Screw Family Day. Welcome To The Real February Holiday

The errands are done, the groceries unpacked, and the housework...um...ignored. The fridge has been stocked full of Mr. Labatt's finest, the big screen is warmed up and the Hi Def is Hi Deffing.

Gird your loins, children, for twelve hours of wall-to-wall Ron MacLean, those damn Timbit commercials that choke me up every time and an all-Canadian triple header.

Habs/Sens drops in about 45 minutes. Stop by and say Hi to those fine lawerly gentlemen at Four Habs Fans, won't you? Then take a quick tour through Dennis Kane's Excellent Montreal Canadiens Blog. Hubris? Maybe, but the title doth speak the truth. In either case, if a large man wearing a silk suit, gold chains and a pinkie ring starts following you around, don't worry about it. He's just looking for the Kostitsyn brothers.

Then the travelling circus that is the Toronto Maple leafs welcomes their former ring master, now overpaid Canucklehead back to the ACC with, I'm sure, all of the well-bred, rational decorum for which Leafs Nation is so renowned.

After that, wrap it up with the Battle of Alberta, brought to you by...The Battle of Alberta. Take heart, Sens fans! While their Bud Selig-ified standings have the Sens 17 games back of the Eastern Conference lead, they are but a scant 5 1/2 games from a playoff spot. Hell, the Mets choke up a lead that size before breakfast.

Finally, what better way to end a day like this, this most perfect of days, but to tuck your tired and beer bloated body into a comfy bed and dream of nothing but Fish, Comrie and who would prevail in a Hillary Duff/Carrie Underwood foxy boxing match. In Mazola oil. Naked.

Buckle up, my pretties. It's Hockey Day In Canada!

Habs 5, Sens 4 (SO): Well, So Much For That

Due to certain dinner commitments, I was only able to see the first and third periods (as much as I begged, Beloved wouldn't allow me to wheel our hosts' television into their formal dining room. Something about "rude" and "idiot"), but judging from the excellent game recap supplied by The Artist Formally Known As Sherry, 'tis probably better that way. Alex Picard has already cost me five stress balls, two remotes and one neighbour so far this season.

The Highs I actually saw:

• Stop that! Stop that! You're not going to do a song while I'm 'ere: Time was that Hab fans would wait until the game was well and truly in hand before breaking into song, and then, only in their own building. It is a sad commentary on the state of the New Habiness that they see no problem a) doing it in an opponent's building and b) doing it with more than eight and a half minutes to go in the third. On behalf of non-Hab hockey fans the world over, I'd like to thank Heater and Fish for delivering a giant Shut The FUCK Up!
  

• Man who catch fly with chopstick accomplish anything: You do very well Brian Grasshopper. But remember...Okay to lose to opponent. Not okay to lose to fear. You fear. You lose. Now I go find chocolate bar with almonds.
  

The Lows I wish I hadn't:

• Are you sure your name isn't Marouelli?: Lord knows we cause enough of our own problems so I try not to single out the officials no matter how incompetent they may be. Hey, it's a tough job, I know. But sometimes... Setting aside the absolute bullshit pair of calls on Giggles and The Captain that set up a Montreal 5-on-3 and the inevitable first goal, I would like it noted for both the record and the attention of Mr. Dennis Larue: Jason Spezza hasn't hit anyone since Little Suzy Brockmeier stole his Spiderman lunch box in the fourth grade. So...um...charging? Really?
  

• Next time, try the hot dog vendor: 1-4 in shootouts this year, 8-21 all time. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. You have 22 guys on your bench, Coach, and I'd hazard a guess that 80% of them have had a least one breakaway at some point in their hockey lives. How about trying somebody other than 19, 11, 15 or even 20? Seriously, what the hell do you have to lose?
  

Creamy Middle:

Meh. Heater The boys did well to battle back for the point, but did we really expect anything different? As good as Grasshopper has been (brutal, seeing-eye-from-behind-the-red-line Kotstopoulos goal notwithstanding), it's a bit much to ask of a 23 year old rookie with all of four NHL starts under his jockeys to win a shootout for a team going nowhere. But on the upside, while the Sens are still the only team in the League yet to win three straight games, we get to spend the next two days listening to the deluded crow about our "unbeaten streak". That'll be fun, right?
Pithy Observations of Questionable importance:

• He's a real nowhere man, living in his nowhere land: Speaking of Grasshopper, I'd be giving my agent a call if I were him. Four games into his Big League career and he has yet to appear on the Senators official website. And yet, a quick perusal of Bingo's roster leads one to assume that he is now dead to them. The way I see it, there are only two explanations. 1) The Ottawa webmaster has decided, in his or her alcohol induced depression, that it just doesn't fush *hic* fushing matter anymore YOUZE BASHTARDS!! *sob* or 2) Brian is actually asleep on the bus to Peoria and this is all just a dream.
  

