random hockey post

I rarely write anything about hockey. There are 28,309,146 hockey blogs out there, and around 98.3% of what anybody writes about hockey is blather - like all other sports.

Anyway, in addition to being a lifelong hockey fan, I'm a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. Lately, that's been great, because of players like Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang, Marc-André Fleury, and so on. Crosby has been the best player in hockey since he started in the NHL in 2005, and this season was looking to be his most productive as a scorer. In January, Crosby was hit in the head in two successive games, and has been unable to play since because of concussion. The first hit was not called a penalty, but was in my opinion a deliberate action in attempt to injure. The second was called a penalty, and did result in Sid's head striking the edge of the wall around the ice, but I don't think it was an attempt to injure, just a dumb play.

Controversy over head shots has heated up ever since. Two games ago, Penguins forward Matt Cooke, who has a long history of doing stupid and deliberately injurious things during games, elbowed a New York Rangers player in the head, and received a game penalty and a suspension through the end of the regular season and the first round of the playoffs.

Hockey fandom and media are basically unanimous in praise of the suspension, because, they repeat, the NHL finally got the discipline right.

Wrong.

Unfortunately for all hockey fans, what the NHL did was on the basis of this player's reputation and history, and the current controversy. I am not saying that Matt Cooke should be allowed to deliberately target opponents' heads with his elbows. I am saying that the punishment befit the criminal, not the crime. It wasn't justice; it wasn't even discipline. They made an example of him. Cooke's suspension is a spectacle, or a PR campaign (especially after Penguins owner Mario Lemieux made such a big deal about head hits), to show the NHL is Really Taking Player Safety Very Seriously Indeed.

I believe all the blather about head shots and attempt-to-injure penalties lately really misses a main factor: the salary cap. (If any hockey fans happen by, I do mean that seriously, but you may have noticed this really isn't a hockey-related blog, so I'm not going to pursue it.)

Anyway, enough about this.

starting tonight

Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things

29. NHL playoffs. I just love 'em.

Our beloved Pittsburgh Penguins begin the playoffs tonight in a re-match against the Ottawa Senators, who eliminated the Pens last year in 5 games. But that was last year. Both teams look and act a little different this year.

Actually, I both love and hate the playoffs. Hockey is a beautiful and brutal sport, and individual games, individual players, and individual plays can reflect either or both of those qualities. During the regular season, referees call penalties more carefully, but in the playoffs the mentality is to "let them play" (which has always struck me as idiotic, but that's another story). In any case, the effect of all this is that regular season games have more room for beautiful play, and the playoffs almost always immediately devolve into a cruel war of attrition. Nothing pretty happens. On the other hand, they reach a level of intensity that's just incredible. You can actually see the difference even on TV.

I realize this is the fourth-ish hockey-related Thing in a row. That's because other than kittens, kittens, classes, kittens, budget cuts, kittens, committee meetings, kittens, kittens, campus events, and kittens, life lately has had one main pre-occupation: kittens hockey kittens.

hockey related things

It's been a while since I updated either this blog or my list of

Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things

32. Thrilling, close hockey games. I just love 'em.

A week ago Friday, we took in the Stockton Thunder game with our pals Christina and Guerin. The Thunder looked a little dazed in the first period, as Idaho ran up a 2-0 lead, outshooting the Thunder something like 12-6. It didn't look much better until midway through the second, when the Thunder got a short-handed goal, and in the third, absolutely took over the game. Superb pulling-together performance. Lots of hits, a couple fights, good passing (eventually) and brilliant puck-possession in the third by the Thunder. Good stuff.

31. Lopsided wins for my favorite hockey team. I just love 'em.

This morning I woke to the Pittsburgh Penguins beating the tar out of the brain-dead thugs who beat people up while wearing Philadelphia Flyers jerseys. My hatred for the Flyers, as has been documented here, is unspeakable, deep, abiding, and the cause of a great deal of cursing. Today I recognized the fatal flaw in the Flyers strategy was that, when a team like the Penguins forces them to try to play hockey, they really can't. Penguins, 7-1. Evgeni Malkin and Petr Sykora had 2 goals and 2 assists, each. Zappo.

