NHL Season 08-09

[Ishido]

--Faggot of the week: Some Caps fan watching the game at the big outdoor screen at Mellon Arena, wherever your are. I mean really? Is AO all you know? Just like every Caps fan, AO jersey. Wheres your Semin or Backstrom or Green jersey? Real fans buy shit of the non-star players. I can take a small select trio of friends, and among them, myself, and my GF, the 5 of us have a T-shirt or jersey of almost every person on the team, including Scuderi, Staal, Orpik, Goligoski, Kunitz, Talbot, Dupius, Guerin, Kennedy, Eaton, and Cooke. The only players we don't have shit of is Gil and Garon. But no, you show your pastey ass up, sit in the back out of sight and don't say a word til AO gives you guys your first lead in the 3rd period, hiding as you lost, and then you open your gel spiked hair, jean shorts wearing braces fucking mouth. You're fucking in your 20s and you're wearing braces and jean shorts. What a fucking piece of shit. I don't want to be that type of guy who rags on people who are socially awkward and can't get a girl and use my attractive GF as a justification for me being better than someone cause I usually lol @ the people who do it in FFXI to people who play the game excessively, and I know some friends who are nice as can be but can't get a girl, but god damn, it was the only silent reason I could come up with in my mind as we packed up to not fold up my folding chair and Stone Cold that son of a bitch.

Hahahahaha

Seriously, keep ragging on the Caps fans for the same thing that so many Pens fans do. 90% of Pens jerseys are Crosby. Personally, I don't think its a problem. They are the biggest names on the team, its only logical that they get the most jersey sales. Most of the time 3rd-4th liners don't even have jerseys advertised, the only way to get them is to have them customized, which many don't go to the trouble to do.

Also I have to agree with Ovechkin as MVP because it is about the player who is the most valuable to their team, not the best. The best would be Datsyuk, but with the roster Detroit has, it's tough to say that he does more for his team than Ovechkin does.

[Izzy]

Are you seriously calling someone "not a fan" because they have an Ovechkin jersey? I guess anyone with a Crosby, Lidstrom or Avery jersey aren't fans either? I understand that guy being an annoying fucking retarded...but calling someone out because of the name on the back of their jersey is pretty retarded.

My brother has a Yzerman jersey from 8ish years ago. Does that make him less of a Wings fan because he didn't have their 3rd string goalie's jersey?

[Sepukku]

There's definitely ranting inside Pittsburgh hockey community about fairweather fans typically wearing Crosby/Malkin jerseys - or worse yet, their female form, who wears the jersey/shirt of whichever player they think is cutest (usually Crosby or Fleury). Fuck you, icing aint shit on your donut, stupid bitch stop doing your make up. Im not going to sleep for like 3 days cause of this game.

[Arnwulf]

Fans are fans, who cares as long as they cheer for the team.

That's almost like saying that people that don't like obscure, back alley bands aren't into music.

Anyway, I thought that game last night was fantastic, had a great pace and lots of action. Washington's offense is just scary, if they hadn't of hit so many posts and missed wide open nets, both games would have been blowouts.

[Brill Weave]

While I agree the Caps offense is impressive, I don't think that they are playing at their peak level right now. The problem is that the Penguins haven't changed their gameplan to counter it, at all. You have two people scoring for Washington right now, Ovechkin and Steckel. Steckel's goals have been just straight up hard work, but his goal last night was a defensive lapse. They left him literally sitting on the doorstep. Aside from his last goal, all of Ovechkin's goals have come from the right faceoff dot off one timers. That is something the Penguins can control and remedy. All it takes is floating a defenseman on the draw to shadow Ovechkin. Boom, problem solved. He will still get his chances, but it's a hell of a lot harder to rip a one timer with a defenseman hanging all over you.

