Twisted Wrister pt. 1

“Hey! Hey, and Gooooooood Morning! It’s 7:34 in the AM and its time for the, HONK! HONK! Traffic Fix with Freddie Ferguson. Freddie what da ya got for…”

He slowly raised his head and turned his shoulders to terminate the din that had interrupted his slumber. His right arm jutted out from under the sheet and swung at the clock radio sitting next to his bed. Swinging and missing three times, Kent then sat up. With his left hand he took the clock and threw it across the room.

“F&$#!” He shouted as he ran his left hand through his hockey player cliché hair and scratched the back of his neck. He had slept in his jersey and jeans not because he was too tired, or because he wanted to cut down on the time it took to get ready in the morning, but because those are the clothes in which he felt most comfortable anymore. His normally well-trimmed goatee was scraggly at best. There were small bags under his eyes. He yawned and rubbed his chest as he got up from his bed.

As he descended the stairs in his nearly empty house he treaded lightly so as not to wake Aleia. She was too tired to travel back to Philly last night and so she slept in his bed tossing and turning all night next to her man.

He poured himself a protein shake and drank it slowly while taking his gear out of his bag.

“Damn street skates!” he said as he did up the plastic straps with his left hand. His actual hockey skates were of no use to him now. Rolling slowly towards the door he put on his gloves and helmet. Letting the door slam shut behind him as he left, Kent threw down the bright orange puck and began to skate down his driveway into the cal-de-sac, even though he knew it would be of little use to him. The street was too worn and debris riddled for anything, let alone a small, chipped, brightly colored plastic disc.

The net was still set up from the night before. His brothers had been playing until it was time to go over to their grandmothers. The metal posts collected dew and shimmered in the morning sun. He picked up a ball that his brothers left on top of the net and threw it down the street. Skating as fast as he could after it, Kent caught up with the dirty pink sphere and overtook it. While the ball slowed Kent picked up speed and began to dart from side to side in the street, eventually skating up the hill and reaching the main road.

Turning and riding the bank down into his street Kent began to skate toward his house and the goal. After he banked the ball off the curb to himself he began to stickhandle down Spruce Lane. Fighting the ball the whole time Kent could move it from left to right with a moderate pace, nothing like what he could before. Dragging it behind him and almost loosing it twice he began to grit his teeth and skate harder. Finally the challenge was too much as when he tried to maneuver around a leaf he lost control completely, letting the ball roll aimlessly until its travel was halted by the curb.

“S*%&!” he muttered to himself. Skating to the curb to retrieve his escaped orb, he took his lower hand off his stick and swung at the ball violently with his stick in his right hand only. As he swung the stick hit the ground, missing the ball by a good six inches, but his follow-through flung it out of his glove onto the lawn of a neighbor. Stepping heavily in his skates Kent sunk into the wet grass as he retrieved his Sher-Wood P.M.P. with Ray Bourque curved blade. That stick was the one he used to win the scoring title for both his high school and the Junior Flyers.

When he got back onto the street his wheels were wedged with mud and blades of grass. Stomping to dislodge the clogged sod, the echo of the pounding of hard rubber wheels against cold and damp pavement reverberated through his small and quiet community. Ready to make his approach, Kent spit, slapped his stick on the ground and took off towards goal.

His movements were frantic. The ball bounced over some errant gravel and his stick caught slightly in a crack causing him, nearly, to lose all semblance of balance. Brute force, not grace took over as he trudged on into where his brothers had drawn the slot in chalk, a face-off circle to each side. He wound up for a slap-shot as he began to coast towards the left circle, he always loved to move the goalie to his right and shoot high over his blocker to the near side, top shelf. Usually it would be a quick flick of the wrist and the shot would sail past the shoulder and into the twine, but this morning he was angry, thoughtless and frustrated.

The shot was moderately paced and four feet to the left. The grunt that Kent let out while shooting told anyone who was witness to it that it was forced and labored. Frustrated, he hacked at the post. The metallic clang rang stridently through the all but silent suburbs.

Stuck in a rut...

So I've been pretty lax on the blogosphere lately. Can't really come up with a good topic right now. Hopefully something more interesting will come along soon but for now, you're going to have to make do with me posting my works of short fiction. Enjoy, any and all comments are welcome and encouraged. Thanks!

Sideshow Gary Roberts

Inexcusable. That's all it was. Flat out inexcusaable.

