Day 16: We Are Hockey Addicts Anonymous

Finally, we've got some hockey on tonight! It's been all of.... one day since there was a game on! Even if all I've got is Canada vs the Czech Republic and the Canucks vs the 'Hawks, I'm pleased! Here's hoping Turtle-Pleky can pick up his game today.

When you're used to seeing hockey on every day and suddenly the only thing on TV is Lost and Criminal Minds, you kind of freak out. Not that's there's anything wrong with Lost... I like Lost, but it makes my brain work too hard at a time of the day when my brain just wants to see a bunch of guys skating around with the puck.

C'mon, I know I'm not the only one out there who missed hockey last night or who will be missing it in the up coming weeks when there won't be hockey on. I know I'm not alone here. Who else missed/will miss hockey in the off season?

Caps win and guess who fails me this time?

First off.... CAPS WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN! It was a sloppy, messy, icky game but they pulled out a win. Semin pinballed the puck into the back of the net after Antropov had already put the puck past Simeon. A pile of icky and virtually penalty free minutes came and then finally... with 5 something, Fedorov puts one past Lundqvist. Best part of the night! For an old guy (sorry) it was great to see him get a goal when it mattered the most.

Of course Simeon was awesome and Lundqvist was awesome for most of the night too. Ovie was not so good. I dunno why the heck he was being double shifted because he looked really dead until Fedorov scored and then he practically killed the guy by jumping on him. I swear the guy is going to kill one of his teammates by squashing them...

The best part though, was seeing the Caps fans and the signs they brought with them. One had Avery as Bart and Tortorella as Homer saying "I'm going to waterbottle you". The Caps fans right behind Torts also had rain ponchos on. Needless to say, I died laughing and now I really want to find that poster....

Now unfortunately, the Caps will be facing the Puffles next because Brodeur and Co failed utterly in the last 1:30 and lost 4-3. Roy's curse lives on (stupid Roy....Stop cursing people!). Way to lose a game that looked for sure like you were going to win. Thanks for nothing. Brodeur now gets added to the Club of Epic Failures. Congrats. Don't worry though. Biron is still president of the club. I can't say how mad I am at the Devils for losing. I don't want to see a Puffles/Washington series. I really wanted the see the Bruins and the Pens knock each other out or something. I can just picture Mr. Puffle's perky face as he scores.... UGH. UGH. UGH. UGH.

And in World Championsip new...

And poor Jaro.... His team failed so epically... I wanted to go and hug the poor guy. He just can't play for a half decent team. He deserves a lot better. I really hate Spezza now. I kinda wanted to see both the Staal bros in Switzerland but Broduer messed up that plan.... If Canada loses (and I don't really care if they win or not), I'm blaming Brodeur for no reason. Whoo!

"Yay!", "NOOOO!" and "Erm?"

HELL YA! With a little help from the Rags, the Caps have now evened up the series! WHOOO!

I thought the Rags would at least show a little effort here but no such thing. They were so relaxed without Torts that they fell asleep and even Avery couldn't get anything going. The Rags rolled over after initially tying up the game 1-1 and it was all Caps. Jurcina got the first goal which I missed because I was watching Hellboy for a second, Green got a sweet goal which I saw, Poti got a goal on a 3 on 1 chance which I was screaming at him to put away and Kozlov made up for a sloppy error that almost cost the Caps and scored before flying into the net. I wanted an Ovie goal and I got one even if it was just a deflection (it's still an Ovie goal!). The best the Rags could come up with was attempts to run over Ovie. Okay fine. They got one goal on a 5 on 3 and another one on a... either a 5 on 3 or a just finished 5 on 3 which turned into a 5 on 4. I dunno. Doesn't matter. Staal Bro. 3 got a goal with 5 seconds left but it was all pretty moot anyway.

Reason number 46789065 that it sucks to have your team go out....

You have to suffer through a Whalercane/Devils game. Enough said.

I think my shirts are cursed...

...because whenever I wear a Habs shirt, the Habs lose (oddly enough, when I wear a Habs shirt, the Caps win). Apparently it also cuses the Baby Habs as well because tonight the Hammies were eliminated by the referees who were beyond awful. Thanks refs. You officially suck. You're lucky that this aint' Slovakia or else one of you might get whacked....

I feel for the Hammies. They went out like the Habs did. Got an early goal. Looked good. Refs sucked. The other team scored and it was all over. At least they didn't boo them in Hamilton *coughs*

It's okay Hammies. We love you!

In World Championship news.....

In their first appareance in I don't know how many years, Hungary got insanely unlucky to be in the same group at Canada. Now it wasn't as bad as the time that the Slovak women's team won a game 82 -0... but... it wasn't too pretty either. How about 9-0...? With a Shorty Marty hatrick a 56 to 16 shots on goal in favor of Canada (maybe Jaro should have changed his nationality to Hungarian).

In the words of the PA guy in Boston: WhooooOOOOOOOOOooooooooo! Poor Hungary though. If they can't beat Grabs and Co then they're back to being relagated. Poor guys.

Day 10: It can't be Friday... It has to be Monday....

It has to be Monday because today is random info day. I think I do this every Friday though... Maybe I should move random info day from Monday to Friday?

Last night went....GOOD!

Wings finally squashed the Jackets (sorry Jackets) and I was NOT pleased with how Osgood and Co did. You don't take two-goal leads (how many times? Twice?!) and then BLOW it in two seconds.... BAH BAH BAH BAH! But ya'll won eventually so I'm pleased with that. Now get your act together and be better in the next round please!

