Recap: Canucked Up

The Stanley Kubrick Edition

Red Line/Blue Line: The night got off to a rough start.  Commuting home from K Street’s Ground Zero, the Farragut North Metro stop, to watch the game, we came across an all too typical sight – problems on the Red line and a train dead in its tracks. 

Normally not a big deal, but the platform that usually just sees lobbyists and other assorted Beltway bottom feeders, was teeming with anxious Caps fans hoping to make puck drop.  It was 650pm and the fans were getting restless.  Finally a train made its way into the station, and your intrepid reporter was fully aware of the gravity of the situation. When the doors opened and the herd slowly crowded onto the train car, he barked to the waiting riders, “Women, children and Caps fans first!”

Downright Creepy:  You can’t understate the playing ability of the Sedin twins, but we’ll be honest, twins creep us out.  

Add to that list clowns, mimes and unstable cable TV pundits who dress in Founding Fathers drag. 

The Sweden Sedin boys hit DC and the ice ready to play. 

As another pair of creeptacular twins were once known to say, “Come play with us… forever and ever and ever.” 

Or in last night’s case, just sixty minutes was all it took.

Unfamiliar Territory: For the first time since December 28, the Caps lamped first. Boyd Gordon to the always hard working Matt Hendricks.  Matt sneaked one in under Canuck net minder Roberto Luongo’s armpit.  Wow, a lead early in the first.  However, that elation soon dissapated as Canuck Alexander Edler tied the game at the 8 minute mark. 

Cut and Paste:  Through the remainer of the first and into the second frame, once again we played what looked to be unmotivated and uninspired hockey. 

Molly Riley - Reuters

A Caps penalty in the second period proved especially costly since our normally effective PK squad failed and Christian Ehrhoff put one past Varly. 

Minutes later, Jason Chimera lost the puck in the neutral zone, and in a flash it was 3-1, courtesy of one of the creepy twins. 

“Good teams make you pay for mistakes,” Locker remarked.  Speaking of hockey pundits, smart commenter guy from Vancouver Chris, warned us yesterday about Luongo.  Did we listen? No. We’re just happy to get comments.

How Swede It Is: In the third (outshooting them 11-6 ), it looked like we had a shot for a C3- a Classy Caps Comeback after our handsome Swedish combo of Backstrom and Johannson connected. Down one goal with 11 minutes to go.  Very doable.

Greg Fiume - Getty Images

We played well in the last, aggressive, with tempo and rhythm but the boys could not make it happen. Time was running out.

The empty netty sealed the deal at the end.  Joe B. commented at one point that it looked like the Swedish national team out there, our two boys plus four Canucks.  Major kudos to our fave Swede Nicky Nineteen, who although hasn’t been able to find the twine in 19 games, battled and won nearly every face-off last night.  He’s still got it.  But sometimes “It” isn’t enough.

Puck Punditry: It was the only match between these two squads this season.  Maybe we need to thank the scheduling Gods for that.  This was only the 3rd time ever the Canucks have played at Verizon, and even though they had a game the night before, losing to the Rangers 1-0 at the Garden, they came ready to rumble. Rumble they did.  We’ll leave it to others to posit if last night’s perfomance was a relativley good showing considering that we were up against the league’s leading team.

Poo-Pooing the PPs:  Why bother anymore at this point.  During one PP opp, there were so many passes between 8, 19 and 52, that it looked like pattycake instead of hockey – 18,000 Caps fans screaming, SHOOT!” Somehow, sometime, someone will pick the lock and figure out the fix for those anemic and downright dispiriting, poorly executed two-minute drills.  Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?

Meet The Press: After the game, Coach Boudreau offered his thoughts:

“(We were) cautiously trying to do the right things but not creating any opportunities…. When you’re having a struggle scoring goals, the only way to get out of it is you shoot the puck – and go to the net… you tip one and get dirty goals. You crash the net.”

Teams We Hate:  Bigtime attaboys go out to the normally hapless Devils for taking down the loathesome Bolts last night.  AARP member and newly acquired goalie Dwayne Roloson, the SOB who vexed us twice in recent weeks got his ass shelled.  He debuted his new airbrushed lid in last night’s game and at one point after being thrashed by the NJ squad, replaced it with the generic Sports Authority model that he sported when we faced him earlier this week. Yeah, it was the mask.  It’s always the mask. Blame the F-ing mask.

Breaking News: The fair-haired Eric Fehr will be out 3-4 weeks with a UBI after his Steckel collision.  Life isn’t Fehr.  A Hershey call-up is in the works. Kissy boy Gordo?

Cap Cities: Sunday @ Verizon it’s the Senators in a 3pm matinee.  Ottawa has lost 7 of their last 8.  Let’s make it… Help me with the math here…  8 of their last 9.

And Because Bandwidth Is Cheap: Another set of twins to set your teeth on edge.  We often wondered if it was this iconic Diane Arbus image that gave Stanley the idea.

About Craig

Proudly serving gay hockey fans and players since 2010
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