Well THAT was scary

Tonight definitely had a Halloweenish feel. We had zombies (Kostitsyn), ghosts (Gomez) and devils (Komisarek). I wasn't fond of the guys masquerading as referees though. They weren't good at all. But anwyay, the Habs got really into the whole thing by wearing their baberpole jerseys too. Scary!

• TSN said that Komisarek said that he and Grabovski were having a conversation about who would get booed the most tonight. I didn't even have to look up at the TV to know that Komisarek had the puck. The crowd was THAT loud.
• Martin curiously decided to play Jaro tonight.....I'm not sure why? 
• Stewie wanted to fight Komisarek. Refs say no. 
• Stewie figures if he can't score then he can at least crash the net. He barreled Vesa right over. 
• Ponikarovsky and Stempniak tallied at the beginning and end of the second period (both PPGs).Nothing to report there.
•  METRO came to our rescue after Ponikarovsky's goal. I WUVS Metro. Okay so Vesa helped by doing this weird standing thing but who cares? I didn't see anyone else throwing pucks at Vesa. 
• The French Marshmallow scored too! Damnit, we'll never hear the end of it. BUT someone should tell him that good things happen when you go to the net. Best game of the season from him. 
• The HMS Hal Gill also had a goal courtesy of Squishy shoving Beauchemin (Squishy shoved Beauchemin, the puck goes off of Beauchemin, Beauchemin goes after Squishy, Vesa falls over and BAM we have a scrum). 
• Somehow the refs deemed it fair to give the Leafs a PP and then we had Stempniak's goal. Meh. 
• Jaro had his solid moments. I really thought he did a good enough job tonight (minus Poni's second goal. He really should have been up higher for that one). 
• Special teams had their moments too. Of complete fail. FIX THIS. 
• Hammer scored in the third without realizing it at first. Oops. 
• Can the Habs stop letting in goals that bounce off their own players? Nobody like it when the puck bounces off two Habs Dmen before bouncing into the back of the net. With a minute to go in the damn game. 
• Also, can we stop singing before the game is finished? BAD KARMA. 
• Jaro stops the Leafs and Vesa fails miserably on two sweet shots by Squishy and Gomer (hi Gomer! Didn't see you all night). Jaro says "YAY!" EP wants to point that he looks really fat in the barberpole jersey. 

Numbery-stat-things...

• There was 34 minutes in penalties assessed tonight. Rather tame, by Habs/Leafs standards. 
• The Habs have taken FOUR delay of game penalties in the last 24 hours. I know the rule sucks, but it's there. Do something about it. 
• I'll stop being mean to Gomer. He won 71% of his faceoffs, tying with Metro for the night. Grabs had the best faceoff % for the Leafs at 62%. 
• Leafs players actually picked up more points than the Habs did. Blame Kaberle. And Grabs. And Bergeron for being the only Habs player to finish the night a -1. 
• Andrei had just 7:32 seconds of ice time (second least amount. Stewie had less but nobody is expecting Stewie to score goals). 
• Squishy had 6 SOG. Most of anyone again tonight. Gio had 5 but I didn;'t find I noticed him a lot tonight. Odd. 
• My favorite stat tonight: Komisarek was on the ice for 3 of the Habs goals. I think he really likes helping us out.

Seriously, whine all you want about the win, but two points is two points. And two points at the expense of the Leafs, is always nice. 

In Juniors news

THEY WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!!!!! By shutting out the Rocket too! I was wondering who a couple of the Juniors players where but I'm assuming that they're just hear to replace the sick players. I know Jake was sick, but it looks like Eli (Sherbatov) might be sick too because he's not on the roster and some other random guy that the Juniors already released in August was playing. Missed the whole game because all the radio stations were playing the Habs/Leafs game but yeah. YAY JUNIORS!

In other news: 

• 9 teams playing today had played last night.  
• 3 teams got shutout (Edmonton, Buffalo and St. Louis). 
• The Islanders decided to dress up as a real hockey team. They blanked the Sabres 5-0.
• Pavelec stopped 50 shots en route to beating the Sens this afternoon. FIFTY shots. $%^&. We're playing the Thrashers on Tuesday. 
• Despite outshooting the Flyers 40 to 28, the Whalercanes lost 6-1. OUCH. Sounded like a bloodfest too. 
• Puffy lost his cool as his team lost the game to the Wild. Poor baby. 

Also... a quick note on hits to the head... 

When will the league step up and do something about these headshots? It's been unbelievable the amount that have happened so far. All the sports stations were running absolutely brutal hit on a Kitchener Ranger (OHL) player from last night. He is currently in critical condition in a hospital in Hamilton with skull and facial fractures. This was in the OHL where the players are a lot younger. This kid was just 16. Does someone have to actually die - in any league - before the NHL steps up and does something? If for no other reason, do it for the sake of the kids watching and playing this sport. These kids look at the NHL as the epitome of how to play hockey. And they see guys getting away with these devastating hits.

