First up, congratulations to the Pittsburgh Penguins! The first team since 1984 (the year I was born) when the Edmonton Oilers lost in the finals the year before and then return to the Stanley Cup Finals the following year! I got part of what I wanted last night…I got a quality hockey game for 20 minutes! The ‘Canes showed up! Wahoo! Then they disappeared again!
It was nuts to see the guys holding up the Prince of Wales trophy last night. I was of the understanding that hockey players are the most superstitious athletes on the planet…Did I miss something? I get superstitions. I am the only person who is allowed to clean my clubs before I play in a tournament. People offer to clean them and I politely say no. They are my clubs and only my magic touch—yeah right—will help me to play better the following day! Corny, I know, but it’s how I am!
Again, congratulations Pittsburgh! I’m looking forward to this rematch of last year’s playoffs which leads me into part 2 of today’s blog.
Hossa! All I hear about are people griping about giving it to Hossa this year. “He left! He deserted us! He didn’t think he had a chance with us!” Well, did you forget that 11 months ago, you had a different coach with a different coaching philosophy as well as a different group of players than you do now? Chris Kunitz wasn’t there. Neither was Billy Guerin. Ruslan Fedotenko—nope. Miroslav Satan—still with the Islanders. Ryan Whitney was still a Penguin and so was Danny Sabourin and Ryan Malone! Matt Cooke played for the Caps and Craig Adams was with the Blackhawks. Ohhhh and by the way, Petr Sykora was in the lineup as well as Pascal Dupuis—neither one can get into the lineup right now! And who would have predicted that Danny Byslma would be the head coach of the Penguins and
lead them from 10th place in the conference to the Stanley Cup finals?!?! The team Hossa left IS NOT THE TEAM THAT IS PLAYING FOR THE STANLEY CUP THIS YEAR! So giving it to Hossa really doesn’t make any sense because this is a different team than last year!Please continue to gripe about it, if you’d like, it’s your prerogative, but remember that this is a different team with a different philosophy! He didn’t like the team and philosophy last year so he left. That was his choice. And from what I was told by a friend of mine, who played with Hossa in Ottawa, he’s a good guy and all he wants to do is win a cup. He doesn’t care about the money. BM said to me that when you’re given a chance to be a free agent and go to any team that you want, you take that opportunity, because it hardly ever comes around. That’s makes a lot of sense when you stop to think about it. BM, I miss you! Come back to TP!
Onto tonight’s game: I want the wings to win for obvious reasons—they are my favorite team! Also, if they win tonight, the Finals will start this weekend which means a Saturday/Sunday games. I have to play in a golf tourney this Sunday at 3 so I can’t watch the game if it’s a day game. If they lose we extend this series and get to watch one more game between the hawks and the wings—obviously the wings will win game 6! If we lose tonight without Lidstrom, Datsyuk, and Draper, they will get an extra week to heal before starting the finals—great freaking reason! Lastly, I don’t have a golf tourney next weekend to go to…I do have a wedding in London, Ontario that a certain professional hockey player from the Boston Burins may be attending—how fun would it be to watch Game 2 on Saturday with him??? Ladies and gentleman…I think so!! :)
So that’s what I’m thinking as of right now. My thoughts could totally change at any given moment. But I like right now what I’ve written. I’m gonna go home and go for a run and then have dinner and watch the game. I’m hoping for a quality game tonight. No more of this hooligan stuff. If the wings end up crushing the hawks again, the hawks better not do anything stupid like try and take on the entire team. If you haven’t learned yet that the wings don’t fight, I guess you never will. But don’t ruin your offseason and the beginning of next season by getting suspended for fighting! Simple as that!
Happy hockey watching! :)
UPDATE: I'm rooting for the hawks tonight. I was just informed that Jonathan
Ericsson is out with acute appendicitis!! He had his appendix removed on Wednesday afternoon. Now we're down 2 defenders! There's no way we can take on the Penguins this Saturday with all of these injuries. We really need the extra week!! Ericsson, feel better! Love you! Love you! Love you! Val knows this! hahaha! But seriously, if fans of both sides as well as the teams of the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins deserve an excellent Stanley Cup Final. We don't need the Grand Rapids Griffins taking on the Penguins...that's what we're going to end up with if we're not careful! By the way, Osgood is on fire!!! Hot hot hot!!!
I am with you on the Hossa stuff - enough already...and the press has made a bigger deal out of it than the pens, I believe.
ReplyDeleteHave a great evening, and enjoy the game!
Hossa left because he did feel the Wings offered him a better chance to win the Cup. Also, the reason Crosby picked the trophy up was because he thought picking it up this year would mean a Stanley Cup for them, as last year he didn't pick it up.
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