Gary Roberts, an elderstatesmen of the NHL and a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins, took a pot-shot at Johan Franzen of the Detroit Red Wings in the later stages of game 2 in the Stanley Cup finals. Everyone in the NHL knows that Franzen has been suffering from concussion symptoms since game 1 agains Dallas in the Western Conference finals. The shot, sure it was weak and just an idiotic move by a desperate veteran seeing his team fall into a 0-2 hole in the highest level of play the NHL has to offer, was simply inexcusable.

Intent to injur is a phrase that is found numerous times in the NHL rulebook. It, when determined by the referee, can result in the ejection of a player from the game. I don't understand why these rules were not inforced in this particular instance.

A couple of years ago we saw Todd Bertuzzi, a powerhouse forward and a great player, punch a player in the back of the head, again not very hard but damage was done, he was ejected from that game and suspended for quite a while by the NHL and Gary Bettman. However, I have a sinking feeling in my stomach that no such action will be taken against the graying Gary Roberts.

In the Eastern Conference finals we saw Evegeni Malkin throw a blatant elbow to the head of Danny Briere and nothing came of it.

We've seen Pittsburgh begin to take runs and try to step up their pathetically (lack of) physical play late in games they can't win. The only time the Pens decided to play with guile and brovato was when the Flyers were blatantly beating them in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals. There is a precident, we saw it in game 1 as well. I can only imagine that it will get dirtier as they get beaten more and more.

I don't understand how in the highest level of competition and the national stage, players the likes of Malkin, who is learning the ropes and playing with youthful passion and exuberance, and Roberts, who knows better than to let his emotions run his actions like that, can be forgiven for their actions. What has to happen for the NHL to stop looking the other way? I hope that it isn't the loss of a great player.

Maybe I'll be dead wrong, and beilieve me I'd like nothing better than that, and the NHL will suspend Roberts for the remainder of the Playoffs and a few games to begin next season. One can only hope.

What counts doesn't

Tonight I watched the Philadelphia Phillies take on the Washington Nationals in a great 1-0 game that went down to the wire. But it illuminated one of the major gripes that I have with professional sports. I've worked for LVC Sports Information before so I know what kind of stats are kept for every sport possible (well any sport that LVC plays), and I realized pretty quickly, and my bosses agreed for the most part, that the stats don't mean squat. Sure they're kept for a reason but its the wrong ones.

Cole Hamels, the number one pitcher for the Fightin' Phils, pitched a gem of an outing. He went seven innings without giving up a run and sending 11 batters back to the dugout after three strikes. His work was the main reason that the Phils won that game. However, he got a no decision for the contest. To me, and I'm sure many others, that just is not right.

The man worked his butt off and threw a great game with so much pressure on him. In a 0-0 game a pitcher cannot make one mistake. Hamels was blowing smoke passed these chump on the Nats, and he doesn't even get a stat for it. Sure he gets the 11 Ks but a guy can pitch 11 Ks and still lose the game 6-0. Stats deserve to be kept, but they also deserve to hold weight.

Another Philadelphia example of how big stats a great player does not make is the future captain of the Philadelphia Flyers, Mike Richards. His yomen-like play and his work ethic make him invaluable to the orange and the black but they don't earn him any room on the score sheet half the time. Sure he scores some goals and gets a bunch of assists, but no one keeps stats on "great defensive plays made by an offensive player" or "hustle plays that resulted in a scoring chance or the halting of a scoring chance for the opposite team". This is probably because they would be abbreviated GDPMBAOP and HPTRIASCOTHOASCFTOP which would not fit on most score sheets. Long acronym jokes aside, what really counts in sports is so often looked over for the big plays.

Home runs mean so much more than big catches at the wall that save a game. Goals mean more than blocked passes during penalty kill situations. TD catches mean more than sacrificing yourself to block for a crucial first down. Sorry, but I don't watch enough basketball to come up with a good one for that sport. Maybe dunks mean more than saving a ball from going out of bounds by throwing it off the ankles of your opponent?

Anyway, my point is that stats and even awards have just gotten to the point where they mean so much more than the small plays that make the game so exciting and thrilling to watch. MVP has become a means of rewarding players that make the most money and get the most stats. I have a sinking feeling in my stomach that Sidney Crosby will get the Conn Smythe when it more obviously belongs to a guy like Brenden Morrow who put his team on his back. Crosby played well, yeah sure, but w/o Malkin, Gonchar, and Staal he'd be nothing and the team would not be in the finals. Baseball is different, they get it right more often than not. But their stats like wins, losses, saves and no decisions just don't make sense to me.

