Married to the Oil: Cheering for Edmonton from TX

Farewell Lubo

2010-03-03T14:56:00.000-06:00

I would Vo-et for you anytime, and I will miss you sorely. Good luck in (shudders) Anaheim.

Young Players

2010-01-30T17:39:00.000-06:00

Another nice NYT article, this time about the retreat the MLB sends top prospects on to prepare them for the pressues of fame, media, and other changes in their lives with making The Show. Sounds like the NHL would do well to have similar, if they don't already?

Is it Me?

2010-01-13T15:19:00.002-06:00

Or does this Twitter from the Oilers team account contain a whiff of the judgemental?

Quinn: Brule out for grandmother's funeral, for the sixth time this year. Will miss tonight's game.

Exchange Rates, Canadian NHL, and Making Payroll

2009-12-19T13:57:00.000-06:00

Canadian teams have learned to protect themselves by hedging their bets on swings in foreign exchange rates. This often involves buying contracts to purchase United States dollars at different levels, up to several years in advance. This helps insulate the teams from big changes in the exchange rate. But it also means that the current rise of the Canadian dollar may not translate into a gain for teams, or as large a loss when the Canadian dollar slips.

The effect of the fluctuating dollar also hits N.H.L. players. Ottawa Senators forwards Mike Fisher and Daniel Alfredsson were with the team early this decade when the Canadian dollar was weak and team finances were shaky. “Quite a few of us even bought season tickets to help out,” Alfredsson, the team’s captain, said. Fisher said that once the paychecks arrived late.
“We were on thin ice for a few years,” Alfredsson said.

I highly recommend checking out this really interesting article in the NYTimes about how fluctuations in the exchange rate affect payroll for Canadian NHL teams. It all makes sense when you think about it, but I certainly never had before.

If you're faced with a jumble of hockey players:

2009-10-28T04:35:00.000-05:00

This google ad I saw in my RSS reader should provide the answer:

I wonder how many GMs are using this?

Winning in Boston

2009-10-12T00:45:00.000-05:00

Why not losing in Boston? That is what we (the BoSox) did today, right?

Yeah. I don't have the energy right now, but consider it a placeholder for a rant I've had brewing awhile. More soon.

Opener

2009-10-03T21:27:00.007-05:00

Against my better judgement, here I am, and I even dug my jersey out of the closet. Fresh bread will come out of the oven soon, but it better NOT be the best part of the evening.

GOilers.

UPDATE:

*HEADDESK* *HEADDESK*

I dunno if I can take a whole season of our awesome new goalie.

Perhaps the Strangest Job Posting Yet

2009-09-30T13:06:00.001-05:00

The Oilers have a new job posting up, and it is a doozy. Close textual analysis follows.

The Edmonton Oilers are one of North America’s leading sports organizations, and we’re looking for outgoing people to administer surveys using a handheld PDA at Oilers and Oil Kings games as well as at special events.

We are both extremely confident in our decisions and yet retain some anxiety that the fans don't want a dehydrated goalie.

• Survey administrators approach event attendees and ask them to complete a brief survey on behalf of the Oilers/Oil Kings. • Responses are entered into a handheld PDA •

We will impress the fans with our technical prowess and gadgets!

Training will be provided

This doesn't pay enough to assume you know how to use that PDA.

Survey Team will dress casually (no jeans) and will be provided with an Oilers SURVEY TEAM jacket to wear while working

Jeans are far too formal to wear with a SURVEY TEAM jacket! Break out those warmup pants!

Survey Administrators will be provided with one PDA to use while working

Because we're generous like that.

After the survey time period, Survey Administrators will return the jacket and PDA

Well, not THAT generous! You realize you're borrowing Katz's spare PDA, right?

Ideal Qualifications: • Passionate about the sports and entertainment industry • Comfortable approaching and speaking with people

Basement-dwelling blogger types probably not welcome.

MacT to Spengler

2009-09-10T16:30:00.004-05:00

Per TSN, MacT will coach Team Canada for the 2009 Spengler Cup.

And uh, you know, Comrie is an Oiler. Yup. If this causes me to run into Hillary Duff on my next Edmonton visit, man that's gonna be awkward.

Wherever you go...

2009-09-04T16:19:00.003-05:00

There is a BP's.

So Training Camp approaches, and how do things stand at marriedtotheoil? Oddly. You see, I've spent the last month moving house to College Station, Texas for job reasons, and currently I cannot seem to get any internet or cable provider to contemplate hooking me up in a reasonable budget/timeframe, so I am without television altogether, and only sporadically able to find some internet.

What's different about College Station from Austin? Well, absolutely everything. What's different that anyone reading this blog would actually care about?

1.) NONE of the local cable options seem to provide Center Ice. This is very, very distressing.

2.) There is a Boston Pizza here. No, REALLY. It knows not of this "hockey", nor of Thai Chicken Pizza, and is calling itself "Boston's the Gourmet Pizza," but curiously, it does have Caesars on the drinks menu. (Trust me, no one in TX has ever heard of a Caesar, and thinks you're talking salad.) If I can't get some kind of hockey hookup soon, I'll be drinking a lot of them.

The Top 10 Questions on Everyone's Mind

2009-07-21T13:50:00.002-05:00

I recently added Google Analytics to this site, essentially for my own amusement. It's fun to see where people visit from, and, even better, what search queries landed them here. With that in mind, I will give you the top ten questions that people seem to be looking to marriedtotheoil for answers to, and as I'm all about service, I'll do my best to answer them.

10. tim wakefield carries sick kid

Aww, what a sweet image. I'm sure he would, if you asked. How far do you need this sick kid carried?

9. "oilers flag" + tennessee

Oh, I'm so, so sorry. I wish I could help with your situation, but I don't think this is something mail order can fix.

8. edmonton oiler mascot

Is a terrible idea.

7. gene principe

Is perhaps googling himself? What does he do during the off-season, exactly?

6. hey, get well soon

Why thank you. I'm feeling much better already!

5. is dean arsene married?

I applaud your rapid, opportunistic response to a recent Oilers transaction, and am a little afraid.

4. sidney crosby

Surely I can not be an early result for that query. I have, however, had 3 visits from Nova Scotia, so I am concerned Sid needs a better summer hobby than vanity googling to assuage his off-season boredom. Go live a little, you just won the Cup!

3. rexall brand hair gel

Sheldon, my man! How's your summer going?

2. tarnst porn

Oh dear. I do not know what this is, and I'm not sure I want to. I'm assuming "porn" is a wild-card query word on google by now? A perfunctory visit with a german dictionary would suggest that "tarnst" means disguised or masked. Good luck with that. Or it could be featuring Dick Tarnstrom, I suppose. I don't know what disturbs me more of these options.

1. tarnst hockey

I suppose that's less disturbing than #2, but I fear I still do not know what this means, readers, though I have had enough queries about it to imply it is in the current zeitgeist. Can anyone else help?

More Knuckleballs

2009-07-16T15:18:00.003-05:00

The MLB All-Star Game this year was, as always, a bloated spectacle, and from my partisan point of view, a disappointing one. I thought it was pretty lousy of Joe Maddon not to put Wakefield in--it was his first All-Star Game and possibly his last, given the vicissitudes of pitcher selection, and I sincerely doubt Rivera or any other AL pitcher would have grudged him a couple outs. Bush league, says I.

Here's a nice article on Wake from the NYT.

New Oilers Job Posting:

2009-07-07T18:48:00.003-05:00

I tip my cap to the individual who can accomplish all of the tasks listed in this job description in a 40hr week. Or an 80 hr week. Or a 120 hr week. I'm assuming there's an opening because of a nervous breakdown?

My favorite part of the listing is this:

Write articles and features for the Oilers website and Oilers publications and the general public

So does this mean I can call and request, as a member of the general public, a feature on Shawn Horcoff for my own use? What a nice service!

Knuckleballers are All-Stars too!

2009-07-06T00:08:00.004-05:00

I'm delighted by the news that Tim Wakefield will be one of the six Red Sox players (including Horc's buddy Jason Bay) playing in the 2009 MLB All-Star Game. Wakefield, a 42-year-old knuckleballer, has been an integral part of the team since I first started watching them in '95. This will be Wake's first All-Star Game, which is somehow unsurprising, as he has always been excellent at a very low profile. I had the pleasure of meeting him at a fan event in 1999, and he was polite and painfully shy.

Wake is probably the current greatest athlete benefactor of sick kids in New England (though I'm happy to say he has many rivals for the title) and his dedication to the rugrat crowd is reciprocated heartily. Every time I have been to the giant souvenir store across Yawkey Way from the Park, someone behind the counter is promising a parent that they'll have more #49 shirts in x tiny kid size in "by Monday, they just sell out so fast." Anyone that under the radar with that many little kids worshipping him anyway has got to be doing something right, and it's delightful to see the League acknowledge it. Congrats, Tim!

Roloson to the Islanders?

2009-07-01T14:46:00.002-05:00

Harrumph. This day is just annoying me more and more.

I'll miss you, Crazy Eyes. Sorry you're going to one of the most obnoxious arenas in the league.

Happy Canada Day! Free agent drama for all!

2009-07-01T12:20:00.005-05:00

I love poutine. As a lifelong resident of North America South, I was not exposed to it until D brought me home to Edmonton to meet his family. Since then, I have been trying to make up for lost time, as far as poutine is concerned. Here in Austin, one grocery store actually carries squeaky cheese curds, though somewhat unreliably. Our original plan for celebrating Canada Day 2009, was to make poutine, because "it's Monday" also works around here as an excuse for such. Alas, no curds at the store, so we have settled for a 750ml Unibroue Trois Pistols, a Terry's Chocolate Orange, homemade maple shortbread cookies, and worrying about the free agent market.

