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.

Top of the division once more...

Quick notes:
Last night's game was awesome. Mikko Koivu would probably agree with me, since he had three assists and was the number one star of the game. The Wild came out hell bent on revenge last night, and had better luck with the goalposts than a young Patrick Roy. Backstrom didn't get pulled, Gagner didn't make fools out of our defencemen, and I was at the game!

All in all it was a good night. The Avs chased Luongo out of the net, and the Wild took back the division crown with 91 points. A good time was had by everyone not an Oilers/Canucks fan.

Up Next: The Canucks at the X. I will be at that game, too! I have promised Alix some pictures ( I have pictures of the Oilers up on Facebook) to cheer her up, so hopefully they will let me by the glass. Should be a good game, and of course every game is important at this time of the year. I fully expect to see the thug line out in force tomorrow to take care of Kessler (not to be confused with Kessel...) and Burrows.

YAY! WE WIN!

WHOOO! The Wild beat Tampa Bay 3-2 yesterday to snap their slide. I'm really stoked about the win, and hoping for another tomorrow. Fedoruk ( that goal was originally credited to Bouchard), Rolston, and Demitra all scored for the Wild. Ouellet and Halpern scored for the Lightning. That game was on too early for me to catch all of it due to other commitments, but Mikko Koivu was freaking amazing like usual, and his Personal Streak of Awesomeness has been extended.

I just got the copy of the Hockey News with Scott Niedermayer on the cover, and I scribbled all over the picture of FCP. Janessa and I are thinking up all kinds of mean things to do to him. Who knew a Sharpie and a picture could be so entertaining?

League:
Joe Sakic is back, he picked up a goal last night.
Dion Phaneuf got his SUV stolen, but sadly it was later found by the Calgary Police. KMS2 has a post up about it on Purple Crushed Velvet, and TSN and the Calgary Sun both covered the story.
Hossa got hit knee on knee tonight during the Pens game.
Stupid Brad Richards got five assists tonight.
Ckim and Finny did another podcast, this time about the trade deadline, and they gave me a shoutout! Check it out by visiting either A Queen Among Kings or Girl With A Puck.

Up Next: Wild vs. Panthers @ 6:30 CT on FSN. I'm sure Russo will have something up about it since he's still in love with Florida. I don't have much else to say except that we had better win this game.

Mikko Koivu Gets Revenge

Photo Courtesy of the Canadian Press

Clearly MK was taught the phrase "don't get mad, get even". Or maybe he wasn't. I don't know if they say that in Finland. His revenge against the Canucks game in the form of the GWG, and also a rather obnoxious goal celebration. What would have made the night even better is if he had beaten on the Sedins a little more, but I'll take a win. I think this means that Mikko Koivu can officially become my second favorite Wild player. He likes pancakes, revenge, pranks, loud music, seems to be reasonably intelligent, good hockey player, and he's Scandinavian. I hear those Scandinavian types are pretty effing cool.

In addition to the revenge, we had Pierre-Marc Bouchard rocking the taco. He had two goals and two assists to be a +3 overall on the night. Butch has been on fire lately, and last night he notched his 200th point in a Wild uniform, becoming only the second Wild player to do so. Marian Gaborik was the first. Brian Rolston snapped his scoring drought. He hadn't gotten a goal since December 29th. Overall it was a good night. The game was fun to watch, but I am sad that the Vancouver feed didn't show Koivu's celebration as well as the Minnesota one did.

Random notes:

My fantasy team cleaned up last night putting me up 8-0 for the beginning of the week.

It's weird being on the other end of the time spectrum. When I lived at home, I'd always hate West Coast games because they were so late, now I love them because the game isn't on during the dinner hour or when I'm still trying to do things.

The Wild are now first in the Northwest division. Hopefully a win tonight over Calgary will help us hold onto that title...hint hint, Hockey Gods.

Leafs GM John Ferguson was fired this morning. TSN has lots more on that story, and they will be having a video clip on the press conference later today. We all knew this was coming, it was just a matter of time. According to Cliff Fletcher, the interim GM, Maurice and his assistant coache's jobs are all all safe for the remainder of the season. The search for a new GM is on.

