A while back, @eyetotelescope suggested we address the idea of liking more than one team. Many of you are in the same boat (er, on the same door) at this treacherous time of year, when four-point games rain down, winning streaks become glorious victory marches and slumps are loose bars on a shark cage discovered after you’re already underwater.

Today is the perfect day for this post. I don’t just support two teams, I picked the Penguins and Capitals. Rather, they picked me. Divisional rivals who actively dislike each other, currently a single point apart in the standings – Pens in the playoffs, Caps in a wild card spot. The Caps have beaten the Pens the last I-have-blocked-out how many times. It’s pretty much the worst pair of favorites available.

They play tonight in DC and I will be there, wearing a Pens jersey.

So, for your cheating heart and mine, here is my guide to supporting two (or more) hockey teams.

Rule One: Know your favorite

I like the Capitals. I love the Penguins. Between the two, there is no contest.

More simply: The Capitals are my Horcrux. A piece of my soul is in there – and while it hurts, sometimes they must be destroyed. Tonight, I don’t care if Slapshot hugs me on the concourse or free ice tea and nachos are hand-delivered at intermission by a sweaty, Under Armor-ed Mike Green. None shall pass. Not this night.

Maybe your favorite team was determined by geography, or you inherited a family allegiance. Perhaps you’re riveted by the excitement of trap defense! (Psych – no one is. Explain yourselves, New Jersey.)  When I say I am a Penguins fan:

• Unsuspecting stranger: “Are you from Pittsburgh?”
• Me: “No, I’m from upstate New York.”
• Person, now approaching edge of cliff: “Shouldn’t you like the Rangers?”
• Me: PUSH

Kidding. If a person wants my hockey life story from ’91 to present, they can have it. But it ends like this: Penguins first. Capitals second. Blackhawks third, but I couldn’t maintain this even in a Cup-winning season, so it doesn’t count. Then everyone else, and Flyers/Rangers last. Everybody knows their place.

Rule Two: Own your infidelity

As a Pens fan first, living in the DC area, I must often betray a lovely Caps fan who has unwittingly befriended me.

• Me: “Actually, the Penguins are my favorite team.”
• New friend: “Prepare to die.”

Nowhere does it say you must like only one team. Second (or third, fourth) favorite teams come about in more interesting ways! You move away from home. A player gets traded.  Hell, RNH’s eyebrows are the only things selling tickets in Edmonton these days. I’d love to know how your second-favorite teams snuck into your hearts and set up camp.

My story centers around the 2011 Winter Classic. Not the game – David Steckel should walk into my office right now so I can put my stapler through his face. Rather, the lead up to the game ruined me, in three easy steps:

1. NHL: “Crosby vs. Ovechkin is a thing. See all these TV commercials? We are making fetch happen.”
2. Mr. Pants: “How would you feel about moving to the DC-area?”
3. HBO 24/7: Penguins vs. Capitals.

I never liked the Caps growing up, but since they’d switched out of the Pens conference in ’93, I hadn’t cared. The League’s insistence on this rivalry brought the Caps into my home and my Center Ice feed. I tried to resist. This blog, born September 6, 2010, was originally full of me making fun of Mike Green – and meaning it. Then something happened.

Mike Green’s belt. Four years later, still hilarious.

Here’s my original post about my descent into madness. The more I got to know the Caps, the more I liked them. Then I moved to the DC area. I went to my first Caps game two days later and watching my new “home” team, I couldn’t help hoping they did well. Not that well, but you know. Just a little well. Is that so bad?

I KNOW, OKAY?! But it was too late. This is why you should vaccinate your children.

Fine print: We won’t even knock Taylor Swift for performing in nearly every hockey jersey in the league. If the girl likes hockey, she is cool with us. But support too many teams and it’ll look as if you don’t really like any. [Google images gallery] Now, if Taylor turns up with an encyclopedic hockey mind, we retract this statement and offer her a guest blogger password.

