The Offseason: Plans
At 7:00pm tonight the official defense of the Stanley Cup begins for the Pens.
As soon as the New York Islanders, and all the teams that follow say.." And Congratulations to the Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins."
It is on.
After the jump Us and Rick take a look at every team and how we would run them starting with the draft.
FaceOff-Factor's Draft Preview
In anticipation of the draft, we wanted to get a look from one of our good friends, Jesse from FaceOff-Factor.
Jesse and the rest of the gang at FF cover the AHL, College, Junior hockey and its relation to the Penguins like no other Penguin blog on Gore.
Rick City will be doing a live blog for the draft on Friday. We might even do our own preview.
But there is not a better source of info than the guys at [faceoff-factor.]
Enjoy
Some people get really excited about Christmas. They stay up all night on December 24th, checking outside for Santa Claus and dreaming of the gifts they'll receive the next morning when they wake up to a snow filled wonderland.
Us folks at Faceoff-Factor.com feel the same way about the draft. We stay up all night decorating our tree with pictures of E.J. Hradek, adjusting our rankings, and checking under our pillow in the morning to see if Ray Shero has left us a little envelope with his best-player-available list inside.
Basically, we're draft geeks.
We wanted to get C-blog fired up and ready to go for Friday night. Inside you'll find our ranking, mock draft, and a closer look at some of the more intriguing guys that could be available when the Penguins pick at the end of the night.Take the jump to check it out.
Winter Crappic
TMZ has been all business recently
talking about a pending announcement regarding the 2010 Winter Classic.
As it stands, it looks like it will be Philly going to Boston's Fenway Park.
And also, there's rumors of a nightcap game in Calgary.
Hockey is hockey.
A televised hockey double-header on a holiday?
Unreal.
But, of course, everyone wants to jump to the negative side of a double-header,
saying that the novelty of the outdoor game will start to wear off.
Whatever that means. It's one day of the year. Relax.
People casually clicking through their shit
will stop and check out a hockey game at Fenway Park.
And later in the night, after being reminded of it 300 times during the Boston game,
they will come back to see some jokes play hockey in possibly sub-freezing temperatures.
But even the Calgary game won't give us the shock value that the NHL should be striving for.
And Now A Special Letter From Texas Ted Leonsis
After the Jump a nice, rambling letter from Texas Ted Leonsis to his season ticket holders. It is too bad most Capital fans can't read.
You can't fault Teddy for trying, we guess. But when you say that one of your favorite moments is when the fans gave Varmlade a standing ovation after he was pulled in Game 7. Well, that is just lame.
Our owner is a Knight.
Suck it.
Click "read more' to read the letter.
Or just go to Youtube and watch the Pens celebrating the cup.
wooooo
Keep on Bloggin' in the Free World
Slightly overshadowed by the Perez Hilton/will.i.am business is the fact that Alexander Ovechkin was at the MuchMusic video awards in Toronto last night.
That's quite the Unreal Shirt he's wearing.
He presented an award to Nickelback.
He hugged one of the hosts.
He was introduced as "the NHL's leading scorer."
Somewhere Pierre McGuire is smiling.
The Art Of The Stunned Pic 2008-2009
At its core, a good stunned pic is everything we believe in.
But what is a stunned pic?
It is a picture that captures other NHL fans at their lowest moment while giving us a good laugh.
It occurs when you are at a game, home or away, and the Pens score and/or win.
You take out your camera and snap a picture of a devasted fan in your general vicinity.
As technology has grown, you can now even take pics of stunned fans from your living room.
Who will ever forget this:
We have gone back and reviewed the season in stunned pics. And what a ride it was.
The season of stunned pics started slow but, as the Pens began their run, business picked up.
Behind the scenes, we have always wondered if the Stunned pic was going to jump the shark.
And maybe the ones of players has:
But while the player stunned pics are getting old, fan pictures never will.
It takes a perfect set of events to capture a stunned picture.
And, when done right, a stunned picture makes a game or moment so much memorable.
After the jump we look at different types of stunned pics,.
And we have our video tribute to the 2008-2009 stunned pics.
