8 Random Things

1. FIE ON TORONTO sports teams. Marlies won in a shootout yesterday while I was suffering through dinner.
2. FIE ON STUPID RESTAURANTS. As a mostly-vegan I get that it's hard to eat out, but when a restaurant 1) only has like 10 things on a menu to begin with and 2) fills them with meat, I get ticked off. This has nothing to do with hockey but yeah.... I missed hockey so I could battle my way through a stupid menu and a poor newbie for a waiter and a not very pleasant time with the relatives. GUH.
3. FIE ON INJURIES. Desharnais has a broken foot (did I mention that already? Well, he does and it was about a week ago that he did it). GUH.
4. JUNIORS HAD A SHUTOUT last night. Missed the third period because, you guessed it, I was suffering through dinner. Gotta feel for their opponents though, because the Drakkar lost 9-1 the other day to the Remparts (guhh) and now they got blanked. Too bad. YAY JUNIORS!
5. FIE ON SHOOTOUTS. Out of curiosity, I had to find Sanford's shootout record (as he was rather um dismal last night) and his NHL totals appear to be 3-8 with a save percentage of .514. If you're wondering, our dear Priceberg is 8-8 with a save percentage of .702. Not dissing Sanford or anything, but please, Hammies, let's not go to a shootout again, okay?
6. Wait a second... Sergei is back in Belarus? HOW DID I MISS THAT ONE? Get your butt back to Hamilton, you twerp. Fie on whatever part of Sergei's brain isn't thinking here. EDIT: umm okay... now RDS is reporting that he will go back to Hamilton. What the heck? I give up....I don't know where Sergei is. but hopefully we all know where he will be on Tuesday - which is when he's expected to show up.
7. I really hope the Dalai Lama left some good mojo at the Bell Centre while he was there (and seriously, who gave him a Habs jersey?! That's nuts).
8. Oh and Mike Boone says Komisaurus and Beauchemin were on the ice or in the box during all of the goals scored against the Leafs thus far. Beautiful. FIE on the Komisaurus!

8 random thoughts

Okay, make that 9 things.

1. Five Hammies were sent back to Hammie-town. Maxwell, Pyatt, Carle, Weber and Sanford were sent back.
2. Why are there rumors that Sergei will skip town for the KHL? In all honesty, I can see him doing it HOWEVER, I have a feeling that these rumors are just a bunch of crap.
3. Peachhawks demolished HC Davos last night 9-2.
4. Peachhawks then fell to the Zurich Lions 2-1 for the Victoria Cup thingy.
5. I LOVE the crowd in Zurich though. So much singing and tons of enthusiasm. So awesome. I wish we would sing a bit more here in Montreal.
6. Fact: I almost picked Zurich as my "random team to follow in some European league". I actually picked Bern first but upon learning that a certain Itty Bitty had played for them, I picked Zurich only to then change it to HC Lugano (yes, Huet and Metro both played for Lugano at some point in their careers and yes, Lugano sucked last year).
7. Why is this place saying that Gio will be the new captain?
8. Someone explain what the hell Mr. Perky is doing signing with the Coyotes? DAMN YOU.
9. Speaking of Gio... Just saw this Gio goal on some highlight thingy on RDS the other day. Had to find it again.

Although... If you ever saw that one where he just floated the puck up and over Nittymaki.... I love that one too. If only because it shows how epically faily the Flyers goalies are. Failyfailyfaily.

Hockey means random stick people drawings

Because I'm seriously procrastinating doing any work. This idea is completely borrowed from Number31. In a nutshell: The president of Belarus apparently was the guy behind Sergei and Grabs getting along again. Now, if Obama asked Looch to stop beating up Komisaurus.. what would he say? Well, apart from "in your dreams"? Maybe he'd ask for some concessions from the president in return?

(click for full size)

I probably should've added the healthcare bit in there...I was too busy laughing because I can almost see Looch actually saying "lumberer"......

Random whatever day it is

Because I said so.

• I hate mornings, trains, really any form of public transit and I hate not having caffeine when I wake up. However, I dealt with all of those to head off to see the rookies. Yeah, I'm such a martyr. NOT. But it was great to go out there again (thank you to All Habs for helping this poor girl without a car get out there).
  
  
• Byebye Gillet. It was nice having you around and I'm sorry you had to sell the Habs because you really didn't think it through before buying Liverpool. You helped turn my team around to the point that I will now risk my sanity to go buy tickets for. Thank you! I mean it. Thank you.
  
