Happy Birthday - Kris Letang! It's all Pants' fault!
Since Pants loves to blame her Caps obsession on me, I can only return the favor by blaming my Kris Letang obsession on her. I would have NEVER known about ANY Pittsburgh Penguin EVER if she hadn’t e-mail bombed me relentlessly photos of Kris Letang. And now I am helpless, helpless I tell you.
Um ... did I just see what I thought I saw?
So a WUYS HAPPY 25th BIRTHDAY to truly one of Hockey’s greatest, foxiest, sexiest, most awesome players of the game.He never let’s us down. He’s dependable, hard-working, comes through in a clutch (game scoring OT winner with a concussion and broken nose – anyone?)
He’ll drop the gloves and go toe to toe. Although we don’t want that beautiful face to suffer – please – but I have to admit, a black eye is a little hot! Pittsburgh proved they can win without Sid but they can’t without Letang. He’s earned his spot on the roster the old fashion way – hard work.
Seriously ... how does anyone resist ALL THIS?
So while I honestly do wish they were still playing, here’s to Tanger taking a long, HOT summer vacation because that means more shirtless photos! And hopefully another work out video!
If you insist, I'll vacation somewhere warm - again. Just for you.
Happy birthday sex hair! And thanks for not cutting it this year. I was a little worried there.
For a few days after something bad happens, you don’t want to be cheered up. You want to drown in a cocktail shaker or eat an entire wedding cake. If you’re me, you picked a bright orange heavy bag and kickboxed the crap out of it a la Captain America.
Then life goes on. Other teams win and lose, and to keep me from slipping out of reach after last night’s Blackhawks loss, I need a moment to thank the Penguins for a great season.
Prom Night 2012. They obviously tried to take the photo before Letang showed up, but no such luck. The man even looks good in a ponytail.
The waiting was the hardest part. I held my breath a lot, exhaling mostly in the form of cheers for for Malkin and Neal and all those beautiful points. When Crosby was finally back for good, all I could do was sigh.
At the end, the Penguins went a little haywire. Their top-of-the-line hardware should run like a fighter jet, but somewhere in the programming the machine became human. Their system fell apart in the first three games vs. Philly and couldn’t recover. But like the computer you’re on right now, you don’t throw it away when it malfunctions. You smack it and threaten to chuck it out the window, but really you just shut down, wait a minute and reboot.
Or you go on summer vacation.
To send the Pens off, here are a few things we demand to see this summer.
We Want: James Neal in Glasses
Nealmobile once came a contact lense away from a career-ending eye injury [link]. He could have been finger painting like Doug Dorsey! Thank God for small miracles. Where there are contacts, there are glasses, and some super sleuth found them in NHL36:
The old adage “boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses” is not at all true for girls. We LOVE your glasses (without ever seeing you wear them). In fact, how dare you deprive us? Mike Green would never do that. Since it’s only April and you’re gone, at least give us this.
We Want: Geno’s T-Shirt Collection
We didn’t get enough hilarity out of Geno’s wardrobe this year. The man alternately shops at Charlotte Russe and the Hustler Store, which can only mean one thing: we can’t wait to see what he’s wearing at the high-roller table in Vegas when he picks up that Hart Trophy.
We Want: Niskanen and Sullivan
Matt Niskanen’s (RFA) middle name is Norman for heaven’s sake. Sullivan (UFA) fits in on any line and plays like he’s in his twenties. Sign them now.
We Want: Workout Videos
Show us how hard you’re working, how dedicated you are to the new season. That’s what these videos are about, right? Last year we posted Kris Letang’s [link] and you guys all disappeared for a week. Maybe this year, James Neal won’t be ignored in the Camp Biosteel videos.
I think that’s everything we need for the next five months. Players eat their Wheaties and do their squats while we save up cash for tickets and merch. See you all in Septemb… hahahaha. RIGHT.
We Want:
Crosby, where are the rest of these pictures?
Caption removed for inadequacy.
And even this.
Neal's going to need a lot of help putting on that SPF 75.
At Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon in Austin, TX, every Sunday night they play Chicken Sh*t Bingo. It’s exactly what it sounds like – feed a chicken, turn it loose on a tabletop bingo board and wherever it takes a crap, that number goes on the board.
I’m pretty sure this is also how the NHL is deciding suspensions.
