AT&T is dildos. I've been fighting a war with them concerning my billing for over a month now and feel that it's time to cut the cord altogether and go to the Internet for my TV and entertainment needs. But before I do, I need to know if I can still get my beloved Blackhawks games live. I have a PS3 and Xbox 360 with NHL Game Center, but I don't think I can watch 'Hawks games on the PS3 if they are broadcast on local channels. Does anybody have any advice on streaming games live to my TV? Any help is greatly appreciated!

but now have the regret of not joining the SCH hockey league, you can now join my six team fantasy hockey league over on Yahoo.  The link is here.


http://hockey.fantasysports.yahoo.com/hockey/343367  password is slapshot.

There are only six teams in this league; what can I say, I'm old school and I appreciate the depth a small league like this can bring.  Also, I want to see how hosting a league on Yahoo works so I can decide whether or not my league next year stays on ESPN or moves to Yahoo.

So come and join already!

The 'Hawks are rehabbing some of the UC with the introduction of the renovation called the "Madhouse on Madison" that will feature two "viewing bars" and extended concessions and amenities.  Aa a fan who had some difficulty affording seats last year, I am not sure that these changes are in the best interests of the die-hard, yet broke, Madhouse alum.

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This is my half-assed attempt at covering the Blackhawks Convention for the 2009/2010 season, providing you with impressions and personal highlights of the BC-'09.

I have received two free passes from a friend of mine who works for the PR department of UC Hospitals and she worked on those medical commercials we saw during home games.  According to her, VERSTEEG! is a brain-of-curdled-cheese-Canuck-farmboy idiot and Wiz has "the most perfectly developed legs (she) had ever seen outside of comic books."  Yeah, Gail's cool.

I gave my second pass to my brother, Joe, another lifelong 'Hawks fan.  My dad raised me on a solid diet of 'Hawks history from the 50's and 60's; Bro Joe supplied me with all there is to know about the 70's and early 80's.  I picked up the passes and the psych had begun.

We get down to the hotel and it is not crowded, but there are no directions posted anywhere.  There was one map posted in the large main corridor, but no "You Are Here" or too many landmarks laid out.  But anybody can find the International Ballroom, so Joe and I make our way up inside.  It was half full by this point and SRO, which I found...interesting.  I figured, for some odd reason, that there would be benches, maybe even chairs.  I don't know why I thought this, but I did.  Joe and I geeked out a bit, and he leaves to get a smoke.  It turns out that, should you leave for anything besides a serious injury that you cannot return.   They don't tell you this as you are leaving the room, of course; why should they?  McDollar already has your money.  At this point you are allowed to go screw.

In the SRO ballroom there is a large screen replaying all of the 'Hawks internet stuff and intermission videos; chuckle-worthy, to be sure.  All of this is only feeding my Hawk Geek and build my anticipation.

Finally, Edzo makes his appearance as MC and introduces the alumni.  There's a great collection this year that spans the greatest eras of our team, and some great players are getting recognition.  Lou Angotti, Tony Amonte, Cliff Koroll,  Ab McDonald, and my dad's favorite defenseman, Eric Nesterenko, are players I didn't expect to see, but it is great that they are here.

After the alumni comes the part I have been waiting for; it's time to introduce the office.  I came here to see the reception given to the Bowmans and John McDollar and I was not disappointed.  Where I stood, no one cheered for the Bowmans; no clapping, no fanfare.  And when Mc Dollar came out, he was booed.  Not just booed, but BOOOOOOOOOOOED!!!  Of course, Rocky was cheered like a conquering hero, and was smiling the whole time.  What a fun place that front office must be, no?

When the players came out, I was struck that they introduced Jack Skille and Kyle Beach; are these two going to see some ice time this year?  I hope so, because Skille is really fast and can score; Beach is fucking HUGE!  He looks bigger than Biscuit.  After Kopecky and Hossa are introduced, the crowd chants "Detroit Sucks!" for the second time that night, this time for a good twenty seconds.  Tazer gives a decent speech; you can tell this kid is being groomed to be a captain for life here.

