I've found some new things to add to the blogroll, but I'm just popping in from my isolation for this terribly self-referential item:

No, I haven't created an all-sports Twitter account (sorry, non-sports-fan followers of @kofchicago), I just thought I should take @alittlechippy as a screenname. Because IT DIDN'T OCCUR TO ME TO DO SO TILL I'D DONE A BLOG OF THAT NAME FOR OVER SIX MONTHS. Yup, feeling more than a little stupid about that. Also...a little hurt that no one else tried to get the name. Just think, any of my readers could have taken it and sold it to me at a profit (Twitter is free so I'm not sure "profit" is the correct term there).

Anyway, I haven't wanted to put a hockey background on my main account, much less change my name to a Blackhawks/hockey-specific name like some people I follow are doing now. So it was fun to create another account. I think I'm going to use it to list (but not follow) all the good sports-related Twitter accounts I can find, post links to blog entries and to a sports-related photo of the day (from my Flickr account, most likely.) Also, it'd be a fun place to post a hockey card or other scan of the day...those Hockey Scouting Reports I have from twenty years ago need to go somewhere. Add it if you want a quick way to keep up with what I'm doing (I haven't gotten around to a Facebook fan page for A Little Chippy, but given the Facebook exodus right now I'm not sure I want to bother), but I use @kofchicago to actually interact (i.e. that's where I'd rather follow people).

History Will Be--OH EFF YOU

2010-05-14T20:31:00.000-07:00

Not much to say now. My beer-of-cautious-optimism which became my beer-of-triumph is now my beer-of-shame-and-regret. (Er, it's just one large beer, which I didn't open till after the game. Let me get back to it.) I've had a post-game phone call with my Boston friend Dan (the one who's also a Blackhawks fan). I've read plenty from Bruins and Flyers fans and neutral observers on Twitter.

To blow a 3-0 series lead and then a 3-0 GAME LEAD, and lose both 4-3--yes, I guess that is historic. The Bruins didn't try hard enough, the Flyers wanted it more, road teams are doing spectacularly well these playoffs, Bruins have trouble with game 7s, NHL.com ruined it with all their hype about a possible huge comeback (actually, I thought that would jinx it)---whatever. I'm disappointed to say the least. I'm thrilled the Bruins made it as far as they did given how rough the second half of their season was...but once they did make it that far I was hoping again my long-ago dream of a Blackhawks-Bruins Stanley Cup final.

Instead, the 7th and 8th seeds in the East will square off for who gets to face the 1st or 2nd seed in the West. For a while I've been disgusted at the thought of the East winning...even more so now. I agree with the people joking that San Jose-Chicago is the de facto SCF, or that the East finals should be cancelled to make it the SCF. But then...no matter how bad their regular season record or how they just barely squeaked into the playoffs (Flyers because of a friggin' SHOOTOUT, on the last day of the regular season--I wanted them to lose just for that injustice)...Montreal and Philadelphia have been ferocious in the playoffs and I'm a bit scared.

The Bruins fan side of me is crushed, but the history-and-statistics-loving side of me (the same part that, when the Chicago Cubs lost horribly in their home opener in Atlanta, was amused at how, at least, it was a record-setting loss) is impressed that the sixth and seventh 3-0 playoff deficit comebacks in professional hockey history happened in the same week and involved losses for the Bruins and their ECHL affiliate, the Reading Royals. (The Bruins AHL affiliate in Providence didn't make it to the playoffs this year, for the first time in many years.) At least the Red Wings didn't do it this year too.

I want to say thanks to the Bruins fans whose blogs and Twitter have kept me informed and entertained this year, my first season truly following the team. I'm disgusted with how it ended, but I'm not a bandwagon fan; I'm not bailing on them. (Next season I'm following and sort of rooting for the Atlanta Thrashers in the East because of their Chicago Wolves affiliation, but Boston is my East Coast favorite.)

edited to add: READ THIS from Hockey Gone Wild. READ IT NOW...please.

random items on a nervous afternoon

2010-05-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

1) Nervous because of the Flyers-Bruins game 7, of course. I'm afraid to say anything about it. Hockey Gone Wild has good coverage, of course, whereas I've barely said anything about the Bruins (or any other team) this postseason. (As I was writing this, NPR's "All Things Considered" had a piece about the game 7, quoting Mark Recchi, Milan Lucic, and talking about historic stats about series comeback. I'll link when it's posted.)

2) I'm also a little nervous about the Idaho Steelheads-Cincinnati Cyclones first ECHL playoff game tonight. Though I was more nervous about the previous rounds (selfishly wanting it to go further so I could see the Cyclones again. I might get to...).

3) The Chicago Reader (major weekly paper here) came out with its "Best of Chicago" ballot, and I noticed something:

Hmmm...isn't a Chicago team missing in the sports bar category? The, uh, winning one? I got in touch with the Reader, they admitted it was an oversight, and said they'd add it to the next online and print edition. One person CAN make a difference! About something not all that important, but hey...

4) Thursday night was the only night since NHL playoffs started with NO game on. I actually went to a movie with a friend! No games Saturday night, either--I should ask Canadians what they do when there's no Saturday "Hockey Night in Canada." (Okay, I'm never at a loss for things to do; I'm just unfortunately broke this weekend. It would have been a good night to stay in and watch sports online.)

5) We had to go to a late showing of the movie, so I didn't know till I got home well after midnight that the Celtics beat the Cavaliers in their NBA playoff series last night. I was kind of surprised that happened. I believe all ten Twitter Trending Topics for Boston were related to the game (I'd like to see that many for the Bruins). Now what do I do with the giveaway Cavs Snuggie I got at a Lake Erie Monsters game?! Wait, I never knew what to do with it in the first place. (I admit I would have been fine with Cleveland winning it all, just so they could get past the infamous Cleveland sports championship drought...)

6) I'm finally getting this computer stuff that's been troubling me for weeks fixed, so I can stop mentioning it. I shouldn't make any promises about what I'll post, but I'll hint that I have a huge backlog of NHL.com headlines, Twitter nonsense, AHL & ECHL stuff, hockey books I bought on my recent Detroit trip..

HISTORY WAS MADE! uh, if anyone cares

2010-05-12T20:33:00.000-07:00

There was a seemingly improbable Game 7 hockey playoff game tonight and I was extremely nervous before it. No, not Canadiens-Penguins, but Reading Royals vs Cincinnati Cyclones! AND THEY DID IT! Cincinnati is the FIRST team in the 22-year history of the ECHL, and only the SIXTH team in the history of pro hockey, to come back from a 3-0 series deficit to win 4 straight games and advance--in this case, to the Kelly Cup Finals, vs the Idaho Steelheads! More on the story here. I was sad I didn't make it to an ECHL playoff game in my first year of real hockey fandom (and I've only been to one ECHL game at all), but it looks like I'll have a chance...next week. Now I'm really glad I bought that cute Cyclones hat...

And it was DOLLAR BEER NIGHT. God am I jealous of anyone who was at the game...even though the final score was a nail-biting 1-0.

I'll give a recap of the Cyclones playoffs when I have time to read a bit more about them...I know there was a notorious brawl resulting in suspensions in this series. Maybe I'll even dig up photos of players or something; the ECHL sites aren't the most picture-heavy...

Oh...and Philadelphia Flyers? Please don't get any ideas about being the seventh team, okay?

hubris

2010-05-09T22:30:00.000-07:00

HUBRIS: that word was in my head not long after the Blackhawks' huge 7-4 win giving them a 3-1 series lead against the Canucks on Friday night. look it up and think about it, Blackhawks fans--it's why I didn't want to assume the Hawks would win game 5, even if the Canucks seemed a psychological mess, even if it was at the United Center, even if it was Mother's Day...and it's why I don't make predictions. I would have loved if the guy who called in to WGN after the Blackhawks' game 1 loss saying the Hawks would come back to win in 5 games (to the incredulity of the host) and (I'm paraphrasing, don't recall specifics) said "Carl in Hanover Park said 5 games. Write it down!" had been right, but no...

of my teams, Blackhawks and Bruins were both up 3 games in their series and lost the next one. they still lead, though...meanwhile, both the Chicago Wolves and Cincinnati Cyclones were in do-or-die games (Wolves at home down 3-2, Cyclones on road down 3-1) and got shutout wins today. (I can't remember if I ever explained my Cyclones obsession...part of it is I'd really like them to get to the next round so I have a chance of seeing an ECHL playoff game.) so I didn't have to write any "goodbye" posts yet...I suppose I need to come up with something for Detroit, eliminated last night...

(I feel like this blog has choked in the hockey postseason even more than any team you could name [and I've got a little baseball stuff to post too]. some of it's laziness but a lot of it is computer struggles that keep me from being able to run more than one thing at once, and give up early every night. all I've got to do is back up and remove 20,000+ of my photos before the games at 6 pm Central on Monday and I should be okay! sigh...)

game 3, Vancouver

2010-05-05T23:36:00.000-07:00

needed to get this up as fast as possible, from @stevewsop on Twitter, symbolizing the Vancouver Canucks' loss to Chicago tonight (why hadn't I seen a Canucks fail-whale sooner? coincidentally, Twitter was down for a bit after the game tonight and fail-whaled for a while...):

(no kidding: I just had to try uploading that twice, because the first time I got a "failed" message, which I haven't gotten the entire time I've been putting images on this blog)

but more important than the Canucks losing...Blackhawks winning 5-2, with a hat trick by...Dustin Byfuglien?! his first points of the 2010 playoffs (photo via official Blackhawks Facebook page), and the Blackhawks first road-trip playoff hat trick since Denis Savard vs the St. Louis Blues in 1988:

I heard Boston won 4-1 vs the Flyers, making them the second team in the 2010 playoffs to be up 3-0. the first team? well, I saw that game in person...if there's ever a time to get photos up in a timely manner, it's for that--I'll see if my computer will even let me upload them. seeing a game in person meant I couldn't get back in time to see much of Wednesday's NHL games, but it was well worth it!

uh-oh, gloating Blackhawks fan

2010-05-04T05:23:00.000-07:00

well, it's okay to do this late in the game or after it, I suppose. the Blackhawks playoff performance just crystallizes why I don't engage in predictions or trash talk (and also, now I have the most disastrously awful luck in choosing playoff games to go to--sure, the first one--and horrible loss--of each series, not the glorious wins).

not much time for real blogging again, accumulating material though. photos like this (as you can tell I prefer to post my own photos and screenshots and not use news photos too often) are why I should fire up the ol' Tumblr blog again, which if you're late to A Little Chippy, you might not know is where I started. then I left because with a few exceptions I didn't know anyone there and there wasn't much of a hockey community. now EVERYONE seems to be on Tumblr instead--it's even overtaking Twitter. (oh, and just because you CAN auto-post your Tumblr posts to Twitter, doesn't mean you SHOULD, people...how about picking a few faves of the week, not dozens of images a day? just sayin'.)

technical difficulties

2010-05-01T14:29:00.000-07:00

yes, just when I was finally in the mood to get this blog going again, and maybe even go back to the old days of responding to comments, should there be any...my computer rebelled against the ridiculous amount of stuff I run on it at any given time and sort of crashed during Tuesday night's games. I eventually got it fixed up at the Apple Store and am sorting through material so I can blog again ASAP (if I didn't now have actual games to go to). I've been imagining ridiculous scenarios like an 8th-seeded team that just barely got into the playoffs ousting the "best team" in the NHL, or an injured player coming back for his first game in months to score the overtime game-winner for his team...oh, TV-movie or ad-campaign type stuff. surely real life isn't THAT interesting...

victory! victory! victory!

2010-04-26T23:50:00.000-07:00

I haven't been totally honest here--it's not just that I've been lazy or overwhelmed during the playoffs, it's that I've been oddly superstitious about saying much about playoff series while they're going on (yeah, gonna have to fix that in round two). but now I can say....YESSSSSSSSSS! THE THREE HOCKEY TEAMS I'VE BEEN ROOTING FOR ALL YEAR ALL WON TONIGHT! AND ALL ADVANCE TO ROUND TWO OF THE PLAYOFFS! it was too excruciating to say that before or during the games, but now I can.

at 6 pm Central, the Buffalo Sabres-Boston Bruins game started. Bruins won 4-3!
at 7 pm, the Milwaukee Admirals-Chicago Wolves game started. Wolves won 2-1!
at 8 pm, the Nashville Predators-Chicago Blackhawks game started. Hawks won 5-3!

it was agony to have all three of my teams play the potential series-clinching game the same night, but I managed, and now this frees me up to write my recaps (which I will do, I swear. and my playoff preview becomes more of a round two thing). I've especially been anxious to talk about the AHL games since they don't get a lot of coverage. it's funny (well, except for Nashville fans) to think how the Chicago teams (both division leaders with a 100+-point season) beat the Predators and the Admirals, their AHL affiliate, the same night. honestly, I was the most nervous about the Wolves game because I entirely missed seeing them live in round 1, and this was a game 7. I've got to go to round 2 (the only downside to all this is that unlike regular season games, Blackhawks and Wolves playoffs are often the same night). and the Canadiens forced a game 7 against the Capitals, and Tuesday I've got ECHL, AHL, and NHL games to keep an eye on...

best (goalie-related) moment of the year!

