Chad Smith’s False Hope

Chad Smith is the excellent drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a band I saw perform at the Verizon Center in DC last week. Yes, the show was great though I would have preferred that the band play a few less songs from their new album and perform Breaking the Girl and Snow (Hey Oh). I could write much more about the show, but I want to focus on Mr. Smith. At the end of the concert, Chad Smith was the last member of the band on stage. He threw a few of his drumsticks into the crowd, went to the microphone and said, “I hope that Capitals win the [f’n] Cup!” He did not say f’n. Anyway, I wouldn’t have thought much about Smith’s proclamation except that the next day I saw this article and video of Smith by NHL.com:



This text is from the article:

But the longtime Detroit Red Wings fan has also been lucky enough to live out some of his childhood hockey dreams. For the Michigan-born Smith, a lifelong infatuation with the Wings reached a new level in 1997, when he found himself in the locker room at Joe Louis Arena as the Red Wings celebrated their first Stanley Cup in 42 years.

Your favorite team wins the Stanley Cup and you get to celebrate the victory in the locker room. That’s just awesome.

A Los Angeles resident for decades, Smith has adopted the Kings as another NHL favorite. For the drummer, who occasionally attends Kings games when the band isn't touring, their current run to the Western Conference Finals has been exciting.

Essentially, Smith roots for the Kings unless they face the Red Wings. I completely understand this. When I lived in San Diego, I supported Tony Gwynn and the Padres unless they faced the Pirates. I also lived in Columbus during the inaugural season of the Blue Jackets, so I have a connection to that organization from my time working as a beer man at Nationwide Arena. Of course, as much as I want Columbus to do well, the Penguins will always be my favorite team.

Anyway, let’s get back to Chad Smith. Nashville eliminated the Red Wings in the first round of this year’s NHL playoffs. With the Kings advancing to the Western Conference finals, you would think that Smith now wants Los Angeles to win the Stanley Cup. So why the "I hope the Capitals win the Cup" statement?

Let’s go back to the video. If you watched it, you probably noticed the 4:40 mark where Smith states "I think Washington’s going to win tonight (meaning game 6 last Wednesday). I don’t really want them to win…but game 7 is going to the Rangers." He continues by stating that he hopes that the Kings and Rangers meet in the finals. So what the heck, Chad Smith? Why state that you hope the Caps win when you also want the Kings and Rangers to win? Is Smith looking to run for political office? If so, it's a good strategy to pander to the New York and Los Angeles voters. I guess that you don't want to upset the Capitals fans either. This seems like a Sarah Palin situation from 2008 all over again. With the Capitals loss to the Rangers in game seven on Saturday, I guess that Smith's hopes of the Caps winning the Cup this year are over.

For more about the Chili Peppers concert in DC check out the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post reviews.

Penguins-Red Wings Story Lines

With Detroit’s win over the Chicago Blackhawks last night, the Red Wings will now face the Pittsburgh Penguins in a rematch of last year’s Stanley Cup finals. For all of you hockey fans and non-hockey fans (at least for now) out there, let me be of assistance for what you may (or may not) hear from the media over the next week.

- Marian Hossa was a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins last season and signed a one-year contract with Detroit this season.

- Jordan Staal does not have any brothers on the Red Wings.

- Sidney Crosby is still trying to grow a playoff beard.

- Chris Chelios will be the oldest player ever in the Stanley Cup finals at 72. (Actually, he’s only 47, and I have no idea whether or not he could be the oldest player ever in the Stanley Cup finals.)



- Will Henrik Zetterberg ever update his website?

- The Penguins are 3-0 in the playoffs when Craig Adams scores a goal. Why isn’t he playing 35 minutes a night?

- As a member of the Penguins last season, Ty Conklin was part of the trial of the decade against Marc-Andre Fleury on the old version of The Pensblog. (Just make sure that you also visit the new version of The Pensblog.) Conklin is now on Detroit.

- Detroit defenseman Brad Stuart is not related to singer Rod Stewart. (Although both think they are sexy.)



