the pocketdawg

just got a call from my pal strombo. apparently he'll be discussing the merits of the pocketdawg tonight on the hour. cbc-tv, 8pm local.

watch and learn.
;)

***UPDATE: it's a little tidbit just following mile a minute, just at the start of the show....

flames v. blues postgame: the mojo returneth

first of all, whoah.

second of all, whoah.

i'm envious that ST and ST2 were at that game, cause hell. you might as well fly in from toronto to watch one of the most offensive games of the year, where juice and lombo both snapped scoring droughts, kipper looked largely awesome and iggy passed theoren fleury to take the alltime franchise scoring title... meh. i gue-ss....

kipper, while finishing the game, got a bit rattled by an accidental owen nolan knee to the head. apparently the blow brought out a feistier version of our generally-calm 'tender. i think the replay of the game is kipps tossing the puck into the face of a st. louis player. like RIGHT IN THE FACE.... hot.

lombo's goal also damn highlight reel worthy....

*sigh*

this is not my best post ever but i gotta go to work.

flames v. blues pregame: guess who's a tease ??

before i get into the flames/blues matchup, let's talk a little bit about my boy forsberg. the blue-eyed swede spent the better part of the past year nursing some major foot issues, nearly forcing retirement. just prior to the trade deadline, he surprised most of the world by signing with colorado, joining the team later that week. following another week of hard workouts & practises, foppa declared the foot ready to go....

ohhhhh, the irony that he's now gone down with the ol' groin injury that sidelined him so often in past seasons, and after the 'lanche won six straight with #21 in the lineup.... just in the nick of time, too. had the avs notched a W today versus dallas, the flames would have sunk to seventh in the western conference....

poor foppa... he didn't even go out on his eponymous hattrick...
such a tease. ;)

anyhow. the flames will certainly lose tonight's game against the blues. why ? because that's what they do. it is as though standing on the brink of failure is where the flames feel most comfortable, and they will presumeably stand there (teetering) until the last possible moment, when they'll reel it in and slide into a playoff spot like the hero slides into homeplate at the end of a tear-jerking baseball movie. i'm ready for it. the next three weeks are gonna be painful....

the blues, though not mathematically eliminated as yet, know they're done for the year (although, admittedly, someone should probably tell brad boyes). these guys are not going down without a fight...

flames v. preds postgame: tradition

in true calgary flames form, the boys didn't show up to play a game that the local blogosphere met up to watch. the good news is, we got a point. the other good news is the last time we all got together to watch the flames fall apart, the C's went on a 5-game winning streak..... ;) the other good news is that we had a pretty good time and the beers at flames central have been lowered in price, to a slightly-inflated-but-not-obscene total of 6.50 for an import pint....

so we've got two days to prepare for a st.louis team that's starting to seriously think about stamkos. realistically this should be a win, but knowing the flames of late, it's gonna be a helluva tight game. i'm not sure what mike keenan can do anymore to prove a point, but it's no secret the boys are not playing to potential....

*sigh*

flames v. preds pregame: playing with fire

let's review:

flames & preds are 3 points apart in the WC standings: the flames currently have sole possession of the 3rd playoff spot, while the predators are sitting below the line, based purely on on games played & W/L record (they're technically tied for 8th).
conclusion: the preds are not going down without a fight tonight.

in addition to a fired-up nashville team, the flames are also going to have to overcome the fact that ST being in town has prompted a blogger hookup... the flames are 0-3 in this capacity. on the other hand, duncan and i went to flames central once to watch a flames/predators game ----the only untelevised game of the year, it turned out---- and the C's took that one on a reviewed goal by eric godard (and we narrowly avoided arrest)....
conclusion: this game could really go either way.


i've heard nary a peep from any of you re: phone #s. so i suppose if a venue change is in order, the unicorn it shall be.... MEANING IF WE CAN'T GET A SPOT AT FLAMES CENTRAL !!!!!!!!! I'M HEADING TO FLAMES CENTRAL FOR 7PM-ISH, AND WILL BE THERE IF WE CAN GET A TABLE.... THE UNICORN IS THE BACKUP PLAN

sorry to confuse.

flames v. BJs postgame: big wins and big losses

well, i didn't watch much of the game last night ---i had the teev on but spent the first two periods playing pinball, and then went out to go see a punk band at the stetson. what i know is that warrener and hale, as a pairing, make me nervous like old times, that kipps with a bit of rest and a kick in the pants rose to the challenge, and theoren fleury looks like he should be selling cars (did you hear that, peplinski ??)... big win for the flames on home ice.

the big loss for the flames came last week sometime, but i only found out about it today. it seems they selected someone to fill the role of entertainment coordinator without even interviewing yours truly.... boooo ! i don't wanna be cocky or conceited but, in all honesty, i would've rocked that job.... :(

meh.
onwards and upwards....

flames central is the chosen locale for the nerdy flames blogger convention this friday night. i'll head down around 7 to see if i can get a table... if yes, you'll find me in the bar somewhere holding seating for 5-6 (or as many as possible in that range). if no, i'll be loitering, i guess, waiting for enough of you to show up to decide on an alternate location (unicorn ? joyce ? bear and kilt, if it still exists ?).... if you would like to exchange phone numbers, drop me a line at walkinvisible@gmail.com....

