5/27/08

Michel(le) Therrien < Claude Lemieux

From NHL.com

Michel(le) Therrien:
"We took two penalties tonight on the goalie. We never take penalty to the goalie in the playoff. I'll tell you something, I reviewed those plays. He's a good actor. He goes to players, and he's diving. Took away our power play. Got to get focused. I know our players are frustrated right now. It's tough to play the game. But Osgood did the same thing against Dallas under Ribeiro.

Our team never go to goalie. We never did it. And we don't target the goalie. But this is, want to talk about experience, he goes to players, and he knows what to do, I guess."



Oh, no. This is completely legal to skate two feet into the paint and hit the goalie. Dont worry Michel(le), next time we won't call it. You can run your NHL '94 play where Malone skates through the crease and hits the goalie and then maybe your Barbie Dolls superstars can score.

Therrien:

"It's really tough to generate offense against that team. They're good on obstruction. It's going to be tough to generate any type of offense, if the rules remain the same. So it's the first time we're facing a team that the obstruction is there, and we're having a hard time skating to take away ice."


Wrong, douche. The Red Wings are a TEAM. They play position. It is more than just two players skaiting around making plays and outscoring teams 5-4, it's a committment to defense by everyone, including the stars. It's puck support, player A takes the body, player B takes the puck. It's "The Rock" all over again -- know your role, Jabroni! With the puck, make plays, without the puck play your position. You want to cry about the refs? How about the Wings centers getting thrown out of 50% of the faceoffs? How about the crybabies stars on your team going two feet offsides and no whistle? How about Hockey Creep Jesus grabbing every stick around when he's got the puck? You want bad no-calls? Every time porn-stache Crosby gets in a one-on-one situation, he grabs the defenders stick, and when he still loses the puck, he tucks it under his arm and falls down, taking the defender with him. How many goals have been taken off the Penguins side of the scoreboard? I cant hear you, what? Zero? None? Yeah, the Wings have outscored your lilly asses 8 7-0 in two games, and they have taken a goal off the Wings side.

And then you send your defensemen to go after Zetterberg, Datsyuk, and Osgood. You stay classy Michel(le). Go back to Quebec. Oh wait, Montreal kicked your sorry French ass out years ago. One word- retreat! Retreat! They're better than us! Run away! Run away!

And the best part:

Q. Is there anything you can do to give Malkin more space out there?

COACH MICHEL THERRIEN: I thought his intention was there tonight. We've got to keep supporting him, and eventually, players like this, usually they find way.


Good coaching there Michel(le). "Hey guys, we're getting beat. Look at Malkin and Crosby, and they'll show you how to beat them. I'll be in the bathroom. Where's my kleenex?"

Douche.

But this deserves to shown over and over and over and over. And over.

5/24/08

Embarrassing

I have never been so embarrassed to be an NHL fan. You have exactly what you want for the Finals, and this is the product you put on the ice? Both referees and both linesmen should never be able to call another game. Ever. The referees were obvious in their ball handling of Crosby. And by ball handling I mean nuts in mouth. The linesmen were far from subtle in throwing every Wing center out of every face-off and missing obvious offsides against Hockey Jesus Crosby.

5/20/08

Turc-Owned

Turco tried everything, even the Lord of the Dance move...



Hank juked him out of his jock on a shorty...



Wings win Cup 4-1 over Pittsburgh. No problem. They have two skaters, and two skaters only. The Wings top line is good enough defensively to handle them and put the puck in the net from time to time as well.

Bring Stanley Home!

Imagine that...Lions don't care about season ticket holders

From the Oakland Press

Furlong owned season tickets for three years. He had two in the club level the first year. The second year, he received two more in the lower level stands after being on a waiting list — so he had four. The third season, they reduced the size of the club level, including a portion where his seats were located, which were on the aisle.

