Saturday Links: "Let's All Crash At Pronger's Place" Edition
by Poor College Student on Nov 7, 2009 6:15 AM CST
2 comments
Live from Lexington, KY! And as luck would have it, my arch-nemesis, "Dr. Crappy Hotel Wireless," found me all the way out here.
Fuck it, let's do this.
Blues News:
- Brewer is playing better than JD expected.
- Brett Hull: Face of the franchise? I humbly nominate Bob Plager.
- Matchup tonight against Pronger and the Flyers. 6:05 puck drop.
- Who'd have thought Backes would want to represent his country? Total shocker.
- HHOF induction's on Monday. God willing there will be an internet feed for those of us that don't have the NHL network.
- Speaking of the HOF induction, seeing this headline makes me think of another idea for Project Mayhem.
- Early chatter has the 2010 draft as one rich in talent, even for the later picks.
- More fodder for debate: Best player (currently) not to win the cup. I like Thornton or Iginla here.
- It's not "tried to put out a hit on my agent" bad, but it's certainly not good: Isles prospect arrested.
- Scores. Leafs win! Plan the parade route!
- Tonight's schedule. Go Leafs!
- Li'l Herb Brooks is going to the Olympics.
- Google Maps, you've done it again.
- Bread shoes: It's exactly what it sounds like.
- The world may never get its answer, but it's fun to imagine the potential outcomes.
2 comments | 0 recs |
A Late Night, Obsessive Poll
by gallagher on Nov 7, 2009 12:27 AM CST
2 comments
I like hockey. Hockey is so ingrained in the day-to-day business of the Gallagher household that my four-year-old spent about four minutes explaining to me what she would do if she played hockey, even though she probably wants to play a different sport, but go Blues, and I like hockey but might want to do something else.
A conversation that some psychiatrist would probably dissect and turn against me. Or will, later, at great cost to me.
So, while I have an advantage over many of you in that I have offspring that I can force into liking the sport, let's see just how obsessed YOU are. By thye way, there are no wrong answers here tonight.
2 comments | 0 recs |
Brewerbot needs upgrade to vision program
Blues captain/goat breaks his media silence by informing the Post-Dispatch that he did not, in fact, see the puck he put into his own net. Seriously. He just took a mad whack at the goal area. Has that strategy ever worked? Seriously, you're not going to win fans over by just blindly flailing at things. The puck is not a pinata at a child's birthday party. See puck, hit puck — and not in your own goal.
Happy Birthday To Us.
by gallagher on Nov 6, 2009 4:04 PM CST
12 comments
Four years ago today we printed our first-ever issue of the gamd day paper. It was for a game against Detroit and the banner headline on the front said, "Satan Has A Hockey Team!" It was 24 pages and featured the first (and only) appearance of what was supposed to be an every-issue column under the heading of "The Rink Rat's Rant"; a column about the prospects that was not written by our own GT Prospect Department, but rather by someone else; a couple stories about the NHL's new rules and about the passing of Bob Broeg by Chris Gift (though not under the now firmly-established The Five Hole"); and some truly horrendous formatting.
We also learned an important lesson about headlines: Jokes about Satan make people think you're peddling religious materials.
Many thanks to everyone who bought that first issue and still stuck with us after that, and many thanks to everyone who works so hard on our little paper and it's sister, this smart-mouth site. Four years and now into our fifth season of bitching about Blues hockey, happy birthday to you all.
As a way to give back a little bit to our loyal readers, we have a birthday present for all of you. Thanks to the donation of our own DanGNR we have two tickets for Tuesday's game against Vancouver. They are upstairs seats, but you beggars know not to be choosers, right?
Birthday Contest:
Want to win the two tickets to the game? Email your most creative story about either:
- Why the Blues are struggling right now
- What the Blues can do to break out of their slump
And the most creative and/or humorous story out of the bunch gets published here on the ssite, possibly in Tuesday's issue of Game Time and you win the two seats. Notice that the emphasis is on creative and/or humorous, so if you send in simply "Brewer sucks and Andy Murray should be fired" you won't win. If, however, you come up with something unique and print-worthy, they shall be yours.
Deadline is going to have to be Sunday night at 5 p.m. Central so do not dilly-dally. Send your submissions to gallagher@stlouisgametime.com and we'll judge them. The format can be whatever works best for your story: Word documents, pictures and text, a video you shot, whatever. Any questions? Leave 'em in the comments.
Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to you all.
12 comments | 0 recs |
Friday links: One goal? One damn goal? Edition
by averagejoe on Nov 6, 2009 5:15 AM CST
2 comments
It's kinda sad when the best thing you can say about a game is, "Well, at least they didn't get shut out."
