ESPN's hit of the night

Slow news day for me since I have not had television since I got home last night. Fortunately I had plenty of beer so I was mostly able to suppress my homicidal rages. I did do terrible, terrible things to that one guy, but since he was a picture printed on a beer label I am pretty sure the authorities will let it slide.

The video below is Alexander Ovechkin laying the boom down on on Douglas Murray which is awesome on a couple of levels. First of all it is an illegal hit since he led with the elbow and the narrator of the clip goes so far as to call it a "forearm shiver" and mentions Ovechkin received a penalty for the hit. Second the guy he hits played hockey at Cornell and FUCK Cornell. Dicks.

Crosby v Ovechkin

Any time Crosby and the Penguins face off against Ovechkin and the Capitals and it's actually on TV I will be glued to the coachcouch. This gives you, the loyal reader (I assume there's at least one of you) the opportunity for a quick recap. After a slow first period that saw both teams feeling each other out, things picked up in the second period thanks to a fluke goal from Mike Knuble that broke the ice and gave the Caps a 1-0 lead. The Penguins would take a 2-1 lead by the end of the period setting up the dramatic third stanza. Capitals sniper Alexander Semin tied the game with a wicked wrister and after the Capitals took a 3-2 lead, Penguins star Jordan Staal evened the score again with a blistering wrist shot of his own. Following an exiting back and forth overtime, the game would be decided by a shootout. Here is Sidney Crosby giving the Penguins a seemingly insurmountable 2-0 lead in the shootout, followed immediately by Alexander Ovechkin scoring to begin the surmount. The Capitals would win the shootout 3-2.

I guess the refs didn't get the memo

Hey stripes, when you have Alexander Ovechkin on a national audience playing against US Olympic hero Patrick Kane and the high-flying Chicago Blackhawks, you might want to keep him beyond the 12 minute mark of the first period. It states VERY CLEARLY in the rule book (emphasis added):

"A player who dangerously knocks another player head first into the end boards should be assess a 5-minute boarding penalty and a game misconduct unless the player if marketed as the face of a league desperate to capitalize on the success of the recent Olympics."

Video of the hit is below, judge for yourself if it was a dangerous hit from behind or just an unfortunate result of a large man pushing another man whose razor-sharp skate gets caught in the ice. Your opinion probably depends greatly on your perspective.



Unfortunately, Brian Campbell suffered an upper body injury, likely a broken clavicle and broken ribs, and may be done for the season. Of course, he's a hockey player, so he's probably day to day.

OVECHKIN!

Former best player in the world, Mr. Jaromir Jagr, meet current best player in the world, Mr. Alexander Ovechkin. Ouch.

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Friday wrapup

Last night featured marquee several matchups. The headliner was this season's first bout between Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin that I did didn't watch because it wasn't on TV. The under card was led by Kobe Bryant versus LeBron James that I didn't watch because I didn't care. So what did I watch? Well, the first two hour episode of the 24 premier which sucked because 24 sucks these days. Don't worry, I'll keep watching because I'm stupid. Also, I watched one of the least hot matchups you'll ever seen in women's tennis, Justine Henin taking out 27 seed Alisa Kleybanova in 3 sets. Wait was that mean? That was mean. The tennis was beautiful until the hulking Kleybanova wilted in the Australian heat and humidity and got blown off the court by the sleeker Henin. Hey Justine, wear a longer skirt next time, your massive black cock is showing!



Also blown off the court last night was the men's 7 seed Andy Roddick. I assume he was blown off the court given that he's married to swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker. On the court he served to a crisp 74% first service percentage en route to a tidy 4 set win over pesky Spaniard Felciano Lopez.

Unsubstantiated rumors are the best rumors!

Peter Forsberg to the Capitals? Playing with Alexander Ovechkin and RPI alum Brian Pothier? I meant to write more but there seems to be something all over the screen making it hard to proofread.

Anything you can do I can do better

Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin did their best dueling banjos imitation last night, notching matching hat tricks in Washington's 4-3 victory. Obviously Crosby would be the smarmy northerner who can't keep up and Ovechkin is the southerner with no teeth but more talent. As is always the case in these situations, the game came down to David Steckel. Wait, who? I guess he's the dancing yokel. I don't know, this fell apart a lot faster than I thought it would.

Alex Ovechkin is pretty good

I could be negative and concentrate on Shea, uh, Citifield's brand-spanking new obstructed seats. But I won't. Mostly because that's the view from row 17 and I'm in row 14 so I should have a beautiful view of the field, at least.

I could make another derisive comment about the current state of women's college basketball in light of UConn's recent win but, um, actually, I'm going to go ahead and do that. Providence did MUCH better than nationally ranked Pittsburgh a couple of days ago, managing to keep pace with the Huskies to the tune of 24-6. That's a whole extra free throw! I'm just going to ignore the fact that UConn scored as many points in the first half as Providence did in the game. Well, kind of.

Instead I'm going to highlight Alex Ovechkin scoring yet another ridiculous goal. My favorite part of the video is Ovechkin calling it a "top ten" goal. I'll say! My least favorite part is the analysis from the ESPN guys. I mean, there's some good information there but for fuck's sake try and keep up with the highlight people! For those not in the know, "Matthew" is Matthew Barnaby who never, ever scored a goal like that. Actually, my favorite story about Matthew Barnaby is a quote from former teammate Jaromir Jagr. "Every time I see you in the shower I feel bad for your wife." Anyway, on to the highlight!

Alexander Ovechkin is a beautiful man

He is either the prettiest ugly man or the ugliest pretty man in the world, I can't decide. I mean seriously, it's not a face you'd want to see at any point, ever, but he does shit like this:



That's actually harder than it looks. Coming soon...I'll learn how to hide those behind a link! Naw, I'm just kidding, that seems hard and I'm very stupid.

Get PUMPED America! The weekend of Martin Luther King Jr's birthday we inaugurate our nation's first ever non-white president AND they play the most diverse of games in the world, hockey, as the Capitals host the Bruins. Anyone? Anyone? Well, Willie O'Ree played for the Bruins. Wait, the Boston team broke the color barrier? You mean the same city whose baseball team had a quota for black players until the 70s? Hockey for the win, bitches!