My top 10 events for this year

...or half the year. I only came to this whole thing in April. Talk about late to the party...Anyway. The list. It's late because I was waiting to see what Team Canada could do.

1. Wimbledon final between Roger and Rafa. What can I say?It was one heck of a fantastic match that had me permanently hooked on tennis.
   
2. Spain winning the Euro Cup. That was really cool for Spain, who hadn't won in over 40 years. I was screaming for a while *G*
   
3. Canada vs. Russia in the World Junior Hockey Championship semi-finals. That was a game for the ages. Canada came very close to losing the tournament and seeing their four gold medal streak come to an end. But Jordan Eberle had a different idea and with just 5.4 seconds left in the game, he tied the goal. Canada ultimately won it in shoutouts but man... that game will be one for the ages!
4. Game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals. Pittsburgh showed a lot of determination in extending their stay in the finals. Sykora getting that goal in the third period of OT was really awesome. Okay, so I was actually asleep when he scored and missed the party but yeah.... sue me...
   
5. Federer winning the Olympic gold medal with Wawrinka. I've never seen the guy so incredibly happy after winning a match before.
   
6. Rafa winning the Olympics gold medal. That was a great way to pretty much finish off his amazing summer. Two grand slams, an Olympic gold medal AND the no. 1 spot? Come on...!
   
7. The Canada/US game in the round robbin stage of the Junior World event thing. Great hockey. Better than a lot of NHL games I've had to sit through...
8. That match in the round-robbin stages of the Tennis Masters Cup between Roger and Murray. Too bad Roger was again on the losing side of that one but it was a really good match nonetheless and it completely tired out Murray *g*
   
9. The Davis Cup final. Okay, so I didn't want Spain to win but you have to admit that it was quite the feat for the Rafa-less team to beat the odds and win it. Yes, it's very tragic for Argentina but hopefully that can get things together and win it another time.
10. Team Canada winning the Junior World Championship for the 5th time in a row and 15th time overall right here at home in Canada. Fantastic stuff!
    
11. Game 2 of the Montreal-Boston series in the Stanley playoffs. No, the game itself wasn't particularly amazing but I wouldn't be hear writing any of this stuff if it wasn't for that game. So it's SPECIAL *g*2
    

*wails*

Draws are in for the knockout stages of the Champions League and I'm going to cry. Why? Take a look!

Liverpool v Real Madrid
Juventus v Chelsea
Panathanaikos v Villareal
Bayern Munich v Sporting Lisbon
Porto v Atletico
Barcelona v Lyon
Roma v Arsenal
Man U v Inter Milan

THAT'S SO MEAN! This means that after the knockout stages I'll potentially only have one team to cheer for. Well, it better be two because Chelsea better get their act together to beat Juventus. But whyyyyyy or whyyyyy does Liverpool have to play Real Madrid??? WHY?!!!!! That's so cruel. I'm so unhappy now... *sniffles* I wonder what the chances of Barca and Man U getting knocked out at this stage are? Yeah, about as high as the stupid Maple Losers winning the Stanley Cup.... *wails more*

Ahem, anyway... in other useless news it would appear that Carbo's not the only one juggling his team's lines around. Craig Hartsburg has finally come to the conclusion that the Sens supposed top offensive line - and pretty much only line that can score- isn't working anymore. Brilliant observation! The Sens - lead by Alfredsson, Heatley and Spezza - had last year topped the league in goals but this year, the players seem to have gone to sleep (and if what I've been hearing is true, Spezza is particularly guilty of going to sleep this season). Look, I'm no expert on hockey and I really don't like to watch the Sens play, but I have noticed when they have played that the only people who seem to be scoring are Alfredsson, Heatley and Spezza and even then they haven't exaclty been scoring lately - and that has to be a problem. You simply can't have just one line that scores goals because when that line doesn't work you're doomed. Even Jason Smith agrees with me:

"One, two or three players can't lead a team on a nightly basis. The League is so competitive that you need everybody playing; you need your whole roster competing at a high level and working and we've been inconsistent with that." [from <here>]

I wonder if he's regretting leaving the Flyers now...?

