GodsendJen

In terms of on-ice success the first refreshing phrase I've heard in a while came out of today's pregame skate for the Thrashers, from Micah Hart at the Blueland Blog 

Marian Hossa said he expects the team to play with a little more puck possession now and not do as much chasing, but that's about as far as anyone went in terms of discussing what will be different.

Don Waddell addressed the media afterwards as well, and you can listen to the full Q and A here.

Waddell sounded confident that the team could still get on track for this season, and though he may make some changes going forward it appears tonight the lines will stay mostly intact. He did mention, like Hossa did, that they will be attempting to play more of a puck-possession game, so perhaps that will be something that will help get this team off the schneid.

That's right, tonight we might play less dump'n'chase and do that crazy thing where we skate the puck into the zone and maintain possession.  So far Kovy and Enstrom are the only players who've been willing to skate in with the puck, but I'm excited to see what happens when everyone else starts doing this as well.  My only concern is that dump'n'chase could be a hard habbit for the vets to break.  But who knows, maybe there is a patch to cure that. 

Note: I've gone hockey crazy this week.  Check out Southeast Shootout to see exactly what I mean by that.  Here is a wee little sample.

I'm not in the prediction business. My passion and excitement for this game is strange and complex, filled with hope and optimism, and often based more on wishful thinking and dreams not spoken than it is on the facts, figures and empirical findings born out through game play this season or last. I respect the facts and figures. I greatly admire the selfless souls who spend hours crunching numbers through modeling algorithms to predict outcomes. If I were a coach I’d have a handful of these people on my staff, and I’d listen if they made a recommendation about who to scratch come game time. But with all do respect to the great math nerds of the world, that doesn’t mean jack come playoff time. This is the time to put your heart on your sleeve, your mind on the back burner and rely on your gut.

Without further ado, here are some predictions born in that place where fear and fragility meet rainbows and sunshine.

Just for tonight, the unsung will be heroes. Andy Sutton will do something dumber than dye his hair blue only to dye it brown the next morning. He’ll play less than 15 minutes and be responsible for giving up a goal. Ilya will try too hard, get too frustrated, and make an early visit to the sin-bin. But the rugged veterans of this team, Scott Melanby, Keith Tkachuk, Slava Kozlov, Bobby Holik and Alexie Zhitnik will come through as difference makers. With steady emotions they’ll make the right passes, ease the right emotions, and make sure we hit the Rangers hardest on the scoreboard. Kari Lehtonen will recover from an early goal and give these Thrashers their first playoff victory, ever.

Embolden by victory this team will win the series in 6 games. The losses will come back to back and our third victory might even come at home with Moose in goal. This team has a recent trend of clinching the big ones (a playoff birth, a SED championship) on the road. So its fitting we advance in these playoffs by defeating the Rangers at MSG in game 6.

If the microchips prove me wrong, as they might do, that’s ok. When you write software for a living you get used to it.

The "We Won the Division Dance" is so much more fun!  Enjoy the celebration.  The real work starts next week.

The years of waiting for playoff hockey in Atlanta will soon be over. Tonight it is official. The Rangers big win over the Maple Leafs clinched the Thrashers a spot in this years NHL playoffs. Way to go Thrashers!

I watched tonight's Thrashers vs. Bruins game at the hockey viewing party the Interactive Squad hosted at our suburban Up the Creek.  If the team wants to evangelize in my neighborhood I want to support it. 

The good news is the turnout surpassed my expectations.  The parking lot was full, no small accomplishment for a Monday night.  The bar area and about half of the dining room was awash in blue jerseys. Most tables were filled with families.  Everyone had a chance to spin the prize wheel, and to do so without waiting in line for 20 minutes as you do at games. School age children dressed in their Blueland best sat coloring their children's menu and cheering when appropriate.  The crowd was quiet at first.  I expected more of a party atmosphere with fans mingling and discussing the recent trades.  Instead most tables kept to themselves but shared collective cheers and gasps as the game played out on the plasma TVs overhead. Cheering a television is always more fun in a crowd. Families watching the game together on a Monday night is great, but you have to wonder if some felt they were a victim of false advertising.  The fliers posted online and at the restaurant promised that Thrash himself would host this party.  Instead the hosts were two women from the Interactive squad and a couple of people in charge of the prize wheel.  Thrash's presence might have encouraged mingling and would certainly have added something extra for all the kids. 

Another negative is that Up the Creek isn't the ideal place for a viewing party of any sort.  The staff was pleasant and worked to meet any dining request, but the game wasn't visible from most of the dining room tables.  A variety of decorative metal plants blocked the view of televisions from half the dining room entirely.  Even the tables with a view of the TV only provided that view to patrons on one side of the table.  Also perplexing was the staff's insistence on vacuuming the dining area during the game.  Nothing quite helps you enjoy a hockey game like the feeling that your hosts are just watching the clock waiting for you to exit. I don't blame this on the Thrashers.  I think it was a side effect of Up The Creek trying too hard.  They even had the regional manager on hand.  Too bad she didn't have ask them to stop vacuuming or suggest they offer some specials to the folks who turned out. 

