Hockey Photos: More Guardian Project Losers

Hockey Photos: 

More Guardian Project Losers

The Guardian Project 30 reveals are over! All teams have now revealed who their Guardians are, as they were all featured in a short, wildly confusing introduction during the second intermission of yesterday’s All-Star game.

Miss the game yesterday and thus, the rest of the reveals? No worries – see below for the rest of the teams. Not sure WTF I’m talking about. Then feel free to click on any one of these links below to get caught up to speed:

Click if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

Click if you would like to see what the first-round match-ups were.

Click if you want to see which teams won in winning group 1.

Click if you want to see what teams won in winning group 2.

Click if you want to see the rest of winning group 3 and a pinchful of losing group 1.

Click if you want to see losing group 2. 

Click if you want to go to the Guardian Project 30 Web site. 

Quick side note – if you did catch the introduction yesterday and are, in fact, interested in following the Guardian Project 30 story, click on that last link that takes you to their Web site. They’ve already got the story up and going.

Okay – without further ado, I present to you, the last group of Guardian Project Losers. Upon my own personal review of these guardians, I just can’t see why this batch lost in the first round (insert heavy, heavy, heavy, verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry obvious sarcastic tone to that last line).

Anyway, enjoy:

Senator (lost to the Sabre)

Panther (lost to the Lightning)

Ranger (lost to the Bruin)

Duck (lost to the King)

Blue (lost to the Predator)

Islander (lost to the Devil)

Thrasher (lost to the Hurricane)

Hockey News: 2011 NHL All-Star Rosters

Hockey News:
2011 NHL All-Star Rosters

I didn't even notice until now how Discover managed to
tag themselves into the All-Star Game logo, lol.

How friggen cool is this NHL All-Star game shaping up to be?

A light-hearted fantasy draft was held last night, with the two All-Star captains, Detroit Red Wings defenseman Niklas Lidstrom and Carolina Hurricanes forward Eric Staal, selecting their team’s roster live on TV. There were plenty of interesting storylines:

Eric Staal picked goalie teammate Cam Ward with his first overall pick, much to the delight of the local fan-base (the game is being played at the Carolina Hurricanes home).

Twins Henrik and Daniel Sedin were split up for the first time in their careers, each being chosen with the third overall pick.

Staal did not pick his brother, New York Rangers defenseman Marc Staal, until the seventh round, one after Eric picked Marc’s teammate Henrik Lundqvist prior.

Team Lidstrom alternate captain Patrick Kane mockingly dragged out his pick (the alt. captains got to pick, too) when he chose Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews. Interestingly, prior to that, Kane also selected former Blackhawks teammate Dustin Byfuglien, as opposed to current teammate Patrick Sharp, who was selected to the other team. 

Current Toronto Maple Leafs forward Phil Kessel was the last player picked. As “Mr. Irrelevant”, Kessel was awarded a new Honda car.

Good times! Personally, I’m very much looking forward to the Skills Competition and All-Star Game tomorrow. Here’s a round-by-round breakdown of how it all went down:

ROUND 1

1. Cam Ward, G, Team Staal

2. Steven Stamkos, C, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 2

3. Alex Ovechkin, RW, Team Staal

4. Duncan Keith, D, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 3

5. Daniel Sedin, W, Team Staal

6. Henrik Sedin, C, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 4

7. Zdeno Chara, D, Team Staal

8. Shea Weber, D, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 5

9. Rick Nash, W, Team Staal

10. Tim Thomas, G, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 6

11. Henrik Lundqvist, G, Team Staal

12. Daniel Briere, C/W, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 7

13. Marc Staal, D, Team Staal

14. Dustin Byfuglien, D, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 8

15. Patrick Sharp, LW, Team Staal

16. Jonathan Toews, C, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 9

17. Dan Boyle, D, Team Staal

18. Marc-Andre Fleury, G, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 10

19. Carey Price, G, Team Staal

20. Jonas Hiller, G, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 11

21. Jeff Skinner, C, Team Staal

22. Brad Richards, C, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 12

23. Kris Letang, D, Team Staal

24. Keith Yandle, D, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 13

25. Claude Giroux, RW, Team Staal

26. Brent Burns, D, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 14

27. Erik Karlsson, D, Team Staal

28. Martin Havlat, RW, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 15

29. Corey Perry, RW, Team Staal

30. Anze Kopitar, C, Team Lidstrom

ROOKIE ROUND

Team Staal: Logan Cuture, C; Tyler Ennis, LW; Michael Grabner, RW; Jamie McBain, D; Tyler Seguin, C; P.K. Subban, D.