I am unabashedly disappointed that the Sedins will not be coming to Edmonton. I know it wasn't much of a risk, but still, it would have been lovely to have them in Copper and Blue and I was mentally drawing up lines around the Sedins +1 and Horc and Hemmer +1 and sighing ecstatically.

Ah well. This Heatley business is bewildering and seems to have no happy resolution. Perversely, if it does go through, I will miss Laddi the most. He's a feisty player, and has an air of the undersized underdog trying to prove his credentials and courage, so much so that I mentally clock him at several inches shorter than his rightful 6'3".

To all I wish a day filled with good libations, celebrations, and constant applications of F5 to the TSN homepage.

To anyone kind enough to still visit this languishing blog for updates, my sincere apologies for my lengthy and unplanned (a now-resolved personal medical debacle) hiatus. I'm back to posting at least sporadically: preferable (I hope) to not at all.

Job Opening: Oilers Mascot

2009-05-27T22:51:00.004-05:00

The Oilers are offering a new job with the organization, on the heels of (much smaller) coaching announcements in the last 48 hrs:

We are currently seeking enthusiastic and motivated individuals to help promote our team as our mascot at various events in the community. No experience as a mascot is necessary; however, preference will be given to those with some acting or public promotion experience. • Hours of work will vary, including mornings, evenings and weekends. • $12/hour. • Costume supplied. Training is provided for those who enjoy greeting/working with families and the general public

I have to say, the Oilers must be footing a lot of overhead these days, if all they can offer for the honor of dressing up in a fuzzy (?) costume of a design yet to be revealed is $12/hr in Alberta's economy...

Alumni Gossip

2009-05-12T19:19:00.003-05:00

Rachel Hunter and former Oiler Jarret Stoll will marry this summer, in Northern California, according to People. Congrats to the happy couple.

Properly Accessorizing Fanships

2009-05-11T15:49:00.006-05:00

Back in February/March I traveled to Santa Barbara for a few weeks with D for his work. We did it as a roadtrip from TX, and it was pretty fun, except for the part where my wallet was stolen out of my bag on the UCSB campus at the end of the first week.

I needed a cheap replacement to tide me over until I got home (Of course, ID and credit cards were another, hairier matter altogether), so I found myself glumly examining my options in The Saddest Target Store Ever(TM) in Ventura, CA and was amused by the inadvertant shout-out to the Copper and Blue this seemed to represent. Since I'd already had one wallet boosted from my current bag, a little zipper action would ease my paranoia. Also, I'd have something to dig loonies out of the next time I was at Rexall Place and needed a hotdog.

Finally, it seemed reasonable in the interest of parity, as this is my go-to carry-on bag when I travel. (I sewed it myself, after spending eight years debating the best deployment of this now discontinued logo fabric.)

Confess: What extremes have you worn or made in the name of representing?

Vampires blog?

2009-05-01T03:55:00.006-05:00

I just discovered Google Reader and joined the 21st Century. Now I know what Black Dog said seconds after he opined it! I uh, also get a lot of nerd feeds. Because I am a nerd. This confuses the "recommend" feature, which after I added 17 subscriptions in assorted categories, still can only come up with "Cult of Hockey" as something I might like. Anyway. RSS is teaching me new things!

Did you know this guy:

blogs for NHL.com?

Yeah, neither did I. Apparently he's been doing it for three years now. Huh. In his most recent entry, this Flyers fan working in Hollywood shares this exciting, nay, suspenseful scoop:

I went to the San Jose / Anaheim game on Friday and this woman comes up to me and said that her father owns the team. She was really nice and invited us to go and sit in her father's box. At the end of the first period, my son Jay and my good friend went up to the box and met the owner. The owner's daughter had baked cookies for the team and she shared one with Jay.

Yeah, I'm mean. Other genre tv hockey fans, btw? Michael Rosenbaum, a.k.a. Lex Luthor on Smallville. Though he's buddies with CFP, if they're letting random celebrities do it I'd still like to see him blog for NHL.com, especially if it was in the voice of Lex Luthor:

The Ducks played unacceptably tonight. Though Chris has been a valued acquaintance for a long time, I simply can not allow things to continue like this. Please make the usual arrangements.

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

2009-04-30T01:13:00.002-05:00

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

2009-04-27T15:56:00.004-05:00

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

***************

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.

***************

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.

****************

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:

2009-04-24T02:40:00.002-05:00

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.

2009-04-07T23:23:00.003-05:00

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

2009-04-05T22:42:00.005-05:00

...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

2009-04-02T14:33:00.002-05:00

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.

They did it AGAIN

2009-03-31T23:12:00.002-05:00

I made it home in time to see the last 10 minutes of play.

%^*%^*%!

Important Observations about Hair

2009-03-31T01:58:00.010-05:00

(I'm afraid I don't have a twinge of regret about missing tonight's game against Anaheim. I have tickets to see Neko Case at a good venue in Austin, and well... no contest.)

Apropos of tonight's game, I would like to make an observation about Anaheim that I started noticing around the time of the All-Star game. Players go there, and then their hair starts to flee. CFP's included. What is it about this team that makes a man's hair give up and go into retreat?

Meanwhile, Sheldon "greasy" Souray, despite my speculations that his contract included hefty quantities of under-the-table Rexall-brand hair gel, got a fairly decent haircut... for him...

Which is more than Tom Gilbert can say. I know the performance won an Academy Award, but really, is modeling your "look" on Heath Ledger as The Joker really such a great plan?

Yes, it's come to talking about matters tonsorial. Because really, do we even want to talk about the playoffs today?

Worse for hockey, fashion, or movies? You decide.

2009-03-29T22:53:00.005-05:00

"Despite the controversies, Mr. Avery’s star seemed on the rise last year. Beau Flynn, a Hollywood producer (and Ms. Flynn’s brother), sold a movie idea to New Line Cinema focusing on Mr. Avery’s time at a fashion magazine. The working title: “Puckface.”"

Hey, I interned with a high-profile fashion magazine house too! I wonder if he felt as much pressure to develop an eating disorder as I did?

"But Mr. Avery’s bankability took a hit last December, when, before a game with the Calgary Flames in Canada, he sought to stir the pot by alluding to a Flames defenseman who was dating a former girlfriend of his — the actress Elisha Cuthbert — as well as to a Kings player who was dating the model Rachel Hunter, whom Mr. Avery had also gone out with."

Oh, I missed the part where he insulted Jarret too. Keep it Klassy, Sean.

"He has invested in a new restaurant and bar, Warren 77, with Mr. Abramcyk and Chris Miller, a former art dealer. Mr. Abramcyk, who played hockey as a teenager, said he met Mr. Avery at Smith & Mills, a night spot Mr. Abramcyk co-owns in TriBeCa. The two became friends, and Mr. Avery invited him to play hockey at a rink on the property of Mr. Robbins and Susan Sarandon in Pound Ridge, N.Y.

“Out of the blue,” Mr. Abramcyk said, “I was down and he was on top of me pushing his stick down on me like you see hockey players doing on TV.”

Mr. Avery was only pretending to be angry, Mr. Abramcyk said during a tour of their new spot, which will have a vintage sports theme, on Warren Street.

Originally, Mr. Avery had planned to invest in a different project with Mr. Abramcyk and his brother. The plans went awry, Mr. Abramcyk said, when Mr. Avery egged the two on when they got into a dispute about working on New Year’s eve.

“The old Sean is crazy,” Mr. Abramcyk said. “I didn’t speak to my brother for three months.”"

Hahahaha! Good times! I would totally go ahead and invest with him after that!

"Later, in the locker room, he described the few seconds when both players had shed their helmets and gloves and were poised to exchange blows.

“It’s the most honest moment of clarity I have on any level of life, as funny as that sounds,” he said. “Before I went away and after I went away, it’s still the quietest time I ever have in my head — when I’m about to engage someone in that manner.”

“You know,” he added, “everything kind of goes quiet.”"

Is he saying he usually hears voices? Because honestly, given the way this peach behaves, I always imagined something close to silence all the time, maybe with a faint whistling sound.

For more of these sparkling anecdotes, check out today's NYTimes article.

An Open Letter

2009-03-29T22:01:00.005-05:00

Dear Craig MacTavish,

Any time you want to come over to our apartment and swear for a few hours, you are welcome to. Depending on what would make you more comfortable, we can discreetly vacate the premises, or we can stick around and join in. Whatever you please. We have some nice mini-quiches from Costco in the freezer we could heat up, and I'll make dessert--strawberries are in season, and since we buy those at Costco too, and the whipping cream, I'm certain there'll be enough to go around.

The thing is, MacT, it's clearly good when you let it out. Case in point would be Friday's game against Anaheim. You looked like you were freakin' out on the bench, and somehow the team pulled out a tortuous win, despite many of the copper and blue looking distressingly unfamiliar with the business end of a hockey stick. Maybe you simply intimidated the voices that pester Roli, maybe Roli became inspired by what he thought was your similar plight, but whatever happened, it was ultimately for the good.

Tonight? You had that introverted, resigned look I've been noticing of late, and the team--well, I don't know what they were, but they weren't exactly fired up. And against the Minnesota Christmas Elves, really they should be.

I'll level with you, MacT. I was really hoping to be watching the playoffs in HD, with the Oilers in them. Can't we work something out? Because tonight, doing my taxes was the consolation for having to watch a hockey game, instead of the right way round.

