OLYMPICS!!!

If you couldn't tell by the title, I'm pretty excited about the Olympics. (To clarify, the Olympic Games. My internship advisor is a forester and thought I meant the coastal mountain range in Washington state, but those mountains/rainforest are full of banana slugs and non-stop rain in the winter, so no.)

I have to admit, I've spent a lot more time doing homework and studying for midterms than I have watching the Olympics, but I've made time to watch all of the men's Canadian hockey games, and some of the others as time allows. By far the best hockey day was Sunday, or as my friends back home called it, "hate day". In Oregon we can't use words like that, so I called it "rivalry day" while explaining the finer points/major points of hockey to the revolving door of people who watched with me.

Stream of consciousness:

-I really enjoyed the U.S./Canada game...even if I did not enjoy the outcome.

-Thus far I have managed to get my roommate on the path to addiction to hockey, and have gotten the majority of my good friends out here to stop making fun of me for liking hockey

-I'm a little disappointed that it's pretty much a three team competition.

-Less than excited for the Russia/Canada match today, mostly because I have to write at least 5 pages during it

-Ski jumping seems like a really bad idea on so many levels

-People who do not come from a wintery place do not appreciate just how little there can be to do in the wintertime outside. They are not very kind to the more obscure winter sports

-The biathlon is really cool

-Sidney Crosby needs to stop looking like a petulant child every time the camera is on him.

-Professors do not accept the Olympics as a reason to extend deadlines.

-The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, however; does accept the Olympics as a legitimate reason to move a deadline.

-Google Calendar and iCal are friends, and this is extremely useful.

-It still freaks me out when there are flowers and trees blooming before Valentine's Day.

-Canadians do not seem to judge what medals they get, as long as they win. Case in point: my Canadian friends were all quite excited that the Canadian pair won gold for ice dancing.

-Caribou Coffee still REALLY needs to have a location west of Denver. Preferably in Salem.

-Canada should focus less on curbstomping teams they know they can beat, and more on beating Russia and the U.S.

Hope everyone is enjoying the Olympics and watching something new and interesting. Soon I'll probably write something pertaining to an actual Minnesota team. At this point, the Twins as well as the Wild are fair game, because BASEBALL SEASON IS STARTING SOON!

I just thought I'd write to say...

Dear Captain Koivu,
That C looks awfully good on your chest. I agree with you. You should be the captain permanently. Congrats on being named two months in a row! Now you can be a cool kid like Bomber. Keep up the good work, and remember, I'm pulling for you, we're all in this together. Points to anyone who can tell me what that's from...
Stoically,
Kirsten

Dear Shep,
I know you've been having a rough start to your season, and you are probably starting to think that coach is going to kill you. Well, from my experience with coaches, he probably is, but that's beside the point. There seems to be a sophomore curse on the league. Toews has had a slow start, Sam Gagner is invisible, and Matt Niskanen is having some struggles against every team not from his home state. Even I had a rough start to my semester, so I can sypathize. Don't give up, and please teach Josh Harding right from left so he can learn to play the guitar.
In solidarity,
Kirsten

Dear Goober,
Please beg the coaching staff to keep you at defence. You as a forward brings back memories of your first year in the league, and it's just better for my overall mental health if that doesn't happen.
kthx,
Kirsten

Dear Baby Walz,
Even though no one seems to show you any love yet, I still think you are like Wes Walz, so therefore according to the casual poll I've taken of MN hockey fans *by wearing a Walz sweater/having someone else wear it and letting the compliments on the sweater pour in*, someday they will show you great love. It just might take a while. Hopefully Coach Lemaire will let you live long enough to find out. PS, I'd learn to sleep with one eye open if I were you and living with Brent Burns.
Optomistically,
Kirsten

Dear Justin Morneau,
I really hope you win the MVP title. You are MVP of the team and of Joe Mauer's heart, but there's nothing wrong with winning even more trophies, right? Maybe Wayne Gretzky will send you something cool this time around.
Hopefully,
Kirsten

MVP! MVP!