Hits like these have no place in hockey. Eliminating these types of hits does not make the game "softer". They do nothing to improve the game when players contract life changing and possible career ending brain injuries. The league MUST do something to eliminate them. Standing by, saying that open ice hits like the ones that Mike Richards and Andrew Ladd delivered are "legal" is just wrong. The league must make an effort to protect their players, and if they're unwilling to do that, then at least they should think about the kids who participate in this sport and look to the NHL players as their role models.

Let's look on the postive side tonight

The Leafs (one game) winning streak is over.

Thanks Stars!

I know some of you (you know who you are *glares*) don't think that it's as much fun to make fun of the Leafs when the Habs have done equally as bad, but I disagree. It's ALWAYS fashionable to make fun of the Leafs. It's just not always fashionable to make fun of Vesa Toskala or Nazem Khadri (until the the latter scores on the Habs anyway). 

The Society of Habs Fans Who Feel Bad for Vesa

The first and last time I will post a picture of Vesa

It's the job of every Habs fan to hate the Leafs. I learned to hate the Leafs before I even knew anything about the Habs from a parent who hardly watched hockey growing up. It's just in our blood as Habs fans to despise everything blue and white. As part of that hate, it's our job to laugh hysterically every time the Leafs lose and point out that "truculent" doesn't mean "head the puck into your own net".

However, there are times when even Habs fans must admit that a situation is just that sad that it deserves some sympathy (or at least empathy. Or something). The situation I'm talking about of course, is that of Vesa Toskala. For a long time now, we Habs fans have been able to take particular delight in the fact that Vesa is the king of the Failtenders (heck, I think Vesa spawned the term to begin with). Leafs fail is a beautiful thing to see and Vesa has been personally responsible for a lot of it.

But a strange thing happened between the Leafs losing 7-2 and 4-1 to the Rags and Avs respectively. Habs fans across the blogosphere displayed a certain... sympathy for Vesa. How this happened is cause for much speculation. Maybe it's because Habs fans feel bad dissing a team that is doing pitifully when their own team doesn't have much of a leg to stand on. Or maybe it's because it's just too sad to put the blame of 42 years of epic fail on one poor little Finnish goalie (although apparently it's okay to put 16 years of fail on a poor little Canadian goalie *coughs*). I mean, he wasn't even born when the Leafs starting failing for crying out loud. And he definitely was NOT in nets when Komisarek headed the puck into the back of the net for the Avs. Whatever the reason, the fact of the matter is that there plenty of Habs fans who feel bad for him.

That's where this society comes in. We are The Society for Habs Fans Who Feel Bad for Vesa. Basically we just hang around expressing our sympathy at the plight of the poor Finnish goalie.

Disclaimer: We do not have sympathy for the Leafs as an organization. We do not feel bad for or empathize with Brian Burke, Ron Wilson and everyone else who wears that horrendous logo on their jersey (for the most part anyway). We reserve the right to change our minds about Vesa should he suddenly turn into the next greatest goalie. We also reserve the right to bash Vesa should he be in nets for any game versus the Habs. We do not endorse Vesa's man-purse. It scares the crap out of EP.

8 more things

1. Confession: I feel bad for Vesa. I've spent so much time laughing at him that now I'm starting to feel bad for him. Apparently I'm not the only one who feels bad for the Failtender either. Hrm, you know it's bad when the HABS fans are feeling bad for a Leafs goalie....
   
   
2. I still love Leafsfail though. I DIED laughing at the Leafs 4-1 loss to the Avs. Especially when the puck bounced off of Komisarek's head and into the back of the Leafs net. Sorry, Leafs, but there's no sympathy for the rest of you.
   
   
3. Got bitten by my guinea pigs today. Down to 8 fingers that I can actually type with. I'm sure getting bitten by Ruutu isn't as bad as this.
   
   
4. Apparently the Juniors got some defenseman named David Stich (nice name, eh?) from the Seadogs... apparently they ditched Solomonov because they're only allowed two European players (Stich is Czech and.... I think Toni Ritter is the other European).
   
   
5. Why do NHL teams/arenas have stupid camera policies? Guhhh.
   
   
6. They say it's snowing but I don't see any snow.
   
   
7. It's officially hockey season when they put up the boards for MY hockey rink at my local park. Today, they put up the boards. Now we just wait it to be below zero so we can have ice.
   
   
8. Listening to the Habs I/O podcast.... Stubbs says "Gill is on the precipice of becoming the next Patrice Briseboise with the fans". I think he's fallen off that precipice for some fans to be honest.