He said he wanted to keep those two seats, add two club-level seats and asked that two seats he had in the stands be combined with his seats from the club level that were moved to the stands. The Lions agreed. It gave him six season tickets.

But when he went to sit in his old seats, somebody else was sitting in them. He asked them to leave, but when he looked at his tickets, he noticed his seats had been moved.

"It was an embarrassing and awkward moment," Furlong said. "I was stunned."

When he contacted the Lions, he was told nothing could be done about it during the 2007 season, but he was promised aisle seats for 2008.

Yet, when Furlong received his season ticket invoice for 2008, it was for the same seats he had in 2007.

It was then that Furlong canceled his season tickets in an e-mail to Schul. Powser then e-mailed Furlong with an offer for more desirable seats, but Furlong said it was a matter of principle — and he wouldn't accept the offer.

Then Furlong received the inadvertent e-mail from Schul.

The entire e-mail reads, "Lance...he is not talking about you here. Mark was asked to speak to these people and he said no. F... 'em until next year."

"Mark" is Lions ticket director Mark Graham.

Once he heard of the e-mail, Lewand called Furlong and invited him to a game.

"I did so before I heard from any media on this," he said.

Lewand offered no excuses for the incident, but absolved Graham from blame, although the e-mail in question indicates Graham refused to discuss the issue with season ticketholders such as Furlong, who had their seats unexpectedly moved for the 2007 season.

"It was an inaccurate characterization of a conversation held in 2007, not this year,'' Lewand said of Schul's e-mail.

Lewand said he was, "deeply disappointed with the e-mail and light it portrayed, and I have addressed it."

"There are a number of different levels this could have been avoided and we realize that," Lewand said. "One, with the invoice we sent out for this year. If it had been correct, none of this would have happened. We never condone our fans being discussed in that manner, whether it be in an e-mail or any type of discussion among members of our organization."



The Lions really dont have any PR capital to spend here to make this OK. They suck, everybody knows they suck, everybody knows the management is horrible, and this just adds to it. If the Fords had any hair whatsoever, they would fire everybody involved. But they'll probably just give everybody raises and extensions.

Idiots.

5/15/08

Sickening.

Swept for the second time in just over a month by the Royals.



At least in 2003 they were fun to watch. These guys just make baseball painful.

Who needs a poncho?

NHL referee's = teh suck

In the crease, no goal:



Not in the crease, goal:



Wait, what?

From the Detroit News:

His explanation, according to Wings captain Nick Lidstrom, was that while Holmstrom's skates weren't in the blue-painted crease, his hindquarters had broken the plane of the crease and interfered with Turco, who insisted afterward that he "couldn't move freely to make that save on the shot."

Replays clearly showed otherwise, however.

"He wasn't in the blue, his (butt) wasn't near the cylinder, he didn't touch the goalie," said Wings general manager Ken Holland, who hadn't yet spoken to series supervisor Mike Murphy, the NHL's senior vice president of hockey operations.

"What do you want me to say? The guy's not in the paint?" Babcock said. "The guy's out of the paint. That's a reputation call totally. It's disappointing. Sometimes a guy gets tripped and you miss it. Some things go wrong and you miss it. Just don't make stuff up, that's all."



Just don't make stuff up. if you don't see it, don't call. Missed calls are a part of the game. Taking points off the board based on things that didn't happen, and thus could not possibly have been seen, based solely on a guy's reputation is inexcusable and warrants punishment.

That said, the loss I think actually helps the Wings. They no longer have the franchise record winning streak hanging over them, they no longer have consecutive sweeps heading into the Finals hanging over them, and they can concentrate on teh issue at hand: one more win against Dallas, and then the four for the Cup.

Just go beat down the Stars in game 5, get ready for Pittsburgh, and bring Stanley home.

5/13/08

One more to the Finals

The Wings are outskating, outhitting, outchancing, and outgoaltending the Stars.



