No Suspension for Koci

Yup. From TSN’s Bob McKenzie, the Avalanche forward got off on his hit on Mike Green.

Who said there’s super star bias when an enforcer gets off easy?

Random Notes for the Day

Today blows. It just really fucking blows. Thanks God I only have two and a half days until Winter Break. Anyway, I haven’t posted in a while, and I thought I’d fill you in on happenings in sports today.

• To start, the Caps want to wish everyone a Happy Holiday. [@washcaps]
• On a sad note, Cinncinnati Bengals wide reciever Chris Henry died this morning at the age of 26. They said he was on his path be becoming a great role model for kids. [Yahoo!]
• TSN on Brendan Morrison’s comeback after suffering from injuries for the past two years. [TSN]
• Redskins fans: we’ve been waiting for this. Vinny Cerrato has resigned! He’s been replaced by Bruce Allen. It’s been a good week for Washington sports fans, seeing as Michael Nylander and Vinny Cerrato have left us. [TWT Redskins 360]
• But the organization still sucks. Apparently, they’re going to use their 1st Round pick on a QB and their second on a RB. That means they still don’t understand that our Offensive Line still blows. (If they do that, I’m officially going back to the Colts.) [@HomerMcFanboy]
• Penguins center Evgeni Malkin said that Ilya Kovalchuk and Alexei Kovalev would be perfect linemates for him. [@dchesnokov]
• “Tuesday, in Game #34, the Caps scored at least 6 goals for the sixth time this year. They did it 5 times all of last year.” [@washcaps]
• “In the last four games that the Caps have scored six goals, Alex Ovechkin has zero goals.” For what it’s worth, Ovi only played in the last game (a 6-1 W over Colorado) in which the team scored 6+. The other three, he was injured (7-4 W vs. Florida) or suspended (6-2 W vs. Florida, and 8-2 @ Philadelphia). [@washcaps]
• The Real Heroes. [The Beckett Blog via @JapersRink]
• David Koci is sorry for his hit on Mike Green. Don’t worry, whenever we see the Avs again, Mr. Koci will have to hear from Professor Bradley. (; [Denver Post]
• The Hershey Bears help spread some holiday cheer. [John Walton Hockey]
• Haven’t heard this before: John Carlson is playing beyond his 19 years. [John Walton Hockey]
• Lastly, from the last post, you could tell I did not like Jim Kelley’s articles over at SI (if you know that story). However, I do wish him the best in beating pancreatic cancer. [Kukla's Korner]

PIWtPitF [Week 1]

There are just some people that you really want to punch in the face. Really badly. There’s that urge to just deck them right there or jump through the television, radio, movie screen, whatever and knock ‘em out. Here’s three cheers to those people from each week that annoy the hell out of me.

(Photo Cred)

OMyGah. Do I really have to say anything? Tiger Woods. He’s just getting soooooo annoying, just like all of those O’s in soooooooo.

(Photo Cred)

OMyGah. No Tiger doesn’t make it twice. This is for all of the TV stations that keep saying the same thing over and OVER and OVER again. I heard his fucking statement from his website four times on CSN Washington from the first intermission of the Caps game to the Sports Nite show. ESPN will go batshit about it. It’ll probably even make the damn local news. Like that’s really fucking important.

 (Photo by Rick Stewart/Getty Images)

Ryan Miller makes it this week. Not because he’s a douche. Just because he was so damn good against the Caps earlier this week. However, I feel that he needs to conserve all of his energy to lead the Americans to an Olympic Gold in Vancouver. </sarcasm>

(Photo by Larry French/Getty Images)

Yessuh. Albert Haynesworth is sitting his ass on my PIWtPitF list. I mean, it’s no different than what he does on the football field (aka The Sidelines for him). No, not just because he gets hurt all the time. A tweet from Mr. DC Sports Bog Dan Steinberg read: 

Haynesworth on Suisham: “We’ve all got to do our job. I can’t really say anything.[*] We’ve got to do what we’re here to do.”

