Habs Win, A Joe Pavelski Story

New Puck Daddy: the formula you need to follow to pull of an upset

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Well, it appears the Habs are out to make me look like an asshole…. again.  If you remember last year (or saw the comment on yesterday’s post), last year I predicted the Habs to get beat by the Capitals in….three games.  Not even four, I was so sure the Caps would steamroll them.  And we all know how that turned out – the Habs made the Eastern Conference final.

I picked them again to get swept, and again, they come out and win.  Brutes.

Anyway, at least it’ll make for an interesting series (as long as they lose in the end so I can collect on my bet about them, y’know, losing in the first round).

As for the other gambly updates: Jordan Staal had an apple in game one, so that’s good.  Three bottom seeded teams won, which doesn’t scare me all that much.  And we’ll find out more tonight if the series I predicted to go long can get knotted up!

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I thought this was a great pic of one of the Gillies three Newfoundlands, the eldest, Hunter:

Hunty-hoo. Big boah.

Good lookin’ ol fella.

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So Joe Pavelski got it done for the San Jose Sharks last night, which is not out of the ordinary for him.  He was money in last year’s playoffs, and it reminded me of a little story from college.

My freshman year of college, we beat the Wisconsin Badgers in a best of three at the Kohl Center to go to the Final Five in St. Paul.  We were an eight-seed, and they were the three-seed.  My sophomore year, we met in playoffs again as the same seeds…..only they had Joe Pavelski now.

Great picture, no?

I can’t explain why, but we had them on the ropes again.  We lost game one after blowing a third period lead, but came out the next night and took it to them to knot the series up at three (BTW, we played this series in some other rink in Wisconsin that looked like Madison Square Garden on the inside, if Madison Square Garden was weird. Dane County something-or-other?).

Well, we actually got off to a good start, when one of our lower line guys scored a short-handed goal on a pure breakaway snipe.  By the third period, we were up 4-2. 

And then we got Pavelski’d, and never made it to overtime.

It wasn’t just that he took the game over (I’m pretty sure he had three points in the third period of their 5-4 win), it was the way he did it.  I have to describe his goal that either tied it or put them ahead (it all blends together now):

So, our d-men are doing a good job keeping him on the paint in our zone – he’s got solid possession in the corner, and somehow, through a poor switch or a good move, he ends up getting an opening to take the puck to the net.  He’s still behind the goal line though, so he could go in front or behind.

At one point, he looks like he’s going to go deeper behind the goal line and take the puck behind the net.  He’s a righty, coming from the right, so when the puck is on his forhand, it’s near the boards.

But as he’s skating towards the cage, he brings it way across to his backhand – maybe six inches above the goal line – and in a smooth stick-handle, goes backhand-crossbar-down with his skates still at least a foot behind the goal-line.  Nobody had a sniff what happened it was so slick.

It was our “well, we just don’t have talent like that on our team, good for you assholes” moment.

The guy is clutch, has been clutch, and will always be clutch.  Dude can flat-out play.

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TGIF.  Yessssssss….

Best. Punch. Ever.

There’s something unique about every city in the world, but no place has unique like Alaska.  When my uncle moved from New York, he had to have an NY parking ticket to commemorate his years there.

Ours wasn't nearly this "cherry".

When I left Alaska, I wanted a couple of items to commemorate my time, too.  I’m still two items short of completing my mission.  One is a WLFHKY vanity plate from the Geo Tracker that my roommate and I spent $400 total dollars on and drove for three years (we left the car as a tip for our waitress on the way to the airport.  For real.  Title, registration, paperwork and all.  Thanks for the good service).

And second, for which I’d like to enlist the help of an Alaskan reader, if there’s anyway you can send me a placemat from Sea Galley, I’d be extremely grateful.  Our team ate pregame meal there for four years, and the mat lists everything you need to know about the state of Alaska, which of course we memorized as a part of our meal-time trivia game routine - if you were called on, you had to answer the state bird (Willow Ptarmigan), flower (Forget-Me-Not… I did), state gem (jade) and a million other things about the state that you weren’t aware it had an “official” one of (I had to google two of those three… embarrassing).

Also, as a mini-trivia question to those of you from Anchorage… what other facts are on the Sea Galley placemat?

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You know it's not my picture, cause this guy owns some crazy bike. But that's the highway.

The University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves do a rookie party like no other.  And I mean literally, because no other school has the option to drive you into the middle of the wilderness by a glacial river.  And let the record show that “drive you into the middle of nowhere” means stay on the Seward Highway for about 22 minutes from downtown, then decide that’s not “middle” enough, and continue on for two more unnecessary hours.

Here’s how the greatest punch I’ve ever seen got thrown:

Rookie party all starts back at the dressing room the day before the weekend, when the older three classes pair up, put the rookies in as many layers of sweatpants and sweatshirts and jerseys as possible, then stick them in the sauna while conducting a draft.  The sauna part is totally unnecessary, it’s just funny for the other guys cause the rookies need to leave the room for a bit anyways.

The oldest seniors get to draft the first overall rookie.  That lucky rookie (and everyone after) has to buy all the food and booze for an overnight trip for the three of you.  It’s about a 100$ hit, but after your rookie year the trip is free, so whatever.  The trick is to draft a rookie with rich parents so you can get steaks and good beer over hotdogs and Natty Light (those “are your parents rich” questions seem awkward the first week).

Upon your arrival in nowheresville, Edward 40hands is the first go-to drinking event of choice for most guys.

That’s when a 40 oz. beer is taped to both hands with duct tape, and can’t be untaped until both are empty.  It makes having to pee a difficult situation, so you better drink that second one quickly.

