Wacky Mommy reminded me that I forgot the best (non-hockey) part of the evening last night, the part in which the “Chevy Prize Blimp” got hijacked. They’ve got this radio controlled blimp that flies around the arena during intermissions, dropping coupons for free margarine (I’m not shitting you), free kids’ tickets, and free fast food hamburgers. The freakin’ crowd goes nuts, especially the kids, and I’m always expecting kids to go pitching over a railing as they chase the damn thing around the arena bowl. The announcer says “Make some noise, he’ll come your way; make a lot of noise, he’ll drop some prizes!” So children and adults alike are looking up at this thing, waving their arms and screaming wildly. I can understand the kids not understanding that the man who’s driving the thing is in plain sight behind them, up in the rafters, but I’ve never understood how the adults can be so daft. Do they really think he can discern their relative position to the blimp and pull the trigger so a piece of paper can flutter down from 100 feet above them, right into their greedy fingers? Do they really not understand that they’re making asses of themselves for a margarine coupon?

Anyway, the pilot’s lack of visibility was demonstrated last night, when the blimp got wedged at the top of the arena bowl and was mobbed by a crowd that included quite a few adults. I didn’t see how exactly it happened, but it looked like the pilot’s view was blocked by the center-hung scoreboard. There must have been 25 people in a tight clutch around the blimp, which strained futilely against their grasp. Finally, it broke free and bobbed away like a big puppy, but its payload had been completely stripped. The mob continued to fight over the booty for a few minutes. Holy blimp shit, Batman, what a freakin’ hillarious scene! And this was right at the beginning of its flight, so the buzz was pretty much killed for the blimp chasers in other parts of the arena. Which is not a bad thing for those of us who prefer to not have children climbing over us, chasing visions of free oleo. Actually, in the first intermission, a voucher for a free kid’s ticket landed in the empty seat next to me, and as I reached for it to hand it to the kids behind us, the little urchin almost tore it out of my hand. Neither he nor his parents said “thank you.” If you’re reading this, You’re welcome, ya little shit.

This, by the way, was the same kid who, with his sibling, was clacking little hand clappers in my ear throughout the first and second periods. And it was one of these kids who had an “accident”, causing the whole family to have to leave the game early. Some time in the third period, Wacky Mommy (who has a lousy sense of smell except when it comes to pee and shit) looked back at the soggy mess of half-eaten pretzels and paper waste they left and said “Phew, somebody had an accident!” The couple sitting beside me had had their own accident, having spilled a cocktail, so it was a pretty nasty soup around us in the old Coliseum. Some time during the third, an arena employee came with her haz mat kit and did a quick once over on the pee-pee puddle, and the lady next to me begged a couple super-absorbent rags to clean up her own mess. No wonder I was in a fightin’ mood by the time the fight cards finally came up. “Get out there and stick ’em! Fuck ’em! Christ! Pop ’em!” I shouted, now that the kids were gone.

God, I love hockey.

…she told me so. But when you decide at the last minute to skip trying to get rush tickets to see a play and instead go see your last-place Portland Winter Hawks take on the league leading Everett Silver Tips, there’s a good chance things are going to get out of hand. Especially when these teams see a lot of each other (Portland managed to beat Everett in Everett last night, 3-1).

Portland played with Everett for two periods, helped out by an extended 5 on 3 power play that yielded a tying goal. But then things started to fall apart in the third. When Everett scored their fifth and final goal at 11:30 of the third, making it 5 to 2, I started looking for Portland tough guy Frazer McLaren to pick a dance partner. But it was 16-year-old Tayler Jordan who got things started at 16:27 with Everett’s Brenan Sonne. This one looked like a draw to me. Then off the ice with them! As soon as the puck was dropped again, 5’11”, 185 lb. Matt Sokol squared off with Everett’s Kyle Beach. Beach is 6′ 3″ and pretty much had his way with Sokol, virtually undressing him in the process. To the showers, boys! Then we had to watch a whole minute and a half of hockey before we got a couple of big guys going at it with 6’6″, 216 lb. Max Gordichuk getting some good licks in on 6’4″, 224 lb. Moises Gutierrez.

