Yesss New Roster Photos

by Anne

I absolutely love roster photo day. Who shines? Who smiles with their eyes? Who suffers from that dreaded disease Roster Photo Panic, more commonly known as RPP?

Unfortunately, most of these boys seem to be better prepared for these photos. No one looks like they slept in the car last night, there's the standard "cut by a weed whacker" hockey hair, vacant stares and odd lighting. However, let's check out some high (and low) lights:

Oh Sir Christopher
You could use a trim, but I'll forgive you


Aww Pie's all growed up.
He got himself hitched this summer.
Awwwww.


Awwww, Little Foot always mixes up his photos.
This is tiny because there's no watermark


Felix has a remarkably thick neck
And a remarkably vacant facial expression


Ha.
Hahahha
Jacob Lagace looks like he took a puck to the head, someone pulled a jersey on him and pushed him in the direction of the stool and he almost missed.


The photographer told all the Kings to put their hands on their lap and lean slightly forward
Dewey complied


Greener did too


All the Oilers roster photos look like they were taken in a bathroom


Aww, Matt Duchene's first NHL roster photo

I could not come across rosters for many other teams, so many of my other WCBs don't have roster photos up yet or they're not hilarious or adorable.

Wooooo. Hockey is almost here! Fo' Reals. The Canucks beat the Islanders 2-1 in the Hockeyville game last night. Hooray!

Anne's Review of the 2009 NHL Awards Show

by Anne

I didn't watch any of the Awards show so my entire experience is from the perspective of Twitter and the photo gallery:

I told you Iggy won the award for being badass and bald

Hey Steve!
Congrats!
Love the stripes

Oh Kes.
Oh goodness.
A comb, my love, a comb.

In case you'd forgotten how badass and bald he is

My Oilers WCB won the King Clancy!
Yay!
Captain, badass, charitable, adorable children?
Perfection

My Mom and I just had this conversation:

Me: I thought Sid was at the Awards? There's no pictures of him.

Mom: He was busy tracking down Lidstrom to shake his hand.

Spot on, Peg. Spot. On.

S-eye of Relief

by Anne

Phew! Some good news!

WCB Ethan Moreau, captain of the Edmonton Oilers, took a nasty blow to the eye via a high stick in the dying seconds of the Oilers' game v. the Minnesota Wild on Saturday night.

Fortunately, after the swelling went down they were able to fully explore the damage and its *just* a bruised retina and scratched cornea. No surgery required and so far it appears there won't be any permanent damage. However, a visor likely would've prevented even this relatively minor injury.

Hooray! The poor boy has had so many injuries over the last few seasons, hopefully this won't turn into anything more serious later on.

Saturday Shenanigans

by Anne

I would really like the Bandits to score fewer goals, please. I'm glad that the Bandits are so successful and I hope they continue to be, but after a while the sound of the goal horn gives me a headache. And that friggin' announcer dude is so annoying and there are so many cheers and drums and I have to yell a lot and AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

I was just trying to figure out if the Bandits have lost this season and yes, once. Never at home. They have 105 goals on the season, the next closest team has 85. So yes, they do score lots.

They also have a player named Brett Bucktooth. Words cannot describe what an awesome name that is.

I'm about 99% sure Chris Butler was at the game tonight, wandering about the 200 level. All I could think was "Aw, Buts, don't you have a lady to spend Valentine's Day with?" He probably does but I just felt sad at the possibility that he was just like alone in Buffalo where he probably doesn't know anyone. My mother of course was like "Why didn't you talk to him?" I had a hard time explaining that we're not supposed to bother players regardless of the event going on at the Arena.

I worked on the 200 level and I've never been there before but it was cool. I set up near where they film the post-game show. I can definitely see the perks to sitting in the 200 level. Except for the major perk that I'm on the 300 level. Speaking of which, I saw Kim on Friday! Hooray!