These factors make me think that other venues could be the difference between what was a nice viewing party and what could have been a great viewing party.  The northern suburbs have no shortage of family friendly sports bar. (Yes, you out of town folks heard that right.  Here in Atlanta we have family friendly sports bars.  I think its a side effect of confusing an SEC football game with holiday mass. But that is another post.) Across the street was Indigo Joe's.  The food isn't spectacular, but not really worse than Up the Creek.  As a sports bar they have far more TVs in proximity to all of their seats.  Any one of the Taco Macs  in the area would work. As would the very nice Barnacles on 141 in Norcross. At last count Barnacles had somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 televisions.  (Up the Creek had 7.)  And don't forget the largest Jock's and Jill's in the area is just a few miles away in Alpharetta.  A happy plus to gathering at a traditional sports watching venue is an increased likelihood of drawing in a few more casual sports fans.  I dream of a day when I'm not the only person in Jock's and Jill's who speaks up to complain when someone asks to have the single hockey TV changed so they can have yet another view of the SEC game that is on 3 other TVs.  Getting hockey folks into one of these bars might help raise their awareness that hockey fans do exist in the south.

Overall I'd give the event a B with the potential of turning into a B+ of A- next time out if they choose a better venue.  The team has sponsored at least 2 of these events so far and I expect more in the future.  If a viewing party comes to a place near you, do yourself a favor and check it out.

In case you missed it the Thrashers have made 2 deals over the last 24 hours.  The first deal sent Braydon Coburn to the Flyers for Zhitnik, a puck-moving defenseman.  The second deal sent Glen Metropolit and a boat load of draft picks to St. Louis for Tkachuk. I sat next to Glen Metropolit and Dennis Hamel in the press box last night and I told the Star 94 guy I was chatting with that I thought it meant Glen would be on the next ship out via trade.  Its a shame really as I liked the guy and I really liked giving JP a hard time about Metro's success here.  That said he wasn't the key to the Thrahsers making a playoff run...

The scoop on these deals is over at Southeast Shootout.  The Falconer is treating us to some very fine breakdowns of what these players can do.  Read and comment on it over there :)

This year I'm slowly working my way around Philip's Arena.  Watching hockey from everywhere...the 400s, the 300s, the 200s and even from a few rows behind the sin-bin in some swank club seats at center ice. Blog night gave me my first opportunity to to watch from the Philip's Arena press box.

It's hard to explain the allure of this to someone who hasn't experienced it.  Logic and marketing dictate that the normal sports fan want to sit as cost to the action as possibe.  It's true in baseball.  It's true is football. It's true in basketball with it's coveted courtside seats.  Most fans think its true in hockey as well.  Why else would someone pay $250 to sit next to the glass.  That has to be the best seat, right?  I'm here to tell you that isn't so. Yes, it's nice sit next to the action on occasion.  Few things convey the spead of the game like sitting next to the boards when the players crash into them.  When the puck rebounds off the glass you understand just how fast it's flying.  You can hear the game from that location, but you can't see it.  You can't see what is happening when players are battling for a puck near you seat. You can't see the puck or the sticks.  From these seats I'm frustrated when players are in the corner near me.  I actually long for action to move to the other side of the ice so that I might once again watch the game.

From seats high in the press box you can see everything.  It takes a few minutes to adjust to the height, to looking at players from above.  When the adjustment is complete you realize you can really see the game from this perspective. Not players speeding after the puck, but a team executing a game plan. On top of all that you get to sit and watch the game without being surrounded with some dillusional idiot who thinks Steve is doing him a personal favor every time he speaks into the microphone. 

Last night the ticket fairy blessed me with club seats.  I've had club seats for other teams and at other arenas, but this was my first trip to watch the Thrasher's at Phillips from the club side. 

Commoner's like myself have heard many rumors about the club section.  Sure, there are the rumors about an impressive array of food and beverages, but this wasn't my mission.  The rumor I most wanted to investigate was the presence of hot water in the bathrooms.  I've never before felt compelled to wash my hands the moment I enter the arena, but last night that is exactly what I did.  I am sad to report that the water in those bathrooms is indeed hot.  My question for the members of the Spirit Group is this:  Your most passionate fans are those that are in their $10-$50 non-club seats before the puck drops for the opening face-off.  Why then is all the hot water in your building reserved for the fans that stumble down to their seat mid-second period, talk constantly about non-game stuff, and leave mid-third period?  Don't get me wrong, I'm not begrudging hot water for the corporate representatives who help stuff money into the Spirit bank account.  But why aren't the rest of us worthy? Is there some segment of the fire code that prevents the arena from installing enough large hot water heaters to service all the restrooms?  Did the architects of Phillips fail to include enough mechanical space for the number of hot water heaters needed? Is the water from non-club bathrooms perhaps melt from the rink that you otherwise could not dispose of?

