tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367959512009-12-02T21:41:16.826-05:00Come for the visceral thrills, stay for the intractable epistemological conundra.Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.comBlogger269125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-7415210648748789522009-11-01T01:39:00.003-04:002009-11-01T12:31:48.314-05:00

I’m not sure I believe in ‘puck possession’.No, I’m not advocating some transcendentalist hockey philosophy that suggests that no one can truly every possess the puck, the puck being a free object controlled but none by the hockey gods themselves. That, probably, would be silly. I believe that there is such a thing as a puck that may be possessed by a particular player at any given moment.

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-27335390815434651322009-10-26T10:49:00.001-04:002009-10-26T10:51:04.914-04:00

Against the New York Rangers, the Canadiens played a terribly symmetrical game. The equivalency wasn’t just an eerie evenness between the teams- although it was that, as NYR seemed to have the same problems as the Canadiens, if not the same assets. It was also a harmony between the Habs’ own strengths and weaknesses- a creepy kind of yin/yang balance between exciting offence and excruciating

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-12607817995511778492009-10-22T11:19:00.004-04:002009-10-27T06:44:57.816-04:00

…everyone you know someday will die.You would definitely have noticed them.The camera noticed them. They must have been among the more heavily-adorned fans that night, in their jerseys and face paint, but they couldn’t possibly have blended in. Nor would they have wanted to, for what else could be the point of dusting off the old Nordiques gear for the Canadiens’ season opener?The cameras found

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-32682462399431971692009-10-15T10:51:00.004-04:002009-10-22T11:19:45.928-04:00

[Please note that the following is highly personal and subjective in nature. It contains almost no general-interest discussion of the Canadiens, nor any particular hockey analysis.]beebeebeebeeep…beebeebeebeeep…beebeebeebeep…BEEBEEBEEMOTHERFUCKINGBEEPSomewhere, just over my head and to the left, the cell phone becomes insistent. I can’t tell if the boy is awake or not. He’s not, of course,

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-36414944703886881792009-10-11T13:18:00.002-04:002009-10-12T06:06:51.487-04:00

In Vancouver, the Canadiens finally found the kind of defeat they’d been searching for since game 1. It was a drastic, merciless, unambiguous pummeling by a Canucks team determined to win as decisively as possible. They used their speed to find gaps and press advantages in every direction, and the Canadiens- this time- were unable to rise to the challenge. They folded, despondently, and ended

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-89891708009154148932009-10-11T02:45:00.004-04:002009-10-11T05:53:34.034-04:00

The worst thing about hockey, the most frustrating, hair-tearing, sleep-depriving, enthusiasm-crushing, despair-inducing facet of the game, is not Gary Bettman. It also isn’t the CBA, southern expansion franchises, the instigator penalty, or Sean Avery. It’s not fighting, or dudes who don’t backcheck, or local television color commentators. It’s the luck.Over the long term, maybe, there is a

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-49902398969194041772009-10-08T01:44:00.000-04:002009-10-08T01:45:28.485-04:00

[N.B.: As I live on the opposite side of the planet from virtually all NHL games, my comments will routinely be lagged a day or two. In the future I hope to keep the intervals shorter. In the meantime… well, there are plenty of more current blogs out there.]There are two kinds of hockey people: people who like even strength, and people who like power plays. Even strength people are the

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-18260744731564380532009-10-04T03:31:00.002-04:002009-10-05T10:40:45.503-04:00

It is a hockey custom, of a kind, that a player who has recently switched teams make some sort of performance of hatred towards his erstwhile teammates. It’s an empty gesture. This is not 1957, no one really believes that 21st century hockey players are such sentimental creatures as to play soft against dudes they like. Nevertheless, it is de rigueur to display added hostility; bare minimum,

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-50482210532511238102009-08-19T08:45:00.003-04:002009-08-19T08:50:03.977-04:00

The Reputation: Brian Gionta, he one short dude. He played his whole career heretofore with the Devils, within whose dull, disciplined ranks he won the Cup in 2003. And he’s kinda small. He’s a natural scorer, so they say, fast as hell and ingenious in the o-zone, tougher than he looks. Also, he’s like 5’7”. Prone to streakiness, but fuck, show me a ‘natural scorer’ who ain’t. But 5’7”…

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-80504407599483661352009-08-11T09:28:00.005-04:002009-08-12T01:38:49.942-04:00

Precipitating incident: Two days ago, Patrick Kane, 20 years old, star of the Chicago Blackhawks, pride of Buffalo, by all accounts professional, polished, and preternaturally career savvy, beat up a cab driver over twenty cents.The summer that Michael Vick was caught killing dogs for entertainment, perhaps the most sensational sports scandal in recent memory, the Staal brothers were arrested.

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-78849117464815089312009-07-20T00:27:00.002-04:002009-07-20T00:48:54.232-04:00

The Reputation: Absolutely glowing. Some people seem to mildly dislike him, a few find him overrated, but the prevailing attitude seems to be deep affection tinged with a platonic desire to have his babies. He’s tough, he’s ethical, he’s defensively responsible, he works hard in the regular season and harder in the playoffs, he accepts his role, he stands up for his teammates, he’s as good as

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-72733336468649177992009-07-14T12:36:00.002-04:002009-07-14T12:40:45.845-04:00

[In which the author attempts to control her chronic logorrhea, and at the same time get to know the new Canadiens.] The Reputation: General consensus seems to be that Mara’s a large, aggressive, #5-6 guy; solid enough defensively when not attempting offense (which he’s not particularly good at anyway); ‘tough’ in the generally admired ways; perhaps pestilential under the right circumstances.

