Whoop-Dee-QuarterFinals

by Anne

NHL:

I only watched the 3rd period which was exciting, especially the crazy scrum at the end with Ott and Holmstrom, yikes. I opted to watch Team USA v. Team Finland, more on that later.

Stars hang on to fight another day. Unlike San Jose, who boasts the red-headed Messiah on their team, no one seems to think that they can pull off a miracle, but they did, of course, mention the stats about coming back from being down 3 games to none, as is mandatory. I will say that it is quite a feat to limit the Red Wings to one goal. Well done, Dallas. I knew they were going to win this game, I knew they wouldn't be swept, just like the Rangers won their 2nd home game of the Pens series with them. Eh. Whatevs, GO PENS!


So the World Championship Quarter Finals were held yesterday. NOW the games are single-elimination.

We've already bid farewell to Andrej Sekera and Slovakia in this tourney, and now we bid farewell to Ales Kotalik whose Team Czech Republic was eliminated yesterday by Sweden in a 3-2 overtime game that was probably pretty exciting to watch. Sweden scored first, then the Czech Republic scored 2, then Sweden got the equalizer and the OT winner. Sorry Ales!

AL! DO NOT MOON THE SWEDES!

FYI: Sekera finished the Tournament playing in all 5 games, 1 pt (o+1), +3, 11 SOG, with 19:01 average ice time per game. Yay!

FYI: Kotalik finished the Tournament playing in all 7 games, 7 pts (5+2), 3 PPG, -1, 0 PIM. Awww no penalties, good boy, Ales!

Team Canada took on Norway yesterday afternoon and Heatley scored just 37 seconds in. Yeesh. The first shift hadn't even gotten their legs going and Heatley potted one. Whoops. Then they traded 5 on 3 opportunities and both scored, followed soon after by another Norwegian goal. It started out really really close....aaaaand then became the monstrous blowout I was expecting. Yay! Canada won 8-2! Yay! Derek Roy had himself a 4 point night (3+1)! Hat trick! Yay!!!!!

Next, Canada plays Sweden. Boooooo. I don't care that you have Nicklas Backstrom! You also have Henrik Lundqvist and while I have nothing against him personally, I don't like his team, so PHOOEY on YOU Sweden. I don't care HOW funny this picture is:

Swedish Indians?

Hey look! Someone once found my blog while searching for "Henrk and Joel Lundqvist shirtless"! Here ya go! I live to serve my readers, haha. I hope a large check or lots of booze was involved in the conceptualizing of this ad. I mean, look at Joel's shorts. I know, you it took me a while to notice them too, as I found myself lost in Henrik's pecs. 35 might just be my new favorite number. Sidenote: who doesn't love the classic "make yourself look bigger and more buff by crossing your arms and flexing every muscle in your upperbody" move. Good show, boys, good show.

Anyhoot, Russia defeated Switzerland yesterday 6-0. Afinogenov had 2 goals. Woohoo! Next, Russia takes on the winner of the USA v. Finland match up.

Speaking of which:

That game was painfully boring until the end of the 3rd period. It was 2-0 Finland until about 5 minutes left when Mr. Yick scored a goal. And then, oh JOY of JOYS! His first goal of the Tournament, Team USA's first shorthanded goal, 37 seconds apart... STAFFY!!!! YAY!!!!!! GOOD BOY, STAFFERS!! You're trying SO HARD to be my favorite again, and you just might do it.

Tooooooo bad they lost in OT, and are now eliminated from the tournament, finishing in 5th place. :( What the HELL am I supposed to do now?

Anyhoot, when it all comes down to it:

Pommer played in all 7 games, had 5 points (2+3), both goals were powerplay goals, was +1, 0 PIM and averaged 16:54 in ice time.

Staffy played in all 7 games, had 4 points (1+3), +4 (tied for the team lead), the only shorthanded goal for Team USA and averaged only 8:41 in ice time per game.

An excellent showing from the boys in blue and gold for Team USA. I guess it's all about Roysie, Max and Kalinin....ugh, ok it's all about Roysie:

Two of Roysie's three goal celebrations:

Typical happy smiley Roysie

Suddenly and inexplicably stony celebration by Roysie. Probably because at this point the score was like 7-2 and its just rude to overly celebrate when you're PWNING the other team

Sigh.

Well, Adam Burish heard my plea yesterday. On their day off:

Some guys took the opportunity to go fishing. For some, it didn’t go as planned. Kessel got pretty sea sick as he spent most of the time leaning over the end of the boat, so guys were joking with him about that the past couple days, and Mueller didn't fare so well at sea either. O'Sullivan and Backes came back with a pretty good tan, and I would say Greene did too but he had a bit more of a lobster red shade to him, ha! Over all they had a great experience catching a ton of cod. Other guys spent a lot of the day walking around the downtown Halifax area eating outside and shopping.

