Did you hear that NHL marketers?

I bet you’re wondering what these are. Well, most of us female hockey fans are too.

Two days ago, @NHL_Shop sent out a tweet asking us ladies what we thought of the “fashion jerseys.”

The response? Not good.

A while ago, OFB’s DC Sports Chick talked about these hideous articles of clothing. She voted nay, just like nearly everyone else.

Honestly, they’re just embarassing to look at. There’s a HEART on the back near the butt. And a ton of glitter and pink and the weird collar. Really? It’s just bad. Most girls and ladies just want jerseys like the guys get but cut to fit us better. They do have premier home jerseys (and a couple of thirds) but no away.

Here are some reactions of Twitterers:

“these suck. pink :/”

“are you kidding?? They’re horrific.”

“those. are. so. gross.”

“I think they’re hideous, and am surprised you sell enough to keep making different variations of ‘em.”

“You couldn’t pay me to wear one.”

“Women do not automatically = pink and sparkles.”

“Those are effing terrible. I would never be caught dead wearing one of those.”

“I actually find them rather insulting.”

“A crime against hockey”

“My wife is speechless w/ disgust.”

“I’m a teenaged ‘lady’ and I don’t want one.”

“Stereotypical.”

“they’re the fugliest things i’ve seen in a long time.”

“ My wife would kick me in the groin if I bought her one of these.” (Favorite)

Before I said “most” of the ladies, but it was actually ALL the ladies on Twitter saying the jerseys were awful. Atleast this isn’t the worst named of the ladies jerseys. They also have the “Ice Flirt” jersey that looks less embarassing with its black color (but still not great).

The whole “Flirt” thing and jerseys like these are kind of what female hockey fans want to get away from. Some people think that a pretty girl only likes hockey to look at the guys, ergo a name like ‘puck bunny.’ While we do admittedly find players attractive, it’s biological; we can’t help that. But we’re not stupid. We know what icing and offsides are and can tell the difference between a slap shot and a wrister. Having something called a Flirt jersey can make us feel a little degraded in a way. I don’t mean to make this sound so dramatic or make it a bigger deal than it is, but we’d like to be treated like any other hockey fan out there.

So @NHL_Shop, please, for your sake and our’s, just bring out the women’s cut away jerseys.

Really?

Going to make this a short post.

I missed the game last night against New Jersey, but I came home early sick and saw that the repeat was on.

It seemed to me that without Alex Ovechkin, we actually play pretty decent defense. Why?

I guess if you have the most prolific scorer in the NHL you’re always going to be go, go, go and constantly thinking about offense. When that piece is missing, you have to bear down more. But I think that Ovi or no Ovi, we need to have both of those elements. Once we get a lead, we need to hold it and crack down on how many chances we’re going to take. If a guy has a good or great chance, then he should take it. If it’s going to be more of a risk, don’t do it.

From the looks of it, we have two different styles of hockey. We can’t be one team with Ovi and one team without him. If we can just mix the two together, we could be much more dominant as a team.

Lame.

I haven’t posted in almost a week. Such a slacker. Actually, I’ve been cracking down on trying to finish my Early Decision application for BU. Hopefully, I’ll have a few posts up by the end of the week.

Look for:

-Tonight’s recap of the Caps/Flyers game
-What’s going on with the Caps 2009 draft class?
-A recap for Thursday night’s game against Atlanta
-Something random I can think of

On another note, Caps Chick from A View from the Cheap Seats. Fret not. She’s moved over to Japers’ Rink, which we all know is fantastic. Check out her first post over at the Rink here.

Eakin signed

Cody Eakin
(Caps In Pictures)

Via @washcaps, Cody Eakin was signed to a three year entry level contract. Woo! Currently, he’s an alternate captain for the Swift Current Broncos of the WHL.

Squeaks in a fight!

We all know who Cody Eakin is. He’s the speedy center/wing from the Swift Current Broncos that we drafted in the third round.

Anyway, as you can see, Squeaks was in a fight yesterday. Now, to me, he never seemed like much of a fighter, but in this case, he was sticking up for a teammate on what he thought was a bad hit. Besides the fighting major, he also got an instigator and a game misconduct, while the other kid got a checking from behind penalty. I like the just keep throwing rights tactic.

Cody gets the win on this one.

(Since we have until THURSDAY for the next game, my next post—hopefully tomorrow—will have some updates on the players from this year’s draft.)

CAPS 3, Predators 2 OT

(Photo: AP)

After that bad four game losing skid, we’re on a better streak. After beating the Predators in a shootout, we’ve got two wins in a row.

