My Favorite Hockey Card

So like any kid growing up, I had a bazillion trading cards. I spent hours staring at them and imagining watching the games when the pictures were taken. I would pour over the stats on the back and do quick and dirty inter-year comparisons or put certain guys against each other. I used to get a little chubby when guys finished the season with a crooked number in PIMS because I would imagine all the fighting majors. I would study how players wore their socks and which gloves guys wore. For some reason it was important to me to know what year Ray Bourque switched from D&R gloves to a pair of Sherwoods. Now I have the internet and Youtube so I don't need to stare at a Murray Craven card and use my imagination to see how he scored his 30 goals in a certain year.

Somewhere in my parent's basement in Connecticut I still have a pile of binders but there is one hockey card that really stuck with me. It's the 91-92 Upper Deck of Cujo making a ridiculous save. Look at it at the top of the page. Let it sink in.

(It took me 35 minutes on Google to find this card so when I finally found a picture of it I freaked out like one of those dopes that find out that the wings they are enjoying at a restaurant is actually made by Pizza Hut. "This isn't a restauant at all, motherfuckers! Woooo!")

A few thoughts on:
- Upper Deck had the shiniest, sharpest colored trading cards on the planet. Before 91-92 cards were brown pulpy shit. Upper Deck looked like they invented HD.

- Those St. Louis sweaters were TITS. Great (1,000) breazers. I might look for an old pair on eBay. The Wings may have the best pants in the league right now but older school, Capitals, North Stars and Flames are right up there. Some kid on our men's league teams wears green Devils breazers. I think I've written about that fact 60 times on this blog. I also really like the Tampa pants with the bolt on the side. I also had a trading card of Jeff Lazaro that showed that he had Zs shaved into the side of his head. Okay.

- Look at the save. What a picture! I always tried to figure out what angle the shot came from and how Cujo got to it. I think that Roenick tried to go low blocker and Cujo kicked this shit into the rafters. I want to think that any butterfly style netminder would have been to slow to get down on this puck but young Cujo was able to ninja kick his right leg out and get a stick on the shot.

- I love the way his glove hand flares out for balance. I think he ended up in a full split at the end of the play.

- Standup goalies were the shit. Positional goalies ruined hockey cards forever. To have a good goalie shot you need to kick out a leg and flash some glove.

- Check out the kid from A Christmas Story studying the save from the front row. How cool would it be if it turns out that that kid is actually a young Patty Berglund?

- Can we go back to the time when goalies had scuffed up pads? And how cool are those Heaton pads? That is why I love the Joey MacDonald pads because they looked like throwback pads from the 1990's. Andy Moog and Billy Ranford and all the Vaughn guys had pads in the same style.



BTW Don't get me started on this Bill Ranford picture. I could be here all day.



- I brought up the fact that I liked the Joey Mac pads to him when we shot the backup goalie show for the Isles. He choose the pads because he loves the classic look. He's the man.



- Nemmy

Weekend Wrap Up OR College hockey was crazy, but I'm not going to talk about it

I watched hockey every time it was on this weekend, but I couldn't figure out what game I was watching in the NCAA's. Cornell was in the mid-west regional - thats confusing.


The Islanders shut-out the Red Wings Friday night. Yes, Hossa and company hit about a thousand posts, but Joey MacDonald made saves like this:



He looks like Nemmy during roller hockey.

Ovechkin embarrassed the Lightning again. Not with a stupid celebration, but with a solid night. Ovy had 2 and 2 assists:



Saturday night was fight night at the Coliseum, this heavy weight bought came right after Nate Thompson fought Dan Carcillo and before Aaron Asham dropped Tim Jackman. Also Doug Weight fought!



While the fights were happening on the island, a pond hockey game was breaking out in Toronto. Justin Pogge sucks. Or he's learning. He got pulled for CuJo - exactly the opposite of what happened the night before. Recchi had 2 sweet tip-ins. He's not a Jew, because he knows how to tip. (ed note: bress is a jew).
Of the 7 Boston scored this one is my favorite. Really make sure to watch the nice pass from Lucic.



Earlier on Saturday Crosby was Crosby and got the game winner versus the Rangers. Uhhh, good effort, Redden?


