Pixie Trix Comix & Hiveworks Community

I was waiting for this.

Glad I could be of service

Well, I mean, I was waiting for Humon to make an SATW about it...

But I did see it here first.

It's become something of a yearly tradition for me now to post this near the end of the regular season of hockey ~



Looking forwards to the playoffs this year - while the Lightning's defense still has several injured players, we have a really talented team. It also looks as though we're going to face the Red Wings in the first round, which will be a great overall fan environment. But first, we have to try and beat the Boston Bruins tomorrow night... just to do our best to oust them from the playoffs. If we beat 'em, they're out, and a playoffs without the Bruins is a wonderful thing.

Yes, yes it is.

We might actually get to enjoy the first round of hockey without having to watch the goonery that the Bruins have become associated with the past few years.

Knowing how much you LOVE the Penguins.... I still get socked by the level of hate that gets thrown at Crosby. I wonder if those "fans" are going to do the same with Connor MacLean next year.

Crosby is maligned for being a mold of player that really isn't tolerated in the hockey culture anymore... he's a prima donna. He established rather early in his career that he was going to chat with the referees at nearly every stoppage of play when he's on the ice, and the fact that they didn't tell him to shut the hell up shows the bias that the NHL as an entity had invested in marketing him. It's the teacher's pet syndrome, and the fans of other teams picked up on that really quick.

I dislike him for that, as well as how earlier in his career he had a tendency to dive quite frequently. With the new rules in place against embellishment, I'm glad to see that such soccer-like dives are growing out of vogue. (Never mind that diving as a tactic was really developed by my own hometown star Bill Barber when he was with the Flyers... hey, I own up to the flaws even if they point back in a direction I don't like.)

As team captain, though, he does have that right. I think that each one does this, it's just that Crosby was focused on more. If he had a Dave Semenko covering for him, like Gretzky did, he wouldn't have needed to talk to the refs about how he got played.

Can't wait for Wednesday.

He has a right to discuss matters with the referees as the team captain, yes... but here in Tampa, we've had our own team captains and assistant captains actually charged unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in the past simply because they wished to discuss a matter with the referee. They never touched the ref, they never acted in a fashion that warranted a penalty - it was just that the ref didn't want to hear the concern, refused to even turn towards the captain or assistant captain, and when our player kept talking they were assessed a 10 minute misconduct penalty. Admittedly, this was when Crosby was newly made a captain and before that... but it's felt like an undeserved burden just because we're the "new kids in town" as far as the league goes. So, it's been ingrained in our team not to try to engage the referee to the same degree. We're not entitled to the same fair and unbiased treatment.

And for the Lightning, it's Thursday night.

Well, the Lightning didn't fair so well in the first game - but boy, did we make up for it today! Blasted the Red Wings for a final score of 5-1, and managed a much better game overall. I'm wondering if the change of referees mattered, as well... in the first game, we had Chris Rooney & Frederick L'Écuyer. Two referees with a history of favoring against the Lightning. Heck, in Game 1 there were several times the ref seemed to deliberately skate in our player's path to disrupt his lane to get the puck.

For this game, we had Justin St. Pierre & Wes McCauley officiating. It wasn't perfect, but it didn't feel nearly so biased. That, and our team came out with more 'jump' to start the game. I believe we had a better sense of what to expect, and adapted to the play of the Red Wings more.

On a food related note, it was a good all around day as my pals bought the goods for food and I cooked. I tried out 'Juicy Lucys'... hamburgers with the cheese tucked on the inside of the burger. Using smoked gouda, they turned out excellently. As the burger cooked, the taste of the smoked cheese melted into the meat itself. Having added green onion and green bell peppers, they were really flavorful. The home team wins and you're eating well? Yup, that's a good day.

Let's Go Lightning!!!

The Tampa Bay Lighting are going to the Stanley Cup Finals for the second time in team history. Nobody gave us any chance through any of the series... and now we're going to play for the Cup. Like many people, I'm really hoping that tomorrow night Chicago will beat Anaheim. That way, if we're to go all the way, we'll have faced four out of the original six teams. Needless to say, I'm quite happy.

Good job Lightning. Good luck in the finals.

Well, now...

The USA beat Germany in a friendly international football game 2:1.

I'm sure the NSA was involved.

They probably blackmailed all your players. They've been spying on y'all you know.

I'd make a joke about Americans not taking what everyone but us calls "football" seriously but I have a cousin who is a very avid fan. I would not want to get on his bad side.