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Friday Links: Hull Good, Blackhawks Bad

Jarome Iginla, Jon Hamm, Monty Python...what else do you need in life?

By J-Mill
Believe it or not, this is NOT from game 3.
Believe it or not, this is NOT from game 3.
Jonathan Daniel

Fun story: a guy came into our store yesterday with a Blues hat, so naturally we start talking about game 4. Then he mentioned that his 15-year old grandson was just selected for the US National Team Development program and drafted by a junior team in the OHL! I didn't catch if the kid was St. Louis based, but either way, good luck to him! Here's hoping he plays in the NCAA so he can make the World Junior team and embarrass the Canadians in a few years!

Oh, and I suppose there's a Blues game tonight too?

BLUES NEWS:

  • JR's headline reads "Blues have opportunity now to avoid disappointment," which is a very polite way of saying "Blues will try not to piss themselves." [STLToday]
  • INGLORIOUS WATCH 2014: COUNTDOWN TO BACKES-GEDDON continues. The latest news as of this writing is that David Backes did not participate in yesterday's optional skate, but as Hitch so essentially put it on Wednesday, that means officially "jack" and/or "shit." [STLToday]
  • Ok, so this article is written from the Blackhawks perspective of game 4, so if you'd rather not stomach it I understand...but if you can divorce it from that, it's a really great piece about the in-house intensity of this series, the extreme highs & lows of playoff hockey, and how instantaneously the former can become the latter. [SBNation NHL]
KNOW YOUR ENEMY - THE CHI...
  • *sigh*look, if you don't know where to go by now for the Blackhawks beat, I don't even know what to tell you. I mean...if you're new around here just ask around I guess.
  • Usually I'd post a local beat writer's piece in this spot, but fuck that. This is close enough anyway: Jonathan Toews has been nominated as 2013-14 Selke Trophy loser to Patrice Bergeron finalist, along with Anze Kopitar and obvious and clear-cut winner Patrice Bergeron . [Puck Daddy]
HOCKEY NEWS:
  • The Boston Bruins defeated the Red Wings 3-2 last night to take a 3-1 series lead on an overtime winner by Jarome Iginla, who is more awesome than you are. You know how certain players are good teammates because their mere presence makes other teammates better? Jarome Iginla is like that, only with being a person. [Stanley Cup of Chowder]
  • Hey, remember how ridiculously great the Avalanche offense was playing in the first two games of their series with the Wild? That's how bad they were last night, as they notched ONLY FIVE EVEN STRENGTH SHOTS ON GOAL (that is not a typo) en route to a 2-1 Minnesota win to even the series 2-2. [Hockey Wilderness]
  • Just in case you were hoping to wake up this morning to news that the LA Kings had been swept up and sent packing, I'm sorry to bring you bad news in the morning: LA held on to life and did so with authority, beating the Sharks 6-3 to stay alive...for now. [Jewels from the Crown]
  • We might have a prior engagement around these parts, but tonight also features fame 4 of the Rangers-Flyers series (2-1 NYR) and game 5 of Stars-Ducks (2-2). [NHL.com 4/25]
  • Ladies and gentlemen, we have our first Puck Daddy Eulogy of the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Tampa Bay Lightning, aka, "The Dawn Summers of the NHL." I have to admit, I did not peg the Lightning to be the first eulogy to reference Buffy the Vampire Slayer. [Puck Daddy]
  • The Blues aren't the only Western Conference team facing questions over whether or not their Olympic power forward first-line center captain can play in game 5 of their 2-2 deadlocked series - the Ducks are unsure about Ryan Getzlaf 's status for tonight. [Pro Hockey Talk]
  • The much storied Red Wings dynasty seems to have finally "run out of gas." Funny, I thought they had run out of good hockey players. [The Hockey News]
HOCKEY-LESS THINGS:
  • Earlier this week, the Chicago Cubs had a huge celebration to honor the 100th birthday of the World's Largest Piss Trough Wrigley Field. They went so big, they even brought in TV's "The Cake Boss" to make a giant, 400-pound cake replica of Wrigley. After it was all over and done with, in the most Cubs-like fashion, the entire cake was trashed in a dumpster, not one slice having been eaten. [Chicago Tribune]
  • In July, the surviving members of the revolutionary comedy group Monty Python will be performing their final live show at the O2 Arena in London. I mean, it's probably their last show, in that they're all well into their 70s, they haven't performed all together in decades, and oh yeah one of them is dead...but then again knowing Eric Idle he'd probably prop up their corpses to do a show if he could make a buck...in any case, did you miss out on tickets? Don't worry - it'll be live broadcast in movie theaters around the world! [Variety]
  • The Northwestern football team will vote on whether or not to unionize as the university employees that they now legally are. And though signs seem to point to a likely "no" verdict, that hasn't kept NU from calling an all-out blitz to make sure unionization doesn't happen, from the coaching staff to the university even from alumni - complete with pretty much every union-busting trick in the book. [Deadspin]
VIDEOS:

Two of these are short, so you get three today - don't play them all in one place!


First of all, I really wanted to not like this video that Chris Ahner emailed in, as not only is it the Red Wings, but fucking Jordin Tootoo...but I dare you to find something that makes you smile more than this kid's reaction:








Next, courtesy of The Hockey News, comes some rare, old, and locally shot footage of a short film staring Celebrity Blues fan Jon Hamm, in a classic Blues-Blackhawks debate, circa 1997. So much awesome.








And finally...you might have heard a couple months back (and by "heard" I mean "read the link about it I posted for you") about an upcoming documentary on the legendary Soviet Union national hockey team called Red Army. Well, Red Army will get it's debut at the Cannes film festival next month. If you haven't seen it yet (or if you have and want to see it again, because it's awesome and has some old school racist Don Cherry), here's the trailer.


Links? Vids? Free game 7 tickets? Send those my way!

I don't have to tell you it's game day. Must win. Fuck Patrick Kane. But I will tell you to make sure you buy your print copy of St. Louis Game Time. I don't write for the print edition, so you know it's good!

...don't fuck this up you guys...