Ferrablog

Great win by the Lightning today. I was going to write up the usual recap, but found this far better one from someone calling himself "Jibber McJabber" on Usenet:

Pre-Game:

ABC showed Hogan warming up the crowd. They didn't show it but the Lightning also had Koko B. Ware and Mitsuharu Misawa firing those T-Shirt shooting bazooka deals too.

Melrose predicted Flyers to win series? Oh yeah? Well I got a prediction for you pretty boy, I predict people will continue to mistake your haircut for a mullet, despite the fact that it's just uniformly long hair pulled tight into a ponytail. BOOYAH!
First Period:

I missed most of the first period because I was still laughing about Esche having a picture of Kid Rock on his mask. I mean honestly. For a second I thought we'd been transported back to 1998 and I started panicking because the Lightning really sucked back then. Luckily it turns out Esche is just a giant tool.

Did Cechmanek like Creed or something ... because his GAA was fantastic and dumping him for a guy who essentially has a Kid Rock tattoo ON HIS FACE ...well, that's pretty sad. Khabby on the other hand has, um, Dylan, Lennon, um, Thom Yorke, and, errr, Talib Kweli on his mask.

Lightning played one nice shift to start the game, as if to say "we're not rusty," then proceeded to play like shit for a period and half because of rust. Touche!

Second Period:

Lightning usually play a solid second period and this was an exception ...aside from the whole scoring more goals deal of course. Well, I suppose you have to win despite playing poorly to win a Stanley Cup and the Lightning sure gave 100% in the playing like shit department. Thankfully they started to wake up and took over the game ... in the sense of playing with a lead, only allowing shots from the boards and just killing time. Got the "non-superstar" scoring deal too ... well aside from Richards. He's a superstar. I guess Andreychuk is a superstar too considering he has so many PP goals and will go to the HOF. Dingman isn't though. So we got the one goal from Dingman every team needs to win a Cup. Little Known NHL Fact: No team has ever won a Stanley Cup without Dingman scoring a goal in their playoff run. Look it up.

I like that Timander -- Flyers should play him more.

Third Period:

Ah to hell with the period-by-period thing. The point is I like this victory. They won but played badly enough to want to come out better in the next game. Had the same kind of deal there with a "bad win" against the Habs in the Montreal series and Hab fans were all "well they just got some lucky bounces, in the next game we can beat them physically and convert on our chances and presto we ... what's that you say? ... we got swept 4-0? ... ah je suis un fromage mangeant le singe de reddition!"

Wait, did I just have the Hab fan say he is some cheese eating a monkey? Lousy Alta Vista translating site. And lousy high school French not teaching me how to write Simpsons quotes.

ABC really screwed up in their coverage. They briefly showed the last playoff meeting between the Flyers and Lightning but failed to show any footage of the FAR more relevant NFC Championship game. In fact, rather than begging the audience to watch the Flames-Sharks series (wow did they sound desperate) they could have shown Barber majestically running down the field to ice the game. Really terrible journalism -- I don't think they mentioned Joe Jurevicius once during the entire hockey game! No wonder Canadians make fun of Americans not understanding the game.

I'm looking at the box score and we actually won faceoffs 35-28. That can't be right. Did they have like ten faceoffs with just Lightning players after the Flyers had already left?

I also feel like we won the physical side, or at least it came out even. St. Louis dumping Primeau was pretty sweet -- announcers were quick to "defend" Primeau by pointing out he was actually diving like a coward in a desperate attempt for a call.

Anyway, all in all a fun time was had by all. And best wishes to my fine feathered friends in Philly.

Announcers downplayed Lightning's speed, as if they're supposed to be skating around from end-to-end with the puck like a video game set on rookie. Ask that "Flyer" who damn near broke both his ankles behind the net trying to keep up with Marty when he laid out that wicked sweet cut and the Flyer guy just
collapsed to the ground weeping. HE WAS WEEPING I SAY!

Good stuff. I may just cut and paste him each game if he keeps this up.