Apparently this news wasn't greeted too well by the some. The Ottawa Citizen ran an article with the headline 'Hartsburg slots three stars with plumbers' when the news broke. To me, it seems like the Sens problem is that they've relied on these three guys too much for too long and now that it's not working everyone's freaking out. That most people believe that the Sens are indeed Team Alfredsson/Heatley/Spezza and that they are just drop-dead amazing is proved in the same article that ran the aforementioned headline.

"Welcome to the latest Ottawa Senators reality show: Two Plumbers and a Craftsman.

In the first episode, tonight versus the New Jersey Devils at the Prudential Center, Senators coach Craig Hartsburg is hoping the plumbers -- checkers Jarkko Ruutu and Chris Neil -- can lead the craftsman, Jason Spezza, by example, helping the Senators generate something positive."

I'm not saying that Ruutu and Neil are extremely talented players but is it fair to the rest of the team to be saying it like that? It seriously sounds like everyone thinks that only the "Big Three" are any good. It gets better though. Look:

"The radical line shuffling has the potential to be many things, from a farce to a comedy to a drama, developments worth watching.

It certainly carries the look of desperation, but that is the situation the Senators faced when they arrived here late yesterday afternoon."

Radical line shuffling? Desperation? Good god, there really is a huge emphasis on those three playing together on the same line. Oh well. As someone who had to sit through all of Carbo's musical lines for the past... what, two months now? I find those words really funny. Maybe now the Sens can move away from being a one-line scoring team. Or maybe they won't. I'm pretty sure that Hartsburg tried this move before but he changed his mind for whatever reason. Well, he seems to mean business this time so we'll see.

Later: Guess that idea didn't work too well on the first try. Sens fall to Devils 5-1. Oddly enough they had around the same shots on goal. Not that I was watching the game... I was watching the junior teams playing some pre-competition thing. Team Canada won 4-1 over Sweden. Real stuff starts on the 26th. Keep trying Sens!

So now that I've just spent waaaay too much time yapping about a team I couldn't care less about....

*kicks the Flyers*

Thanks to the Flyers, we've lost Andrei Kostitsyn for tomorrow's game against the Sabres. I missed the injury happening but apparently something is banged up from a knee on knee collision with Hartnell last night. Apparently there is no damage but he's still out. Great. Maxwell is still around so he will be in the lineup tomorrow.

Continuing the useless news:

So we all knew that team Spain and Team Argentina lost their head coaches for the Davis Cup, right? Right. Mancini of course couldn't stay after Argentina lost terribly to Spain and Sanchez couldn't stay because he had a spat with the head of the Spanish tennis association or something like that. Too bad about Sanchez though. I liked him. Anyway, I am now remembering that I failed to mention that both countries have now announced new head coaches! Yahoo... It's not called useless info for nothing! So Spain has gone with Albert Costa. He's won a few titles during his career, including Roland Garros and he was widely rumored to replace Sanchez. And Argentina went with Modesto Vazquez. I've never heard of him either. Apparently he played for Argentina in '68 and '70.

Good luck guys. You're going to need it. Especially Vazquez with the Argentine players all hating each other if the media reports are to be believed.

you know things are bad when....

...I start talking about Andy Murray. Sue me. I had to go and read about something other than how badly every other team I follow is doing. Anyway, so there was this thing that appeared in the Telegraph thing and Murray was talking about some of the things that he can do to improve his game and all that jazz. Apart from being more fit, Mr. Murray also wants to add a few pounds/kilos/whatever before things start going again in January. His plan for obtaining aforementioned objective?

"If I'm going to put on six pounds or so I'll have to eat loads, because I'm training for five hours a day," he said. "I'll be eating sushi, drinking protein drinks, eating those bars you have after a match. Mind you, my gran is cooking Christmas lunch, so I don't think that will be sushi." [taken from over here]

Either I'm missing something here or Murray actually thinks that he's going to gain weight by eating sushi. Dude, I'm living proof that you can't get fat by eating sushi.... Maybe he's planning on just putting it all on during his grandmother's Christmas meal? I know I'll probably pack on a few pounds on Christmas. Or maybe not. I'm still pushing for my grandmother to get sushi for Christmas but I doubt I'll be getting that either. Ah well...Murray's still got a while to go before he can keep up with Rafa.

