Catching Up: Part 2

I told you I was behind, right? Well, I'm still working my way through my inbox today.

Last week, Friend of The Show Christine sent in links to two articles regarding Ryan Malone's feelings about leaving Pittsburgh. The articles are from competing newspapers, and (predictably) they heard Bugsy's words from conflicting perspectives. "Malone Says Pens Showed 'No Love'" comes from The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, while "Malone Has No Harsh Feelings" comes from The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Hockey Fights Cancer has some new merchandise. Last year, everything was pink; this year, it's lavender. There's the tie for men, a book, a sweet scarf for women (the pattern is crossed hockey sticks and a puck), and men's and women's hats. CLICK HERE AND BUY SOMETHING to help a good cause. :)

I'm definitely getting the scarf. It's just too freaking cute to pass up. I think I'm going to get the tie for my husband this year. I wanted to get him last year's tie, but he really wasn't into the whole pink thing.

Friend Eighty-Two found this piece about the renewal of the feud between IFHSA™ and Don "Grapes" Cherry. Avery really is a jerk. This probably is the one and only time you'll ever hear me say, "Go get him, Grapes!"

I got this one from Friends Stagerat, Lauren H., and Melissa G. - ESPN's Pierre LeBrun says that this season, they are truly Sidney Crosby's Penguins.

Friend Lisa-Marie W. found an interview with Siddo, but the video doesn't have a direct link. Just click here to launch the video player (it should pop up in a new window) then click on "Most Recent" on the left. Scroll through the list until you find the video titled "Interview with Sidney Crosby." It's one of the more relaxed interviews with the Saint that I've seen in a while. LATE EDIT: I'm at my sister's house, and I pre-wrote this post and scheduled it to go up today, so I didn't mention that this is the CBC interview that was mentioned in The Friends' Zone yesterday.

Friend Stagerat sent in this article from Rob Rossi's Chipped Ice detailing how the Pens' director of team operations, Frank Buonomo, kept the masses at bay while in Europe with Sidney.

Here's a video of The Save of The Decade. Friend of The Show Jennifer B. sent in this video of Carey Price's incredible stick save in the September 30^th preseason match up between the Canadiens and the Red Wings. If you haven't seen this already, I guarantee you that you'll hardly believe your eyes:



Here's another article about the Pens' Swedish scavenger hunt that Friend Cathy F. found in the Ottawa Citizen. All I have to say is we NEED to find this picture, LOL:

At least the shopping and zoo experience became a little more, shall we say, revealing, than originally planned.

A group including goaltender Marc-André Fleury and winger Pascal Dupuis bought bright yellow and blue Swedish underwear, planning to strip down to take a picture in front of two sleeping moose. But when the group got set for the picture, they realized they were short one set of underwear.

That forced Darryl Sydor to pose with the Viking helmet placed strategically in the picture.

Sounds like they had a good time, eh? ;)

Friend ReneeDC used a photo I posted last week and added some hilarious captions:


Friend of The Show Carlie D. went to watch the Buffalo Sabres unveil their third jersey on September 20^th. While she was there, she snapped a few pictures of a giant mural of the Winter Classic:

I don't mean to beat it into the ground, but any time I see Winter Classic pictures, I get chills!!! :) What an AMAZING day!!!

Sidney Penguin had to get on a plane for today's Roaming Penguin installment. Here's what Friend of The Show Sigma956 had to say about S.P.'s first flight:

Sidney Penguin took his first plane ride on 8/30/08 from Pittsburgh to St. Louis (via Chicago). He visited with my mom and step-dad in Cape Girardeau, MO, then went to eat at the infamous Lambert’s Café (Home of the “Throwed Rolls”) in Sikeston, MO, and then back to St. Louis to see my beloved Cardinals in action against the Florida Marlins at Busch Stadium. Sidney had a great time in visiting the “Show-Me-State”.

The first picture is me and Sidney Penguin inside Busch Stadium. The background is the scoreboard that is outside the stadium:


The second picture is from inside the Jack Buck Party Room:


The third picture is Kylie (my three-year old daughter) and Sidney on the flight to our layover in Chicago:

[snoop: Oh my gosh, she's so darn cute!!]

The last picture is from Lambert’s, the best home-cookin’ comfort food on the face of the earth!