2010-04-24T23:33:00.000-07:00

I admit I really, really wish the NHL playoffs would be off for a day or two so I could catch up; every day I've been too distracted by wins or deflated by losses (Friday night EVERY team I was rooting for, ECHL, AHL, or NHL, lost, sometimes terribly. I was neutral about a few games, but every team I actively rooted for lost). I need a little more time to process the huge Blackhawks win vs Predators today (and think about the Marian Hossa hit), so here's the funniest thing I've seen in any hockey game I've seen the entire season...I'd never seen it happen before:

the puck headed towards Chicago's net. no goal, so play was stopped, but...the puck vanished, and Antti Niemi got patted down...then they were even feeling in the back of his pants (poor guy, in front of 22,000, and the NBC audience!). (I could make various saucy remarks about this...you know I like goalies...) no luck, and they wanted to continue play, but the officals in Toronto said they couldn't just get another puck, in case there'd be two pucks on the ice. then Captain Toews magically found it! that's a LOT of padding to not realize where a puck went. the NHL.com clip is pretty good and has the announcer's references to O'Hare security, and a famous scene in Slap Shot:

Puck Daddy had the video up before the game was even over...and because they didn't put up other stories for a long time, and this was featured prominently on the Yahoo Sports page (and Yahoo front page, maybe?) the comments section is a hideous mess of 1) arguing about the Hossa hit later in the game 2) trolls showing up to bash hockey. huh? CAN'T WE JUST ENJOY THIS?

the WGN radio announcers were even more amused; they really lost it after saying "Niemi's got to reposition his equipment," as did I...

glad I don't have to write sports headlines, #20 in an ongoing series

2010-04-21T23:17:00.000-07:00

...first up, I'm retiring that unwieldy name for this series (even if it's a prompt I don't have to type out every time)--I've used it enough. also, hitting item #20 is a nice place to stop numbering them and worrying what counts as an especially bad/silly headline. but of course I'll still post headlines and mistakes. jumping over some other playoff ones from NHL.com I'll get to, here's tonight's:

it's not that Miro/Hero is all that bad, it's that I think this is also supposed to stand in for the joke they can't make. Miroslav Satan scored the goal against the Sabres 7-plus minutes into double overtime, the first double OT of the 2010 playoffs, and Twitter, and I'd imagine message boards/live-blogs/etc. erupted with "HAIL SATAN" and "Satan worship" and the like. of course it's not pronounced the same way, but it'll never not be amusing in print. since he's joined the Bruins well into the 2009-10 season, Satan has scored some game-winning or otherwise hugely important goals (for his Olympic team, too), and there's a round of "Could it be...Satan?" and "worshipping Satan," etc. every time.

anyway, FANTASTIC game, two huge wins in a row at home for the Bruins to take the series lead 3-1. more screenshots, fight videos, etc. when I get a chance. I almost went to an AHL game tonight...if I had I'd have been disappointed by the game itself and then enraged when I learned what I'd missed. (yes, it's one of those nights when watching TV [online] turned out to be better than going out). big AHL update tomorrow, and maybe something about the disappointing team I've been following in the playoffs, too. (I wasn't kidding about computer trouble in previous post, it's been two more nights of it since I wrote that. I might need a trip to the Apple Store Genius Bar...)

oops. playoffs...

2010-04-20T23:09:00.000-07:00

aren't the NHL playoffs exciting?!!! (depending on your team.) ...but yeah, I can't get blog posts done during the day, then I can't get them done when I'm trying to run several playoff games and Twitter and whatnot online in the evening (I've had the computer run slow/freeze two agonizing late nights in a row), then the energy to get them done after the games are over for the night...doesn't work so well on a day like today when YOUR TEAM PLAYS HORRIBLY. (again, so glad I'm not a game preview/recap type blog, and I admire the dedication of those who are.) I'll post in a better moment, hopefully tomorrow. for now, here is a pretty photo I took THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SPORTS.

WGN's Blackhawks celebration

2010-04-16T14:15:00.000-07:00

so Tuesday from around 11 am -- 3 pm, WGN held this event outside their studios (the Tribune Tower building on Michigan Ave.) I stopped by very briefly at 1, because I was meeting a friend with a couple other people in tow (for the photo adventure noted in the previous post).

there were games:

music: the band was playing a mix of "Werewolves of London" and "Sweet Home Alabama." ???

ice cream! I got a free cup. also got posters of Versteeg, Hossa, Toews, and Kane from another table, and a sample of alcohol-free hand sanitizer (useful after the abandoned silo visit later):

I'm not sure whose attention they were trying to get:

a couple Blackhawks-themed cars:

I didn't see anyone I knew, or have time to hang around and talk to anyone I didn't. I met my friend a few blocks south, and we went to two abandoned grain silo complexes (one in the south suburbs, one in Chicago), both of which I'd visited several times before. I hung out later with the Bay Area photographer with us (my friend had also shown her abandoned buildings in Gary, IN) and her niece, for Thai food and drinks in the South Loop. it was one of the only times I'd talked art since graduating as an art major (from the school next to the hotel/restaurant), and we talked a lot about Chicago and photography and travel and I had plum wine (very good) for the first time. I actually had a non-hockey-related social interaction (yes, I need to get out more).

a beautiful spring day with free Blackhawks posters, abandoned buildings, talking art, and Thai food--yes, I've been distracted from blogging much this week. but I'm about to go to my first playoff game...for real this time.

about my absence

2010-04-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

I would almost be satisfied if this was the only thing I posted on the Internet this week. at the rate I've been going (blogwise, at least), it just might be...but I'll try to get a little up (no previews, no predictions) before the first Blackhawks playoff game tonight. I'm having a strange week in real life (some of it good, involving photo adventures, obviously), and a crummy week on Twitter (that's top-secret code for "god I fucking hate Follow Friday, if I wanted to feel this unpopular and left out week after week I'd go back to high school. oh wait, actually lots of HS classmates are Facebook friends and some comment on my updates, so that's a lousy example"). I'll try to cheer up and get this blog back to form, whatever that means.

playoffs...

2010-04-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

uh, I wasn't taking time off before NHL and AHL playoffs, I've just failed spectacularly at getting new content up. no time now because I'm heading to my first-ever in-person game of playoff hockey: Milwaukee Admirals at Chicago Wolves. if all goes well...last time I tried to see a game between these two...well...I wrote that story elsewhere. I've complained about people who seem to have switched to Twitter instead of blogging, and now I'm one of them. or at least with all that's happened in the past week...

a "real" post later--just felt the need to check in.

UPDATE: "if all goes well." no, the special bus to the arena never showed up (or the first one did and I missed it, later ones didn't). so there goes my first playoff game. (I was going to buy a walkup ticket--if I'd had one already I've have taken a cab to the arena.) there'll be another one soon...the first NHL games were pretty exciting but I'll have to write in the morning.

PLAYOFFS!!!!!

2010-04-11T22:40:00.000-07:00

I expected to feel more melancholy about the end of the NHL regular season today, but it's not that bad. obviously a lot of the reason is that both my western and eastern favorites are in the playoffs...but also, I realized today with no small amount of glee that now the highlights and recaps and firsts that I've delayed posting can be neatly organized and posted as "what you missed this year" or "favorite weird screenshots" or best-ofs or whatever. and so I will...of course I have thousands of screenshots from online games and NHL.com and thousands of my own photos from games to go through. and there's all kinds of statistics, for the Blackhawks and Bruins and the NHL and AHL that I can go through (plus my stats for number of teams and arenas seen and win percentage, etc.). I worry I've done a lousy job on the blog actually following the season...but I think I do okay at making hockey (and occasionally other sports) fun to follow. if any of this makes sense...oh, and I haven't posted all the hockey apparel I bought this year (no, still no jersey)--there'll be a few (more) photos of me, hope no one minds.

that's your NHL and AHL matchups (ECHL already started the Kelly Cup playoffs, and the Toledo Walleye lost in the first round--there goes my dream of seeing them this season. I really wanted to!). a few personal stats: I saw 22 NHL teams this year. of the 8 I didn't see, 4 are in the playoffs. of the teams I didn't see, the two I most wanted to (Nashville, Buffalo) are the ones playing my favorite teams in the quarterfinals! (Preds are the only Western team I've never seen.) I haven't seen any of the 8 Eastern Conference AHL teams that are in the playoffs; I've seen 7 of the 8 Western ones (Rochester didn't play the division the Chicago Wolves are in. Chicago played Lake Erie, and Lake Erie played Rochester, but Rochester didn't play Chicago. the AHL works differently and I haven't figured it all out yet).

I'm planning to go to the first Wolves playoff game this Wednesday, vs Milwaukee Admirals. then they play Friday, but that's the first Nashville-Chicago game, so I guess I'll follow those two online. Wolves in Milwaukee Saturday and Nashville at Chicago Sunday are possibilities. Rockford IceHogs don't have home games vs Texas Stars until April 21 & 23. I think I have an unused Greyhound ticket to Buffalo, still--the American city I most wanted to see an NHL game in this year but didn't. and I wanted to see another Bruins game...hmmm. couldn't make it to the first two games (Thurs. & Sat.), however.

feel-good hit of the year, of course

2010-04-11T08:53:00.000-07:00

I missed some afternoon stuff I'd have attended to watch a certain fantastic NHL game (hint: playoffs!) but had to go out last night for a fantastic AHL game, and thus missed the rest of the action except the end of the West Coast games. so I didn't see this live. but I can safely say, since I've gotten really active in the hockey Twitter world, nothing has been talked about and passed around as quickly as this. you presumably know the Matt Cooke-Marc Savard incident (or will Google it if you don't) and know why people were saying "Evander Kane will get a standing ovation next time he plays in Boston" and so forth. Cooke got up after this (the stretcher wasn't needed) so it's not as serious as the image makes it look like...

some people though this might be Evander Kane's (yes, named after Evander Holyfield) first NHL fight, but according to his hockeyfights.com fight card it's his second. the first was against Deryk Engelland, also playing for Pittsburgh, in early November. according to Engelland's card he had his first NHL fights this year in the preseason. the hockeyfights.com page for Cooke-Kane should be lively...

at any rate, even if the Atlanta Thrashers couldn't make the playoffs, their last game of the year (which they won at home, 1-0) will be remembered. Thrashers are one of the teams I regret not getting to see this season...I'll definitely try next year (I've also promised to follow them more closely since Chicago Wolves is their affiliate).

Make the Team in Baseball (1960)

2010-04-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

don't worry, I haven't turned this into a baseball blog all of a sudden (especially not with the way Chicago teams have been playing). I just wanted to share my excitement at this week finding this book I'd forgotten I owned. bought at a thrift store, obviously (could they NOT write the price in permanent marker on vintage book covers?!):

the team logos on the cover are stickers (they seem like fabric)--it was pointed out to me that some definitely had to be newer than 1960. there are more on the inside front cover:

I love the illustration on the back. there are other books in the series but this is the only one I own.

and a sample illustration from the inside. there are drawings and photos. not as much fun as the hockey instruction book I have from the same era, but I might have more to post from it. (I've also posted these on my secondary Flickr account where I post things like this.)

Cubs win!

2010-04-08T23:32:00.001-07:00

beer at Wrigley Field 7/5/09
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

finally, three games into the season, Chicago won in Atlanta. I wasn't watching or even following along via radio or boxscore (oops) because of how much hockey went on today, but I thought I'd note this. I've been posting photos on Flickr this week from my last visit to Wrigley Field (and first where I had a lower-level seat, thanks to a friend--same one responsible for my first Fenway Park and first United Center visits), in July. I thought that would be a nice way to start the season or a good luck charm or something...but obviously not right away. clicking this photo will get you to the Wrigley Field set, shots from 2008 and 2009 visits.

believe it or not, this shot is of the only time I've had a beer at Wrigley. the shirt is an unofficial Chicago Transit Authority themed one, from the (wonderful) Chicago Architecture Foundation gift store.

um, back to Blackhawks and NHL playoff news soon, let's hope.

glad I don't have to post stats OR write sports headlines...

2010-04-08T11:08:00.000-07:00

apologies for lack of "real" blogging so far this week--getting apartment stuff done (I need a roommate!), $ issues, figuring out travel plans, etc. I'll have less of a phoning-it-in post later today, though it'll be hard to post when I'm keeping an eye on the Frozen Four semifinals, important east & west NHL games, the last regular-season game in Mellon Arena...
I don't check league leaders on NHL.com nearly as often as I check league standings (unlike some Bruins fans I know who keep looking to make sure Rask is #1), but a recent tweet from @stlblueschica wondering why Knuble was shown as the goal leader made me look. yeah, I don't think Brunette, Knuble, and Pronger are leading the league right now... (screenshot shows Brodeur w/9 shutouts so you know I took this recently):

now, #19 (I think?) in the headline puns category, the Rangers' 5-1 win against the Maple Leafs last night:

this got me because although I've heard "be-leaf" puns many times, it's always been from Toronto fans and in relation to Toronto WINS.

glad I don't have to write sports headlines, #17 & 18 in an ongoing series

2010-04-05T22:37:00.000-07:00

a lot of weekend hockey excitement (and baseball!) but I've been working on getting non-computer stuff done so a quick one for now, after the hugely important Bruins @ Capitals game tonight:

that was the late-night version, and this was the immediately post-game version. I've heard "I Laich it a lot" used on blogs/Twitter or somewhere...is NHL.com getting inspiration from jokes out there, or vice versa?

anyway...I didn't like that the Caps' first goal was a questionable one. and that the refs missed an obvious high-sticking double-minor against DC (I was in the kitchen briefly, came back and saw blood on the ice onscreen, found out it was Zdeno Chara's). at least the Bruins tied it 1-1 with 1.6 seconds left in the first, and got the point for going to overtime 2-2. could have been worse.

bonus from the NHL.com front page:

Opening Day

2010-04-04T18:59:00.000-07:00

we interrupt this (lack of blogging about) very important hockey news, for this: baseball opening day with Yankees vs Red Sox, starting right at the same time as Sharks vs Avalanche game (with playoff implications)! it's fun to watch two sports at once online!

