Monday, September 8, 2008

Ennui, Predictions, Etc.

Dark clouds are gathering over Midtown (and probably other places as well) and hockey season still hasn't started. Big Shooter has reported that he's received an email from his new ticket rep about the year ahead; I can confirm I received the very same email. I'll be a happy and hopeful Horatio when my season tickets arrive in the mail.

Since no one has been following through on the Season Preview stuff (perhaps we've hit a snag because no one wants to write about the Dallas Stars' upcoming season), I'll motion that we shouldn't group this stuff by division. I would move from the Pacific Division to the Northwest and begin writing about some of those teams, but I don't want to anger Monsieur Catalogues by writing about the Vancouver Canucks. And I don't want to anger Shooter by writing about the Edmonton Oilers. Or Razor by writing about the Colorado Avalanche. That leaves the Flames and the Wild, both of whom I'm not terribly interested in writing about.

Not that I don't like the Flames. It's just that I can already predict their season: they'll make the playoffs. They will ALWAYS make the playoffs so long as they have a leader like Jarome Iginla. How far they get this time around will depend on Mikka Kiprusoff. I'd love it if Kipper had a great post-season, and I wouldn't be against seeing a re-match with Nabokov and the San Jose Sharks.

As for the Minnesota Wild...well, who knows? Marian Gaborik is a beast, but he seems to vanish in the post-season. I'm not sure who else plays for the Wild these days, so I guess I'll move on to a new subject...


Not much in the way of hockey news today. As I'm sure you've all seen, Puck Daddy has been writing a series of hilarious Season Preview posts (in alphabetical order, perhaps a better organizing principle than our divisional hokum). The yearbook theme is a great idea...and a nice way of acknowledging that pre-season predictions rarely pan out in real life. Anyway, check it out if you haven't already. Agree with P. Daddy or disagree, it's a million times better than TSN's soul-flatteningly boring analysis.

Can't wait to see John Tortorella and Ray Ferraro on TSN. I hope to see Torts fly into a rage and start gnawing on Mike Milbury's head.

1 comment:

Big Shooter said...

That was the snag indeed. After working until 9:30 last night, I sat down to write... and I just couldn't do it. I hate the Stars.

It was a silly idea anyway...