Is there such a thing as watching *too much* playoff hockey?

Maybe, when not only are you convinced you can tell the Sedin twins apart, you're actually right.

(picture via Mirtle, of course)

That's Daniel, by the way. The question is, where's Henrik?

Somebody likes me

For reasons unclear, NHL Center Ice showed the Blackhawks shellacking the Flames THREE times in its entirety this weekend.  No complaints here.

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Not hockey, no, but pretty darn exciting stuff to watch last night:

I like this kid.  For those of you who don't follow baseball, stealing home happens maybe a couple times in an entire season across the league, on average.

Red Sox Sweep Yankees.  Pretty sweet words.

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It's summer, and like most autopsies, the Oilers post-season is starting to  make me fairly queasy.  I'm not enough of a stats gal to weigh in on the Draft, and I'm such a baby in Hockey Fan years (I maintain they are far more aging than dog years) that I can't reminisce with the best of them yet.  I'll be lurking on the comment threads of my betters in the Oilogosphere, and offering a strange summer mish-mash of Red Sox baseball, hockey culture oddities, reaction to traumatic off-season front-office moves, and rambling personal anecdote here, hopefully on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

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For the record, Tambellini does NOT have my permission to trade Ales or Horc.  If he can find some way to sneak the Sedins in under the cap, I am so listening.

 

In homage to Lowetide:

This is John Valentin. He played 11 seasons in the Show, 10 of them for my Boston Red Sox, batting .279 lifetime. He was the shortstop for the Bosox from his rookie year, 1992, until 1997 when some kid named Nomar Garciaparra came up through the farm system and displaced him to third base. Val was deeply unhappy with the move, and expressed his feelings to the media in spring training, but treated Nomar with great class, enough so that Nomar once credited him with teaching him how to talk to the press. Val seemed to think that the best revenge was living--or fielding--well, and that he did, essentially robbed of a Gold Glove that year by Robin Ventura of the White Sox, who expressed surprise at his own win when it was announced.

In terms of on-field achievements, flying beneath the Boston sports media's radar was Val's speciality, despite a superb fielding percentage year in and year out (.971 in his first three seasons at short), perpetually leading the team in doubles, and becoming the only man in MLB history to hit for the cycle AND perform an unassisted triple play. Valentin was a team leader, a close friend of slugger Mo Vaughn (with whom he not only came up through the farm but roomed with in college as well), a devoted fundraiser for Boston children's cancer charity The Jimmy Fund, and played hard and played hurt. The Boston sports media, as was their wont, focused on his New Jersey wisecracking tone, and his criticisms of Boston's disastrous GM, labeling him a troublemaker and ungrateful. The hero of the 1999 playoffs would leave Fenway in bitter circumstances, in 2001, play one more season for the Mets on a shattered knee, and retire in enemy territory.

Val was my first sports hero. He had many things to recommend him to a teenage girl in the early nineties, and his intelligence and oddball humor were just some of them. (What can I say--a 9.71 fielding percentage is girl bait!) I amassed a collection of Valentin cards in the hundreds (the rise of eBay was remarkably well-timed) and recoiled in a souveneir shop on Yawkey Way when I was asked while picking through their Valentin cards, "Hey are you that girl, who's like, stalking John Valentin?" For the record, as I said then, and I'll say now: No, I was not. Eeek.

Tonight I learned he's managing an AA team in Chattanooga, and I'm delighted to hear it. I hope someday he's welcomed back into the Red Sox organization with a reconciliation to warm my teenaged heart. Stay classy, Val.

Gene Principe is NOT a psychologist, true.

Hey, Oilers?

I'm not mad.  No, I'm not.  Why would I even bother any more?  It's just so exhausting for me.  I mean really, my being mad isn't even going to make a difference with you, is it?  It's not like you ever think about how I'll feel when you go out there and skate around listlessly.  Stop rolling your eyes at me and listen.

No, I'm not mad.  I'm just very, very disappointed, and I don't want to talk about it anymore.

Well thaw me a hot dog

...or however the saying goes.

Tomorrow is Opening Day for the Boston Red Sox (the home opener no less!).  Were I home in Boston, I would be one of many with creative excuses to take the day off work or school, or my work or school would be facing reality and just letting me watch there.  It's sweet, really.

As I'm in Texas, I'll  crank up the AC, thaw myself a hotdog (Hebrew National is the only way to go) and let myself slide into summer, known in some quarters as the "off" season. 

A little distraction from the inevitable *cough* is nice, no?

ETA: Or, you know, the game could be postponed until tomorrow for rain, leaving me with a potentially horrifying MLB-NHL double-header.  Whatever.

Hopeless

We're playing the Sharks tonight.  We are clearly not going to the playoffs.

And yet.

Here I am, wearing my Oilers t-shirt as I work on my dissertation.  And I will watch tonight.

Because even disappointing hockey is better than no hockey, and a long, hot summer of that's coming upsettingly soon.

I like MacT.  I'm sad this situation has become what it has, because I think driving the blame truck up to his door's a bit scapegoat-y.  It's gonna suck to watch him coaching another team that beats us over and over and over next year...

OK, happy thoughts.  Clap Clap.