Home | Away

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Sybillity

Sadly, No!’s responses to Mark Kleiman’s response to Atrios’ response and Digby’s response to Ana Marie Cox’s response to Stephen Colbert’s routine at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner went way over the line of civility.

Furthermore, Kevin Drum’s response to Jon Chait’s response and Marshall Wittman’s response to Atrios’ response and Kos’ response to Jon Chait’s response to Ned Lamont’s primary challenge to Joe Lieberman is emblematic of the malaria swamp to which radical left-wing Symbionese Liberation Army sympathizers have reduced the blogosphere.  (Drum’s claim that he and Kos are not radical left-wing Symbionese Liberation Army sympathizers is especially ripe, given their enthusiasm for “humanitarian intervention” in Symbionia.) And Sadly, No!’s response to Drum’s response affords a disgusting display of Bush-hatred, albeit Bush-hatred as expressed by some guy named Jon Chait.  The blogosphere used to be a nice place.  But now, if you dare to let your kids go there, you have to cover their ears!  Or cover something.  Perhaps it’s time for an Internets Civility Filter.

For nothing demonstrates liberals’ destruction of the blogosphere so well as Atrios’ response and Digby’s response to Richard Cohen’s response to liberal bloggers’ responses to Richard Cohen’s response to Stephen Colbert’s routine at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.  Verily, those liberal bloggers are like unto a “digital lynch mob,” as the effervescent, witty Cohen puts it, and they will surely do irreparable damage to the Democrat Party.  Also—almost forgot!—Sadly, No!’s response to Digby’s response sucks eggs.

Listen, people.  People?  PEOPLE!!!!

Jeez, you gotta shout in here just to get anyone’s attention.

Look, there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about this.  As I myself have recently pointed out in an exceptionally civil response to a commenter’s response to my response to Belle Waring’s response to Eugene Volokh’s entirely sensible suggestion that unwanted sexual touching “might in fact be disturbing partly because of the arousal, or of the possibility of arousal,” it is wrong to respond to clueless wankers and smug, supercilious Washington Post columnists by getting angry with them.  Rather, the civil and decent thing to do is to ridicule them mercilessly in a polite, respectful, and devastating manner, as this fine, upstanding young man has done.

So the next time you’re confronted with a clueless wanker or a smug, supercilious columnist (which, by my calculations, should be at some point within the hour), don’t come on like “a big bowl of Angry Flakes that never runs out”; take your cue instead from the most fearsome criminal in the annals of fearsome criminality, Doug Piranha.  Use sarcasm.  Use all the tricks—dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and—satire.  Be vicious.  But be civil!  Richard Cohen will never figure out what hit him.  (Of this you can be sure!)

Let’s go over this again, shall we?  It’s an important point.

Digital lynch mobs of radical left-wing Symbionese Liberation Army sympathizers armed with a big bowl of Maryscott O’Connor® Brand Angry Flakes are bad for the Democrat Party.  If not for digital lynch mobs of radical left-wing Symbionese Liberation Army sympathizers armed with a big bowl of Maryscott O’Connor® Brand Angry Flakes, political discourse in the United States would be characterized by good sound Habermasian communicative reason, and Max Cleland would still be a Senator today.

Polite, respectful, decorous, civil bloggers armed with sarcasm, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes (especially the litotes) and satire are good for the Democrat Party.  With the help of polite, respectful, decorous, civil bloggers armed with sarcasm, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes (especially the litotes) and satire, the Democrat Party will take back the House and Senate this fall.  And then, finally, we can make the bastards pay!  We will launch an investigation into smug, supercilious, clueless wanking, and we will issue our first subpoena to Richard Cohen.

Tomorrow: join the Campaign to Prevent Massive Linkdumping!

UPDATE:  The Campaign Against Incestuous Blogosphere Metacommentary could use your help, too.  Thanks, Steve!

