Glory and Golf (a Stanley Cup update)

So the first round is finished and it has been a wild ride for almost everyone. Just like that, the Bruins and Lightning get to play more hockey, and the Pens and Habs get to play golf.

I am proud of my Penguins. We worked damn hard and got far, especially with the injuries. So many players from the AHL got a chance this year and many made a real good show of their talents. The lack of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, but specifically Crosby, was glaring. Apparently without him we cannot score. Not only can Tampa score, they showed they can really clamp down on defense. Roloson was so focused, he played excellent in the whole series.

What makes this hard to swallow is that we were up 3-1 in games. We looked good we were clicking. The blowout loss in game five really took the wind out of our sails and the mental mistakes in game six revealed a team that had really lost their focus. Congratulations to the Lightning, they earned it, especially with that lock down one nothing win last night. Maybe it's better, Crosby will have all summer to recover without any pressure to be on the ice. Who knows. Still a heart breaker.

Now, the Habs and the Bruins. What an even series, right down to the end. Really, could it have ended any other way? Well maybe with the Habs winning, but man this has been a fun match up to watch. The Bruins with their size and power vs. the small Habs with their speed and skill. How about Seidenberg almost putting it in on his own team in overtime? Seriously, this was fun to watch.

Looking forward to the next round, should be a doozy! How about the mirror image east/west in seeds advancing? Both have 1,2,3, and 5 advancing to the next round. Hardly an upset yet! We'll see how it goes, I'll be back next time to preview the next round. Oh, it starts tonight? Well, next time I'll talk about it a bit. I'll just give completely unexplained predictions right now:

East:
Lightning in 7
Bruins in 6

West:
Vancouver in 7
Red Wings in 6

The Stanley Cup Playoffs, thoughts.

I did not write down any predictions, but I will talk of what has happened so far. I'll mostly focus on the west, considering they are done with the first round. There is still some unfinished business in the East.

Despite all the drama in the west, Nashville was the only lower seed to move on. Unfortunately, I did not see any of the series outside of highlights, but congratulations to them on making it to the second round for the first time in franchise history. To do it they had to take down a team notorious for picking up their game in the post-season, the Anaheim Ducks. I'm impressed, though not overly surprised. They have been renowned for the defense and work ethic for years, but  it seems they've finally found a certain scoring touch between the additions of Kostitsen and mr. Carey Underwood, Mike Fisher. It also helps that Martin Erat has really come into his own and that Shea Weber can fire a puck so hard you think he's a cartoon space duck (mighty ducks cartoon anyone?).

I expected more from the Red Wings series, but maybe I shouldn't have. Coyotes have looked good all season, but when the Red Wings are healthy and focused, they're pretty unstoppable. They'll probably just win the cup again as boring as that sounds. But with Datsyuk, Zetterberg and the crew, they certainly won't be boring to watch.

I'll admit I have a real soft spot for the Kings. They score real garbage goals and know how to grind out a game and I just enjoy watching Drew Doughty skate. His work on the blue line, his deft passing and his blistering offensive zone entry, its just awsome to watch.They might have been able to take some serious momentum in this series if they had not given up a certain four goal lead. Unfortunately, the lack of Anze Kopitar has been glaring. Not only can he score, but he's excellent on the defensive side as well. They put their heart into it, but let's face it, the Sharks really stepped it up. Slowly but surely they're exorcising their playoff curse. I think the Kings have a bright future ahead of them though.

Speaking of curses, the Canucks had to take it to game 7 over time to break theirs, after losing a 3 game to nothing lead no less. This series seemed pretty average before game four. The Canucks were the best team in the league. Literally they led every team in the relevant statistics. Chicago made it into the playoffs because another team lost, pitiful. So the Canucks proceeded to take it to Chicago. Usually, what looks good on paper never works out in the playoffs, but here, it seemed to, until game 4. This win was shocking. It was so shocking Vancouver could not get their shit together until game 6, which they lost. Suddenly Chicago is a real team on the verge of doing something that has only happened four times before in sports. How can we raise the stakes? That's right, take it to overtime. How do the Canucks win? Not superior play or puck control. Not some espn highlight fancy goal. They win on a horrible turnover at the one spot on the ice your told never to turn over the puck, at the blue line. Burrows skates his ass off and in one instant finally figures out how to drive that last nail in the coffin that had been giving the Canucks so much trouble.