After the speeches, I get reunited with dear brother and pick up the swag bag.  I finally have a schedule and will make plans for Saturday accordingly.  The sellers area is pretty good, with some great merch available for my money, but that can wait until tomorrow, I tell myself.  When that autographed picture of Tony Amonte and JR is gone tomorrow, I will have no one to blame but myself.

Overall, the first night was pretty good; I hope to check into as many of the conferences as I can today, with more to report later.

This is almost too good to be true.  It makes me want to change my last name to Schadenfreude.  Pierre McGuire wants to be GM of the Mild.

Please, Hockey Gods, let this transpire.  Imagine the moves he'll make.  Milbury might coach again!

Not even my students are as dumb about hockey as P. Mac, and I teach kids on the west side of Chicago.  It will be a beautiful day in my personal life if he gets the gig.

As I sit here on the morning after another playoff loss of the only sports team I care about, my reflection has a certain familiarity to it.  All this season, the Blackhawks have had a specific weakness against Detroit; they cannot skate two periods in a row with the Dead Wings.  I don’t know why this is; I don’t know how the coaching staff has not seen it, or if they have why they have not addressed it.  I don’t understand how the players can allow this fault to have any consistency, but there it is, clear as the sky on this morning after, and it has been there all season long.
Let’s you and I hotwire Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine, which is my name for my DVR (yes, I do have all the ‘Hawks game saved either on my DVR or on a hard drive because I still entertain the idea that I could one day be paid for my obsessive-compulsive disorder that I call my Blackhawks fandom) and look at the first game of the year against our most hated rival that was played on October 25, 2008.  We were flat in the first; Franzen’s goal was, tough to admit, quite pretty, and VerStud’s goal was a flukey tip-in off of a shot by T-Bone (Troy Blowout for anyone still desperate for a nickname to tack onto Brouwer).   Overall, Detritus and Chicago traded rushes, with the Wingnuts looking more and more dominant as the period wore on.  It was going to be a long night by the end of the first.
The puck drops on the second period, and the ‘Hawks are alive!  Aaron “Mighty” Johnson scores a goal, doubling his career total, and even after a tying goal by Marian “Money Honey” Hossa, there is no quit in this team, scoring twice more (JHC’s backhand is a thing of beauty) and we take the lead, 4-2.  Joy!
But in the next period the energy is out of the legs of the ‘Hawks again.  Scum ties and takes the lead with three unanswered goals.  A Pity goal for Kaner on a 5-on-3 and we go to overtime, where we dominate the ice, but the sun will shine on a dog’s asshole at least once a week, and that is the only explanation for Ty Conklin sending it to a shootout.  Normally, I love ‘Hawks shootouts, except this is the equivalent of the fifth period against Detroit, so no one but Captain Marvel finds the back of the net and the Dead Wings win.
The pattern takes a shift on December 5th, 2008, with the ‘Hawks looking better in the first; two power play goals and skating rings around Detroit the entire period.  We out shot, out hit and outplayed Scum.  But here comes the second period and the ‘Hawks, despite getting a goal out of Nails, is skating slowly and making really poor choices in their own zone.  When the third arrives, the ‘Hawks play very well, but Zetts Leto and Money Honey score, taking advantage of the only mistakes the ‘Hawks made in the third.  Overtime comes and goes, again with Conklin, with a lot of help from Norris Lidstrom and Franzine, taking the game to a shootout.  Guess what?  Next period, no ‘Hawk finds the twine and Gadzooks scored the game winner.
Right now you’re saying, “Two points make a line, not a pattern.”  And you are right.  Now we see a real trend develop during the home-and-home that takes place on 30 December and 01 January.  The first game goes exactly like October’s game, with the ‘Hawks flat in the first, mighty in the second (though the 4-0 score doesn’t show it, men of four feathers put on a great 2nd; go watch it and you’ll see), and failing miserably in the third.  I’d recap, but I am getting both angry and lazy at this point, so do your own.
The Winter Classic, where the Blackhawks thumped Scum 3-1 in the first, dominating the ice and taking every shot imaginable.  Second period?  Ugh.  In the third there were some signs of life, but it was too little too late at that point.  We lost the only game I really wanted the team to win all year long.  You can still hear the echo of my heart breaking as you walk around the north side of Chicago.
I am sure you all recall the last two games of the season, so I won’t recap; remember the lazy?  And we have watched two playoff games where the pattern again emerges, ‘Hawks strong-weak-strong, yet still failing, in the last two games.
So what do we do about it?  I am going to suggest something that goes against the grain of every one of us fans that have enjoyed the freewheeling play that out speedy and talented players have excited us with all season long.  I think that, depending on how the first period goes for the ‘Hawks, we go with a trap in one of the following periods.
Should the boys start strong, in the second they stack four players in the neutral zone with one defenseman way back to get the dump-in.  Play a game of get the dump, simple pass to the forward who dumps in with a one-man forecheck to keep Scum honest.
Should the ‘Hawks perform poorly in the first, go balls to the wall in the second.  When the third period arrives, play the trap but give a little more guts, hopefully keeping the team alive into overtime, where the pattern will emerge and make us victorious.
Why in God’s name would I suggest the trap?  Because the Wings struggle against it.  The Dead Wings split their series with the Canucks, were one game over .500 with the Mild, and once Nashville adopted a more defensive, trap-style game, Detritus lost the next three matches against them (remember how you danced when you saw the 8-0 score?  Remember?!  I do!  It was quite lovely.).  These are teams that do not have our speed or depth in skill and scoring.  In many ways, this team is very, very similar to the team that succumbed to Lemaire’s Devils in 1993; they play a similar style and are coached by a man who prays that some clerical error in his hospital of birth will be revealed, proving that Scotty Bowman is his real father.  He is a coach who has difficulty figuring out how to beat a trap, which negates any opportunity to be gleaned from changing lines and other decisions made on the bench.
Since I know that Q reads my posts (why the hell shouldn’t he?  I am right!), I hope I see him give the trap a shot on Thursday.  If not, then he must figure out a way to get his team to skate for two periods straight against this rival, a task in which he has failed in six games out of eight.  You would think that a guy who coached both St. Louis and Colorado would have a little more desire to stomp the fuck out of Detroit than he seems to have.  In all honesty, I really don’t care what Q does so long as we get the opportunity to hear “Chelsea Dagger” until I am sick of it and chant “Detroit Sucks!” with some real credibility behind it.

