Thanks: UPDATED

I'd like to take this opportunity (one and only, I'm sure) to formally thank the New York Raggers for giving us home ice for the first round of the play-offs. They defeated the Phylthy Phlyers 4-3 this evening making the Pittsburgh Penguins the #4 seed in the Eastern Conference. The SCPO starts on April 15, but no word yet on scheduling... at least I don't think there is.... You'd think that someone would have spun their 'Wheel of Scheduling' and whipped something out by now... after all the season's been over for....... 2 whole hours! Don't they realize they're dealing with addicts here? C'mon Bettman! get your boys in gear! Sheesh...

Update-ish: It seems I have more pull with the NHL than previously suspected. At the un-godly hour of 6 am I was informed that the schedule for the Pens/Phlyers play-off series was out. (don't ask me what she was doing checking for schedules at 6am... I have no idea)

Wednesday, April 15 - PITTSBURGH. 7 p.m., FSN
Friday, April 17 - PITTSBURGH, 7 p.m., FSN
Sunday, April 19 - at Philadelphia, 3 p.m., NBC
Tuesday, April 21 - at Philadelphia, 7 p.m., FSN
*Thursday, April 23 - PITTSBURGH, 7 p.m., FSN
*Saturday, April 25 - at Philadelphia, 3 p.m., NBC
*Monday, April 27 - PITTSBURGH, TBD, FSN
* if necessary
The Big Screens will be set up outside the Igloo for the SCPO just like last year. Fans can watch both home and away games in front of the Gate 3 entrance on the 12x16 screen. I guess it was so popular last year Consol Energy and the Trib decided to sponsor it again. Way Cool.

Some Yo-Yo writer over at NHL.com is calling it the 'Keystone Clash', only marginally less excremental than 'The Battle of Pennsylvania'. But here's the preview he wrote just in case his idiocy doesn't extend to the rest of his writing.

Miroslav Satan looked a bit upset during his off-day interview, not that I can blame him. I'm sure he didn't apreciate being sent to the minors, but he's a proffesional, and he's handled the whole situation a lot better than could have been expected. Oh, and if you're over at PP.com and see an off day interview with Marc Andre Fleury, and you ask yourself, "Why didn't the Ratt post this? He was here stealing stuff anyway." Well, I'll tell ya. It's a tease! There is no off day Flower interview. Don't be sucked in by their propaganda! It's some sick, twisted joke designed to make you stare at their player doing nothing. I'm not sure why this is funny, but it must be to some NHL puter geek somewhere..... sheesh.


I know I mentioned something about it the other night, but it still amazes me. Since the inception of the Art Ross Trophy for scoring in 1948 the Pens have won it a mind-wobbling 13 times..... They weren't even in the League for the first 20 years of the damned thing, and they've won it 4 more times than any other team in the League..... And that includes the 7 times Gretz won it for the Oilers... If you just go from '68 they've won it almost twice as much as anyone else, and in the last 21 years the Pens have won the Art Ross more than all the other teams combined.... Translation: We've been incredibly lucky to have some pretty good hockey players here in da 'Burgh. They ought to just carve the Fighting Penguin on the thing....







Wild Women: Team USA has repeated as world champs this year, defeating Canadia 4-1 in the Gold Medal round Sunday. This makes the second year in a row that the women have sent the Canadian women home with the silver. There will be 6 exhibition matches between the US and Canada this year and 2 possible tournaments that they could meet in. Making a psychotic Olympic rematch a distinct possibility. Finland took bronze in front of their home crowd defeating Sweden 4-1 (do I sense a scoring trend?).








Unexpected Reinforcement: I've taken this opportunity during the break in the action to ask for a little divine intervention. I'm not normally a religious person but I thought two things 1) It couldn't actually hurt anything, and B) At this point of the season we'll take all the help we can get. In response to my inquiry of possibly deity sponsorship for the Flightless Ones I got this response:

Of course after the amount of bourbon I poured into them they'd have promised sponsorship to a brothel.