This week in telenovelas: "Volver"

I guess tonight was just another episode of my hockey telenovela.

En esto capítulo: Vuelve El Guapo!

¡EL GUAPO!

¿Remember when El Guapo was capitán? 
Regresa también El Spatcho. Y their team won the game. ¿How do you say "revenge" en español?

¡EL SPATCHO!

Nosotros somos heartbroken. Carolina tiene El Guapo y El Spatcho, y nosotros have Kaberle. No es fair.

To be honest, this game would have been more fun to watch if it had actually been a telenovela. There would have been more expressive facial expressions before each commercial break, and after each goal.

Felicitaciones, Coach Kirk.

Plus/Minus: It's a mad mad mad mad mad world

Just when you think things can't get any crazier, they do. I'm pretty sure that there's some kind of universal law about that, no? If there isn't, can we name it after me? 

PLUS

+ No matter, what, the Habs' yearly children's hospital visits always get a Plus. The players have so many roles to play, and sure, sometimes they don't have their best game, and sometimes they spit a few clichés at beat reporters and call it a night, but playing the part of a sick little kid's hero? That's not the kind of thing you can do easily, and you can't just coast through it or fake it. These guys step up every year, and the kids love them for it.

+ Congratulations to Frédéric St. Denis on his first NHL goal!
+ Angry Josh Gorges.
+ It hurts to congratulate a goalie you play against, but both Curtis Sanford and Roberto Luongo were great in their shootout wins over Montreal this week.
+ That being said, no one can deny just how important Carey Price is to this team. I don't even want to think about where the Canadiens would be without him. He's every bit as talented and composed as he needs to be - any more would just be gravy.
+ Last Monday, in a game against Phoenix, Jonathan Toews did everything that you could possibly want a star forward to do.
+ As a TV fan, I believe that a good Christmas episode should have you in stitches and/or tears, preferably both at the same time. My TV comedies were great at that last week: especially How I Met Your Mother and Parks and Recreation with the tears.
+ Taran Killam's recreation of Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend" video: pure hilarity, and proof that the people on SNL are funnier than you think they are.

MINUS

A week ago I'd have thought this was Photoshopped

- I’m kind of glad that Madonna being announced as the Super Bowl halftime performer wasn’t the biggest sports story of the week. Way too much whining about this as if it were a problem. It’s not a problem. There are two kinds of people in this world: people who like Madonna and people who lie.
- Sure, Spacek was an inconsistent, goofy, injury-prone big lug, but he was OUR inconsistent, goofy, injury-prone big lug. I wanted to keep him.
- Pierre Gauthier and Jacques Martin tried awfully hard to spin the Kaberle trade to appease Habs fans. I would have preferred honesty over blank praise. I know it's never going to happen, but I still kind of wish it would.
- Is it terrible of me to think that maybe Sidney Crosby wouldn't be out of a roster spot again if he hadn't started playing again when he did? People thought that his recovery was some kind of a miracle, and the greatest thing in sports or something. And I hate to Grinch all over it but maybe he was rushed back too soon, by doctors who may not have known that it was too soon, and maybe this just proves that we don't know enough about brain injuries.

- I have no idea what would motivate Pat Hickey to write such terrible things about Theo Fleury. But to think that he actually thought, and wrote, and then actually submitted these things for print is just awful. I can't even put it into words.

- If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen yesterday that I got mad at someone who made a rude comment towards me. I'd like to elaborate a little on that. I maybe got a little too angry, and tried to stoop to his level. In the words of Bob Gainey: "When you're being bullied, if you don't stand up for yourself... who's going to?" I'm sorry if the way that I expressed myself seemed immature, but I was upset, and I will never not be upset when someone tells me I can't or shouldn't do something just because I'm female.

My Canadiens: The Series

So I finally got to see the infamous Bell TV series about the Habs, thanks to TSN picking up "Your Canadiens." It was... special. You can read my review of the first episode over at All Habs. Long story short: it felt really good to be able to rip on a poorly produced TV show and watch 30 minutes of my favourite Hab at the same time.

Basically, what happens is Anne-Marie Withenshaw spends a few banal hours of "everyday life" with each player on the team, in front of cameras. But you know what would be more fun? The opposite. That's right, I'm pitching a series where the Habs spend a few banal hours in my everyday life.

EPISODE 1: TAKIN' CARE OF BUSINESS

well, that's an awkward screencap if I've ever seen one

Hal Gill finds out what my job is, thus learning one of the universe's biggest secrets:

- Gill waits for me outside my office building and checks his BlackBerry!

- Profile about my professional accomplishments: This one time, I found a really serious subtitle problem and I wasn't even supposed to be looking for it, but I totally saved the day!

