January 29th - Links

AJC.COM - "Bettman confident Thrashers are stable"
AJC.COM - "Special-teams woes pile up in tough loss"
AJC.COM - "Sutton's healthy, but is the power play?"
ESPN.COM - "All-Star Game draws measly 0.7 rating on Versus"
ESPN.COM - "Teams will be looking for defense, depth at center"
Thrashers vs. Flyers 1/28

Instead of just posting links, photos, and videos, since I am at every game and season ticket holder, and since this is a blog, I will try my best to now incorporate my original idea for this blog as well as continuing to post links, photos, and videos.

What an extremely frustrating game. Bettman in the house, on national TV, against a last place bottom feeder, in front of a sold out crowd, not to mention it was Thrash's birthday with a billion kids in the house. This certainly did not give these kids any good Thrashers memories other than the local area mascots on hand for entertainment. Heck, even the Gladiator's mascot Maximus came to give me a hug and watch my spin at the Spin N' Win. That was perhaps the most exciting moment of the game... or perhaps it was the sweet posters we were given by our "Hockey Mom" from several seasons ago.

Maybe the Flyers were bound to finally get a win... but not at the expense of the Thrashers, not at sold out "nationally" televised game! Say it isn't so! Perhaps their goalie was just having a good night... we did have a million opportunities and just could not convert on a damn thing. The Flyers were trying to GIVE us goals with as many penalties as they took, including one 5 on 3 situation, which is usually an automatic gimme goal... but no, the Thrashers couldn't come up with one even on a two man 'vatage. Talk about wanting to bang your head against the wall! To top it off, Carolina had lost and lost bad the previous night 7-3 and it was the PERFECT opportunity for the Thrashers to pick up another 2 points on the lead... against the last place Flyers...but no. And of course, when it comes to the Thrashers losing, it always seems to be heartbreakers. The last normal loss was that game against Montreal. But it seems like every loss comes at the last moments of the game... in a nail biter. The Flyers scored with little more than a minute left. Ouch! We hit the post, we had plenty of chances, but we don't crash the net. No one is there to bring it home. I knew who ever scored the next goal was going to win and I just had a bad feeling it wasn't going to be us... and man, I was right. But at least we didn't lose any ground.

It was cool to see the new All-Star logo and see Bettman in the house, but we embarrassed ourself in front of the Commish! Lose to a last place team in front of the NHL Commissioner, a billion little kids, a national TV audience, and against a last place team! Could you get any worse? It's Monday and it still stings. But I'll get over it.

Hopefully we'll get back to Ws this week... if nothing else, there is lots of hockey to look forward to this week... games Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at Blueland. And Saturday is the Kovy player statute giveaway, you better bet I'll be there extra early to get in line for them.

All for now.