What's Up, Ya Sieve

This news is a little old, but I was waiting for Toews’ black eye to look like guyliner before I posted a photo of him.

It’s so late-90′s Rob Thomas, if y’all were even alive back then.

Tazer got the shiner, of course, fighting Chuck’s LT boyfriend Joe Thornton on Friday.  I looked up from my computer, saw this going down on mute and threw my laptop across the room.  By the time I found the remote it was almost over, which is why Al Gore invented DVRs and rewinding.

Tazer’s scrapping so hard – even took a boarding call – that you know Thornton said something mean about Kaner.  Then Jon called him old.  Thornton dared Toews to grow half a beard.  Toews said ‘Win a Cup!’  Joey said he’d get something better than a lake named after him, then Jon threw off his earrings and press-on nails and went right after a bitch in the high school cafeteria.

Mind you, Joe Thornton doesn’t have a black eye because he won this fight.

.gif by michaeldelzotto.tumblr.com

At the 1:08 mark of this video, Thornton says, “He asked me to fight and I was kinda shocked, and I said ‘sure.’”  And he laughs, because it was pretty funny.

Toews didn’t make a fool of himself or anything – I’ve seen worse fights this week.  But Jon has 3 career fights (all losses/link) and Thornton has 26.  Of the last 15, Joey won 13, lost 1 (to Eric Lindros!) and had one draw.  He’s been around so long HockeyFights.com doesn’t even list winners back then.

I always like to see star players, especially captains, standing up for themselves.  The two have a history of rough stuff – a couple of head shots from Thornton were blamed for the belated concussion that sat Toews for 22 games last year.

That said, the Hawks have plenty of get up (what with their undefeated streak) and plenty of guys who’ll drop the gloves.  This was a pretty unnecessary risk.  When Patrick Kane starts being the smart one in this relationship [link], you need to pause.  Then save your sass for the scoreboard.

You can see the shiner in action here, as Toews talks about a fantastic Blackhawks veteran’s outreach program that’ll make you tear right up.

Side note: Auto-life-blog-ban for talking about Toews’ girlfriend, the lucky duck.  Not that you would, but save it for Tumblr.

I’m trying to think of an analogy for how I feel.  I knew the lockout would cause the cancellation of some regular season games.  I couldn’t stop it, I could only hope to contain it.

NHL cancels first two weeks of regular season games – USA Today

But now that it’s actually happened I am overwhelmed with the force of my own fury.  I desperately want to:

But let’s be honest. I’m really this guy:

The regular season was supposed to open on my birthday.  What more could a girl ask for, right?  Now I’ll probably have to go to Old Country Buffet or some shit because I’m in my pajamas and can’t stop crying.

I am ditched at the altar, middle of the road, drunk Joan Cusack from In & Out distraught right now.  Just replace the “heterosexual” with “hockey game” and the dress with a jersey.  Everything else in this scene accurately expresses my emotions.  (If you’ve never seen this movie, now you have plenty of time.)

“I’m more miserable than ever and I’m a mess and I’m starving.”

Watch the clip where Howard says he can’t marry her and she loses it.  Also me.

Lockout, Day 11: Anger Management 

Since I have nothing better to do than troll the internet while self-medicating with Taylor Swift songs, I’ve found a few gems.  The kind that make you smile and cry at the same time.

Bleacher Report: 50 Storylines the NHL Lockout is Making Us Miss

It took me a few tries to get through the whole list, I was getting so upset.  Is/Was this the year that Ebs-Hall-RNH and the Oilers get that turnaround?  Is there something uglier than Nashville’s third jersey waiting for us?  How about Movember – WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?!  Then this:

Can we get a close-up?

Grilled Cheese vs. PB&J

Aaaggghhhwellllp.  That is so hot.  I had almost forgotten that I ship this hatred as much as any bromance in the League.  Just NOT THE FACE, okay?  Don’t mess up my view from this side of the glass.

Not that I’ve forgotten how morning-after, walk-of-shame bad it looked for the Pens at the end of last season.  Or the fact that Giroux was so scary good he should have at least been nominated for the Hart Trophy.  That is some blasphemy coming from a Pens fan who is also completely fanflail over Stamkos.  But it’s true!  I hate him, I hate him, he’s amazing.  GAH!

Giroux making Sid’s android emotion chip short circuit always reminds me of:

How’s the wrist holding up?

The best part of this?  It’s not going anywhere.  No matter how long it takes to get back to hockey, these two will still hate each other.  It’ll even get better, since Sid will be back in full force and full-time (however long that is).  Bonus for me: concentrating on the Pens/Flyers rivalry eases my traitorous heartache about loving the Capitals at the same time.  Slut.

