Jacking Hammer's Style

Totally ripping this from Schultzie. Sorry girl, but this blog has gotten so boring without Aeros coverage. Also, Mr. C has a bunch of friends over playing video games and I'm looking for ways to basically just avoid that whole scene.

One of them is singing You Oughta Know by Alanis Morrisette (they're playing Rock Band right now). Seriously, I may just have to leave the house.

1) What's (Who's?) your favorite team?
Aeros and Wild

2) What's your least favorite team?
Ducks, Habs, Rockford

3) Who's your favorite player?
Cal Clutterbuck, Barry Brust

4) Who's your least favorite player?
Darcy "Mother" Tucker, Chris Pronger "is a pussy"

5) Favorite American team?
See #1

6) Favorite Canadian team?
Calgary

7) Favorite International team?
Canada

8) Who's your favorite goalie?
Brusty, in the minors. Turco, Thomas, and Brodeur in the NHL.

9) Least favorite goalie?
Kipper, but just because he fucked up my fantasy hockey this season. I really don't have it in me to dislike a goalie.

10) Favorite fighter?
Who else but Mitch Love?

11) Least favorite fighter?
Anybody beating up one of MY boys.

12) Favorite jersey/uniform/outfit/sweater?
Love the Kings new third. Love the Wild red (but hate the uniform all together). Love seeing the Aeros in their darks.

13) Least favorite jersey/uniform/outfit/sweater?

Florida, Atlanta's and Sen's thirds

14) Do you like home, away, or "third" jerseys best?
Tend to like the thirds just because they're different. Though only in the NHL. Alternate sweaters in the AHL are usually pretty fug.

15) Who do you want to win the Cup?
Anybody but the Ducks

17) Which player would you most like to sit and have coffee with?
Any goalie.

18) What about a beer?
Chris Holt!

19) How about just watch the game with?
I've enjoyed JBourne's bloggeration of the playoffs... I suspect he'd be pretty fun to watch a few frames with.

20) Have an in-depth hockey conversation with?
Again, any goalie. Or really, any bum off the street. I just love to talk hockey, but if I can learn something, the more the better.

21) Do you collect hockey cards, memorabilia, etc?
No. More to dust. Just my Legace stick and a few Aeros bobbles.

22) If so, what's your favorite card?
N/a

23) Which is worth the most, and what's it worth?
How much will you give me for the Curtis Murphy bobble I've got? It's a big one! But it's very dusty.

24) Do you live by any hockey players?
Not as far as I know, unless you count Coach Stalin. Now, if I lived in Sugarland...

26) Do you play hockey?
Absofuckinlutely.

27) What do you wear to hockey games?
Gotta go biz-caz for my writing gig, so it's slacks, a nice t-shirt, and my light jacket with lots of pockets for my writerly things.

28) Do you have any "watching hockey rituals" or anything anyone might consider weird?
Not really, no.

29) What's your favorite hockey memory (as a fan?)
The Cal for Calder thing was pretty fun.

30) What's your favorite hockey commercial?


31) Who's the nicest player you've met?
Haven't actually met too many. Hard to say.

32) Rudest/meanest/most annoying, etc?
Same answer. Of course, there are guys I don't like but they're probably pretty nice off the ice.

33) Who's the best looking (AKA 'off ice favourite')
Mikko Koivu. Dane Crowley. Both make me catch my breath a little. Okay, a lot.

34) Other off-handed/off-ice comments?
None that I'm okay with putting here.

35) Why do you really like hockey?
The grace and skill contrasted/combined with the speed and violence. There's just nothing else like it. That these guys who are so easy going off the ice are such warriors on it. It never gets old for me. My happy place is sitting up at the top of 108 watching the boys do their thing. I'd rather be there more than any other place.

But on the flip side, I'm equally amazed that *I* can play this game, in my own assbackward way, a couple of times a week and am ALMOST as happy as when I'm covering a game. I dunno. Hockey has been completely transformative for me. I owe it a lot.

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Quick hits: Random Me-Stuff; Pouliot article; Hab talk

Any guesses as to how many times I've watched the video from my previous post today?

Okay, like 5x and I giggled every time, but it's still not enough to make me less irritable about not getting to go skate today at lunch time. :( But I'll strap on the gear and do up and downs later. Gonna toy with my toe ties (say that fast 10 times) to see if I can get a scheme going that works better for pad rotation.

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Pouly got some press in the Strib today. I'm just going to quit paying any attention to what he says to the media and let his play speak for itself. I didn't think his words matched his effort lately on the ice, but fortunately it's going the right way for a change.