- Mikael Samuelsson played for the Penguins in 22 games during the 2002-2003 season. No one remembers this including Mikael Samuelsson.

- Jim Leyland will not turn into the traitor known as Bill Cowher.

- Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? He's a coach on the Detroit Tigers staff along with Jim Leyland and former Pirates Lloyd McClendon, Gene Lamont, and Rafael Belliard. I thought I would mention this since Detroit is facing Pittsburgh in the Stanley Cup finals.

- Jerome Bettis is from Detroit.

- Larry Foote is also from Detroit and recently signed with the Lions after leaving the Steelers. Foote will be supporting the Red Wings. (The same article pointed out that Whitehall, Michigan native Nate McLouth was undecided. Is he still? Dejan - get on this!)

- After not participating in the Eastern Conference finals against Carolina, will Pascal Dupuis (the Iceman) play in the Stanley Cup finals?



- Penguins coach Dan Bylsma has been an NHL head coach for only a few months longer than me.

- Dan Cleary is still from Newfoundland and is still the first and only native of Newfoundland to win the Stanley Cup.

- The Penguins touched the Prince of Wales trophy.

- The Penguins are 2-0 in series when I do these previews.

This just in (as I'm writing this on Wednesday night): the Stanley Cup finals schedule has been announced (h/t Empty Netters):

Saturday, May 30 at Detroit, 8:00 pm NBC
Sunday, May 31 at Detroit, TBD-Night NBC
Tuesday, June 2 at Pittsburgh, 8:00 pm VERSUS
Thursday, June 4 at Pittsburgh, 8:00 pm VERSUS
* Saturday, June 6 at Detroit, 8:00 pm NBC
* Tuesday, June 9 at Pittsburgh, 8:00 pm NBC
* Friday, June 12 at Detroit, 8:00 pm NBC

Finally, here's the latest Yinz Luv 'Da Guins video:



Go Pens!

NHL Player Websites

Watching the Detroit Red Wings in the NHL playoffs, I was reminded of my visit to Joe Louis Arena during the second year of my annual hockey road trip. Specifically, the Red Wings encouraged attendees to visit Henrik Zetterberg’s website. With the Red Wings advancing to the Western Conference finals, I thought I would revisit Zetterberg’s website to see what he thought about yesterday’s game against Chicago as well as the exciting game 7 victory over Anaheim. Here’s what "Hank" has to say:

We did it! Mission accomplished

It was trully a team effort and now that we have it, we arent ready to give it up. Stanley is just going to have to stay in Detroit! Of course, a great thanks to all of my fans that gave me the energy to go all the way last season. I hope that you will be there to support me and the team again.

I hope that you will enjoy both my website and webshop as well as follow me and the Red Wings this season!

This headline and message have remained unchanged for months. Plus, apparently that is how truly is spelled in Sweden.

Fortunately, the top of the page (and the top left of the page for every NHL team page – such as the Pittsburgh Penguins) shows three drop down options: Team Sites, Affiliate Sites and NHL Player Sites. Let's see what other NHL players are doing.

For example, what does Rick Nash think about the Columbus Blue Jackets reaching the playoffs for the first time in franchise history?

The page cannot be found.

Amazing insight!

San Jose's Jonathan Cheechoo must be disappointed about the team's early playoff departure. Here's the picture from his website:



Cheechoo is more attractive than I remember. The rest of the website includes the headline "Welcome to jonathancheechoo14.com." and contains related searches for jerseys, games, cars, Calgary Flames Hockey and more. Basically, it appears that someone didn’t renew their website, and this possibly evil woman took it over. This same woman is also prominently featured on Boston's Michael Ryder’s website.

Although the websites of Martin Brodeur, Mike Modano and Ryan Miller and several other players look legit, even if they aren’t regularly updated, the NHL should be embarrassed. While I am sure that they do not administer these websites, they do promote them on every team page. Does anyone at NHL Headquarters ever look at their website?