Blues news
- In case you missed it: Blues lost to Flames 2-1. [Associated Press]
- Lars Eller, now known as Skeet, had a good season debut. [Belleville News-Democrat]
- In this gamer, we learn the Eric Brewer wasn't available for comment after the game. That's what a captain does. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
- It's Darryl Sydor day for Blues beat writers. [Belleville News-Democrat]
- Sydor is providing depth and all that. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
- Two players who fucked over the Blues get together to talk about fucking over the Blues. Oh and hiring a hit man to kill his agent. [News Wire]
Hockey news
- Thursday night was hockey night. [Yahoo! Sports]
- Here is your Friday night schedule. [Yahoo! Sports]
- Peter Forsberg, right now, doesn't have a deal in place with the KHL.[TSN]
- Alex Ovechkin is practicing, but no word on his return. [TSN]
- David Krejci has has the Swine flu. [TSN]
- Tuukka Rask, best known for his meltdown last season, signed an extension with Boston. [ESPN]
- A former Blues d-man is the best defenseman in the KHL. [Puck Daddy]
Other links
- I think this list was either made by RFJCC or for him. [Cracked]
- BleedBluecp2 found this and uhh ... well it's Barack Obama (and others) dressing for the weather. [Obama Weather]
- Glen Quagmire offers advice. [Sloshspot Blog]
Video
RFJCC knows me all too well. Ladies and gentlemen: "Thunder Busters." I guess you drink on Thunder and Ghostbusters on this version.
Poor College Student here this weekend. Send him stuff at gametimelinks(at)gmail.com
2 comments | 0 recs |
Blues Fall Again At Home: Disturbing Trends
by gallagher on Nov 5, 2009 11:31 PM CST
12 comments
I had a buddy who used to intentionally put off every assignment until the last possible second. He said he'd done the same thing all through college, too. He'd get to the last possible instant that he could potentially start a project, go into total freak-out mode, curse himself, pull on his scalp in an overly aggressive way and then proceed to wail away on the project until it was done, usually seconds before the deadline.
"I know myself," he'd say, "I do my best work when my back is against the wall."
I'm starting to think that the Blues have the same mentality as a team. They are now 5-6-2, eight losses in their first 13, on the year. Last year they started 5-7-1, eight losses in their first 13 games. It wasn't until almost the last possible second last year before they went on the tear that put them into the playoffs... on the second-to-last day of the season.
The Blues grabbed the first goal of the game only five times this season: in the three wins against Anaheim, Minnesota and Carolina and the two losses to Phoenix and Atlanta. The Blues have given up the first goal in the other eight. Clearly, this isn't the way Andy Murray wants his team to play, but think back to the end of last season. How many times did the Note give up the first goal? Forty-seven times, friends. Forty-seven.
It may not be the mentality they want to have, but it clearly is the mentality they have. This team puts pressure on itself time and again by giving up the lead and having to battle back. It happened 57% of the time last year and it has happened 62% of the time this season. The only difference? Last year the team was getting scoring from all of their lines. This year the Blues are averaging 1.00 goals per game in their eight losses.
How do you fix it? No idea, but clearly the Blues need a new pre-game ritual to get their intensity ratcheted up.
A couple other notes from tonight:
- Lars Eller/Lars Ulrich/Skeet Ulrich comes up from Peoria, dons Cory Stillman's number and gets his first NHL goal. Great to see it and glad to see the new guy from the AHL is the one who breaks the scoreless streak. Can we call up someone else from Peoria to get the team another goal in Philly on Saturday?
- The team got plenty of shots tonight, went to the goal hard, won puck battles and didn't shy from any contact. And still they lost. At some point you have to stop saying, "Just ran into a hot goalie tonight," but it does just seem like the Blues can't pull an easy draw in net: Miikka Kiprusoff, Tomas Vokoun, Ilya Bryzgalov. All three are good golaies and all three stymied the Note on this homestand.
- There's plenty of underachievers to point a finger at right now, but the play of T.J. Oshie and Patrik Berglund is so incredibly different from last year that it stands out. Seems like it's time for those two to become roomies again, fire up Rock Band and play "Wonderwall" all night again. Don't screw with the hockey gods. Especially when you're a sophmore.
- Eric Brewer kicked in the first goal of the game to put his team down. For a guy who would probably want nothing more than to get off the list of the fans' "Most Hated Player" he sure isn't finding a way to help himself.
