The Schticky

Had to sweat out that last minute while it six on four but a win's a win.

Hayes and Shaw with a point each, all is well.

Good to see the Hawks crack Niemi. He always stones us.

Aprapos of nothing, I give you The Schticky:

Exemption

I have a family member in the hospital today. No "real" post today.

In Praise of Hoss

• First off, happy 33rd birthday to Marian Hossa. I wish Tazer was my favorite Hawk. In some ways he is. I respect the hell out of that kid. But I can't deny that my true love is Hoss. I love the way he plays the game, his humble attitude, his desire to win, his "rock 'em sock 'em robots" goal celebrations from last year, and his goofy broken English. I didn't know Hoss' birthday was less than a week before my own. Capricorns are the best.

I favorited a tweet from Tim Sassone right after Christmas and I have been hanging onto it since then, unsure of when I would use it but since it's Hoss' birthday and all, I figure now is as good a time as any.

Hossa joked he thought X-mas video was only going to be shown on video board, "then my text exploded and I got all red."

That sums up Hoss in a nutshell. The secretly goofy side that sang "O Hossa Night" in the Blackhawks Christmas video and the shyness after all his friends saw it and texted him about it that made him embarrassed, or in his words "red". Heart.

There was another great quote from him earlier this season when he was talking about how the Hawks had to stop expecting the game to come to them and that they had to work harder and "put our working boots on." I know he meant to say "work boots" but working boots" is just so much more endearing.

Love the guy. Obviously.

• Tazer, Kaner and Hoss were the three Hawks named to this year's all-star team. Sharp should have gotten the nod over Kane. Kane is slumping pretty hard right now, and this season in general. I love Kaner but he's not an all-star.

It will be good to see Hoss go back to the city where he was drafted and played the first several years of his NHL career.

• The Hawks have Minnesota tonight. Emery is starting in goal. What I will be watching for: The rookies, especially Hayes. I enjoy watching the kid play the game right now. Also, Minnesota's uniforms. Hopefully they will be rocking their off-white alternate jerseys tonight (the hawks would have to wear white). I love them and would strongly consider buying one if there was ever a player on the Wild that I really liked. Love these things.

Awesome. You can't deny it.

I leave you today with my favorite Hoss moment.

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Eating iPad Crow

• The wife and I bought an iPad 2 last week. It's cool. What I like most about it (so far) is the e-reading functionality. I have read the first two books of The Hunger Games trilogy on it over the last few days and it has been great for that.

I have been worrying for some time that I was going to stop reading books just because I don't really have any where to put them. I use the library but then there is whole driving to the library to pick up/drop off, the deadlines, etc. The e-books are just so damn easy.

I am now bringing an iPod, iPhone, and iPad with me to work. Small, medium and large (also have a mac laptop at home...extra large I guess). Ridiculous. I have gotten sucked into the Apple vortex. Never saw that coming a few years ago.

Back in November I wrote a review of a book called The Postmortal and in the beginning of that post, I railed against tablets and e-readers. I still think some of my points are valid but today I have come to eat crow. I love reading books on the iPad.

• The Hawks won last night and Viktor-ious got the hat trick. Good for him. Now play like that against a good team. The rookies continue to impress. Good things happen when Jimmy Hayes is on the ice. I'm not saying these guys are ready to perform under the stress of the playoffs but with Marcus Kruger coming back soon, it makes me less itchy about the offensive side of the team. Bowman needs to concentrate on acquiring one really good defenseman although I would not be sad if he somehow pulled off a trade for Iginla.

• What's the best dinosaur? This guy knows.

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Freeform Jazz Exploration

Blogging again. If Katie can do it, so can I. Challenge accepted.

When Nigel Tufnel quits Spinal Tap in mid-tour, the rest of the band is left high and dry before a performance in which they are the second act on a bill behind a puppet show. Unable to perform almost any of their regular set without Tufnel, the remaning band members decide that their only option is a "free form jazz exploration". (You need to watch that clip. YouTube won't let me embed it but it's worth the click.)

The last time I tried to do this blog, I imposed a rigid structure on myself, blogging three times a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, writing specifically about X, Y and Z. That experiment last a about ten weeks before I couldn't deal with the strain of trying to post 1500 words three times a week. This time: no rules except post something every day whether it be a link, a picture, a song, whatever. In other words, a jazz odyssey.

As no one reads this blog anyway, I have nothing to lose. And nothing to gain either, really, except maybe it will be fun.

Hawks game tonight. Sharp is out, the rookies are in.

I like Hayes A LOT. What a beast that kid is, he's like Bryan Bickell if Bickell learned how to use his size and um, you know, play hockey. I am undecided on Shaw although I see his grit and upside. And my old flame Ben Smith is back. In his first call-up earlier this season, Smith didn't play that well but was also coming into a tough set of circumstances. I think he will perform better this time.  I will always love Ben Smith.

The lineup is so jumbled right now I am concerned that there is just not enough chemistry on offense. On defense.... It's a mess after Keith and Seabrook. Leddy is playing too many minutes, Hammer is ineffectual, the bottom pair is getting three shifts a game. Yikes.

To acquire a solid number three or four defenseman and/or a second line center will require giving up a lot of picks and prospects. But that's why you acquire assets, to make moves. The Hawks need a lot of help right now to become a strong Cup contender. It will be interesting to see what Stan does.

PS: Why do the Hawks always play against teams in the first game after they have just fired their head coach? Happened against STL earlier this season and now Columbus. Those teams will of course come out fired up to play for the new guy. That blows.

I don't really care about the NBA but I enjoyed this:

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