Enough about Murray. I've finally got around to looking at the upcoming matches for the Davis Cup in March Here's who's going to play who:

Czech Republic vs. France
Argentina vs. Netherlands
U.S.A. vs. Team Roger Federer
Croatia vs. Chile
Sweden vs. Israel
Russia vs. Romania
Germany vs. Austria
Spain vs. Serbia

Should be fun as long as Argentina, Team Roger and Spain get through. Oh and Croatia too because I like Cilic. I think that France, Argentina, Croatia, Russia and Spain will be through for sure. I would like to see Team Roger get through, though I expect that the U.S. would have to be the favorites. And I have no idea about the Germany/Austria and the Sweden/Israel matchups. I didn't know that Israel even had any singles players...

In case you didn't want to hear about hokcey: Columbus beat San Jose in OT!!!! Like hello?! The BLUE JACKETS beat the SHARKS?! That's insane.... And of course it just HAD to be Umberger who got that OT goal... *rolls eyes*

I never thought I would be saying this....

.....especially considering how I cheered for Spain in the semis of the Davis Cup, but I'm very disappointed that Spain one today. With Del Potro out it was up to Jose Acasuso to keep Argentina's hopes alive. Now, I mean no disrespect to Acasuso, but this definitely spelled out Argentina's doom. His level of play was no where near Nalbandian's or Del Potro's. Even if he had not been playing up to his usual abilities, I still think that Del Potro would have been able to beat Verdasco. Verdasco did have moments of goodness - there was hardly any brilliant tennis in that match (brilliance is Rafa and Roger, oh and Nalbandian beating Ferrer on Friday, thank you *g*) - but on a whole if he had been up against someone better, Argentina would have gone to a fifth match. He had a lot of errors -and in particular double faults. A lot of Verdasco's easy points came on Acasuso's unforced errors. By the end of the match Acasuso was clearly spent both physically (he did call the trainer at one point) and mentally (I'm sure he was aware that this is the second time that his match has cost Argentina the Davis Cup). I feel incredibly bad for Argentina right now. They came in as the favorites and lost due to unforseen injuries. Well, partially unforseen. Surely they would have known that del Potro would have been tired coming into this event after jsut coming from Shanghai. But I doubt anyone thought that he wouldn't be able to play on Sunday. Acasuso calling the trainer at the end of the fourth set was just the straw that broke the camel's back, I think.

So it's Spain who goes home with the Silver Salad Bowl today. To their credit, Sanchez was brilliant in coaching his team. I kind of got the sense that Spain behaved more like a team than Argentina did. Funny enough, this is Spain's third Davis Cup win and the third time that they've won it in the same year as the summer Olympics. All three years Spain has gone away with a medel in the Olympics (doubles teams took home bronze in 2000, 2004, and 2008, while we all know who one gold in the singles in 2008). Well, next year if Team Federer doesn't make it to the finals - and that does seem like abit of a stretch for them to make it- then I will hope for Argentina again. Unless of course Nadal plays.....

Davis Cup and.... Sundin? *runs screaming*

La Ensaladera de Plata

Part One. After a week of not sleeping very well, I simply crashed last night and completely forgot to say how the Davis Cup went. Well, the first match (rubber? tie? whatever they call 'em in the Cup thing) went really well if you're cheering for Argentina. Nalbandian was clearly inspird and he ran over Ferrer 6-3, 6-2, 6-3. The poor Spanish no 2 had no chance. I actually didn't see the match but I think the stats speak for themselves and from what I read Nalbandian was awsome. That's good news because he will need to be awsome again when he teams up with Calleri today for the doubles match to bring Argentina up 2-1.

