  |
Memo to Head Coach Ron Wilson: don’t let the door hitcha in the ass on the way out. Game Four is…screw it. If you want to know when Game Four is, first, it’s in the post a few down from this one, and second, fark you for being a Dallas fan.
Gotta say, caring more about the team’s success than the team does really, really sucks. Game Three is Tuesday in Dallas.
Bitch of it is, we actually played a pretty good game, even coming back from a 2-1 deficit with a late goal from Jonathan Cheechoo. Until we got to the overtime. Which is generally a bad place to start playing a crappy game. Game Two is Sunday night, 6:00P PDT, in Glorious Hi-Def™ on Comcast Sports Net in the Bay Area, TSN in Canada, and Versus in the rest of the United States. As promised, here’s the second-round schedule for the Sharks: Game 1: Dallas at San Jose, Friday, April 25, 7:00P (Versus, TSN) (I will point out that the last time the Sharks played on my birthday, in 2004, they beat Colorado 3-1 to advance to their first Conference Finals. When it was discovered that they had lost on their two previous attempts (in 1994 and 2002), the league was so appalled at this break from tradition that they canceled the following season.) (Another aside, made topical by Owen Nolan‘s questionable goal in the second period of last night’s game: since I see it finally replicated to the site, you’re invited to have a look at my newest Rock Band band, Distinct Kicking Motion. (I’m also a member of Contestant’s Row.) More details there when I get around to posting them.) Strap yourselves in, kids, the ride’s about to leave the station again…
Thank God the right Sharks showed up. And look at this: you put Jeremy Roenick back in the lineup, and he goes and scores four points. ‘Magine that. Next up: the University of Dallas Stars. Game One is Friday on Versus at 7:00P PDT; I will post the full schedule when the NHL announces it, probably tomorrow. Now I have to go weep like a small child for a while… Because there sure as hell wasn’t any try out of the Sharks last night:
They made Game One look inspired. That’s how piss-poor they played. I’ll leave it at that. If you’re a sports fan, these are the two most beautiful words in the English language: Game Seven. Unless your team is involved. Then it really, really sucks. (And now I get to miss a second consecutive Tuesday game night. Fark Calgary.) Game Seven is Tuesday night, 7:00P, on Comcast Sports Net in the Bay Area, CBC in Canada, and Versus (who, as predicted, did indeed pick up the game in the wake of Dallas finishing off Anaheim last night, and fark the Stars right in the goat ass for that, because that means I’ll most likely have to watch the heavily biased CBC feed on Versus instead of getting Randy and Drew on Center Ice) in the rest of the United States. I apologize for being lax in my playoff reporting; honestly, it hasn’t been all that fun. I have a huge emotional attachment to this hockey club, and quite frankly their play in a good bit of this series has been infuriating and depressing. And since this is my blog and not a newspaper, I’m not going to write about something that I’m not having fun writing about. So, with that, let’s get you caught up, starting with last Sunday night’s game:
San Jose scored three times in the first four minutes of the game. Then they decided that they could go back to the hotel. In their stead for the next 56 minutes, they were replaced by a collective of sloth. (The collective noun for bears is “a sloth of bears.” I could not find the collective noun for sloth, but I’m pretty sure it’s not “a bear of sloth.” Which brings us to Tuesday night:
The sloth apparently were sent back to the rink to start Game 4. Despite a second-period goal from Ryane Clowe, one of the few Sharks to have actually shown up for most of this series, they were floating again. Then, with five minutes to go in the game, I guess the sloth got tired and told the Sharks to go the hell back to the Saddledome and start earning their paychecks again. Then….well, let’s bring in the Sharks’ broadcast team of Randy Hahn and Drew Remenda to tell you what happened: Nine seconds left. (Yeah, I know Randy and Drew were saying seven. They were slow stopping the clock on the goal and they put the time back on the clock.) Man, my heart can’t take crap like this anymore. (And a big Chez Fred hello to the lone Sharks fan sitting in the front row behind and to the left of the Flames’ goal!) Finally, tonight’s game, back in the friendly confines of the Shark Tank:
FINALLY, a full 60 minute effort. This was a 4-1 game at one point, but Calgary doesn’t exactly suck, and the Hockey Gods hate me, so David Moss‘s goal with 1:17 left in regulation provided what most sports fans would call “an exciting finish,” but what I endured as “a powerful laxative.” If the Sharks can keep this game up, they will win this series. Period. So the good guys are up 3-2, and they can finish this thing Sunday night in Calgary. 5:00P PDT start, on Comcast Sports Net in the Bay Area, CBC in the Great White North, and Versus south of the 49th Parallel. And first, the bad news, from last night:
One of the worst, clumsy, undisciplined, lackadaisical games I have seen the Sharks play all year. You don’t get away with a lot of those in the playoffs, so burning one off in the very first game is generally a bad idea. Now, the good news from tonight:
MUCH better game. Still not seeing a lot out of Jeremy Roenick or Joe Thornton, and I was hoping I would see significant contributions from both. But I needed to see that they took last night’s crap performance as a wake-up call, and they did not disappoint. Goaltender Evgeni Nabokov was friggin’ brilliant, including one save that I would find video of and link to, had the game not just ended. Watch this space tomorrow, maybe. (EDIT: Here you go. 3:52 in.) Anyhow, the good guys pulled out the split at home. Would have been nicer to get ’em both, but hey. Game Three is Sunday night in Calgary, 7:00P, on Comcast Sports Net in the Bay Area, CBC in Canada, and Versus in the rest of the United States.
That’s right, tomorrow is the beginning of the 2008 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Sharks, in no small part due to a twenty-game run at the end of the season where they were unbeaten in regulation (and only two of those were overtime losses, and ONE of those was a result of the goddamn shootout), finished the season with the second-best record in the league, a franchise record 49-23-10 for 108 points, and the second seed in the Western Conference. (Only Detroit, with 115 points, had a better finish.) As a result, so long as they don’t face Detroit, they will enjoy home-ice advantage (by the way, the name of my band in Guitar Hero II? Home-Ice Advantage.) in every playoff series they take part in this year. And as the two-seed, they will face the seven-seed in the West in the opening round, the Calgary Flames. And because I know you care (and actually one of the benefits of playing against a Canadian team is that CBC airs all of their playoff games, so folks local to me in Seattle MIGHT care) here’s the schedule for that first round, at least, what we know of it at this point: Game 1: Calgary at San Jose, Wednesday, April 9, 7:00P (CSN HD, CBC, Versus) (And I could absolutely see Versus picking up Game Seven if (Heaven forfend) it’s necessary and the Dallas / Anaheim series doesn’t go seven as well. And I, personally, am rooting for seven games, sixteen overtimes, and at least a dozen lifelong debilitating injuries in that series.) Anyhow, now you’re all caught up and ready to follow along with me as the boys in teal march towards their first Stanley Cup. Game on…and LET’S GO SHARKS! |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Copyright © 2024 Chez Fred - All Rights Reserved |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