I know a lot of people were rooting for the Stanley Cup champs in this one, but I have to say I was rooting for Vancouver. A loss like this with their expectations, heads were gonna roll. There's less pressure on Chicago at this point and you can chalk their loss up to so many things, the exodus of players after winning the cup, the stanley cup hangover, et cetera. They barely even made it in the playoffs. I guess it's just, I don't have anything against Vancouver. With Burrows' goal last night I couldn't help but think, "what a relief."

Well onto the next round for the west. That's a completely different story. As far as the East is concerned, I really hope my Pens can pull it out. Tampa suddenly turned their scoring on and we need to keep it under wraps, especially without Crosby or Malkin. And I'm rooting for Boston in the other series. It's been fun to watch. You have to love the big power team vs. the tiny skill team, it's just fun.

Until then enjoy the game 7's and maybe I'll be back with some next round previews and predictions.

Super Bowl and Ice Brawls

This has been a pretty insane couple of weeks in sports. I'll just try and touch on some things.

Let us begin with the Super Bowl. That was a pretty awsome game. It threatened to be a blow out at first, then the Steelers got on track. In fact it ended up being a really close game. Aaron Rogers was absolutely out of his mind. Everyone has said that all week, but it's probably worth reiterating all the passes dropped by his receivers. Because of that, it was the Packers defense that really won that game. In a way, the last drive by the Steelers really represented that, because by stopping the Steelers, the Packers defense really did win that game. And even though I was rooting for the Steelers, if they had won, it would have been a steal. The Packers were definitely the better team that day.

Now, on to hockey. This has been a nutty week with a lot of fisticuffs. In particular, fisticuffs involving my boys, the Pittsburgh Penguins. A week and a half ago they met the islanders and it was a pretty rough game with a lot of fights. The feature match up being Brent Johnson and his one punch on Rick Dipietro that broke his face. Later in the week Boston and Montreal one upped that game with an 8-6 shootout that also happened to be a slugfest. Almost 200 penalty minutes  assessed, lauded as one of the most entertaining regular season hockey games in years. Then came Friday. The rematch of the Pens and Isles. The Islanders even brought up a goon from Bridgeport to show they meant business.

So began the grudge match. I have to say I can't remember the last time the Pens played that poorly. I could blame it on the injuries and the fact that half of our forward line up was AHLers, but I won't. The Pens have done well otherwise without Malkin and Crosby including a win against LA the previous night. So no excuses, it was a terrible showing against a terrible team.

On the scoreboard, the game was over early. The rest of the game was just plain ugly. This basically put all the fighting earlier in the week to shame. I'm won't go over each fight, in detail but Haily, the goon from Bridgeport, not only got a Gordy Howe hat trick but went on a rampage against Brent Johnson. Johnson dropped his helmet and gloves ready to fight, but then Goddard stepped in and it got all messy. By the end of the game every hit resulted in a fight. Soon they were just kicking guys out of the game. For the last 3 minutes there were only 2 guys on the Pens bench and 4 on the Isles. I've never seen anything like it.

So how do I feel about it? Well, I gotta say  this kind of fighting and the whole feeling of a grudge match is pretty exciting. But, if it happened all the time, it would probably get boring after a while. The league is cracking down, there were three long suspensions handed out after Friday's game. It's probably for the better. Still, a pretty exciting week in hockey. I'm glad I was able to catch some of it. Really, my main worry is Crosby coming back and that hopefully Malkin's injury won't ruin him. Our defense is solid, but, as was shown on friday, without a lot of help up front it can be real difficult to win games. Hopefully, Friday's events can be put in the past and regarded as a mere fluke.

And that is it, I will be back soon with some reflection on Mirrordin Besieged and some other fun Magic topics.