He sounds much more blasé about it in the paper than he looks during games. Normally he says all the right things but then the effort on the ice is paltry. I prefer this way.

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Finally someone else is talking sense about Carey Price and the rest of Les Bad Habit-ants. (ZOMG, look at the quad muscles on those boys! You can see how they had trouble getting to Foster's femur through that stuff.)

And Stu Hackel over at NYT: Slap Shot blog mentions today how there's talk of divisiveness in the Habs room and the elder Koivu seems to be on the outside looking in. Much has been said of his free agent status this summer, and how both Koivus have said that playing together in Minnesota might be something they'd be cool with. Perhaps if the rumors from Montreal are true, the stage for Koivu's departure after all these years and a Koivu reunion in St. Paul is being set. Stranger things have happened.

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What has happened to Carey Price?

Photo courtesy of Fred Trask

I'll be honest, I don't watch Habs games unless there's nothing else on. But it's difficult to escape the sound of salty tears hitting the ice around the blue paint up there. Pricer is melting down in an epic fashion and, man, is that tough to watch.

Kelly Hrudey had some interesting things to say about it last weekend. His compassion for Price seems genuine and heartfelt. So much so that I think I'm crushing on him a little. Finally, an age-appropriate hockey crush! Oh wait. Never mind. He's like 14 years older than me. Dammit! But still, if anybody wants to buy me the new King's third with a Hrudey #32 on it for my birthday, I'd totally dig that.



Anyway, the kid's in deep shit at the moment, but I'm certainly sympathetic to his plight. And it appears that his coach has decided to just make him work through it as he seems to be playing most games and never getting pulled. I dunno. Crazy stuff.

And it only increases my thoughts of, "And Backstrom isn't signed yet, WHY?" I mean really. Who is more solid than Nik Backstrom? Who gives up a goalie who WANTS to be in Minnesota, WANTS to re-sign, ISN'T a headcase, and has some of the BEST stats in the league.

Further, I'm in a tizzy about our goaltending depth in the Wild organization. Dimples isn't having a great year and isn't even the #1 goalie on his own ECHL team. Brusty is in the doghouse and possibly the toilet. Next year could be very interesting. If the Wild don't pick up a goalie in the first round next yearthis summer, they done screwed the fuck up, as we say back home.

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New toy

I got my Stretch-a-flex today (thank you Mom and Dad!) and tried it out tonight with the accompanying DVD. I wasn't as uncoordinated as I expected, but I had trouble feeling the stretch on some of the moves. I need to go through it a little slower next time with liberal use of the pause button. My legs are definitely feeling wrung out though, so I guess it did something. It's a pretty cool deal.

Thought about going skating tonight but decided to take it easy and color my hair instead while Mr and his friend are at the Astros game. After watching the Flyers beat the Habs (please, if there's any justice left after it was served to Colorado).

P.S. I added a countdown to the NHL draft to this page. Get Ms. Conduct some fresh meat, DR!

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Playoffs: Day 1

Rough night in the Conduct household... Aeros lost to Chucko and the Flamers AGAIN (what the hell is it with that team???), Wild lost to those Colorado hosers in an OT heartbreaker (and yet ANOTHER player is injured... at least it wasn't a defenseman), and Brodeur made several brilliant saves and let in one softy that was so f'ing soft, it negated all the brilliant saves.

I was okay with the Rangers winning though, especially since Avery got me some quality fantasy league points. Here's my stats for my team last night:

Sean Avery | 1 G, 1 A, 3 Shots | 5.5
Brian Rolston | 1 A, 5 Shots | 3.5
Jarome Iginla | 2 A, 4 Shots | 4
Marian Gaborik | 1 Shot | 0.5
Brent Burns | 2 Shots | 1

Total: 14.5

The rest of my players play tonight:
Brendan Morrow, Teemu Selanne, Nicklas Lidstrom, Zdeno Chara, and Christobal Huet.

I was shocked, when I looked at my stats, to see how few shots Gabby got. WTF? The Avs totally neutralized him. Very frustrating. Someone needs a beating. :)

Anyway, before all that drama, I did do something good for myself and popped in my yoga DVD. I really didn't know if I was making any progress in my flexibility but on one move, I was able to straighten my leg out where I never had been able to before. But there was some SERIOUS crunching in my lower back, so either my pelvis is out again or it's more in. I'll have no idea until I hit the ice on Saturday. Shoulders are definitely a bit sore today though. And my groin is so tight. Need to work on that.

Habs play tonight, which is Mr. Conduct's team of choice. It will be nice to watch some games where I have a favorite but not much emotional investment. I was flopping around on the floor like a fish last night watching the Wild. Tres stressful!

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