The Lockout...

You know, I've been pretty zen about this whole lockout thing all summer.  I figured that there's not anything I can do to prevent it from happening, so I didn't bother wasting my time worrying about it.  Sure, I've followed along with the news, but I've been more or less pulling back from hockey in general since the major free agency deals went down.  I looked at this as sort of an inevitability that was looming in the distance that I was just going to have to cope with.  I didn't have any anxiety leading up to today, but I also didn't have any hope.  I just kind of ignored everything.

But then midnight came.  The thing that hit me as I watched the clock was that sense of inevitability that had accompanied this lockout from the beginning.  I knew it was going to happen.  Everyone did.  Not once at any point during the negotiations this past month did I feel like there was a chance of an agreement.  There was never any hope for a reasonable settlement.  And I got angry.  More angry than I ever was in '04-'05, which is surprising because I've mellowed out a lot in the last few years.   During that lockout, I coped by watching an array of hockey movies and my Wings DVDs as I anxiously anticipated the return of the game I loved.  I eagerly read every article about the negotiations hoping against hope that there would be good news.  I was devastated when the season was officially cancelled, even though I knew it was going to happen.  I still slept in my giant Wings t-shirt and wore my various shirts and hats around campus.  But not this time.

This time, I stormed out to my garage and found the first empty giant tub that I could get my hands on.  (This is quite impressive because it required scaling a mountain of boxes and a couple of bags of hockey equipment.)  I went up to my room and cleared out every piece of Red Wings apparel that I could find.  Every Wings t-shirt, pair of PJ pants, sweatshirt, hat, scarf, jacket, and even (to my mom's great offense) the purse she bought me last year.  The only thing left in my room is my autographed Yzerman jersey because Steve Yzerman is still special and it got a special dispensation.  My Wings/Tigers t-shirt blanket also remains, but that will only be displayed Tigers-side up from now on.

I've suddenly got a lot more room in my drawers.

  My clothes-packing fit was briefly interrupted by my mom calling me crazy and (correctly) pointing out that I was going to need another tub.  It would seem that no matter how much I sat on the lid, one 18-gallon tub just wasn't going to cut it.  At that point it also occurred to me that I might have some issues with being a Wings merchandise hoarder, but that's a problem to tackle on a different day.  Once I made another perilous trip to the top of the pile of tubs to retrieve a second tub, I packed the excess into that.  Then went back upstairs and made a second sweep of my room.  I found a few stray shirts that had escaped the first pass and then, since I had plenty of space, I grabbed some of the other memorabilia.  My autographed pucks, several car flags (How on earth did I end up with 5 of them?), calendars, and anything else that wasn't particularly breakable got tossed in the tub too.

Banished to the basement.

My mom thinks I'm a raving lunatic because of this, but I think it's a perfectly reasonable response.  If the NHL is going to have another lockout, that's its business.  But I will not be wearing any of its merchandise or spending any time thinking about it in the meantime.  If/when hockey comes back, I'll watch.  The tubs will be pulled out of the basement and clothes put back into circulation.  I know I won't be able to stay away, and any threat otherwise is hollow.  But until then, you won't see me wearing anything hockey-related.  I won't be writing about it.  I won't be reading about it.  I've got plenty of other interests that can take up my time.  I've got the Tigers, the Wolverines, a dozen lifetime's worth of books, and a whole boatload of British tv to pass the time.  I think I'm going to be just fine.

How to Craft a Red Wings-Tigers T-shirt Blanket...

Last summer, I decided to undertake the most epic craft project I've ever done. I made a giant, over-sized t-shirt blanket with Wings shirts on one side and Tigers shirts on the other. It's now one of my most prized possessions of all time. As promised (you know, a year ago...), here's a step-by-step account on how I created this super-comfy tribute to my two favorite sports teams.

First of all, I spent the better part of three months scouring local Salvation Army stores (They really should have a frequent shopper rewards program) for t-shirts (Obviously I did other things during those three months, too.). I came across lots of random things during my search, like oddly titled records, *NSYNC bobbleheads, Han Solo cutouts with beach hats, some incredibly awesome money pants, and some really hideous shirts from the '90s. Originally, I was only on the hunt for Wings ones, as I was planning on covering the back with soft denim as I had done on previous blankets. However, while I was t-shirt hunting, I kept coming across tons and tons of Tigers ones, and I had the brilliant idea to put the Tigs on the back. Naturally, as soon as I started hunting for Tigers shirts, I was unable to find any, but that's another story. I visited at least ten different Salvos multiple times during the summer, picking up a few shirts here and a few there for a dollar or so each. Eventually I had all the t-shirts I needed, plus a few extras, and it was time to get going.

