Tryptophan, Trip To The X, Trip To The Couch

Hockey On A Holiday
There is none.  No NHL games are played on Thanksgiving or Christmas.  And I'm okay with that.  I don't get why any professional sport is played on a holiday.  Holidays are supposed to be days spent with family and loved ones, celebrating our faiths and being thankful for all that we have in our lives.  I don't get why holidays are just another excuse to park our butts in front of the television for an entire day watching sporting events.  Of course, if you're a member of a non-harmonious family, then 8 hours of football or basketball is probably the only way to make it through without killing each other off.  But seriously, people can't make it through a holiday without a professional sport being the highlight of the day?   


Being Thankful
I've learned along the years that it's what you make of your situation that counts.  Because of that philosophy I am able to say Thanksgiving Day was indeed a success for everyone in my life.  Especially so for two very dear friends who received a gift which wasn't immediately recognized as such.  
When you're not feeling well you can do one of two things: 
1. You can pay attention to the symptoms. 
2. You can waive them off, telling yourself it's nothing out of fear that it is something and you'd rather not know. 
In a smart move, my friend sought medical treatment.  It meant that a husband and wife spent Thanksgiving apart from each other - he in the hospital, she making trips back and forth to visit him.  And for that there was some disappointment, loneliness and a feeling of not much to be thankful for. 
I saw the gift, the reason to be thankful.  I saw a husband who has been given the chance to make the commitment to long term medications and lifestyle changes necessary to be with his wife and family for many years to come.  I saw a friend who will face an uphill battle to get started and to stay on track going forward.  But he's here and that's the gift. 
This weekend I could have been standing by as a friend made funeral arrangements for her husband.  Instead I saw a husband and wife ultimately recognize the gift they've been given- life.  They've made a promise to each other to make the most of it.  For the gift of life, they are thankful.  

Hockey: Pre Turkey Day
Yes, Wednesday night's game made me want to kick the cat - if I still had the cat.  It made me want to blog using four letter words and make threats to cancel my season tickets.  It made me angry, disappointed, disillusioned.  I was pissed - kind of like Backstrom was when he stormed off the ice after the game, not waiting around to fist bump or head butt with his team mates.  I don't blame him.  Okay, I do blame him for those break-away goals cuz he's really sucked on those and the shootout goals.  But who could blame a goalie for being pissed at his team mates for not playing hockey in front of him night after night after night?  I was angry and I blogged while angry.  Then I deleted the entire post because the team's effort just wasn't worth my time or effort.  Kind of like how they played in Wednesday night's game.  So I guess we're even.  Except for this: If I listen to one more post game conference with Todd Richards defending horrendous games like that again with his patented unemotional mono tonal response of "I thought there was a lot of good in that game" and "one power play goal and it's a different game" I'm going to lose my sanity.  There are no woulda/shoulda/coulda goals in hockey, Todd.  The only goals that count are the ones where the puck actually goes in the net, the red light goes on and the horn sounds while the smoke comes out and the fans are on their feet singing along to Crowd Chant by Joe Satriani.  The fact of the matter is that your players didn't score one more goal.  Heck, we were lucky to get even the one goal we did - which was pretty darn flukey, at best.

And Post Turkey Day
Fast forward to this afternoon's matinee against the Predators.  It was a crap shoot going into today's game: either we'd come out roaring and firing on all cylinders or we'd come out like most games - just putting in the time and watching the clock until the final buzzer sounded.  Much to the fans delight the Wild performed admirably today.  They went into corners and battled for the puck.  The finished their checks - mostly.  They figured out how to pressure a goalie by having more than one Wild player in front of the net - mostly.  They didn't line change in the middle of an offensive rush.  The defense was pretty spectacular - nominal turnovers compared to most of our games this season.  The team realized that they CAN take more than one shot on goal if that first shot doesn't go in.  Did we still spend way too much time in our own zone - yes.  Did we still get outshot by one of the two lowest scoring teams in the league (guess who the other team is) - yes, we did.  But we did step up our game from the basement and look what you can do with a little effort, a little spring in your step, a little determination.  We won.  We won pretty big given that we scored more goals today than we did in the last two games combined.  

• Jose was FABULOUS! 
• Marty McFly Havlat had a breakout game - he needed it.  Let's hope this is the floodgate opening for him and not the only thing we'll see from him for the next 12 games.
• O'Sullivan seems to be fitting right in (I realize it's only 2 games yet but still, sorry Mittens). 
• Whodathunk Clayton Stoner would be the one to take TooToo's turtle head off?

 And so the tradition carries on for Vicki and me.  This was our sixth Day After Thanksgiving Day Game together.  I can't imagine doing anything else more worthwhile than losing all sense of time (inside joke) with the greatest hockey partner in the world!

