Greetings all! Hope you don't mind, but I figured I might stop by this place while I watch some TV on the computer. Seems that the game that Yahoo Sports is broadcasting is the Rangers-Penguins matchup from Madison Square Garden. This is the second time this year I have seen the Penguins on Yahoo, which is a surprise of sorts, because last year they were blacking out local broadcasts, then again, we are getting the New York feed, so that may be why I am able to watch it.
This is the second sporting event for Pittsburgh teams today, as the college football team is just finishing up getting its ass kicked by Rutgers. I'll admit, I was starting to second guess myself about my consistent calling for the firing of Dave Wannstedt, as after blowing a 10 point lead and losing the season opener to Bowling Green, hardly a football powerhouse, Pitt had rolled off 5 consecutive wins to get to 5-1 and looked to be in a good position to at least run the table in the very weak Big East Conference. With a conference title would have come a BCS game and maybe the first sign of promise that the team was finally getting better, but sure enough Pitt played down to the level of their competition, actually worse than their competition given they lost, which is par for the course of a Wannstedt led team, and they got their asses kicked, 54-34 to a very bad Rutgers team.
Okay, hockey game is underway and the feed is working. From a fantasy perspective, I have a couple of Rangers on my team, Marcus Naslund and Nikolai Zherdev, and of course Miroslav Satan for Pittsburgh, thus the fantasy team's rallying cry this year "I Have Satan on My Side".
The other night I learned that my fantasy team will be voting Democrat in the upcoming election. Seems Sarah Palin was in St Louis for a campaign event the other day and that night she was invited to drop the ceremonial puck at the St Louis Blues hockey game. During the setup for the puck dropping, they rolled the carpet on the ice for her and Blues goaltender Manny Legace had his skate caught up in the carpet and he ending up pulling a hip flexor muscle and is on a day to day basis as far as playing. Of course, Legace is also one of my goaltenders, and nothing does less for your campaign platform that to take out my fantasy hockey team.
Actually, the fantasy teams have been doing okay to this point, the football team is 4-3, and given I expected about a .500 record for them, I am not complaining yet. It would be nice if my roster could sneak into the playoffs, but it isn't something I expect.
Penguins have the games first power play tonight, the hockey game remains scoreless almost 8 minutes in and shortly after the penalty ends, Pittsburgh gets the games first goal, Darryl Sydor gets his first of the year and it is Penguins 1-0. The announcers are giving assists to Kris Letang and Tyler Kennedy, though I haven't seen official confirmation of that yet. Of the three, I would say Letang has the most fantasy value, though Kennedy has been decent early on. Despite the goal, Sydor has been useless to this point, he has been in and out of the lineup, almost always as a healthy scratch.
As for my fantasy teams, after two weeks we sit at 13-5-2, good for third place in the ten team league. I am up against the second place team this week. and this early in the year, I will take a 5-5 week against the teams above me. Maybe later in the year if I am clawing for one of the top 6 spots for teh post season I will worry more about positioning, but for now I just want to be even with the good teams. Wins will come against those guys that eventually start to neglect their teams as the season progresses. I know at least two guys that I am not even sure they have looked at their roster yet, let alone went about the process of setting a day to day lineup. Those are the guys I want to go 10-0 or 9-1 against.
I am glad I didn't call this a glog, because while I am watching the game, I am not doing a whole lot of commentating on it, and the first period is almost over. The game itself is almost being evenly played, only one penalty so far, Wayne Redden getting two minutes for cross checking and the goal came as the penalty ended but Redden unable to get back into the play, so it was of the non power play variety even though Pittsburgh still had a man advantage in the actual end of the ice where play was commencing. But shots are almost even, 8-7 in favor of New York as the first period comes to a close. The assists that were originally credited on the first goal by the announcers have not been officially credited by the NHL, as the puck also deflected off of a Ranger before going in the net. I will keep you posted on that.
By the way, while we are in our first intermission, thank yous out to everyone who took part in the first Ask Matt Anything. I can't speak for yous all, but I had a blast and what I expected to last a minute or so went on for a solid two hours far beyond my expectations. As a result, I will do one again in November, just not sure of the date and time yet. That will depend on my schedule, which may be changing in the near future. I had a couple of overnights at the radio station this past week, which meant I ended up taking time off at Walmart, not sure how happy they are with that, not that I care all that much, but I haven't ben there yet since I took the time off, so I don't know how happy or sad they are with me. Worst case scenario I will be back to one job, best case nothing happens and I work two jobs. All in all it gets nothing more than a shrug of my shoulders from me.
As for dinner tonight, I am opting for leftovers of a disaster I made the other day involving pasta, butter, garlic and spinach. Originally it tasted pretty crappy, so I added a can of chicken broth to it in order to make it almost wedding soup like it and it got better, still not great, but better. The thing is, I hate wasting food, something I picked up as a kid when I had to clean my plate because we didn't waste food, and as a result, I am still trying to finish this stuff a few days after first making it.
