It's Hockey Season!!

“Beautiful day today. C'mon guys, turn off the computer, go outside, get some fresh air, and kill whitey.”

“Fleury for MVP? snicker ”

“Congrats Detroit! Good game, good series!

It's not hockey season anymore!

We'll get 'em next year!”

“Finally! I can sleep now!


Great game again.....Pens managed to put on a huge rush in the last two minutes (maybe because they weren't playing at all the previous 18 minutes) to make it as gut-wrenching as possible. Might see the same two teams next year!”

“Phew! The season's over. I don't have to worry about getting boarded by Tango.”

“I just might miss the season too much and give Geo a good hard check into the boards just for nostalgia sake! You know what they say Geo, don't put your head down! Ha ha.”

“hooked maybe but not crosschecked into the broads”

“I am neither a goon nor a dirty player, a good hard check is just GREAT hockey! ;-)”

“We witnessed history in the making; first european captain of a team....with half the team members from europe won the Stanley Cup.

Hate to say it....but out of 6 games....the Pens only showed up for 2. :o( They were man-handled by the Red Wings.....”

“Training camp starts in only three months!”

“Two years ago my Flutters showed up for no games before getting sent golfing early. That was an embarrassment.”

“Memo to self: If Tango gets near me, pull her jersey over her head!”

“That's kinky....is it like putting a bag over her face. :o)”

“I'll put him into the boards just like Kaspar did to Lindros. AND just like Lindros Geo won't know what hit him!”

“18 days before the preseason starts!”

“false advertising!     LOL”

“It's not hockey season till tango says it is. Even Gary Bettman defers to tango.”

“so does that make this the pre-preseason?”

“No, it's not hockey season or hockey preseason. Tango will say when.”

“Tango must be slacking. BTW my post was just to indicate that it's almost that time of year again.”

“For shame. The preseason started 3 days ago. I guess Tango really dropped the ball on this one.”

“Wings in six.”

“Yeah, still waiting to hear her bellow "Flyers suck!"”

“Alright Tango, reporting late for training camp is a violation of da rules of da organ-eye-zation, eh?”

“HERE I AM!!! How 'bout them Penguins!!! Woke up at 3AM to watch the replay of the game this morning!”

“Hey T, how'd you like the football game?”

“Wait till this weekend... Parker isn't playing... the ball is going to be rolling aound on the ground quite a bit..

'32oz”

“What is this sport you're talking about that involves a ball? This is the hockey thread damn it! :-p”

“Jeez, you're right, and it's not even Canadian football either.

Go Argonauts!”

“HA HA HA! (game sucked!)”

“My winter roadtrip of 2000 found me one night in Gorham, NH. I got a room there after bailing out of a totally ill-prepared snowshoe/camping trip along the wintry, windswept slopes of Mount Adams. It was a Saturday between the two holidays, and the height of the college bowl season.

Before finding a room, I sought-out a sports bar. I found one - just a short ways past the place where I had returned the rented snowshoes. The probability of watching a game or two over a hot, thick double chili/bacon cheeseburger and a couple ice cold beers was what tipped the scales in my decision to escape the harshest winter conditions I had ever experienced.

After washing up, layering up, and getting Sarabelle tucked in for the night, I left the motel for the sports bar. I was awash with anticipation."Burgers, beer, and football - it don't get no better than this" I thought. And it don't.

When I stepped into the warm din of the bar I was home. It could have been the Sports Oasis or the Three Dollar Cafe back in McDonough. The smells, the sounds, the people - same, same, same. Yet I soon realized that something - something - was different.

Then it hit me - it was the televisions. Every one - 24 or so in number - were brightly displaying sportsmen in uniforms of every color, tint, and shade seeking the goal of their opponents. But these were not goals known as "field" - and this was not ball known as "foot". This was key known as "hoc".

"There must be some mistake" I thought. I made another lap around the room.
"Oh my God - these poor souls!"
Not Falcons or Eagles, but Ducks and Penguins. Not Georgia Tech Yellowjackets or Nebraska Cornhuskers , but Tri-State Sasquatches and 20th Mainers. I was genuinely shocked, yet amused. I saw a TV remote on the bar, so I sat at the stool closest to it - chuckling to myself, and at myself.

I always anticipate seeing, feeling, and doing new things with every roadtrip, but this one was over the top.

