Time Flies

Time flies when you're having fun/stressing about a million things that you need to do before you leave school in less than three weeks...Thanksgiving weekend was super short. I have no idea where it went. That's fitting, because I have no idea what happened in the world outside Seattle, either.

Many things seem to have happened while I was hiding in Seattle and attempting to de-stress. I stuffed my face, avoided doing any homework, and watched a lot of mindless TV and movies. While I was "relaxing" my sports world was turned upside down.

The fantastic: Torii Hunter is now an Angel. So long! Hopefully now I won't have to hear you complaining every five seconds. I hope Justin Morneau hits a bunch of homers just over his head and makes him look really bad.


The good: The Yankees haven't managed to get their filthy paws on Johan Santana, and it's going to stay that way. The Wild won in Nashville on Saturday. That's also good news. Hopefully it means we don't completely suck.


The Bad: They haven't been playing well, and injuries are killing the Wild. I also read on TSN that we are no longer in the top 8. Crap!


The Ugly: Wes Walz is still MIA. We need him badly right now. MacT was talking about how he was happy when they got Mike Peca (2005), because the Oilers would finally have someone to play against Walz. He also talked about how he still appears to have all the skills, and he should worry about not being able to stop Malkin and Crobsy because " Heck, there might only be eight coaches left if we all decided we couldn't coach against Crosby and Malkin". Listen to MacT, come back, Walzy!


The Beyond ugly: The Riders beat the Bombers for the Grey Cup. I don't want to talk about it.


The WTF: Fedoruk? Why'd we get him? I'm still really confused about that one.

Ohlund Suspended

Mattias Ohlund was suspended by the NHL for four games, according to TSN. This is because he decided that it would be a good idea to chop Mikko Koivu in the knee with his stick, knocking him out for 1-2 weeks. That's what you get for being a jerk and breaking the Wild's best player, not to mention the best player on my fantasy team of late.

In other news, the Wild are back on top of the division, and third in the Western Conference. They play the Canucks on Wednesday while I'm en route to Seattle. I'm hoping they will be looking to avenge that 6-2 loss that I'm pretending didn't happen last week. I'm sure my friend Tim will have many opinions on the subject, none of which I care to hear until after my boys crush the Canucks into little, tiny, plankton sized pieces. Word on the street is that the Canucks have called up some talentless thug who fights a lot and sent down a player with actual skills in preparation for Wednesday's game. Gee, I wonder why that might be? Maybe because they are a bunch of cheap shotting douchebags most of the time. Granted they are not the team they once were in terms of jerks, but they still have plenty apparently. I predict the Wild will win and shed some orca blood along the way.

CFL: BOMBERS vs. Riders Grey Cup Final!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Go Bombers Go! I know Teebz of Hockey Blog in Canada will be joining me in cheering, will you?

Finally: Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends, and happy November 22nd to all my Canadian friends! Peace out, Wednesday I'm off to the even rainer parts of the Pacific Northwest for the weekend and I don't know if I'll get another post in for a few days.

Wild Blogosphere

This is just a field guide to Wild bloggers, especially since the Wild Blogosphere has expanded recently (myself included, I'm still new). If I forgot anyone, please let me know! Note: All of these blogs can be found in my sidebar.

Russo's Rants
Michael Russo is the Wild beat writer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, but he also maintains a blog on the Strib's website. He usually has a lot of inside information and insight, so any fantasy owners with Wild players on their team will want to check this one out.

Hitting the Post
Nick in New York usually posts about every game, and decides who was the dud and stud for the games. He has many more stats in his posts than I do, so if you are a stats person, Nick is your man.

Wild4Knitting
Maggie blogs when she can, and is a season ticket holder for the Wild, so she often has pictures and live reactions up. She also blogs about her latest knitting projects.

Wild Puck Banter
Another one that blogs when he can, covers hockey in Minnesota outside of the Wild in addition to writing about recent Wild happenings. Usually has a poll up of the entertaining variety.

Casual Wild Guide
This is the Wild blog I go to for sheer entertainment. This blog is much more satirical than the rest of us. There are always entertaining visuals in the form of pictures and video clips floating around, and to me it's a Wild form of Sportsquee.

Today's game: Wild are playing the Avs, which makes me cringe just thinking about it. Especially considering how we have played the last week/it's the Avs and they are rolling. I have a lab report to write up with a group, so I'll miss the first part of the game, but hopefully I'll be able to catch the last two periods and have some sort of post game. Here's to hoping that Sakic and Sakic Jr. have horrible games!

CFL note: The Bombers play the Argos today....if they win, it's on to the Grey Cup! Lions play the Riders afterwards, but that is not nearly as important.

EDIT: According to TSN, the Wild are back on top of the division and third in the west!!!

Gaborik Apologizes and the Wild Win!

