Coaching Around The Canadiens, End of The Detroit “Yankees”?

Once again, the purity of playoff hockey has been tainted by some Coyotes ownership clus-f**kery.  Anytime someone works the just-created ”clust-f**kery” into a blog’s first sentence, you would think it’s gonna be a rant – but no-no, my pretties.  We’re gonna talk fun stuff, ’cause eff this noise.  Just let me know what’s happening when it happens. 

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For starters, a quick thank you:  For reading and commenting so responsibly, and with such a great sense of humour.  Our comment section seems to work more as a conversation, with links shared, jokes, and nobody doing the whole “you don’t even know” thing.  It’s a game – we play it for fun, follow it for fun, and when it gets un-fun, it’s time to find something else to do.  (PS, the Rangers, the Oilers, and the Hurricanes suck.   Yay!  )

Thanks for following me on twitter (we’ve still got some room for growth on that one).  And a special thanks to those of you who’ve donated to the blog.  This thing works like one big job application for me, which thus far hasn’t made me rich, so it’s you folks that have kept the blog running.  I’ve received donations ranging from $5 to $300 dollars (and a 2005 HP!), and believe me, I ain’t playin’ the stock market with it (though I do occasionally donate some to a local bar…. but only when The Hills is on at home and I need to watch hockey.  ITS FOR THE GOOD OF THE BLOG, BRIANNA.)

We hit our first 30,000 visit month!  Let’s keep growing this thing. 

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Now!

*unggh* MOMMMM!

Onto the “just how seriously do we take the Canadiens?” question.  Which, I hope is a short conversation in the Penguins locker room right now.

Very.

As we’ve previously discussed, their less-than-thrilling rope-a-dope style continues to be oddly effective.  Instead of three minutes, however, they generally take beatings for three periods, only to land massive haymakers at the end of six of their last 11 fights.

At times, you get the feeling that a Pittsburgh player could just stop in the neutral zone with the puck and Montreal would leave him be ’til he tried to cross the red line.  It’s like the world’s longest game of red rover, and the Canadiens are a bunch of WWE wrestlers who’ve interlocked hands.

….We call Malkin! over…

I don’t even know what to say anymore, which, I get the vibe, is a similar feeling Bylsma and Bodreau have had.  Someone has to coach their way around this Canadiens team, and I get the hunch hard work and go-go-go isn’t the answer.  I’d like to see more patience, and a “don’t fire ’til you see the whites of his eyes” mentality on Halak (and maybe give him some of the Big Cess treatment).  When a goalie’s hot, contrary to popular opinion, I’m not of the “shoot more, shoot from everywhere” mindset.  You just end up keeping him warm and alert, not to mention you’re wasting valuable possessions.

Confident fella.

Stanley Cup champions have to find a variety of ways to win, have to be versatile.  We’re gonna find out in the next week if the Penguins are as one dimensional as a commenter recently suggested.

{PS – is it possible to not be crazy-intrigued by Subban?  He’s the bright light for Montreal right now, just a super-interesting guy/player.}

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Johan Franzen had a thousand goals and fourteen assists in a 7-1 Red Wings win last night.  Yesterday, I suggested Detroit would win handily (4-1, I think?) just to make all the Sharks supporters “poop just a little”.  And shat themselves, they have.

This musta felt like groundhog ....game?

I’ve never heard so much talk about a potential 3-0 comeback. 

My dad always talked about how hard it was to get that fourth win in a series to close a team out.  Which is doubly scary, since the pressure-pendulum has swung the Sharks way.  The ball is in your court now, fellas. 

My prediction:  Wings take a close game five in San Jose, but San Jose pulls their sh*t together and wins in Detroit in game six.  I also predict that if I’m right on that, the media is going to drag us to hell and back with overreactions about Thornton’s legacy, Marleau’s future, and other mind-numbing circular arguments.