- I show him my workstation and he remarks that the air conditioning is on too high!

- It's free bagel day at the office so we split a bagel while I list all the coffeeshops within a five-block radius!

- Hal thinks my job is cool until I tell him about all the crappy movies I've watched multiple times in multiple languages! We sit at a computer for three hours wearing headphones!

- We get lunch at the salad place in my office building and he asks me if I have a crush on the hot (but sorta crazy) guy in my office!

- Awkward abrupt ending after lunch!

EPISODE 2: THERAPY DAY

This is actually footage from his audition tape. He's wanted to host the show for two years

Jaroslav Spacek lives a day in the life when I'm not at my on-call weekday job:
- We watch SportsCenter!
- Profile of my blogging accomplishments: I co-founded Hab It Her Way! I write for All Habs! Sometimes I talk on the radio! One time I got plagiarized, and another time I got linked by Puck Daddy!
- He helps me write a draft of this week's Plus/Minus!
- We eat some cookies!
- Awkward "will you drive or will I drive" conversation, ending in Spacek driving because I don't have a car!
- We go to the nail salon! Spacek is afraid of getting a manicure and I tell him to tough it out! He chooses the colour of my nail polish!
- We part ways and he thanks me in both English and Czech, even though I don't speak Czech!

Yeah, I bet a ton of people would watch this show.

Plus/Minus makes its playoff debut

This was the week the Capitals, the best team in the NHL this season, had to put up a fight against the Canadiens, who sneaked into the postseason like it was an R-rated movie. Elsewhere in the NHL, some players showed what they were made of. Stars are rising and fans are getting even louder. I'm actually making an effort to write Plus/Minus on a Sunday evening like I always intend to. It's definitely playoff season.

PLUS

+ to whoever decided to put Geico's googley-eyed wad of money on a board behind Pierre McGuire stood in the Verizon Center this week. I'm not saying I noticed a resemblance every time I saw McGuire on TSN... except that's exactly what I'm saying.
+ Jaroslav Spacek has played two of his best games of the season.
+ A lot of people think that Jacques Martin hates Sergei Kostitsyn. But Sergei's been playing pretty well, and usually plays better when he thinks it counts, so I'm glad coach decided not to bench him.
+ Also that other K brother is pretty cool.
+ Vancouver's Green Men.
+ Andy Sutton is hilarious. He needs to be a little more careful about, y'know, not knocking out other players, but he gets this plus for being honest with an annoying reporter.


MINUS

- The new Sidney Crosby shoe commercial - proof that sometimes, you should just let the animators do their work and not bother with celebrity endorsements or awful catchphrases. My feet don't need an energy drink.
- People paid just a little too much attention to Plekanec and Theodore's comments about each other. Sure, it sounds like they're spitting out wicked burns, but it's also proof that sometimes things get blown out of proportion.
- The genius who wrote into the Gazette with basically another letter about the NHL, money and the ethnic vote. Apparently today's NHL players don't deal with the shame of having fans talk to them in public and just prance directly from the ice onto a plane back to the scary, scary foreign countries they call home. I'm sure that's exactly what it's like. Every player on the Habs' roster lives in Montreal, at the very least, from training camp to the end of their season. I'm sure that at some point during all these long months (sometimes away from their families, other times right in front of them) someone will stop them on the street with an opinion, or interrupt their meal for an autograph, snap a picture with their phone, or tweet about them. Sure, some players are more motivated than others, but it's racist, ignorant blowhards like the Jean-Maurice who wrote this letter that create the kind of environment nobody wants to play in.

First home game of the playoffs tomorrow... go crazy, Montreal. Actually, on second thought, don't.

Plus/Minus switches its CH for a Team Canada jersey

Earlier this week Tom Pyatt said "There's lots of action going on here in Montreal." That was pretty accurate - the last week or so has definitely given us a lot to talk about. Now that changes for a couple of weeks. No Habs games means I have more time to watch Lost. It also means less Roman, less Carey, less Metro... but it also means more Kim St-Pierre. 

Plus

+ to #14 for ending Washington's 14-game winning streak.
+ Our Hamilton callups were a huge part of the team this week, both literally and figuratively. They were fantastic - all thirty-five of them.
+ Scott Gomez was great this week. Two goals, plus he didn't back away from Chris Pronger after Friday's game.
+ to one of our favourite bloggers, JT from The H Does Not Stand For Habs, whose comments section became a minor firestorm of francophone backlash this week after she commented on this city's need for a French-speaking GM. Some people apparently weren't very happy with her, and it was ridiculous criticism for one of the most level-headed and knowledgeable amateur journalists this team has. I'm not going to go into it any further because talking about the language issue as it relates to the Canadiens is like hitting on a gay guy: I can say whatever I want but it's not going to change anything.