The chicken really likes James Neal, because he gets away with the Couturier hit like a bank robber with a sack of money. He leaves his feet to run two guys in one shift and manages to earn two disciplinary hearings for only 42 seconds of play! Someone please tell me if that’s a land speed record. You know I love the Pens & Neal (still so pissed), but even I can’t believe this. No I don’t want a huge suspension handed out to my guy – but I don’t know other players running my guys with zero fear of consequence. This works both ways and next time, it’s coming instead of going.
To me this shows the NHL believes the Pens/Flyers series is over tonight, so the chicken did her business on the 1 because there’s only one game left in Neal’s season. God, I hope they’re wrong.
Be honest if you can see the sense in this: Carl Hagelin got 3 games [video] for elbowing Daniel Alfredsson and Andrew Shaw got 3 games [video] for hitting Mike Smith. If those are 3-gamers, why is Neal’s only one? Alfredsson was injured, Smith was not. Neal could much more easily have avoided Giroux than either of the other hits. And neither Hagelin or Shaw threw another questionable check less than a minute before.
Aaron Asham – 4 games for cross-checking [Shanahan video]
The chicken was angry – fine with me. This is a terrible move in a terrible game that could repeat itself tonight. For all the bitching about Schenn cross-checking Crosby from behind a few weeks ago, this is obviously a hundred times worse and deserves a sit-down.
Nicklas Backstrom – 1 game for cross-checking [Shanahan video]
A stick to the face for a Backstrom-less game 4? Deal of the century! Thanks a lot, chicken!
This play is no dirtier than a million uncalled penalties in this series. But it is, as Shanahan calls it, “excessive and reckless” – because he can’t say “stupid and pointless.” Nicky’s not going to fight Peverly anymore than I’m going to be proclaimed Queen of Canada. He has been run constantly in this series – because he’s the Caps best player. And he gave it away for nothing. The Caps got through 40 games without Backstrom this year, here’s hoping they have one more in them.
Raffi Torres – Awaiting the Chicken
You need 5 in a row to win bingo. Just when the NHL had suspended 7 players in the first round (only 6 suspensions in all of last year’s playoffs), Phoenix’s Raffi Torres does this. Marian Hossa was stretchered off the ice and taken by ambulance to a local hospital, from which he was released last night [link]. He got into a waiting car under his own power. Torres has been suspended twice and fined once in the last 13 months [link].
What do you think the chicken will have to say about this one? If suspensions are being doled out based on some other system (say, player popularity?), where on the bingo board does this load land?
PS: You should all read The New York Times’Slap Shot blogfor this scathing piece on the state of player safety. Writer Lynn Zinser says: “If you can follow the logic through those four [Asham, Neal, Shaw, Backstrom] — particularly how the Penguins’ James Neal earned only a one-game suspension for head-hunting two players on a single shift — you belong at M.I.T. Or Shanahan’s next dinner party.”
I don’t hate fighting as much as some other people. What I dislike is hypocrisy. Philly has never made any apologies for who they are. What shocked me was Matt Cooke managed to stayed out of the fray.
Pittsburgh needs to decide quickly if they are going to play as a team to stay in the play-offs or protect Sidney Crosby from injury because they can’t do both.
But other than that, to lighten the mood there used to be someone who did Hockey Cats. So to continue the tradition, here is the weekend in hockey cats photos:
Mittens likes to live on the edge ... it's better than the tea-cup ride in Disneyland!
I’m not quite sure what to say about today’s Penguins/Flyers game and I re-wrote this post three times (while trying not to throw up). This game was an implosion – a disgusting, dirty, insulting excuse for a game the Penguins lost fair and square.
First off, the score. Can ANYONE be bothered to cover Danny Biere? He scored two in game one, remember? You could have landed a plane on him in the first period and the Pens defense would have wondered why it got so windy. It would explain why Fleury was flapping like a screen door in a hurricane. After this complete lapse, the Penguins had no one to blame but themselves for the score on the board. So they got angry.
No need to recap this for you, and I can’t bring myself to do it anyway.
The brawl in the first period was ugly, but it could have turned the game. Even Sid & Gingeroux put their money where their mouths were – and then some, screaming at each other from the penalty boxes. Channel your rage! There was still hope, right through James Neal’s second period goal to make it 4-3 Flyers. The Penguins were scrambling and stumbling but the score was close enough. Except the poor play and bitching kept on coming. I hate the Flyers too – today was more about the Pens sinking themselves.
