The Wrong Gordon

(In Hershey, Boyd Gordon skated as #13. I'm still waiting for someone to realize that while I'm wearing this in DC and call me on it.)


Also, congrats to Quintin Laing for being Washington's nomination for the Masterson trophy. If he doesn't get it, he was outrightly robbed. For the half-season he was here, he was one of my favorites to watch, and I swear, he was the glue holding the Bears together for 90 minutes some nights.

If the NHL suddenly decided to drop a hockey team on Portland, OR, (HA, RIGHT,) where would the players live?

My guesses are for the Pearl district expensive apartments, the new condos going up downstream from Pill Hill, or in the West Hills somewhere. Possibly a few of them would be out in the trees around Reed, but that seems slightly less likely, somehow.

Oh, and by the way, here's how our arena would stack up

PDX ROSE GARDEN SEATS FOR HOCKEY: 17,544

Arenas I Have Been In (Or Will Be Soon)
Verizon Center (Caps) :18,277
(see, it WAS smaller than the Wachovia, I wasn't crazy.)
Wachovia Center (Flyers) :19,519
Mellon Arena w/Standers (Pens) :17,132

Arenas for teams that have been wavering on the chopping block?

Sommet Center (Predators) :17,113
Philips Arena (Thrashers) :18,545


Just for comparison, Giant Center (one of the bigger AHL arenas) tops out seat-wise in the mid 10,000s.

Obviously, the answer is to move a struggling team to Portland and plonk them down in the Rose Garden, see if they really take off, and then demolish the Coliseum to either a) build them a bigger hockey specific arena, or b)build the Trailblazers a new arena and leave the Rose Garden to the Hawks and the Portland Whatevertheirnamesare.

(If the Thrashers move, do they become the Portland Western Meadowlarks? If anything, I think they should push to become the Portland Thundereggs. Just imagine the arguments they could get in with the Lightning, logo-wise. Or hell, just go back to my original idea and call them the Portland Thorns.)

I started reading Lisa Oven's "Hockey and High Heels" with hopes that it would be THE HOCKEY BOOK that spoke to the wishes and dreams of Hloggers worldwide. Instead, it turned out the be more like Hockey as Written By The Shallow Bimbos You Hated in High School.

Ovens starts off by declaring her good intentions-following the Vancouver Canucks for a season, but never gets past her insistence on going back to the being the ditzy scattered capitalistic female who sees any sporting event as an excuse to buy something of show off new acquisitions. Essentially, Ovens plays into the girly-fan stereotype that plagues hockey women the world over. She exclaims over how getting her hair done is her pre-game ritual (just like the players!) and shows off her new Prada purse to obnoxious and un-useful sidekick 'Stacie'.

By letting readers know off the bat that she can afford things like partial-season NHL tickets, Prada bags, and mid-season jaunts from British Columbia to Florida, Ovens also alienates those of her readers who don't share her ability to throw money at what for her seems like just a fun, giggly diversion. As much as I'd love to sit in the lower bowl for NHL games, I have to face facts: I have to eat. By rubbing her unexplained wealth in my face (What does she DO, anyway?) Ovens just makes me resent her as one of those people who throw money at something for the status they think it may bring them.

This view of Ovens as status-seeker is further bolstered when she dubs herself "hockey ambassador" to Florida while simultaneously admitting she knows very little about the game. At the end of the book she looks back and says "I guess we only covered one rule in the whole book... oops!" While this keeps her from running into the territory of The Girlfriend's Guide to Hockey, it also proves her ignorance when it comes to the game itself. Between this and the episode in which she exclaims over not knowing what constituted a puckbunny, she consistently undermines what little authority she gathered previously. Of course, handing her the mantle of "authority" is stretching it as well, when the format of the book presents perhaps two pages of hockey, hockey game or hockey related insight for every six pages of obnoxious and repetitive dialogue between Ovens and her sidekick on non hockey topics.

Overall, Hockey and High Heels reads as would a self centered and poorly written blog, dealing occasionally with hockey. Regretfully, because other women more involved more closely with the game (bloggers, sportscasters, etc) have not yet come out with their own interpretations of being a female fan, Ovens' pitifully weak and ridiculously un-insightful memoir of her single season with hockey is given the most weight among all womens' voices.



(In short, it's enough to make me call my thesis "Hockey and Sensible Shoes" just in attempt to wrest some of the female-fan power back away from this vapid woman.)

(cross-posted to Hockey's Ladies of Greatness.)

Turns out that Gordon's freak injury was in fact, his own damn fault on some level.... silly boy dislocated his toe playing pre-game warmup soccer. He's guessing he's out for about two weeks, but says that it's a pretty purpley blue color right now.

However, it meant that he got to do the radio broadcast tonight with Walton, and really, he's not bad at it. It's interesting to me to listen to him (3 years of college) as opposed to Army (0 years of college) or some of the other straight-outta-juniors guys, because the college dudes really do have a better vocabulary. Even if he was a damned marketing major.