30. Long winning streaks for one of my favorite hockey teams. I just love 'em.

San Jose Sharks, 11 in a row. Zowie.

it's 10:04 - do you know where your things are?

Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things

36. High-tech toys. I just love 'em.

One of my great moral failings is my unseemly delight in electronic gadgets. We bought a Kodak digital camera today to replace the stupid old PukePix Shootslikecrap that we bought at Target several years ago. The Kodak is a mighty machine, and we armed it with a 4-gig memory card, which holds nearly 1600 images (at 8 megapixels per), or a ridiculous amount of video with audio (yep, does that). It has 6 different image capture modes. Gonna be a lot of fun.

While at the toy store, we saw the new Mac laptop that's 10 mils thick, the Air MacJordan or whatever the heck it's called. The Apple people, if I hadn't mentioned, are not allowed in the house. Evil, evil people. Of course we want one!

37. Block-buster NHL trade deadline deals. I just love 'em.

Our beloved Pittsburgh Penguins made a good trade for 6'7" defenseman Hal Gill, whose job description includes "beatdowns," as well as "getting all them buggers out of the front of the net." They need that.

But they also made the biggest trade of the season, with minutes to spare, for big-time goal-scorer Marian Hossa. Nobody expected this. In fact, their general manager, Ray Shero, swore up and down that he wasn't going to make a big deal.

They also got a useful player, Pascal Dupuis, who in addition to being French-Canadian, is also a decent checker. They had to trade away a promising winger, Erik Christensen, a potentially dynamite prospect, Angelo Esposito, and a huge fan favorite and teammate favorite, Colby Armstrong. Apparently, the Fox Sports Pittsburgh broadcast of tonight's Penguins-Islanders game included fan reaction: weeping over Colby leaving. Lauren is also very upset, because Colby and Crusher (Erik's nickname: everybody who plays hockey goes by a nickname, by international law) were two of her favorite Penguins.

Ray Shero isn't allowed in the house, either.

two things for a bright springlike afternoon

Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things

38. Multi-purpose gag lines. I just love 'em.

Down in LA to get out of our place and our headspace for a couple days, we watched two excellent Penguins wins over the weekend (on Saturday against the very sad LA Kings, on Sunday against the vile and hated Philadelphia Flyers). During the Flyers game, which featured typical Flyers thuggery, it occurred to me just how little actual defense their defensemen play, especially Darien Hatcher. Hatcher can't skate, doesn't hit anybody, is often out of position, and I think he realizes this, so he makes up for it by simply cross-checking anyone he can reach. He's disgusting.

I thought to myself, if I played against the Flyers, I would feel stupider and less talented, because nature abhors a vacuum.

Thus was born our latest multi-purpose gag line. You can use it in all sorts of situations:

Political debates: Candidate A must hate debating Candidate Z. Every time they debate, Candidate A gets stupider and loses leadership ability, because nature abhors a vacuum.

Teaching critical thinking: You know, after reading this paper, I suddenly can't tell whether this is a valid argument or not. I've lost most of my logical ability, because nature abhors a vacuum.

Divorce proceedings: It's so upsetting to have to face my ex in court. Whenever I'm there, I feel like I've lost my capacity for empathy and human decency, because nature abhors a vacuum.

Committee meetings: It's no wonder bureaucrats talk like they do. They used to be able to communicate in plain English, but not after all those committee meetings. After all, nature abhors a vacuum.

39. Hockey sticks. I just love 'em.

We also bought hockey sticks. I haven't owned one in I don't know how long. Lauren's brother Zach had bought one, and that prompted me. It's not a big deal, I didn't get one of the $100 composite things that always snap, I just got laminated wood. We shot pucks around for an hour or two, and we bought a puck suitable for street use, so we're about to make tons of friends in the neighborhood with our rowdy hockeying activities.

in brief

The cat's still sick. I'm in Sacramento, without my love, for a CFA meeting whose primary purpose is to discuss the doomed state budget and its impact on the doomed CSU and our doomed lecturer colleagues/constituents in this doomed state which is doomed. The Penguins are losing to the freaking Tampa Bay Lightning, and Sidney Crosby left the game with an injury in the first period.

