Check the calendar

No, it's not Friday the 13th!

Why is that important? Because the Habs have some unreal win record when it's Friday the 13th. Well today wasn't the 13th but they still surprised the world with a solid effort for a good win over the Devils in New Jersey on a Friday. And it's been 20 years since they won on a Friday in New Jersey.

Does it surprise me? No, not really. I'll be frank here. The Devils win games by scoring 1 or 2 goals. However they rarely win games when they ALLOW 3 goals. Also the style of the Devils is just like the way Coach Martini tries to get his team to play, while our boys end up being the inconsistent version of the New Jersey Devils.

So there you go, Habs. When you put your mind to it, even though you give up the first goal (cherry picker!) and your goalie appears to be made of rubber (BOING!), if you put your fucking mind to it and play smart, play hard, play good, you win. What a concept.

Oh and Mathieu Darche with a goal and an assist and solid Bulldogs-type forechecking hockey. Even without him, the Bulldogs DESTROYED Rochester 6-1! (And chased Salak from his net with 3 goals on 12 shots early). But Darche's effort behind the net, fighting off two big Devils guys, passing the puck to Markov who quickly passed it to Cammy was the highlight of the night.

Benoit Pouliot continues being our Manapult of awesome. Guimauve would have never done what he has... Slippy was back on D (and actually did good for once!) as Mara appears to have reinjured his hand. D'Agostini went out in the 3rd and grabbed the biggest man he could find to fight him (and didn't do so bad, actually managed to cut the guy). Gorges was a shot-blocking machine. And everyone protected the net instantaneously, even Markov jumped someone twice. And at the end Cammy got mugged by Price. Feel the love!

Now the boys need to win one tomorrow. The Rangers aren't a passive-aggressive team like the Devils are. If they implode again like they did last week, well this excercise will be moot. But if the Habs weasle into the playoffs and meet the Devils? Well, I wouldn't worry so much about it... But the Habs need some Ragtime revenge!

Slow news day...

So how is your life? Bored yet? We're nearing the middle of summer and I'm snowstalgic thank you very much. I'm so sick of rain. Rain in the morning. Rain in the afternoon. Rain in the evening. If I wanted rain, I would have transferred to EA Vancouver. Rain on weekends. Sunny on weekdays, like today, when I'm stuck at work staring at the ceiling or doodling random sprites to keep myself from going absolutely insane. There's only so much offseason a Montrealer can handle...

So what's in the news?
- The Leafs and the Flames traded nothing for nothing. I've chalked this up to a whatever on the Richter scale. It's so whatever that it's not even worth mentioning the names of the players involved.
- The Islanders haven't signed another goaltender but Josh Harding is twiddling his thumbs as an RFA.
- The Devils are copying our Centennial Plaza only instead of being awesome and historic in nature, it's dorky to the power of 10 and doubly lame and doesn't even have cool player statues... They call it the Championship Plaza, and it's grand centerpiece is the Rock of Prudential which is supposed to be a recreation of the Rock of Gibraltar as a symbol of strength. I mean, yea it's cool that Prudential has been around for 124 years, IN NEW JERSEY, but it's a bloody financial company! That would be like Molson deciding to make a statue of a giant beer bottle in the center of our plaza, being a 200-year Montreal family success story... Add in a generic hockey player statue that isn't even Brodeur, stone markers honoring the 3 Cups, 4 Conference Championships, and 8 Division Titles, a 1001 "Rangers Suck" fan bricks, and it leaves me wondering just what the hey are they trying to do here... They can barely fill an arena with fans let alone a plaza. At least we waited 100 years to make ours matter...
- Apparently a new bidder for the Coyotes wants to bring them to Saskatchewan for a few games and hope the locals will actually take a shine to the team. To which I say HA! because the locals are just going to do like the locals in Phoenix do: use the team as a legitimate excuse for the Habs to come to their town. You know you can solve this whole problem by just moving the damn team back to Winnipeg...
- You might have noticed I put up the link to Carey Price's official page. While he has yet to do anything with it, I've noticed the scary stalker fans are starting to post comments... Maybe the website wasn't such a good idea eh kiddo?

I'd like to leave off with this:

Does this picture not send a shiver down your spine? By the holy ghost of Howie Morenz... Who needs Forum Ghosts when the reincarnations can actually join in and play!