Pens win game four by a score of 4-1.
Lord Stanley’s Cup hangs in the balance.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
I was promised a recession.
We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.
This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.
A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals
Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.
Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.
Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.
But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.
Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.
Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.
Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?
Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?
Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.
If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.
There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.
Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.
if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.
So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.
The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.
“Squeaker” McCarthy
They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.
Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.
I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.
If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.
Laura W
That’s a great clean sweep photo!
Is that yours, or am I wrong again?
John Cole
@Laura W: I found it online. Wrong again.
James J. Hare
Damn you Pens and damn Crosby and Malkin!
CAPS FOREVER!!
(I would be remiss to ignore the fact y’all pasted our asses in Game 7. Same time next year?)
Laura W
@John Cole: I’m consistent. You gotta give me that tonight.
(It’s still good.)
tofubo
ot,,does going galt include giving up your gsa number??
Third Eye Open
Fuck.The.Wings
I guess, Go Pens.
Meanderthal
GO WINGS!!
geg6
Fuck Bill Cowher and his red shirt and his goddam siren. Bet he’s not grinning so hard now. Go Pens!!
Robertdsc-iphone
How are the Pirates doing?
In a weird way, I don’t care much about the NHL anymore. My dad and I were talking today about how I don’t follow the game as much as I used to. Even my favored Rangers don’t get much attention from me these days.
I mock Cindy Crosby once in a while, but there’s no heart in it for me any more.
grimc
What’s problematic about using a broom image when referring to hockey is that “curling” is brought to mind. And isn’t curling basically hockey with a bigger puck, softer sticks and less fighting?
/doesntgethockey
4jkb4ia
Mazel Tov!
After the Capitals this series was easy.
Derek
Ready to get spanked by the Red Wings for the second year in a row?
4jkb4ia
In other news, the NBA may be looking at Denver vs. Orlando and weeping for their ratings. Never mind that Dwight Howard and Carmelo Anthony are very good players.
Max
I really need football season to start! I wish the NFL season were longer.
As a Buffalo Bills fan, I really should wish for a shorter season, but I love everything about football. The games, the nachos, the buffalo wings, the beer, the football pool…
Scott
@grimc:
Och, Laddie.. ye’ve got it soooo rrright. it’s much more civilized. They even put a handle on the Puck!
Cheers,
S
Dennis-SGMM
Hockey? Isn’t that where a bunch of guys have a fight and occasionally a sport breaks out?
Stuart
The Pens are damn good, but the Wings are too deep. Wings in 6
Josh Hueco
As a Cubs fan, I’m more than ready for football season to start, whether it be college or pro.
Notorious P.A.T.
Should be a good finals with Pens against RED WINGS! ! ! !
Stella G
Sorry, John, my Wings are gonna beat your Pens for the second straight year. They’re just too good.
Ben
Marian Hossa looks forward to breaking your hearts, Pittsburgh. Go Wings!
KG
@13: nah. The Lakers will come out of the West. Orlando, though, they could pull it off in the East. Which, as a Lakers fan, I would not mind.
Bad Horse's Filly
@Laura W: In case you need some inspiration.
Slow and Easy
A little bit more
Ninerdave
Pens didn’t win, the Hurricanes just went Galt. Showed your asses didn’t they now, you Pens fans you!
Ninerdave
@Dennis-SGMM:
That’s what I keep hearing, though when I watch it, I never seem to see the fights, just people batting a black rubber thing back and forth. Hockey’s about as exciting as watching paint dry.
Dennis-SGMM
@Ninerdave:
Couldn’t resist taking a shot at hockey. My sport was Cross Country, which is slightly less exciting than golf.
pseudonymous in nc
Interesting that Crosby and the Pens put their paws on the PoW Trophy, since it’s a long-standing superstition that the only cup that matters is the one with the funny base. They tried that last year, and it didn’t work so well. Of course, they’ll probably face the Wings again, and the Wings are very good at winning the Stanley Cup.
Oh, c’mon. Fastest-moving of the big North American sports, demands the most versatility from its players in their roles. I’ll admit that I prefer the Olympic version, with the wider rink, but it’s a fine game.
Anne Laurie
In my old blue-collar Bronx neighborhood, it was widely believed that street hockey was invented because you can’t “play” rugby as a substitute for mixed-martial-brawling on asphault. Putting the guys with anger management issues on skates was supposed to make it tougher for them to permanently cripple one another during those “friendly games”, and adding sticks to the mix equalized players of different heights & weight classes. Then (according to this brand of urban folklore) some Canadian accidentally saw one of the street games, and realized the perfect opportunity to do something at a rink less girly than ice-dancing…
Don K
GO WINGS!!
Really all I have to say…
shoutingattherain
Yeah baby!! Eastern Conference Champs b2b!! Congrats to the Pens on the sweep. Well done.
