Ice Time Pregame: Caps vs. Pens

Notice how they refuse to look each other in the eye...INTENSE!!

This is a matchup with some major playoff implications if not bragging rights momentum going into the playoffs.  The Caps travel to Mellon Arena for the second to last regular season game at that stadium.  The Pens are looking to pull as many points out of the last four games as possible to get out of the tie with New Jersey.  1 win and they have home ice for the first round.  If they can win out and Jersey stumbles, we would have the #2 spot in the East, barring the surging Sabres. 

The Caps have already sealed up the President's Trophy, their division, and the #1 seed in the East.  Not much to play for but that doesn't mean they are going to roll over.  They sat Mike Green in their last game because they will need their Norris Trophy candidate down the stretch.  I wouldn't be surprised if some other key elements of their game get parked for longer periods of time tonight either.

For any non-hockey fans tired of having Crosby/Ovechkin shoved down your throat...too bad because this is what it is all about.  The Pens have thus far been unable to get a victory in the previous three meetings with Washington this year, but not without putting up a fight.  Everytime these two meet, it seems like everyone is on their 'A' game.  I don't think tonight will be any different as the Pens try to get one last victory over Washington at Mellon Arena.  Expect to see lots of intensity and emotion and some great hockey.

That isn't the only game tonight, though.  There are 11 games on the docket total for this evening and all but maybe two have playoff implications.  It is going to be a great night for hockey.

Season Ending Team Awards

The Penguins honored their players over the weekend with their annual season ending Team Awards.  Now before everyone goes chastizing the team for giving out their own awards, let me remind you that every team that I know of does this so it isn't some conceited Pittsburgh tradition. 

Team MVP - (self-explanatory) Sidney Crosby
Ed DeBartolo Community Service Award - (again, self-explanatory)  Sidney Crosby
*A.T. Caggiano Booster Club Award (the most 3-star games voted by the Pens Booster Club) - Sidney Crosby
*Baz Bastien Good Guy Award - (from the Professional Hockey Writers Association for cooperation with the media) TIE - Sidney Crosby and Marc-Andre Fleury
Masterson Trophy Nominee - (NHL award for perserverance, dedication, and sportsmanship in the game) Bill Guerin
Players Player - (nominated by their teammates as the best player on and off the ice) - Jordan Staal
Defensive Player of the Year - Brooks Orpik

*Baz Bastien was the Pens GM from 1976-1983 who died unexpectedly from injuries (and a heart attack) suffered from a car-motorcycle crash in 1983.  He was on his way home from a PHWA dinner event at the time.
*Caggiano was a Pens locker room attendant for many years and also a member of the Booster Club.

Oh did I mention there was a game on Saturday?  Well the Pens won in overtime over the Thrashers 4-3.  The Thrashers pretty much had the 2 points wrapped up with the third period winding down.  Jim Slater got called for a boneheaded holding penalty with time ticking off the clock.  Sergei Gonchar scored on the power play, taking it into overtime. 

Jordan Leopold was able to get that extra OT point by scoring 2:50 into the period.  That was his long awaited first goal as a member of the Penguins. 

"To tell you the truth, it was just a shot that I put on net in the hope that someone was driving there." - Jordan Leopold on his overtime goal.

The win put Pittsburgh back in front temporarily until the Devils blanked the Hurricanes, knocking Carolina out of playoff contention and moving back ahead for the lead in the Atlantic.  The Devils hold the tie breaker against Pittsburgh since the Pens couldn't muster even 1 win vs. New Jersey this year. 

The magic number for home ice in round 1 is 1 game because of Ottawa's loss on Saturday.  We got the Caps on Tuesday, the Islanders on Thursday (last regular season game at Mellon Arena, EVER!!), the Thrashers again on Saturday in Atlanta, and the final game in NY against the Islanders for the second time in a week.

Had A Bad Day #1

With the Pirates season getting ready to kick off, the dismal season the Steelers had last year, and the Penguins season winding down (hopefully not with a thud), I am reminded of many disappointing periods over the last few decades.

Being a Pittsburgh sports fan has not always been the thing to swoon over the last 20 years, despite the 3 Stanley Cups and 2 Lombardi Trophies.  There have been many heartaches and heart breaks through the years and I think these posts will epitomize that fact.  Why focus on the negative?  It keeps me grounded for when my teams fail to accomplish a goal and it makes the victories that much sweeter. 