Lots of thanks go out today to [*takes deep breath*] Christine, Eighty-Two, Stagerat, Lauren, Melissa, Lisa-Marie, Jennifer, Cathy, ReneeDC, Carlie, and Sigma956 for basically doing my job for me! :)

Rate Sid's Influence

It is that time of year again. No, I'm not talking about the playoffs, so hold off on the "Captain Obvious" jokes for a second... Time Magazine has an online poll asking who their readers think are the 100 most influential people. Last year, Sidney came in at an impressive number 5! Not bad considering hockey allegedly isn't important in this country! He was the highest placing sports star, behind only Korean pop star Rain (#1), Stephen Colbert (#2), American Idol castoff Sanjaya Malakar (#3 ← I hope that was a big joke), and comedian Dane Cook (#4). Click on the picture of Sidney below to cast your vote. Heads Up: Don't just hit the submit button! Use the slider right next to the submit button to rank Sid at 100 (most influential) then click the submit button. :)


VOTE FOR SID

And now I've got the Photo of The Day. It comes from Friend of The Show Ron D.:

Cry me a river.

Friend of The Show Mike H. found this site, www.playoffbeard.com. It has caricatures of hockey players representing their teams. They have a clean shaven picture for Sid on their April 3^rd entry, but I'll let Mike describe the site's drawing of the Saint for the playoffs:

...the entry for April 16 shows him with a beard that, frankly, I doubt he'd ever be able to grow himself.

Maybe in 20 years, Mike... though I doubt it would even be that thick when he's 40!! HAHA!

Finally today, Friend of The Show Stephanie S. sent this to me a while ago. George Johnson of ESPN Online built the perfect hockey player using attributes from players today. Sidney is the only player to appear on the list twice. :) And there's a surprise: IFHSA™ makes an unwelcome appearance on the list. Johnson loves to hate him for his, well, his Averyness. UGH.

IFHSA's™ taunting extends to the fans in Philadelphia. What a class act.

Big thanks go out to Friends Ron, Mike, and Stephanie for their contributions to today's post. :)

Game 3 happens tomorrow at MSG at 7:00pm Eastern. Brace yourself for the "DIV-er!!!" chants. Let's beat these clowns and move on, already!!!!

GO PENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So Just What Was Sid Looking At?

Monday's Penguins Q&A with Dave Molinari (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) dealt with - what else? - Sid's injury. A reader named Kim from Canada asked Molinari if Sid's full-on style of play is a bit too reckless. Molinari's response follows:

Crosby doesn't leave his feet, whether it's to go into a full-fledged sprawl or simply to drop to one knee, because he's interested in making it into the day's highlights show. He does it when he believes that's the way to maximize his chances of making a particular play, usually to capitalize on a scoring opportunity.

As Crosby discovered (or perhaps was reminded) last Friday night, there are risks to leaving one's feet, but it's worth noting that he didn't do it voluntarily, having had his skates taken out from under him. Remember, Tampa Bay defenseman Paul Ranger picked up a slashing minor on the play.

Also, there did not appear to be anything particularly ominous about the sequence that ended with Crosby getting a high ankle sprain. He wasn't moving particularly fast -- there have been times when he's hit the boards so hard, one half-expects him to burst into flames -- and seemed to have ample time to prepare for the impact he knew was coming.

Unfortunately for Crosby, there are indications his focus shifted as he was nearing the boards, quite possibly because he wanted to see how the play that was now behind him finished, and his right skate ended up in an awkward position when he made contact.

That was a painful (for Crosby) and costly (for him and the team) lesson, but don't expect it to change the way Crosby goes about his work. Next time he's in a game, he'll leave his feet in a nanosecond if he believes that's the right play to make.

I was originally going to quote a section of Molinari's response, but in light of what my husband saw on television yesterday, I thought I should print it in its entirety. You see, being that I do live in the dead center of Pennsylvania, I am fortunate enough (or unfortunate - depending on your point of view) to get T.V. stations from both the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia markets. Yesterday, he was watching a replay of the Flyers/Devils game. The intermission report featured a segment about Sir Sidney's injury. One of the sportscasters made the comment that Sid went down because he wasn't paying attention to what was in front of him, which is 100% true. You can clearly see in the video that Sid's head is turned away from the boards (until he hits them, of course). The sportscaster then went on to offer his own opinion as to why Sid was looking back: because he wanted to make sure he had drawn the penalty on the play. (I wish I had a link or a YouTube clip of the segment for you. If anyone has it, let me know.)

Now, as we establish at the top of the page in the longest header on the Internet, we don't know Sid. At all. Never met him. Ever. BUT I can tell you that the world's best hockey player is NOT going to risk injury checking to see if he's drawn a penalty. This is a kid that will take a high stick and ignore it to keep cycling the puck on a delayed penalty. He's certainly not going to look back at the ref for a penalty signal while speeding towards the boards on his arse. Any hockey player worth his salt knows that he is extremely vulnerable when he is off his feet. All control of forward motion is lost. Sid may be a lot of things... Stupid isn't one of them. For the record, I'm with Molinari: Most likely Sid was looking back to keep track of the whereabouts of that puck.

