Happy Halloween!!!!!!!!

Chat with Commish

Remember my rant from the other day regarding the CBJ vs. Wild game? Well, last night I happened to be watching the Wings/Ducks game and nearly the IDENTICAL scenario played out in OT of their game. The puck was batted out of mid air, the on-ice official signaled it was a goal, the review from Toronto was inconclusive: "...therefore the on-ice call of goal stands, it's a goal". I was LIVID. How can the exact same scenario breed two dramatically different results?

I wanted answers so I started scouring the internet for the NHL headquarters so I could write a letter to Gary Bettman (NHL Commisioner) himself. I did find the mailing address, but not the email address then it occurred to me: Bettman has a weekly radio show on XM Satellite radio so I would address my letter to him there, better yet, why not just call in and ask him?

I woke up this morning still seething from the failed call in Minnesota so I drafted a letter stating my issue and sent it off to Home Ice. Meanwhile, in the back of my mind, I wanted to be sure that I got through to him so I waited until 4 pm when his show started and called in.

Initially while on hold, I was quite nervous, but after 45 minutes and a pretty drab segment with Bob Gainey (sorry Bob I think you are great, but I couldn't pay attention to what you were on about) my nerves had bascially subsided. Finally I hear: "Corina from Columbus, welcome to XM NHL 204."

I felt a surge of nerves again, but nothing serious. I proceeded to ask the Commisioner about the protocol of the review system and whether or not I had it right. The only problem is, he was ready for me. He clearly had read my email and wa told me that I was, in fact, correct but there was a caveat...of course there is, because how else would you be able to explain the blantant failure of the system on October 25th.

He claimed that the officials in Minnesota made the right call and that protocol had been followed properly. Of course, at this point they have disconnected your call and you cannot interject and challenge his explaination. I intended to bring up the exact scenario in Anaheim last night and how an extra meeting didn't occur with the officials like it did in Minny that night, but I wasn't given the chance. In the end he just spewed out some silly rhetoric that covered his officials and the leagues asses and basically blew it off.

Did I truly expect anything more? Not really, but I wonder what his answer would have been had I not sent the email that essentially provided him with a heads up.

'Dek-Toe'

I played ball hockey on Sunday with 'The Black Mamba's', my team from last year. It is a co-ed league played on a roller hockey rink and it is a heck of a workout. One thing that you have to realize in ball hockey is that there is no gliding. Unlike ice hockey, in ball hockey if you aren't moving your feet, you aren't moving. It is an amazing workout and loads of fun.

I have always liked floor hockey. I remember in the 6th grade we used to have these house league floor hockey games at lunch and I loved them. I was the only girl in the school who could raise the puck and actually make a pass. This one game in particular I played the entire game without subbing off even once. We were supposed to sub off every few minutes and let our classmates come on for a turn, but I just loitered around while they were changing lines and never stepped off the entire lunch hour haha...what a brat eh?

Anyway after the game was over, Mr. Vickers (a teacher you didn't want to mess with) came over to me and confronted me about not subbing off and reprimanded me for my action. How did I respond to that? Well, how any 11 year old girl who was getting yelled at by an intimidating adult would...I rolled my eyes at him and walked away.

"GET TO THE OFFICE" he yelled.

Can you really blame him?

By the time I got to the office I was scared straight, realized my insubordination and don't recall repeating that offense ever again. These days, there is no way in heck I could ever make it game without subbing off. I can barely play the game, WITH subs, without puking.

This Sunday I was getting used to playing again...I mean it is much, MUCH different than sitting on the couch playing xbox let me tell you. Anyway, my defenseman Keith, headmanned the ball to me and I chipped it passed the defender. All I had to do was catch up to it and I would be home free. However, my portly defender was a lot faster than he looked and he gave me a good race. We both had to stop on a dime, and for some reason my shoe stopped but my foot kept going and I rammed my toe into the end of my shoe...hard. It felt like my toe nail ripped off. I went down momentarily and then got up...hobbled to get onside and took the bench.

4 days later I am convinced I am going to lose that nail and the toe is still much bigger than it ought to be...it has also started to turn blue. Hitch asked me if I wanted the jackets trainer to look at it, but for some reason I felt far to ashamed to be peeling off my sock and exposing my delicately polished toe nail so I opted to just tough it out and be tough about it.