Yes, Del Potro lost to Lopez. I saw part of it and while Del Potro did well at the beginning he was obviously spent at the end of the 3+ hour match. After taking the first set, he lost the next two in tie breakers and the fourth one 3-6. The middle part of the match was rather boring because both sides held serve incredibly easy (try 40-0 for most of it). Lopez's big advantage (err only advantage?) is that he can serve well and it saved him in the tiebreakers. This doubles match is going to be crucial for both sides but I'm inclined to think that it's more important for Argentina to win it. If they go down 2-1 then it will be entirely on Del Potro's shoulders to beat Ferrer. While I know that Ferrer is not particularly good at the moment, I'm concerned how Del Potro will do under that type of pressure. He's been a bit shakey at the start of his matches in the Davis Cup matches. There's that confidence issue too, if he feels that he underperformed against Lopez and Ferrer does better than expected...But anyway, all in all, it's very important for Argentina to win this today.

Part 2. Later: Apparently Del Potro may be out for tomorrow. ACK! Bad news. This is really bad. Okay. Never mind what I said before. It's crucial for Argentina to win in doubles. If they don't win then their chances are.. I won't say next to nill, but....you get the idea. As long as Verdasco plays like he did against the US (which was bad) and Calleri plays well then Argentina has a chance.

Slightly later: I'm stuck listening to radio commemtary! *kicks computer* These announcer people are really funny. In the beginning they had no idea who was who and they couldn't even tell the score because there was a guy in their way - one of them couldn't speak Spanish so he didn't know what the (French) umpire was saying. One of them also can't say Nalbandian's first name right. Poor guys. The funniest bit was when one said "the heat in here has raised". Raised? Risen! He then just said "how about 'the heat in here is rising'?"lol.... poor guys!

Part 3. Later: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Victory for Spain...Noooooooooooooo..... It was a good match. Argentina took the first set 7-5, lost the second 5-7, lost the third after being down 2-5 and coming back to force a tiebreaker. They were up 5-1 in the tiebreaker and then lost it. They then went down 3-6 in the fourth. With Del Potro possibly out, Argentina is now at a huge disadvantage....I can always hope that del Potro makes a miraculous recovery and Ferrer breaks his arm. Sorry Ferrer.

The Mats Sundin Saga: Part 5,292,837,293

Just when I thought I had heard the last of Mats Sundin... okay, let me restate that. Just when I thought I had heard the last of Mats Sundin and the Habs, I learned the other day that Bob Gainey went off to LA to talk to Sundin. Here we go again....! I have no idea how they intend on signing him if they have no money at the moment. Okay so it's called trading someone. But who? And is it worth doing all this stuff to sign a guy who's going to retire soon? Then again, if they win the Stanley Cup then no on is going to complain too much. There's also the question of the reports that stated that Sundin wanted to play for a team that wouldn't play the Maple Leafs. Oh and there's the little issue of the Habs being 1 of 11 teams interested in Sundin. This is getting ridiculous, honestly. Sundin obviously can't make up his mind on what he wants. If he wanted to make a boatload of money then he would have signed with Vancouver. If he wanted to sign with a good team then he could have signed with Montreal (in my biased opinion). If he wanted to sign with a team in a nice warm climate then he could have signed with whatever Southern United States team was interested in him. Why are we persuing a guy who can't make up his mind and pick a stupid team? Signing Sundin is no guarantee that we'll win the cup. In fact, with news of Komisarek being out for at least a month, the Habs should start looking around for a defenseman instead of a guy who can't make up his mind. This is getting older than the whole Christiano Ronaldo epic over the summer and that got old really fast....



