Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Injuries
It will be interesting to see which of the Hurricanes are injured after this series is over. I'm pretty sure Wesley, Ward (Aaron) and Brind'Amour are injured. I'm not sure who else. Some have speculated Staal is hurt, but I'm not sold on that one yet. Has anyone heard any rumors about this?
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I think Staal may have been but he's ok now.
Ward is hurt worse now.
Weight looked to be in trouble.
Speculation on HNIC was that Hedican is hurting as well.
On Oilers side, Pisani is (despite the goal), I think Jason Smith may be as well. Other that I think some guys, like Pronger, are just exhausted. Smyth and Horcoff too.
The layoff helped the Oil in that respect for sure.
That's what its all about, huh? Did you ever hear of the story about the first time the Oilers were in the finals and lost to the Islanders? Kevin Lowe always tells it.
I think the extra day off between game 5 and 6 should help. The Canes will adjust and play a better game. I'll talk about it in my next post. Don't want to get into it too much here.
I don't think I've heard Lowe's story. Care to retell it?
The Oilers were a terrific team in the early 80s - everyone was waiting for them to make that first Cup run.
And they were young. Really young. Core players were all in their early 20s.
So in their first trip to the finals they met the Islanders who had won three straight Cups of course and were a veteran team.
Oilers got beaten. And pretty easily.
So, Lowe tells about how after the clinching game they passed by the Islanders' dressing room, expecting a huge celebration.
There was a celebration but also a lot of guys laying around, icepacks strapped to them, bloody, black and blue. In other words, pretty badly beaten up. A lot worse then the Oielrs were.
The way Lowe tells it that is when it clicked for the young Oilers and they realized the price that had to be paid - the physical price, to win the greatest trophy in sports.
The next year they won the first of their five Cups.
That's a great story! I grew up in northern Virginia watching the Capitals, but the majority of my family was from Long Island, so I grew up cheering for those same Islanders. Mike Bossy still amazes me to this day. Billy Smith plays tennis with my uncle.
That Islander team was a great great team.
So you've been a fan all of your life then? Do you play as well?
Yes and yes. I've been watching since I was eight. We lived way out in the suburbs of Washington and the nearest ice rink was 30-45 minutes away, so I never skated as a child.
The first time I stepped on the ice was around 4-5 years ago, I think. I've played off and on since then, although I've been off for a few months since my son was born. I hope to jump back on a team either at the half-way point of this season or the beginning of the next season.
I'm actually not a horrible skater (I don't act like a weeble-wobble on the ice), but my crossovers are somewhere between "nonexistant" and "horrible". I have good straight away speed and I can stop fine (better to my right), but my mechanics are bad. I keep meaning to get some good lessons one day, but time and money when you have two small children is not always forthcoming.
My skating would be much better if I could get out to the rink every once in a while. I used to go during work for an hour (around lunchtime) and I probably should start doing that again. I miss it terribly. The problem is when you're only skating once a week (in a game) it doesn't give you a whole lot of opportunity to really improve. Losing about 20 lbs. would help too.
If you can find the time (I have two little ones myself so I know how it is) and you can find a power skating course (now that's what they called it when I was young and that's Northern Ontario so not sure what they might call it down your way) I'd recommend it highly. I played co-ed shinny for a few years up until last winter and we had a lot of newbies who took lessons and also got on the ice as much as they could manage and some of them were better skaters then me - better technique - I'm pretty quick but as a teammate says - when I get going I'm all kind of flailing about crazily - its not pretty
good thing about skating though - if you work at it you will defiintely get a lot better - I've seen people who could barely skate turn into pretty nice skaters within a couple of years
I created a new thread for this, but yeah - they call it power skating down here too. :-) Actually, a shop just opened in town called Five Hole Sports. We already have a few pro shops, but this is different. They have synthetic ice and do individual lessons and such. It's owned by a friend of mine, a nice Canadian guy named Andrew - he was the teacher at my first learn to play class several years back.
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