Sadly, Bylsma is showing his lack of experience right now. He's not getting the team motivated or changing their gameplan to match what the Caps are doing. It almost seems when the Caps score the wind just gets knocked out of their sails and the Pens start scrambling. The only two Pens who have shown up both games are Crosby and Eaton. They need to pick it up or it's over in four. I still have hope that the Pens can make this a series, but they need two here at home. Which the way they are playing right now is a pretty tall order.

On a sidenote is anyone else enjoying the anything you can do I can do better game between Sid and Ovie as much as I am?

[Absolutely Virtue]

It's funny about the jersey thing. I'm a DC native, and a lifelong Caps fan. But I'll be the first to admit I'm not the ultimate hockey fan. I decided to bite the bullet and drop the cash on a jersey to wear to games this year. I agonized over which one to buy. Semin? Green? Federov? Brashear? Go old school and get Langway? It was a tough decision. I definitely didn't want to look like the fairweather guy. But then I came to my senses.

I've been following sports in my hometown for more than 30 years. We've won four titles (1 NBA, 3 NFL) in my lifetime, but other than that there has been an awful lot of heartbreak and disappointment. Right now we've got (for my money) the best player in the world on our hockey team. I'd be a fucking idiot if I didn't take the time to celebrate this.

There is definitely a segment of the Caps fanbase that is inexplicably upset at the newfound popularity of the team. They've always drawn well, but now they sell out every game. People actually complain about this. It's not unlike the asshole who sits in the bar and whines about the indie bands he used to love but no longer does because they got so popular. Did you really love the band? Or did you love being the guy who was so cool that he loved things that other people didn't know about?

[Brill Weave]

It is definitely weird. The same thing happened here when we drafted Crosby. Before we could barely get the Mellon Arena to half capacity because the Pens were playing so poorly. Now all the fair weather fans are jumping onto the bandwagon. But I can't say it's a bad thing because it raises hockey's profile and makes the teams more revenue. But still a strange sight after Lemieux retired/Jagr traded etc. It almost seems like we're back to where we started when we still had both of them. The sad thing is that the typical Penguins fan is a yinzer(look it up, I'm not going to explain lol) who feels that we will always win because we are the Penguins/Steelers. I would say 85% of the fans we have are completely hockey illiterate and have no idea of the game outside of Pittsburgh.

Take me for example, I could name a good amount of players on any team without having to think about it long. Most Penguins fans only know the Penguins. It makes it difficult to hold a conversation with these types of people. Luckily I have a few close friends who aren't just Penguins fans, but massive hockey fans in general. Plus I come here and most of you guys are hockey fans who follow a specific team. You know what you're talking about and in most cases there are intelligent conversations going on in here.

[Abraxas]

Some thoughts after the past several hours of contemplating the pros and cons of drinking myself to death:

--Sykora sucks his own old saggy worn out balls.

--Eaton was a beast. Almost the entire D-corps rocked.

--Versus doesn't know shit, Gonchar is fine. He had good vigor and had at least 10 shots directed on the net, definitely more than anyone else.

--Thank god Letang is hurt, maybe Boucher on the PP will stir things up. 1 goal at the start and then 5-6 failed oppurtunities after (including a 5 on 3), followed by a 6-on-4 when the game was almost over, still unimpressed.

--We can't win a face off that matters. Owned every time one counted for something. Lots of defensive zone losses, eventually resulting in AO scoring. Losing a bunch on the PP including during the final couple minutes (although at this point, I think the game was already in the bag).

--Secondary scoring? Where? Anyone. Not just malkin. Everyone. Crosby 4G, Eaton 1G. The rest of the team, 0. Guerin+Kunitz+Malkin+Gonchar combined = zilch.

--Malkin being said, teams who have the regular season's leading scorer tend to rely on him to produce to advance in the playoffs. Teams who don't get that production typically falter.

