The Ear Hole

Mormons

College FB broadcasting line of the day goes to ESPN play-by-play man Brad Nessler. 

Quoth Nessler after Oklahoma freshman kicker Tress Way came up short (and wide) on a potential clutch 54-yard game winner: "I think [BYU QB] Max Hall just said 'Oh my gosh...or whatever it is they say in Provo.'"

Beautiful. 

He wasn't done: "One of the 36 married players on the BYU team, Max Hall, can go home to wife McKenzie — well, she's probably here..."

Thanks Brad.

Robbers On High Street — Married Young

Also, Bob Davie still loves the word, "football." Listen for it.

Simon Says...

..."Hey, maybe I'll just slash the shit out of his face."

Yes, Chris Simon's slash on Ryan Hollweg in last night's heated Rangers/Islanders battle was horrible, dangerous, scary, inexcusable, ugly, etc., etc.

Indeed, Hollweg was fortunate not to suffer any major injuries.

Chris Simon. Funny...looks perfectly sane to me

But it was also one of the best slashes in the history of the game.

There, I said it. Comments section is open.

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OK fine, here are some mp3s. Greedy freeloaders.

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The Bar-Kays—Feelin' Alright

Buy The Bar-Kays

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Valet—Tony Hornes & Johnny Ace Vs Elvis Presley

Buy Valet

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Raúl Midón—Sittin' In The Middle

Buy Raúl Midón

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Also, an interesting breaking development concerning your boy, Usher.

Happy Weekend.

opening day

I feel like a kid on Christmas morning. The puck drops on the 2006-07 NHL season tonight, and I'm giddier than a congressman at a boy scout convention.

While the general, sane population begins to cower and pout as summer draws to an end, we hockey fans perk up and prepare to greet the cold with open arms. That winter nip in the air smells as sweet as blooming spring flowers, and we dig for our sweaters and beanies with the glee of a teenage girl shopping for a new sun dress in April.

Even when the worst month of the year, February, rolls around, the budding playoff push numbs us to its cold, dull, holiday-less misery (president's day doesn't count, and valentine's day is sort of like a negative holiday).

Anyway, hooray for hockey.

So the season launches with three games tonight, two of which will be nationally televised on the home of the NHL, Versus (formerly OLN). OLN did a decent job in its debut season last year, picking up the exclusive NHL broadcast rights after ESPN dropped them like a glass of wine at a Parkinson's convention amid well-founded post-lockout viewership concerns.

OLN/Versus veteran Ted Nugent (top) melts Buffalo Sabres RW Maxim Afinogenov's Russian face with a bodacious American hunting riff.

Yes, the National Hockey League on the Outdoor Life Network, your go-to crock pot for rodeo, hunting, fishing and all sorts of other redneck fun. Bull riding at 7; Hockey at 8, Ted Nugent's "Wanted Ted or Alive" at 11. Talk about a match made in heaven. How many folks do you suppose subscribe to both The Hockey News and Field And Stream? Minnesotans and Canadians don't count.

But even if the league's exposure and legitimacy was a fraction of what it was with ESPN, OLN's '05-'06 game lineup was surprisingly pretty good, and Bill Clemente, Pierre McGuire and Keith Jones did an okay job picking up the slack in the studio. OLN's ratings, of course, went through the roof (which may be why they felt compelled to change their moniker to something a little less, well, outdoorsy).

That said, the NHL on OLN did feel sort of like a retarded NHL 2Nite; dumbed-down hockey for the OLN psychographic. Buccigross, Melrose and Ferraro: you are missed.

So anyway, now it's the NHL on Versus, and it all starts tonight with Buffalo vs. Carolina at 7pm ET, followed by Dallas vs. Colorado at 10. And if you sprung for the NHL Center Ice package, the game of the night should be Ottawa at Toronto at 7:30.

Better go get my work out of the way; maybe pick up some Labatt.

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Two tracks today:

While drummer Moore's solo records have found him setting aside the Nawlins swamp funk of his Galactic day job and flexing his jazz chops, this project leans a little more toward the former. Perhaps that's because his lineup on III is a little funkier than the more straight-ahead jazz support he had enlisted on his first two solo ventures. Robert Walter on keys and Will Bernard on guitar, with some sax and trombone help from Skerik and Mark Mullins, respectively. Walter penned most of these songs, including this one, which would fit on any of his Twentieth Congress discs.

Stanton Moore: "Poison Pushy"

Click here to purchase III

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And, appropriately, the New York Rangers Goal Song.

bowels of hell

With their best forward, defenseman and goalie all on the bench, nobody in their right mind expected the Rangers to win game two in the swamp tonight. And they sure as hell met expectations.

While this was a tighter, more focused Rangers team than whatever showed up to Saturday's debacle, the Blueshirts were once again simply outmanned by a faster, tougher, more-disciplined Devils team.

League-MVP Jagr out. Defensive ole faithful Kaspairitis out. Team confidence-deflating Weekes between the pipes. For us realists, the game was over before it even began; the final buzzer could not come soon enough.

But the show must go on. The Rangers have finally escaped the bowels of hell -- albeit with third-degree burns -- and must seize the opportunity to turn things around Wednesday night in the World's Most Famous Arena.

