Holy shit I've been a bad LJer.

Quick summary: Christmas = good. New car = good. Building giant snow dinosaurs because I got snowed in = good. Canada's Olympic Men's Roster = FUCKING GREAT.

Of the not so good = watching New Jersey suck the enjoyment out of hockey makes me want to gouge my own eyes out with a rusty kitchen implement. LISTENING to it on the radio is even worse. Watching it on the tsn ticker? FUCKING OUTRIGHT TORTURE. I feel bad for the poor schmucks who had to watch it.

JUST SAY NO TO THE TRAP BOYS AND GIRLS.

A real 2009 wrap up post will be forthcoming, sometime tomorrow. For reals.

16:08 Aww, Kelly's a D-back now. Well, more reason for me to watch them.

19:04 Brick made me cry. "You remember where he was a few years ago. You can still see him in the neck brace..." I love that kid like he's my own.

19:38 My gods, I love my team so much. A given, yes, but I don't say it enough. I love these boys, they're amazing.

19:41 Dear Steve, You forgot another one. Signed, Bruins fans.

20:31 Patrice makes me cry.

21:23 Jack: "Two U's, two K's, two points, no goals allowed!"

21:46 Milan on PIM: "What's his name, Carcillo, he had like 340, and that's a lot."

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Originally published at talkhockeytome.com. You can comment here or there.

Because I’m a big dork, my initial stab at the numbers the Finnish Olympic team may be wearing when they hit the ice in Vancouver. Photo proof where I could find it.

Miikka Kiprusoff: 34
Antero Niittymaki: 31
Niklas Backstrom: 32

Teemu Selanne: 8
Valteri Filppula: 51 (Number from Jokerit and Detroit)
Saku Koivu: 11
Mikko Koivu: 21 or 9
Tuomo Ruutu: 15
Jere Lehtinen: 26
Niklas Hagman: 14
Olli Jokinen: 12
Antti Miettinen: 20
Jarkko Ruutu: 73
Niko Kapanen: 39
Ville Peltonen: 16
Jarkko Immonen: 26 or 23

Kimmo Timonen: 4
Lasse Kukkonen: 5
Toni Lydman:32
Sami Salo: 6
Sami Lepisto: 40
Joni Pitkanen: 25 (no record of him on a national team anywhere!)
Janne Niskala: 21

This is part one of my Olympic post. I was harassed asked to post it now. Part Two will have Russia and USA, because I like irony. And because I couldn't make a whole post of just the US team. Someone might think I like them!

( Team Sweden: He can't play for the NHL, but he can play in the Olympics? )

( Team Slovakia: Did I read that right? He's back? )

( Team Finland: The Koivus don't rule the world, just Finland. )

( Team Czech Republic: His replacement is coming up, but Jaromir isn't dead yet. )

( Team Canada: The first thing I have to say is that Steve was raised well. )

Originally published at talkhockeytome.com. You can comment here or there.

Quick hits today, as I’ve just achieved getting to Boston for the NHL Tweetup. (I also definitely just tried to Twitter hashtag that as well)

>The Springfield Falcons….. suck. We drove in and watched them play the Peebs, who also, um, right now kind of made of suck, and I was blown away by how small the Falcons arena was and how many people there WEREN’T there. I do know that Hershey pulls in 6,000 on a small night at the GC, but there weren’t more than 500 people total at the MassMutual Center.

>Speaking of Falcons and sucking, Kip Brennan is still alive, for all you Bears fans. Still alive and still taking silly penalties. Also alive, Dean Arsene, wearing the C. It’s a little bizarre seeing him in another team’s jersey still, and I can only imagine what it’s like going from a yearly playoff contender to… well… not a yearly playoff contender, but he’s still around, still playing like the Mayor of Chocolatetown, as far as I can tell, still staying classy, and still shoving people over to get them out of the scoring lanes. (I did get a few pictures of him, wait for it and I’ll get them up as soon as I re-find my photo processing software)

>Speaking of photo processing software, one of the reasons I’ve been scarce lately, for those of you who didn’t know, is because I recently had basically ALL OF MY electronics die at once-I lost the phone screen, got a virus on the computer, and have been fighting with that, holidays, and everything else all at once.