+ She looked a little disappointed that she didn't win gold, but I'm still proud of Jennifer Heil's silver in moguls, and of all our Olympians so far, including skier Alexandre Bilodeau who just made history by becoming the first Canadian athlete to win a gold medal in Canada.
+ Team Canada!!! Watching Olympic hockey is part of what got me back into watching hockey, so I'm looking forward to the next two weeks. Hayley Wickenheiser is so awesome.

The biggest + of the week A plus and a big thank you go out to all the readers who made comments this week and increased my donations to the Canadian Cancer Society, to those of you who will comment after I type this, and to everyone who's helped spread the word and to everyone who's going to match our total donation. So far that's only one person, but it still makes $4 for every comment! This plus is also for NHL Arena boards poster bMac for designing the "Comments = Donations" graphic mere hours after I asked for it.

He's from Ontario and he's not even a Habs fan but he helped the cause regardless of his allegiances, so a Hal Gill-sized thanks goes out to him.
I had originally said that the charity drive would end with this Plus/Minus, but you've got until midnight on February 15th instead so say anything you want until then!


Minus

- Geez, what's with the head injuries? It's bad enough that we've already got a variety of injuries on this team.  Two Habs were carted off the ice this one week bleeding from the head... I have my suspicions as to why the injury fairy's been going crazy on us lately, which I might share when the time is right. But Gorges and Spacek get a plus within this minus for picking themselves up and not missing the next game, just because they're badass like that.

- I don't like giving minuses to players, but it kind of hurt to see our goaltenders not playing as well as we know they can against the Flyers. This isn't necessarily a minus to them (there's enough hate directed our goalies as it is) but rather to the way that Saturday's game turned out.

- I already expressed my anger about Michael Leighton taking up with P.K. Subban after Friday's game. Stupid, unsportsmanlike, and completely useless to mess with a guy after his first NHL game, because there's no way Leighton could have any beef with him.

I'm not used to seeing the Habs calendar only half-full, but it is. So, go Canada, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of the world brings to the table.

The Jaroslav Tea Party: Game Preview 2-4-10

Tonight's game spells the return of Halak to the net (third start in a row, for whoever's counting), and Spacek to the blueline. Clinging to 7th place in the East, the Habs take on an old foe in Boston who, it has to be said, hasn't been awesome lately, but are hot on the Habs' trail for a playoff spot (much like everyone and their mother). Both games between the two teams this season have been won by the Canadiens, however lots of factors have changed since then, begging the question "what to expect tonight?"

The last 5-1 score had Mike Cammalleri score a hat trick. Today, he stands on crutches. To that effect, neither team has a 20-goal scorer. Plekanec and Gionta are tied for second on the board in that category with 14 each, while on the other side, Marco Sturm leads with 16. Given the history of these division/all-time rivals it's only natural to expect that one can look for a physical affair, with more skirmishes and trips to the box than bouts of offensive flashiness.

However:

• The aformentioned Marco Sturm would love to show his goal face to the Bruins' faithful.
• Patrice Bergeron and Marc Savard are a double-team of annoying when it comes to these matchups. They've combined for 54 points in 73 games against the Habs, which doesn't quite seem staggering enough of a statistic so maybe it's just me that finds them annoying.
• Zdeno. 'Nuff said.
• David Krejci has been one bright spot in Boston's recent woes, and no doubt he also has a little bit of revenge planned for his compatriot Tomas Plekanec (if you have no idea what I'm referring to, YouTube-search the two names).
• Michael Ryder may find himself in trade rumours, but he's no less dangerous against his old team.

Post-Ottawa victory: So many questions...

The Canadiens beat the Senators 4-1 in a game that showed how well this team has come together. (They'd make Viggo proud!)

yoinked from Habs Inside/Out

But I've still got a couple of questions after this game:

Was anyone actually surprised that Jaro Halak was in nets tonight? Because I wasn't, really, and I'm glad that his morale wasn't affected by that messy loss in Buffalo.

Haven't we hit our quota of injuries for the season? Jaroslav Spacek was hit by a puck late in the first period, possibly aggravating an existing injury. Isn't it bad enough that the Habs played without Paul Mara tonight?

What on earth is this Ryan White deal all about? Did the League really ask for him to be removed from the lineup during the game because of a call-up technicality? (I knew such a quick comeback was too good to be true.) Couldn't they have done their research like half an hour earlier? And if White had completed Sergei Kostitsyn's play and scored a goal, would it have been disallowed, as the RDS analysts said it might?