What the FUCK, dude? You’re talking about guys having to do their jobs. What the hell are you doing? Making $100 million to sit your ass on the sideline. Quite frankly, I’m not going to get into his stats and shit. He just pisses me off. I’ll be watching a game and see him out there. Then, the very next play, I’m hearing, “Where’s Haynesworth?” Oh yeah. On the sideline. Don’t talk about people having to do their jobs when you seem to try to make money by doing as little as possible.

(*I do not take that as, “I can’t really say anything because I’m making $100M to get hurt a lot.” I take it as, “I don’t want to say anything in public in fear of hurting Suisham’s feelings.”)

Last but by far not least…

(Photo Cred)

Jim Kelley.

A few quick updates

Some items of note before tonight’s Caps vs. Sabres game:

• Matt Bradley didn’t travel with the team to Buffalo, which is okay considering the world now #hasmoreBradley by the name of Henry James.
• Semyon Varlamov sustained a groin injury near the end of the game in Tampa. Michal Neuvrith was recalled from Hershey, and Braden Holtby was recalled from South Carolina to the Bears.
• Mathieu Perreault has food poisoning and is questionable. If he does NOT play, Boudreau will dress seven defensemen.
• If Matty can go, John Erskine would likely be the healthy scratch on D.
• But just now (at precisely 4:50 pm ), @capsmedia tweeted that Keith Aucoin has been recalled from Hershey. I’m guessing that means that Matty can’t go, and Bruce isn’t dressing seven D.

Random reading material:

I’m involved in this little thing over at Cycle Like the Sedins called “Odd Woman Rush.” It’s a bunch of lady hockey fans talking about hockey. Our first post was about why we became bloggers.

• Check out Part III (that includes my post), as well as Part I | Part II | Finale(of the Origins post).

Odd Woman Rush!

I just wanted to let you all know that I’m going to be part of Cycle Like the Sedins‘ Odd Woman Rush.

It’s a bunch of female bloggers giving their perspective on everything hockey. Right now, we’ve been answering the question on why we became bloggers. Be sure to check them out the first two sets of posts: Part I and Part II. (I’m a slacker and haven’t sent mine in yet.)

They’re all great reads, and I’m sure they’ll only get better.

BEEEEER!

I was over at Hockey is My Boyfriend, and I saw this gem Lucy posted.

Greg Amadio and his day with the Calder Cup included figuring out how many cans of Coors Light/Bud Light it took to fill the Cup.

Lot’s of “Eh?”s and talk about garlic are in there, too. It’s kind of weird to hear Italians with Canadian accents since I’m used to hearing Jersey/New York accents and “Fuggetaboutit.“

But seriously, Greg asks about the garlic a lot. Apparently, he REALLY likes garlic.

And beer.

Hopefully, Hershey can get it done again this year so we can have another nice video for Mr. Amadio.

Gabby

I just finished reading Bruce’s book, Gabby: Confessions of a Hockey Lifer.

It was really great stuff. Sometimes, it kind of jumped around a bit with kind of flash forwards. Lots of stories from his times in the minors. Funny stuff about Tiger Williams is in there, including a gun and a chimney.

There was quite a bit about BB’s time coaching the Manchester Monarchs. What a bad situation to be in and what a horrible feeling to have. Quite a bit of dislike for Sean Avery is in there. Just a few more examples of why he’s a douche, if anyone ever doubted that.

I can’t really talk about it any more, or I’ll give a bunch of the stories away. So I suggest you pick yourself up a copy for a fun read.

Talk about Toughness

(AP)

#needsmoreBradley

On Sunday, I was pretty bored so I decided to go check out good ol’ hockeyfights.com. I looked at Hershey’s fight card compared to Washington’s.

