A Win!

The Canes did something last night that they have not done in a while, well a few things.




First off, they beat a team who is below them in the standings. That hasn't happened in a bit. They also scored a shorty. The first all season. Yep, we were the last team in the league to score a short-handed goal this year. Of course it would come at the hands of Chad "The Chuck Norris of Hockey" LaRose. Here he is in celebration after the game.

Whilst at the game, I took a few pics from the warm up:

Someone should tell Brandon Sutter he may score more if he shoots with his eyes open.

Even Eric Staal was in amazement of Chad LaRose.

And here's one for the Leaf Fans out there.

Tampa Bay vs. The Canes

We'll try a new format for how I preview an upcoming game.



Malts to add:



3.3 pounds of a Tampa Bay team that is on somewhat of an upswing lately. They've won the past 3 in a row, 7 out of the last ten, some of them against some good teams. Their team seem to be finally gelling into form, but will it be early enough to make a push for the playoffs?



3.3 pounds of a Hurricanes team that streaky at best lately. Every time they start a win streak they almost immediately negate it by a losing streak of equal negative value.



Hops(Who's Hot):



Lightining: Just about everyone right now. St. Louis has 21 points in 14 games. Wow. Vinny has 7 in 4. There are 9 other lightning players who have at least a 2 game streak running.



Canes: Amazingly Roddie has 3 points in 3 games. Ruutu has 2 in 2. And the Camster isn't doing too bad. He's .960 in the last 3 games played, with a record of 2-1-0.



Trub(Who's Cold):



Tampa: Not really anyone. Not even Stamkos.



Carolina: Ugh, so many. Eaves (please trade him!) has 0 in 12. Samsonov has 1 in 7, and Staal has 1 in 4. Not good statistics.



Tampa has more injuries than the Canes do, but it hasn't seemed to matter much lately. However, I'm feeling somewhat optimistic for this game, as the Canes normally do fairly well against Tampa. 3-2 Canes in OT.







In beer news, I'm going to try one of my Porters tomorrow evening!! Yeah, it's a bit early. Only 13 days of bottle conditioning, but I want to see how a kind "green" beer tastes and how it gets better with more aging.

Audience Participation!

Earlier in the week my good friend Mike sent me a picture on the Blackberry for me to post on the blog, and it got me thinking. This would be a great way for all the millions (hehe) of you to help with the blog.



Anytime anyone wants to, if you're out at a bar or pub take a picture of a tap, all the taps, or just the tap you used while at the bar. Take it with a cell phone, or a regular camera, however, then send it to me here on the blog and I'll post about it. Just let me know where you took it.



So starting off with number one, here is Mike's from the Leesville Tap Room in North Raleigh.

The Next Batch!

The third batch is brewed and a'bubblin! Yesterday, soon to be married Tyler came over to help brew his Bachelor Party Ale. Brewing an ale to his tastes are a bit difficult. He likes pilsners, but since those are lagers, we didn't really have the time it takes to produce a good lager. I have the cold required, just not the time.

So to start out the pilsner wannabe, we have our ingredients:

• 6.6 pounds of Light Malt Extract
• 1 oz. Glacier Hops
• 1 oz. Saaz Hops (The same hops used in Pilsner Urquell)
• 1/2 pound Crystal Malt 10 Lovibond Grains
• 1 pack Windsor Ale Yeast (My LHBS was out of Nottingham, which would have been better for a more lager flavored ale.)

We steeped the grains at 150 degrees for 30 minutes and then brought the wort to a boil. We added our malt and the Glacier Hops and then boiled for 45 minutes. With 10 minutes left in the boil we added our Saaz Hops for some "Noble" flavor and aroma.

Cooling the wort however took forever. Almost an hour with tons of ice and water. It makes me really want a wort chiller for future brews.

With a starting gravity of about 1.045, we're looking at roughly a maximum yield of 6.25% abv. However, since the yeast we used is not as attenuitive as Nottingham, the final gravity may be a bit higher, so less alcohol. It'll just be a bit sweeter.

With 7 weeks left until Tyler's Bachelor Party, his brew will be ready just in time.

Changing Winds

So the Canes shutout the Leafs last night 2-0. I'm just glad they ended their losing streak before they meet the Pens tonight.



But the bigger story (at least it's big in these parts), is the snow we received last night and today. About five inches fell on us in total. That's a lot for Raleigh, especially since we haven't had any snow in about four years. It did provide me with some great opportunities to take some good pictures. Let's check some out.





























And lastly, here's an update on the brews. The Amber is in the secondary fermenter, and the Porter is in bottles, actually looking very clear, much more so than I expected.