Bylsma swapped out Fleury for Johnson to start the third – way too late in my opinion. Clearly a fight had not had not rallied his team, I think he should have tried something else a lot sooner. Johnson didn’t fare much better though and it was 7-4 Flyers less than thirty seconds later.
The third period of this game will make me sick to my stomach for a long time. The only guys I could even look at are the names you didn’t hear – Matt Cooke, Richard Park, uh… Geno because he was invisible today. Everyone else was already on my sh*t list and to top it all off, this:
Neal, you had two great goals. You kept the Pens on the board when they weren’t in the game. Then you laid out Coturier with a cheap shot – leaving your GD feet to do it! – when the game was out of reach. You accomplished nothing except the impossible: making this awful game worse. Now you’ll be suspended. Enjoy watching the last game of the season from the press box, dummy.
Truthfully, I’d ground this whole team. That is not how you redeem a bad start to the series or to this game. That is not how you react when your backs are to the wall. That’s not even hockey, it’s a street fight.
Game four is Wednesday. Can a team come back from 3-0 down to win a series? Of course (you’re talking to Red Sox fans, here). Can the Penguins? Dear God, I hope so. But not if they bring this team to the ice, and who knows if anyone will be left by Wednesday.
“We’re playing playoff hockey.” Am I on the wrong channel? Because I think that means helping yourselves win.
UGH. I’m exhausted and gutted from this game. My apologies for the rant if you’re a Pens fan who handled today better or felt less aggro toward them. I love the Penguins, but those were not the Penguins. I can’t blindly love a team that behaves this way. If another team came at mine like that, I’d be calling for their heads. Now it’s time for my team (and me) to be responsible for ourselves.
No other horror movie celebrates Hockey with such bad assery!
Last night was a heart breaker when the Caps lost in OT to Boston – I’m sure Ovi had this Nightmare:
No, not the floating head of death again!
And Seidenberg tried to take Ovi out with this hit but he found that weebles wobble but they don’t fall down! If Ovi can knock Jagr into next year at the Olympics, you’ll have to try harder Siddy-bergy than this:
As for it being FRIDAY THE 13th – I know we ran this before, but there is no such thing in my world as too much Kris Letang so for your FRIDAY THE 13th MOMENT OF ZEN:
I thought an all-consuming work event on the first night of the NHL Playoffs was a terrible thing. Instead it saved me from having to watch the Penguins blow a 3-goal lead and lose in OT to the Flyers. Even my phone and Blackberry died when it was 3-0 – I should have seen the signs.
I don’t need to ask what happened. Danny Briere said, “Thanks anyway, rookie who got your butt kicked by Joe Vitale last weekend, but I’ve got this payback thing covered.” Braden Schenn (first star) figured if everyone was going to talk about him, he’d give them something to say.
The poor intern who lent me his phone to see the 3-3 score will never un-hear the things I said.
I understand the Flyers looked spectacular in the last half and the officiating was a mess – a missed icing call lead to the Dupuis goal, Briere was offside for his first. There were only four penalties, but three went against the Flyers so the conspiracy theory lives on. You guys can weigh in on what I missed, but I’m almost glad I missed it.
Game two Friday at 7:30 PM. Hopefully I won’t need any more four-letter words, I think I used them all up.
In other playoff series:
Nashville beat Detroit 3-2 [link]. Gator is mad and so is her grandmother, who dresses this duck in Detroit team apparel depending on the sports season. She doesn’t want to change his clothes anytime soon.
Yes, this is a custom duck-sized jersey.
LA beat Vancouver 4-2 on third period goals from Penner and Brown. The Canucks just didn’t have enough guys named Dustin. [link]
Update: I just saw this. Can’t stop laughing! Kesler is twirling like a bored outfielder on Gator’s 9-11 year old girl’s softball team (The Gators, naturally). TBG Drew Doughty – what is that hand gesture? I don’t think you’re telling him to take a hike…
Dawn, Ovi - sorry for the bad season. I do better in play-offs. I promise. BOOM! hahahahahahah
So when this campaign started the feedback was terrible so they adjusted it STAT because it was like the MasterCard ad, the Hockey Discover Card and “I Just Want My Pants Back” had a drunken three way, someone got pregnant and no one wanted to take responsibility for the monster that came of it.
Hockey fans will tell you straight up when something stinks.
