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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Nice piece on Manny

In the Peoria Journal Star, about his kids, who were in Houston with him for the playoff series.

Cool that his boy child is a goalie, too. Though I had to laugh that his best advice was to "stay out of the crease" when playing too deep is something Manny gets caught doing more than he should.

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You know it's bad when they quit keeping score

At least it wasn't JUST my awful play that resulted in Coach Dan and Ref Luther deciding to employ the mercy rule and quit keeping score. The final tally on the board was 12-9, green team, but it felt more like 17-13.

I let in some real stinkers. Like the dump in from the point that I thought was going to go wide and it bounced in off the far post. That one came right after some other goal. Can't even remember how the one before went in, but the next shot came quickly after and I made a great save. This was the third period and I was pretty fired up and really needed a save to pick me up. Pretty sure what came out of my mouth was something along the lines of, "HELL YEAH!!! TAKE THAT, BITCHES!" I mean, I belted that shit out. I was obnoxious. It felt gooooooood. I'm definitely out of the running for the Lady Byng though.

And on that note, I'm finding I'm not the classiest goalie ever. Between that and my new-found urge to slash the person who scored on me if they're close enough... I worry myself a little. But then I tell myself, it's just emotion and passion, baby. I love this game and I love this position. It's unreal. But Jesper's knees were in grave danger on several of the 5(?) goals he scored on me. Scotty, remember our discussion last week where I thought I kinda had a bead on Jesper's style? F**k that noise. He murdered me.

Jessica got a couple but I stopped her quite a few times, too. Including a really funny one where I could see she didn't *quite* have control of the puck as she was coming in on a breakaway, but she was gonna reign it in if I didn't pounce. So I challenged her and tried to poke check and missed, but I startled her with my aggressiveness and she ditched the puck right in front of me. That was awesome. I'm making her work for her goals now, so I like that. Oh, except for the one of hers where she got me moving across the crease and it caromed in off my stick. Son of a...

Joe got an ugly one on me short side. It was a 3 on 2 and he was coming up the wall on my left but I can see two red people to my right just waiting for the pass. And Joe being the red team coach, I was expecting the pass, since that's what coaches tend to do in this league, so I was cheating away from the post. Can't do that, Ms. C.

Anyway, the list goes on and on. I felt bad for the other goalie. He didn't realize there was going to be a 4th period because we had extra ice time and I think the game was over in his mind. His 4th was like my 3rd last week. Every shot going in for the first 10 minutes. He was tired, too, they said.

I dunno how getting lit up like that can be so fun, but it was fun. Go figure. I guess if my team wasn't making things happen at the other end, it would have just been depressing, but they kept putting the puck in the net, god love 'em. Fred (not photographer Fred, green socks Fred) is looking especially good lately. He's fun to watch. Crazy soft hands. If his feet ever catch up with his hands, he'll be a beast.

So anyway, I guess the power of Manny Legace's signature on the backplate of my mask doesn't make me a better goalie. Don't think it made me any worse though. It was just a tough game. And boy, I was sore, feet and calves cramping up, before I even got to the parking lot. Had some awkward landings on some of my save attempts and an awkward fall on my right arm that strained my tricep. Groins are gonna be screaming by about 5 p.m. But it will all be fine by next Sunday when we get to do it all over again. I can't wait!

I actually felt like my stamina was pretty good in spite of the long game. I mixed some Gatorade in my water bottle and I think that helped, even if it was mostly psychologically. But sweating that much for that long, you need to put some electrolytes back and the carb boost is nice, too. One great thing about having done all that marathon stuff was learning what works best for keeping my energy up and stable for long durations. I'm pretty in tune with that and happy with how that worked out last night.

Though I don't eat a lot on Sundays because I get nervous, and the beer I had after the game went straight to my head. Had to hang out longer than I intended just to feel comfortable driving home.

This week I'm going to focus on core strength and flexibility. Last week was endurance/cardio. Amazing how a little bit of extra work during the week can make a big difference on Sunday. I definitely felt less tired during the game last night.

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Me and MFL

I look really calm and, like, "Whatever. Third star. Big deal. Manny who?" but inside, I'm like that dog from the Beggin' Strips commercial.