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The question we Blackhawks fans have been asking each other and ouselves has been, "Who do you want to face?"  We don't face an easy choice between skating a series against the Ducks of Anaheim or our most hated rival, the Detroit Red Wings.

The Ducks bring a defense-first mindset, anchored around the veterans Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer, with solid defenders, such as Francois Beuchemin and former 'Hawk James Wisniewski, mixed with offensive powerhouses such as Ryan Whitney and the aforementioned Niedermayer and Pronger.  These d-men are strong on the puck and players like Pronger and Wiz play on both sides of the dirty line.  Niedermayer has twenty years' experience of getting away with tripping and elbowing in the corners.  Beauchemin is paired with the punishing Sheldon Brookbank, a player who apparently grew up idolizing his teammate Pronger.  He often displays Pronger's nearly psychopathic lack of conscience when it comes to players on the other team; they're just things waiting to be broken.

The Ducks' forwards can also bring the pain, in several ways.  They have big guys like Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Bobby Ryan who take the body with real force.  Ryan Carter and Mike Brown both love to hit and are very, very irritating.  Both have drawn their fair share of penalties.  This is a team with a lot of jam, and they love to spread it around.  Their forwards aren't what you would call speedsters; Teemu Selanne and Corey Perry can still wheel n' deal, but this team just pushes through defenses.