• Since the 2006-2007 season, the most fights the Caps have had is 33 during the 07-08 Regular Season campaign. On the other hand, the Bears had 95 fights in last year’s 08-09 Regular Season.
• For those seasons, nine different Caps and 21 different Bears helped their respective causes.
• Only 19 games into this season, the Bears have had 11 different guys drop the gloves for a total of 24 fights. Greg Amadio leads with eight scraps, followed by Brandon “Sugar” Sugden with five, and Gavin Morgan and Darren Reid with two a piece.
• Through 23 games, we’ve witnessed three different Caps drop ‘em for seven fights. Professor Matt Bradley leads with three, Captain Chris Clark has two, and Toothless John Erskine has two as well.
• Hershey has won all four games in which they fought two times: 8-1 against Binghamton, 5-1 against Providence, 3-1 against WBS, and 5-2 against Binghamton.
• Washington has won 3 games out of the seven in which fights have occurred: 4-1 against Boston, 7-4 against Florida, and 4-2 against . The other four were all lost by one goal: 6-5 (OT) against Philly, 3-2 (SO) against New Jersey, 3-2 against New Jersey, and 3-2 against Montreal.
•  For Hershey, the three games against Wilke-Barre Scranton have included fights (5 total). The Bears won 3-0, lost 6-4. and won 3-1. Greg Amadio has fought in all three (twice against Aaron Boogaard), while Bryan Helmer chipped in during the 3-1 win. The Bears and Baby Pens play nine more times during the regular season. I’m calling 11 more fights. (Oh, and last year, 8 of 10 games between the teams had fights.)
• Four of the seven fights for the Caps have occurred on the road. 2-2 in those games.
• 11 of the Bears’ games have been against teams in their division. Eight have included fights, 13 total. That’s 73% of their divisional games with a fight.
• Four of the Caps’ games have been against divisional opponents. One fight has occurred, or 25% of games against the division with a fight.

Get ready for these final Hershey stats (Feel free to correct if I added wrong):

During the 2008-2009 Regular Season…

• A total of 80 games were played. 63 included fights.
• Of those 80 games, 54 games were against divisional opponents (Bridgeport, WBS, Philadelphia [now Adirondack], Binghamton, Norfolk, and Albany) . 41 of them included a total of 60 fights.
• The Bears played Bridgeport a total of six times. Three of those games included fights, four total.
• 8 out of 10 games against Wilkes-Barre Scranton had fights. 11 total.
• Those Phabulous Philly Phantoms. Every single game included fisticuffs. 12 games, 17 fights.
• Eight games against Binghamton. Seven fights in five of those.
• The Norfolk Admirals dropped ‘em 13 times in eight of the 10 games played against the Bears. One of those games actually included five fights, with Grant McNeill going at it three times against three different guys.
• Five games out of six, Hershey had eight fights against the Albany River Rats.
• One two occasions, the Bears had five fights in one game; a 5-1 win against the Houston Aeros and a 6-4 win against the Norfolk Admirals.
• The longest amount of time Hershey went without a fight was two games…once.

Hockey ‘n Heels!

Ladies and Hockey. That’s what Thursday night was all about at Kettler.

Hockey ‘n Heels was definitely a great experience. This was my first one, and I can definitely say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself, as did my aunt, cousin, and mother. For some general rundowns of the event, check out Hockey Mom and DC Sports Chick.

The night started off pretty well. My mom and I got there about half an hour early. After finding out we were in the Green group at check-in, we decided to go and shop. We hit the Pro Shop to get our first ever Caps jerseys (I have a white Hershey Bears jersey. The awesome one from last year). I’ve wanted Dave Steckel’s jersey for a while and finally got it last night. Mom elected to go with Varlamov. I also got a red Bradley t-shirt and a Courage Caps hat (or touque, whatever). And of course, I put my new red jersey on before the festivities began.

With a couple minutes to 6 o’clock, we headed into the rink. The stands were filled with women in their red (and occasional pink) Caps paraphernalia. I saw so many different jerseys, to my surprise. Poti, Jurcina, Semin, Ovechkin, Laich, Varlamov, Theodore, Green. And guess what? There was a Nylander jersey. Seriously.