>On a hockey related note again, just because nobody else has commented on it to my knowledge, anyone else seeing Boyd Gordon’s current back ailment and Eric Fehr’s previous back issues in the same lens? Now that Gordon is back, the parallel is a liiiiiiittttttle harder to draw, but it seems fishy that two players from the team would miss a significant amount of time (Gordon a month and a half, Fehr almost a season) for back problems that were “unexplained” or spasmy. I’m nothing like an expert on back pain, but could it be something in the way both of them are playing or training?

>As for anything else, stay live on my Twitter feed for the rest of what’s going on-I’m in MA for about five days running around and doing a whole ridiculous amount of hockey stuff, some of which will get posted here and some which will only show up on Twitter.

But in a parting shot,

CONGRATS TO ANDREW GORDON FOR MAKING THE AHL ALL STAR CANADIAN TEAM! Way to go, kid!

11:26 Oh boy, school vacation at the rink.

15:22 Buh bye, Jason Bay.

21:23 I think I could take Captain Jailbait, I really want to pinch TJ Oshie's cheeks.

22:05 That's how to do it. Stitches and then a goal! Frenchboys can be tough!

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A meme:

The first TEN people to comment in this post get to request a drabble of any pairing/character of their choosing from me. In return, they have to post this in their journal, regardless of their ability level. If you absolutely can't write, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to offer drawings or icons or something instead.

Hockey or baseball only. Name players or teams.

( My twitters for the day )
 

16:09 Please tell me the Caps aren't going to do what everyone is thinking they're going to do. Good luck in Columbus, Chris Clark.

16:14 Even if hes' a Canuck, I think I could really like Mikael Samuelsson, just for actually -saying- it!

19:54 Hey Pittsburgh, we'll sell you Malone back, really cheap.

20:55 Christ on a cracker, why can't we get it out of our zone?!

20:58 Michael just scored the Habs' 20,000th goal, from Andrei. (I will never admit I kinda like that.)

21:01 @ladytexas44 You can offer a better deal than that.

21:04 @ladytexas44 We can get more for him if we asked Minnesota. The only one off the Penguins I can think I'd want is Brooks.

21:06 Couch, Marty. Couch!

21:47 This is one of the worst officiated games I've ever watched. It's embarrassing.

21:53 I love that while Vinny is bitching at him, David looks to Blake to translate. (Blake's 'translation' was called a roughing penalty.)

22:02 "And that one qualifies as an IQ of 12, the number on his sweater! What -was- Malone thinking?!" I adore Jack.

22:05 Adam is diagramming a play, Jack is narrating, "You see, this guy in front is 6'9 and he's really strong, so we're going to need to..."

22:07 *sighs* Well, if we could only win one game on the road trip, at least we won the right one.

23:09 Dear Baby D's Dad, Don't ever say your son "fell in love" with a pro hockey player when he was a teen. Especially not -that- one. Please.

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This past week has been hellishly weird from a health standpoint. A two day bout of flu-like symptoms, followed by 2-3 days of low-grade headaches culminated in a world-class migraine last night that resisted even caffeine and Advil. I think dehydration may have played a role, but I'm also beginning to wonder if there's some kind of migraine trigger in summer squashes, given that I had some sauteed squash for dinner, and the last really bad migraine I had was after eating spaghetti squash.

Last night was a wash, so I called in sick today to get more sleep (although I've wound up doing some work since getting a work call at 10am and am now monitoring the phone queue), but I'm still feeling kind of shaky and ennervated. My big accomplishments was starting the process to return a Christmas gift I received today (which I love but can't use because part of the system is obsolete--going to upgrade to the new and current version instead).

Going to go see if some more food and especially protein will help any with the shakiness.
 

Christmas came and went. I survived it. That's all I was looking to do. We went to the Nursing Home and mostly it was nothing like Christmas at all. I spent the whole time talking hockey (and baseball a bit) with my favourite cousin, Jonathan. He made it a lot better than it could have been. I don't see him often enough and I miss him. I invited him to go skating with me and I hope he does.

My aunt Joanie picked my name out for a present. She got some gluten free recipes from a coconut site and printed them out and put them in a folder. Then she bought some of the ingredients from the recipes (mostly cakes and cookies) and put them together in a basket. It was nice. (And along those same lines, Alix sent me a bunch of gluten free mixes and (really good) cookies. I don't remember complaining about the cookies and cakes I can find on the shelves but people seem to know that the only way to get good baked good is to make them myself. So I should probably get on that!)