  
• Hey, what's this? Boivin getting all uppitty because reporters were saying that the Habs don't have enough French peeps on their team? Interesting. You tell them, Pierre! I think. Maybe. I dunno.
  
  
• I'm trying a new tactic this year. It's called: Pretend the media doesn't exist.
  
  
• Apparently Air Canada has been banned from making mutiple stops within the USA. This affects hockey in that our teams use Air Canada to travel to the desert and the beach. Great.
  
  
• Another round of legal stuff in Phoenix. Seriously, I wish I could've been there when King Gary took the stand.
  
  
• Speaking of Phoenix.... and Toronto....and this supposed veto power they have to keep other teams out of their area... There was an interesting conversation on the Fan 590 about what it would take to get another team into Southern Ontario. Not necessarily Phoenix, but any franchise. The basic premise being that the Leafs could demand a huge sum of money to allow a team into their area.
  
  
• They should put a roof over Arther Ashe stadium at the US Open so matches won't get rained out for days on end.

Clearly I haven't taken to this "new team"...

Okay so I went looking for some stuff on youtube of our new team members. You know, in an effort to get to know more about them.

First up on the youtube search list was Scott Gomez.

I ended up with this video:



Me: YAY KOIVU SMACKED GOMEZ! HAHAHAHA!

Little voice inside my head: You know we have Gomez now?

Me: Oh crap....GO KOIVU GO! YAY!

Next up was Cammalleri. After mispelling his name half a dozen times (whaddya mean the Habs didn't sign an octopus?), I finally found this:



Me: ummm.....

Little voice inside my head: I wonder if he still keeps golf clubs in his room in case someone decides to rob him... Oh maybe he'll invite Havlavt over and make him eat those fake plastic limes and then whack him upside the head with a golf club! HAHAHAHAHA....

Spacek's turn came next.



Me: Ow..... I wonder if there was permanent brain damage there?

Little voice: I WANT A GOALIE FIGHT! SMASHY SMASHY SMASHY!

And Hal Gill!



Me: oh.my.god.

Little voice: Yeah, I'm sure Crysob will have a thing or two to say about that! He wants his own snuggy! GIVE THE CRYSOB HIS OWN SNUGGY DAMNIT!!!

Umm yeah *goes back to looking for something better*

Random Monday

Because it's high time we had a day filled with randomness!

EP gets her first taste of hockey

Okay, okay so it was street hockey. BUT STILL.

• It was probably the first time I got to hold a real hockey stick
• I didn't suck at shooting too much
• Yes, I played goalie most of the time
• No, I had no pads
• Yes, the substitute puck (aka a orange ball) kinda hurt
• Yes, I let in about 4 goals
• I played "forward" for a bit
• Yes, I scored
• Yes, I had my Ovie shirt on
• YES, I did the flaming stick of doom thing when I scored "game winner" (it was first team up to 10 goals wins *G*)
• oh and yes, I did say "I win" and walked away (it was okay. I was playing with my sister and her friends)
• I wanna play more now

I wouldn't be mentioing this if it wasn't the middle of the offseason and my poor blog wasn't waiting for me to write something. But yeah. Hockey is fun =)

Metro who?

Umm yeah, in all this "OMFG OUR TEAM JUST GOT BLOWN UP" stuff, we forget who IS staying. And Metro is one of the guys staying (right, Bob?!). Dennis Kane reposted this article about Metro on his blog.. I remember reading a similiar thing in some Habs magazine. If you haven't heard about Metro's life before he ended up in the NHL, go read it. If you have, then you know why I like this guy.

Avtsin doesn't want to be Ovie #2.

Found this interview about our recently acquired Russian.

So you feel like you can’t go anywhere with these Ovechkin comparisons. And in Russia in these days only title that Avtsin wants to be like Ovechkin…

It’s pleasant from a certain point of view. But imagine how much I have to work to get to his level. His level is like that (points a hand to his head), while mine is like that (points the other hand to the ground). And anyway I don’t want to be like him. Ovechkin is Ovechkin, and I have to be not Ovechkin, but Avtsin.

Butbutbutbutbut... Fine. You be yourself. Just make sure you get yourself over here to play!

Speaking of Ovie....

Saw this interview with the party animal. I'm pretty sure there's something slightly off with this translation but I just laughed anyway for no reason.