With a minute 50 left to go, the crowd was yelling for big Frazer McLaren to get into it, but he spent the balance of the game on the bench.

And Wacky Mommy turns to me and says, “How can you like this sport, with all this fighting?” Somehow she forgot that we were going to go to a play, but she was the one who said, nah, let’s go see the Winter Hawks instead. Seriously, I’m not making this up. And you know, Wacky Mommy always says you can just screw so much and drink so much.

Anyway, it got me to thinking. John, AKA Peatycap, AKA Sig from hockey-fights.com and hockeyfansunite.com has a point about a lack of emotion in the NHL. I exchanged some e-mail with a friend in Minneapolis who recently caught a Wild game, and also commented on the lack of aggression. The hockey-fights.com guys blame the new rules enforcement, which we’re also getting in the WHL this year, but they seem to overlook several years of emotionless clutch-and-grab trap hockey that preceded the lockout. They (correctly) target Gary Bettmann as an incompetent assclown of a manager and marketer, and they also are correct that the rules enforcement has gone too far (though I think we disagree on the degree). But I don’t think that’s what’s killed the emotion in the NHL (especially with an eye on how boring the clutch-and-grab and trap game had become).

The real issue is far deeper than zero-tolerance. I saw more emotion on the ice tonight than I’ve seen in ten games in the NHL this season, and a couple of obstruction penalties going both ways didn’t do anything to quell it. These kids are playing their asses off, because they don’t know if they’re going to make it to the next level or not. Intense intra-division rivalries are the norm in Major Junior hockey, even when it’s a league leading Everett, with 69 points, taking it to Portland, with a lowly 30 points. Maybe the pros just make too damn much money to give a shit night after night, and maybe the fact that they’ve “arrived” makes them complacent. I guess that’s why I’m a junior hockey fan, and I’ve never been too excited about the idea of the NHL in Portland.

I understand why Peatycap’s bitter. He’s a Capitols fan, fer Christ’s sake. Shit, now that Jack Abramoff’s buddies can’t take Congress out to the sky box, the team’s probably going to have to pull up stakes and move to a real hockey town. Just don’t come to Portland, okay? (I hear Las Vegas is looking for a team….)

Let’s talk hockey. (For reference, you may want to check out this entry and all the witty repartee from the boys over at hockey-fights.com.)

Before this goes over the top, let’s not forget we’re on the same side. Hockey is a passionate sport for passionate people.

I guess the shit storm was ignited when somebody posted on the forum at hockey-fights.com that I don’t like their hockeyfansunite.com site. The posting of my link was followed by a Hansen Brothers-like comment “Nail this guy.” My critique was of their message (so far as I could discern it): the new rules enforcement has taken the excitement out of hockey.

Let me restate my point by directly addressing some comments left on this blog. First, John, I believe the biggest problem pre-exists the rules crack-down. Let’s talk about league expansion to the sun belt and the talent dilution that came with it. From this, we got the trap, as well as and clutch and grab. This was killing hockey before the lockout. The enforcement changes are an effort to address that.

Have they gone too far? I think so, believe it or not, especially with regard to interference. The intent is not to open up the ice by creating power plays, but to allow the skills player to skate without getting tackled. The idea was there would be an adjustment period, then the penalties drop off. From where I sit (having grown up watching hockey from the early 80s on) today’s game is way better than the late 90s and early 00s. So the direction is good, if not perfect. Do you really prefer clutch and grab and trap?

Marc C begins with a straw man argument: “You must be kidding when you write that more obstruction-type penalties being called are making the game truly more exciting.” You must be kidding me if you think that’s what I wrote. Go back and read it again, then feel free to comment when you understand the nuance of what I’m talking about. Marc then pronounces “[r]ivalries are now a thing of the past…” and yearns for “hard-hitting action and, yes, a little tension between teams that work hard to win.” Have you seen Buffalo and Washington play lately? Marc C closes with a red herring, the old war horse about stick work and dangerous hits being up because guys can’t police themselves anymore. Yawn. What’s that got to do with the new standard of calling obstruction penalties? Anyway, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that one…. (“You see this quarter? It used to be a nickel.”)