I was all excited thinking this was the first time I'd watched baseball online (I never tried to find it until I had to start watching hockey that way), then I remembered I did watch some of the World Series online...

home opener for the White Sox is tomorrow, with Blackhawks players making a special appearance. I wish I could go (despite being a Cubs fan)...

Blackhawks @ Devils: that was SOMETHING

2010-04-02T23:39:00.000-07:00

and this time, something GOOD. I don't know why Chicago had a "series" (2 games is a series?) with New Jersey, but they did; one home and one away game. (so every team plays every team from the other conference at least once, and three of those teams twice? how does the NHL decide who they play twice?) Blackhawks had a fantastic 5-1 New Year's Eve win over Devils at the United Center; this game was much more in doubt.

NJD took an early lead with Ilya Kovalchuk's 40th goal of the season. I didn't watch the game as closely as I should have because the WGN radio commentators made it sound a bit...boring. but they were entertaining as always...suggesting late in the game that the Hawks maybe mix it up a bit with Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond ("I said I'd only say his whole name once in the broadcast") and get roughing minors to play 4-on-4. also, Burger King gives a free Icee the next day if the Blackhawks win, and I swear they said "a free icing."

I tried to stay optimistic. down 1-0 near the end, Blackhawks went with 6 attackers. I was about to comment "why can't the Hawks ever have one of those dramatic last-second winning or tying goals?" when BOOM, Versteeg tied it with 26 seconds left. the many, many game thread and Twitter comments to jinx Martin Brodeur getting his 109th shutout--even the official Blackhawks Twitter joined in, and so many people in Chicago did it that "shutout" and "Brodeur" were trending topics--hey, that worked!

nothing in overtime, so it went to shootout, where Toews scored and Kovalchuk (his first SO try with the Devils) didn't, and the Hawks won! a great game from Antti Niemi, good enough that both the Blackhawks site and main NHL page used "Antti-dote" (which I may have complained about the first time anyone used it, but I don't mind...)

THAT is a great Toews-face. I may be the only Blackhawks fan blog neglecting the Toews-face (Seabrook has some funny ones too) this season...post-game:

I'm with the WGN guy in not understanding why the losing team gets 2 of the 3 stars of the game...and though Brodeur made some great saves, Niemi made more and won the shootout, you know...

a few notable things about this game: it was the first game John Madden, longtime Devil, played in New Jersey since joining the Blackhawks. the Devils website had a story about him. Patrick Kane is now 4 games without a point; he'd only gone 3 games without a point this season, and that was early October. this was one of the only games Devils lost this year while leading after two periods. this was the Blackhawks' first win in NJ since Dec. 1997. and as alluded earlier, there were few penalties. actually, no penalties in the entire 65 minutes of play. (which isn't to say there weren't actions that might have been called as penalties...) Blackhawks had one game without taking penalties this season (the awful loss to the Islanders), but this is the first NHL game with NO penalties since 2001. LOOK AT THIS BOXSCORE!

if it hadn't gone to shootout, the entire boxscore would have been quite minimal, since there were only the two goals. the NHL.com recap didn't say how long it'd been with a penalty-free game, but this Star-Ledger piece (linked on Puck Daddy) said it was "the first penalty-free game in Devils history and the first in the NHL since the Bruins and Maple Leafs met in Toronto on March 3, 2001." (a Bruins-Leafs game was penalty-free?! Bruins won it 3-0.) were they being a little too nice for Good Friday or something? not at all in the spirit of the 1984 Good Friday brawl between the Quebec Nordiques and Montreal Canadiens...and by the way, I'm amused that my prior post had possibly the longest penalty list in a hockey game this season!

more SPHL mayhem: Fayetteville @ Knoxville

2010-04-02T15:07:00.000-07:00

last Saturday night I was at my first junior hockey (USHL) game and it was my first time seeing a coach thrown out of a game. the same night in the AHL, Abbotsford Heat's coach, Jim Playfair, was thrown out of his game for what the Vancouver Sun called "one of the greatest sports tantrums of all time." (a short video version here; yes, definitely more dramatic than what happened in the USHL game.) and I learned of the ridiculous Fayetteville FireAntz at Knoxville Ice Bears game in the SPHL. (you may recall I blogged another SPHL game this year, Louisiana IceGators vs Knoxville, which also wracked up huge penalty minutes and resulted in a coach thrown out. I confess I'm disappointed I won't get to see any games in this league this season.) this has been popular on YouTube:

I'm trying to figure it out from the boxscore but not entirely succeeding.

some penalties in the first, and the game was tied 2-2. then by the end of the second, when the brawl happened, Knoxville was up 5-3.

more trouble in the third...

and then...

final score 9-4. a few days later, 7 players and 2 coaches were suspended. tonight, these teams will face each other again...with a slightly different roster.

glad I don't have to write sports headlines, #16 in an ongoing series

2010-04-02T14:15:00.000-07:00

are the headlines for the west coast games written by severely sleep-deprived east coast writers? I don't know, but this seemed like a goofy one, highlighting L.A.'s Dustin Brown's second career hat trick, in a 8-3 drubbing of Vancouver. (two of the Canucks goals were Kyle Wellwood's; I kind of hoped he'd get the hat trick too.)

replaced by a duller headline later:

congrats to Brown! though as a Blackhawks fan it's less about the Kings having a big win than the Canucks having a huge loss. I enjoyed this one so much (was on the phone at the start of the game; tuned in in the second when Kings were up 4-0) that I put both the Kings AND Canucks feeds on online (well, and it was the only game on by that point).

although the Hawks lost to the Blue Jackets last week by as bad a score, at least in that game "only" 7 of the goals were when Huet was playing, and one during Niemi's shift. I wonder if this is the most goals allowed by one goalie this season...

not April Fools

2010-04-01T13:39:00.000-07:00

edited to add: 1) I saw a man on a CTA bus today wearing a White Sox hat and a baseball shirt reading Cubby Bear on the front/Wrigleyville on the back (Cubby Bear being a popular bar in Wrigleyville)--was that April Fools'? I honestly don't know, given all the odd things I see on the CTA.
2) even long after I wrote this, I still managed to fall for a 4/1 piece on the Chicago Wolves' website (about a bunch of players supposedly not available for the rest of the year. scared me!)
3) I remembered it was the birthday of the friend who first took me to a hockey game and called him tonight. I wonder if anyone does anything special for an April Fools' birthday...

I've had a lot of long bus rides recently in which I could have come up with an April Fool's post, but didn't. (as a colossal nerd, my favorite April Fools' every year is wondering what NPR will come up with--and this year it was a piece on "a box set of NPR's entire history of funding credits.") I'd rather get a joke to spread on Twitter anyway, since it's quite easy to do so (such as, RIP for celebrities who haven't actually died, a hoax about the anonymous questions site formspring being a hoax), but it's easier to do so on a day when "April Fools" and "Fooled" and such aren't trending topics.

I'm considering the previous post with the NHL mistake (they never responded, and I don't know if they corrected it) to be a joke. or at least it worked nicely as a reverse-jinx, and the Blackhawks DIDN'T lose four straight--hell, they won with a shutout last night! and I was there! because I was there I missed getting to watch a bunch of games online, so I missed this...not a joke:

what's another loss here or there, NHL?

2010-03-30T20:35:00.000-07:00

there are mistakes, and then there are overused-internet-words-like-EPIC-mistakes:

minutes after another lousy Blackhawks game (and I thought they'd win this one! I was headed home on the CTA bus from my Greyhound trip when it started. Patrick Sharp scored the first goal of the game right as I passed Blackhawk Street! fights, hits, energy, etc., then it fell apart) I found this on the NHL.com main page.

tonight the Blackhawks lost their third consecutive game in regulation for the first time all season. they'd had a 3-game winless streak twice, I believe. but only three, not four, NHL! I immediately fired off a polite correction to @NHL on Twitter. (and today when I got home from the trip I noticed @GreyhoundBus is also following me on Twitter, and even sent me a direct tweet. now I'm kind of on edge about complaining about NHL or Greyhound...but also kind of excited and wondering why Amtrak or Megabus or the AHL don't follow me too).

from the bowling capital of the world

2010-03-29T22:26:00.001-07:00

Bowling Magazine, Feb. 1961
Originally uploaded by mod as hell

...Milwaukee! no, I'm not there now, I'm in Iowa and though I have plenty of material stashed around the Internet so I can theoretically blog from anywhere, it's a pain to do posts with lots of images and videos when I'm not on my own computer. so here is a nice find from the basement (the magazine floor) of Renaissance Books, a colossal 4-story used bookstore in downtown Milwaukee.

Milwaukee used to be the bowling capital of the U.S. (or the world, I don't know) and I was correct in my guess that this magazine was published there. I bought the oldest issue I could find--particularly because I loved the cover. it's got a lot of ads for bowling shirts, shoes, balls, trophies, etc., and many of the dealers used to be in downtown/South Loop Chicago. there's also a now-sadly-amusing feature on tourism in Detroit (the year's big bowling championship was held there). anyway, click on the photo and you'll be able to see the rest of the set I've posted so far.

back to hockey tomorrow or so!

college hockey and a question for you

2010-03-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

Friday night, I watched college hockey (via a so-so online feed) for the first time ever. THE FIRST TIME EVER. I couldn't see it online till the NCAA semifinals, and I didn't get to any games in person this season.

I haven't written about college hockey (or any college sports now that I think about it) on this blog yet because, well, I don't have teams I follow yet. I went to an arts and communications college that didn't have sports, so there's no alma mater to root for. in football and basketball I have a nostalgic fondness for the Iowa State Cyclones because they're the team where I grew up (and now, I'll pause for the time it takes to explain to all non-Iowans which school and city is ISU and which is Iowa.
.....................................................................) ISU does have hockey too, but I'm talking about one of the teams in the major hockey conferences (I'm still learning this, bear with me).

it was easy to choose which NHL and AHL teams to follow, since I've got good ones in my city--though alas most Blackhawks fans I know are Rockford IceHogs fans because they're the Hawks affiliate, and not fans of the Wolves, the local team. (that's angst for another time. but I do like/try to follow the IceHogs too.) it was easy to choose favorite Eastern teams too. and in other hockey leagues, I just like seeing whatever games I can (and buying whatever merchandise with amusing logos I can).

but college hockey? if neither the college I went to nor the one I grew up near qualify, and there isn't a major team in the Chicago area, it's a bit more work (but that's exciting!). (I should note, this is more about picking a team to follow NEXT season; not about picking a fave for the Frozen Four).

some thoughts: I know a lot of Boston University fans. (and a Lowell fan--so I know lots of Boston College haters.) Notre Dame and Wisconsin are the closest teams at this level to Chicago. Wisconsin and North Dakota have recent connections to the Blackhawks, so I know Hawks fans following them. I like the idea of rooting for a Rust Belt (Great Lakes/western/upstate New York) college team since I love that part of the country, and I can't be a fan of Detroit or Buffalo in the NHL due to following Chicago and Boston. (I also really like Denver and Minneapolis as cities and can't root for their NHL teams either.) and that's about the extent of my thoughts on this so far. any opinions would be welcome.

as for the first game I saw, Wisconsin defeating Vermont? I wish I'd watched closer, but I was getting ready for the trip I'm on now. right as I was writing the Blackhawks-Blue Jackets recap (where the phrase "a little chippy" was used), the Wisconsin game was described as being..."a little chippy." that seemed like a good omen during my first college game...

I watched a little of the St. Cloud-Northern Michigan game on after (but that was a rerun and I'd already heard the result). I seem to get a lot of screenshots of goalies...

brief announcement

2010-03-27T23:21:00.000-07:00

I have now been to a hockey game with my parents for the first time. I have now been to a hockey game in the state I grew up in for the first time. I have now been to a junior hockey game for the first time. I have now seen a coach get thrown out of a game for the first time. and people: I HAVE NOW SEEN CENTRAL IOWA PUCK BUNNIES FOR THE FIRST TIME.

more later when I upload the photos, find a news story about what happened during the game, etc. I am blogging this from a guest computer so accessing my images to post takes a bit more work. I note that I missed some big games Saturday (so many more playoff-spot Xs on the NHL standings now!) but I'm glad the one I saw live was so enjoyable.

that was something. Hawks lose 8-3

2010-03-26T21:06:00.000-07:00

do I want to talk about last night's Blackhawks game vs the Blue Jackets? no, not especially, but there's a few things worth sharing. just this game; I need to put together a whole "Hawks keep finding different and spectacular ways to lose post-Olympics" post. I actually wanted to go to this game because I had such a good time seeing the Hawks play in Columbus in January. Aubrey of Buckeyes are Deadly Nuts went to the game and The Mel of a fountain of useless information went from Chicago. I'd have been deaf from the cannon that goes off when the Jackets score if I had.

according to the NHL.com recap "The eight goals for the Blue Jackets set a mark for most scored at home and tied the franchise record for most in a game." it was bad when the Jackets scored 32 seconds in, bad when they took a 2-0 lead, bad when they got a 2-goal lead again in the second period with the game at 3-1 (by the end of the game I'd already forgotten it'd been 2-1 and not at all hopeless for a while). they got a goal on a penalty shot, they got their first power play goal in 20 attempts...and so forth. THE SCORE WAS 8-1 FOR A WHILE. 8-1. 5-1 and I still hoped for an epic comeback despite how badly the Hawks were playing. but by 8-1 I could only hope the Hawks wouldn't lose as badly as San Jose did to Dallas last week (8-2).

and they managed to get two more goals. Adam Burish got his first of the season. Jordan Hendry, the one goal-less Blackhawk, scored late in the year, but when Burish came back from injury we had a player with 0 goals again. no longer! oh, and he fought Derek Dorsett early in the first. Burish lost, but at least the fight got a higher-than-usual-for-the-Blackhawks rating on hockeyfights.com.

