Broncos Ate my Hockey

I was all set tonight. I took my last final of the semester earlier and a good friend promised me that if I came by her going away party tonight she'd even let the TV (except for the dreadful portion of the evening that belonged to Grey's Anatomy) provide me with beautiful, beautiful hockey.

On the way to her apartment, no more than a ten minute drive, the Sharks scored twice. When I got there the crestfallen faces of two occupants informed me that the NHL still hates me, FSN was showing the damn Tigers game (which for the record was rain delayed), and their EDUcable - essentially the college's cable network - doesn't pick up VERSUS. My desperate plea for a radio lasted through the first commercial break and the rest of that hour was spent reaching the conclusion that Justin Chambers looks a little bit like Ty Conklin (it's the facial expressions, I swear).

You bastards, you ruined my night.

Therefore I'm sticking with I didn't see it, so it didn't happen. Looking forward to Game - ahem - one on Saturday.

And since I don't have that to talk about, I guess what I'd be stuck with would be....oh, that. So Capschick is running this playoff pool with an absolutely evil little twist wherein the winners of each round get to pick other participants to write up nice things about their team. The real sort of nice, not the kind where I say I Really Love The Flames for setting up that amazing irony that was game six. And since the winner of round one was none other than Duncan of Flamesblog, I, as not only a Detroit fan but an Edmonton fan as well, would seem to be the prime target for this horror. So here you have it everyone:

A (slightly forced) Tribute To the Flames (in 500 words or less).

So here's the deal. I actually like(d) the Flames. Last year I even bandwaggoned them (as per Elly's request) for the five minutes it took them, after the Wings got stomped by Edmonton, to lose to Anaheim. And even now I like them (this may have been helped by the fact that we just beat them) as much as could be expected. Anyway so what I'm trying to say is TAKE THAT this won't be quite so painful after all!

Jordi, being the little jerk she is (shh I'm allowed, she's cheering against my team this round) already went through all the players...though I'm not sure all her comments get to be considered "well-researched" or sans name-calling, which leaves me at a little bit of a loss...but okay, here we go.

The Flames are a Canadian team, and they aren't the Habs or the Sens. There's some points right there. For that matter, they're a Western conference team and we all know that's where my loyalties lie. At one point in their existance, Dwayne Roloson played for them, that ups their count a little too. When I look at their roster there is only one player I really dislike (Langkow you huge jerk stop running Hemsky over) - oh wait, does that count toward name-calling? - and I actually appreciate Phaneuf (see HG!), even though every time the announcers say his name I have to deal with a friend who makes a noise that is something like that creepy lecherous old man chuckle Marty Brodeur makes when he catches the pizza in that Delissio commercial. They have McCarty and I still cheer for him.

You can't - and I don't - argue that Kiprusoff didn't make the better showing in that series, goalie-wise, either. Hasek's impressed me more than I expected when the season started, but Kipper stood on his head to keep his team in the game, facing four, five times as many shots as Dom some games. Funny how it's the losing goalie we all feel bad for (Turco, anyone?) because they didn't the support they needed. The thing that impresses me the most about him though, is just how absolutely collected, stoic even, he always is. I love a good goalie fight, I love when Dom goes crazy or when Roli tries to get up on someone's business, as much as anyone - but that sort of absolutely concentration no matter what's going on around him is something you don't see all that often. So okay, I give Kipper lots of credit. There's one more nice thing.

And last but not least (I'm really running out of nice things to say here and it's 2:44 am and I've had a lot of beer over the course of the night), I wanted to link to it again for everyone's amusement but it seems to be gone (give me a day, it'll find its way to yousendit or something) ...but I have to say for all the fun I made of it, that Stanleyback playoff song, in all its Justin Timberlake-inspired trainwreck sort of glory, was in some twisted way a thing of beauty. Really. Go Flames. I hope you're happy.