O Canada

So, Cody Almond has 9 points since yours truly informed him during an interview at the end of December that KC promised on the record he'd play in the NHL.

Now, I know it's Cody's hard work that's got him where he is right now and it was clear he was on the cusp of this, but hey, nothing like a crazy-positive scouting report from the bossman to put the wind at your back.

Tonight he got a career high 3 points, assists on all three power play goals the Aeros racked up in the first 6 minutes of the second period tonight. He also got the third star (and the only star for any of the Aeros).

I think it's safe to say that the Aeros have Abbotsford's number on the power play. It's really been exciting to watch the last couple of nights.

Dubie was not super sharp in goal tonight, and the Aeros allowed 4 goals (1 PP), so the game went to OT and Rogers just straight up hard-worked his way to the GWG.

Great start to this road trip, for sure.

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Blades won tonight 5-1, and Brusty was Brusty. I'm really out of superlatives. All the guy does is validate my adulation. The team played well in front of him, too, for the most part. It never ceases to amuse me when a fight breaks out around him, he's jumping in there to pull guys off or whatever. None of that typical goalie aloofness. More reasons to be lusty for Brusty, as if you needed more.

He also got the third star, after I jokingly fussed at the Blades beat writer for leaving him off last night. His performance last night I thought was more deserving. Lots more great chances for Gwinnett but still, tonight he stopped 28 of 29 and the one goal was a PP goal.

Also, once again, I got called away from my laptop to help Mr. C, and boom. Goal. So, Brusty's still pitching a shutout while I'm watching. :)

Dear Blades, I'll happily take cash or a practice sweater in exchange for being glued to the screen. *call me*

Gotta say though, my heart kinda went out to Gwinnett goalie Dan Taylor, as he got scored on literally at 19:59 in the third. :( It didn't matter in the game, but stats-wise, that's a punch in the gut for the guy and he went off clearly in a pissy, stick-swinging way. Clear a path for that one.

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Jaeger hasn't played in a while, but his partner Joe Palmer got his ass handed to him last night, so I expected Jags would be in tonight.

Well, he was and man, what a game that must have been. One of those rare games that goes through regulation and OT without a single goal on either side. Just a total tending clinic at both ends for Texas and Corpus Christi, with shots 34-37 respectively. Wow.

Texas ended up winning with Jaeger letting in only 1 of 5 shootout attempts and the Brahmas potting two in the skills competition.

To complete the hat trick of game stars for "my boys," he took home the second star, but more importantly, hopefully he's earned some starts over Palmer at least for a while. I know it seems crazy to award starts to the BEST goalie, but apparently some teams actually do that.

Is my bitterness getting any cuter? No? Here have a puppy and pretend it's my bitterness.

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I've been following this little blog that's all about Atlanta's Kari Lehtonen since last summer. The writer digs that oft-injured goalie an awful lot, so you can imagine, the blog speaks to me on a certain level.

Anyway, Lehtonen had his first conditioning start in Chicago for the Wolves tonight. Chicago lost 5-4 to Peoria, and from the Peoria tweets I saw, it sounded like Ben Bishop stole some of the game from Chicago with some really huge saves (though, does that guy do anything small?)

But I was just thinking how excited that blog's author must be tonight. Their goalie back in action at long last! Best wishes to Lehtonen on a solid return to the NHL and congrats to my fellow blogger on getting your goalie back. It's like the world getting back on its axis and definitely something to celebrate.

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Quick Hits: Rapper's Delight

I've got my little superstitions. Nothing too crazy and some are just habits that I feel weird not doing.

But one of my bigger ones is that I won't wear another goalie's sweater to play goal in. Like if you gave me a goalie cut Brusty sweater, I'd totally love you forever, but I wouldn't wear it to play because I don't want whatever shitty goalie mojo I have jinxing him.

Who knows how detail oriented the hockey gods are? Maybe they get confused and punish him for something I did. I can't live with the uncertainty!

Anyway, I've got a thing about that and I just won't do it.

But then in my Google Reader, among all my AHL goalie news hits, I get this from Ebay.

Dare I test the theory?

Ha! Nahhh, not with MY $125+...

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My knee is feeling better! I can kneel on it, it doesn't have that squishy "fluid on the joint" feeling anymore. I'm still aware of it, but I'm delighted to see any progress!

I'm so glad I was able to take Sunday off and really give it a rest. I had a dream last night that I could drop into the fly with no pain at all. Pretty sure that's still just a dream but I am going to bust out the Stretch-a-Flex tonight and see if I can get a really good stretch in.

So much for my wonderful plan of going for a massage this week, though, since my car is dead. Again. And Mr.C is out of town. Again. This is getting old quickly. At least there's a CVS in quick walking distance. I'm getting hungry.

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So, I'm having this issue with my pads, you know, where the right one won't flip up a lot of times when I drop.

And then I notice that I'm having trouble keeping that pad centered on my leg. It wants to turn inward on me.

So, the other day, I'm standing around waiting to play and kinda thinking about this and trying to figure out, mechanically, what is going on here. Because when I shift my right pad over to where it should be, it pushes on the padding in the front of my pants.