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I heard a few “end of an era” talks about Detroit – the one I’ve linked to there is especially…. what’s a PC word for retarded?  I’ve done some research on the Wings (ooo, I’m a journalist), and here’s what I’ve discovered:

Henrik's Zetterbeard

Players under contract until 2013:

Pavel Datsyuk
Johan Franzen
Henrik Zetterberg
Dan Cleary
Valtteri Filpula
Brian Rafalski
Niklas Kronwall
Brad Stuart

Yes.  They’re going to be terrible.  Especially with Triple Gold Club Member Mike Babcock as their coach (47 years old, a Stanley Cup, Olympic Gold, World Championship Gold, World Junior Gold, and 10 wins in the Stanley Cup finals in the past six seasons)

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Back to Canucks-Blackhawks today, round two in Vancouver.  Will the Canucks win?  Will the reffing be atrocious?  WILL CECIL FIELDER ON SKATES SCORE ANOTHER GOALIE “MAULING” HAT-TRICK?  Also, Boston plays.  I’m calling Philly by two.

Last question of the day:  I need help spelling two things.   1) hattrick, hat trick, hat-trick    (2) commentor, commenter… or …commentisaurus rex? (Be thankful I don’t refer to friends of the blog as “puck buddies”, like my favourite hockey site Puck Daddy.)

TGIF!  Have a great weekend folks.

Three Things On The Way Up

ONE -- Sledge Hockey: Murderball on ice.

I’ve played the majority of all wheelchair sports -- basketball, rugby, hockey, bowling, kayaking, football and cow-tipping - if it exists, I’ve tried it.  And, I’ve been pretty decent at most of it.

My brother Jeff however, is downright good.  From being a gold medalist at the BC Disabled Games, to  dominating the occasional game of Shoot-The-Tennis-Ball-At-Your-Brothers-Junk, he’s always been pretty successful.  In following the family rules, he was always especially good at floor hockey.  Once you master minor complications like “how to move while holding a stick”, the game gets a little easier.

But obviously, hockey could never quite be the same for disabled players as stand-up guys.   Until sledge hockey.

These athletes are about to take the international sports world by storm.

In an exciting move, CTV has committed to showing all of Canada’s games in the 2010 winter Olympics.  Have you seen these guys haul yet?  You’ll be floored, unless (heaven forbid) you get in the way of one of them, in which case you’ll be iced.

Here’s what you need to know to fully enjoy the sport when you watch it on tv (because you will watch it on tv):

Hi, I play for Canada, and I'm better than you at this.

The sleds are balanced on two legit skate blades, with a third little one at the front.  The national team studs have the blades nearly touching each other under their bucket seat, where you’d need them to function like training wheels.  Your first time out on a narrow-bladed sled is like trying to balance in a wheelbarrow on a unicycle… not that easy.

The sticks are nearly flat (like a super-obtuse angle in geometry class), and have picks on the back to pull the sled around.  Only it’s less of a pull, and more of a “holy-christ that human is a missle in a bucket”. 

In a sentence, it’s a well-organized car accident.

And of course, it’s hockey.  The goalie has picks on the bottom of the trapper and blocker for mobility, and also (I assume) because they figured the only way to make hockey more interesting was to make the goalie be a human Swiss-army knife.  Less snow-spraying, more “yessir, no sir, my fault sir”.

Sledge hockey’s popularity is rising, and it’s rising fast.  Like all new sports, its taken awhile to come into it’s own, but there’s some extremely elite players out there that’ll make you feel really bad for doing so little with your four limbs. 

So here it comes.  Just another reason to enjoy a good ol’ fashioned Canada/US on-ice suckerpunch festival.  To complete my sale, give me 45 seconds of your time.  Click!  Sold.

‘

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TWO -- The Crown Float: Tastes like liquified angels.

This, my American friends, is what’s known as a crown float.  It’s 50 percent Strongbow (dry cider), 50 percent Guiness, and 100% better than what you’re drinking right now.

I'm so good I look fake, right?

The black and tan is nice (Guiness over Harp’s or Bass), but not nearly as refreshing.  And you know what?  It’s not alone in the ”strictly-in-Canada” category for popular drinks at our local watering holes.  Here, as you may know, it’s standard practice to drink your beer with Clamato juice.  Not V8, Clamato (yes, that’s clam and tomato).  I loathe it, but it’s everywhere, and, I’m told, is the hangover beverage of the pro’s (where the US cure is the Bloody Mary, Canada answers that as well with a slight variation in the Caesar).