So when I went on the Twins website to look up the starting pitcher for tonight (shut up, I still don't know the rotation since the All-Star Break...I just know that Blackburn and Slowey are the last two.), I saw an article about Justin Morneau maybe getting another MVP. Of course I had to stop everything and read. Basically it talks about how he's got another long shot at becoming the AL MVP. That's what they said in 2006, too. The article is here.

As always I'm pulling for him, and I will show my support of his MVP bid on Facebook. He hasn't had a million home runs this season, but he's been consistent and clutch. This team would be in trouble without him.

Also, Morneau has been nominated for the Man of the Year award. You can vote for him here.

A happy ending to a crappy day

In case you haven't heard, JUSTIN MORNEAU WON THE HOMERUN DERBY!!!!!! I'm dying because I could barely breathe, I couldn't mess up his karma.

WARNING, THIS IS SLIGHTLY GROSS. IF YOU DON'T LIKE BLOOD, SKIP THE PARTS IN RED.
So my day started off like this:
Can't get out of the driveway because of road construction.
Get to work, find a HUGE to do list in my cubby.
Feel like I'm going to puke, but I have to take a bunch of dead, smelly birds out of the freezer to thaw, then cut up a rat for the owl.
Break up an owl/turkey fight.
Save the poor Blanding's turtle from death again.
Wash, blowdry, and pin up said dead, smelly, now thawed birds.
Take a bunch of deer, beaver, and other assorted skulls outside and put them in a box for beatles to eat. They were bleeding on the floor. I kind of decided that six more weeks might be a bit much.


I got home, yelled at some people for almost getting into a car accident in my driveway, and then finally my day improved.



The homerun derby.

• Josh Hamilton hit 28 homeruns in the first round. I thought his pitcher was going to die before it was over.
• Justin hit 8 in his first round
• I was bored by the time the Hamilton dude who used to smoke meth or something was done. I guess he's clean now? I have to say, I wasn't listening.
• Some other people bat. I text/IM people madly updating them.
• The dude who looks like Bill Guerin fails.
• Justin Morneau proceeds to hit 9 more homeruns, Bill Guerin look alike who plays for the Brewers goes off to cry in the dugout.
• Joe Morgan is convinced that you must have 7 homeruns to win the competition.
• Justin Morneau proceeds to hit 5 homeruns. That's not good enough for Joe Morgan.
• I yell at one of my friends for killing Justin's karma.
• Josh Hamilton makes me almost die, but he only hits three homeruns.
• I run around yelling like I don't know what. My mom kind of looks at me like I've lost my mind. I did it! I didn't jinx him! Then he gets to help some little girl, and several people say his name wrong, some random dude calls him Jason, and the interviewer lady says his last name incorrectly. I feel for you, dude. Apparently Kirsten is a hard name to pronounce too.

Now I'm tired from running around like a nut and being happy. I'll go back to pinning birds to a board, but with a smile on my face. At least for 10 minutes, until I have to break up another angry bird fight. If I didn't have to wear the smirf shirt tomorrow, I'd be wearing a Justin Morneau one. *sigh* Too bad my boss would not accept his winning as a proper excuse. I'll just be sitting down in the dungeon all day dealing with dead birds that have been frozen as long as I've been alive, but she's not known for being nice/accommodating/helpful.

Reasons I like baseball

Before I only watched baseball in the summer, but this spring the playoffs made me mad, so I watched a lot more baseball. I'm really starting to like the game a lot more now. (Minus Carlos Gomez) The Twins have been super up and down this season, but whatever. In my never ending quest (similar to Margee's football quest about football) to get people to not think baseball is boring, I present to you some reasons I like baseball.

1.) There is nothing better than sitting outside in the sunshine on a nice afternoon stuffing your face and watching a game. I like watching the Saints, and soon the Twins for this reason. For those of you over 18, 19, or 21, I hear sitting around knocking back a cold one is a good perk also.

2.) TWINGO, cotton candy, and yelling, are three of my favorite reasons to go to the Dome. Sadly I was one play away from getting TWINGO before all the prizes were handed out, but it's fun anyway. I also enjoy getting a scorecard and doodling all over it. My friend Matt FREAKED out when he left his scorecard for me to mind while he got up for a sec, and was extremely upset to find that I had doodled all over it. He takes his scorekeeping very seriously.