• This definitely was not one of the prettiest wins we’ll see out of the Caps.  We played well for about the first half of the game (minus the first PP where we let the Preds have two breakaways), and the second half seemed to become a little too loose. But like Brendan Morrison and Eric Fehr said, it wasn’t because of guys taking bad or risky chances, more because of being too relaxed. The first goal was from bad backchecking by Nicklas Backstrom, and the second was a miscue by Jeff Schultz and bad positioning by Semyon Varlamov.
• The running joke of the day was how Alex Ovechkin had as many goals (seven) as the entire Predators offense. Then, Ovi lit the lamp twice in the first period and got the lone shootout goal. He got his first PPG and his second was off a flip pass from Morrison. One last joke out of it: OVECHKIN 9 – Predators 9.
• Mike Knuble had a ton of very good chances, mainly in the third period. There was one, I believe a Brooks Laich pass, where Noobs had an open net, and it just wouldn’t go. He did have two assists, however. That makes 11 points for the first line of Ovi-BMo-Noobs (two points each against SJ, and two each from Ovi and Knuble, one from Morrison tonight).
• Varlamov looked pretty solid aside from the softie he let in for Nashville’s equalizer, which, by the way, looked kind of Matt Bradley vs. Henrik Lundqvist-esque. His mental toughness seems to have gotten better. After the softie, he was still able to get through regulation, OT, and didn’t give up a goal in the shootout. On our first power play, he also made two fabulous saves on breakaway attempts by the Preds. (And that second goal may have happened because he was falling asleep a bit in the second.)
• The fourth line of Quintin Laing-Dave Steckel-Matt Bradley played well, so much so that Bruce Boudreau awarded them with more TOI. Their ATOIs respectively are 10:39, 13:54, and 11:18. Tonight, their times were bummed up to 17:21, 17:02, and 14:02. Stecks also got the hardhat for his work tonight.

Some other interesting stats from the night:

• While he hasn’t had much ice time, Eric Fehr is definitely helping the team by getting them a man advantage. The past two games, he’s drawn quite a few penalties. Last night, he drew two out of Nashville’s three in his 5:09 TOI.
• We lost the faceoff battle tonight, winning just 46%. Steckel was the only center above the 50% mark after winning 56% of his 28 draws. He’s currently third in the league in FO% with 65.5%. Morrison was 50% on the night, Backstrom and Laich won 33%, and Keith Aucoin won 25%.
• Despite scoring the only two Caps goals in regulation, Ovechkin was also on ice for both Predators goals, making him even on the night. Tom Poti and Knuble were the only two plus players for us (both +1), as opposed to the seven plus players for the Preds (all +1, except Hornqvist +2). As a team, we were -5, and the Predators were +5.
• We’ve got more people taking shots on net. Only three players, Brian Pothier, Keith Aucoin, and Schultz didn’t register a SOG, They all had at least one attempt blocked. Of course, Ovi had the most shots with 6, Laich followed with 5, and Alexander Semin had 4.
• Even though Backstrom had three takeaways, he also had two giveaways.
• When Mike Knuble is a plus player, we’re 4-0-1.
• This season, we are 3-0-1 when Ovi has a multi-goal game, 4-0-2 when he has a multi-point game, 4-0-1 when he scores at least one goal, and 2-0-0 when he gets the game winner. Goals from Ovi are good. Very good.
• Japers’ Rink also has an interesting stat: “[I]t’s worth noting that now seven of his nine goals have come with Varly in net, and he hasn’t scored for Jose Theodore (who has played about 60% of the total minutes thus far) since opening night.”

Daily Captions [30]

Alexander Semin
(Caps In Pictures)

“AAAAAACHOOOOOOOOO! ‘Scuse me, I’m allergic to bitchassness.”

#BeatCancer!

 

CAPS 4, Sharks 1

(Caps In Pictures)

After losing the last four games by one goal (two pretty piss-poor, two pretty decent), we finally ended the early season skid by beating the San Jose Sharks. For today, I’m just going to leave it to fellow bloggers to catch you up if you missed last night’s action.

• First, pictures from Caps In Pictures!
• Post game interviews
• Highlights from NHL.com
• NHL.com article
• Ten notes from Japers’ Rink.
• In The Room (Corey Masisak)
• The Washington Times article
• Capitals Insider (Tarik El Bashir)
• WaPo article
• Ovi was Puck Daddy’s First Star of the Night
• Washington Caps article
• Joe Beninati’s blog
• Dmitry Chesnokov’s talk with Semyon Varlamov.
• Alex Ovetjkin Blog here and here.
• The Peerless Prognosticator
• Puckhead’s Thoughts
• Hockey Mom
• Homer McFanboy
• Caps Chick
• Cap Centre
• ESPN.com

Daily Captions [29]

“HEY! Abdel..what the fuck ever…Get the hell off of me. I’ll bite your damn finger. Go ask that bitch Dubinsky in New York. Better get a tetanus shot ready.”