Round 3! Pens and Canes

Well, surprise, surprise! The Canes are still the predicted losers of yet another round of playoff hockey!

I, myself will call shenanigans on them all. And of course I would, I'm a Canes fan. But here are my points.

1. Our forwards solved Martin Brodeur of the 3rd seeded Devils, and the probable 2009 Vezina-winner Tim Thomas. Do you really think that Fleury is the same calibre of goaltender as Marty or Timmy? Fleury is 8-5 with a 2.72 GAA and .901 SV% in the post-season. Those numbers are NOT good enough. At the same time, Cam Ward has a 2.22 GAA and .927 SV% along with 2 shutouts this post-season. Goaltenders win playoff series. Who have the Pens faced? Biron? Varlamov?
   
2. Our "no-name," "bucket list," "non-scoring" Defense has somehow managed to hem in both #3 New Jersey and the number 1 seeded, 2nd-in-the-League-by-1-point-in-the-regular-season Boston Bruins. But somehow, Crosby and Malkin are going to score 7 goals each on them.
   
3. Look at the competition. Pittsburgh has had to play Philadelphia and Washington. Against Philly, they played against a crumbling team in front of a very shaky goaltender (yes, I know I picked Philly to go to the Finals. That was based on gut-feelings, not facts). They then played against the Washington Capitals, who they only had to keep up in score with. The Caps really had no defense(similar to the Pens), and their rookie goaltender turned out to be fluky. It was a matchup to see who could score 4 or 5 goals the fastest. The Canes on the other hand had to best arguably the greatest goaltender there's ever been along with a New Jersey team that is historically defensively-minded(although not as much so recently). The Canes then had to further beat the heavily favored Boston Bruins, the team that everyone had basically handed the Cup to already. Boston was supposedly the perfect team. They had scoring, they had massive shut-down D-men, they had a Vezina Candidate in goal. Yet, the Canes prevailed.
   
4. Lastly, the Hockey Gods are on our side. Yes, the Hockey Gods. The Hockey Gods are fair, they are balanced, they look down upon meddling Refferee's and officials. They do not turn a blind eye to fans who turn their zealotry into putrid vile toward others. They smite those who are not believers of truth, balance, and fairness.
   
   FACT: The Buffalo Sabres have never won the Stanley Cup.
   HOCKEY GOD INTERVENTION: Sabres fans are loud, obtuse, and remind one of the hooligans in England. The Hockey Gods have Smote them.
   
   FACT: The 2002 Stanley Cup Finals were determined by the Refs and NHL Officials, rewarding Detroit with the Stanley Cup.
   HOCKEY GOD INTERVENTION: In 2006 the Edmonton Oilers eliminated the Red Wing in round 1. Then, the team with less Stanley Cups, won the Cup that year (balance).
   
   FACT: The NHL did everything in its power to keep Carolina out of the 3rd round. The refs swallowed their whistles while looking at Chara and Ward abuse our forwards, disallowed a (ultimately meaningless) goal, and called phantom penalties on the regular season's least penalized team.
   HOCKEY GOD INTERVENTION: They influenced Colin Cambell's decision not to suspend Scott Walker for having Aaron Ward's face lose a game of chicken to Scotty's fist. Then, gave the series winning, OT goal to said Scotty.
   
   FACT: Brooks Orpik (Orprick?) viciously broke Erik Cole's cervical (that's neck folks) vertebrae (yes, that's spine folks) on March 4th, 2006. He was about 1 Newton of force close to killing, or permanently paralyzing Erik Cole. He was given a 3-day suspension. Not once did he call Erik Cole to apologize. Not once did he send flowers to Erik while he was in the hospital. Not once has he spoken to the man whom he almost killed, while playing on the same ice.
   HOCKEY GOD INTERVENTION: None.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Yet.
   

Gut-Check Time

Damn, and I was really hoping we wouldn't have to check our guts for this series. But, Boston went ahead and made a series out of this one and came back from being down 3-1 to force Game 7.

Crap. Crappity Crap.

But hey, we're going into Game 7 against the Bruins, how many people really thought that was going to happen at the beginning of this series? At the same time however, how many people thought we would go up 3-1 on them. At that very same time as well, how many people thought we would then blow that 3-1 lead and have to play a Game 7, in Boston.

After playing with very little heart and determination in the last 2 games, will the Canes finally step it up and give a solid 60 minute effort? Will Cam Ward return back to his Round 1 form? It's almost best not to ask or even attempt to answer questions before a Game 7. Just play you game. Play your best game.

And I'll finish following suit to another blogger:

Can't see nothin' in front of me
Can't see nothin' coming up behind
I make my way through this darkness
I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me
Lost track of how far I've gone
How far I've gone, how high I've climbed
On my back's a sixty pound stone
On my shoulder a half mile line

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

Left the house this morning
Bells ringing filled the air
Wearin' the cross of my calling
On wheels of fire I come rollin' down here

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

Li,li, li,li,li,li, li,li,li

Meh, We Ain't Skeered

So the Bruins won last night, 4-0. No big deal. No one thought it was going to be easy any ways. This just allows us to use the excuses the Bruins' fans have been saying for the past week and change.