I bought my mother a really pretty black and purple dress jacket and a cute 'winter wonderland' shirt, along with a bunch of our traditional food things that I've been giving her for Christmas since I was very little. I always buy her big black and green olives, hot peppers, artichokes and peanut butter. I used to always get her Ovaltine, but I couldn't find the right flavour in the stores. Kinda sad, they don't make it anymore. I want to get her an air popper, but we haven't been able to find one yet. (Ours is possessed by demons. Pea soup is next, I'm telling you!)

I asked my mother for three things for Christmas and nothing else. I actually got all three things. I wanted Center Ice Online the most. I miss my boys so very much. I really feel so disconnected from the season if I can't watch them. I've watched at least two games everyday since I signed up for it. The second thing I wanted was a Keurig one-cup coffee maker. I stop at Dunkin' Donuts before skate and school. This is so much more cost effective and the espresso roast coffee I picked is so very very good. I've made six cups already since Christmas morning. And the third thing was a new pair of headphones. I wanted a set that block out ambient sounds completely (I had a pair but they broke). She bought me SkullCandy, white with pink accents. I'm looking forward to using them at skate on Tuesday. She also bought me a new Bruins water bottle, a Red Sox 2010 calendar and a couple books. And she wrapped up clothes that we'd bought before the holidays because she wanted me to unwrap more things on Christmas morning. She's too cute.

My present to myself is going to be a new watch. With the CI Online, I get a $20 gift card to shop.nhl.com, but I have to wait three weeks to get it. Since I'm buying my watch through them, it makes sense to wait for that. I'm buying this one.

I didn't sent out Christmas cards this year. I just never got around to it. That's kinda the theme of the holiday. We never put up a tree either. We didn't really decorate. The only thing we did was watch the specials, but we did that on Christmas Eve. It's just not the same anymore. Such is life. New traditions are okay, too.

( My twitters for the day )
 

12:59 This is my not happy face. I want to watch the Giants! Stupid FOX.

13:16 I don't want to watch a team that fumbles on the ONE YARD LINE!

13:52 Are there any other pro teams named for an -area-? (Not a city or state.)

14:16 Brady would not be nearly so good without Welker and Moss. Period.

18:18 I'm so tired of of the British Ruling Family, I can't even tell you. And I'm only half done.

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17:38 I play guitar left handed, evidently. I did not know this, but it makes Guitar Hero so much easier!

20:14 Forwards are forwards. Defencemen are defencemen. Unless they are Sergei Fedorov. David Hale is no Sergei Fedorov.

20:42 Congrats go to Mike Lundin for his first NHL goal!

21:39 I'm really falling for -this- Lightning team.

22:15 Yay Lightning! Really nice game!

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I knew Latvia wouldn't give Canada much off a challagne but 14-0 and still 8 mins left in the third. Thats just crazy!O.O

Final score was 16-0, Eberle had two goals. I love my boys*hugs them*

I miss my family at Christmas, don't get me wrong. But after a decade of having to travel from California to Illinois and back again around one of the busiest traveling times of the year, coupled with guaranteed connection flights through airports frequently smacked around by Weather(tm) in December...I have to admit there's a part of me also glad I haven't been doing it. Especially this year. I wonder if David Pollak, the San Jose Sharks' beat writer, ever did get out of Chicago on Christmas Eve given the blizzard that struck the Midwest the past couple of days.

Instead, I spent Christmas here in the Bay Area with my friends again.

( Read more... )
 

( My twitters for the day )
 

12:23 twitpic.com/v63rw - I am a happy girl.

22:57 This is my third cup of coffee. But damn the stuff is good! Espresso roast! I won't sleep for a week.

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I've been watching the per-torny games for the World JR's and have fall compeletly inlove with Jordan Eberle. He's dork and sweethart, not to mention he's an amazing hockey player. I can't wait for him to play for the Oilers.

This is Ebers


So adorable


Anyway can't wait for the torny to start tomarrow. GO CANADA!

Happy Hoildays and Happy New Year! Be safe.