For the Birds

The Canes (Can'ts?) lost to Buffalo yesterday, to no one's surprise. However Sabres' goaltender Ryan Miller did stand on his head for most of the 3rd period Saturday. It's good that the Hurricanes on are a roadtrip this week. It means they have that much more time to win before I show up at their next home game with a bag over my head.


The last time Carolina had a 5-game losing streak was way back with our old coach. I mean new coach. Our current coach. Back in 2002-03, we had two 5-game losing streaks and one 6-game losing streak to end the season on. It seems like Mo is well on his way back into form.


On a brighter note, I bottled my Porter yesterday. Now, in just 3 weeks I'll have some nice home brew to keep my mind distracted from the Canes. Bottling my Porter made room in the Secondary for my Amber Ale. It's beautimous. Check it out.



I'll leave with some pics of some birds. We got a new bird feeder the other day, mainly just so I can take some pictures around the house if nothing else.

The Case against Buffaloonians

I hate Buffalo, NY. Well, I don't really have anything against the city, but I can't stand the people that hail from that part of the Rust Belt. I am speaking totally from personal experience here. In every single one of my encounters with a person from Buffalo at a Hurricanes game, I have yet to see anything remotely close to a person who is good-natured. This aversion all started in 2006 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

Canes fans embrace the Southern Hospitality Mantra of the South. We are nice to the opposing teams' fans. We offer them a beer when we tailgate. We look the other way when their team scores and they yell in joy. However, you will never see a Canes fan act the way the Buffalo Sabres fans did (and still do) when some of them came to town for Game 1 of the ECF in '06.

This was 2hours before the game started:

And this was directly after the game:

Notice the little girl trying to take care of her dad after he was jumped and beat up by two Buffalo fans. We actually called 911 for this incident. And this was after the Buffalo Sabres WON the game. This scene was repeated all around the RBC Center parking lot that afternoon.

Here is an article stating that half the number of people arrested for the entire previous season, were arrested during this one game.

My own group almost got into a fight because two Buffalo fans thought they were tough and and started poking and shoving my fiance'. All she had said was for them to just "get out of here." Those words do not demand a reaction of physicality on a woman.

Ever since that one game, the Raleigh PD has had to increase their force at any Buffalo game by a degree of magnitude. Instead of having 3 cops for the entire 3rd level, when the Buffalo Sabres come to town, there are 2 officers for every entrance to the 3rd level!

That's over 40 cops.

Just for the 3rd level.

This happens for no other team that comes to Raleigh.

If you are a Buffalo Sabres fan and are reading this, I challenge you to change my mind. Show me that you are decent folk. I challenge you all collectively to act like civilized people. There is not a fine line between being passionate about your team and being completely classless jackasses.

Related, the Canes play the Slugs tonight, in Buffalo. I fear for the safety of any Canes fan being there.

My only prediction for this game is that it could swing either way for the Canes. They will either snap out of their funk and kill the Sabres 4-1, or they continue with their current ways and lose 5-2.

The Canes got an earful from Mo yesterday in practice, let's see if it helps.

Deflection!!

So yesterday, Peter Karmanos was in town telling the town of Raleigh how great professional sports is and how much it means to the area. Well, out of the blue he decided to start talking about the Canes' former coach Peter Laviolette. Here's what he had to say (my responses will be in red):



"I didn't like our coach," Karmanos said. "His public persona and his private persona were two different things."



"We had the perfect storm in the year we won the Stanley Cup," Karmanos said. "We played this all-over-the-ice kind of style of hockey. It took about three-quarters of the season for people to catch on. Yes, Laviolette had nothing to do with winning the cup. PK sure looks pissed in this picture.


"If everybody remembers, the last part of the season, even the Stanley Cup year, we had a pretty tough go of it. We had a goalie who stood on his head. Martin Gerber had a career season with us and kept us in games, but pretty soon as the other coaches got used to the new rules and they figured out ways of defensing us, we didn't change much." Our longest losing streak was 2 games during that period. And Gerber had 1 game in which he was good in the Cup run. So why wouldn't you guys have kept him if you thought so highly of him?



"Peter would make, I think, too quick an evaluations of players," he said. "From time to time we had players Peter would, when they first came into our organization, would say, 'Oh, this guy is a fourth-line center.'" You guys brought in Anson Carter. Enough said.



As an example, Karmanos pointed to forward Eric Belanger, who was a part of the September 2006 trade with the Los Angeles Kings that brought Belanger and defenseman Tim Gleason to the Canes.



He's now a key part of the Minnesota team," Karmanos said. "And that happened with quite a few players and you just can't afford to lose those kind of assets." Belanger didn't want to be playing here. His on-ice effort showed that. He gave no effort. What other talent did he throw away? John Graham? Vasicek (Vagasil)?

Dude, take some responsibility for your own team instead of blaming one person.


