Eat, Drink, and be Merry

In the past week, the Red Wings played the Kings (a 6-2 victory that I watched while enjoying Jumbo Margarita Night - Kms2 talks about it here), the Blues (a 3-2 loss I caught with Kathy that nobody talked about and I think that's fine - damn interdivisional games), and the Wild, (a 5-2 victory that Kirsten witnessed while I caught the Leafs on CBC, took pictures for me at, and later documented here).

Now the league is quiet for a few days; no games, no trades, nothing. Fortunately, the Wings at least realize we're going to suffer for a little while and wanted to entertain us.

Not only do they have a Season's Greetings video for us (Pavel, I love you, but "Merry Christmas" was probably enough - thirty seconds of Russian later I have no idea what you were saying), but they also gave us a set of entertaining articles in the Detroit Free Press listing different players' wishlists, gift ideas for teammates, and Festivus grievances. These are some of my favorites:

Tomas Kopecky on what he wants for Christmas: “A remote-control car.” (We're still rookies after all...)

Pavel Datsyuk on what he'd get for Kirk Maltby: “I buy him a Starbucks card, as joke, because I know he likes Caribou." (Cleary, who is apparently nicer, promised to buy Malts a real Caribou card.)

Nicklas Kronwall on what he'd get for Johan Franzen: “I would get Mule a French-language tape, because when we went to Montreal, the only thing he kept saying for three days was, ‘Je m’appelle.’ ”

Brett Lebda's grievances regarding Swedes Kronwall and Henrik Zetterberg, (whose lockers adjoin his): "I get stuck in the middle of these two all the time, and they always talk in Swedish, and I never know if they're talking about me or not. It gets to me. It hurts me as a person, deep inside. I think it's going to be a New Year's resolution of mine that I'm going to start learning Swedish, and then I'm going to come in and they're all dead when they start talking in Swedish." (That one's for you, Kirsten).

Nicklas Kronwall on Valtteri Filppula: "I think Fill should start working a little harder when it comes to our two-touch games after practices. He needs to put more effort into it." (I'm glad they're picking on his soccer abilities - very important for team betterment, of course.)

Chris Osgood on Jiri Hudler: "I really wish Hudler would be an inch taller." (Stop picking on my rookie!)

Finally, they also ran an article on Christmas traditions which also garnered some spirited (literally, from Datsyuk) answers:

Nicklas Kronwall: “The TV show Donald Duck, which is on at 2 o’clock in the afternoon on Christmas Eve back home. Donald Duck and his friends celebrate Christmas. It’s about an hour and a half of cartoons. When I think of Christmas, that’s what I think of."

Pavel Datsyuk: “When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up to drink a lot on Christmas and be drunk.”

Sounds like the guys are going to have a fun (alcoholic) Christmas break - enjoy, everyone, you've certainly earned it! And Happy Holidays to all our readers as well, we hope you all have a good enough time to make up for the lack of hockey.

Last but not least, the Oilers want you have a great holiday season too - Laddy Smid could you please be any cuter? Awwwwwwwww. (Decided lack of Hemsky, however - speaking of whom, he still needs your vote! Souray? Psh. Hot-Off Champion or bust!)