Wizard's First Rule Review

So I'm a little behind, monday's supposed to be sports, but honestly not that much interesting went on this weekend. I'm not big on college basketball, especially when it isn't March, and well, I'm not from LA so I don't think it's a huge deal that the Celtics gave the Lakers a woopin'. All star games/pro bowls are fun, but not worth talking about, though Zdeno Chara's 105.9mph clapper is pretty impressive.

So, today will take what Wednesday's theme was supposed to be, entertainment. I will give a review of a book that probably every fantasy fan but me has already read, but, got to get around to it sometime, right?

Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind impressed me in many ways, but was by no means a perfect book. He can get you hooked and turning the pages, though sometimes his writing is a little sloppy. I will admit, at the same time I was reading this, I have been reading Francine Prose's "Who to Read Like a Writer," so maybe I have been more critical of this book than I would have been, though some things are hard not to notice.

I will begin with the characters and story. It does not depart much from Lord of the Rings tropes, but manages to stand out in its own right. Essentially a strong headed intelligent kid who does not want to be bothered gets roped into all these entangled plots he wants no part of and goes on an adventure. He is accompanied  by a beautiful woman he can't have, a crazy old wizard who is always hungry and a hulking veteran soldier. Essentially all the characters are pretty stock, but each has a little twist on them to make them just interesting enough.

The story itself is also very stock, but just like the characters, Goodkind throws some real interesting twists in there to keep you interested. He seems to focus a lot on the themes of truth and perception and truth versus perception, which at sometimes seems really awkward, but at others is very interesting. There are some cool instances about seeing through have truths and such, though I feel like some of the sections are awkwardly worked around a point Goodkind wants to make. Some will like this aspect more than others.

Now, the writing style is the last thing I'd like to talk about. It is an 820 page book, so there are a lot of words in there and maybe I'm being harsh, but the writing quality is really inconsistent. The opening paragraph is done masterfully. It starts small and oozes its way out, slowly moving back to show you the full picture. Most of his first sentences for chapters are very attention grabbing. There are other sections, however, that are written awkwardly or just drag. There is a lot of unnecessary description (a common problem in fantasy writing) and sometimes he will add a sentence or detail that not only does not add to the story or scene, but is completely random. There is literally a scene where the main character is focused real hard on doing something and there is this random sentence, "A chicken stood watching." Now, we could debate all day the significance and symbolism of a chicken standing their watching and how long Goodkind took to make the decision to put that sentence there. I don't think he put any time, he just wanted to describe the scene, and the detail just seems extraneous. This is not the only example, but it is the one I remember most.

I will say this the book is an enjoyable read and he is very deft with his plot lines. Everything is accounted for, even though its very complicated, and tied together neatly at the end. I don't want to spoil any more, but I will just say he does an excellent job of keeping the plot focused. By the end it is very hard to set the book down because of the way he's set everything up and all the little seeds he plants along the way start to take fruit.

Any way, that is my review for today. Tomorrow I'll be back with some game stuff.

Gamer Tuesdays

So, with my new theme days, Tuesdays will be gamer Tuesdays. I will discuss video games, board games, computer games and Magic: The Gathering.

For christmas, a very good friend of mine bought me Starcraft II. I was going to wait longer, until the price went down significantly, to pick it up. I have to say, I am quite happy to have it. I have not played it much, but I will surely write more about it in subsequent weeks.

Today, I'll talk mostly about Mirrorden Besieged, because it has been mostly spoiled. Only four cards have not been spoiled yet. Immediately my favorite card is probably Thrun, The Last Troll. It puts the hurting on control and that stupid 100 dollar card (Jace, The Mind Sculpter, if you weren't aware). The only problem with this card is it is going to make Valakut Ramp better, and that is my least favorite deck in standard. It is pure boredom. It's strategy can be simply stated as: Do nothing, followed by, play Primeval Titan and win. At least with Blue Black games are really interesting. In fact, even though it was 6/8's of the World's top 8, all those matches were really exciting to watch. Especially Paolo vs. Matignon, that was some epic Magic.