How happy are you that our special teams have finally turned into something special?

Is it just me or are Mike Cammalleri and Tomas Plekanec the ultimate dynamic duo? They have better chemistry than any other pair of guys on the team. (Do we at Hab It Her Way need to stop talking about Cammy and Pleks? Because we really can't help it.)

Speaking of duos, how awesome is it for Josh Gorges that Hal Gill is back? They not only play well together, but they're very good at intimidating other players together as well. Who'd have thought that two of the nicest guys off the ice would be bullying other guys so well at game time?

Did I start thinking about Friday Night Lights as soon as I found out that Hal Gill was quarterback of his high school football team? Yes.

yoinked from tvfanatic.com, which seems to have some pretty awesome FNL coverage. by the way, rent this show during the offseason. honestly. you'll thank me.

How much does Winchester hate his life right now after a puck bounced off his stick on its way into Ottawa's net?

Why is Scott Gomez's empty-net goal only his fourth of the season, especially after such a strong outing tonight?

Is this a new (or old) improved Sergei? He had a big game, with some intelligent plays, a few thrilling almost-goals, a quicker reaction to Spacek's injury than anyone else on the ice (team player!), and he only missed a few minutes of play after his own injury.


And finally... I feel bad completely bashing the other team, so... how much would you love Mike Fisher if he was a Hab? He was Ottawa's best player tonight and he's hella good. If I knew he'd play like that, maybe I wouldn't have made fun of his girlfriend's Christmas special on Fox. (It was out of love, I swear! I actually like Carrie Underwood.)

If you've read this whole thing before Wednesday morning, hats off to you (and thank you!). You're in for a Christmas surprise tomorrow.

Little girl, no more.

So I had started thinking that this game post was going to resemble a protest against what is likely to result in a hemorrage of printed nonsense about "goaltending controversies" and how we may now have one on our hands because apparently, it is probably the worst thing ever to actually be in possession of two solid goaltenders, but there is a much more important issue to address.

Tomas Plekanec.

Well, lookit you, Mr. Badass.

Before going further I must underline and applaud the play of Travis Moen tonight. First star honours were very well deserved in this Méchant Lundi special event (otherwise known as "what, we play tonight? Really?") as well as Hammer for continuing his reign on the offensive masters of the Habs' blueline (outscoring Sheldon Souray by 3 goals. Concussion or not, betcha didn't think THAT was ever going to happen). I've also been a little rough on Jaroslav Spacek lately, and that goal made me eat my words.

So, Pleks. This may well be my area of expertise, granted, he has been my favourite player for awhile (and in my sights since his first-ever training camp in 2001). There have been ups. There have been downs. There have been turtleneck jokes and little girl references (and of course, the accompanying creative uses of Photoshop). There is, currently, a one-year contract, $2.75M.

So far, the man we "overpaid" this summer is looking like the bargain he has been since 2001.

This and he hasn't kept the same wingers for more than two games all season. The silent but wily craftsman is back to being one of the highest on the Habs' leaderboard. Eight of his points are assists, but none of those were cheaply made. Roll back footage of Cammy's second goal on Saturday. He is back and he is strong, he is making use of whatever chances he gets despite the instability on either side of him. He has the odd average game, but the Plekanec definition of "average" still means busting his butt every shift. It's been said before, but doesn't always reach into the thick skulls of some Habs' fans (who tend to favour former wearers of jersey #27, coincidence?) who are off in Trade Rumour La-La Land, pointing at his "rising value" and "the need to capitalize on it" as soon as possible rather than acknowledging and even celebrating the fact that this team we couldn't recognize October 1st actually has a familiar face pulling a lot of its strings. He's even added to the formula a little--this season he's slowly adding the extra spice to his game by attempting the human bulldozer on pretty much every opponent, 5'9'' or 6'7''. Doesn't always win, sometimes ends up flat on his butt, but oh, those fearful little Euro forwards, afraid to get in the corners...not so much.

And tonight. End-to-end setup for Hammer's goal. Those playmaking abilities at their very best, that keen vision of the ice, the confidence he so dearly missed last season, it was all there. One thing hasn't changed with his mindset, though. He passed the puck. I'll always remember being present at the Penguins-Canadiens' game a few years ago, again in overtime, where he could have recorded his first NHL hat trick but saw another #44, Souray, in what he felt was a much better position so he passed the puck to him. Souray scored, the entire Bell Centre and beyond went into a fit of deliriousness, ole'ing deep into the metro (I had to hum along, I had no voice left). Pleks? He stuck by his decision like he probably will again tonight. And then there'll be the next game.

But will there be next year? That's not up to me. But you know what would happen if it was.