The Vig

I attended my first Winterhawks game in months tonight.  As Dylan B pointed out many times, there’s been a lot of changes while I was gone.  Wish I still had my media packet so I could go through all of them real quick.  Needless to say, there were some guys on the ice tonight that I don’t think I’d ever seen.  Guys with names like Doyle and Swenson and Pouliot(!).  And…well…that’s about it, isn’t it?

I told Dylan seeing the guys in white play so well was taking some getting used to.  The passing was especially noticeable.  No longer are guys panicking while trying to get the puck out of the defensive zone.  Passes leave sticks now with purpose and end up on the tape of teammates instead of flying into space.  And those teammates are found at full speed, charging up-ice.  I tell you, it’s a thing of beauty.  A distracting thing of beauty.  There were only a few players I really noticed on the ice tonight, and really not for any particular reason.  I’ll get to that in a moment.

The only real down note of the whole evening was attendance.  The official number was 1807.  I would guess there were half that.  As Dylan and I pondered the fate of the 50-50 game, he mentioned perhaps the Hawks were making up the difference to the player education fund.  I then mentioned Gallacher wasn’t running a charity out there.  Then, pondering the attendance, I said maybe he is.  Maybe they’re making it up on Fridays and Saturdays, but wow.  Dylan remarked he remembered when midweek games like this would have twice the attendance.  I do too.

Thoughts:

Carruth: The goaltenders each earned two of tonight’s three stars of the game.  An inspired choice, if you ask me.  Inspired by what, I don’t know.  But that’s one man’s opinion.  Carruth, I believe, is the kid they brought up to spell Curtis when he went down and Mucha wasn’t in town?  Or maybe it was Hamilton?  Like I said, I’ve been away too long.  The point is, he looked fine and stayed out of trouble.  But the #2 star?  I dunno about that.

Gabriel: “Quit picking on my Ollie!” exclaimed the lady in front of me during the second period.  Indeed.  With goals in three of the last four games, the guy is on fire.  I’m probably the only one who still thinks of him as Scott’s younger brother.  Unfair?  Absolutely.  I need to move on.

Pouliot: With the number 51 on his back, he’s going to get noticed when he hits the ice.  You know who he is.  And his play backs it up.  He’s gonna be fun to watch.

Jordan: I was waaaay too distracted with my iPhone tonight to be paying that close of attention.  Either that or Jordan has suddenly gone into stealth mode on the ice.  I used to notice him every shift he was out there.  Perhaps there’s too much other stuff happening now that I’m not always looking to be entertained by Employee 19 21 55.  He delivered a hit in the second period that had me scrambling to email his sister, a regular visitor to this site.  He remains both of our favorite player.