• Fetch...the COMFY CHAIR!: Back in days of yore, those crazy fun loving kids who ran the Spanish Inquisition had developed a rather effective way of interrogating heretics, witches, Episcopalians, Republicans and other undesirables. They would make their victims lie in a shallow pit with a board over their chest and pile heavy stones on the board until the cumulative weight either caused the poor bastard to confess his heinous sins or explode (either result was acceptable). What does this have to do with last night? If you were one of the thousands of heretical pigs wearing a Habs jersey at SBP, but had once proudly displayed so much as a pair of socks with The Condom Logo on it...I'd like to speak to you.
  

Up Next:

Tuesday night, at home against Alexander The Great, his sidekick Semin Stain and the ridiculously talented Washington Capitals (7:30, TSN). Here's a fun new game. Drink every time either Gord or Pierre utter the words "secondary scoring". If the Atlanta game is any indication, you won't see the third period.

Behind Enemy Lines:

Greetings to On Frozen Blog. Their subtitle is "A Haven for the Hockey Malnourished". I'll just let that delicious irony wash over you for a little while.

Habs 3, Sens 2 (SO) -- I Too Have Been Violated By The Cold Cold Finger Of Injustice

Seriously, Don. Would it have killed you to use just a little? The chafing is killing me.

The Highs:

• You shall know him by Stereolepis gigas. And you shall fear him: And that is why we love you, Cody. An absolute animal on the boards, drawing penalties, and no matter what anyone tells you, Begin got lucky. If you don't fall down in that fight, little Stevie is still picking up his teeth out of the ice. Keep it up and not only will you stick with the big club, but someone, someday, may come along and produce extremely stylish, yet highly practical collectible day wear in your honour.

• B-I-N-G-O! B-I-N-G-O! B-I-N-G-O! And BINGO's where they played-OH!: I can't decide if the fact that Bass-Foligno-Zubov for the most part out-performed everybody else (including Heatzzasson...a little energy, if you please gentlemen) is a sign that perhaps Mucks didn't rape and pillage our farm system to the extent that I had previously thought, and that the future is indeed bright, or if it's a relative indication of how brutally craptacular the rest of the team has been. Little Nicky's goal leaves me further conflicted, and not a little bit vexed. I need help.

• Excuse me, but I'd like to see more of that team, if you don't mind: The first fifteen minutes of this game were pretty sweet. White jerseys flying every which way, left, right and through the air, as they scrambled around in their own end, beaten to every puck, unsure or unwilling to deal with the hornets' nest buzzing around them while shots rained down upon them from all directions as if hurled from the finger tips of an angry god. Holy crap, I miss last November.
  

The Lows (easy...I'll get to it in a minute):

• So...um...where did that team go?: From the fifteen minute mark of the first, it was as if somebody had flipped the switch to "off". The hustle disappeared, the forecheck evaporated, and all of a sudden, we were sending one man in deep while everyone else stood still at the blue line. Had it been any other opponent (i.e.: not a team playing as putridly as our own), we would have been out of it by the end of the second. Now, whomever could have orchestrated that? Who, when things were going so well, could have persuaded the boys to adopt such a defensive posture with a scant one goal lead? I haven't a clue! But whoever it was Craig, he had better pull his head out of his ass and make sure the team learns something. Namely, you don't EVER get off the gas.

• We have now officially "lost" the Meszaros trade: Between Filip Kuba's repeated one hundred foot passes through the neutral zone to the guys in the different coloured sweaters and Alex Picard's baffling inability to be in anything like the proper position to defend anything, it will truly be a wonder if my television survives the season.