Tonight's matchup: The hated Calgary Flames. Hopefully we can get Burns to steamroll Iginla so he will stop owning the Wild. Game is on at 8 PM CST on FSN looks like.

Back to back wins!

The Wild do love me! They are sending me off to hockey hell with two exciting wins over Detroit and Chicago. Zetterdouche, Triangle Head, and Kane have nothing on my boys, especially now that Koivu is back and playing almost 20 minutes!

The Detroit game was exciting right down to the shootout finish. I was watching the game while IMing with Steph, and I almost felt badly about gloating, but since the Red Wings have destroyed the Wild this season, I was quickly able to quash that guilt. Backstrom got pulled after four goals allowed, and Josh Harding was a rockstar in net for us. The Wings scored with just over a minute left in the third, and I freaked, but less than 20 seconds later Eric Belanger became my hero of life when he batted the puck out of the air and scored. Burns then spun him around in a circle. Gaborik got his first shootout goal, blah blah, we win! HOORAY! WE BEAT THE RED WINGS! Final score: 6-5 SO. Parrish's goal streak was broken. :( But on a lighter note, we beat the Red Wings, so I don't care.

The next night I was all excited because Koivu was coming back, and because we were playing the Blackhawks. We seem to have their number, so I was pretty much counting on them winning. (Bad karma I know, but I can't help myself!) Josh Harding was a rockstar again in net, and the Wild beat the Blackhawks by a score of 5-2. We played them hard, Veilleux really, really should learn how to fight better, but Parrish got a goal, and like I mentioned earlier, Koivu played 19 and some change minutes. It was an awesome game, and a nice win over a traditional rival.

I'm heading back to school tomorrow, so tonight I've had HNIC on, and the Hotstove segment was a howl. Talking all about the Leafs and their problems. The guys were practically yelling at each other and Referee Ron had to step in and shut them up so we could distinguish what exactly was being said by who. They then talked a bit about the new Wild ownership, but I'm sick of hearing about that until I see what happens. Now I will watch the Leafs possibly get destroyed by another west coast team...but for now apparently we only get to see Joe Thornton and his huge butt skate around in circles. Now I'm getting to watch Dominic Moore play with the Leafs for the first time. Lovely.

Also, Elise (18,568 Reasons Why...) pointed me to NHL.tv where there is a good clip with Mark Parrish under "What's New". Burns is also in a clip with a ridiculous hat talking about his zoo some more. She's my hero of life for the day, because as I'm sure everyone has now noticed, I'm a huge Mark Parrish fan...

Oh yeah, one more thing. We play the Coyotes tomorrow. My mom and brother will be at the game *sniff*. The Coyotes have been reasonably good lately, and for them miraculously good. According various CBC people, Turris will up with them before the end of the season. Playing the Coyotes always makes me a little bit sad, because I hate seeing Wayne Gretzky as Coach Gretzky. I liked happy, amazing, hockey playing Gretzky much, much better. That's all I really have on them other than that they beat Vancouver last night! (I'm tired and sick, what do you want?) For the Coyotes POV, I direct you as always to my fine HLOG sisters who cover the Coyotes at True Coyote Love, and Hip Shot Blog.

CANADA WINS GOLD!

Team Canada beat Team Sweden today to win their fourth straight gold medal at the WJCs. I didn't make a post yesterday because I was afraid that I would gloat too much and kill the precarious karma. Now I will start my extremely boisterous celebrating.

The boys aren't great singers, but they were singing the anthem, and they knew all the words, so props to them. I've heard that they didn't deserve the win, but I have yet to see the game, so I will reserve judgement until I watch the whole thing. I just saw the singing clip on Coach's Corner. Don Cherry is joining me in being really excited about the win. I'll look for the Coach's Corner clip and post that here, too.

I was there in 2005 when the gold streak began. That was the dream team with Crosby, Phaneuf, and Seabrook (among many others). The whole arena was filled with red, as we weren't too far from Winnipeg, lots of beer was consumed, O Canada was sung, lots of yelling, partying, and general merrymaking ensued in the streets. Sadly celebrations were much more subdued in my house today, but I'm sure later when I watch the game I will make enough noise for four people.

For even more coverage, check out TSN.ca.

WHOOOOO! It paid off...

