If You're Scared of Plants...

Diablo Season in Review

Sarah Suerth took a bunch of pictures and made this kick-ass video.



Thanks Sarah.

Nelson went to Vegas

While the Diablo Hockey Club was gritting out a third place finish at the USA Hockey National Recreational Hockey Championships, Steve Nelson was scouting out possible team watering holes. He found a possible site in Vegas.







What a douchebag.

USA Out at the World Championships

In what could be called "Deja Vu all over again", the young USA hockey squad lost in the quarterfinals of the IIHF World Championships for the fourth straight year last night in a 3-2 overtime loss to Finland.

The team's average age was around 23 or 24, but they played fairly well during the qualifying rounds - they never got beat by more than one. Last night, they were down 2-0 with six minutes to play in the third but cracked two past Nick Backstrom within a minute. I normally like it when he keeps goals out. USA had a chance to finish it in overtime when Bloomington, MN native Zach Parise got the puck on his tape at point blank but his wrister went inches wide. Finland scored about a minute later and it's tee time for our boys.

The final four teams will play on Friday in Quebec City - Canada vs. Sweden & Russia vs. Finland. More info can be found at iihf.com or usahockey.com.

Fire Up with Cannibal Corpse

Those guys can swing!

Todd 2.0

Hopefully after the tournament, J.D. can help Todd upgrade his computer software.

USA Hockey National D1 Championships

Here is the schedule for this weekend. All games are at the Schwan Super Rink in Blaine, MN.

Friday, May 16. Diablos vs. Nemesis 7:45 pm Rink 4.
Saturday, May 17. Diablos vs. Royals 10:45 pm Rink 4.
Saturday, May 17. Diablos vs. Fighting Saints 5:45 pm Rink 2.


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Minnesota Mullets: Nelson a Close Second

Brady Arneson is this year's winner of the 2008 Minnesota Mullet competition, however Diablo centreman Steve Nelson represented by narrowly missing out on the honor. The fact that Brady was wearing a North Dakota jersey did leave a bitter taste in Nelly's mouth, but fortunately Nelson averted a significant meltdown at the Hasting Eagle's Club and was escorted out peacefully. Read more from the Red Wing Republican Eagle. Great Job Brady!

Congrats Ovie! Moving up to the Big Time

NHL Star Called Up To Big Leagues To Play For NFL Team

Playoff Preview - Detroit vs. Colorado

Update 4/24 @ 2:35 pm: Apparently I'm not the only person fired up for this series. Wings-Avs: Blood feud is getting renewal, by John Niyo from the Detroit News. Can't wait to read the Kizla rebuttal.

One of the best rivalries of the "new" NHL.

Some history: During the 96 Cup Playoffs, Claude Lemeiux from Colorado clobbered Kris Draper into the boards. Similar to Steph Veilleux's hit on Stastny during game four of the last series except Draper's head was crushed.

I couldn't find a video with only the hit - it's in the middle of this sequence - although you can see the style of Lemieux.



Colorado ended up winning the game and went on to win the Cup. After the series, Dino Ciccerelli (no stranger to thuggery) said "I can't believe I shook the guy's friggin' hand".

The next year they played four times. The first three were without incident, but the fourth and final game had a certain chippiness to it. When Peter Forsberg and Igor Larionov began a fight, Darren McCarty took the opportunity to settle the Draper score with Lemieux.

Here's the whole brawl.


McCarty ended up scoring the game winner in OT. Quite the night.

The Red Wings came together as a team and ended up winning the Cup in 1997. The next season, in their first regular season game, McCarty and Lemieux dropped the gloves on the first puck drop and settled the previous season's score. Lemieux didn't turtle this time.



The feud didn't die after that. Patrick Roy fought Chris Osgood on the following April 1st and almost fought Dominic Hasek five years later in 2002.





Disclaimer - used a lot of Wikipedia for this research.

New Diablos Playoff Team Needed

Although this will always be a pro-Wild and pro-Devils blog they're both out of the playoffs. Therefore this blog needs a new team. Unfortunately, the Caps just lost in OT, otherwise, I think the Caps would have been a good fit. Why? Ovie is outstanding and just plain fun to watch, but I think the best reason to cheer for the Caps is the fact that they've got an owner who's a dead ringer for a cleaned up Ron Jeremy.