DUCKS WON. In spectacular fashion too. 4-0! I shouldn't laugh butbutbutbutbutbut.....

BIRON actually go a shutout. Oh my god.... I was dying... in a semi-good/semi-bad sort of way...BIRON YOU DIDN'T FAIL ME?! What's going on here?! Yeah, you got insanely lucky. But you didn't fail me. I can't believe it. it's truly the end of the world....

Devils/Whalercanes were boring. I died of boredom.

TODAY WENT....

uh well, it went... and I missed what happened. I missed Team Canada smouldering Team Balrus 6-1 in Switzerland today. I wasn't too annoyed because there's nobody I really like playing for Team Canada and it's still early on in the tournament anwyay. But guess who got the lone Belarus goal? Oh yeah. I saw the score and I was like "Oh c'mon... lemme guess.... Grabs got the lone goal?" and then I checked and yup. The twerp got the goal. BAH. Apparently I didn't know that Salei was from Belarus too. I thought there was only Grabs and the Kostitsyn brothers. Apparently there is also Salei. Huh....

I'm rocking the red in my red Habs shirt (according to Leonsis, it counts so nyah). Hoping the Caps can beat those Rags.

Edit: HELLO GAME 6!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh why oh why couldn't more of this series be like this game? It had everything. It had grumpy Rags, a beautiful shorty goal by a guy who I hardly ever hear of, one ugly Caps goal by the same guy who I hardly ever hear of, one sick-in-the-good-way Semin goal, one amazing Ovie goal, one angry coach in Torts, drunk fans, dozens of Rags penalties despite no Avery in the lineup... Oh and it had a shutout by Simeon (there is no way in hell I'm calling the guy "Varly". Ick). WHOOOOOOOOOO! Caps are still in it baby! Oh and... as I mentioned on Twitter... Hockey on TV isn't TV. It's hockey. Non-hockey on TV is TV.

Why don't we care more about the World events?

One of my earliest memories in actually seriously watching some sport was watching the FIFA World Cup. It was a huge production that had everyone talking about it. It was fun, even if Canada can't play football and wasn't in the competition. Even the Euro Cup received a lot of hype here in the Canada. Now, contrast that to when Canada hosted the hockey world cup and what do the newspapers talk about? Well, the Stanley Cup of course! Well, maybe the papers in Halifax were talking about the World thing but they certaintly weren't talking about it here in Quebec. I was actually really annoyed that Team Canada only got a passing mention in a tiny article in the back of the paper when they lost to Russia.

So why is that no one here cares about the World event? I think there's a few reasons.

1. There's very few countries that actually play hockey and there are even less who are considered very good.
   
2. They hold the event at a really bad time of year.
   
3. The hold the event too often.
   

To elaborate on point 1. Let's be honest. There's way fewer countries who play hockey than there are who play football. Less countries means less fans means less people to generate hype. Also, if you look at past winners of the tournament you will see that there's pretty much only five teams who have filled the top three spots continuously: Canada, Sweden, Czech Republic, Finland and now Russia as well (I'm discounting the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia because they don't exist anymore). So that probably further lessens the fanbase because I'm pretty sure that it would take a strong showing by European teams to generate interest in their repsective countries. Most European countries put a higher emphasis on football than they do on hockey. I think a higher level of hockey in Europe would go a long way to making the World event more competitive and more interesting and therfore a bigger event. And that's why I think the KHL is a good idea but that's another thing altogether.

But why isn't the World event appreciated more in North America where we are clearly quite passionate about hockey? Just take a look at when this event happens. Usually it's held in April and/or May. Yeah. Right in the middle of the Stanley Cup playoffs. In the NHL, the Stanley Cup is really the only thing that you can win. This is not like in European football where you can win in your league/country, in the UEFA cup or in the Champions League. Oh and don't let me forget about that World Cup League thing where the Champions League teams from all over the world play each other (*kicks Man U by the way*). In the NHL you get one shot at one cup. That's it. Yeah, okay so you get a little thing if you win in your conference even if half your games were against teams not from your conference, but no one cares about that. Best in the conference means nothing. Best in the league means a heck of a lot.

Because the best in the world in hockey still play in the NHL, the winners of the Stanley Cup are generally the best bunch of players in the world. Given the choice, what do you think most guys would choose? To test your skills against the best in the world who are playing in the NHL and by winning the Stanley Cup, you're making a case that you're the best in the world OR play in a tournament where there are really only 5 teams who ever win the event and most of the time those teams aren't even consisting of the best guys out there? I'd go for option 1, honestly. Until the best in the world aren't playing in only the NHL, the world event won't gain much importance among the actual players. That's not the say that the guys don't like to win it. Look at how happy the Russians were to win only their second World Championship. But you are honestly telling me that guys like Ovechkin, Nabakov and Kovalchuk wouldn't rather be winning that Stanley Cup?

You are not best in the world if you win the World Championship. I'm sure team Sweden would have done a lot better if some of their star players weren't running over the Dallas Stars in the playoffs at the time. And Canada could have done better if some of the best goalies (during the playoffs anyway) weren't battling it out in the Eastern Conference (and I guess we could have benefitted from having Crosby too).

Change the schedule and maybe then we can see some of the best of the best duke it out.

And finally, I think that they hold the even too often. Look at the World Cup and the Euro Cup in football. It's extra special and because it only happens every four years. I'm not saying hold the hockey championship thing every four years. Maybe every two or three years (why can't it be an odd number?). Every year makes it boring - especially when the best in the world aren't even playing in it.