Rule Three: Hold your ground

Firmly establish the hierarchy between your teams. It will be the most important component of your fandom. Favorites first, always. Even if it means Caps fans, who were your friends ten minutes ago, are taking this picture of you when the Pens go down 4-1:

Perhaps your teams are in different divisions or conferences (the relief!). But they will eventually play each other. If you’re the two conference type, your greatest dream and worst nightmare could come true at the same time: your teams play each other in the Final. Arrive unprepared and you’ll be like Bella, trapped in the freezing cold and of course you have to cuddle with the shirtless werewolf or die, while the vampire is right outside listening to a pervy inner monologue. It’s your fault for not having a jacket.

Don’t look so comfortable.

This gets tough in tight playoff races, like the Pens and Caps have now, when you kind of have to root for Team #2 to lose against everyone. They’re too close to Team #1, or in front of them, and basically ruining everything. Horcruxes, people. We never said it would be easy.

Rule Four: Have a sense of humor

I have been chirped for my Crosby jersey at games in LA, San Jose, Anaheim, Atlanta (remember that experiment?), New York (Rangers) and, of course, DC.  I just laugh.  Luckily, most hockey fans are awesome and even if they hate Sid and the Pens, they’re nice to me. Maybe it’s because I’m a girl, but I prefer to think it’s because I’ve obeyed rules 1-3 and I know my stuff. And I’m just waiting for this moment:

• Announcer: “Penguins goal by Sidney Crosby. His 20th of the season.”
• Caps crowd: “Who cares?”
• Me: “I do. I care.”

But I won’t lie – I hope Mike Green scores one. After the Pens score ten.

Rule Five: It’s your party

How can you like two teams?! Teams that hate each other? How can you be at odds with the fundamental tenet of sports? Obviously you are an idiot/bandwagoner/in it for the hot guys/not a real fan.  That argument can (and will) be used against you for a litany of imagined offenses no matter who you root for. We say do what you want. Love who you love. Stay weird.

Finally, if you’re a one-team kind of person, know this: I envy you. I have a lot of love to give, which leaves a lot of open wounds when my teams don’t love me back.  I trade slightly better odds of winning for twice the angst come spring and playoffs. Told you I was bad at math.

‘Cause, baby, now we got bad blood

Now, I could watch because I hate the Flyers. They always do just what I thought they would do. (Cue Zac Rinaldo.) But even being proven right gets old and I think I’m over it. The games are all reruns. My ragetank is full. What pours in now just overflows and runs onto the ground, a sad waste rather than a useful resource. I used to backhandedly relish every cheap shot and dirty hit by the Flyers, because they were always writing themselves as villains. Now I worry the Pens are one play, one lost cool, away from becoming that which I have always loved to hate.

Now we got problems

I could watch because rivalries generate high-stakes, hate-laced hockey simmering with the potential for glory and storylines that live in a fandom’s heart forever. The Penguins/Flyers are not that, not in a long time. Instead of reading like chapters in a book, their box scores read like rap sheets to be held against players in court.

And I don’t think we can solve them

A lot of people in our Twitter feed who were not watching said, “Sounds like I’m missing a good game!” They missed a wild one, for sure, but not good.  If you’ve ever been to Medieval Times and seen the jousting knights miss each other completely, only to “fall” theatrically off their horses as required by the script and rush into mock-battle, that’s what last night’s game looked like. Less mock in the battle, of course. But it was predictable, and even laughable at times.

You made a really deep cut

My interest might hold if the Penguins ever won, or if they were playing better hockey of late. Yet they can always be counted on to come apart against Philly. I used to do the same. It used to bother me that we weren’t winning games 10-0 based simply on moral superiority. But we play our worst against them, and they play their worst against us (which is the same as their best, because Flyers). It’s not fun. If the Pens had won in OT last night, instead of taking extraordinarily timed back-to-back penalties, I would have enjoyed a short revenge. But it wears off quickly now, harkening back to the awful 2012 playoff series that made me ashamed of hockey in general. (Obligatory reminder that I am not over James Neal’s behavior in that series and I never will be. Every time I despise a Flyer, my conscience rightly whispers, “Hypocrite.”)

And, baby, now we got bad blood.

I realized last night: I want to hate the Flyers the way I used to, when the games were at least a little about hockey and not just about bloodlust. When being right felt smug instead of sickening, and what happened on the scoreboard meant as much as what happened on the ice. Now, regardless of the outcome, I just feel dirty. My fight for this fight is worn out.

If only the Penguins felt the same, maybe they could win one.

