Grilled Cheese and OJ

[gcoj-blog]

Not only is Daryl Sutter one of the most toothless-looking human beings the world has ever seen, but he also has a little bit of an aphoristic Yodaness to him.

[gcoj-blog]

On Peter Laviolette, Scouting, and Sabotage

J: Might it be an advantage for Team USA that Peter Laviolette has not been coaching in the NHL and thus has had lots of time to scout Team USA's own players?

T: Perhaps, but I wonder what his role and function will be as an assistant coach.

J: Do you think Bylsma would take Lavi's advice if Lavi has indeed been scouting and working on a system?

T: Absolutely. You leave your team rivalries behind when you play for your country. I imagine there has been plenty of correspondence.

J: Do you think Bylsma and Lavi and other Olympic coaches have been in contact with their players, telling them, for example, that they think they'll be playing left wing or that they'll probably be used in Sochi as a penalty killer?

T: Doubtful. I think they'll wait and see how the lines shake out and who has what chemistry with whom.

[gcoj-blog]

I believe in my instinctive ability to put together a winning and a championship club. I will always believe that.

Phillies GM Ruben Amaro said that.

He believes in his "instinctive ability," not his ability to make decisions through reason or study or careful analysis.

Classic, inept Philadelphia team management.

[gcoj-blog]

Playing Shorthanded and Its Effect on the Flyers' D

J: Kimmo Timonen is the Flyers' most consistently competent all around D man. We want him on the ice in as many high-importance situations as possible.

Penalty killing is always of high-importance, so we want Timonen on the ice to kill penalties. Penalty killing is often physically grueling, however. 

Don't you think the Flyers would be a better team if Kimmo Timonen, whose body is not as young and resilient as it once was, spent less time killing penalties?

T: It's beyond just Timmo. We lead the league in penalties taken. That has to stop. Berube said it would stop when he took over, and it hasn't. Granted, an aging and undeniably slow defense doesn't help matters, but they aren't the only problem.

[gcoj-blog]

One young fan's reaction to the Flyers' 4-1 loss to the Rangers last night.

[gcoj-blog]

They’ve got great skill players, but they don’t have that big, greasy guy to go to the front of the net.

Chris Therien, the shutdown defenseman of Flyers radio, on the Montreal Canadiens.

[Approx.]

[gcoj-blog]

Flyers 4, Canucks 3 (SO) - Jake's Qs for Tyler

[This is late, but it's weird, so we figure you might still like it.]

J: There was a red-haired kid in the Vancouver crowd wearing a Giroux jersey. The middle-aged, brown-haired man sitting next to him was wearing a Canucks jersey. This raises an absolutely enormous number of questions. Do you think the man is the kid's dad? If so, under what circumstances is it ok for a Canucks fan dad to let his kid wear a Flyers jersey to a Flyers vs. Canucks game in Vancouver? Like is the dad just incredibly open-minded, and a true fan of the game, and he's letting his kid pick some weird new team because Giroux really is THAT AWESOME? Or is the dad a completely disloyal ignorant bozo who has no idea what it means to be a REAL FAN? Or is the kid a Canucks fan who also happens to love Giroux, so he wore the jersey because fuck all you people who want to define what a TRUE FAN is; I get to wear my Giroux jersey wherever the hell I please thank you very much. Is it possible that a wildly disproportionate number of young Canadian gingers root for the Flyers?

T: My bet is that the jersey had something to do with G's Canadian heritage, especially with the olympics on the horizon. Nathan had a Pat Kane shirsey last Olympics, so there you go.

J: Third string Flyers commentator Steve Coates thinks getting hit in the face with the flat part of a puck is worse than getting hit with the edge of a puck. Doesn't the puck travel way faster when flying horizontally and hitting faces with its edges? Would you rather take a flat puck or an edge in the face? I'm pretty sure I'd choose flat.

T: Flat puck to the face for me. More surface area. The edge is probably much more likely to break bones.

J: Is Michael Raffl suddenly one of the best hitters on the Flyers? How? Since when?

T: Raffl knows when to hit, how to hit, and what type of hit is necessary in all situations. I don't know how he learned it, but he's been creating a lot of space for his linemates with excellent forechecking.

J: The Arthritis Foundation hired some excellent dancers to make this commercial.

T: [no comment]

J: At one point in the second period, one of the announcers said that Mason was "at his scrambly best." Are his scrambly skillz what make him so fun for you to watch?

T: Mason's scrambly skills are exactly why I love watching him.