Ok, there was no specific mention of Jason Pominville and Drew Stafford, I'm going to go ahead and assume they were in the "walking around and shopping" group. Go ahead, try to picture Drew Stafford fishing... no, really, I'll wait...... doo dooo doo, done? Yeah, I couldn't really picture it either. I bet Derek Roy dragged Pommer to all the fancy euro-style boutiques and gave him a personalized Roysie-over while Staffy and Zach Parise threw water balloons at passing elderly ladies and capped off the day by eating their weight in Starbursts on a patio while Kaner and Tom Gilbert made clay flower pots for their mommies at the pottery cabin of Camp Morningwood.

And yes, I did snicker at the thought of Phil Kessel being a big wimp and reintroducing the contents of his stomach to the world, hahaha. I'm not very nice. Here's a question: what exactly did they do with all the cod they caught? I'm guessing you can't bring live or dead fish across international borders, fellas, so I'm gonna go ahead and assume they did a "catch and release" deal. I think Adam Burish has a crush on Matt Greene, not just a ManCrush, but like really thinks they'd make a great couple. Let's start that rumor....aaaaaand GO.

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Private to Jason Pominville and Drew Stafford:

It's ok, you tried. Too bad you won't be back at the World Championships anytime soon because the Sabres will never miss the playoffs ever ever ever again. Right? RIGHT? That's what I thought.

Love,
Anne

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Private to all our boys that have been eliminated:

SMOOTHIE TIME! WOOOOOO! GOOSE IS DRIVING!! No Al, you can't have shotgun, Sabretooth always has shotgun, its the rules. WOOOOO!

Love,
Anne

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Will Ry-ry finish off the Flyers tonight?!?! FINGERS CROSSED! Tomorrow is my last day! As Sissy would say: "YAAAHHHHH!!!!"

2 down...lots more to go

by Anne

I stay up waaaaaayyyy too late watching hockey and eating buffalo wing pretzels.

Day 2 of the 2008 NHL playoffs has come and gone and here's how it shook down last night:

BOS v. MTL (MTL wins 4-1, leads series 1-0)
NSH v. DET (DET wins 4-1, leads series 1-0)
CGY v. SJS (SJS wins 2-0, series tied 1-1)
DAL v. ANA (DAL wins 4-0, leads series 1-0)

I watched most of the Habs v. Bruins, I didn't care too much. I "Woo!"ed after a Montreal goal, but my heart wasn't really in it.

I watched most of Calgary @ San Jose. That sucked. J-Rome wasn't even TRYING to maintain hold of my vulnerable post-season heart. On a related note, I think the boys at HNIC get a looney everytime they say Brian Campbell's name.

I'm more than a little mad at the Flames for taking like 6 penalties in a row, even though some of them were totally bogus. Fortunately, they killed all but the last 9 seconds and Kipprusoff played out of his mind. HINC also enjoyed cutting in and out on me last night, mostly during commercials. Thanks for that, CBC.

I loved the moment yesterday when I realized that I do, in fact, get CBC.

I'd write about how I enjoyed the Habs win... but did anyone expect for a second that they wouldn't win on home ice? Habs fans is CRAZY. They were Ole-ing in the first 5 minutes. The team did go up 2-0 in about 2 minutes though. Watching their pre-game intro made me sad because it reminded me a lot of the Sabres pre-playoff game intro because Sabres fans is crazy too. We're just 38 seasons of crazy, they're like 70 years of crazy, haha.

Anaheim, my former favorite Western Conference team lost BIG TIME to the Stars. I did NOT realize that the Lundqvist on the Stars was the twin brother of Henrik Lundqvist. Seeing him on the bench totally blew my mind.

Much like Crunchy and BabyCrunchy, the skater brother is much heftier than the goal tender brother. The Lundqvist twins' hair is also completely different, making their identical-ness less obvious. If I didn't hate his team so much, I'd love to watch Henrik defend the net against his brother.

There weren't any good pictures from last night, just the standard players in awkward almost sexual positions, someone getting squished by Chara, a few "the puck is behind the net, let's watch players look at it" goal cam shots, players about to fall over, and the usual "Wooo! We scored a goal!!" Nothing remotely swoon worthy or chuckle inducing. There was one photo of a Wings' zamboni driver swinging around a gross Octopus, but that was just weird. Can anyone explain this phenomenon to me?

The highlight of my night was actually the crazy grocery shopping extravanganza Moms and I went on. She prefers Tops, while I've seen the light and know that Wegman's is vastly superior. Tops has self-scanners which are great if you bought like 1 thing but are TERRIBLE for a larger order. We had a larger order and I was ready to explode it was so annoying, and I was tired. A lethal combination. Then we went to Wegmans where they had TOP SHELF SUNDAE but no Breakaway Berrier. That 1/2 gallon was like a slap in the face. For those that don't know, Top Shelf Sundae is an ice cream flavor made last season to celebrate how awesome the Sabres were are were, and I was grossed out, lol. I quickly got over it after pledging a sit-in until I was personally brought a 1/2 gallon of Breakaway Berrier by Ryan Miller himself. I'll wait, I don't care if he's in Michigan or Nova Scotia or Anaheim or Beirut, I'll wait. I'll be in the frozen section of the Wegmans on Amherst St. I'll live-blog about the crazies that walk by.