Ted Leonsis & The King of Porn

If you have a suggestion, try to use the comments to discuss. Apparently only Todd, Jarick, and some guy named Slag know how to use them (unless Slag is Todd's alias)

Happy Earth Day from the Diablos

Doesn't Helium make a hole in the ozone? Thank you, Lionel.

Wild Out in Six; Devils in Five

Well, another utterly disappointing playoff performance has been submitted by the Wild and the Devils. Here is some video.

Wild 1 - Avalanche 2

Too many questions... not enough answers.

Game 6 Preview - Schultz In

Here's a little email conversation I had with Michael Russo from the StarTribune today...

6:40 am

Michael,

For the love of God and all that's holy...

Show Gabby the Ranger's video, or the Nashville OT winner, or Calgary's 3 goal game (with one waved off). If you're afraid of crossing the line, forward this email to Branko or Rammer or some one.

I'm desperate. Something's gotta be done.

Ted Reiff

11:40 am

Ted

I wrote about it today. Ironically, I have the room across the hall from gaborik...i jokingly told him he could borrow my laptop

Here's the write up. I hadn't read it until later today. I'm not sure if anyone remembers, but before the Rangers game, Gabby was watching Pavel Bure highlights and then before the Nashville game, Russo showed him his five goal performance against the Rangers.

Also, Russo's reporting (on the blog) that Nick Schultz is playing tonight.

Look for Nick “Willis Reed” Schultz to play tonight.

Are you playing? “I think so.”

Funny story, the second he said that, he was called into a one-minute meeting with GM Doug Risebrough, who clearly told him, “Don’t tell the media.”

Too late. It was on the blog by the time he got back. The rest of the interview Schultz, whose missed the series thus far following an appendectomy only 12 days ago, was throwing in caveats, like if I play, etc, but he’s in.

Devils 3 - Rangers 5

More Wild Bitching

Here are some Wild quotes to back up what I said in the previous post. If you're sitting within proximity of a little girl, let her read them to you so you can get the full context.

"We had energy, I would say, up until the point where they scored," center Eric Belanger said.

"We had played such a good game," center Pavol Demitra said. "We had so many shots. We just needed one goal, and it just wasn't there."

And this one sounds like its coming from a camp counselor. You know the hippy chick from Camp WannaHavaFunTime! who was always so cheerful that you wanted to strangle her by her hippy necklace?... Oh, that was just me? O.K.

"We've been coming from behind this whole series," Brian Rolston said. "It would be nice to get up, it would be nice to play with a lead. Our effort was awesome tonight. We feel very proud of our effort tonight. Nobody will be hanging their head here. We'll be ready in Colorado."

That quote screams Tuesday morning tee time.

I think I know the answer for the Wild.

They need Todd on the bench and a couple of videos of the Death Mutant Jesus Killers or whatever before the game. Sure Pierre-Marc Bouchard will be a quivering heap on the locker room floor, but if that's what it takes.

Wild 2 - Avalanche 3 (No OT)

The Wild outshot the Avalanche last night, but not enough of the pucks got behind Jose Theodore. 40-17 were the shots. Theodore was very good, but...

The Wild controlled every aspect for the game for the first two periods, but when it came down to it, they never really got a good shot off. Theodore was seeing the puck extremely well and the Wild never really got a shot off that had a chance of getting by him. Backstrom was good too - the three goals that were scored on him were on outstanding shots. The only way either team was going to score on either goalie was through the backdoor. So let's look at the first three goals.

(0 - 1) On the power play, Brunette parks his ass in front of Backstrom and when Foppa throws one out front, Bruno backhands the deflection past Backstrom who's ass over teakettle in the blue paint. Pretty much a carbon copy of his other two goals (both of which started the scoring in the previous two games).

(1 - 1) Wild power play and the boys are working it around the perimeter. Burns gets the puck on the left dot after a rebound (not many of those last night) off of a Rolston shot. He thought shot, but heard Butch who's on the opposite dot. The Av's are all collapsing on Burnsy's shot and leave a lane to Butch. Cross-ice pass, backdoor shot, goal.

(1 - 2) Colorado power play on a horrible penalty taken by Hill. Liles on the blueline cross-ice's a pass to Wolski on the top of the right dot who one-time's it for the goal. Backstrom almost got all the way across the crease, but Wolski put it in a tight hole. Can't really call it an aimed shot, but the fact that it was another backdoor shot gave it as good a chance to go in as anything else thrown towards the net.



