In Case You Were Wondering, Yes, the Pirates are Still an MLB Team and Links

To outsiders, Pennsylvania may seem like one northern hickish state with two major metropolitan areas — a state united by its stupidity and obeseness.



In reality, Pennsylvania is made up of two entirely different places that might as well be in different nations, let alone states. There is the Philadelphia area, and the rest of the state that sucks incredibly hard. There is no disputing this. I know. I'm a born and bred Philadelphia area young fellow who spent his college years in the middle of Pennsylvania surrounded by mongoloids from the west. They don't like us. We don't like them. That's science. There is no overcoming this.

I feel a greater connection to the shithole that is New Jersey than my western brethren in my own state. That should tell you something. I prefer New Jerseyans to western Pennsylvanians. They and their six Super Bowl rings and their three Stanley Cup championships can go get fucked. Damn right I'm jealous, but just of the rings, not of anything else. You're practically West Virginia.

Of course, I bring this all up because tonight the sorry excuse for a franchise from the west comes to our great (crime-riddled, racist?) city, where you're God Damn right our very nation was founded! I thoroughly look forward to the impending sweep to wrap up an outstanding homestand before the All-Star festivities embark on Monday. Pittsburgh sucks.

Let's link …

-When is an appropriate time to break out the "C" word? When some lady goes to a Phillies game and instead of watching the action, reads a fucking Vanity Fair.



Full disclosure, I watched the Curb Your Enthusiasm last night where Larry David calls the gay guy from HBO a cunt during a poker game. That episode is fantastic.



-Apparently, Antero Niittymaki is signing with the Lightning.

-Penn State lands another quarterback recruit:



-Former Eagles receiver Donte Stallworth got drunk and high, got behind the wheel and killed a guy. Now he's been released from prison after serving 24 days. For DUI manslaughter. Seriously, 24 days. America and the courts make absolutely no sense at all, via Deadspin.

-Antone has a little fun with the whole LeBron getting dunked on Nike-gate business:



-As if you didn't already miss Harry enough having to listen to the insufferable Tom McCarthy every night, Iracane, who is headed to Philadelphia for the weekend, posted this:



I miss Whitey and Harry so freakin much.

-How Lenny Dykstra invested his money.

-Daniel Murphy: He's the best … and the worst:





-Adam Gretz profiles two former Flyers who are free agents, then shows his stupidity by calling Marty Biron "the weak link in Philadelphia the past two seasons." Clearly he didn't actually watch the Flyers whatsoever, because if he did, he'd know the defense was the weak link in Philadelphia the past two seasons. Perhaps you should have said scapegoat instead of weak link, especially seeing how Biron played out of his freakin mind in the 2008 playoffs. Sometimes I wonder if these guys even watch sports.

Yeah, that's pretty much it for me today. I'm tired. My back hurts. And it's entirely too nice to be inside an office with horrifying neon lights. Stay in college, kids, as long as humanly possible. Even if you're stuck with people from Pittsburgh.

Who Wants to Dance?

Apparently, Penn State does and the Flyers don't.



What a rollercoaster of a night. I was extremely amped up to watch the Flyers in their first game since the questionable deadline deals that rid them of Scottie Upshall and returned a couple of question marks. And then, you know, the game happened. What a fucking disaster that was.

The Flyers did start out with about three good shifts, but those were pretty much the only good shifts of the entire first period. The Flames, who sit firmly in third place in the West, completely owned the Flyers in the opening 20 minutes. They outshot Philadelphia 19-10, and before you know it, the score was 4-0 Calgary. Not good.



It was the Flames' newly formed top line that did most of the damage. Olli Jokinen, a notorious Flyer killer during his days in Florida, was up to his old tricks. It looked as though he and Jarome Iginla had played together for years, not, uh, never. Those two were incredible, especially Jokinen, who scored back-to-back goals in his debut as a Flame.

The Flyers had no answer for Calgary, and even more unnerving, they had no answer for anything. Routinely, they couldn't get the puck out of their own zone, and the turnovers were simply atrocious. Not a single Flyer looked like he gave a damn, with the exception of Antero Niitymaki, but that didn't even last long. Niitty was bombarded with 19 shots, and he made some really great saves, but he also let in two weak goals—the first and the last. The final one, where he was stumbling around to try and stand up in the net, was atrocious.