Speaking of Football....
Liverpool and Chelsea are playing Fulham and Newcastle. At the same time again, of course. You know, because it would be asking for too much if they played at different times. Anyway, be back later on this. Apparently I'm watching Chelsea right now.
Slightly Later: Chelsea forgot how to score in the first half. They had a billion chances and they couldn't score. Because I learned that Torres was playing today, I switched to Liverpool. Like Chelsea, they couldn't score either. Bah. Of course I'm watching the doubles in the Davis Cup so I won't know how they did till later.
Later: Chelsea 0 Fullham 0 and Liverpool 0 Newcastle 0. BORING! I can only imagine how terrible Chelsea AND Liverpool must have been to lose.... BAH.....
Real Madrid is making my day completely horrid by not beating a team in 19th place.....WAKE UP!
Even later: Real Madrid actually one 1-0. Could have been worse, I guess.
Canadiens vs Bruins
Almost forgot about this actually. Habs play Bruins again tonight. This has the potential to be another heartbreaking loss for the Habbies again. They still haven't woken up completely and the Bruins are doing well. Bah. Maybe the homecrowd will wake 'em up? We can be way nosier than any football crowd! Actually, they've still managed to sleep through the homecrowd. I will probably miss most of it 'cause I will be out.... x-x
Later: Lost in shootouts. Got run around in the first period. Woke up more in the second and scored. Messed up and let Boston score twice. Third went quite well. Completely outshot Boston but only scored once late to send it to overtime. Lost in shooutouts. Wheeler scored the only goal in the shootout. *sighs* the third went really well, I thought. Tim Thomas is not number one in the freaking league for no reason. *sighs* Judging by how the third went, they probably should of had it. Oh well. Considering that Boston is no 2 in the league they Habs could probably feel relatively happy with how it it tonight. I mean, they were definitely much more alive and really tried a lot more. So that could be some encouragement. Maybe. Then again, Detroit is coming up on Wednesday or Thursday....
Oh and who's idea was it to have Georges Laraque run around after Lucic? That was a stupid idea and didn't do anything really. Maybe Lucic didn't beat anyone up tonight but he did score a goal which was quite irritating to say the least... Are we going to do this every time we play Boston now? Isn't that giving the guy a bit too much credit? I think we should start worrying about scoring goals - they still can't seem to score more than 2 in a game - than about a guy who doesn't really look around for people to beat up on a regular basis.
Random fact of the hour (that would be 11:16 at night for the records)
While we're on the topic of Milan Lucic.... Guess where he's from? Or at least his parents 'cause he's Canadian. Guess. Think Ancic or Cilic only... a little more to east. YES the dude is of Serbian descent. Go figure, eh? I was sitting there hating the guy to death when it suddenly dawned on me that with a name like that he couldn't possibly be Czech or Slovakian. Why I thought he was from there to begin with is pretty stupid. With a name like that he had to be either Croatian or Serbian. But I mean... whoever heard of a Croatian hockey player? Watch as I'm totally ignorant and there's about 34723 of them. heh....
Ole! *dies*
The bloody song is going through my head now. Not my fault considering I've heard it ALL DAY. First in England when Chelsea and Liverpool were playing then in Argentina and then in Montreal. *bangs head on something*
In Sum
YUCK! Not pleased at all. Argentina has put themselves in a huge hole. Chelsea and Liverpool forgot how to score, and Real Madrid only scored once against an icky team. Malkin and Crosby must have died because Pittsburgh Penguins lost to Vancouver 3-1. And the Habs.... good news is that maybe they've woken up slightly. BUT WE STILL LOST TO BOSTON! After the Islanders, we've got Detroit (we're doomed), Washington (maybe Ovechkin will be sick and can't play) and Buffalo (maybe we can hope that they've forgotten how to play) next. I'm starting to despair slightly here.
Oh wait! there is a tiny bit of light. Lugano won against Zug. 7-4. Okay, so they're still in 5th and they beat the team in the bottom of the twelve team league. I'm desperate here!

There is hope for tonight

No matter how badly you think the Habs are doing right now, there is one tiny bit of hope going into tonights game against the Ottawa Senators. The Sens are worse. And before you start on the fact that Carolina, Toronto, St. Louis, and Philly are all worse than the Habs you can rest assured that the Sens are definitely the worst at 29th place (I'm going to pretend that St. Louis is not sitting in dead last right now because they weren't that bad on Sunday). The Senators have won exactly 6 games and the only thing keeping them from being 30th is that St. Louis has played two less games than them. Did I mention that the Sens haven't won any of their last five games? The Habs have at least won two of their last five which includes blanking the Sens. So there is hope. Actually, I will scream if they lose tonight. At least they're not in the running to get the top draft pick next year! They better win something soon because I doubt very much that they'll beat Detroit later this month.... and Washington is looking good too....waaah.....