The night is highlighted by rookie olympics, which is essentially explained best by the sentence ”here, drink this, spin your head on this, run there, and drink that”.  The theme, if you’re still missing it, is that you drink a lot.

Billy Smith was a rookie (plays at Northern Michigan now) with Jolly (both born and bred Alaskans, which you can tell from a ten minute conversation with either of them), and neither of them tended to drink all that much all that often.  So chalk it up to that, cause these guys generally really liked each other.

I was walking by Smith when I heard him make a joke to Jolly.  Like a genuine, big smile, joke.  And while Billy smiled, Jolly pulled his left hand back, and in a smooth, natural, football throwing motion, punched Smith dead square in his mouth.  For no reason.

Wonder if that's the one Chad Anderson tried to ride?

Smith fell back like he was about to make a snow angel.  Thinking there was gonna be trouble, someone went to get between the two when Smith bounced up, lips bleeding, smiling, and gave Jolly a big hug, then went on his way.  Happy drunk, huh?  End of event.  Nothing further.  It was the dudiest dude moment I’ve ever seen.

It’s the rugged Alaskan in them both.  Hell, I woke up my rookie year in a sleeping bag by a river – it had to be below freezing, maybe 7 a.m.  I moved my eyes, not my head (which was covered in frost), and there was a moose about 50 feet to my left.  This was my first month in Alaska, and my first “what the hell did I do to my life?” moment.  At least I didn’t get socked in the mouth, I guess.

Alaska.  Where dudes punch dudes near moose.  Now there’s a goddamn official state slogan.

The One With Josh Ciocco

My favourite comment of yesterday didn’t come on the blog, but courtesy my fiance.  I was grabbing a quote for an upcoming article via text from a guy I respect and admire, and she dropped:  ”Did you just send a smiley-face to Bill Guerin?” on me.  Man, when you put that in context, it really does sound inappropriately fruity.

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UAA jerseys were style at it's finest. I just love 'em.

Commentor “Mike” asked a question about gear, to which I responded that a few of my thoughts on gear (on style, really), can be found here from about ten days ago on hockeyprimetime.com.  After explaining to him that I wasn’t a “gear bitch”, the term used to refer to guys who always need their gear fixed, new, changed or something, our trainer (PD) from college backed me, and the rest of my college class up here (especially Mark Smith, right Peeds?  That guy would’ve used a field hockey stick if that’s what you gave him.)

In keeping with the style and gear theme, the following is a great comment from a former teammate in Josh Ciocco.  But first, let me give a you quick bio on the guy:

Josh and I were both right wingers in Vernon.  Josh was probably the toughest 5’10″ (generous?) hockey player I’ve ever played with, and he could play the game too (in fact, if I recall, you didn’t love the fighting part?)  I was probably the softest 6’2″ (generous?) hockey player you’d ever seen, but I could play too (thank god).  The University of New Hampshire liked us both.  They flew me down to tour the campus.  Apparently, for their right winger spot, they wanted 5’10″, tough and talented, as opposed to 6’2″, talented and deathly afraid of violence (nah, it’s cool man, we almost made the frozen four in Alaska too, enjoy the scholarship).

Making the cage cool is like making a seatbelt cool - thus, style is tough in collge.

{Semi-tangent here, for Josh – the one game they came to watch us both, I hit you with a breakaway pass in overtime for the game winner (lacrosse play), and you had a scholarship there within weeks. The “donate” button is on the right.}

He became the captain there (oooo congratu-frickin-lations), played pro, blah blah.  Where this is headed, is that it’s nice to find a good bitching partner.  There’s a bitching club on every team, really.  They get really big when the coach is an ass, or the team is losing.  It’s cathartic, like therapy.  And Josh and I could bitch like no other.  In fact, when we met in a pro game four years later, we went out and did the exact same thing.  But anyways, here’s how the world of gear and style went down at UNH:

“At UNH, my roomates and I played bad style poker for like, three weeks. We would play blind hands of poker, if you won, you were out, the last one in, or the “loser”, would have to have some sort of bad style in practice the next day. We would have one loser for each game, and we would play multiple games for bad style. You hit the nail on the head with most of them, but these were the topics we went with…Tape your tuuks black, Full tuck on the jersey, neck guard or turtle neck, socks pulled over the heels, klima tape job on the stick, and no tape on sock-shin pads so they’re falling all over the place. Sometimes there would be multiple losers, im laughing here picturing Jacob Mcflikier take to the ice with black tuuks, a fully tucked jersey, and socks over the heels…..On a side note, you know how you write notes on the whiteboard to the trainer and sign your number under it? example, “Can I please get a new stick, thanks, 14″ I used to love writing the note, “can I please get a neck guard for the game tomorrow, thanks, “someone elses number” good times.”

That was a priceless move, the requesting of something for someone else.  “A smaller cup, 18″ or for a right-handed linemate who can’t score “left-handed stiff-flex Sakic curve, 17″.

And last, from the Ciocco files, a testament to both of our getting older (and his getting whipped):

I love animals.  I frequently run animal pictures on my blog.  Josh’s girlfriend’s dog (why aren’t you two crazy kids married yet?  Would you ask her that for me?) is in a cute contest, and is giving the money to charity.  Something about fighting animal cruelty, I forget.  Rest assured it’s a real one (or maybe it was “the human fund”…).  Third prize is $500, second is $5,000, and first is A MILLION STUPID CUTENESS RELATED DOLLARS.

This is Merlin the Puggle:

You're the one who wanted "my dog is in a cuteness competition" published, not me.

If you think he’s cute, and I do, follow this link and give him your vote!