J: NHL team doctors get cash bonuses for the speed at which they administer stitches during games?!? Does this strike anyone else as irresponsible?

T: Stitch speed averaged with stitch quality would make me feel better about that situation. Or make sure the stitches are right and give a bonus for how effective they are and how quickly they were applied after the fact.

J: According to Bill Clement, human eye sockets do a really good job protecting human eyes.

T: [no comment, which I assume means Tyler agrees]

J: Did you know that Claude Giroux sheaths his sword sometimes after scoring goals?

T: The best sword sheather, in my opinion, is Alexander Radulov.

[gcoj-blog]

Flyers 4, Canucks 3 (SO) - Tyler's Qs for Jake

[Jake's Qs for Tyler to follow in the next post.]

  T: Why do we take so many penalties? Does it need to stop? If so, how do you make it stop?

  J: I sure wish it would stop. I think it happens because the players get lazy, because they get caught up in trying to make a big hit or a great defensive play rather than containing their opponents and playing patient defense, because the Flyers have a (well-deserved) reputation with the refs, because the coaches put meatheads like Rinaldo and Rosehill in the lineup in favor of smarter, less aggressive fourth liners. The long term solution I'd suggest would be to trade the goons and put together a smart, defense-focused fourth line.

  T: Impressions of Raffl's effect with G and V?

  J: Raffl looks to me like a good, under control, hard-hitting forechecker, and I think his ability to do that effectively puts G and V in good position to steal pucks and counter-attack AND helps them conserve their energy for cycling and playing the power play. Raffl also looks like a good passer, and that's useful in all zones and all situations.

  T: After the game, Berube was (rightfully) upset with the defense. I saw a game that could have been 7-3 if not for Steve Mason. How do we tighten up the defense, and what did you see there?

  J: As I said above, long-term, we need a defense-focused fourth line that can play tough minutes against good players. And, ASAP, we need a defense-focused third D pairing. As hard as I'm rooting for Meszaros to get good again, dude just isn't good enough at defense to be in the lineup right now.

  T: Related, we seem to have trouble with fast teams. How do you cover for an aging D corps, and how do you stop the young, quick attacks we see more frequently in the Eastern Conference especially?

  J: Better neutral zone defense? Using some kind of a trap setup some of the time? Send one forward in to crash around on the forecheck, and back everyone else off into the neutral zone?

  T: What do you envision for the second line? What are their strengths/weaknesses and how would you use them in Chief's place?

  J: Don't let them take faceoffs in the defensive zone. Tell them to skate at the net, shoot the puck low, whack away at rebounds, and try to goad idiot defensemen into punching them after whistles.

[gcoj-blog]

Tyler Talks Steve Mason

Things have been slow around here, but we haven't forgotten about you...

[gcoj-blog]

Zac Rinaldo's stats from Saturday's game in Dallas (according to flyers.nhl.com):

1 shift

0:04 of time on ice

2 penalty minutes for "Holding"

5 penalty minutes for "Boarding"

10 penalty minutes for "Illegal check to head"

10 penalty minutes and a game misconduct for "Kicking"

Meatstick.

[gcoj-blog]

MIN @ CBJ 12/6/13: The Waitress

I'm checking out the NHL's iPhone app

(The free version)

And tapping between live radio broadcasts of tonight's games.

They all sound sportscastily similar at first,

But, with the Columbus Blue Jackets leading the Minnesota Wild 3-0 in the third period,

They diverge.

   The crowd in Columbus is thin tonight,

Note the Minnesota broadcasters,

Who are embarrassingly boring,

Because their voices are entirely devoid of enthusiasm,

Which could have a relationship to another of their observations: that

"Not a single player on the Wild is having a good game tonight."

And attendance is light,

Here in Ohio,

(Hypothesize the more northerly and thus winter-saavier Wild announcers),

Because of the snow,

Which, according to The Weather Channel,

Is also light.

   When I change the channel,

To "The Blue Jackets' Radio Network!,"

The mood is a much more accurate reflection of the holiday season,

For the Blue Jackets are winning,

And they have the puck.

   Nick Foligno skates it into the zone

And leaves it for R.J. Umberger

(A former Flyers playoff hero),

Who scores!

And the Blue Jackets' radio man goes wild,

And I bet he struts up to his microphone

Before leaning in and growling:

"Where's the waitress at with my drink!"

And I'm stunned,

Because either:

  (A) I'm listening to an extraordinarily strange and creative mind flood with celebratory emotion;

  (B) I'm listening to a perfectly average sportscasting mind test out a pre-rehearsed hockey goal catch phrase;

  And/or (C) there's something maybe more than vaguely chauvinist and actually kind of scary about the way he's treating that imaginary waitress.

