Azaroth

Mostly because I’m watching it, and I generally get banned from all of the sports forums I post on.

7:16 -  Hate the Tanguay trade for Montreal. Love the Jokinen trade for Phoenix. Great trade, really for both teams. But I think Florida got the raw end.

7:19 - Leafs swap picks with NYI to pick Schenn at #5. Congrats Leafers, really.  I’ve been a Leaf hater for years, but you guys deserve a quality rebuild at this point.

7:28 - Columbus swaps a first and a third for Umberger and a fourth from Philly. Seriously, nice move there Columbus. Absolutely beautiful, I think. It’s just too bad you couldn’t snag Malone’s rights.

7:35 - After snagging Filatov at #6, Columbus looks like they’ve got a smarter GM running their team these days… very good draft for the Blue Jackets so far.

7:55 - Islanders were clearly looking at Filatov for #7. After he went, they swapped 7 for 9 and a 40. I see this as fairly smart too, if the guy you want wasn’t there with #7. Pile up enough second and third round picks, like they’ve been doing, and you might end up randomly selecting a Zetterberg that’ll be absolutely fantastic in 4-5 years.

8:30 - Phoenix is having a good draft. They’ve going to be moving up the food chain relatively soon.

9:30 - Got bored, took a nap.

Yesterday, the NHL held an outdoor game in Buffalo, NY infront of $75,000 fans at Ralph Wilson Stadium. Oh did I put a dollar sign there.

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Jeff Freeman decided to reply to my post below. Apparently, replies come in the form of main page posts on your own blog these days, so I thought I’d be just as hip.

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I’m not saying I didn’t have a good time. I did. But when we made the trip up to Ottawa on Wednesday to see the Penguins get whalloped, I had little idea as to the limits of humanity’s raging stupidity.

Now, really - aside from the game. The was one thing. I can go on about this or that, how the Penguins started slow and I could have put on skates and went out there to show them up, the shitty calls that put the game out of reach or the make up calls after it was already over… but this post is, sadly, about the people at the arena.

I had a good time with my dad, I don’t regret going. I don’t even regret the spending of about $500. It was an experience. Something to do. And it was with my father, which makes it all worth it.

But listen, people. Just listen very carefully.

Sports is just sports. It is not life and death. It’s not necessary to, as a sixty year old man, be standing up and screaming death threats at the referees every time a penalty is called. It’s just for fun. Yes I realize that it can be exciting, but in the end it’s called a game for a reason. Because it’s a game. It’s fun.

On the other hand, don’t take fun too far. Getting piss drunk and screaming that you’ll show your “FUCKING TITS!!!!” if the camera guy a row over would just put the “COCKSUCKING CAMERA!!!!!” on you is a bit far. Flashing players in the penalty box - again, too far. Stripping half naked, painted in your team’s colours? Yeah, again.. just a little too far. Dressing up like a character from the movie 300 and acting like a fool? Heckling fans of the other team? See, again, all a bit too far.

Have fun. Have a drink. Hell, even I had an eight dollar beer. But please… don’t have ten. Especially if you’re a one hundred pound female.

But look. Aside from the rotund 4′5 girl sitting beside me who stunk and felt the need to both be eating stinky shit the entire time and have her legs spread parallel so that I had to not only turn my knees but learn over toward my dad because she was taking up a seat and a half… aside from the row of loudmouth drunks behind me… aside from the drunk sixty year old clown screaming death threats and talking shit to me (luckily I don’t make a habit of punching sixty year old men in the mouth at sporting events, or he might have needed some help from the referee he’d been screaming and spitting at all night), aside from the hecklers who yelled and booed at me for wearing a Pittsburgh jersey, aside from the clowns who really did think they were pretty cool for dressing up and painting themselves, and ASIDE from the fact that my team got their fucking asses handed to them in their first playoff game in about six years - I had a good time.

It was a fun experience.

