Wings lose, Leafs win and..... Ty Conklin!

I'm still cable-less so once again I can't offer anything about the Wings game tonight, as I didn't see it (working on that, I swear - a friend told me today that if I snuck into his dorm before they lock the doors 10 pm I could probably scored the lounge tv and free wireless and if my class hadn't gotten out at something like twenty after I would have been desperate enough to try). What I do know is that Christy already has a game recap up at Behind the Jersey and Hockeygirl (who is ONLY my friend again because she cheered on Belak for me tonight, another thing I didn't get to see myself) is probably gloating over at Double D(ion) if you're interested in (I know, I know, but we're trying to be well-rounded, right!?) a Flames perspective. I also happen to know that it was a 2-1 loss and Valtteri Filppula couldn't come up quite as well on his birthday as my other rookie Huds did on his - but he did notch at least an assist.

On to more important things, which is to say, Ty Conklin's Buffalo Sabres goalie mask officially exists!

For other views, look no further than WGR550, bringing us all sort of Sabres excellence. You can now all pretend I never uttered that phrase.

Conks insists that he's "not a mask guy", but in looking back, the guy's had quite a few different ones with his various teams - and they get progessively more and more full of glitter, too, I swear. And since I'm still not on page one of the google search results of his name, I present you with a journey through Ty Conklin's various masks. Mostly to prove that they get progressively weirder and glittery-er and because MWORO's Drea encouraged me. Are there any other goalies with this much shiny other than maybe Roli and his gold plated cage?

For the record, I just didn't have the energy required to dig up pictures from his Green Bay or college days. So when he first started with the Oil/Hamilton he had the customary white mask which he then apparently traded in for one that was navy blue with Oily stickers.

The first year he was still playing for Hamilton more than Edmonton obviously, and so came along this bulldog-covered helmet with little oil drops on it. Thus also begins his habit of having "CONKS" on his masks - I was so worried when the new one didn't have it, but then I saw the back and realized it was there after all, just not in its normal position.

This was his first official Edmonton mask - I rather like it, though the top is a little boring, but the sides are nice. Except what is with goalie masks having terrible fonts on them? Roli's lucky his name works so well with the Oilers logo.

At first he just wore his Edmonton mask with a SKODA sticker plastered over the front of it, for Team USA, but that turned into this..which perplexes me a little. I don't think I have any clue what's going on on it, except that sort of angry penguin looking birdthing wearing a hat. Not sure about this one, Ty - and they only get more questionable from here out.

Finally, the mask Conks wore last season with the Oilers. Perhaps the extremely weird choice of a random skull was symbolic of the eventual result of his season; we'll never know. At any rate I was never quite able to understand what this had to do with, well, Oilers. The inclusion of the riggers on the side helped a little bit....but that greenish-blue skin tone just isn't healthy at all. Zombie riggers? Perplexing...

Finally, Conks gets signed by the Bluejackets in the off season and apparently with a new team comes a new love of shiny, not to mention colorful (this one looked real good with the Sabres uniforms, if you weren't lucky enough to catch it before he switched). It actually did look nice in person - at the very least you couldn't miss him on the ice. I'm pretty sure he literally chiseled out some of the red from the B and used it for the eyes of the Buffaslug on the new one.

And that ends this horribly entertaining (I know, I know) and informative waste of time. It was sort of interesting looking back at all those masks though - I'm tempted to do it with a goalie people actually care about! Suggestions?

(Also, and I can't believe I'm saying this.....go Canucks, tomorrow. Ooooh it burns.)