Thanks,
marriedtotheoil

An invitation to represent--

2009-02-20T13:02:00.005-06:00

I knit. While watching hockey. I knit three sweaters during the Cup run in 2006.

I recently joined ravelry, which is free and has excellent resources for knitters, and I was of course searching the member groups to see if there was an Oilers group for me to join among the many NHL ones representing. To my horror, there was not an Oilers group, but there was a Falmes group.

Clearly I could not let this stand. So I started an Oilers group. I'm "marriedtotheoil" over there too.

So if any of you reading this happen to knit, and you'd like to join me as the playoff-berth suspense knitting ramps up, (or you know other Oilers knitters who would, tell them to) sign yourself up if you already have an account, or get an invite for a free account on Ravelry's homepage.

But we can't let just Calgary represent.

Trade Season

2009-02-20T12:34:00.002-06:00

I was all set to write a post about the Oilers Tuesday. Then I was going to try again last night.

Yep.

Instead, with all the ample trade speculation in the media, I'll share a excerpt from a thought-provoking essay from retired MLB player Doug Glanville.

“This is John Hart,” relayed the Texas Rangers’ general manager. “I have some news you may have expected. I have traded you back to your old team.” When he said “old team” my heart stopped. I had signed with Texas in the off-season as a free agent since they were the only team that had assured me I would be a starter. One offer I declined was from the team with which I played for the previous five years, the Philadelphia Phillies. And being that my Rangers contract was worse than the one the Phillies had offered me, it seemed crazy that when all was said and done, I could be traded back to Philadelphia with a contract inferior to the one they originally offered me.

“As you know we have underperformed as a team,” Hart said. “It isn’t your fault; you are doing your job, but with the trade deadline upon us, we wanted to make some moves. So, I traded you back to Chicago.”

I was a Chicago Cub again. Back to where it all began.

Mr. Glanville now writes a regular column for the NY Times, on professional sports from a player's perspective. If you haven't checked it out already, I highly recommend it for a fresh perspective.

Get Well Soon, #46

2009-01-09T22:12:00.002-06:00

Dear Zach,
Yes, I give you a hard time here, a lot. But in some strange, perverse way, you've become one of my favorite Oilers in a season that has been, shall we say, dispiriting. Seeing you writhe in agony on the ice a few minutes ago was truly upsetting, and seeing your knee bend a way that ultimately ended the career of my favorite baseball player made me distressed indeed.

So please, rest up, get well, and do everything the doctor says. We want you back healthy, asap.

Best,
marriedtotheoil

Video! Falcons 11/23/08 @ Lowell!

2008-12-07T23:48:00.002-06:00

Below I'll share Oilers prospect Geoff Paukovich vs. Matt Corrente of the Lowell Devils, filmed by yours truly at the game I attended on a recent trip to Massachusetts. I'm sifting through the rest of the photos and video I took for future posts, but in the meanwhile, enjoy this spectacular fight-ending pratfall, truly worthy of Buster Keaton.

(Youtube has graciously fuzzed up my video quality--I'll seek a way of avoiding this if possible for future video content.)

NESN

2008-10-27T21:11:00.002-05:00

I don't know what the feed is in Edmonton, but on Center Ice tonight it's NESN, my hometown station. NESN always acts a bit discombobulated, transitioning from baseball to other seasons, (the spot they just ran, "Red Sox baseball on NESN, is brought to you by..." would be a good case in point) but their hockey crew love hockey. So far tonight they're in delighted awe with the Rexall ice, and at the end of the 4:22 without stoppage of play, they went to the ad with "And we actually get PAID for this! AMAZING!"

And with a game like this one so far, it's hard not to love hockey.

The Oilers will never win any games ever again.

2008-10-27T15:33:00.003-05:00

I think the only logical conclusion to draw from the last few days is that the Oilers, after their undefeated start, have in fact gotten in all their wins for the season at the beginning, and all we have to look forward to now is one unbroken death spiral downwards.

Which is why I'm terribly angry that so many Oilers games are blacked-out on Center Ice this year, because I want to witness this historic season in its epic entirety.

GOilers!

Oilers v. Blackhawks

2008-10-22T01:27:00.008-05:00

Long ago, I used to live in Chicago. It's where I went to my first NHL game (in 2004). I asked my boyfriend (he was hoping the Blackhawks would somehow overpower the Ducks to improve Edmonton's playoff hopes) if the hockey players usually fell down so much while skating. Sadly for Edmonton's hopes, the answer was "not usually." The Blackhawks fans seemed to be (understandably) drowning their sorrows in beer, which led to the wonderful moment when the song from "That 70s Show" blaring from the loudspeakers prompted ragged shouting of "Hello Wisconsin!" from the section next to us.

The following season ('05-'06), I saw the Oilers live for the first time (though I'd heard many games called by Rod Phillips), hosted by the Blackhawks, who weren't much better than they had been. I don't really remember the game (Oilers lost, thanks to Conklin?) per se, but I do remember how many Oilers jerseys were in the seats, and in particular, whilst waiting in line for nachos, a woman in an Oilers jersey got down on one knee on the concourse and proposed to her Blackhawks-jersey-clad boyfriend. He accepted. I teared up a bit and decided I could get into this hockey community thing.

So GOilers, but I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the City of Chicago, where among many other wonderful experiences, I learned to love them and their fans.

And it gets away...

2008-10-19T22:43:00.006-05:00

Even homemade falafel for dinner can't dull the pain of missing the World Series by three runs.

72 hours to regroup, and then on to Oilers vs. Blackhawks, I guess.

In the meanwhile, more wine.

Distractions: Oilers v. Falmes

2008-10-17T22:24:00.003-05:00

The NHL Center Ice feed tonight is Calgary, alas. I was not familiar with their tv guys, and their play-by-play guy, Peter Loubardias, sounds eerily and distractingly like Henchman 24 from Venture Brothers.

If you don't watch this show you should. (First two seasons are on DVD!)

Also, the Buffalo game seems to be getting called by the captain from Sealab 2021. Perhaps I am watching too much Cartoon Network.

Shaky start by Deslauriers, but everybody has to have their first game in the Show sometime, and he shored up well. I enjoyed seeing him vs. Lowell in January, and I think he has potential. I'll be at another Falcons game Nov. 23, and I can't wait.

Married to the Oil Enters its Semaphore Slump!*

2008-10-13T13:12:00.003-05:00

Yes, it's true, scandalously true. Marriedtotheoil has been having a tawdry affair. Oh goodness no, not cheating on her Alberta guy, but rather being less than faithful to all things Oil because of that glittering hussy of a baseball team, the Boston Red Sox and the crazy fan dance of a playoff run they've been doing all summer. Married's eyes strayed away from the oilogosphere, and rested comfortably on Jason Bay, Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, and David Ortiz.

SO Married's a little late to the season-opening party. (Thankfully, the MLB scheduling is allowing her to continue to two-time, as the Divisional Series against Tampa was Friday-Saturday, Monday-Tues, TBA. Afternoon game at Fenway today!)

It was glorious to settle in on the couch last night in my number 10 jersey with a slice of pumpkin pie and finally watch some freakin' hockey! It was 90F and humid here yesterday, but that couldn't stop the Fall mood and the giddy squealing as "my 2008 Oilers" came down the tunnel and out to the ice.

The game? Well, we won, right, so I'm willing to chalk up some appalling hockey to opening-night jitters. Once. As for the vintage jerseys? Maybe I'm getting old (okay, not maybe) but I found it strangely difficult to read anyone's number.

Overall, I would rate still rate the beginning of the season as Crosby.

*(for more on ths topic, see Battle of Alberta)

Quick, get out your rulers and predict some '08-'09 penalty minutes!

2008-08-20T16:42:00.003-05:00

According to this story on MSNBC:

Canadian scientists investigated photos of pro and varsity hockey players, measuring how wide and long their faces were. They found the wider that faces looked, the more aggressive players were, as measured by the number of penalty minutes they accrued, which are handed out for aggressive behavior.

I have so many questions. And though comment almost seems superfluous, I do invite you to try anyway.

Too much upheaval makes marriedtotheoil's brain hurt

2008-07-31T23:54:00.006-05:00

Well I'm clearly late to the "OMG KLowe!" party, but seriously, today has been an exhausting news cycle for this Oil and Bosox fan. An unusually productive day meant no internet for me, so it was an accomplishment not to destroy dinner in confusion as D tried to catch me up the news when he got home. Then, as I'm trying to make sense of that, I discover that apparently the Red Sox don't want to go to the playoffs this year after all, as they have traded three players, including MANNY RAMIREZ for some dude named Jason Bay.

Thanks to hockey and graduate school snatching a fair chunk of my time, I'm not quite as obsessively detailed in my knowledge of the MLB as I used to be, but I seriously have no idea who this guy is. Something makes me doubt he's a functional replacement for Manny Ramirez, even if he's statistically likely to bring less drama and distraction.

I'm too tired to post-mortem this yet, but I am fascinated that as it frequently seems to happen, there is an Oilers connection, beyond both teams having a high-turmoil day. According to Boston.com, this Bay guy is good buddies with "fellow Trail native and Edmonton Oilers center Shawn Horcoff".

This is really all that's keeping me from sniffling softly into my peanuts and crackerjack right now.

I need a giant Oilers flag...

2008-07-30T14:36:00.006-05:00

to go with the giant Red Sox flag I just unpacked from a box of baseball memorabilia I retrieved from my parents' soon to be ex-house. Then we can have a both delightfully tasteless and mystifying balcony display here in Austin come October.

Any thoughts on the best place for me to buy such a thing online or in person the next time I'm in town?