Does this expression look familiar?

I’m obviously not alone.  You guys know the love/hate – maybe you don’t feel it the way I do.  Maybe you’re more forgiving.  Many of you are not.  I get really, foolishly, heart-breakingly mad about this stuff [Exhibit A | Exhibit B – don’t read them though, they hurt].  I finally bought a James Neal shirt in Pittsburgh, as if spending $32 is some kind of bargain with the universe.

I wish it didn’t.

So I was happy reading this interview by Dejan Kovacevic in which James addresses the issues of his dirty play and poor decision-making like an adult. Alison vetted the article first (breaking our shared rule about never reading Pittsburgh hockey media):

Kovacevic: Neal sees playoffs as ‘second chance’

Of course saying something doesn’t mean James will do it, but it’s a place to start.  Acknowledging the impact his actions have on the team and looking at guys who have won it all are important steps.  Now we need him to stay on the ice as flashy goal-scoring James Neal and not, as someone on Twitter so perfectly called him, “Rabies Neal.”

This James, please:

So we can get to this James:

I want one less thing to worry about starting April 16 every game. I want to defend the evolution of a skilled player who rises above past mistakes, not be relegated to blograge and drowning my emotions in a tub of Skittles.

Also I really want the damned Cup.

Serious-voice (sick voice) James appeared on the Avs intermission last night, sounding like Bruce Wayne.  I still don’t love the sleeve tattoo but the burgeoning gingerbeard gives me dreams of wrist shots and goals from the top of the faceoff circle and victory well into the post-season.  I am here, James, at this second – third – chance and counting on you to hold it together.  Let the only people losing their minds in these playoffs be on my side of the glass.

With Skittles.

We spent a staggering about of energy, effort and time (usually at work) on WUYS this year but it’s really nothing without you guys.  Chuck and I started this blog to make each other laugh because we were doing it over gchat all day anyway.  We had no idea there were so many people like us out there.

By popular demand, and with our thanks…

WUYS’ MOST POPULAR POSTS OF 2013

10) Awkward Family Photos (January 17) – Was there a single moment this year more glorious than when the lockout ended?  I woke up early for a trip, checked my phone and screamed.  Everything we loved was returning and it would look so… special.  From best (Stamkos) to worst (Mike Green) to this guy, the 2013 roster photos brought hockey back with a bang.

9) Foxy Friday: Erik Gudbranson (February 15) – Possibly helped by being chosen Top Foxy Friday of 2013 last week, this picspam post made the year’s Top 10 overall.  Just like Erik Gudbranson is a 10.  Maybe an 11.  What’s that in Celsius?

8) Foxy Friday: Rump Shaker (January 4) – From the dark days of the lockout, a Foxy Friday that is basically about hockey player’s fantastic backsides.  You guys are gross.  Wait, who wrote this?

7) That’s a Little Close (October 3) – Cabbie asks the real questions, like how to make Sidney Crosby as uncomfortable as possible.  “Crosby Selfie” immediately went to the top of my bucket list.  Bonus close-up inspection of James Neal’s new sleeve tattoo, which is #2 on that bucket list.

6) Team Canada – Casting Call (August 26) – The only way to keep track of all the hopefuls at Team Canada Olympic Camp was to categorize them a la ‘The Bachelorette.’  Then stock up on roses and set every date near a hot tub.

5) Loosen Up My Buttons (March 13) – Jonathan Toews, Part Time Model, in a locker room with his shirt half-open.  This was perhaps the day Captain Serious became Captain Lookout, I Am Fun Now.

4) Birthday Boy: Tyler Seguin (January 31) – Tattoos, puppies and the day everyone’s underage boyfriend turned 21.  Imagine the party and lock up your daughters.

3) Foxy Friday: Adam McQuaid (February 22) – Whatreally?  Really.  Proof that hockey hair and a spectacular resistance running .gif transcend all.

2) Cosmo Ain’t Got Nothin’… (January 10) – Twice last year Cosmopolitan insisted on making their own lists of best looking hockey players, then suggested people like Ryan Suter over Zach Parise and Phil Kessel over Joffrey Lupul.  We – and many of you – suggested they leave the hard work to the experts.