I’d probably just make sure to get a private box next time, because people are fucking stupid.

I suppose at this point, my key demographic is myself. Sometimes I fret about writing (rambling) on topics like hockey, because I wonder if anyone reading this cares. Then I realized… I don’t care. That’s probably an entirely different post relating my goals for this blog and in essence, why it’s here. For now, let’s just leave it at “personal exercise”. Which seems to be why I do everything lately.

Being that I like hockey (I’m a rabid enthusiast, not a fan), this weekend has some special meaning. I suppose, namely the Toronto/Montreal game tonight. Due to Montreal’s second half collapse, and, well… Toronto’s general mediocrity… they’ll be battling tonight for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. That’s exciting. Two hockey mad cities will be paying attention. Tickets will be scalped for $1500 (and that’s the bad seats). Two storied franchises locked in a 60 minute battle for their playoff lives. One goes home, one continues into the post season victorious, millions of fans cheering them on.

And all that garbage.

See, even though there will be cars driving down every road in eastern Canada honking horns and sporting little team flags of the victor for the next week, I find it all quite anti-climactic. As exciting as this story seems, and you can be sure the Canadian media will spin this in that very exciting way - for me, it died Thursday night.

Two struggling teams, making a push. That’s nice, good for them. Really, that’s fantastic. But they have been absolute crap up until their pushes, which is why they’re fighting for the last playoff spot.

So last week, it was destined. These two teams would, possibly, eventually, come down to a crucial, do-or-die Saturday night game (Saturday night hockey being a CBC institution in Canada, an absolute event called Hockey Night in Canada or HNIC). These two teams even, the most storied of all Canadian franchises. Maybe of all hockey teams period, and it’d come down to the very last game of the season. Wow.

Except this:

On Thursday morning, everything had played out as was prognosticated by rabid fans everywhere. The teams were on a collision course. If they both won their games that night, they would meet on Saturday for a final showdown to make the playoffs. Exciting.

If one team lost and the other won, the winner would go on to hold the eighth and final playoff spot - the loser would go home. Both teams had to play hard.

Exciting.

Then, something very sad happening. Something that made my sack of care for this situation empty onto the street with a very loud clamour that sounded something along the lines of ohwowholyfuckidontcareanymorebangboom.

They both lost.

Not only did they both lose, they both lost pathetically. They both turned in bullshit, terrible efforts.

In a fashion very true to the pathetic, or at best ‘mediocre’ seasons they’ve both been having, they both lost.

But that, of course, means that they’re still tied in the points standings. And will still have their fairytale showdown on Saturday. Everyone is still all hyped up.

I’m not.

Why should I be?

With mediocre efforts and pathetic outcomes on both of their parts, they have turned a dramatic showdown into a yellowbellied consolation prize. One of those kids games where nobody finished, but they gave the prize to little timmy the handicapped kid because he wheeled his ass the furthest from the starting point, whereas everyone else just ADDed the fuck out somewhere else to flick boogers and sniff toaster ovens.

But they media will hype it up the same as if they were two weary warriors, coming off of huge wins to allow them this final chance at glory, you know. They need the ratings, the website hits, the ticket sales, etc. They want people buying things at the arena because of the desire to remember that they “were there” during this galactic showdown of two failed, mediocre teams in a battle to the finish (or something close to it) to see who is less of a fucking loser.

Yeah. I don’t buy it.

On a side note, I purchased tickets to game one of the Ottawa/Pittsburgh series (Hey, go Penguins) for myself and my father yesterday. Only, of course, to be scared shitless by the sad state of affairs that is the NHL once again. It seems that NBC would like to broadcast some of this series, and is picking up a couple of games (at least) to broadcast…

In the afternoon.

Now, I don’t know how many hockey fans will be reading this. But anyone that knows hockey, knows that afternoon games are the absolute cream of the crop when you’re trying to invoke a large yawnfest. Players don’t show up. The atmosphere isn’t there. It’s not the same thing. For my American friends, imagine starting a Baseball game at 8:30am. It’s just not the same thing, not by a long shot.