First I created a template out of some yarn-weaving plastic.  (I'm sure this stuff has a specific name, but I've never bothered to find out what it is.)  I wanted the regular squares to be 12 inches x 12 inches, plus 5/8 inch seam allowance. I also made a half-sized template to pair up shirts with skinnier logos into one larger square.

This laundry basket full of shirts was waiting to be cut down to size with those templates.

But first, I had to make a bar graph out of Tigers shirts. Not really. I was counting how many I had of each color so that I could make a perfect, checker-board style mixture of colors on the blanket.

I also made a pile of Wings t-shirts.

My dog, Penny, decided to help me out. By laying in the middle of the pile.  She's really helpful to have around the house.

I made a rough layout of the Wings side of the blanket first.

I had a secret fantasy of burying myself in the pile of Wings shirts. So I did.

After that, I laid out the Tigers side.

Penny liked my layout so much that she laid down in the middle of it. Like I said...helpful.

Not all of the shirts that I bought made it into the blanket. Example: this one. See if you can figure out why.

I also made a hard copy of my layout, complete with secret codes that only I could understand, really bad sketches, and atrocious handwriting.

Next, I had to trace the template onto all of the t-shirts. This was tedious. This shirt had a little logo in the corner, so I had to piece it together with panels from the rest of the shirt in order to center it.

This one had an extra-long screen print, so I added the small template to the regular template so I didn't have to cut any of it off.

Tracing things is more tedious than it sounds.

This is what happens to your hands when you trace washable marker all over cloth and plastic.

Then it was finally time to cut my first t-shirt. I started with the panels that needed extra work. I chose to start with this one since it was the only vertically split panel.  I don't really know why there is an Olympic Cabbage Patch Kid there. I remember owning it in the mid-'90s, but I can't figure out what it was doing on my kitchen table last summer. Same goes for the Play-Doh. Anyway...

Freed from Crosby!

Next up was the Pudge Rodriguez sort-of jersey that I picked up for a couple dollars when I was planning on using a jersey as a centerpiece for each side. I couldn't bring myself to cut up the spare Wings jersey I'd bought though, so I gave it to my brother and scrapped that idea. This one just became a panel. I cut the back open and pinned the front together. Then I ran it (extremely slowly) through the sewing machine so that I could follow the seams as closely as possible to make sure that it couldn't be unbuttoned. I also added a scrap of white fabric from another t-shirt around the collar to fill in the gap and make it into a square. This is one of my favorite parts of the blanket.

Since Penny was clearly so excited about the project, we thought she'd love to wear this mini Tigers shirt that wasn't going to make it into the final product.

Then my little brother decided to see if he could put on all 69 of the shirts at the same time. He usually has a neck.

These were the scraps of the shirts that I cut up.  I wish I could've found a way to reuse them for another project, but there aren't a whole lot of uses for t-shirts with only a back and sleeves.

The shirts are all stacked neatly in the order in which they'll eventually be sewn together.

Time to iron on the interfacing! Interfacing is the difference between a decent t-shirt blanket and a great t-shirt blanket. It helps the shirts keep their shapes and prevents them from stretching.

The only downfall of interfacing?  You have to go back and cut out all of the panels AGAIN.

Then, at long last, it was time to start sewing. I started with the Eurotwins panel. The Datsyuk half was the only one of the shirts that wasn't a thrift store purchase. I'd gotten it as a gift from my parents in high school. It was a hard decision to cut it up, but I really wanted something to pair with the Zetterberg one.  Luckily, I came across a Datsyuk shirsey at a Salvo near Metamora along the way, so I didn't really lose anything.

Then I went to work on the rest of the Wings side, putting each column together individually.

Then I sewed the columns together. This is the Wings side (obviously).  I've got shirts from all four of the most recent Stanley Cups, as well as one from the '95 playoffs.  The oldest one is the big black one right in the middle of the blanket, which dates all the way back to 1991.

And the Tigers side.  It's a little less illustrious because, well, you know what the last 25 years have been like.  I've got a couple from the '06 World Series, and one that dates back to 1993.  My favorite parts are the shirts for Tiger Stadium, Briggs Stadium, and Comerica Park.  Cutting up the Briggs one kind of killed me because it was so soft and comfy.  I also love the panel with four logos in it.

I lined the inside with a layer of plain fleece. I also used a permanent marker to write important things like championships, retired numbers, and milestones on the backs of some of the shirts. They're a nice, secret little thing hidden inside the blanket just for me (Except for the one Tigers panel where some of my writing bled through to the front). There may also be a tiny scrap of my tinfoil hat from H2H in there. Maybe.

I put a lot of hours into this, and it truly was a labor of love.  My hometown teams are never far from my heart, even here in the sports wasteland known as Florida.

Red Wings vs. Wild GP...