And in the subtracting sports memoribilia category: Posting baseball cards on Beckett.com for sale is easy and relatively efficient, but the size of the task is still daunting. I seem to have amassed something in the tens of thousands when I was in highschool. Posting 25 took the better part of an hour today. I may have to start mailing them out as prizes for quizzes on this site.

Um, anyone want to go out to dinner in Austin?

2008-07-20T17:01:00.003-05:00

I hear it's skate around with your mouth open good... Maybe we'll go toast our returning players there.

Book Review: Ballad of the Whiskey Robber

2008-07-18T23:12:00.003-05:00

This is a quite entertaining "True Crime" story with a healthy dose of hockey thrown in. It follows the 1990's exploits of a terrible hockey goalie/ terrible zamboni driver/ terrible (yet astonishingly lucky) bank robber. The prose gets a bit purple at times, but if you take it with a grain of salt and enjoy the wild ride provided by the narrative, it's easy enough to assume truth really is stranger than fiction. It's also an interesting look at a very strange moment in Hungary's (and indeed, all of Eastern Europe's) history, and prompts some sobering thoughts about the pro hockey circumstances in other countries that players were fleeing from to the NHL. More than anything, I couldn't put this book down and found myself laughing incredulously quite a bit, which made it a perfect vacation read. Highly recommended for the beach/airport.

It Starts

2008-07-17T23:45:00.003-05:00

Where has marriedtotheoil been? Using her powers of telepathy to prompt the signing of Shawn Horcoff to a six-year deal? Well yes, of course, but I was also on an extended trip back to New England for some family matters, and for what turned out to be some hard-core sports nostalgia. As I receive the boxes full of souveneirs of fourteen years of Red Sox fandom that I packed up and shipped back here, I'll be sharing some of the highlights. Also on tap will be musings about the nature of New England sports culture, and of course Oilers Oilers Oilers.

Also, some of the finest youth hockey fiction of the pre-war era I have yet seen will be excerpted. So come back often. I swear the drought is over, and fun will abound frequently.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to enjoy my Maine beach tan and follow Lowetide's sterling example and get myself a beer.

Liveblogging the Awards Trainwreck

2008-06-12T18:30:00.009-05:00

We decided to eat dinner with the NHL awards tonight, so I'm late to pulling out the laptop, but not to gaping in horror. I'll comment as I'm moved to.

Masterson: Cassie Campbell is an awesome athlete but her hair is terrifying. And Fernando should have gotten that one, I say quite objectively.

The feed from the CBC can't seem to bear to stay on for Craig Simpson. Also, I know Vs. is just running the CBC feed, but it sounds like the audio is coming from someone's TV across the border.

Lady Byng: As a female hockey fan, I'm allowed to say this award is weird, right? "Gentlemanly"? Also, the presenter's rambling anxiousness brings the mortifying awkwardness of this event to a WHOLE new level. Datsyuk looks unhappy to have to come up with more English, and downright spooked by the kid handing him the trophy. But he was a "gentleman," of course.

This "the face" feature is, um, well, um seriously, so hockey players have faces, I see. The cable feed cut out again in understandable pain, it seems.

D offered me a beer. YES! PLEASE!

Ovechkin definitely dressed himself. Everything about how his GIANT RED TIE is strangling his eveningwear is immensely pleasing to me. He looks embarrassed by the inane banter interval he's been dragged into. We all are, Alex, we all are.

Putting awesome female athletes in standard presenter eye-candy-evening-gowns is a disturbing experiment that I hope never to see repeated. Though to be fair, the men all appear to be wearing tuxes stolen from Don Cherry's lost "black" closet. Boudrieau is the only one so far who brought his own tux, so I suppose that's why he won the Jack Adams.

Seriously, Ron Maclean, you should know much, much better than to sniff anything you found in the pocket of your "borrowed" tux before going on. The manic standup persona does not suit you. To be fair, this is a horrible, horrible gig. I hope they paid you well.

D has just pointed out a terrifying program note: following this on Vs. is "Sidney Crosby Revealed."

Like, um, stripping? Pierre Maguire's secret videos? Aren't those admissible?

The look on Gordie Howe's face says, "I'm Gordie Howe. Why are you doing this to me? Well, I better class this place up. Sigh."

It pains me intensely to say this, but that is a fine tux Iginla is rocking. I also like that his message to the kids seems to be "go bother some other NHL players for autographs after the ceremony." Well spoken Jarome, well spoken.

Good eye, D! The kid presenting the Norris was wearing a jersey that said "Lindstrom". Um, wow. Can't you just get a Lidstrom jersey off the rack at the arena, or am I missing something?

True story: I think Brodeur and I have the same person who cuts our hair. Well, he couldn't remember which NJ player's hair he'd cut exactly, but we narrowed it down and it's likely Brodeur. True AND vague!

"CATERING PROVIDED BY BOSTON PIZZA?!" So this event was even WORSE for the attendees than it appeared?

Gordie Howe, I'm so, so sorry. Goodnight.

Odd

2008-06-07T00:00:00.002-05:00

From the Globe and Mail today:

At the conclusion of the deciding game of the Stanley Cup final on Wednesday, Sidney Crosby's agent, Pat Brisson, huddled with Scott Moore, the head of CBC Sports, at Pittsburgh's Mellon Arena.

The subject was Hockey Night in Canada's coverage or - from the point of view of Brisson and others - the peculiar coverage of Crosby in the NHL final series.

The Pittsburgh Penguins' 20-year-old captain was largely ignored by Hockey Night host Ron MacLean and commentator Don Cherry, although MacLean did report on Wednesday before Game 6 that Crosby was the leading scorer of the playoffs. And Cherry aired a piece on Coach's Corner, the thrust of which was referees were allowing Crosby to be fouled because he was known as a diver in his rookie season.

I confess I'm a little flummoxed by this. On the one hand, I think everyone is sick of the "Crosby Crosby Crosby" narrative we've been force-fed all season long to the detriment of actual commentary in nationally televised games, but on the other hand, I was thinking that it largely died off after he came back from his injury and things seemed a bit more balanced. And he um, was playing quite well, and was, you know, the Captain of a team in the Stanley Cup Final. So talking about him does seem kinda maybe relevant? I didn't see the CBC coverage in question, since, Horcoff help me, I was stuck in Texas with NBC, VS. and Pierre McGuire (who seemed to goad Peter Sykora into scoring the winning goal in game 5, but more on that later.)

Anyway, because I didn't see it, I wouldn't try to comment in detail, but it both strikes me as odd that Crosby's agent got involved (maybe I'm naive but I doubt it was at Sid's urging) and as typical that Don Cherry would be such a gratuitous (and irrelevant) blowhard jerk.

Back, and (kind of) liveblogging Game One!

2008-05-24T19:16:00.015-05:00

7:15p According to the Detroit Arena announcer, it is time for a ceremonial face-off with the captains, Nick Lidstrom and Steven Crosby.

STEVEN?! How do you get an arena job if you have apparently never before been exposed to the NHL?

7:19p I miss Georges!

7:35p In terms of playoff beards, Detroit is clearly way ahead. In terms of play, pleasingly matched so far. That Steven guy hasn't done anything amazing yet, but I retain high hopes. I'm also pleased that two such intense hockey towns got to the final--the shot of Pittsburgh fans filling their arena to watch on TV says we have some deserving fans this year.

7:49p Terrible call against Detroit--waving off that goal. If Holmstrom interfered with Fleury, I have too several times already this evening. I'm kinda slightly rooting for Pittsburgh, but I'd hate to see a call like this impact a game.

8:00p I highly approve the giant inflatable octopus in the rafters of Joe Louis Arena. At the end of the first period, I'm very excited overall about the series. This should be an excellent matchup over however many games, and I'm quite happy to give my holiday weekend over to the first two games.

I base my excitement/quality meter of a game on how much danger is posed to my rug by the beverage in my hand. There's been a lot of flailing with the wineglass this evening so far, and I blame it on how well both teams are focused on neutralizing the threats from the opposing bench. I've never seen it executed so consistently before and it truly pleases me.

8:05p Messier still doesn't know how to look into the camera when he speaks. it's endearing.

8:36p Bee-you-ti-ful goal Detroit! Best way to counter a lame call against. Good thing I'm drinking white and not red wine.

8:41p The Vs. announcers may have given away something key about themselves, describing Samuelsson's visiting father and brother from Sweden as "a couple of happy humans." Oh, those hue-mons. It is hard to predict what will make them happy.

8:46p D has observed astutely that Fleury is fighting hard to keep his team in this. I love young crazy goalies.

8:55p After two periods, though I have not kept entirely accurate count, I think I can estimate having seen approximately 400 ads for WEC Ultimate Cage Fighting. I'm your target demographic for that, Vs. Network? Really?

The Swedish players speak English in interviews with much better accents than I do. Then again, I do have the disadvantage of having been born in Boston.

9:05p Whoa... ad for what looks like a terrible new Mike Myers film that appears to be hockey-themed and featuring a pile of Daily Show correspondents and alums. Pity.

9:20p Crosby looks frustrated on the bench, like he expected things to be hard but not this hard. Detroit is playing tight sharp hockey, and not to flog the lamest of cliches, but the fans are the biggest winners tonight.

9:46p Well, this one is over. I admire and fear the Redwings. It's okay, Steve--Sid. There's always Monday.

Meanwhile, I have always enjoyed the silliness that is closed-captioning of hockey announcers when watching the game in bars (BP for example), since it's always garbled into some language even more fantastical than the usual nonsense the announcers spew. That said, these announcers tonight (suspiciously wowed by humans as they are) are one-upping things by speaking like closed-captioning.