• And now...the moment you've all been waiting for: In the NFL, if the officials blow a call that changes the outcome of a game, Emperor Goodell will at the very least apologize to the team so affected. Somehow that makes things a little easier to bear for the mutinous fan base. It doesn't change the result or the fact that they were outright robbed, but it does provide a small salve to the outraged multitude. The League knows it fucked up and will try to get it right the next time. Not so in Gary's brave new NHL. No, all we get are platitudes about how "quick the game is" or "we leave it up to the discretion of the referee". Or worse, not a fucking word. So in light of that, I'd like to offer an apology. I'm sorry Don. I've misspoken. Please allow me to amend my comments from last night:

If it were up to me Don, you would be waking up in your hotel room, roughly four hours hence, with a rabid porcupine ripping your, shrunken pus filled ballsack to pieces with its bloody, slavering teeth. And if we miss the playoffs by a point, I will make it my mission in life to ensure that actually happens while you are simultaneously being violated by an engorged elk.

I hate drunken enraged shoddy composition.

Creamy Middle:

Any coach looking to maintain his salary will tell you that an official can't affect the outcome of a game. If a call goes against you, the logic goes, than it's up to you, as professionals, to overcome it and make sure that it becomes a non-factor in the final result. To which I say BULLSHIT! If A-Train's goal counts, as everyone but the most myopic Sens hater and a certain incompetent, pride filled fuckstick agrees it should have, then we go up by two goals with a little over a period left to play. The Montreal D would have had no choice but to cheat in an effort to generate more offence, leaving them open to the odd-man rush going the other way. God knows we Sens fans have seen that scenario often enough.

You don't think, given how desperate both teams were for the win, we wouldn't have been able to score the insurance marker? Or at the very least, would have more easily kept the pressure in the Habs' end instead of ours, therefore rendering their second and "tying goal" moot? Setting aside the bloody "non-visible" injury that should have given us a four minute power play going into the five minute overtime, the verdict is as clear as the guilt and embarrassment in Don Van Massenhoven's conscience. We were royally fucked.

Up Next:

And the hits just keep on comin'. The New York Rangers roll into the Bank tomorrow afternoon for a matinee. And we all know how well we do in those. Not sure who gets the start between the pipes for this one. Then again, I'm no longer sure it matters. On the "upside" (if you're a marketing cockroach type) the team is unveiling it's newest cash gra...er...I mean third jersey. Please God, don't let it be this one.

A Special Message To Don Van Massenhoven

What...the...FUCK! Were you sick the day they taught you the Possession Rule on delayed penalties? Or were you too distracted, stroking that porn-stache while reminiscing on your days as an alter boy? JESUS. JUMPED. UP. CHRIST!!

There are bad calls. They happen all the time. There are even bad calls that cost goals. Scrambles around the crease, or maybe a close off sides that gets missed. I can understand that. But THAT?!? That was a fucking embarrassment.

Asshat.

UPDATE: We lose 3-2 in a shootout. Of course, this game should never have gone to overtime, let alone a shootout, isn't that right Don? Yes. That's right. And it wasn't just the A-Train GOAL was it? No, it wasn't. We should have started the OT with a four minute powerplay instead of two. But apparently, to you, you incompetent bag of scrotum sweat, "blood" does not equal "visible sign of injury".

If it were up to me Don, you would be waking up in your hotel room, roughly four hours from now, with a rabid porcupine ripping out your ballsack with its bloody, slavering teeth. And if we miss the playoffs by a point, I will make it my mission that that actually happens.

Creamy Middle to follow tomorrow. I need to calm down.

Geez...I Thought WE Were A Tough Crowd

The Montreal Canadiens are 10-5-2. The prohibitive favourite to win the Northeast Division, and touted as one of the teams to come out of the East and go to the Finals. Their goaltender, despite an alarming lack of facial hair (or puberty, for that matter) shows all the signs of being the real deal. And they have three forward lines fast enough to make me (and our defence) break out into a cold sweat.

But they have hit a bit of a rough patch, of late, winning only one in their last four. So what to do? The answer is obvious. This is November. The playoffs are a scant five months away. You pull up your socks. You work harder. You get back to the things that made you great!

Or...just fire the coach.

The wheels, they wobble and there's blood in the water. This pleases me. I always mangle my metaphors when I'm happy.

GAME ON!

Habs 4, Wankers 0 -- Seriously. WTF Was That??

Ten games. That's how long I've managed to hold on to my vow of being a kinder, gentler, pink and squishy, "Oh the boys are young and need positive reinforcement instead of nasty words" kind of blogger. Ten games. Then you go and cock it all up by letting Chris Higgins (CHRIS HIGGINS!!) make you his prison bitch. Ten. Fucking. Games.

