Wacky Ass Game

Was it me or was that game just all over the map?

• Manny Malhotra scores both for, and against, the Sharks
• Pickles gets in his first fight in 265 NHL games, with Danny Briere, his second fight in 606 NHL games.
• Dany Heatley gets his second hat trick of the season (both at home), when the San Jose didn't record a single one during their record-setting 08-09 season. And he wasn't even the 1st star?!?!
• That honor would go to Joe Thornton and his 4 assists, who made all of us look a little bit foolish for yelling "SHOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!"

San Jose leads the NHL standings by 4 points. Duck the Fucks.

Stupid Anaheim Ducks Fans Fight Literally Over A Stick

There's no way to improve on that title:

Nice find by my buddy The Mayor.

Other Blog Round-Up

Nice find by FTF - the top 10 saves made by skaters. Make sure to watch all the way to the end.

While we're at it:

• The Sharks Hockey Analysis guys moved their main blog over to Dudes on Hockey. Check 'em out. They actually know what they're talking about and understand the cap.
• Couch Tarts have been over at Bloguin for a little bit now. Check 'em out. They draw cool pictures and point out funny nicknames.

Straight Whuppin

The San Jose Sharks are the best team in the league.

Welcome back Joe Pavelski.

We've Crossed The Line

Holy shit. I read this article (erm, skimmed) and missed this. As pointed out over at Couch Tarts, from today's Mercury:

Callahan took a pass from Joe Thornton and skated down the middle of the ice before dishing the puck to Couture, whose 44-foot wrist shot beat Red Wings goalie Chris Osgood at 14:41 of the second period.

"That always helps, a little bit of chemistry," Callahan said. "But that being said, I didn't even know it was Cooch out there until I gave it to him."

Emphasis added, but I doubt you would've missed it. So apparently Couture's nickname is Cooch, which is the filthiest fucking thing I've ever heard. I thought the players called Devin "Seto" because the alternative wasn't exactly family-friendly. That is clearly not the case.

And just so we're clear, Gooch is fan-fucking-tastic. There's no greater thrill in life than yelling, "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCH!!!!!!" at the top of your lungs. Gooch is 90% funny and 10% dirty, the desired ratio. Cooch is at least 118% dirty. I'd sooner yell "Raffi Torres is the finest competitor to ever play the great sport of hockey and by god, a decent human being," than "COOCH" after a Logan Couture goal*.

Not to mention the potential confusion that could arise from this nefarious nickname! Would you dare call this man Cooch? What if your girlfriend overheard you quoting that you "didn't even know it was Cooch out there until (you) gave it to him"? Why are you giving any man Cooch, and better yet, why could you not identify that it was, in fact, Cooch?

So I'm backing Gray on this one. Cooch is one line that I just will not cross. Wait, shit, that came out wrong...





*This isn't even remotely true. Let's be honest: I'm probably going to yell "COOOOOOCH" at the Tank sooner rather than later, and will very likely be escorted from building**.





**Raffi Torres is a goddamn piece of shit.

Good Shit, Nabby

The Douggernaut appreciates Nabby, and so should you.

I missed last night's contest vs. Detroit (at the Bill Simmons signing in SF), but it looks like a hard luck loss. Nabby put up 35 saves and still took an SOL.

Now seems as good a time as ever to give props to #20.

• Over the last 9 games, Nabokov's posted a 0.933 SV% and 1.84 GAA.
  
• His stats on the season (0.911, 2.38) put him at 6th and 6th respectively in the league.
  
• He's by far the league leader in minutes (949 vs. Anderson's 911).
• And, no surprise, he's tied for the league lead in wins.

Good shit, Nabby!

Road Trip! - Mile High City Part II

Aaaaaaaaand we're back. If you guessed that idling is allowed "always", you're illiterate. Have fun with the pretty pictures.

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The next day I bought a ticket to the Hurricanes-Avalanche game that night. I walked up about 4 hours before the game, bought one of the cheapest seats available, and got in just fine.

Nice digs, from the outside.

I'm not really a big fan of rocking my jersey at another team's stadium if my team isn't playing. If it was San Jose-Colorado that night, I'd be head-to-toe in teal, but not just for 2 random teams. Still, I sure as shit wasn't going to wear any red at this game and felt it necessary to at least keep it a little bit real:

As you can tell the Pepsi Center is really gorgeous from the outside, but HP Pavilion still has it absolutely worked on the inside. Sometimes I forget we have the nicest scoreboard in the league.

Last seen at your JV basketball game.

To be serious for a moment, visiting this Avalanche game raised some concerns for me. Take a look at these:

Notice anything? Like the huge swaths of empty seats both in the lower bowl (1st pic) and upper bowl (2nd)? The Avalanche were 7-1-2 at this point, playing at home on a Friday night, and they sold just 76% of the seats. I paid $27 for a cheap seat and plopped down in the first one I could find with plenty of leg and arm room. Can you imagine doing that at HP Pavilion on a Friday night?

Should I be worried about this? One of the league's most successful franchises starts with one of the hottest starts in team history and can barely muster a decent crowd? At least they're not Phoenix... holy shit.