EXTRA UPDATE, MAY 10:  The previous update inexplicably left Skippy out of the mix.  How could I have overlooked the man who coined the term “blogtopia” while covering one of the biggest pileups on Blogtopia Parkway?  Lazy clicking finger, that’s how!

And don’t forget to check out Barbara’s thoughtful response to the responses, either.

Posted by Michael on 05/09 at 11:14 AM
(63) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Monday, May 08, 2006

Help wanted

Well, it’s happened again.  I go ahead and paste Richard Cohen’s head shot on this website, and my readers find it deeply disturbing.  Worse yet, I put Richard Cohen’s head shot on this website on a Friday, and (as you know) I rarely post on the weekends, so he’s been up there for three full days, just like he was back in October, when I did some on-the-fly Cohen-mockery at the end of a long week.  So by Sunday night, a commenter who goes by the name of John (if that is his real name) was reduced to a strange combination of abject begging and personal abuse:

Please, most dangerous one, post some new content so as to push that picture off of the front page. It freaks me out every time I see it up there.

On second thought, though, it does look like a picture of you in 20 (10?) years.

I know, I deserve it.

But what a time to be at a loss for words!  Here I’m faced with a blog emergency, I’ve got to move the Cohen photo down the page, and I’m sitting here at the keyboard, stupefied.

You know, I can understand why the press went in the tank for Iraq.  There’s no mystery why Tweety and Liddy had simultaneous wargasms about the flightsuit.  I can see why the Plame story and the Downing Street Memo are so bo-ring to the CWmeisters.  I don’t blink in disbelief when every bobblehead says in chorus, “Democrats, too, were involved in the Abramoff scandal.” I wasn’t surprised that the Washington Post, burned first by nasty mean blog commenters and then by their own Ben “even my prepositions are plagiarized” Domenech scandal, would order a takedown of Maryscott O’Connor, who, together with a couple of other liberal bloggers, has precipitated a National Civility Crisis.  I could have predicted that poor Joe Klein would need to have his many wounds kissed and dressed by Hugh Hewitt.  I know all too well why DC power couple Ana Marie Cox and Chris Lehmann have signed up for the nose-pinching “Colbert is not really our cup of tea, dahling” society.  And I don’t even think very highly of Richard Cohen.  In fact, these days I’m thinking he could beat Jeff Goldstein in a head-to-head matchup of supercilious, ignorant, self-satisfied wankers, and remember, my prognosticatin’ record has been pretty good lately.

But for some reason, I just wasn’t ready for the weekend media blackout on Hookergate.  Of all things to trip my incredulity wire!  On Friday I was readin’ around the usual blogs, and many of them were on full-alert Pony Watch.  On Monday I find that the only people still talking about Hookergate are . . . bloggers. Really smart, reliable ones like Laura Rozen and Kevin Drum, mind you, not those foul-mouthed denizens of the fever swamp (i.e., everybody else, including you).  Well, at least this reminds me why I started reading blogs in the first place, back in the summer of 2002—out of a growing sense that almost everything else had become worse than useless.  (Yes, I know it took me way too long, another eighteen months, to start my own damn blog.  Give me a break already—especially those of you who think I’ll look like Richard Cohen in a decade or two.) But that’s a long way to go to look for a good side.

Digby’s explanation is that Tony Snow is in charge, and the Blizzard of Blarney is in full effect for all the boys in the club.  Plausible enough.  But here’s what I don’t understand.  Normally, the press loves a good scandal, and by “good scandal” I mean “a scandal with gambling and hookers” as opposed to one of those bo-ring things that involve yellowcake and obscure forgeries and undercover agents working on nuclear proliferation.  So what gives?  Why are we being asked to believe that Goss wasn’t sufficiently committed to the purging of the CIA?  Who is supposed to be fooled by this?  Are our doughty reporters themselves fooled by this?  Or does Karl Rove simply have the names and addresses of all the hookers employed by the National Press Club, so that the silence is underwritten by a policy of mutually assured destruction?