--MOST UNDERRATED GOAT: I'm sorry. We threw him under the bus on the car ride home, but Fleury choked. 2-2 game, defensive end faceoff. We lose it, our winger falls down, Ovechkin gets it decently far out (back end of the opposite faceoff circle) and buries it. I'm sorry, you can say we should've won the faceoff. The winger shouldn't have stumbled. But irregardless of those, I don't care if Rocket Richard with Mark McGwire's steroid regiment has that puck on his stick, you can't let that shot, with no screen, no deflection, go in as a goalie. There was a clear shooting lane wide enough for me to drive my falty fucking Buick through and Fleury saw it the whole way, and didn't stop it. Atrocious. 4th goal was pretty weak IIRC, but my mind thankfully went white with anger and I can't picture it in my head.

Rant:

Spoiler: show

--Faggot of the week: Some Caps fan watching the game at the big outdoor screen at Mellon Arena, wherever your are. I mean really? Is AO all you know? Just like every Caps fan, AO jersey. Wheres your Semin or Backstrom or Green jersey? Real fans buy shit of the non-star players. I can take a small select trio of friends, and among them, myself, and my GF, the 5 of us have a T-shirt or jersey of almost every person on the team, including Scuderi, Staal, Orpik, Goligoski, Kunitz, Talbot, Dupius, Guerin, Kennedy, Eaton, and Cooke. The only players we don't have shit of is Gil and Garon. But no, you show your pastey ass up, sit in the back out of sight and don't say a word til AO gives you guys your first lead in the 3rd period, hiding as you lost, and then you open your gel spiked hair, jean shorts wearing braces fucking mouth. You're fucking in your 20s and you're wearing braces and jean shorts. What a fucking piece of shit. I don't want to be that type of guy who rags on people who are socially awkward and can't get a girl and use my attractive GF as a justification for me being better than someone cause I usually lol @ the people who do it in FFXI to people who play the game excessively, and I know some friends who are nice as can be but can't get a girl, but god damn, it was the only silent reason I could come up with in my mind as we packed up to not fold up my folding chair and Stone Cold that son of a bitch.

dont you wish you could play Philly in every series?

and you dont understand how good of a shot Ovechkin has. for real. im not an Ovi fan, but the dude has the best shot in the game. there is not one goalie in the league who could have stopped that shot.

[Brill Weave]

Everytime I see Eaton with the puck all I can hear in my brain is No Beatin' Mark Eaton! You've mentally scarred me Sep.

[Abraxas]

Everytime I see Eaton with the puck all I can hear in my brain is No Beatin' Mark Eaton! You've mentally scarred me Sep.

yea, he played those two good shifts

[Brill Weave]

I'm just wondering how bad Letang was injured last night. It wasn't even a dirty hit, Green just rode him into the boards. Letang had his arm in an awkward position when he hit the glass.

[Abraxas]

at first it looked like a wrist injury, but on the replay it looked more like the shoulder

[Brill Weave]

Agreed, it looked like he had a dead arm. He didn't return if I'm not mistaken so that leads me to believe it wasn't just a temporary sting. The way he went in I'm willing to bet it could have been a minor separated shoulder. But since this is the playoffs, all they are going to say is he has an upper body injury lol.

[Izzy]

or worse yet, their female form, who wears the jersey/shirt of whichever player they think is cutest (usually Crosby or Fleury).

Those fucking pink Penguins jerseys piss me off so god damn much. You know what I'm talking about right? I'm sure there's other ones for other teams too.

Oh I found one! I hate these motherfuckers:

http://www.coolhockey.com/images/uploaded/phpNweV9H.jpg

[Sepukku]

I would say ****85%**** of the fans we have are completely hockey illiterate and have no idea of the game outside of Pittsburgh.

I'm glad Brill is elaborating on what I said so people can see how severe the problem is here. Lifelong fans can't go, but fucking little whores who drink at parties and sleep around after removing their fancy abercrombie shit get to go to these games and put on their lip gloss and not pay attention for shit and get bored if we're not having one of our blowout games, and people like us get shut out.

