Too darn hot / It's too darn hot...

This was a lovely weekend. Really, really hot, but a good weekend. Saturday the boys and Denise and I shot some mini-golf at Scandia. When Denise left to go to her show, Thing 1 and Thing 2 and I took the dog to the beach because it was so hot outside. We played and had a very fun time--it is always a crack up watching Maggie run in the waves. I found some bits of sea glass, and we came home and had dinner.

Sunday was the end-of-year party for Thing 1's hockey team. They made it to the state championships this year, so this was a special time. We went to one of the family's house, and they had a pool, a trampoline, and a huge inflatable water slide thing. We had build-your-own nachos, I made margaritas...it was a blast. The end of it was a bit of sharing by the team manager, the coaches, and handing out of the coach gifts and final patches for the kids' season achievements (hat tricks, shutouts, etc.). The swimming and sliding were very much appreciated, though, as it was really, really hot on Sunday, as well.

How hot was it? Well, I put some pillar candles on the patio table a week or so ago when I was eating dinner out there at night. Here is what they looked like at the end of the day:



Guess that is why people put those pillar candles on plates.

Clip of the Week...

From last year's NHL playoff series:



The quest for the cup begins tonight.

It is Risen--Rejoice!

Yesterday was the final day of the NHL regular season. It was a barnburner of a finish, with the last few slots in the playoffs determined in the last couple of games.

Now it's a feverish fight for this bad boy:



Here is the 'Season by the Numbers', from the NHL website:

0 -- Shorthanded goals allowed by the Philadelphia Flyers in the first 81 games of the season. When the Rangers' Brandon Dubinsky scored one Sunday, it prevented the Flyers from becoming only the second team in the last 46 years to play a full season without being scored on while playing with an extra man. The 1975-76 Montreal Canadiens, who went on to win the Stanley Cup, still hold that distinction. Philadelphia also led the NHL this season with 16 shorthanded goals.

1 -- Penalty shots taken in overtime this season. Boston goaltender Tim Thomas stopped Chicago's Patrick Sharp at 2:44 of OT on Nov. 12, 2008. The Bruins went on to win the game 2-1 in a shootout.

2 -- Overtime goals scored by Anaheim defenseman Scott Niedermayer while the teams were playing 3-on-3. There were only three 3-on-3 goals scored this season; Niedermayer had two of them; Calgary's Jarome Iginla had the other in regulation time on Jan. 21 at Columbus.

3 -- Tie-breaking goals scored by Detroit's Marian Hossa in the final 2:00 of regulation. No other player had more than one.

4 -- Consecutive 30-win seasons by New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist. He's the first netminder in NHL history to win 30 or more games in each of his first four seasons.

5 -- Most power-play goals scored in a game -- both times against the Nashville Predators. Detroit was 5-for-6 on Feb. 18, while Minnesota went 5-for-11 on Nov. 28.

6 -- Games this season that were scoreless through 65 minutes and had to be decided in a shootout. No team won more than one; Dallas was the only team to lose twice -- goaltender Marty Turco had two games in which he was credited with a shutout but not a victory.

7 -- Shootout wins at home by the New York Rangers, part of their League-leading total of 10 victories in the breakaway competition (in 16 tries).

8 -- Game-tying goals scored in the final five seconds of regulation time. That includes three goals scored within the final one second -- by Anaheim's Scott Niedermayer (Nov. 21 at St. Louis), St. Louis' David Backes (Jan. 19 at Boston) and Washington's Alex Ovechkin (Nov. 15 at New Jersey). Only Backes' team won.

9 -- Road wins by the New York Islanders, who were the only team not to reach double figures in victories away from home. The Isles were 9-29-3; every other team had at least 12 victories on the road.

11 -- Tie-breaking goals scored in the final minute of regulation. Nine of the 11 were scored by the home team; Calgary's Todd Bertuzzi (Jan. 3 at Nashville) and Chicago's Dustin Byfuglien (April 11 at Detroit) were the only visiting players to get a game-winner in the final 60 seconds.