Evgeni Malkin in an interview said that he was going to seriously improve his English because, in his view, his communication with the journalists was not enough to get him the Hart Trophy. How would you look at it?

If someone believes that Hart Trophy is given only for communicating with the journalists, they can even start learning Chinese if they think it would help.

I can almost picture this.... the thing with Chinese is that if you put the wrong inflection on a word, then you could end up calling your mother a horse by accident.... Could you imagine the type of fail that could come out of an interview with Eggplant speaking Chinese in it? Oh the possibilities!

And... this may be an epic time waster but it's still epically fun:

Thanks to puckdaddy (link is in the sidebar) for alerting me to this place where you can design your own hockey jersey. Here's my first attempt:

I would've written "Pufffles Smashing" but it wouldn't let me... =(

Soon to be ex-seasons and Quidditch

For once I wasn't the person who started this randomness about hockey players playing Quidditch (you know, Harry Potter). That isn't to say that I didnt get in on the madness:

And tonight is the last night of the season. For real. After tonight, there will be no more NHL hockey for a loooooong, loooooooooong time. I'll try to enjoy it but it won't be easy.... I want those Puffles to go down SO much right now. *sighs* Oh well. For my first ever NHL season, it's been crazy. So thank you to my Habbies, Ovie and the Caps and Peach Fuzz for making it amazing. Oh and special "thanks" to Crysob, Squeaky Marty and the Sens for providing me with hours of easy entertainment. Maybe one day I"ll grow up and stop being mean to you but not right now.... Sowwy.

I was going to write up something more interesting but then my brain shut down on me so you're stuck with this lame crap. Sorry *g*

Off season braindead-ness sets in....

It's almost the off season and with any luck the season wil be over by Saturday (right Wings? Right). To honor the braindeadness that comes with the off season I drew - and coloured! - another stick figure drawing. Of the Flyers.... err yeah....

To explain: I was talking to someone about their jersey colours. And we agreed that that orange is the same colour that you'd wear if you went hunting... But then I said that Itty Bitty couldn't possibly go hunting because he'd get hurt. He'd have to go butterfly hunting instead....

Click for bigger picture.

I can do random too!

(click the lovely picture for full size)

...I mean... even more random..... ANYWAY..... This was done by @hockeyisgood who kindly volunteered to do this after I said I had nothing interesting to write now that the hockey season is pretty much over. You'd probably have to know most of the people on twitter to get this so if you don't really know... you should at least be able to appreciate the accurate depiction of me *g*

Wiiiiiii!

Oh yeah... hockey withdrawal produces some more random stick people drawings...This would probably make more sense if you knew that 1) the Peachhawks play Wii before games 2) Captain Peachy was apparently banned from playing because he took it too seriously and 3) Peach Fuzz challenged his sisters to a writing contest - they were supposed to write their names or something. Within seconds he stood up said "I win" and walked away.

And of course Ovie would rock at it. I have no idea if he even plays the thing but if he did, he would be awesome at it.

Gary Bettman writes a book about hockey

First off, this was completely knocked off/inspired by Scott Feschuk's version of Stephen Harper's elusive hockey book which appeared in Macleans Magazine (I can't seem to find it online but it's absolutely hilarious. Best part? "I love cheering for my side, trash-talking others and rejecting the possibility that any point of view other than my own can posses even trace elements of merit. You can also apply this philosophy to hockey, I guess" ). So. Anyway....I figured while I was waiting for Nadal to show me that he's still no. 1 in the world, I'd write up a book for Gary Bettman. I mean c'mon, if some guy like Dany Heatley can publish an autobiography, then King Gary can write a book on hockey.

We'll call it "Hockey as seen through the eyes of Commish Gary".

Chapter One: The Lost History of Hockey

First off, what is hockey? To quote the highly esteemed Mr. Wiki Pedia, "ice hockey (frequently simply called hockey) is a team sport played on ice". According to some people, the sport was invented in Canada, but I have sources that suggest that the sport originated in the Arizona-Texas area. How the sport came to Canada is a long and complicated story - too long to explain to my ghost writer right now in this book. But in short, it involved a man named Bob Balsillie who saw the sport and loved it so much that he took it and brought it back to Canada with him. When he became king of Canada, he made the sport the official sport of Canada and then sent his forces out to demolish the people of Arizona-Texas. Right as the king's forces reached the doorstep of the kingdom of Arizona-Texas, he offered the people a choice: Face demolition or erase all mention of hockey. The people chose the latter and that, dear readers, is why there is no mention of hockey in Arizona-Texas.