I start feeling around to figure out why that's happening on one side and not the other and I discover the following:

The hard padding on the front of my pants is basically flat and about the width of my pads. On the left side, that flat surface matches up with the back of my pad just fine.

On the right side, however, the pants padding sits a little off center, turning inward. So, when my pad meets the front of my pants, it also shifts inward.

And when I straighten it back out, the pad is pushing on the curved outer edge of the pants padding, and eventually, invariably slips back off center again.

The drawing shows what it looks like when I shift the pad over to where it should be. The red area shows where the pad shifts back to when it's sitting naturally against the pants.

It doesn't seem like much but it's actually a pretty big difference.



I'm going to try lacing the pants up looser Sunday and see if that helps the pants sit differently on me. They're fairly loose now, but it's all I can think of to try, other than new gear. But if anybody has any ideas, let me know.

The good thing is, now I know it's not my knee pads screwing up my pad rotation, so those are coming back. I'm tired of slamming them on the ice.

Also, almost on the boobie drawing, right?! Shame I'm not having a problem with my chest protector....

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Pracky Sunday

Pracky's my new favorite hockey player slang. It's probably just the real hosers who use it, but nobody tell me for a while because I'm enjoying it. It's so much better than praaactice. Ugh. Practice is a drag. But Pracky? Oh! Pracky is fun!

Anyway, lots of positioning work for the skaters and butterfly sliding work for me. Scott TFCG came out and worked with me. I only said, "I'm 34 years old. I'm not doing that." one time, so I figure I was a pretty good student. Heh. We hit a lot of subjects, but it's just nice to have someone to say, "WTF do I do here?" or "I have this problem when I do this" and get an an answer on the spot.

His brother in law is in town, so he skated out and played D for me in the scrimmage. Gotta love when you have a real live Canadian playing in front of you. That's legit.

Nothing really spectacular from the night to report and I'm tired and massively hungry after eating only a granola bar and 2 flour tortillas in the last 12 hours. So, it's off to the kitchen and then bed for me to watch old epis of Trailer Park Boys while I drift off. I haven't met my f-bomb and dope-reference quota for the week, so it's essential that I work a little of that in.

Back to SLICE tomorrow night. Can't tell you how happy I am to be getting this gig on a fairly regular basis. It's a really nice, chick-friendly group and they're a good challenge, on top of the ice being such a pleasure to play on there. Though as cool as it's been, ice all over town should be getting better and better.

It was a little kludgy tonight at Willowbrook but not too bad, other than the HUGE divot in my crease. If we hadn't been close to finishing when I noticed it, I would have gotten someone to put some water in it. It was a good inch deep and 3" wide. You could lose a Ukrainian figure skater in it....
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Aeros lost again tonight. I still think this team is going to pull it together at some point. I still don't like Dubie. I wish they'd let Jaeger get in a game just to see what he can do. Oh well. When they make me the coach...

OK. Fooood. Nooooow.

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What's it like to sleep 8 hours in a row?

I know it's hockey season again because I start thinking things like, "My kingdom for an Ambien rx!" at 4 a.m. It's a bad combination: Hockey stuff happens at night, hockey stuff gets me all wound up, so I stay up late. Then I need a nap the next day just to stay conscious. And then I stay up late again, and the cycle just goes on and on.

It happens with my games all year but that's just a couple of nights a week and tolerable, but then add in Aeros games during the season and it's almost nightly that it's just me and the possums traversing the dark of night. Well, me, possums, and all the drunks on Washington Ave. by my house.

Add to that my excitement about my debut in goal at the Toyota Center tomorrow and my attempt to go to bed when I got home from a rather exciting victory for the Aeros (and if I may say, a really fantastic stick figure drawing of Al Montoya playing dead) fell short. I slept for 2 fitful hours, laid there for another hour thinking, "Girl, if you get up, you're gonna be up for hours and you're gonna hate life tomorrow."

But finally, I just had to. I can't stand to be in bed and not sleeping or otherwise, um, actively engaged. Neither option was on the docket. I'm hoping a few more hours of sleep and adrenaline will carry me.

So, I've gotten another day's worth of AHL goalie news pushed out to the world, including more mockery of Montoya. (Sorry, dude, I enjoy goalie antics, but don't f**k your team over like that in a close game.)

I didn't mention what Constantine said about his decision to play Khudobin tonight, but it certainly validates my feelings about Dubie, so I feel better about jumping the gun a bit on expressing my displeasure with his play. John quoted it in his piece on T3I and I'll use it in my next PHN piece next week. It suffices to say, I was surprised and pleased by his candor on the subject. Also, I very much enjoy being right.

Though I did feel like Anton was fighting it a bit tonight, and his team bailed him out a few times. But he could have fallen apart on that misplay of the wraparound. But the kid's got so much confidence, he was able to shake it off and hold down the fort. Doesn't have to be pretty. Just has to be done.

