11 posts from January 2008

Sami Salo is now out with a sore groin.

Did a Canuck defenceman kill a kitten or something? Which is why we are getting punished by the Hockey Gods?

Hello, Hockey Gods! It wasn't the Canucks who injured the Hockey Jesus Sidney Crosby, so lay off this team already.

To (possibly) replace Salo, we have called up Luc Bourdon. He will also be joined by Mike Brown (at least the Hockey Gods are listening to this particular request) and Jason Jaffray.

Soooo let's recap

• Our D is getting murdered.
• Mike Brown > Jeff Cowan, so let's hope he replaces Jeff Cowan.
• Jason Jaffray > Matt Cooke, so let's hope he replaces Matt Cooke.
• Manitoba Moose is now a rape victim and needs to go under the Witness Protection program.
  

THE SKY IS FALLIIIING!!!

Just some quick notes...

• Jeff Cowan should stop trying to fight someone. I don't remember the last time he initiated a fight and won it or not get injured. It gets embarrassing sometimes. I was half-wincing while watching him fight that dude and thinking "I miss Mike Brown for these heavy weight scraps. At least he won most of the ones he is in."
• Canucks needs to take advantage of their powerplay. The end.
• On the other hand, I love how the defense (re: Mattias Ohlund) is getting more involved in the PP. It will only be advantageous for the Canucks in the long run as long as he can manage to finish off most of his chances. On that note, I wish Salo and Edler took the shot more. They have the 2 most hardest shots in the team. They should be wreaking havoc on the other teams' PK.
• For a team who needs offense, it's fun to see your checking line out there most of the time. I wish Vigneault double shifted the Sedins against the top-line sometimes, and not just play the checking line all the time. Sure, Kes and his line gets a lot of chances too, but it gets frustrating when either Cooke or Burrows miss 38472734823 open net opportunities. Especially now, that checking line of Burrows-Kesler-Cooke has not looked good recently in terms of defense, I think it's prime time to sometimes use the Sedins against the top-line just so they can get more ice time and possibly more offense. If not the Sedins, use the Naslund line more, too.
  
• As I mentioned in the previous post, Taylor Pyatt is now wearing a visor, and I thought his play went back up to the level he was at pre-injury/pre-cage. They've always mentioned that he was having a hard time adjusting his vision of the puck with the cage, so there was a definite improvement on the way he handled it this evening. He must have had 387492837423 chances, too. Next time, score Pyatt ;).
  
• Markus Naslund scored the Canucks 3rd goal. Nice effort in the end there by the Canucks, but really, the effort should come in the 2nd period and most of the 3rd, not at the last minute of the 3rd.

On another random note, did anyone see how two Stars players tried to hit Taylor Pyatt in the first period, and both of them fell down on the ice, bouncing off of Taylor Pyatt? XD;;; That was hilarious.

NHL Fan reactions after 06-07 ASG: ZOMG! NHL SHOULD CREATE A SHOOTOUT COMPETITION LIKE NBA'S SLAM DUNK COMPETITION!!! NHL SO DUMB AND S7OOOPEEED!!! THE HYPE! THE SKILLLZZ THE DANGLEZZZ

NHL Fan reactions after 07-08 ASG, and upon the first implementation of the Breakaway Challenge: ZOMG WHO IS IN CHARGE OF NHL MARKETING THIS EVENT IS SOOO STTOOOOPPEEEED. ZOMG GET RID OF THAT EVENT! ZOMG IT WAS SO BORING.

No kidding you dipshits.

This was the first time it was implemented and the players looks like they did not know the rules for the event until they got to the arena, but I'm not going to tell the NHL to scrap it for next year since this is practically just a test run for all of the new events.

Once the players understand what to do now, I'm sure they will be more prepared and think up of sick moves for the breakaway.