11 -- Wins by the Pittsburgh Penguins in games they trailed after two periods, the most in the League. No other team had more than eight; the Islanders were last with just one.

13 -- Rounds needed in the shootout between Vancouver and Anaheim on Oct. 31, 2008, the longest shootout of the season (no other game went more than eight). The teams went to a shootout after playing to a 6-6 tie through regulation; each team scored once in the first 12 rounds of the shootout before Vancouver defenseman Mattias Ohlund got the deciding goal in the 13th.

14 -- Most goals scored in a game this season. It happened twice -- with the Calgary Flames on the losing end both times. The Flames lost 8-6 at home to Tampa Bay on March 1, then were beaten by the same score at Toronto on March 14.

18 -- Games lost by the Tampa Bay Lightning in overtime or shootouts, the most since the shootout was adopted for the 2005-06 season. Tampa Bay was 2-8 in games decided in the five-minute overtime and 3-10 in shootouts.

21 -- Games in which a team led by three or more goals and didn't win. Nineteen teams were unable to win after leading by three goals; two others (Carolina in a shootout on Dec. 11 and the New York Rangers in OT on Dec. 23) were unable to win after leading by four goals.

28 -- Shots on goal by Detroit in the first period against Calgary on March 12. The Wings scored twice on Miikka Kiprusoff while outshooting the Flames 28-4 in the opening 20 minutes. The Flames rallied for a 6-5 shootout victory. The Wings also had the second-highest one-period total, firing 27 shots against Nashville in the first period on Feb. 10.

31 -- Goals by Washington's Mike Green, the most by a defenseman since the Caps' Kevin Hatcher had 34 in 1992-93. Green became the eighth defenseman to reach the 30-goal mark (it's been done 17 times by those eight players) -- but the first to do so while playing fewer than 70 games. Green also set an NHL record for defensemen by scoring a goal in eight consecutive games from Jan. 27 to Feb. 14, breaking the 25-year-old mark set by Boston’s Mike O’Connell.

111 -- Goals allowed by the New York Islanders in the third period of their 82 games, the most by any team in any period this season. Colorado was next with 89 goals allowed in the third period; San Jose was the best in the NHL with 58. Not coincidentally, the Islanders finished last overall; the Sharks finished first.

528 -- Shots on goal by Washington's Alex Ovechkin, the second-highest single-season total in NHL history behind Phil Esposito's 550 for Boston in 1970-71. Ovechkin led the NHL with 56 goals and was second to Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin with 110 points.

799 -- Regular-season games played by Calgary's Olli Jokinen, who will make his playoff debut this week when the Flames play Chicago. No player has waited longer than Jokinen to make his playoff debut.

The Weekend of Too Much Emotion...

Okay, I have accepted that my life is a very loud one, with things always happening all around me, whether I want them to or not. But this past weekend was dramatic, even for me.

As I told you in my last post, my uncle recently passed away. Also in that post, I mentioned that Thing 1 had made it to the California State Ice Hockey championships. As it turns out, both were in San Diego. I had two radio interviews for my upcoming show, so I wasn't able to leave until Friday afternoon, so Thing 1 had to ride down with another family (their first game was Friday).

Game one was against the Southern California Champs, the Bakersfield Dragons. Our team, the Santa Rosa Flyers, won 3-2 in overtime. A very exciting match, by all accounts. While the boys were on the ice, Denise and I were on the road. Recently, there several police officers were tragically (and fatally) shot in the Bay Area. What I did not know was that the services for those officers were on Friday afternoon, and the powers-that-be had shut down one of the main arteries of traffic in the area. The freeway was at a crawl--so bad, in fact, that Denise and I exited to have dinner, and when we got back on an hour and a half later, it wasn't much better. We did not get in to the hotel in San Diego until nearly 2am.