"We didn't play our best game. We lost the game, it's not that they won it."

This however, isn't that far off. The Bruins did play better, but only slightly. They didn't show any increase in playing level until they (Corvo) scored their first goal.

The Canes on the other hand, didn't seem all that interested in playing. They were not quick to get to the puck. They didn't step in front of shots to block them. One can only assume that they simply wanted to clinch the series at home in front of their own crowd. They never seem to do that against their 1st round opponent, but for this second round, it must be what their planning. I mean, it's not like the Bruins could beat us unless we wanted them to.

Let's just hope Scott Walker gets some leniency from the league.

Playing Catchup

That's what the Bruins said.

Wow, so the Canes find themselves up 2-1 in their series with the "juggernaut" Boston Bruins. They have done so simply by playing their game and keeping their feet on the gas. They've even kept Boston from throwing them off of their game by matching Boston's physicality.

One would have expected Boston to have come out with guns blazing last night, especially after being shutout at home 3 days earlier. This was not really the case as the Canes were able to effectively cut out the neutral zone.

I'm really looking forward to Friday's game 4. This will be the true test of this series. Will Boston continue to fold or will they roar back and make this a best of 3 series. Can the Cardiac Canes keep up the speed with which they're using to best Boston? Around 7:30 on Friday, we'll begin to find out.


Picture time! I've got plenty from the trips, plus some really cool eye candy. First off, the Desert pics.

The water in Lake Mead is looking pretty low at the Hoover Dam.

Constructing the new suspension bridge over the canyon at the Hoover Dam.

A little birdy decided to check us out eating breakfast.

The Vegas Strip shortly after takeoff.

The Grand Canyon, from 20,000 feet.

Now, for some Beach Pics.

Now, for the really cool pictures:

I've discovered HDR, or High Dynamic Range Photography and Tone mapping. It produces some really cool pictures. It basically takes several pictures of the same scene that are of different exposure levels and blends them together. The above picture is what happens when you merge and tone map the following three pictures together.

Here's a few more HDR images from the desert and the beach.

Whirlwind Trips

So I had to make and emergency stop in Las Vegas this week. Yeah, what? Well, my SWMBO has family out there, so we had some stuff that needed to be taken care of.

Hockey update: The Canes win Games 7 of the Devils' series in Hollywood fashion. I missed the game completely (Traveste'!) but to score twice in the last 1:30 is pretty damn awesome. We're now on to playing the top team in the NHL, the Boston Bruins.

This was the matchup that I dreaded. I wanted New York to beat Washington, just so we didn't have to face the Bruins. I don't get warm fuzzies about this series. We lost last night by a margin of 4-1. We didn't look flat like we did against New Jersey in the first game when we lost 4-1, it's just that the 4 mistakes we made in the game, Boston capitalized on. You have to play perfect to beat Boston right now. They're that good.

Currently, I'm down at the beach trying to catch up on sleep and get a little bit of relaxing done after being out in the desert for all of the past week. Expect plenty of pictures of sunsets and waves coming later.

Brew update! I only spent about 8 hours at home in between trips but here's what's happened since my last post. The IPA started fermenting, and I believe I was able to keep it at a fairly good temperature. That being said, I couldn't do much while out in Vegas. However, for some reason, 4 days after it started fermenting, when I came back to it, it had stopped showing activity in the airlock; but had a massive krausen on it. What? So maybe there's a leak in my fermenter that's allowing the CO2 to escape somewhere other than the airlock. Plus, the krausen should have fallen by now. Not that I'm on any needed schedule for it right now. It's going to be in the primary for a while, but it still seemed strange that there was a big krausen on there 6 days after pitching. It can happen, I just figured it'd be with a heavier brew.

Welp, on to more relaxin down here at the beach!

Saturday Reflections

First off, the Canes got pounded by the Bruins yesterday afternoon. I didn't get to watch it, but from the sounds of Chuck K, they didn't show up. It helps to at least be motivated when playing the best team in the NHL, otherwise you get embarrassed like yesterday. Seems like if Carolina was in your teams name yesterday, you were bound to be disappointed.

On a brighter Canes note, we went and got our Season Ticket Holder gear at the RBC Center yesterday. Everything we got, from the Gym bag to the umbrella was of much better quality than we expected. Most handouts from the Canes normally aren't up to the best standards, but these items seemed like they may last more than 2 weeks.


The best highlight from yesterday was brewing my next batch of beer! This will be a much lighter ale than the porter from before. Let's call it an American Amber. It's just something I threw together and experimented with. We'll see how it comes out.


Here's the ingredients.

• 3.3 lbs of Light Malt extract.
• 1.65lbs of Amber Malt extract.
• 1 oz. of Clusters hops.
• 1 oz. Mount Ranier hops.
• 11g of Nottingham Ale Yeast.

The cluster hops were added at the beginning of the 60min boil with the Ranier hops being added with just 5 minutes to go. Here's some process photos.


























Now, in just 6 very agonizingly long weeks I'll be able to enjoy my concoction!