3.) You don't have to freak out if your team loses a game. With 162 games in a season, you can kick back, relax, and just enjoy the game at hand. Watching the division leaders change every week is fun too. Especially if you are a fan in the central division.

4.) Dick and Bert. Dick and Bert are like the Twins version of Tom and Bob. Tom and Bert are both colorful pranksters, and Bob and Dick both know tons about their respective sports and remain reasonably unbiased. Bert circles people and counts down to his birthday while telling stories about how he likes to light stuff on fire.

5.) You can leave and come back, and in three highlights, you're all caught up. It's fantastic. Equally fantastic are the highlights that they show. Awesome catches, sweet hits, outfielders from the other team running into each other, it's hard to pick just one usually.

6.) Justin Morneau, Michael Cuddyer, Mike Redmond, Kevin Slowey, Chipper Jones, Raul Ibanez (I think his name is funny), Bradke, Corey Koskie, Matt Guerrier, all my favorite players. I like them because they entertain me, give back to their communities, smash things, and make awesome plays. It's like my favorite hockey players only less sweaty. Smell those hits!

7.) Twins fans. I love that anywhere I go in Minnesota I can sit around and talk about the Twins with random people. The kids I teach all tell me who their favorite players are (usually Joe Mauer), random dudes in Twins hats chat about last night's game with me. It seems to be a Minnesota thing.

8.) Making fun of Joe Mauer. It's just SO easy and entertaining. He runs like he has a pole shoved up his butt, sits around with his mouth hanging open, and his really unfortunate hair.

9.) The Twins commercials are SO MUCH BETTER than the Wild commercials. If you don't believe me, you can either go to the Twins website or YouTube some of them. Hilarious.

10.) Summer is lazy, baseball is lazy...it doesn't require nearly as much energy to watch, which suits me just fine in the summer time.

Why do YOU like baseball?

Baby Hockey Jesus 2; Sidney Crosby 0

I wonder if this is the Untypical Girls at work. In their original post about Baby Hockey Jesus, Sidney Crosby was the sacrifice. I'm thinking that this is Baby Hockey Jesus collecting on that offering. Thank you Baby Hockey Jesus for your brilliant timing.

Meanwhile over at No Pun Intended, Elly is attempting to make herself feel better with Knob Hockey and alcohol, and I'm sure Steph is off somewhere gloating about the 2-0 lead and the fact that the Twins got owned 19-3 over the weekend. I really, really don't want to talk about it, Steph. The game tonight will be telling. If the Pens lose at home, they are screwed. Obvi, right? If they can't win on the road, and they can't win at home, I guess they would not win anywhere and therefore get swept, but sometimes I need to lay things out so that I can understand.

In keeping with my theme, right now it seems to be Baseball Gods Five bajillion; Minnesota Twins -.500

The Twins fans are complaining about a lack of power, but I really think they need to be complaining about the fact that our bullpen kind of sucks, and so does the fielding of certain players. *coughyoungcough* Other stupid people are complaining about the fact that Justin Morneau isn't playing as well as he should be, but really, he's been hitting pretty consistantly, getting plenty of RBIs, and he seems to be pretty capable of catching the ball. On top of that, he is not arbitrarily deciding when he will and will not play. Gomez, I've got news for you amigo, you are a rookie and in hot water for some of your fielding decisions. You should not be trying to tell Ron Gardenhire what you feel like doing, because judging by his umpire wars, he's not afraid to tell you what HE feels like doing. Think Red Foreman.