"The Redwings don't want to allow him to guy to carry the puck to make plays"

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you your new robot hockey announcers.

Whoa-kay.

2008-05-05T23:59:00.005-05:00

This kind of fandom? Crossing waaaaaaaaay over into the bad kind of crazy.

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) -- A woman accused of running down a man in her car after a Red Sox-Yankees argument in a bar never hit her brakes as she accelerated toward the small group he was in, a prosecutor said Monday.

"She never braked, and she accelerated at a high speed for about 200 feet. She went directly at this group of people," prosecutor Susan Morrell said of Ivonne Hernandez, who is charged with reckless second-degree murder in the death early Friday of Matthew Beaudoin, 29.

MarriedtotheOil has been on hiatus, due to pressing work and dental concerns. We hope to return to posting at least once a week throughout the offseason by next week. In the meantime, Go Pens. Crosby.

Yes, Crosby

2008-04-08T23:21:00.003-05:00

Looks like an Ottawa writer's trying to start some business between the Pens and the Sens, suggesting they aim for his Crosbiness' ankle. Classy. However, genuinely classy is the reaction of the Pens. I say if this guy's so eager for somebody to get really hurt, why not offer himself up? It reminds me of those "you'd never make it in the NHL" ads they ran last year. Yeesh.

Goilers and goodnight

2008-04-03T16:53:00.002-05:00

I'm out of town tonight for work reasons and won't be seeing the last game for the year. Sad.

It's been a long, hard year, with some devastating losses and some exhilarating wins. What I love about this team was really driven home to me Tuesday night, and brought some genuine joy on an otherwise heartrending evening.

We dressed out in our Oilers jerseys and settled in with pasta and wine in front of the tv. Eternally pessimistic, I suspected what might be coming but wanted to believe in the possibility of happy outcomes at least. MLB Extra innings, (which I had been debating subscribing to) was in a free preview on nearby channels to the Oilers feed, and I was flipping back and forth to the Red Sox game during the intermissions and commercial breaks.

I'd watched the Red Sox/A's opening series in Japan, and was bothered by my lack of emotional engagement with the team/games. I like all the guys on the club, and it was fun to watch them win the World Series last year, but there was something about the fawning of the announcers over the team and the way it seemed assumed the Sox would be winning most of their games this year that left an off taste in my mouth. And tonight was no different. I'd watch an out or two as the Sox kept utter control of the game, and then I'd go back to the Oilers almost with a sense of weird relief, even as they made me cry a few times. There was no way to be as sure of what would happen with them as I felt with the Sox.

And then I realized that there really is such a thing as winning too much.

I always hated the Yankees and their fans (our Falmes analogs all the way) for the bizarre sense of entitlement they projected. During the late 90's it was pretty unbearable. It was assumed the team was going to the World Series every year and anything short of that was complained about bitterly by fans and press alike, like something had been stolen from them. How dare other teams take away their rightful glory! I cheered for the late 90's Red Sox like crazy and hoped for every sign of Yankees collapse and hubris coming due. The 2004 World Series seemed like a dream come true (since 1918, people!) and last year's win was exhilarating too. But with two WS under our belts in four years, I'm a little worried that Red Sox Nation is becoming a little too... entitled. We expect a winning team every year now, and gotten accustomed and even a bit inured to consistent excellence.

This year's Oilers were anything but consistent except in one category: fun. They have been consistently fun, and it's been a pleasure and a privilege to watch a fine crop of rookies mature over their first NHL season. They've broken my heart more times than I can count, but I've watched every game in total suspense and often incredulity.

I'm not getting MLB Extra Innings this year. I'm sure the Sox will have a great season and I'll enjoy a lot of games on ESPN but whatever they do, I doubt they'll surprise me. It's not their fault: it's a structural thing.

The Oilers were not always good this year, but they kept it interesting. Thanks boys, for a year full of surprises. And I bet your Moms are proud.

(I will be posting at least once a week during the off-season, with a few surprises of my own.)

Flashback: Stortini vs. Sarich

2008-03-27T14:35:00.003-05:00

Because I need a good laugh today and maybe you do too.

The problem with my NHL/MLB teams is...

2008-03-26T23:00:00.002-05:00

...that this time of year I can get walloped with a double let-down in twelve hours as easy as that.

It got me thinking about the cycle of the seasons though. There's something about difficult losses that feels just that much worse at the beginning or end of a season. The middle is when all might still be possible, even more so than the beginning, because at least in the middle you've settled in with the team, you know them, and you can tell yourself wonderfully convincing stories about how they'll bounce back tomorrow. At the beginning of the year, early catastrophe can seem like a portent of the season to come, quite irrationally.

And at the end, late catastrophes leave almost no wiggle room for hope. Almost.

Opening Day or more of the same?

2008-03-25T15:59:00.003-05:00

I settled in today to watch the Red Sox/A's season opener from Japan on ESPN, and discovered I'm rusty on watching baseball. I'm timing trips for coffee and meals badly, and having trouble keeping track of outs. Thanks, hockey.

But before I succumbed to any level of disorientation, it became surprisingly easy to regain my bearings. After all, the announcers kept going on and on about some player named Crosby, and the game couldn't be decided in a regulation frame.

Now this, I know.

Goilers, GoSox.

Fasten your seat belts

2008-03-24T13:14:00.003-05:00

I've been giving it a lot of thought, and I'm not sure if the Oil will kill me or make me stronger. Maybe it will be a wash. My blood pressure and anxiety, I'm certain have gone up. But I've had so much nervous energy I've taken up running again. My beer consumption has also gone up. But my nervous eating is causing me to nosh a lot more fruit and veggie pieces during games.

I have a tupper full of red and green veggies and fruit for tonight, so I will be consuming my enemy symbolically.

Let's hope the NHL's youngest Sam Gagner, Sweatercoat, Dyle, and the rest of the boys can beat the Minnesota Christmas Elves with more calm than I think I'll be capable of all day. I'm toying with liveblogging, but that might interfere with beer.

Steve Holt!

2008-03-23T16:10:00.002-05:00

I've never been a Phaneuf fan and tend to assume the worst of him, but this was hilariously unexpected. You tell me: at about 0:59 of this clip (sorry about the quality, best I could find) of last night's short-handed goal, is he pulling a Steve Holt and shouting "Phaneuf!"?

I say yes.

Is this a parody? I can't tell.

2008-03-23T15:16:00.003-05:00

This is either a brilliant parody of Crosby-mania, or um, wow.

Make no mistake, I'm not bashing The Kid. Despite having every reason to have malfunctioned impressively by now (youth, fame, money, fawning attention beyond Pierre Macguire) he seems to have kept a solid head on his shoulders. I'm just sad the Cult of Crosby is distracting from the simple joy of watching a really talented kid play.

I leave for ten days and what happens?

2008-03-22T17:07:00.003-05:00

Shamefully and miserably, I have been utterly absent from the Oilogosphere for ten days: no reading, posting, or commenting, and given what's been going down in those last ten days I have no hope of catching up, other than tipping my cap to Stan Weir and his prolific friend lowetide.

Have I been hiding under the couch, unable even to watch or think about the deranged playoff hopes of our hockey daycare club? Well, yes, mentally, but I have been watching games, and screaming and crying, and despite my femaleness, cursing like a sailor fairly continuously. All other waking hours, I had a very poorly timed dissertation deadline to meet and had to go actually do the writing I was supposed to be doing .

But um, how about dem Oilers? They seem pretty determined to kill us with hope, no?

Also, screw having Hemsky or Pisani's lovechild. I want to surrogate for theirs.

I'll say it: The Kids are Alright

2008-03-11T17:18:00.003-05:00

The last couple games have been of the sort that were fun to watch and hard to blog. They weren't snarkable or moan-able catastrophes, nor were they masterpieces of inspirational puck-handling wonderment either. They were what they were: a bunch of kids working really hard, making mistakes, and recovering well, and I feel better about the longterm prospects of this team than I have in quite awhile. Cogliano is looking sharper than he has all season, and everyone looked like they're actually having fun--which I suspect is a key to success for this team. We'll see what tonight brings, but I'm feeling optimistic that I won't be hiding my face in the sofa cushions for more than 40% of our remaining games. Which is downright awesome compared to quite recently.

There has to be a silver lining somewhere

2008-03-05T14:51:00.002-06:00

Well, we were pwned last night.

You know a game isn't going well when the announcers keep saying desperately cheerily, like promising a treat to a kid after he gets stitches, "And now we go downstairs to Gene Principe!" (And how it rapidly became clear Gagner was both the first and last active player interview he'd get that night.)

It's also ominous that opposing players seem to be starting to find Stortini as comical as I do. He was having a hard time getting his fight invites taken seriously last night, methinks.

However, in the midst of the trainwreck that was last night, let us remember that it was fantastic to see Shawn Horcoff come in and give an interview in good spirits and great optimism about his shoulder. His prognosis seemed to amount to "better than ever" and I'll sure take that.

Gee, Thanks.

2008-03-04T21:03:00.003-06:00

(Go ahead and click the image for high-resolution misery if you must)

Behold the cover of the shopNHL.com catalog that landed in our mailbox yesterday. The soft Northern light, the disconsolate, warmly-clad youth, staring hollowly across the ice, haunted by a giant spectral Anaheim doofus--who shall not be named--brandishing a Cup mockingly.

This could be taking place almost anywhere in NHL-land, right?

Sidney CROSBY is playing RIGHT NOW!

2008-03-04T18:49:00.004-06:00

Oh and some kid, Sam Gagner, friend of Dyle Bridziak, won NHL Rookie of the Month.

