The Two-Line Pass

Earlier this week, when Joe Sakic severely injured his hand in a snowblower accident, it may have come as a shock to many.

But to true historians of the game, it was just another in the long list of Hockey Hall of Famers who have injured themselves in some way thanks to some common and avoidable household injuries.

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The perfect marriage between Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane might finally be over. Their feud over which one gets votes onto the All-Star team has spilled from the dressing room and onto the internet, where the two forwards are now waging a bitter war for votes.

Toews, for example, believes Kane to be a liar and a turncoat. Not the kind of guy you’d want representing your Chicago Blackhawks at the All-Star game.

Kane, on the other hand, doesn’t think we should trust someone that can’t spell “Taves.”

Brian Campbell, by the way, is your third-party candidate.

Things are only going to get worse come January.

(Big ups to Trevor Bird on this one.)

Is Carolina kidding? They fire Peter Laviolette after the Canes jump out to a 12-11-2 start. Am I missing something here? They’re THREE POINTS back of the division lead! THREE! In THAT division! Do you realize how easy it is to make up three points when you’re playing the Panthers, Lightning and Thrashers 18 times a year?

The fact that the ‘Canes are underperforming this year is hardly Laviolette’s fault. There are the injuries to Justin Williams and David Tanabe that have kept them out since the end of September, there’s Eric Staal’s hideous performance so far this season (he’s had exactly two multiple-goal games this season), there’s the fact that the team, on paper, is pretty goddamn bad. I mean, look at that roster. What’s anyone supposed to do with that? And yet they’re still a game above .500 because Laviolette is a damn good coach.

And the replacement is Paul Maurice? The guy that wasn’t good enough to get a Maple Leafs team like the one they had two years ago into the playoffs? The guy that Carolina already FIRED? He isn’t a good coach. He just isn’t. He’s had losing seasons in seven of his 10 in the NHL. You don’t call a guy like that and offer him a job, regardless of the fact that he helped take your team to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2001-02. It’s ridiculous. What, was Jacques Demers not available?

In the hopes that it’s not too late to squeeze Maurice out, I have composed a list of five better candidates for the job.

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I was watching this fight between Zach Stortini and Krys Barch from yesterday’s Stars/Oilers game, and it wasn’t bad. Never mind the post-Thanksgiving miracle that is Stortini not trying to bearhug his opponent to death like King Kong Bundy.

What makes it an all-time classic is the line the announcers get out right as the fight ends. In explaining that Barch’s job — sticking up for teammates who are more or less indefensible — was one of the toughest in sports, the color commentator says, “Krys Barch’s first job was working something called ‘the anus vaccuum’ on the killfloor of a slaughterhouse.’”

I don’t think I even want to know what that means, but one suspects David Frost is involved in some way.

By the way, Krys Barch is to be known as The Anus Vacuum henceforth, obviously.

My internet and television have both been spotty as hell tonight so I didn’t watch any hockey games. I did, however, get this sent to me by reader “Lexus Prime,” which I am assuming is his real name. As a consequence, you will get no Good Night. Settle for this and take your issues with my lack of posting up with Comcast.

Check this out: On a delayed call for the Habs, Ryan O’Byrne is pressured by Doug Weight back into his own zone and puts the puck into his own net. O’Byrne’s side of the story is that he was unaware of the delayed call and thought he could pass it back to Carey Price, who was enjoying some Gatorade on the bench. You see where this is going. Bill Guerin was credited with the goal.

The goal tied the game at 3-all inside of five minutes to go in the third period and the Habs ended up losing to the Islanders in the shootout. Also, it’s important to note that this happened IN Montreal, and the fans understandably got on him for the rest of the game.

This could be the best thing that ever happened. O’Byrne’s reaction is my new all-time favorite gesture. But he has to be traded now, right? He’s been awful all season, but this must be the end of the Ryan O’Byrne era with Les Habitants.

We all know that if you take a penalty, you go to the box for two minutes, ya know, by yourself, and you feel shame.

But according to some Canucks, that feeling apparently doesn’t last the entire two minutes. Alex Burrows has the experience down to a much more regimented science.

“The first 30 seconds or so I probably think about what I did wrong, that I should not have done that,” Burrows says in a French-Canadian accent reminiscent of Lemieux’s.

“Then I spend about 30 seconds praying for the guys to clear the puck and then the last minute is just getting ready, drinking some water and toweling off. With about 30 seconds left, I’m getting ready to go back on. I usually stand up with around 10 seconds left.”

There is apparently little variation from box to box around the league, but Kevin Bieksa found out that when there is, it’s usually best to ignore it.