Not only did the Wild win 6-3 vs the Stars, they dominated. Notably absent was Skoula, a fact that was greeted with cheers when the announcement was made. My mom didn't even yell at me for cheering and tell me to be nice, an event far rarer than Skoula being scratched. That was only the beginning. There was a very enthusiastic young man selling programs, and I bought one from him. He was excited when he saw me approaching, and when I handed him a five, he promptly reminded my the programs are only $3. When I told him to keep the change, he got so excited I thought he was going to explode. He thanked me right away, and then later added "Enjoy the game!". As I turned around to thank him, I could see him running off towards one of the parents waving the money like he had won the lottery. Wherever you are right now kid, you should know that you were doing a really nice job selling programs. I tried to tell him that, but I don't think he was paying attention. Oh well, I'm glad I made him smile.

On to the game. It was amazing right from the beginning. Four goals in the first period had the crowd all over the game, but there were a few close calls on some Stars power plays, and they did manage to get one goal, but I was ok with that. Marty Turco got pulled after the Wild's third goal, and he looked supremely unhappy about that fact. In the second period, I started to get worried. The Wild got a goal, but the Stars got two making it 5-3. The third period started off not so well for the Wild, but Mark Parrish added a nice goal around the middle of the period to make the final score 6-3. I yelled my fool head off for Parrish (he was quite excited about his goal, too), since it was my last game at the X for the season and I was wearing his sweater tonight. There were two fairly lame fights, and Steve Ott had to leave the game at the end for what we later found was a game misconduct and an abuse of officials penalty. Nick Schultz seems to feel that now he is captain he must check people, and even Marian Gaborik, yes, you read that correctly, Gaborik checked someone. Hard enough to make noise, too.

All in all some revenge was had, a program (complete with Mark Parrish poster) was purchased, a kids hockey program was helped, Mark Parrish got a goal, and it was a nice sendoff for me. The next time the Wild are at home is the 13th of January, but classes begin on the 14th for me, so I have a flight the 13th. It was such a good night that I can't decide what my favorite part was.

WJCs: Team Canada will play Team USA tomorrow at 12:30 ET (According to TSN). It's on TSN and the NHL Network and I will be watching that game. GO CANADA GO!!!!!!! The first game will be re-broadcast at 5 and the second and more important game at 10 in case you miss them.

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.

Yippee! We killed the Rangers!

Shot taken of the scoreboard after the game

Take that Rangers! You are not welcome in Minnesota, according to Marian Gaborik and Wild fans. The fans were all over that game, especially after Brent Burns hit that dude, making him fall down really hard. There really isn't a whole lot more to say about it. I believe Brendan Shanahan made some polite comments about how it was the game of a lifetime, etc, but I can't find them right now. He was denied hardcore several times by Harding as the Rangers tried to bring the game back. They way outplayed us in the third, but we were unstoppable. Too bad they didn't save a few of those goals for the Red Wings...

Even more entertaining than the destruction of the Rangers were the comments made by Coach Renney after the game. He got a penalty for "abusing the refs" the official penalty was called "abuse of officials". I didn't know they had those.

"I pride myself on how I respect the whole operation of the National Hockey League and the officiating therein," coach Tom Renney said. "I'm that way because I'm sincere about it. In the heat of the moment players will lose the handle too. I'm disappointed with the way things transpired. But it's no excuse."

Quote courtesy of TSN

Portland Needs a Better Airport

I'm currently sitting in the PDX International Airport using the slowest (but free!) WiFi internet connection known to man. I have two hours to kill, so I suppose it doesn't really matter how slow it is.

It has been an extremely stressful last few days, but the stress has been lifted, and in 9 hours I will be home on my parents' couch stuffing my face and watching hockey. It's a good day (minus the unfortunately long travel time).

Friday night I should have been studying harder than I was for my calc exam, but I really wanted to watch the game, so I made up for it on Saturday morning. Nothing makes me happier than FCP FAILING at life. Elly over at No Pun Intended has an excellent post up about why you should blame all of your problems on FCP. It's an excellent read, I highly recommend checking it out. Right, so the Wild schooled the Ducks 5-2. I'm kind of sad that I know they will improve once Scott Niedermayer takes off running (or skating) again, but it's ok. My reward for that is getting to watch him skate. In order to make room for the good Niedermayer, the Ducks ended up dumping Andy McDonald in return for Doug Weight, a prospect whose name is escaping me, and a draft pick. I have to say, I was hoping Burke would have to squirm around and make a bad deal. I'm bumming that the Wild couldn't have picked up Andy McDonald, because I think he would have been a good fit. Now that he is no longer a Duck, my liking for him has gone up exponentially.