- Sometimes a golatending controversy is good for a team. Look what happened last year when Chris Mason played well enough to get Manny Legace to push the self-destruct button: the Blues wound up with one of the hottest goalies in the league and rode him to the sixth seed in the playoffs. Mason has been good, don't get me wrong, but if Ty Conklin has a couple more quality starts, maybe it'll jump start Mason's defense mechanism and he'll get even better.
Flyers up next in Philadelphia on Saturday night. Should be an entertaining game with a good, hard-hitting team. let's see if the Blues can rise to the occasion.
Here's your post-game interviews with Eller, Oshie and Johnson, the assumed future of the team:
12 comments | 0 recs |
Burning For A Win: Blues Host Flames GDT
by gallagher on Nov 5, 2009 6:30 PM CST
1141 comments
The Blues need to change some things tonight. They need to make the simple play more often. They need to crash the net hard. They need to win puck battles. They need to score a damn goal. They need a win at home.
If they don't accomplish these things, they've got a hard path ahead of them. Their next game is in Philadelphia against a tough Flyers squad on Saturday. They play again the next day in Atlanta and while the Thrashers are a bit more banged up than when they beat the Note last month, that's still a better team than most of us thought.
The Blues do have a few things going for them, though. T.J. Oshie will return to the ice after recovering from his emergency appendectomy and will likely have very vocal support from the home crowd. And we all know that a fired-up Oshie aint, as Old Dirt Dog would say, nothin' to fuck wit. Additionally it looks like Carlo Colaiacovo has recovered from the Steve Ott flu and will retrurn to the lineup. And finally, we get a glimpse of yet another jewel in the Blues' prospect crown, rookie Lars Eller should suit up for the first time tonight, reportedly wearing No. 61.
Hopefully the team has had a come-to-jeebus meeting and are ready to go out, kick ass and take some names tonight.
And those names really come down to two when we talk about the Flames: Jarome Iginla and Miikka Kiprusoff. The pair are so good at their individual jobs that they give their team a chance to win almost every night. When the Flames role players all kick in, their odds improve dramatically (Rene Bourque and your team-leading 11 assists and 16 points, we're looking at you).
To put to bed any thoughts of exaggeration on our part, consider this: Iginla already owns the Calgary career records for games (955), goals (415) and points (863). And that's for a franchise that employed the likes of Theo Fleury, Joe Niewendyk and Al MacInnis for significant stretches. Kiprusoff, for his part, is the franchise leader in shutouts (27), goals against average (2.44) and save percentage (91.4%). He beat out Dan Bouchard (who played 398 games for the Flames and is third on the team in wins) and Mike Vernon in each of those categories.
Beat those two guys and you probably beat the Flames.
*****
On an unrelated note, the stickers are in, the stickers are in! That's right, we just got a new shipment of the circle GT stickers similar to the ones that have appeared on signs in Dallas and subsequently on Blues TV commercials. Want one? There are two easy ways:
- If you're going to the game, ask your GT vendor for one. If they have one left, it's yours.
- If you're not going to the game, email me (gallagher[AT]stlouisgametime.com) and I'll give you the mailing address. Send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to that address and I'll send one back to you. Feel free to drop a buck in the envelop if you're so inclined, I'd be happy if I could find a way to break even on these things.
Then, once you have your sticker affixed, bask in the glow of wearing your GT colors, just like in a real gang! If you've got a particularly interesting use for yours, feel free to post a picture on the site or email the shot to us.
*****
The game is a 7:30 central start because the game was originally to be broadcast nationally in Canada. Since that time the network has decided to pass on this particulat contest. And yes, that's a slap in the face. FSN-Midwest will buck the Canadian convention and go forward with the broadcast. KMOX will also cater to you radio folks and the internet will likely provide for you piracy types.
This is your game day thread.
1141 comments | 0 recs |
Blues Play Tonight: You Write The Comedy Today
by gallagher on Nov 5, 2009 1:49 PM CST
22 comments
You might have to click on the picture to get the full-size glory of it all, but we need some captions for this picture.
- What, exactly, is David Perron up to?
- What could Nathan Horton be thinking?
- Surely David Backes and cam Janssen have a take on this situation...
Let us know in the comments what you think...
22 comments | 0 recs |
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Sat 11/07 | 6:00 PM CST |
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Atlanta
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Sun 11/08 | 4:00 PM CST |
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Vancouver
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Tue 11/10 | 7:00 PM CST |
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Last 5 Games
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Thu 11/05 | OT - L 1 - 2 |
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Florida
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Sat 10/31 | L 0 - 4 |
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Phoenix
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Thu 10/29 | L 0 - 2 |
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Carolina
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Wed 10/28 | W 5 - 2 |
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Dallas
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Sat 10/24 | L 1 - 4 |
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