The Blue Jackets and the Blues played a home-and-home series (or more accurately home-and-away). The BJs lost both and Mr. Nash has a new nemesis.





Yea, thats TJ Oshie.

I can't think of a better way to end this recap than with this ridiculous slap-pass from Lidstrom to Zetterberg. And watch how Rik really put thats backhand through the five-hole, strong!





What did I miss?

-Bress

The Land of Barbonin

When the Hittites and the Menanites came over from Jerusalem, Mike Richards was born. Power "I" Richards as he was deemed by Camille (Pic below), the God of sick back hand toewy's top shelf in a hurry. He found young Mike strung out in a field near a basket of cale. He raised him as his own. Teaching him the ways of the sick back hand toewy top shelf in a hurry. He forced Mike to run between towns fetching produce and lumber to create the means to go top shelf in a hurry. Today we see Mike Richards in his highest form. His most pronounced definition of Mike Richards. The man has hustle and flow unlike most in the NHL. The ways of Mike Richards are a by-product of years of 3 Olives and mere patience to explode that moment when it presents itself.Camille currently has 139 points in 18 men's league games. A.K.A. blogger name Mr. W is a mean animal when he wants to be.

On to other news or once I landed in real life on Wednesday morning - My trip skiing to Colorado ended well. The last few runs, down the mountain my brother and I were moving upwards of at least 50 mph and could have reached 70 at some point. This is not an uncommon speed for very experienced skiiers by the way, Bress/Nemy. I mean we were going so fast and I had Nemy's BlueBlockers on that I couldn't see and had to stop because of the wind making my eyes so watery. If you are going to bomb on skiis, make sure you use your goggles just in case despite the weather outside. If your going to lumber down the mountain, then break the glasses out. The pic above is one taken from a peak at Vail which was just awesome.

On the way back to New York, I spotted Billy Mays in the security line behind us with his wife. He was so Billy Mays and to be honest he had no idea.

For those of you who don't recognize him by name.

Sitting in first class on our flight was Brian Engblom. Of course I gave him a 2man card and explained my side of it. He was kind and interested and somewhat surprised, I have to believe. Wish he still had a sick mullet!

While on the flight, I began to think about things. Why is Brind'Amour having such a low season? Here's why. He makes a nice play to get someone a goal last night against Ottawa and than the same shift turns it over at his own blue line and Chris Kelly snipes. Turning a nice positive into momentum shifting to the downside. His sack isn't fully there right now. Carolina may make the playoffs with Miller down and the Rangers racing furiously to the bottom. Be that as it may, i think rod may step it up on the playoffs. We'll let's be serious, I hope he will. Still leading the league in Faceoffs won though.

That was crazy though. 3 goals in like a minute last night in that game followed by Bushy Alf soaring thru the neutral zone and getting Dany Heat the puck to bury. Watch that goal and you will 100 percent see why Alfreddson is who he is. What strides man. Seriously!

Does Patty Lalime hold it down for the Sabres? Not well at least. He let in his first goal against on his second shot last night. That just has bad omens and 666's written all over it. Papa Shango is not impressed.

Do the Penguins get it together? To be honest I think they will clean themselves up and get into the playoffs but I also think they should go after another winger like they did with Hossa last season. Gonchaaaa is back and that adds powerplay value so you don't need to use Ryan Shannon at the point on your powerplay like Ottawa has been doing. Good or bad, it's just weird, that's all I'm saying.

Conundrum 717: On one of my fantasy teams, I have Mike Mckenna/Kari Ramo and Joey Mac/Yann Danis. At times, I didn't know who would be starting. They rarely let you know on TSN or yahoo so its a guess. However I figured out on my own that you can check a few minutes before game time on the box score and they will list on yahoo who is in net. No more guessing. Not that these goalies are going to lead us back to the land of Canaan however it is points and we are on a dog lay left here entering the turn and I already drank 9 beers. At this point I'm aiming 90 degrees to the left of my normal shot to compensate for the worst drunk slice since arboretum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0anaCNDvGo

A quick synopsis of my Wednesday. Please get some!

- Luscious Barzell