"Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world."

"Great moments... are born from great opportunity. And that's what you have here, tonight, boys. That's what you've earned here tonight. One game. If we played 'em ten times, they might win nine. But not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we skate with them. Tonight, we stay with them. And we shut them down because we can! Tonight, WE are the greatest hockey team in the world. You were born to be hockey players. Every one of you. And you were meant to be here tonight. This is your time. Their time is done. It's over. I'm sick and tired of hearing about what a great hockey team the Soviets have. Screw 'em. This is your time. Now go out there and take it."

wow.

Get fired up!!!!

hmmm... Lot's of talking about Petr...

Blingee Rally!

Let's Do This!

I keep thinking I have things to say. That I have all these words about how we need to win. How we have to win. But it's all just words. We have to win this, period. There are no other words to say. There are no other things that can be done. We embarrassed ourselves in Game 5. If it was only a matter of losing, it would be different. My radio would have different things coming out of it today. We didn't just lose the game though. We lost our focus. We lost our composure. We lost our minds. We lost our game. That wasn't our team. That's not how our team plays. Today I have been hearing all about the attacks at Fleury from the people who live in this town. He is our goalie. He expects to take some heat for losses. Sometimes they even have a leg to stand on when they're bashing him. But to blame him for these losses? laughable. The three losses we had in this series, we scored a grand total of two goals. Two. Do these people want MAF to score goals now too? I just can't listen to it. Now there's talk about Petr Sykora playing. I'm fine with that. Truly, I am. I just can't figure out why I listen to this stuff all day long on game nights. These people talk a lot because they have to. The radio would be a weird thing if people weren't talking. I like to hear what the players say on gameday (okay, I like to hear what they say every day). I like to hear their voices. There's a collectedness, a calmness, a coolness in their voices that has been there since the game was over on Saturday night. I am confident that tonight we will be back on track. Our guys had two days to regain their focus, their composure and our game. They had two days to reflect. They know how this game is played. They know we need to win this. I keep thinking how it wouldn't be the end of the world if... but fuck that. We want the Cup.



Let's Go Pens!

Okay. So that was really ugly.

It's 5:30ish on Sunday. The game was over, like, 19 hours ago and I'm ready to stop reliving it in my head. The stupid penalties. The missed chances. The bad timing. It was all pretty gross to watch as a Penguins fan. It was hard to take. If I looked at it objectively, which I'm not quite ready to do yet, I'm sure it was like watching hockey school. There was red everywhere. But like I said, I'm not ready to be objective. We fucked up and we paid for it mightily. We need to get back and regroup. Because what else can you do? There isn't anything else... except maybe take an anger management class or two. It has to be put behind us. Daddy Gonchar said, when we were two games in and two games down, "it isn't over." And it isn't over now either. I know our D and our goalie will take the blame for this game. Our D did all they could to keep that puck out of our zone. There was no follow through. A few of our forwards played really well. A few. It left our D playing behind the wings for a lot of the game. And it left our goalie under a lot of pressure. I haven't watched any postgame or off-day things today. I haven't looked at the newspaper. I haven't watched the news. I haven't even looked at the photos on the Penguins site. (As much as I want to see if there's a picture of JStaal with his fist in some guy's face, it happened pretty much simultaneously with some guy's fist in Letang's face... and I don't want to see that.) I'm a fan. I have done all the reliving I need to do in my head. More than I needed to do really. It isn't my job to analyze the things that went wrong. It isn't my job to figure out what needs to be done to get things back on track. It isn't my job to regroup. Because I don't have to. I never stopped believing in this team. It is my job to have faith that they know what they need to do and to believe that they will do it.

Because you know what? Detroit took this one over and we let them. They got in our heads and they made a lot of us forget what we should be doing. BigFatGoalie got his shut out. The robot that is the Red Wings put on a show. Yay for them. Yay for Detroit. But we're back in Pittsburgh now. You're coming to our house now. As much as you probably like to think you might, you're not going to win in our house. No way that's happening again. And as much as I hoped that we'd win it here, it'll still be pretty sweet to win it in Detroit on Friday.

Regroup. Gather it all back up and keep it all together. Our boys are back home. We have to show them we have faith in them. We have to do our jobs and help them keep it together. Don't give up. Don't lose faith. Don't stop believing. This isn't over.

Let's Go Pens!!!

"I didn't expect Tanger to come that hard"

wow.

That is.

That is the best postgame quote ever. Any dirty thoughts I have today will be blamed on Sidney Crosby because if he wouldn't have said that, I would have never had any dirty thoughts about Kris Letang. What? I have never before thought about or said the words "Tanger", "come", and "hard" together in a sentence. What?!?! I haven't.
"I was driving the net and I was just trying to get a rebound, but obviously he put it in," Letang said. "I was just continuing my run and I hit him pretty hard. I think he woke up and he was fine after it, so that was good."

Do you think everybody can shut up now about how we need Captain to have a "good" game? He's been playing like Jesus through the whole playoffs but that wasn't enough. Nope. He had to score a goal in the finals. Fine. There you go. Now, please, shut up.

Jordan Staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't even know what to say. I am so in awe of him. Is he the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? I mean. Come on. Who else in the world is as unreal as he is? Nobody. He's HUGE on the ice. Just gigantic. He is a FORCE. His stick works miracles. Every time he steps onto the ice, it melts a little bit. Look at his face. He's a magnificent creature. If I was a painter, I would love to paint him. Short-handed goal. Fucking animal. And thank you, Max, for being so fucking clutch every second. It's Staal Good.

Marc-Andre Fleury is... what's the word I need here? Wonderful? Amazing? Incredible? Huge? Astounding? Yes. He is all of those things.

He was unflappable through the entire game. When Rob Scuderi turned that puck over (which is pretty much UNHEARD OF. I quietly threw up in my mouth a little bit), and the Wings scored, MAF was the first one to tell him not to sweat it because he sure wasn't going to. And then Scuds went back to doing his job. Which, in case you didn't know, is being a SUPERHERO. Even when we were down 2-1, I was reclining on the couch. Okay. So I wasn't really reclining. It's exciting! That's why I was on the edge of my couch falling off of it every few minutes. It certainly wasn't because I had any fear of losing. I was so chill last night. MAF does that to me when he looks that humongous inside his house.

And. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Mr. Kennedy. "Kennedy. MISTER KENNEDY." got a goal and it was gorgeous. He went up against two Wings, popped the puck back to Kunitz, skated to the front of the net and waited for Captain to make that perfect pass, and FWAM! And then Daddy Gonchar (which is what I called him all night. "Who blocked that? Was that Daddy?") gave him a sweet hug afterwards.

I LOVE YOU, DADDY GONCHAR!

Please. Now stop talking about how our third line is so useless or whatever words those people insist on using. They are... I lost words again. Dammit. They have everything. They dominate. Their job is to keep the puck. To keep the other team from scoring. Next time they get in our offensive zone, get out a stopwatch. And then? you can shut your stupid mouth.
I have had many a dream that involve Matt Cooke in pretty much that same position. (See what you have done to my mind today, Sidney? It is right in the gutter.)

Kris Letang. Is he the ohmygod cutest thing in the world? Yes. I can’t be positive because I have never been face to face with him but I am pretty sure I am in love with him. I don't know how much more of him I can take, to be honest. He is part of our future though so I will be seeing a lot of him and loving him a little bit more every day. You have been warned. And if ever a picture begged to be Blingeed, that one ^ right there is it.

Highlights? It was all a highlight.

It's interesting to me that 1) Malkin's goal was on a PP 2) Jordan's goal was on a PK 3) Sid's goal was with Geno and Feds 4) Mr. Kennedy's goal was with Captain and Kuuuuuuuuuuunitzzzzzzz. None of those are regular lines. The Malkin PP wasn't even with our regular PP lineup. They had Jordan out there on a PP. (I have to check his TOI.) They were mixing shit up last night. It seems they were trying their damnedest to get our third line some goals. And you know what? Because they wanted to shut the media up, they just went ahead and did. And that is one of the many, many reasons I love this team.

Series tied at 2-2.

LET'S GO PENS!!!!!!!!!

I just deleted a whole post

You know who I can blame for me turning into pudding? Sergei Gonchar.

LET'S GO PENS!!!!!

I saw some things

So between yesterday afternoon and today, I saw some different angles and read some things that make me feel like I have not appreciated Sergei Gonchar enough. It's difficult, as a fan (or at least this fan), watching your PP QB slowing things down. I realize that this is necessary. I understand that there are set plays and he has to wait for everybody else and blah blah. But really I can't help but jump up and scream "HURRY THE FUCK UP!" at my television. It really brings out an ugly side of me and Daddy Gonch takes the brunt of some pretty colorful profanity being yelled really loudly. So yesterday I read what he said about my Tanger (“It seems like he is playing good all over the ice. He has all of the skills in the world and his shot is great, so offensively it is not surprising but the way he held them defensively, you can see the progress that he made from last year.”) and saw different angles of the post-goal celebrations. The huge smile he had on his face after Kris scored and the leaping hug Kris gave him after he scored. Today I found this:
and it nearly brought a tear to my eye (and Phillipe Boucher thinks Kris is emotional). I mean. LOOK at that hug. That is an I'm so proud of you and I love you so much hug if I've ever seen one. I had myself convinced that Gonch didn't love or appreciate Kris Letang enough and it helped me direct a lot of undeserved hostility towards him. He has a job on this team and he does it better than anybody else. Rob Scuderi said as much. I already knew that of course, but I will try my best to not scream at him tonight because I don't want Rob Scuderi to be mad at me. Every time he makes me freak out, I will remember the smile on his face that was so lovingly directed at Lelover. And I will calm down. That's what he does after all. He calms it all down. He has probably saved a lot of lives that way.


I offer a Blingee to start the amend-making.

Don't buy into the media

All yesterday morning on ESPN Pittsburgh radio, they were playing bits of Kris Letang's interview from the previous day (off-day). In the afternoon, talk shifted to a possible Letang benching. The refs aren't calling penalties. Letang hasn't been that great on PPs anyway. Boucher saw a lot of ice time during morning skate. Kris shot the puck once in game two and it hit the glass (pretty far off from the goal which is where he obviously wanted it to go... or maybe, just maybe, he just wanted to get something going, people). He forced an icing call and the Wings ended up scoring on the ensuing faceoff. So why not bench Letang? If we don't need him for the power plays because we're not getting them, why not play Boucher, a more defensively minded dman, instead? I get home from work and have to listen to my husband agree with all of that nonsense. Listen. They're saying all these words and all I hear is that Kris is going to score on a power play. Call it hearing what I want to hear or whatever you want to call it. I call it faith in my boy's play. There is a reason I have faith in him. There is a reason he is my favorite player and it's not because he's dropdeadgorg. Well, maybe that doesn't hurt but it's not the reason. Quite simply, he is my favorite because he is incredible. He gets people talking about him by... hmmm... I guess people start talking about him when he does something that maybe isn't so brilliant. Everybody makes mistakes, right? Of course. But. Apparently he isn't allowed to have a bad game or make one error. So then doesn't that mean that he is an integral part of our system? That makes him a necessary part of this team.

"Come congratulate me, bitches." (You must read this to yourself in a sexy French Canadian accent.)

Some people tend to not have as much faith in our team winning this as I do. Do they want our magnificent team to win this? Of course. They just don't tend to feel as sure about it as I do. Is that the word I'm needing here? "sure"? Maybe. I guess, yes, it is. My faith in our team is not blind. My faith in our team comes from being witness to some of what they can do. And I have only seen some of it. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe it is because I blew this sport off for so long. Maybe that's why I can come in here and say that they are the better team. I haven't seen them not be the best team on the ice. I would watch bits of play here and there. I would let it play in the background while I did other things. (Right now I can't for the life of me remember what those things were.) I heard them suck by way of the commentators and the media. Mind you, that would be the same media who told me that Kris Letang was going to be a healthy scratch for last night's game. So for all I know, this team has always been this magnificent and I just wasn't seeing it. Maybe I could have helped try to build up my people's faith a long time ago. I had zero doubt that we were winning last night. Zero. And I had an equal amount of doubt that Kris would play. Kris scoring on a pp held a bit of doubt because who could know that? heh. I hope the media talks about Tyler Kennedy, Jordan Staal, and Matt Cooke a lot tomorrow because that line is a little bit of heaven to watch and all anybody ever wants to talk about is how they don't score a lot of goals... even though scoring goals is not their job. It's because of them, Craig Adams and our CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED dmen that the other team doesn't get 300 shots on goal. Really. I hate the media and it hurts me to know that people buy into what they say. The people who don't watch hockey, and that used to (please forgive me) include me, have NO idea how amazing some of these guys are. Probably everybody thinks Jordan Staal is garbage because he doesn't score goals but they know his name and they assume he is supposed to. People only care about the stats and the score sheets. I am here to tell you all that Jordan Staal and all of these other guys are worth what we put into them. Some of them are worth more than we give them monetarily. It is up to us, the fans, the community, to believe in them.

It is our job to give them our faith. They certainly have mine.

Vindication is more satisfying when you can Blingee it.

This also feels really good: “He was great, not only offensively but also defensively,” Gonchar said. “It seems like he is playing good all over the ice. He has all of the skills in the world and his shot is great, so offensively it is not surprising but the way he held them defensively, you can see the progress that he made from last year.”

I suppose I should mention that Mad Max Clutch Talbot scored two goals last night... the first on a stunning Letang assist.

The first goal was Max, the second was Letang's PP, the third was a Gonchar PP goal, and the fourth was a Max empty netter. So much for our Power Play being shitty. AND! if I'm not mistaking (I'm not) our only goal in Game 2 was a Malkin PP goal (assisted by Letang).

Needless to say, I am listening to all music all day today. None of that bullshit sports radio that makes me want to vomit.

Let's Rally

Blingee is fun!!!!!!