One of the master pieces of Phillips Arena, from my perspective, is the ladies room found near section 320.  There is a huge glass window in this restroom that overlooks what I believe is the area known to football fans as Falcon's Landing. At night there is just the right combination of lights and colorful banners to make the view quite pleasing.  Imagine how nice that would be if you weren't shrieking from the cold water that blasts from the sink. Why shriek you ask....no matter how well aware I am that the water will not be warm, cold water always shocks the system in an uncomfortable manner.  For those concerned about the food and drink rumors the food appears to come from the Buckhead Life group of restaurants.  Translation: Yummy but pricey.  An unexpected plus of the club section is that the Spin to Win line is very small. Sadly I discovered there are still pleanty of prizes on their wheel that aren't free tickets.

More importantly the game itself was great (and the view from our seats simply incredible). You can read about our impressive victory against the less-than-remarkable LA Kings around the internet.  I was worried prior to the game simply because our track record against Western Conference teams this season is appalling bad.  This game even came with its own moments of anxiety.  We entered the third period with a 3 -1 lead.  Then, 2 minutes into the period, we give up a goal cutting that lead in half.  If you've been watching our third period play over the last month you understand why this would give a Thrasher's fan with a queasy feeling.  I needn't have worried.  Marian Hossa provided 2 more goals to complete his second hat trick of the season and Glen Metropolit scored a goal (his second point of the night) to make the final score 6-2.  I know we can't get excited about defeating a team that is currently last in the Western Conference, but we were productive in the third period, played the game committing only 2 penalties (none in the third), scored on 2 of our 3 power play opportunities, killed off both of the penalties we took, and finally beat a Western Conference foe.  I say hooray for that. In the novelty department it was also the first start for the NHL's lone Japanese player, goalie Fukufuji got his first official start. My best laugh of the game came during the second period just after Fukufuji was pulled.  Some fans sitting directly behind Fukufuji's goal in section 108 started a chant to taunt Fukufuji, calling him by name.  The problem was that Fukufuji had just been replaced by Brust.  These two amusing gentlemen sitting next to us turned to this group of fans and screamed at them for not paying attention.  The fans briefly quieted.  My personal pet peeve about other fans is coming to a game and not paying any attention to it, so I was more than happy to laugh at this exchange. 

The biggest bummer of the game--yet again I witness a hat trick and find myself without a hat to throw.  Someday I'll learn to always wear a cheap and aerodynamic hat to games.

Last weekend I was kid in a candy store excited.  I had scored my first (hopefully not my last) media credential for a NHL game.  I was excited about the access, about getting to sit in the press area, getting to see some of the behind the scenes action and having access to the incredible stack of statistics and other team information that the home team produces. More than anything I was excited about having access to the players and coaches after the game.

I like to think of myself as a smart girl capable of asking serious questions.  I wanted to ask some questions, a few admittedly girly, that were not related to the Caps game, like:

• Bob, last night we lost to yet another team from the Western Conference.  Do you have a plan for helping us win against these disciplined teams before we leave on that West-Coast road trip in February? When will you begin strategizing for those games?
• Hossa, you talk a lot in interviews about Atlantans not recognizing you in public.  This season the team is winning and you are on billboards.  Are more people spotting you in public?
  
• Kari, you had a charming interview with Bary Melrose on ESPN.  I was especially impressed by your hair, what product do you use to make it stand up like that?
• Ilya, it's been musical centers on your line.  Who do you think you have the best chemistry with and would work best centering your line?
• And of course, Glen, would you please explain to JP that I am right, you are having a career season and he should just defer to me on all hockey related matters from now on? And could you do it with the video feed on my digital camera running?
  

I also had some game related questions:

• Ex, do you think some lingering effects of the mono contributed to that delay of game period you had a minute into overtime?
• Bob, do you think an endurance issue is contributing to our late game collapses?

Did I ask any of these questions?  Nope.  I wussed out.  The one factor I had not anticipated was the mood of the locker room.  You hear so many stories from football and baseball where players appear to take a loss lightly--or at least far more lightly than you'd like them to take it as a fan.  Hanging your head in devastation is the purview of overzealous fans, right?  I can attest that after our loss to the Capitals everyone I saw in that Thrasher's locker room looked like someone had just run over their puppy.  Seeing the players so worn down and dejected, there was no way I could bother them with my trifle questions.  This was no fault of the Thrasher's press people.  To their credit they offered to go get Metro for me to talk to.  But I just couldn't do it.  I did go to Bob's press conference and ask a question about our penalties...but really the experience was not me at my best.  It was me discovering the shortcomings of fandom and learning how hard it must be to be a reporter traveling with the team for a living.    If I get the opportunity again I'll jump at it and try to do a better job, even if we don't win.