Team Lidstrom: Evgeny Dadonov, RW; Oliver Ekman-Larsson, D; Cam Fowler, D; Taylor Hall, LW; Kevin Shattenkirk, D; Derek Stepan, C.

ROUND 16

31. Patrik Elias, LW, Team Staal

32. Matt Duchene, C, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 17

33. David Backes, RW, Team Staal

34. Loui Eriksson, LW, Team Lidstrom

ROUND 18

35. Paul Stastny, C, Team Staal

36. Phil Kessel, RW. Team Lidstrom

Hockey Goals: Hendricks, Gallagher, Kelly

Hockey Goals:Hendricks, Gallagher, Kelly

Check out this nifty trio of goals of the week:

Washington Capitals forward Matt Hendricks against the Toronto Maple Leafs



Brendan Gallagher of the Vancouver Giants (Montreal Canadiens prospect)



Chris Kelly (yes, that Chris Kelly) of the Ottawa Senators showing off some quick hands

Hockey Music: Detroit Red Wings Goal Song

Hockey Music:

Detroit Red Wings Goal Song

In continuing my hardly planned out, entirely random trip around the league to share with you each team’s goal song, this week I’m going to the "Joe", Joe Louis Arena, that is, the official home to the Detroit Red Wings.

All in all, this is probably the best place to get your hockey music song fix. Not only do they have the talent to put up a lot of goals at home, they also have a remarkably unique goal song playlist. After the first time the Red Wings score, they play Kid Rock’s “Hey, Hey Hockey Town”, though, at other times, they might mix in a little "Rock and Roll Part 2" just to keep the fans at the Joe honest. The rest of the time, however, they play songs custom to the player who scored the goal.

For example, and this might be a bit dated for what they have going on for this season (feel free to correct me), but whenever Pavel Datsyuk scores, a techno version of the traditional Russian folk song “Kalinka” would go off because Datsyuk’s obvi Russian.

Johan Franzen gets the old cowboy song “Mule Train” because his nickname is “Mule.”

Tomas Holmstrom gets “Baby Got Back,” by Sir Mix-A-Lot because Holmstrom is known for backing his backside into the goalie.

Henrik Zetterberg gets “Rock and Roll, Pt. 2” and the crowd substitutes “Hank” for “Hey” during the chorus.

Yup – easily the best place overall for hockey goal songs. Anyway, take a listen to the “team’s” goal song below. It’s the Kid Rock song, which he wrote specifically for his hometown hockey team – enjoy!



Sing. Dance. Play hockey!

Hockey Quote: Harris Poll

Hockey Quote:
Harris Poll

Okay, this may not be a direct quote from an actual person, but I am drawing information from a source, so it’s a kind-of, sort-of, but-not-really quote for the week.

Sports Business Daily just released a brand spanking new Harris Poll that showed the most-popular sports in America. No surprise that football was number one at 31%, followed by baseball at 17% and college football at 12%. After the obvi-three, things got interesting.   Auto racing was fourth at 7%, men’s pro basketball fifth at 6% and standing strong at number six is, you guessed it, hockey at 5%.

Now, a 5% popularity rating isn’t anything worth writing home about, at least, until you consider this – the Poll recorded each sports popularity ratings in 1985, ’98, ’08, ’09 and ’10 and the two sports that grew the most during these past 25 years was football at 7% and hockey at 3% (college football and auto racing were tied at 2%, respectively).

Another significant take-away: hockey, largely considered a “niche” sport in America, is just 1% behind men’s pro basketball, considered by many to be amongst the most popular of the “major” sports. Hockey is also beating out men’s college basketball, which has a large following in Middle America and across college campuses.

Also, the Harris Poll doesn’t take into consideration Canada. If this were a “North America” poll, there’s no doubt that hockey would be in the top three, if not competing for the top spot overall.

Football is staring at the risk of a lockout next year. Baseball continues to deal with athlete-heroes turned sudden-bad-guys seemingly every season. If hockey can continue to put out a quality product on its national TV contracts with Versus and NBC, continue to develop new and exciting ways to showcase the game like shootouts, the Winter Classic and the recently revamped NHL All-Star game, and continue to cultivate young, personable talent that make for easy-to-root-for heroes of the game, then there’s no reason that hockey can’t crack the top-5 in the very near future.