I have a followup question, too.  I’m just old enough to remember how much the Nixon Administration hated the press—but the way I remember it, the feeling was entirely mutual.  Here we’ve got ourselves a dumber, more incompetent, and possibly even more malevolent version of the Nixon Administration, complete with utter dripping contempt for the press—and the fourth estate’s collective response, with a couple of exceptions here and there over the past five years, has been “thank you, sir, may I have another?” (Let’s not rehash the widespread Heather Outrage that constituted press coverage of Clinton and Gore, and that offered the Beltway punditry at their most prurient; thankfully, we don’t need to, because Digby has that one covered with two coats.  But then again, if Monica’s blue dress constituted a constitutional crisis, why aren’t juicy GOP sex scandals every bit as exciting?) Honestly, folks, I’m feeling like we’re at the point where, if the Bush Administration announced that Porter Goss was killed in a bizarre gardening accident, we would be reading in tomorrow’s paper that Porter Goss was killed in a bizarre gardening accident, and the “story” would be festooned with sidebars on how little-understood the phenomenon of modern gardening accidents really is.

So I’ve got nothing today, nothing.  If it weren’t for the pressing need to move the Wizard of Wank down the page a bit (which, I believe, I have now done—hey, mission accomplished!), I’d just go back to grading my (now overdue) graduate seminar papers and leave the blog to fester for another day.

I do have good news on the blog-festering front, though, and I’ll let you in on the details later in the week.  In the meantime, please tell me what the hell is going on in the world of the Heathers.  All theories, even plausible ones, are welcome.

Posted by Michael on 05/08 at 09:09 AM
(42) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Friday, May 05, 2006

Mission accomplished

Back in October of last year, this humble blog made a public service announcement.

As you may recall, we asked you to help this man:

Richard Cohen is running out of ways to be wrong. He has almost used them all up!  Of the twelve kinds of wrongness Aristotle describes in the Nicodeman Ethics (you remember, predictive, retrospective, substantive, distributive, boneheaded, etc.), Cohen has now employed eleven.  He has been wrong about things domestic and foreign, liberal and conservative, major and minor.

It’s not an overstatement to call this a national crisis of wrongness.  Unlike, say, the writers of Clownhall.com or Tech Central Station, Cohen does actual damage to the Republic with his compelling and influential wrongheadedness.  And in order for him to keep doing that damage, he needs to find new issues and events about which to be wrong.

(And check out the comment thread on that post!  One of the four funniest comment threads ever threaded on the Internets.)

Well, for once we have good news, people.  Richard Cohen has found yet another way to be wrong!  The final frontier!  There are no more lands to conquer!*

No, it’s not about Stephen Colbert qua Stephen Colbert.  Reasonable people can disagree about Colbert’s performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.  I personally thought it was a thing of beauty, a joy forever, like that Keats fellow once said.  But chacun à son goût, as we epistemological relativists say in our Frenchified “English” departments.  Rather, what makes Richard Cohen’s latest column so brilliantly, spectacularly wrong is its opening paragraph:

First, let me state my credentials: I am a funny guy. This is well known in certain circles, which is why, even back in elementary school, I was sometimes asked by the teacher to “say something funny”—as if the deed could be done on demand.

Quite apart from the performative contradiction involved in this paragraph, two things immediately come to mind—one tragic, one (appropriately) comic.  The comic one is this: do you remember that incredibly pompous doofus in seventh grade who thought he was some kind of Serious Intellectual?  The guy who was such an obstreperous asshole that even teachers would ask him to make a fool of himself for general class amusement?  It’s a dull day in May in your English class, and everyone’s supposed to be discussing something like “Miniver Cheevy” but they’re really looking out the window or doodling “Yes” logos in their notebooks or thinking about sneaking into Billy Jack on the weekend because it’s rated R and their parents won’t let them see it, and suddenly Mrs. Eggleston at the front of the room says, “Mr. Cohen, say something funny for us, won’t you?” And the entire class snaps to, because everyone knows Mrs. Eggleston meant “say something ridiculous and goofy as hell,” and Richie really does say the most amazingly stupid-ass things you’ve ever heard come out of a human mouth, and sure enough, he does not disappoint: “I think Miniver Cheevy is the kind of hero who could help us turn the corner today in Vietnam,” says little Richie.  Half the class bursts into laughter, and the other half thinks WTF? and actually looks at the poem to try to figure out where in the world Richie pulled that one from, and lo!  Mrs. Eggleston’s English class is back on track, and nobody’s thinking about Billy Jack any more.  It’s dirty pool, pedagogically speaking, but it works.