I shared my press experience last Saturday with my old college chum, Amber.  In exchange for getting her a seat next to mine in the press box I made her record her thoughts about watching hockey as a newbie.  What exactly does a person think about watching real hockey when all they know coming to the game is what they learned from the movies?  This is her account.

Saturday night was my first hockey game.  All I knew came from watching the Mighty Ducks and ¬Miracle.  Before the game starts I check the injury report.  What is an ‘upper body’ injury? Do they not want the media to know?  Is it a test to see if you were watching when it happened? Fascination aside it didn’t go far in helping me learn about the game. Curious about seat prices I go online and find they range from $10-$225.  I’d be perfectly willing to pay $10, probably even more, but $225?  The $10 seats were nice and cushioned.  The pricey seats included bleachers which are close but look uncomfortable.  And what about those seats right in front of the boards?  People spending hundreds of dollars to watch hockey will go deaf!  When players get slammed into the boards or the puck rebounds off the glass the sound is deafening.  These people have spent crazy amounts of money on a ticket and they will likely pay medical deductibles to get their hearing checked.   Really, the cheap seats aren’t bad.  You have a view of the entire arena and you don’t have to worry about post-game frostbite. 

Of course, most of my observations on the seating are speculation, as I was sitting in the press box.  For those who have never been to the press box, here’s my list of advantages and disadvantages.  First let me clarify something.  The actual boxes are reserved for “on camera” media.  Those of us who were not in live broadcast roles were sitting in what would more accurately be termed the press rows; two of them, to be precise.  Personally, I think the rows are probably better than the actual boxes.  It’s easier to feel like part of the crowd and feel the excitement all around you.  The view is amazing.  I was able to see every seat in the stadium except those immediately in front of me.  We sat as far up as the cheap seats but the view of the rink is completely unimpeded.  Up this high I feel like we could be part of the extra colorful advertisements and encouraging chants that were illuminated in red, white, and blue, with the occasional green and yellow thrown in for variety.  The production is truly enjoyable to watch. 

Without a doubt, the best part of sitting in the press box was not having people sitting immediately in front of my knees and immediately above my head.  I didn’t have to worry about some tall guy or a short woman with big hair blocking my view.  I didn’t worry about obnoxious people behind me kicking my chair, shouting in my ears, bumping the back of my head every time they stand up, or spilling beer all over me when they jump up exhilarated by the last particularly exciting play. 

There is a huge disadvantage to sitting in the press box.  I was unable to participate in any of the chanting or cheering.  As a hockey newbie I did not have a preference as to who won or lost the game (well, not at first anyway) and was perfectly willing to be happy for both teams when they made a particularly strong move, scored a point, or prevented the other team from scoring.  Sitting in the press box I had to appear completely impartial to both teams.  There’s no cheering for anybody from the press box!

Finally, hockey is loud.  While I didn’t suffer from the eardrum bursting clash of the puck against the boards I was overwhelmed by how much noise Capitals fans make.  It seemed as if the fans higher up in the stands, the ones who were closest to me, were by far the loudest in the arena.  It was as if they felt the Capitals couldn’t win if they didn’t hear their particular voices.  I imagine most diehard Capitals fans sitting in the higher seats wake up the morning after a game with no voice.  Then there’s the buzzer.  It isn’t fair that only the home team gets a loud buzzing noise when they score.  With three minutes left in the second period the Thrashers had scored twice, but you could hardly tell from the lack of excitement or loud obnoxious buzzing.  Loud and obnoxious as it was the buzzing is very energizing.  Doesn’t the visiting team deserve to be energized, too?

The loud buzzer begs another question, why is it that the goal at a hockey game is to make as much noise as possible to energize the home team, but golf and tennis require the audience to be silent?  Seriously, hockey players hit a puck racing across the ice, while on skates, with other players trying to knock them unconscious against the boards--and they play better if the crowd is loud and encouraging.  But a golfer hitting a stationary ball and two tennis players alone on a court hitting a bright yellow ball need total silence.  Maybe golf and tennis should take a page out of the proverbial hockey book. 