I was up four hours later to get my son, and we had a quick breakfast before heading to the ice. He had an 8:30am game against the other SOCAL finalists, the Anaheim Jr. Ducks. We lost in the last three minutes of the game, 3-2. After the game, we headed back to the hotel. I called one of my uncles to see if it was okay if I just showed up at the memorial service for my uncle, and they welcomed both Denise and I to come. We changed and headed out, after handing Thing 1 off to the head coach for a few hours.

The service was nice--two of my cousins and one of my aunts spoke, sharing great stories and messages. There was a slide show of my uncle's life, and quite a few pictures included my (then very young) father. Afterward, my aunt invited the family and closest friends to her house for a meal. My uncle and she had run a restaurant for a while, so there was quite a spread of authentic Korean food (she is Korean; my family is Chinese). We had some food, saw many of my cousins, and had a Coors (my uncle was fond of that brand).

Denise and I went back to the hotel. She took a nap while Thing 1 and I went to get him some food. After watching him eat most of a Subway meatball hero, we went back to the hotel to collect his gear and Denise, and headed off to the next game. This one was against the team that the Flyers lost to in the final game of the NORCAL playoffs--the Fresno Jr. Falcons.

To make things even more exciting, the other games in the finals thus far were all close as well. All four teams had won one game, so the point spread was even. Now it was down to this final game--whoever won the game between Anaheim and Bakersfield would face whoever won our game against Fresno on Sunday morning for the championship. I told the guys on our team that Thing 1's birthday was Sunday, and a championship trophy would be a wonderful gift. ;o)

The boys fought hard for the first half of the game, but then their legs just seemed to give out and Fresno's seemed to kick in. It was as if they were energy vampires of some sort. The Flyers ended up getting steamrolled, 5-1, and were knocked out. It was a very tough way to go out (not that there is ever an easy way), and Thing 1 was pretty emotional. I asked what he would like, and he said most of all he wanted to just go back to the hotel and chill--he didn't want to hang out with the team or really celebrate his birthday that night. We grabbed some pizza and pay-per-viewed The Tale of Desperaux (which was an AWESOME movie, btw). I packed up all his stuff, and all of mine, and was in bed almost by midnight.

The following morning, I got up at 5am, got showered and woke Thing 1 and Denise, and packed up the car. I had us checked out of the hotel by 6:20, we stopped at Denny's for birthday breakfast, and hit the road. We arrived back home at 2:45pm (I was breaking land speed records--I probably would have been double-ticketed for driving under the influence, I had so much caffeine in my system). I dropped Denise off at my house so she could zip home before our rehearsal that evening, dropped Thing 1 off at his mom's so they could celebrate his birthday, and stopped to pick him up a gift I had seen days earlier but didn't have the time to purchase.

I was at a grueling cue-to-cue rehearsal from 4:15-7:45pm, stopped by the head coach's house to get the backpack Thing 1 forgot in San Diego, and went home. I am still not sure how or when I will get to deal with all this. Probably in a week when the show is open. Oy.

Clip of the week...

Hockey is back! This weekend the NHL season opens with two games overseas. While I find the idea intriguing, mostly it seems like another gimmick by the NHL commissioner to drum up more support. But hey--they're on the ice, and it's GAME ON baby!

The game is fast, unpredictable, and just plain crazy. If you're a casual watcher, you might think a lot of the goals you see are just plain lucky. Take a look at this and you may re-evaluate your stance on just how much skill it takes to play this game:



If only he had played like that when he was still with the Rangers. Ah, well. Drop that puck!

Yet another reason to watch the NHL...

Okay, I am not the world's biggest pro sports fan. If you've been paying any attention, you've probably already picked up that I am a hockey guy--but that's the extent of my pro sports devotions. I like football (American football, Cara, sorry) and pro volleyball or pro lacrosse--which most people don't even consider pro sports. I find baseball tolerable, but can barely endure basketball--and don't even get me started on tennis or golf. Beyond the whole I'm-bored-to-tears-can-we-get-another-ten-dollar-hotdog thing, though, the world of pro sports has become so commercial, so pathetically Hollywood its money-grubbing, scandal-ridden, media-attention-grabbing stunts, that I just don't have a taste for it.