Once we were all settled in, they announced the players and coaches there. On the main rink, where my group was, there would be Peter Bondra, Jay Beagle, Dean Evason, and Tyler Sloan. On the second rink, they had Eric Fehr, Bob Woods, and Mathieu Perreault. We all split into our designated groups and went to which ever rink we were assigned.

The on-ice drills consisted of working on stick skills with Sloan, faceoffs (!) with Evason, and shooting with Beagle and Bondra. Our first station was stick skills. Horrible. Just horrible. I couldn’t do it for the life of me. Tyler was so nice and patient, and I told him, “This hockey stick is too big.” He said, “Yeah, it can be a little tough sometimes.” It was only a few inches shorter than my statuesque five foot and half an inch. At least it seemed like that.

Next up: FACEOFFS! I kind of knew the technique from watching the game so much. Sweep it back, just sweep it back. And of course, that’s exactly what Dean Evason said. “Here. And back. Here. And back.” I went against my mom, so I knew I’d win any way. But I won the first one so cleanly that he took one look at my jersey and said, “Hey! You’re cheating! You’ve been getting tips from Stecks! He’s like 65% on the year or somethin’!” I told him that’s why I said I had to be good at this. Had to do #39 proud. Ended up going 4-for-5, good for 80%. Yeah, I really like faceoffs.

Final stop was with Beags and Bondra for shooting drills. Once we got up there, everyone only got one or two shots compared to the three or four others had. Probably because everyone wanted pictures with Bondra (technically, I guess we weren’t supposed to). Beagle was really quiet and pretty much stood to the side. He was really nice though. My mom couldn’t work my aunt’s camera, and she was taking awhile, but he kept telling my cousin and I that it was okay, he didn’t mind. I think I can confidently say that I have a pretty nice shot, but we didn’t have much time so I just shot two quick ones with out taking the time that some other ladies were. We were actually late getting to Bruce’s session because I really wanted a picture with Bondra, and my aunt made me stay to wait for him to come off the ice. He was so nice to actually take one with my cousin and me. Oh, and while we were waiting, we saw Perreault. He’s really short. No way he’s 5′10. Maybe 5′7.

We made another detour before the film session with Bruce. We bought his book. His wife Crystal was selling them with Brady, and my aunt was asking about how their family was doing. She said their daughter, Kasey, just moved into her house in Ottawa. Kasey called Bruce to ask him if he wanted to come over for dinner on Sunday. Crystal said she told him, “You know, she just moved in a few days ago, and she hasn’t moved 13 (or somewhere around there) times like I have. She can’t unpack that fast. She wants you to help her move in. She’s not cooking you anything. You’ll be getting delivery pizza.”

When we finally did make it to Bruce’s session, it was pretty sweet. We watched film of Montreal’s power play and their penalty kill. Once it got to questions, someone in the front asked something, then changed her mind about just what she was asking. BB responded with, “Typical women, can’t make up their mind.” That was followed by boos from the ladies and a “You set yourself up for that one” from Bruce. A funny moment that came up during the PP discussion was about Alex Ovechkin and his defense on the man advantage. When they watch film and it’s pointed out that Ovi doesn’t get back well enough if he misses a pass that gives the other team a short handed chance, the Great 8 tells Gabby, “Don’t worry, coach. They score one goal, I score two.” He almost got onto the topic of refs and he didn’t even want to get started with that. “I start to sweat, and I use every variation of a four letter word.”