Game 5 Recap

I’m awake...barely after staying up for game five of the Stanley Cup finals. Although I managed to fall asleep during part of the second overtime, I was wide awake for the third overtime and Petr Sykora’s winning goal. I was so excited by the goal that I had difficulty falling asleep. While I was lying in my bed, I couldn’t get the "California Soul" song from the Dockers commercial out of my head.

Anyway, what an amazing win. When Detroit took a 3-2 lead in the third period, I though the series was over. However, Max Talbot’s goal with about 30 seconds remaining in regulation kept the Penguins alive. Despite Detroit dominating play in the overtimes, Marc-Andre Fleury made 55 saves leading the Penguins to victory.

Here are all of the links you need for more about the Red Wings-Penguins game:

- Coverage from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

- A special thanks to Seth Rorabaugh of the P-G’s Empty Netters for conducting a live-blog of game five. I was able to read what I missed in the second overtime immediately through Seth’s work.

- Fox Sports

- Yahoo's game recap and Puck Daddy

- Going Five Hole

- And of course, the Pensblog

Game six on Wednesday at 8:00 on NBC.

Detroit Red Wings Job Opening

Although we are in the midst of the Stanley Cup finals, the Detroit Red Wings are advertising for a job opening. No, this is not a joke about the age of defensemen Chris Chelios, who was a healthy scratch in game one, and the fact that it may be time for him to retire.


Instead, the Red Wings are seeking a Director of Group Sales. This makes some sense as the team has struggled with attendance this season (as noted by Sports Illustrated and in my experience attending a game in December) despite being the best team during the regular season and now advancing to the NHL finals.

The Director of Group Sales position requires a Bachelor's degree with preferred concentration in communications, journalism, marketing, business, and/or management and five years related industry experience and/or training. Some of the responsibilities include:

• Coordinate programs that will maximize event ticket sales to groups, including but not limited to school organizations, senior citizen organizations, tour and travel organizations, corporate groups and special interest groups.
• Oversee and administer the Group Sales Department budget.
• Hire, train and manage staff of Group Sales representatives.
• Manage schedule of activities on a per-event basis. These include creating a sales plan, budget and timeline, tracking sales and compiling a post-event report.
• Represent the department at industry events and trade shows, when applicable.
• Act as an ambassador for the company, both internally and externally. (i.e. Make sure Chris Osgood stops lying.)

If you’re interested in working for the Red Wings, click here for more information about the Director of Group Sales position.

The photoshop of Chris Chelios is courtesy of The Pensblog.

Stanley Cup Finals Schedule

The 2008 Stanley Cup finals schedule between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings is set. All games start at 8:00pm Eastern with the first two games airing on Versus and the remaining games on NBC.

Game 1: Saturday, May 24 at Detroit

Game 2: Monday, May 26 at Detroit

Game 3: Wednesday, May 28 at Pittsburgh

Game 4: Saturday, May 31 at Pittsburgh

Game 5: Monday, June 2 at Detroit*

Game 6: Wednesday, June 4 at Pittsburgh*

Game 7: Saturday, June 7 at Detroit*

* if necessary

2007 Hockey Road Trip Recap Part II

If you missed the first part of my hockey road trip summary, click here. If you don’t want to click, here’s a quick recap: the Wild-Coyotes game was rather boring; the Minnesota fans were disappointing; the Mall of America has many stores; I ate poorly; AirTran was better than expected; the XCel arena and St. Paul were cool; and Uff Da!

Thursday, November 29

The ultimate driving day from St. Paul, Minnesota to Chicago. Did you know that there are no large cities anywhere near Minneapolis/St. Paul? Fargo, North Dakota, Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Madison, Wisconsin are all approximately 250 miles away and I don’t think most people would consider any of these as, well, large. As soon as we crossed into Wisconsin and left the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area, there was very little for miles…with one exception. If it is not already, western Wisconsin should be known as “Dead Deer on the Side of the Road” country. There was a dead deer seemingly every few miles until we reached civilization near where Interstates 90 and 94 meet. Are there no taxidermists who live near Interstate 94? If someone likes venison, there is plenty of free meat in Wisconsin. Actually, forgot the whole Cheese-head thing; this should be Wisconsin’s new claim to fame.