Nothing to beat our chest about, but certainly something to make you smile :-)

Hockey Photos: Guardian Project 30 Losers

Hockey Photos:
Guardian Project 30 Losers

We’re getting to the tail-end of the Guardian Project 30 reveals . . . only a few more days until the All-Star game and the official announcement of what, exactly, the league plans on doing with all of this superhero strength.

My hope is that they’ll take on “The Evil NBA” and their sidekick, “The ESPN SportsCenter”, who together have dominated sport highlights for years, and subjected every sports fan to night after night of top-10 boomshakalaka dunks, alley-oop dunks and the like. Sure, it might sound like a dream, but it's certainly something I wouldn't mind seeing become a reality.

All long, drawn-out jokes aside, since this is the sixth time I’m posting about this whole thing-a-ma-bop, overtly glorified marketing campaign that the NHL is doing, here are some quick links on what’s what and who’s who:

Click if you’re not sure I’m talking about.

Click if you wanted to see what the match-ups were.

Click if you want to see winning group 1.

Click if you want to see winning group 2.

Click if you want to see winning group 3 and a pinchful of losing group 1.

Click if you want to go to the Guardian Project 30 Web site.

*Phew* - that was a lot of hyperlink. Anyway, here's the Guardian Project 30's  losing group #2. Enjoy this sassy looking bunch:

The Blue Jacket (lost to the Flyer)





The Flame (lost to the Oiler)





The Star (lost to the Wild)





The Coyote (lost to the Shark)




The Avalanche (lost to the Canuck)





The Maple Leaf (lost to the Canadien)





Check back next week for the last batch of Guardian Project 30 reveals.

Hockey Goals: Perry, Bolland, Gaborik

Hockey Goals:

Perry, Bolland, Gaborik

A hat trick of awesome goals from this past week for y’all.

Enjoy these three gems below:

Corey Perry of the Anaheim Ducks defies gravity:



Dave Bolland of the Chicago Blackhawks against the Nashville Cones:



And finally, New York Rangers forward Marian Gaborik turns Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Jonas Gustavsson inside out—and then does it again (FYI – this is a compilation video of all of his four goals from last night. I’m highlighting just his first one):

Hockey Music: Atlanta Thrashers

Hockey Music:
Atlanta Thrashers

In continuing my hardly planned out, entirely random trip around the league to share with you each team’s goal song, this week I’m going to the Philips Arena the official home to the Atlanta Thrashers

The Atlanta Thrashers are looking like a pretty decent team this season. They’ve got good, young talent and a great leader in potential captain Dustin Byfuglien (great pick-up in the off-season). From the looks of it, the Thrash-ful fan-base will probably get to enjoy a couple more years of winning seasons and high scoring home games.

When they do put the puck in the net at the Philips (that sounds weird, right?), the team plays one of two songs – either it’s Blur’s “Song 2” or “Ole!” by Bouncing Souls. Nothing too special, but hopefully with some more winning, team’ll take some chances on other, more unique songs.

Perhaps “Dirty South Rock” by Hyro hmmmmmm?

Anyways, enjoy the actual Thrashers songs below:

Blur:



Bouncing Souls (Editor’s note: I couldn’t find this on YouTube, but found on a couple of Web Sites that this song is listed.):



Sing. Dance. Play hockey!

Hockey Quote: Marc Staal

Hockey Quote:

Marc Staal

As you’ve probably already heard by now, Carolina Hurricanes captain Eric Staal and Detroit Red Wings captain Nicklas Lidstrom have been selected captains in the upcoming, recently re-formatted NHL All-Star Game. One of their responsibilities – and probably the biggest of them all – will be to each draft a team from a pool of already-selected All Star players. The draft will take place the Friday of All Star weekend, with both teams competing in a Skills Competition the next Saturday, and finally the game itself will be held on Sunday.

The draft pool of players is an interesting concept, if only for the relationships that the players have to one another. Will the Sedin twins play together? What about groups of players like the Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks, who have entire blocks of players going to the game? Will they all still be together?

But perhaps the most interesting relationship is that between captain Eric Staal and his younger brother, New York Rangers defenseman Marc Staal, who was selected to play in the game, too. When asked if he would want to play with or against his older brother, the younger Staal had this to say:

"Against him, obviously," he said. "I don't think I could handle being on his team. He's too mouthy."