As always, many thanks to Fred Trask for the photo. And apologies to Mr. C for saying, "OMG! MANNY FREAKING LEGACE!" about 10 times on the way home from the game.

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Legace Legacy

I was frittering around after writing my post-game over at T3I and talking about Peoria next weekend, when suddenly I realized: Manny Legace is the Peoria goalie.

Well, it was more like, "OMFG!!! Manny! In my barn!"


He's one of my favorite goalies. Just the picture of the underdog and perseverance and, lately, a bit down on his luck. But all the guy wants to do is play hockey, and so he takes his lumps after a mostly bad season in St. Louis and goes to the minors.

But the guy is a friggin' Stanley Cup winner, he argued with Bettman on national TV in the middle of minding the net in last season's All Star game (how is there not video of that on YouTube?), he's a little goalie (love the little goalies)... I just love the guy.

I want to get him to sign the backplate of my goalie mask, but can't bring myself to do the "wait outside the arena" thing. Hmm. Anybody got a kid I can give $20 to go do it for me? :)

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Avoid Blues ice if you have a lower body....

So first, Chris Mason's appendix goes kaplooey. Then Legace goes down after slipping on the carpet laid out for the ceremonial puck drop with That Woman. Now my big Ben Bishop has a lower body injury suffered during last night's game against Florida. So, backup Marek Schwarz filled in and finished off the shutout Ben had started.

With both of Peoria's top goaltending prospects up in St. Louis... can the Aeros hurry up and play them while they're vulnerable?? :)

Here's hoping the boys are angry at these two losses and and looking avenge their honor (or something similarly noble and righteous) against the Toronto Marlies at 3 this afternoon. The Marlies 2-3-0-1, so hopefully they'll be a little easier to play.

BTW, I watched those first two Manitoba goals from last night. The first one, Barry should have gotten. No screen and just a straight up shot on goal by a player who broke away from the defense. The second one was, I believe, one shift later off a face-off, where the Manitoba player shot from a few feet beside the net and the puck bounced in off of Paul Albers' leg. Ouch. At least, that's how it looked. There was a Manitoba player right behind Albers, but I don't think he got a piece of it.

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Big Ben Bishop & Peoria

My fascination with Peoria Rivermen goalie Ben Bishop is no secret, right? Here's a good article on him from the AHL web site.

I'm looking forward to Peoria coming to town (wonder what reception Matt Foy will get), though I'll have to be on my A game to have enough focus to not just sit and watch him all game. And I love that he's coming up behind my favorite small goalie, Manny Legace, in the Blues organization.

For those keeping track, I think he's the only non-Aeros AHL player who has his own label on my blog. (Edit: I take that back. My friend, Kris Chucko, has his own.)

I'd love to do a little Aeros road trip if there's an Illinois swing with the Wolves, Ice Hogs, and Peoria in quick succession. SIL's family is in Peoria, so that would be good family relations to take our nephew to a game (though I'd have to watch my potty mouth). He's a spunky kid. I think he'd take to hockey pretty well. Hmm.

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Goalie Knees, Angry Knees

Knees are still quite angry today, though Advil helps but truly only lasts for a few hours. I'm planning to do yoga before bed and hoping that will stretch some things out and relieve some of the tension pulling on my knee caps.

My boys lost today, but it sounds like they played hard. 1-0 in favor of the Marlies. Still watching the Wild game and have magically avoided seeing the score, so I don't know how the even score is going to turn out in the end. I am fond of Manny Legace, so it's nice to get to see him play. Even more, I notice how different Harding looks in goal compared to Backstrom. I knew immediately it was Harding just by watching his movements in relation to play going on behind the net. His movements are so fast and crisp.

Meanwhile, I found some great articles on newbie goaltending. I continue to not be deterred from this goal, and in fact, I feel even more confident that I'm approaching the position with the appropriate respect. The author hadn't skated for 20 years and showed up to play goal at a drop-in session. I can't fathom being so bold, and it appears that's a good thing.

Goaltending 101
Goaltending 102
Goaltending 201

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