All in all, it was a productive day. The Wild won, I only had one class and one other obligation. I was able to watch the entire Wild game, make some origami, and finish my homework.

Sportsnet had a hilarious video up of Gaborik reading an apology to fantasy GMs about how he is all for the team winning a Stanley Cup, not his own personal stats. Blah Blah, it's still funny any way. http://www2.sportsnet.ca/nhl/fantasy/20071115_Fantasy_Hockey


The Wild actually won! 4-2 vs the Oilers! It was awesome, except for the part where Backstrom let in two soft goals against Stoll and got pulled. Staios behaved like Darcy Tucker, had a meltdown, and sat angrily in the box for most of the game. All in all, a good night.


The next night...not so much. The Wild lost 6-2 to the Canucks, a fact that my friend Tim is happily gloating about right now. I watched most of the game, but then my RA had promised really good cookies if we went to mocktails, so I got a fake drink and wished it were real so I could tolerate watching the rest of the game.


The Ducks put Bryz on waivers, the Coyotes pick up him, and shazam! Shut out. Take that Ducks!


I just finished watching the HHOF speeches, and my mom was right. Al MacInnis did a REALLY nice job. Messier, not so much.

Barry Bonds got indicted on five felonies according to ESPN. I was practically dancing around with glee, I'm not gonna lie. I think he's a douche, and now...yeah. That's all I'll say. ESPN outlines what they think will happen. Selig will be suspending him if the US justice system doesn't get to him first...http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=3115655&name=olney_buster&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fespn%2fblog%2findex%3fentryID%3d3115655%26name%3dolney_buster

If you scroll down further on that same page, there is a headline I couldn't resist reading: "Derek Jeter's mom defended him". It's really, really funny, and I suggest you click on the above link, scroll down, and give it a read. Don't eat or drink anything while doing so, as I cannot be held responsible for you destroying your keyboards.

Edit: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Russo is telling me that Koivu is hurt. Some kind of crack in his tibia. He wrote up a deal about it on Russo's Rants. Please Hockey Gods, tell me what it is that I have done to make you hate me.

Be careful what you wish for I guess

So remember in my last post how I complained that there was no Wild hockey? Now that there is, I sort of wish there wasn't. Why do we have to suck right now? Isn't it bad enough that ALL of my fantasy teams sucked last week? I have different players on all of them! What's wrong???

Avs: Paul Statsny has been billed as a possible Sakic Jr. and now I know why. He had a pair of goals against us Sunday night. Sakic only picked up an assist. Peter Statsny, Paul's father, was a mentor to Sakic way back in the day, and now Sakic is returning the favor by teaching his son all he knows about Wild killing.

Shames: My boy Koivu (who I just picked up for my struggling fantasy team) had a pair of goals, actually the only goals against the Shames. I was busy and missed most of the game, but it sounds like they played like crap the entire time, not just the part I saw, so I clearly didn't miss much. Husileus had a very late goal to end it.

Hopefully the boys newly in red will find a way to stop the bleeding. This isn't that pirate joke where the captain says "bring me my red shirt" but why Captain? " so that the crew will not see me bleed and have fear for me". If you guys don't start playing better, I'm going to need someone to bring me my brown pants. Bonus points for anyone who knows that joke!

On a final note, Avery and Tucker were both fined for their actions on Saturday night.
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=222807&hubname=nhl

Around the NHL

Since nothing is happening on the Wild front his week due to having so much time off, I'm having to resort to all those TSN headlines that are in my inbox every day.

1.) Mark Messier is quite possible the douchiest (sp?) looking person I've ever seen.

2.) Go Kings! Way to school the Stars, highly exciting game at the end I hear.

3.) Goilers! Nothing like a Battle of Alberta for the late game, but I find I like it much better when the Oilers win. Now if only they didn't have to spoil it all by having Theo Fleury as the guest on After Hours...

4.) Someone in the Leafs organization is going to get fired very soon, and I strongly suspect JFJ is in the hot seat.

5.) Scott Niedermayer is skating again. The way I see it, there are three possibilities: A.) He misses hockey because he loves the game and wants to keep playing. B.) He really enjoys playing mind games with people. C.) His wife is driving him nuts and he wants to play again so he can go on road trips and get away.

6.) Don Cherry ripped into Sean Avery! It was on this past Saturday's Coach's Corner. I just went hunting for it on You Tube.

7.) HHOF inductions are tomorrow. Congratulations to the four inductees Messier (it kills me to say that), Francis, MacInnis (probably my fave of the four), and Stevens. TSN has tons of stuff about all of these guys, videos, articles, polls, and the like.

8.) Speaking of douchey people, JR got his 500th goal.

9.) Lindros FINALLY announced his retirement.