Next up was the equipment session with none other than Brett Leonhardt. We learned about why it always looks like the guys’ hockey pants look ripped. There’s actually a zipper that the can adjust, and it gives them better motion when they’re skating. I was by a few cougar-looking hockey moms who wouldn’t shut up. Pretty sure they were a little drunk from the open bar. When it came time to race to get the equipment on, one of them was cheerleading, while the others had a beer in one hand and used the other to try and put shin pads on. Funny stuff. Stretch could tell some women had had a few drinks by the questions they were asking…

Finally, we went to Chalk Talk with Lisa Hillary and ex-Cap Alan May. Since I don’t think I was even born when May played, I didn’t know how much he fought. He was talking about a time when he was a little kid and he ran over the goalie. His dad asked him, “Why’d you do that?” “I couldn’t help it!” Alan May likes to run over goalies and mess with goalies. Someone brought up Sean Avery punching Varly in the face twice, and Alan said that’s what he LOVED to do. He’d run into the goalie or do something to them that would cause a guy to come over an fight him. A question was asked about Alexander Semin and why he was so inconsistent, even though people have said he has more talent than Ovechkin. May thought that Semin is, in fact, more talented the Ovi, but that his heart does really burn with the passion that Ovi’s does.

After everything wrapped up, there was a long line to get all of our books signed by Bruce. I told that if he ever needed someone to step in for Dave Steckel, he could call me. I did good in the faceoff circle.

If you actually got throught the entire post, bless your heart. If you’re a lady Caps fan, be sure to try to get tickets to the next Hockey ‘n Heels. You’ll have a fabulous time.

+/- Rating of…My Wednesday Night

The way “+/- Rating of…” works goes a little something like this. I’ll choose random events that happen to me or Caps games, and I’ll give certain moments different ratings, just like hockey. A ‘+’ is anything good that happened. A ‘-’ is anything bad. An ‘Even’ is neutral, like getting a PPG. At the end, I’ll have my rating of the event.

This past Wednesday night was my school’s first hockey game of the season. We don’t have a rink close, so I had to travel about an hour away. This was the first time driving there by myself, and after Mapquesting it, I pretty much knew the way. Here’s my night chronicled in +/-:

I got to the area where I was supposed to be in CC. Didn’t take too long.

Took ONE left too soon. ONE left, and it all went to hell. Ended up at some Shell station. Looked shady, thought I’d get shot/robbed.

Called Dad, and he didn’t know where the hell I was or how I was supposed to get back.

He called back with directions. I attempted to absorb them while sitting in the dark at the Shell station.

 While I rememberd the directions, I saw no sign for the road I was supposed to get one. I didn’t know how the lanes worked so I figured I could stay in the lane I was in. Wrong. Had to get all the way to the far right.

 Somehow, I miraculously backtracked my way to the rink. Dad called while I was on the road, and I told, “I need to hang up so I can try to figure out where I am.” I was not even five minutes from the rink.

I was, of course, late to the game. Got there with about 2:50 left in the first period. But I didn’t miss much. We put a beating on the other team and were up by 8 goals.

 We crushed. Ended up winning by something like 10 goals. Beauty.

Guess who got lost again? Yup. Thought the lane I was in would let me go straight. Wrong. Had to turn right.

 Freaked out. It was starting to rain and it was dark at about 6:45. I was taking all these different roads trying to backtrack. Went towards Hughesville and thought I was going the wrong way, so I turned around.

 I backtracked but not far enough. I was looking at road signs and found one for 301. It sounded really familiar from trips up to Baltimore and whatnot. Decided to take it, even though I still thought I’d end up driving until all hours of the morning.

 The little sprinkles of rain disappeared. Not too many people on the road. I FOUND A SIGN TO GET TO MY TOWN!!!

 Got into the right lane towards homefree about five feet too soon, but it went into a shopping center so turning around was easy peasy.

 I missed the exit to my county because I couldn’t get over into the right lane! But then I saw a sign, and I knew I could keep going the same way and end up at the same spot.

 I made it back into my county! HOME FREE! I recognized everything I was passing.

I don’t remember a stoplight anywhere near here. Why is everyone stopping here? Traffic. God awful traffic. Some kind of accident. At one point, I literally didn’t move an inch for 10 minutes. I was overjoyed that I found my way home after getting lost, and it just had to end with getting into hour and a half long traffic.

 Once I got home, I found out that that Shell station I was at had been robbed before, and people have been shot there. Beautiful. Great to know that I could have DIED.