With Jagr and Kaspar back in the lineup (we hope), fan-favorite King Henry between the pipes (we hope) and the infectious aura of a building hosting its first post-season game in nearly a decade, the Garden faithful should be primed to prod the boys out of the gate with a loud, raucous homecoming. And let's also hope it's a high-voltage prod, because if we intend to uproot this Satanic regime, it's going to have to start with netting the first goal of game three; Jersey's been protecting its leads too well to allow them to score first. Either way, don't expect the final score of this one to be as lopsided as the last two.

And speaking of lopsided, I decided it might be fun to play a little game with myself for Wednesday night's pivotal matchup. For each goal the Rangers score, I will ceremoniously take a healthy shot of Absinthe (an homage to the Czech-littered NYR lineup).

For each Devs goal, I will swallow a heavily-Frank's-Hot-Sauced deviled egg (whole; store-bought). The object of the game? I'm not quite sure yet. But I do know that if the game IS lopsided, in either direction, I'm probably in trouble.

rangers...

...suck at hockey. Dismal slide to cap off a marvelous season, but at least we're in the damn playoffs. And that Rangers-Devils series has to be the most exciting of the first round.

At least we're not in Durham.

In other news, looks like the Cruise missle smoked out a bouncing baby girl. Lord -- or whomever the Scientologists call their supreme being -- help that child.

d-day

I can say with a relatively low margin of error that tonight may be the biggest night of my young life. Who would have thought that an evening of such magnitude would fall on a Tuesday night, half-way through just my 25th year of existence? Not me.

But then again, who would have thought that the Rangers' final regular-season game would have Atlantic Division title implications? According to the dismal pre-season prognoses, not a damn soul.

The Rangers, clinging to first place in the Atlantic by one point, host the powerhouse Ottawa Senators tonight in a game that will likely determine their playoff forecast. The Devils and Flyers, trailing the Blueshirts by one point in a tie for second place, are poised to ambush the skidding Rangers and steal the division title. And in the likely event that they prevail against the Candiens and Islanders, respectively, that is exactly what is about happen (if both NJ and Philly win and wind up in a first-place tie, the tie-breaker goes to the Devils).

Unless, of course, the Rangers can sack up and actually win a game. But if you had the misfortune of watching any one of the last four games, you sure as hell are not counting on that.

Sure, they get two important pieces back in the lineup tonight, as Lundqvist and Kasparaitis return from multi-game injuries. But while the extra security on defense will help, the Rangers' biggest problems of late have been their failure to a) put the puck in the net and b) play 60 minutes of hockey. And while the former may be a by-product of bad luck and hot goaltending, the latter is inexcusable. Save for some hot flashes of confidence from a few individuals over this dismal stretch -- Hossa, Sykora and, gasp, Poti) the team has not been able to shell out three full periods inspired hockey.

I hate to say it, but a chunk of this funk may also hinge on Jagr's mini-slump. Because let's face it: when the big players are playing like big players, the energy resonates through the entire team. So here’s to hoping that no. 68 nets one early tonight; and that the return Henri and Kasper yields an additional boost right out of the gate. First goal is going to be key tonight.

The Rangers have shown this season that they're able to get the big wins -- or at least play like they want them -- when they're backed into a corner. Well, they can't be backed in any further now, so let's see it.

For more on the subject, check out the best Rangers blog on the net, the Hockeybird.

red-headed blueshirts

I realize baseball pays the bills in this nation of simpletons, but the New York periodicals' saturating MLB coverage is really starting to get on my nerves. Is the biggest sports story in New York today really the 3-and-4 Yankees? With six pages of Bomber coverage, the Post seems to think so.

But wait. Didn't the Rangers just clinch their first playoff berth in nine years? Didn't most pre-season polls news have them finishing dead last in the NHL? Aren't they, with three games remaining in the regular season, in a wild, three-legged race with two arch-rivals to finish first in the Atlantic Division?* And didn't one of their Czech players -- a league MVP shoe-in -- just set all kinds of Rangers scoring records? With the scant amount of Rangers (hell, NHL) press in this city, you may not know any of that.

But arguing about the hockey coverage in this city is about as useful as a pretty face on a fat chick. Some things will just never change; and maybe shouldn't. After all, the league did shoot itself in the foot with the lockout, and we shouldn't be surprised if it takes more than one season -- albeit an exciting one -- to win back the hearts of the casual fans and propel the sport back toward the front pages of NYC's sports sections.

That said, whether you're a devout hockey fan or a Latino, you can't not be intrigued by the storybook season that has been the Blueshirts' 2005-06 campaign. One would think the city's sports editors would want to leverage that a little more. I guess the true test will come once the Rangers face off against their cross-Hudson rivals in the first round of the playoffs. If that doesn't boost coverage, the sport may be doomed, after all.

I hope the Yankees miss the playoffs. In fact, I hope a mid-season MLB strike cancels the playoffs outright.

As far as I'm concerned, this here might be the only cool thing anyone has ever done with baseball. Ever. Check out this dude's video-game rendition of the Mets' 1986 World Series victory.

* So they lost to the shitty Islanders last night. They still don't deserve this kind of neglect.

GOAL!!

Does this count? (<--- click that)