Joe Mauer may not be playing long ball (I wonder if that will hurt his fan club, as the ladies love the long ball), but he's getting on base, and in these times of barely .500 baseball, every little bit helps. That being said, he does not have ANY homeruns this season, and even Everett has one. Really, Joe? I have often wondered why Gardy doesn't have him hitting 1 or 2 instead of 3, but like I said before, I don't think it's wise to tell him how to run his baseball club/he knows more about baseball than I ever will. Cuddyer is doing the best he can, and I admit, he's had some struggles at the plate with just one homerun, but he's been making up for it on the field, and seems to be providing veteran leadership in the clubhouse and helping to keep things loose and fun. Besides, he has not run into a wall and broken his throwing hand, nor has he made an error in judgement that cause the opposing team to tie up the game in the 9th inning when the game was 3-0. I'm looking at you Gomez and Young.

We have a completely different infield for the most part, and I think they are still doing some shuffling around trying to see who fits best where. The fact that they are all getting injured is really hurting the team. The AAA club was getting really annoyed with the fact that they had no players left in the infield because the Twins had called them all up.

Lastly, the bullpen has not been stellar. Jesse Crain has been brutal this season, and I freak out every time he is put in the game, especially since he has been in towards the end of the game a lot. This does not give the team time to recover from him WALKING IN RUNS, SOMETIMES MULTIPLE RUNS IN AN INNING. Juan Rincon is totally off his game this season, though he's not anywhere near as bad as Jesse Crain. I only cringe a little bit when he's put in. I usually figure we just lost the game when Crain is put in. Joe Nathan was mad at Delmon Young last night, but he gave up a bunch of hits to allow all of those people on the bases, so he should be more forgiving and doing some apologizing of his own to Mr. Nick Blackburn. Blackburn has been pretty good for us this year, and he pitched really well for 8 and 1/3 innings last night. Mega shout-out to him, even if he does look alarmingly like Joe Mauer when he has a ball cap on.

If you made it all the way through that post that you thought was about hockey but was really about baseball, good job, and Go Twins!

I feel a smackdown coming!

vs.
Both of them have a bad case of "Malkin face".

So lately I've been hearing from multiple sources that they think Malkin is better than Crosby. This news makes me smile like there is no tomorrow, because I can't wait to hear what Sidney Crosby has to say about this once he hears. I bet this could get good, and I can't wait to be entertained by the fight I am envisioning ensuing. I will be horribly disappointed if Crosby is his usual, boring self and just says that it's good for the game or whatever.

The Stars are getting murdered by the Red Wings, but they showed a little bit more life last night. There was also the Ribero/Osgood incident at the end of the game, so I'm guessing some of the Wings *coughMcCartycough* might be out for blood. Specifically Ribero's blood, but I wouldn't be surprised if he went after Turco to retaliate. I wouldn't do that if I were him however, as Marty Turco strikes me as the type to fight back, and fight dirty.

Random Twins ramblings:

The Twins are currently playing the BoSox. They won the first game, dropped yesterday's game, and now have been doing pretty well thus far in the game *knock on wood*. Justin Morneau is doing much better than he was last series, and he gave a great shoutout to his mom today complete with actual smiling, a rare thing from the stoic Canadian. OOH, he's up to bat and he has a pink bat. NICE hit. He's now 3 for 3 with a hit right up the middle that practically made the pitcher piss his pants. He smashed that ball.

Joe Morgan is a good baseball announcer, but whoever he is working with NEVER, EVER shuts up. Like seriously. He knows more random facts about the Red Sox than anyone has a right to, and he seems to have a burning need to impart all of this wisdom to me in the span of this ball game. Stupid ESPN, I miss Dick'N'Bert.

Blackburn seems to have a hard time sealing the deal. He gets two strikes, then seems to try too hard or something to get the third. I still maintain he looks a bit like Joe Mauer with a hat on. Must be the sideburns and dark hair.

On an even more random note, now that the Twins are back at home, I don't have to hear them mention that they are on the South Side of Chicago every three seconds. I was starting to count how many times a game they mentioned that fact. According to Tenisha, the south side is not where you want to be.

Justin Morneau almost fell on his face he just stopped and backed up so fast. The third baseman just bobbled the ball off his nuts. The announcer made tons of excuses for him, why doesn't he do that for the Twins players? LAME I say.