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-67902470935697173032009-07-11T13:49:00.002-04:002009-07-11T14:56:49.979-04:00

The Canadiens’ centennial season should have been a glorious thing. It is a rare sports team that survives a hundred years, rarer still one that survives them in such winning style. In a perfect world, it would have celebrated all that distinguishes this most distinguished of teams, a long and laudable history of excellence girded with a unique cultural cachet and graced by the most intense

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-43964865238647576452009-07-01T13:56:00.006-04:002009-07-01T14:30:00.931-04:00

On the twenty-fifth day of the second month in the year of Our Lord two thousand and seven, Bob Gainey didst trade Craig Rivet to the San Jose Sharks for Josh Gorges, and the pundits were perplexed, for Rivet was a solid D-man of size and combativeness, yet Gorges was small and obscure and the pundits knew him not, and they were skeptical.Yet the fans cried out, trust in Gainey, for he has a

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-42605809909666218262009-06-29T16:59:00.000-04:002009-06-29T17:00:00.947-04:00

A discourse on unnecessary fights, following a somewhat tedious introduction.First principles: games evolve. We are prone to reifying the game, any game, imagining that it is defined by a very specific internal structure which, cosmetic shifts aside, holds essentially true over long stretches of time. But this is a fallacy- games grow and change, and while the pace of change may be sometimes

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-32643255753912933762009-06-22T00:28:00.001-04:002009-06-22T12:30:56.814-04:00

“So, uh, I just wanted to ask, has anyone ever suggested that Crosby might be a bit of a diver?”It’s a very late on Thursday night, or more accurately very early on Friday morning, and all over North America it is just before the end of the Stanley Cup Final, and my dad is asking me, very politely, if anyone else thinks Sidney Crosby dives. It is to laugh. No, it is not to laugh, it is to

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-42881658880144632132009-04-05T09:14:00.001-04:002009-04-05T09:17:42.387-04:00

Wherein Australia plays South Africa. The women look like miniature showgirls on lunchbreak. Two-inch false eyelashes in blue and purple, glittery cheeks, long sweeps of feathers rising from shellacked hair, holding light coats wrapped over sequined lingerie, they sit at the Starbucks counter slurping coffee and inhaling muffins as quickly as their lipstick allows. In between bites, they

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-7749015724128817262008-11-18T00:25:00.003-05:002008-11-18T02:09:03.557-05:00

If you’d notice anything immediately about the ice rink at the Taipei Arena, it’s the blank whiteness of it. Even when bustling, the arena is a gaping pallid space. It is wholly undecorated save for one large banner, blue and red, proclaiming bilingually the simple existence of the 2008-2009 CIHL season. There are no advertisements. There are no collections of memorabilia. There aren’t even

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-36555472629566534552008-11-02T13:33:00.002-05:002008-11-02T13:36:41.496-05:00

And I'm way too deep in the net.Shit.

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-17353475121626645162008-10-27T15:02:00.005-04:002008-10-29T15:33:00.412-04:00

How elastic, exactly, is the word ‘rink’? Must a rink have seats? Must it have glass? What about boards? Changing rooms? Showers? How many of the conventional accoutrements of a hockey rink must a given playing surface possess to earn the title?Must it have ice?If the answer is yes, than there are no rinks in Kaohsiung. Similarly, if hockey is by definition an ice-bound sport, than there

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-63221531472822915092008-10-23T13:56:00.004-04:002008-10-23T14:08:35.960-04:00

There’s an interesting post over on JT's blog concerning the perceived underachievement of the Canandiens’ ‘first line’ early in the season. Her take is an admirably rational response to something that shouldn’t even be an issue. The Canadiens are currently 5-0-1 in six games with a positive goal differential- fabricating points isn’t a problem. It is only the myth of the ‘first line’ that

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-57995733418195595182008-10-15T13:31:00.007-04:002008-10-15T15:26:46.845-04:00

The bar is a small room on a small street just off Dunhua. It’s full of smoke and hockey equipment and a cross-section of Canadian expatriate masculinity. There are forty-something guys with polo shirts tucked into belted khaki shorts and twenty-something hipsters with elegantly contrived facial hair and extensive tattoos, all swapping League gossip and gratuitous profanity over beers and

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-35432594284678274892008-10-12T14:47:00.007-04:002008-10-14T12:12:54.243-04:00

[Note: I’m not always going to be able to catch games in a timely fashion this season, so rather than write one much-delayed recap per match, I’m going to do occasional multi-game commentaries. Just notes on whatever has seemed remarkable, disturbing, or entertaining in the past few matches.] It’s always discouraging to lose the first game of the season. Maybe it doesn’t mean any more

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-48933822381327682172008-10-07T14:52:00.003-04:002008-10-07T15:13:33.485-04:00

Consider, if you will, the creature called Tanguay. What do we know of him? Not, as it turns out, very much. He is a being from the Western Conference, which we (particularly after just seeing the recent Oilers-Flames preseason game) like to think of as ‘Bizarro Conference.’ For all we know, it’s entirely populated by sentient capybaras and Sheldon Souray. This is only a slight exaggeration.

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795951.post-25146229605188802362008-10-03T12:56:00.005-04:002008-10-03T14:09:28.919-04:00

It’s nearly 2 am. Outside, nondescript lights float by in murky black. The bus is dim and quiet, pulsing with the low hum of engines and faintly leaking headphones. Amongst the ordinary commuters, there are seven soon-to-be hockey players dozing in impossibly vast reclining seats; amongst the usual baggage, there are seven hockey bags and sticks rocking in the hold.Described in certain terms,

Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09823553556651831315noreply@blogger.com10