CrashingTheGoalie

by desertdawg

Superstition comes from not understanding causality. You happen to be pointing the remote control at the dog and the Canucks score. So the dog is now chained to the couch with an infrared dot on his ass for the rest of the season. Or at least until the opposition scores and then Rex is let off the hook.

Hockey players are notoriously superstitious, particularly about their sticks. So Willie Mitchell has one of the longest sticks in the league and Kyle Wellwood one of the shortest. But superstition starts to enter the equation in the preparation of the stick before the game. How many goals in this one? How many stick-checks left in that one?

Fans take the same approach to winning and losing. Because it’s really beyond our control (unless of course, it’s all about you!) we participate in the process by jumping through the imaginary hoops that we think are involved in winning.

For the players, the preparation is far, far different. When reporters talk about the preparation that Roberto Luongo involves himself with before a game, I suspect we’re talking about something far different than the order he puts his pads on. To a large degree, the prep work is largely mental. The kind of work that allows you to focus your mental energies on getting ready for that particular game. And that can be anything from visualization, to reviewing the video book on tonight’s opponent.

On the ice, it becomes a little simpler. Hard work trumps just about everything else. If you outwork your opponent, particularly in their barn, then you’ll win more often than not.

Minnesota has a reputation of being one of the hardest working teams in the league…but not in the first period. Outside of an early PP, that was kept to the outside by the Canuck PK, the Minney effort was minimal. Conventional wisdom dictates that the second game of back-to-backs, the tired team plays a low-energy first period.

Not tonight.

The Wild were anything but, as the Canucks, outskated, outshot and plainly outworked this team from Winterland. We were rewarded with a Bieksa PP goal, but the score is not important yet. We protected the kid in goal. We supported each other. We showed no respect to genetic miscreants like Boogaard.

I’m almost disappointed tonight’s feed is from Sportsnet. As much as I love Shorty and the Garrett, the Minney announcers are the most un-professional, homers on the mic anywhere and…

Damn, they’re fun to listen to when Minney is losing.

One correction on the Sportsnet Broadcast though, the Minney fans aren’t booing the lack of production at the end of the first period. And they aren’t recognizing the aforementioned Boooooooogaard. They are simply voicing their displeasure every time Matty Ohlund touches the puck. Mathias Ohlund, the man who took the most worthwhile five game suspension in Canuck history for slashing that head hunting puke Miko Koivu.

Did I say the Minney announcers were homers?

The second period starts off with one of those wincing moments when Ohlund has two chances to clear but doesn’t and the noted pukester, Miko Koivu, makes us pay. We’ve seen this act before. We massively outshoot a team in the first period but we only come out with a one to nothing lead. They score quickly in the second, often times, it’s the first of seven unanswered goals and our early jump is in the wind.

But curiously, after Minney scores, it’s like, “Well, that’s over with, let’s relax and wait for the win.”

The Canucks don’t storm back, but they don’t panic either. Just a patient, lunch-bucket kind of game.

How was your day? Oh, just doin’ my job, how about you?
Yeah, pretty much the same. Just given’er you know…

Until Jaffrey changes the complexion with a shot that we used to call, when we were in about grade four, “raising the puck.” [Can you raise the puck? Of course, can you?] So Jaffrey raises the puck and we are up two to nothing.

The rest of the period goes to the Canucks. We are the ones pressing. The only time the Wild press is when we are over-thinking things. The worst offenders here are Ohlund and Bieksa. It’s the curse of the guys who are a little creative. Guys like Mitchell, well, ahh hell, just clear the puck.

Make the safe play.

And that describes the third period. The Canucks know that the Wild can be had this night, so they make the safe play, time after time. We need to impress no one. This isn’t our first date at the junior prom. We are a team that has lost four straight, but is still playing for first place in the NW Division!

Yeowwwww!

And the boys don’t let us down tonight. We outwork, out hustle and outlast the Wild as Corey Schneider skates away with his first NHL victory.

The Dawg’s Three Stars:
1) Corey Schneider: Like I said, his first NHL victory, two to one in their barn.
2) Willi Mitchell: A thorn in the Wild side all night.
3) Miko Koivu: a sour taste in my mouth, but the kid can play.

Unsung Hero: Jason Jaffrey, scored the winner and took on Burns in a momentum shifting fight in the third.
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