Well, enough bitching about the standard metagame... or maybe not. I don't think enough of these cards are good enough to change the meta game. If we're lucky there will be an artifact deck. There's a lot more infect now, but still nothing to actually make an infect deck with. What is more likely is, what happened with Scars, will be the same as with Besieged, some cards will be used in already prominent decks, but there won't be any significant changes to the metagame. I will say, I am very much looking forward to drafting Besieged, Besieged, Scars, it looks to be pretty damn interesting.

Alright, that's it for today. Next week, I hope to get some more Master's Addition drafts under my belt, so maybe I'll be able to talk about that. So far it's been a strange and tough set to draft. I'll be back tomorrow with "Entertainment Wednesday"

Sports Mondays! Review of NFC championships and NHL allstar break is coming up!

So, with my new style, Mondays will be sports days on the blog. I'm just gonna jump around today, a lot is going on and I'm not paying real close attention, but, I do love sports.

First off, I don't care how you feel about Jay Cutler's attitude, but he's one tough dude. He tried to go back out in that game with that knee injury and it was clear that if he forced himself to play, it would have been bad news. Even if you think every athlete should play in the playoffs even if they're falling apart, if they're not going to help their team, then they should probably sit out. This would be the case with Cutler. Besides, some injuries effect players more than others. Knee injuries are terrible.

Otherwise, it seemed like both games followed similar formulas. The favored teams got out to strong starts and then held off comebacks. I did not see all of the Bears game, but that third string quarter back did an excellent job. That kid has a bright future. As far as the Jets go, they arrived to the game late. About 2 hours late. What a terrible first half, there's not much more to say. Well, maybe that Ben Roethlisberger, no matter what your opinions of his personal life, is easily the most clutch quarterback in the league. It's almost like he plays better when the play breaks down and all turns to chaos.

Alright, that's it for football, I'll make an uneducated pick for the Super Bowl next week.

Now, hockey's All Star weekend is coming up. I will admit, I love how gimmicky it is. The "draft" reminiscent of picking teams on the playground or out on the pond, is a pretty awsome touch. Plus the skills competition is pretty fun. Though, like most gimmicks, it's one of those things where its mostly just fun to watch it every couple of years. But, since we missed it last year for the olympics, this should be a pretty fun one to watch. Though it's a shame there'll be no Sid. He always seems to get injured this time of year.

That's it for today, I'll do more in depth stuff in the future and probably more looks into specific hockey teams and players and how they're doing. For now I'm out.

New Blog Plan, plus, you probably already know this, but The Sword rules.

So I have a new plan for my blog, to keep me posting more often. I will give myself a couple flexible topics to talk about each week and try and keep up with them. I have decided that tuesday will be entertainment day. On tuesdays I will discuss music, art, books, movies, plays, operas, you name it.


My first line of business will be to talk about a band I should have discovered a long time ago. Many of my friends have listened to them for years, but I have only recently discovered The Sword. If you are like me and have been living under a rock, The Sword is a metal band from Austin Texas. Their style is classic in every way.

Their four man arrangement, guitar/vocalist, guitarist, bassist, drummer is classic. Their music echoes the classic styles of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Their riffs are classic and once you hear their album Warp Riders your first thought could easily be, this album is an instant classic. The "classic-ness" of this band goes above and beyond the retro style. The song structure, performance and energy are all superlative.

If you have a hankering for a sweet riff, look no further than The Sword. Warp Riders is filled to the brim with awsome riffage. Some are quick and energetic, some are sludgy and powerful, others are just melodic and catchy, but you are guaranteed to find yourself humming them when you're in the shower. They also have the impressive ability to take a riff and really develop it as the song goes, much in the way Iron Maiden is famous for.

The vocals are very reminiscent of Ozzy's early work with Black Sabbath. J.D. Cronise offers a hollow but powerful sound with a strong blues influence. On top of that, his lyrics are just fun. Warp Riders, for example, has a classic sci fi theme to it and the lyrics really just make you excited about space travel, witches and lawless lands. The best part of Cronise's lyrics is that they have a mythic quality to them. They talk of epic scenarios with a sense of both familiarity and folklore, all of it adding together to form an awsome listening experience. In other words: you probably already know this, but The Sword rules.