...I don't think this is your year to win the Stanley Cup. That said...



Go, Sens!!!

(That's a pic from my recent trip to Ottawa - and yes, that is a blow-up doll from the window of a gay sex shop cheering on the Sens. I tell ya, everybody in that town is excited about their hockey team.)

...not to have a post-season to worry about. Then, after losing your last game of the season, you can go out to a South Beach nightclub, get really hammered, then get arrested for either smashing up an emergency vehicle, or for being a drunken ass who refuses to leave a club when asked and then charges at the cop who's doing the asking.

Way to go, Ville Peltonen and Eddie Belfour.

If that link doesn't work, try these:
The Miami Herald's coverage:
Yahoo Sports' coverage:

They had PDFs of the arrest reports up on the Miami Herald site - kind of amusing reading.

In other hockey news, I won my fantasy league (the Lake Effect League) for the second year in a row. That wasn't such a big deal last year, when there were only four of us in the league - but this year, we were a real 12-team league, complete with people I didn't even know! I wouldn't have minded losing to a friend, but when it came down to the final weeks, it was me against a stranger, so I felt honor-bound to win (if not exactly stomp his ass into the ground). My friend Meg, the Preds fan who lives in Nashville, came in 3rd. Next year, tho', I am totally going to come in in the middle of the pack, or else 1) people are going to start accusing me of rigging the thing somehow, and b) my husband is going to start up again with his theme of how I'm so competitive and how I can't stand to lose, which is not really the case.

Getting back to real hockey for a sec - who's psyched for the playoffs? I know I am. Y'all are so lucky up there - you can go see real, live playoff games! (If, y'know, you're willing to pay the arm, leg, and firstborn child to get tickets.) We don't even have a television set, let alone the cable subscription that would let us see the playoffs. We need to find a good, hockey-friendly sports bar in our neighborhood.

sigh. It was 88 degrees here today. Y'all might get snow before the week is out. I really miss living in NY. (<---100% not sarcasm at all)

(e:metalpeter) said, in the comments to my last post:
That brings up another Point Where do the Carolina Huricanes and Carolina Panthers play cause there is no such state as Carolina. There is North Carolina and South Carolina. but isn't carolina as one state or area pre civil war. I really know the reason they name them that is so that fans in both states will like them, just busting balls a little bit.

Well, a lot of the reason teams would choose a name like that, aside from trying to rope in as many fans as possible, is that they don't actually play in a big city, but rather in the outlying suburbs of a big city, because that's where there was room to build a big new sports arena.

Take the Florida Panthers, for instance. If they were to be named after the biggest city in the area, they'd be called the Miami Panthers. But they don't play in Miami. They don't even play in the same county as Miami - their arena is in Sunrise, FL, which is a far-flung suburb of Ft. Lauderdale. But Ft. Lauderdale is definitely not a big enough city to support a hockey team, and besides, they don't really play in Ft. Lauderdale, either. So what do you call them? The Sunrise Panthers? No one outside this area knows where Sunrise is. The Greater Miami-Ft. Lauderdale Metropolitan Area Panthers? That's a bit wordy. Naming them after an entire state is kind of dumb, I agree, but given the situation, it was probably the best option.

If you look at the other teams not named after cities, you'll see the same sort of thing. The Newark Devils? Ehh, no. The St. Paul Wild? Not so much. The Raleigh Hurricanes? Well, Raleigh is not really the part of the state known for facing hurricanes...

The two that kind of surprise me are the Colorado Avalanche (they play in Denver, which is a big enough city) - but didn't they try to have a hockey team in Denver once before the Avs and it failed? So that's why they went with "Colorado" for the name there, I think... But the San Jose Sharks? It's not like San Jose is really a big, well-known city, at least not relative to nearby San Francisco and Oakland. That's one place where I would've figured they'd go for a more regional name.

Ehh, whatever. Team naming is weird.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to flood the Latest queue with postings, but I just want to get this out while I'm thinking about it.

My favorite hockey teams

1. Toronto Maple Leafs
2. Tampa Bay Lightning
3. Philadelphia Flyers, Nashville Predators, Ottawa Senators, Carolina Hurricanes (tie)
7. Buffalo Sabres
8. Detroit Red Wings

Honorable mentions for the Penguins, the Caps, the Sharks, the Ducks, and the Oilers... if they get Ryan Smyth back.

Hockey teams I love to hate (in no particular order)

Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames, New Jersey Devils, Colorado Avalanche (I hate the team, but love some of their players), Florida Panthers (my new hometown team - feh). Oh, oh, and the Atlanta Thrashers. Man, they bug me.

There is no rhyme or reason to my dislike of most of these teams.

Ok, that's all I have to say for now (aren't you glad?).

Ok, I'm posting, 'cause I'm sick of having that <10 blogs thing on my userpic.

What'd y'all think about the Sabres this year? My husband is convinced they're going to the Cup finals. I am not so sure, but even if they are, if they're playing Nashville, I'm going to have to root against them again. Sorry.

I want to like the Sabres, but I just keep running up against little things that kind of annoy me about them. I will say this, tho' - Ryan Miller has been great for my fantasy hockey team this year. Hasek posts better numbers, when he plays, but he is old and creaky and therefore does not see nearly as much ice time as Miller (and Hasek's hurt right now, anyway, which is why I am trying to get rid of him).

Of course, now that it is almost fantasy-playoffs-time, and I'm counting on him more than ever, I get something like this from Miller:
Argh. I know it's not all his fault, but man. They're going to have to do better if they really want to be in that Cup final this year.

I'm also mad that I didn't grab Paul Stastny while he was still free in our league, but that is a post for another time.