Mikhael Grabovski the goalie jabbing street figher!

Not that I'm one to dwell on things or anything but I couldn't help but bring this up again. Especially considering what the guys said to the media afterwars. Okay so I'm looking for something else to do because Federer keeps making stupid unforced errors against Murray. ANYWAY! Not only did Mikhail Grabovski get the Daniel Briere treatment here in Montreal, but as you all know, he also had a spat with Sergei Kostitsyn (again) which lead to the two of them taking a 10 minute misconduct penalty at the end of the third period. I suspect that at least one of them may be getting fined or suspended for knocking around the officials too. (EDIT: Yup, Grabovski got suspended for three games. Sergei doesn't seem to have gotten anything.) The reasons why the fans hate Grabovski could fill a small book but evidently Sergei had a different reason to go after him.

“He talks too much in the Russian papers about me and my brother,” Sergei said after the game.

So now it's not enough that the two of them have to go at it in Belorussian on the ice. Now they have to diss each other in Russian too? Why the Russians even care about what these guys have to say about each other is beyond me.

For his part, Grabovski had this to say about the whole thing: "I think he is not Belarussian now, he is French because I never fight with Belarussian guys. I don’t know why he wants to fight with me. If he wants to fight, we’ll go in the street and every minute of every day I’ll wait for him and we’ll fight.” He also added why he's only got an issue with the younger of the two brothers: “He’s not smart, because the older Kostitsyn, Andrei, he never fights with me and he never will fight because he plays hockey, he plays the game. I think it’s stupid.”

Oh and he had to this to say about the fans reactions to him “Everyone in Montreal hates me now because I play for Toronto. Enjoy if Montreal wins the Stanley Cup this year, but I’m happy to stay in Toronto; it’s my team now and I don’t care about Montreal."

If I may point out one tiny correction as a fan and that whole "everyone hates me because I play for Toronto now" thing: Everyone hates you because 1) you up and left the team before a game because you didn't like the fact that you didn't get enough ice time 2) you joined another team. Fans don't really care which team it was. You could be playing for the Dallas Stars and the fans would still hate you 3) you jabbed Carey Price last time you played the Habs 3) you got a goal an assist in that game which was a complete embarrassment for the Habs and the fans hate it when the Habs get totally embarrassed. Especially when it's to the Leafs. 4) You play for Toronto. Minus all that other stuff, you're still going to get hated because you play for the Leafs. And now 5) you say stuff about the Kostitsyn brothers to the Russian media. The fans may not speak one word of Russian but they hate the idea of someone dissing their players. Don't you know the rule? Only the fans can diss the player. Current or otherwise.

Anyway.... moving on to something else....

Price is still not ready to come back. While I'm liking the direction that Halak is going in this time around, I still want Price back really badly. Especially considering the Habbies are playing the Caps and the Bruins next....

I also really don't get the deal with the staff not telling everyone what type of injuries the players have. I don't see how it helped or hurt anyone by not saying what type of injury Koivu had (it just annoyed the heck out of the fans). It's apparent that it was fairly serious. Serious enough to keep him off the ice for a couple of weeks. He's still not ready to play and won't be around tomorrow for the Capitals game here at home. *sighs* With Koivu and Higgins returning to the lineup soon it will be time to start considering which Hammies get sent back. But my brain is too tired to think about that now.

And the day wouldn't be complete without a mention about tennis.....

1. Roger lost to Murray. Not exactly unexpected but the 6-7, 6-2, 6-2 loss was kind of.... not so cool... The amount of unforced errors was just not fun. And maybe it was just me but Federer just didn't look into the match for a lot of it - minus the first set obviously. Which featured some great tennis from both of them. I fully expected and I continue to expect Murray to be the one guy who lights up the tour from now until at least the clay court season. What he can do after that remains to be seen. Obviously I'm not going to read too much into the first tournament of the year. Too early. I'm finding it hard to get excited over the Australian Open right now. I think it's the weather difference. When we're buried in a meter of snow here and they have to worry about dying of heatstroke in Melbourne it's hard to relate.... *g*
   
2. Andy will now take on... Andy.... I'm expecting the same results from Shanghai. Murray wins but loses second set. Roddick did look good out there against Monfils but he has no chance against Murray. Unless whatever back problem Murray had today is worse for the finals.