The tragic one is this: little Richie is still at it today!  Right on cue, he opens his mouth and says that Saddam has WMD and that “only a fool—or possibly a Frenchman—could conclude otherwise.” Get it? possibly a Frenchman? That is teh funny, Richie!  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!  Every time the right calls on you—to stump for war in Iraq, to demand that Patrick Fitzgerald close his investigation into the Plame scandal, to defend Bill Bennett, or simply to insist (way back in 2000) that Bush was the man to heal our nation—you deliver.  Karl Rove says, “say something funny, won’t you, Mr. Cohen,” and within seconds, they’re laughing uproariously at you.  At you, Richie, not with you.  They think you’re a buffoon, really they do.  In fact, they think they can get you to say anything at all.  Now, Richie, why do you think they think that?  Go ahead—say something funny!  We’re all waiting.

And for those of you who are waiting for this blog’s hockey prognosticatin’: it’ll be right up.  But I’ll put it below this post, so as not to mess with the 99.94 percent of you who come to this blog hoping that someday it will no longer talk about hockey.

________

* Perhaps fittingly, it turns out that I am wrong about this.  Applying the principles of Advanced Physical Science rather than those of the Nicodeman Ethics, one intrepid blogger has identified a new state of wrongness.  Many thanks to Peter Ramus in comments.

Posted by Michael on 05/05 at 12:10 PM
(53) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Round two NHL playoff predictions:  exclusive!  must credit michaelberube.com!

Apparently there’s a rumor going around the Internets that I’ve been “hiding out” on other blogs because of the mixed success of my NHL playoff predictions.

What mixed success?  I was 4-for-4, folks.  I did the incomprehensible, the mind-blogging, the remarkably fearless thing and predicted that all four top seeds in the East would win.  My colleague Scott Lemieux somehow failed to foresee that all four top seeds in the West would lose, including his beloved Flames, and . . . well . . . let’s turn that part of the report over to Scott, shall we?  Now that his Flames and my Rangers are out playing golf, he notes, “neither of us have any of those pesky ‘rooting interests’ to affect our shrewd discussion.”

Here’s Scott:

Now that I’ve recovered from responding to the Flames’ ugly collapse in a blizzard of cocaine, hookers, and heartbreak motoroil Bombay gin (well, actually it was some V-8 and half an Ambien; I’m a feminist who had a bad cold), I can now offer my take on Round 2. It’s generous of Michael to invite me back, given that I sullied his perfect record with my mere 2-2, and also charitable of him to note that my analysis worked out a little better than the picks themselves. Oddly, although the pick was a lot further off, I actually think my take on the Red Wings/Oilers holds up better; I was (justifiably) wrong about Roloson, but otherwise thought the Oilers would stack up pretty well. With the Flames/Ducks, I foresaw more a situation where the Flames would control a couple games territorially but fail to score, not the Ducks’ utter domination of the two elimination games (both of which would have been routs without Kiprusoff); the team that the Optimistic Scott envisioned showed up for maybe 5 periods. And that had to be the ugliest Game 7 performance by a team I can recall since that Avs/Red Wings game where Crawford went postal on Scotty Bowman, and at least that game was on the road. Oh well—this pretty clearly wasn’t a championship team, so it may be good in the long term to make it clear to Sutter that no matter how strong the defense and goaltending are, he needs to put together more than one-sixth of a championship-calibre top 2 lines. The other question is whether the parity in the NHL is almost too much, with the elimination of the top four seeds from the Western Conference; the NHL playoffs are much more interesting than the NBA ones even leaving aside the vast superiority of the sport, but this is almost too interesting.