Nice to see that the brotherly love is strong in the Staal family, haha. The quote itself is obviously tongue in cheek – Marc was quoted later on having said that he would want to play with his brother and that his original quote was *slightly* misconstrued. Or, and this is perhaps more likely, Momma Staal got to him before the press could do a follow-up ;-)

Funny stuff. On a personal note, I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am that Staal and Lidstrom were selected captains. These two men are not only talented, they’re classy players too. They’re well respected around the league and do not often get the sort of attention that super stars like the oft-used Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin get (who by the way, were rumored to be shoo-ins as captains – ugh).

This is shaping up to be a fun, unique event. Will it be as popular as the Winter Classic? Probably not. But will it be as enjoyable to watch?

I think so . . .

Hockey Photos: More Guardian Project 30 Winners

Hockey Photos:
More Guardian Project 30 Winners

Another week . . . another long list of Guardian Project 30 Winners.

Just like all the other weeks, I’ll give you links first in case this is your first time hearing about this project. So click here if . . .

You don’t know what the Guardian Project 30 is all about.

You want to see what the Guardian Project 30 match-ups were.

You want to see the first batch of winners.

You want to see the second batch of winners.

You want to go to the Guardian Project 30 Winners Web site.

Okay. Now that that’s done, here’s the rest of the Guardian Project 30 Winners :

The Lightning beat the Panther.




The Predator beat the Blue.




The Shark beat the Coyote.




The Bruin beat the Ranger.




The Canuck beat the Avalanche.




The Canadien beat the Maple Leaf.



Most awesome vote: Bruin – maybe the Bruins should consider a logo re-design based around this “thing”. 

Most lame vote: Lightning. Are bad guys really going to fear that badass mohawk?

That’s it in terms of first-round match-ups. The Guardian Project 30 team has since began to release images of those teams that lost in the first round. Here they are . . .

The Capital (lost to the Penguin)




The Red Wing (lost to the Blackhawk)




Check back next week for more of the Guardian Project 30 posters and videos!

Hockey Music: Dallas Stars Goal Song

Hockey Music:
Dallas Stars Goal Song

In continuing my hardly planned out, entirely random trip around the league to share with you each team’s goal song, this week I’m heading down to the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, home to the Dallas Stars.

The Stars goal song is . . . okay. I mean, it is what it is. And what it is a Texas-sized goal horn that leads into the overly used Gary Glitter, “Rock and Roll Part 2”. The song, as we all know (being hockey fans and all) is awesome, but really, the team could do better. They have a solid, exciting team that scores plenty of goals, and a young, devoted fan base. Give them all something unique to celebrate to – a little yippee ki yay mother fu*kers and “Cotton Eye Joe” might be more apropos for the team from down south.

Anyway, here it is. Enjoy:



Sing. Dance. Play hockey!

Hockey Goal: Mikhail Grabovski

Hockey Goal:

Mikhail Grabovski

Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat goal by Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mikhail Grabovski in a shootout against the St. Louis Blues. Wait for the replay for a better angle of all the moves:

Hockey Quote: Brendan Shanahan on All Star Game

Hockey Quote:
Brendan Shanahan on All Star Game

In case you didn’t already know, this whole new All-Star game concept was the brainchild of the NHL's V.P. for Hockey and Business Development, Brendan Shanahan. He worked with the NHL’s hockey operations department, player's association, league executive and team general managers to determine the new format of the All-Star game after taking suggestions and advice from fans.

Furthermore, Shanahan and the rest of the department are the ones responsible for recently naming the rest of the players. He spoke to NHL.com about what went into the selection process. Because of his outright honesty, I couldn't help but cherry pick some of his responses as this week’s quotes of the week:

"Without identifying specific teams or players, there were players that reached out to their general managers, who then reached out to the League to quietly say, 'This guy is playing but he has a nagging injury and he's asked me to ask you to leave him off,' " said Shanahan. "We have to respect that."

"It's just a collection of people in Hockey Operations sharing information," he said on how they selected the players. "There were some guys that were automatics and other guys that it came down to how they performed right up until the selection. It's a collaborative thing. There are probably several more players that could -- and still may -- end up being in the game."

"We try to find a balance between what a player is doing this season and what he's done in his career," Shanahan said. "There are certain players that have had all-star careers and this is a show for the fans, and fans just want to see these guys. We'd love to have another 20 spots to include everybody."

"It didn't come down to one game, but certainly if you're saying a couple of guys are tied, if we're split between player A and player B, it probably played into it if player A has had a better January as opposed to October," he said. "But, no, it didn't come down to any player like, 'If he gets the shutout tonight he's in.' There is no shortage of players.

"Our biggest problem -- and it's a great problem to have -- is that we just have so many great players that could potentially play in this game."