Chapter Two: How I ended up with this job

Well, I started off as just some lawyer. Then I got into basketball because well, as a kid, I used to participate in it a lot (I was one who handed out the towels to the players). Somehow I ended up as the third highest in command which was neat all, but I wasn't particularly happy being only the third highest. I mean, third? So when I was offered a job to be the president of the NHL my first reaction was "what the hell is the NHL?" and then it was "yeah, sure, I'll take it." As soon as I ended up as head of the NHL I had the job description changed to "Commissioner" instead of "President" because being a "Commissioner" sounds better.

Chapter Three: On Being the Commish

It's great. Who wouldn't want to wake up every morning knowing that you are the supreme ruler of a major sport? Anything you say, can go. It's the most amazing thing ever. Quite honestly I have secret designs to become the supreme ruler of the poker universe too. But don't tell my brother that. But moving on, of course it's tough to be the Supreme Ruler of the NHL Commissioner. You have to make all kinda of tough decisions, like, going around the league to different events, handing out the Stanley Cup, hiring competent people to take care of important stuff such as buying my suits. It's very tough.

Chapter four: On being a fan

Yes, I am a big fan of basketball.

Chapter Five My favorite team

One of the most frequent questions I'm asked is "what is your favorite team?" To which I reply that I don't have a favorite team. As Commish of the NHL, I don't believe it would be a good idea to have a favorite team because some people would invariably accuse me of favoritism. Although if I had a favorite team, it would be a certain team in black and gold (no, not the one in Boston) because they're just so awesome. Plus they play in the United States. PLUS they somehow manage to fill their building. Isn't that amazing? But like I said, I don't pick favorite teams. This is all in the hypothetical.

Chapter Six My favorite player

Again, I don't pick favorites, but if I had to pick one, it'd be Sidney Crosby. Who doesn't like Sidney Crosby? Did you know that they call him the Anointed One? But really. I don't pick favorites. Even if he could save the Pittsburgh Penguins, the league and the fate of hockey altogether.

Chapter Seven: On putting more teams in Canada

Where's Canada?

Chapter Eight: On the recession and how that affects the teams in smaller markets

What recession? There is no recession. There is nothing wrong with the NHL or the teams.

Chapter Nine: On concussions

Did you know that "most concussions occur during player to player contact rather than when a player is checked into a wall"? Isn't that awful? Could you imagine letting your child witness someone getting a concussion after they're hit by another player? They should really work to cut down on shots to the head!

Chapter Ten: On fighting

Fighting is bad. I would never let my children watch a sport in which a pile of people beat each other up for no reason. That's just barbaric. That being said, the NHL sees no reason to change their policies regarding fighting in the league.

Chapters eleven through twenty-five: 600 pages of blank pages

Random info day!

Just in case you were thinking I has gone sane...

First off...EP learns exactly what baseball is about on Twitter

EP: How can anybody watch baseball? I don't get it...

Saucerpass: You don't really watch baseball. it's more like: you socialize with people while baseball is happening in the background

Sarah_Connors: you're supposed to WATCH baseball?

EP: I guess not? So what do you do then?

Saucerpass: when you go to a game, you're not supposed to watch it. you're supposed to focus on your $30 hot dog, $50 beer and your sunburn

Sarah_Connors: beer, bbq, talking with friends, more beer, uhhh.... really everything BUT watch the game. XD

EP: Why would they put baseball on TV then?

Saucerpass: so you can clean and do other things around the house and have it on as background noise.

EP: But what about when baseball hijacks hockey hour?

Saucerpass: touche salesman...i guess that's why we have the outdoor life netw.....errrr....versus.

Second of all... An explanation of the Nadal/Djokovic match for the hockey fans:

Nadal is the Ovie of hockey. Although thank goodness Ovie doesn't wear ugly striped shirts like Nadal has been wearing.

Djokovic is.... Djokovic would be the Semin of hockey. Entertaining by accident.

Federer is the Less-Whiney-Way-More-Adorable version of Crosby in the tennis world. Talented but getting forgotten in the Ovie hype.

Murray is Toews. But he's out. But I had to say that anyway.