I honestly have no faith in Niittymaki whatsoever. I know Biron's been inconsistent as hell, but every time in his career when it looks like Niitty is in position to become the man, he starts to fucking blow. Last night, he didn't get any help in front of him, and he did make some nice saves, but Biron came in and simply outplayed Niittymaki. And with his performance in last year's playoffs, I think Biron is definitely the way to go in net. That's just me.

It was an absolutely awful game. The Flyers did pick it up a little bit in the second and third, but it was too little too late. You aren't coming back from a 4-0 hole against Miikka Kiprusoff, and in all honesty, the Flames looked damn good. Jokinen was unreal, and Calgary swarmed to the puck and gave the Flyers no room to work. It was like watching 6th graders dominate 5th graders at recess.



The thing that really pissed me off about last night, more than even getting killed, was how the Flyers responded. After that early, pathetic attempt at a fight between Riley Cote and Andre Roy, there was no rough stuff at all. Daniel Carcillo, known mainly for throwing fists, decided to completely ignore my advice, even after falling behind by not two, not three, but four goals in the first period.

Now, I will say that it looked as though Carcillo tried to get any Flame he could to go on one particular first-period shift, focusing his attention on Curtis Glencross, but no Flame took the bait. And after that, there wasn't even a hint of any desire to fight for any Flyer, even though the score called for it. That's pretty piss-poor if you ask me, especially when getting trounced in your own building. I was supremely disappointed in that. It was the perfect situation for Carcillo to showcase his fisticuffs to the Philadelphia crowd and try to jump-start a dormant Flyers team. But no, he and the rest of the Flyers decided to sit back and take it like a bunch of pansies. Pathetic.

And to top things off, Daniel Briere left the game with a groin injury and given his history, particularly this season, this could be bad. Very bad. Like, out for a while bad. We're not sure about any of that yet, but would you be surprised? At least the Flyers still have Scottie Upshall to pick up the slack Jared Ross to call up. Oh, and on a side note, on a night in which Mike Richards played perhaps his worst game of the season and the Flyers desperately needed someone to give them a spark, the guy who used to do that regularly scored a goal and was named top star of the game as his new team beat the top-seeded Bruins. So, yeah, Upshall played the Bruins twice in three days, scored the first goal for his team each time, and saw his team defeat the best team in the Eastern Conference. Yeah, sounds like a guy I'd like to get rid of. Fuck you, Holmgren. And fuck you, too, Briere. Pussy.

Thankfully, the night wasn't a wash, and the joy came from a surprising place—a Penn State basketball game. Remember when Penn State and Illinois played the worst game in the history of college basketball? Yeah, well, the rematch last night in Happy Valley was the complete opposite of that. Don't believe me? Watch this:



Yeah, Talor Battle was shooting the ball and there was nothing anyone was going to do about it. Make him go through all five Illinois defenders? No problem. He'll just toss it up on the glass and rattle it on it. Wow! I mean, wow! That was pretty awesome.

In prime time, on ESPN, in front of the nation, the Nittany Lions, playing in front of a rare packed Bryce Jordan Center crowd, notched their 21st win of the season and 10th in the Big Ten in dramatic fashion. Now the Lions really can have dreams of dancing.

It was Battle who made the big bucket, but it was Stanley Pringle who allowed Penn State to get there. The masturbating madman was phenomenal, scoring a game-high 20 points on 8-11 from the field and a perfect 4-4 from beyond the arc.



He was in complete control and with Lions down 6 late in the game, it was Pringle who brought them back. And then Battle, who had an awful game prior to that final shot, stepped up when his team needed him. After getting to the rim with ease but failing to finish, then dribbling into an Illini defender and turning it over with just seconds left, Battle took the ball coast-to-coast, weaving through 5 Illinois defenders and hit the shot that may have secured Penn State a spot in the big dance.



Penn State has historically been a laughingstock in the world of college hoops, but as the young man from Albany said after Penn State's huge upset win at Michigan State earlier this year: "I guess we made history, huh?" Battle said. "Coach mentioned that we hadn't won here. But I wasn't on those other Penn State teams. This is the '08-09 team. …"

And this 2008-09 team is getting its dancing shoes ready.

Good Day Giroux

For the past few weeks, I've been kicking around the idea that Claude Giroux just may be my new favorite Philadelphia Flyer.



