Good to be back. Funny how a week away can recharge the batteries, and the fear and loathing of a return to the office–how many fires to put out? How many angry emails and phone calls? What unfortunate mistakes revealed? What oversights in the budget, and disappointments on the spreadsheets?–quickly dissipates in the good will of the New Year.
That, and the continuing dominance of the Minnesota Wild. I’m not kidding. I was most disgusted to get home Monday, find that my TiVo had recorded the Wild’s Saturday game against the much-hated Canucks, only to learn that the silly device had recorded the pay-per-view channel, which I had not paid for and therefore would not be viewing. I need to work out this kink. Unfortunately, the Wild are bouncing around between at least four channels, and each channel lists the games differently. Since TiVo operates on a database according to channel listings, the only way to passively record the Wild wherever they might appear is to use a keyword search. Anyway, I won’t bore you with the technical details, other than to say that so far TiVo has found only one way to really annoy me, and that is relative to sports events. It is unforgiving of overtime and stops recording at the end of regulation no matter what the score (a real liability so far this season). What’s worse is that it appears to have no way to facilitate a “season pass” to every Wild game on whatever channel it might appear. It’s no good at all.
So I’m really bitching and moaning about technology here to deflect my disaapointment at missing what must have been a whale of a game–the Wild beating the Canucks finally on their fourth try this season, and apparently really shaming Naslund, Bertouzzi, the especially cretinous Ruutu, and the rest of that thuggish Vancouver scrum. The Canucks are one of the only things I dislike about Canada. (The other would be Canucks fans: annoying in their knowledge of the game, but never using their powers for good. Two years ago, I got in a barefisted email brawl about the WIld’s “ugly” dump and chase style, which I correctly identified by its simpler and more noble name, forechecking. And anyway, the Wild handed the Canucks a glorious shit sandwich in that memorable playoff series. Touche!)
Last night was an another amazing win, this time against the Red Wings (who have the nuts to call Detroit “hockey town,” a slap in the face to every little berg in the fine state of Minnesota–know who the US Women’s Olympic hockey team is playing tonight? The Warroad high school boy’s team!), and the Wild are surprised to find themselves suddenly at the helm of a rocket that’s blasting straight at the heart of playoff contention.
Dwayne Roloson was especially impressive in the net last night–almost blasphemously so. You may have been as surprised as I was to see him take the second intermission interview on OLN. (Nevermind his protestations to Michael Russo at the Strib; you can count the number of times Roli has appeared in TV intermissions this year on one hand and still keep a firm grip on your beer stein.) Hockey is a game that is ruled by superstition–it makes baseball voodoo look like ninth-grade algebra, when it comes to crossing fingers, tying shoes the same way, wearing the same lucky socks, drinking at the same water fountain, carrying the same lint in the watch pocket, and so on. And no hockey player is more superstitious–i mean SCARY superstitious than a goaltender, who must carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. Even though the world will forgive him for both good goals and bad goals (you really have to blow it at the professional level, or be a Canuck tender, to catch the open wrath of hometown fans and teammates) you will not forgive yourself. For many years, goalie coaches taught their acolytes that no matter what the final score of the game was, you had lost it if you’d allowed four points or more. I’ll go into greater detail some other time about a particular subject that riles me–the proliferation of “flop” goaltending– but not here, not know. Suffice to say that the Wild last night clearly identified Detroit goalie Chris Osgood’s weakness–the two-hole, low on the glove-hand side–and they nailed it at every opportunity, which paid off twice and set up the win.
The main thing going for the Wild right now is an astonishing ability to a) kill penalties in what OLN annoyingly keeps calling “the NEW NHL,” and b) really capitalize on very minor mistakes. The more I watch modern pro hockey, as compared to, say, the college or high school game, it is precisely this point that keeps standing in high relief. Pros find very tiny cracks and instantly turn them into bullseyes. Right now, the WIld are finding the breaks, taking them, getting the bounces, and winning games. And it’s a joy to watch ’em.
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