Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Conn Smythe Trophy Recipient

The Hockey Gods love me. No, really, they do.

They give me things like perfect Oilers games and Ty Conklin sightings. They give me things like articles on Chris Osgood teasing my rookie. They give me things like Ales speaking Czech.

So Tuesday night when I was sitting around in my apartment and their voice in my head said "No, Stephanie, don't go to class tonight. We've got something in store for you that will make it all worthwhile," I thought to myself, "Well all right then, after all, it's just one class...and the Leafs are playing the Hurricanes!"

And then, just as I was getting ready to curse them out for leading me on, partway through the Habs game I was watching (in French, I might add) because no one was broadcasting the Leafs game for me, it appeared. And not only did it appear, but it appeared in a Blaze of Glory, on my computer screen, and the Heavens opened and the Hockey Gods chorused "We told you so!" in perfect harmony.

What? Seriously?

I've been waiting a couple days in hopes someone would youtube a nice, good recap of this, but as it hasn't turned up (NHL video decided to be kind and not show the closeup in their highlights), the best I can do is direct you to the Leafs post-game where if you click on video and then on the entirely too appropriate misspelling - HUURicanes at Leafs - at around 40 seconds in you can witness for yourself Cam Ward, in a glorious fit of flailing after losing the puck, scoring on himself. From three different angles - and let me tell you, it might just be me, and it might just be that every time I see his face I want to snarl things that would have to be censored on TV and then go pat Jussi Markkanen on the head to calm myself down, but I could sit around and watch this clip for about as long as I could watch the looping .gif of Ruutu tripping Phaneuf and laugh just as hard every time.

Maybe he ought to take a lesson from Clark the Canadian Goalie and find something else to be good at. (My dad sent that to me this morning and labeled it with something about my Roloson obsession - see, I have gotten him to pay attention to Edmonton!)

Cam wasn't the only Cane to get made fun of by the announcers though - John Grahame came in to relieve him after letting in five goals and a discussion on his helmet came up - it was noted between the announcers that between this mask and last, Grahame's NASCAR lady friend "went in for a little surgery". Personally I think she looks a little diseased in both.

And there we have it, the Hockey Gods are my friends. So how's about it, friends, what say the Red Wings finish off the season series against the Predators with a big fat win - and while you're at it, a little Oily love since Manny's not playing too? I'll even work my trademark orange and blue eyeliner - I haven't rocked it since the last time the Oilers won, so maybe it means something?

If you really loved me, though, if you really really did, I wouldn't complain about Ethan Moreau being back in the lineup Sunday afternoon in Chicago...