[gcoj-blog]

Things I Learned from the Flyers' Nov 27 Loss to Tampa Bay

[I watched the game in a bar, without volume, with my neck tilted more than comfortably up toward a high dangling screen, accompanied by my Finnish friend Pekka and the NHL Preview issue of Finland's Sports Illustrated-equivalent glossy magazine.]

-Martin St. Louis is still very sneaky player and a very scary opponent. He has a chance to become for Canada what Teemu Selanne is for Finland and Jaromir Jagr is for the Czech Republic: the most gracefully aging high-profile athlete in the country, a pretty bad ass thing to be.

-Michael Raffl, the Flyers' 24-year-old Austrian rookie, who played on Wednesday night (A) because Matt Read has a mysterious injury and (B) because the Flyers coaching staff has some bizarre fear of scratching the embarrassingly goonish Jay Rosehill, was a noticeable player throughout the game. He seemed a bit slow to shoot and a bit weak on the puck, but he had scoring chances and looked decent on the PK. Damn impressive for a rookie who's been a healthy scratch for five games straight.

-Speaking of the PK, Adam Hall is a high quality fourth line center. He was truly one of the Flyers' best players in the game, and I like the fact that he played a lot of PK and defensive zone faceoff scenario minutes. I hated to lose Max Talbot, but I think the Flyers must trust that Adam Hall can play the Max Talbot role.

-In the second period, Scott Hartnell fought Lightning defenseman Eric Brewer and, while bear-hugging him, punched him multiple times in the helmet. It was a mind-bogglingly stupid thing to do.

-According to the Flyers page in the Finnish NHL Preview mag, Hartnell has heart, but he's not a very good player.

-Also, according to the magazine, the Flyers have forgotten how to play as a team, and it's not clear whether Claude Giroux will ever be a good captain. The magazine predicts that the Flyers will finish 5th or 6th in the division and fail to make the playoffs.

-Pekka, who translated the magazine for me, isn't worried about Giroux. He admires G's hair, his "lätkätukka" as they call it in Finland, "hockeyfrilla" as they call it in Sweden.

-Speaking of Sweden, according to Pekka, all Swedes are lucky. This is a commonly accepted fact in Finland.

-Victor Hedman, a Swedish defenseman on the Lightning, proved that the Finns are correct. He scored two lucky goals, assisted on another, and thus appeared, statistically, to have played a great game. I (and Finland) contend that he did not play a great game. He played against an unimpressive opponent, a team that didn't play like a team, a team with a captain who, despite some very sexy hockey hair, didn't play like a game changer.

-When Jagr was on the Flyers a couple of years ago, one of the things I noticed about him was his ability to make one last rush at the end of a long shift. If Jagr ever saw an opportunity to go one on one against a tired defenseman, he would take it, even if he was tired too. Giroux didn't seem to want to do that on Wednesday. I think he should.

[gcoj-blog]

Our superstar.

[gcoj-blog]

[My favorite highlight from the Flyers' 5-2 Saturday night win over the Islanders.]

Tyler told me yesterday to watch Sean Couturier a little more closely. He's starting to dominate.

[gcoj-blog]

A Short Poem About Sports and Marketing

  Lightning struck again

  In OKC.

  The fans' success is attributable,

  I reckon, 

  To good, 

  Old fashioned

  Momentum.

  Unclear

  How MidFirst Bank—

  "A special kind of bank,"

  "One of five founding corporate partners for the Oklahoma City Thunder,"

  And, according to the oversize checks, the shots' sponsor—

  Feels.

  They didn't

  Tweet about it

  Immediately.

  Lucky for them, though,

  The Thunder did.

  If they hadn't,

  I wouldn't have

  Written this poem.

[gcoj-blog]

Flyers @ Penguins Postgame Q&A

[The good guys won last night, two to one, over the bad guys. Both Tyler and Jake watched. Both Tyler and Jake were excited. And both Tyler and Jake sent the other five questions about the game (or about things tangentially related to the game). Results below.]

Jake: What'd you think of Emery's save on Crosby's breakaway? It looked to me like Emery faked him out, baiting him into shooting five hole and then closing it right up.

Tyler: Yes. Crosby had so much room to make a move that either he must have been baited or was just trying to catch Em off-guard. Speaking of big E, I like his positioning and awareness, but am not impressed by his post-to-post lateral movement.