Later: More line changing set for tonight. It's like musical chairs... but with lines instead... Or something...According to the Habs Inside/Out the lines are going to be:

Guillaume Latendresse will be reunited with Saku Koivu and Alex Tanguay.
Tomas Plekanec centres Alex Kovalev and Christopher Higgins.
The third line has Robert Lang between Andrei Kostitsyn and Tom Kostopoulos.
The fourth line may be a game time decision, but it shapes up as Steve Bégin centring Georges Laraque and Sergei Kostitsyn.
Defence pairings stay the same.
Carey Price is in goal.

Go <here> to see the article. Well, this should be interesting to see. I guess it can't hurt too much to change things up. Again. Lets' just hope they feel inspired to win tonight instead of thinking "hey, the Sens are bottom of the league and stink. This should be easy!". Like I said, we shall see. Be back later on this.

Davis Cup Stuff: Draws have been made and David Nalbandian will start against David Ferrer tomorrow. Now, being three hours behind Argentina, the match will start at 10:00 my time which would be okay except for the fact that I will be gone all morning. Yuck. Anyway, this should be fairly easy if Nalbandian comes out all inspired. Ferrer has definitely been struggling since I've been watching him this year, and Nalbandian has displayed some good tennis since the US open. Despite being down 3-6 in career meetings against Ferrer, Nalbandian does have a slight edge when it comes to hard courts winning three of the five times. Also, they haven't played each other in over a year so there isn't any recent stuff to go on.

Following the David match, Juan Martin del Potro will take on Feliciano Lopez. If I hadn't just heard that del Potro has a toe issue and somehow managed to bite his tongue so hard that he was bleeding all over the court the other day, and if I didn't have to worry about him being tired from playing in Shanghai last week, I would say that del Potro should have this one wrapped up. The tongue thing we can live with. Just stop the bleeding, give the guy a pile of pain killers and get him back on the court. You don't need your tongue to play tennis. The toe thing is a little more worrisome in that you sort of need it to play. And being tired... well, there's such a thing called adrenaline. But anyway... in their three meetings, all on hard courts, del Potro has beaten Lopez twice and lost their most recent encounter at Miami. Now, that was before del Potro went on his winning spree and I'm certain that he is a better player now than he was in Miami. This one should be interesting for sure.

I think if all goes according to what it should on paper, then Nalbandian and del Potro will win. Saturday will be the semi boring doubles match thing with Acasuso/Calleri (ARG) vs Lopez/Verdasco (ESP). I'm going to predict a victory for Spain but I actually don't know much about the teams... I think Lopez/Verdasco lost to one of the Bryan twins/Mardy Fish in the semis of the Davis Cup but they actually didn't do terribly considering it was one of the Bryan twins...Anyway... it should be very interestng to see how this all goes.

LATER! Habs wiiiiiiiin!

And I can officially say that tonight's game was a lot better than anything I've seen since they last beat the Sens last week. Okay so they went to shootouts and there was still a little issue of turning over the puck quite a bit. But the Sens were not playing like a team ranked 29th in the league.

They were playing a lot better. Guess they were motivated to not get blankd. They opened up the scoring in the 4th or 5th minute of the game after Montreal got off to a good start. Lots of bad thoughts were being sent telepathically towards the Sens. How dare you score Heatley! Sens dominate. What happened to the Habs being good? Lots of wailing. More wailing when a shot goes through Prices legs and skids along the line. A later review states that it was a not a goal. Thank the hockey gods! Ten mins later: what's this? a boarding call for the Sens? okay, we'll take that. Now we have a chance to score. C'mon. Koivu gets the puck. Lang is in front of Auld. Koivu scores by himself anyway and Lang gets pushed into the net. Do we get two points now? We put the puck and a player in the net. Anyway, time for celebrating! Habs end first period outshooting the Sens 8-4.

Price had some more wonderful saves in the second. I get a scare when the Sens appeared to have scored at the end the second. After much celebrating the refs then burst their bubble and said that they didn't get a goal because Montreal got called for a penalty and the puck got touched by a Hab before it went past Price. Lots of cheering. Yes, cheering. There was booing too, but the billion Habs fans that flooded the arena drowned them all out. Anyway, instead of a goal the Sens got a nice powerplay which they blew completely. I've never been so happy to see Montreal get a penalty before. "Would you rather a goal or a powerplay, Ottawa? Goal? Well, too bad, you get a powerplay. Have fun!"

