Captain Saltine Cracker

For the first time in his NHL career, Nick Schultz has been named captain for the month of January, and according to my friend Janessa (who went to high school with him), he has the personality of a saltine cracker, so that is his new name. When my mom and I met him, he was very polite, just not terribly entertaining or personable, but at least he was polite, right? I have to admit, he's been playing better this year. I've hardly noticed him at all, and that's definitely improvement. Especially since my family used to play a game where we would guess how many times he would get absolutely annihilated along the boards each night and then count to see who was right. Congrats, Nick. Please lead us to many glorious victories.

Russo, the Wild beat writer for the STrib (Minneapolis Star Tribune), has written an article about his time in the stands with us fans and how he learned just how much we fear Skoula. It's a good read, I highly recommend it. http://www.startribune.com/sports/wild/12962511.html
Part II is coming tomorrow with responses from Coach Lemaire and Skoula.

Nick over at Hitting the Post also has an excellent post up on the topic.

Elise, a new voice in the Wild Blogosphere (please see sidebar), has responded to my challenge about why Skoula still has a job in a post over at her blog. You should check out both the post and the blog.

Speaking of new blogs, I've been reading a few new ones lately, and in case you hadn't noticed, the Wild Blogosphere is expanding! jdoghooey is over at Wild View From Section 216, and Paul is over at Cup Crazy's National Hockey League Blog. CCNHLB is not exclusively a Wild blog, but the Wild are one of his teams, and he writes really good articles on lots of other stuff too.

If I missed anyone's blog and they would like to be added, please leave me a post or drop me a line, and I'll happily add you. (PS, it doesn't have to be a hockey blog, anything is fine, as long as it's in reasonably good taste.)

Ckim (A Queen Among Kings) posted an amazing video with Ryan Miller telling yo momma jokes. It's hilarious.

The Onion continues to be brilliant. The Sports issue on stands now is a hoot and a half. This "article" about the Yankees is my favorite. Just a warning, the f-bomb is used a lot. http://www.theonion.com/content/news/fucking_yankees_reports_nation

WJC Update: Team Canada has recently beaten Team Finland twice in a row. GO CANADA GO! This was the first time they have played in the quarter finals since 1997.
All Team Canada info is courtesy of TSN or my Canadian friends who have been keeping my up to date since I'm an idiot and forgot to watch the game today.

The Minnesota Wild New Year's Resolutions

The Minnesota Wild will hopefully make some New Year's Resolutions, and these are the ones that I've chosen for them.

Mark Parrish-get a haircut, the long hair is not working for you, my friend.

Matt Foy-Get a better/less annoying girlfriend. (long story)

Pierre-Marc Bouchard-find a way to grow some more hair. Stephane Veilleux has pledged to join him in this quest.

Petteri Nummelin-learn how to score during regulation play.

Josh Harding-pick up some crazy goalie habit so that he can become more like Backstrom, and he'll hopefully get rid of his plaid shorts and striped shirts (typically worn together).

Brian Rolston- will learn how to stand around/be interviewed/play hockey with his mouth closed.

Mikko Koivu-learn ancient healing methods to apply to himself.

Derek Boogaard-learn Jedi powers to use on the refs. "That was not a penalty...he punched himself."

Martin Skoula-Learn how to play hockey properly, and stop helping the other team!

I don't really have any New Year's resolutions for myself, but I suppose one of them should be to take care of this wrist thing once and for all.

Trade Skoula!

If they don't trade him, he's in danger of being bodily harmed by one of his teammates...or a random fan. Tonight he is directly responsible for the loss. Mark Parrish tied the game up with five or so minutes to go, and before they even had time to make the goal announcement, the Sharks had scored. Why? Because Martin Skoula sucks at life. DR is very famous for that ten player trade that sent Gilmour to the Leafs back in the day, but now he made an even worse decision to get Martin Skoula for Willie Mitchell instead of nothing. The team would have been better off losing Willie to free agency. Night after night he gives away the puck, trips over paint lines, and has no offensive upside to make up for it, not to mention he looks like he got badly beaten with the ugly stick. People in the crowd were chanting "Let's Trade Skoula!", instead of the usual and ever creative "Let's Go Wild!" Oh and Demitra. He needs to learn how to pass/recieve passes and take faceoffs.

On a brighter note, Mark Parrish scored a goal, and looked like a very excited eight year old. Actually, so did I as Mark Parrish is my hero. Niklas Backstrom played very well, even if the defencemen seem to started their New Year's celebration early. Maybe that's where all those empty bottles of Captain Morgan came from (as I was walking down the stairs after the game, there was a cart full of empty Captain Morgan bottles). It's not good that he's being forced to make upwards of 40 saves each time we play.

It's almost January, so who will be the captain for the next month? I hope it's Parrish again, but rumblings around the Cities point to Belanger. Everyone is all of a sudden singing his praises again. I like Belanger and all, but he's not the second coming of Guy Lafleur. Wes Walz maybe, but not Guy Lafleur.

PS: Whoever can explain to me why Jacques Lemaire still likes Skoula and can make me believe their explaination (and preferably entertain me while doing so) will win some sort of prize.

Well, That Was Exciting

The 5-4 finish was quite nerve racking, but whatever, we won, and I got lots of good pictures that have made me many friends. I don't have a tremendous amount to say about the game since I was highly medicated and really tired the whole time. Good game, but Jarret Stoll clearly should not play for us, he'd score too many goals on our net. Something like 3/4 of his goals this season have been against us.

Moral of the story: Mark Parrish is clearly a better captain than Ethan Moreau. There are tons of pictures up on Facebook (if you don't have facebook and still want to see, that can be arranged), but here's a good one.


Tonight: Joe Thornton, er the San Jose Sharks at the X. I'll be at that game too, and I'm wondering if Joe Thornton will let me have a butt shot for my inadvertant collection of them. I'm hoping we play better against them than we have, but if we barely beat the Oilers, I'm not hopeful.

WJCs update: Canada lost to Sweden, but they are still going to win the gold anyway. From what I have heard, they deserved to lose.

PS: I just chocked on those words, but there you have it. I supposed a loss once in a while doesn't hurt, it reminds them that winning is good.

Parrish Scores 200 (oh and the Wild won)

Last night Mark Parrish, my new favorite player on the team, scored his 200th NHL goal. He's quite excited about this, but managed to contain himself long enough to give a polite and informative interview while probably thinking that Mike Greenlay is an idiot. Congrats to you, Mr. Parrish, and I hope they are right that you will now score a million goals in a row.

It was a pretty good game last night against the Coyotes. I missed the first part of the game while watching an excellent steamrolling of the Lightning by the Habs. When I flipped over to the Wild game, the score was already 1-0. I tried this tactic with the Oilers, since when I left them, they were up 1-0 also, but they unfortunately lost 2-1 to the Ducks. Anyways, the Wild beat the Coyotes 3-2 with Bryzgalov in net. Sadly he was not interviewed last night, which bums me out because he is always entertaining. It could just be that he has a really high-pitched voice and a very um, interesting command of English. In addition to getting his 200th goal, Parrish was on the ice and in front of the net for the other two goals for the Wild. Sounds like things are starting to come together better for him at the moment. Coach Gretzky looked slightly less upset than usual, which is good, considering they really had the Wild on the run towards the end of the game. I started to get nervous, especially after the Coyotes scored late in the game. All is well, and we play the Oilers on Saturday at the X. As I mentioned before, I'll be there with my family mostly cheering for the Wild. According to Russo of the Star Tribune, Mikko Koivu skated for 40 minutes on his own the other day. This is excellent news on the Koivu front. I wish him a continued speedy recovery. We need someone to win faceoffs.

Last night was a rare treat as we got to have HNIC on a Thursday night. The first game was the Habs vs. Lightning (GO HABS GO) and the second was the Canucks vs. the Shames. The Canucks won that one 5-3 I believe while the Habs won 5-1. Hopefully there will be another HNIC on Saturday. That would be a double bonus. Clearly the Oilers won't be on the Late Game that night as the Wild game starts on time, whereas it would have to start at 9 or 10 PM CST to be the correct timing for the Late Game.

WJC update: Canada is now 2-0! WHOO! CANADA FOR THE WIN!


This is my new wallpaper on my computer in honour of the WJCs. I love it.

Complete Crap

Before I rant about the game, I would first like to rant about the NHL. They have a rule that prohibits teams from traveling on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. That's fine, it's nice of them to observe a major Christian holiday, but it is a death sentence for all visiting teams on the 26th. If they want to have that rule, they should not put any games on the 26th, allowing teams to travel the day before the game and get their legs under them a bit better.

I don't know if the NHL's travel rule is completely to blame for the Wild getting smoked 8-3 by the Stars last night, but I'm sure it didn't help. Josh Harding had a rough night, as did Brent Burns. We were keeping pace with them goal for goal, but then something just exploded/died/self-destructed/etc. The score was 3-2 Stars at the end of the first. That was managable, but it all went to hell after that. I now present to you the game in pictures.

First they scored like a minute in..

Demitra had two goals on the night...

Then they lit up Harding

This is what the team looked like at the end of the game...

And this is what Coach Lemaire looked like.

Notes: Mark Parrish clearly pissed off the hockey gods. He had more good chances and didn't score, but then again no one else on the team really did either, so it's ok.

There might be some light blogging upcoming as I had elbow/wrist surgery yesterday. I'll see how it goes. I should be at the game on Saturday if anyone else will be there. Yay Oilers, even though I kind of don't like playing them, because it's hard to choose. I like the Oilers, but we need to get points in the division.

Oh It's THEM Again...

Captain Grumpy had another rough night. No wonder he's grumpy.

Well, the Red Wings killed us once again. The score was much closer than it should have been, Backstrom made 47 saves. He was pretty good last night, but the rest of the team disappeared. I'm not even sure how the Wild managed to get one goal in the 4-1 loss. I was texting with Steph, and she was kind enough not to gloat, even though the Wild deserved it they played so poorly. The Wild just let them make passes uninterrupted, and hesitated before shooting. The Awesome Dude who sits next to me, his buddy, and I were making bets as to how many shots the Red Wings would get. The final shot total was 51-19. I doubt I need to tell you who that was in favor of. I'm really, really glad we only play them four times a year. They are by far the best team in the NHL right now.

Next up: the hated Stars on the 26th in Dallas at 7:30PM CST.

A Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.