Constantine from MN

Awesome interview with KC, especially his talking about Foster. Very cool stuff. Thanks to Kevin Falness for that.

Though I did LOL when he compared Corey Locke to Butch and Bruno. Butch, I get. Not so much Bruno.

But much love for the boys there. I have also found it interesting listening to some interviews with Foster where he seems sort of amazed by how much fun the Aeros guys have. Like maybe they don't have quite that much fun in the NHL.

I kinda like that. It should be more fun. You're making relative peanuts and still getting the crap beat out of you every night and the schedule sucks and travel sucks... hell yeah, it better be fun.

Genius idea to work the boys in MN this week. Sounds like lots of good is coming out of it.

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AHL All Star Game

Locker gets the first goal for Canada past Schneider. Oh, if every team the Aeros played wouldn't play defense. Canadians pretty much dominated the start.

Mike Brodeur's pads are really cool looking with his uniform. Black face with red sides. Unique. He's a pretty badass goalie, too. Some good saves tonight.

I wonder how many goals Pouliot would score in a soft game like this. Probably a lot.

Locke has turned the puck over twice that I've seen. But he got an assist on the second Canada goal. Interview with Locker at the half, who says "great" about 35 times, but also says he's having fun playing in Houston, so I guess that's nice.

I sometimes wonder what it's like for him going from the Habs system, where the big club is basically the center of the hockey universe, to Houston. It's gotta feel like hockey Siberia a little bit, right?

Ohh, Brusty in the locker room. Looking delish.

He's playing the second period. Already putting the stick to #12 on the PUSA team. Several HUGE saves right out of the gate!

And Locker with the 4th goal for Canada! Way to represent, boys!

Ah poop, they got one past Brusty on a breakaway. Not a bad one by any means. Just left a little too much net to his far side. He looks to be searching for any opportunity to play the puck. Not many chances when there are no penalties.

LMAO. Planet USA passes up to some Cherry-Picking Bastard who comes in on Barry on a breakaway. Barry lunges at him and catches him with his stick to send him spinning into the corner with the puck. CPB passes across the crease and Barry has to do a big jump to keep from letting the puck hit his skates and potentially go in the net.

Crowd was all, "OHHHH!!!!" and I'm all, "Yeah, bitches. Don't you wish your goalie was hot like mine?" *snap*

Of course, these hoser announcers are too busy yapping with the GM of the Sharks to appropriately appreciate what was happening on the ice. In fact, every shot on Barry, they're all, "Oh, great chance for [shooter]" but no love for the goalie making the save. Why aren't they in awe of his radiant awesomeness? Dingleberries.

Wow, they just said Brusty got an assist on one of the Canada goals, and it's the first time a goalie has gotten an assist in an AHL All Star Game!

And then the same guy who scored on him before picked off Barry's pass up the center of the ice, brought it back in and ripped it 5 hole.

But anyway, stellar period for Brusty given the lack of defensive play. Only 3 goals but plenty more impressive saves and opportunity to show his personality as a goalie. Straight up badass, that guy.

Wait up. Hold the phone. Did I just see a big wad of dip in Brusty's lip in the locker room there? Augh. Why you gotta do that nasty redneck shit, man? *sigh* Gross. So not hot.

HAT TRICK for LOCKE! Atta boy!

Oh boy. Schultzie... Weims could use a hug about now. He's looking very much like he wishes the clock would tick down a little faster. Just getting lit up left and right.

FOURTH GOAL for LOCKE! And an AHL ASG record with those 4 goals!

Pretty cool to have both guys creating some "firsts" tonight. Also, the highest scoring AHL ASG ever.

However, thanks to a pretty bad third period for Canada defensively, Planet USA wins 14-11. It stayed close enough to be interesting.

Okay. The fake hockey is done for the season. Back to beating the crap out of each other. Yay!

Update: Here's the article in the Chron about the game. Nice quotes from Locker and Brusty. Love the joke about getting a second assist for his give-away that led to a goal. Heh.

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AHL All Star Skillz Competition

I'm a dork for All Star stuff, and I'm totally okay with that. I'd LiveBlog this but I'd probably be all alone and that would be sad. So I'll just make some notes, the first of which is that OMG it's in HD!! Nice work, NESN!

Introductions:

• Chris Aucoin looks like he got hit by a 2x4. Huge bruised jaw and black eye. Damn boy.
• Ben Lovejoy is foxy and writes a blog. Good stuff.
  
• BRUSTY!!! Stoopid announcer screwed up his name. How hard is it to say Barry?
  
• LOCKER!!!
• Oh, your Weiman is foxy, too, Schultzie...
• Yeah, the Team Canada boys are all foxier than the Planet USA boys. Sorry PUSA, but it's true.
• Mike Brodeur looks like a white-boy rapper. Like he probably calls his apartment his "crib."
• HEXTALL! Awesome!
  

