Mr. Babcock, I Want to Comb Your Hair!
WINGS/SHARKS SERIES TIED 2-2I have finally bought into this silly gameday superstition thing. Game six of the Calgary series and Game two of this series, I wore red eyeliner. I don't know why I have it - it makes me look horribly diseased, actually (fitting, as Elly let me know earlier that every time she writes the staph part of staphylococcus [it's apparently for a class, don't look at me, she's the one learning all this veterinary stuff] she mistypes it as my name, which is all kinds of warm and fuzzy) - but I wore it. And we won. So I wore it tonight, and I have to admit I was about thisclose to thinking it was obviously a two time experience but my red eyeliner pulled it off!
It started off ugly. Jonathan Cheechoo's first goal had us all shaking our heads and me muttering into my beer and Shawarma; the second, Marcel Goc's ridiculous shot off of Lilja's helmet (while, for the record, there were too many Sharks on the ice, but as that's not reviewable it didn't matter) was a little more cause for cursing and a generally foul mood settling over the room. We started turning the game into a drinking game that required us to take a swig and yell assorted ridiculous phrases whenever Cheechoo ("Shut up Cheechoo!"), Babcock ("Mr. Babcock, I want to comb your hair!" - no seriously that man has perfect hair), Pickles ("It's a Vlasic!" in the voice of those terrifying commercials), or Larry Murphy ("I'M A WING GUYS!" accompanied by mock clutching of a stick and rocking while in the fetal position) happened on the screen. We were done watching hockey.
But then wait, we remembered! The Wings, at least in the regular season, were famous for these comebacks! And then just as that little light went off in our brains, we were given a tiny window of 10 seconds of powerplay time at the end of the second period and Tomas Holmstrom saved our faith and knocked in a pp goal with 5 seconds left, and we went into the third optimistic.
The third period was just fun hockey. Sure we were worried, but it was great to watch. When it came down to the end, though, we were ready to give it to San Jose. And then with 33 seconds left on the clock, Valtteri Filppula fed a gorgeous pass to Robert Lang, who remembered that nothing has been said about him lately that wasn't followed up with "needs to show up and play hockey" or "is useless", and buried it behind Nabokov with a nice wrist shot to push the game into OT (I sang. I got told to shut up.).
At this point we whined about sitting through another intermission, I raved to Skye about Lang not being worthless tonight, and we grabbed a few more beers to hold us through OT. It looked poised to end quickly, with both teams getting quite a few shots on goal, but it took a nice Wings penalty kill and 16 minutes before Craig Rivet (sorry Jordi, your boy lost it for you!) took a bad delay of game penalty, Scott Hannan had a bad giveaway, and Matheiu Schneider took a shot that rang off a post and right into the net to end the game 3-2.
Things to note:
It started off ugly. Jonathan Cheechoo's first goal had us all shaking our heads and me muttering into my beer and Shawarma; the second, Marcel Goc's ridiculous shot off of Lilja's helmet (while, for the record, there were too many Sharks on the ice, but as that's not reviewable it didn't matter) was a little more cause for cursing and a generally foul mood settling over the room. We started turning the game into a drinking game that required us to take a swig and yell assorted ridiculous phrases whenever Cheechoo ("Shut up Cheechoo!"), Babcock ("Mr. Babcock, I want to comb your hair!" - no seriously that man has perfect hair), Pickles ("It's a Vlasic!" in the voice of those terrifying commercials), or Larry Murphy ("I'M A WING GUYS!" accompanied by mock clutching of a stick and rocking while in the fetal position) happened on the screen. We were done watching hockey.
But then wait, we remembered! The Wings, at least in the regular season, were famous for these comebacks! And then just as that little light went off in our brains, we were given a tiny window of 10 seconds of powerplay time at the end of the second period and Tomas Holmstrom saved our faith and knocked in a pp goal with 5 seconds left, and we went into the third optimistic.
The third period was just fun hockey. Sure we were worried, but it was great to watch. When it came down to the end, though, we were ready to give it to San Jose. And then with 33 seconds left on the clock, Valtteri Filppula fed a gorgeous pass to Robert Lang, who remembered that nothing has been said about him lately that wasn't followed up with "needs to show up and play hockey" or "is useless", and buried it behind Nabokov with a nice wrist shot to push the game into OT (I sang. I got told to shut up.).
At this point we whined about sitting through another intermission, I raved to Skye about Lang not being worthless tonight, and we grabbed a few more beers to hold us through OT. It looked poised to end quickly, with both teams getting quite a few shots on goal, but it took a nice Wings penalty kill and 16 minutes before Craig Rivet (sorry Jordi, your boy lost it for you!) took a bad delay of game penalty, Scott Hannan had a bad giveaway, and Matheiu Schneider took a shot that rang off a post and right into the net to end the game 3-2.
Things to note:
- Holmstrom left with what the announcers were speculating was some sort of injury - I haven't heard anything yet.
- VERSUS mentioned Hasek's age no less than four times, and Chelios' no less than three.
- Johan Franzen had some really nice moves tonight - that spinorama at the net, and a little play in the Sharks zone not too long after were both impressive.
- Jiri Hudler, as predicted, was a healthy scratch to make room for Holmstrom's return.
- The Wings return to the Joe Saturday afternoon for Game five - I might score tickets, or, since I'll be home on that side of the state, if I don't I might head downtown and catch the game from Hockeytown Cafe. Either way I'll have some sort of report from the city.
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