Luke Decock of the News and Observer does a great job of explaining the classlessness in a classy way.


Cory and Bubba of Canes Country both raise valid questions for the Canes' owner.


And you can always count on East of Here over at Carolina on Ice is always good for a laugh with his clever points.

Schizophrenic Canes are Back!

So I got the points spread correct yesterday, but the final was higher by both teams. Toronto still won by two, but just 6-4.

Where were the Canes in the first 40 minutes of hockey? They easily fell to an almost insurmountable 4-1 deficit to the leafs by the end of the 2nd period. Then, something happened in the 2nd Intermission and the Canes came out with a buzz.

Apparently, Mo said some unprintables to his listless players and for some reason they responded. The Canes notched 3 goals in about 7 minutes to mount a comeback and tie the game. You could tell they wanted to win. You could see how they manhandled the Leafs for 10 minutes in the 3rd period. They then realized who they were, forgot about getting their ass kicked by Mo in the 2nd Intermission and returned to the lazy team we know.

Once tied, why try for the win? Might as well hold on for OT and at least get 1 point. That seems to be the Canes mantra when they manage to come from behind and tie it. They let off the gas. They fall back and play a very conservative game. Well, they did that last night and on a deflection that Ward let pop over his glove The leafs went ahead with a little over five minutes to go. Jason Blake added the empty netter for his hat trick on the night.

For the past 2 and a half years, this is the team we have lived with in Raleigh. A team that plays listless uninspired hockey for 30-50 minutes of the game, digs themselves into a hole and then tries to dig out. It shows glimmers of a dominant team at times. It's erased 2, 3, 4 goal deficits in games. Why can't they show this dominance on a consistent basis?



More on our classy owner later.

traffic? WTF?

I'd love to have a talk with whoever had the bright idea to close the Edward's Mill exit off from wade ave. Before tonight's game. It backed traffic up well up i40. It took over 45 minutes to drive 2 miles. 2 miles! I don't know if it's the Raleigh police dept. Or part of the RBC Center's new traffic flow program. They've used this in the few previous games, but I didn't notice it then. So in all, thanks asshats who made thousands of us drive around our elbows to get to our asses.

Leafs @ 'Canes 1-15-08

Ingredients:

1 Toronto Maple Leafs team coming down to Raleigh, bringing their climate with them, having lost 4 in a row, and (whew!) without Free Agent signed star Jeff Finger.

1 Carolina Hurricanes team that has lost all confidence(3 game losing streak), chemistry(lines being shuffled all around), and the sanity of their coach. Wait he said what?

“The politically correct thing that most coaches would say is that it's just like any other game. But it's absolutely not. It's absolutely personal. You get fired, you want to see that team lose every game for the next ten years.”

Dude. We fired you. Are you saying that you wish us to lose every game until 2013? Is that what this 3 game losing streak is about?

Seriously, that had to be about the dumbest thing he's said in front of the media.

OK. So who's hot coming into the game? No One! Well, OK maybe Justin Williams? He has 5 points in 5 games, but does that really matter when in the last 3 the final scores have been 4-2, 5-1, and 5-1?

For the Leafs. No one. But, the Canes have a tendency lately to break cold streaks and really get a team going.

For a prediction I'm going Leafs 4, Canes 2. Even though Carolina has gotten the better of the Leafs more often than not lately, I, like the team, have no confidence in them. It would have been Leafs 7, Canes 2; but since Finger is out, I have to be conservative.

'Canes vs. Sens 1/13/08

Ingredients:

1 Canes Team coming off of 2 road losses looking to prevent a three game losing streak.

1 Sens Team coming off of a five game losing streak and losing eight of their last ten.

1 GM who is close to losing his job.

And a pinch of Ottawa fans who are ready to give up and welcome John Tavares into town.

Give this wort a 60 minute boil and I'm betting you'll see some ugly hockey.

I'm not as optimistic as most Sens fans are pessimistic. I can easily see where the Canes could be on the losing edge of this match. Even though the Sens' have an amazing offense on paper, they haven't performed nearly up to expectations this year. But leave it to the Canes' luck that they will finally click while playing us.

Ex-Cane Martin Gerber has fallen a long way from his 38 wins with the Canes and is now a healthy scratch in favor of Alex Auld and AHLer Brian Elliot. It's looking to be his 3rd straight start, so look for him to finally settle into his groove.

On the 'Canes front look for Tim Gleason to make it back after reaggravating his ankle injury from earlier this season. Having his presence on the back end should help much more than Frank Kaberle(Kaberlame).

Also watch to see if Carolina can respond to being thrown around like babies against Boston. We're getting, and rightfully so, a reputation for being pussies and not playing a physical game. We'll see how our small-statured lineup fares tonight.

Brew Update!