Hannibal chimes in with another straw man. I don’t think I’ve ever invoked the old Broad Street Bullies. Ah, but those were the days, eh?

Then Chuck comes in talking about football. I might have to ban people for talking about football on this site. Seriously. Football. Football?

Now come Chaser/Johnz/Kevanie and Stinky Johnson with their Beavis and Butthead routine, which speaks for itself (and doesn’t reflect all that well on the “movement”, such that it is).

Anyway, despite the hysteria I’ve incited by not jumping whole-heartedly on the “bring back clutch and grab” bandwagon, I think we can all agree that a lot of obstruction calls could be left uncalled. I never said calling more penalties is making the game more exciting. Come on guys, don’t be thick. I wish you all could look back a bit and recognize the connection between league expansion, talent dilution, the relaxing of enforcement, and the consequent slow down of the game due to clutch and grab and the trap. Either you haven’t been watching hockey all that long, or perhaps you live in the south and think it’s great to have all these teams in the sun belt. You think maybe diluting the talent to expand into markets where the ponds don’t freeze might have something to do with declining attendance and a boring game? Maybe, just maybe, guys.

Is Bettman an ass-clown? You betcha! But I’d still rather see any game this season over just about any game in 03-04. Has zero-tolerance gone too far? Probably. But no way do I want to go back to watching tackle/trap hockey. Talk about taking the excitement out of the game.

Wacky Mommy and I have a lot we agree on, but there are a few glaring discrepancies.

1. Religion. She’s a pantheist. I’m a born-again atheist with pantheist tendencies (after starting Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, I’ve foresworn agnosticism). Right. We’re really not that far apart. (But isn’t a religious discussion a nice way to start things off?)

She joined the Unitarian church, which spurred my father to quip, “That’s not a church, that’s a social club!” My seven y.o. daughter calls herself an atheist (and asks, “what’s that mean again?”), but loves going to Sunday school. They eat snacks there.

A Christian friend asked my wife, “What’s your husband think about you joining the church?” and she responded with my joke about not needing to believe in God to be a Unitarian. You know, the Atheist club meets Tuesday nights in the fellowship hall. Coffee and donuts provided. Okay, it’s not really a joke.

Really, I’m fine with Unitarians. So far as I know, they’ve never started any wars or advocated communal violence against Quakers or anything. And they don’t go knocking on doors telling people it’s okay to believe whatever they want, because there are many paths to God.

2. Home decor. I shouldn’t get too far into this one at the risk of starting WWIII, but suffice it to say I deplore clutter and adore surfaces with nothing upon them. There are very few surfaces in our home without piles of papers upon them.

3. Dogs. Well, really, we pretty much agree now that dogs aren’t so great. But when she brought home the pooch in question, it nearly ended our engagement. Okay, all right, I love the stinky ol’ feller, but damn, a dog can really crimp your style.

4. TV. I don’t want to watch it, and I definitely don’t want to talk about it. Oh, okay, I like the Simpsons, Jeopardy, and hockey. And Frontline when I remember that it’s on. But trying to engage me in coversation about “My Name is Earl” is a sure way to bore me to tears.

5. Movies. I like art films, foreign films and documentaries. She likes romantic comedies.

6. Books. She likes chick lit; I like non-fiction.

7. Food. I’m an herbivore. She’s an omnivore.

8. Jewelry. I think it’s ostentatious; she loves sparkly, shiny things.

9. Education. She thinks Catholic school would be just peachy for our youngins (they don’t have nuns teaching any more! they don’t even pray so much!). I would just as soon drill holes in my head as trust my precious children to the Catholic church.

10. Portland. When we first got together, I was hell-bent on leaving Portland. She had a job she loved, and wanted to retire here. Now she is hell-bent on leaving Portland, and I’m comfortably employed and ambivalent about leaving. Go figure.

