NHL: Detroit Red Wings 2008 Stanley Cup Champions
Okay, I know most of you probably won't care about this, but I do, and it's my blog, so I can hockey if I want to, LOL, and I am so freakin' excited I can't even tell you!! My Team, my very own Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup Championship last night!!! (I didn't mention their progress in my blog at all cause I did that last year elsewhere, and I know it didn't have any effect in the outcome, but I am a little superstitious that way and didn't want to 'jinx' it this year) Well they won last night Denmark time at least, technically, if I was still at home, I would still be partying up, celebrating the victory cause seriously, this is HUGE news for me!! One of the TWO drawbacks of vacationing for these two weeks is that I missed the last round of the finals, and the celebration my parents will indefinitely have this weekend, don't get me wrong, I am having a blast, but no one even watches hockey over here, so I am like YAY!!....oh, um, you have no clue why I am Yay-ing huh?"
But yeah this is huge for my team, I mean, the fact that it was MY goalie helming the team in the last three rounds, and not the other 'big name' one is major, Ozzy is amazing, and he deserves to be in the spotlight again!! Second string my ASS!! Also, Hank (the one I was planning on stalking, but is kind of pointless because he won't even be back to Sweden before I leave) got the Conn Smythe trophy (for all those not inclined in the verse of the NHL, that is the MVP trophy for the playoffs) which is very important if we want to keep him next year, he is more likely to stay with us if we pro, but I ve we are winners (which we are really, I mean, we had won the Stanley Cup 10 times before last night, third most times in the league) I mean, we have gotten booted from the playoffs in recent years entirely too early, and entirely too often, we always make it, but never quite stay. And Hank is young, he could go to another team with no problem given his skill level, but now that we won, we are more likely to hold onto him, and that makes a super fan like me VERY happy :D.
Also, Nick, our captain, deserves this win. He took over after a freakin' Hockeytowm (that's Detroit) Legend retired, and some people just didn't think he was the right pick for the job because of his low profile preceding his start as captain (he was more of the quiet but consistently amazing 'show them what you can do' defenseman than talk about it and the captain is prepetually in the spotlight) but I think he surprised many people with his interview skills and dealing with always having to answer for the winning and losing of the entire team. He did it with humility and was always wonderful and gracious about both winning and losing without placing blame or being selfish in any way, and after all, the captain is only the face of the team, and should represent the team as a whole, and Nick has done that perfectly since he took the title, so he deserves to win the cup this early in his captaincy, which is indicative of many good years to come I think!
Also, many veteran players earned this too, we have a lot of 'old guys' by NHL standards (Chelios, Draper, Maltby, McCarty and others) and when everyone found out that we would be playing the 'young & fast' Penguins in the final round, many speculated that we would be crushed because we wouldn't be able to keep up with the fast paced game they play and the young energy they exude, but to those people I say HA!! Experience, perseverance and heart (and crazy skill and puck possession) win out over youth. See, old(er) slow(er) and tired(er) trumps all the youth that is thrown at it!!! And yeah, that last sentence is ironic, cause the Wings are not old, slow or tired, but one of the other parts of my brain will get that funny if she reads this.
One last person I want to mention is the coach. Mike also has been working hard as hell for this, and he deswerves it, he DID understand that Osgood would be the stronger pick (at this time anyways) for goalie, and he isn't afraid to shake up lines and shuffle pairings of players to make the team stronger, and all his 'risk taking' as some have called it payed off. He knows hockey well enough to know what is working and what isn't and will make the changes he needs to, not the ones that the fans want, which is VERY important. I am also gonna miss the victory parade (mostly because I don't even think it wll be televised, but also because it will be on Friday morning in Detroit, and I won't be home then either. Oh well, foreign fun trumps hockey...I guess LOL, it wouldn't be worth it if I was here just touristing, but I got to meet T, and that trumps everything :D
Okay, now that I have bored all of you throughly I offer some pretty, cause my boys are nothing if not pretty :)
The Captain: Nicklas Lidstrom
Conn Smythe Winner (Playoff MVP) Henrik Zetterberg (Hank):
Chris Osgood (goaltender extraordinare) The man is rarely out of uniform when he is photographed, so his rocter pic, and a couple others:
This one is for T, (it was a joke, BTW, some fan threw them on the ice, and he picked them up and jokingly put them on after we won the game)
And BTW Kristen Bell is a big Wings fan, and Osgood fan too, check it out:
"Brad Pitt be damned - he has nothing on Osgood's rookie skill and sad eyes," Bell, 26, says on NHL.com. "There was actually a day in high school when I wrote on a name tag 'Mrs. Osgood' and wore it the whole day. I really thought we were perfect for each other. I'd love to meet him - and probably apologize that things never worked out."
"I grew up in Detroit and have always been a huge Wings fan. They have heart, skill, class - and the best color combination known to man," she says. "That is why they will win."
What would she do if she had a day with the Stanley Cup? (championship trophy) very rasonable I see Kristen...
"I would start by eating an entire box of Fruity Pebbles out of it. Then I'd take an afternoon sponge bath in it. Then I'd retro fit it with handles and make it into a Stanley Cup handbag."
And her fave hockey memory?
"My parents submitted a picture of me, in my catholic school uniform, with my arms around the Stanley Cup. It ended up on the ticket for Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Semifinals against Colorado in 1996."
Who can argue with that?!
And the other players I mentioned briefly (Chelios, Draper, Maltby, McCarty):
Coach Mike Babcock:
And other players that were key for the playoffs or that I just like :P
(Samuelsson, Lilja, Lebda)
(Holmstrom, Franzen, Filppula)
(Downey, Datsyuk, Cleary):
Okay, so not all of them are pretty, BUT they are all great players and there are some that are arguably 'prettier' than these ones that I didn't post, because seriously, ask T, I have been posting this blog for like two hours now LOL, trying to perfect it, but I put the ones I tend to favor (these past few years at least). So there ya go, some useless info and some pretty (I hope). And YAY!!!
GO WINGS!!!
2008 Stanley Cup Champions!!! 11 Times and still going strong!!