Today is my big official day as a member of the "media" with credentials for a game.  What should be really exciting has turned into a bit of a circus.  I felt good going into this.  JP and Eric McErlain were great with advice and telling me what to expect. I even got a few tips from a nice helpful individual on the Thrasher's staff.  Unfortunately they told me to expect to show up at MCI Verizon Center at 9:30 today to pick up my credentials.  Wouldn't you know it--turns out there is basketball there today.  Some bug-eyed guy whom I assume is with the Hoyas thought we were completely crazy.  He told me "It's basketball today. Come back at 5."  So I go out and send JP a panicked email. "HELP" I plead and yes, he calls. Amber, my partner in crime for the weekend, and I follow JP's instructions and head over to Ballston Commons Mall where the Caps practice for morning skate.  We track down the contact with the Caps who tells us--I don't have your passes now, come back to MCI at 4 today.  So to sum up it is now 12:30 and we have treked all over DC on the Metro (the train, not the player--minds out of the gutter people) for no good reason.  We did get to see part of the morning skate (that is public at the practice facility) and we watched as Hanlon (the CAPs coach) took time to sign a bunch of autographs for fans standing in an autograph queue.  I'm optimistic about tonight, hopefully it will go smoother.  Now I'm off to spend more time treking around DC with my laptop in shoes too nice to trek around the streets...

Yes, it has been a month since a blog entry.  Sure, there was Christmas, a staffing shortage at work, fun with surgical consults, being struck with the plauge and yes, hiding my head in shame after that Peach Bowl loss.  Never fear, things are looking up.  Tomorrow morning I head to DC for a weekend of wild fun and debauchery bridge and tea parties with some old mates.  Saturday I get treated to some top notch hockey.  Or at least I get treated to some top notch access to whatever quality hockey the Caps and Thrashers put on the ice that night. I don't want to spoil the surprise but I'll post about my experiences here and over at Southeast Shootout.  For what it's worth I have done some writing over there while this poor site sat still.  Its all about hockey so feel free to go check it out.

It's strange how sometimes something you dread can turn out so well.  Atlanta has a miserable record against the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Last season the Leafs beat us 4 times by a combined total of 19 points.  Earlier this season they beat us 4-2. In fact to find the last time Atlanta beat Toronto you have to go all the way back to October of 2003 when we walked away with a 3-2 OT win. Tonight we took a big step ahead as a team and dominated the Leafs walking away with a 5-0 win.  The highlights:

• Marian Hossa had his first Thrasher hat trick. (His last one came when he was with Ottowa in a game against the Thrashers.) 
  
• Kari Lehtonen had his 4th shut out of the season (setting a new single season franchise mark for shut-outs).  
  

The hat trick and the shut out are both impressive, but more so was the way the whole team pulled togather.  The hat trick wasn't just a product of Hossa's puck mastery.  When we found ourselves on the power play late in the game everyone on the ice was trying to get the puck to Hossa.  On the other end of the ice everyone was working hard to help Kari preserve that shutout.  Kari was on fire tonight and its obvious that his success in the last two games has really bolstered his confidence.  It was also refreshing to hear chants of "Hos-sa, Hos-sa" and "Kari, Kari" coming from the crowd instead of the usual drivel.

I agree with most of the things Bob Hartley does with the Thrashers, after all he knows infinately more about hockey than I can ever hope to comprehend.  The decisions of his I've really questioned came during the games where Kari Lehtonen gave up a couple of quick goals and Hartley quickly pulled him and went to Johan Hedberg.  Coming from a football background there are some football thoughts that infiltrate my hockey thoughts.  I think of goalies the same way I think of quarterback and I really worried that getting pulled quickly and being sat for so many games would shake his confidence.  On a night like tonight where our defense was spread thin it would have been easy for Hartley to make another goalie switch.  Hopefully sticking with Lehtonen is a sign that his confidence is up and he's regained Hartley's trust.  The end result was an incredible 5-4 overtime win over the Rangers.  A nice bit of revenge exacted for that loss they handed to us a few weeks ago. Those losses by Carolina and Tampa Bay are just icing on the cake.

For two days I’ve patiently read the incessant whining from Capitol’s fans (and yes, some Thrasher’s fans) about how all fault for Wednesday’s brouhaha can be placed squarely on the shoulders of Andy Sutton and his “cheap shot” on Green with just over a minute left in the game.  These complaints fall under two headings: Sutton is a cheap shot artist who does this all the time and it’s about darn time some team stood up against his brutality; and the Thrasher’s had the game in hand and there is no reason for aggressive play with so little time left.

The Cheap Shot
Sutton’s hit didn’t merit anything more than a two minute roughing penalty.  He’s a defenseman and he hit the guy with the puck when the opportunity presented itself.  That’s what he gets paid for.  Was the hit high? Yes.  I’d prefer Sutton find a way to check Green without getting penalized too, but he was just coming onto the ice and needed to react quickly.    

Uncalled for in a Game You Will Win
This second argument is the one that really burns me.  Anyone who thinks you stop playing aggressive defense because the end of regulation is near needs to have their head examined.  Or better yet, go back and watch some tape of our early season loss to the Hurricanes.  Our team learned the hard way this season that you can’t stop and take a breather when the final seconds are ticking off the clock.  We’ve had teams score twice on us in under a minute.  We’ve had a team score a game winning goal with half a second left on the clock.  If those losses taught us ANYTHING it’s that we can’t blow off the last two minutes of the game.  Thrasher fans who jumped on this bandwagon should be ashamed. We want our team to win and for that to happen we need them to play defense until the final horn sounds.