Around the league tonight, the only thing that interested me was I saw that WCBs Matt Greene and Ethan Moreau got five minute majors for fighting each other. Former teammates dropping the gloves. Ok, it wasn't really that much of a fight but if you had to pick a winner, I suppose Greener would have been it.

Sergei Gonchar is finally back for Pittsburgh!! Yay! So many people were hoping he was the shot in the arm the Pens needed ............... he was a -1 and the Pens lost 6-2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Ok, it was just his first game back, it'll take a few for him to get up to speed. I guess a Pens loss is good for us, but they're five points back so they become less of a threat all the time.

I saw The Reader today. It was quite good, recommend it. So far Slumdog is still my pick for winner, but The Reader is a very close 2nd. If you want to see a lot of Kate Winslet's boobs and a lot of love scenes and lots to do with Nazi war crimes, The Reader is for you.

Thank GOD

by Anne

Phew. What a relief.

I'm tired so I will write a handy dandy bulleted list for the Sabres:

• Gerbe and Staffy each had 4 shots on goal

• Staffy had 3 points(1+2)

• Staffy played by far his best game of the season. The Pittsburgh game was previously his best, but this one has taken its place

• For some reason on the Boxscore, Gerbe is listed first even though its organized by number and he wore 42...?

• Jochen Hecht fought Vinny Lecavalier and kind of won

• If you watch the video, you can see Steve Downie mouth "help me" to a ref when he and Adam Mair were do-si-doing in their fight. In his defense, Mairsy was pummeling him (HA!)

• Andrej Sekera was fired for a few minutes when his stick deflected the puck just enough so Millsy's glove was like 2 inches too low to stop it but would've been fine if his stick weren't there

• Watching Goose, Hank and Staffy smash Gerbe into the glass in celebration was awesome

• Goose also gave Gerbe lots of pats on the head in the post game lovefest

• Miller looked good most of the night

• Our power play didn't muster a single shot on goal for at least the first two power plays, but possibly longer, I basically stopped watching when we had the man advantage

• Gerbe had an awesome no-look backhand shot on net that Mike Smith was not prepared for and almost bounced over his pad and in

• MK and I were bored so we made a Nathan Gerbe Mii on Wii. There's also a Lindy one

• Because MK declared Staffy looks like a brontosaurus, she's decided to take the nickname one step further and call him "Littlefoot" I could not approve of this nick name more

• Vanek and Jeff Carter are still duking it out for the goal scoring lead

• Our penalty kill was perfect again and improves the streak to 24 PKs with no goals allowed

• Danny Paille and Paul Ranger should consider a career in pairs figure skating:

Lovely synchronization, boys
Just work out the stick placement and you'll be pulling down 10s

Around the NHL:

• Sharpie scored his team-leading 15th goal of the season in a 5-4 shootout loss to the Red Wings :/

• J.P. Dumont scored the lone goal in Nashville's 1-0 win over the Wild

• Greener had no points but had over 24 minutes of ice time. It seems to be creeping up as the season goes along. Yay!! The Kings beat the Blue Jackets 3-0

• I love it when two of my WCBs are photographed slamming each other into the boards:

Aw, for me?
You shouldn't have.

• Ethan Moreau is the first hockey player I've ever seen who does not answer "chicken and pasta" or "chicken and rice" or really pasta of any kind as their pre-game meal:

If you can't read it, it syas "Fish and salad. That's about it."

A good win for the Sabres, and the Pirates won as well, 5-2. Colton Fretter had a hat trick?!? Wooo! Funk was hurt after being hit from behind by the Devils' Salmonella Poisoning. Oy, the boy just got over a concussion too. Jhonas Enroth stopped 31 of 33 and improved to 8-2-2.

I really like writing posts when both of our teams win.

Pirates Win Again!

by Anne

Pirates won a big game in Worchester last night to take the lead in the Atlantic division!!

Three familiar players had multi point games: Gerbe (3+1) +1 (first pro hat trick!!!), Mancari (2+1) +2 and Kennedy (0+3) +1. GerbeDerby also had a game-high 6 shots on goal.