Near Madison, we started to pick up local radio coverage from the Green Bay Packers network. The pre-game show featured a version of Poison’s “Talk Dirty To Me” called “Talk Packers With Me.” It was quite silly. I can’t think of any other fans that would create songs for their team.

Friday, November 30

Welcome to Chicago! The Windy City! We drove around and pretended like we were tourists. Actually, I guess we were tourists. We ate deep dish pizza, spent a few hours at the Museum of Science and Industry, and went by Wrigley Field. The scoreboard outside the stadium stated the Cubs are the World’s Greatest Fans. According to the scoreboard and announcer at the XCel Center, the Minnesota Wild has the greatest fans. I’m confused. Anyway, I really need to return to Chicago during the baseball season to see a Cubs game.

Game #2: Chicago Blackhawks vs. Phoenix Coyotes

My pre-game prediction was that there would be more goals scored in this game than the first one on the trip. Little did I know what was about to transpire. The Blackhawks scored on their first three shots and didn’t stop. In fact, Chicago scored 5 goals on their first 7 shots before Wayne Gretzky thought it would be a good idea to pull goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov. Three of those goals were scored by defenseman Dustin Byfuglien. I’m sure that I can tell my grandchildren that I was in attendance for Byfuglien’s first professional hat trick! In all seriousness, Chicago looked really good in its 6-1 victory. Before leaving on the trip, Seth from Empty Netters wrote me that the Blackhawks remind him a lot of the Penguins from last season. There really aren’t any expectations, and whatever happens, happens. Rookies Jonathan Toews (a goal and two assists) and Patrick Kane (two assists) are fun to watch, they have a proven goaltender in Nikolai Khabibulin (one of the coolest names in hockey) and a good supporting cast including Martin Havlet, former Penguin Robert Lang and Tuomo Ruutu, who scored two goals and may or may not be related to Jarkko Ruutu (after searching the web for an hour to try and find a picture of the Wild fan on the ticket stub, I’m not looking this up). There was also a Patrick Lalime sighting on the Blackhawks bench as the team’s back-up goaltender. I can’t believe that it’s been 10 years since Lalime was a Pittsburgh Penguin. As for Toews and Kane, while I don’t think that they are in the same category as Crosby and Malkin, they and the Blackhawks are going to be very good for a long time.

The player that I couldn’t stop watching throughout the game and the trip was Coyote left wing, Daniel Carcillo. I found this article about Carcillo by Dave Molinari in the Post-Gazette when I returned from the trip. The article is spot on. The Penguins traded Carcillo for Georges Laraque late last year. After seeing him play live, I feel like Phoenix definitely got the better part of the deal. Carcillo seems to hit someone or get hit by an opponent on nearly every shift. He also has a scoring touch as evidenced in a nice backhand shot against Detroit in Game #3, and he plays on the power play. His temper is a problem though. He had 23 penalty minutes in the Chicago game including two double minors, the second of which was for Interference for moving the goalie's stick when it was on the ice and then an unsportsmanlike conduct minor and 10-minute major for going crazy arguing the call. I think Gretzky benched him in the third since the only time he was on the ice was going from the penalty box to the bench after the penalty ended.

Although the United Center opened in 1994, it seems like an old arena, but not in a good way. Dank may be the word to describe the place and the concourses should be much wider for a newer arena. I feel for the Blackhawk fans as they really want a winner. The team hasn’t made the playoffs since the 2001-2002 season when they got knocked out in the first round. Plus, most of the Blackhawk games aren’t even shown on local television. As the Blackhawks improve and continue to win, the fans will return. Fortunately, the Blackhawks didn’t claim to have the world’s greatest fans like the Cubs and the Wild.

Two quick stories from the game:

1. I went to the main stadium shop at the arena looking through Bulls and Blackhawks merchandise. After a few minutes, I asked one of the store employees if they had any Aaron Gray gear. Gray played college basketball at the University of Pittsburgh and is now a rookie for the Bulls. The employee had no idea who Gray was. That’s not a good sign.