But it’s the time that, apparently, NBC likes to broadcast hockey games. You know, because everyone is at work, and they have to show “The Donald” telling someone that they’re fired at night time.

Well, maybe it’s time to parade Mr. Trump into the NHL offices for this disgrace of a sellout, only topped by the contract signed with OLN (oh, sorry, VERSUS) for the national television rights.

Mr. Bettman: You’re fired.

Alright, maybe not. But the cap system is a disgrace and has delivered on nothing it promised, the national TV ratings in the US are atrocious, attendance in many US markets are on the heavy decline (NYI had 14,000 Thursday night for a game against the Leafs, a must win game in their playoff push…), general popularity is in shambles compared to the 80’s and 90’s, salaries are again on the rise creating parity through nothing more than mediocrity, and so on.

Now you’re ruining what could have been an incredibly classic series between the best upstart since the Oilers dynasty of the early 80’s (not that they’re stay together and create the dynasty that they’re capable of, thanks our new and “improved” cap system) for the sake of nestling under the balls of NBC, so they can broadcast (very, very poorly I might add) a series nationally, that nobody will watch because they games they’re broadcasting will have start times of of 1pm and 3pm EST.

But, on the bright side, it looks like Ottawa will take home ice advantage tonight. If that’s the case, my precious game one tickets will be good for a 7 o’clock start, as usual. Beauty. If not…

Anyone want some Sens/Pens tickets?

Who wants ‘em who wants ‘em, great seats, $400 for the pair.

But no, my actual plan would be to buy tickets for a game five, six, or seven. Thus further supporting the current NHL management regime that keeps screwing this shit up.

And strangely enough, I’m looking forward to each and every minute of it.

The jealously and homerism of Canadian fans and media.

On any messageboard in the hockey universe, you can see people slamming Crosby. He’s a diver, he’s a whiner, the refs are biased for him, he fakes everything, etc. We all know the score.

It drives me nuts, personally. I certainly can’t get into an argument with every jealous moron on every message board, though. Even more frustrating is the fact that I could, if I wanted to. Mostly because these people generally have no idea what they’re talking about. They seem to be spewing the same uniformed, rehashed opinions that have been circling since two months into Crosby’s NHL career.

So obviously these people aren’t experts on the subject. It’s obvious they haven’t been watching the games. Since that’s the case, and these people aren’t exactly analyzing Pens games every night and forming opinions on their own, where does the steady stream of overwhelming bullshit come from?

What’s the root of the problem?

In the end, it breaks down to a media propagated meme that stems back to their overexposure of Sidney back in the Summer and Fall of ‘05. The media coverage (at least in Canada, I wouldn’t know much about the US coverage) was absolutely over the top in the first couple months of Crosby’s career, to the point where it became sickening.

But that was their doing. They wanted a story so bad, they wanted to milk that story so bad, for so long, just for all of the viewership that they could get - that they turned people off. Suddenly it became vogue to BASH Crosby in the media, and talk up Ovechkin (since that was the other option). Even when Crosby was playing much better. Even though Ovechkin has as many flaws as anyone.

But he isn’t called on those flaws. Ever.

When was the last time someone in the media, and by extension someone rergurgitating something they’ve heard on a messageboard, talked about Ovechkin being BENCHED for his lazy defensive play? How many times has Crosby been mentioned as a “complete” player, as compared to Ovechkin - who plays ONLY in the offensive zone, and does little more than shoot and (sometimes) hit? How often is Crosby labeled soft, despite every fact in the world pointing to the complete opposite conclusion - while Ovechkin is labeled “much more physical”.

I ACTUALLY listened to announcers say that Crosby “doesn’t like to go into the corners” a couple of games back. These people not only sew the seeds of bullshit for fans with no real knowledge to regurgitate, but they themselves have no ******* idea what they’re talking about.