You certainly have to appreciate Shanny’s candor. Next up for the department -  picking out the team’s captains. Can't wait!

Hockey News: 2011 NHL All Stars Named

Hockey News:
2011 NHL All Stars Named

The Fantasy Hockey match-up that will be the 2011 NHL All-Star game is looking like it's going to be a pretty high-powered, highly-skilled affair. Below is the full list of 42 players named to the Game today. Quick snapshot: a lot of Canucks, a handful of Blackhawks and a TON of Penguins.

Things are set to start off on Friday, January 28 at 7:30pm with a Fantasy Draft between the two team captains, folloewd by the Skill Challenge on Saturday and the actual game on Sunday.

Here are the players, in the order that TSN gave 'em to me . . .

Corey Perry Anaheim Ducks

Position: Forward
All-Star Appearances: 1

Jarome Iginla Calgary Flames

Position: Forward
All-Star Appearances: 5

Eric Staal Carolina Hurricanes

Position: Centre
All-Star Appearances: 3

Patrick Kane Chicago Blackhawks

Position: Forward
All-Star Appearances: 1

Patrick Sharp Chicago Blackhawks

Position: Forward
All-Star Appearances: 0

Jonathan Toews Chicago Blackhawks

Position: Centre
All-Star Appearances: 1

Matt Duchene Colorado Avalanche

Position: Centre
All-Star Appearances: 0

Rick Nash Columbus Blue Jackets

Position: Forward
All-Star Appearances: 4

Loui Eriksson Dallas Stars

Position: Forward
All-Star Appearances: 0

Brad Richards Dallas Stars

Position: Centre
All-Star Appearances: 0

Ales Hemsky Edmonton Oilers

Position: Right Wing
All-Star Appearances: 0

Anze Kopitar Los Angeles Kings

Position: Centre
All-Star Appearances: 1

Patrik Elias New Jersey Devils

Position: Left Wing/Centre
All-Star Appearances: 2

Claude Giroux Philadelphia Flyers

Sidney Crosby Pittsburgh Penguins

Position: Centre
All-Star Appearances: 4

Evgeni Malkin Pittsburgh Penguins

Position: Forward
All-Star Appearances: 2

David Backes St. Louis Blues

Position: Centre/Right Wing
All-Star Appearances: 0

Steven Stamkos Tampa Bay Lightning

Position: Centre
All-Star Appearances: 0

Martin St. Louis Tampa bay Lightning

Position: Forward
All-Star Appearances: 5

Phil Kessel Toronto Maple Leafs

Position: Right Wing/Centre
All-Star Appearances: 0

Ryan Kesler Vancouver Canucks

Daniel Sedin Vancouver Canucks

Position: Forward
All-Star Appearances: 0

Henrik Sedin Vancouver Canucks

Position: Centre
All-Star Appearances: 1

Alex Ovechkin Washington Capitals

Position: Forward
All-Star Appearances: 3

Dustin Byfuglien Atlanta Thrashers

Postition: Defenceman
All-Star Appearances: 0

Tobias Enstrom Atlanta Thrashers

Postition: Defenceman
All-Star Appearances: 0

Zdeno Chara Boston Bruins

Postition: Defenceman
All-Star Appearances: 4

Duncan Keith Chicago Blackhawks

Postition: Defenceman
All-Star Appearances: 1

Nicklas Lidstrom Detroit Red Wings

Postition: Defenceman
All-Star Appearances: 10

Brent Burns Minnesota Wild

Postition: Defenceman
All-Star Appearances: 0

Shea Weber Nashville Predators

Postition: Defenceman
All-Star Appearances: 1

Marc Staal New York Rangers

Postition: Defenceman
All-Star Appearances: 0

Erik Karlsson Ottawa Senators

Postition: Defenceman
All-Star Appearances: 0

Kris Letang Pittsburgh Penguins

Postition: Defenceman
All-Star Appearances: 0

Dan Boyle San Jose Sharks

Postition: Defenceman
All-Star Appearances: 1

Mike Green Washington Capitals

Postition: Defenceman
All-Star Appearances: 0

Jonas Hiller Anaheim Ducks

Postition: Goalie
All-Star Appearances: 0

Tim Thomas Boston Bruins

Postition: Goalie
All-Star Appearances: 2

Cam Ward Carolina Hurricanes

Postition: Goalie
All-Star Appearances: 0

Carey Price Montreal Canadiens

Postition: Goalie
All-Star Appearances: 1

Henrik Lundqvist New York Rangers

Postition: Goalie
All-Star Appearances: 1

Marc-Andre Fleury Pittsburgh Penguins

Postition: Goalie
All-Star Appearances: 0

Hockey Photos: Guardian Project 30 Winners

Hockey Photos:
Guardian Project 30 Winners

Another week, another fresh batch of Guardian Project 30 winners. You can check out last week’s winners here.