Of course there are a couple of things I'd want different:

a) The goalie must. stay. in. his. freaking. crease. I know Nabby had good intentions, he just wanted the West to win and prevent another point, but I wanted to see what Marty was cooking up for the breakaway.

b) Someone from the forums (either CDC or hf) suggested that players should only get one shot each, but instead of 3 players, they should enter in more shooters. Add to that, it would be great to see an "elimination" type of challenge here. May the player with the best moves win.

c) I like the lap around the rink better for the Fastest skater.

d) The obstacle course has potential, but it is pretty disjointed, as other people has pointed out. It's not exciting at all. They need to think of a better obstacle course. LOL.

e) The Young Stars should be allowed to compete with the All Stars in the Super Skills competition. Maybe 1-2 Young Star in each event. Imagine seeing Kane and/or Gagner do their thing on the breakaway challenge. Yeah. One of the young D challenge for hardest shot... It would be awesome.

Speaking of... The Young Stars was so hilarious. Man. XD The D...

WHAT D? THERE'S NO D! Once the defencemen got into their zone, they just stand there. LOL! Once they got into the offensive zone, though, all of them wants to score.

Anyway, as for the ASG...

OSGOOD YOU LET THE WEST DOWN!!! X(((((((((((((!!!! lol You let the West down in the YoungStars game, too. LOL.
Damn you!! XDDDDDDDDDDDD

That was fun. It was so intense in the 3rd period after the West has tied the game. You must be blind if you didn't think it was any fun.

I'm still angry at Osgood, haha.

Rick Nash with the hat trick!

Ricky D threw his hat on the ice and the trainer had to go get it for him. LOL On interview, he said that he needed to give the trainer a workout. LOL

I love Kovalchuk. First he was just in shock when Nabby made that enormous glove save on his point blank shot. He was just lying on the ice and probably thinking "WOW. HOW THE HECK DID HE SAVE THAT", then gave Nabby a hug.

Before the end of the third period, he had another chance, stopped by Nabby and then threw a hissy fit. HAHAHAHA.

Henrik Sedin with 2 assists! They shouldn't have put him and Thornton in one line. My gawd it was a passing gallery when the two of them are on the ice. LOL Neither could put puck in net.

Marian Gabork had a couple of good breakaways, but opted for a pass instead of a shot most times. :| C'mon Gabby.

Man. The ASG was so awesome. haha. I love it.

Well, the ASW is now done, regular season commences. Can't wait for next year. :D

Although the NHL All Star Game lacks the physical play which most hockey fans enjoy watching, it makes up for it in the sheer amount of goals scored and, oftentimes, light and funny camaraderie between the All Stars.

My favorite part of the All Star game has always been the Young Stars competition. They changed the format this year by adding that event into the All Star Skills Competition. Instead of the usual 4-on-4 hockey, I believe it is now 3-on-3 against the goalies for the main all star event.

Of course I am more excited in seeing Alex Edler finally getting the recognition he deserves from the rest of the NHL after being named into the Young Stars roster. I hope to see Cute Lil Alex use this opportunity to practice taking shots and hitting the net (or goalie :P).

As for the game itself, I don't know. A lot of people thinks it's not as entertaining because it's just a glorified game of shinny, but I've never been bored when I watch the All Star game. There's a different type of excitement when I watch the ASG, most likely because I hardly see most of these All Stars, let alone see them playing in the same team.

You have to feel bad for the goalies, though... Sure they get picked because they've been pretty damn good, but then all these other players murder them on the ice by scoring 93084324328 goals on them.

The festivities kicks off tomorrow (today :P) with the Super Skills Competition, and then the All Star Game on Sunday. :B I can't wait!!!!

P.S. Fin will be blogging all throughout the all star weekend. ;) If you want to keep track of what this crazy whale is up to.

P.P.S. :( I miss the Vote for Rory campaign from last year. :(((((((((((((((

For the rest of the screenshots, click here.

See? SEE?? I made it on regional TV!

Canucks after Tuesday's loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets:

Salo: :( I need to play better it's my fault.
Kes: Since we're the PKers, it's our fault, we need to play better.
Vigneault: I can't just point fingers at one guy......... Am I allowed to pick all of the above?
Luongo: X( I WON'T THROW MY TEAMMATES UNDER THE BUS (I'll just step on them) BUT IT IS MY FAULT!!
Salo: :( NO IT'S NOT YOUR FAILT LUI! IT'S MY FAULT!
Luongo: Okay fine, it's your fault. Go under the team bus right now. I SAID NOW!!!

Willie Mitchell, being the sneaky guy he is, did not participate in this confrontation.