I'll write about the Chalk Talk with Wes Walz tomorrow and will post pictures of it as well.  For now I have some videos I promised a number of folks I would put up here.

For my favorite Flyers Fan - the Uprising Video by Muse:

                                        Uprising Video                              

Use the link - the band requested the embedding code be disabled - whatever.

For G - To laughing until you cry and I snort :)    At or With Me - Jack Johnson


For Vicki and Me: How the hell have I been missing out on this voice??
Michael Buble - Haven't Met You Yet

And Here's The Song That Got Me Hooked **note to Vicki - check out his great shoes!  ;)
Save The Last Dance For Me

It occurs to me that someone looking at my iPod playlists in order to get a feel for the kind of person I am would be hard pressed not to think of me as schizophrenic.  I'm all over the place with my taste for music.  About the only thing you won't find on there is rap, hip-hop or disco - because they SUCK. 

Busy Day for Wild, Stalker Opportunity, T-Day Prep, RSVP!!!

Wild Press Releases

• Guillaume Latendress is scheduled for a 2fer surgery session on Wed: 1. Repair the torn labrum in his hip - think Backstrom, Harding, and Porcelain Groinboy from back in the day. Gui will also have a bilateral sports hernia repaired.  From what I'm reading and hearing it sounds like we'll be lucky to see him on the ice before the season ends.  This is beginning to sound an awful lot like a broken record with our players: concussions, blown out knee caps, broken feet and ankles, hips, etc.  I'm expecting to hear Clutterbuck's out with herniated discs any day now...   
• Patrick O'Sullivan was picked up off of waivers by the Wild.  Talk about full circle.  For those of you who don't remember, the Wild drafted Sully in 2003 and was doing very well in Houston.  As fate would have it, the Wild packaged Sully as a part of the trade that brought Pavel Demitra from the L.A. Kings to the Wild in order to make Porcelain Groinboy happy.  Sully played three seasons in L.A., scoring a career-high 22 goals and 53 points in 2007-08.  He was then then traded to Carolina, and traded again to Edmonton.  The Oilers waived him after being a minus -35 last year.  He was picked up by Phoenix for the purposes of buying him out and they placed him on waivers the next day. Patrick signed as a free agent with Carolina in September this year.  In 10 games he scored one goal and was placed on waivers November 22.  Annnnd here we are full circle.  You might read this and be asking - what's wrong with this guy and why are the Wild taking a chance on him?  At least, I was up to a point.  But he's here on a relatively cheap 2-way contract which means we're not out the 2.5 million we're paying Latendresse or the 4.25 million we're paying Bouchard right now.  Considering he holds a boatload of the Houston Aero's franchise records he'll be welcomed there with open arms should the Wild send him down.  When you consider that Lantendresse is likely out for the season now and with PMB needing to just say "retire" this is a good hole-filler for now for the money we still have to work with.  Maybe he just needs the right home for now in order to find his way back into the game.  For those of you who don't know or remember: Patrick O'Sullivan Story  
• My babeeee Casey Wellman has been sent back to Houston.  He needs to be there.  He's very close to being here, but not quite yet.  He's had a good taste of the NHL so he'll be hungry and willing to do whatever it takes to get back here as soon as possible - and for good.

***Anybody else catch on to this or is it just because I'm a little snarky on the Wild these days:

             Tradition / It's In Our Blood

It's in their genes to be lazy and unwilling to play 60 minutes of hockey!  

(The Wild marketing team nailed this one on the head)

***Reason to follow Russo on Twitter:

                                 "I worked hard during first 20 minutes of Wild practice. Now I'm going for a coffee the next 20" 

It's funny cuz it's true :<0

Stalker Alert!
Poor Vicki - she's pulled Stalker-Sitting duty once again.  Wednesday evening the Wild will be hosting one of their Chalk Talk sessions prior to the start of the game.  The one, the only, the man of my hockey dreams - Wes Walz - will be hosting this one.  Unfortunately, the only question I've got for Wes is the one he doesn't hold the answer to: Why isn't he behind the Wild bench instead of Dave Barr or better yet, Darby Fall-Down Hendrickson?  I want Todd Richards to personally show me how Darby Hendrickson has made an impact/difference in how this team is playing since being handed the coaching job on a silver platter. Anyway, back to Wes and the Chalk Talk... I wonder how much a camcorder runs these days? 


T-Day: Minus One Day And Counting
For those of you who are now off the rest of the week, the rest of the folks who only have Thursday off salute you:

I'm happy to say I'll be cooking on T-Day and for some of the best friends I could ever ask for.  It will be a dine and dash event - they'll be dining and then dashing back home to watch football. I don't watch football and wouldn't even know how to converse about it intelligently.  I'll be watching movies and eating pie after dinner...and napping, lots of napping.  I need to be rested for Friday's battle. 