Porter:

The Porter is currently in its second day in the Secondary Fermenter. Things are going well. The past couple of days I've been able to see little clumps of yeaties and other goodies going up and down as the brew ferments off the last bit of sugars. It's definitely not as exciting to watch as a Primary Ferementaion in a Carboy, but it's still fun.


As you can see in the second picture, there's a nice layer of dead yeast and proteins forming at the bottom of the carboy. This was my main reason for even using the Secondary Fermenter to begin with, just the clearing effects that it will have.


American Amber

My American Amber is coming along nicely as well and is bubbling vigorously. I can't wait to get it out of the bucket and into the Carboy to see it's color. It's promising to be much lighter than the Porter(being almost black), but I'd really like to see through it and see some light. I can't wait for the weekend! Here's a pic of the bubbler on the Primary.

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!

Cheers!

Welcome to Pics, Pucks, & Porters. This blog shall be my attempt to catalogue, dissect, give and receive input into three of my passions; Photography, Hockey, and Brewing/drinking beer.


Let me start by saying that I am in no way a writer. It's funny that I have even started blogging because I hate writing as it is. This is simply a "for fun" activity for me to enjoy and share my passions with others and perhaps get some feedback along the way.


First off, I live in the Triangle region of North Carolina. In the past decade, I have grown to love the Carolina Hurricanes of the NHL. Having Canadians as friends in high school can really push you into loving a certain cold weather sport. Basically the only thing I cannot say about being a Canes fan is that I wasn't there when they were in Greensboro. As soon as they were officially in Raleigh, I was hooked and have been there for all of the major moments.

Which brings me to my next passion. Photography. The above picture was taken with my old Canon S1. Of course I didn't have the greatest vantage point to capture Rod Brind'Amour kissing the Stanley Cup for the first time, but it's not the worst shot ever. The S1 was my first digital camera, and I used the crap out of it. It's a good bridge camera between just a point and shoot and a nice SLR camera. It was an awesome camera to have right out of college, but I missed what I had during my years in school. Here's a few S1 pics.


















My previous camera, that originally got me hooked on photography is my old Canon A-1. Sweet-ass 35mm the A-1 is. It's old, from 1978, but it still takes amazing pictures, when it's got a good battery and clean contacts. It was given to me by my Great Uncle along with quite a few accessories. I took tons of pictures while I was in college. I went to Appalachian State University and loved the picturesque landscapes of the mountains around Boone. In the winter I would take my Bronco out on the Blueridge Parkway and take pictures of the snowy landscape. I could spend all days driving in a foot of snow and getting shots that hardly anyone could get to.


Now, I've moved on to my new baby. The Canon 40D. Finally the best of both of my previous cameras. A digital SLR. And a sweet one at that too. My wonderful, and beautiful wife Jennifer(SWMBO) got it for me this past Christmas, and I've barely been able to put it down. I've got two lenses with it, a normal 28-135mm zoom lens and a 70-300mm zoom lens. Next up on the list is a wide-angle lens. Since most D-SLR's have a 1.6x crop on the frame, my 28mm is really a 45mm lens. I love scenery pictures and 45mm is not wide enough for me. So watch out 12mm lens. Here I come.

Here's a few of my 40D pics from just messing around.

Now onto the third and tastiest of hobbies. Beer! I enjoy beer. Actually, I enjoy good beer. Call me a beer snob. I'm Okay with it. I don't drink beer for the sheer buzz of it. I enjoy the flavors. The malts, hops, esters, foam, and bite. The only light beer I truly enjoy is Sam Adams Light. It has flavor. Lately, I've been into very hoppy beers. India Pale Ales and the like are great on my tongue. I love the super-bitterness of the hops.


Now to culminate my beer-fondness I have gotten a beer brewing kit for Christmas that I plan on using as much as possible. It came with a nice Porter kit. It's all from American Brewmasters here in Raleigh, so it's their own recipe and malts. Here's the ingredient list.


3.3 lbs Dark malt extract
3.3 lbs Amber malt extract
Steeping Grains including 4 oz. Black Patent, 4 oz. Chocolate Malt, 4 oz. Crystal Malt
1 oz. Bittering Hops
1 oz. flavoring Hops
1 Pack Nottingham Ale Yeast

Unfortunately, as I look back on the recipe, it doesn't tell me what the exact hops are. That helps a lot. So, as I write this, that Porter is in it's Secondary Fermenter settling out and maybe getting rid of some off-flavors. I don't have any pictures from the brewing process, but here's where it is as of right now.

Tommorrow, I'll update on how my latest brew went tonight. Plus I may try to work out some formatting kinks and post links to pictures so they look better.

(Edit) You can click on most pictures here for a full-size picture. Some work, some don't for some reason.