Wild:

If anyone caught the interview on KFAN with Mark Parrish, I'm sorry. It was amusing when they weren't taking advantage of the fact that he's too nice to tell them all to eff off and stop asking him such rude questions. He answered all of their questions very politely, but he didn't sound happy about most of them. Unfortunately they spent a lot more time talking about the fact that he had a poor season than the fact that next year is a new season, we won the division title, and we have a lot of players who REALLY improved this season. Oh well, such is journalism I've found. Parrish sounded like he's doing a lot better after his concussion, which he said was brutal. It's really good to hear that he's feeling better, and that his little girl and wife are both doing a really well. All the best to ya Grumpy, the fans still love you, even if the media doesn't.

One last thing: Jacques Lemaire has annouced that he will be back for another season. This is good news for everyone but the opposition. I'm pleased that he's back for another season, and I'm hoping that they will play a little bit better for him this coming season. The Strib and Pioneer Press are all over this story like white on rice, so you can read more about it there or on Wild.com.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL MOTHERS EVERYWHERE!

Twins update and third round predictions

A friend of mine emailed this picture to me, and it makes me giggle.

The Twins just lost to the White Sox, allowing them to take 2 out of 3 in the first series I've been able to watch. Slowey had 4 1/2 great innings in his first outing since April 3rd. Joe Mauer did not trip over the base and eat it, but he did have a pretty good series, since every time I turned around he was on base.

Justin Morneau did not do as well as Mauer, but he advanced the runners quite a bit and made their outfield look stupid at least twice.

Redmond played yesterday and it was awesome. I love Red. Cuddy did well for himself and made several great plays in the field.

New dudes: I got to see some of the new players play, and beyond CGo hitting for the cycle yesterday, I was not really impressed. Young didn't impress me either, but I really liked Tolbert, and Harris, Everett, and Lamb seem fairly competent.

Nick Punto (is not a new dude) managed to save his own skin yesterday after making a glaring mistake at the play, he turned in a career high 5 RBIs.

Don't forget to vote for the MLB All-Star game! I always vote like mad and never watch the game, but you should still go and vote for your favorite players, or if you don't have any, my favorite players.

http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080428&content_id=2603915&vkey=allstar2008&fext=.jsp

Third Round:

Stars vs. Red Wings:

Red Wings in 6. I don't really see how the Wings will not win this series, sorry Stars fans/Matt Niskanen.

Flyers vs. Pens:

Everyone knows how much I like both of these teams, but sadly one of them has to win. The Flyers might just take the Pens apart with their imitation of the Broad Street Bullies, so I say Flyers in 7 games.

The offseason is lame

So I always try really hard to get into the offseason, promise myself I'll look up who is going to be drafted, try and play armchair GM, etc. This never actually happens, and this offseason is no exception. I've been following the Habs series closely, but beyond that...not so much. I'm sure many wonderful and interesting things will happen this offseason, and I just won't know about it until September. I guess this will give me time to write the epic adventures of Zetterdouche and Trianglehead to entertain the newly graduated Steph.

It's almost time for me to officially start paying attention to baseball, so let's see if I can name one thing that I know about each positional player on the team.
Joe Mauer: He runs like he has a pole up his butt, and he tripped over first base and completely ate it.
Justin Morneau: He's a beast. That's all you need to know.
Michael Cuddyer: Has a cannon of an arm.
Gomez: He's young, maybe 22?
Young: Isn't he the dude that hit an umpire with a bat?
I have no idea who is playing third, second, or shortstop

Trying to name something about eveyone just resulted in epic failure. I suck.

Minnesota Nice does not apply to sports

Memo to the Wild: See above. Helping other teams make the playoffs is not a good thing to be doing right now. You guys are sucking at life, and I want to know why. You blew a division lead in a week. LAME.