I get TPTB wanted to include the fans but thank god we bascially got a bastard child of HISTORY WILL BE MADE! I don’t want to see faux Hollywood replicas of what they think we are doing in our homes/bars/favorites hockey watching spots. Trust me – WE KNOW. And it wasn’t what they were showing us.
I want to see Ovi telling me what he’s GOING to do in the play-offs.
Dear NHL - stilling waiting for Letang's solo "Because of the Cup" ad. Statistically speaking - Pens can win without St. Sid but not with out #58. Just sayin'
I want to see Kris Letang brush his sexy hair out of his face and smile at me as he skates at the screen.
I want to see Erik Karlsson and his glorious mullet, all awkward and sh&t.
Dear little man, may you win the Norris if Kris Letang (a complete dark horse but I wish would win) doesn't.
Hell, I’d even take Jagr saluting me! (not quite but see below for you hard core philly fans – bless you all!)
You've grown on me like a fungus but you make me laugh - which is hard to do!
It isn’t quite that but it will do for now. So for your viewing pleasure if you haven’t seen these yet:
Uh, there’s something missing from your post Chuck.
James Neal’s 40th goal of the season!
The Nealmobile was honking like mad last night as James hit this milestone. His previous career-high was 27 goals in 2009-10. How fun it must be to play alongside Geno (105 points this year) and sometimes Sid (22 points in 12 games back). Added to his 41 assists, Neal has 81 points on the year.
Can I get in on this hug?
James’ salary this year was $3.5 million, which works out to $87,500 a goal (oh my). He’s worth it. The new contract pays his $ mill/year, which means he’ll score 57 goals next season. Yeah, sounds about right.
Chuck did include the Neal/Ference fight. I was yelling, “Not the hands!” and “Kick his ass!” in the same breath. Thanks to those of you who were worried about my well being. I survived by fanning myself with a copy of Cosmo.
Not enough? Here’s Nealmobile’s post-game interview with really bad audio (and yes, I do care what he’s saying) – link.
Last night was yet another Battle of the Blog: Pants vs. Chuck.
Pants won.
You know who didn’t win? (I mean besides me and the Bruins, of course.)
Johnny Boychuk and Joe Vitale
At 6:45 of the 3rd period, Boychuk collided awkwardly with Arron Asham and crumpled to the ice.
I screamed “Boychuuuuuuuuuuuukkkkkkkkkkkkk Nooooooooooooooooo.” Immediate *facepalm* It did not look good.
He ended up leaving the ice, placing no weight on his left leg, his arms draped over the shoulders of his teammates, Chris Kelly and Brian Rolston. After the game, he was seen limping from the locker room and will most likely be reevaluated today.
Fingers (and toes) crossed that the injury isn’t as serious at it looks. The Bruins defence is already sans Darth Quaider (whose mullet is looking even more ridiculous nowadays and I love it) and the potential of losing our #3 defenceman is not something I really want to think about with the playoffs just around the corner. Boych has a dominating presence on the Bs blueline, is the team’s hardest hitter, and has a wikkid slappa. Luckily, the Bruins have some depth at defense, so we might be okay.
And then we have Joe Vitale – he of Northeastern Hockey and Foxy Friday fame.
Usually, all sorts of good things happen for our Foxy Fridays. It is like a little good luck charm.
Well, not so much for Mr. Vitale last night.
He took a Zdeno Chara slapshot to the face. A ZDENO CHARA SLAPSHOT TO THE FACE!
Everyone in the world screams “NOT THE FACE”! Everybody *facepalms*.
This is a story that Vitale will tell to his grandchildren, after bribing them to listen to him with Werther’s Originals.
“See this scar here? One time, kids, there was a great bear of man. His name was Chara. He was the biggest man I’d ever seen. He shot a puck 100 miles an hour. I stopped it with my face. And I’m alive today to tell you this story.”
No word yet on the severity of his injury, but we’re pretty sure that our stash of Muppet bandaids aren’t going to be enough.
In other game news…
Sidney Crosby scored two goals. He’s the best player in the game…blah blah blah.
Kris Letang looked like the Italian soccer team with all that diving and flopping. Even Pants agrees with me that it was a bad penalty call on Rich Peverley. Sure the stick got a little high, but Letang whipped that hair back like he was Willow Smith.
Beniot Pouliot scored his 15th goal of the season…and it was, like, really pretty. That was his 31st point of the season, which is a career high.
Andrew Ference RAGED against the goal machine that is James Neal. One of the best moments of the game, for sure.
What's Up, Ya Sieve? 