Anyone Up For A Rant?

Well, the first of the remaining sixteen teams has fallen, and the brooms made an appearance. No, I'm not talking about brooms like those found in Fantasia, although the Penguins look remarkably similar in their methodical dispatch of the Ottawa Senators. Does anyone feel sorry for this team? Personally, if the Penguins continue to play as well as they did against the Senators, they appear to be a lock for a deep playoff run, and maybe even a spot in the Stanley Cup Finals.

But let's get back to the rant. If the Ottawa Senators have any excuses, they can say that injuries did them in, I suppose. Daniel Alfredsson looked nothing like himself. There were suggestions that Jason Spezza was hurt after he pulled an Alexei Yashin and turned invisible in April. Dany Heatley was simply brutal at both ends of the ice. Ottawa's defence made it seem that they would have had a hard time checking their bags in at the airport, let alone checking other hockey players. Chris Neil proved to be absolutely useless for the entire series. He spent more time in the penalty box for stupid penalties than most murderers spend in prison.

If there was one bright spot, Martin Gerber deserves all the praise. He did as much as he could against the high-powered offence of the Penguins. It's just too bad that the other twenty guys hung him out to dry far too often.

Congratulations go out to the Pittsburgh Penguins, the first team to advance to the second round of the 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs!

Soul Strip?: I'm not sure how many people know what a "soul patch" is. It's a small patch of hair just below the lower lip that came to prominence with musicians in the 1950s and 1960s. It can be seen here on guitarist Steve Vai.

My question is this: what the hell is going on with Jagr's facial hair? The guy has take the soul patch and turned it into the "soul strip". And to boot, he didn't even shave before the playoffs started. Growing a playoff beard is tradition. Growing the six o'clock shadow just looks lazy.

Not only that, but the Rangers need to start clamping down on the retro facial hair. Ryan Hollweg must still be dazed from the stick to the head courtesy of Chris Simon because this moustache is absolutely hideous. George Parros should feel threatened. His 'stache is a thing of hideous beauty, but Hollweg is gaining ground.

Help Needed: I received an email from a reader who needs some help in identifying a couple of hockey players. Johnny O. sent me a picture, and I don't recognize either player immediately, so I am turning to my faithful readers.

Can any of you identify the players in this picture? If anyone knows, please email me at cdnuniguy-at-gmail-dot-com, and I'll pass on the names of the players to Johnny O. Thanks in advance to all who take a shot at identifying these mystery players.

Read All About It: Jean Labonté left a comment on my blog the other day, and I think it's pretty note-worthy to point out how proud I am to have him comment on my blog.

Monsieur Labonté was a member of the 2008 Canadian Sledge Hockey World Championship team that brought home the gold medal from Massachusetts. As you may have seen on this blog, I tried to update the progress of the Canadian team as I am a proud Canuck.

He wrote: "Kudos to you for keeping such a great blog on the great sport of hockey.

And many thanks for keeping people up-to-date on the sledge hockey results at the World Championships. Sledge hockey needs all the coverage it can get (it is a great sport) and you are helping make this sport more known, as it should be. And Sledhead will be coming out next fall, something to look for.

As the captain of the Canadian Sledge Hockey Team, I'd like to thank you on behalf of our team."

Monsieur Labonté, you are most welcome for the coverage. It is an extremely exciting sport, from what I've found, and I am happy to report on your team whenever you guys take to the ice. Congratulations on bringing home the gold medal, and for making all Canadians proud!

If you'd like to read Mr. Labonté's blog, you can find it here. It's written in French, but he does have translation buttons on the site. Please check it out for some great information on the sport of sledge hockey!

Say What?: I have a couple of requests for all those who read this blog. If you're interested in hockey in all its forms, please visit here. I appreciate every single reader, and am working on some new stuff to bring to you.

However, please do not come to this site after searching for things that have little or nothing to do with hockey. I'll give you an example.

At some point today, someone from SURREY, BRITISH COLUMBIA decided to Google search this phrase: "Markus Naslund sex tape". Let me assure you that you will never find anything like that on this site. I try to keep this as PG-friendly as possible. I didn't even post the racy photos of Jiri Tlusty that came out because it's just not what people come here to see.

If whoever searched for that information is reading this now, why are you looking for that? And what could possibly make you think that I'd be interested in blogging about it? Please don't click on this site for content like that. You won't find any from the past, and you'll never see it in the future. Thanks.

Ok, that's all for me today. I have a pile of other stuff I have to re-install onto my new hard drive. That's right - I'm back up and running! More updates coming up this week (as usual).

Until then, keep your sticks on the ice!