Now here's something for a laugh before our big game against the Flyers tonight. First, I'm sure you remember this quote from Andrew Ference:

Jarome in my books is a better hockey player than Crosby because he does those things. He will fight, he will lay his body on the line and take the hit and not complain if someone hits him and stuff like that. The superstars of the league should have to do that because they're hockey players, they're not ice-skating princesses. Hockey is an emotional game, you have to stand up for yourself. You have to stand up for your actions. If you punch somebody in the face, then you should fight, that's the way hockey is suppose to be.

Well, it inspired good Friend of The Show Cassie C., who apparently has waaaay too much time on her hands (Just kidding! You know I ♥ you, girl!), to create this:



Remember that game time is 7:00pm Eastern tonight! GO PENS!!!!!!!

News From Max, Fun With Sidney

Before we get started, you'll need a little background info. About a week ago, I received this email:

Just letting you know that our local sports network, RDS, signed on Max Talbot as an NHL correspondent. There's a lot of Pittsburgh fans, and especially a lot of Sidney's friends in Montreal, who wanted more updates on the Penguins situation throughout the year--especially since, well, half the team is from Quebec :-P. Talbot signed on and is going to provide weekly coverage and blogging to keep us updated on the situation and how things are going for them out there. Because Talbot and Sidney are fairly good friends, I suspect there will probably be a lot of neat insider info coming out.

The downside, of course, is that it'll be in French. But no worries, I'll be checking it regularly, and if anything is mentioned, I'll translate it for you guys :)

It was from Friend of The Show and past TSCS translator Lisa-Marie W. This morning when I woke up, this was in my inbox:

(The article was long--but he mentioned at the beginning that playing against the Habs is always special, especially for Sidney. Max says that Sidney always gets extra hyped when they play the Canadiens.) [snoop: That's pretty obvious. If you can read lips, then you already know that Sid's got an, um, shall we say, 'extra-colorful vocabulary' during these games...]

From Max's blog: "If they gave me the choice of which team to join, like most Quebecors, I would have picked the Canadiens. But now that everyone is talking about the Penguins, there's a certain pride associated with being part of this team.

When I saw that Sidney Crosby was drafted by the Penguins, I became proud of this team. My first year in the NHL, I was 20 years old and it was on lockout. The next year was my first official year in the NHL--like Sidney.

Skating with Sidney every day helped me progress as a player. His habits and his work ethic continue to surprise me every day, and it's a privilege for me to be a part of the same team as him. He makes EVERY player better. I play the same position as him, and just watching him play and observing him outside the rink, his way of passing the puck and the way he approaches each game, it helps me.

His one point in two games doesn't worry him. For him, the success of the team comes before his personal statistics. He's not frustrated that he has one point. He knows the results will be there, and the rest of the team knows it too, because he's the best. What matters is that we win games. And if we do that, then Sidney is happy."

That makes US happy, too Max! :) A big thank you once again goes out to Lisa, without whom we would miss this awesome story. Well, okay, at least I would miss it, as my French is more than a little rusty.

Now for the fun with Sidney. The guys over at ThePensblog.com have had some of their readers send in some really great photoshops this past week. With their permission (and the permission of the photoshop creators), I am bringing you two that star our man Sid. Both pictures are outstanding, and I present them in no particular order.

First up is one for the person that submitted the nickname "Dizzy" in TSCS's nickname vote (I'm sorry - I've forgotten your name!). The creator of this picture, Brian Steimer, said that "In honor of Crosby's new found love of the spin-o-rama, I created this nugget of awesome:"

Brian Steimer's Tasmanian Crosby

Next up is one that my friend Jeff, who is one of ThePensblog's personal photoshop gurus, came up with the idea to see what the Penguins would look like if they were brothers. He morphed the players with each other, with the coach, with the general manager, and with the owner. A few of the morphs were my own requests (thanks, Jeff!). You can and should check them all out by clicking here, but for TSCS, there's one you MUST see. It was one that I requested. Ever wonder what Sid and Mario would look like if they came from the same family tree? Here's your answer:

+ =

Imagine "Sidnio LeCros" on the ice. That guy would be a hockey GOD.

Thanks again to everyone who gave me permission to use these photos.

Pittsburgh v Montreal - 7:30pm (eastern) tonight!
GO PENS!!!