Sunday night, the 2nd place T-birds took on 1st place Everett. Bear in mind, however, that heading into Sunday's game Everett had amassed 55 points and a tremendous season win% of 86%, the highest in the entire WHL. Meanwhile, Seattle had 39 points and a 59% win%. Second through 4th place were almost indistinguishable (39, 38, 38 points) with 5th place being truly abysmal (23 points, 35%).

"You could tell both teams were tired and it was a tight-checking game," Gagnon said. "We knew we had to play hard and not go on holidays until we got this game done."

... "It was atrocious," Silvertips winger Moises Gutierrez said. "For us to only get 11 shots showed that both teams pretty much sleep-walked through the game. We looked like we were already back home with our families."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/hockey/2003482839_birds18.html

Well, we enjoyed it anyway.

"Coaches once told skaters not to talk to them. The art of stopping shots was a mystery, so goalies lived in their own world, the pressure and isolation combining to turn them into a colorful society of basket cases.

...

The truly wacky stories came from the 1960s and 70s, when legends like Montreal’s Jacques Plante knitted in the locker room and Glenn Hall threw up before games and Gary Smith had to shower between every period.

...

[Patrick Roy] refused to skate over any lines on the ice — he had to step over them — and had a litany of pregame rituals."

Tonight I got an unexpected double treat. The TV guide said CBC's first broadcast would be NYR @ TOR. However, all three of Canada's eastern time zone teams had games tonight, so CBC stretched themselves to three simultaneous broadcasts - the Toronto game, OTT @ BUF, and PIT @ MTL. I think most of the nation, including us, got the PIT @ MTL broadcast, for which Cassie Campbell was on color commentary! Wooo!

Campbell had another great night in the booth. She and Don Wittman worked well together, and she provided a range of insights - such as explaining subtleties in how Kovalev directed the Montreal powerplay, discussing Sheldon Souray's new sticks this season (much less breakage!), and relating a cute story about Malkin learning some English words from Sergei Gonchar's preschool daughter.

Montreal beat Pittsburgh 6-3, and Crosby made a beautiful assist and set up some other chances, but only had the 1 point on the night (he's had 10 in the last two games). Pittsburgh played last night and it seemed they ran out of steam after a good first period. But the real story here is that while the broadcast team had plenty of well-deserved praise for Crosby and Malkin and Stall, they didn't make it sound like Crosby was Jesus Christ himself, sent here by God to deliver us from mullets and poor attendance and irrelevance. They actually discussed the game itself, while it was happening. How novel! And they discussed other players on both teams. Versus, take a note.

(Edited to add: photo swiped from http://www.thelavinagency.com/canada/cassiecampbell.html)

What is it with moronic TV announcers that compels them to generate fake drama? I'm watching PIT @ WAS on Versus (which is probably my first mistake), and to hear them tell it, you'd think only Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin were on the ice. Sid the Kid versus Alexander the Great! OMG!

Oh, except for when they're pointing out that Evgeni Malkin and Ovechkin were teammates on the Russian Olympic team! But now they have to play against each other! Wow! That has never happened in the history of everything! At every other break in the action, we must put up a table comparing the achievements of these three players!

YES, WE GET IT. THEY ARE YOUNG SUPERSTARS IN THE MAKING.

That doesn't turn a team game into an individual grudge fiesta. At the end of the second period, Pittsburgh scored two goals to bring the score to WAS 4, PIT 3. Bill Clement opens the intermission report with this doofball remark:

"Now after 2 periods, doesn't this set up the kind of 3rd period we were looking for between Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby!" Off camera, one of his co-anchors called out, "whooo!" I'm just surprised no one asked if he could "get an Amen."

In further manufactured drama, during the first intermission, Malkin was interviewed and Ovechkin served as his translator. The first question was about how this was their first "meeting" as NHL players and I had to hit fast-forward to stave off some kind of insta-migraine or something. It's a good game. Stop ruining it with embarrassing and idiotic commentary.

[player mugshots taken from ESPN]

CBC has started an awesome feature this year during HNIC broadcasts called "Think Hockey". It's a brief feature before each game, in which a position coach illustrates a particular hockey skill. It's nearly perfect - informative, fundamental stuff, engagingly presented and very accessible to someone like me who's never played ice hockey.

I really liked this week's feature on goalie warm-up drills. The first two drills were fairly dull but the next two were more interesting. Check 'em out:

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/hnic/thinkhockey/

"Bertuzzi wore out Chelios like an old pair of shoes. My favorite was in Game Three (at least I think it was Game Three) when the Vancouver behemoth blasted Chelios into the left wing corner behind the Detroit net. I couldn't believe Chelios got up. But it was funny watching him search for his hearing aid while hiking up his Bermuda shorts and trying to gather the hard candies that fell from his pockets. I'm just saying he's old, that's all."

http://www.lcshockey.com/april02/dellhits.asp

A friend pointed me to this AMAZING HIGHLIGHT of my former student, Marty Turco, making an unbelievable stick save during a shootout:

Go to http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=buccigross_john&id=2627943, scroll about halfway down to this part of the article:

First shooter: Shannon. I say he scores. This guy can really fly. Here he comes. OH MY GOD! That was the greatest shootout move and the greatest shootout save of all time! WOW! Watch this! 

There's a link that pops up a video player. The save is about halfway through the clip. WOW is right. Double WOW. Holy crap!

Last night's Coach's Corner was another classic.

The pink feather stole and pink flamingo tie on Don are auction items to benefit some kind of breast cancer organization or other. Toward the end of the segment, he was praising Calgary's Dion Phaneuf to the high heavens and blasting the fact that he wasn't even nominated for the Norris trophy (outstanding defenseman) last year. He concluded his rant with:

The guys who hand out the award, they wouldn't know a hockey player if they slept with Bobby Orr!

Evidently it's only because Harry Neale was snowed in - but she did a great job and I'd be delighted to hear her again. I hope Harry Neale gets snowed in again :-)

• Paris Hilton Scores on Avs Goalie Jose Theodore [link]
• Paris... She Shoots, She Scores! [link]
• Paris Hilton SCORES! JOSE... are you KIDDING? [link]

On the one hand, good for her, I suppose. I'm trying to cut down on slut-shaming and sister-punishing. Cut Paris some slack. On the other hand:

In March, Theodore's girlfriend, Stephanie Cloutier, gave birth to their first child, a daughter.

Ew. That's not right. I can't get behind that. And "Cloutier"? Any relation to Dan, I wonder?

"You'd have to say goaltending if you want to point out one area where we dominated," head coach Craig MacTavish said. "He was terrific. He bent when he could bend and didn't when he couldn't. Those are pretty valuable traits."

http://msn.foxsports.com/nhl/story/5645460

I don't even know what that could mean. It sounds like a compliment though.