Enough of my spilit-milk pondering.  On to round two:

San Jose (5) vs. Edmonton (8): Well, one thing we know: Chris Pronger’s Olympic performance was an aberration, and if Pronger’s at his best the Oil can beat anybody. And if you wanted to make a case for Edmonton, I would repeat that the Oilers have impressive speed and depth up front, and San Jose’s defense is pretty suspect. Still, I think this is a good matchup for San Jose, and while I’d be happy to see the Canadian team go to the finals again, the Sharks have to be a very strong favorite to go to the finals this year; they’re definitely the class of the remaining teams, and the elimination of the Red Wings (who had the potential to outscore them) and the Flames (whose goaltending is so good that they could be twice a goal away from winning a series in which they barely showed up otherwise) really helps them. I don’t see how Edmonton can handle San Jose’s formidable one-two punch up the middle (since I thought the Red Wings were highly overrated I’m not as excited by the upset as some other people), and without meaning to be stubborn, I’m still not sold on Roloson. This will be a fun series to watch, much more competitive than the Sharks’ easy dismissal of the Preds, and with one great and one highly underrated hockey city involved as a bonus. But I’m going with the consensus on this one. SHARKS IN 6.

Anaheim (6) vs. Colorado (7): Basically, this series is a near-coin-flip in which the Ducks deserve to be mild favorites, so take this pick as my contrarian sticking up for the Avs. I hope it’s not interpreted as sour grapes; the Ducks were very impressive, and the series was not really as close as being the first round’s only seventh-gamer would indicate. They have the balance of size and speed up front that made people drool over the Stars (enough, apparently, to make those people forget that Marty Turco blows) and as you know—if you’re reading this far—Niedermayer is a marvel. Michael will know better than I whether Joel Quenneville’s xs-and-os can be overmatched in the way that Sutter’s (for all his many other virtues) can, but Carlyle is really good; the Ducks made terrific adjustments, especially on special teams. Still, I think one can construct a solid case that the Avs are, again, going to be underrated. First of all, I think that with Theodore people are focusing too much on this year’s stats rather than on his ability; just two years ago he was universally considered one of the best goalies in the league, and that kind of skill is resilient. Conversely, Giguere is clearly not 100%, and given that he was facing almost no chances Bryzgalov is an unknown. (Can you believe that he was the first star in Game 7 while Niedermayer was snubbed? I know that he got a shutout, but the Ducks could have won that game with a pylon bolted to the goal line.) Also, the Flames were uniquely unable to exploit the Ducks’ biggest weakness: their thinness on defense. Niedermayer could shadow Iginla and dare anybody else to beat them—especially once Sutter made the baffling decision to pair Huselius, his best playmaker, with Yelle and McCarty—but against the Avs multi-layered attack he can’t be everywhere. (And, again, Sakic, Tanguay, Hejduk—that people take them for granted doesn’t mean they’re not great.) Blake, like Pronger, seemed to get a second wind in the playoffs. And playing 7 games against the most physical team in the conference, as the Ducks did, has to extract a toll; I’m guessing that the Ducks are nursing a lot of little injuries (and in the case of Fedoruk and Perry, perhaps more than that.) I think Joe can pull them to the conference finals one more once. AVALANCHE IN 7.

Just so you know to bet the other way, in the east I’ll say Senators in 6 in a series I’m really looking forward to, and Devils in 5.