Puck Control Relay
Um. Yeah, they were fast and stuff. Not my favorite event. It's funny how different this is from the NHL version of the same. None of the obnoxious hoopla. Just hockey players doing hockey player things. Refreshing, frankly. Oh, Planet USA wins.

Fastest Skater
Best of the "Future Stars" was 15.5. Those are a couple of kids who play on each team.
Okay, here goes Locker with Chilly cheering him on. 14.9, second from the bottom. Oh well. And again, Planet USA wins. Yo, Canada, what up?

Rapid Fire Challenge
Okay, this shit ain't fair. Two shooters, each with 5 pucks at the hash marks, alternating shots on the goalie. So basically, the goalie is just getting beat to hell and lit up like nobody's business. I'm not even sure what skill this is supposed to be showcasing.

Weiman was quite good. Very quick legs.
Brusty was AWESOME! I think he let in 3.
Schneider was awesomer. Man, he was really excellent, letting in only one of the 10 shots.
Brodeur was not so good. Why couldn't the Aeros solve him when we played him?

Interview with Weiman after. I know this is weird, but he's got very tidy eyebrows. Wax? Pluck?

Hardest Shot
Showing past winners, Kurtis Foster won in 2003 with 101 MPH.

Come on AHL boys... these are pretty weak. This is making me miss Jon Awe.

Winner is 98.6 for Joslin from Worcester.

Accurate Shot
Man, the NHLers school these guys. Oh, they're getting better as they go on. Mike Santorelli from Milwaukee won that one getting 4 of 4. He also won the Worst Hair competition. Yikes. Someone drag his ass to SportClips, for the love of god.

Pass and Score (aka F**k the Goalie)
This was a fun one last year where Reitz's line scored on Schaefer. It was pretty sick.

Teddy Purcell is foxy and humble and articulate. Oh yeah, and really good. Nom.

• Good job by Frazee! Stopped all three attempts.
• Weiman got beat on all three. Ouch.
• Brusty got lit up. Poor dear.
• Larsson also got lit up.
• Schneider was awesome, but his shooters were lame with slow releases.

Interview with Frazee. He's a little odd. But he's a goalie, so, ya know, par for the course.

Breakaway Relay
Oh boy. More goalie abuse. Need a Humane Society for Goalies. Sheesh.

• Weiman is a patient, patient goalie. Very impressive only letting one in.
• Holding my breath for Brusty... WOO!!!!!!! He stopped all 6 shots! Beauty! Great poke check on one of those. Very "Brusty" move. Love it. Atta boy! He looked pretty happy when that was over. Big grin.
  
• Schneider got all six, as well. Man, that dude is jacked.
• Locker got shut out by Schneider with a shot right into his glove.

Planet USA with the win. No awards for the Aeros boys but a good show anyway. I'm awfully proud of Brusty though. I can't imagine he was looking too forward to that, but he crushed the breakaway and ended on a high note.

Game tomorrow night. If the NESN was smart, they'd mic up the goalies like the NHL does, but I won't hold my breath.

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Locker's All Star Interview

So, now I know what happened tonight. My hero Kevin Falness jinxed the goalies!

Okay, maybe not.

Anyway, good interview with the Locker. Good to hear Corey talk about the grind of the schedule. Helps my sympathy level, which had dropped dangerously low.

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Hockey: The Musical - Part 3

Back into the jukebox tonight because I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall back asleep. I'm kinda pissed about it, actually, because I aggravated my groin/hip/hamstring pull a bit yesterday doing up-and-downs, and I'm trying to heal up so I can play well (well=not gimpy) on Sunday. Oh well. The insomnia wins again. I'll hit the chocolate milk here in a bit and see if that brings on the sleepies.

I'm saying Kolanos is a member of the Wild now, so he's the Wild representative today.

Krys Kolanos
The meaning behind any particular Tragically Hip song is usually pretty debatable, but I've read that "Yer Not the Ocean" is about fighting a losing battle to avoid falling for someone, and I kinda buy into that theory. I really thought I was going to hate Krys and he's... well... he's up to my chin.
Yer Not the Ocean - Tragically Hip



Corey Locke
The Aeros are 7-1-0-3 when Locker scores. Pretty damn good party startin' if you ask me. (Sorry for the ad. The good YouTube versions aren't embeddable.)
Party Starter - Will Smith

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Canadian AHL All-Stars Announced; another new face on the roster

Ahhh. Don't you love a good excuse to use this fabulous, sparkly-eyed photo of Brusty? I sure do. The only thing better would be if I had a fabulous, sparkly-eyed photo of Locker, but I don't. This one of him looking very much like he's aboot to humiliate some poor goalie will have to do.