I won't be shopping with hordes of lunatics who will be up at 1:00 a.m. in order to be in line by 2:00 a.m. for a store opening at 4:00 a.m. only to find out there are just 2 giant t.v.'s in the whole store for that super-duper-low-low advertised price.  No, instead I'll be battling for a parking space in the RiverCenter ramp.  I'll be going up against all those St. Paul working folks who don't have Friday off, thousands of Hmong who will be kicking off their New Year celebration next door to the Xcel, hundreds of Xmas shoppers - all sleep-deprived and crazed from having gotten up six hours before the sun rose, and last but not least - the rest of us crazy Wild fans who are trying to get to the arena before the puck drops at 1:00 p.m.  Of all the games in a given Wild season the day after Thanksgiving is the one I dread the most in terms of parking and getting into the arena on time. 

RSVP - What Does That Mean?

The term RSVP comes from the French expression "répondez s'il vous plaît", meaning "please respond". If RSVP is written on an invitation it means the invited guest must tell the host whether or not they plan to attend the party. 

An incomplete list of respondents can cause numerous problems for a host including difficulty in planning fairy drop and margarita quantities, among other things.

So the next time you see RSVP on an evite to a Peace On Earth FFS Celebration, please respond promptly.  Your hostess with the mostess thanks you 

 

FULL RANT AHEAD! - You've Been Warned

"I Dunno"
That's Todd Richard's profound statement after yet another game where the Wild took the entire second period off and a good eight minutes of the third period as well.  "I Dunno." 

Followed by the most passive comment yet: "It's something that we talk about, and we have to correct it," coach Todd Richards said. "Answers for it, right now, I don't know. That's something we have to deal with." 

What's this WE shit, Todd?  What are YOU going to do about it??  When are YOU going to get off YOUR ass and start calling these lazy players out?  In front of each other.  In front of Chuck Fletcher.  In front of Craig Leipold.  Hell - in front of an arena full of fans who paid premium prices for that bag of flaming dog crap you called a game last night.  YOU should have been screaming YOUR head off on our bench from beginning to end of that second period.  We should have been hearing YOU rip into the players for letting the Rangers get anything off of us.  This was supposed to be our sweet revenge night, not Gaborik's.  Instead I have to listen to I. DON'T. KNOW.  

And yet, WE aren't practicing on Sunday.  Not even an off-ice workout.  No team meeting.  Not a Come To Jesus meeting between the coach and the players.  NOTHING. AT. ALL. 

Message to Chuck and Craig: maybe YOU should make yourselves heard as well.  Screw this crap about not getting into the coach's space.  Hell, we're way beyond that.  You know, there's nothing like a Come To Jesus meeting with the GM and OWNER to make the EMPLOYEES aware that their jobs are on the line.  You want to send player's agents into Twitter overload?  Drop in on the guys during practice and make it clear that NOBODY's job is safe.  Oops, that would only work if the coach was actually having a practice. 

What's the cost of benching some of these 'star' players and letting the young guys in Houston come up?  What's the cost of putting certain 'star' players on the 3rd and 4th line?  What's the cost of having our AHLers with the dream, energy and motivation to play in the NHL show what they're made of?  What's the cost of letting our 'star' players know they won't be getting calls from any other GM in the future because the cat's out of the bag - YOU SUCK ON ICE in terms of work ethic.  It can't be any more costly to our owner than the $10 million he's claiming to have lost already on his investment.      

I've said it a million times before but maybe I need to send the message to the owner, not the players?

Hey Craig, you're boasting a fortune off of the announced 18,600+ unsuspecting fans who paid premium prices just to get in the door last night.  The profit from the section of Rangers fans who had the beer cup snake which measured some 15-20 feet long must still be ringing in your ears.  Take that money and put it to good use.  Get t-shirts made up for everyone on the team and make it mandatory dress code from here on out:

I'M A 60 MINUTE MAN, ARE YOU?

Better yet - send them out to all of your STH's.  Maybe an arena filled with fans wearing white t-shirts emblazoned with I'M A 60 MINUTE MAN, ARE YOU? would help send the message to a team that's consistently lazy.  I mean, we're there for the full 60 minutes every game so maybe we should be helping the guys get the message since our coach doesn't have it in him.  Oh, and Craig - don't cheap out on the quality of the t-shirts - they'll need to make it through 30 wash loads.

Bright Spots From The Game - 

• Robyn!  In her Wild jersey with complementary red collared shirt underneath, right down to her purple suede shoes.  You made the game worth being at, girlfriend! 
• Chatting with Tim between 1st and 2nd periods.  Thanks for making the trip around the arena to visit us!  
• Brent Burns having his way with Marian Gaborik behind our net, along the boards in the 3rd period.  I thought Robyn and I were going to pee our pants with laughter and delight.