Getting To Know Your 2010 U.S. Men's Olympic Hockey Team: Erik Johnson

This is the second installment of the defense portion of this feature. You know the drill.

Erik Johnson will turn 22 next month. As a St. Louis Blues fan, I can say that Erik Johnson was/is one of the highest-touted draft picks (first round, first overall in 2006) the Blues have had in some time. Like so many we've examined in this feature, Johnson is a native Minnesotan. He registers at 6'4", 225 pounds, and shoots right-handed. Through 126 games, he has tallied nearly 2500 minutes of ice time, registered 83 PIMs, and an unfortunate negative-eight in the plus-minus. Due to an altercation with a golf cart, he missed the entire 2008-09 season, but through 57 games this year, he is well on his way to career highs in both goals and assists. He is one of only five Americans to be selected first overall.
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Getting To Know Your 2010 U.S. Men's Olympic Hockey Team: David Backes

Let's keep this short and sweet: In 19 days, men's olympic hockey will get underway. You should be both familiar with the men on the roster that will represent your country, and fired up -- even though you hate hockey -- for these games. That's where I come in.

David Backes is a 25-year-old native Minnesotan who currently collects a paycheck playing forward for the St. Louis Blues. He's a right-handed shooter who's lit the lamp 10 times this season, and added 18 helpers for his 28 points. He's logged over 4000 minutes of NHL ice time, and spent 165 minutes in the sin bin last year. His high school honored him by retiring his jersey number Johnny five, and he spent his collegiate years skating for the Minnesota State University Stompers. Also, his wife is pretty hot.

See? That was pretty painless. We'll do about 22 more of these. Stick around.
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Saturday Studmuffins: St. Louis Blues' Keith Tkachuk

Playoff hockey is back for the Blue Notes of Ess Tee Elle, and it couldn't have come in a more exciting fashion. Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that it was evident via "the sounds of the fans in attendance Friday, more than enough time has elapsed without postseason hockey in town. With the crowd buzzing as early as the pregame warm-ups, a deafening roar ensued when McDonald put the Blues ahead 1-0 on a power-play goal only 3 minutes, 19 seconds into the game."

The Blues managed to compile quite a push for the playoffs, being in last place in the NHL's Western Conference as recent as February, and a trade-deadline decision to keep forward Keith Tkachuk paid dividends Friday night at the Scottrade Center as "Walt" put together a two-goal, one-assist evening against Ken Hitchcock and the Columbus Blue Jackets, pushing the Blues into the post-season for the first time in three years.

Things will likely get harder before they get any easier, however, as the Blues could very well face President's Trophy candidate San Jose. The Blues faced, and were eliminated by the Sharks in their 2004 playoff appearance, and have been ousted by the Sharks on two other occasions in the last decade. Until that series gets underway, however, it's celebration time for the Blues.


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Saturday Studmuffins: Detroit Red Wings Pavel Datsyuk

I get down to St. Louis about once a year for a Blues game. Today was my first contest so far this season, my first ever in which hated division rival Detroit Red Wings were the opponent. I've actually never seen Detroit play live, and as much as it pains every fiber in my soul to say so, it was an impressive feat to watch them skate, pass, set up in the zone, and ultimately dominate the St. Pat's weekend vibe happening inside the Scottrade Center -- even in the cheap seats -- and around the city.

The Blues are still in last place in the Central Division, but things are so skewed in the conference right now, that they were a mere two points away from squeezing into the eight spot before today's puck was dropped. Though most of the first period was scoreless, the Blues lit the lamp first late in the frame, an incredible behind-the-net pass from Andy McDonald to T.J. Oshie, allowing them to take the first intermission with the lead. It was only four minutes and change into the second, however, when Pavel Datsyuk netted the equalizer, the first of three Detroit goals in a span of 46 seconds. In fact, goals one and two were only 10 seconds apart, not even sufficient time for the PA announcer to share the details.

The Blues would get another tally several minutes later, but that effort would quickly be undone by another Datsyuk goal, their final score before a Henrik Zetterberg empty-netter in the third. The goals for Datsyuk were 30 and 31 on the season, which, including his 66 assists gives him a team-leading 97 points halfway through March. The Blues, though their roster has changed significantly, appear to be the same team they were last year and the season before, one with a ton of defensive breakdowns and the inability to gain the offensive zone. If they make the post-season, it will be quite the feat, one I doubt that the club I watched today is capapble of pulling off, especially in any circumstance when they face clubs with proven production machines



like today's HoG Saturday Studmuffin.
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My Sports Life is a Rock Song: "Foreplay/Long Time"

Greetings, and welcome to the newest House of Georges feature entitled "My Sports Life is a Rock Song." The deal is this: every Friday (Editor's Note: Fat Chance.), we're gonna break down our tiny little world of sports, and, with the help of the selected song/our unmatchable journalistic prowess, compare the two.

The rules are simple; we'll make them up as we go, and, before Cecil feels his sac shrivel and crawl up into his manly core, rule #1 is that it doesn't have to be a rock song. It just gave the feature's title a little more proverbial punch. So, Cecil, if you ever choose to take part in this, or any other feature, (Note: See above note.), feel free to do a Screeching Weasel or a Chris Gaines song. Or whatever the hell it is you listen to.