Jake: In the postgame interview, Pierre McGuire asked Brayden Schenn, "Are the Flyers back?" Schenn said, "Well, we're working on it." Do you think that's the right attitude right now?

Tyler: I do. Don't want to get cocky, don't want to sell yourselves short. Stupid question, stupid turtle (Pierre). I hate the NBC broadcast. I don't want to be "that" flyers fan, but lord does it feel like those guys are in love with the Penguins. Isn't it their job to be impartial? I get it, blah blah blah Letang Crosby Malkin blah blah blah face of the league blah blah blah but come on. I think Emrick is a good play-by-play guy for the hockey virgins of the nation who watch the NBC-cast, but my heart can't forget his Devils association and Crosby boner.

Jake: Why is Jay Rosehill on our team? Does he actually serve a real purpose, or are the Flyers just an embarrassingly conservative organization that refuses to change?

Tyler: I'm not sure, and we're not the only ones baffled by it. A theory is that they want to keep giving top prospect Scott Laughton time to develop. Not sure how I feel about that.

Jake: I noticed that there was some kind of camouflage-heavy Veteran's Day party going on at the rink between the second and third periods. What are your favorite and least favorite between periods activities?

Tyler: Favorite: Mites on ice. Least favorite: Human bowling. Because bowling with a human is too easy, and because mites are awesome.

Jake: You just acquired James Neal for your fantasy team. What was it like rooting against your player / rooting for your player to play a good game against your team?

Tyler: I've become pretty good at removing my fantasy emotions from the picture when watching the Flyers. The only time when I find doing this to be difficult is when I own the goalie starting against us. That's almost a lose-lose situation.

--

Tyler: Is G becoming a diver? He was called for it a couple games ago, drew a questionable call against Pascal Dupuis last night, and someone (I think it was Ed Olczyk) said he tried to fake another one later in the game. Is he a seller or a diver, or neither?

Jake: I worry that he is. And it bums me out. I simply can't love him with all my heart until/unless he loses that reputation.

As for last night, I didn't see a replay of G's second alleged dive, so I can't comment on that one, but the slash he drew against Dupuis might have actually hurt. It also might have hit the bulletproof thumbguard, and G might have acted a little bit. If were his coach, I'd ask him about it, and I'd remind him never to let me catch him wasting time or mental energy acting.

While we're on this topic, I'd like to point out that Sean Couturier was pretty frustrated with the penalty Crosby drew on him, and the TV people did not show a replay. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks Crosby dove, that it was obvious, and that the NBCSN producers chose not to further the league's best player's reputation as a cheater.

Crosby is a spoiled brat. Giroux needs to remember that and make sure he doesn't turn into one himself.

Tyler: Who on this team is the odd man out in your vision for the Flyers' future? Do you trust the goalies? Can I ask three questions in one question?

Jake: You can ask as many questions in one question as you want.

I do trust the goalies. I don't think they're amazing, but I think they're both plenty good enough. The Penguins looked dangerous in the first period last night, and Emery looked calm, focused, well-positioned, and good at whacking rebounds out to the corners.

The odd man out, if there is one this season, should be Voracek. I watched a couple of those Flight Test documentary shorts the team made over the summer, and Voracek looked out of shape. I mean if you're a professional athlete getting paid $4 million a year, and you're not coming off a serious injury, you show up to training camp ready to rock. Plus there was the whole Lamborghini crash bullshit. Plus all Czech players, according to my Finnish friend Pekka, are lazy underachievers.

I don't want the Flyers to trade Voracek. I think there's a chance he learns how to be a pro. But my suspicion is that he is only dominant some of the time because he gets tired a lot. Jagr never got tired.

Tyler: If you had to trade a player to Flyers west from Flyers east, what would the trade be?

Jake: I don't think the Kings would want Voracek. But I bet they'd offer a young defenseman and/or a draft pick for Grossmann or Coburn. And, if the Flyers are out of playoff contention, I think they should consider dealing those guys.

That said, though, I thought both of them looked really good tonight.

Tyler: Thoughts on Hexy in the front office?

Jake: I don't know much about Hextall. If he pushes the organization to think more like the Kings—great team defense, sneaky counter-attack offense—I'll be happy about that.

As I think I said to you on the phone the other day, if I were a GM, I would try to build a team of ten penalty killer type forwards, two wily veteran power play specialist forwards, two defensemen who can competently play on the PP, and four defense-first defensemen.

Tyler: Best hair in the Flyers' organization?

Jake: Peter Laviolette's was by far my favorite. His thinning pattern is one of a kind, truly a situation that calls for something other than a half-slicked side part.