Um, yeah, so that's what they look like. What they did was get themselves on the AHL All Star roster for the Canadian team. Tomorrow they announce the Planet USA team, but I'm not holding my breath there, what with the high-flying talent of Petr Kalus gone overseas...

That was sarcasm. Just FYI.

Anyway, I'm delighted that Locker found his way into his third AHL All Star game but you can imagine I'm extra super duper delighted that Brusty is going.

The only thing is that there's that shootout skills competition. Does this help or hurt his shootout problem? Maybe it will be good for him to get a shootout under his belt that has pressure behind it but not pressure that matters for the Aeros. Interesting. Either way, I'm excited. I hope it's in HD. It will be played on Jan. 26 in Worcester, MA with the skills competition the day before.

(BTW, when does Houston get the AHL All Star game? Yeah yeah, I know. Frozen hell, flying pigs, Avery captaining the Stars...)

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Also, Darryl Smith has been released back to Laredo so Bucks fans should be pretty happy about that, and in his place, the Aeros have signed Las Vegas Wranglers forward Matt Beaudoin to a PTO. The merry-go-round of minor hockey just keeps a'spinning, doesn't it?

Matt will be wearing #25. He looks pretty game, right? Check out the dude pictured on the boards though. Yikes.

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Lovin' Life

Some days, life just seems really good and all the I Can Has Cheezeburger cats seem LOL-funny and even Deadspin throws a morsel your way that just tickles your heart.

Like today, it is revealed that the knocked-up daughter of GOP VP candidate, Hockey Mom, was knocked up by a "a superhunky bad-boy ice hockey player." Oh SWEET! I mean, if you're gonna get knocked up at 17, for the love of God, at least do it with a ripping young hockey player. But, come on, don't marry the hoser, sugar. More here.

More delightful news, I was looking in my THN Yearbook at the list of the top 30 scorers in the AHL last season, grumbling to myself about how there were absolutely no Aeros on that list, and then I saw "Kolanos"... and then I saw "Schultz"... and then "Locke" and realized that Lynn did about as good a job as he could have getting us some offense. And they weren't even #s 28, 29, and 30!

11. Corey Locke
20. Jesse Schultz
25. Krys Kolanos

The prospect of all those goals is utterly squee-worthy. Though I wonder how our wundergoalies will respond to possibly having less pressure to pretty much stop everything. Ah, I'm sure it will be fine. *knock on wood*

Oh, and there are some exciting events on the horizon:

1. Russoville Fantasy Football draft on Friday evening
2. Our last 2-hour game of the year on Sunday (novice league)
3. Traverse City Prospect Tourney Sept. 13-17
4. Wild training camp opens Sept. 20
5. Aeros training camp opens ???
   
6. Playa del Carmen in early October (ahhh, vacation!!!)
7. Novice league game at Toyota Center Oct. 11
8. Opening Wild and Aeros games also on Oct. 11 (yes, I get to play hockey on Aeros ice and probably see them practicing a bit, AND go to the opening game against Chicago that night... Could a day be any better??)
9. Cool weather arrives - Late October
   

More on each as the time comes but I just had to squee a little about all the exciting things on the landscape of the next couple of months.

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Fresh Meat Friday!

Well, the Wild are certainly making a statement about how things are gonna go next year in Houston. Within the span of a week, they've signed/traded for 3 big time scorers from around the AHL. This is really exciting stuff.

First was Jesse Schultz (Nick's cousin) from the Calder Cup Champion Chicago Wolves. Then today, they traded away d-man Shawn Belle for Hamilton center Corey Locke. I think that's a win-win for everyone. Belle will get out of this system in which he just doesn't fit, and we get offensive firepower. And they signed center Krys Kolanos, a former Phoenix Coyote (I expect a report, Hip!), who played with the much maligned Kris Chucko in Quad Cities last season. He had noggin issues a few years ago, but played quite well for QC last year.

I'm very happy with these moves. Would be nice to have a chance offensively and not just have to pray for the D and goalies to keep goals against down to 0 or 1. But speaking of D... we're now a bit thin on that front. I'll hope for more news in the coming weeks on that front.

ETA: So, it's since been unearthed that while Schultz and Locke are character guys, Kolanos is apparently a bit of a jerk. This is coming from fans in several of the cities he's played for, so it's not just one loud mouthed fan's smear campaign. Word is he gives about 15% on the ice and won't play both ends, he's dismissive of fans, and a poor teammate. I can't fathom why he'd choose to come here unless it was the only offer on the table. Constantine is gonna crucify a guy like that. Could be a bumpy ride for Krys, and I'm not too excited anymore about his signing. I don't care how many goals you score, you never earn the right to be a jerk.

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