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The game itself, in case you were wondering, was fantastic. Carolina jumped out to a 2 goal lead, but Colorado scored in 2 bunches of 2, held off a penalty shot from Ray Whitney, and ended up winning a 5-4 thriller. Darcy Tucker got a nasty concussion that he's apparently still recovering from.

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2 more notes from the Colorado Avalanche in-game experience:

1. Apparently the good people of Colorado have some kind of hard on for Chipotle (and, I would hope, ChipotlAway). They fly a giant burrito around during periods:


In fact, the citizenry of Denver is so mad with burrito fever they literally parachute in Chipotle during the game (see the orange parachutes?):

2. PEE-WEE HOCKEY!!!


Pee-Wee hockey during the 1st intermission, Pee-Wee shootout during the 2nd! That shit is the best. My personal favorite was Colorado's Announcer Guy interviewing one of the tykes after the pee-wee game:

GUY: Hey there Johnny did you have fun out there?

KID: YEAH.

GUY: So Johnny, who's your favorite player on the Avalanche?

KID: WELL IT WAS JOE SAKIC BUT NOW HE'S RETIRED.

GUY: Ah ha ha ha! So who's your favorite player now?

KID: UHH I DON'T KNOW ANY.

GUY: How about Matt Duchene?

KID: SURE.

GUY: How about me, Johnny, do you know who I am?

KID: NO.

Don't worry, Guy, I couldn't even be bothered to look up your name. I'm sure your anonymity is safe.

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All in all, good times. Thanks for all the beer, Denver.

Road Trip! - Mile High City Part I

This is the actual statue that greets you at the Denver Airport. Really. I hope you weren't planning on sleeping tonight.

My travels take my to some random places for random reasons, and this time they took me to Denver in the middle of October. I figured I'd take in the sites, see a game at the Pepsi Center, and down a gallon of microbrews like a yuppie in the Marina.

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Here's the good news about Denver - there's nothing but sports, beer, and artery-clogging pub food. And the bad news? There's NOTHING but sports, beer, and life-shortening, cheese-laden, breaded and deep fried pub food.

Quick aside: Men's Health disagrees with me. Maybe when you choose to sit idle for 3 hours at a time and throw down Monte Cristos dipped in maple syrup, that's more of a lifestyle choice than a condemnation of an entire city. Do I look like a public health official? Fact: there's a lot of shitty food there and I ate it.

Here's a fucking amazing pulled pork grilled cheese sandwich and an amber ale microbrew. Guh so good.


But BY FAR the finest culinary treat Denver has to offer is Biker Jim's Gourmet Hot Dogs. Here's Biker Jim's unassuming hot dog cart:

More importantly, here's Biker Jim's batshit crazy menu:

Southwest Buffalo. Alaska Reindeer. Friends, you haven't eaten a street vendor hot dog until you've had Biker Jim's Elk Jalapeno Cheddar dog with cream cheese and carmelized onions.

The dog/sausage bursts with a hugely unique flavor. There's just enough cream cheese to give it a slight sweetness. And the bread. Oh, the bread! So soft and fresh. On top of all this, Biker Jim was probably the friendliest and most helpful person I met in the Mile High City. GO HERE NOW.

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When I wasn't bringing obscure land mammals closer to extinction, I was at The Sports Column, a popular downtown sports bar. The Sports Columns is a vast, open bar with an impressive array of HDTV's - by my count 5 70" TVs and a few smaller ones too. The bar was just a few blocks away from my hotel and thankfully carried Center Ice. I hiked over there to watch the 10/22 game vs. Tampa Bay. 2 rants:

#1 - On the uselessness of hotel bars - I travel a lot which means I stay in a lot of hotels. Hotels, by definition, are inhabited people who are from out-of-town. So why the fuck don't hotel bars carry Center Ice, Sunday Ticket, etc.? I don't want to spend 30 minutes googling for a goddamn bar where I can watch my hockey team play. In Washington D.C. I took the fucking Metro to Arlington, Virginia to watch 1 Sharks game. If you're a 4-star hotel, order the packages, charge me $8 a beer, and we'll all be winners. Got it?

#2 - On San Jose, Beer, and Bars. I love the City of San Jose with all of my heart and never want to live anywhere else. But holy fuck, we do not have our shit together when it comes to watering holes. Take the Sports Column - they took a huge red brick warehouse, gutted it, then filled it with stools, giant HDTVs, and goofy shit on the walls. They order all the major sports packages, basically run happy hour 24/7, and huge surprise - they've got a fun place to be that's packed with happy, drunk revelers. Why is this so hard? Why was our best pregame drinking destination (Tied House) shut down due to lack of profitability? Why is our current best pregame destination (The Brit) overpriced and have the floor plan of the furniture section of a Goodwill? I just want a fun place to drink.

Anyways, the point being, The Sports Column was a fun place to drink at and San Jose - Tampa was a godawful atrocious game.

Check back tomorrow for Part II where I invade enemy territory and explore Denver's weird fascination with burritos. Until then, I'll leave you with a quiz... In the Mile High City, exactly when is idling allowed? I'll give you a hint: