$3 Women, Can’t Live With ‘Em....Sammy, Could You Pass The Beer Nuts? $3 The Committed Indian The REal Fan’s Program secondcityhockey.com January 14th, 2009 [email protected] NO MATCH FOR A GOOD BLASTER In the immortal words of Nelson in the playoffs. They’ll need to stop trying to On the back end, Ryan Miller is Muntz, “I guess so.” That’s how we feel about be so cute with the puck, move the fucking quietly having a wonderful season. He’s see- Sunday’s win over the Get-To-The-Chopper’s. thing, and just shoot. Of course, that would ing as many shots per game as anyone else, The Hawks weren’t all that impressive, were give credence to all the mouth-breathers yell- but turning away more of them. He’s been dominated for long stretches of the third ing, “Shoot!” in the crowd, but we’ll make our exceptionally good when the Sabres are on period, and really had Khabby to thank for sacrifices where we have to. the kill (more on that inside). He’s had to be, walking away with two points. But, as they say Must...Crush...Capitalism because the Sabres blue-line corps is a pretty on the golf course, “She’s ugly, but she’s got To this evening, and the visit of the middling bunch, if that. We went through the big tits.” Okay, we say that on the golf course, Buffalo Sabres. For a while now, the Sabres Jaroslav Spacek experience here for a bit, and but you get the idea. have been communist vision of a hockey team. are still paying off the bartab we needed to One thing we were heartened to see They’ve been full of fast, small, talented compensate for it. Teppo Numminen is about was the amping up of the physical play, at forwards whom you can’t tell apart and don’t 87-years old, and Craig Rivet is a fine puck- least for the first half of the game (of course, stand out, but they’re ruthlessly efficient. Of mover, but somewhat helpless in his own it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact course, whenever they want to cash in, they zone. A Campbell-lite, if you will. that we called for it -- perish the thought). have to go elsewhere than Mother Buffalo. What Did You Learn? There was one stretch in the first during This vintage isn’t too much differ- We know one thing; the Sabres will which, all five Hawks on the ice knocked ent, although the scoring isn’t spread out in not come here to shut us down. They’re someone on their ass. It brought back memo- such a socialist manner. The Sabres do come also not physically imposing, so more of that ries of the old Stadium when Mike Keenan equipped with the league’s second lead- someone-shit-in-my-cereal style we saw from used to start Roenick, Jocelyn Lemieux (who ing goal-scorer in Thomas Vanek, and his the Hawks on Sunday would be welcome to- was incapable of stopping on skates), and underrated, silly-talented center, Derek Roy. night. However, they’re going to face an even Dirk Graham and just have them run through Joining them on the top-line has been the all- better PK tonight than that of the Preds’, so people for a shift to get the crowd salivat- around play of Drew Stafford, but past that, hopefully, they’ve found a clue on how to deal ing. The Hawks should do this more often. the Sabres have really struggled to find scor- with it in the past two days. The Sabres love The UC is becoming quite the fortress with its ing. This is not the run n’ gun, free-scoring to get up and down the ice just as much as 20,000-strong, but if they can get that 20K bunch you remember from a couple years the Hawks, but they aren’t as good at it. This baying for blood from the get-go, a lot of ago. Past the aforementioned trio, only rookie could be a real barn-burner, and one that will teams will not fancy playing there at all. Clarke MacArthur has broken the 10+ goal leave Dustin Byfuglien needing oxygen. We hate to beat the drum again mark. -Holden Caulfield (apologies for insulting your lifestyle, Todd Rundgren) but Ladd-Bolland-Havlat were once again the best players on the ice, and by a wide margin as well. We’re going to have to stop referring to them as the Hawks’ third line. In these modern times, the Hawks have come up with a hybrid for energy efficiency. Instead of using two lines to check the op- ponents’ top threat and provide scoring, the Hawks use one. Obama and Gore would be proud. But this isn’t a long-term solution for the Hawks. They’re going to have to get Toews going sooner rather than later, and fig- ure out whether Kane is really healthy or not, and get him some rest if he isn’t. Also, Sharp needs to figure out how to get it between the posts again (You thought we’d make a sex joke there, didn’t you? Is that really what you think of us?). Pushing Down On Me, Pushing Down On You One thing we did find slightly alarm- ing was the utter uselessness of the Hawks power play against Nashville. It’s not as if teams won’t have access to video of these games and see how badly the Hawks struggled against a high-pressure penalty-kill system. You can bet your sweet ass they’ll see it again and again, especially late in the season and “Gee ladies, I’d love to, but I’m not really a center.” No Longer Shaking Us All Night Long There seems to be a problem surrounding the Blackhawks As it stands I have some suggestions: in the midst of their revival. Have you noticed it? I can’t see how people have managed to avoid addressing it. It shines much If we score in the third period against the Wings how about brighter than the need for a center, or a top-six forward. It’s more REM ‘End of the World’? pressing than the inflated salary line, and is more confusing than I think it would be appropriate when our fourth line scores dressing Craig Adams. to play some Fogerty, maybe ‘Center Field’? By now I’m sure that you know we’re Even better yet, why not just let Frank talking about the song played whenever the Tragically Hip Hockey wail away? I’m pretty sure that would get me Hawks score a goal. Seriously folks, it’s embar- psyched, and you know even if it didn’t, at least rassing. Actually, the entire game experience it wouldn’t feel like I was playing NHL ’06 in a could use some tweaks. dorm room when we lit the lamp. First of all, let’s address the song itself. During the game the selections are just Do you remember that Trio song? You know, the as confusing. I’m no huge fan of modern music, “Da Da Da” song that they used in the Volkswa- but why does the UC insist on playing stuff from gen commercials? Why in the hell would they 1996? If you aren’t going to go current totally speed that song up to 78 RPM and play it when then why focus on the most boring decade in we score a goal? I’m not saying that they should Kevin Kujawa memory? Go back to the sixties or at the least be playing Sonic Youth or something, but how seventies and up the class. Be judicious. This about a song that doesn’t make us look like the way, we don’t have to listen to Bush (remember lead in a Geico commercial. Something, and I’m just spit-balling them?) during faceoffs. Call me a snob, call me a hipster, but in here…good, y’know? At first, I thought there was something that I your heart of hearts, you really don’t like the Nickelback hit from was missing and so I went and asked Brent Sopel to go ahead and five years ago. translate some of the “lyrics”. Even Brent, who is well versed in grunting and awkward communication, has no idea what the fuck is Kevin has been a passionate Hawks fan ever since he can remem- being said while we watch Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell dance. ber being left alone in the Stadium when his dad went to go smoke. He’s also the lead singer/guitarist for Mannequin Men and Cali- brated Crematorium, Chicago bands that actually kick ass. NHL STANDINGS *late game not included Eastern Conference Western Conference W L OTL PTS GF GA HOME AWAY W L OTL PTS GF GA HOME AWAY 1 Boston 32 7 4 68 157 95 17-3-1 15-4-3 1 San Jose* 31 5 5 67 143 98 19-0-2 12-5-3 2 Washington 27 14 3 57 141 130 18-3-1 9-11-2 2 Scum 29 7 6 64 157 118 16-3-2 13-4-4 3 NY Rangers 26 15 4 56 120 118 14-8-2 12-7-2 3 Calgary* 25 12 4 54 130 121 15-4-3 10-8-1 4 Montreal 25 11 6 56 133 112 14-4-4 11-7-2 4 HAWKS 23 10 7 53 143 103 13-2-4 10-8-3 5 Philadelphia 23 11 9 55 142 128 14-5-3 9-6-6 5 Vancouver * 22 17 5 49 127 120 11-8-2 11-9-3 6 New Jersey* 24 15 3 51 127 110 13-8-1 11-7-2 6 Anaheim 22 17 5 49 126 124 13-9-3 9-8-2 7 Buffalo 21 16 5 47 120 117 12-9-2 9-7-3 7 Phoenix* 21 17 5 47 106 120 15-6-2 6-11-3 8 Carolina 21 18 5 47 112 132 12-9-1 9-9-4 8 Columbus 21 18 4 46 115 117 13-6-1 8-12-3 9 Florida 20 16 6 46 120 119 10-5-3 10-11-3 9 Edmonton 21 18 3 45 118 125 9-8-3 12-10-0 10 Pittsburgh 21 19 4 46 134 137 9-9-2 12-10-2 10 Colorado 22 20 1 45 116 124 13-8-0 9-12-1 11 Toronto 16 21 6 38 124 154 8-9-4 8-12-2 11 Minnesota* 20 18 3 43 100 94 11-7-3 9-11-0 12 Tampa Bay* 13 19 10 36 104 128 4-7-7 9-12-3 12 Nashville 20 20 3 43 106 121 12-7-1 8-13-2 13 Ottawa 14 21 6 34 98 120 10-7-3 4-14-3 13 Dallas 18 17 6 42 117 140 10-6-3 8-11-3 14 Atlanta 14 24 5 33 124 157 7-12-2 7-12-3 14 L.A.* 17 19 6 40 104 117 12-10-6 5-9-0 15 NY Islanders 12 27 4 28 110 156 7-10-2 5-17-2 15 St.