See for yourself (and no, that is not my thumb it just looks like it):



It is hard to see the discolouration, but trust me, it is there.

I have pickup ice hockey on Friday and another ball hockey game on Sunday, I hope I can get my jog on by then whether it is with all 10 toenails or not.

In the blink of an eye

Hitch and I had lunch today with a gentleman, and his son, who was confined to a wheelchair due to an injury suffered in a 'beer league' hockey game. He was playing in a 'C' league with his son and his nephews for fun and some exercise until one shift and his life changed forever.

He said he was on the forecheck and the sensation that he felt was that the guy literally picked him up and threw him to the boards. After that, he blacked out and woke up unable to move his legs and very limited use of his arms and hands. That happened in May of 2006. To this day, the guy who changed his life forever hasn't called or attempted to make any contact with him whatsoever.

His son Tom, said he saw the guy at another random pickup game several months later and just about went crazy. He told the guy that he better get off the ice or he isn't quite sure what he is capable of doing. I don't blame him.

It was both inspiring and heartbreaking to have lunch with these two guys. The were thrilled to be having lunch with Hitch and talking blue jackets hockey with the coach and you could tell how excited they were, but I couldn't help but to be somewhat distracted with how in the blink of an eye, his life has changed so much.

I am PISSED

Columbus Blue Jackets @ Minnesota Wild 10/25/08

Jackets down 2-1 with 11.3 seconds left and Rick Nash deflects a goal into Minnesota's net, the referee points to the puck in the net indicating a goal, the jackets tie up the game up 2-2. The team goes crazy, I go crazy, we are all ready for the point and chance to go for two in OT.

But wait...shortly after the celebration you see the officials gather and the referee head over to the phone to call Toronto's 'war room' to determine whether or not Nash's stick was above the crossbar or not.

After seeing the replay several times, it looks very close, but it is difficult to distinguish where the puck is contacted as Nash's stick moves from about a 45 degree angle to parallel and then downwards. Inconclusive at the worst...definitely not enough evidence to overturn the call on the ice of 'goal'. The announcers, the Minnesota announcers, are thinking that it is a good goal and that we are going to overtime. I am feeling confident that we will go into overtime as well.

See for yourself:



Surprisingly, the review doesn't take that long, and after waiting forever for the referee to replace the phone and his helmet, here came the call:

"...the video review was inconclusive, therefore, the call on the ice is reversed and we have no goal..."

WHAT THE @#$#$@!!! How does that make any sense at all??

So, let's review:

• The on ice ref called it a goal
  
• Toronto ruled that the video evidence was inconclusive.
• The on ice ref then states that the review was inconclusive, but they are reversing their original call

How in the world does that make any sense whatsoever? The video room in Toronto, after multiple reviews from multiple angles, couldn't decide if his stick was high or not, but the three clowns in the zebra shirts on the ice could without question call it a no goal and overrule the goal?

You are telling me that the very same refs who missed Chimera getting high-sticked in the face (causing a golf ball size welt and drawing blood, which would have been a 4 minute penalty), Novotny getting slew footed in the face off dot in front of the ref, and Derek Dorsett tripping the Minny goalie are sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt and within a blink of an eye, that they could distinguish that Nash's stick came in contact with the puck above the level of the crossbar?

What if 2 of the on ice refs thought it was a good goal, and the other two a no-goal. What then? Rock, paper, scissors for it? Indian leg-wrestle? A thumb war?

If Toronto's war room can't come up with a decision then what is the point of having a review system? If a call is made on the ice and the review can't be concluded, then the on ice official's original call should stand. It shouldn't be a means for the on ice guys to have a secondary conference on the matter. When one guy makes a call, the others support it just like with the rest of the dumb ass calls or non-calls that they make.

The point of a review system was to provide conclusive evidence one way or the other over a controversial goal. If it is just thrown back into the laps of the on-ice officials, why bother wasting everyone's time??