Each one of these goals were not examples of the shooter beating the goalie, but the shooter getting open with some open net in front of him. Nothing surprising, but ask yourself..."How many more times did the Wild try to go backdoor?" There wasn't a lot of passes across the slot - many of them blocked by the Av's. Gaborik got a rebound that he juggled before backhanding it into Theodore's leg pads and Burns pinched to get a cross-ice pass, but Theodore was able to get in front and block it. I'm not sure whether the Av's Defense and Theodore were able to cut down on the opportunities or the Wild weren't either aggressive or creative enough around the net. Either way, Theodore saw 38 shots last night, missed one, and I'm not sure he cared enough on Rolston's goal.

My theory is this. All throughout this franchise's history, they've played the underdog. They've been the darlings of St. Paul with their moxie and grit and whatever. They came and replaced the beloved North Stars. Their hometown hero scored the first goal ever at the X. They made an improbable Cup run in '03. They went toe to toe with the eventual Cup Champs last year and took a chunk out of them in Game 4 before Brad May "disgracefully" punched out our "non-fighting" Kim Johnnson. The entire franchise history is filled with David vs. Goliath stories.

The only problem is Goliath always wins the Cup. Every team that wins the Stanley Cup plays the bully. Even the lower seeded teams (Edmonton in '06, Anaheim in '03) that make it to the Finals take control of the games with stifling defense and opportunistic offense. They win games by moxie, grit, and a spit in your face / piss on your grave attitude that is lacking in our boys.

It shows in how they play. Last year during game four against Anaheim, when the Wild absolutely needed a win, Mark Parrish played as if he had a nest of fire ants in his breezers. He didn't score any goals in that game, but was all over the frickin' place creating chaos in his wake. The third and fourth goals by Gaborik and Rolston were goals that were the result of chaos. They weren't pretty, but they were the result of relentless pressure and advantageous positioning. When was the last time this team was relentless in anything?

A good period of playoff hockey cannot be: "We got a lot of good looks and good shots". It has to be: "We put the puck in the net". This team needs to forget the underdog role and play the favorite, because they are the favorite. They need to be the bully, not the pipsqueek. This ain't the movies - they need to be the Biff and not the Marty McFly; the Galactic Empire and not the Rebel Alliance; the Jason Vorhees and not the six 105 pound teenage actresses with 42 inch chests. They need to be Exxon and not Joe Six Pack. They are the better team and everyone knows it. But the better team doesn't move on - the team that scores more goals does.

Devils 3 - Rangers 4

I believe it was the Red Hot Chili Peppers who so adequately said:

"GivitawayGivitawayGivitaway-blah"

Zach Parise let the puck slip off his stick to Fedor Tyutin who's slapper was tipped in by Chris Drury for goal #3. Then with 3 minutes to play, Patty Elias was trying to clear and ran into Colin White (who also ran into Marty during game one leading to a goal). The puck slid over to Straka who passed it to Staal who slapped in the winner.

Frick.

And then traitor Gomer knocks the faceoff into the Devils empty net for a pretty cool goal. I miss him so bad it hurts.

Back to the Prudential Center for Game 5 on Friday for a 7:30pm game.

Wild 1 - Avalanche 5

Holy Crap.

For the life of me, I don't know how to approach this one. First off, I slept through almost the entire game. My internet connection wasn't getting good coverage of the game and so I dozed off soon after the puck dropped - of course an aftereffect of watching all of Game 3. I woke up briefly after the first, checked the score on my phone, and when I saw 0-3 Av's, and knowing that the Wild are not capable as a Calgary-like comeback, I passed out for good.

After digesting highlights and various write-ups (Startribune, Russo's Blog, DenverPost (hacks), CBC, ESPN, TSN, Hockeyfights.com), I figured I would chime in with my own commentary with assistance from the late, great Herb Brooks.

Those guys looked like a bunch of monkeys humping a football.

Game 5 tomorrow night at the X. Let's hope that between now and 8:00pm tomorrow they each have a solid bowel movement and man up.

By the way, there are way too many videos on YouTube of monkey's humping all sorts of things, but I couldn't find one of a monkey and a football - not that I would have posted it, because this blog has certain lines it will not cross. So instead of a monkey, here's a turtle.