I love watching the Wings play.  They didn’t start out on their game but they settled back in the second period and started playing their game.  When the Wings turn it on, there’s no stopping them.  It may not be a particularly exciting method of hockey for many spectators, but to me it’s mesmerizing to watch them set up and just dominate. It’s a beautiful thing!

The other way, the Blackhawks put up a great fight.  They’re getting good fast and they’ll be a team to watch in the coming years.

And ending it with a handshake? If you ask me, every single NHL game should end this way. Just beautiful.

Now I’m ready to get on the ice myself! It’s been a month since I’ve skated and I’m rarin’ to get back between the pipes. This weekend is a co-ed tournament in Wenatchee, not a moment too soon.

In Other News:

-Mats Sundin doing commercials for PokerStars.net? Bad commercial aside, why would you sign a player who just recently found a team to promote your site?

-Olympic Winter Games are only 13 months away! Yes, I’m excited. The best hockey players in the world only 10 hours away?  I may be too broke to even dream of attending but just the thought makes me excited!

Today I got an invitation to a tourament in Las Vegas.  This is one of, if not the, largest women’s hockey tournament in the nation and I get invited to play for one or two teams every year (dang bank account!).  I’m not sure how many teams travel down there but it’s gotta be dozens at least.  That’s not the part that boggles my mind.  What does boggle my mind is the tournament fee.  Most fees for a women’s tournament are in the $550-750 range.  This tournament’s fee: $1500.   Can you imagine the amount of funds this raises for Las Vegas hockey? Wow. It says a lot about this tournament that teams are willing to pay that much year after year to come back.  All-in-all, if I were to accept one of these teams’ offers to play, it would cost me $600 for 3, maybe 4 games. Way too rich for my dirt-poor blood!

Winter Classic is Thursday and I’m stoked!  Look for some commentary from my end.

I digress. Tonight’s Versus game is Islanders vs. Rangers. Due to being a person employed in an 8-5 job in the Pacific Time Zone, I missed the first half of the game. But I came in right in time for a Scotty Gomez goal. Scotty’s a former Tri-City American which has earned him a spot on my list of favorite players. For the record, other former Ams include Carey Price, Olaf Kolzig, Dayond Langkow, and Brian Boucher. You’ll probably be seeing goalie Chet Pickard in upcoming years, too.

This was another high-scoring game. That seems to be the trend this season. The majority of games this season seem to be going into the 6-10 goal range when it used to be 3-4 goals a game was standard. Maybe it’s just my viewpoint as a goalie but high scoring games have a tendancy to be boring, not to mention killer on a goalie’s stats. Low-scoring games are usually that way for a reason: stellar defense and even better goaltending.

Though as far as high-scoring games go, for the most part they have been good games. The number of overtime and shootout games is extremely high this season, which means a lot of very close hockey. This third period was a good example of that. It went from 2-1 to 3-4 in just a few short minutes and then going back and forth between the Islanders and Rangers with a near-comeback by the Islanders. If you’re going to have a high-scoring game, the switching of the lead is the way to go. But Isles, 4 goals in the 3rd? According to Versus, they have been outscored 56-31 in the third period this season. That’s not a good thing! They need to figure out how to close the deal.

Not a bad game, though. A lot of good goals were scored, a few good saves. Sounds like Trent Hunter will be alright after that scary hit into an open gate, good for that. Tomorrow’s game is New Jersey and St. Louis. Blues have been struggling (last place in the West) but the last game I saw Mason played a fantastic game (ended up a 0-0 tie going into a shootout). They play hard so it should be an interesting match-up. I’ll be interested to see the goalie game. Will Legace be playing? Brodour’s still out with that elbow injury so Clemmensen should be holding down the fort.
————————–

Other news around the NHL:
The San Jose Sharks were crazy enough to sign claude lemieux to a “two-way deal”. This guy’s 43 years old and has been retired for 5 years… what possesses the Sharks to sign him? Lemieux was my least respected player ever to play in the NHL, second only to Patrick Roy. He may have been a good player but I think the NHL is better off without him, not to mention I doubt he could even make an impact in today’s NHL. Sorry, Sharks, you have a good enough team this year, you don’t need to take a step backwards like this. At least it looks like Lemieux will be spending most of his time in the minors.

Thursday’s Winter Classic is drawing near. I’m so stoked for this game. Not only is it a Winter Classic, but it’s my Wings playing! It should be a great game. When I saw the teams scheduled to play before the season I had to groan– matching the defending Stanley Cup Champions against a team that didn’t even make the playoffs? But the ‘Hawks have had an excellent season thus far and with the points as close as they are between these teams, it should be a fantastic game. Here’s to a day of 25 degree weather, slightly overcast (keep the glare off the ice), without wind. Maybe a few snow flurries, just to make it interesting. These could be the most exciting two points available this season.

Paul Kariya plays for the Blues? Shows how observant I am. I will refrain from making any hip-injury jokes. I’m sure you can guess what they would be. For the record, he’s 36.

Not Hockey Related, but funny. Curling… interesting sport but horrible commercial!

Versus named this the #1 play of the week, and I agree. Hot diggity damn, that’s some excellent hand-eye coordination.

Henrick Zetterburg’s AMAZING goal last playoffs in the 8302672-1 route of the Avs.

Being an Americans fan, I will laugh at this until the day I die.

By far the best hockey-related commercial of all time. Yes, I do still quote it, and no, I’m not ashamed!

Despite being a Wings fan, that save is spectacular. But then again, Price is a former Tri-City American. I can forgive him preventing a Wings goal or two.

*an aside, seeing as this is only the third post in this new blog, I should get something out in the open. Yes, I’m a Wings fan. Yes, I’m diehard. Yes, I’ve been a fan most of my life. No, pathetic belittling remarks about my team will not phase me. They are amusing though. Resume linkage*

Lesson in Taunting

If I had a goalie coach they’d probably murder me for this.

I think the only reason I’m including this is because it’s against Crosby.

Those who know me know I’d being willing to mother super-goalie babies should Ozzie require it of me, and this is one reason why. I mean that in the most un-stalkerish way. The world needs more super-goalie babies, no?

I don’t have a clue what they’re saying but it’s probably along the lines of “This kid’s pretty fantastic, too bad he has to report for duty in Denver”.

Tomorrow’s Versus game is Islanders vs Rangers. DiPietro is back in the line-up so I’m sure I will have some sort of commentary about it! Tuesday’s is Devs vs Blues, which hopefully means I can watch my favorite goalie play. Go Legace!

Goalie4Life.com is a project that was conceived back in March of ‘08 but didn’t really start coming together until about a month ago. It was then that I designed the website and started putting together the first 8 designs. And then it wasn’t until Friday that I started coding the website and setting up the Cafepress shop. It’s a lot of work, but it’s ready to go now!

Since this is a new site there are bound to be a few bugs here and there. If you run into anything please let me know and I will get it fixed ASAP. I appreciate any and all feedback so start yappin’!

Enjoy your visit and hopefully you’ll see something you can’t live without. Thanks for stopping by!