This game even, listened to Senators announcers go on for fifteen minutes about what a diver Crosby was. Saying that nobody is allowed to shoot the puck on the Penguins powerplay until Crosby touches it. On and on. I won’t even go on about their other comments about the Penguins in general, because as much as that IS applicable since the Penguins are synonomous with Crosby in every way in regard to hate and jealousy because Crosby IS the Penguins in a sense.

But they’re just like all Canadian media. From Don Cherry to the lowly broadcasters on late night third rate Sportsnet highlight packages, they all have a hardon for hating Crosby.

They’ve created this monster, and they continue to feed it because it’s what the majority of viewers want to sink their teeth into - they themselves also being jealous of Crosby, they themselves also hating to see Crosby burn their team.

Quite frankly, it’s sickening - and it’ll become moreso the second Canadian media and fans jump directly on the Crosby bandwagon at and after the 2010 Olympics, or to a lesser extent, even pending a long playoff run for the Penguins this year.

While tonight, listening to the Senators announcers was particularly sickening at times - it’s nothing new. Especially not here in Canada. Where Sidney is from. Yet the Kid gets all of the hate while Ovechkin gets all of the credit (especially credit for things that aren’t true - like constant claims that he’s a “complete player”) - because Ovechkin is the media-twisted “underdog”, he’s actually received the real hype while “he’s NOT getting any hype, CROSBY gets all the hype” was being drummed into the ears of impressionable, knowledge-lacking fans. Or, at least last season when he was competing with Crosby… not a WHOLE lot to hype him about this year, since he does little more than shoot the puck 10 times a game. But the meme persists.

When does all of this end? When does Crosby start getting the general respect the way that Gretzky and Lemieux did, after being jealousy hated on earlier in their careers?

I sure hope it takes something less than Olympic bandwagon-jumping, and it comes sort of more organically through people actually watching games and becoming informed about the subjects they speak on (often very loudly).

But I’ll tell you what. I’ll always smirk with disgust whenever anyone from Don Cherry on down to a random Senators poster on a messageboard rambles on with love about Crosby after these early years of self-propagating, ignorant denigration. Quite frankly, anyone jumping on the 87 bandwagon at this point or after can die in a horseless carriage conflagration for all I care.

This is taken from a posting of mine on a sports message board tonight after the hockey game. I know most people who read this site won’t actually be interested in this type of thing, but I figure this is easier than writing something NEW. :D

Penguins get a new arena deal, and beat the Sabres tonight in a shootout.

It was an amazing game. Looking forward to seeing many more of them played in Pittsburgh.

As much as I do, honestly, intend this to be a games - or more specifically, MMO - blog, I’m also a big follower of hockey. In that, I love to follow hockey, watch hockey, play hockey. By no means am I a “fan”. There’s something about considering myself a fan of another man that I just find a little effeminate. When I was ten, it was fine. But now that I’m a little older, it just doesn’t seem so appealing.

No offense, but I’ll leave the fan thing to schoolgirls and little boys.

This doesn’t change the fact that, through the years, I’ve become a huge “supporter” and “follower” of both hockey, and more specifically, the Pittsburgh Penguins. That whole deal started when I was a young kid playing hockey in small town Canada, watching the Penguins win cups and dazzling the entire league with players like Lemieux, Jagr, Francis, etc. Had I been born ten years earlier, I suppose I would have been an Oilers fan. But having been a fair weather seven year old, I hate Wayne Gretzky and hope he gambles away all of his Ford Trucks.

But that’s a whole lot of back story.

The point of writing this is that there’s no way I was going to escape writing about the NHL or the trade deadline on this blog, so I figured I’d just go ahead and do it. Now you have a little back story for any other strange posts you come across in the future that have to do with hockey. And it’s my blog, damnit. I can post about this kind of crap if I want to.

