for varly, i have mixed feelings but i come out feeling pretty good. i’ve been a big fan, but this past year my allegiance shifted to team neuvy without even realizing it. and i love, love, LOVE holtby, and while theoretically i would have liked to have him play another solid year in hershey, realistically, i know that if we kept both varly and neuvy, we would likely lose him to another nhl team, and i know that the loss of his holtbyisms to another organization would be entirely too much to bear.

re: collins, i don’t think of him as tyler sloan. i think of him as the only buckeye we have since we lost my stecks at the trade deadline. MUST… HAVE… BUCKEYES!!! now we still have collins to fill the buckeye quota, and halpern is back to fill the jew quota… i don’t use “squee” frequently, but honestly, it’s the only word to describe the emotions i felt.

speaking of halpern, ALS;FJKA;OIFEWANSDCOI;ALWEFSAVKLMRWAFIHORGTRW;JVNF!!!!!!!!!! the first thing i did when i saw his name on the twitters was to call my mom. nice jewish boy from potomac? OBVIOUSLY he was her favorite. my strongest memories of coming home from college on winter break, and going to new year’s day games against the mighty ducks (why do i feel like we played them on the same day every year?!) are cheering for jeff halpern and olie the goalie. I. AM. SO. STOKED!!! actually, at the caps convention last year, i dug through the card booth until i found every possible steckel card (rookie card, old caps uniform, new caps uniform, bears card…), plus a matty p, but couldn’t find anything of halpern in a caps jersey. the guy working the booth actually dug it out of the back for me, and i gave it to my mom as a gift. i’m excited to take it back from her so i can get it signed!

i still miss steckel, and hopefully will get another great opportunity to wear my ohio state sweater for the planned outdoor ohio state-m*ch*g*n game next year… which leads me to arnott, who makes me nervous. he’s shown himself to be the sasha whisperer, and i would hope if we keep semin, we’d keep arnott along with him… not signing arnott makes me think semin is heading elsewhere. but who the heck knows.

still waiting nervously to hear about gordo, he’s my other favorite bear (after perreault and holtby) and of course my favorite rmnb guest blogger… hope he stays, but wish him the best either way!

/novel