Turco doesn't know what hit him. Last night, he didnt face a ton of shots, but the ones he faced were high quality shots from good spots on the ice. These are the shots that Giguere made last year, and Kiprusoff the year before. These are the shots the goaltender HAS to make to give his team a chance against the Wings. The Stars MO is to get ahead and shut things down, not constantly play from behind.



That said, here is what the Stars must do better to get back into the series:
1- Turco must stand on his head. To win 4 straight against the Red Wings, Marty has to play unbelievable hockey. Not just making great saves, but he has to eliminate the mistakes playing the puck, taking himself out of position.

2- Get the puck deep. How many times did the Wings stand the Stars up at the blue line and start back on an odd man rush the other way? Here is the problem. Usually the guy carrying the puck for the Stars is not the lead guy. Usually, he is not even second. So instead of driving the puck in, keeping the guys in front of him skating hard, he tries to carry it in, losing the puck at the blue line, everybody is standing still, and the Wings have a rush back the other way. Drive the puck into the zone, keep those big wingers moving, put pressure on the defenseman to move the puck quickly, if they can even get it first, and set up in the zone. This leads to the Wings one weakness, which Dallas exploited on a couple of occasions last night.

3- Spread out in offensive zone, and move the puck around the perimeter. The Wings do not have a solid "half-court" defense, to borrow a phrase from basketball. Once you get in the zone, with control, you can do almost anything you want with it, within reason. The Red Wings do not like playing without the puck, and especially in the defensive zone, and are prone to panic. Both Dallas goals last night were products of great offensive zone puck control, based on passing around the perimiter. Just be patient, pass it around, one of the Wings will get out of position, and set up for a shot. Then...

4- Drive for rebounds. Osgood has been special this postseason, but last night gave up a couple juicy rebounds. Chelios, Lidstrom, and Rafalski were the first to the puck to sweep it away on most occasions. The Stars wingers need to drive the net looking for the easy poke for the cheap goal. They all count as 1, no matter how pretty.

5- Put the puck on net. After seeing the Wings failures over the last couple years, this is the one that sticks deepest. How many times has Dallas had one of those rebounds, only to hear Mike Emrick exclaim "just wide!" or "off the side of the net!" If a couple or even one of those finds the twine, this may be a completely different series.

Not that I'm a Dallas fan, but I like them. They play hard, they play clean (I'm looking at you Ribeiro), and are likeable guys. Modano is probably my favorite non Red Wing in the league, and Marty is our old Michigan boy. Even if they manage to do everything on this list, they still may not beat the Wings, but it would make it more exciting to say the least.

Go Wings. I want to see handshakes Wednesday night.

5/11/08

F'n Leyland

I may be boycotting my Tigers hat and jersey until Jim Leyland is let go or retires, but this is a hell of a game winning hit...



Let's see- the Tigers have the best lineup in baseball, maybe second only to, oh, I dont know, maybe the Sawx, and YOU ARE BUNTING IN THE FIFTH INNING WITH THE LEAD!!!



Yeah, you know all those extra runs the Tigers have no chance of scoring because you are giving up outs for the sake of 1 run? Yeah, don't worry. We won't need them. Oh wait...



Oh yeah Jim, don't worry. A two run lead in the 6th inning is PLENTY against this team. They can't hit.

If there was such a thing as a moral victory, I would put this in the category of a moral defeat. The bunt in the 9th, OK. That made sense. This goes along with the going for two argument in football. You only bunt for single runs when you NEED IT! Leyland got lucky when the Tigers' bats behind the bunt kept hitting and they actually scored 3. How many could they have scored without the bunt?

You will not see me with my Tigers gear on until the smoking man is gone. This lineup is too talented to play small ball. The defense doesn't look like they know where they should be. The pitching is predictable (Yook with 3 HR's, Lowell with 2 this series!!! Are you kidding?).

OK, I'm done venting I think. Even if the Tigers win tonight, I still may wear the BoSox gear out of spite.