Strip Hockey and Flower Pads:

New pads at practice

When you're an NHL goalie and Reebok sends you new pads and they're the wrong color, you don't get mad because:

A) They were free anyway.

B)You're only going to wear them a few times.

C) You're going to auction them off at the end of the season for charity.

D) All of the above.

Marc Andre Fleury and Dany Sabourin received new pads from Reebok they were hoping were going to look like tanned leather, reminiscent of 'old time hockey' pads. What they got looks more like someone spilled the Grey Poupon Honey Dijon on them and forgot to wipe it off before it dried. PP.com says not to worry, (toward the bottom) the pads will only be worn with the Powder Blues and then auctioned off for a charity to be named later.

The Bleacher Report, seems to think it's kind of a big deal that Fleury's coming back to play tonight. Then they scratch their heads for a bit and wonder why, since the numbers don't seem to add up to much. Here's a clue, they play better and score more when they don't have to wonder about the goalie. The Tower of Flower Power's numbers are better than they were last season at this time of the year, and it's the time of year that his roll started (minus the boo-boo and missing all those games. Wait, he already did that part!) Oh and btw, if you'd like to see MAF's new pads in action check this out. The beginning is Flower in practice Monday with the new pads.

Speaking of nude... uh, I mean new things on the ice. The Pens had a rousing game of 'Strip Hockey' (I didn't even know that was possible outside of that scene in 'Mystery Alaska' where the guy slides into the snowbank in his jock). Evidently it's kind of a shootout game where if you don't score you remove something and if you do score you can put something back on, clothing-wise. Chris Le-Tank evidently needs to work on his shoot-outs because at the end of the game he was down to one skate and his hockey pants. (sorry, this is a PG Shop, so only partial nudity is allowed.) If past shoot-outs are any indication of how this game could go, then the whole team could look like this:

Wouldn't that be horrible? lol LGP has some pictures of the actual event about halfway down the page. OK, enough of that on to more serious hockey stuff.

More Serious Hockey Stuff: Ruslan Fedotenko (Feds) expects to return to the line-up tonight, evidently his 'undisclosed' is no longer ailing him. Also the Pens are adding three Promotional Nights and items to the schedule: A 'Vintage Rally Towel Night' (whatever the hell that is), on Jan. 3, A Consol Energy 'Knit Cap Night' (at least I know what a hat is) Jan 28, and 'Vintage Pennant Night' on Feb 6. (that one I can figure out)

Jeff Taffe and Ryan Stone have been called up from WBS and are projected to play tonight. I liked Stone last year, but haven't been too impressed with Laffy-Taffy this season, though I admit his opportunities haven't been all that good.

Former Penguin News: The man that haunted the nightmares of Pens opponents (and bad songwriters) last year, Scary Gary Roberts has announced his retirement from hockey at the end of the season. " I don't think there's much doubt I'm gone after this season." Robert's said, "I'm going to retire. I'd like to finish on a good note. I'd like to come back and prove that I can play and hopefully stay healthy enough to finish the season and finish playing a stretch of games and at least have some success. I'd like to finish on a high note." Roberts is currently on IR with a 'lower body injury' and has spent much of this season the way he did the last: rehabilitating injuries. Faceoff Factor has an article about it.

If game-good, more posting will follow. If game-bad, there will be too much crying and I can't get my keyboard wet. They won't replace it again....

UPDATE: Here I am so.... you guessed it.... game-good! The Tower of Flower Power didn't look rusty at all in his return to the net for the Pens. Fellow Pensaddicts we have a superior goalie. When it's posted I'll get vid of the tremendous save that Flower mad off of Scud's blocked pass and then the rebound. Vintage Flower Power. The Pens scoring went down like this: Cookie and Geno each with a goal in the first. Staal (originally given to Malkin) Satan, and Boucher in the second. The Moose was loose in Atlanta. Johan Hedberg was thrown in after what's-his-name was run out of the net in the first. The cool thing is, that Thrashed fans say Mooooose! just like Pens fans did a couple of years ago. The Third started to look like another Pens semi-meltdown as they tried to play conservitively and immediately started screwing up. I blame Armie's (Yes, I know you miss Colby) goal directly on the bad pass by Satan. But the Flower stood strong in the goal and made some tremendous saves to keep the Thrashed down. El Capitan slid Geno the puck in the final minute of the game and the Incredible Malk slid it directly into the empty net to make the final score 6-3.

FSN Rant: All right, I don't know what kind of happy pills Bob Error is on, but he needs to ease up on the dosage! Right in the middle of the first period he starts rambling about how he was talking to Tim Wallace and Tim told him about the time he was on the golf course in Alaska and saw a bear eating a baby moose. Tim walked up on the bear, and then rethought the whole situation and decided to split, thinking that walking up on a bear eating a moose might not be the smartest thing he's ever done in his life.(Ya think?) I mean, Error just can't shut up. The whole time he's babbling this story on prime-time my jaw just kept dropping lower and lower. He reminded me of that middle aged Uncle most families have. You know the one, he gets slightly tipsy and then tells embarrassing or inappropriate stories in front of the whole family until his wife finally gets him to shut up. Then halfway through the second he brings it up again! Later, when telling everyone his favorite Tom Glavin story, which somehow we hear every time the Pens play the Thrashed, he repeats that 'anyone can throw a baseball'. Ok, the ones that know Tom was drafted by the Kings have heard it before and the rest don't care! We're all glad Bob, that you feel so comfortable in our living rooms, but I missed two penalty calls and 4 saves because Stogie won't interrupt your babbling with what's actually happening on the ice. Sheesh!