I'd have preferred the fight be when the Hawks were down, say, 4-1, and had a chance to turn it around, and got motivated... Blackhawks haven't allowed more than 5 goals against all this season (Minnesota won 6-5, but in a shootout). they hadn't lost by more than 4 goals (a 5-1 loss to Vancouver). needless to say, they'd never been down by 7 goals this year. Blackhawks could have hit 100 points (or 101) in this game; San Jose was first to hit that in the West in their game later last night. Hawks at least got the playoff spot clinched because Calgary lost their game.

do I want to talk goaltending, defense, motivation? NO, I want to gripe at what Second City Hockey did for their game preview thread:

okay...I am KofC on the SBN blogs (and nearly all places I comment; I'm kofchicago on some others and on Twitter). it's the short form of the nickname I got from my main Flickr account. not long after establishing myself as KofC I noticed that's what the Knights of Columbus use in their logo. I found a particularly great sign and used it as my icon there, and I make a point of looking for KofC signs in any city I visit--see the tagged photos here. (Cleveland; Elgin, IL; Hamtramck, MI; Quincy & Melrose, MA, among others. I didn't find one IN Columbus yet though!) pretty soon Flickr friends started posting KofC signs for me too. it's just a running joke; I don't endorse the Knights' politics or anything (but I did win a second-place spelling bee trophy from them as a kid). anyway, I know it was just a coincidence but I was weirded out, and having that logo/my screenname attached to the worst loss of the season? AAAAAAARRGHHH.

oh well. two other amusing things, from listening to the WGN 720 radio broadcast. so Cristobal Huet was pulled in the second (after 5 goals against) and Antti Niemi came in (one goal against him). Huet returned at the beginning of the third (2 more goals scored against), but the broadcasters didn't notice until a couple minutes from the end of the game! they referred to him as "Niemi" several times! then finally noticed, and apologized afterwards.

and Nick Boynton, who's played just a few games with the Blackhawks, was the post-game interview. he said "...and the game got a little chippy." now I think I need an "award" for any player or broadcaster who uses that phrase (look, I needed SOMETHING to cheer me up after that game.) perhaps my famous chocolate chip cookies made with bourbon? (in theory--there's no way for me to actually give them cookies).

AHL news & sports card news

2010-03-26T00:14:00.000-07:00

so, I noted a while ago that Oklahoma City was going to get an American Hockey League franchise next year, and the Edmonton Oilers would use it as their affiliate, instead of the Springfield (Mass.) Falcons. what would happen to the Falcons? and why didn't the Anaheim Ducks have an AHL franchise? (it's been 29 AHL, 30 NHL teams this year). today: mysteries solved! the Syracuse Crunch will switch their affiliation from Columbus Blue Jackets to Anaheim, and Columbus will switch its affiliation to Springfield. Dark Blue Jacket, a CBJ blog I found rather late in the season and recently blogrolled, posted "Goodbye Syracuse"; and there's now an updated list by Scotty Wazz of the distance between each NHL team and its AHL affiliate.

other AHL news--I forgot to include the following in the previous "congratulations" post. last Friday, 3/19, vs the Rochester Americans, Binghamton Senators goalie Chris Holt became the 10th goaltender in the AHL's 74-year history to be credited with scoring a goal (the last instance was Drew MacIntyre of the Manitoba Moose, and now the Chicago Wolves...scoring against the Wolves)! I love seeing the goalie get patted on the head even before the game is over...

Wednesday I had a little adventure in Northwest Indiana with a couple friends (it was supposed to be all the way to Gary, but we lost an hour when the muffler fell off the car and we had to get it looked at). industrial sites, toxic fumes, beautiful decaying architecture, abandoned houses (which may have had cool stuff in them we ~~stole~~ rescued), cheap diner food, low sales tax--that's the Calumet Region for you! we had a nice walk through quaint downtown Whiting, known for its Pierogi Fest in July. I was disappointed the dollar store had every type of sports card except hockey cards...then I noticed a whole sports card shop (I'd seen this at Pierogi Fest but didn't go in because I wasn't paying attention to sports memorabilia at the time). Cheap Seats Sports Cards--it's 1504 119th St. in Whiting, but looks to be closing at the end of March and presumably staying online only (cheapseatscards.com). I got a bunch of cards from 2000-01, 2005-06, and 2006-07 and some photos from the late 1990s or so (game snapshots they'd made multiple prints of). of course I'll share some of the finds.

I don't know a great deal about sports cards as a business, so I'd like to read the new book by Dave Jamieson, Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession. it was excerpted on Slate on Wednesday. thanks to @Marcusist on Twitter for alerting me to this!

other news on Thursday, combining every topic of this post--a special (and pricey) collection of hockey cards featuring all the AHL goalies and famous AHL goalies of the past! (you can find this on the AHL's website)

oh, one other piece of news (which should be tagged "self-congratulatory nonsense") (and where's all the news about, oh, I don't know, the BLACKHAWKS, you might be wondering?). re: things I said at the end of the previous post. I came home Thurs. afternoon to this:

and laughed, yes, out loud, for quite some time. this made my day! until the Hawks game ruined it. but then I thought about it again and it's still cool. and congrats to DGB for getting in the New York Times hockey blog this week!

well-deserved congratulations

2010-03-24T23:42:00.000-07:00

I've posted first NHL career fights before, but hadn't even thought to track first NHL career goals. well, that changes now. although I don't know if a better one in the regular season is possible than the following on 3/20, from Jamie McBain, 22-year-old defenseman, of the Carolina Hurricanes, previously of the Albany River Rats (AHL) and University of Wisconsin. it's a painful one for Penguins fans, as he beat the Pens, in Pittsburgh, with this. McBain's first? the winning goal against the defending Stanley Cup Champions with 0.9 seconds left in overtime .

now, a fight. (I know there was another first NHL fight this month but didn't note what it was, sorry.) here Brett Sutter, of the AHL's Abbotsford Heat, called up again to the Calgary Flames, got his first NHL fight against Brett Festerling, Anaheim Ducks, 3/23. I saw Sutter play just three nights earlier vs the Lake Erie Monsters in Cleveland (and because I was at that game, I wasn't able to watch the Carolina-Pittsburgh game above). a mere two minutes into the game (which Calgary won 3-1), this was a definitive win for Sutter (the 8th member of the famous Sutter family to play in the NHL) according to the hockeyfights.com page:

also, tonight I noticed that the hockeyfights fan page on Facebook was at exactly 15,000 fans (I joined in the old days when it wasn't even 5000). as a fan of round numbers I had to capture it:

I mentioned it on Twitter, and almost immediately:

happened a few days after:

and earlier this month I woke up to:

hey, in all three cases the account has far more "followers" than "following" so it's kind of exciting. (the official NHL account was only following 5500 people with about 340,000 followers when I got added. around trade deadline time, because I'd been using the #nhltrade tag, though not much.) although I think the most exciting, hockey-wise on Twitter, would be to get followed by @DownGoesBrown, or @dellis39...

SHUTOUT! SHUTOUT!

2010-03-23T23:11:00.000-07:00

I'm not a superstitious person (about sports or anything else), but I'll say that, and then tell you one thing I quickly learned as a hockey fan--DON'T say (or type) the word "shutout" when your hockey team is winning and the other team hasn't scored. I've seen games jinxed. even thinking too hard about a shutout, like in the Blackhawks' 5-1 win over the Devils (who didn't score till the very end), could ruin it. I believe the WGN radio Hawks announcers are observant of this superstition, but various TV hockey announcers have been known to blow it.

so as I sat there at the United Center tonight watching the Blackhawks play the Phoenix Coyotes in their last regular-season match, a team they have lost to in the other 3 season meetings; a game that was going to decide the #1 spot in the Western Conference...and I kept my eye on the other NHL scores, checking in on Boston visiting the Atlanta Thrashers, a game that was going to decide the #8 spot in the Eastern Conference...I watched the Coyotes and Thrashers at "0" and said nothing (and I had @chiblackhawks' extra Hawks ticket, so this time I actually had a person there I could say things to). then I saw the "F" next to the Bruins-Thrashers game, 4-0 and mentioned it. and the Hawks beat the Yotes, 2-0, and I yelled "SHUTOUT!" a couple times.

two huge wins against conference rivals. two shutouts by the Finnish goalies (Tuukka Rask, his 4th this season; Antti Niemi, his 6th) who started the season as backups but have been used as #1 goalies a lot in 2010. when I got home, I checked; yes, it's the first time in the 2009-2010 season that both teams I follow got shutouts on the same night!

I haven't looked at my warmup/game photos yet, or watched any of the Bruins highlights (they do seem to have a knack for winning games I'm not able to watch live), just wanted to immediately share my excitement. here's a list of each team's shutouts for the season (sorry I don't have it broken down by goalie; obviously Cristobal Huet and Tim Thomas got some too):

Blackhawks shutouts:
vs Panthers 10/3 * vs Nashville 10/24 * vs Vancouver 11/22 * vs Tampa Bay 12/13 * vs St Louis 12/16 * vs Detroit 12/20 * vs Detroit 12/23 * vs Columbus 1/14 * vs Los Angeles 3/18 * vs Phoenix 3/23

Bruins shutouts:
vs Dallas 10/16 * vs Edmonton 10/31 * vs Pittsburgh 11/10 * vs Ottawa 12/21 * vs Atlanta 12/30 * vs Montreal 2/7 * vs Atlanta 3/23

oops, I didn't note the scores. but Chicago has shut out Detroit 3-0 twice, and Boston shut out Atlanta 4-0 twice. each team has gotten two shutouts of teams from the other conference.

fighting goalie time!

2010-03-23T14:46:00.000-07:00

if I haven't said this already, the three most beautiful words in hockey are "Stanley Cup Winners." and the two most beautiful are "goalie fight." I posted a good junior hockey one recently, where the goalies fought, along with everyone else, in a line brawl.

then at Puck Daddy today, a fight was posted of goaltenders Steve Summerhays of the Green Bay Gamblers and Nick Pisellini of the Chicago Steel (USHL, American junior hockey). they got penalties and game ejections (and have since received multi-game suspensions). what makes this unusual is that it happened just before the shootout, so their backups had to take over. (if only fans could fight to get out of seeing a shootout...) yes, I'd call it a staged fight, based on the fact that these two have battled before, and are friends off the ice. so this brought out complaints from both hockey fans and trolls in the comments that it makes hockey look bad or whatever. but still, worth a look. warning: shirtless goalie footage!

and last night, in the much-hyped SCF rematch Penguins @ Red Wings game (which I was very tempted to go to, since I could easily find seats for under $50. it's been a long, long time since you could get seats that cheap for the Blackhawks vs the lowliest opponents), right after the Wings won 3-1 and some kind of unpleasantries were going on (I didn't watch this closely enough to judge who's right and wrong here. surely you can find it being argued in agonizing detail at Kukla's Korner, Puck Daddy, etc.), Wings goalie Jimmy Howard got feisty (mercifully, the YouTube link disabled commenting):

ha: "in a city that traditionally has liked fighting goaltenders, Jimmy Howard has joined the list." screenshots from when I watched live:

and of course, now there's this. I didn't join but a FB friend did. I'm not anti-Crosby, just pro-goalies punching people (if provoked).

obsessive minutiae: StubHub NHL team descriptions edition

2010-03-22T23:38:00.000-07:00

(this is a new "ongoing series" though I don't know what'll be next in it). so, I've only had to buy a hockey ticket from StubHub once, when I couldn't get a TicketExchange one for a Blackhawks game that happened to be the one-year anniversary (within a day) of my first hockey/Blackhawks game ever. I had to go to a separate pickup location before the game on a brutal January day, and pay more fees than Exchange. but I do check there often just in case, not just for Hawks but for other cities I'd wanted to see hockey in.

I was amused by the Blackhawks description, something like "Come see Toews and Kane lead the team to victory!" ...but then they dumped it for a more generic one. and I noticed the Buffalo Sabres one was kind of bad, too. then...I started looking at many more of them just for fun. for the most part these are so awful they're funny (at least to me). I pity whoever had to write these...but they're not even trying. if you're going to mention player names (Capitals does, but, get this, Penguins doesn't) why not spice it up a little with "Come see Daniel Carcillo get a well-deserved beating!" or for bottom-dwelling teams "Uh, well technically it's a hockey team, and uh, you like hockey, right?" anyway, I checked them all. I know I really only have to post a few for you to get the idea, but for the full deadening effect, here are ALL 30 listings (alphabetical by team name, not city name), each in more or less the appropriate team colors:

okay, the Hurricanes, Lightning, and Stars ones amused me the most, as did the egregious misspelling you may have seen twice, and the Wild's description, which sounds like it's really selling the chance to see the opposing teams!