I love this game, and I just can’t see why other people don’t. It’s got speed and grace and strength and ice and none of that translates all that well to TV. It’s one sport you have to see in person to really appreciate. Those guys are all a LOT bigger in person, and if you ever get a chance to go see a practice (like at Southpointe in Pitt and it’s free) you can get right up against the glass and get a better feel for it. These guys are FAST. It’s awesome, but yinz gotta see it, an’ at.
And because I’m a Democrat I fully expect the worst to happen and the Pens will get crushed by the Winged Wheel. Again. b2b.
Ninerdave
If you consider 2-0 a fast paced game. I can’t stand soccer for the same reason. Too much batting of things around, not enough scoring.
Considering I can’t skate a lick, I admire the athleticism though.
Ninerdave
@shoutingattherain:
I have and it still bored me to tears. Been to see the Sharks several times in fact. Last time I went, I resorted to putting nickels and pennies on the stairs to see who was cheap enough to pick them up.
Chasm
Never thought I’d actually root for the Pens again, but as a lifelong Kings fan and mortal enemy of all red wingy things, I do hereby wish your team DEMOLISH it’s opposition en route to hoisting the Cup.
Robertdsc-iphone
Re Cindy holding the Prince Of Wales trophy:
A few years before the Red Wings began their current renaissance, Steve Yzerman did his own thing with the Clarence Campbell trophy by lifting it over his head at the moment of presentation. That was one of my favorite pics of him before watching him lead the Wings to the Cup in 1997. That was a class moment for one of the game’s all-time greats.
Turgidson
Getting kind of impatient for some fresh Tunchcam footage over here…
burnspbesq
@Ninerdave:
You must love team handball, which is every bit as violent as rugby and often features scores like 32-25.
Tim
Wings in 5
Might have to break out my Konstantinov jersey
burnspbesq
@Turgidson:
Aren’t you concerned about being sucked into the Tunchian entropy field when you have a bar exam to get ready for?
Ninerdave
@burnspbesq:
Never seen it but if it involves people kicking the crap out of each other while scoring, probably. I’ll keep an eye out for it on The Ocho.
shoutingattherain
@ Ninerdave
Pro hockey is something you get, or you don’t. I got interested in it 12 or so years ago because I HAD to. My gf at the time was originally from Pitt and her father was (and still is) a Rush-quoting, dyed-in-the-wool Wingnut dickhead. Now, for some reason him and I (what with my treasonous Liberalism) didn’t have a whole lot to talk about, so the gf suggested that I learn a little about the Pens because he was a big fan, and maybe we’d find common ground that way.
So I started paying attention. Joined a fantasy hockey league. Subscribed to NHL Center Ice so we’d get all the games. Tried hard to understand it. And along the way I discovered I really liked it. Took years to get all the rules and the tactics and the mental part of it, but I know quite a bit now, and the more I know the more I like it. Even had a Penguin website and messageboard for four years until the Iraq War split it apart.
As it turned out hockey was the only thing my gf’s father and me could talk about. He’s such a dick…
Turgidson
@burnspbesq:
Point taken.
*pulls out the Multistate practice exam question booklet, ponders suicide
Ecks
All time most contemptible NHL teams.
1) NJ Devils (doublespit)
2) Philies (spit)
3) Wings (p-thewie).
Goooo Pens.
Blue Raven
Ecks, I must protest. The (Mighty) Ducks of Anaheim have risen a long way in a short time on that contemptibility list.
And I am grateful to a first-wave expansion team for keeping the Cup safe from the Sun Belt for another year. As I no longer have any particular concern for who wins or loses, I will turn to baseball with a gladder heart.
Hunter
As a fan of the ever-pathetic Kings, I’ve reserved a special antipathy for the Dead Wings over the years; their fans emerged like red and white cockroaches from the cracks in the foundation of The Fabulous Forum (and now Staples Center) whenever they came to town. Victories over Teh Wing, all too rare, were especially savored. Assuming they dispose of the ‘Hawks tomorrow, I have just one thing to say:
GO PENS!
On a side note, I will never forget watching Lemieux’s first game back from Non Hodgkins lymphoma, I’m pretty sure the ’92-’93 season. All he did was score a hat trick.
Beau
it doesn’t hang in the balance – the winner of the wings-ducks series was going to win the cup, and they still are. but go hawks anyway! (and hockey fans really don’t care that non-hockey fans are too stupid to get it…)
robertdsc
They killed hockey with their trap system.