I’m sure my arguments won’t silence anyone, but the NHL rulings make it pretty clear where the league places the blame. On the Capital’s side you have $30,000 in fines to Hanlon, a three game suspension to Brashear, a one game suspension to Sutherby.  On the Thrasher’s side $10,000 in fines to Hartley and a one game suspension to captain Mellanby.  Frankly I’m surprised, and disappointed, that Hanlon didn’t receive as suspension of his own.  He engineered the first three on three throw-down and I suspect he wanted to meet Hartley in the parking lot after the game and go at it Karate Kid style.  One thing I do know, on December 15^th I’ll be at Philips for the rematch.

I don't typically find much to complain about at the NHL website.  Sure its poorly organized and sometimes cumbersome to navigate but they make tons of high-quality material available to the masses for free.  I can listen to their daily radio show in the morning or games at night, etc.  Today my visit was to cast an All-Star ballot.  As a relative hockey newbie I made some false assumptions about what I should expect from this process.  For starters I assume it would work like the MLB All-Star voting does.  Do it online or at the stadium.  Choose from pretty much any player on a teams roster at the beginning of the season.  Choose to cast the maximum number of votes for any position or only cast votes for players I give a flying fig about. You know, standard All-Star voting stuff. Boy was I wrong.

My first shock came when I learned that you could vote only online.  This might not seam like a big deal given that wide availability of internet service these days, but its an important distinction.  The casual fan who attends a game for the social experience, because a friend had an extra ticket or because they landed the company tickets for the night is likely to cast some votes if an usher spirit girl hands them a ballot at the beginning of the game and collects it near the end of the second period.  Chances are this fan will cast some votes for players on the team he came to watch and maybe punch a few chads for other names he recognizes on the ballot.  This same casual fan, despite spending 8 hours a day in front of a computer connected to the internet, will probably never take the initiative to go out and find the All-Star ballot online and vote. 

But what happens when he does go online to vote? The ballot itself is pretty. It features 10 baseball-card style photo frames with a position listed under the frame and a drop down list of players you can vote for to fill that spot.  When you select the player you can see their photo in the frame and even choose to watch some choice highlights.  There are 5 frames for each division divided into 3 Forwards, 2 Defensemen and a Goalie for each conference. So far, no beef.  I go to cast my votes and find that rather than choosing from all forwards in the eastern conference I'm limited to 30.  Thankfully two of my guys (Kovalchuck and Hossa) are on the list.  No problem.  Frame one goes to Hossa, frame two to Kovalchuck.  Frame 3?  Well I want to write in Slava Kozlov.  He's been on fire and should get some recognition.  I go down to the single write-in slot for the easter conference and choose Slava from the list.  I don't care so much about the defensemen.  None of our guys are on the list and I've already used my write-in spot.  No big deal, our defensemen are improved, but I wouldn't call them All-Stars.  I choose Kari from the list of goalies and go hit submit.  I expect a "Thanks for voting" message.  What I get is an error alert.  It turns out the geniuses at the NHL HQ decided that you must vote for someone in each position slot shown.  I can't help my guys at forward out by not casting a vote for one of their competitors in that third frame.  I can't even make my write in vote for Slava at forward count for that third frame.  I also have to vote for defensemen AND I have to cast a vote for someone at each position in the Western Conference.  My knowledge of individual hockey players is limited to the guys on the Thrasher's roster, a few guys who played for the Caps when I lived in DC and some choice players with our Southeast Division rivals.  All I can say is I hope the NHL honchos enjoy the fruit baskets they are getting from the players at the top of each drop down list this Christmas.  I'm sure I'm not the only person who voted for them just because I had to cast a vote.

NHL All-Star Ballot

I like to occasionally fool myself into thinking people care what I think and even take action.  Another opportunity for this has arrived as there have been 2 recent additions to the Thrasher blogging world.  Someone named Austin has started a Thrashin' blog at http://atl-thrashin.blogspot.com/ and Britt has started one called Girls-LOVE-Hockey-Too at http://girlslovehockeytoo.blogspot.com/.  For those keeping count that raises the known total to 3.5 Thrasher's blogs.  Nine more and we can even it up with the Caps.

I spend way too much time surfing through sports blogs when I have slow time at work.  Some of them are just places I've found thanks to Deadspin, others are devoted to my teams.  The problem with the latter is that some of my teams just don't have a lot of bloggers.  A blurb by Eric McErlain over at Off Wing Opinion really illustrates this.  It appears that the Caps have at least 12 dedicated blogsites of which he is aware.  And those are real fan blogs, not team or local newspaper sponsored blogs.  That's 12 sites for a team that doesn't have much to crow about once you get past Ovechkin.  How many dedicated blogs do the Thrashers have?  As far as I know we only have two.  The overly named Do The Thrashers Have Large Talons blog run by a stat-geek who calls himself The Falconer.   (Yes boys and girls.  Our best Thrashers blog is run by a math nerd whose screen name makes you wonder if it was taken from our Football team.) The second is the rarely updated blog called Thrash Talk run by Brett Lang that mostly rehashes stuff the team put out on its own.