The most worrying player on their roster is Getzlaf.  He is their best player, bar none, in the playoffs.  The scariest stat he has is the point streak; starting on 01MAY, every goal that went on the board for the Ducks had his name on it for four games.  He averages 41% in faceoffs, and has a +5 in the postseason, where he has faced the top lines of the top two standing teams in the Western Conference.  He is fucking ridiculous.  If there is a series against the Quacks, we all will have a new face to hate in Ryan Getzlaf.  Shit, he already has a bad guy's name; I can't decide if he's the rich asshole friend of the likeable preppy guy from John Hughes-esque movies or the puppy-killing-psycho-among-psychos from buddy-cop movies.  Either way, he is to be feared and loathed.

Their goaltending tandem is pretty scary; with Hiller playing out of his mind, every goal against him takes twice the effort it should.  And if he should go down, then they have J.S. Giguere, Mr. Giggy, who is no slouch when it comes to pressure games.  Like all Quebecois goalies, he comes up big if he needs to.  Let's hope he stays on the bench and they decide to ride a rookie to the conference finals.

The way we can beat the Ducks is the same way we beat the Flames and the Canucks; be faster than they are.  Our speed is just as much of an advantage here as it was in western Canada.  Use our fast and nimble forwards (or our fleet-footed defensemen Campbell and Keith) to force the defense behind the blue line, pull up for the late man and take the shot.  In more ways than one, the Quacks are very similar to the Canucks, but without all the creepy twin gingerness of the Sedins.

Then there is our longstanding rival, the most hated team of my (and hopefully your) life, the Detroit Red Wings.  This team is a Stanley Cup winner with good reason.  They have speed, skill, grit, and a dominating playing style that never lets up for one second.

Everybody knows the big names: Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Hossa, Holmstron, Lidstrom; it's like an all-star team roster.  But what kills opponents is a lack of regard for the third and fourth liners.  Forwards like Filpulla, Hudler, Samuelsson and Draper grind you down to a fine paste and then score when you're fighting to get the right line against them.  Their scoring depth comes from being able to take advantage of teams overpreaparing for the big names and forgetting about the other members of the squad.  Every one of their forwards skates well and is strong when they carry the puck.  They love to cycle the puck behind the net, just waiting for a team to send a player in deep behind and leave a winger or defenseman open for a pass.

The defensemen for Detroit are anchored by Norris Lindstrom; seriously, he should just change his name, it would be easier on us all.  The defensive core is overall decent puck movers.  They play a very traditional defensive system; they rarely have a defenseman pinch too deeply, although Norris and Rafalski have been known to carry the puck deep.  Generally, the Wings d-men stay at the blue line and put the puck back on the sticks of the forwards.

There has been a lot of talk about the goalie situation, and there should be.  Osgood is still a stud, and will win a game he has no right to.  But he still gives up five-hole and stick side goals, as he has for nearly twenty years.  We can beat him there consistently if we can get a shot off, which their defensive system is really good at not allowing.

I fucking hate this team.  It seems unstoppable, and for good reason.

If the Dead Wings have a weakness, it is in the defense.  I know that sounds wrong, but look at them; they are all older players that play in a system that requires them to get the puck to a forward before they leave their zone.  They pass and shoot, yes, but mostly on the PP; the D rarely score even strength.  We are fast and wily, and with the exception of Lidstrom and Ericsson, they are not.  The Wings count on their forwards for defense moreso this year than any other; if we can keep the puck in deep with them for a shift and half, which is a pretty good-sized "if," we stand a better chance of scoring.

The question still remains; "Who do you want?"  I think I see an easier path to Lord Stanley that passes through Anaheim, but I think that if you are going to compete for the Cup, you have to beat the team that won it last year.  The fact that last year's winner is also my childhood bogeyman makes me want us to destroy the Wings more than beat Anaheim.  That being said, it's not up to me, or you, or any of us, as to who we will face and beat next.  It will be decided tonight by 50 men in the Armpit of America.

Keenan will be on NHL Live today (in fact, he's probably on right now) so if you haven't gotten your fill of bleeding vaginal discharges from our former coach, I am sure you can hear some live on the air.

Since his waah-waah is a popular topic, I figured we can all find some joy in a) some stunning works of verbl fiction; and b) him not being our bench boss anymore.

Enjoy!