With that being said, I want to kick this off with what I think is probably my personal worst fan day.

1. Super Bowl XXX - Steelers lose to the Cowboys - When the best part of the game was Rod Woodson taunting Michael Irvin by pointing to his surgically reconstructed blown ACL, you know it's not going to be a very good day.  Woodson played well.  Not his best game of his career, but better than most of the guys on the rest of the team.  Irvin would have the last laugh in the end, though.

This was Neil O'Donnell's final game as a Steeler.  You have to understand how hard it is to even type his name without breaking the keyboard.  It wasn't until after the 2006 Super Bowl that I could actually say his name out loud without going into a fit of rage.  I spent the previous years cursing his name and denying the fact he was even a member of the team.  I even went as far as cutting all of his cards into four sections.  Not tearing, because that would be too quick and painless, but cutting.  The four sections were then destroyed in four different calculated destruction ceremonies.  One pile was burned.  One pile was thrown in the trash.  One pile was buried in the little strip of grass we had on the side of our dorm building.  The final pile was released out the window of a moving vehicle while traveling at a high speed down Interstate 74.  This assured that none of the pieces would somehow find their ways back to each other and reform into some kind of Franken-card and continue to taunt me with their wickedness. 

I still hold a grudge against is cheatin' ass. Yeah, that's right.  Cheater, cheater, punkin eater.  Sour grapes, jealousy, hatred, call it what you want.  I will go to my grave believing Jerry Jones somehow paid him off.  How do you think it looks when you take a team to the Super Bowl, blow the game with completely unforced throws to phantom receivers that are easily picked off, only to follow it up the next day by jumping to another team for the highest paid QB contract in the league?  He had to get out.  People would have found out the truth had he stayed. 

PAID OFF! 

I'm not taking anything away from the play of Cowboys in this game.  They obviously wanted it more and played like they did.  It just hurts a little or a lot.  The two Lombardi's since then has somewhat eased the pain.

That was actually a little theraputic.  I can't wait to get day #2 off my chest.

My Official Cardboard Junkie Heritage Blaster Fantasy Team

Yeah, so I decided to get in on this little exercise over on Cardboard Junkie.  When dayf isn't spending the day losing his mind and traveling down the phalata...phylatal...stamp collector's highway, he sometimes has some great ideas.  This was one of them. 

All you had to do is buy a blaster, rip it, and make a team.  Hopefully, with my novice video making skills, my contribution to the video break world is good enough to get me into this league.  It is a long video.  Almost 10 minutes but I show every card I got.  I probably could have blew through it faster but what do you want from me?  I'm new.




So after uploading the video, I sorted the cards and chose my team.  Here is what I came up with

(2) Catchers - Yadier Molina, A.J. Pierzynski
(1) First Base - Albert Pujols
(1) Second Base - Brandon Phillips
(1) Shortstop - Cristian Guzman
(1) Third Base - Alex Rodriguez
(3) Outfield - Justin Upton, Grady Sizemore, Chris Coghlan
(1) Corner Infielder - Adam Dunn
(1) Middle Infielder - Alberto Callaspo
(1) Outfielder - Matt LaPorta
(1) Utility or DH - Jack Cust
(7) Pitchers - Cliff Lee, Mariano Rivera, Justin Verlander, Felix Hernandez, Jair Jurrjens, Ricky Romero, Francisco Liriano
(1) Team - Pittsburgh Pirates
(1) Manager - Ron Gardenhire

I don't know if this is going to take me to the end but it was a struggle for me just to come up with guys I have actually heard of.  I am so pathetic when it comes to baseball over the last 10 years.  I am slowly curing that.

Good luck to anyone else that enters.

The New Consol Energy Center

For any fan of a team in any sport, a new stadium spurns so many crazy ideas and thoughts about how it is going to reflect on the team itself.  Pittsburgh has seen its share of new digs over the last 10 years with both PNC Park and Heinz Field opening their doors in 2001.  The Civic Arena/Mellon Arena was the only facility in town hosting a major sports team that hadn't seen a make over or upgrade.  Going into this season, it was the smallest and lowest capacity facility being used to host an NHL team. 