1) Look at You (April 8) – Eeeeking out the top spot on this list (and in my heart!) is the day we madly posted this first photo of Sidney Crosby post-jaw break.  I got a lovely note from the girl in the photo (Candace) about how Sid is a great person.  Yes, the #1 post of the year proved yet again that I am always right.

So here’s to a new year of Best-Ofs, and the true best part of this blog: you.

To be in the front row for the Capitals @ Islanders game at Nassau Coliseum!  I always sit at the glass for warm-ups but it was my first time being so close the entire game (and probably my last, unless Chuck marries Tyler & Marshall).  I’ve always wondered what it was like down there, so here are my thoughts from the good seats.

1. The ticket was $50.  If you’re traveling or live near a team that struggles with attendance, check StubHub.  The three nice Canadians behind me also bought their tickets 24 hours out for $50 each and we had a bargain basement blast.

Actual 1st row.

2.   The front row is awesome.  I was practically on the bench, right next to  backup goalie Kevin Poulin.  I was the first person in the arena who was not an Islander.  At any moment, Doug Weight might have yelled at me.  It was very cool to hear them talking, calling line changes, making plays.  Watching up-ice rushes at speed, with bodies in every lane and shots caroming everywhere, gave even me a new appreciation for how players see the ice.

3. At the same time, it’s also not that awesome.  In Nassau Coliseum, the bench is on a riser.  The front row is not and it’s an extra foot back from the boards.  That’s why I look like a Hobbit in this picture and Poulin looks like Gandalf.

10 year old girl next to me is kneeling on her chair.

4. It’s extraordinarily cold down there.  In the much-maligned Coliseum, insulation was not a priority. Other buildings are less frigid, but after 2 hours cold is cold.  I thought about asking Poulin for his sweater, since he clearly wasn’t going anywhere.

5. The biggest, most obvious truth about the front row is you can’t see.  Even if everyone is still and you stand up, this is it:

Or you could slide forward and awkwardly get in everyone’s face like a creeper.

But in motion, half the ice is blocked and you watch on the Jumbotron overhead.  So you trade half the game on TV for the other half up this close:

And being that close is, er, distracting.  Except during TV timeouts where it’s pretty much watching beads of sweat roll down John Tavares’ face while the guys in your section holler pickup lines at the Ice Girls through the glass.

Hockey right in front of me… and I’m looking at the bench.

Obviously knowing I would be so close (and not feeling well), JT shaved off his mustache one day before the end of Movember.  He is the only player I’ve ever seen whose hair sticks out the top of his helmet.

I didn’t have any Caps gear with me, and ended up not cheering much at all for fear of being sick again.  Mostly I wallowed in my cold, amazing seat and hoped the Caps would win while at the same time feeling bad for the Islanders.  Tavares had about 8 amazing scoring chances and his frustration was palpable.  A few rows back, a guy in a Caps jersey and Red Wings hat (what?) yelled, “MIKE GREEN, YOU’RE NOT GOOD!” every time Mike touched the puck.  If I need to throw up again, I was headed right for him.

The game was exciting.  The Isles pulled ahead 2-1 with under 2 mins to play, then Nicky B scored a shorthanded goal at 19:11.  Everyone got a point before Ovi brought home the +1 in overtime.  I may have jumped out of my child-size seat.

In the end, if I never sit that close again it’s okay.  I actually prefer the cheap seats, up high where I can see the entire ice and yell inappropriate things with no chance of the person I’m yelling at actually hearing me.  Still if you get the chance, it’s well worth it to experience hockey in a completely different way.

Side Note: A Farewell to Barns

Much of my front row experience was exclusive to the Nassau Coliseum.  We know it’s the most hated arena in the League and the Islanders are moving out in 2015.  The cramped single concourse layout with sloped ceilings, terrible bathroom lines and a damned door to the outside cold every 10 feet makes it the arena equivalent of an Atari.  But I must say the Coliseum has a certain old-time hockey charm.   Like an aged college arena, it feels nostalgic.  The fans were as decked out and lively as any place I’ve been.  I saw my first ever NHL game at the Coliseum back in 199-something, and a little piece of my hockey youth will be laid to rest when they lock these doors.  I was glad to go back one more time.