Red Wings: 3-0-0

Wild: 2-1-1

Red Wing Zen:

Point and Laugh:

Video Candy:

PS. Go Tigers!

Red Wings 2, Canucks 0: Post Game Snipes...

• Normally, I'd be aggravated and cranky about a four-day break in the schedule, but just this once it was okay because it meant that I got to devote all of my attention to the Tigers. They won their afternoon game today, setting up a perfect Detroit double-header. It seemed like the Baseball Gods were smiling on us today.
• So, I guess I should get back to hockey, eh?  I'm pretty sure that's what this blog is actually about, though it's been kind of a while since I was updating regularly.  Whoops.
• The game started off pretty slow, especially after the heart-attacks from the Tigers game, and the Wings looked exactly like you'd expect a team to look after being off for entirely too many days for such an early point in the season.
• The Wings managed to hold the Canucks off until the second period, at which point they proceeded to have their way with them. Granted, Vancouver was playing the tail end of a back-to-back, but they didn't exactly look like a team that went to the Finals just a few months ago.
• Pavel Datsyuk seemed determined to put on a good show on his bobblehead night. One of my oldest friends was at the Joe tonight, and I gave her a mission to obtain a bobblehead for me. She failed. Anyone have a spare?
• I really like the fact that Abby followed up his fight with a goal.
• Back-to-back shutouts. Not bad, eh?

Pre-Season Ramblings...

I'm in kind of a strange position right now. This is the first time I've ever found myself gearing up for hockey season somewhere other than Michigan. On one hand, it's been healthy for my bank account since there are no tickets to tempt me or merchandise lining the shelves of every store I go to down here. Mostly though, it's just been sad. I was able to watch part of one pre-season game. One. Don't even think about picking up a newspaper and finding a hockey article. If you're lucky, you might find a box score buried somewhere behind coverage of high school gymnastics and the local little league standings. So here I sit, seemingly the only person in an entire state eagerly awaiting something. I'm sure there are others out there just like me, but they're much fewer and farther between than I'm used to.

But enough about me. After a summer with an unusually high amount of turnover, the Wings enter the season with a lot of questions hanging over them. Some are exciting (ex: Which defensemen are going to win spots?). Some are terrifying (ex: something related to Nick Lidstrom that I'm not willing to actually type). And some are just plain intriguing (ex: Who does Cory Emmerton's brows?). I'm looking forward to seeing how things play out.

The number of games I get to see is going to be limited by the fact that I live in hockey wasteland as well as the fact that my current job has me working a lot of nights. I'm going to do my best to keep up with things here now that hockey's almost, but I can't make any promises. I'm beyond ready to drop the puck on this season, not least of all because it means an end to this long and horrible off-season.

Also, go Tigers!

Shanahanigans from the Wings Alumni Charity Softball Game...

On Saturday, Liz and I went to the Wings Charity Alumni Softball game. We were both pretty excited, but I don’t think either one of us were fully prepared for the events of the day. I don’t know how I haven’t made it to one of these things before. That truly is a shame.

The Wings/Tigers alumni roster featured Darren McCarty, Dino Ciccarelli, Joey Kocur, Dave Rozema, Jeff Daniels, Jason Wolley, Manny Legace, Steve Avery, Eddie Mio, Kevin Miller, Wayne Presley, George Bowman, Gary Taylor, Mike Krushelnyski, and Pat Peake. I think it goes without saying that D-Mac stole the show. He was pretty obviously the fan-favorite. I loved the fact that a grinder upstaged a recently-elected Hall of Famer. I also loved the fact that while most of the guys wore cargo shorts and sneakers, Mac came decked out in cleats, baseball socks, knee pads, and sliding shorts. He looked like he was having a pretty good time out there.

McCarty played third base, which made me happy because that was my primary position in my youthful days of fastpitch. It turns out that he’s a pretty good player. He turned some nice plays over there. He also entertained the crowd:

Another fun Mac moment came after the first game when he was eating a blue sno-cone. He was stopped for some autographs and had nowhere to put the cone cup, so he just held the edge in his mouth. When we walked by, he was standing there with blue sno-cone lips dangling the cup from his mouth. We laughed. A lot. Sadly, we didn’t manage to snag a picture of this.  Instead, I took one of him making some totally RAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHH party horns aka the two out sign:

Joey Kocur pitched all three games in between having seemingly endless cell phone conversations. He got lit up for a couple of home runs by a strapping young policeman in the third game, but it ended up not mattering as the Alumni team went on to sweep the tourney.