Shockingly enough, the Semin of tennis beats the Ovie of tennis in the first of three sets. The Ovie does not look pleased. Actually, unlike the Ovie, Nadal pouts a bit. He puts his hands on his hips and shakes his head at the court. Anyway, the Ovie decides tha as the World No. 1 that he is, he better start playing better (you see, should he win, he could play the Less-Whiney-More-Adorable-Crosby of the tennis world). So after slugging it out, he downs the Semin of the tennis world in the second set. Third and deciding set. After some great and not so great tennis, it goes to a tie breaker. A third set tie-breaker is like OT. You have to go to 7 and win by two. So you can win 7-1, 7-4, 7-5. But if it's 7-6 you have to keep going. After plenty of amazing shots and plays, the Ovie wins 11-9 (that's like.... double or triple OT). He will now meet the Lovable-Version-Of-Crosby.

AND the official objective view on the Ovie vs Puffy debate is...

I have a friend who lives in Argentina. She knows nothing about hockey. She had never heard of Ovie or Puffy. I showed her a couple of pictures of both of them and gave a brief explanation of both of them in a rather objective format. And... she said she liked Ovie better. HAH! The objective Argentine says that Ovie is better. HAHA.

Don't bother questioning the objectiveness of that. I won't listen *g*

Waterbottle him!

Tonight, EP brings you a list of people who need to be waterbottled based on tonight's actions. That is, people who deserve to sit in the benches and have Torts throw a waterbottle at them.

1. TSN and RDS for being so pro Boston and Anaheim
   
2. Brown of the DUCKS for hitting Hudler in the head. The hit was dirty.
   
3. Colin Campbell for whatever his decision on this hit will be. We're anticipating on not agreeing whatsoever with his call.
   
4. The rest of the Dirty DUCKS for being... Dirty DUCKS....
   
5. Cam Ward for being a failtender
6. Milan Lucic for being Milan Lucic
   
7. TSN for mentioing the words "Crosby and OHvehckin". We don't want to hear about Crosby and AHvechkin. We want everyone to shut up while the players get on the ice and start playing hockey.
   
8. TSN for being a failstation
   
9. Major League Baseball for hijacking my television. I WANT HOCKEY!
10. The Whalercanes and their logo that makes no sense
    

The Wonderful World of Colin Campbell

It was late at night. The hockey games had all finished by this time. The people had all gone home and were now asleep or passed out somewhere. Even the fans had gone back home.

But not everyone was asleep. No, in the uppermost turret of Special Executive Suite No. 340 someone was still awake. Colin Campbell was hard at work. While the rest of the world got to sleep, the Senior Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations was still awake. He had a tough decision to make. For you see, a few minor incidents had happened in the Stanley Cup playoff game between Washington and New York. He had received notice that Donald Brashear had taken out Blair Betts.

After looking at the video, Colin paced around for a few minutes before sitting down at a chair. He took out two omnious boxes and placed them on the table. Opening the first box carefully, he reached in and drew out a small slip of paper. As he unfolded it, the words "Pre-game incident" could be seen scrawled on it. Nodding slowly, Colin then reached into the second box and drew out another slip of paper. Upon unfolding it, the words "Automatic 10 game suspension" could be seen.

Colin frowned slightly. That was a little much... He reached back into the second box and pulled out another slip of paper. This time the words "1 game suspension" were scrawled on it. Ah much better.

Now. There was a little matter of the actual incident though....

The Senior Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations reached into the first box and drew out a slip of paper. He sighed as he saw the words "tripping" on the paper. He had had a similar major issue not that long ago. When perpetual pest Sean Avery had gone spewing stuff about his ex-girlfriend, Colin had been left with quite the problem. You see, being a stupid idiot wasn't really a suspendable offense. But King Gary had insisted so much that he do something, that Colin had been forced to get a new piece of paper and write the words "dissing ex" and put the paper in the first box.

But back to the task at hand. What was he going to suspend this guy for? It clearly wasn't tripping. Colin reached back into the box. There had to be something that'd at least make some sense to someone.....

"Being Donald Brashear". Ah! That one made sense! Colin smiled and sighed with relief. Some days he job was so tough....

Now he just needed a decent amount of games to suspend the guy for and he was finished. Reaching into the second box, Colin pulled out a piece of paper that read "5 games for pretty much no reason". That made sense to him. So it must be right.

The Senior Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations smiled and leaned back in his chair. Another night's tough work was done. Now it was time for nap....

What the Habs need is......