Onto the third period. The third went sort of like the first. Sens got a weird a goal early on. I don't know what happened exactly. Price seemed to have it but apparently he let it go before being slammed into the net by a Sen. The puck went sliding into the net and was called a goal. I guess the ref was feeling bad that the Sens didn't get the last goal. It was definitely bash Price night again. I promptly ran around the room, trying not to freak out completely. I mean, hadnt we seen this before? Habs get goal. Habs get outshot. Habs get outscored. Habs lose. But Markov decided that that was not going to happen. Right when I was saying that the Habs needed a goal, WHAM! Markov scores after his initial attempt hit a Sens stick. He grabbed the rebound and shot it. Sens went flying and Auld seemed like he would stop it, but it was a futile task. Markov saves the Habs! The dude who is the most underappreciated guy in the entire NHL just saved us.

To OT we go! OT was freaky because the Habs had to kill off part of a penalty left over from regulation by Latendresse. Apparently he whacked someone in the face with his stick. Oops. Anyway, Sens outshoot Habs 4-1 in five mins but no goal scoring for them. Haha!

On to shootouts! Very scary but we all know that Price is good in shootouts so we cross our fingers and wait. First up is Spezza. I can only like Spezza when he plays for Team Canada and even then, he's not my favorite Canadian around. Sorry dude. Anyway, Spezza skates towards Price. Price moves. Price is too slow and Spezza shoots the puck over his left shoulder. Goal! NO! Lots of screaming and cursing. Never ever, will I cheer for Spezza!* Next up Kovalev who saved the Habs against the Blues on Sunday. I thought Kovalev was bad in shootouts though? More eye covering. Eyes open just in time to see Kovalev hit the post. No score. More screaming. Ottawa sends out Alfredsson. I thought he was supposed to be bad at this too? Proof is soon offered up as the Sens captain gives it right to Price. No goal. HAHA! Alright, Habs have a chance now. Send out Tanguay! ...hello? That's not Tanguay. That's Markov. Can he even score in shootouts? Hello? Carbo, what are you doing? Can't watch.... can't watch.... OMG! Markov scores! Markov keeps the Habs alive in the shootouts! Dude, we love you right now! Ruutu's up next for the Sens. Boo, we don't like Ruutu for hitting Lapierre upside the head last game. Ruutu skates forward, he moves to Price's left. He shoots. Surely Price can't stop that? No need to stop it. Ruutu put it right in his glove and Price goes flying backwards. I can see the headlines now "Flying Price stops Sens". HAHA! Okay, Koivu comes on the ice. Time to finish the game. Or not. Auld stops it. BOOOOOO! Another round of shootouts. Ottawa is starting. OH NO! Vermette starts for the Sens. I freak out and peer through my fingers as he skates forward and....... he misses completely. OH YES! More cheering. Now it's Tanguay's term. For real this time. C'mon dude, we're counting on you! And Tanguay puts it away. Not sure how. It looked like it went right through Auld but unless Auld is a ghost then that is impossible. Anyway, whatever, doesn't matter in the least. HABS WIN! I can rest easily tonight safe with the knowledge that the Habs prove that they are better than the Sens.

The first thing I noticed was they actually worked hard tonight. Even if the puck ended up in their end a lot, they worked to keep it out, they worked hard to try to score - even if there were some bad turnovers. Habs working = better outcome. Yes, they could have perhaps worked a bit harder to keep it more in the Sens' zone but the Sens were definitely not playing like a team who was at the bottom of the league. They were playing much harder. They were energetic and were definitely looking to avenge that defeat last week. So instead of saying the Habs stink for going to shootouts against a bad team, we need to give credit to the Sens for not playing like a bad team and more like their former better selves. Their coach should be happy. Speaking of happy, you should have seen Carbo when they won. He looked like Federer after beating Andreev in the fourth round of the US Open. yes, everything comes back to Federer. Anyway, the second thing that I noticed was that the Habs didn't get too many penalties. They had 7 to Ottawa's 3 with most of both team's penalties coming in the second period. Less time in the penalty box = more time spent trying to score. The Habs did catch a few lucky breaks though when some of the Sens shots either just hugged the line or hit the post. The Sens seemed to be having a lot of trouble finding the net. Not my problem though. The Habs had a lot of other good opportunities to score. All in all, I think the Habs can be happy with this win tonight. They played hard, they tried a lot harder, and they definitely reduced the amount of stupid penalties (I'm totally not going to complain about Kovalev's tripping penalty. It saved us!)Beating Ottawa any way is always nice ^___^ now we just need for find a way to beat a very good Boston....