yep.

flames v. soldiers pregame & blogger meet-up info

i'll start with the blogger meetup thing. ST from completely hammered is flying in from toronto later this week, and has proposed we meet up to watch the preds game on friday. while i'm leniant to do it (knowing that the flames have a bad habit of losing during these blogger socials, and knowing that every point counts), i'm rarely one to turn down a pint and a game.... so i'll let ST tell us whereabouts in the city he's gonna be, and we'll go from there. personally, i'm thinking brewsters on 11th & 8th, but only because the kilkenny is full of such bad mojo, and brewsters is more central for those of you who live down south... ;)

as for tonight's game, the bluejackets march into the 'dome looking to make up some ground on the 8th and final playoff spot. they've won some huge games in the past weeks, knocking off such formidable opponents as the canadiens, sens, and 'nucks. it seems this team enjoys a challenge, while falling to the lesser opponents (sound familiar ??). it's this particular statistic that makes me nervous about tonight's outcome...

go flames !

sunday ramblings

a few weeks ago, my buddy shawn took me to see the battle of alberta. i'm very accustomed to sitting in the first tier (my dad's got seasons), so sitting 5th row just behind the flames' bench was pretty fun. if you stop watching the game long enough to pay attention to the goings-on behind the scenes, it's fairly interesting. from what/when the coaches bark orders, to the equipment tweaking, it's a pretty busy little area back there.... but what amused me more than the proximety to the action was the little things like this:



if you look closely, you've got aucoin's rbk woodys:


phaneuf's lime green snappers:


d.hale, k.huslius & d.langkow's weapons:


and "LOMBO'S" nike bauers:
(which amused me due to the use of nickname and lack of 'henhenhen').


there is absolutely no point whatsoever to this post, other than vague amusement for probably just myself. though i did notice last night that lombo's sticks read "LOMBARDI," so i'm not sure what's goin on with that..... probably nothing.

:)

flames v. coyotes postgame: redemption

all i wanna say is: the bad luck has GOT to be over now....

the bad karma associated with the disallowed goal by voros the other night should be officially cancelled out by the TWO goals the flames had called back tonight. apparently goalies outside the crease are not fair game, and a bit of coincidental contact by jarome not only had a goal nullified, but provided the captain with a two-minute rest in the sinbin. the second goal, the regehr dump in/boyd deflection, seemed indisputably over the line to me (but i don't work in toronto). finally, lombardi and huselius (aka: the wonder twins) both rang the post tonight, and then completely missed the empty net twice. to put it simply: this will not continue to happen. it actually makes me think that the both of them might just be due for a hell of a streak in the postseason....

speaking of confusion, in the final period lombardi got called for crosschecking. in effort to pull one over on the refs, and knowing conroy was gone for the night, dustin boyd skated to the box, leaving #18 on the ice ready to PK (nice try, dusty, but people don't get penalties for receiving crosschecks). the bonehead CBC latenight guy, who was not jim hughson, pointed out that the flames bench would be better to keep lombardi in play "as they're short centremen." comments like that tick me off to no end. sure, conroy's not around and he's major on the PK, and yeah, it would be a huge drag to kill penalties without lombardi as well, but DUSTIN BOYD IS AN EFFIN' CENTREMAN. and so is primeau. and yelle. and smith. and we all know that langkow is too.... so why not just tell the viewing audience that lombardi in the box would be detrimental to the flames because two of their top penalty-killing centremen are now unavailable to kill penalties....

pardon the outburst. sometimes it just gets to me...

good outing by the flambés tonight, starting tough and pressuring through the end of the game. cujo had a solid match, warrener made a decent statement on wanting to stay in the lineup (kudos to keenan for not pairing him with regehr), and the iggy/phaneuf duo were as clutch as always. with conroy out, lombardi got some time on the second line and (i must say) he's looking outrageously good right now. the kids really stepped it up: nystrom and boyd both had good games. i hate to say it but if we play like we did most of tonight, we're gonna have a good run.....

:)

other notables: it was heartwarming to see doan cheering on his puck magnet between periods. lombardi had the hit of the game when he took out the linesman. iggy tied theo's goal total for #1 on the flames alltime list, and cujo beat terry sawchuk to take over the 4th alltime NHL goalie wins with 448 (not 488 as all the sports channels keeps quoting). oh, and keenan benched a 3.6 million dollar defenseman after he'd played over 450 straight games.... and good on'im. i'm loving keenan a wee bit more every day....

cujo v. the dogs

not much to say, here. the flames looked decent last night, but for the second straight outing they couldn't find the back of the net. you've got to think that one of these days, lombardi's aim will be "a quarter inch" to the right side of the post/crossbar and huselius will break out of his slump with avengeance. we can no longer presume his difficulties were based on the trade deadline.

the horrible part of this stretch run is knowing that the flames probably have enough to make it deep into the postseason, pending the team steps it up with all skaters playing to potential. the majority of the defensive corps has been all-but-terrible, and most of the forwards have been underachieving. i think the team gets beat by themselves and not the other teams, most nights, with too many fancy passes and sloppy play in all zones.

*sigh*

i will predict a loss (cause the team reacts well to it).