Last night I recieved a set of excellent updates from my super awesome mom, because I had used up too much internet watching the Ducks game and couldn't watch a second game in 24 hours. There was also the part about how I had a final from 7-10 PM, which was basically the time west coast games run. Woot. I didn't bomb my exam, and the Wild didn't stink up the place, even with Harding starting back to back games. I was surprised to see Harding play, I had put Backstrom in for my fantasy team...and didn't find out until too late.

I'm especially sad that I missed the Early Game on HNIC. The Habs owned the Leafs (not like it's hard) 4-0. I heard rumblings that McCabe got hurt during all of this. I'm sure my Canadian friends either will either gleefully fill me in on the details, or tell me this as they are drinking it off. Anyone know who was on After Hours this week? Did I miss anything good? Stupid Saturday finals, I was home in time for After Hours last year.

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.

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!

And the survey says...yes

The Wild can win on the road. An exciting 3-2 road win over the Coyotes has extended the win streak to 4. *knock on wood* I actually got to watch the game tonight, and I sent a very detailed game recap to the people paying for me to watch the game, but since I'm sure those details would kill all of you with boredom, I'll just do a brief recap here.
I had four games up, so randomly I'll mention other games, too.

First Period:
Gaborik got a goal, and then two Coyotes got goals too. Not ok.
I watched Behind the Mask, and Kelly Hrudey was freaking out a little bit. He talked about the young Oilers a little bit, praising their hockey smarts. He and Scott Oake then moved on to the subject of the recent suspensions, and Tootoo came up. Hrudey says that Tootoo is a disgrace to the game, and he feels that Tootoo should not be allowed back on the ice again. He hopes that someday he gets forced out of the game, because he believes that many of his hits are dirty with intent to injure. He was very worked up about this, and even went all Don Cherry on Scott Oake.
Second Period:
Pretty boring period overall. A couple of penalties and a lot of turnovers. The Wild were very much out-skated.
I got bored during intermission, so I flipped to the Avs game and listened to the announcers talk about how amazing and godly Joe Sakic is. Congrats to him on his 15th career hat trick. It's nice to see Sakic getting a bajillion goals on someone else's team for a change. (Ok, so with 614 goals, clearly we are not the only team he has beaten up on over time, but he has the most goals against the Wild of anyone in the NHL.) Avs beat the crap out of Columbus. I tried to watch the Oilers game for a bit, but that didn't go too well for me. Sharks lost 2-1 to Boston. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to that game.
Third Period:
The second half of the third period is when things started to get good. The Wild lost control of their tight dicipline a little bit, but Mikko Koivu bailed us out by getting a shorthanded goal. Gaborik, yeah Gaborik was in the box for roughing of all things. Clearly he and Hemsky need to learn that they are not tough enough to get into a fight without getting killed. Teammates came and saved him from certain death. Then Belanger got a goal on a nice rebound. Auld went to his right, puck came out to his left and Belanger jammed it in. Couple more penalties at the end of the game, and JL looked pissed about that. Shane Doan completely blindsided Brent Burns who dropped the gloves, but managed not to get a penalty.

Overall the Wild were outworked, and they didn't deserve this win, but obviously I'm glad they won. The dicipline started to slip later in the game, and a couple of players *coughGaborik&Fostercough* took some stupid penalties. Foster really needs to stop shoving people into the goalie. Specifically his own goalie.

Up Next: Anaheim tomorrow at 7 CST and 5 Pacific time
Ridiculously speedy Scott Niedermayer won't be there, as well as the Finnish Flash. Penner is up in Edmonton having good hockey sense with Gagner and Cogliano. Other than that the team has remained largely the same, so we'll see what happens.
Finny and Cassie will be representing for the Ducks over at Girl With A Puck and Anaheim Duck Fan respectively. (See sidebar for links)