I'm just about ready for Mark Mancari to move up to Buffalo. He's really been bringing his game this season and I'd love to see if he can move that into the NHL. I'm obviously looking forward to Gerbe, but he needs more defense before he comes up here. What a difference for Mancari this season. He's a new player in Portland, third in the entire AHL in points with 17 (7+10). FYI, Kennedy is 5th in the AHL in points with 15 (3+12) and 2nd in assists. Gerbe is 6th in points with 13 (10+3) and 2nd in goals.

TK improves his point streak to 9 games!!!

This win improves the Pirates to 7-1-1. WOO!

TRIO OF HOTNESS

Dear Kyle McLaren,

I know the girls of Slightly Saucy love you, especially Soph, HOWEVER I MUST CHIDE YOU. Please do not club Nathan Gerbe in the face with your forearm after the buzzer signaling the end of the 2nd period. I don't appreciate that. Its a good thing Gerbe is not afraid of you. I kind of am, but I am not Nathan Gerbe in spite of my best efforts. I know you're upset about no longer being in the NHL, but Nathan has not yet even reached the NHL, and we in Buffalo hope he will get here some day soon. C'mon, Kyle, he's probably like the same height as your daughter.

Thanks!

You managed to be +2 this game which is impressive. I hope you return to the NHL soon, for Soph's sake.

Love,
Anne

Kevin Weekes nabbed a shoot out win for the Devils tonight against the Lightning, allowing only 1 goal on 3 shootout attempts and making 24 saves in regulation and OT. The real winner tonight was the Devils offense, peppering Tampa Bay with 38 shots through the first 65 minutes of play and scoring twice in the shootout. 1 game down.... 30 games to go....

WCB Watch

Ethan Moreau scored a short handed goal in a 5-4 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Rick Nash had 1 assist. Helpers are nice, but you're pretty good at scoring goals, Nasher, please get to gettin'.

He hits


And SCORES!!!!

I gave up on the Ducks/Blues game after the first period because Tuesday night's election shenanigans kept me up late and I needed to pass out.

Three days in a row without a Sabres game is wayyyyyyy toooooo loonnnnngggg. Just like all of those words were.

Sabres Win! Pirates Win! The EARTH Wins!

by Anne

Why does the Earth win? Because when my teams are doing well, I'm convinced it means that the Earth is functioning as it should.

This afternoon I said to my Mom "I'm not glad Pominville and Roy haven't been scoring lately." and WOOOOOO!!! Vanek! Vanek! PIE! ROYZIE! POMMMMERRRRR!!! Kaleta and Paille were so unexpectedly slick on PieYAY's goal!!!

MILLSY WITH THE SHUTOUT! YAY! YAY! YAY! Timmy got a point in his first game! Yay!

Who-?


There he is again, who IS that guy?



Bahahahahahahhahahahahah Adam Mair
hahahahha what an EXCELLENT face

The Pirates won their second game in a row against the Norfolk Admirals 5-3! Kennedy, Darche and Mancari each had a goal and 2 assists!! Somehow Gerbe had 0 points and was -3 ... uhhhhh... that's ok Nate, we can't all have great nights and continue our point scoring streak, RIGHT, TK?!?!!!!

WCB Watch

Ethan Moreau scored 2 goals to end Edmonton's 5 game losing streak!!! Yay!!!

Work it, Grrrrrl


YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!

Marty Turco is fired as my Dallas WCB. I can't handle watching him give up 5 goals over and over and over again. Should I pick Fabian Brunnstrom or I might pick Jere Lehtinen because he was born in "Espoo"??

Sharpie scored in Chicago's shootout victory over Columbus in which Nasher had an assists and NINE shots on goal, adding to Columbus' 51 total shots on goal. Huet seemed to face a lot of shots but not too many of them were really worth much.

J.P. had an assist in Nashville's 3-2 shootout win over Florida!!