Don’t know what this whole thing’s about? Check here.

Want to know about the upcoming match-ups. Click here.

Okay, now for the story . . .

It’s kind of hard to not report on this project going on by the NHL and Stan Lee’s productions company right now – it’s getting to be that popular. The Guardian Project 30's Facebook page alone is seeing a ton of action on an everyday basis, with fans debating on which ones rock, which ones suck and discussing the project as a whole. I mean, literally hundreds of comments and “likes” with each post. Kudos to the marketing department.

To be honest with you, any conversation having to do with hockey, in this Hockey Chump’s humble opinion, is a damn good thing and worth reporting on.

Anyway, since I last reported on the winners, there have been five new ones. Who they faced-off against/beat are listed below. Photos and formal video introductions are below that.

This week’s winner in my opinion? It was a close one, but I’m definitely going to have to say The Wild over the Oiler. That beast looks absolutely sick!

This week’s loser? The Devil. I mean, honestly, how many muscles go in to a single leg, Lee? That thing looks like it’s got elephantitis or something.

Match-ups:

The Blackhawk beat the Red Wing

The Sabre beat the Senator

The Flyer beat the Blue Jacket

The Oiler beat the Flame

The Devil beat the Islander

The Wild beat the Star

The
The Blackhawk:





The Sabre:





The Flyer:





The Oiler:





The Devil:





The Wild:

Hockey Music: Carolina Hurricanes Goal Song

Hockey Music:

Carolina Hurricanes Goal Song

The Carolina Hurricanes goal song is . . . interesting. Really, there’s no other way to describe it. Things start off with a normal goal horn that gets played over the over-played Blur-song “Song 2”. Nothing bad here, really. But then after that, there is a 100-year-old Ric Flair appearance saying “That’s a CarOlina Hurricanes goal! Woo! Woooooooooooooooo! Woo! Woo! Woo!”

Naturally, after Flair, there’s an Adam Sandler from Happy Gilmore “Yabba Dabba Doo” and, of course, Home Simpson going “Woo-hoo!!”

But no, it doesn’t end there. Then we have a Dice Clay appearance, with him doing his from-the-gut-quote, “Oh!”

There’s even, I think, a Chewbaca tongue roll in there somewhere.

I can’t think of a possible segue into this. So sit back and enjoy this week’s hockey song of the week:

Sing. Dance. Play hockey!

Hockey Quote: Bus Driver for Russian WJ Team

Hockey Quote:
Bus Driver for Russian World Junior's Team

For the last three weeks I’ve posted my quote of the week from 24/7: Penguins/Capitals: Road to the Winter Classic. And though last night had some memorable ones, particularly Washington Capitals captain Alexander Ovechkin saying, “Fuck this shitsburgh team”, I just can’t pass up on giving quote of the week honors to the other hockey news story going on.

So, this past week there was an under-20 hockey tournament that took place up in Canada. Don’t know if you heard about it, lol. Anyway, long story short, the underdog team Russia overcame a three-goal deficit to beat the hometown favorites 5-3 in a pretty awesome finals game. It’s the country’s first gold medals since 2003.

Afterwards, there was some celebrating to do. But, this was no Kool-Aid and Hawaiian Punch party for this UNDER-20 BUNCH OF CHILDREN. These kids got trashed. Ripped, infact. So drunk that a few had to be carried on to the team bus to get to the airport. So drunk that they got kicked off their Delta flight from Buffalo to Atlanta and had to take a later flight later on.

That’s pretty drunk.

Anyhoo, the quote of the week comes from the bus driver who had to deal with bringing the team from point A to point B. It sums up the state of the team in a nutshell. From ESPN:

"They were definitely intoxicated, that's for sure," bus driver Curtis Hall, who drove the Russians from the Adam's Mark hotel to the airport, told The Buffalo News. "They were so drunk they had to carry a couple of the guys onto the bus."

Hall described Russian players honking the bus horn on the way to the airport after getting on around 3am and having to wait around because one player had trouble exiting the bus.

"I was glad to get rid of them," he said.

Congrats to the team on the win. But a hangover on a flight home? Cleary these kids still have a lot to learn. Enjoy that ride, boys.