10.) Joe Sakic continues to prove Margee right that he's still got it. http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=222563&hubname=nhl

Week preview: Since I probably won't have time to write up a game preview for each of the games this upcoming week, I will write a few thoughts on each now. We play our entire division on the road in one week, and then we'll be finishing up with the Avs at home.

Wild Vs. Avs: They have stolen our division crown, but we are only one point behind them. Backstrom being able to play tonight will be key. He is a beast in net for us against the Avs. Unfortunately it sounds like he tweaked his groin again. Hopefully he's just lazy and was using it as an excuse to get out of practice or something. This is a team I find it really hard to hate, in fact, I almost sort of like them a little bit. What is it with me and finding things to like about division rivals?

The remaining three teams we will be playing this week are out of the playoffs as of now. Dude, what happened to our division?

Tuesday-Wild vs. Flames: We destroyed them a week and some change ago, and I'm looking for a repeat performance. The Flames have been fairly horrible lately, a fact that makes me a little bit giddy. Neener neener. That's what you guys get for hiring Iron Mike.

Thursday-Wild vs. Oilers: This game depends on whether or not they can stay out of the box. They were hurting last night when they had Staios AND Stoll in the box at the same time. Their defence is still looking thin missing Souray and now Greene. They need Roli/Garon/the stickboy to really be solid in net for them to give the struggling defence a chance. I'm liking what Gagner has been bringing.

Friday-Wild vs. Canucks: They were supposed to win in regulation last night so we'd be tied with the Avs, not behind them. The Canucks are not living up to expectations at the moment at 11th in the conference. Ouch, but I'll take it. It's a back to back game, so it will be a battle of the scraggly haired goalies with too much grease in their hair, unless Lemaire decides to play Harding against the Oilers and Backstrom against the Canucks, but Backstrom absolutely destroys the Oilers in a way that must be heartwarming to the Avs.

All-Star voting

Happy Election Day! Speaking of which, NHL All-Star voting begins November13th...get your mice ready. This year it will again be completely electronic. According to TSN, each team has at least two players on the ballot, so that means that EVERYONE should get their butts online and vote. No excuses such as "my team isn't represented" or "why should I care, my player won't make it anyway". Think of it as trying to overthrow the Yankees and Red Sox fans, or in this case the Leafs and Habs fans. As Russo said "vote early and vote often". I'm going to take a wild guess and say at least one Sen will be on the roster.

Brian Rolston, Marian Gaborik, and Niklas Backstrom have all gotten the nod for the Wild. The 2008 NHL All-Star Game is being held in Atlanta of all places. It's gross, but what can you do?

So about last night's game... the Wild won last night 5-2 over the Oilers. Mark Parrish had a pair of goals, and Jarret Stoll had a pair of penalties. That kind of sums up the game. The Oilers were absolutely killed by the amount of penalties they took, so I expect that MacT will not let that go on for long. I was still on internet probation from the Flames/Wild game + the Habs/Leafs game and part of the Avs/Canucks game. The school wasn't too pleased with me, but for what they charge for people to go here, we should have absolutely unlimited internet.

Five long days from now we take a road trip out west to play all four of our division rivals in a row. In the meantime, I will be writing my term paper for my politics class. That should be about as much fun as listening to Brian Burke talk. Woot.

Wild Vs. Shames sort of liveblogging

Whoo, I finally have time to watch a game!
1st period:
Not a lot happens except for Parrish stuck his butt in Kipper's face. Rolston tees up, and GOAL!
1-0 Wild end of the first.

Switching over to HNIC and watching Hot Stove.
Talking about Montreal this year without Souray and what they've done. Sounds like they feel Montreal did a good thing in letting him go.
Hey, Ron is there!

Second:
Feed died, but my mom and Courtney are telling me what's going on. Yay for friends in Canada and parents with Centre Ice!
Fight! Stupid Phaneuf, stop hitting Parrish from behind. That's the second time you've done that! Caused a fight both times.
In the mean time I was watching the Habs/ Leafs game, but the Wild game is back.
Gaborik scores!
Courtney and I have decided that Koivu is becoming a fan favorite, and with good reason!
Iginla scores. Wild fans burn him in effigy.

Third:
Feed dies several times.
Gaborik scores!
Hey look. Skoula just turned over the puck. Why does Lemaire like him so much?
Radivojevic scores!
Foster got into an embarassing fight.

Final: 4-1 Wild! WHOO! We finally stopped sucking!

I learned that Centre Ice online is about 15 seconds behind Centre Ice on TV or maybe she was just watching regular FSN North.
Habs winthe Early Game vs the Leafs!
I'm almost cheering for the Canucks in the Late Game, cause they are lower in the standings, but the Avs have Joe Sakic...
Andrew Brunette will be on After Hours! Woot! I love HNIC.
I may put up something better later, but my arm is killing me right now.

Edit: I'm aware that we played the Blues and Pens this past week, but I just don't want to talk about it.