We need to start making sports about the aspects, players and plays that make them great, again. I'm not blaming ESPN, I'm not blaming salaries and sponsorships and corporations. I'm not really blaming anyone. All I'm saying is that we need to keep our eyes off the stats and keep them on the game.

Screwy Stewy-- Alone in the bleachers

My colleague and friend Matt had the following to say about the Flyers this season. I think it's a pretty accurate assessment of the woes of certain Flyers fans. I feel his pain and keep him company.

"The Philadelphia Flyers' season has come to an end. It lasted 17 games longer than most expected, and has shown us that we have a great future to look forward to. But I'm disappointed. Why am I disappointed? Is it because we had a 10 game losing streak? No. Is it because we squeaked into the playoffs? No. Is it because we needed 7 games to beat Washington? No. Is it because we were beat in 5 games by Sid the Little Kid and Stolen Russian? Nope, not that either. I'm disappointed because through each of these heartbreaking times, I found myself in a sea of orange and black bleeding alone. Others barking "They suck!" "Typical Flyers!" and "Its over" all around me while I leave the TV on until the final whistle despite others asking me to change the channel and accept it. Flyers fans, how can you demand your team go out there and play themselves dead, how can you demand they sacrifice themselves and their pride, when you don't even have the pride to sit by them and watch. Grow some balls, Flyers fans, I'm tired of being alone in the bleachers."

I blame Mike Knuble.

Ok, it's a little tongue in cheek but I do feel that way. Today he cost us the game. A stupid, idiotic penalty taken in the first period that set up the all important first goal. You cannot stop skating. Useless, as I like to call him, has never skated in his defensive zone. He's a liability and he's slow and he has never been defensively responsible. That being said, he did win Game 4 for us against Washington, a game I was at. So, you know...

Whatever. Moving on.

Today was a horrible way to end a season--any season, let alone one that saw a league worst team play their way up to the conference finals. What's worse is that the Flyers will not get the credit that they deserve from anyone but their own media stations and Philadelphia print/TV outlets. To lose a game like this away from your fans and have to chided and jeered by 15,000+ unintelligent bandwagon jumpers is just a horribly unfitting end to a brilliant team's run at glory.

Out of it all I feel worst for Martin Biron. He is an exceptional player, a brilliant goaltender and a good man who does not deserve to be blamed for any of the Flyers' woes. His play was inspiring in the series against Montreal, his leadership was necessary and his attitude was professional and brilliant. A six goal outing is not a proper way to end his season. He'll be back next year as our true number one.

It's funny that I found that picture that this blog begins with. Those four players are my heroes on the team. Thoresen is a player that I really feel for. Taken out of the line-up for, what I thought was no real reason, but when he was put back in he played with all heart. He's an amazing player, he plays hard no matter the situation and he plays physical at every single point in the game. Then, to rub salt in his proverbial wounds, they took away the goal that he rightfully scored. They say he prevented Fleury from making the save, it was a quick whistle from a ref that loves to make calls. It's just insult to injury and at that point, it really could have changed the game.

I can never say enough about Sami Kapenen. Some say that he doesn't do anything for the team as he doesn't always put points up on the board. I think that is as off base as the glory that Fleury is pulling down as a goalie. He plays with a 5'10" 185 pound heart and he is never one to make excuses.

R.J. Umberger. After his great series against Montreal, everyone put everything on this kids shoulders. "Oh he's going to play Pittsburgh, he always kills the Pens!" You cannot do that thing to a young player even when he's as great as R.J. He plays a great style of hockey and his talent and potential are there. He's only going to get better as the years go on. He is proof that the Flyers are going to be a force to be reckoned with until 2020....at least.

Richards will be our captain next year. His play and off-ice abilities have earned him that right. He is a leader and he is the Philadelphia Flyer attitude incarnate. Tenacious, energetic, and intelligent, Richards will be the face and the cornerstone of the team for years to come. He's a better player than Crosby, Ovechkin and Malkin and he'll never get the credit for that.

But that's how we like it in Philly. It's us against the world. So one last time...

WAKE UP PHILADELPHIA AND LET ME HEAR YOU SING!!

THE ORANGE AND THE BLACK! THE ORANGE AND THE BLACK!

They're Baaaaaack...

Watch out Pittsburgh.

The Philadelphia Flyers remembered how to play. Tonight they were running on all cylinders and they were ready for anything. Let's start out by giving credit where credit is due.