JKee had 0 points in a 6-3 loss to the Pens, but YAY Pens!! They needed a road win, they've been struggling lately. Looks like Sid's "undisclosed" injury isn't that serious because he had 2 points (0+2) on the night and over 22 minutes of ice time.

ONo didn't play in the Wild's match up with the Coyotes and Peter Mueller was underwhelming.

Olli Jokinen's face reads: "Eh, I suppose you'll do for a hug."

Speaking of Olli Jokinen, doesn't this picture, one of a series of pictures featured on Coyotes.com, make you want to be a 'Yotes fan?

If you buy season tickets, you can ALL be as cool as Olli Jokinen



WHERE DO I GET THOSE TICKETS?!?!

Iggy registered 0 points in the Flames win over the Kings BUT he did win all 3 faceoffs he took. Kings' WCB Matt Greene also did not appear on the score sheet as per usual. but had a couple of hits and at least 1 blocked shot. In an interesting change, or rather, lack of a change, the Kings two goals were scored by the same person. Also the same person got both primary assists and another player got both secondary assists. This is made even more unique in that one was on the power play and one was not.

LOOK! THEY'RE IN A PICTURE TOGETHER!!
MY 2 TOP WESTERN FAVORITES!!
and Todd Bertuzzi....
BUT LOOKIT IGGY AND GREENER!!!


Ok, Iggs, we need to talk.
The game is easier to play when your knees are not touching the ice.
Food for thought.
Chew on it, let me know what you think.

Bills play tomorrow!! Here's hoping these winning vibes carry over to football!!

WOOOO!!!

by Anne

That game was pretty wicked SWEEEEET.

Sorry Alix. :(

I'm pretty sure it would've been more like 3-2 if Luongo had been in net but WHATEV. It was a tough well-fought game on both sides.

Pat Kaleta, do we need to have a talk? Watch those diving penalties, baybay.

Great fight by Petey. Nice to see him throwing the fists rather than just dancing around and then falling over. Yay Petey! I still love you!!!

I hereby commit my heart and soul to Thomas Vanek. Like, for serious, I don't think I've loved a man as much as I love Thomas Vanek right now. SERIOUSLY HAVE MY BABIES. OR I'LL HAVE YOURS IF YOU WANT TO GO THE TRADITIONAL ROUTE.

Big Bear scored a goal!!!!!......on Ryan Miller. I'm not sure how to take that...should I be excited? Well, no, of course not. Should I be mad...? no, especially because we still won.... I'm so all over the place on that goal.

I FINALLY GET TO SAY ONE OF MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE PHRASES:

JARO SHOOT PUCK SCORE GOAL WIN GAME.

Ahem, moving along: as is evidenced by the poll over at The Goose's Roost, Kotalik appears to be really stepping up his game early on this season. Two goals in one game for his third in 4 games. That's pretty darn sweet, Al. You're still not in my top 5 but you definitely win the Timmy-Max-Al battle of the UFAs.

Things that happened tonight at the Arena that don't happen every night:

• We have a pool in the commissary where I work. You pay $2 and pick a token out of a cup that has a number on it. If the total number of goals scored in the game matches that number, you win. I pulled the last token: 7. Woooo! 5 Sabres goals and 2 Canucks goals = an extra $20 in my pocket. It was good because tips were a little slow tonight
• A guy asked to take a picture with me for reasons known only to him
  
• I saw a Sedin. I'm not sure which one, but I saw one of them downstairs after the game. He was texting or calling someone or doing something that involved deep concentration on his phone. Maybe he was playing solitaire. I think I saw some other Canucks but it was kind of dark where they were standing so I couldn't ID them.
  
• A man threatened (under his breath) to shove me down the stairs if I walked in front of him. Let me point out that the score at the time was 4-1, it was the 3rd period and we were not on the power play. And its the 4th game of the season. CHILLAX.