(the Sabres one looks different because their ticket site through NHL.com isn't TicketMaster and TicketExchange--I have no idea why they use a different company.)

wearing of the green (jerseys), part 2. also, bikinis

2010-03-21T23:16:00.000-07:00

so I said I'd post a little more about green St. Patrick's hockey jerseys, and it got delayed past March 17. but hey, Chicago kept St. Pat's going past then, because the annual "Shamrock Shuffle" was today. (since this is an event that's 1) outside and 2) requires physical exertion, I know next to nothing about it.) anyhow, I'd hoped to get a few photos of green jersey fouls at games I went to this week, but saw nothing too bad.

but first: bikinis! Friday afternoon, this Puck Daddy piece debated the new $40 NHL bikinis (available in certain teams only so far), with three female bloggers. two of my favorites, I Mean, We Got Guys & Wrap Around Curl, plus Hitthepost!, which I don't know too well (by the way, I'd like to point out that I'm available for roundtable discussions. and guest posts. and columns. and...). nice discussion about hockey apparel and what the NHL does/doesn't do for its female fans. of course, it being Puck Daddy, almost immediately there was a "these bloggers must be ugly anyway" comment, and by the third page, a troll asking "why let some silly economic idea like 'demand' (or lack thereof) get in the way of Marxist knee-jerk gender obsessions?" *speechless*

anyway, this is the sort of thing I left out of the first post (which was more Irish-themed hockey jerseys, not St. Patrick's-themed team jerseys):

last week on NHL.com I found this (what's especially St. Pat's about the Bruins item? just being Boston-related doesn't qualify it, does it?):

I liked seeing how much was available for each team based on size of their fanbase and/or Irish-American population in their city, presumably (I'd think the NYC-area teams would have more available):

what was my point? not that I'm bothered by having St. Patrick's-related apparel per se, but that the all-green items that don't just incorporate the team's name but its logo too? well, how are they different from:

the dreaded pink jerseys! now, I don't care for all-pink jerseys (the above is a girl's one, which bothers me less than adult women wearing them--the NHL store didn't even have women's pink Hawks jerseys when I just checked), but are they objectively worse than all-green jerseys? either way, you're not properly wearing the team colors (green Flames? green Red Wings? to use examples from above). the gender-based marketing behind them bothers me, but I don't see the object itself as any more objectionable. in fact...well, sometimes it seems like too easy a way to pick on female fans. I think many critics of pink jerseys use it as a shorthand for new or bandwagon fans, without any sexist intent. but there is also, um, let's say, a longstanding cultural tendency to insult things that are identified with women. (see: well, the vast majority of the trash-talking done in any men's sport.)

that's the monochromatic jersey. there's also these:

that's from a fun piece on the Chicago Wolves' site about their St. Patrick's jerseys over the years. now, as with so much minor league apparel, these can be a bit goofy, but because they have the proper logo in the proper colors, it's different. and I've seen jerseys and shirts that use a pink background and regular logo (pale pink for breast cancer awareness, or in the case of a Cincinnati Cyclones girl's shirt, their red and yellow logo on a bright pink background. I kind of wanted to buy it). in fact, there was a Puck Daddy defense of that type of pink jersey (now I'm wondering if I can find any fight videos with a player in one of those fundraiser pink jerseys!).

okay, enough. all this is reminding me that's it's nearly the end of the season and I don't have any hockey jerseys of my own yet. and I now have a strange search history on NHL.com thanks to this piece:

Hockey Scouting Report 1989-90

2010-03-19T23:19:00.000-07:00

I know, kind of a random thing to post, especially given that it was the most stressful week of hockey watching I've had this year (wait, that's why I need to post something unrelated), and the screenshots and links and opinions are piling up...but it looks like I won't have time to post much more until Sunday evening, so...here's something I found in the disappointingly limited selection of hockey books in the vast, vast (4 stories) used bookstore, Renaissance Books, in downtown Milwaukee, this week. I'd gone on Megabus with a friend for my first Milwaukee trip of 2010 and first hockey game there. it's an amazing store and I had a few nice finds, including the following:

this is a terrific resource, and I imagine I have readers who had, or have, copies of these around (anyone know what years it was published?). it goes well with my recent acquisition of hundreds of 1990-91 hockey cards, giving an analysis of the players I already knew about and helping me out with the less-familiar names. there's a chapter for each of the 21 NHL teams at the time (wow, only 21...and of those, four have relocated). a couple sample pages, featuring names in hockey news this week:

so, one of these players has "smarts and dependability," but "there may not be much of an NHL career left" for the other...

glad I don't have to write sports headlines, #15...

2010-03-18T23:58:00.000-07:00

although this is one I hadn't thought of, and am surprised I didn't, and if I wasn't so caught up in anagramming players' names (oh, I'll be posting more. Martin Brodeur = Darn Me, Burrito!) I'd write possible headlines. I assume this is meant to suggest "career"? I don't believe Paul Kariya's been having a great year (I can't recall if he did much of anything in the three Blues games I attended) so I hadn't thought of him much...

it was an emotional night of hockey--depressing loss for the Bruins, excellent win for the Blackhawks--and I'll say more tomorrow. also, some other major sporting event started today, and I'm as confused by all the basketball stuff showing up on my Twitter feed as many of my followers surely are by my hockey posts...

not this again. another hit, more rage

2010-03-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

(Updated AGAIN: 8-game suspension for Wisniewski. Yes!) (I added more links and a picture hours after the original post, so I've reposted it.) Have to delay another whimsical post on green St. Patrick's stuff (oh well, a little time to look for more) for obvious reasons: the horrorshow of tonight's Blackhawks at Anaheim Ducks game. That piece I wrote about Sunday versus the Capitals (a reader Twittered, er, tweeted "holy f-bomb!" to me about it)? Oh, expressed only a fraction of the anger I have about this one...

I'm too tired to go through all the images from the game (had an hour-long phone call with friend who hadn't watched the game yet, so I said little about it and stuck to other hockey topics. I was cheered up a little. I've had a lot of good stories I haven't mentioned yet) so I'll just give you Coach Quenneville:

First, a little more about Alex Ovechkin's hit on Brian Campbell. I guess Ovechkin apologized? Don't feel like looking it up now. Again, I don't hate him or think he's a dirty player, just someone who's gotten kind of reckless. I haven't read much on Capitals blogs since the incident but "I Want my Innocent Ovi Back," a thoughtful piece at On Frozen Blog, was willing to incur the wrath of other Caps fans (and got it). The Puck Daddy piece on the suspension (which Greg Wyshynki disagreed with. I agree with him that it should be more about "intent to injure" than an actual injury) had 362 comments last time I looked, 523 at the time I'm posting this. I read some of that and comments on TSN and Kukla's Korner.

I stand by my frustration in the "f-bomb" piece, but I may have been in haste when I said most Capitals fans were "amoral, hypocritical scumbags" (or was it "classless douchebags"?). I should have waited a bit for their reaction to the suspension, and included "whiny conspiracy theorists." Right, everything in the NHL is about the Penguins' success, and the league promotes Canadians and persecutes Russians, and...oh, whatever. The Capitals-Penguins-Red Wings infighting in comments ruins so many hockey sites. Not exactly something I've only just noticed, but it's so much worse now, with a Capitals player punished and Matt Cooke, a Penguins one not.

If I had money for hockey-related apparel right now, I'd want this excellent shirt by @ChiBlackhawks. The Cafe Press store for it is here. Puck Daddy should pick up on this one; it's more entertaining than the Ryan Miller "American Made" shirt highlighted today.

Now, a few words on tonight, and a much worse hit, hopefully not in terms of injury, but definitely in terms of "intent to injure." Here's the TSN game recap. There's nothing in the "Top Headlines" box on NHL.com about the questionable acts in the game (well, you can't post a big story about someone getting tossed out of game, when they weren't). Puck Daddy posted James Wisniewski's cheapshot on Brent Seabrook after Seabrook hit Corey Perry here: "Down goes Seabrook, out goes Wisniewski?". At his blog, Ryan Lambert (who was on my wrath list the other day, but he doesn't mention goaltending here since that was hardly the issue in the game [and oh, didn't Blackhawks fans going into it think that Corey Crawford's first NHL start this season--he's usually with the Rockford IceHogs--was what we needed to worry about, along with Campbell's absence?], posted "The Ducks Remain Hockey's Most Charming Franchise". Much appreciated.

Wisniewski's hit got a mere two minutes for charging, and the Hawks didn't even get a power play because of what Duncan Keith did after the hit, and...then there was nonsense later in the game with a non-call on the Ducks (even if Brent Sopel may have been diving, a bit), resulting in an immediate goal for them. And...oh, so much crappiness. Either you saw it or you can read the pieces above. I'm exhausted. Only high point, besides two goals by the Hawks, and Crawford (mostly) not being blameworthy for the loss, was Nick Boynton (former Duck), in his first game as a Blackhawk, fighting Wisniewski (former Blackhawk, and hopefully this game killed off any remaining fond feelings Hawks fans had for Wiz), seconds from the end of the game. The Blackhawks could have made this a much more vicious game, but didn't. More commentary about all this when the dust has settled a bit...(ETA: good articles from James Mirtle and Bob McKenzie on this, the latter calling it the "Grand Slam of Illegal Hits.")

This piece has been too polite, so how about throwing in a: FUCK YOU, YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKING DUMBASS. (Random Internet idiot--this is what happens when I search trending topics, in this case "Wisniewski.")

and some lines I copied down during the Blackhawks game broadcast on WGN 720, where I heard the announcers, Troy Murray especially, get angrier than I've ever heard them:

it is an absolute joke

it's a farce

how many times do you see me get this worked up?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY LET THIS HOCKEY GAME GET OUT OF HAND

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

pushing and shoving have ensued, we may get a fracas

I CAN'T BELIEVE THE REFS HAVE LET THE GAME OUT OF HAND
I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS
WHAT AN ABSOLUTE JOKE

one of the strangest and most poorly officiated games we've ever seen

a disgraceful end to a hockey game
a disgracefully officiated hockey game

wearing of the green (jerseys), part 1

2010-03-17T15:31:00.000-07:00

yes, that means a part 2, where I will post more St. Patrick's Day-related hockey apparel and advance a slightly controversial opinion about such. first, here's a few things I found searching online on this beautiful spring-like (in Chicago) day. I've got to go out for a bit--now where's my "continue to ignore me romantically, I'm not Irish" button?

oh, I would LOVE to attend a St. Pat's-themed ECHL game (yeah this one's on the 19th...). I was at NHL (3/14) and AHL (3/16) games with some St. Patrick's festivities, but you've gotta go to the ECHL (or other minor league) level for the full amount of ridiculousness.

remember, the name on the front of the jersey is more important than the name on the back:

icejerseys.com gives us this, plus a similar one reading "IRISH" on the front:

I'm not wild about some green versions of current teams' shirts and jerseys, but I could be convinced to wear one for the long-gone Toronto St. Patricks team:

besides the green apparel for sale, NHL.com is commemorating 3/17 with this (here's the article):

remember, Chicago's got TWO Patricks right now! yeah!

NHL anagrams!

2010-03-15T22:54:00.000-07:00

(edited to add: Aubrey came up with some and linked to this piece and Wrap Around Curl's.) after all the negativity in the last post, I wanted to have a little fun. I thought of scanning some more old books, but then a #nhlanagrams tag popped up on Twitter, and I immediately googled "anagram generator," found some sites, and posted a bunch. not too many (since no one else I know was playing along, though some people enjoyed reading them and retweeted) but apparently enough to lose a follower (could have been spam anyway). so here goes (some make much more sense than others):

Eastern Conference:

Alex Ovechkin = Hack Live Oxen or Nail, Choke, Vex.

Sidney Crosby = Ed Sins, Cry, Boy

Zdeno Chara = Daze Anchor

Milan Lucic = Lilac Cumin

Sean Avery = Arena Yves

Matt Cooke = Cake Motto

some Central Division fun:

Rick Nash = Rink Cash

David Backes = Bad Save, Dick

Shea Weber = He Saw Beer

Vancouver Canucks (sadly, "Ryan Kesler" didn't turn into anything)

Roberto Luongo = Rube Go Loot Ron

Kyle Wellwood = We Yolk Do Well

Alex Burrows = Our Sex Brawl

Chicago Blackhawks (& prospect):

Kyle Beach = Heal Becky

Jonathan Toews = Want Josh, Atone. or A Hot Jeans Town (someone beat me to it on Twitter)

Patrick Kane = I Kept a Crank

Duncan Keith = A Dunce Think (his name turned up a lot of unprintable ones. yes, even by the standards of my previous post--unprintable)

Brent Seabrook = Beast Broke Ron

Kris Versteeg = Resist Keg, Rev

Tomas Kopecky = Stop, OK? My Cake

Antti Niemi = Aim, net. In it.

these are my favorite (and often, most apt) ones I found searching what people had posted on Twitter:

Zach Parise = A Cash Prize

Tie Domi = Me Idiot

Luke Schenn = Heckle Nuns

Sidney Crosby = Bossy Ice Nerd

Vesa Toskala = AKA Lost Save

...some names were too short to produce anything good, some had too many unusual letters to work (Zenon Konopka *sigh*). Martin Brodeur has "rotund" in it but I didn't work out the rest of the phrase. be warned, I might do this again.

the rant re: Sunday's game

2010-03-15T15:54:00.000-07:00

(So, the Washington Capitals at Chicago Blackhawks, March 14. Here's my recap--language advisory! Also, there's some sarcasm here, but I'll leave it to you to determine how serious, or not, this all is...This was neither written nor posted in the heat of anger, by the way.)