______________

Thanks, Scott!  I’m with you on the Sharks—I think they’re headed to the Cup finals, myself.  And the Avs-Ducks are indeed a very difficult call.  I would say Ducks in 6 but for three things: one, I think Quenneville is one of the best coaches in the league.  When the Blues were at their best in the late 1990s-early 2000s, they were a disciplined defensive team with a good handful of scorers up front and a pylon in net.  With the exception of the epochal 2000 collapse against the Sharks, Joel Q. had them playing over their heads.  Two, the Avs’ upset of the Stars featured some kinda frightening displays of will.  You don’t score two game-tying, back-breaking goals in the final minutes in consecutive games and proceed to win ‘em both in OT unless you’ve got insanely hungry and talented players who can make it happen.  And Sakic has long been one of my favorite players in the league; he is, after all, the English-speaking reincarnation of Jean Ratelle.  On the other hand, speaking of displays of will, the Ducks’ performance in games six and seven against Calgary was rather hard to read.  The Flames looked abysmal, this is true.  I could only imagine how much Scott was suffering as they managed three weak shots on net in the second period of game seven and never came up with a single decent scoring chance in the final period, either.  But did they suck because they simply sucked, or because the Ducks made them look terrible?  I’m going to say (b), the Ducks decided not to allow them over the red line, and then stuck by that resolve even when the Flames pulled Kiprusoff in their final futile gesture.  And though Bryzgalov wasn’t really tested, save percentages above .960 are hard to dismiss, I think.  So I’m going with Ducks in 7.

Oh, right!  I was supposed to be calling the East.  Sorry about that.

Ottawa (1) v. Buffalo (4).  Aren’t you Sabres fans glad they don’t begin the playoffs in the fall?  In the first three meetings between these teams, back in October-November, the Sens won by scores of 5-0, 10-4, and 6-1.  The Sabres won three of the next five, but . . . oh, let’s just throw out the regular season.  The important question is whether the Scary Senators who scored 8 goals in one game against the Lightning will outskate the Scary Sabres who scored 8 against the Flyers.  I’m not expecting any 9-8 overtime games, exactly, but I am expecting great transition games and dazzling, windburn-level speed.  If you’re wondering why people like me can spend so much of their precious time watching guys chase a puck around, tune into this series.  You won’t be disappointed.  Details: Martin Havlat is back for the Sens, and Jochen Hecht is out for the Sabres.  Hecht’s injury doesn’t sound like a deal-breaker right now, because Buffalo can hurt you with about eight other guys, each of whom—Drury, Briere, Connolly, Dumont, Pominville, Grier, Kotalik, and Afinogenov—scored at least two in the first round.  But on the Senators’ side, Havlat, Heatley, and Spezza each picked up ten points in five games against Tampa Bay, and the Sens are deep on defense (and certainly more fleet of skate than the poor sluggish Flyers), so they may be able to slow Buffalo down through the neutral zone—which they will surely need to do.  The goaltending is anybody’s guess.  Here’s mine.  Ryan Miller was not a factor for the Sabres in the blowouts, obviously; he was thoroughly outplayed by Esche in game one (though the Sabres pulled it out in OT, on their 58th shot of the game) and was merely average in games three and four in Philly.  But Ottawa is still crossing their collective fingers with Emery in net—and it will be Emery.  He’s earned that right, regardless of what happens with Hasek.  I have a funny feeling that my perfect-to-date record will not survive this round, but what the hell.  SENATORS IN 7.

