07-08 Philadelphia Flyers Season Thread

[Rome]

Richards made Sindey his bitch and now he's looking for a new ho in Ovechkin.  Gotta love it.

Also - that was an awesome farging penalty shot.  Huet has really looked like shtein in every game thus far.   Which is nice.

[Eagaholic]

That was Andy reid in the stands they just showed!

No, the Flyers  have the Zambonis painted with orange trim that just looks like a receeding hair line.

[SD_Eagle5]

A few texts from tonight:

briere sucks!

ovechkin's a fag!

caps in five!

i heart wookies!

dude, that chick across from you is hot as balls - is she indian?

some of those look familiar

[Eagaholic]

danny briere has been incredible...


comcast keeps showing the ovechkin dive...it gets funnier each time

Interesting the comish said the Avery behavior isn't illegal because of a new rule, but because of an interpretation of an existing unsportsman like rule.

Apparently it is a new one that if Ovechkin sneezes it's a 2 minute minor to the other team (4 minute double if draws snot).

[Rome]

I haven't kept track of the total number of penalties called but it's seemed fairly even.  Ovechkin is like any other prima donna flag in the NHL and it wouldn't be nearly as bad if he didn't act like every goal he scores is like the Stanley Cup game winner.

Whatever, though.  Watching him dive like a fag and dance around after a goal makes it a easier to hate a team that I've never given much of a thought to at all.

[SD_Eagle5]

The Dive

[BigEd76]

luckily the x-rays are negative on Timonen's shoulder....game-time decision for Thursday

awesome game.  Kate Smith wins again

[SD_Eagle5]

I get a boner when they play Kate Smith


Mike Wise a writer for the Washington Post says the Flyers are too rough, Flyer fans cheer too much, and that the league should hire a ref like Donaghy to ensure Ovechkin and the Caps make it to the conference finals. I searched for an email address to call him a Hoyda but couldn't find one:

Among the Thugs
By Mike Wise
Wednesday, April 16, 2008; Page E01

PHILADELPHIA

Can't Gary Bettman pay off someone to ensure his meal ticket for the next decade advances to the second round? Doesn't Tim Donaghy live close by? Does he still have his whistle? Can he skate?

Because the Washington Capitals and their star Alex Ovechkin, the closest thing the NHL has to Kobe and LeBron, need help if they are going to genuinely awaken America to their game again.

All the pretty goals the end of the regular season promised? If Ovechkin can't shake loose soon, this Eastern Conference quarterfinal might go to the dogs soon.

The tenor of this rugged series is terrible news for hockey progressives everywhere, the way the Flyers have punked a nice bunch of skaters who train in Ballston and used to be among the most feared offensive teams in the NHL.

A few Capitals employees nodded their heads approvingly when Mike Green squared off with Philadelphia's Scottie Upshall at the outset of the third period, as if to say, "Finally." But lost in the moment was an ugly truth: Green had never gotten into a fight at any level of the game according to HockeyFights.com, which tracks scraps all the way back to juniors.

When the Caps' offensive-minded defenseman lost it, Philly had won: Washington was trying to play the Flyers' bump-and-grind game.

Midway through the third period of this demoralizing 6-3 loss at Wachovia Center, 20,000 people in fluorescent orange howled for their World Extreme Cagefighters, and a crowd in the upper bowl chanted derisively at Ovechkin. As the frothing masses left the arena, they felt good about the bull being killed -- Ovechkin and Sergei Fedorov, tremendous scorers and skaters from different Russian generations, checked into humility as much as the boards.

The Flyers were the team playing at the Capitals' level, bum-rushing toward the goal at full speed, hitting everything in their sight.

Washington couldn't get out of its own end for minutes at a time. The Capitals looked timid for much of the first two periods, the best five-on-five team in the NHL a month ago mishandling the puck, losing their confidence with each careless rinkwide pass.

They stood around on the power play, waiting for someone to get open. Philadelphia has some rugged penalty-killers, quick and physical players who shave off two minutes of being a man down as if they prefer it to skating five-on-five.

The Flyers act like they would rather demoralize a psychologically wounded offense than score a short-handed goal.

Washington is now 2 for 15 in power-play opportunities -- a mere 13.3 percent -- and before last night, its lone power-play goal was pretty much a five-on-three situation after the Flyers' Patrick Thoresen was injured on the ice.

Green finally showed great patience in the second period, winding up his stick, waiting for his defender to go past, before firing in a rocket to draw Washington within 3-2.

