30 Days

No reason for posting this photo other than it's a picture of Jordan Staal after he took a puck to the face, broke his nose, and kept playing. (I would require brown liquor and maybe something of the prescription variety) 6 foot 4 of hot Viking skating boy.  What can I say?  I'm cheap that way.

Just wanted to give you all a heads up -- the regular NHL season starts on October 7, 2010, which means that all of this feeling stuff may diminish somewhat, as I become a zombie to Versus, daydream over Sidney Crosby's kissable, corruptible pout, curse the day Alex Ovechkin was born while loving him at the same time, and wonder how Glen Sather still has a job unless he's blowing Jim Dolan.

My Pens play the Rangers at the Garden on November 29th, February 1st, and February 13th, and I intend to be there in my full obnoxious glory so everyone around me can chant "Crosby Sucks!" when I'm cheering.

Hooray for Hockey!

And I've got something much, much more exciting happening in a mere 7 days.

Happy Birthday, Sidney Crosby

A little meander from our regularly- scheduled summer programming, since I forgot to turn off my Kberry alarm and I have been up since 5:30 -- ON A SATURDAY.

I could have rolled over and gone back to sleep, which was my intention, but since the Mad Kitty doesn't know from weekends, and the alarm woke her, too, all hope of two more hours until the sun in my eyes forced me out of bed was abandoned. (It's a good thing I never had kids, because ACS would have been a regular visitor due to my tendency to shove little animals aside, saying fretfully, "Get the fuck. OFF!")

Anyhoo -- perusing the usual round of hockey news to see the latest on the New Jersey Devils' "Yeah, we totally think Ilya Kovalchuk will be playing until he's 60" drama, er, contract negotiations, I was reminded that today is Sidney Crosby's birthday.

Yes, my favorite NHL capitaine has reached the ripe and gooey old age of 23.

Let's see, when I was 23, what had I accomplished? I had just moved to New York City, I was working for that horrible Austrian woman in that office full of horrible Germans, but I was on the verge of launching my illustrious advertising-magazine publishing-advertising-internet-environmental printing-advertising career. I was living in that "Bosom Buddy" women's residence over on the West Side and was about to make a whopping $22K a year, which for entry-level advertising in 1988 was a LOT.

And at 23, just what has this little skate-wearing pisher done? Well, let's see: one of the most-watched young players from the time he was about 13 (out on youtube there's a CBC profile of him from when he was 14 -- same boring and phlegmatic Sid, just with a higher voice and probably no pubic hair), first-round draft pick by a team owned by one of the legends of hockey, an $8 million a year contract with said team, the youngest team captain to ever lift the Stanley Cup (at age 21). And then scored the Gold Medal-winning goal for his country, IN his country 8 months later.  Nahh, he's not so hot.

Well, okay, he's fucking awesome. I'll give him that.

Yeah, I'd say we're just about on the same trajectory.

So happy birthday, Sid!

Hockey fact to make you feel smart: Born on 8/7/87, wears number 87. Duh. Oh, and 18,087 seats in the new, LEED-approved Consol Center, aka The House That Sidney (and Mario) Built.

And I made it all the way to the end of this post without once mentioning... those lips. It just didn't seem right to talk about those lips in the same paragraph as a 14-year-old, though I did of course talk about pubic hair.

The Countdown Continues

62 Days till hockey season.  That's our franchise, right there, folks.

5 Reasons Jane Loves Hockey (Penguins Edition)

1. We have Sidney Crosby and You Don't. Get Over It.

I've been to enough New York Rangers games and watched enough hockey on TV to know -- you guys hate Sidney Crosby. No matter where the Pens play, you're sure to hear several rousing chants of, "Crosby Sucks!" and a chorus of boos when the puck so much as passes in his vicinity. Even in Canada, the land of inborn politesse, the opposing fans are shouting, "Crosby Sucks!"

The ugly truth is I know Sidney Crosby doesn't suck, and you know Sidney Crosby doesn't suck, and if, at the end of this season, Sidney Crosby demanded to be traded, you all would be lining up on your knees to polish his knob if you thought that would get him to come play for your team. Now fall on your knees and worship your hockey god.

Why else do you think Mario Lemieux makes him wear a doggie shock collar from October through April and keeps him chained in his basement like the Gimp during the off-season?

Wanna know how he got so good? Read this.





2. We Also Have Mario Lemieux and You Don't. Get Over It.

When the Penguins were bankrupt, their superstar Lemieux deferred his salary for a couple of seasons so they could keep playing. He probably could have packed up his skates and gone to a market that would pay him in actual money instead of just fan goodwill. Instead, he went to management and said, Look, you owe me 30 million bucks that I am probably never gonna see, and I love Pittsburgh, so why don't we just convert all that into ownership shares and you can call me the President?