Here’s the skinny:

The Penguins have a really strong team this year. Surprisingly strong. In fact, the kids we’ve drafted in the last five years (mostly first and second overall), have all really come on. Not that they were ever really off. Crosby was an instant superstar, Malkin was instant, even Staal was instant somehow, when he JUST barely skirted the age cutoff to be drafted this summer. Our young goaltender, Fleury, is kicking shit out from three miles away (even though he’s been bad the last few games, what the hell do you want..).

The point of THIS is that we have an incredibly solid young core, built from very high draft picks. In fact, last year we had the youngest player ever to score over 100 points. This year, we have the youngest player to ever score a hat trick and the first time three players under the age of 21 have scored 20 or more goals since the Oiler dynasty-the-making of the early 1980s.

We have a lot of chemistry in the dressing room, the guys laugh, get along, and most importantly - win.

Then comes Tuesday, February 27th. The NHL trade deadline.

Unlike the NBA, things actually happen tomorrow. In fact, things have been pretty happening for the last week in anticipation of it. Players are being swapped, crazy deals being made, it’s all over TV.

But those deals are crazy. The trade deadline is for desperate General Managers to pick up rental players who will leave in the summer and sign contracts elsewhere. The prices are high, and generally require you giving up draft picks and prospects. Essentially, this is the time that those who feel the need to do it, go ahead and mortgage the future for the present. Whether this has to do with the pressures of being in a shaky market with shaky fan support, or just an aging core that might break apart due to free agency soon and a need to win now now now. But I rarely see the “buyers” as winners. The Toronto Maple Leafs have been classic examples of buyers without anything to show with it over the past many years, at least in the pre-salary cap era.

Now, apparently, since they’ve pulled together and worked hard for some good wins this year, my beloved (uh, my… sort of liked.. I’m really not a “fan”) Penguins are apparently acting as “buyers”. So much so that they’re willing to insert several old veterans into the lineup, as is customary for teams who are buying during the deadline.

But is it smart for this team? And are the trades even smart, regardless of this team’s composition and chemistry.

No, and no.

For one, this IS a young team that’s gelled and become family. These guys like each other. It’s as plain as day - from on the ice, to watching them gather around to cheer for their respective countries in the World Junior Championships, to bringing pizza out to fans standing in line on a cold night and signing autographs.

But our new GM is apparently steadfast in his “buying” stance. It’s been said that if the Penguins don’t land 40 year old Gary Roberts for young defenseman prospect Noah Welch, they’re going to go after 36 year old Bill Guerin and 35 year old Brian Smolinski. Not only are both of these guys long in the tooth and old boys of the NHL that I believe will throw off the chemistry of the locker room, but Guerin is notorious for actually attacking teammates during practice.

Why the hell should we add these kinds of guys? Especially at the prices that they’re demanding?

An aged, broken down Peter Forsberg went for high picks and good prospects earlier this month. Fat old Keith Tkachuck went for first, second, and third round picks plus a prospect to Atlanta the other day. Talk about mortgaging up the future for two or three months of benefit. Not only are these guys going to walk in the offseason, but they’re OLD. Come on guys. It’s not 1998 anymore. These guys aren’t worth these prices, and everyone who makes these ridiculous deals finds that out sooner rather than later.

Look, if you absolutely must make a trade, especially in the case of the Penguins, package up the things you’d be giving for these old boys who will be gone before next season - and land something good, young, and under contract that fills the needs of your team. The Penguins should take Noah Welch, whatever they’re offering for Guerin, and whatever they’re offering for Smolinksi - and go out and get something that will actually become PART of the team - ie., that fills needs and will be here for the long haul. Not for two or three months.

There are a lot of rumours out there currently, and it’s hard to pick out what’s true and what’s baloney. But after seeing the Penguins slash Guerin or Penguins slash Smolinski or Roberts rumours proven true - I can definitively tell you which rumours are fake.

The ones that make sense.