Fuck NBC for broadcasting this game, because I still don't have NBC reception and keep unsuccessfully begging people to record these games for me (not that I want to rewatch it...). Fuck NBC for scheduling it so early, and right after the "spring forward" part of daylight savings time. Fuck the early start because the Blackhawks have a terrible record with day games. Fuck that I had to leave after 9 to get there right after 10 to get the free hat. Fuck that a discussion I had with someone I know outside reminded me I was going to this game alone (like all but two games at the UC this season, and all games at Allstate) and put me in an existential despair. Fuck that the person with the season ticket next to me never showed up, making things worse.

Fuck Alex Ovechkin for the hit on Brian Campbell. Fuck Jordan Hendry and Colin Fraser for their penalties late in the game and the Blackhawks collapse. Fuck Nicklas Backstrom for his game-winning goal, and that I had to look up his name to make sure I didn't spell it like the other NHL'er, Niklas Backstrom.

Fuck that this was the first time I'd seen the Blackhawks lose to an eastern conference team in person, and the first time I saw them lose in overtime. Fuck that this was their first OT (as opposed to shootout) loss this season.

Fuck that Twitter died right before I left for the game so I had no way to get in touch with/try to meetup with the many people I follow who were going to the game. Fuck that a Milwaukee friend, the first person I knew of as a Blackhawks fan, was at that game (his first this season?) and I didn't know till later.

Fuck the first caller to WGN's postgame show, who said "Maybe I'm not drinking the goaltender Kool-Aid like you are..." "Which saves should Niemi have made?" "I didn't watch the game." Fuck everyone who blamed the Blackhawks losses this weekend on goalies, did THEY watch the games?

Fuck the totally packed Wicker Park coffeeshop Filter that I went to after the game, because I sat in there 45 minutes in a Hawks shirt and no one asked the game result. Fuck that they all have laptops and Blackberries, unlike me, and could check the score. Fuck that it's more likely they're a bunch of pretentious sports-hating hipsters who didn't know about the game, and the fact I spent so many years in Chicago around art school types like that is a reason I didn't get into sports sooner.

(great hash browns and coffee, though)

Fuck the comments I saw on Twitter when I got back. Fuck Mike Milbury for his comments on NBC I didn't know about till then, criticizing the penalty. Fuck Scotty Hockey and Japer's Rink (via Twitter yesterday, I don't know if they blogged it) for saying, respectively, the hit shouldn't have gotten a penalty at all (!!!) or just a minor penalty. Fuck all the rumors flying around about Campbell's injuries. Fuck that they pretty much turned out to be true later.

Fuck that Japer's Rink (Capitals blog, for any readers who don't follow it), on their game recap thread, had 800+ comments by late evening and I could count on one hand the number that expressed sympathy when Campbell's injuries were confirmed. Fuck their commenters for saying (right after the hit) that he was embellishing it, and since he walked off the ice he was obviously okay, and the penalty was ridiculous (right, because all concussions and internal injuries are immediately visible).

Fuck that after the Blackhawks matchups this weekend and what I read online from followers of these teams, I'm left thinking of Flyers fans as generally decent, and Capitals fans as amoral, hypocritical scumbags (except for a sensible one I follow on Twitter).

Fuck Deadspin for calling it a "terrible call"" yesterday (I have problems with that site but agree with most of their opinions on sports.) Fuck Ryan Lambert's Puck Daddy column today, not for anything he said about the hit, but for his "What We Learned" summation of the Blackhawks this weekend: "Chicago's goaltending: playoff-ready." Did HE watch the games?

...Okay, more about Ovechkin's hit. (And remember, I'm surprisingly neutral on most things Crosby/Penguins and Ovechkin/Capitals related, unlike the folks who drag that into every topic on Puck Daddy...) I think it was a dirty hit. I'm fine with the penalties. I'm not sure about suspension or how many games it should be. It's very frustrating, especially as a Bruins fan, that Matt Cooke's hit on Marc Savard didn't even get a penalty, much less a game misconduct or suspension, when it was a dirtier hit and also ended the season for a star player. But all the people saying you can't suspend Ovechkin because the NHL didn't suspend Cooke...um, isn't there some common phrase about "two wrongs" I could familiarize you with?

Do I think Ovechkin is a dirty player? No, not like Cooke, or Steve Downie, who had a cheapshot versus the Penguins yesterday. But even if he doesn't have the bad intentions and general sleazebaggery of players like that, I can't just write off incidents like the Campbell hit as "oh, that's the risk of his style of play" or whatever. Makes me think of a older relative or neighborhood eccentric who says odd, sometimes amusing things, but "Oh sure, sometimes he'll say that women shouldn't have the vote anymore or all illegal immigrants should be shot, but that's just Jerry being Jerry! What a character!" Uh, okay...

Note: as I wrote the above, a two-game suspension came down. Not sure if I'll have more to say about this (oh, I didn't even address how having Brian Campbell out will affect the Hawks' defense now...), but I will have more about the rest of the hockey weekend (which mostly was not much fun for me).

junior hockey line brawl!

2010-03-13T22:07:00.000-08:00

this was a very discouraging day in NHL games, in my opinion, but I was overjoyed to find this video. I noticed it posted on hockeyfights.com last night but didn't realize then how good it was...near the end of the second period in the Medicine Hat Tigers at Lethbridge Hurricanes (WHL) game, a line brawl erupted. all the players paired off. and yes, that means...goalie fight! I was tempted to just post this and let you find that part out but in today's busy world...I'll just spoil it. so there's a goalie fight. (and then two other players fight...guys, I know you wanted to be part of the excitement but personally I think goalies fighting is kind of the grand finale, right?) the commentary on this is entertaining, too.

here's the hockeyfights.com page linking to the goalie matchup (Tyler Bunz vs Linden Rowat, who each got a game misconduct). Medicine Hat won this game 5-4, and another game against Lethbridge tonight, 4-1 (it took more effort than I thought it would to find those scores!

grueling games, Twitter, Predators & Sharks

2010-03-13T00:02:00.000-08:00

so the game I was all excited about going to tonight? well, I'll post any interesting photos later (Chicago Wolves looked great in their new green jerseys), but the laziest recap:

I got home to find out on Twitter, thanks to the knowledgeable and entertaining @HockeyJoeGM (see, I'm doing a Twitter "Follow Friday," but on my blog instead. ha!) that a men's college hockey game was about to become the longest college hockey game in history. Quinnipiac was playing at Union (these are in Hamden, CT, & Schenectady, NY respectively--I had to look those up just now). there's the score at bottom (what's that cool building?):

and you could have watched it unfold here:

so this game was starting around the time I left for the Wolves game, and still going on when I got back. and it's a CTA bus, CTA train, and Pace bus each way for me to get to Allstate Arena. a relatively brief 2.5 hours to see the home team lose doesn't seem so bad now.

speaking of other crushing defeats...how about the Predators at Sharks game Thursday night? I doubt many east coasters stayed up for that but it would have been worth it. I wanted Nashville to win, to keep some points away from San Jose. not just because I've recently become enamored, like so many others, of Preds' goalie Dan Ellis' Twitter account, @dellis39 (my favorite "verified" sports celebrity Twitterer, though I can't say I've sought out many yet. @OzzieGuillen is...well, did you SEE the feud, possibly one-sided, with Sean Penn? he's always, um, interesting.) linked in this tweet are photos each of us posted of the demolition of the Lafayette Building in downtown Detroit (he threw in a swipe at Detroit...and the Preds were beaten badly by the Red Wings that night)!

anyway, it was a fine back-and-forth game, with the Predators leading for much of the first two periods. late in the second, in a few minutes of game time, the score went from 3-2 Preds to 4-2 to 3-2 back to 4-2. the Preds seemed to score a goal and the score went up but the goal was disallowed (the "distinct kicking motion" call). then right after, they scored a 4th goal for real. but I guess this messed with them a bit, because then in the third period...the Sharks starting scoring.

A LOT. even a goal which was questionable, for..."distinct kicking motion." but was allowed. (I don't think I've seen TWO goals under review in any game I watched this season. interesting that both were decided in the home team's favor, though I haven't watched them enough to judge for myself.) after 4 fairly quick Sharks goals (another from Preds too), Dan Ellis was pulled. goalies often get pulled when that many goals happen quickly, but to put in the other goalie with only 5 minutes left in the game?!

then Marleau got his 40th goal of the season...then Jay Leach got an empty-netter, his first career NHL goal. and then I learned the Sharks set an interesting NHL record (this surprised me):

boy, I hope no one left that game early to beat traffic. I checked NHL.com after the game hoping for a spectacular headline, but I guess they were in bed for the night, nothing on the main page. in the morning, Joe Pavelski got this salute on the front page (and I agree with the Blackhawks fan who said he looks like he could be Kris Versteeg's brother):

I'll let Dan Ellis have the last word, which did appear before I went to bed:

Thursday 3/11 report

2010-03-12T15:32:00.000-08:00

goodness, a lot has been happening lately, in the sports world and in my personal experiences with it. right now, here's just a quick recap of last night in the NHL, possibly the most impressive single night of games I've seen in a while. this piece is a tribute to Blogger no longer having that annoying image limit (which was one of the things holding me back on posting to my other blog, then I came back from a long absence and the limit was gone. now just laziness is holding me back...)

Bruins defeat the Flyers, in Philadelphia, by a fantastic 5-1 score. (how long since the B's had that many goal in a game? do I want to know?) it was just past the halfway point and they'd already had 4 goals and Mark Stuart had fought BOTH Ian Lapierre and Daniel Carcillo. also, I've seen quite a few games recently needing glass fixed or replaced:

the Maple Leafs and Lightning had a decent game that I believe was tied at 1-1, 2-2, and 3-3 before Leafs won it in overtime. their second OT win of the year, I think. (the first was, um, against Boston Tues. night. I'm glad that's not the Bruins game I saw this week.) despite some of the below, disappointingly, Zenon Konopka did NOT get into his 25th fight of the season (maybe he wasn't even in the game? I can't claim to be following the Lightning closely).

NHL.com didn't sum up that game exactly...they just went on about great Stamkos has been. I guess, even if he didn't win that one...

Hurricanes @ Penguins was another back-and-forth game, with a certain unmentionable Pens player tying it at 3. but then the Canes scored barely 20 seconds into overtime. I don't believe I've seen the Canes third jerseys this season, so here's a nice view of them:

and you may have heard that Chris Chelios played his first game in an Atlanta Thrashers uniform last night, in their game at Columbus...

it didn't sound like he had the best game (I didn't realize it was on until the third period, so I missed his actual debut). I was hoping Atlanta would win so Washington could be kept from clinching the division for another night. but the game was 2-0 Columbus for a long time until Atlanta scored one goal late. they failed to tie it up despite being 6 on 4 at the end (and the refs added back 2.4 seconds after the final horn sounded, not sure why).

Red Wings were on fire vs the Wild, scoring 3 goals barely 10 minutes into the game. more than I saw them score in the game I took my Detroit friend to the other night (report forthcoming, of course).

this game, which they won 5-1, put them from 9th in the west into 8th. the loss to the Flames the other night had knocked them from 7th to 9th.

meanwhile, the Ottawa @ Calgary game got started about 40 minutes late.

Flames, also in alternate jerseys, I think, beat the Senators 2-0. and pushed Detroit back into the #9 spot...

I didn't get into the most ridiculous game of the night but I'm in a hurry now to get to the Chicago Wolves game...so more later (nor did I have time to check all the details, hence all the "I think"s in this post).

Brent Seabrook (my first time getting an autograph)

2010-03-09T04:38:00.000-08:00

I promised something kind of light and silly, and here it is. I didn't get autographs at the Blackhawks Night Rockford IceHogs game I attended recently; the lines were so long I wasn't even going to try, even if it did include a couple players who are particular favorites of mine. but then I found out the Lincoln Park branch of Starfruit Cafe (a new chain of frozen kefir places--I haven't tried it yet, but they started following me on Twitter and they're one of the few businesses I followed back) would be hosting Brent Seabrook from 4-6 pm Sat. March 6, the day after the Canucks game, where I happened to get the giveaway, a Seabrook drawstring backpack.

I got out a bit late. unlike Ms. Blackhawks, who mentioned the signing here (great photo at the end), I didn't show up early, not getting there till 4:30. there was a line, but not bad, not even halfway down the block. I walked back and forth a few times to judge how long it'd take and if I should wait, because I felt nervous suddenly, and worried about if I'd be done by 5 so I had enough time to get to the Chicago Wolves game vs the Admirals.

I was in line a few minutes later with a numbered wristband, and it was barely 20 minutes before I got into the cafe. cute place. surely, nothing says hockey like an adorable cafe full of pink/floral decor! I took photos of the people in front of me (and balloons).

then it was my turn! I said "Congratulations" (meaning the Olympics--and WHY didn't I bring a copy of the Tribune with the gold medal Blackhawks on the cover? I made a point to buy extra copies) and "Last night was my favorite game I'd been to this season. Great job" (meaning good job in his fight. a rare fight for Seabrook, and one that got him a 90+% win rating on hockeyfights.com! his on-ice performance has been off for a while). and he signed my little backpack (you'll see). I didn't feel like asking a stranger to take a photo of me with him. I'm trying to keep the 12-year-old-girlishness of this post to a minimum, but OMG he was cuter in person than I expected. (maybe his hair just doesn't look right in photos).