Carolina (2) v. New Jersey (3).  I hate “psychological” explanations of hockey games.  I can’t stand people talking about how the team feels X or is tentative about Y, as if we’re dealing with hive minds rather than individuals who either do or don’t get to loose pucks, either do or don’t pick up their man on the backcheck, and either do or don’t ring blazing shots off the crossbar and in, as Cory Stillman did in the second minute of OT in game six of the Canadiens series.  The game is determined in the last instance by the material base, people, not by the superstructure.  Nevertheless, I’m going to hold my nose and point out that on one side, we have a team that lost its first two at home, the first by an embarrassing 6-1 and the second by means of an emotional ordeal in which they trailed 3-0, scored the next four, gave up two quick ones to fall behind again, then tied the game with a minute left (Stillman again), and then lost in double OT anyway.  After that, any reasonable person would have declared the Canes dead, and as a reasonable person, that’s just what I did.  (There’s also the fact that it’s hard for me to root against the standardbearers of French Canada when they play teams from places where people prefer to watch cars go round and round, but the double-OT thing was more important.) But mirabile visu, the Canes climbed out of the coffin like unto Uma Thurman in Kill Bill Volume Two, and won four consecutive one-goal games—three of them on the road, two of those in OT.  On the other side, uh, well, lessee, the Devils have now won 135 straight, or something like that.  Fifteen, at least.  They weren’t tested against the Rangers, so in game one we’ll have to see whether Newly Resilient and Battle-Tested Team has more momentum (ew!  there, I said “momentum!” I feel so icky now) than Team That Hasn’t Lost Since March 26.  Devils Details: I didn’t mention Patrik Elias in round one.  That was a mistake.  He now leads all scorers in the playoffs despite having played only four games.  If Elias turns in another series like that one, the Canes are in trouble.  I still want to think that at some point, the Devils will realize that they have fifty percent fewer Scotts than they did back in ‘01 and ‘03: the unbeatable Scott Stevens has retired, don’t you know, and the brilliant Scott Niedermayer is a Mighty Duck (see above), which leaves them only with sniper Scott Gomez and backup- G- who- for- obvious- reasons- will- never- leave- the- bench Scott Clemmensen.  And when they realize the full measure of their Scottlessness, the Devils will suddenly think to themselves that they’ve gotten too deep into the playoffs, and they will start to drown.  But then Marty Brodeur will hold them aloft, because he is extremely strong and can carry the entire team all the way from New Jersey to the Cup finals if need be.  Whereas the Canes have to be hoping, just hoping, that Cam Ward is the real deal.  He was terrific against the Habs, but as you know if you’ve been reading this far, any goaltender can lease his soul to Satan for a two-week period.  So, then: this is a painful one.  I like many of the players on the Hurricanes, and I have a special place in my heart for guys like Stillman who continually play as if they are more talented than they actually are.  I think the Canes know how to play 6-5 games as well as 2-1 games (as I said two weeks ago), whereas the Devils don’t like to count that high.  And all the intangibles seem to point to Carolina.  But screw intangibles!  This blog hates intangibles as much as it hates team psychologizin’.  The Devils will get to loose pucks and pick up guys on the backcheck and ring shots off the crossbar, and when they don’t, Brodeur will hoist them onto his immeasurably broad shoulders. DEVILS IN 7.

SABRES-SENATORS UPDATE, 11 pm Friday:  Damn!  When I typed “I’m not expecting any 9-8 overtime games, exactly, but I am expecting great transition games and dazzling, windburn-level speed,” I actually meant to say, “I’m not expecting any 9-8 overtime games, exactly, but I am expecting great transition games and dazzling, windburn-level speed, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a 7-6 overtime game in which both teams combine for three goals in the final two minutes of regulation play.” What a game!  As we forwards like to say, the best offense . . . is a really good offense!

Posted by Michael on 05/05 at 12:03 PM
(15) Comments • (1) Trackbacks • Permalink

Thursday, May 04, 2006

General for a day

I’m weary of this blog today.  I think I’ll go write myself a little something for this other blog instead.

Posted by Michael on 05/04 at 10:55 AM
(8) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Mister Answer Man:  Special NHL Playoffs Edition (First Round)!

Dear Mister Answer Man:  Two weeks ago, you predicted that the Devils would beat the Rangers in six, the Hurricanes would beat the Canadiens in five, the Senators would beat the Lightning in five, and the Sabres would beat the Flyers in six while chasing Robert Esche from the net.  In reality, however, the Devils beat the Rangers in four, the Hurricanes beat the Canadiens in six, the Senators beat the Lightning in five, and the Sabres beat the Flyers in six while chasing Esche from the net twice.  You’re probably all full of yourself for going 4-for-4, but I’d like to know—what went wrong? —J. Buccigross, Bristol, CT