I shall now crawl to the working dinner in a condition of utter abjection. Thank you for listening.

I felt the earth move. . .

Really, I did. My loveliest and I were in the kitchen, debating (I am not making this up) whether airline personnel should be more forthcoming with information about delays, so that passengers will be calmer and feel more in control, when the floor started to roll and shimmy and the wine glasses in the rack started to clink together. It's hard to describe, but if you imagine a big truck driving in front of your place, but then extend and deepen that vibration, make it more side-to-side than up-and-down, and add a bit of sea waves, it's something like that.

[Or better yet, get a big bath, made of ebony...]

In other news, the Penguins won a very satisfying game against the defense-oriented Minnesota Wild. I am still somewhat sick, but more or less ready for class today.

Down south, yet another argument against human reproduction admitted setting one of the wildfires. Over on Hey there, skippy I sort of got into a sort of debate (sort of) about the effect of climate change on the fires. A commentator claimed that saying there was any global warming at play was bogus, and presented as his evidence (sort of) that the fires were set. Indeed, at least one was for sure. My point was that the place was riper than it would have been, the fires more intense, because everything was drier than [insert absurd/obscene comparative term here]. Unless I miss my own point.

Meanwhile, Iran is trying to be helpful by pointing out that we'd be fools to invade Iran. Someone hasn't been paying attention!

repetitive stress injury?

I have not played a guitar for just over 24 hours.

About a week ago, I began to feel pain in my wrist and fingers. This has come and gone for a while now, and I have regarded it as a kind of withdrawal, which has led me to play more. But in the last week, it has become noticeable a lot of the time.

I think it's partly due to the fact that, in the last weeks of summer and the early weeks of the semester, I've gone from playing on average an hour a day to playing more like 90 minutes average daily, but distributed unevenly. This, in turn, is partly due to my uneven class schedule and to my loveliest returning to choir rehearsals on Monday nights. On non-class days and on rehearsal evenings, I've started to play more like 3 hours, often with little or no break.

That doesn't strike me as a lot, especially since I don't play lead and don't tend to play arpeggios. I'm basically a rhythm guitarist. On the other hand, almost none of what I play lacks some kind of extremely weird fingering, and I've been hitting some fingerpicked 12-string stuff and the goofy song I've written with (literally, no exaggeration) 26 chords in it rather hard lately.

So I'm grounded until my left hand stops twinging.

This evening I was reduced to sitting on the love seat, rocking back and forth while holding Kate, my Breedlove 12, and strumming the strings a couple times, without fretting.

Madness shall, without doubt, ensue rapidly, forestalled only by the brief snippets of happiness I'll get watching the Penguins, streamed over the Net, in one-quarter of my laptop screen. Tiny, tiny Penguins scoring tiny, tiny goals.

two things

Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things

64. Deeply weird movies. I just love 'em. One of my all-time favorite films is Delicatessen, which is a French movie that (this isn't much of a spoiler) turns out very quickly to involve both laughable revolutionaries and cannibalism. Yummy and yummy, I say. I'm also inordinately fond of Brazil, Being John Malkovich, The Magic Christian, and Harold and Maude, all of which are really bizarre. My ultimate favorite movie is Dr. Strangelove, which I have on good authority is a weird flick, though it doesn't always strike me that way.

Possibly weirder than the movies I like is that I dislike going to movies. I have almost never initiated a plan to go see a movie, and almost always go only because someone else wants to badly enough that I'd feel bad not to go. I used to have no patience with movies, either, with these few exceptions, but I've had a change of heart. Or maybe of scene?

63. First games of hockey seasons. I just love 'em. I got to see most of two of them today, both with favorable outcomes for me since both the Anaheim Ducks and Dallas Stars lost. Phooey on Anaheim and Dallas. The first game of hockey season is like the first day of a semester. There's the excitement of the return of this thing I love. There's the excitement of anticipation finally coming to fruition. There's the excitement of the unknown future of the season or semester yet to unfold. Everything's new, everyone's score is zero, everything is ready to transpire.