I took a few more photos of other people signing. the frozen treats looked good (and I want to give them business for hosting such a pleasant event) but I couldn't get anything and was still kind of nervous. I was out just after 5, but wasn't able to get to the Wolves game. glad I made it out for this, at least. I passed back along Halsted St. on the bus a little later, not quite 5:30, and there was no line. theoretically, I could have just hung out in there...but I went home and took this photo:

ha, totally didn't mean to wear a shirt that matched the decor of the cafe so well (wish I'd gotten a photo next to that wall!); I just noticed it was one I hadn't worn in a long time. I kept the hat on while I was there (and was too lazy to remove the wristband till hours later). I regret that winter/hockey hat season will be ending soon; I don't look nearly as good in baseball caps (and the only actual baseball cap I own is for the Iowa Cubs). and that's the doubtless fascinating story of my first time meeting a Blackhawk (or any pro athlete)!

now, I'll be away briefly for another first: my first time taking someone else to their first hockey game...

a couple serious things

2010-03-08T20:16:00.000-08:00

I got home Sunday afternoon from a game and caught the last half of Boston @ Pittsburgh. all of a sudden I saw a Bruins player down, and as he was being checked out and put on a stretcher, I learned it was Marc Savard after a hit by Matt Cooke. terrible...

if you read this blog and you follow hockey you've almost certainly seen video of this incident elsewhere, and seen the debate over what the NHL should do about a dangerous hit like this. at first I thought almost no one was defending Cooke, not on Twitter or blogs I read, but as the comments piled up on the Puck Daddy piece on the hit, a lot of disgusting commenters showed up. the Boston Globe's Bruins blog commenters (and the comments section there--I read it after both Blackhawks-Bruins games this season--seems fairly reasonable) wasted a lot of space chastising the Bruins for not taking immediate retaliatory action (late in the season trying to secure a playoff spot, in a 2-1 game?). I wouldn't have been bothered by retaliation, and I won't mind at all if something happens when these teams meet again March 18, but the macho posturing and name-calling of the Bruins (and of any fan who didn't think they should have attacked right away), got tedious. anyway, I don't feel I have much to add to this discussion. friend of ALC, Bruins blog Hockey Gone Wild has this page cataloguing Matt Cooke's history of dirty hits now.

non-hockey but sports-related: I haven't tried to read much yet about recent rape allegations against a certain well-known football player, but on Twitter I stumbled across a link to this piece on the sports humor blog With Leather. um...it's not that I think the story is 100% off-limits mentioning on that site (and yes, I get the movie reference in the title), or Deadspin, but that piece is a complete and total misrepresentation of why rape happens (hint: it's NOT about being "allegedly horny"). the commenters, whether they think the incident may have happened or not, are as full of inane misunderstanding. I had to hold back to not put this all in caps with many exhortations to STFU.

there was a piece on the political blog Pandagon I had in mind for the next time a story like this broke. but I didn't think I'd have to use it for the exact same athlete (who I haven't named, to avoid this turning up in searches). from summer 2009: "Sports culture, rape, and why it’s not about being hard up". it dissects the common view, when a celebrity is accused of rape, that "he didn't have to rape, he could get any woman he wants."

and the final paragraph sums up things I think about a lot and rarely address here. (I agree with what she says, but would add that I see many female sports bloggers with similar "ugly views" and also using problematic language.)

The world of sports has a lot of great things to offer---I’m not even really a sports fan, but I can appreciate the thrill of competition, the wonder at the limits that the human body can push, the grace and skill of the athletes, the highs and lows for the fans. I am a political blogger, after all, and my enthusiasms aren’t that different. But for reasons that are admittedly complicated, the world of sports has also become a sanctuary for misogynists who want to let their hair down. It’s not just one thing that makes this so---the routine objectification and disdain for women’s full humanity you see in sports exists in all sorts of environments, from video gaming to business to rock music. But for some reason, when it comes to sports, it’s just heightened dramatically. In fact, it seems a lot of men love sports precisely because it’s a venue where they can just indulge some of their uglier views with the secure realization that no one will call bullshit.

well...time to lighten the mood up next with some relatively frivolous posts--a lot of exciting stuff has happened and overwhelmed me from writing much...

amazing Toledo Walleye game tonight!

2010-03-06T23:26:00.000-08:00

no, I wasn't there. I had a free (or maybe it was $1) Megabus seat to Toledo Saturday, and wanted to check out my first-ever Toledo Walleye (ECHL, affiliate of both the Blackhawks AND the Red Wings, if you can imagine such a thing) game, vs. Charlotte Checkers (the Albany River Rats of the AHL are moving to Charlotte, so I'm unclear what's happening to the Checkers), in the Lucas County Arena, which wasn't even around on my photography daytrip to Toledo (late 2008). but the Megabus stop in Toledo isn't in the heart of downtown like most of their stops (usually as close to Greyhound/Amtrak stations as they can get away with), but miles away, in the parking lot of an abandoned shopping mall. SERIOUSLY. and then the mall was torn down (I actually took the 2008 daytrip to get photos of it before it was gone, then rode the city bus--$1 fare!--into downtown). it's not a bad area (I believe a Waffle House is nearby) but you can't really get from downtown to there at night...

so I stayed in Chicago (and did something hockey-related I'll post ASAP) and stayed in tonight watching what hockey I could find online and following @ToledoWalleye on Twitter. Akim Aliu, who'd just been sent to Toledo from the Rockford IceHogs (where I saw him play last Saturday--seeing the same player in two different leagues on consecutive Sat. nights would have been interesting), scored his first Walleye goal in this game. then they were up 2-0, then the Checkers scored 4 goals to make it 4-2, but Walleye came back and scored in OT and won 6-5. TWO goals by Aliu in the game. damn, that sounds as good as anything I saw this year. usually hockey fan pages on Facebook are just horrifying in comments, but minor-league pages aren't as bad. much less inane trash talk (the NHL page) or gloating/predicting doom (Blackhawks page). since I couldn't go, this is the game recap:

anyway, not sure if I'll make it to a Walleye game or not. maybe it seems strange to be living in Chicago with very successful and exciting NHL and AHL teams (and I've been to some spectacular games in the past few weeks), and wishing I could see ECHL and junior hockey and college games...

glad I don't have to write sports headlines, #13 in an ongoing series

2010-03-04T14:03:00.000-08:00

ah, with the resumption of NHL games, dorky headlines on NHL.com are BACK! (not that they went away, as all the Finn and Czech puns during the Olympics proved.)

awwww. and I'm back to checking NHL standings. a certain team is #1 in the West again, but never mind that; here's an interesting stat I noticed when I was at the Oilers-Blackhawks game last night (yes, I got a Toews bobblehead and will post) while perusing stats in my copy of Committed Indian, and looking at the scores of the other games going on. since Washington got 3 goals in the game shown above, they're at 250 goals for the season, most in the NHL. the team with the fewest in the league is exactly 100 goals behind them. (sigh, it's Boston.)

kind of interesting that the teams with the most and fewest goals are both in playoff spots in the same conference. possibly more unusual than that, though, is that the #2 team in the east has 84 fewer goals than #1!

there is too much going on

2010-03-02T23:38:00.000-08:00

in hockey right now. going right from the Olympics to 12 NHL games today (and one yesterday) and the trade deadline tomorrow. since I'm not trying to be the timeliest blog around, I'll still post my favorite links and screenshots and photos of last month. but a few quick notes now. I know I WILL be glued to Twitter & blogs before the trade deadline Wed. afternoon, and until I have to leave to go to the Blackhawks' first post-Olympics home game. even though I'm not wild about trade deadline stuff. some of it is for the reasons listed in this piece; some because maybe I just haven't been following the sport long enough.

some trade news so far: well, interesting that a couple of the Hawks' minor-league deals involve former Bruins picks/players (Hannu Toivonen, Nick Boynton). and Chris Chelios officially getting signed to the Atlanta Thrashers at age 48? whoa. looks like he'll stay here with the Chicago Wolves (I've seen him in several games) unless they really need him. (I'd been wondering, with all the injuries the Red Wings had this year, if Detroit would ever be desperate enough to get him back for a few games.) obviously he's the oldest player in the NHL, and has the most penalty minutes of any active NHL player...because he's played more NHL seasons than many of my blog/Twitter hockey friends have been alive. and with Alexei Ponikarovsky going to Pittsburgh from Toronto...the Penguins have the only two Ukrainian-born players in the NHL that I know of (Ruslan Fedotenko is the other). (the Bruins' Johnny Boychuk has a name that looks Ukrainian to me, but he's from Canada.)

other news (not involving the horrible losses for the teams I follow tonight...): my first podcast appearance yesterday went reasonably well and I'll have a little post about it. I realized I might have to create a Facebook page so people can be "fans" of this blog, and get updates. and today I confirmed that in a week I'll be taking a friend to her first hockey game--my first time taking someone to their first game. (Calgary @ Detroit, so there'll be a few Olympians to point out...)

oh and if you like trendy Internet crap, I gave in and got a formspring account, where you can ask me questions (anonymously or not). from my Twitter followers who have them, I got the impression people just want to ask female hockey fans which players they'd have sex with. I seem to be immune to questions like that (relief? disappointment?). if you're bored, ask me things (not just about sports)!

(images above from Better Ice Hockey for Boys, 1965)

tonight!

2010-03-01T17:24:00.000-08:00

in less than an hour I'm doing the Hockeenight Puckcast. I guess there's a way to listen to it live but it might be better to just let me link to it later. I should be back to a normal blogging schedule, whatever that is, this week (and be the only hockey blog with next to nothing about trade deadline stuff. I'm obviously catching up on everything else, and I'm strangely uninterested in trade news/rumors anyway...)

We Can Teach You to Play Hockey (1972)

2010-03-01T17:16:00.000-08:00

I posted some images of Tony O from this book, another Esposito brothers collaboration, before his Heritage Night at the United Center, shortly before the NHL Olympic break. I didn't post the cover yet, so here you go. I really like the design, but I've gotta say the back cover doesn't seem like the most flattering shot they could have used...

more amusing photos from it later...

CANADA WINS GOLD and...

2010-02-28T20:14:00.000-08:00

follow-up to last post:

yes, it's ice cream with maple syrup on it, and the maple leaf cookies from Canada. I thought of this sundae yesterday but didn't want to have it before the gold medal game, so it wouldn't be a jinx. now the game is over and I guess it's to celebrate Canada's win, or as consolation, or...

I hope to have two of the following up before I do the Hockeenight Puckcast (have I mentioned it everywhere yet?) tomorrow night: Olympics wrapup (which will include things I meant to put in an Olympics PREVIEW); NHL preview (which will include things I meant to put in the NHL break WRAPUP); adventures in Rockford at my first IceHogs games for Blackhawks Night, last night...or maybe I'll even get super-caffeinated and write the story of my first hockey game. (apologies if this blog has been too much about me recently, but I figured there's enough people covering the Olympics adequately.)

USA VS CANADA 2/28 OMG

2010-02-28T10:54:00.000-08:00

news item 1: I guess I'm doing the Hockeenight Puckcast Monday night! which I've wanted to do for a while but feel unprepared for right now (given my Olympics angst, and lack of interest in NHL trade deadline stuff. well, I'll still have plenty to talk about). my first podcast! more announcements to come.

news item 2: in just a few hours we will know, once and for all...USA vs Canada, WHICH IS THE BETTER COUNTRY.* I'm not so good at trash talk, but in representing the respective countries via non-nutritious food and drink? okay...

I found these on a dollar store visit with a friend recently. he saw the maple leaves and asked if they were made in Canada and I was amused they were. I found them at another dollar store Thursday and bought some just before the gold medal women's hockey game...which the US lost. so I'm trying to stay away from them now...but they're so delicious! I don't like Oreos much except in cookies n' cream ice cream, so this is my new sandwich cookie habit...

I'd read about but not found this candy bar, then saw it in a Cracker Barrel gift shop on the road trip for the Blackhawks game in St. Louis recently. still haven't tried them. I don't know what these have to do with anything, but they're made in the US--Necco, in Revere, Mass., a factory I've actually passed by! (okay, Toronto vs Boston treats makes this more of a Maple Leafs vs Bruins thing, but anyway...)

oh, and this, your embarrassing, nonsensical Team USA fan photo:

(I've been saving those cans and bags, many from hockey road trips, for a while. for the real photo shoot I wanted to do, involving a blonde friend of mine and Team USA and Team Canada jerseys...but I never tried to borrow any jerseys, and the photographer I mentioned this to is in another state, and...well, I've probably said more than you want to hear anyway.)

rushing off to a bar now! if anyone can get me a DVR copy of the game you are my hero. Olympics wrapup tonight, hopefully... GO USA!

*at men's hockey in 2010

my first trip to a sports card store

2010-02-27T09:20:00.000-08:00

yes, somehow in the midst of all the Olympics excitement (and rage at how much of it I can't see--guess whose 6 goals I missed Friday?) I've been doing a few other things. I saw that Sal of the excellent hockey card blog Puck Junk was looking for the card set given out at the Sharks @ Red Wings game Feb. 11, and I happened to have an extra (did I mention I went to that game? I've been posting the non-hockey shots from my trip on Flickr recently. RIP Lafayette Building). this was my excuse to finally go to Tim's Baseball Card Shop (as previously mentioned, featured in an ad that aired during the Super Bowl).

it's a very nice place; I met Tim and his mom and talked a bunch of hockey and collectibles stuff with Sal, who traded something cool from the 1990s I'll post later for the Red Wings set. he asked the prices on some boxes of hockey cards from 1990-91 and when I learned the whole boxes were $8, I had to get them. I'm not really collecting, just picking up stuff for the fun of it, so even if these cards are terribly common I was thrilled because I don't have them yet...