...someone who has.....:

• The Good Kovy's scoring abilities
  
• Koivu's perkyness when he scores
• Turtle-Pleky's work ethic
• Stewie's hitting abilities

We'd have the perfect guy... Too bad we can't find someone like that....Wait.... whaddya mean the league already has a guy like that? Where? Oh... *gets out email*

Dear George McPhee,

Hi. I was wondering if you could possibly lend us Alexander Ovechkin for a game or too? It's not like you need him tonight or anything and we could really benefit from having him... What do you say? We can give you.... Brisebois.... and you can have Tampa Bay's mascot. How about it?

Thanks in advance,

EP

Yeah, I realize we'd be better off with Nicklas Lidstrom but whatever.... I'm trying to kill time here... =p

Monday came on Tuesday today

Meaning, instead of Mondays' random stuff, it's now Tuesday's random stuff..... Whatever, moving on.

FIRST OFF! - Roadtrips are interesting

Somehow I managed to be out of town twice this week, both not Habs playoff days, thank goodness. Today I came back from another trip to the land of the defunct Nordiques - which I wouldn't be mentioning if It wasn't for the fact that I figured you'd all not want to know that I bought Habs stuff there. Yes, they sell Habs stuff in abundance with all of their defunct Nordiques stuff in their gazillions of touristy shops that I went through (I didn't really feel like a tourist but I was alone and bored and in desperate need of something Habs). I feel bad for the poor people on Quebec City though. The poor people are obviously quite hockey deprived. Someone bring them back a hockey team darnit!!!!! They are very deprived there *nods* I can now say that about half my Habs stuff was in the two cities that probably hated us the most. Whoopie. Friday, I will be missing the Caps while I make a trip to Sensland. Maybe I should look for Caps stuff if I get the time? Not that I need more Caps stuff... I'm waiting for my Ovie shirt to come from North Carolina....

Adventures of a Habs fan in Nordiquesland: So an itty bitty Habs fan walks into a sports jersey store (that would be me). She looks longingly at the Habs stuff, gazed inquisitively at the Nordiques stuff, pukes at the Pens and Leafs items, before turning to some other jerseys. A guy comes up to her and after asking her what language she speaks, he proceeds to go on a spiel about the jerseys she was looking at. Apparently the ones that say "Russia" on them in Russian are the Russian's international jerseys (because like, the Swedish don't write in Cyrillic) which is part of the IIHF (which stands for International Ice Hockey Federation). "Well, thank you, mister," the itty bitty Habs fan thinks to herself. "But at what point did I say that I was from Australia?! I KNOW what those jerseys are! I am from Canada darnit! And I did cheer for Team Russia at various points during various international events (AFTER Canada of course)... sheeesh...." The itty bitty habsfan thanks Mr. Salesdude for his info - and we'll give him credit for being nice in the first place- before walking away to look at Liverpool stuff. Sometimes the itty bitty Habs fan really doesn't get why people think she's from another continent.... Is it the sunglasses? I swear just about every other person in Canada has a some that look the exact same....

SECOND! - TWEETUP?!

Tweetup. If you live in or near Montreal, you must come to our tweetup. What is that? See their lovely and coherent explanation on All Habs. I'm still trying to figure out whether it's a sane thing to go. I mean for the other people' sanity. Not mine =p Do you really want to meet an itty bitty little quiet Habs fan? Really. I'm quiet around new people. Really. I'm not lying! Really!!!!

THIRD OF ALL... this lottery draft thing is very underwhelming....

Congrats Isles. You landed the first pick overall. Have fun and don't squander it. And boo on you Tampa Bay for landing ANOTHER top first round pick. Pfft....

FIFTH- So Burke wants Tavares, eh?

Apparently everyone's favorite GM wants to trade up in the draft and hopefully land 1st or 2nd. Now, I suppose it's entirely possible that the Isles and the Bolts will be stupid and give up their picks but... I don't see the Isles doing that. Why? Because they've been wanting this since November and what exactly does Burke think he's going to trade the Isles for?



Really. I need to sleep now =p

Fourth.. There is a fourth... I'm thinking....Oh got it!

EP IS NOT A GUY! EP IS NOT A GUY! EP IS NOT A GUY! Just putting that out there for anyone who thought otherwise.....Don't want any misconceptions. Although if you read the profile you'd know that EP is a girl.... Anyway.... yeah.... there still seems to be a lot of people who think EP is a guy.... EP is an itty bitty insane Habsgirl! Thank you.

