I'm Still Alive

Yep, still alive just haven't been blogging due to superstitious reasons.

The Wings were on a hell of a run, and I didn't want to screw it up by blogging about it.

Things have changed and here I am, back at the keyboard on a day where I should clearly be out golfing.

Speaking of golf...

This past Sunday I played with Masten and Bechtel at the Grande in Jackson. Mike Vecellio, our elementary school gym teacher and varsity basketball coach at Grass Lake Elementary and High School (and one of the best overall people I have ever met in my life) is in charge of outings and leagues out at the Grande and he got us a Sunday morning tee time for 7:30.

For those of you that don't play golf, there is nothing quite like being the first group out on the course on a sunny Sunday morning. The fog was just lifting, the sun was rising, birds chirping, I tell ya, the whole thing was just poetic. Beautiful does not do it justice.

For those of you that don't know, Masten and Bechtel are both in the golf industry. Bechtel is the course superintendent at Calderone Farms in Grass Lake while Masten is now a PGA Tour certified teaching pro based out of Myrtle Beach at Arrowhead Golf Course. These are two of my best friends in the world and both of them are needless to say, better than me at the great game of golf.

That being said, let's talk briefly about the round. I started out amazingly. I crushed my first drive off the tee and then from about 115 yards or so pitched up onto the green within about ten feet. I ended up two putting the hole for a par to start off my first round at one of the best courses in Michigan. On the par 3 second hole, I won a dollar off my playing partners by sticking my tee shot about 7 feet from the pin. Another two putt and another par and everything was coming up Cole.

And then the wheels feel off for the next two holes when I went 8 and 7 but then settled down to shoot a 52 on the front. Not bad, but not great. At that point, I was just happy to be out there.

I caught a bad case of the shanks on the start of the back nine but rallied to par a couple of holes late and shoot another 52. Like I said, I was just happy to be out there. The course opened in 2001 and I had never played it. I have to say, I'm glad I waited to at least gain some sort of skill before I went out there. The fairways were pretty wide for the most part but errant drives were quick to find the thick rough, woods, or water. The greens were unlike anything I've seen. To say they were fast and undulating (hilly) would be an understatement. Far and away the toughest greens I've ever played. At the same time though, the greens were surprisingly easy to read and every putt rolled true. My opinion of the course was high going in, and even higher going out. On a scale of 1-10, I give it about a 37 and I can't thank Coach V for getting us out there enough.

Now, on to other things.

The Wings play in 2 hours and 17 minutes. Datsyuk is rumored to be back in the lineup and Draper is rumored to be a healty scratch. A lot of people have been talking about how the Wings haven't exactly been playing well this series. I don't understand what they (Mike Valenti on 97.1 mainly) are talking about. Games 1 and 2 were absolutely dominated by the Red Wings. The out shot, out hit, out hustled, out defended, and simply out played the Penguins in those two games. How can anyone complain about how they were playing? I don't understand it.

As for tonight, I see it as an absolute must win game. The last thing I want is for this series to be tied and for it to possibly go to seven games. As much as I love game sevens, I hate them because anything and everything can and will happen. This makes tonight's game a must win game. Just in the sense that I don't want it to go seven games.

What will happen tonight? I think it will look something like this...just imagine the chicken is a Penguin.



The game tonight will be on Versus...which reminds me of a rant I wanted to go on.

THE NHL IS BEING SCREWED BY NBC AND THE FLIMSY CONTRACT WITH NBC/VERSUS NEGOTIATED BY GARY BETTMAN AND HIS CRONIES!!

This is the Stanley Cup Finals. One of the greatest spectacles in all of sports. It should be aired nationally. It isn't aired nationally. NBC has instead chosen to air the embarassment to American society and culture that is "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Outta Here." This is why we have to watch the game on Versus. I cannot tell you how mad this makes me. Whoever put the stamp of approval on this, be it at NBC or with the NHL (which folded like a cheap lawn chair on this issue which pisses me off even more) needs to be fired on the spot. And then publicly beaten and humiliated. Tarred and feathered even. Out of protest, I am going to watch the rest of the Finals on the Canadian channel CBC. I still can't believe a show featuring a bunch of D-List asswipes is on instead of the Stanley Cup Finals. It boggles the mind and PISSES ME OFF!!!

SCREW YOU HOCKEY JESUS! BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS MALKIN! YOU SUCK FLEURY! YOU'RE A GOON HAL GILL! YOU'RE EASILY THE WORST STAAL BROTHER JORDAN STAAL! GODDAMNIT DETROIT BEAT THESE CLOWNS TONIGHT AND WIN THE DAMN THING AT THE JOE ON SATURDAY!!!