Okay, back to bed to try and get some winks. Have to be at the TC at 11:30 for my game tomorrow and then back at 6:30 or so for the Aeros game and hopefully mashed potatoes at the pre-game feed. No doubt, there will be a nap in between. And the cycle will continue. Argh.

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Quick Hits: 5 Things w/ a 2 Thing Bonus

First of all, my legs hurt and I'm tired. Just so you know.

Second of all, OMG are the Wild bad or what?

Thirdly, I did a little write-up on the Aeros for my pal over at Deuce by Definition. I really hadn't intended to start firing shots at Dubie yet, but I did so fully disclosing the goalie baggage I'm carrying. I didn't mention that I'm tired and my legs hurt, but that's probably part of why I'm cranky, so I'm disclosing it here.

I still want to give him a chance but really, the back to back of he and Dimples last weekend was like night and day. And I don't think it's just a matter of style. Schaef and Brusty both had quite different styles but I usually felt like their effort levels were on par with each other. I don't get that feeling here.

Promise that's all I'm saying about it until I've had more pudding (you know, because that's where the proof is). Prove me wrong, Wade.

Quatro: I fell asleep on the couch last night at 8. Woke up at 9 to go to real bed, put the Wild game on, turned the Wild game off, and dozed off about 10 times, but each time I was nearly asleep, someone shot a puck at me and I jumped awake trying to make the save.

Think I'm a little anxious about Saturday's Toyota Center game?

So I finally gave up around 10 and got up and watched the end of the Wild game, had a snack, played about 300 games of Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook, got today's AHL goalie news written up (I'd link it if I weren't so Dubie lazy) and finally went back to bed around 3.

I need a new game on FB that doesn't suffer when my eyes get tired. Or an Ambien rx so it just doesn't matter.

Random thought: It's amazing to me what beautiful people can get away with saying sometimes without annoying or offending anyone.

Fiverino: The only arena in which I just kinda hate all goalies is in fantasy hockey. Especially you, Dan Ellis.

6-Hole: You should see the bruise on my shin. I'm telling you, it takes some really REALLY bad goaltending to get a bruise on your shin, but I did it. It's like half a puck sized. If I weren't so embarrassed by the location of the bruise, I'd be pretty proud of it. It's a nice one.

Seventhly, in this day and age of cell phones, internet, walkie-talkies, and instant fuckin' everything, it's absolutely ridiculous that the 3 stars of a game are still decided with 3-4 minutes left in regulation play. Some of the greatest heroics in hockey have come in the final seconds or minutes or shootouts. I don't really know the mechanics behind it all, but is it really that hard to make a quick call to the appropriate parties and change the list?

Good day!

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When it rains, it pours

So, I exit town for a few days and my team explodes. I still don't even know the names of the new Aeros and if you think I'm learning to spell Dubie's name, you've underestimated my laziness. Surely I have an editor somewhere who will do that for me.

And speaking of which, WTF? If they don't trade Harding, clearly(?) it's Dubie and Brusty in Houston and Dimples goes... elsewhere. Man, talk about a kid who's getting screwed, or at least has to be feeling that way.

I know he was a sometimes-stud in the playoffs, but he's still got holes in his game that scare the bejeezus out of me. And given that there's been a rather significant drop in offense for the Aeros, the goaltending needs to be outta sight for the Aeros to have a steady season while all the new kids learn KC's system.

Sounds like, from the comments I'm seeing at T3I, there's a lot of dissatisfaction among fans. But I don't think it's going to be THAT bad. Many of the leaders on the team are back, though losing Love is a toughie in that regard. A lot can be overcome with heart and great chemistry and a lot of positive mojo from the Sunshine Club. ;)

I don't know what's going to happen... with ANYTHING. But I know, sometime in early October, I will see live, pro hockey again. Brusty with a big poke check. Stoner with a big hit. Some rookies and maybe Falker getting their first goals. And all this summertime angst will be a thing of the past and life will be whole again for seven or eight months.

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That said, I can attest to the fact that everything is up to date in Kansas City. Who knew? Drove all over the city and it's very pretty and clean. Like Canada sort of, without the hockey addiction, which is a shame really. The Royals aren't really worth all the Royals shirts I saw.

Though speaking of the Royals, we went to Saturday's game and Mr.C nabbed one of the t-shirt tosses. Get this: No ads on the shirt. Just a white shirt with Royals across the front. When have you EVER gotten a free shirt that didn't have ads on it?

The one thing they do do wrong in KC is their grass addiction. Not like weed, but literally, expanses of lawn. Everywhere. I'm telling you, if you're in mower sales or repair and you're not in KC, you're in the wrong goddamn place. I've never seen so much perfectly manicured grass in my life. Of course, this means it takes twice as long to get anywhere because of the fields of grass separating everything. Very inefficient.

Anyway, nice place but glad to be home with internet that's already paid for. I have 441 items in my Google Reader at the moment, and had over 100 emails to sort through, not including work email.

Okay, off to eat some cereal and try and get my head wrapped around the notion that I'm blessed to get to play hockey tonight, even if it's a practice and even if I'm so tired, I'm hard pressed to care where the puck goes.

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