Then, when the City of Pittsburgh blinked again on whether they could afford to keep the Pens around, Mario deked and flew to Kansas City (can you imagine? The Kansas City Penguins? My eyes! My eyes!) Of course, Mario probably just had a drink at the airport and got back on a plane home, but it didn't matter. Then he flirted shamelessly with Jim Balsillie, the Research in Motion guy who desperately wants to put a franchise in Hamilton Ontario, but the NHL shut that one down (they don't seem to like this Balsillie guy, because last year they denied his bid to buy the Phoenix Coyotes, too. He must have fucked Bettman's daughter or something). These tactics worked and the Pens stayed around.

Friends, that's how love works. Hardball, scare tactics and ultimatums.




3. We have a Staal Brother and You Don't. Get Over It.

Four brothers in the biggest NHL dynasty since the Sutter boys, and we've got the best one. He was a 2nd round draft pick when he was something like 17, and on any other team he would be a first-line forward. (It says a lot about the depth of talent in Pittsburgh that this kid is a 3rd-liner, behind Crosby and Malkin) Great defensive forward, a finalist for the Selke Trophy this year, in fact, and the cutest of four Viking-giant (they are all something like 6'3" and taller.) sod farmers out of Sudbury.

He's the only towhead in a litter of redheads, but you can tell that Jordan Staal is a redhead, spiritually.

Hockey trivia to make you sound smart: His brothers are Marc (New York Rangers), Eric (Carolina Hurricanes), and Jared (Phoenix Coyotes). When there is a game with two of the brothers playing against each other, you can play a drinking game.

Shoot, they're all so effin cute I'll put up another picture.






4. Now that the Igloo is going away,

We will have the newest, shiniest hockey venue in the NHL, and it will probably have the best nickname EVER.

See, in this era of Corporate Naming Rights, companies pay lots and lots of money to franchises to have their names on the front of their buildings. The Igloo, or as it's now known, Mellon Arena, once had the lowly moniker The Civic Arena.

The new venue's naming rights have been bought and paid for by Consol, so it will be called the Consol Center or something like that. Now, Consol used to be called Consolidated Coal, but the branding people decided that people didn't want to get their power from a polluting, mountaintop-stripping environmental disaster of a company, so they changed the name to the bland and hygienic Consol. (For this reason I will soon be changing my name to The Virgin Mary. )

Pensburgh had a poll recently on what the new Consol Center should be called, and the near unanimous winner was The Goal Mine.

Geddit?

Hockey trivia to make you sound smart: the new area has 18,087 seats. I think they crammed those random 87 seats in there because Crosby wears number 87.

5. Three Stanley Cups. And Sidney Crosby. So shut the fuck up.

A Few Words About Alex Ovechkin

Today's NYTimes Sunday Magazine has an article about Alex 0vechkin that draws a fast pencil-sketch of the deadly Washington Capitols winger.

Now, I'm a die-hard, super-partisan Penguins fan, in awe of the sheer skill and talent that Sidney Crosby shows every time he puts on his skates. I.m bleeding and sweating black and gold with the best yinzer out there, but that doesn't diminish in any way
my admiration for players from competing teams who are, simply put, breathtaking to watch. Players who bring a level of wizardry to their game that make you sit back in your seat and just say, "How the FUCK did he do that?" Pavel Datsyuk. Marian Gaborik. Steven Stamkos. And the insane Alex Ovechkin.

Ovie and Sid are clearly the best the game has to offer, but they are two completely different players, as the Times article makes amply clear. If Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin were muppets, Sid would be Kermit the Frog, measured in speech and self-effacing to the point of invisibility. Ovie, on the other hand, is Animal from the Electric Mayhem, wreaking havoc all over the ice (go on youtube and search for "Ovechkin hit on Jagr". During the Games it was the hit heard 'round the world, with Ovechkin counting coup on the last generation's greatest European player, and basically stealing his spirit in the process.)

While Crosby looks like he just might be wearing a necktie under his sweater, Ovechkin is all grinning uni-browed sweatiness, rearranged features and missing teeth. At the risk of sounding disloyal, Sid looks like a hockey product, and Ovie looks like a hockey player.

So I'm reading this Times article about Ovechkin and it says "he has included a Crosby stick in a collection he has been assembling of sticks owned by the players he most admires."

Now, only hockey nerds might remember how Crosby's Olympics gear --including the gloves and stick he tossed aside in jubilation after scoring the game-winning goal against USA's Ryan Miller -- went missing after that game. Trust me, this was a national crisis in Canada.

After a few days of national anxiety, it turns out the missing gear ended up "mixed up" with a bunch of Russian gear after the Games before being recovered and returned to Crosby.

Hmmmmm. I'm not saying j'accuse, Ovechkin, but really?

I'm just sayin'.

Afterthought -- the Times says that Ovie is not a goon, and I do take issue with that, a bit. The Great Eight is known to be reckless on the ice, and has been suspended at least twice this season, and he is known to League officials, delicately, as a -- ahem -- repeat offender. The guy leads his team in penalty minutes, 'nuff said. I'm still holding a grudge against him for that knee-on-knee (an Ovechkin specialty) mugging of Sergei Gonchar last year.