New York Rangers Pregame: 81 and Done

On April 7, 2012, In Pregame, By Craig Brownstein

Via Craig Brownstein of Puck Buddys, this is your final pregame of the season. Follow PuckBuddys on Twitter.

Long, Strange Trip: The past few months have been a roller coaster for the team and fans alike. As the regular season was winding down and points were becoming ever more precious, the playoff picture was coming into focus for a lot of teams that were not named the Washington Capitals. That sucked. The last month or so was a teeth-grinding, butt-clenching, freaky-outy nightmare. Night after night, we saw our playoff chances dissipate in loss after loss, points squandered, a team in name only, flailing about the ice with no apparent sense of mission or urgency.

Continue Reading

Tagged with: • • •
 
6 Comments
Leave A Response

Florida Panthers Pregame: The Most Important Game in the History of Ever

On April 4, 2012, In Pregame, By Doug Johnson

Here’s Doug Johnson of the PuckBuddys with your penultimate pregamer. Follow @PuckBuddys.

Early Morning Skate: Our doctor advises those of you with heart issues, temper problems, or who are prone to premature catastrophization to avoid watching the Capitals Thursday night. In fact, why not just turn the TV and iPad off and curl up into a little whimpering ball right now.

The rest of us? We few… we lucky few… are ready for, and this is no hyperbole, the single most cosmically important game for any team since the beginning of time. That said, will the Capitals be ready as well?

Continue Reading

Tagged with: • • • • • •
 
15 Comments
Leave A Response

Minnesota Wild Pregame: Yah Sure, You Betcha

On March 24, 2012, In Pregame, By Doug Johnson

The other Nick Backstrom. (Photo credit: Doug Benc)

Healing Breath: So alright, everybody feel safe now? Good. Now, everyone, breathe in….and blow it out. Good; that’s good. And let’s just stick with “blow” for a moment, shall we?

Friday was basically the Mir of hockey games (look it up, noobs.) We all watched, incredulous, as our Hero Caps slung their way to 3-0, only to slump to end 4-3, mostly during the last third, as the flaming wreckage fell back to Earth. Honestly, that last stanza? Blowing chunks all over that very pretty, expensive Verizon sheet. In a phrase: everybody was Byfuglian-en.

OK, cleansing breath now; suck it in….and, blow it out. Blow hard…good.

The Pregamer: As a cure for our Capitals PTSD (Post Traumatic Suckage Disorder) we slopped out to Kettler today to see just wha’ what was up with the what wha’. We learned several things.

Continue Reading

Tagged with: • • •
 
8 Comments
Leave A Response

Detroit Red Wings Pregame: Vive Le Revolucion!

On March 19, 2012, In Pregame, By Doug Johnson

Here’s your pregame report from Doug of the PuckBuddys. Get thee to a twittery.

Pre-après-Game: PuckBuddy Craig sorta demolished me with his last post, mixing the most potent juvenile jeers (“You smell like butt“) with contemporary culture (The Godfather) and hockey insights in the juicerizer that yours truly has been refining for months.

Whaaa…butt why dat? Well, because Craig, unlike Doug, went hunting for a stick-tap from Uncle Ted on how brilliant his pregamer was. Nice. No matter that he stole from me for months – blogging versions of the Winnipeg Head-Crash – or that I’ve been telling our opponents they smell like ass since October. But , boohoo, what’s an obvious foul between frenemies?

I kid. And yet in seriouslyness, between these partners there is no other game that divides the PuckBuddys like Monday’s test of the Caps against the Wings. 

Continue Reading

Tagged with: • • •
 
5 Comments
Leave A Response

New York Islanders Pregame: They’re Still Horrible

On March 12, 2012, In Pregame, By Doug Johnson

Here’s Doug Johnson with your pregame report. Read PuckBuddys and then follow ‘em on Twitter.

“What Wha?” There are some things that just aren’t said aloud.

  • Example #1: Oprah is a Fraud. Yeah, she could buy the Nepalese army to storm my house, or hot-wire the RMNB site for combustion, just ’cause I said it. Yet it’s true. Oprah Winfrey is, as we speak, today and into the future, a total fraud.
  • Example #2: Our Politics are a Farce. Do we really need to gut this beast further to illustrate that point? Anyone who thinks our civic culture is robust, please hold your head underwater for five minutes. Questions?
  • Example #3: Caps…Leading the Southeast?! Eighth in the Eastern? And *shudder* five points behind Ottawa? I’m not sure when we signed up to write fiction, but apparently that is now.

Continue Reading

Tagged with: •
 
2 Comments
Leave A Response

Tampa Bay Lightning Pregame: Five Minutes To Midnight

On March 7, 2012, In Pregame, By Doug Johnson

Doug Johnson writes for Puck Buddys. And because we have the microfilm in a safety deposit box somewhere, he writes for us as well. Follow @PuckBuddys or we start executing hostages.