Here are the most amusing quotes out of Gordo I managed to note down.
Walton asks about how roughed up he usually gets in games. "A couple of face washes, usually people don't pick on me. I guess I don't look too intimidating out there"
On Sami Lepisto and receiving the puck. "Easy guy to play with, I'll tell you that for free"
On Dean Arsene texting him throughout the broadcast from here in Hershey. "I think Deano's trying to make up for throwing me under the bus out here."

About the only thing that could have made that broadcast more amusing would have been a Bears win... they went down 5-4 to Springfield. Somehow, Woods, you've gotta convince them that it's not the Ice Capades out there during the second. This team has to give a three period effort, and they've been flakey on that all season.

For tomorrow I'm working on an actually substantive blog post on the Hockey and High Heels book that's been making the rounds. I won't give away my opinion directly, but let's just say that I'm now contemplating calling my thesis "Hockey And Practical Footwear You Can Walk In"

Ridiculous Injury of the Week:

According to Pennlive.com Andrew Gordon didn't play in the Bears game against the Manchester Monarchs tonight (or as we started calling them, the Monchester Menarches) because he "suffered an unspecified injury during pregame warmups." That's gotta be a little frustrating. Also, Beagle was playing with the flu and still managed to score his first goal in a while.... and, from what I can tell, get involved in some sort of minor scrum that gave him some box time.

Let it never be said that hockey players are wimps.... like all those pansyass football players who miss games for hangnails.

And, P. McNeill, welcome back to the lineup. I know there are only three of us out here pulling for you, but way to go with the assist. We'll make you Lepisto Jr. yet.)

On the Thrashers Are Dirty Dirty Birds Front, let's hear it for Army with another goal of his very very own and Crush with the game winning shootout goal. Way to show Shero what he's missing. Stick it to him where it hurts.

Having a job that lets me sit around and think is never a good thing. Case in point:

I know it was last Sunday, but during the Pens/Thrash game, the Pens (in a stunning display of good sportsmanship) acknowledged Army and Crush on the jumbotron. From what I hear it was a "Thanks for the Memories" type thing. Of course, this then brought all the Recchi-ites out of the woodwork, and they started whining that Recchi never got recognized in HIS first game back.

You know why that is? Because Recchi went out like a whiny four year old. Sure, he had a little more advance warning than Crush or Army did, being put on waivers, but he handled it pretty abhorrently. Army was a Penguin from day one, and although he admits to crying both he and Crush do turn around then and say the equivalent of "Hey, at least we're still playing hockey."

Honestly, this goes back on some level to that sportsmanship issue the NHL's been having with itself this season. Between the headhunting and the whining and Gary Bettman in general and the fans being generally abusive to each other (which granted, may not be that much worse than normal but still bears repeating) I think everyone needs to sit down, unbunch their panties and start remembering that everyone in this is human, just like them.

(except for Gary Bettman. He and Daniel Briere can go back to the Planet O'Midget any time they feel like it. And they might want to get offplanet pre-St Paddy's Day. I hear roasted leprechaun is magically delicious.)

Edited for more dumb:

Check out the NHL article on Joe Motzko. It's bad when I can read the sentence, "He's great on the power play and a dangerous open-ice creator, dishing out five assists in his first three games with Chicago," and my first reaction is "ZOMG! Motzko figured out how to pass?!?! Astonished wonderment!"

Okay, really, done beating a traded Motzko now. Really. Promise.

Welcome back, El Capitan. Give 'em hell. (but not too much hell, as Vinny's on my fantasy team and you're not.)

First of all, DEAR GOD CAPITALS. 10-2 over Boston? Three assists for Fehr? Where were you all for the game I saw on Saturday v. the Leafs?
(speaking of.... PICTURE BREAK. These are all, with the exception of the scoreboard shot, from warmups, as I was in the nosebleed section and didn't feel the need to take pictures of people to squint at later and guess at numbers.)


It's interesting sitting in the 400 section there because you can see entire plays developing, but at the same time you can also see poor Nikky Backstrom being 8 feet too far to the left to get to the puck in time, so it's thrilling and frustrating all at once.

Bears wise, I'm hearing from the WaltonBlog that Flinn (the current non-Louie goon) fractured his hand in a big third period fight against the Marlies on Sunday, and he's pretty much out for the rest of the season. He and Clymer are back here in town, while the rest of 'em headed for Lowell for the game on Wednesday. And although I'm not a stat-head, here's a cool one I heard on the radio the other day. Andrew Gordon has 35 points in 45 games. And that's WITH him being sent down to South Carolina. I'm pretty sure he's looking back at that and laughing right now... of course, I get the sense he'll laugh at a lot.

Colby Armstrong wise (one more day of the header, and I promise I'll go back to the Bears) he got his 100th NHL point bittersweetly against the Penguins on Sunday.

Real-life wise, for me, I'm looking for females of any persuasion to fill in a basic survey for my thesis research. If you or anyone you know would be willing to do it, have at it here. If you want to pimp it out on your own blog, feel free to pick up that link and distribute at will. The more information I get the more I can write!


EDIT:

It's nice to hear that Fehr is still following the Bears run... even if I'm not there to be the odd man out telling him what they're up to :-)