We also learned that Dino Ciccarelli can throw a mean fastpitch fastball. He was whipping pitches in pretty quickly when he was goofing around in warm-ups. We were impressed. He’s clearly done that somewhere before. It’s not the kind of thing you just pick up and do well.  Unfortunately, he didn't do so well at the plate.  I maintain that he would've gotten a hit if he'd taken our advice about which bat to choose, but he didn't listen.  By the third game, he was sitting in the dugout icing his shoulder with an entire party store bag of ice.  We were amused.

Speaking of pitching, during the second game, Liz and I decided to head over to the radar they had set up (They brought a radar speed rig that would normally be found on the side of the street and set it up behind the backstop on one of the diamonds.) to have our pitching timed. I was a mediocre pitcher back in the day and had never had my speed clocked, so this was mildly exciting. I think both of us regretted this decision the next day.

The highlight of the day came between the second and third games. Darren McCarty gave an impromptu concert in one of the tents. Liz and I sat in the front row. I know you’re jealous. Thanks to Mac, I’ve had ‘Ain’t that America’ (which I've just been informed is actually called "Pink Houses" for reasons that I don't quite understand [UPDATED: 8-11-10 15:25]) stuck in my head since Saturday. And yes, I did get his performance on video. You’re welcome.

After the mini-concert, we got a chance to meet him and take some pictures.

Other things:

• When we stopped to have pictures taken with Rozema, Liz was kind enough to bring up the time he got my dad kicked out of a Hooters at Tigers Fantasy Camp by throwing ice cubes at the waitress.  His response?  "It's Fantasy Camp. You have to do stuff like that."  Oh fun times.
• Rozema was also entertaining people when he ran the bases.  He was making safe calls and waving his arms around.  I'm not entirely sure what he was doing, but he seemed like he was having fun.
• We enjoyed the fact that the base coaches took their beers out onto the field with them.  It was literally beer league softball.
• There was a drunk guy claiming to be Taylor's son who came and stood by us when we were taking pictures up against the fence.  He decided to lean into the field through the open gate to inspect the bats.  He spilled his beer on them.  I was amused.
• People are obnoxious.  I knew that already, but Saturday reinforced it.
• Jeff Daniels does a mean Mr. Peanut pose.

The rest of my pictures are over at Photobucket.

Flying Gremlins and Other Vacation Hockey Notes...

I wrote this earlier and completely forgot to post it. I won't have a game recap up until tomorrow, so I figured I might as well still put it up.

I’m currently on what I’m sure is going to be the most miserable flight of my life. Since I’m traveling alone and have no one to commiserate with, I’ve decided to semi-live blog it:

10:45am CST: I’m sitting in my window seat, minding my own business. I got on the plane 15 minutes ago when everyone was supposed to board. By now, the flight attendants are doing their final cabin checks, and since I know that you’re supposed to be on board 20 minutes before the plane takes off, I’m assuming that I’ve got the row to myself all the way to Detroit. Not so. In comes a woman in a burgundy velvet track suit hustling down the aisle, and naturally she sits down next to me. The kicker is that she has a dog in a carrier. The same dog I’ve been hearing yelp for the last hour and a half in the terminal. Great.

10:48am CST: I’m about 98.7% sure that that thing is a gremlin, not a dog. At first it was making ape-like noises, but now I’m leaning toward gremlin.

10:50am CST: I’m debating telling the flight attendant that I’m deathly afraid of dogs and couldn’t possibly sit next to one for the next couple of hours.

10:51am CST: The only other empty seat on the plane is right across the aisle, still in range of the yelping noises. I would feel too guilty if they asked someone else to move and they got stuck next to the gremlin. Instead, I’ve resorted to trying to catch the flight attendant’s eye with the horrified look on my face.

10:53am CST: The dog’s name is Prissy. What on earth would possess someone to name an animal that?

10:55am CST: This woman needs to stay on her side of the armrest. I have a bubble.

10:58am CST: We’re pulling away from the gate. It’s time to set my watch back to Eastern time. I can no longer twitter. This is sad for me.

12:01pm EST: Woah. We literally pulled away from the gate, turned one corner, and the next thing I knew, we were pedal to the medal. I didn’t even have time to whisper our traditional “lock and load.” This is very different from Metro on Friday where we taxied for at least 15 minutes. I could’ve sworn that we were driving to New Orleans instead of flying.

12:03pm EST: The takeoff seems to have shut the gremlin up at least temporarily. Maybe the G-forces on that sharp right-hand turn we took knocked it out.

12:06pm EST: Oh thank god I can use my headphones now.

12:07pm EST: Now the woman is sending text messages on her blackberry. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t one of the approved electronic devices that they just listed off.

12:10pm EST: More text messages. Nice.

12:22pm EST: I should really be writing my paper instead of doing this.

12:27pm EST: I’m going to try to leverage this into an extra Coke. Delta/Northwest owes me big time.

