Ottawa vs. Canes 3-25

Look out! Who are these two teams playing in Raleigh tonight? Just two of the hottest teams in the NHL right now.

Malts:

The Canes find themselves as the 5 seed in the Eastern Conference with 87 points. What a difference a week can make. For most of this season the Canes have looked like a bubble team. No one was sure if they would even make the playoffs, if they did, an eighth seed at best. But, March happened. The Canes are 7-1-2 in their last 10 and have won 8 straight at home. March Madness indeed.

Meanwhile, the Senators have had an off year until lately. They're still very far out of the playoff race, but are making a great push here, as of late. They've won 5 straight, and are 9-1-0 in the past ten. They'll pretty much have to match that record again in order to make the playoffs.

Hops:

Crap, who isn't hot for these two teams?

Carolina: Cam Ward has been playing phenomenally lately. He's been playing Brodeur-esque minutes, and putting up pretty decent numbers lately. There's been many less "Ward Shutouts" lately (1 softy a game). Staal has 16 points in the last 10 games, Brindy even has 6 points in 4 games, and even the defense is chipping in.

Ottawa: Still just about everyone. Alfredsson has 7 in the past 4 games, Spezza with 9 in the past 6, and defenseman Brendan Bell has 6 in the last 4 games.

Trub:

Carolina: Eh, I guess Scott Walker since he can't seem to get over his concussion symptoms. He's only been able to play 1 game in the past 2 months or so.

Ottawa: Chris Kelly hasn't put up a point in 6 games. Like I've said before, we're good a breaking bad streaks.


So with all of this, something's gotta give. Will it be Carolina's 4 game winning streak? How about the Sens' 5 game winning streak? Or perhaps the Canes' 8 game home-winning streak? We find out tonight.

I haven't really been able to watch the Canes lately due to the Toronto trip (pics to come!) but based on my gut feeling, I'll go with a Canes win 4-1 to keep on rolling.

T'ronta Ho!

Tomorrow I'll be embarking on the trip up to Toronto, Ontario, Canada for my friend Tyler's Bachelor Party. It promises to be a very tiring trip if nothing else, with a 12-13 hour drive both ways. I should have plenty of time for good pictures of the skyline of Toronto, as well as famous places like the Hockey Hall of Fame. Plus we should have some time for Tyler's Bachelor Party Ale. We'll see how it tastes!

Also, the Canes play tonight against New Jersey. Thankfully they played last night and won, so Brodeur got number 552 out of the way last night. He's got the night off, so hopefully we can pull together for a win tonight. The Canes haven't been terrible lately, but they haven't won in a bit. They've gotten consolation points from 2 out of the last 3 games, but with as tight as the East playoff race is right now, there's no room for missed points. Just about every game from here on out is a "must-point" game. We need 1 or 2 points from each game, or at least need the other teams we're competing against to lose when we do, plus a couple.


Go Canes!

Schitz Maritz!

Just a bit over three years ago, Schitzie (skit-zy) came into our lives as a very hungry and very skinny stray cat. We had seen her for about a week howling for anyone to give her some food. So we would put out food at night to help her gain some trust in us and give her some strength. Eventually, she adventured into the house, and decided she didn't ever want to leave.

Unfortunately, we lost her this past Monday due to a tumor on her large intestine. For about a month, she had been losing weight from not eating enough, so we took her to the Vet and found a pretty sizeable tumor in her abdomen. Two days later she was in surgery to remove the tumor and make sure it hadn't spread. When they opened her up everything looked like it should be easy; the tumor hadn't spread and was localized in one region, although it was pretty big. They successfully removed the tumor, however, Schitzie was too weak to keep up her fight, and her heart soon stopped.

The Schitz got her name because she loved people, but couldn't stand other cats. Unfortunately for her we have two others, and they loved to be around her. One would annoy the crap out of her just to make her mad, the other just liked being close. She also seemed to grow into her name and showed some neurotic behaviors.

This picture (Spacegirl Schitz!) was taken after she licked a few holes in her own thigh due to us being away for 4 days. She's also doing one of her favorite things, laying in a box.

When she first came to us, this is how she looked:

Not exactly the prettiest cat. She looked pretty rough around the edges and had some weird markings. Within six months she looked like this:

So she had gained a little weight (just a little). She loved to eat. She'd graze all day, try to eat any people food she could, and sleep as much as possible. That's just a recipe for a happy cat. Here's a few more from her time.

So to celebrate Schitzie's life I plan to put off the Citrus IPA, and brew a monster. I plan on brewing an American Barleywine. These beers are not easy undertakings. They are gigantic brews. Tons of Malt are required for these as they are very high in alcohol. They also have a ton of hops. Very strong bitterness and pretty strong on the aroma and flavor. Here's the recipe I've been throwing around now.

Malts:

15 lbs of Pale LME.

1 lb of Crystal 40L Malt.

1lb of Melanoiden Malt.

8 oz. of Crystal 60L Malt.

4 oz. of Carapils Malt.

4 oz. of Special Roast Malt.

I'll add 1 oz of Cluster and Centennial hops at 60 min. Then add .75 oz Cluster hops at 30, 1.25 oz Cluster at 20 min, 1 oz Cluster at 10 min, and 1 oz Centennial at 1 min.

I plan on using 2 packs of Wyeast Imperial Blend. I don't have the equipment to make a yeast starter yet, but it's on my shopping list.

When it's all said and done, this brew will cost over a hundred bucks, but will be worth it. If all goes to plan, it should be over 11% ABV and have over 80 IBU's. It will be aged for a long time. Almost a year. Yep. This brew is not going to be opened until March 9th 2010. It normally take barleywines at least that long to mellow out and get to their best in terms of taste. I plan on maybe sampling some here and there to see how it ages, but The Schitz! won't be tasted by anyone else until March 9th of next year.

Here's to you Schitzie! You're my girl. You're a good Schitz; you're the best Schitz in the world! Schitz Maritz!