Scottie Upshall had one hell of a game tonight. He was hitting anything that moved and wore yellow (an appropriate color for the way the Penguins played tonight, just cowardly) and would take any hit to make a play. He is the epitome of sacrifice and the Flyers are lucky to have a guy like this in the line-up. His hit on Straka (I think it was him) at the end of the game was maybe a charge but since when does the league call that? There have been about 12 charges that I've seen go by the boards (no pun intended) this Playoff season. Where were the zebras then? Anyway, whether or not it was a penalty it was a huge message. He wasn't just hitting one man, he was telling all of Pittsburgh that they better watch out, and keep their head up because Philly is not going to say die.

Deiran Hatcher, another man who had some rough stuff at the end, played a great game. You want to know how I know? I didn't notice him at all. That's right, the marquee of a great defensemen is unless he's crushing your most hated enemy, you don't even know he played. The same can be said about Jason "Gator" Smith.

Two blue-liners I did notice, for all the right reasons, were Randy Jones and Ryan Parent. Besides one mistake per, the duo held their own and stifled a Pittsburg offense that has been getting the bounces and out-hustling the Flyers in the previous three games. Everyone on the back line for the Orange and Black played well tonight and they have to keep that effort there for any remaining games.

Let's see, who else deserves accolades? The whole team played well and after Stevens shook up the lines there was a new sense of chemistry. So kudos to him. Though I called for it during the second intermission of game 3, Stevens' retooling of the line-up no doubt played a part in tonight's victory.

So are they just delaying the inevitable? No. The Flyers have a legitimate shot at beating the Penguins in three straight games after tonight. Though they are both young teams, the Flyers roster is choc full o' leaders. Hatcher, Smith, Kapanen, Timmonen, and Richards are all that guy that you want in the locker room for your club.

What helps the Broadstreet Bullies even more is the fact that while young, the Penguins roster is not full of that kind of leadership. Malkin, Crosby, Stall these guys are one-man shows. They don't inspire their players, they try to do the job by themselves. Granted they are capable of doing so. However, you started to see the cracks in the foundation of the Penguins, they got mad and started running around when the game was out of reach. They're a young team that can be put back on the heels and shaken off their game. I think the Flyers are just the team to do that.

33 Years ago...it happened. Why not us?

The Orange and the Blech

Where the %&#!@ are the Philadelphia Flyers?!?!
I certainly haven't watched them pay in the past week. Where is the forecheck? The passion? Where's Marty Biron?!?! Aparently he wasn't allowed back into the country after game 5 in Montreal.
When it comes down to it, Game 3 was lost on a bad bounce and a lack of hustle. Towards the end of the regular season, the Flyers wouldn't have put up with half of the things that they took tonight. Too many times I screamed at the television "skate!" or "get the puck!" you can't even say they're losing the battles along the boards because half of the time they aren't entering those battles. No one was skating save Randy Jones, Mike Richards, RJ Umberger and Jeff Carter. From shift to shift Sami Kapenen and Jim Dowd turned it on too. Tell me what prevented John Stevens from putting some new lines together? Please somebody tell me that. If RJ, Jeff and Mike are the only people who have jump them stick 'em together (or at least Cartsy and RJ since Richards is another center) and watch them score 4 unanswered goals to win the damn game and turn the series around.
I expect everyone to jump on top of Steve Downie as the new goat to ride out of the playoffs. Yeah he turned it over again when he shoudln't have but what about the four other guys that Malkin weaved through to make a stupid broken play goal happen? There's got to be culpability from everyone. The Flyers aren't going to blame Downie, Downie isn't even going to blame Downie, its the media and the horrible broadcasting of VS and NBC that will jump all over the guy needlessly and without fail. They're just vultures waiting, with Gary Betman and the rest of the NHL for the Flyers to screw up so that they can celebrate with a bottle of Don Perignon and a tape of highlights from Sid the Kid Sanchez-Louganis.
What's even worse than the way that the Flyers took to the ice tonight was the coverage from VS. If I wanted to hear two guys rag on the Orange and the Black for an entire night I could have just called some of my friends from collage. They're not even trying to be unbiased or present the game in a balanced fashion. Whatever the color commentator's name is, he was horrible and just stupid. Half the time, though I must admit I would tune out when he spoke, I could not tell what he was saying at all. He spoke in circles and his voice is just grating and horribly annoying no matter what team your rooting for.
I can take losing, when the other team earns it. The Penguins have not earned a dam thing. Scott Hartnell was completely correct when he said the Flyers made the "magic" happen for Pittsburg. The Flyers have beaten the Flyers in three games and hopefully in the fourth they can stop getting in their own way.