Second period is underway while I am shoveling spinach into my face. I snuck away from my hockey page on Sportsline while the intermission was taking plcae, so now I am in the process of sneaking back. I use it for the technical stats stuff while I blog, because unlike when I used to cover he Penguins, nobody hands me a stat sheet between periods. Those were so nice, and would come in handy at a time like this, but they won't deliver those to my apartment, so I am stuck with whatever the web can offer.
Looks like a penalty has been called, slashing on Nikolai Zherdev, 2 minutes for slashing. Seemed a little ticky tacky to me, but the two minutes does help the fantasy roster and it does give the Penguins their second power play of the game.
Radio work has been blah since the format change. I am producing three shows now, two on Sunday and a paid program Tuesdays and Thursdays. Nothing that will get me any mike time, the Sunday shows involve gardening and a nature show, two things I know nothing about and the paid program is a financial advice show, nothing better than trying to push a financial show during an economic downturn. then again, we are no longer about ratings, we are about checks clearing. As long as they want to buy time, we will sell.
Matt Cooke takes the Penguins first penalty of tonight's contest a holding call, and the Rangers will get the power play. The Penguins second effort with the man advantage resulted in nothing so the score is still 1-0.
The game is better than halfway over, from a hockey fan's perspective it has been good, lots of skating and flow to the game, from a typical American sports fan perspective it would suck as only one goal has been scored. Don't believe me about American sports fans, look at the World Series taking place between Philadelphia and Tampa Bay right now. The first two games were very good baseball games, but the lack of a large TV market and no 10-9 contests and the ratings are all but awful. Pitching, defense, fundamentals, for all that people complain about when it comes to those things in baseball, nobody wants to see them on TV. Look at game two where Tampa scored three of their runs on two RBI ground outs, hitting the ball to the opposite side so the runner from third could score, and a squeeze bunt. Baseball fundamentals to be sure, but as the saying goes, chicks dig the long ball, and those have been few and far between.
I saw that Texas won today in college fotball, they will remain #1 in the next poll, but I have always had a soft spot for their opponent, Oklahoma State. Back when they had Thurman Thomas and then after him, Barry Sanders, and they just were always cool to me. Even when they stunk. The last few years they have been getting better again, blowing leads to Texas the last couple of years and this year they entered the Texas game undefeated, but they lost again, 28-24. they juist can't get that monkey off of their back, for whatever reason.
While I was blabbing on things of no consequence, Pittsburgh scored again, Sidney Crosby getting his thrid goal of the season and Pittsburgh leads 2-0. That is Crosby's 12 point of the young season, he has 9 assists to go with the three goals,
Meanwhile, more crap happens while I am typing, the Penguins take two penalties before a stoppage of play, so for two minutes the Rangers will skate witha 5-3 advantage, Brooks Orpik gets two minutes for slashing, Mike Zigmanus gets two minutes for interference. This is a biig chance for the Rangers to get right back in this contest but the Rangers fail to score despite the 5-3, Marc Andre Fluery was really good in net for Pittsburgh there and the score remains 2-0. The Rangers tallied 7 shots, none of them got behind him during the two two minute penalties.
We have reached the second intermission and Pittsburgh leads 2-0.
Rarely do I promote Yahoo services, but their hockey coverage has been even better this year than last, at least early on. I had some problems with feeds last year, not including games that were blacked out for local reasons, and this year, absolutely none. They have increased my connection speed to 1200K and the full screen view has looked almost like I was in fact watching the game on TV. Plus, I have yet to link up on a game where the video feed didn't work, which did happen from time to time last year. For Ralph, you may want to know that the next game scheduled is the Detroit-Los Angeles matchup on Monday night.
For the record, Evgeni Malkin and Alex Goligoski got the assists on the Penguins second goal.
I finished the spinach slop I had made. I would like to think that by cleaning my plate I get a cool dessert, but that would mean I have to go out and get a cool dessert and I don't feel like getting off of my ass right now.