Last night, Tyler Seguin and Rich Peverley both scored in the shootout to lift the Stars over the Bruins.  Perhaps it is a little poetic justice for those two guys who had to endure the embarrassing and juvenile booing and chants each time they touched the puck.

Booing?  Really?  Why is that even necessary? I loveloveLOVE the Bruins but sometimes their fans are just exceptionally ridculous.

In case you’ve forgotten, Seguin and Peverely didn’t ASK to be traded from Boston.  Their departure from Boston was a product of salary caps and business strategies.

Now, I don’t pretend that Seguin is some perfect, sacrosanct hockey player.  He made personal and professional mistakes that didn’t help his cause and contributed to the ease of his departure, but Peverely – Really, people?  What did Rich Peverley ever do to deserve your ire?

For all those people who vilified them last night, how quickly you have forgotten these two were are part of the team that brought the Stanley Cup to Boston for the first time in almost 40 years.  How quickly you have forgotten that #19 sweater that you so eagerly purchased proudly declaring your status as a Seguinista.

Well last night’s shootout was just for you then.  You know that all your booing and chanting and general turpitude just made Seguin and Peverely even more determined to shut you up.  And they did.  So good on ya. WTG.

Now they hate us and never want to come back here and it is all your fault.

Side Note: World Series champ Mike Napoli was at the game.  His beard, people.  It is glorious. I’m in love with him it him.

Makes me:

And people who don’t.  The first type understands what this means, even if they prefer a different jersey.

They understand how I can love someone:

While at the same time wishing to crush their lifelong hopes and dreams.

They know what it’s like to be this guy:

And dream of being these people every damned summer.

They’re the ones (Americans) who gasped upon noticing this clip in the new Sports Center commercial:

They love sassy interns:

And are the kind of people responsible for this early birthday present designed specifically for me:

They know why this picture of Matt Niskanen under a tree holding what I first thought was a turtle set me off laughing for half an hour.

These people understand that today (until 6:59 PM ET), we are all one.  We’re thrilled to have a whole season in front of us in which all of our favorite teams all obviously win the Cup.  Love your fellow hockey fan right now.

Because when the clock strikes 7 PM:

Some people don’t get it: the love, the fear, the four-letter words and wearing the same outfit, how a fight can change a game or a shift can make 45 seconds seem endless, the mullets and missing teeth.  I can’t hold that against them.  Today I simply tell anyone who isn’t a hockey person:

To all you hockey people, we’re very glad to know you.  Now, stop checking out cute boys on other teams, wondering if you’d look better in another color scheme and cursing your management for doing everything wrong.  Remember every cheap shot and blown call from last year, how you felt when it finally started and how you felt when it ended way too soon.

It’s time to focus.  Or at least try.

Damnit, Oilers.

Happy 2013-2014 NHL Hockey Season, everyone!

All franchises except the Bruins.

Perhaps they were and I just wasn’t looking hard enough, but at least that is the way that it seemed to me.  Other NHL franchises were using the immence power of the internet and social media and making their fans, new and old alike, fall butt-crazy in love with them.

To me it just seemed that the Bruins’ media relations/marketing/promotions departments didn’t get “it”.  And by “it”, I mean their fans’ deep desire and thirst to know the players on a level beyond what happened on the ice.  We are a city obsessed with sports and championships and social media, but there was something missing.

We all know that know that hockey players are some of the most down-to-earth, goofy, and humble athletes on the planet.  But the casual fan or the person who is just making their tentative steps in to the world of hockey fandom might not.  When you’re the #4 sport in the US and attempting to recover from a soul-crushing lockout, you need one thing – You need people to fall in love with you.

They only way to get someone to fall in love with you is to show them who you are – who you truly are.  Strip away the gloss and bring it down to what matters in this sport.  Grit. Determination. Passion. Personality.  That is how you are going to get people to love you.

Perhaps that is about to change.

On September 9th, NESN (aka New England Sports Network) will premiere a 13 episode series called “Behind the B”, giving fans a look into the life and times of the Stanley Cup Champs.  The program is narrated by Boston guy & hockey fan Denis Leary.

This is the first time ever that the team is going to be doing this and I’m hoping that this is going to be exactly what I’ve been waiting for.