And yes those pink jerseys are gay.

[Brill Weave]

Well I'm not going to bitch about them going to games, because as far as I'm concerned it's still revenue for the team. I would love to be able to go to more games but the season ticket waiting list I believe is now two years long. It is irritating when you see in the crowds people who are obviously only there because now it's the chic thing to do. And fuck the pink jerseys. The only jersey I saw that was not team colors that actually looked good was on St. Patrick's Day. A guy had a shamrock green Crosby jersey that was hideous.

[Thoronas]

I'm fascinated by your guys problems in Pittsburgh. It's kind of funny, I could take out Pittsburgh and replace it with Vancouver and it would express how I feel about 90% of the people in the lower bowl of GM Place.

As for the game last night, I missed most of it but I saw Crosby's second goal where he got like 12 wacks at it before bouncing it off the goalies head. Washington's defense is so bad sometimes. Thank god their offense is freakin amazing, Im still amazed at Ovechkin's third goal.

Great series so far, I'm hoping Pittsburgh takes its two at home so this series can go the distance.

[Brill Weave]

I'm fascinated by your guys problems in Pittsburgh. It's kind of funny, I could take out Pittsburgh and replace it with Vancouver and it would express how I feel about 90% of the people in the lower bowl of GM Place.

It's a problem every major city has when it comes to having a winning hockey team. The second the playoffs start every weekend warrior calls in their favors and gets their tickets, their nine dollar collectible hockey team beer cup, and their pink team hoodie. And while they are cheering away booing that a penalty wasn't called on a clean hit, the rest of us shake our heads.

I will always remember this. I went to a game this season against the Rangers which the Pens ended up winning 3-0. It was the last Pens game right before the Steelers played in the Superbowl. There was one point where Nigel Dawes was skating behind Malkin and he was able to lift his stick and steal the puck. The guy sitting next to me was screaming that it was a penalty. He literally was screaming until his face was red about it.

After about two minutes of him freaking out my buddy Ed and I just turned and told him shut the fuck up it was a legal move and a damn good one at that. He got so irate at us the ushers actually asked him to leave the seats for a while. Guy never came back. But that's the kind of idiotic mentality that I think we all can't fucking stand.

Learn the game, watch the game, learn to be a good knowledgeable fan that isn't obnoxious towards the intelligent people there.

[Ivaden]

See, this is why I don't consider myself a bandwagon fan.

Sure, I started watching at a good time. My first game ever, first time I watched it and it just so happened to be the first time I went to a game, was March 12th last year against the Sabres. As soon as I got home, I started looking stuff up because I didn't know half of what anything meant. Took me a while to even realize what was offsides and not, why icing was icing, what dictated interference from a clean hit, what a power play was, penalty kill, etc.. The people Brill and Sepukku are talking about probably don't even know how to pronounce Evgeni and wouldn't know how to spell Staal if they didn't see it, because lord knows some people still don't know how to spell it.

I'd honestly contribute a lot of me learning about hockey to NHL 08 and 09 lol. And I'm a fucking beast in OTP on defense, just for the record. It's honestly just a shame it took me so long to even watch hockey, but I lived in Kentucky forever and the closest team would've been Nashville... and I never once heard the words Nashville and Predators in the same sentence until I started following hockey last year.

[Palin]

Despite their wins, honestly the Caps are not that amazing of a team; the Penguins just don't have enough drive from their other scorers. If you watch the Caps' system, its highly disorganized and chaotic. How many times in these series have you seen one of the Caps try to bring the puck into the Offensive zone and create a turnover because they try to ironman the play? Their passing is horrible, often times they're throwing passes to no one in hopes of someone driving in. They rely heavily on their speed and AO; to me they feel very much like a zerg team, and I don't see them getting past any team in the WC right now, or the Bruins.

That being said I'm still rooting for them this series because I like seeing success in the Southern markets, where the NHL needs more popularity.