PITTSBURGH SUCKS!!!

Working Class Heroes

Dallas Drake. I remember playing NHL 93 on Sega Genesis and always being the Red Wings. Steve Yzerman was my first line center but I had to have the young Dallas Drake as my second liner (hell, I was ten, what did I know right?). Dallas Drake has played over 1000 games in the NHL and up until this season, never played in the Stanley Cup Finals. Dallas Drake once said, "If the Stanley Cup was rolling down the street, I wouldn't try to stop it unless I had won it." Nick Lidstrom gave the cup directly to Dallas Drake after receiving it from Gary Bettman Wednesday night. Dallas Drake has earned this Stanley Cup.

Dan Cleary. The first Newfoundlander to win the Stanley Cup.

Kris Draper. We bought him for a dollar from the Winnepeg Jets. Four Cups later, he was the best dollar ever spent.

Chris Chelios. Just seen drinking a beer while riding in the victory parade. You can find him at Cheli's all day today, probably getting hammered with about a thousand of his closest friends.

Kirk Maltby. One of the original members of the Grind Line. You don't get more blue collar than that.

Nick Lidstrom. Was once voted the greatest hockey player in the world by the Sporting News. He could play on any team anywhere for any amount of money but he insists on taking the comparably modest pay just to wear the Winged Wheel on his sweater for 82 nights a year. When they awarded him the captain's C after Stevie Y's retirement, I was a little skeptical. I thought it should go to a more vocal guy like Kris Draper. Looking back on it now, they made the right choice. Nick Lidstrom is the heart and soul.

Thomas Holmstrom. Who would have ever thought that Homer would be such an important part of four Stanley Cup Championships? This is a guy who takes an absolute pounding in front of the net night in and night out and he does it all for the team.

Darren McCarty. The definition of working class hero.
Darren McCarty was drafted in the second round in 1992 by the Detroit Red Wings. After one season with the Adriondack Red Wings, McCarty got the call to the big club and never really looked back. He scored a career high 49 points in the 96-97 season. The 1997 Stanley Cup season was the first Cup for Darren McCarty. March 26th, 1997 was when Darren McCarty won the eternal love of Red Wings fans everywhere when he exacted revenge on Claude Lemieux for his hit on Kris Draper in the 96 Conference Finals which made Draper eat through a straw for a month or so. Not only did he beat up that dickhead, but he dragged him over to the boards and rubbed his bloody face on them in front of the Wings bench. After the fight, the game went to overtime and in a fitting way, Darren McCarty scored the game winning goal to set the tone for the rest of the season and the first of three Stanley Cup runs.

D-Mac fell on hard times in the last few years though. Battling through his personal troubles with bankruptcy and alcohol and drug addictions, Darren McCarty was out of hockey until this season when his good friend Kris Draper told him to make a comeback and play for his Flint Generals of the IHL. After about ten games with the Generals, the Red Wings came calling again. After a brief stint with the Griffins, McCarty was back on the Wings roster and back to his "goon with hands" ways. Darren McCarty's story is truly a great one of personal triumphs. I remember when I met Darren McCarty. It was at a celebrity softball game after their first cup. My elementary school gym teacher Mr. Vecellio took my brother and I after his wife had snagged us some tickets. We sat and watched right behind their fenced in dugout. I didn't have any cards or posters for anyone to sign, but I did have a dollar bill. I timidly walked up to the fence after McCarty popped out to short (not a good softball player Darren McCarty) and said, "Mr McCarty, can you sign this for me?" He turned around and laughed at me. "Who the hell is Mr. McCarty? Call me Darren. What's your name? Where you from? You play hockey? Who's your favorite player? This is pretty cool eh?" I was 14 years old and carrying on a conversation with my favorite Red Wing this side of Steve Yzerman. I still have that dollar bill.

The modern day Red Wings have won exactly zero cups without Darren McCarty on the roster. Coincidence? Probably not.

Working class heroes for a working class city. The great City of Detroit cannot thank these guys enough for all they've done, especially right now.

Hopefully I'll see the Cup again tonight at the CoPa.

If I Could Write a Letter To...