All that aside, though, if I'm watching football (and, I must admit, I do like to watch pro football occassionally), I like to root for the Green Bay Packers. An uncle of mine played for them way back in the days of leather helmets, when the guys playing for the team really were working at the packing plant during the day, so I have a bit of loyalty there. They are a community-owned team, not spinning at the whim of some star chamber of corporate magnates. They come out at practice and sign autographs for the fans. They have the same horrible, wonderfully charactered and storied stadium they have had for years, not some sleek mall with an astroturf field in the middle. There is character in the fan base, character in the locker room, and it all shows in how they play, win or lose.

Their quarterback for the last several years has been a man named Brett Favre (that rhymes with carve, if you don't know.) This guy was a perfect fit for the team--he had some problems, sure, but he overcame them. (He struggled with a painkiller addiction, but outed himself and got off it on his own, not at the expense of his team, league, or reputation.) He was a blue-collar sort of guy, good natured and at ease in the spotlight. He worked to solidify the organism of the Packers, recruiting heavily and making suggestions to the front office that led to the team taking the Vince Lombardi trophy back to Green Bay. He played selflessly, even on the weekend after his father passed on, dedicating the game to him and winning soundly. He was a sort of Cal Ripken of football, setting records in many, many categories and winning the Super Bowl. He played with heart, intensity, and love of the game.

The fans, we loved him so, we didn't want him to ever leave. But we all understand how time can do its evil thing to the human body--especially a body that is used to experiencing the same force as a car wreck dozens of times a day for years on end. At the end of last season, he held a tearful press conference in which he expressed his intention to finally hang up the cleats for good. We all cried with him, but we moved on, the team moved on, everyone in the world moved on.

Then the unthinkable thing happened: he started listening to his agent.

Suddenly, a few weeks ago, he was back in the spotlight, pressuring his former team to take him back. See, there were a couple of years left in his contract, and he just didn't want to stop playing after all. The Pack had already moved forward, though--they drafted players according to a new strategy utilizing their next (hopefully great) quarterback, and couldn't just change in midstream again. He and his agent pressured the team, to the point of getting the NFL commissioner involved. Having forced everyone's hand, the commish said the Pack had to take him back. It was weird.

Then, just as suddenly, he was on the New York Jets roster. What the aitch?!? Not only has he abandoned reason, he has now abandoned loyalty as well. It is as if he was replaced by a pod some summer night in his home, and this is all part of a crazy alien plot to do away with Truth, Justice and the American Way. Now, I have to root against the Jets just for having such an abomination, and that doesn't make me feel good. Just conflicted.

I wonder if I can get a NHL-only sports pack on my cable this season?

Attention Mr. Crosby: your tee time is ready...

Fricken Pens...

Okay, I know I said "Penguins in 6 games" in this post, but now I really, REALLY don't want them to win.

See, there is this guy in the NHL now named Sidney Crosby. If you follow the sport even casually, you know who I am talking about, but just in case you don't and you are actually going to read this post, I'll enlighten you. The guy is an amazing player, certes: fast, agile, handles the puck in ways that would put The Great One to shame, and sees the ice like he's watching highlights. He is a scoring, moving, passing machine.

However, he hurt himself back in January--he gets moving with such a head of steam that if he loses his edge (wipes out, for you non-hockey speaking readers), he can slide right into the boards feet first. Which is roughly the equivalent of jumping off a building and landing square on your feet. Ouch. So he goes and does that, and gets a severe 'high ankle sprain', and suddenly the Penguins are not so happy. But what happens is that this amazing Russian player who has been living in Crosby's shadow rises up and leads the team to secure a playoff spot.