Calgary is on top of the division right now with 80 points. The Wild are tied with the Flames, but Calgary has a game in hand. Colorado is breathing down everyone's necks, and Vancouver is one spot out of the playoffs. With 13 games left, I expect this team to really step it up, but from I can see it looks like they are giving up. With three straight losses to teams that they should have been able to beat, and before that losing to teams like the Caps, it's really not a good sign in my mind. I'm not if full out panic mode yet, but I'm getting there. Jdoghooey mentioned that the sky was falling in the comments on 18,568 Reasons Why, and it might be a little bit. We need a Wes Walz to step up and peel the paint off the walls and get the guys going again. Carney, Hill, Schultz, Fedoruk, the stick boy, SOMEONE needs to do something. Rolston has been sucking at life. Parrish has been battling injuries, several of the young guys have disappeared altogether. Backstrom and Harding are getting bombarded every night, and players are having huge, costly brain freezes. Mikko Koivu seems to be the only player on this team really interested in playing right now.

All that being said, here's to hoping for an awesome game on Sunday and an interview with Joe Thornton by someone like Tom Reid so we will all be entertained. For an opposing viewpoint, you can check out Musings of a Radical Redhead or Battle of California.

Twins: HA! I am finally mostly caught up and have a clue what's going on. Sounds like the guys are ready for the season to begin, and Gardy is his usual self. I watched the Twins beat the Yankees the other day, and it was lovely. Once the Twins started winning, the announcers really had no idea what to talk about, since I don't think they know most of the players on the team. (Not that I can really say a whole lot about that.) I almost like not having Santana around for the one reason that I don't have to hear every three seconds about how he's going to the Yankees. The Mets are much more tolerable.
Margee will be doing a Squeeview of all the teams in MLB coming up soon, and Ckim, Finny, and McPhizzle have a new podcast up.

Baseball is coming!

Ok, so normally I don't care about baseball until hockey is done, but I'm still a little bit excited anyway for the beginning of Spring Training. Pitchers and catchers report today! I'm super depressed about the fact that we don't really have a starting rotation, and we don't have anyone to play on the left side of the field, but you know what, maybe it'll be ok. Maybe this will be the year I get circled by Bert!

PS, I used to have a Twins Territory sign up on my door, but it got lost at the end of freshman year. If anyone knows where I could get another, I'd be eternally grateful.

Duck Hunting

Photo courtesy of TSN

I'm extremely sad that I wasn't able to be at this game for obvious reasons. The Wild have now won 3 of 4 in the season series (this should be the last game, yes?). Backstrom was awesome no thanks to Johnsson causing Perry's goal. I was watching and I saw number 5 right by the net when he scored. Mikko Koivu!, Brian Rolston, James Sheppard, Pierre Marc Bouchard, and Marian Gaborik all scored for the Wild, while Mark Parrish almost did.

I laughed really hard when I got a text from my mom describing how Giguere ducked on Rolston's goal. He ducked, get it? I was laughing as I watched the game, but I hadn't even though about it that way. I laughed even harder that he threw another hissy fit. As Sherry pointed out on Battle of California, what do you expect from a man who has to drink from a straw?

Mikko Koivu may not be as sharp as he was before missing 20 some games according to Lemaire, but according to me he looks pretty effing good out there. He's been a huge boost for this team, and also for my fantasy team.

Notes:
Derek Boogaard is on the IR.
Santana is a Met.
Guy LaFleur is in trouble, or rather his son is. TSN has more on it. I can feel the shock all the way here from Quebec.
I will be SUPER pissed if Forsberg comes to Minnesota.
Mark Parrish and his wife are going to be parents soon! Congrats to them!

Up next: The Blue Jackets on the road. Bring it on, Bethany!

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.