Click on image to watch trailer

My DVR is set.  And you know can expect some posts about the episodes on this blog.  Particularly about ,Adam McQuaid’s hair, Peter Chiarelli’s hockey genius, and Patrice Bergeron’s face.

Because it is perfect. Even Nash can’t help but stare.

For those of you not in the New England area, I really do hope you get a chance to see it somehow.

You might not love the Bruins, but I suspect that you might like them a little more when you get a chance to know them.

Plus they got Iggy now, so there’s that…

Adorbs.

First, his game tying and then game winning OT goal verses Toronto in Round 1 and now this.

While credit goes to Bergeron for scoring the goal, mad props go to Jaromir Jagr for making it all possible.  His play on Evgeni Malkin along the boards makes that goal possible.

Forget the fact that Jagr is practically pre-historic in hockey years – he is still got it. Oh and Brad Marchand’s pass wasn’t so bad either.

Gregory Campbell is wicked hahd corah.  He blocked a Malkin shot and remained on the ice as the Penguins continued to pressure on the power play.

We all know Campbell is one bad mamma jamma, but this was just amazing.

At first I was all “Why is he limping to the side like his leg was broken? This ain’t no time for the Humpty Dance!”

Well, turns out the Campbell’s leg was, in fact, broken.  Just to reiterate – Campbell played that whole time WITH A BROKEN LEG! I will cut anyone who says that hockey players aren’t the toughest athletes out there.

Campbell is done for the remainder of the playoffs and the Bruins will miss his physicality and depth. However, I have a feeling that his steely determination and self-sacrifice will serve to be an inspiration for his teammates as they prepare for Game 4 and the potential sweep.

David Krejci’s campaign for the Conn Smythe continues.  He is out there shaking hands and kissing babies…and getting all the points. He scored his 9th goal of the playoff and remains as the league’s #1 point-getter this post season with 21 points.

Penguins did play their best game of the series last night…but the Bruins were just a little bit better.

Vokoun recovered well from his first two performances and was excellent in net…but Tuukaa was better.

Although the series is now at 3-0 Bruins, this series, and the playoffs in general, have been anything but easy for the Bruins. Just look at Bergeron’s face.

His bruised and battered visage is a testament to how hard the Bruins have been working, not only in this series but the entire playoffs.

After their Game 7 victory over the Leafs, the Bs seemed to have flipped a switch and reverted to the way they played in their 2011 run to the Stanley Cup.  They are mucking and grinding and playing with a grit and grime that has been their calling card. It might not always be pretty and the goals might not make it to the Top 10 on NHL Network, but they are getting it done when it counts the most.  They are a team that has committed themselves to leave it all out there on the ice, each and every time.

Game 4 is Friday in Boston and the Bruins will have the chance to close out the series with a sweep of the Pens.  If you had told me at the beginning of the playoffs that this is where we’d be right now, I would have called you crazy.

Say what now?

We both would have. The Pens regular season domination was enough to make anyone believe that their road to the Stanley Cup Finals was all but assured.

But the NHL Playoffs are a fickle thing.  They can dismantle contenders with incredible ease.  Or make champions out of underdogs.

The 2013 season has not been kind to all those we love. Some teams, after these grueling months, could use a break, a tan and another go at it next year.  I’m not saying quit, of course.  Feel free to ruin someone’s playoff hopes on your way out the door! (I’m looking at you, Carolina, vs. NYR.)  You could score 3 goals, Stamkos, and maybe win yourself at least half a trophy!

Here’s to the teams we love, who still lost.  See you soon, boys.

Carolina Hurricanes

There is nothing more depressing than sad Intern Jeff Skinner.  He was so ready for this season – he grew his hair out, a girl sat on his lap, he was guaranteed more Staal-sposure.  Now he’s moping around the office, dragging his blue blankie and eating all the Whatchamacallits.

After a hot start, the Canes have lost… and lost and lost, including 10 of 13 games in April.  Cam Ward has been out so long he’s a myth, like Encino Man.  Dejected Staals are everywhere and I feel for the Hurricanes fans who had every right to expect a big, shiny, blond year out of their team.  At least they have tailgating.