No matter how many Cups they win, I will always hate them.
geg6
Ninerdave: Well, you’d find hockey a very fine thing if you’d lived in a city that has twice now had two of the finest players to ever play the game leading you team to victory. Lemieux/Jagr (before he turned into a WATB as a Cap) and now Crosby/Malkin have made up for all the years I futilely cheered my hockey team from childhood on. Hockey, IMHO, has probably the finest all-around athletes of any of the four major American sports leaugues. And hell, ANYTHING is better than baseball. Golf is a thrill ride comparatively.
patrick
congrats to Pitt, too bad they’re going to lose the cup to the ‘wings for a second year ;)
I’m from Northern MN originally (outside Duluth), went to school at Michigan Tech, and live in MI now, so I’ve been a hockey fan all my life. Actually, there’s another sport back in MN and in the UP that’s quite popular: Broomball. replace the puck with a grapefruit sized, hard rubber ball, the sticks with brooms (stiffened with lots of Duct Tape), and no skates, on a rink 1/2 the size of a hockey rink, and you have broom ball. lots of fun for us losers who were never good at skating.
BTW, I much prefer college hockey over the pro’s….more finesse, less thuggery.
Krista
I confess to being surprised — personally, when watching a good hockey game live, I don’t think any other sport comes close to having that edge-of-your-seat tension, where your team is coming close to scoring, and you’re leaning forward, willing the shot to go in, and it doesn’t. Repeat a few times, and when the puck DOES actually go in, you can’t help but go a little nuts.
But, to each their own. I personally find baseball beyond tedious, and football both boring and confusing. Basketball, I like, but only if it’s a close game. Soccer does have some of the same tension as hockey, so I do enjoy a live game, even if it’s just my 12-year-old nephew’s team playing against a rival school. :)
someguy
Agree with the comment about how you get it or not. It’s got the flow of hoops and lacrosse and particularly well-played soccer, with the violence of open field hitting in the NFL. The only sports that seem comparable are seven-a-side rugby, and maybe Ozzie rules football (or Gaelic). Hockey’s blue collar ethos is also really rewarding to the fans and you don’t feel silly genuinely admiring how a team plays. Few pros play soft or slack off, particularly in the playoffs, and there is a special reverence for the players who hustle really hard to get a puck in the corner (knowing they’ll get hit hard) or will take a slapshot for the team. You sometimes even feel okay giving grudging admiration to guys you hate, just because they are so tough, and so good, and so effing evil. (See, e.g. Claude Lemieux).
The game is subtle too. You can spot the people with sensei level hockey appreciation by looking around the arena for the people cheering a good line change or a clever faceoff tactic.
Bill Belichick
Penguins? Boring. The most exciting news in the world of sports yesterday was the reemergence of the NFL’s most glamourous player. Yes he’s been on the cover of SI eleven times now, but it never gets old! Discuss.
Jason
@Ecks:
From the Wikipedia history:
In 1883, infamous felon Al Reach (a pioneering German pornographer) and his attorney, John Rogers, won an expansion National League franchise for Philadelphia, one of what are now known as the “Classic Eight” of the National League (along with the Kansas Klansmen, New York Junkies, Syracuse Strikebreakers, Boston’s Chronic Bronchitis, the Serial Masturbators of Northern New Jersey, Harrisburg Herpetic Scars, and the Mets). They were awarded a spot in the league to replace the Worcester Brown Stockings, a franchise that had folded in 1882 when fans discovered that “Brown Stockings” referred, literally, to the team’s uniform, and did not imply a racial prejudice or sexual deviancy. The new team was promptly nicknamed the “Pedophiles,” and immediately compiled a .173 winning percentage, which is still the worst in franchise history, but did not deter the fans who flocked to see the “Philies'” star players: Rusty “Fever Taint” Trombone and Ed “Aryan Millennium” Delahanty.
However, as the sport grew in popularity, parents became concerned at the implications of naming Little League teams after their big-league counterparts, a difficulty compounded by Reach’s insistence that such teams be staffed exclusively by registered sex offenders. Reach’s influence declined after he was beaten to death when an enraged mob mistook an impromptu rendition of “Last Exit to Brooklyn” for Reach’s usual evening constitutional. Eventually, as “Pedophiles” was somewhat hard to fit in newspaper headlines, writers began shortening the name to “Philies.” In 1884, the team changed its name to the “Philadelphias”, as it was common for baseball teams in that era to be named after their cities (for instance, the “Bostons” and “New Yorks”) instead of the off-field proclivities of inbred perverts.
Argive
@Ecks:
Uh, did you mean the Flyers? Or am I missing something?
Fuck the Pens. Go Wings.
Cackalacka
Kudos to the Pens. Of all the franchises my team played in the post-season, y’alls’ fan-base was considerably classier than the Devils and Bruins fans. That isn’t saying much, but it is true. I was there at the RBC last night by myself, sitting next to two guys wearing Stillers and Pirates clothes. Wrong sports, fellas.
And while my team did get swept, I (and every other Cane fan) am very pleased & thrilled with the progression of this season. We didn’t think there would be a post-season in January. We didn’t think there would be a second-round at the 85-second-left mark in the Jersey series. And Walker getting the Bruins riled up last round was pretty sweet.
If hockey can take off in the heart of ACC basketball country, it can take off anywhere.
DMD
Wings in 6? HA! A weaker Pens team took the Wings to 6 last year.
Pens in 7 this year.