12:29pm EST: Still nothing out of the dog. At least that I can hear. I’ve got my specially made Louisiana playlist playing on iTunes right now.

12:30pm EST: The woman’s been studying the US route map intently for the last 10 minutes. What could possibly be so interesting?

12:35pm EST: The woman’s asleep now. The gremlin appears to be sleeping as well. Of course, I’m pretty sure it’s just pretending to sleep while it plots death and destruction. I’m keeping my eye on it.

12:34pm EST: Again with the texting.

12:45pm EST: What? I thought we got pretzels and cookies. I hate peanuts. Unless, of course, the peanuts are in peanut butter. In that case, I’m all about them.

12:47pm EST: We’ve initiated a conversation about my desktop picture of Penny. My dog is far superior to whatever creature is lurking in that carrier. For starters, I could kick a field goal with that thing, which automatically disqualifies it from being a real dog in my mind. She once again referred to it as a dog, but I’m still not convinced that it’s not a gremlin.

12:51pm EST: The woman is now baby talking to the gremlin. Someone get me an airsickness bag.

12:54pm EST: More texting. Uh oh, the flight attendant just walked by. The woman made a quick move to hide the phone. Back to texting as soon as the attendant is past us. She's slick.

1:08pm EST: Either the woman is snoring or the gremlin is growling. I can’t tell without taking my headphones off, and I’m not willing to do that.

1:10pm EST: I keep thinking about how my friends and family are going to be rolling on the floor laughing when I tell them this story when I get home.

1:13pm EST: Now she’s reading the Times-Picayune. The front page of their Metro section’s top headline reads “Historic building rotting in limbo” with a picture of a 100 year old building below it. That’s not even news in Detroit.

1:15pm EST: Her phone’s in the pocket of her velvet track jacket, which is unzipped so that the pocket hangs onto my lap. I can feel her phone vibrating. What are the odds of me surviving a jump from 30,000 feet?

1:30pm EST: The gremlin is now on her lap and she’s baby-talking to it. I very tentatively let it lick my hand. I figured it would be a good idea to get on its good side when it inevitably is unleashed throughout the cabin.

1:44pm EST: We’re going through some turbulence now. The gremlin is starting to get restless.

At that point, my battery died and I had to resort to writing in my diary for the last 45 minutes of the flight.

Some random notes from New Orleans:

• I found all kinds of racks of beads for sports teams, but none for the Wings. There were a handful of hockey teams represented, but nothing for Detroit. I did see some Lions and Pistons ones, but my two teams—Wings and Tigers—had nothing. I invented some excuse in my head about how we’re just too classy for beads, but really I know that it’s because there aren’t nearly enough hockey fans out there.
• Saturday night, the friend who I was sharing a hotel room with called another mutual friend of ours from Chicago. He decided to pick a fight with me by insulting the Wings. I, of course, shot back with a logical and well-reasoned argument that debunked all of his points and insulted his intelligence all in one (This is a lie. I actually called Patrick Kane names. We like to bicker like children.). This lasted a minute until my poor friend who was relaying the messages on the phone finally yelled, “I am NOT having your hockey fights for you. Do that on your own time.” At that point, we had little choice but to return to mocking people we used to work with.
• I have to thank the folks who were DMing me score updates during the game on Friday night. It made my life. It was also a step, I think, toward convincing my friends that twitter can be a force for good.
• It’s always when I travel that I wish there was more national coverage of hockey. All I ask is to be able to flip on ESPN in the hotel at night and see some hockey highlights. But no, we have to talk about the stupid basketball tournament. They even managed to bring up football, which isn’t even in season right now as of the last time I checked. At least I like baseball.
• They were playing rap music at the Hard Rock Café. I was confused and annoyed. Combined with the screaming high schoolers, it significantly lowered my dining experience.
• Today’s USA Today has a headline about the Pirates seeking to end a bad stretch over a picture of the Pirates stretching. It was blowing my mind.
• I still haven’t gotten to catch up on the games I missed. I’m so disappointed that I wasn’t around for the back to back buzzer beaters.
• I was not expecting New Orleans to turn out to be as much of a history geek fest as it was. And I didn’t even get to half of the historical places that I wanted to. Guess that means I need a return trip someday.

How Did I Forget the Glory of '07?...

So Forbes decided to rank the top 10 hottest sports cities in the US. We placed at #6 on the list, behind Pittsburgh, Philly, New York, LA, and Boston. I can't say that I have a huge objection to the rankings, but the writeup did feature a cool new fact that I had been previously unaware of:

And in the we-need-this-for-civic-pride category is Detroit, which ranks sixth despite the 0-16 record of the 2008 Lions. The Tigers and Pistons have been solid over the past three years, but the bedrock of the local pro sports scene has been the Red Wings, which won the Stanley Cup in 2007 and have been a perennial playoff team--much to the chagrin of the world's octopi population.