Totally random look at the 2008-2009 season

My brain is about to explode right now so I figured I'd go right ahead and explode it by talking about this season =)

The good

• Celebrating in a non-over-the-top manner being around for 100 years (what? some of us did manage to keep it low key)
  
• Making the playoffs in a year in which just about every player was either injured and/or sick at some point
• Knowing that the Habs have some great prospects in Hamilton

The bad

• losing just about every player at some point in the year to injury/illness. It seriously messed with the team's mojo which lead to...
• The up and down season (and yet we still made it to the playoffs?)
  

The ugly

• the media
• the media
• the media
• the media
• The pessimistic fans (before you rip ME, I'll say that despite the name, I've been way less pessimistic than a lot of people out there. Plus I stuck with this team despite some moaning in February)

Top 5 games I wish I could relive

1. The Habs 5-4 victory over the Caps. I loved that game. And while I felt almost bad for Johnston on that really weak goal by Sergei at the very end of the game, it was still awesome for the Habs.
   
2. Habs S/O win over Ottawa. Mainly because I was in the crowd at my first ever live game and I loved just about every minute of the game (minus stupid Heatley's goals).
3. Jaro shutting out the Canucks. Because I love Halak and he deserved every bit of cheering that he got in the Bell Center. Plus, beating those Canucks is nice.
4. Price shutting out the Sens. Because I love Price and I love beating those awful Senators =)
   
5. Habs 5-4 comeback win over the Isles after going down 4-0. So the first 50 minutes weren't good but the rest was amazing. I was just sitting there going "oh...my....god....?!" Very fun.

Top 5 things we wished hadn't happened this year

1. Carbonneau being fired - it may have been necessary at some point but we wish it hadn't happened anyway. I personally wanted Carbo do succeed with this team
2. The rash of injuries - do I need to elaborate?
   
3. The media being stupid - You'd think that they don't want to see this team do well...
   
4. This whole "centennial/money grabbing year" thing - because it went overboard and just looked dumb after a while
   
5. Boston being good

Top 5 things we learned

1. The Montreal media really sucks sometimes
2. Injuries are the suck
   
3. Everyone putting in a 60 minute effort usually gets you a win
4. The Habs need better defense
5. Buying Liverpool was a really bad idea

Top 5 goals we liked that we can name off the top of our heads (because EP is too lazy to go through all her posts to see which goals were amazing)

1. Gui's wraparound goal in the last game against Buffalo. I told him to shoot the damn thing and he goes around and gets a beautiful wraparound. Hah.
   
2. D'Agostini's semi-breakaway goal against Boston in their last meeting. That was teh awesome.
   
3. Kovy's goal against.... man, I can't remember WHO it was against, but he basically fell over while scoring which made it "Ovie Cool" in EP's book. You don't get better than Ovie Cool.
   
4. Kovy's "right through Gerber like he was made out of butter" goal in the last meetup between the Habs and the Leafs. We liked by default because it was against Gerber.
   
5. Kovy's "right through Thomas like he wasn't there" goal in that last Boston meetup because any goal scored by Kovy against Thomas is beautiful.
   

Favorite Hammie to get called up:

EP liked all the Hammies, but she decided that she liked Stewie being called up the best. Why? Because he's a cuter, tougher, and shorter version of the Laraque we didn't get.

Players the Habs can't live without

• MARKOV! It's really too bad he's so damn quiet because he deserves a lot more attention and credit for the work he's done here. Forget Green for the Norris (sorry Green).
• A hot Priceberg. Contrary to popular belief, they have had some stellar goaltending by the Priceberg but they didn't walk away from a win due mostly to everyone else falling asleep
• Jaro... oh wait... that's "player that EP wants the Habs no matter what"... Well... I'm sure the Habs realize that they need him too, right?
  

Song that sums up the Montreal media and its attitude towards the Habs:

For some reason "Hot'n'Cold" always comes to mind.... I dunno why....

Top 5 Russians that rocked my little world this season:

1. Kovalev rocks because he's Kovy even if he annoys me sometimes (or maybe I should be blaming the posts instead of Kovy? Yes.... I think I'll blame the posts)
   
2. Ovie rocks because he's Ovie and he's way more interesting than a certain Puffle named Sid
   
3. Markov rocks because I said so
4. Kovalchuk rocks because he beat all the icky teams that were coming close to my Habs
5. Semin rocks because.... I dunno.... Anyone know why Semin rocks? Well, he just does.
   

