I am so cranky!  First I couldn’t wait for pre-season and now I’m already tired of it.  Split-squad games, pretending I care who is reassigned… boring.  The sound of skates on ice is lovely, but I’m ready for stuff to count.  In anticipation of that, today’s news items are things I think will actually matter come October 7:

– Islanders and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Hockey Season: Over before it begins?  The Isles haven’t won a playoff series since 1992 (when Crosby was 4 years old) and recently got very excited about Official Team Cupcakes.  Yes really.  So you could argue that news of top defensemen Mark Streit and Kyle Okposo both out for months doesn’t really matter.  But we at WUYS care because Rick DiPietro is our BU pal and we hate to see him confined to the Blair Witch house basement Nassau Coliseum.  Since Streit and Okposo have injuries to opposing shoulders, we suggest they find a Hamptons plastic surgeon to combine their working parts into a single defenseman, so at least someone shows up every night to stand in front of Ricky.

– Kovalchuk Scores a Goal: And the Devils win 3-2 over Philly.  $100 million (+$3 million fine) looking well spent?

– Brian Gionta is named captain of the Canadiens: Giving us all plenty of rude things to yell at the TV.  Will he do well?  The eighth-seeded Habs downed Washington and Pittsburgh in a pretty epic playoff run last year, so Gionta has both pressure and momentum coming into this season.  Still, at 5′ 7″ tall (measured by the Tom Cruise tape) both Chuck and I could put BG in our pockets.  I’d like to see him tell Hal Gill what to do.

– I’m with the DJ: You can’t afford Winter Classic tickets, even if there were tickets to buy.  You can enter for the chance to win the right to pay $300 a ticket, or buy the Penguins Ultimate Fan Package – tix to the Classic and the first home game at Consol Energy Center for $1500.  Let me tell you what $1500 would have to include… okay, I won’t.  I don’t need to.

In totally unimportant news, I got one Sedin and one Staal on my fantasy hockey team, As Good as it Getzlaf (I did not get Ryan Getzlaf).  I’ll spend all season trying to remember which ones.  I had to drop Marc Savard (he hit his head and wants to spend more time with Chuck, not necessarily in that order), but I did get myself Alex Tanguay out of sheer faith.  Luongo and Lundqvist in goal… I’m looking pretty good, I think.  Anyone else playing?

Tags: Brian Gionta, fantasy hockey, Ilya Kovalchuck, Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders, Winter Classic