Well, after a month-long stretch of excellent hockey and two great performances the past two nights, it's official: Claude Giroux is my new favorite Flyer. After scoring the first of four unanswered goals in the Flyers 4-2 come-from-behind victory against the Capitals on Tuesday, Giroux, although not registering a point, was arguably the best skater on the ice last night.



I should know. I was sitting awfully close to the guy in two of the three periods. Thanks to my incredible sense of picking the proper house to move into, I was able to sit 6 rows off the ice last night, in the sixth row of section 103—right at the blue line on the visiting bench side. I can thank my roommate for the privilege. It's the closest I've ever sat at a hockey game, and it was awesome … especially watching Giroux.

On a night when the Flyers were sluggish and outplayed following a game the night before, Giroux had a hop in step that no other Flyer really had. Right from the get-go he stick-handled through three Kings, making them all look foolish, and provided a great scoring chance. And he was doing it all night.

I mean, watching this guy up close and personal was just incredible. I've already said it once, and at the risk of sounding like an overhyping lunatic, I'm going to repeat myself: Claude Giroux really reminds me of a righthanded version of Peter Forsberg. He has incredible awareness on the ice, can thread a pass to anyone anywhere, sees plays that look like they aren't even there, stickhandles with the best of them, has a pretty nice little shot and, even though he's small, isn't afraid to take or throw a hit … much like Forsberg.



Of course, Giroux is nowhere near Forsberg's level in those things just yet, but it's evident that he is a special player. And he gets better each and every game. Last night, he, along with Scottie Upshall and Darroll Powe, provided the Flyers with their most consistent strong shifts, and their work was a big part in the 2-0 win.

But I'd be lying if I told you Giroux was the best player on the ice either Tuesday or last night. Best skater, sure. Best player, no. After the annual whirlwind controversy that is the Flyers' goaltending situation, with inconsistency from both Antero Niittymaki and Marty Biron, the two Flyers netminders stepped up their games big time.

On Tuesday, against Alexander Ovechkin and the rest of the high-powered Capitals, Niitty was back on his game. He made 33 saves and kept the Flyers in the game to allow the comeback.



He made some incredible saves and really provided confidence throughout.

But not to be outdone, Marty Biron had perhaps his best game of the season last night. Playing on tired legs, the Flyers were sluggish and outworked by a Kings team scrapping for a playoff birth. They were outshot in their own building 34-19, but in the end, the scoreboard read 2-0 Flyers. Why? Because Biron was spectacular in net.



All game long, Marty was in complete control, squaring himself up to the shooter, absorbing the puck and providing a calming influence in net. He didn't look frantic, panicked or unsure of himself. Sure, he still turned the puck over a few times when he came out to play it, but let's face it, Marty will never, ever be good at handling the puck. As long as he makes the stops, that doesn't matter. Last night, he stopped them all.

He certainly helped make up for costing the Flyers at least one point last Saturday, because last night he was the reason the Flyers won, plain and simple.

There's still plenty of games for the goaltending situation to work itself out, but I think it's abundantly clear that it's Marty's job to lose. Last night, he once again looked like the goalie that helped lead the Flyers to the Eastern Conference Finals last season, and for the most part, he's looked like that guy since the calendar turned over to 2009. Here's hoping he continues to play well and Niitty keeps pushing him.

The competition should only help out the Flyers down the stretch, a team that currently sits in 4th place and is now just 4 points behind those hated Devils for first in the Atlantic … with a game in hand.

A Tough Start

Last night, with the Phillies idle and football nowhere to be found, I finally got a chance to take in my first full Flyers game of the 2008-09 season. And, just like the first two games of the season, the Flyers lost.



However, last night's game wasn't nearly as frustrating as the first two, where they gave up 4 goals in the first period to the Rangers and 5 goals in all against the Canadians. In their first road contest of the season out in Pittsburgh, the Flyers actually played some pretty strong defense, especially when you consider they were taking on the likes of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.



From my eyes, it was pretty even game throughout. The first period, the Flyers looked to be in control early while Pittsburgh made a nice push toward the end. And the animosity between the teams from last season clearly boiled over. Just 5 minutes in, Riley Cote and Eric Godard dropped the gloves and had at it. Both players got some nice shots in, and it was a typical Cote fight: No one really won; both got some good shots in.