In other news I'm not sure how I feel about: LA Kings WCB Matt Greene has signed an extension with the Kings. On the one hand, job security RAWKS, but on the other, does that mean Darcy won't make me a happy camper and trade for him? Yes? No? Darcy? Larry? Sabretooth?

On the rest of the games played Friday night:

Columbus WCB, Rick Nash scored 2 goals (yay!) and 2008 Draft Choice, Nikita Filatov, scored his first NHL goal in a 5-3 victory over the Nashville Predators. I think the Preds REALLY lost because I haven't selected a Nashville WCB.

The 'Yotes also lost, probably for the same reason.

My one true Western Conference love (Jarome Iginla) and his Flames lost round 1 of the battle of Alberta, 4-3 to the Edmonton Oilers. Neither Jarome or Oilers WCB, Ethan Moreau scored. :(

Did I mention that our PK is still 100%??!?!?!?!!!!!

I mean on the one hand, we did let in twice as many goals as we have in the past 3 games....

Does anyone else notice you're thinking a lot less about Ryan Miller these days than you did last season?

I know its early, but this goal celebration is creeping into my top moments of the season, hahahaha. This picture is on the list of top photos for sure, haha.

The Carubba Collision of the Game

LET'S GO BUFF-A-LO!
DON'T BLOW IT AGAINST THE THRASHERS!!!

Every Hockey Player Loves Two Things: Steak and Entourage

by Anne


I could spend probably the entire day perusing hockey websites and blogs. I think this might qualify as an addiction.... maybe.

REGARDLESS.

My WCB (Western Conference Boyfriend) quest soldiers on.

Dallas Stars: Ehhh I still don't know

Detroit Red Wings:

Brett Lebda

I'm trying to overlook the fact that he plays for the Red Wings, but he's just too darn lovable to ignore.

Edmonton Oilers:

I really want to love Shawn Horcoff but his face looks like it got into a fight with the business end of a bronco, so I'm going to have to pass on that one.

Erik Cole intrigues me. He was born in Oswego, but he won the Cup with Carolina, but he didn't even play in the series against us because he was injured. He's the only player in NHL history to be awarded 2 penalty shots in 1 game. But I'm just not feelin' it.

Can we just discuss the love/hate relationship I have with teams like the Oilers and the Caps who opt for the "East Wannaka High School Class of 1996 Senior Portraits" style for their "Roster" page that lists the players name number and physical stats but not, oh, say what position they play? Its awesome and annoying. Mostly annoying because, unlike Senior portraits, no one is wearing one of those awkward sweetheart top smocks or posing with a piano or looking wistfully off into the distance with a Barabara Walters style filter over their face and backlighting. But I digress....

My Edmonton Oilers Boyfriend is Ethan Moreau, based mostly on the following:

Adorable children

He played in Niagara Falls for a while and


He's the captain and has Tyra-worthy roster photo
SMOULDERING

Los Angeles Kings:

Matt Greene

Ok so the first Matt Greene interview I watched made me drowsy with boredom, and NOT THE HILARITY ADAM BURISH PROMISED. However, investigate him on YouTube and he'll bring the chuckles:

"Spiritual Dancing" that's all i have to say.


Watch this one all the way to the end or you won't get the funny part
hahahahahahaha

He's also missing a lot of teeth which is kind of endearing

Moving on:

I may have gotten hit on via email by someone from Austria. I'm really not sure if I should respond to this email, THOUGHTS? Its written in decidedly broken English and his last name is (to me) unpronounceable. GUIDE ME, FRIENDS. I do suspect it might be S(h)ara as she's done things like this to me in the past. However, this email address is so complicated that if it is her, I'd really be just way more impressed that she managed to acquire an Austrian email address for the sole purpose of harrassing me sexually than I would be annoyed that she's creeping me out. The amount of effort required to obtain this email address vastly outweighs how much enjoyment she could possibly get out of emailing me pretending to be "Mario".

THIS IS WHAT I GET FOR POSTING A "YOU ROCK, TV!!" message on ThomasVanek26.com.

NEVER AGAIN.