Whatever it was, I'm sorry

Clearly the citizens of Minnesota have done something to make Alberta's Hockey Gods angry, and angry in a high scoring, soul crushing kind of a way.
First there was Calgary. It all started off so well. We got three goals in the first period, and everything was all hunky dory. Not so much for the Rockies, but I was ok with that as long as the Wild were winning against the Shames so handily. In the second period it all went to hell. The Flames had tied the game by the end of the period, and they added two more in the third to beat the Wild 5-3. It was our first loss in regulation. It sucked, but I figured we'd shake it off and come back and win the next night. I also thought the Rockies would do the same...maybe that was my mistake. Too much optimism.
Last night the Wild faced off against Jarret Stoll, er the Oilers. (Stoll is a center, thus takes faceoffs and lots of them this season...get it? Bad hockey humor, I know.) I had 5 bajillion things to do last night, so I checked in by text mostly. I was less than pleased to find out we were starting off by being down by 2, but yet again I figured they could come back and win it. We'd been there before. Yeah, not so much. It ended up going into a SO, and obviously we ended up losing to Edmonton 5-4. The Rockies also lost...again, and my geology prof is predicting their doom. I haven't given up on them, I believe they can come back and win, and they are in their home field tonight, so that will hopefully help them out somehow.
Brighter notes:
The lecture I went to last night about El Nino, the Andes, and early civilizations in the Americas was extremely interesting and well-presented.
Brent Burns has signed a four-year extension with the Wild.
Mark Parrish had two goals in as many games.
Wes Walz got his first goal of the season.
My fantasy team was awesome. Hemsky (2), Butch, and Rolston all being on my team. Oh and Toskala manged not to suck too horribly while watching his team hand the Pens a nice 5-2 loss.
I got a box full of goodies from the homeland!
I'm getting to watch all of these baseball games without hassle
There is a Wild game on actual TV next week that I can watch!
I saw a great concert last night of a campus accapella group, Headband. They're really good, and I'm happy to say that the replacements for the outgoing seniors are filling their shoes well. There are also two good groups down at the U of O, one male and one female.
The Wild were the last team in the league to lose in regulation!
Less bright notes:
We lost two games to division rivals
The lecture I had to attend today was nowhere near interesting or well-presented. In fact, it was an hour of death. Stupid world geography class.
The Rockies are down by 2.
My room is a mess and I have two exams next week that are going to kill me...(the room being a mess is a good indicator of how stressed and busy I am at the moment)
I just read about how much it's going to cost to keep all the Twin's good players.
Moral of the story: the sports gods are mad at me and annihilating my teams, and they are in league with the school gods and nerve damage gods to annihilate my free time, shoulder/wrist, and sanity.

Before the fun begins

I just want to declare this before the World Series begins. I am cheering for the Colorado Rockies. No BoSox allowed in my world. I've never been a BoSox fan in any way shape or form, and moving out west where most of my friends are cheering for the Rockies hasn't helped that.

Everytime my team gets kicked out of the playoffs in any sport (or chokes doesn't make the playoffs at all...*coughTwinscough*), I always swear I will no longer care what happens, but I ALWAYS pick a team to cheer for, learn everything I can about them, and jump on their bandwagon. If that team loses, I pick again. This year's chosen WS team was the Cubs, but we all know what happened there. I then picked the Rockies, and success! Apparently I suck at staying indifferent.

I would like to thank the BoSox for throwing the Tribe unceremoniously out, though. That's what they get for kicking the crap out of us most of the season!

Today's the Day

So I'm kind of bouncing off the walls with energy because I'm so excited for the season to start. Normally I'm dead tired on Thursdays, but hockey has energized me, and I'm even getting things done.
Tonight is the Wild's Home Opener against Chicago. At least two members of my family will be there at the game, and I really hope someone takes me some pictures, or at the very least coughs up their calendar so that I can have it on my wall at school. (I'm looking at you, Jess. You can't even find your walls, so therefore you should fork over the goods!)
I told someone to wear my new Mark Parrish sweater because he needs to feel the love. Sounds like he was ringing quite a few shots off the post during preseason, maybe this extra karma boost will be what he needs to put a puck or three into the net...
If I end up having to go home in two weeks, I would get to see an Avs game at the X if I caught a red-eye back to Oregon Sunday night. It would be pretty sweet, especially since I don't get to see one over winter break. Seeing Joe Sakic would totally make up for any loss of sleep I may have, and I gain two hours flying back west, so it wouldn't be too bad. If I left the Cities at 10 PM and got to Oregon at 2-3 AM, it would only be 12-1 AM, then an hour drive back, then 5 1/2 hours of sleep, for college that's pretty good. I've slept less for worse reasons (like homework).


In other news, it's still raining in Oregon and I 'm cheering for the Cubs to win the World Series.