Now, I don't know. Maybe Grossmann. His bristly blonde balding head reminds me of Roald Dahl's Big Friendly Giant.

[gcoj-blog]

Things I Learned from the Sabres' Nov 8 Loss to Anaheim

[I took Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner from Los Angeles to Anaheim for last Friday night's hockey game. The plan was to meet seven Buffalo Sabres fans at Downtown LA's Union Station at 5pm. The train left the platform at 5:15pm, and I was alone, without Sabres fans or my game ticket, and standing in the aisle, as all the seats were taken. My friends borrowed a car, rolled with the rush hour traffic, and arrived just as the first period was ending. I beat them to the arena by about ten minutes, as my train ran into more than an hour's worth of technical difficulties.]

-Portland, Oregon is in love with the Timbers, their Major League Soccer team. A Portland-dwelling Sabres fan, who I met on the train, had flown to LA on Thursday, seen the Kings beat Buffalo that night, was expecting a similar result on Friday, but was pumped to be going to the game anyway. I approved of his dedication and decided that it would be awesome if a couple of places in the US became Soccer Cities.

-If you're about 60 years old, with orange-ish dyed hair, and you're wearing a tight navy blue tee shirt with a Denver Broncos logo and the words "SUNDAY FUNDAY" on the front and the number 18 and the words "SEXY RED" on the back, you are not necessarily a Denver Broncos fan, but you certainly do love / lust after Peyton Manning

-Anaheim is not, as I assumed, made up of only sports arenas, parking lots, and Disneyland. There is also a Hooters.

-There exists at least one Boston Bruins fan who owns a brand new Cam Neely jersey—which, given that Neely retired in 1996, is already totally weird—and has worn it to at least one game in which the Bruins were not playing.

-There also exists at least one red #7 Dwarfs jersey with the name "Grumpy" on the back.

-Nachos in Anaheim, even chili nachos, do not include pickled jalapeño slices.

-Honda, such a prominent Ducks sponsor that Anaheim's rink is called the Honda Center, believes that hockey fans will be more interested in buying Honda cars if Honda, between the second and third periods, stages a promotional game. A few minutes of internet research has revealed that the game might be called The Odyssey Game (unintelligible official rules available here). The game works like this: A Honda Odyssey minivan emerges from the zamboni tunnel, takes a lap around the rink, and parks at one end of the ice. Three fans, presumably chosen somewhat randomly, walk carefully out onto the other end of the ice and face away from the minivan. Three cheerleaders with tassles dangling over their hockey skates hold three briefcases for the contestants to study. Contestant one chooses briefcase three. The MC reveals that she has won a Honda polo shirt. Contestant two chooses briefcase one. The MC reveals that he has won "a chance to win a 2014 Honda Odyssey!" Contestant three "chooses" briefcase two, the only briefcase remaining, and wins a hockey stick. As you can tell, the game is flawed in many ways. The biggest of those flaws, in my opinion, is that the grand prize is "a chance to win a 2014 Honda Odyssey." I am of the opinion that we all, just simply given the state of our world, already have "a chance to win a 2014 Honda Odyssey."

-If I worked for Honda, I would park a used but functional (100k miles maybe) minivan in front of a faraway goal, give three contestants sticks and different colored pucks, tell them to start shooting, and let the first person to score drive the minivan back into the zamboni tunnel and home after the game.

-Whoever drives the remote control blimp in the Honda Center, dropping free waffle sandwich tickets to the fans who scream loudest and wave wildest, is a damn fine remote control blimp driver.

-The Sabres are a bad hockey team, worse, even, than the Flyers. The Ducks beat them last Friday 6-2.

-When the Anaheim Ducks score more than five goals in a home game and win, the local Hooters offers five free chicken wings to every Honda Center ticketholder. Given how disappointing our nachos were, given that we had an hour until our train would leave, and given that there really truly isn't much in the city of Anaheim but parking lots, the Sabres fans and I decided to take Hooters up on its offer. We were not the only fans to do this, however, and a short conversation with three very young and surgically-altered hostesses revealed that our wait would be forty five minutes, too long for us to cash in on the promotion. Before leaving, though, I couldn't resist asking the hostesses one more question. Just inside the Anaheim, California Hooters' main entrance is an enormous navy blue and orange banner that reads "Welcome to Broncos Country!" Why, I asked, are we, right now, here in Anaheim, in Broncos Country? Because, they replied, Hooters Corporate HQ (in Atlanta, Georgia) "sort of randomly" assigns NFL teams to restaurants in locations without clear geographical allegiance.