11. Loading the dishwasher. How can I convince her that my way is right and her way is wrong?

12. Yogurt containers. Me: they go in the recycling bin. Her: they go in the dishwasher, and then left to clutter the drying rack, and then get stuffed in a drawer with a bunch of other yogurt containers we don’t need.

13. Hockey. Now get this: last season, we had a 12-game package for the Winter Hawks. A couple games a month, mostly Saturday night dates. Well, you might guess this got a little old for Wacky Mommy by the end of the season, and you’d be right. So we decided not to buy another ticket package this season. Instead, we’d buy single game tickets, but also go to the theatre, symphony and opera, all of which I love. Now, get this: when it comes time for a date, I can’t get her to the theatre to save my life.

That’s right, folks, she’d rather go to a hockey game than a play.

I haven’t been to a play since last spring, and I’ve been really jonesin. “You can go by yourself,” is her typical response when I ask if she wants to see this play or that. The guys in the locker room at the rink don’t understand. They think I should be thrilled. But you heard me correctly: there is more to life than just hockey.

And with that, I bid you Good Day.

A reader left a note requesting visits to hockeyfansunite.com, and support for their call for “bringing back a traditional North American brand of hockey to the NHL.” The site urges fans to take part in a mass action on January 20th, when almost all NHL teams are playing. The message? As best I can tell, they blame the new rules enforcement crack-down for taking away the excitement of the game.

Uh. Well. I’m afraid I can’t jump on this bandwagon. Sorry, guys. First off, they seem to be yearning for “old time hockey”, i.e. the rough-and-tumble game of the 70s. This is not going to happen. No way. No amount of pleading or sign holding or threats of ticket boycotts is gonna help. Second, the new rules enforcement addresses something that happened in the 90s, which was the slowing down of the game with intensive defensive systems (the “trap”) and lots of clutch and grab. Honest to God, guys, you want to go back to trapping and grabbing?

Seriously, the game is much faster, with far more end-to-end action on a nightly basis than you’d ever see in the 90s. I dare any of you guys to go back and watch game seven of the 2004 Stanley Cup Final (the last year of unofficially sanctioned clutch-and-grab) and compare it to the 2006 series with Carolina and Edmonton. The difference is stark.

The “rules changes” (really, there were only a couple changes, mostly it’s just more strict enforcement of pre-existing rules) have addressed the slow down of the 90s, when league expansion diluted the talent pool to the point that teams were allowed to obstruct the offense in order to compete. Smart coaches took advantage of the relaxing standards of enforcement, and developed tight neutral zone defense (the trap). Once a team got a one-goal lead, the game was basically over. Two goal lead going into the third? Might as well channel surf, cuz the game was over.

Between zero-tolerance on obstruction penalties (hooking, tripping, holding) and the elimination of the two-line pass call, the trap has become far less effective. Games with two-goal leads in the final five minutes are turned around and forced to overtime. No team is comfortable sitting on a one- or two-goal lead anymore. The game is far more exciting than it had become in the 90s. Is it “old time” like the 70s? Nope. But it never will be. The game is always evolving, and frankly, it’s far better now than it was pre-lockout. With any luck, things will keep getting better, and we will never return to the boring defensive style so prevalent before the rules changes.

NHL in Portland? Since the Pennsylvania gaming commission unanimously voted to deny Isle of Capri a slots license, the future of the Penguins in Pittsburgh looks bleak. Scott Burnside on ESPN points out that any realistic Pens fan had to see this coming. “Penguins fans, in your heart of hearts, you knew it was going to play out this way, didn’t you? It would have been too neat, too tidy otherwise,” writes burnside. Now Mario is saying the team is off the market, and he is looking into relocation. The top contenders for an NHL team are Houston, Kansas City (which has a sparkling new arena without a major tenant), and perennial bridesmaid (but never a bride) Portland.