Draft day madness

Warning: the following contains Leafs hate, mild Gary Bettman bashing and lots of insanity. Viewer discretion is advised.

(a view from inside the Bell Centre. I could see better than this, but this is basically where I was sitting. The Habs table was third over from the first row nearest us)

Okay... let's see.... After agonizing over Roger's 3rd set blergh and eventual 4th set demolition of Kohlschreiber, I then spent most of the early afternoon shopping with Sarah from California, Dani and Kate. I finally bought a draft shirt and a draft keychain thing after wondering if it was possible to buy everything in the store. Yeah. I live here and I still go nutso for Habs stuff. After that we went out for coffee and then headed over to Ye Olde Whatsits pub where met up with more tweeps to get draft tix.

(so this is how Charlie Bucket from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory felt when he got his golden ticket.... awsomeness. Only, there was no awesome chocolate at the Bell Centre. Just Burke. And there's nothing awesome about him)

Sarah (the other Sarah from Boston) and I exchanged voodoo dolls for Sox socks and a Sox keychain. I AM UBER PLEASED with my lovely Sox stuff. UBER PLEASED. I'll get pics up soon.

At 6 we headed to the Bell Centre and I got mopey because the last time I was in there was when my Habbies were playing....First off the teams have to announce who's going to announce their picks. Silly it may sound, but it gave us the fans an opportunity to boo the crap out of the Bruins, the Leafs and the Flyers. And Bettman of course. At some point a very loud "Ole" song went up. Oh they must have known that those grumpy Ole-hating-Sens-fans were in the building (yeah, I'm still bitter about that Sensland! It's an AWESOME song to sing. Stuff it).

Huge cheers for George Gillet who said some stuff before the draft started.

(it was nice knowing you, George. We'll miss you!)

Booing ceased and then commenced when Bettman came back and announced that the Isles would get to pick. Lots of yapping ensued and then finally the Isles picked... Guess who? Me! Just kidding... They picked Tavares obviously:

(Tavares is thrilled and it's Hedman's "dream come true" to play for a crap team. Awesomeness)

Lots of yapping and crap then ensued again. I mean seriously, does it really take that long to decide who you're going to pick? You have a list of the guys you want for crying out loud. Pick the guy already!

I took the boring bits as an opportunity to look for GMs. I spotted Gainey and I could easily see Brian Burke's head (hmm, maybe it wasn't that hard to spot his huge head). Someone pointed out that the Caps peeps weren't drinking any of the stuff on their table which made me yell at them that we were only trying to poison Burke (JUST KIDDING. I would never actually want to poison Burke). I also spotted "Clod Joolee-ehn" hovering around the Habs table before the draft started. ICK. Sarah from Boston spent most of the time spying on the little kids that run around between the tables. Apparently the Bruins kid disappeared and the Hawks kid was offering brownies or cookies to the Bruins table. Traitor!!

I know Grrrreg has a "Gary Bettman Booing Index" and I want to say, we broke the scale. We flipping broke it tonight. Bettman announces who's getting what pick and all that crap and when the Coyotes come up he says "the 6th pick belongs to the PHOENIX Coyotes". Oh yes, Bettman emphasized the word "Phoenix". Twerp. Well, I booed him along with the rest of the building for that. And cries of "Hamilton! Hamilton! Hamilton!" soon followed. Can we all say "douche"? Jeez, you didn't think we'd notice that, eh, Bettman? HAMILTON! HAMILTON!

This was followed by HUGE boos for the Leafs. Even *I* booed Burke (this is coming from someone who won't even stand up when her team scores at a game). I couldn't even hear who Burke picked. Once I realized who they had picked, I was very sad. Nazem Kadri is a Habs fan. He cheered for when we an interview of him (from some point in time) where he professed his Habs love. And he was booed very loudly when he was announced as the Leafs 7th overall pick. Damn you Burke. I hate you. I felt SO bad for the kid because he looked absolutely miserable up there. Poor guy. It's okay.... should you ever leave the Leafs, I will like you. Until then, hope you get smushed up.

Oh and I loved those "1967" chants going on while the Leafs were busy doing their stuff. No sarcasm here. It was hilarious. Oh Montreal, how I love you....

FINALLY after almost 2 hours, my Habs got up and announced their pick. Couldn't hear at all who he was because the whole building erupted. Turns out we picked Louis Leblanc. Doing the no-homework that I had done, I don't know much about him other than he's a bit older than me and he'll be going to Harvard next year. No idea if he was the most talented player available, probably not, judging from what I've heard, but I know enough to know that the draft is a bit of a crapshoot anyway. So yeah, welcome to Montreal, Louis. It wasn't the nightmare I'd thought it'd be for you (just for poor Kadri). So it's good.

(welcome to Montreal, dude)