Dear Joe Dumars,

Ok, here is my proposed plan of action. Trade Sheed. Trade Chauncey. Draft somebody good. That's all I really have for you. The free agent market is the worst I've ever seen it so basically all you can do is make some shrewd trades here and there and see if you can't keep the success of your team going. Why trade Sheed? Because he's done. It's as simple as that. Rasheed Wallace is not what he used to be by any stretch of the imagination and he's become not so much a distraction but more along the lines of a waste of space. The only conceivable place you could send Sheed is Charlotte so he can be reunited with Larry Brown. The only problem with that is, there won't be much coming back in return unless Jordan doesn't like Okafor anymore which would be nice. Chauncey on the other hand, I would actually hate to see him go as I have really enjoyed watching him play over the past few years. In my opinion, Rodney Stuckey is ready to take the reins of this team and lead them to the promised land, or at least back to the Eastern Conference Finals which is where Pistons seasons seem to go to die anyway. Congratulations Joe on building a franchise that most cities would be peeing their pants to have, but as for the city of Auburn Hills and her neighbors, it's time to change things up a bit.

Sincerely,

Cole

Dear Readers,
If you had the Stanley Cup for a day, what would you do with it?
Seriously,
Cole

Dear Detroit Tigers,
Congratulations on climbing out of the AL Central cellar this weekend. You're 6 games back from the White Sox and are still very much in contention after a horrendous April and May. Do everyone a favor now, sweep the A's this week then come back to Detroit and beat the chaw spit out of the Tribe this weekend. It's probably time to go on a nice little winning streak now. Any time you're ready just let us know ok? You're lucky that most everyone in Detroit is watching the Wings right now, otherwise there would be a lot more pissed off Tigers fans out there than just yours truly.
Don't Turn Into The Pistons,
Cole

Dear Jonathan Papelbon and the Dropkick Murphys,
Thank you so much for teaching me this dance so I could properly celebrate the Celtics win over the Pistons Friday night in Ronnie's living room.

Thanks again for helping me piss off my Piston loving friends!
Cole

Dear Sidney Crosby,
"We know what we gotta do. We gotta win to stay alive." No shit Sid? You mean that in a 7 game series, the first team to lose four times is out of the series? That's how that works? Your genius rivals that of Forrest Gump. Do the hockey world a favor too, next year, focus more on playing hockey than bitching about the guys in the other sweaters being actual hockey players.
All the best to your daddy Mario,
Cole

Dear Detroit Pistons,
After a while it just stops hurting.
Signed,
The Buffalo Bills

Dear Eastern Michigan University,
Just wanted to say, nice work trying to polish a turd by putting up those little lightpost banners touting the excellence of EMU and EMU Athletics around Ypsilanti. The problem is, you can't polish a turd. It is impossible. If it were possible to polish a turd, I would recommend a few things. First of all, maybe raise the standards of admission just a touch. Eastern Michigan is usually everyone's last choice because let's face it, everyone gets in to Eastern. Hell, I got in so what's that say? It's time to quit acting like a community college with your admissions policies and maybe attract a different type of student. Like the serious-ish type. Another would be to maybe tear down a few buildings or purchase more land (with imaginary money of course) and build some nice new parking lots. I will have to begin driving to class every day and it would be nice if I could find a spot before my class is over this time. You should also consider getting rid of all of your chalkboards. That's right, I said it, EMU still has chalkboards and VCRs on carts that teachers have to sign out to use if they want to show an 1980s era public television show about interracial communication or math. I can handle the VCRs on carts, but the blackboards? I would take a ten cents a credit hour raise in tuition to put whiteboards in every classroom. Not that anyone uses them but still. Another point I would like to raise is to do something, ANYTHING to get students to actually go to football or basketball or baseball or softball games. Make it a tailgate friendly environment over at the Convocation Center (conveniently located about a mile away from campus...brilliant move there late 90s administration). If you tell kids that they can booze and then go to a game with little to no repercussions, people will go. I'm not saying sell beer at the games, just encourage a little binge drinking on Saturday afternoons in Ypsilanti. You know why Western and Central games are well attended? Not because of the quality of teams they throw out there, it's because their students have been drinking all day in anticipation of being drunk and disorderly in the stands for the game. It's the "Win or Lose We're Gonna Booze," mentality that you need. Trust me on this one ok?
I hate your guts and can't wait to leave you,
Cole

Dear Detroit Red Wings,
You are 60 hockey minutes away from hoisting Lord Stanley's Cup. Nothing more needs to be said.
Love,
Cole

Gentlemen, Start Your Remotes

Ok, let's do a little what's on tap this weekend.
Tonight-Tigers and lookintheattic.com softball (who's your dot com?) at 7
Tomorrow - Tigers at 7. Wings at 8. Pistons at 8:30. Christ.
Sunday - 1100 miles of racing with the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 and the Tigers are at 1.
Monday - Wings at 8. Pistons at 8:30. Tigers at 9.

