The Front Nine (Sports Thoughts)

Before we begin, a video: The very second Tracy Porter makes the interception and runs it back for a touchdown, everyone knows the game is over.  Take a couple second gander at how this bar in New Orleans felt about that:

Um, they were excited.

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Alrighty – my TBAF (To Blog About Files) are stuffed full.  It’s time to play 18 holes – nine today, nine tomorrow.  Let’s tee off:

#1) 

Charging is defined as taking more than three strides (or maybe it’s two, whatever) before hitting a guy.  The problem with that definition is, IT’S HOCKEY.  You’re taking strides to get everywhere.  When a hit becomes available, you’ve been taking strides, so the question becomes… How long do you have to coast to nullify a charge?  If you’re hustling on the backcheck, and some guy starts to cut to the middle, how are you supposed to skate to legally be able to separate the man from the puck?  I think we need to make charging more about intent than about a physical description of the play.

Affectionately known as "Snatch". Seriously. Like, the radio guy calls him that on air.

#2) 

For the first time this season, I checked out some ECHL stats yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised.  Turns out my boy Ryan Kinasewich is leading the league in points, which is awesome.  It’s the guys sixth ECHL year, and he’s got a million ECHL points, but I guess AHL teams are like… Nope, he just scores too consistently, it’s really annoying.  He wasn’t drafted.  He doesn’t fit our mold of ”big and young.”  I just checked – he’s played 264 ECHL games over six seasons, with 362 points (156 goals, 32 so far this year).  He’s still only 26.

#3)

I haven’t gotten around to doing the research yet, but I think it’s a fair question to discuss:  I haven’t seen Ilya Kovalchuk play much (like the rest of you), but everyone loves to spout that he’s a defensive liability.  I’ve looked for it in the past few games, and haven’t seen it. 

He’s a career -84 or so, but has played on mostly bad Atlanta teams, playing the other teams top line or top shutdown line.  From personal experience, I can tell you the team and line you’re on makes all the difference in that category, and it’s only fair to judge a player’s +/- against those teammates.  What was Atlanta’s even strength goal differential while he was there, -400?  No way someone that big and talented can be as bad as I keep hearing on D.  I’m just not buying it.

Far too one-handable.

#4)

No league does a championship trophy like the NHL.  Are you shitting me, Stanley Cup?  How perfect are you?  All tall like that, with a nice weighty feel (I’m told).  It’s a substantial prize worth hoisting over your head.  And with all the mystique around touching it, and the keeper of the cup in white gloves, it just makes a guy think: the NFL should be ashamed of itself.  This is America.  Bigger is better, right EntireCountry?  That’s your damn sport.  Now go build a better goddamn trophy and do the name Lombardi some justice!

#5)

Brooks Orpik (Pittsburgh) and Andrew Macdonald (New York Islanders) look so much alike it’s bizarre.  I will continue hammering this point home until I get an amen.

Fine, maybe these pics don’t do it perfect justice, but just wait til A-Mac lets it get stubbly.  It’s boggling.  The only reason I’m not making “twin” claims is that A-Mac doesn’t do that prolonged, distant stare that Orpik favors.  Thankfully.

Goal and an apple vs. STL

 #6)

For forwards, playing well without getting points sucks.  Your point total from a given game rarely tell the story of how you played, so it sucks when you make all the right decisions and don’t get rewarded.  Stastny finally got a couple points last night, but he’s been playing better than his production.

 #7)

A few nights back, I was watching a Red Wings game in which Bertuzzi snapped his head back to fake getting high-sticked (a move I didn’t think people actually did without some level of contact).  He successfully drew the penalty (even “checked” for blood!), putting the Wings dangerous powerplay unit on the ice.  A day later, I saw Alexander Semin to something similar. 

So my question is:  if we suspend players when they do something we don’t want in the game (cheap hits), why shouldn’t we suspend players for that play, in obvious circumstances?  They’re cheating, and we want that out of the game, right?  I’m not talking embellishments.  I mean, “dude, that stick never got above your logo”.  I’m talking about sitting beside Bertuzzi and watching the play with him and going, “Look – you intentionally tried to fuck over the refs and the legitimacy of the game there.  We don’t need 10 year olds in the NHL.  Go sit in the corner for a few nights and think about what you’ve done.”

