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FIGHT NIGHT: NEW YORK ISLANDERS v PITTSBURGH PENGUINS (Feb 11, 2011)
Not much in the way of Valentine’s Day love in this marathon, fight-filled, revenge-fuelled blow-out. My lovely New York Islanders pummeled the Pittsburgh Penguins on the scoreboard (9-3) and in the alley, although the subsequent $100,000 league-imposed fine takes some of the joy out of the event.
Still, it’s always fun to hear the Penguins’ notoriously awful T.V. commentary in full flower, because as crummy as the Islanders’ actions were, the Penguins currently employ the league’s most-hated player, the concussion-dealing miscreant Matt Cooke. He wasn’t playing this one…because he’s presently suspended. For a head shot. So there’s a little dose of hypocrisy here.
A little bit of context: both teams were playing with injury-depleted rosters (the Isles have lost more “man games” to injury than any team this year; the Penguins are without their two best players), and the Isles had score-settling on mind, given that nine days earlier they’d lost two more players to fights or legally questionable hits against these same Penguins.
Anyway…do you have 17 minutes? If you’re an avowed Islanders lover/Penguins hater as I am, and you have the stomach for 1970’s-styled brawls, you may enjoy this.
It’s the most penalty-filled game in the Islanders’ 38-year history, by the way.
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HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY, WAYNE GRETZKY
The greatest, most dominant athlete in the history of sport. A gentle and gracious public figure, at every stage of a life recorded for posterity from the age of 10. No chafing under the spotlight. No tawdry tabloid revelations. Just a seemingly endless list of wondrous athletic achievements. To meet him is humbling. To observe his work is thrilling. You don’t have to be a hockey fan. Just know this: he is the best ever in his field, and has maintained an old-fashioned courteousness you wish more people of distinction had. I submit he is our nonpareil Canadian. Happy Birthday, Wayne Gretzky.
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50-IN-50: MIKE BOSSY FINDS HIS MARK (JANAURY 24, 1981)
Needing two goals in the final period after slumping at the most inopportune time, Mike Bossy followed through on his bold promise to join Maurice “Rocket” Richard as the only players in National Hockey League history to score 50 goals in the first 50 games of the season.
The 49th came off a backhand with four minutes left. And the 50th? A one-timer off a cross-ice Bryan Trottier feed, punched in between Quebec Nordiques goaltender Ron Grahame’s legs, with 89 seconds left.
And it happened 30 years ago today.
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John Tavares. Your Long Island saviour.
First game, first goal. Against the defending champions, no less.
Now go give us another 499.
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Link: Peter Zezel (1965-2009) →
One of our favourite players from the Doug Gilmour-era Toronto Maple Leafs has died. Centre Peter Zezel was the Leafs’ top faceoff man, and a key role player in the surprising upturn in the team’s performance in 1993 and 1994. He was 44.
Zezel, a Scarborough native, was traded to Toronto from the Washington Capitals in 1990 in exchange for Al Iafrate, and played four seasons with the Leafs, culminating in successive appearances in the conference finals during the most successful period for Leafs hockey since the 1960s.
Women loved Zez for his baby-faced features and rockin’ mullet; dudes just dug the fact they had another good ‘ol hometown boy keen on erasing the scuzzy memories of the Harold Ballard years. Zez began his career as a goal-scorer, but morphed into a top checking forward midway through his tenure in Toronto. In spite of the emphasis on defensive play, Zez still contributed important goals, including the Game One overtime winner in the 1994 Campbell Conference Final against the Vancouver Canucks. You don’t forget the ones what brought ya, and we love him here in Toronto as much as fans of the 1980s Philadephia Flyers loved him. He was that kind of likeable.
Zezel died May 26, 2009, of complications from the rare blood disease hemolytic anemia, a condition he had fought for nearly a decade.
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Link: Gretzky WHA game footage released to DVD →
As a sound engineering grad student who supposedly lived and breathed music, I used to get asked all the time whether I’d rather lose my sight or my hearing. My interrogators thought they had me pegged.
Well, obviously, I’d rather lose neither. Jeez.
But if one of these lovely senses had to go, it’d be the hearing. Don’t hold me to it, but sunsets, words on the printed page, women and Wayne Gretzky are reasons to keep the eyes lubed up and ready to do their thing. So, you can imagine my joy at reading that game footage from Gretzky’s first season as a professional - December 1978, just after his trade to the Edmonton Oilers from the Indianapolis Racers - has been unearthed and released as a two-DVD box set.
The Racers were a sub-par team in a sub-par professional league, the World Hockey Association (WHA), and the 17-year-old wunderkind’s signing was a publicity stunt designed to retain a fanbase. It didn’t work: Gretz played eight games before being sold to Edmonton for $800,000. Within a year, the WHA folded and Gretzky’s Oilers were absorbed into the National Hockey League, where he proceeded to set over 60 records for…well, excellence. Greatness. Best-everness.
Point is, it all began here. This shit be gold.
w00t! I mean, super, mega w00t! w00t!
Further DVD information and ordering details found here.
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w00t! The 2009 NHL entry draft’s taking place in Montreal on June 26th. A perfect birthday gift for me, then.