72 packs of cards! Score has 15 cards/pack; Upper Deck 12. I've only opened a couple dozen so far. I was happy to see North Stars in the first Score pack I opened; I got lots of Jets, Nordiques, and Whalers in the recent 1993-94 card acquisition, but no North Stars yet. (now I want Colorado Rockies and Oakland Seals cards...)

I also stopped back at the dollar store I got the Valentine's football-shaped candy at the other week, and bought what must have been the last two packs of hockey cards there, since I had to dig them out of containers of football cards. I opened a pack (2008-09 Upper Deck Victory) to see Phil Kessel as a Bruin, Cristobal Huet as a Capital, and Dany Heatley as a Senator, which amused me on the bus home.

meanwhile, in the minor leagues...

2010-02-25T23:38:00.000-08:00

the Olympics have been exciting and inspirational and glorious and all (and providing me with a giant backlog of material that I hope to start posting before I find a place to watch the US vs Finland game Friday), but in other news OH MY GOD LOOK AT THIS. thanks to some retweets on the Twitter feed of @hawknut, I learned about a minor league (Southern Professional Hockey League) game Thursday that had some...difficulties. I went to the original source (definitely click on these):

again, that's 4 penalty minutes vs 150. a 9-minute power play. a coach and a trainer getting kicked out. "security called to players locker area." I'm not sure if this explains anything:

it's a few hours later and I don't see a report on the Knoxville Ice Bears website about this game, but the Louisiana (Lafayette) Ice Gators have the story up, or at least a sanitized version:

so they'd beat Knoxville at home Tuesday night, and Knoxville came to Louisiana looking for revenge, and got it the good way, a 10-4 win with TWO players getting hat tricks. Louisiana, on the other hand...well, I'd love to see the box score breaking down all the penalties.

somewhat "Miracle"-related post

2010-02-22T23:05:00.001-08:00

1980 Olympic Games Cookbook
Originally uploaded by mod as hell

well, it's a scan of a cookbook I own, copyright 1979, so it came out before the Olympic Games and the Miracle game of February 22, 1980. it has chapters devoted to different sports and recipes contributed by athletes in each. alas...it's only summer sports (kids, this is back in the days when the Summer and Winter Games were held in the same year...that feels like a long time ago now), so no hockey-related recipes.

I've posted a few pages from this and a 1984 Olympics-related cookbook I found, at this Flickr account (I just set it tonight so both my Flickr accounts can post to both my blogs). I should post a lot more, it's entertaining. turned to a random two pages and the recipes include (all from different contributors, all weightlifters) Skillet Chops and Beans, Prune Cake, Corn Saute, and Bean Sprout Salad. quite a variety there. I love random sports memorabilia and I love vintage (well, 1980 isn't "vintage," unless I want to make some of this blog's readers feel really old) recipes...

there are many pieces about the actual Miracle hockey game out there: Third String Goalie and Puck Junk both had fine posts today. (apologies, I don't know how to put in links when I blog directly from Flickr.)

personally, the game was before my time, but I am old enough to remember the Cold War, I'll say that much...

USA vs Canada 2/21...

2010-02-22T00:43:00.000-08:00

...DO YOU BELIEVE IN...uh, wildly overblown comparisons between this hockey game and a certain Olympics one that happened 30 years ago? (30 yrs minus a day when the game took place, 30 yrs ago when I'm posting this). no, certain sports reporters and some of the excited hordes on Twitter, this wasn't a "Miracle." but the US winning 5-3 over Canada, in Canada, was damn exciting. definitely an upset (I found it as thrilling and significant as the Super Bowl two weeks ago, except for the fact that it wasn't an actual championship game of course): the first US win over Canada in men's hockey in 50 years! (I know US hasn't actually faced Canada in every Olympics since then, but it's still impressive)

ok, more of a game recap/links to good articles later; for now I can sum it up with my two favorite photos of the game, as in, the two moments I saw live and was anxious to see replayed and as a still photo. Team USA near the end:

frankly I like that photo just a bit too much...

...and, as a contrast, the accidental Team Canada pile-up. it quickly became available as a gif (which I love, but I didn't want to put a constantly blinking thing on the page)

oh, and US IS THE #1 SEED. I was up late waiting for the update on NHL.com (they're much faster at getting NHL game results up in the standings, not that I'm in the habit of obsessively checking soon after every Blackhawks and/or Bruins game or anything) and here it is:

Americans seem kind of happy. meanwhile, laaaate, before I finally sign out of everything for the night, here's what's trending in Canada (I was at a bar watching the game, because I still don't have cable [or NBC reception--totally missed Russia-Czech game earlier], and since I don't have a portable internet device either, I couldn't check Twitter or live blogs till I got back home, but I know many hockey topics were trending):

there's no break from goalie debates...

(I'm way, way, way behind on posting stuff now, I know. the combination of the Olympics being more fun than I expected, and having frustratingly little access to see them, means I've been in a lot of bad moods and away from the blog...also, since the AHL is going strong, I've been to one fantastic game and am planning on a couple next weekend.)

FIN and CZE again: more 1993 cards!

2010-02-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

this post will look awfully familiar. for various reasons, kind of phoning it in here. hope to do a giant Olympic post and more this weekend, before the giant USA vs Canada showdown Sunday night. watching USA, Canada, and Slovakia, all teams with Blackhawks and Bruins, win Thursday was pretty exciting. I've even managed to catch a little of the Games besides hockey, though I still have the same NBC/cable trouble described earlier.

with an assist tonight in Finland's 5-0 win over Germany, Teemu Selanne set the all-time Olympic scoring record (37 points, from 20 goals and 17 assists in 5 Winter Olympics). so...MORE 1993-94 hockey cards....I have more Fleer Ultra cards than any other brand, which is nice because they have photos on the back too:

and Jaromir Jagr got a lot of attention again, with a goal in Czech Republic's 5-2 defeat of Latvia:

see the headlines in the previous post...NHL.com is phoning it in too:

bonus: before the standings were updated early 2/20 with Finland's win, look who was tops:

(note: Blogger would not let me tag this post USA!USA!USA!)

today's stars, 1993's hockey cards

2010-02-18T00:35:00.000-08:00

since my access to Olympic coverage is as lousy as the day before (see the cranky comment I put on the previous post) with no hope of improving any time soon, I am forced to just put up old hockey cards and screenshots from NHL.com. oh, who are we kidding, that's absolutely what I wanted to post anyway! I couldn't see any of the Finland-Belarus or Sweden-Germany men's games today (or the women's game that was actually a close one), nor curling (which is a surprisingly popular Twitter topic), nor all the stuff Americans were winning a lot of gold medals in. I did see the Czech Republic-Slovakia game. good game, even if Slovakia lost. Teemu Selanne set an Olympic record in the Finland game, and Jaromir Jagr did quite well for the Czechs. so here they are from my recent purchase of 100s of 1993-94 cards for $6 from an antique mall in downstate Illinois (I had several for each player but these were my favorites):

and here's your NHL.com headlines, which needless to say couldn't miss out on fun with the countries' names. (this shot of the Belarus goalie is making me sad...)

not an uplifting Olympic story

2010-02-16T23:55:00.000-08:00

you know what would be a heart-tugging, tear-jerking human interest story for the Olympics? a spirited young blogger full of excitement at actually paying a bit of attention to the Olympics for the first time since, oh, early adolescence (back when she followed figure skating, but not hockey, alas. or any other sport), who was ready to...well, not write a whole lot about the Olympics, but a reasonable amount, at least about the teams her favorite NHL players are on, and about watching women's hockey for the first time, and finally learning what curling is, and so forth, and getting lots of screenshots to post randomly, and participating in the nonstop, amusing Twitter discussions of the games, and trying to intelligently comment on whatever controversies there are during the games...and then, tragically, our scrappy heroine (okay, okay, this is as hard for me to write as it is for you to read) discovers...

SHE HAS VIRTUALLY NO WAY TO WATCH ANY OF THE OLYMPICS.

oh, I've seen a little bit since the opening ceremonies. above is a shot from what sounded like an Australian broadcast I found online. BUT, here's the problem:

1) Most Olympic coverage is on cable TV. I haven't had cable since 2008. It was $100/month here and that didn't include the premium channels! No thanks.

2) Online feeds of the sort I use for watching NHL games are hard to find and if you do find them they will likely vanish when you're watching. NBC's being a bit strict (that wasn't a surprise)

3) NBC online feeds require a software download and, oh, you have to be a cable subscriber. To get NBC. In this economy, everyone has $1000+/yr for cable/satellite service? Really?

4) CTV.ca online feeds require a software download that doesn't do anything no matter how many times I try to open it.

okay, at least some of it's on plain old NBC, right? well...at some point Monday afternoon...

5) the NBC channels completely vanished from my TV, and have not come back. maybe it's the stupid converter box; not long after I got it in June, the CBS station here disappeared for good. yes, the "improved" digital TV means I no longer get major networks.

buying a new digital TV, or even a used one unless it's very cheap, or getting cable, aren't an option right now. I really wish you could subscribe to unlimited online Olympic access; I'd gladly pay...well, less than $50 for that. but no, if you don't pay for cable, you don't get most of the Olympics (such as, nearly all the hockey games). and if you're me (just me, I guess--I posted a lot of frantic messages about my NBC vanishing and it doesn't seem to have suddenly hit anyone else), you don't get NBC AT ALL.

I found this rant via Twitter yesterday, from the blog Fools and Sages, Declaration of Incompetence. it takes on NBC for their Olympic coverage so far, and also gets into issues of their hockey coverage in general, the Conan O'Brien situation, etc. (the Declaration format is a bit over the top, but she did research it well.) I retweeted it...and my NBC vanished a few hours later. so I was even more angry at NBC and tweeted it again. and now I've linked it.

I have plenty of problems with Olympic coverage. and I wasn't expecting to watch that much of it, and I'm not as excited about the hockey as some people are. but still, I wanted to be able to have the CHOICE to see it. (and know what the hell people are talking about elsewhere on the Internet!) and I don't. I got to watch most of the second two men's hockey games today, and I know for the biggest ones I could go watch at a bar (which I was planning to do anyway). but it's a shame fans have so few options.

and now, break time

2010-02-14T21:52:00.000-08:00

the last live screenshot I got while watching NHL hockey before the Olympic break, after a kind of depressing 7-3 win by the Ducks vs the Oilers (the home team). a lot of fights and nastiness, in the limited amount I saw...

and now, some weird stuff appears in the upcoming games section of NHL.com:

I'll wrap up the Blackhawks and non-Blackhawks games tomorrow, just wanted to get this up quickly (so that Valentine isn't at the top of the page)--I'm still feeling kind of sick so I need sleep. I could use the Olympic break to finally catch up on the many recaps/photos of games I attended...of course I want to write about Olympic hockey too but so far I've had no way to watch it--I don't have cable, you can't find these illicitly broadcast online, and I don't know what I'd have to subscribe to to legitimately watch online. I'm sure there'll at least be watch parties for the USA-Canada games...

happy sports-themed Valentine's!

2010-02-14T15:03:00.000-08:00

courtesy of a dollar store in Oak Park (where it borders Chicago's west side). as you can see below they had football, baseball, soccer, and basketball. anytime I see something generically representing "sports" it seems to have those four sports on it. obviously it'd be nice to have a hockey one (with puck-shaped candies?), especially since it's a winter sport...but the little candy footballs are cute and "no penalty for holding" would work for a hockey Valentine too...

I was running errands and stopped in this store to look for hockey cards. I finally found all the sports card boxes in a big mess on the floor (due to camera battery issues, the photo I thought I took of that didn't turn out--yes, I like taking photos of of lousy store displays) and bought 4 packs of 2008-09 hockey cards, different brand than my last dollar store visit (these were at different chains). some decent stuff, lots of goalies. almost too many, even for me (3 of a 6-card pack?). as long as I'm going on about dollar stores, I could add: I found a dollar at the store. this has never happened to me at a dollar store before!

I've been sick this weekend and want to lie down to watch the last few NHL games today. this will keep me from 1) rambling about Valentine's Day/getting too personal 2) giving in the evil urge to use the special holiday options in Picnik on Flickr to put hearts all over sports photos...

2010 Olympics opening ceremony in screenshots (of course)

2010-02-13T22:53:00.000-08:00

I recorded the opening ceremonies off NBC last night, but since my TV's in a different room than the computer, I tried finding online feeds so I could watch along with the very entertaining live-Twittering of this (and then, since, absurdly enough, NBC didn't broadcast it live in the Western time zones, you know, where Vancouver actually is, I saw the play-by-play start over on Twitter a couple hours later). feeds were very sporadic so I only captured a bit of the ceremonies--none of the parade of athletes from each country, nor the torch lighting (and its difficulties) at the end. I imagine it's easy enough to find elsewhere (I couldn't easily find a shot of Bobby Orr in the white? silver? suit, though.) Gawker has a gallery of the best moments with a very high number of comments...

that's all I got...here's what was on NHL.com a little later:

as for day one of the Olympics? I didn't see any. had trouble finding online feeds (all I could get was speed skating) and besides I had a lot of NHL I wanted to watch tonight. I hope to see women's hockey soon...

glad I don't have to write sports headlines, #13 & 14...

2010-02-12T22:34:00.000-08:00

as far as I know, in the NHL trades today, all the writers of NHL.com were left untouched. unfortunately. the top one made me cringe, the bottom--well, I think there's a Senators blog called "Sixth Sens" and I thought that was clever, but slapping the "E" on the end--blah. I could make a joke about the "Trick" sub-headline, but I'm too classy for that. unfortunately.