Then, Sid the Kid returns to the roster just in time for the playoffs, and suddenly it is all about him. Everyone stops talking about Evgeni Malkin, stops talking about the other teams in the race, and it all becomes about Crosby. Even in the current series (which is for the championship), the TV coverage will focus on something the Kid did which is in no way important, instead of focusing on something else (like the fact that Detroit has 23 championship rings in their locker room). Mostly it's the same as when you hear a good song, but the radio station plays it so much you end up hating it. Hence my loathing for the Pens.

Anyway, last night was game 5 of a best-of-seven series, and the Red Wings were up 3 games to 1 and playing at home. I was hoping for a shutout. Alas, they played halfway into the third overtime and lost. THREE OVERTIMES. Holy crap. That's like you or me going to work for 16 hours in a day.

Game 6 is in Pittsburgh on Wednesday. Watch it.

Red Wings win...

Detroit beat Dallas tonight to advance to the Stanley Cup finals against the Pittsburgh Penguins, so I thought I'd post this in honor of the sport. It's an oldie but a goodie, so apologies if you have seen it already:



Englewood Jack!

Conference Semi-finals start tomorrow! Game on...

Tomorrow night the NHL playoffs move to the penultimate round in the quest for the Stanley Cup. Conference semi-finals--in the east, Philly vs. Pittsburgh; in the west, Detroit vs. Dallas. My two teams were both knocked out last round, both in overtime--the New York Rangers fell in game five to the Penguins; the San Jose Sharks lost in game six to the Dallas stars in the eighth longest game in NHL history--FOUR overtime periods!

Now it is down to four teams I really don't give much of a puck about. (See what I did there?) Normally, if one of my teams isn't in the contest, I root for the original six team that is. But in this case, that would be Detroit, and I don't like them much. After original six, I try to root for a Canadian team, since I feel pretty strongly that they have been ripped off consistently for nearly three decades now. But there aren't any of those left, either.

That would leave the Rangers' archrival Flyers, the who-cares-about-hockey-in-Texas Stars, or the upstart Pens, who just knocked my dreams out of the realm of possibility. Hrm. Tough call. It will be fun to watch the Battle of Pennsylvania for the next few games, but only in that sense. Prediction: Wings vs. Pens in the finals, with the Pens taking it all in six games. Not what I want, mind you, but that's my guess.

Guess I'll just watch for the strategy, gameplay, saves, hits, goals and excitement. Like I always do. And to hear the sportscasters screaming in that high-pitched way they do only for this sport.

What a weekend...

So, this weekend promises to be a wonderful one. Yesterday was work, hockey and work, followed by rehearsal for the show I'm currently in. Hockey was great, but only ten guys showed up, so it was 4-on-4 for an hour, with one sub and no goalies. Tough, since the boards they put in the goal mouths for just such an occasion are much harder to score on than humans. I woke up rather sore today, and wore the back brace just to make sure I didn't injure myself two weeks before opening.

Rehearsal was very productive and I had a blast. Got home late, slept a little, got up and did it again. The weekend rehearsals are on the mountain now, so we are outside and running around on the heat in the sun, at the top of this gorgeous mountain that overlooks the San Francisco Bay area. The drive up is a little rough--very windy and steep--but the air and the view are worth it. Just got back, and am getting ready for....nothing.

On the slate tonight: a wonderfully relaxing evening, which I have not had in a looonnnggg time. I am going to have a friend over, grill some marinated pork steaks, some potatoes and bacon-wrapped asparagus, watch some of those playoff hockey games I have recorded on my DVR, and generally relax. It looks like it's going to be chilly tonight; may even make some s'mores.

Tomorrow is rehearsal again, then I am going to see RUSH in concert at the Concord Pavillion with Blender and his wife, and one of my best female friends in the whole world. I'll post some photos and a report when I get back from the concert. Or Monday...I suspect I will be hard of hearing and exhausted after the show.