I am trying to think of anything else that has happened around these parts since the last time I have blogged anything of consequence. I have been tinkering with some games a little more, I picked up another level in Diablo 2, I am up to 84 now, and in baseball I am just getting more and more frustrated. The last time I mentioned it, I was hoping to win a Triple Crown, leading the league in homeruns, RBIs and batting average. Well, it turned out that I won the latter two and on the last day of the season I hit two homeruns to tie for first in that category as well, but after my game completed, Todd Helton (who is with Kansas City through computer orchestrated trades) hit one more to beat me by one. That being said, the Devil Rays won their division and qualified for the post season, where they drew the Oakland A's in the first round in a best of 5 series. I split the first four games, and came back from 3-0 and 5-3 deficits in the final game to win 10-7 and move on. Next round was the very same Kansas City Royals and I dominated them in a best of 7 series, winning 4-0. Over the course of those 9 games, Joe Random (my character) hit over .400, had three homeruns, 8 RBIs, 9 runs scored and 2 stolen bases. Definitely decent numbers, but every time I would opt to "simulate to next appearance" thinking it would be in the World Series, Joe gets demoted to the minor leagues before game one. Mind you the minor leage season is over, so I am just getting snubbed. No matter how many times I try it, the same thing happens. As a result, I saved the file right there (before I get demoted) and created a new one where I do get demoted, but as a result I bad mouth the team and get cut. In the off season I have four contract offers to choose from and I have signed with the Detroit Tigers, if for no other reason than the opportunity to kick Tampa's ass during the regular season. I have started off slow, I am hitting about .250, but I do lead the team in HRs and RBIs and I am playing everyday, though at the DH spot.
Third period is underway here, Pittsburgh still leading 2-0. The shots to this point are even at 24 a peice and both teams have had two power play opportunities, the only noticeable difference is on the scroreboard.
For those that were wondering, as long as the NHL makes the highlight videos available on Youtube, I will be posting all of the Penguins videos this year.
The Rangers get a power play, Brooks Orpik is sent to the box, 2 minutes for slashing and all of 7 seconds into the power play, the Rangers score to make it 2-1. Marcus Naslund with the goal, which does help me, it is a goal and a power play point, and with 13 minutes left in the contest, it is now a one goal game.
Sorry, I have been getting wrapped up in the game and not paying attention to my typing duties. While we started the third period relatively even, the Penguins are being outshot here in the third period 11-2. It is almost like they are just trying to hold on and protect the lead rather than play they way they did when they got the two goal lead to begin with.
Rangers get another power play, this time the penalty on goalie Marc Andre Fleury for playing the puck outside the goaltender zone. The goaltender isn't sent off the ice when he commits a penatly, rather someone else is asked to serve the penalty for him. Regardlesss, it does give New York a man advantage for 2 minutes.
The Penguins kill the power play, and less than 7 minutes remain in the game, and Pittsburgh is trying to still protect a one goal lead. The third period, from a strictly level of play perspective, is definitely all Rangers. And this marks the longest I have been able to sit down and watch a hockey game all season. I have caught bits and pieces, mostly on Yahoo, but either I have to go to work or the game is a west coast game and is on so late that I can't stay up for all of it.
For those of you that have been wondering why I haven't picked an Asshat the last few weeks, it is because, while I would like to pick someone inviolved in the current financial crisis, there are so many that it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Just too easy.
2 minutes left and Fleury makes another save. The Rangers should be pulling the goaltender pretty soon and as I type that Fluery makes a series of saves while the clock is ticking down. Sure enough the Rangers do pull the goaltender and with 8 seconds left the gambit pays off as Nikolai Zherdev scores, helping my fantasy team and also sending tonight's contest to overtime, as we are tied 2-2. It is an odd feeling to both be happy for your fantasy team, but alos depressed as a fan of the home team. As a bonus, I am thinking Naslund will get an assist on that goal, which helps me even more. They haven't posted it yet, but it looks like Naslund had the primary assist on that rush up the ice.
OT underway and Pittsburgh has the first good scoring chance, Crosby setting up Ruslan Fedentenko in front but Henrik Lundqvist makes the save and we play on in the 5 minute overtime. Again the Penguins with a chance, Crosby in front and the backhand shot is stopped, followed by a shot from the point and Lundqvist makes the glove save to end the rally.
1 minute left in overtime and we may be headed for a shootout. Shootouts are cool in that no game ends in a tie anymore but suck because the stats in shootouts don't count so it doesn't help me from a fantasy perspective. Crosby gets a couple more cracks at the very end of overtime, but Lundqvist again is up to the challenge and we remain tied at 2.
Bring on the shootout. the question is who will shoot for the teams, as each team lines up three shooters to make a rush at the goaltender and whichever team converts the most shots wins. If it is tied after the first three shooters, then teams continue down the roster, one player at a time until one team comes out on top.
Lets start shall we,;
Round 1
New York Nikolai Zherdev - shot saved
Pittsburgh Kris Letang - shot saved
Round 2
New York Nigel Dawes - shot saved
Pittsburgh Petr Sykora - shot saved
Round 3
New York Freddie Sjostrom - goal
Pittsburgh Sidney Crosby - shot saved
New York wins shootout 1-0 and the game 3-2 in overtime. As always, as soon as Youtube makes the video available I will add it to the collection.
And for the time being, I will shut my trap and do the spell check thing. Nite everyone.
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