Oh man, that '07 Cup was one for the ages. What a run. I remember the parade and the rally in Hart Plaza like it was just last year. Oh, what's that you say? It was? How about that. ('07 is listed in the slide show part too, so it's not just a typo.) And here I was thinking that reputable publications did things like check their facts. Seriously. All you'd have to do is check Wikipedia.

Mental Collapse (Again)...

I missed the first period last night, so I really can’t comment on that, but I made it home just in time to see the start of the second. And I have to say that I liked what I saw. The Wings actually looked like themselves for a change. They were doing their puck possession thing and controlling play, so I settled in with some homemade chocolate covered pretzels to enjoy a nice, relaxing end to an absurdly busy Saturday.

And then, apparently sometime during the second intermission, the Wings decided that they had things under control and didn’t actually need to show up for the rest of the game. They still managed to walk away with a point after losing the shootout, but that doesn’t make things any better. There’s absolutely no excuse for not walking away with two points last night. None at all. They simply stopped skating, stopped thinking, and stopped working, and that’s inexcusable. I’m tired of watching them sleepwalk their way to frustrating losses. That’s the Tigers’ MO. I expect better from the Wings.

For a real recap, check out On the Wings. I couldn’t agree more with the opening paragraph. George Malik also posted a good piece over at Snapshots. Everything he says is spot on. The team needs to find a way to get their heads on straight and figure out a way to win some hockey games. If it takes a roadtrip for them to figure things out, then I’ll help them pack their suitcases. Somebody needs to do something, because this is getting ridiculous.

Little Brother Comes to Town...

Remember back in the playoffs last season when I compared Chicago to the Wings’ little brother? Well, over the summer little brother went through a huge growth spurt, and he’s looking a whole lot scarier now, although it would seem that he hasn’t gotten a whole lot smarter. I absolutely believe that the Hawks are going to give the Wings a run for their money in the Central this season, but I haven't bought into the whole changing of the guard thing quite yet. Chicago still has a long way to go before they're ready to do anything meaningful, as evidenced by their oftentimes embarrassing elimination by the Wings in the Western Conference Finals last season.

In other news, the Wings open the Joe tonight, and I’m choosing to ignore the fact that the previous two games occurred. It would be super fantastic if the Wings could see fit to eke out a win. Especially since I’ll be missing The Office wedding episode. Oh how I miss my DVR. What I’m looking for from them today:

--Kill off more than 50% of the penalties that they take. 2 for 5 just isn’t going to cut it.
--Brett Lebda Derek Meech to play some defense.
--Brad Stuart to not screen our goalie or deflect shots past him.
--The team to play a whole 60 minutes of hockey (Lofty expectations, I know).
--Let’s try to hold the goals against to three or fewer. That’s scientifically proven to increase your chances of winning.
-- 2 points.

Mostly, I just want to celebrate a meaningful victory for the first time in what feels like forever. It'd also be nice to put the Blackhawks back in their place and show them that the Wings are still in charge of the division. Plus, there's the chance that it would give us a brief respite from all of those "end of an era" articles that people seem to be tripping over themselves to write these days. The bottom line is that I need a rollicking good time to take my mind off of the Tigers' loss on Tuesday. I'm still not prepared to discuss that.

What A Weekend...

Well the weekend didn’t exactly turn out the way I was hoping. The Wings blew their Swedish extravaganza, UofM rallied to force overtime and then blew that, and the Tigers blew their lead in the AL Central setting up a tiebreaker on Tuesday that I won’t be able to watch. In short, I wasted way too much time watching sports this weekend with very little return for my emotional investment. Thanks, guys.

Despite the fact that they lost, there were some encouraging things from the Wings on Saturday. The second line looked much better. I’m hoping it just took them a game to get their act together since they all missed most of training camp, and not a sign that we’re going to be getting inconsistent efforts from them all season. That being said, you could tell that Zetterberg was still hurting from his groin injury. His first couple of strides were noticeably slow, and I’m reasonably certain that he would’ve been out if not for the whole Swedish thing. Hopefully the four days off will help him.

Thomas Holmstrom seems back to his old self. If he can stay healthy all year long, he should continue to cause havoc for opposing goalies. His goal was a classic Homer deflection as the puck bounced in off of his hip. There’s no doubt that Ty Conklin liked being on the other end of that last season much more.

Ville Leino continues to impress me. After these two games, I’m hinging more of my hopes on his production. I’m not sure how that makes me feel since as a Red Wings fan, I’m not accustomed to relying on rookies to play big roles, and there seems to be a lot of that happening this season.

