Just when you thought it was bad....

...it got worse. Higgins will definitely be out for at least four weeks. He's apparently got the same type of injury that Komisarek had. Speaking of Komisarek...there is a chance that he might be back on Tuesday with the Habs. This could only be good as long as he's fully recovered and doesn't get injured again and will be out for even longer. Koivu is going to be out for at least two weeks with some foot or ankle problem. No word on exactly what's wrong but it doesn't sound good. Oh, and Price got himself injured in practice and definitely won't be in nets tonight. In fact, it seems that he may be out until after Christmas. So it's going to be Halak back in nets tonight and it will be Halak in nets for a while now. Poor Halak. The last thing the poor guy needs is to start off his prolonged netminding term with a game against the Alexes. The one potentially bright spot to all of this is that the Capitals' goalie is Simeon Varlamov and he's never played in the NHL before. Okay, so maybe the AHL team he plays for is the best in the AHL thing right now but his save percentage is worse than Halak's who plays in the NHL. Not that it needs to be good when you've got the Alexes skating around.............

We're doomed.

Yes, this is the point where someone says "no digas nunca 'nunca jamas'" (never say never) and I calm down and stop cursing Ovechkin and all the people who can't say his name right.

In other sad and depressing news in my little sports world

It was lights out for Real Madrid today in Barcelona. Well, it wasn't actually lights out until there were about nine minutes left in the game. Then Barcelona had to go and score not once, but twice. Up until that point things had gone pretty well for Real Madrid. Not wonderful. Barcelona pretty much had pocession of the.. I was going to say "puck" but obviously that's the wrong sport... Ahem, Barca - the team with some of the ickiest home colours ever - pretty much had control of the ball for most of the game and it really was only a matter of when they would score and not if. It's too bad though. Casillas did really well up until then and had some great saves. The second goal was pretty pathetic from Real Madrid's point of view. Messi got the ball on a pass from....Thierry Henry who was pretty much going at the net alone until the Messi came along... and kicked it over Casillas' head. I was frankly susprised that Barca hadn't scored before then. The action was almost completely all at Casillas' end. So kodos to Real Madrid for not completely getting demolished by Barca. Now get to work on getting back up in the league standings and beat the... just beat Barca the next time around.

And as if that wasn't bad enough: The Flyers demolished the Penguins 6-3 which puts the Penguins at third in their division behind the Rangers and the Flyers.... I was hoping that the Flyers would continue along on their losing ways when they started the season losing their first six games. But noooo.....Ick...Fleury was supposed to start today but he didn't and Sabourin was in nets. I'm not a huge fan of Crosby but he really needs to get scoring again.

Ah well.... I just rented the Dark Knight so maybe I'll just depress myself more by watching that instead of the hockey game tonight...who am I kidding? I have to watch the hockey game now...Have to see if Maxwell can hold up against the Alexes...

*taps fingers*

A roundup of how the football went this weekend: Real Madrid lost to Getafe 3-1, Chelsea forgot how to play again and lost to Arsenal 2-1 and Liverpool tied with...West Ham.... What kind of name is West Ham anyway? Bleh. That was icky. And no, I didn't see any of it. Good thing too.

In slightly better news... While the Baby Habbies (that would be the Hamilton Bulldogs) lost 5-3 to the Bingysomethingrather Senators at the Bell Center last night, apparently Yannick Weber (did you know that he's Swiss? *G*) and Max Pacioretty put up a really good game, which is good news. Yes, you heard a lot about them at the training camp thing and the pre-season stuff. They were the last to be sent back to Hamilton and a lot fans wished that they had stayed. Anyway... I didn't end up going because.... I had no money but yeah, apparently it was fun for the Bulldogs because they don't get to play here usually and the fans here are rapid even if it's not the Habs playing... so yeah... Hopefully the Ickle Habbies will get back to winning and make the other Habs want to win too... because c'mon, let's face it, you don't want people telling you that your AHL affiliate is doing a million times better than you... even if it's the AHL....

My hockey crazed side is trying not to think about how the Habbies will do tomorrow against the very lowly Thrashers tomorrow. I'm of the opinion that if they really want to start winning they have a golden opportunity to start right now. The Thrashers quite simply stink right now. What the Habbies need to do is not die against the Thrashers, but instead come out and show them why the Thrashers are sitting in 29th place and the Habs aren't, by beating them by a lot. Compared 29th, 7th looks really good, no? Good plan, no? We've played one less game than San Jose but are currently ELEVEN points behind them........!

And there goes another goalie....

I'm interested in seeing how the New Jersey Devils and the Vancouver Canucks end up at the end of the season. Both teams have relied heavily on their goalies to get them where are they are now. With Brodeur out until the spring almost and Luongo now out for anywhere between 3 and 6 weeks, both teams will now have to come up with a way to find sucess without their star players. New Jersey's problem is a little more worrisome in that they have had the luxury of having Brodeur for a long time and they haven't really - from what I understand - seen the need to find a good solid backup goalie. After losing Brodeur NJ went 1 for 6 before winning their last four in a row. I've yet to determine whether it is because they've finally got a rhythm down or if it's because they were playing the Islanders, Florida and Tampa Bay. They did have a shootout win against Washington so I suppose they has to count for something. It's too early to see how Vancouver will handle the loss of Luongo, but a win over Detroit is a good start. Maybe there is hope for us poor Habs tomorrow? Eh, maybe not.... Anyway, we definitely should not rely one hundred percent on Price because you never know when he's going to be out.... And also, it would be nice to give Halak some ice time too.

Totally forgot to mention that Josh Gorges actually scored a goal last night. The poor guy had yet to score a goal and there was all this talk about his stick being cursed (I sincerely hope that no one was taking it that whole curse thing seriously) and all that jazz but yeah, he scored. We should be celebrating that instead of beating up on O'Byrne. Yup!

More Champions League stuff this week. Real Madrid badly needed a win that would put them closer to top ranked Juventus. A loss would have put them below Bate Borisov and possibly out of contention for the Cup, which really isn't that acceptable. Despite some moments of bad passing that basically handed Bate the ball, I thought they did a good job of putting the pressure on in the first half. Drenthe was great in getting the ball into the other side. If he had just gotten the ball to the other players a little more and if they had then actually hit the ball at the net then there probably would have been more scoring. As it was, Real Madrid sort of fell asleep in the second but they hung on to their earlier first half goal by.... Raul Gonzalez (who's shot was set up by - all together now: Drenthe), I think, and won 1-0. It was snowing in Minsk. I've never actually seen a football match played when there's snow. It was funny. Yeah, I'm easily amused. Liverpool and Chelsea tomorrow. Bwahaha...

Oh. Lugano lost to Zug 5-3. How you lose to a team ranked at the bottom is beyond me.... Well, okay, maybe not... but still... ick...