I’ve never liked the idea of NHL here, but I’m starting to warm up to the idea. Especially if the deal involves Malkin, Staal and Crosby. Maybe the Trailblazers will move to Seattle, and Mario will buy the Rose Garden and move the Pens here. It’s a long shot, but it could happen.

Beaulieu suspended for forced flag signing: Jacques Beaulieu, head coach and G.M. of the Saint John Sea Dogs, has been suspende by the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League for forcing his team to sign a flag to be sent to Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. One player was cut from the team, ostensibly for refusing to sign the flag. The league determined that the player, 20 year old Dave Bouchard, was cut for performance reasons, not the flag incident, but still found that

the request from the Sea Dogs to have the players sign the flag was inappropriate and the comments made by Jacques Beaulieu in regards to Dave Bouchard violate the QMJHL anti-discrimination policy. The comments can be hurtful to the player and can be construed as a violation of his rights and consequently, of our anti-discrimination policy.

Gaustad moves up: Sabre’s coach Lindy Ruff has moved Portland boy Paul Gaustad to the second line with Chris Drury and Ales Kotalik. The move entails Gaustad moving from center to left wing, and will mean more ice team and probably more scoring chances.

A junior hockey player in Quebec has been canned for not signing a Canadian flag that was sent to soldiers in Afghanistan.

Now, don’t get them wrong:

[Saint Johns Sea Dogs coach Jacques] Beaulieu said he believes in freedom of expression but added that any player who refused to sign would have been kicked off the team.

In other words: You’re free to express yourself, just not on my team.

…and a basketball game broke out!

But seriously folks, I’m not a fan of hockey fights. You won’t hear me defending it as part of the game (even though it is part of the game). But at least hockey players know how to square off, exchange blows, then head to the box. If you watch the basketball fight with the eye of a hockey fan, you’ll crack up. The NBA suspended 7 players a total of 47 games for the little dust up at Madison Square Garden the other night. There was maybe one decent punch landed. Mostly it was just shoving and running away. Seriously. These guys look like a bunch of pansies out there, afraid to really stand and deliver.

Last season, I took a friend to his first hockey game. When a fight broke out, he was first surprised that the officials let them fight. Then he was surprised that not only would they not get suspended or even ejected, but just sent to the box for five minutes. So I guess you could say there is an upside to having the fighting institutionalized. And, of course, when it does get out of hand, it’s pretty unlikely to spill into the crowd.

Personally, I never miss it when I see a hockey game with no fights (something that is increasingly common). But come on. If you’re gonna fight, at least do it right. Basketball? What a joke!

Edited 12/18/06 5:16 PM: For a more sober take on the Knicks/Nuggets “brawl”, read Dave Zirin at the Nation.com.

I’m going to skip the intro today and get right down to Thirteen Reasons I Get Fat Around the Holidays:

1. Halloween candy.

2. Stupid viruses that make me sick = no playing hockey.

3. Thanksgiving dinner.

4. Spending Thanksgiving week with the folks and eating ice cream.

5. It’s stinkin’ cold in Ory-gun. (Even while it was 65 and sunny in I-o-way!) Makes me want to pack on the pounds for hibernation. I want to eat even when I’m not hungry.

6. Travel time = no hockey.

7. Travel time = drinking time.

8. Hockey on TV = snacks.

9. Cookies, cake and candy. If they’re not at home, they’ll be at the office.

10. Short days, long nights, warm bed. Who wants to get up and exercise?

11. Rain. Nine months of it. Not a lot of walks or bike rides until July ’07.

12. Neighborhood progressive party.

13. Ah, to heck with it. I’m playing hockey today, and I’m bucking this trend!

Happy holidays all!

From the Associated Press:

BOISE, Idaho — Two employees have been fired from the city’s ice skating rink after making a midnight fast-food run — in a pair of Zambonis.

The ice-groomer jockeys, both temporary city employees whose names and ages weren’t released by Boise Parks and Recreation, had to negotiate at least one intersection with a traffic light on their late-night creep from Idaho Ice World.

Read the whole story in the Seattle Times.