During that trip, I sat in the door of my tent into the wee hours one night as I marveled at an hours-long moonlit Catskill snow shower - compliments of ours truly, Sirpete of Millwork.

I donned snowshoes for the first time in my life and broke trails in the thick blankets of Adirondak and Presidential Range snow.

Sarabelle and I - each giddier than the other - had walked and walked and walked across a frozen Vermont lake when I suddenly realized we were standing only inches above 31 degree water a thousand feet from the nearest shore. The sensation that rushed across my left brain was one I shall never forget.

I stopped one early, chilled morning to have breakfast at a restraunt in downtown Lake Placid, NY. The proprietor was busy shoveling snow from the sidewalk as the "hired help" occupied themselves inside with the pre-opening rituals. Seeing an idle shovel leaning against the storefront, I offered to help until the coffee was brewed. Dude looked at me as if I had an anaconda crawling from a gaping crack across my skull.

I experienced yet another first - in my 40-plus years, I had never held a snow shovel. It was incredibly light. I was an adolescent before I weighed more than the shovels I'm accustomed to. And the snow? Three words: Georgia red clay. I've probably moved enough of that Godless stuff to sink the USS George H. W. Bush. Man! I owned that little shovel, and made the fluffy white stuff my b!+ch. I must have looked quite the Gomer just a shoveling and whistling away there beside Main Street.

But 24 televisions on the Saturday night between Christmas and New Years and not a single - not one! - football game? That, ladies and gentlemen, was a true and unforgetable culture shock.

I will say this - those people were having fun. Husbands and wives in matching jerseys sporting an unpronounceable name across the shoulders. Brothers wearing the different colors of opposing teams. A group at one table swapping jabs and winks at the enemy seated around another.

It was an homogenous throng of my fellow Americans, of which probably none could tell you which bowl games were being played at that moment, immersed deep into a sport for which my knowledge begins and ends with "Zamboni". Simply shocking.

I bet I know what they were thinking, though:
"Burgers, beer, and hockey - it doesn't get any better than this!"


And it don't.”

“The Devil's might actually have 4 lines that can score this year.

Elias-Rolston-Gionta
Parise-Zajac-Langenbrunner
Pandolfo-Madden-Clarkson
Rupp-Holik-Zubrus”

“Hmmmmmmm...........

I wonder what Geo would have to say about that.”

“HELSINKI, Finland (AP)—Sidney Crosby set up three goals in leading the Pittsburgh Penguins a 4-1 win over Finnish club Jokerit in a preseason game Thursday.

Evgeni Malkin and Ruslan Fedotenko scored first-period goals for Pittsburgh and Tyler Kennedy and Pascal Dupuis added two more in the third.

It was the Penguins’ last exhibition before playing the Ottawa Senators in a season-opening double header in Stockholm, Sweden, this weekend.”

“DROP THE PUCK DROP THE PUCK DROP THE PUCK DROP THE PUCK DROP THE PUCK!!!!!!!!!

LET'S GO PENGUINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Pens 1-0 in the regular season (won it in OT). They play again tomorrow!”

“Hate to disappoint you Tango, but the season isn't going to finish. The apocalypse is upon us. The Devils just scored 3 PP goals tonight.”

“YIKES!!! I'm missing it I am working at my Camp Store. (Didn't miss the Pen's game though)”

“I'm listening to it. Devils games are never on around here. Center Ice won't show them here, because they are on the MSG network. MSG doesn't show them, because they say this area should watch the Sabres.”

“WHOOO! Madden with a shorty.”

“Ok the preseason is over (sure wish I could have actually seen a game) for the Devils. Season starts Friday at home against the Islanders.
last edited: 10/04/08 6:38:56 PM”

“How can they be still be in preseason when the Pens, Rangers, Sens and Tampa Bay just opened the season today? That is weird!”

“There are still preseason games up until Tuesday. The other games are early, because they are in Europe.”

“Flyers get rolling Saturday.”

“Think they'll get over the fact they got beat by their AHL affiliate last night?”

“I think they got beat by their other goalie. Nitty was stoning them.”

“Sounded like a cool idea. I wished the Devils had done something like that back when they were affiliated with the River Rats.”

“BTW, the puck drops in North America tonight. Should be a good season a head.”

“There was a concern about injuries. Some of the guys on both teams were throwing real checks.”

“The neatest thing was bringing back the old players to send the Spectrum out. Good to see them and hear what they had to say.”