Get these boys a summer, get Jiri Tlusty for my fantasy team and no, I still don’t like Alex Semin.  So there.  Just look at the size of Jordan’s skull in relation to Eric’s and pray that when you have kids, they are not boys.

More on the Canes season from the Raleigh News Observer.

Tampa Bay Lightning

If two hockey players leave the bench at the same time, and one is 23 and the other is 37, how many daisies does the mailman have when he reaches the train station?

The Bolts look at this and say: What do we have to do?!

You know I’m desperate when I start doing math:

• The Lightning offense is 3rd in the NHL, scoring 3.09 goals per game.
• The Lightning defense is 26th in the NHL, giving up 3.07 goals per game.
• A .02 goal differential will get you 2nd to last in your conference.

Marty St. Louis has 1.22 points-per-game this season.  That’s second best in his career, behind the 1.24 he notched in ’06-’07… when he was 31.  Stamkos has a career-high 1.20 points per game right now.  They account for 28% of the entire team’s points.  I’m tried of watching the epic performances of two of my favorite players go to waste.

More on the Lightning season, from The Tampa Tribune.

Edmonton Oilers

#TeamSad.  So much for my eternal optimism.  No number of gap-toothed smiles, puppy shelter visits, hilarious Cabbie videos or underage boyfriends is getting the Oilers into the playoffs this year.  We really tried though, with the collective power of our hoping.  Were we doing it wrong?

Did we not have enough matching golf outfits?  Or magic tricks?  It’s because Alison and Amanda never got their white board out to ask Schultz to the prom, isn’t it?

With absolute talent comes absolute frustration – and I could barely stay awake for an Edmonton game.  Now Molly Ringwald is having shoulder surgery.  Of all the teams not making the playoffs, I’ll miss the Oilers the most.

More on the Oilers season from Edmonton Journal.

Colorado Avalanche

When I first moved to the West Coast, I watched a LOT of Avs hockey.  They were on TV in my new time zone and hey, they won the Cup!  How else would Alex Tanguay be my lobster?  This year I haven’t watched more than 20 minutes of an Avs game, but it can’t look any worse on paper.

This is the 5th of 7 years the former Colorado powerhouse will not make the playoffs.  They rank 27th in attendance (85.2%), above just NYI, Phoenix and Columbus.  Pre-season expectations were not high, but last in the West?  Only 15 wins on the year?  They’re not gonna sell tickets off Landeskog’s Superman smile alone… at least not to anyone but us.

More on the Avs’ season from the Denver Post.

We will miss these teams and players, and hope they have better luck next season.  Also, consider this an open invitation to watch the playoffs from the WUYS office.  If Intern Jeff Skinner ‘s emotional eating leaves us any food.

Pants note: Most of these stats are from Monday, I didn’t get to post in time.

It’s been weird here in my city.

Every year, Marathon Monday has been truly one of my favorite days in my hometown.  There was a tradition.

Wake up early (on my day off).  Take the Red Line to Park Street Station.   Contemplate taking the Green Line to Fenway Park.  See massive crowds of people trying to get on the Green Line.  Decide against it. Walk 40 minutes down the Commonwealth Avenue Mall to Fenway Park.  Watch some baseball. Have some beers. Eat a Fenway Frank (or 2).  Watch the marathon runners as they complete their grueling 26.2 miles. Go home, happy, content, with the memories of yet another awesome Marathon Monday.

When we were in college, Pants and I often shared this tradition.   It  included a “Marathon Marathon” Pub Crawl down Boylston Street the Sunday before the race, complete with t-shirts and general shenanigans and tom-foolery.

This year, much of my tradition remained the same…with the exception of the ending.

Instead of coming home happy, content, with great memories, I went home scared and unsettled, my eyes constantly on the verge of tears.

For reasons yet unknown, someone chose to shatter this amazing day in my city with two unspeakable acts of violence.

They chose to attack innocent men, women, children who were simply out enjoying a Boston tradition.  They were there to cheer on their friends, family, and total strangers who had come from all over the world to participate in this most storied sporting event.

As the days have passed, the outpouring of love for my city has been amazing, especially from the hockey community and from you, our readers.