The Edmonton Oilers, who are not the Pittsburgh Penguins, are playing Nashville (Also not Pittsburgh) tonight.

But I think we can agree the real story tonight is Crosby. The Tampa broadcasters are breathless as they incant Crosby over and over again. And again. Say it with me. Crosby. There he is. Doesn't that just feel better? Oh yeah.

All snark aside, welcome back sincerely, Sid the Kid. Glad to see the leg looks pretty sound. Stay away from Pierre Mcguire. And maybe the rest of the sports media.

Things no one knew

2008-03-02T23:24:00.002-06:00

Welcome to the Oilers' newest player, Dyle Bridziak. Mr. Bridziak did not play so awesome tonight, but thankfully that was not necessary for our exciting overtime win. The Oilers will never be boring, I suppose. Just ask Sam " ref killer" Gagner.

Flu night in Texas meets Hockey Night in Canada

2008-03-01T21:50:00.004-06:00

Not a long post, as I've been down for the count with the flu since Wednesday* so I'm totally out of the loop--though I was quite happy to hear that the win I thought I saw Thurs night wasn't just part of my fever--but I wanted to share three things.

1.) Alert reader Abby sent me a link to deadspin's snuff pictures of the Penguins' zamboni from last Saturday, which is more impressive carnage than I would have imagined (though still NOT an explosion, I hasten to remind you).

2.) The same Penguins' announcers who last week claimed Crosby was powered by some sort of internal motor, today declared hockey to be "The fastest non-motorized team sport in the world." Is this because his Crosbiness is still out?

3.) Even with my total flu deafness and a fog of various medications, I can still tell Don Cherry is yelling, and oh, how I wish he would stop.

*I know I'm doing poorly when I can't even read my way around the Oilogosphere from my sickbed...

What does Crosby have to do with the trade deadline?

2008-02-25T18:25:00.002-06:00

Well, um, nothing that I can figure out, but you wouldn't get that impression here. I like that his name appears only under the picture of CROSBY! and in the fine print at the bottom about NHL network being where you can find CROSBY! This sort of reminds me of tone-deaf automated google ads one gets when one runs a search...

Oh Captain, My Captain*

2008-02-25T11:33:00.003-06:00

Falcons @ Lowell, 1/11/08

I've figured it out. The Oilers must have one giant setback for every tiny step forward. Shame on you, KLowe, for brokering such a raw deal with the hockey gods.

My husband at least waited until I'd poured myself a cup of coffee this morning before telling me "Moreau's out for the season."

"Of course he is," said I. It barely mattered how. Ankle, shoulder, kidnapped by gnomes--we're still left with an active roster whose average age is now down to 26.25. (If we traded Roli, we'd be down to 25.63 as the average team age.)

I won't even try to pretend at guessing what will happen come the deadline. I think the rest of the season's going to be pretty rough, but the Oilers have been specializing in saving their wins for the more implausible games this year, and at this point all the games are looking more implausible by the minute, so maybe there are few more beauties in store. We can only hope. In the meanwhile, heal up fast Captain.

*So I was an English Lit B.A. What do you want from me?

We... ...won... ...hockey?

2008-02-24T23:50:00.001-06:00

...was all I could come up with before the disturbingly porn-y music they always cut to as they shut down the Center Ice feed.

In other news, via Spector's Hockey:

"Garrioch believes Murray might make that swap if the Thrashers added rugged and affordable blueliner Garnet Exelby into the deal."

You might remember my previous claims about Exelby's origins flat-packed at Ikea? I see nothing here but support for them.

Breaking--Zamboni explosion?!

2008-02-24T14:28:00.008-06:00

I just tuned into the Penguins/Sharks game, which is only just now starting, 30 mins late, because of what the announcers are casually referring to as "the zamboni explosion at center ice." I can't find anything about this on TSN.com or NHL.com.

My brain hurts.

UPDATE: In the meanwhile, footage of a zamboni fire, also in Pennsylvania, from December. I call that suspicious.

UPDATE 2: Now they are backtracking and calling it "the zamboni breaking down at center ice". Breaking down is most sincerely not the same thing as exploding. For example, the latter usually involves a loud bang. Which is it, people?

(Also, apparently Sidney Crosby is powered by some sort of perpetual motor, according to these same announcers, but how can I believe anything they say now?)

SIDENOTE: Googling "zamboni explosion" comes up with an alarmingly high number of hits.

FINAL UPDATE: Well, according to the Canadian Press, the zamboni slid out to center ice, leaked a whole bunch of transmission fluid, and then they had to clean up the mess. What a rip. I guess Crosby deprivation has made the announcers light-headed and prone to hallucinations. Just ask Evgeny "Not Crosby" Malkin.

Quickie

2008-02-21T14:34:00.003-06:00

Falcons @ Lowell 1/11/08

1.) According to an alarming section of NHL.com I hadn't previously noticed ("NHL Lifestyles"?!) Big Georges is a fan of yoga. As is Shawn Horcoff. Imagining Big Georges doing a sun salutation puts a big stupid grin on my face.

2.) Jezebel.com featured a picture yesterday of Rachel Hunter leaving Big Lots! discount store with an entire shopping cart of cleaning supplies and a rather sour look on her face. Jarret, what did you do to her kitchen?

3.) Edmonton is playing Dallas tomorrow. I know that if this last week hadn't been so awful hockey-wise, I would totally be scheming for a roadtrip and a night in Dallas (It can't be that bad a place? Plausibly?) as our weekend plan, but all I can summon is a vague curiosity as to how we'll lose this one. Ugh. Perhaps when my Horcoff jersey arrives (I can't be the only one seduced by that evil 1-day sale on NHL.com, surely?) I'll feel a renewed optimism. We can only hope.

In no particular order...

2008-02-20T12:14:00.010-06:00

1.) Scott Howson may be the GM of Columbus, but he sure is working the crazy eyes.

2.) Zednik's young daughter was in the hospital in Florida with a fever the day he got hurt. Thankfully the whole family is home and safe now. He's giving his first public comments today.

3.) Speaking of family stuff, if not news per se, (more "olds", really) this video of Shawn Horcoff sledding with his kids makes it easier to remember why I love this team. Don't worry, Shawn, I'm married and not particularly stalk-y, I promise.

4.) The Nashville feed for the game last night hit new lows of competence in my NHL viewing experience. Either that, or the Predators can't afford to light the arena properly. Though even that wouldn't explain the general ignorance/homophobia/ethnic stereotyping issues the announcers were having.

5.) Apparently when the cable feed dies on a US Center Ice game, you get a test screen and the radio feed.

6.) Sidney Crosby skated yesterday. Crosby. Crosby! CROSBY! Crosby did not speak to the media after skating in something that was not the game or an actual practice. How could he deprive the Crosby media of his Crosbiness after such a huge event? Thankfully there was blurry footage of him skating around holding a stick, for us to analyze in depth and base our upcoming life decisions off of.

7.) pazzoni. n. pl. -ies. 1.) A North-American Italian food item, consisting of dough stuffed with a pound of cheese and ground beef, frequently offered by street vendors. Thank goodness there are so many pazzoni vendors on Whyte, because I had too many Stortinis at that bar and needed something greasy to soak them up. 2.) The willful mispronunciation of Oilers' #34 by idiots in TN.

The polls are open!

2008-02-19T00:23:00.006-06:00

From L-R: O'Marra, Stephane Goulet (16) , Theo Peckham (24), Devan Dubnyk,
J-F Jacques (26),Colin McDonald? (18?), Rick Berry (5?), and Marc Pouliot (29) @ Lowell 1/11/08

New question, new poll: which of these fine young Falcons will still be in dark blue come February 27? Applies to the big team too. I've never been much of a trade deadline junkie (Being a Red Sox fan during the Duquette GM years made me learn to fear reflexively the random things that could happen late summer) but the Oilers are in a bit of a weird position this year and I confess I'm curious to see what happens. Vote your hopes and fears to the right column, and/or speculate wildly in the comments.

The polls are closed

2008-02-18T14:00:00.001-06:00

Devan Dubnyk and Ryan O'Marra, 1/11/08

Thank you to the fourteen people who told me to keep going with this blog, and to all those who have commented here in my first month! Here's hoping the Oil give us all lots (of good) to talk about in the month to come...

Goilers.

Roy

2008-02-17T23:02:00.000-06:00

We saw the Springfield Falcons @Lowell, 1/11/08, and I've just managed to start going through the photos I took. This seemed like a nice place to begin.

Sedins 2, Vancouver W, my patience 0

2008-02-17T18:07:00.000-06:00

Last night, I settled in with my husband, a fine Valentines-y dinner, a great bottle of Zin, and a WWE wrestling match on ice skates.

I was not amused. If it were up to me, I would have awarded the Sedins the 2 points, and told neither club they deserved to win.

I know the Sedins catch a lot of flack for being "soft". They made it look real good last night. They are very consistent in the way they body block, drag teammates out of frays, and don't throw punches, and maybe that's not everyone's favorite NHL style, but I respect their choice of style in a season that's been filled with plays around the NHL where I seriously wonder how some of these guys can go home to their families feeling proud of their actions today. Until the refs get some teeth into enforcing the rules as they need to be, play will procede at the highest level of goonishness allowed to goons, and by everyone else in self-defense. And I don't like it. I hesitated about picking this as my topic today, what with the "girl blogger" thing and all, but I'm just still utterly disgusted with last night's circus. I love the physicality and intensity of hockey, but it's on the bargain that I get to enjoy it because I'm not really endorsing psychopathic behaviour.