*any words spoken or thoughts expressed during a shootout cannot be held against me at a later period in time

Pick a surface any surface!!!!

....so exaclty what surface are they using for the Davis Cup? I give up trying to stay on top of that.... I was under the impression that it was carpet because they wanted carpet because they knew that Nadal wasn't any good on carpet.... Did I just use the word "carpet" three times in that sentence? Anyway... so while most of Argentina's players are better on clay, they realized that playing on clay was a bad idea because Mr. World No 1 is, totally, like, the best on clay. And so they debated for a while and finally decided to play on carpet because a certain World No 1 dude was supposed to be not good on it and they wanted to be spiteful. So it's their country and they get to pick the surface. Fine by me. But now the official website thing says that it's going to be hard court.... Since when?! No one told me this! When did you make that decision? MAKE UP YOUR MINDS PEOPLE! I guess they figured that they might as well help themselves a bit and choose a surface that at least del Potro isn't terrible on....I don't care if they have to play on astro-turf or whatever... just pick a surface and win on it!!!!! Gah... now my eyes are twitching... well, they were twitching before because I'm still tired and sick...I will be back when the Habs remember how to play and beat the Hurricaines tonight. Gah.

Tennis!

So with the last events of the year in tennis coming up I just couldn't help but say something about them. First off is the tennis masters cup thing. Federer is attempting to win his fifth title which would make him only one of three people to have won it five times. Without Nadal, it seems kind of weird to say that the top best players of the year are in the competition, but we'll just pretend that Simon is Nadal and cheer for Federer. Or something like that... Anyway, I think Federer has a good shot at it if he plays like we all know he's capable of playing. I think the only person who can really challenge Federer at this point is Murray. Djokovic hasn't been doing particularly well this summer, though I think he will make it out of his group. I don't really see Simon or Roddick getting out of their group either. As for Davydenko, Tsonga and del Potro....I think it's pretty much up in the air and could come down to who doesn't crack under the pressure. Here's I hope things will go:

Group 1 (forgot what name they gave it... they should have called them "Group 1 with the guy who should win it" and "Group two with the other people who aren't going to win it" and then I would remember what they were called!)
Federer
Murray
Roddick
Simon

I think Murray actually has a good chance at finishing on top with a win over Federer but I'm really hoping that he doesn't win against him *G*

Group 2
del Potro
Djokovic

Tsonga

Davydenko

I think this group will actually end up like this though. Watch as I'm horribly wrong.

Tsonga
Djokovic
del Potro
Davydenko

Anyway....Here's hoping that it's Federer that wins it! Bwahahaha... ahem, moving on... the Davis Cup. Apparently in South America they've been calling it a "salad bow" which I think is a great name for it *g* It looks just like a salad bowl! I read that Nadal is probably going to be out of the Davis Cup thing so I will now be cheering for Argentina. It would be awsome if Argentina won 'cause they've never won before and it would be fun to see them win. That beign said, I think they picked a horrendous choice in surface. In their bid to take away Spain's huge advantage on clay, they opted instead for carpet. While I can see where they were coming with this (Spain + Nadal + Clay = Spain's going to go home with the salad bowl of doom), I have to wonder if they considered the fact that none of their players, except for David Nalbandian, are good on carpet. It's going come down to who's the best of the worst.... Oh well, should be entertaining and with Nadal out now, I think Argentina has really good chance at winning it.

Shall be back after the Habs beat Columbus...