This all brings up an interesting point. What are you going to watch? We all have certain strategies when things like this happen. I for one will be primarily watching the Wings (of course) and during commercials I'll send it over to the Tigers and then the Pistons just for score updates, not long enough to miss any hockey though. That or I'll just go to the bar and watch all three at once. Which brings me to my next point...anyone want to go to the bar with me and watch the games?

The Pistons impressed the hell right out of me last night. They looked like the old school Pistons. Not the Bad Boys but the "Goin to Work" crew. They played great defense, Rip was knocking down jumpers left and right. Sheed felt like playing so he did and he played well. They had that "look" of a team poised to make a run at a championship last night it was also great to see someone beat the Celts at home. If only they can keep losing on the road, the Pistons win the series. Something tells me that might not happen but I'll be rooting for them anyway. And yes, I am starting to warm up to the Pistons a little bit. And no, I'm not jumping on the bandwagon, I was never off the bandwagon.

In other news...



Jim Leyland went on a bleep laden mini tirade in the clubhouse after Mondays game and it apparently worked. The Tigers looked like the team we all hoped they would be in the sweep of the series against Seattle. I'm not getting too excited just yet though. If they play well this weekend against the Twins then I'll be a little excited, possibly even a slight bit giddy at the prospects of everything possibly coming together. It's still too early to get too disappointed or too happy. Nobody has ever won a pennant in May.

As for the Wings, Franzen was cleared to practice yesterday and will most likely be playing tomorrow night which also makes me happy in the bathing suit area. Franzen is more of an impact player than anyone gives him credit for as he makes the Wings not such a one trick pony with the Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Holmstrom line. That and he's a big nasty bastard who likes him a little contact here and there. It will be fun to watch, I just hope he didn't forget how to play hockey with that long layoff.

What do we as fans need to be aware of as we go into the Stanley Cup Finals against the now hated Pittsburgh Penguins. The key to winning the series and hoisting Lord Stanley's Cup consists of six letters. C, M, S, F, G and sometimes Y.

Crosby - The face of the new NHL. The Next One. Hockey Jesus. Sidney Crosby is the most dynamic player the league has seen since Wayne Gretzky. I'm not calling him Gretzky at all, I'm just saying it's been a while since we've seen a player like Crosby take the ice. He makes everyone on the ice with him better at all times. You cannot stop Sidney Crosby, you can only hope to contain him or hope that he crashes into the boards and jacks his ankle up again.

Malkin - Evgeni Malkin is the other face of the new NHL. At 20 years old he is already making a name for himself as a pure goal scorer who also plays very physical. On any other team he is an absolute superstar and franchise player. He doesn't have the passing skills, defensive skills, computer hacking skills, or nunchuk skills, that Crosby has, but he is an absolute force on the offensive side of the puck.

Staal - Jordin Staal is the most underrated of the young Pittsburgh superstars. Don Cherry has praised this youngster as a Steve Yzerman type of player. Not a huge goal scorer but can put the puck in the net when he has to. A great passer and a true team player who works extremely hard on both ends of the ice. He worries me because he is the kind of player who will get a key goal on a borderline lucky shot that could send a series into a frenzy.

Fluery - Marc-Andre Fluery was drafted first overall by the Pens in 2003 and has been considered to be the true future of the franchise. He has played extremely well in the playoffs thus far with a 1.70 goals against average against 388 shots and has an amazing 12-2 record coming into the Stanley Cup Finals. The only advantage the Wings could have against Fluery is that he is just like Turco in the fact that he doesn't handle traffic in front of the net very well. He will make the saves he is supposed to make while being very technically sound. He hasn't seen much traffic thus far in the playoffs as many of the teams in the East don't emphasize that as much as the Wings do. All they need to do is get in the youngster's head a bit and hope for the best.

Gonchar - Sergei Gonchar is a veteran defenseman who at one point in time was considered to be one of the best in the game. He is also just like Lidstrom and plays a very fundamental game and is a great passer. He'll take the body more than Liddy, but is smart about it as he has only seen the inside of the penalty box 3 times in the 14 games they've played thus far. You cannot rattle Sergei Gonchar. He is un-rattleable.

Youth - This is a young, young, young hockey team. But it is also a very, very, very good hockey team. The best way to beat a young team with a relatively old team is to get into their heads and tell them that they are too young to play against the big boys for the Cup. Out hit, out shoot, out hustle the Pens, and you will win. With youth comes inexperience. If the Wings can get the youngsters to take some bad penalties here and there (namely from Jarkko Ruutuu who is leading the Pens with 24 penalty minutes) and dump a few powerplay goals past Fluery, while staying out of the box themselves, they have a very, very good chance.

Tomorrow night, 8 o'clock on VERSUS the Stanley Cup Finals begin.

I can't freakin wait!