Without a doubt, hockey players (especially the Bruins) are the most humble athletes and the most ensconced in the community.  I know that they feel our pain just as deeply and as acutely.  They live in our neighborhoods, eat in our restaurants, drink at our bars, and get involved in the city’s charitable organizations.   Although they might not be from Boston or even from the United States, they are ALL Bostonians.

Yesterday’s game vs the Sabres was a welcome respite from the relentless media coverage and a way to take my mind off of everything.

In the end, the Bruins secured a playoff spot despite the shoot-out loss, but what the game really represented was a way for our community to come together and find strength in one another through this sport that we all love.

For us, hockey is a part of who we are, not only as bloggers but as people.

And it will help us all heal.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”  

~ Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Los Angeles Kings will FINALLY get to raise their Stanley Cup banner tonight and WUYS West Coast Correspondent, Aaron is hella excited about it.

Check out his post below…

So here we stand, about to embark on a far too short, forty-eight game NHL season.

Man, it sucks to get short-shrifted on our hockey this year, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that raising a certain piece of synthetic fabric to the rafters of Staples Center wasn’t going to soften the blow.

On Saturday, January 19^th at 12 p.m. on the “best” coast (sorry Chuck & Pants), the Los Angeles Kings will raise their first “Stanley Cup Champions” banner in their forty-four year franchise’s history. Worth. Every. Agonizing. Moment.

I’ve seen it all as a Kings fan.

And having witnessed the good, bad, and the oh-so-very ugly of being a Kings fan over the last twenty-five years, it’ll all be worth it, watching that banner get raised, tears streaming down my face like a toddler with a skinned knee.

That’s okay though, I will sob proudly, because this isn’t a moment you get to experience very often.

It’s worth noting that the Kings organization chose not to mount the banner on the wall of the Staples Center, because, well, a certain NBA team was kind of hogging it.

So instead, the banner will be the first to actually hang from the rafters of Staples, which symbolizes more than a lack of real estate on the wall.

It symbolizes that Tim Lieweke and the Kings organization want to leave plenty of room for future banners. Lieweke and GM Dean Lombardi built this team from the ground up with the hope of not winning one Stanley Cup, but creating a dynasty.

Seems like a smooth transition into the Kings chances of repeating. Now, it’s no secret there hasn’t been a team to repeat as Stanley Cup champions for fifteen years [1998 Detroit Red Wings.] Bottom line, it’s hard as hell to repeat.

But, and at the risk of sounding like a total “homer,” I think the Kings are poised to be the first team break the fifteen year drought.

Everyone is quick to point out the infamous Stanley Cup hangover – where the team that won the Cup struggles the following season do to an exhausting schedule of parading the Cup around all summer all the while trying to recover from injuries sustained during the elongated playoff run.

Well, considering the Kings have had an extra few months to recuperate, it’s like they ordered Grey Goose instead of the well crap and will wake up on opening day with no headache or vomiting, ready for the puck to drop.

The Kings are also the first team in recent memory to bring back their entire Stanley Cup winning roster.

Lucky for the Kings, there were no aging veterans, no pending free agents looking to get overpaid, and no fat to trim.

Being able to maintain that same chemistry and not having to learn to gel with new teammates is huge advantage for a team looking to repeat as Cup champs.

I’m not calling my shot, just saying that the Kings have a better shot than teams in recent past.

Finally, as the various sports news outlets put out their preseason team rankings, TSN has the Kings ranked at number ten.

My initial feeling upon reading that was blasphemy.

After all, how could you possibly rank nine teams above the Stanley Cup winners?

After I stopped my combination of yelling and crying however, I realized that this is right where the Kings want to be.

Flying under the radar, no expectations, doing just well enough to hang around.

The Kings are basically the “According to Jim” of the regular season.

But without sucking.

Let’s do it again, boys.

GO KINGS GO!

written by Aaron Vaccaro, What’s Up Ya Sieve’s West Coast Correspondent

“Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.”― John F. Kennedy

“When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines upon you.” ― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“Three months ago, if you asked me, I would have told you that if you really loved someone, you’d let them go. But now I look at you, and I dreamed about Maggie, and I see that I’ve been wrong. If you really love someone, Allie, I think you have to take them back.”

“A broken friendship that is mended through forgiveness can be even stronger than it once was.”

“Jane, I never meant to wound you thus…Will you ever forgive me?” Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre