Hockey Therapy?:

I was originally waiting for the Pens to christen their new home with a win, or at least win one for the Flower.... But it looks like that might take a while. I try not to fall into the usual Pittsburgh sports-fan mold. (I'm not from here! I'm immune!) You know who you are. The over-the-top/6 feet under fan. The fan that's certain The Stanley Pittsburgh Cup belongs here (you mean it doesn't?) with every win... Equally certain that the worst of the Pre-Mario (owner or player take your pick) days are back and will never leave. I'm sure you know the type.... clean cut, pleasant, tax-paying citizens by day. Foaming-at-the-mouth, rabid PensAddicts by night. Perhaps you've seen one in the mirror?

Anyway, I know for a fact that the Pens are notorious slow starters. They've had some key injuries (Staal, Asham, Orpik, Michalek) and the team or the team/goalie combination just doesn't seem to be in sync. I know there are 80 or so games left in the season and that there are a lot of points out there to be won. For some reason knowing all this doesn't really help all that much. Oh well, maybe there's some sort of 12 step program.... Not that I need it, or anything. I'm not addicted... or crazy or anything... Really! I can handle it.....

I have some good shots of The Tower of Flower Power, but currently Blogger seems to be having a meltdown and is unwilling to let me post any pic I haven't posted before..... So as soon as I smack it around of a while (2 out of 3 falls, no holds barred, cagematch rules) they'll be on this post. Until then... LETS GO PENS!!!!

Game On... Sort of:

Open practice at the brand spanking new Consol Energy Center (Destiny's new home, evidently) is the semi-serious start of the new season. And speaking as a bonified Pens-Addict I can say that it calmed the withdrawals a bit. But like any true addict, now I want more! The arena itself is bright, shiny, new, and pretty awesome. There are going to be problems with the strange 3 entry access (none of which are on the main concourse level), but the views are stunning and I couldn't see a bad place to sit in the whole house. There was a pretty big crowd of people at the two main entrances, but we barely filled the two parts of the lower bowl when we were all allowed to thunder in. Some (strange) fans were evidently trying out their seats in the upper section, and they must have approved, cause they stayed there the whole practice.

The players are broken up into three groups: A, B, and C. The Tower of Flower Power was relegated along with Geno and Le-Tank to group C. Groups A and B each ran drills and then had a scrimmage. The Goalies for A were Johnson and Theisen, and for B were Curry and Modig. A scrimmage is supposed to be like a full speed practice, but some players seemed to forget this occasionally. Brooksie is a defensive machine. If you put someone between him and the boards there is going to be a loud bang. I'd like to tell you who it was, but I couldn't identify him after the hit. Michalek snowplowed Talbot (who scored the only goal of the scrimmage on Johnson) into the corner drawing one of only two penalties during the scrimmage. Sid jumped up and took the shot for the penalty that Orpik drew.

After the scrimmage Group C took the ice. There was a really large cheering section for Marc Andre, as you might imagine. Also there was a mass exodus to the end he was defending. During one of the drills MAF went behind the net to play the puck. Someone (who shall remain nameless for his protection) bumped into the Flower and knocked him to the ice. You'd have thought someone knifed him. It was a small bump, really. Everyone froze for a moment exept for Fleury, who jumped up without his stick and dove in front of the net to stop the puck from getting in. There was much rejoicing.

Here's some Flower pics to get you going.....

And Oh yes... there will be more.... GO PENS!!!

An Interlude:

Sid's not on, so I have to do this one myself.

Firstly something you don't know: I bashed the nail completely off my left middle finger and haven't been able to type for the last week. So that explains the current lack of updatage.

Secondly, something you do know: (and if you don't... what the hell are you doing here anyway?) The Pens advanced to the second round of the SCF with a 4-3 OT game 6 win.

Thirdly, something you might know: That win means that the Sens haven't beaten the Pens on home ice in the SCF since '07.

Fourthly, something nobody knows.... Who the hell are the Pens going to play later this week in round two? The only certain thing is, it won't be the New Jersey Debbils. They took another quick bow out of the SCP to our town's favorite Phylthy Phlyers (The Crapitals are climbing in the polls, but we've hated Phylthy for longer). Unless the Canadiens pull something out of somebody's ass and beat the Crapitals (Wa. leads 3-2) it's likely that we'll play the winner of the Buffaslugs and the Broons. (Boston leads 3-2)

Fifthly Something everybody should know. After allowing 3 goals in the first 30 minutes of the game, Marc-Andre found his Tower of Flower Power cape and slammed the door on the Sens not seeing many shots, but making some great saves. Starting with this flurry (sorry) of shots in the first when the Sens really looked like they were going to be unstoppable.
I know two more goals were allowed after this series of saves, but this is Flower Power at its best. Keeping the Pens as close as he can while waiting for the guys to wake up. Also, here's the English translation of Flower's RDS (whatever that is) blog before the series started. This was found (by me) over at PensBurgh, and rushed to you as soon as my finger stopped being an 'owie'.

As to Video Review, sometimes called the War Room, but what I like to call the Flip a Coin Room. 6 reviews were made of possible goals in the series. Most were obviously correctly called. I'll even go so far as to say that they weren't completely stoned on a couple that didn't go our way. Then there's Rupp's shot at 12:40 in the first. At that point the only 'video review' I'm interested in is the one I've just concluded on the replays. I know they'll say when one angle is 'inconclusive', but another angle seems to show just what they're looking for (ie: white ice between the puck and the line) that doesn't necessarily provide 'incontrovertible proof'. What I say is, 'There's the puck over the line you morons'. And I don't even want to get started on calling Geno on some strange 'not allowing the goalie to make a save' call on Poni's shot in the Third. What kind of crap is that? If that's a real call we're going to see a lot more offensemen thrown on top of goalies by D-lines when the other team shoots anywhere towards the net. I know we won the game and the series, but screw 'letting it go'. Crap is crap, wherever you find it.

More to come at seemingly random intervals.... GO PENS!!!!

Sid's Bucking for Everyone's Job:

The Tower of Flower Power after a shaky start that had me reaching for the antacids and vodka again, stopped the next 19 shots to help the Pens drag the series back to even. All respect to the Flower but one of the best saves of the night was made by El Capitan when a Volchenkov shot dribbled through and Sid dove across to knock it away. Isn't it weird that 'interesting saves' are the ones that during the game gave you the biggest spike in blood pressure? The only (?) thing I'll say about Sutton's hit on Leopold is that if the League doesn't do something about a guy leaving his feet and leading with an elbow to the head, then the whole 'protect the player' pose is a joke and they obviously didn't hear me screaming for 10 solid minutes when it happened. I did like the way the guys stepped up afterwards (Maximus and Rupp you know who you are) to put the Sens back on their heels physically. I have officially forgiven Mike Rupp his birthplace after he bulldogged one Sen to the ice and sent another through the Zamboni door. (that was sweet) Now on to Ottoway and game 3. GO PENS!!!

Flower's take on Sid's save is about 1:33 in

Ok, let's put things in perspective: Penguins 1 Senators 1. Some have tried to put blame and shame on the players for the first loss, but true Pennsaddicts know where the fault lies. The fans just didn't have their proper Play-Off juju going for the first game. Y'all were wearing the wrong shirts (jerseys), haven't found the right good-luck spot on the couch, didn't find the right bar to watch the game, or were watching on Mario's TV when you should have been home, or vice versa. This kind of thing can not be allowed to continue. Great talent and skill can only take the team so far, and then it's our responsibility to take it the rest of the way. If you need to review, here's Mackenzie Carpenter's PPG article from after the SCF last year detailing some of the many PensAddicts did to help the guys to the Cup. From Coach Dan's daily burrito routine, to unwashed Primanti shirts, to what to do when things don't work. C'mon addicts! You know what you have to do, now get out there and do it.

The Good, the Bad, and the... Huh?:

The Flower teaches Geno the Goalie Dance

The Pens gave the Igloo a proper regular-season sendoff Thursday night against the Isles, (Oil-cans? Where the hell did I get that?) winning in stunning fashion 7-3. But I bet they wish they'd kept at least one of those goals for Sat. when they lost 1-0 to the Thrashed.

The Tower of Flower Power stopped 21-22 with some acrobatics and more than a little help from his goal-post friends. Eric God-ly had a marathon fight with some Atlanta goon (Eric Boulton) that lasted well past curfew. Wow, I was waiting for the ring-girl to come out between rounds. It was nice to finally see God-like out there, getting a roughing call putting E. Kane in his place after Kane was taking a few liberties with El-Capitan.

What wasn't funny was the earlier scrap between Evander Kane and the Cookie Monster. From the replay it looked as if Kane got a good shot on Cookie and then punched him again as he went down and cracked the back of his head against the ice. Cooke skated off on his own, but didn't return and so far there's no word on his condition. Once again the Moose came back to bite the Pens in the butt, (moose-bite, that's got to hurt) stopping all 33 shots sent his way, and several that weren't. I know it was cute when he was here, but I'm getting really tired of Moooooose! ringing through the rafters after yet another save.

So, with the Debbles basically crushing the Isles (and let's face it, it was fun when we were doing it) for the third time in four seasons the Pens will face the O Sens in the Play-Offs. So really the only reason to hold the second smIsles game this Sunday is to give the Croz another chance to break the 50 goal mark after it was robbed from him Thursday by Guerin's butt. Unless he just has a monster game it doesn't look like he's got much of a chance at the Art Ross (most points). He's 4 points behind The Grape Ape, and with O'retchkin and Stay-most both with 50 goals and also playing tomorrow, the Rocket Richard (most goals) is not a sure thing either. We shall see what we shall see

In other strange news, the Beantown Bears scored three shorthanded goals in about 2 1/2 seconds (1:06) against the Hurricanes. Just smashing whatever the old record was by about an hour and a half.

Like the Corners of My Mind... in the Round:

Tonight is the night we say our regular-season 'goodbye' to the Igloo. (I don't care what bank sponsors it. It's the Igloo, damnit) They're planning on having about 50 former players attend a pre-game ceremony. Some of which living people might actually recognize. 'Cause except for that guy who's been a season ticket holder since '67, I'm thinking there's going to be a lot of intros that're going to make me go 'huh?'.  I'm sure I'm not alone there.

105.9 the X was doing a series of player interviews today, and the first was (of course) The Tower of Flower Power himself. He retold a couple of pranks played on Ryan Whitney, his first game, and about how it's going to be weird not having to duck water, or wrestle mice for his equipment.

The X ran interviews of Sidney Crosby and Maximus as well, here's the page for all the podcasts.

If we're going to talk Flower Pranks, my favorite is still when he hid out in Army's bag in the locker room


It's going to be strange for some of the fans in the new arena, no roof supports in the way, no strange smells coming from the stairwell, (for a while anyway) no shoes velcro-ed to the floor in one step and flying out from underneath you in the next. Ahhh the memories!

My personal best TV memory of the Igloo is watching that 66 banner come down Dec. 27, 2000, and watching Austin's face as he watched his Dad's No. slowly fall from the roof. Let's hope the guys add one more good memory to the 'old barn' by crushing the Oil Cans tonight.

The 300:

The Flower will be playing his 300th game tonight against the Washing Crapitals and I think he thinks it's cool. He didn't say much about it, so it's hard to tell. During a Game-Day interview with Caitlin Kasunich at PP.com, all he would say is "It's a little weird, I have played so much. I'm pretty proud of it". Let's review: 7 years 299 games (so far), 17,020 minutes played, a record of  147-105-2, a GAA of  282, and a Save Percentage of .907. Yeah, you could probably find something in there to be proud of.... if you looked hard enough.I'm pretty sure that doesn't even count the 49 play-off games, where his GAA is down and his S% is up. Oh, and let's not forget 2 finals apperances and a Stanley Cup ring.  Yeah, I don't think you need to hide your face in shame at the family reunions Marc.

This guy has played 20,000 minutes of NHL hockey (20,005 actually). I don't think I've done twenty thousand minutes of anything. Well, not anything I want anyone to know about anyway.
Here he is, 299 games ago, just getting his Fighting Flightless Fowl Jersey (couldn't find an 'F' that would fit).  More to come after the game.....

I hate those guys.....

Long Time No.... :

It's been quite some time since I've been here, and there's no excuse for my lack of actions (bull, I've got a whole book of them) Let's just say that after an ongoing battle over insurance issues and a trip to a funeral I got out of the habbit of writing here. I profusely apologise and thank you for your patience (even if you didn't have that much). If such an occurance were to happen again I will gladly turn the keys to the Shop over to someone else. But until then I will endevor to regularly post for the entertainment (hopefully) of any Pennsaddict that happens to stumble into the Shop.