Anyhoo. Find the goods after the jump.

I'm not gonna pull any punches, especially with tipoff under three hours away. Thus, I'm going to assume that, with the YouSpaces and eSeeds, and even the old-fangled radio frequencies out there, that everyone knows the jam. And, midwestern/redneck/fat-chick lover/drunken/sophomoric as it sounds, it is in fact a rockin' good song. Well, at least it was the first 6000 times I heard it. Now, what with the ridiculous number of pharmaceuticals I've consumed, and radio stations from which I've been banned, I couldn't distinguish between it and something from the new Jay-Z album.

My sports world, nevertheless, looks a bit like this in the summer:



this in the fall:



this in the winter:



and this in the spring:



Pretty rough. Or, as Old No. 7 would say, "That's uh, that's a lot of third place teams, dude." I, of course, am left with nothing to do but kick him in the shins out of sheer agreement.

The Blues, in case you don't know, dear reader, are a tiny handful of seasons removed from the longest playoff-appearance streak in all of professional sports. They of course reached the Conference Finals in the last year of said streak, not to even sniff the playoffs since. I like Andy Kitchen. I remain confident he's got the club headed in the right direction. But, Christ. Only a team I root for would make the cup finals the first three years of their existence (Note: Prior to mine own.), and never make it again.

And the Crimson and Blue, while on the verge of an Elite Eight appearance, have won a championship in my life -- 20 years ago, but nonetheless, they won -- have managed to get knocked off in ultra-disappointing fashion year after year since I entered high school. Seven, of course, has made a game out of tabbing their annual March Madness elimination, and he, of course, can duct tape himself to any ship's anchor.

Back to the song, though. The Foreplay portion of "Foreplay/Long Time" may as well be an audio advertisement for the Kansas City Royals. Last year the theme was "True. Blue. Tradition.", and I liked it. This year, it's "New. Blue. Tradition.", and I like that even better. Dayton Moore and Trey Hillman have this club headed in the right direction. Problem is, once you're on the path, it's the potholes ahead that keep the championship so far out of reach. Like, you know, the fact that there's a ton of good clubs in the American League, or the fact that the Royals have so little cash flow, or the fact that, according to my new favorite sports blogger, who happens to be right, they have no power at the plate. But the pipe-organ wizardry of Tom Scholz, man genius, begins as a delicate trickle, and builds into, surprise, a rocketesque explosion of tickled ivories plastics. It embodies the potential of the Kansas City Royals. They could explode from barely below-mediocre pitching to pretty okay, and they could -- could, I tell ya', could -- continue to show offensive improvement. If they could grasp these two things, they'll be on par to fulfill my prediction of .500 ball this year and an AL Central title the next.

This sentiment, of course, whirs us right in to the Long Time of the song. And that, if you haven't already figured it out, is the Kansas City Chiefs. It's not as if those two words don't speak a thousand verses, because they do. Brad Delp belts out a lot of lyrics that could summarize my life as a Chiefs fan, but we'll allow it to summarize the last 14 years of it. Which takes us back to the 1994 AFC Conference Championship Game, the only time in my life that the Chiefs were a tomahawk chop away from a Super Bowl berth. They of course, haven't won a post-season contest since, but us fools keep coming back for more, regardless of Delp's repeated phrase "Guess I should be goin', yeah."

No. Time didn't wait for him, and it doesn't wait for Chiefs fans either. It keeps on rollin'. (Note: If at any point you tire of the depressing theme of non-winning sports franchises, feel free to e-mail Old No. 7. He can tell you a bible's worth about championships. And soap on a rope, too, I hear.) So just when Scholz, Delp, Goodreau, and company have you convinced to bolt, and leave your headdress afire, they rock out. Which, to make a contemporary comparison, is kind of like the Chiefs defense under Herm Edwards and Gunther Cunningham, and you're tempted to stick around. Then Delp comes back with some less profound lyrics, and the taste of the Chiefs offense sets up camp on your tongue. (Note: This guy, who is by far the best editor I've ever worked with and/or for, would kill me for using the word "you" so often in this ramblage, but damn it, YOU know what I be sayin', precious readers.)

Like all songs, "Foreplay/Long Time" fades out, and the album ends, or the DJ follows it up with some Steely Dan, or a 2Pac track comes up next on your eSeeds in shuffle mode. And that blasted, confounded time, keeps on rollin', leaving us uneducated, drunken, fat-toofless-girlfriend-havin' hicks with the same old tired hardware on the shelf. And this hillbilly is tired of it, emotionally spent, and running on the fumes of the ideal. Never you fear, though, I'll be there, dumb as ever, for the next season. And the one after that. And the one after that. And one day, my son, will tell the same story that I shared with you today about some teams, and a song that came from an MIT grad that formed a band named after a city. A good Irish-Catholic city, no less.

Oh, and in the random thoughts department, words cannot describe how disappointed I am that the MyTubers removed the embed option from this (lyrics NSFW), although I'd probably get a whiny phone call from Seven about the kids, etc. being exposed to blah, blah, blah. But honestly, what hard-working American man doesn't have his car washed just like this. With this soundtrack, of course. Read more