#8)

Bob Gainey stepped down.  As DownGoesBrown tweeted “Gainey “voluntarily” stepped down the way I “voluntarily” leave the bar after the bouncer tells me he’s kicking me out”.  Thought that was the best analogy EVER.

Yeahh-eya-eyaeya, it's a party in the USA.

#9)

I want a golfer to write a tell-all book. And nothing to do with Tiger.  I just imagine it’s such an interesting lifestyle.  Do some guys fly private planes, and some fly coach?  There must be such a discrepancy between the quality of life for the top and bottom golfers.  Who “makes it rain”, who’s a cheap prick (Ben Crane right?  Has to be Ben Crane), who are the A-holes (Phil?  Really?  FIGJAM!), who’s a drunk (Anthony Kim, eh?), all that stuff.  I need to know!

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So there you have it!  The front nine ended on a golf topic.  Chime in on what you know about, want to know about, or just type some words into the comment box.  We’re a big happy sports (okay, largely hockey) discussion site.  Dive in.

The Preseason Marathon

A little pre-season insight:

For players whose season is going to start in the ECHL, the preseason is longer than Islander fans tolerance for losing.  And slightly more like Chinese Water Torture.  With less pay.  You’re being evaluated  *drip* You’re being evaluated *drip* You’re being evaluated *drip*.

For them, it seems like it takes a lifetime to get to a meaningful game.  The NHL team invites all their guys under contract (plus hopefuls), while knowing the majority of them are going to play farther down the ladder.  They just want to check if their unpicked fruit has ripened.  A chunk of these guys at camp are on three-year NHL deals, and the team simply knows that they’re paying to have the guy in the last year of that contract, if at all.

Also, capable of doing an amazing "Herbert" from Family Guy

{Tangent #1 - I wrote a column for Hockey Primetime about my thoughts on development here.  If I were an NHL GM, I’d leave the developing to someone else.}

{Tangent #2 - One of those three-year-contract guys that will pan out is Andrew Macdonald, Islanders defenseman.  Guy got so crazy good, so crazy quick in the ECHL it was scary.  Spent last year being great in the AHL.  Got NHL games.  Keep your eye on him, he’s a gifted player… and looks like Brooks Orpik.}

Those ECHL players will start the ride at rookie camp in June.  Then the main camp in September.  It’s a week to ten days of practices and exhibition games, being constantly evaluated at everything you do (including social interactions).    Then they’ll get sent to the AHL camp.  The same week to ten days happens there, albeit with less media pressure and less perks.  Then ECHL camp.  Subtract media and perks again.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

For those guys who do the three league countdown, they’ll show up at NHL camp around September 12th, and play their first game in the ECHL nearly a month later, around October 7th (then the kicker – you don’t get paid for three weeks.  By November, they’re near starvation.  If I was a part of a players union, guys would get paid something for training camp).

It’s a tough time of the year for those guys, and I feel their pain.  Nothing pummels the ego quite like getting cut twice to start the year.  Re-hashing that ride, I can’t help but notice how comfy this couch is…

{Tangent #3 - No preseason is as miserable as the college preseason.  Arrival: mid-August. First game: mid-October. Two months: takes two years.}

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I watched a special on the guy who holds the ball for the kicker in football (Usually the 14th string QB, no?).  He’s a Superbowl champion.  First guy to run out of the tunnel ahead of the team too.  And I quote: “I was so excited, there was no way anyone was beating me outta that tunnel”. 

…Hmm.  Yeah.  …Yeah, you proabably deserved that honour.

But after thinking about it, is there any job in sports that holds a less-appealing goat to hero ratio?  You know, as far as the potential to become one or the other goes?

Two percent chance of being a hero.  Tops.  Maybe a bad snap is corraled, and you get the ball down in time for the kick (which is rarely noticed anyways.  It’d have to be a real bad snap). 

For every time you save a play, there’s probably 650 ruined by flubbed snap catches and bad ball placement.  650 – 1 goat to hero ratio?  Laces out, Finkle.  

(*goat-to-hero figures may not be precise)