Ravings of a mad fan

Let's get right back into the swing of things by talking about the NHL playoffs.

The Flyers are good enough to win the Stanley Cup this year, but they are being defeated, not by the other teams, but by small bounces, atrocious calls, and just plain bad luck.

Take game 2 against the Pittsburg Penguins as an example. The 4-2 loss came after the Flyers outworked and flat-out beat the Penguins through two and three quarters periods. Face it Pens fans, the Flyers controlled the tempo, which is hard to do on the horrible ice conditions provided by the Mellon Arena, and dominated the physical play. There's no two ways about it, the Orange and the Black came to play in the second game.

However, Sid the Kid, or as he has been called by Steve Coates of CSN and David Boreanez, a celebrity blogger for NHL.com, Sidney Lugainis and Rico Sanchez, got lucky. It's that simple. He still hasn't deserved a goal that he scored against the Flyers. In game one he was given a gift and did absoultely nothing to earn that point. In game two he got a lucky (or unlucky, depending on your location) bounce off the stick of Lasse. It was just weak. What's worse is that he's still touted as the best player in the league when for my money he'd be the fourth pick after Mike Richards, Evgeni Malkin and Dion Phaneuff of player under 25. He's a punk and he can't even grow a good playoff beard, god sakes.

Next up, the atrocious officiating. So far in this playoff year the referees and linesmen have had the consistancy of vomit and the taste to boot. The hit that Malkin gave Danny Briere was down right cheap. "A forearm shiver" as it was called on T.V. --that's funny I would have described it as a blatant elbow designed to injur one of the best players on the Flyers-- should have drawed more attention than just the Philadelphia bench. For a second let us imagine that the hit in question was dolled out by one Steve Downie on the aforementioned Sidney Rico Sanchez Lugainis. Downie would be gone, I mean suspended for 10+ games, fined upwards of $25,000 and the Flyers would also be shouldered with a bill from the league. The NHL won't even take a second look at the hit. As far as they are concerned it may as well never happened. Don't even get me started on that "hook" that Hatcher put on Malkin. How can one be capable of hookign when he doesn't even have two hands on his stick? Positional defense is aparently prohibited in the playoffs this year.

Luck. Yeah its a funny thing. One day you're nailing posts and crossbars with shots that should, in all right, be guaranteed goals, the next you can't miss the net even if you hit it with the but end of your stick. Although I just described Mike Knuble's career, I am more mad about the injuries that just piled up on the Fly Guys and give everone, but the team and die-hard fans, an excuse to count the team out of the race completely. First Kimmo Timonen goes down with a blod clot. The worst part of this is that all the media, all the print, all the television, all the talk is about how the Flyers cannot go on without him. Though it does spark some good, yet off-colour jokes. (How are the Flyers like a cancer patient? No one is giving them a shot without Kimmo--Horrible, I know, yet I cannot resist) On top of all that, Braydon Coburn, a young blue-liner who has come into his own and established himself as a top-shelf defensemen in the NHL under John Stevens, is out after getting hit in the face with a horribly unlucky shot. (The thing that really gets me is that he only got hit because Malkin booked it out of the way like a little puppy darting out of a room when the vaccuum comes on.) 50+ stitches later the Flyers are down two d-men and are faced with a 0-2 hole in the series.

But, I have faith. Coming back to Philly--where the ice is fast and the crowd is raucus--will be horribly difficult for the Penguins. Sanchez-Lugainis and Malkin have no idea what awaits them in the City of Brotherly Love. I cannot wait to see how loud the Wachovia Center gets when one of them gets planted by Hatcher or Gator. Look for the Flyers to win two straight, take it back to Pittsburg, whoop 'em on their ice then come back and wrap-up the series in Philly. 4-2 Flyers series win, four straight wins for the Flyers and a date with the Wings in the Finals. It's coming, so...WAKE UP PHILADELPHIA AND LET ME HEAR YOU SING--

THE ORANGE AND THE BLACK, THE ORANGE AND THE BLACK!

Don't call it a comeback!

Just call it a return from laziness. I apologize for my absence. I had to do that school thing and then finish it off with that whole graduating thing that "adults" do. It's still ridiculous to think about but none the less I promise now that I am free of accademic pressure I will return to my .76 blogs/per day pace that I set for myself over winter break. And no, I did not do that math. English major. remember?