Mister Answer Man replies:  Well, for starters, I didn’t think the Sabres would win 7-1 and 8-2 games in the same series.  So there’s that.  Apparently, speed kills!  It used to be, in the old NHL®, that speed killed unless you could trap it in the neutral zone or put a stick in its ribs and a hand on its back, but now it’s just plain “speed kills.” More importantly, I fouled up my Devils and Hurricanes predictions by forgetting about the Devils’ Patrik Elias (who turned in a fearsome performance in round one) and failing to discuss Martin Gerber and the Hurricanes’ goaltending prospects.  As for Elias:  I actually wrote “if the Rangers can stop tiny snipers Gomez and Gionta, they stop the Devils offense,” and this turned out to be quite wrong.  Had I realized that Elias would account for an insane eleven points in only four games against the Blueshirts, I would have called a sweep.  As for Gerber:  I actually wrote nothing about him, and thus failed to consider the possibility that he would give up nine goals on 34 shots in the first 75 minutes of ice time (a truly abysmal .735 save percentage).  Had I factored him in, I would have predicted ‘Canes in six with Cam Ward replacing Gerber after about 15 minutes of the first period in game two.  And don’t forget, when the ‘Canes switch horses in midstream, they go deep.  At least that’s what happened back in 2002, when they shuffled Kevin Weekes and Arturs Irbe in goal and wound up going to the Finals.

But you’re right, I didn’t foresee these things (I’m no Tony Snow, now), and I’ll try to do better from this point onward.

Dear Mister Answer Man:  Will Scott Lemieux stop by to talk about his picks in the West?  Apparently he thought the Oilers were incapable of upsetting the Red Wings.  Care to comment? —B. Melrose, Los Angeles, CA

Mister Answer Man replies:  As you know, Mr. Melrose (if that is your real name), Scott was the only person in North America not affiliated with the Colorado Avalanche who picked the Avs over the Stars.  And he did give himself some Upset Insurance by writing, “In terms of team quality, I don’t think an Oiler win would be a truly historic upset.  I think the 30-point differential is overstated by the fact that the Northwest divison has 5 good teams while the Central only has 2; I’m not fully convinced that the Red Wings are a great team as opposed to a very, very good team in a shitty division.” It turns out that it really does matter whether you play twenty-four of your games against struggling minor-league franchises like Chicago, Columbus, and St. Louis (against whom the Red Wings went 7-1, 7-1, and 7-1; they were merely 4-4 against Nashville) or whether you play formidable opponents like Calgary, Colorado, Vancouver and Minnesota all year (against whom the Oilers went 3-5, 5-3, 6-2, and 2-6).  In other words, Detroit had 25 divisional wins and Edmonton only 16, so there’s eighteen of those thirty points right there.  (Detroit and Edmonton split their season series 2-2, and the first three games were decided in OT.  Mismatch?  What mismatch?) Scott also picked the Sharks in five; the Sharks won in five.  But I think Scott won’t be available for comment until the conclusion of the Flames-Ducks game tonight.  All I can say about Scott’s beloved Flames right now is that Scott did, in fact, predict that the series would go seven.

Credit where credit is due, though:  back on April 7, the reader named “ash” (comment 50) wrote, “I’ve watched Detroit this year, and they are very reminiscent of the Detroit of the late 90’s: lots of talent, lots of regular season points, going in the tank in the playoffs.” Then again, ash also wrote, “On the other hand, the Stars are operating at full-tilt—Turco is playing well, and he’s backed up by Johan Hedburg who will be a big-time goalie one of these days. They will be going to the conference finals IF they get past Edmonton.” That was back when it looked as if the first round would include a Dallas-Edmonton series.  Prognosticatin’ is hard work!

And we’ll have more tomorrow Friday after Scott recovers from the Flames’ flameout, everyone!  So stay tuned to this Prognosticatin’ Station.

Posted by Michael on 05/03 at 02:38 PM
(8) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Page 4 of 5 pages « First  <  2 3 4 5 >