I'll stay brief here about what bothered me last night. The truly atrocious behaviour was absolutely instigated by Vancouver. I particularly detest Ritchie, Cook, and Burrows. That said, our guys did not acquit themselves entirely without blame and I got pretty mad when Reasoner shoved Henrik Sedin to the ice when Henrik was just standing there--it's not like you can claim pre-emptive on that player with a straight face, it seems to me. I'm not saying Reasoner was outside his rights to scrap with Vancouver, but his choice of target and force disappointed me.

Clearly, emotions were running high on both sides and understandably so, etc, but both sides were lucky nobody got seriously hurt in three periods of constant fighting, and a not-so-small part of me wishes the refs, coaches, veterans, and captains could have stepped up and reined things in so we could have an actual hockey game instead of a three-ring circus.

Zednik

2008-02-10T23:28:00.000-06:00

Well, I was all set to write something flippant tonight on how I shouldn’t ever look forward to hockey games because that’s just asking for trouble, but today’s accident in Buffalo has put all levity out of my mind and also puts the Oilers’ woes in stark perspective for me.

We have far too many injured players, and it absolutely sucks, but at least we have so far been spared those heart-stopping moments when a player leaves the ice with an injury that calls a young man’s entire future into question rather than just his team’s prospects without him for the next few weeks. I’ve still not forgotten the Patrice Bergeron hit from earlier this year, and my stomach churned so much just reading about today’s incident I’m somewhat grateful I didn’t happen to see it live. My heart goes out to Zednik and his wife, and I hope he makes a swift and total recovery. I also really feel for Jokinen, who is blameless but still must be terribly shaken up. I love this game so, and I wish it didn’t ever have to be so dangerous for those who play it.

Oilers 5, Falmes 0. Um... yes.

2008-02-05T13:51:00.000-06:00

Can we just watch this over and over?

Well, I don't know about you, but after watching last night's blowout, I would love to have been there to see what went down in the locker room before the game. Motivational speeches to underdogs = dime/dozen. Whatever got those results = freaky supernatural.

Some highlights beyond those fab goals:

1.)Ales Hemsky's bee-you-ti-ful skating/puck handling.

2.)Zack a.k.a. "What's in a...?" a.k.a. "Huggy Bear" Stortini's big tangle in the second. I'm coming round to this guy, I'm embarrassed to admit. After all, this fight gave us a huge emotional/momentum boost, and was hillariously bizarre to watch, so I really can't complain. From the initial Stortini EmbraceTM to the mutual attempts give each other hickeys on the neck, to the passionate grappling followed by the inevitable Sarich arm getting free and Zack taking his punches, this had an unearthly and beautiful flow to it, and I have not enjoyed a hockey fight this much in a long time. The six dozen or so others that followed later in the game were just icing.

Or we could go with the Oilers.com account:

"Several minutes later, Zack Stortini and Cory Sarich dropped the gloves in a bout that lasted well over a minute but neither combatant had the edge over the other."

Kind of misses the point, I think. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm seriously looking forward to Saturday.

Seriously, I think I might cry

2008-02-04T16:41:00.001-06:00

I didn't think I could be any more depressed about the Oilers right now. But surely playing Calgary tonight will cheer us all up, right?

Um, yeah.

In my impromptu week-in-review (my "real" life has recently been keeping me too busy to post daily), here are the things that stand out for me:

1.) It appears Katz is finally buying the Oilers, yes? Or no? With the Writer's Strike grinding on, maybe we can make the negotiations into some mind-numbing reality viewing? No? Thank goodness. I feel woefully unable to comment much meaningfully on this as a non-local, so I'll leave it at the stating the obvious.

2.) Horc's shoulder injury sucks.

3.) We traded our only Swedish player, as Garnet predicted. This prevented a dangerous build-up of defensemen on our roster. (wipes brow)

4.) What pagan god did MacT and KLowe offend to provoke this season's injuries?!

5.) Did you know Henrik Lundqvist of the Rangers has a twin? Neither did I. Now what?

6.) I enjoyed the clip they kept showing over the weekend of Giguere freaking out in the box and kicking things, while Porn-stache Parros looked on stolidly. At least we can still take entertainment from someone else's woes.

7.) Did I mention that with Horc out, we are utterly up the creek without a paddle?

Pitchers and catchers report in 11 days, 17 hours.

Not a moment too soon...

The Vs. announcers are apparently in a drought

2008-01-29T16:03:00.000-06:00

Argh, argh, triple argh. (expanded from earlier posts today)

I am not one of those fans who is automatically baying for blood whenever my team loses, but dude, we suck these days and it is depressing and terrible to watch and I am finally losing patience. I'm watching Canucks vs. Dallas right now to try and get the nasty taste out of my mouth. Was Horcoff saved from the zombies that came through and bit the whole roster by being out of town last weekend? Because he, Moreau, and intermittantly Pisani and Hemsky, were the only players who looked literally alive out there tonight.

Only compounding matters was the disturbing commentary by the Vs. team, featuring such quotes as "there are two bulls rutting at center ice" and "a buxom rebound off the pillows." I have to say, "buxom rebound" is not a phrase I ever want to hear again.

Moving on, the NHL is pushing its new promos online. Besides the expected array of Crosbiliciousness, and the requisite OMG the NHL has discovered the interwebs spots, there's this spot, which is clearly not new and which seems a little... weird... to me. Am I alone in this belief?

Let's review. Gretzky, Lemieux, and Howe appear to be terminally depressed robots who can open rifts in the space-time continuum to witness their past glories (well, the past glories of the humans they are replicating). The "current" players are straight out of some sort of awful horror movie framing, and I have to restrain the urge to shout "Run Robot Wayne, run!" when they start banging their sticks on the ice, because it is clear they are circling in for the kill. I'm surprised the NHL is feauturing such a shockingly Crosby-free promo on the site, (as their world is measured in B.C (Before Crosby) and the present era.) and also I think it may give me nightmares tonight, as if if tonight's game wouldn't have already.

(I swear the promised Falcons stuff is coming, I've just had a busy start to the week.)

Shinny Sedin-y Silliness

2008-01-27T22:30:00.000-06:00

NHL.com has an amusing interview with Henrik Sedin here--worth a read.

I know tonight wasn't 'real' hockey, but it was awfully good fun I thought, and sadly, the way the Oilers have been going I needed to be reminded that hockey is fun and that's why I watch it. Legace and DiPietro were a real hoot mic'd, and it was delightful to see Nash (robbed of the MVP, IMHO) and Ovechkin having such a gleeful time with such pretty goals, not to mention the fabulously funny moment with Nabokov robbing Kovalchuk. I'd also like to point out that Horc always made his presence felt during his ice time and that's nothing to sneeze at.

Alyssa Milano embarrasses me and my gender, when it comes to sports. That is all.

Tomorrow I'll try to get up pictures and thoughts from a Springfield Falcons game I went to a few weeks ago. I would have put them up sooner but have been cursed with uncooperative camera batteries.

Horcoff has fun, is fast!

2008-01-26T22:22:00.001-06:00

I think All-Star games, in the end, are about the need of everyone connected to hockey (or baseball, etc), be they players, fans, management, or media, to at least get to pretend that these ridiculously physically gifted multi-millionaires are at heart getting a kid's pleasure out of playing a kid's game. It's okay that they get so much attention and money and fun because they're showing that they understand how damn lucky they are to do so.

But you know, this ritual really works, and I have absolutely nothing against it. It was pure joy to see Shawn Horcoff in the skills competition tonight, getting the recognition that he so deserves. The fact that he won the speed event came second to the big grin on his face all evening, and the fact that every time the camera was on him, he seemed to be a fun teammate for everyone else too. As an Oilers fan, I'm proud of that. Gagner looked like he might faint or pop with excitement and that was sweet as well.

I love that my Eastern Conference (Flyers) fan college roommate was getting to see folks I babble about when we talk hockey over the phone or email (or texting tonight) play, be they my faves (Horc, H. Sedin), or objects of the spear (Phaneuf, Pronger). I enjoyed seeing Legace having a relaxed and silly time tonight, and getting my first sense of Ovechkin as someone with an individual personality. I've seen most of these guys in games before, but tonight was a chance to see them having fun with their peers, and catch of glimpse of them as people. In my professional/academic life, I study media theory, and though artificial and contrived "glimpses"of "private" selves of celebrities is a very interesting topic, I feel way more confident that I got a glimpse of DiPietro's "real" personality than I'd ever see of a movie star's. Maybe that's where star athletes are still separated out from the other celebrities, and I think it's because we're watching them at play.

Speaking of play and peers, I do have a disappointment so far with the (my first NHL) All-Star weekend. I'm unhappy that the league arbitrarily selected one Sedin and not the other (look at their stats, it's ridiculous!) when conceptually and practically, the two are a unit. That said, I'm looking forward to the game tomorrow night, and to getting to "know" some new (to me) players. I'm impressed they still managed to utter the word "Crosby" many times tonight, and will be keeping tally on that tomorrow.

Be Weary of the Kid Line: How I learned to stop worrying about Gene Principe and love the shootout

2008-01-24T21:22:00.000-06:00

Dare I say it, tonight was Crosbylicious. Just as I was sinking into despair, neurotically fretting about why on Earth FSN Florida kept showing me Gene Principe in a cape, and wondering how that goal couldn't have counted in the review, the Oilers came back! Sure, it was to the shootout of course, but I have to say, Shawn Horcoff cannot be overrated in my eyes right now.

I'm impressed that the "Be Weary of the Kid Line" as a "key to the game" persisted throughout eight or so displays of that graphic for FSN. But maybe a lesson can be taken from this misspelling that it's time to be weary of discussing ad infinitum how the weight of the world rests on the kid line .