On the other hand, the penalty kill continues to be horrible, the powerplay wasn’t particularly effective, Jimmy Howard has a five hole like a sieve, Brett Lebda getting hurt actually helped the team, and I’m having flashbacks to the majority of last season. I’m not going to focus on the negative because it’s only going to put me in a worse mood, and let’s face it, I don’t have the time to detail everything that went wrong anyway. I’m not saying it’s time to panic or anything, but it’s a little too early in the season for me to be stressing about the Wings. They’ve got four days off (Arguably the worst part of this whole Swedish adventure. Now that I’ve got a taste of hockey, what am I supposed to do with myself until Thursday?) to sort things out and with any luck, they’ll figure out a way to solve at least one of last season’s recurring problems. Dating back to June, they now have four disappointing losses in a row, and I just want to be able to celebrate a victory.

Now, GO TIGERS!!! I hope I’m not the only one who wants to see them go all the way just for Ernie Harwell. When they were in the World Series three years ago and he called a couple of innings, I closed my eyes and his voice took me right back to when I was a kid laying in front of the TV watching games with my dad on a cool summer evening. It meant so much to me, especially given what was going on in my life at the time. If you haven’t seen his speech, shame on you. I dare you to find someone who grew up in the Metro-Detroit area who didn’t get at least a little misty eyed hearing him talk. If you can make it through without choking up, you've got one heck of a cold heart.

A Piss Poor Day in My LIfe...

So today was miserable. It was filled with leftover angst from Game 4, ridiculous amounts of personal drama, and the lurking sense of dread that accompanies every must-win playoff game. On top of that, I'm probably going to be missing the first half of Game 5, so I've already warned my boss that I'm going to be curled up in the breakroom in a fetal position for the last hour or so of work.

I was planning on going through the lineup calling out all of the Wings who have been under-performing, but quite frankly, I don't have the time. Plus, I don't want it to sound like I'm turning my back on my boys. Depending on how Game 5 goes, maybe I'll be forced to revisit the idea during the extra day off.

I forced myself to read all of the coverage on the several websites that I read. I even made it through the Pens Blog, although that was much easier because they don't seem to be fond of using words. This was an example of one of the many masochistic tendencies that I've picked up over the years as a Wings fan. No matter how much it hurts, I'm drawn to it. Like an insect to a bug-zapper lamp. Or the way you can't help but stare at roadkill. I didn't finish my daily hockey reading until about five minutes ago, thanks to work and a heavy dose of roommate conflicts today. Now that I'm done, I'm thoroughly depressed. I realize that this is pathetic, but it comes with the territory. And you know that. You're the same way. Otherwise you would settle for skimming the sports section and wouldn't be caught within the blast radius of my suddenly violently angry hockey blog.

Babcock says Datsyuk will be in for Game 5. Bingo Bango says that's a lie. I don't know what to believe. I'm choosing not to think about it so that I can make it through ten hours of work tomorrow.

Also according to Bingo Bango, the Tigers are jinxing the Wings. I'm not much of a believer in these kinds of things, but at this point, I'm going to be avoiding anyone with knowledge of the Tigers' score like they have swine flu.

There is one, and only one, glimmer of hope right now. And it is that the Wings have yet to play well. This sounds completely contradictory and nonsensical, I know, but let me explain. They've played like crap for the most part, but still find themselves tied 2-2. So now it's a new series, sort of. And they have the opportunity to turn it around. We'll see if they've got the kind of character we all think they do. It's terrible that they wasted the lead they built in Games 1 and 2, but they're still halfway through the series.

I don't buy the stuff about the Wings being too tired at the end of Game 4. I just think that they checked out somewhere around the mid-point of the game, and thus looked like they couldn't have won a game in a nursing home broomball league.

I'm also not a big believer in game-to-game momentum. Within a game itself, there is most definitely momentum. And it's fairly obvious (or at least I think so, but it could just be that I'm a hockey snob) which team is dominating. But I've never been one to believe that that kind of thing carries over. Anger might, but momentum is the kind of thing that has to be established from the beginning of the game. And it can change on a dime, which is what makes hockey so addicting and also so frustrating. It's why you could walk on air when the Wings win, and vow to never watch another second of hockey in your life when they lose. You know you'll be back, even if it kills you.

What the Wings really need is for their scorers to show up for Game 5. Goals by Darren Helm and Jonny E are fun to talk about and make for a great story-line, but when your back is against the wall, it's time for the big guns to step up and earn their paychecks.

The long story short is that the Wings have the Stanley Cup within their reach. They have it within their power to stick it to Gary Bettman and cement their claim to a dynasty. Whether or not they do so is entirely up to them. If they roll over and die again like they did in Game 4, the series is over and I'll be forced to spend the entirety of next season throwing up in my mouth every thirty seconds when they run a Sidney-Crosby-holding-the-Cup commercial. But if they show up to play like the unstoppable red machine that they are, well, maybe, just maybe, I'll be partying in Hart Plaza again this year.