Malkin doesn't rock anymore... In fact, he's reached "Puffle" stage on the Hate Meter by default of him playing for the Puffles. Sorry Geno.

Top 5 technically-non-hockey-related things that EP did because of hockey

1. Started a blog. How can you ramble about hockey if you don't have a blog and everyone tells you to shut up all the time?
2. Rediscovered a love for photography. Can't capture being in the Bell Center without a good camera.
   
3. Started taking up Russian. Can't read the KHL website if you don't read Russian...I still can't read it *g*
   
4. Sew. Can't have a nice Habs pillow or an ugly voodoo doll if you can't sew
5. Knit. Can't come up with another stress reliever other than ripping out your own hair if you can't knit. Well, maybe you can.
   

Monday = no good games = me being random

Jaro

There once was a goalie called Halak
Who was one talented Slovak
He was backup to Price
And was kept off the ice
And that's the story of Jaroslav Halak!

Briere

Danny Briere was a big a bum
Until he was offered a huge sum
Because he was a squirt
He always got hurt
Since then Danny has been quite mum

Ovie

There once was a kid named Ovechkin
Who sent lots of people k'vetshin'
He liked to celebrate
And got called an ingrate
But since when is celebrating a great sin?

Ott

The Stars had a guy called Steve Ott
Who thought he was rather cool - or not!
When Stewie came callin'
To his mom he went crawlin'
So much for that guy called Steve Ott

Am I having too much fun with this?

So now that I'm in a good mood...

There once was a kid named Sid
Who had more talent than a lid
Then Ovie came around
And Sid fell on the ground
And that was the end of the kid named Sid

So I can't write a limerick very well. Sue me. Never wrote one before. And yeah, I'm bitter that he beat Ovie. Sue me some more. But before you do, check out these articles if you want to be amused.

Down Goes Brown has fun at Brian Burke's expense again. Very funny stuff.
Number31 calls herself a dork for writing this, but I think she should change jobs and write full time *g*

Adventures of a Habs fan in Sensville

Aka it's a slow day and my brain is freezing on a rant I want to write so you get to read random stuff again. Fun, yes?

There once was a Habs fan named EP. She loved her Habbies to death. Unfortunately, her traitor of a relative loves the Sens (EP's relative grew up a Habs fan). EP knew that she would have to set aside her wrath towards the Sens for one day because it was the little relative's birthday and well, you can't go being too mean to a kid on their birthday, right? Right. She decided that it wouldn't be very nice to tell her poor relative that the Sens reached a new level of horridness when they a blew a lead and lost to the even more hated Maple Losers while her beautiful team cranked out a win over the Sharks. So with a Crosby shirt in hand, she set off to Sensville to celebrate the little relative's birthday.

Now, EP's birthday is coming up very soon too and so her relatives decided to be very nice and bought EP a present. Much to EP's surprise, the relatives bought EP a Habs jersey. EP promptly jumped around like an idiot, put on the Habs jersey, and ran around some more. There's nothing like a Habs jersey. And there's nothing better than wearing a Habs jersey in Sensland (unlike in Leafsland, the Sens fans are less tempted to beat you to a pulp). EP thanked her relatives very muchly before zooming around like an idiot again. EP is now comtemplating adding a name/number to it but she can't decide who she would want to put on it....

So the rest of the day passed by in total bliss as EP was too happy to even notice that the little relative had opened the present with the Crosby shirt in it and promptly professed undying fan love for the Penguins. Upon further comtemplation, EP would now like to say that the shirt didn't fit the little relative and now EP is going to have to buy another size. EP is praying that the store will only have Ovie shirts in the little relative's size. And if there's no Ovie, she'll send the relative back a Kovy shirt.

Among the many conversations that revolved around slight Sens bashing - yes, EP couldn't contain herself for every long. I mean c'mon, losing to the LEAFS? Time to fire Clouston!- EP repeatedly heard talk of a certain guy called "Oh-vech-kin". EP said that she thought that Ovie was Russian. Not Irish. There aren't that many Irish hockey players... Alexander O'vechkin. Well, Alexander is more of a Scottish name than an Irish one but close enough. EP had to excuse herself at that point as she went off and died of laughter. Happens when they give the girl too much to drink.....

The end.

Wait. As EP was recounting her story she was rudely interrupted by the news that Ryan O'Byrne (hey, maybe he's Russian!!!) has been called up from Hamilton. Again.

Okay. Now the end.