So beside Horc and Garon, what else did we do right tonight?

Goilers.

So K-Lowe, where's my AHL-fresh hockey players?

2008-01-24T14:17:00.000-06:00

I've learned that complaining (politely, of course) works. After Tuesday's "soy sauce beer" debacle, I emailed the brewery and told them my sad story. Last night I got a lovely email back from them, apologizing and offering to send me "brewery-fresh" replacements. I sincerely could not be happier with this as a customer service experience. Support your local (or non-local) microbrewery! Feeling boosted by my success, I offer a modified version of my letter to them now addressed to Kevin Lowe in the hopes a similar response can be obtained:

Subject: Spoiled Oilers Game

Dear Mr. Lowe and EIG,
I've much enjoyed your hockey team after discovering them five years ago. I had a sad surprise on retuning home from a trip, to discover the remaining Oilers players left on my roster had spoiled and now played more like soy sauce than like my beloved NHL team. If you can alert me to any production codes on the players with which I was so frustrated Tuesday night, I will pass them along to you so you'll know which batch had this problem. If you can offer me some sort of recompense for this awful game, I'd be quite grateful, as I'm a poor grad student who watches less baseball than I might so I can have time for your usually premium stuff.
Best,
Married to the Oil

Goes together like... the Oilers and spoiled beer?

2008-01-23T10:39:00.000-06:00

I think it was around the second goal, the one Rollie didn't even see, that D asked me if I wanted a beer. The answer was an emphatic yes, little knowing what kind of an Alanis Morrisette-style ironic was going to be served up with it. In a hockey game filled with spoiled chances, I discovered over the course of the next 30-odd minutes of play that I had come back from a lengthy holiday trip to a fridge stocked with spoiled microbrew, in a flourish straight out of indie-movie hell. One bottle after another was cracked open to discover it tasted like soy sauce, so I guess the Oilers metaphorically tasted like soy sauce too last night. To drag this awful comparison further, both the beer and my team were OK when I left for Alberta in December, but at some point for each I guess, something went terribly wrong even though, my bachelor's-in-English heart would like to add, both were kept well-chilled the entire time.

I'm done with that now. I promise.

I'm under the impression that NHL Center Ice is a better deal in the US than it is in Canada, in terms of pricing structure and what it includes. Maybe I'm totally wrong. But anyway, we get all of the Oilers PPV games, and I have to say I'm pretty glad we're not paying $13 each for them. From Gene Principe getting snubbed by the equipment guy (which I guess is at least some variation from his usual interview style of: Why is your team playing so badly? Uh huh. But, would you say that you're playing badly, and why?) to Rob Brown's constant and extremely disturbing leering at the camera and his broadcast partner, to the "my angry teenage kid did this on the computer!" style music they played with their interminable spinning logo or upcoming PPV games screen, one got the feeling that while one might be paying premium prices, one is not getting the A or even B broadcast team, so much as maybe the L team? The stuff with the little kids playing hockey was predictable filler, but undeniably cute. Disturbing however, was that Sam Gagner's mom did not look any older than the moms of the seven-year-olds in the featurettes. This supports my theory that Mr. Gagner cannot be older than 10, but I'm getting old and cranky, I know. Speaking of Mr. Gagner, what was up with that stupid poll on naming the line?

Beyond harping about PPV, what is there really to say about this game? They didn't play well enough to win. They made some stupid decisions. They tried, but it wasn't enough. I don't know how to fix them. I'll limit myself to this: I hope Moreau is okay--seeing that much blood on a jersey makes me highly distressed and gets me compensatorily chanting to myself, nothing bleeds more than a scalp or a lip, even if it's very superficial. What heart he played with--even after getting whacked like that--not leaving the ice until play stopped. For once the PPV team got something right, in saying "That's why he's the captain."

Heal up soon, Captain.

Crosby

2008-01-22T15:03:00.000-06:00

The Crosby Crosbies will be Crosby-less for 6-8 Crosbies, and Crosby will miss the All-Crosby game on Crosby, according to Crosby.com.

This leaves the Crosby: Will we hear less about Crosby for those 6-8 weeks? Will normal verbs, nouns, and other adjectives be dusted off and brought back into usage, strange as they feel? Will the Edmonton Journal have to change its layout and no longer build an entire sport page around a daily Crosby picture?

Seriously, I wish Sid the Kid the best. He must be at least as bemused as I am by how obsessively he's discussed in the hockey sphere. He seems like a great guy with a good head on his shoulders, and I hope he has a speedy recovery during which no one is asking him to produce a soundbite every forty seconds, for once.

Oilers vs. Tampa tonight. Tampa is terrible right now. Is there any way we can win? This worries me.

Oilers win? WOOT!

2008-01-20T15:16:00.001-06:00

Staring urgently at the young players actually works? Yeesh, I should have tried this weeks ago!

As you may have guessed from my Sedin post, and will see in the weeks to come, I'm a Swede-o-phile. Maybe it's that most of my furniture is from Ikea, that my favorite coffeeshop is in Chicago's Andersonville neighborhood, the constant stream of cheery techno/silly videos that ever seem to issue from that northern clime, or maybe it's just that I like my hockey with a little salmon and butterfat. Who knows.

In that vein, though, I need to comment on one Garnet Exelby of the NHL. Despite his supposed origin in Saskatchewan, does he, or does he not, have a name that indicates he came flat-packed from Ikea, with some assembly required? Does the goalie model ("Crossnet Exelby", I presume?) cost a bit more and require a different caliber allen key?

Sedin-y

2008-01-20T13:52:00.000-06:00

I'm well aware the Oil is playing Atlanta right now, but through some annoying quirk the game doesn't seem to be available through our Center Ice. Booo-urns!

I'm listening to 630 CHED online, but don't really have anything pithy to say about the game yet, other than that I love the player names Rod invents in the heat of the moment and find myself wishing players with those names actually existed. Also, when I was a newbie and we listened to ALL the games online, I seriously thought, because of Rod's "inventiveness," that "loose puck" was Ulanov's nickname.

So with lack of high-level Oilers stimulation, I found myself looking at the NHL team sites, and became enveloped in hopeless giggles over the Canucks site. Take a look in the upper right hand corner, and you'll see what I like to think of as a beautiful synechdoche of dealing with the Canucks. It's a Sedin. A D. Sedin, to be specific, peeking eerily around the corner.

This leaves you with a thought process quite similar to playing Vancouver. Ack! It's a Sedin! So where's the other one? He has to be around here somewhere! How many of them are there, anyway?!

I have to admit, I really like the Sedins. They're weird in a fun way, be it their NHL ad last year, or just the persistent uncanniness of their presence and stats. I was very stoked when I found out that not only had my father-in-law gotten us Oilers tix for our visit but that they were vs. Vancouver to boot and I could see the weirdness in person. They did not disappoint, and the Oil actually won (in the shootout, natch) so it was great night altogether.

Listening while blogging has not disapointed either: Rod seemed to be saying that his sandwich has run out of pencils (?!) and has already had a bit of a tiff with Morley over how much was left on the clock and how Morley could possibly know it.

Penner SCORES!

Crosby.

Do "Brind'Amour" and "love" ever belong in the same sentence?*

2008-01-19T20:12:00.000-06:00

*yes, I am a terrible, shallow, person, to judge another human--who undoubtedly has people who love him--on the basis of his mug. Losing makes me mean and I'm sorry.

I can't bring myself to say much about last night. It was the kind of game that makes a girl want to spend the day in her bathrobe and sulk. All I will say is that I was a bit disturbed by the propensity of the announcers to keep saying "You have to love... Brind'Amour..." etc. Do I? Really? Showing him in closeup, for long, long clips was not really helping that cause.

Let's talk about the future. Surely if we stare at these kids long enough and hard enough, they'll start playing like seasoned veterans, no?

Crosby.

Carolina? I spear you!

2008-01-18T10:39:00.000-06:00

So I see we're playing Carolina tonight, thanks to my fabulous Rexall Place "Game Day" calendar I bought whilst we spent Christmas with the in-laws. (I hear one can also garner such information on the inter-webs, but I prefer this method, which allows me to look at a "candidly" posed Ethan Moreau while I do so.)

Effing Carolina and "Joe Camel" Brindamour. Even if he wasn't excessively unpleasant to look at, I'd have a grudge. We watched most of the 2006 playoffs with friends in Chicago (where we were living at the time) and totalled 2 transplanted Oilers fans, 1 newbie Oilers fan (me) and 2 transplanted Leafs fans (cheering for the Canadian team, natch) at our little gatherings. It was nice. Orange food, orange beer (well, bottle labels and caps anyway): we had a theme going. One of those themes was "spearing" the opposition with handy utensils, in symbolic effigy as it were. This is when I learned that women (myself included) are much louder, angrier, and more deranged hockey spectators in polite company than the men are. This did not displease me.

In the midst of the Cup final, my transplanted Oilers fan and I got married, and that evening, as we watched Game 6, I promised the hockey gods that if the Oilers won the Cup, I would show sufficient gratitude by finding an old-school MacT jersey and wearing it to our later wedding reception in Alberta instead of any kind of "dress".

So I blame Carolina for my just about freezing my rear off in a stupid sundress out near St. Paul that August.

12 rounds of shootout and all I got was this stupid blog?

2008-01-17T22:17:00.000-06:00

In the end, I'm not sure what annoys me more tonight: That we found a way to make the inevitable shootout even more grueling than usual, or the voice of the Caps color guy. Seriously, they thought he was the right type for the broadcasting biz?

And so begins my tentative contribution to the Oilogosphere I've been enjoying as a lurker.