This now brings up another issue. Last night, the NHL was all proud and happy that they had all 30 teams playing yesterday. However, when you have 15 games, you need 30 referees and 30 linesman to cover the games. Also, you have 30 games going on that have started at 4 pm est. up until 10:30 eastern which means, a lot of action in the war room. It was rumored that Toronto told the on ice officials in Minnesota to deal with it themselves because they were too busy and had other pressing things on their plate. If this is true, this is unacceptable, inexcusable and completely disgusting. You can bet if this were the Detroit Red Wings and a potential Zetterburg goal, all the time and care in the world would have been taken in determining the right call.

For a league who is desperate to increase their goals per game, they are sure apt to waive off a goal based on an instinct of an on ice official.

Good thing the jackets have a quick turnaround and play the Ducks tomorrow or else I would be stewing on this all week. End result, however, is the same a 2-1 loss and no points. They are a team who will need every point they can get...teams miss the playoffs by one point practically every year, let's hope it doesn't come down to this or I might just go off the deep end.








A

"Drop the attitude or else..."

So what have I been doing since my computer went down? Well, as I mentioned my sister was in Columbus with me for the past week. We had a very good time together doing very little. We did go to two hockey games (I told her she wasn't allowed to leave since she is 2-0) and did some shopping and hanging out. The day after my computer crashed we took it out to the Apple Store to get it looked at. I had an appointment at 12 noon, but we were running just a shade behind. Fortunately I was able to find a parking spot about as close to the store as possible, but that my friends, was when the fun just began....

I was parallel parking into the first spot of a line of parallel parking spots, just in front of another car. I had plenty of room, but I wanted to make sure that I had room in front of my for an easy exit so I kept going backwards. I was backing up very slowly and no sooner did I say to Tina: 'am I going to hit that car?' did I nudge it just a hair. In fact, I hit the car so lightly that Tina didn't even realize that I had hit it and when I told her she was quite surprised. Just then I noticed that the girl who owned the car was standing there putting change in the parking meter....haha, whoops!

Tina: "uh-oh, she looks pissed."

I have a quick look in the rear-view mirror and I see her standing there, still adding coins to her meter, but with a face that was frozen in that 'ah-my-gawd' expression. By the time I straightened my car out and got out of the car a good 30 seconds had passed, therefore any surprise of me hitting her car should no longer have been detectable on her face, but it was. Pair that with the fact that the 'hit' was barely discernible, I noted that this reaction was a gross exaggeration and I wasn't going to have any of it.

I popped out out the car in a light-hearted, bubbly manner and said:

"Is it okay?"

Girl with fancy hat and filthy Mercedes:

"Uh-yeah, but jeeeezzzzz" (spoken in a tone that was laced with--gawwwd, why did you do that?

At this point, I wasn't going to accept a scolding for something that a. was clearly an accident and b. was so minor that was hardly worth mentioning.

Had I been moving more than 1/2 mile an hour then I may have approached her in a more apologetic tone, but because I thought it was just pure silliness I was only going to make light of the situation. When she wasn't accepting of my levity I just let loose and tried to match my words with that dumb-ass expression she had on her face so I said (in the most sarcastic tone I could muster):

"Yeah, because I REALLY meant to do that, and I was going soooo fast wasn't I?" I just kept repeating this and several variations of the same.

Meanwhile, Tina is sitting in the car just lauging her head off in disbelief. I don't think the fancy girl thought I would strike back like I did and she got this blank look on her face so I carried on with the extreme sarcasm. Finally she says:

"You know, you are the one who hit my car so you better just shut up."

Yeah. Nice try. Those who know me know that I don't go away that easily.

My repsonse to that:

"You better drop the attitude or I am going to get back in my car and do it again and harder this time."

Tina was howling at this point. We proceeded to watch her walk across the street into Macy's while we plugged our meter.

The whole incident lasted probably less that 2 minutes, but it is still making me laugh days later!

CRASH!!

I would like to apologize for my absence. My computer crashed the other day so I was left with only my iPod until it ran out of battery power two days later. When you are used to internet access daily, going without it is more of an inconvenience than one would imagine. My sister was in town for the past week and I believe the lack of internet access was directly responsible for us getting ripped off at our day spa.

Anyway, I am back up and running now so hopefully you didn't lose faith in my desire to keep blogging.

Sidenote: They replaced my keyboard and I must say it is feeling a little more 'stiff' than the old one. I have already notcied more errors in my typing in just this short blog post, but I am sure I will get used to it.