2. The highlight of the evening was a father behind me explaining the finer points of hockey to his young son, who was probably attending his first hockey game. Part-way through the third period, a rather large gentleman sitting in the row in front of me, attempted to climb over his row to exit instead of asking a few people in his row to stand up to let him get by. Oh, I forgot to mention that said guy was pretty drunk, and struggled to climb over the seats, spilling beer along the way. After he left, the kid asked his father about what he just witnessed. Although I do not remember the father’s exact quote, it started with, When you have too many adult beverages….

Saturday, December 1

Game #3: Detroit Red Wings vs. Phoenix Coyotes

I’ve written way too much already, so I’ll make this one brief. Phoenix and Bryzgalov bounced back from the Chicago game, and led 2-1 after 2 periods. However, Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk and the Red Wings were too much for the Coyotes and pulled out a 3-2 victory. The Red Wings are an extremely talented team, but I had the feeling that they weren’t playing their best.

I was really excited about seeing a game in Joe Louis Arena. You often hear Detroit referred to as Hockeytown, so I wanted to see the fans and the arena in person. While I liked the arena primarily because of its history and old-fashioned feel (a good old-fashioned feel as opposed to the United Center), and the dozens of Red Wings banners hanging from the rafters, I was disappointed that there were not more people in attendance. There seemed to be a lot of empty seats. What I really liked most about the arena may have been the announcer, who sounded like he was from another era. Most of the announcers I hear at stadiums over the past few years yell to get the crowd excited. This announcer was Joe Friday; simply providing the facts. It was refreshing to hear (I’m especially talking to you, Washington Capitals announcer).

During the game, we learned that Henrik Zetterberg has a website. Among the website’s highlights as mentioned at the game are a weekly podcast and the Z-Mailbox, where Hank (Hank?) answers questions sent in by fans. I visited the website and found that Hank’s weekly podcasts took place on October 2, October 22 and most recently on November 8 (Note: Right before I posted this, I saw that there is a new Z-Cast Podcast dated December 6. Damn you Z!). That’s not exactly weekly now is it Hank?


Final notes from the trip:

- I knew it was going to be a good sign for the road trip, when the license plate started with UWE, which must have been for former NHL defenseman Uwe Krupp, who played for the Buffalo Sabres, Colorado Avalanche, New York Islanders, Quebec Nordiques, Detroit Red Wings and Atlanta Thrashers in his career.

- Phoenix has a player named Zbynek Michalek and Chicago has player named Andrei Zyuzin. If Michalek marries Andrei’s sister (if he has a sister) and decides to change his last name, Zbynek Zyuzin would be a heck of a name!

- This year’s random songs heard several times during the trip: “The Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats and Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Christmas song. Can someone please explain Trans-Siberian Orchestra to me? They only have one song, but they tour every year around the holidays, and seem to do well.

- Here are the attendance numbers from the games:
Minnesota - 18,568 (102.8% full)
Chicago - 16,234 (79.2% full)
Detroit - 18,557 (92.5% full)

- The total mileage for this trip was 918 miles and we visited five states (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan). Indiana really got screwed when the state boundaries were developed. All of these other states have many miles of lakefront property; Indiana only borders Lake Michigan for 25 or so miles.


Finally, I have a few thank-yous I want to share (these are specifically for people who may read this):

Thanks to Andy for the excellent pizza and Chicago advice.

Thanks to Scott, Manager of Hockey Development of the Phoenix Coyotes, for providing a detailed description of the Phoenix players and even suggesting places to stay in Minnesota and Chicago. I e-mailed Scott that I understood if he and the entire organization no longer wanted me to attend future Coyote games since the team lost all three games I saw live. He replied, “Yes, please never attend a Coyotes game again,” and said wrote that he was kidding. (Or was he?)

Thanks to Seth at Empty Netters for putting together an excellent Pittsburgh Penguins and hockey site and for proving me with a list of players to watch since I really am not familiar with many Western Conference teams.

Thanks to “Uncle Chi-Chi” for organizing the entire trip. I would never do this by myself, and this really was his idea in the first place.

And thank you to everyone who actually made it to the end of this!