But the second period completely belonged to the Penguins. Right off the faceoff, Pittsburgh took it to the Flyers, getting chance after chance, and if it wasn't for Antero Niittymaki, the Flyers would have found themselves down 4-0 or more.

The Pens did finally open up the scoring when Brooks Orpik fired a wrister that found its way past Niittymaki in the far top corner of the net.



Just 42 seconds later, Michael Zigomanis put Pittsburgh up 2, and the Flyers looked dead in the water.



The Penguins were putting the pressure on, and the Flyers looked to have no answers. Save for the Upshall, Carter, Knuble/Asham line, no one was doing much for the Orange and Black. Well, not until the final minute of the period anyway.

With just 44 seconds left, Scottie Upshall found Jeff Carter down low in a 2-on-1 with Aaron Asham on his left. Carter looked like he was trying to get the puck to Asham, but it went off Hal Gil and past Fleury to bring the Flyers within a goal.



Then, just 21 seconds later, Daniel Briere won a faceoff, got it back to Braydon Coburn who sent it across to Kimmo Timonen on a set play. Kimmo fired at the net, and Simon Gagne, who is smoking early on, made a great redirection to tie the game going into the 3rd, picking up his 3rd goal in just the 3rd game of the season.



With two goals in the final minute, it looked as though the Flyers had stolen the momentum. But the third proved to be a stalemate, as both teams clamped down and both goaltenders were strong. So overtime it was, and much like the game, it was pretty evenly played. Both teams had chances, but it looked as though the game was going to go to a shootout.

But, with 11 seconds left, this happened:



Briere and Lupul both misplayed the puck, which led to Pittsburgh's control, a long pass by Orpik to Pascal Dupuis and a rip by Dupuis that beat Niittymaki. Just like that, the Flyers are off to their worst start in franchise history, losing the first three games of the season for the first time ever.

And while that might be a little depressing, it is only three games, and they were against three of the top teams in the Eastern Conference. And in all three games, the Flyers were right there with chances to win. So I think they'll be all right.

However, there are some things early on I don't particularly like, at least from last night's game. Number one is the line combinations. There's just something about having Richards, Briere and Gagne together that I don't like. I know they've played very well together early on, but that line lacks the physicality and defensive prowess to match Richards' individual strengths in both those areas.



And the drop-off on other lines is evident. Not on all of them, mind you. In fact, last night, the Carter-Upshall-Knuble/Asham, Stevens switched Knuble and Asham throughout, line was the best line for the Flyers last night. Steve Downie was nowhere to be found, which I found discouraging considering he played so well in the preseason before he got hurt.

If I had it my way, the lines would look like this:

1. Briere-Gagne-Knuble: A trio that was dynamite early last season before Gagne went down with the concussion.
2. Richards-Lupul-Hartnell: Another line that played strong together for the majority of last season, and a line that has three players who are physical, good defenders and can all score.
3. Carter-Upshall-Downie: Carter and Upshall clearly have great chemistry, and I think promoting Downie to that line could really help him break out. And if that doesn't work, put Asham there like last night and move Downie back to the 4th line.
4. Metropolit-Cote-Asham: Fourth liners all around.

Actually, I have to say, I'm not a fan of Glen Metropolit early on. He looks slow, turns the puck over and really hasn't had much of an impact. However, it's early, so I won't pass too harsh of a judgment yet.

As far as defense goes, well, things are a little rough back there. It would nice to get Timonen and Coburn back together to put that shutdown pair out there, but it's tough with the youth and injuries. However, until Parent and Jones come back, I guess the pairings from last night work well. Steve Eminger hasn't brought much to the table early on, but Andrew Alberts played pretty well last night in his first game as a Flyer, and he adds some much-needed size to the blue line.

Timonen and Coburn are exactly what they are—All-Star caliber defensemen. Ossi Vaananen has looked up and down to me, and Luca Sbisa clearly has the potential to be a star in this league. He does make some rookie mistakes, but he's 18 years old. His speed, puck handling and confidence, not to mention the penchant he's shown to throw his body around, should provide the Flyers with another top defenseman in the near future.

When Jones and Parent come back, the defense, thin at the moment, will become a deep part of the Flyers. So, despite the worst start in franchise history, there are 79 more games left, and this team certainly has the talent to make another run to the playoffs. And I expect them to do just that.