The Ditch part deux

dammit, i knew i missed something earlier.

MOAR SMOOTH

 

u can hold mine anytime honey.........here comes the flag

 

this one's for you Cutter!



... it's not beach volleyball, it's hardwood

 

nicely done sir

 

and on the 8th day, Will created the ditch.

 

The Ditch was there first. It's where the voices came from.

 

Nice win for the wings. Not surprised officiating favored Chicago after lopsided game 2. The voices were right. I expect a swing back by officials. MOAR WHINING ON THE WAY. Contest will be more physical as well.

Can't talk on glogs for a wings game in a physical game, tragic. Ken and Mick have conditioned too many wings fans to focus on penalties instead of everything else going on. Makes the voices angry and foil offers no protection.

Not surprised series is 2-1, I will be surprised if Hawks go down 3-1. Howard played very well and mounted a tractor beam on the posts and crossbar to help. Most goalies don't use it well. Q will finally stop playing with the lineup now and Hawks will coordinate a forecheck on the bottom two defensive pairs. Too bad we have to wait until Thursday. Chicago finally looks interested, I don't think they lost their composure as a team as much as many claim they have. Chicago has to figure out how to win a few more draws so that they stop wasting so many shifts. Chicago will start running more set plays intermittently. Detroit will probably have to play better to get the last two wins. I thought Chicago had the overall edge in play for game 3, just slightly.

Hjalmarsson hit on Franzen gets called if its any other wing, but I don't think any other wing positions himself like that. Not sure if Franzen is just a lucic-esque skater, likes to get smeared, or is trying to draw a penalty. Whatever the case, I thought they were right not to make the call on that one but I wouldn't have complained if there was a boarding call either because he did catch him on most of the numbers imo. Seen Franzen slow up, move his feet like crap, and sucker players into making nasty hits on him too many times, this was another one of those. He should be dummy, not Mule. Even on tv, I knew somebody was going to smear him. Why does he slow up and try to do something pretty along the boards when he has a second? Anyway, glad he wasn't hurt either way.

Not sure why all the controversy about the Shaw no-goal. His feet were in the blue, tough to get that call no matter what happens from there. It's like reaching from behind with the stick, you just look guilty. Since it was Shaw, Hawks had almost no chance anyway. No fault on the officials for that one, probably a legit goal, but I would never expect an official to give that goal. Of course wings fans are as knowledgeable as they come when it comes to pucks and bodies in the crease area.

Games 4 and 5 will be fun.

 

MOAR SPORTS

 

wow! nice camo!

 

It's a good idea to bring a chair if you're going to shoreline fish for a long time.

 

and yet, bob, there are people on other sites whining non-stop about how the wings are embellishing everything. perhaps you should talk about them instead of ken and mickey, since i doubt those two contributed to that mindset

 

I've been doing my part with the Hawks fans on some sties. Much work to be done. The difference is, most of the Hawks fans gripes will sway with the wind unless Edzo directs them in a direction. Chicago doesn't really have a strong hockey media voice to direct them and Olczyk is too busy maintaining his status with the national gig to get to be too much of a homer. With a large segment of Wings fans, you know what's coming as soon as there's a marginal non-call for quite a while.

Ken and Mickey and my buddy Troy are bigger problems than the fans when it comes to the griping since they've made more fans hypersensitive to the non-calls. My tolerance for some gripes is higher than for others. I don't mind the discussions on the Hjalmarsson hit for example, that was much more unique and much bigger than the no-goal by Shaw.

Obviously I've taken "if you can't beat em'...." approach. When they bitch, I'll bitch.

 

a couple of thoughts here:

1. i absolutely do not understand why u lump mickey in with ken on this. mickey is better than the average color guy when it comes to home bias about officiating. he hates officials on principle, not because he thinks they are out to get the wings. he is as likely as any to point out when a bad call against the other team benefits the wings, and more likely than most.

2. last night, edzo, on national TV, played the "wings get away with obstruction more than anyone" card. tell me again how shy he is about it.

 

ps: troy who?

 

Just caught the highlights of the game last night. I want my ignorance out in the open. Franzen put himself in to a terrible spot looking for a call.

we see it more and more these days bob. players put themselves in these awful positions along the boards because more times than
not they get the call. ironically these calls being made might end up getting a player hurt badly. its deliberately bad hockey.

didn't like the Hawks Dman (Seabrook?) pushing Cleary in to the post. i can see why Cleary was pissed.

with ya here. just because he doesn't make contact w/ the goalie doesn't mean that he doesn't affect the goalie.

 

i thought ken and mikey were Holland and Babcock. Gheez, a bit lost. Im still thrown for a loop w/ this kicking penalty. How have I never known this. Ive reffed before too.

 

Mickey is a good color guy, when he's talking about the game outside of officiating and the rules. My issue is with the emphasis on officiating, not the bias in either direction. I like their flow and I think they are an above average team that lets officiating throw an otherwise pretty good broadcast, into the toilet.

I caught that and it was out of line. I haven't heard much of that from him in the past. I've shared that belief since Scotty Bowman was coaching the wings, but I always considered it a "Greg Maddux strike out zone thing" in the sense that they played to what was allowed better than anybody in that regard. Why he chose to go that route really made me scratch my head. It was very un-Edzo like to phrase it like he did. I took it as a response to some of Pierre's thoughts, but that doesn't excuse it. Pierre talks out of his arse when he's between the glass, they need to get him out of there. Edzo spending too much time around NBC staff and got stupid.

I'll be shocked if you hear more than a few Hawks fans whining and bitching about interference much the rest of the series compared to what we're probably going to see the next couple games. Most of that complaining was because of game 2 more than game 3.

Admittedly, I've gone the radio route on many of the doc-Pierre-Edzo games I had to switch after Doc lost his pants screaming about an upcoming shot from 30 feet with 4 bodies blocking the shooting lane. Edzo was bad, and I've been on the "bad-Edzo" train this year. I really think he took a step backwards and that comment about the wings' obstruction (how he phrased it) piles on to the argument. Overall, I still think Edzo can remain unbiased for series. I thought he's been fair calling Pit, NYR, and Chi games this year, when I've actually listened. Always a few exceptions but I thought those were balanced overall. Unbiased is different from being bad, not sure why Edzo is trying to creep back to Pierre's, Mike's, and JR's level.

 

Troy Murray for Hawks Radio. He hates officials like Mickey. He just doesn't have the audience. He goes out of his way to emphasize non-calls too. I find that particularly obnoxious because it's freaking radio. Why trouble listeners with trying to visualize non-calls when there are some many other aspects of the game that are more important to visualize?

 

I've been watching Franzen do it for years, I'm still guessing why he does it but I don't think it's to take advantage of the new rules. Although, he still may be trying to draw a penalty.

That's what I was talking about the other day. After all the b.s. that flew in game 2, I thought it was going to come back and that was a great (but terrible) example of it. I wish Seabrook would get a fine for that. Besides, any hit could knock Cleary out for his career. Cleary had every right to be ticked off, it was a nasty move by Seabrook.

Yeah, it's one of those things like "just stay off the blue paint!" and you shouldn't have to worry about it. If you're on it, expect a bad thing to happen and go from there. Like so many penalties and calls, if you're positioned right, you're seldom going to get screwed on a call and may even be more likely to draw one yourself. Get in the right damn spot!