So in these dark days, hold on to the fact that life will be this:

vs. this again someday.

Dear Universe, Please Hurry. Love, Pants (#teamcrosby)

How have we never not done him? Well, I mean a Foxy Friday at least? Cause I’ve .. well. Anywho.

My pretty pony …

What? These guns? I’m a peaceful man … but DO. NOT. CROSS. ME.

Ovi has a crush on him too – and who wouldn’t? I think pretty  much all hockey players would put Kris at the top of all their lists.

Excuse me guys, can I just squeeze in between you two for my dream sandwich?

I could pick his skate-gate out a 100 hockey player’s because it’s about as beautiful as his hair!

Watching him skate backwards SHOULD BE AN OLYMPIC SPORT – just sayin’ – it’s already an ALL-STAR GAME spectacle

I love summer because the thought of Kris being shirtless somewhere hot, keeps me going until I can see him on the ice come fall!

This is SOOOOOOO last summer Kris. Come on …. cut us girls a break.

Lay your hands on me, lay your hands on me … ok – Bon Jovi, I am not.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

I’m here to kick ass AND chew bubble gum. Lucky for you, I brought the bubble gum.

• Doughty certainly is a well-rounded player
• Doughty just skated down the Blues bench and told them they’d have to be quicker than that to throw a hit on him
• Doughty just got a free one off Elliott
• Who knew the Kings could go on such a winning streak without Doughty scoring

On a better note – Mike Richards is the only other player with a Gordie Howe Hatrick! The other player – Gingeroux!

I’m sexy and I know it!

So for those keeping count, the Kings are up 3-0 AGAIN in their series. For an 8^th seat team – that’s super totes. For a Sutter brother, it’s in the genes.

For the Blues, evidently, this is their way of keeping Doughty in check – evidently, they stole my diary:

So here we go.

7:30pm tonight.

Washington Capitals vs. Boston Bruins.

Battle of the Blog: Pants vs. Chuck – The Final Showdown.

Remember back to your history class when they talked about the gun battle at the OK Corral?

Tonight’s Bruins vs Caps game is going to be just like that.

Only with hockey sticks instead of guns.

Pucks instead of bullets.

Skates instead of spurs.

Please note that both of us look pretty good in cowboy hats and you all know that the Calgary Stampede is high on our bucket list.

Maybe this won’t be as bad as we think it will be.

Oh, who are we kidding?

This is going to be torture.

Are you #TeamChuck or #TeamPants?  Let us know on @WhatsUp_YaSieve

After this weekend, the heat intensified over how Brendan Shanahan decides suspensions and disciplinary action. But for us women, there’s no secret. After the Campbell empire of nepotism and favoritism crumbled there was hope for a clean start. But after almost a year in the position it looks like The Plastics are back with 2.0 edition.

Here is Shanahan and Bettman at a press conference discussing the recent Torres suspension:

http://www.nbc.com/assets/video/widget/widget.html?vid=1384659

This is what it must be like behind closed doors when they are deciding on disciplinary action. “Well Brendan, you have the physique of a 20 year old Zack Parise shooting down the cold freshly zambonied ice on a winter classic day with a crazed Shea Weber chasing you trying to smash you head into the boards.”

shanahan simply calls it in

ask henrik if this was worth $2,500 bowl full of crazy

My point is, discipline should be like justice, blind, fair and across the board. A hit should be judged on its own. Not if someone is hurt, not if someone is a popular or famous player, but as a stand alone on its own merits – as it were. This is simply not happening. I realize people are human but come on.

And don’t use Matt Cooke is the poster boy for this system – it was the Penguins who sat him down and said it’s your job or you’re out. That was the reason he change, NOT Shanahan or the new system.

This went beyond just hair-pulling ...

I don’t hate fighting as much as some other people. What I dislike is hypocrisy. Philly has never made any apologies for who they are. What shocked me was  Matt Cooke managed to stayed out of the fray.

Pittsburgh needs to decide quickly if they are going to play as a team to stay in the play-offs or protect Sidney Crosby from injury because they can’t do both.

But other than that, to lighten the mood there used to be someone who did Hockey Cats. So to continue the tradition, here is the weekend in hockey cats photos:

Mittens likes to live on the edge ... it's better than the tea-cup ride in Disneyland!

big Orange made a horrible goalie

If you weren’t watching the Penguins/Flyers game yesterday afternoon, you probably wondered what that noise was.  It was the rest of us screaming.

I could (and will) watch this all day.  The amount of awesome cannot be expressed.  Even Pierre is speechless.  I wish they’d kept his mic live so we could hear Laviolette screaming.  He and Granato were both ejected, but not before Lavi picked up a stick and smashed it.  Of course, it was Max Talbot’s stick.

“He broke my stick and I was pretty sad about that.  It was a good stick,” Max said (which is why I still love him).

Watch Giroux, he’s begging for someone to draw him off the bench.  That would have broken Pierre’s heart, because he spent the whole game fangirling over Claude.  It was like his old flame Sidney didn’t even exist.  How fickle, Pierre!  Near the end there’s a great shot of  James Neal screaming at Zac Rinaldo.  I was fanning myself with a magazine, I swear.

There were all kinds of reasons for this melee – Schenn cross-checking Crosby, Bylsma putting his 4th line out for the late shift, Vitale crushing Briere in open ice – but mostly it happened because these are the Penguins and the Flyers.  They love to hate each other.  They’ll do it again Saturday, and probably in the first round of the playoffs.

Can you imagine?  No one win too much, you have to play each other!  Too bad (for me) the Pens couldn’t get the win yesterday.  They’re still one point up on the Flyers and can maintain home ice advantage.  You can read more about the insults and challenges traded post-game here.

Here’s the Crosby post-game interview [link], or you could just…

Is this an ad for something? Or just for his thighs?

And for the Flyers fans, I couldn’t find a Gingeroux post-game so here he is being interviewed with his dad [link].  Or if you prefer…

Your future family.

It can be tough to explain fighting to someone who doesn’t watch hockey.

Try explaining this:

Three seconds into the game (yes, first period), the Rangers and Devils had three simultaneous fights break out.  That’s barely enough time to make a “Yo Mama” joke!    Gloves and helmets, report to the ice surface.

So what’s the story?

The Rangers have lost 6 of 11 in March.  The red hot Penguins (now with extra Crosby!) are breathing down their necks for 1st Place in the Atlantic Division and the Eastern Conference.  A slip would knock them down to 4th and a cage match for playoff home ice advantage with the Flyers.  The Devils have similar Feb and March records, and are firmly planted in the playoffs.  They could claw into 5th, or drop into 7th, but they’re going to make it either way.

Be honest.  Was it just because the Devils had to wear those awful green uniforms on Saturday?

No(t only).  There’s a ton of history and bad blood between two teams living so close together.  It’s like fighting with your bother in the back of mom’s station wagon on the way to day camp.  Just this year:

- On December 20, Mike Rupp fought Cam Janssen three seconds into the game (yes, first period) . [video]

- On February 7, Rupp and Janssen decided “why wait?” and dropped the gloves two seconds into the game (yes, again).  Bradon Dubinsky and Eric Boulton also fought at that time. [video]

So one fight at the opening faceoff, then two fights… you see where this is going.  In the six Rangers vs. Devils matchups this season, as a total of 22 fighting majors have been handed out.

Who are these madmen?

Each of these guys is a brawler.  Starting these lines is like stepping into the ring, gloved up and ready for a heavyweight title bout.  Last night was crazy, but every one of the players was well-matched and ready to go.

And what’s the point?

Ah, the age old question of fighting in hockey.  Some say let ‘em swing.  Others, like this SBNation writer, think premeditated stage fights like this need to be eliminated, lest the NHL wax hypocritical about player safety.  The discussion over fights has heated up lately, with so many man-games lost to concussions and even Ralph Nader lobbying Bettman to ban brawls [link].  (Wow, was that a slow news day.)  Others cite the NHL’s nearly 100-year history of policing itself with a little on-ice law enforcement [link].

I admit that I laughed my butt off watching this fight.  Brawls like this don’t happen often and I don’t think allowing fights promotes fighting.  We’ve all seen bad fights – attacking a smaller guy, hitting someone who’s down, even a non-fighter squaring off against an experienced combatant (Jay Beagle, how’s your head?).   For the most part, the dangerous plays (hits from behind, boarding) are being addressed by the NHL, albeit with varying success.  That alone won’t keep players safe in the brutal, physical game of hockey.  But outlawing fighting won’t change that – it could even open the ice for big guys to run other teams’ stars without fear of consequences.  Don’t tell me penalties are consequences, unless we’re getting robot referees with laser vision and the ability to stop time.  Their job is the call by the rules.  A fighter’s job is sometimes to call by the heart.  Every hockey fan has seen a fight change the course of a game, because it’s part of the game.

Overall, I say guys who don’t want to fight, don’t fight – like Stamkos [link].  Guys who don’t fight but sometimes need to fire up their teams?  Well, they fight Matt Niskanen [link].  Neither way makes them bulletproof.  That’s hockey.

Last night wasn't Bickel's first dance.

What do you guys think? I’d love to hear from someone who wants fighting banned – there are a lot of good arguments and probably a million examples I haven’t considered.