Next season will be a different story.  After a storied history in the nations first retractable roof stadium, the Penguins will be moving across the street to the new Consol Energy Center. 

Seth Rorabaugh, journalist and blogger for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, recently posted on his blog Empty Netters a tour of the new stadium in its current state.  Even if you are not a Pens fan, or a hockey fan, you should check this out just to see some of what goes into the planning and construction of an arena.  Here is the article.

A Brief Tour Of Consol Energy Center

I'm Not Angry...I'm Just Saying...

Okay first things first.  I need to get this off my chest.  It has been eating away at me and I have lost at least three nights sleep over it.  Well, maybe not three.  Well, maybe not any.  In fact...I DON'T CARE.  These so-called Upper Deck Awards are not awards at all.  They are a social experiment in futility that is causing the biggest uproar in the blogging community since...well, since the last asinine, moronic thing Upper Deck did. 

PEOPLE OF EARTH!!  HERE ME!!  These awards don't matter.  You know what does matter?  How about whether or not you enjoy what you are doing by blogging?  How about whether or not you actually enjoy your hobby?  How about whether or not you actually care that you might have people out there that actually pay attention to the diarrhea that spews forth from your brain, out of your finger tips, and onto the pages of your blogs (that's assuming you use your fingers to type)?  Those are the things that matter.

As many people have already said, there are so many deserving bloggers and trading communities that were left off the list for whatever reason or another.  You know what?  So what.  Despite the apparent format of a general popularity contest, that's not what this is.  This is a "who can mobilize the most people to vote" type of contest and the only winners here are the companies that make money off of internet traffic.  Don't think for one second that once this is over that those nominees are now going to have this huge readership and new found loyalty from collectors.

Nobody is going to win in this thing.  All it has done so far is pit people against each other, muster up a bunch of name calling and acusation hurling, cause otherwise normal, decent card collectors to become beggars and whores for votes, and polarize the blogging community, creating that proverbial line in the sand.  What do you think is going to happen when they announce a winner?  Chaos, I tell you.  CHAOS!!

Enough of that.  Onto what I was going to write about.

(Kris Letang just signed a 4 year contract extention worth something like $14 million.  I like Tanger.  Maybe not that much, though.)

The Pens lost again last night 2-0 over the Tampa Bay Lightning.  What's that you say?  You didn't know Tampa still had a team?  Yeah, well they mustered up enough gas to take it to the apparently tired and worn down Stanley Cup Champs.  It doesn't help matters that your best defensemen and spiritual leader, Sergei Gonchar is still not healthy.  Or the fact that 70 points of Evgeni Malkin wasn't in the lineup either.  Oh, and did I mention the fact that Matt Lashoff boarded Ruslan Fedotenko not long after the game started?  I didn't?  Well there.  I said it.  Feds had to be carted back to the locker room and never came back.  Actually that was a little too dramatic.  He did come back and seems fine, but you get my point.

So Tampa Bay gets a shutout over the Pens.  I don't care.  Remind me about it when we meet again in the playoffs.  Oh, you aren't going...to...nevermind (man, was that harsh or what).  I'm really not a Lightning hater.  They deserved to win that game.  They looked awesome and I am sort of upset that they haven't had the numbers to push into the last spot.  I am just upset that the Pens have been playing some uninspired hockey as of late while teams like Montreal, New Jersey, and Detroit are making huge pushes and taking all the momentum with them.  We can't afford to be losing games like this.  Especially when we barely hang onto a 1 point lead in the Atlantic and New Jersey has a game up on us.  Not only that, now Buffalo thinks they are the team to beat and have taken over 2nd in the East.

I still think Fleury played well, despite giving up two goals.  He made an unbelievable save in the third period that should make most highlight reels for the week.  He just needs some support in front.  These guys have to step up their game.  Tanger played some inspired hockey as well, blocking shots and giving up the body to get pucks (perhaps the new contract gave some motivation).  The only problem was that he unloaded on the goal too many times and none of his shots were accurate.  The problem here is consistency.  Right now, we have none.  FIX IT!!!

Superfluous Stat Of The Night:  The Lightning have shutout the Penguins five times in the last six years.  Really?  That's crazy.