I've made the private prediction that my beloved Pittsburgh Penguins will struggle this year after their glorious turn-around season last year. I'm also fairly certain, having seen them in games already, that Henrik Zetterberg of the Detroit Red Wings and Paul Stastny of Colorado Avalanche are going to raise serious hell on offense this season (tonight: Zetterberg, 1 goal, 1 assist; Stastny, 3 goals - first career hat trick).

The Penguins play Carolina on Friday and Anaheim on Saturday to start their season. So what I'm saying in essence is that all of y'all out there are dead to me until late May at the earliest.

predilections

I have four somewhat strange predilections relevant this morning.

One is for mopey alternative music. I tend lately to rely on the very unevenly reliable All Music Guide to connect with music I haven't knowingly heard before. Following links from a band I like, say, Wilco, I end up finding bands somebody responsible for content on AMG thinks is "similar" or "influenced by," follow those links, and follow the links from there, until I end up with somebody really quite unlike the original band in most respects, say, [smog]. It's a game we could call Six Degrees of Michael Stipe if we were in a particularly jaunty mood, which, this morning, we're not.

Anyway, I found Grogshow through this method. I love me some Grogshow, I do. And through Grogshow to Winterpills, who are also pretty cool.

This music is not only a basic element to the soundtrack of my misspent youth, but also still musically potent to me, inasmuch as what I'm playing these days is often like acoustic 12-string folkized mopey alternative. I think so, at least. Finally, a label for my stuff!

Two is for conflict, especially of the fighting-the-good-fight variety. The CSU agreed to use the Fact-Finders Report as a "template" for 10 further days of bargaining to try to reach agreement with CFA on a new contract. Now, what could they do in 10 days that they couldn't have done in the last 23 months is not clear. And the Fact Finders Report includes not only the statement by the neutral third-party fact finder, but also CFA and CSU representatives. So agreeing to use the report as a template could mean that CSU is willing to continue to make their same tired baseless arguments as to why the $1.2 billion reserve they've built up can't be diminished by $100 million over 4 years to reach a settlement on faculty salaries.

This is a conflict I can feel really good about, because I have tremendous faith that CFA is right and CSU is wrong. In that respect, this conflict is rather like how I feel when the Pittsburgh Penguins play the Philadelphia Flyers. Whatever else I may or may not know about the world, I can say with certainty that the Flyers are wrong.

Which brings us to the third predilection, which is for playoff hockey. The NHL playoffs begin in two weeks, and for the first time since 2001, my beloved Penguins are going to be in them. They clinched last night by beating the Washington Capitals 4-3. Since January, no team has been better than the Pens, and their best players remain a core group that are all 24 or younger, which suggests that they're going to be at least this good for a long time.

The fourth? Extremely long road trips.

not something I usually mention

I didn't get to watch the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Philadelphia Flyers today, to sweep the season series 8-0, because NBC doesn't think it's important to show a national TV audience the most exciting player in the league, Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby. In fact, Crosby wasn't the star of the game. Erik Christensen was.

Christensen is coming slowly into his own as an NHL forward, and today he scored two goals in regulation to lead the Penguins to a tie, and overtime, against the Flyers. Each of his goals were quick snap shots, which is his best shot. It's vital to shoot quickly to score goals in the NHL, because almost everyone is almost always in ideal defensive position, and you get about 1/4 of a second to get a shot off. He does this consistently, when he's shooting and playing well. Fastest gun in the East.

But what really impressed me watching the highlights streamed from the Penguins website (click on "Game Recap" in the box on the right lower half of the page) was his shootout goal, where he made a move that, in the current argot, was "sick." It really was sick, by which I mean astounding.

Now I can't stop saying what a sick move it was, and I feel vaguely stupid about that. Strangely enough, "stupid" used to be the term for the kind of play that is now called "sick." I'm not sure which is worse: feeling stupid about calling a play sick, or feeling sick about calling a play stupid. But what really matters, for the time being, are two things: (1) Erik Christensen's sick move, and (2) death to the Flyers.