No disrespect to The Falconer, but I think we are better than a 1 and a half blog team.  Jump in the game and get something going.  Unfortunately I don't know enough about Hockey yet to be a jumper-inner but I'd like to think some folks in the feuding tribes at the Nest and the Chicken might have something worthy to say. 

I'm all for any kind of novelty that helps get buts in the seats at home games.  Really I am.  But this one just makes me laugh.  For tomorrow's game on Friday the 13th the team is giving away Goalie Masks. This can't be the first time an NHL team has done this kind of promotion.  Of course this year what should really give other teams pause isn't stands filled with horror movie bad guys.  It's that we have the league leader in GAA, Points, +/- and have the best record in the NHL East....all while Ilya Kolvachuck hasn't even scored a point yet.

Meanwhile if thoughts of Horror movies and Halloween have you itching to reminisce about your favorite horror flicks check out this cute "find the hidden scary movie" game over at the  M&Ms website.

Last night I was faced with a choice.  Watch Monday Night Football or watch Hockey...and I didn't choose the football.  This is strange for me, and probably an indication that I've let my friends get me too caught up in this.  The problem is the game was really excellent last night.  Everyone said that the team focused on improving defense in the off season and that defense looked incredible against Tampa Bay.  I was yelling happy things at my tv after the finished the 2 minutes of 5 on 3 penalty kill. Kari made some great saves and everyone else was there doing everything they could to help protect him.  We are only 3 games into the season, but I'm starting to see why there has been so much talk about Kari's potential.  Lets just hope the team can keep it up, and maybe even find a little offense to go with that mad D.

NHLRecap
AJC Game Recap

Season Two of the Great Hockey Experiement officially got underway at Philips.  Its the first time I've gone to a game without taking someone more knowledgable along with me. Instead I embraced the notion that you don't need a man to watch hockey and convinced the girls to join me.  This left me as the group expert on the the Thrashers and hockey in general and I think I was able to rise to the occasion. 

The game itself was good but a bit of a disapointment.  The arena was only half full despite it being opening night.  From my perspective that place should be full for opening night even if it means giving away the tickets.  Our passing and puckhandling is much better than it was at the beginning of last season.  I think it was after the olympic break before we started passing the puck successfully. I'm glad it isn't taking us that long to get our act togather this year.  The first game went to a shoot out and left me very perplexed by our choices.  Hossa wasn't one of our designated shooters.  Why would one of our best offensive players not take a turn?  Instead Jon Sim got a shot and we failed to score at all.

Other highlights of our outing included

• An enterprising friend getting ahold of multiple giveaway scarfs and selling them to people at the game.  I know people sell their extras on Ebay all the time, but I'd never considered selling them at the game.  Really, how hard was it for anyone to get an "extra" scarf?
  
  
• The amazing discovery that going to the game dateless opens up the door for any number of men to buy you beer.  Unlike a bar--where men buy you beer to hit on you--these folks were just being nice.  Three cheers for free beer and many thanks to the anonymous pony-tailed dude for offering to buy me Bass and then making his friend buy when he realized he had no money.
  
  
• Girls breed drama.  There really isn't a good excuse for this, it just follows us around. During the course of the game we lost girls and were convinced an aspiring bf was stalking someone.

Before last season kicked off some friends convinced me to start watching hockey. Already a certifiable sports nut, I wasn't sure I needed another team (and a whole other league) to follow. Beyond this my biggest problem with hockey is that it isn't accessible for me.  Football, baseball and even basketball and soccer are games I can go out and play in my backyard or my driveway.  As mentioned here previously, I can barely stand on ice skates so I can't just up and play with friends at a cookout for fun.  Despite this I gave in and watched anyway.  I went to some games and even got a jersey sweater.  I was hooked.  Hockey wasn't entirely new to me.  I'd gone to enough Renegades games in Richmond (prior to their demise) that I understood the rules, the basic positions, and that improperly laying a basketball court on top of the ice makes for one really sloppy basketball game. Last year I focused on learning who our players are, how the new rules affected the game and how to recognize penalties.  This year I've decided to learn about strategy.  What the major plays are and where players should be on the ice.  I thought preseason training camp might be a good place to start learning so I decided to pass on watching College Game Day Saturday morning and check out camp.  I learned a lot from watching practice and talking with my new friend Noah, but it wasn't what I expected to learn.  Here are the highlights.

