Injury hiding

This (A-rod haters should be sure and click)doesn't have to do with hockey or real sports injuries, but you should still vote for the All-Star game anyway. Now back to your regularly scheduled rant.

People have been grumbling about the NHL policy of hiding injuries, and I think that's dumb for several reasons. Keep in mind I'm writing this from an athlete's perspective, so I am on their side.

1.)The teams have no obligation whatsoever to tell the fans about the injuries. Your boss doesn't put it in the paper that you have a medical problem, so why should theirs?

2.)As an athlete, I fully understand hiding injuries. I am famous for not saying anything until I absolutely can't take it any more. You don't want to let the team down, and you don't want to seem like a wuss. There is something to be said for just playing through the pain, though there is also something to be said for being smart about it. Sometimes the sports culture takes playing through pain a little too far, which can lead to life ruining injuries. Overall for minor things, the players don't want to be seen as weak, so they hide the injuries, and probably wish the press would too.

3.) Not all opponents are into the gentlemanly play and sportsmanship thing. Some players will go for dudes where they know they are hurting. It's not fun having someone try to seperate your shoulder when they know you are hurting, trust me. (not that it's fun anytime, actually) Saying you are playing hurt is like painting a target on your back for some guys.

4.) It might explain why someone is playing like crap, but as long as the coach knows, then it's fine. As much as we'd like to, it's not our job as fans to make the lineups.

5.) The second the team said Burns was having surgery, the Wild fans all went nuts. It was a minor surgery that he recovered quickly from, but still. It shakes the confidence of the fans in the player. Surgeries can't always put you back to rights completely, but they sure can do a lot of good. The bad part about them is, people look at you like you will fall apart again any second. Disclosure of injuries lowers the confidence level the fans have in certain players and makes them all freak out about what could be nothing in the long run. Not a lot of motivation for the teams to say something if it means the fans won't be happy. Hockey is a dangerous sport, but that doesn't always register with people.

I know you just did this whole voting thing...

but IT'S ALL-STAR voting time! I love to vote for the All-Star games. I don't usually actually watch the games, but I like to vote for my favorite players.
The Wild have Gaborik, Burns, Koivu, and Backstrom on the ballot this year. I recommend voting for the last three, and Gaborik if you are one of those poor misguided 8 year olds who always seem to have his sweater at the X.

Obviously if Sakic gets better you should vote for him, as well as Gagner, Toews, Oilers in general, Latandresse, Price, St. Louis, you know, awesome dudes like those.

I'm not gonna lie, I was a little confused at first, but here's where to go if you want to vote.

Mikko is in third place for forwards in the west, and the Habs are basically owning the east. Sweet.

PS, or you can just click on the large, "click to vote" button.

Pitching!

The Twins have AWESOME pitching. Baby Bradke (Kevin Slowey) had a complete game shutout in his last start, and now Hot Mauer (Nick Blackburn) pitched 7 shutout innings giving up only three hits. Slowey also gave up just three hits. Baker has been pitching sort of well, and he was good the other day. Boof got demoted to the bullpen. Hernandez got roughed up the other day, but usually he has pretty good run support. For some reason I almost NEVER see Perkins pitch. Anyone know if that's a good or bad thing?

Monroe: A lot of people are down on him, and his number aren't great, but I like him a lot. He's been great off the bench, and the Twins are 7-0 in games where he gets a homerun. He hits a lot of homeruns with people on the bases, only adding to his awesomeness.

Stupid Red Sox fans outvoted Twins fans in support of Justin Morneau. Apparently the power of the sideburns has extended to the east coast, though, because he was winning the All-Star race the last time I checked. It might have something to do with the fact that I can't name the Red Sox catcher, but I can name most of the rest of the team. Mauer just got lucky. (No, I'm not at all bitter about Morneau not being a starter.)

All-Star Randomness

I watched the entire All-Star game, but I'm just going to give one of my usual random game reviews on it.

Rick Nash had hat trick! He looked so happy, how did he not become the MVP of the game? It worked for Sakic in 2004.

Joe Thornton kind of looked at the camera and then went back to hearing his name announced. No smile, nothing, just kind of a curious look.

I got my hockey hating RA from Kansas to watch the first period of the game with me.

For an All-Star game it was pretty exciting. The West coming back to lead for .5 seconds was awesome, but the fact that the East won in the last 20 seconds was much less awesome.

There were some random dudes who came in and demanded that I explain hockey to them when I was trying to pay attention to things like interviews...or you know the game. For self-proclaimed sports buffs, they are really clueless.

Scott "I am really not a team player" Niedermayer had a goal. I started to be happy, then checked myself.

I missed seeing Joe Sakic at the All-Star game. I voted every day for him faithfully until they announced that he would be out for three months. This whole injury thing is making me a sad panda.

Super Skills-unfortunately I didn't get to watch the Super Skills competition as I was in and out all day taking care of things that I really should have been doing all week. I hear Marian Gaborik got cheated in the shootout creativity contest, and that Pronger fell on his face. Gaborik is on my list of people that should watch themselves for his disinterest in re-signing with Minnesota, and Pronger, well we all know how I feel about FCP.

Tomorrow: we play the Ducks at the Xcel Energy Center at 6 CST. (That's 4 PST to you Ducks fans/Minnesotans stuck on the West Coast.) Like always, it should be a good game. I'm a bit swamped right now, but since I don't have class on Thursdays, I will possibly write a real post then.

**EDIT** Go over and see Earl Sleek at Battle of California and read his Wild/Ducks gameday post. I don't like the actual prediction for tonight's game, but read the rest of what he has to say because he talks about karma and how we are due. It's an excellent post overall.

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.