But most of the evening there was this unmistakable air of testosterone coming from the Flyers' direction that just reeked of physicality, a way of exerting their mauling style on the Capitals that just sent their denizens into some medieval state of euphoria.

Did we mention they show fights on the video scoreboard every period here, more than most arenas show dunks in the NBA?

The Capitals didn't come out as Eastern Conference foes; they entered the playing surface like Russell Crowe entered the Coliseum in "The Gladiator." Flyer fans didn't want to beat Washington as much as see Ovechkin bludgeoned, his teammates emasculated.

It's almost impossible to fathom, but the Capitals took the ice in front of a building as loud as Verizon Center last Friday. The fans wore orange instead of the Capitals' red, and many of the women and children looked as if they could work security for Megadeth.

On I-95 entering town there is a billboard of Riley Cote, a stumpy rogue who engaged in 24 fights this season, twice as many as Capitals tough guy Donald Brashear. Cote's wild-man eyes and his quick fists are the only features shown of the Flyers' player.

Five minutes into the game, they showed a video of Philly's top brawls this past season, many involving Cote grabbing hold of an opponents' shirt for leverage before pummeling him to the ice.

They market and sell violence here -- sanctioned, unbridled assaults disguised as sport.

The Flyers are an instant repudiation of what Gary Bettman wanted the league to become. They are a reminder of the NHL's pugilistic past that just won't go away. Philadelphia let Brashear go to the Capitals via free agency, the notion being that he had uglied up the game too much and the commissioner was legislating the enforcer out of the game. Why not be ahead of the curve, the Flyers figured.

But something interesting happened. The Anaheim Ducks, a team born from a sappy Disney movie, became a bunch of forechecking brutes en route to winning the Stanley Cup last season. A copycat league essentially begat the return of Gazzo and Rocco in Philly, or at least Cote, Scott Hartnell and Jason Smith.

The result last night was Hartnell and Daniel Brière popping Cristobal Huet, making the Caps' goalie retaliate because no one on his team seemed interested in having his back at the moment. Hartnell has become an annoying gnat in the crease, buzzing around Huet's ear now for two games as if he owns the area.

Unless Ovie and the Overacheivers get untracked offensively soon and the sublime choreography of teamwork returns to the Capitals' line, there is but one hope left.

Quick, someone find a number for Donaghy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...T2008041503786


Welcome to playoff hockey, bitch.

[Seabiscuit36]

Got to watch some hockey in HD tonight. Wow. 

IMO the best sport for HD.  Just sickeningly beautiful. 

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Some fun stuff from the ESPN recap:

"I just think they're zoning in on our top line," defenseman Mike Green said. "I mean every time those guys touch the puck they're getting hit. Not only that but we've got to find it within us to battle through that."

Well, shtein.  Why weren't other teams doing that?

Game notes
Biron's wife, Ann Marie, gave birth to the couple's third child, a daughter named Emily Marie, on Monday. ... Flyers forward Patrick Thoresen was on the fourth line four days after a puck to the groin sent him to the hospital and nearly cost him a testicle. ... Flyers defenseman Derian Hatcher also returned to the lineup for the first time since he broke his leg on March 15. ... Each team was 1-for-7 on the power play.

That's just calmly wedged in the middle of the game notes.

[SunMo]

maybe because it's been known since the injury happened

[Rome]

Here's an e-mail addy for the fag from the Post.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/mike+wise/


I already sent him one.

The text said this:


Dear Northeastern Elitist Bitch,


I hope someone in the crowd in Philly shoots Ovechkin in his femoral artery and that diving Hoyda flag bleeds out all over the ice.

PS: The taterskins suck.


Sincerely,

Joe Gibbs

[SD_Eagle5]

nice...I just sent him an email calling him a Hoyda. I put my name as Flyersgorilla

[rjs246]

My two cents.

Your sore-loser whine-fest piece on the Capitals' loss last night, and the fact that you tried to compare Stanley Cup hockey to the NBA twice, shows just how little you know about playoff hockey.

Oh no, a team is getting physical with your star player and trying to establish a presence in the crease! Boo freaking hoo. Welcome to the NHL, assbag. Strap on a sack and learn to enjoy a good hockey fight. Or just continue to sip wine and cheese at your sporting events like a typical know-nothing, douchebag Washington sports 'fan'.

You're a joke.

[Seabiscuit36]

lol, that article needs to be hung up in the lockerroom, that is pure gold