The One, Infinitesimal High:

• Of lipstick wearing pigs: In a shocking turn of events, never before seen in Ottawa, our boys actually turned the usual platitudes ("We just have to work hard!", "We have to be accountable!", "No one is happy about the way we played!", "I LIKE SOUP!") into honest to God results on the ice. Personally, I was astounded. My astonishment would have turned to outright flabbergast had it lasted for more than the middle ten minutes of the first period.
  

The Lows:

• Speaking of which: Hell of a start you got off to, there Jason. Yep, one hell of a start. Nice to see Coach Craig calling you out in public could have an effect. Hard in the corners, threw some hits...even took a run at Koivu. Nice. So tell me, Jason. Did your testicles shrink, or did you just figure you had fulfilled your Man-Up quota for the evening and shut it down for the last two periods? Just curious.
  

• You will feel shame. You will feel shame and beg his forgiveness: Alex Auld played his balls off. Alex Auld single handedly kept this game from becoming an even bigger embarrassment than it eventually was. So maybe, just maybe, you guys can help him out a bit. By that, I mean, your assistance would be appreciated. To further illustrate my point, I shall restate it thusly: GETTING TORCHED ON FEWER THAN FOUR BREAKAWAYS WOULD BE OF SOME FUCKING ASSISTANCE!!
  

• Bus to Binghamton, now departing Gate 1: When that alcohol induced aneurysm, which I have no doubt lies buried deep within my cerebral cortex finally pops like an ass pimple some time around the 21st of February (hey look, we're playing the Habs!), and I droop dead where I sit, the coroner will have no choice but to enter "Alexandre Picard" under Cause Of Death.
  

• If only we had a trio of offensively gifted forwards with which to spark some hope!: Ten minutes to go in the game, down by three. CASH line nowhere to be found. You picked one hell of a game to make a point, Coach.
  

• Somebody needs to stick a cock in his mouth: Shut up, McGuire. Really. Just shut the fuck up. Yes, Jarkko throwing the elbow was dirty. Yes, it was dirty, even though it was on Maxim Lapierre, who ranks just above Darcy Tucker on the International Scale of People Who Should Be Sodomized With A Buick. And, yes, it was deserving of a suspension (which was duly administered). But spending the next five minutes screaming as if we had just witnessed Roto Ruutu tearing the heads from live kittens at centre ice, just makes me want to slam your skull into the glass until the noise stops. So quit it.
  

• The Captain cries because you suck: You made Alfie do this. If I were the rest of you, I'd be thankful it was a pane of plexiglass, and not my neck.
  

Creamy Middle:

Everything you need to know about this game, is perfectly encapsulated in the following:

I heard the names Spezza, Heatley, Alfie, Fisher, and Neil last night. I may have heard "Winchester" once, and Foligno was mentioned when he fell down on the third goal. That's seven forwards. Most teams dress 12. It's not a good sign when almost half of your attackers are invisible. I think Spezza and Fisher each played 45 minutes last night.

The authors of such perfect insight? Four Habs Fans. You know...the opponent.

Up Next:

Tomorrow night, the first in a home-and-home set against the Islanders (7:30pm, SportsNet East). How far have we fallen? Both Gord Miller and his loyal sidekick, Zippy Wondernuts attempted to put our mind at ease by assuring us that the Isles would provide "a more evenly matched test". C'mon guys. That's just mean.

Sens vs. Habs: The Safety Word Is "Banana"

This may not end well.

Remember the good old days...and by "good old days" I mean "almost exactly a year ago"...when the boys would roll into Montreal and the air would be filled with carefully scripted sound bites emanating from the Hab locker room about how they were "looking forward to the challenge"? Or Guy Carbonneau endlessly repeating how the Sens "were a good measuring stick" and "it'll be interesting to see how we stack up against them"? Remember those days? Yeah...good times.

Not sure if you've noticed, but...um...those days are gone. Montreal, reigning Miss Eastern Conference (as elected in the MSM), are coming off a brutal and embarassing loss to *cough* the Laffs and spent the last three days being publically flogged by their own coach. In short, they are not happy campers.

So yeah...buckle up boys.

On the upside, for the first time this season, I once again get to darken the game thread at Four Habs Fans, those purveyors of all that is great and wonderful in the world of pole dancing/hockey fan goodness. Join me, won't you?

No, really. Join me. Please? I get lonely amidst the gloating hordes of conquering opponents.