1. Hockey practice is not for the color blind. The team looks like they are auditioning for a skittles commercial on ice.  Thankfully it didn't take long to realize the point of this is to color-code the lines.  At first it was frustrating.  I learned about the players, but I'm used to finding them on the ice based on their name and number.  The color coded jerseys don't have names and numbers.  This proved not to be as troublesome as I feared.  It doesn't take long to realize who is on what line and after that finding someone on ice is actually easier because of this handy color scheme. I was interested in watching a couple of our new centers and spotting the short guys in navy (Metropolit) and gold (Kapenan) was pretty easy.  For the record Metro is very very fast and Kapenan is adorable. Can they make up for the departure of Mr. Savard?  Who knows?  Of course finding my favorite (Hossa) and everyone else's favorite (Kolvachuk) was easy.
   
   
2. You spend a whole lot of time just standing around at hockey practice. In most sports, training camp is designed to get players back into game condition.  To build up their endurance so they can go full speed for an entire game. I was really surprised to see most of practice consisting of short bursts of activity by one line while the players from the other lines are waiting in a queue for their turn.  Maybe this works for hockey and not for other sports because no other sport imitates their pattern of constantly rotating personnel but I was surprised. In addition to this there were several times during practice when Hartley called the team over to his white board to explain what he wanted them to do. (That's what is going on in the first picture.)  Never-the-less some of these guys were just exhausted at the end of the 2 hour, 20 minute practice.
   
   
3. It's really hard to take good pictures of hockey practice.  Part of this is because some of these guys skate very fast.  Part of it is the glass.  Part of it is that I wore sandals, shorts and a t-shirt to practice and was shivering while taking photos.  I was absolutely struck by how short one of our new goalies is.  Brathwaite is 5'7" and looks like a dwarf compared to Kari Lehtonen who is 6'4".  The photos I took to illustrate this look terrible, but I'm using two of them anyway.  The photos are taken at different distances but with the guys standing in front of the same goal.  Look at the difference in where the top of goal hits each of them, and then look at the top of their head in relation to the yellow line in the background.  Like I said, Brathwaite looks like a shrimp. 
   
   Brathwaite surprised me in general.  I knew we'd signed new goalies but I had no idea that Brathwaite is whatever you call African-Americans in Canada (African-Canadian?) [on advice from my Canadian friend the correct label is-->]Canadian.  He had his helmet painted up with MLK and and a Welcome to Atlanta sign that people appeared to like.  Our other new goalie was a big hit.  I think the inner sports fan in all of us just loves shouting "Moose."  Frankly I wouldn't mind not seeing either of these guys in goal this year for any reason other than giving Lehtonen a night off on occasion.  I also learned that while some players are fast, goalies are slow on skates.  Maybe it's all the padding but these guys lagged far behind everyone else when the skating portion of practice began.
   
   
4. Of all the various sports practices I've watched or participated in I think hockey practice reminds me most of basketball practice.  Lots and lots of drills done as a whole team (football splits up into units for these) and not so much game simulation.  This struck me most at the end of practice when it was time to do some skating.  They moved the goals out of the way and everyone got situated behind the red line at the end of the ice.  I had instant recollection of coaches yelling for us to line up at the base line during basketball practice...and sure enough it's the same exercise but on skates.  We ran between the baseline and the top of the key, half-court, the top of the other key and finally the other baseline before collapsing and trying not to vomit.  Swap out the keys with the blue lines and the hockey players were doing the same thing.  I guess everyone appreciate the effort as the assembled voyeurs were cheering, usually for the last guy to finish in each group. I guess since hockey adopted the best part of basketball (the fast break) they decided to adopt the most excruciating part of practice as well.
   
   
5. Real hockey fans are serious about hockey and this starts young.  My new friend Noah was happy to tell me something about almost every Thrasher.  He knew every player's first and last name as well as their number.  He knew where players who had left the Thrashers during the off-season had signed.  He knew how to pronounce the funny sounding European last names.  His favorite player is Kolvachuk because of his fierce slapshot. He was happy to share with me some key statistics form Kovalchuk's season last year.  Noah plays hockey and skates fast just like Kolvachuk and even skates fast backward.  He has not yet mastered that slapshot.  Noah plays left wing on his hockey team.  I told him my favorites are Hossa, because I think he plays smart and because he scores all the short-handed goals and Jim Slater because I think he's cute.  Noah thought that last bit was funny. This was a moment of enlightenment for me.  I am used to being one of the more knowledgeable people in any sports conversation but Noah knew much more about the game and its players than I do. According to his dad, Noah's room is a shrine to all things Thrashers.  Did I mention that Noah is 5? Last season he got to be boy of the game once.  He stood on the ice with Kolvachuk, Mellanby and right next to Peter Bondra.  I think with Hockey I might have to accept that I can't catch up to some serious fans.  I mean if they start committing these details to memory at age 5, and I didn't start until last year....I'm going to take it as a sign to just enjoy the game rather than talk about it.