So tomorrow, I'll wake up and go to work, like I always do. The good news is that I only have a week left at this job, so even if my co-workers think I'm a raving lunatic, it won't matter for long. I'll spend all of my down-time and probably some a significant portion of my busy time desperately attempting to cut a deal with the Hockey Gods. I'll probably swear a lot, because that's what I do when I'm stressed out. And if I'm lucky, I'll get home before the game. It worked last Saturday. But most likely, I'll be standing in front of the TV mesmerized and completely neglecting my job.

And for now...Hockey Gods, if you're listening, just about anything is up for grabs. My car, my Scotty Bowman bobblehead, my soul, my rally rag/security blanket from last year. My Steve Yzerman jersey stays with me, but you're free to claim dibs on my firstborn child, if you're interested.

Bless You, Boys...

On the day in which GM filed for bankruptcy, I felt the need to write about how much the Wings actually mean to this city right now. A run like this is transformative to an area that's going through tough times. I've seen it time and time again.

In 2006, my family was struggling to get by financially. On top of that, we lost my grandmother that September. We were, for the most part, utterly miserable. But the Tigers' World Series run gave us hope. It was something positive to focus on; something to look forward to. We sat and watched almost every game of the postseason together, and while those few hours a day didn't make our problems go away, they gave us a brief release from the depressing grind that our daily lives had become. The Tigers lost that year, but they helped get me and the rest of my family through the toughest few months of our lives. Even though they didn't win, they were a blessing to our family. If that sounds irrational, you probably don't belong reading a sports blog. Every time I think about it, I can still picture all six of us crowding around our one TV that got antenna reception watching the World Series while Ernie Harwell's voice took me right back to my childhood summers. It still gives me chills.

The same thing occurred last year with the Wings. While the metro area wasn't in nearly as bad of a shape financially as it is right now, we were mired in the Kwame Kilpatrick scandal. It was a disgrace, and we once again found ourselves as a punchline for comedians who could never understand us. Things had taken on an "us vs. them" aspect as suburban folks almost universally called for Kwame to be deposed while Detroiters seemed to view criticism of him as a knock on all of them. And then there were the Wings. They united us once again. They gave us common ground on which to come together. It did nothing to change the political realities that we faced as a region, but it sure made us feel a lot better. I was at Joe Vision the night the Wings won, and after the game, my friend and I were walking to the Joe parking garage, and we found ourselves weaving through traffic running and screaming with hundreds of strangers as cars honked their horns and people leaned out of windows to give us high-fives.

During the parade, the City of Detroit float jackknifed as the truck towing it attempted to make the U-turn in front of Cobo. In order to get it around the corner and reattached to the truck hauling it, the parade staff called for people from the crowd to help push it. My brother and I, lifelong suburbanites, ran in from the sidewalk and helped a bunch of strangers, likely also from the suburbs, push the float around the corner so that it could be hooked up to the truck. I thought it was deliciously ironic that, of all the floats, it was the City of Detroit one that needed our help to make it around the corner so that it didn't hold up the parade. I'll also never forget standing in Hart Plaza while the crowd booed so loudly that it drowned out Kwame's speech, even over the loudspeakers. It didn't matter what he was saying, only that he was the one saying it. For the life of me, I'll never understand why he had the nerve to show up at our party, but I don't think I'm meant to. I don't think I want that kind of insight into a mind like his.

And for a couple of weeks in June of last year, we celebrated. While we weren't the ones on the ice, we felt like part of the team. No other city adopts its sports stars like we do. Nobody cares that most of the guys were born in Sweden or Russia or Canada. We don't care. When they pull on a Detroit sports jersey, they become one of us. It felt like we ourselves had won something. We could point to the Wings and say, "See, not everything from Detroit is a screw-up." We may not be able to keep our jobs, or elect competent leadership, but damned if we don't play some fine hockey.

And so we find ourselves a year later, in June 2009. Kwame's long gone, thankfully someone else's problem now. Yet we find ourselves even worse off than a year ago. Both GM and Chrysler have filed for bankruptcy, and Ford is barely hanging on. People are losing jobs left and right, every day seems to bring more bad news, and it seems like there are more 'For Sale' signs than trees in our subdivisions. This time next year, I'll almost certainly be joining the ranks of transplanted Michiganians forced to watch the home that I love struggle for survival from afar. But there are the Red Wings, beacons of hope for as long as I can remember. They're once again serving as a positive distraction to give folks around here a few hours of joy, or at least the occasion to stress about something other than paying the bills.

And, honestly, what more can you ask of a sports team?