After Melissa and I found out that "27 Dresses" moved its premiere date from January 11 to January 18, we didn't know what to do for the weekend. It was either find some upper bowl seats and watch the Coyotes vs Canucks game or go for some shopping.

Going through the pros and cons of both choices, we decided that going for a Canucks game will cost us less money than a weekend shopping spree. We thought we were geniuses!

I scoured ticketmaster.ca for tickets to the aforementioned game, but came out emptyhanded. While waiting for my shift at work to begin, I decided to give ebay.com a try.

I browsed through all the Canucks tickets available, but found that the upper bowl tickets that I usually get for less than $60 were priced $80+.

Fuck that shit.

I checked to see how much lower bowl seats were going for, relative to their regular price, and I found a pair that actually cost cheaper than their regular, single game ticket price. The seller is a season ticket holder so his tickets were already discounted in the first place, so without thinking, I clicked on "Buy it Now" and THEY'RE MIIIINEEE.

Anyway.

Reactions?

• The players! They're actual people! Not little ants on the ice!!!
• When players get hit on the board, it really is loud. And awesome.
• A puck going over the glass is scarier than it looks in real life. Like deathly scary. I saw puck, and my instinct was to duck and cover my face. Afterwards, I cursed myself for not trying to dive for it. X(
• The person sitting beside me is a bitch. You can't scare me from putting down my camera!!!

As for reactions to the game...

The Canucks lost. 4-3.

I don't want to "blame" the loss on one certain event, but that Jeff Cowan penalty killed us. Of course I did not think much of it when it was called, since the altercation happened on the other end of the ice, I wasn't able to see it clearly, and was obviously confused as to why we were being assessed a double minor penalty.

One penalty led to another, and Alex Burrows put the puck over the glass and we're down 5 on 3, and down by 2 goals.

Kris Beech did debut as a Canuck during that game. Sadly, I can't say I noticed him much outside of "ZOMG THAT'S BEECH THE NEW GUY" and when he got hit by Perrault who got pummeled by Willie Mitchell afterwards. It's his first game and I wasn't able to properly watch him on TV, so I reserve any judgments until I finally watch him properly.

Taylor Pyatt! It's like he did not want me to call him names during the game. He scored two goals to shut me up. One goal was on the powerplay, off an Alex Edler point shot, and the other was the classic stick-on-ice tip in from a Sedin.

He was solid for the Canucks again and is as confident as ever. Vigneault loves him, I might start loving him, the ladies love him 9342384723 times more... Everything is going well for Py right now.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg!

What I really love about his whole play right now? His defensive play. (Seriously. I have a thing for people who can play defense. -_-)

We first saw it as part of the Pyatt-Kesler-Isbister shutdown unit. Most people think it was all Kes, but now Vigneault has started putting Pyatt in the penalty kill. He was part of the 5 on 3 PK unit last night and sure they got scored on right after the faceoff, but even after that, Pyatt remained on the ice for the next faceoff.

Really. Pyatt has just been that good and AV is just that confident and trusting of him right now that he is playing in all situations (even strength, powerplay and penalty kill) and Pyatt is not doing a bad job in any of those (so far) that AV chooses to let him stay in those situations.

...

My post ended up being a Pyatt commentary again. :P I hate on him so much when I watch him, but in reality I just want to see him play well because it's hard for a girl to be a fan of Pyatt when he isn't.

I was going to say more but I ended up procrastinating on this post too much that it is now 4 am.

• Luongo says his pregnant wife is >>> All Star Game. He will also miss the home game against Dallas Stars after the All Star break and would meet with the team in Florida for their game against Tampa Bay. (@ Canucks.com)
• Henrik Sedin proves once and for all that he is the better twin and should have been the 2nd overall draft pick. (@ Canucks.com) In other news, Daniel Sedin goes on a goal scoring rampage to prove otherwise.
• Dave Nonis likes collecting players from the first round of the 1999 NHL Entry Draft. He picked up 7th overall draft pick, Kris Beech, off of CBJ waivers. (@ Canucks.com) Is Patrik Stefan, the 1st overall draft pick, next on his list? Stay tuned.
  
• Aquilini still owns the Canucks. (@ The Province)