I’m not trying to sell poutine here people.  I’m trying to help.  Strongbow and Clamato.  Call us and we’ll ship you some, it’ll be popular I swear.

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THREE -- My USA Today Blog: My voice to help save the US, one beer at a time.

And last, thanks to those of you who checked out and recommended my first posting on the USA Today website.  Down the left side of www.nhl.usatoday.com, is the “Bourne Blog” option.  The better reception it gets, the better for all of us, because hell, maybe they’ll send me to cover something cool one day.  I’ll start planning for my trip to the 2010 ESPY’s now, just in case.

A Whole New World

OMG, it’s a fancy new page.  To make it even OMGier, I’ve led things off with a video.  I’m concerned that they could become a regular feature, and you should be too.

Ha, that was kinda fun.

First, a major thanks to Hockey Primetime (www.hockeyprimetime.com) for making the new site possible.  Second, nobody wants to hear me rattle off a slew of thank you’s, so I’ll stop.  And, I’m thinking if I do end up making more video entries, I’ll do something like Jon Lajoie’s Everyday Normal Guy.  If you don’t like bad language, I’d stick to my puppy pics.

Reffing, Superstars and King Hippo

I want to start today right by thanking my readers – the month of May was the fifth month this blog has been in business, and in that month it recieved nearly 20,000 hits.  I’d throw you all a party, but my hunch is you’re not all that local – so like I said:  Thanks.

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Somewhere between the conference and Stanley Cup finals, the referees decided to revert back to the days of yesteryear. 

I’m all for letting the players decide the game.  But remember what happened when we let everything go in the ‘90’s?  Remember the hook ‘n’ hold grab-fests that minimized the games greatest players and elevated guys like Claude Lemieux?  Why are we doing that again? 

Hockey turned the corner in the last three or four years, thanks largely in part to a number of rule changes that allowed our games greatest stars to really demonstrate their talents.  

Fans have fallen back in love with the game.  Close fought playoffs contests have ended in scores like 7-5 and 5-4 because we’ve taken the reigns off and let the horses run.  It’s a shame to see the refs revert back to the old whistle-in-the-pocket theory, calling a mere five powerplays combined for both teams over both games (with the exception of the end of game two where five more were called in a Malkin induced outpouring of frustration). 

In the end, the games aren’t about the reffing.  All you can hope is that at the end of the series, nobody thinks about them ever again.  That’s the sign of a job well done by the stripes. 

But we need consistency - Pittsburgh is a team that thrives on working hard to create powerplays and striking like some venomous viper the second they have the extra man.  Detroit is deadly on it too. 

Teams need to play five on five to decide the games, for sure – but you can’t argue with what calling the game tighter has done for the way guys defend, and the room it afford the studs.  Aaaannnnyyyways, let get on to the really important stuff, like Nintendo’s Super Punch Out.

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But first, superstars:

Isn’t it interesting how teams seem to take on the personality of their superstars?  Take the Penguins.  Wouldn’t it be impossible to goof off and not care when you know Sid is gonna commit Hari Kari if he doesn’t win?  Or, on the other side of the coin, wouldn’t you slowly get ostracized in the Capitals dressing room if you weren’t able to have fun while playing?

The Cavaliers are fun because Lebron is.  The Lakers are as fun algebra because Kobe is, and the Yankees are awkward and unlikeable because Go Away-Rod is.  This has to be why teams are putting in more time getting to know the kids they’re about to draft than back in the day.

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How about Nintendo making the Super Punch Out comeback with class.  I loved this commercial (and even found the extended version), namely because nobody got stuck on King Hippo… he was a real soup can.

Glass Joe should stop boxing.  I mean, really, that guy was a bad fighter.  He doesn’t even look like he likes to fight.  I dunno, just a thought.

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That’s all for today.  I’m due to bust out a new piece for The Hockey News and Max Hockey, so I best get to it!