The Pregame: Hey now; any you guys see that show on the teevees, “Doomsday Peppers” or something? You know, the one where seemingly pleasant enough, if overwhelmingly white people happily share their crackpot theories of why the world will end any minute now and how they’ll survive by stocking their compounds with bullets and pig dung? Good times.

Meanwhile we in America’s Hockey’s Capital are not so much having da good times of late. I’m thinking closer to the pig dung. Or better – remember those snobby nuclear scientists with their finger-waggling about nuclear Armageddon, bringing us down during the happy heydays of Ronald Reagan and “Family Ties” with their elitist Doomsday Clock? (Kiddies: go look it up while we drink our Metamucil.)

Yeah. Sitting here, looking at Thursday’s game and the remainder of the season, it feels like five minutes to midnight…with the clock ticking. And here’s us, without a stockpile.

Want more feel good snuggles?  Keep reading.

Continue Reading

Tagged with: • • • • • •
 
4 Comments
Leave A Response

Philadelphia Flyers Pregame: Who Got Game?

On March 3, 2012, In Pregame, By Doug Johnson

Ed. note: Here comes your Puck Buddys pregame! Check out their lovely website and delightful twitter thing.

This is a test. This website is conducting a test of the Emergency Capitals Broadcasting System. This is only a test. 

The Pregame: Crazy… you know crazy? Not like “dingo ate my baby” crazy, or “I love Dan Snyder” crazy, but like, Groundhog Day crazy? As in: not only have I seen all this before, but I recall the precise taste of last week’s warm beer and bitter defeat? And why am I tasting it again? Am I at the Mystery Spot?

You have good reason. Here we are, thinking back to Friday’s collapsing defeat on the tail of a hot performance or two (or three), wondering what went wrong, how it could have happened, and what encouragement we might have to offer. Alan May: help us!

And suddenly we’re seized with deja vu; worse, even – not that we think we’ve sorta kinda been here before, but that we’ve been exactly completely here before, several times, right down to Alan May tossing us the lifeline of straight talk, to have it fall on plugged ears.

Continue Reading

Tagged with: • • •
 
5 Comments
Leave A Response

New Jersey Devils: Where Dat Rally Balloon?

On March 1, 2012, In Pregame, By Doug Johnson

The PreGame: Close your eyes for a moment. Now fling your head out the window.

Wait. Stop that. Open window, fling head, close eyes.

Better. Breathe deep…deeplier deep. Now, what do you smell out there? Summer? Winter? Victory? Streak?

Us? We get mulch, daffodils and notes of flattened street rat. But we much prefer these others. Summer – remember buoyancy and cautious cockiness? Winter; well, early winter means Christmas, and Christmas last was a Capsmas miracle against the Devils, so thank you Baby Jesus!

Victory? Contrary to Maj. Kilgore, victory doesn’t smell like napalm in the morning.  Rather it’s a man-handling of the Habs, a swift start and sustained margin against the Leafs, and a ‘You-Ain’t-Gonna-Win” sass against the dreadful Islanders, all in a row. Yum.

And Streak? Actually, we haven’t really smelled that this year for a long, long time. But still, I think I might recall…

Continue Reading

Tagged with: • • • •
 
1 Comments
Leave A Response

New York Islanders Pregame: Five Past Serious O’Clock

On February 28, 2012, In Pregame, By Doug Johnson

Photo credit: Mitchell Layton

The Pregame: Strap in, ladies, because here we go. Good news and bad news. And you know which doesn’t come with fancy French nibbles. Radishes for you.

Life Post-Deadline

Ugh, here’s the bad. Over the next five+ weeks, 20 nights, every one of you will be simmered into a jersey jelly of slimy aspic. Demi-glacé, oui? You get it: a trebling, molten slop of hope and desire and fear and torment, exactly as smelly as that sounds, and with no escape possible, all watching on the stovetop that is the Capitals’ next 20 games. Stupid French chefs.

Continue Reading

Tagged with: • •
 
7 Comments
Leave A Response

Montreal Canadiens Pregame: The Puckies!

On February 23, 2012, In Pregame, By Doug Johnson

The Red Carpet: Oh Lorda Mercy. Sunday = Oscars. Monday = Trade deadline. We don’t know which town is more nervous, Hollywood or Washington.

Larfs, what a silly question! Of course we do. Exactly because we’ve served our time in both, and we know which town is more bloodless:

Phone call in DC: “Hello. Yeah, but what can you do for me tomorrow?”

Phone call in Hollyood: “What? You again?” *click.*

Check it out. Starshines like Julia Roberts or Harrison Ford disappear from the screen. A little too… seasoned. Anonymous tradesmen like James Cromwell or Melissa McCarthy: can’t book you enough. Proven winners… and we hate this more than you do… like Brad Pitt or Meryl Someoneorother. Well, they win. Because they’re winners. Until they don’t.

Continue Reading

Tagged with: • • • • • • • •
 
1 Comments
Leave A Response
« Older Entries Newer Entries »