Mark Parrish Benched

Last night I was too irritated/tired to talk about this properly, and I will probably get flak for this, but whatever. Parrish was benched, and I was furious. I don't care if this makes me a bad fan with "rose colored glasses", Parrish is my boy, and I only want good things for him.

I blame Wild beat writer Russo (Minneapolis Star Tribune) for this happening. Last time he wrote an article about a player doing poorly, he got to take a seat in the pressbox. Russo writes a less than nice article about Parrish and look where he is next game. I'm half kidding, but at the same time...I definitely blame him for messing with Backstrom on gameday. You can't kill the karma like that, man. Clearly Mr. Russo was not an athlete back in the day, or at least not as ridiculous of an athlete as I am. Nik Backstrom is also more polite than I am, because I would have chewed him out for throwing off my gameday flow.

I didn't want to make a comment on Russo's blog because he wrote a post essentially dissing fans who were supporting Parrish telling them to "take off their rose colored glasses". As for his rant, he should have seen it coming. Like he said, Parrish IS very beloved here, and many people are going to be quick to defend him. Minnesotans (and people in general) tend to be very proud of where they are from and others who are from the same place. I understand that Parrish is not playing well right now, but neither is 80% of the team. Since lately my opinion has not been very welcome on Russo's Rants, I figured I would get blasted by all of the Russo faithful and get called a bad fan if I commented about this on his blog. I still might here, but it's my blog making it different.

Note: I normally mostly respect the work of Mr. Russo, but this one issue has rubbed me wrong. My mom told me to calm down about this, but calming down about things is really not my strong suit in life. This post was not intended to be rude to Michael Russo or anyone who posts on his blog. I have great respect for all of you, I'm just frustrated right now with many things, and it needed to come out somehow.

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.