“They are all pretty much the same, although some arenas are tougher in terms of the people sitting around you,” Bieksa says. “I had a beer dumped on me last year in Phoenix.”

Bieksa does his best to ignore the taunts of fans while sitting in the box, but sometimes he can’t help himself.

“I maybe just squirt them with the water if they are getting a little too mouthy,” he says. “But that’s how I ended up getting that beer dumped on me. Some rinks are tougher on you than others.”

I don’t know what’s cooler, that Brad Ziemer from the Vancouver Sun came up with the idea to do this article or that Burrows and Bieksa were so forthcoming and awesome about sharing some of their stories and feelings on the subject.

But what about that part at the end, where you get free?

“I’m always thinking about getting a breakaway as soon as I get out of the box,” Bieksa says. “That still hasn’t happened, but if it ever does I am prepared.”

So today I’m just looking around at old college hockey teams and I come upon a name I vaguely recognized: Ben Lovejoy. Kid went to Boston College and was pretty good from what I remembered, but I kind of lost track of him after he transferred to Dartmouth and out of Hockey East.

Well turns out he’s playing for the Baby Pens now and has his own blog, which is seemingly independent of the team’s website. That’s awesome. I wish more players would do that so we can get stories that are actually funny or interesting, rather than some middle-of-the-road defenseman saying, “Went to practice today. It was really hard but we’re playing good hockey right now and we’re just focused on doing our jobs.” No one cares.

But Lovejoy, in his two posts this season, has been pretty funny. The story he posted Friday was a riot.

A fan made a mixtape called “Songs about Love(joy)” full of songs where the word “love” is used in the title.

Every time the word love was mentioned for the rest of the CD, the song would cut out and a voice would come on and say, “joy.” For the next 8 tracks on the CD, they all did this. It was one of the funniest, and creepiest, things I had ever heard. I was almost embarrassed that someone had taken the time to make a CD like this for me. After listening to the CD (not the whole thing, just skipping from track to track) I took it out and put it in the side panel of my car door where it stayed for a month or two.

Eventually, a teammate found the CD by accident and brought it to the dressing room, much to the delight of all of Lovejoy’s teammates. Danny Richmond has since burned a copy of the CD for friends and family and put it on his iPod.

We really, really need to get some audio of this mixtape.

So the other day, Kris Chucko and Carsen Germyn, both members of the Quad City Flames, went on the Dwyer and Michaels Morning Show and, from what I can ascertain, fired t-shirts at passing with a compressed air gun for no good reason.

There has been no reasonable explanation that I can find for why they were doing this, what they were promoting or what the Dwyer and Michaels Morning Show is (besides, presumably, “unlistenable.”)

I haven’t heard this show, but with two “wacky” middle aged guys and a mildly-attractive slightly younger woman, you know this show is an absolute chucklefest in U.S. market No. 146.

The goal, apparently, was to try to get them into the open window of consenting motorists (notice the double beep). Not only did they go 0-fer, but they also drew the attention of both a policeman and local business owner, who no doubt were bribed away with a free t-shirt of their own.

Check out these hilarious hijinks.

So Sharks center Torrey Mitchell has a weekly blog on the San Jose website. It’s two weeks old and it already stinks because it tells you appallingly little about anything to do with the sport of hockey.

But it does open the window on the weird relationship that Mitchell and roommate Devin Setoguchi share. Last week, Setoguchi had put on Mitchell’s flip flops and stretched them out or something. It is also worth pointing out that both of these guys have girls’ names.

Here’s Mitchell with the update:

I gave Seto grief about my flip-flops last week and I think he felt guilty. He cooked lasagna this week and brought it to me in bed. He hasn’t cleaned the dishes yet though. He did leave and get me ice cream the other night. It was actually a milkshake and exactly what I wanted.

I just can’t relate to this insane story at all. I can honestly say that I’ve never worn flip flops, but wouldn’t be mad if my friend wore mine if I did. Nor would I want my friend to serve me Italian food in bed and get me a milkshake. It’s all too weird.

Was Setoguchi sitting at the foot of the bed while just watching Mitchell while he ate it? Did the milkshake come with two straws? These are questions that need to be asked, but are better left unanswered, I think.

Just a couple of odd guys.

Here is your absolute, no-one-close surefire Quote of the Week and early Quote of the Season favorite, courtesy of the Canucks’ Kevin Bieksa.

Bieksa, in his first game back after spraining his MCL against the Flames last weekend, played somewhere between 12 and 14 minutes, depending upon who you believe, in the FIRST PERIOD of Sunday’s game with Chicago.

Said Bieksa, when informed of the stat:

“It [expletive] felt like it.”