Got to my first game of the season last night, and boy I can see why those tickets were easy to come by - what a snoozer. Biggest cheer of the night was for the TSN broadcast of the Canada victory. Horcoff, to my eye, had one of his worst nights in memory - brutal giveaway in the 1st to put the Islanders up 1-0, and not much else to atone for that mistake. The only positive of the night for the Oilers was the play of the 4th line - Stortini in particular. At one point in the 2nd I leaned over to my wife (The first game we were able to attend together since Samsonov's home debut vs. Calgary back in '06 - another 3-2 victory for the good guys as I recall - seems she's a bit of a good luck charm) and said "Stortini needs to do something here to get the team fired up - a hit, a fight, someth"...........SCORES. Stortini threw the puck into the crease and it was 2-1 Islanders and the building had a little life. A few minutes later, Stortini makes a real nice play from behind the net and it's a tie game. I imagine Bruce had a big ole smile on his face.
Funny note from last night - the Oilers played a real nice little tribute for Doug Weight and thanked him for his community service during his tenure as an Oiler. A few minutes later, a stat on the scoreboard shows "Former Oilers Doug Weight and Bill Guerin currently sit 2 and 3 in Islanders scoring" - no mention the entire night of boobird favorite Mike Comrie. I guess the wound is still too fresh!
2 comments:
Hey Oilman, I was in Yellowknife and have that game still stacked up in PVR. It sounds so terrible I'm reluctant to watch it though maybe I should just start at the second period. My man Zorg and his buddies on the slug line have been doing the job for the most part; they've been together for 12 games now and for Stortini's part he is +5/-2 in about 90 minutes work, with a whole big bunch of hits, a half dozen fights, and at least one "fucking douchebag" to his credit (the latter aimed at Krys Barch after their second ding-dong battle of the season). Zorg is always good for a couple laughs a game.
As for Horcoff, you do realize he was a doubtful starter on Monday due to back spasms? He was still struggling on Wednesday night.
Glad to hear the Oilers did something to acknowledge Weight, he scored the lion's share of those 1000 points in Oilers silks. Comrie OTOH didn't play here long enough, or accomplish anywhere near enough, to earn any such acknowledgement. I for one didn't even bother to boo him last time around (there's often free tickets floating around for Islanders games). The booing thing is way overdone IMO, especially on nonentities like him.
Agreed Bruce on all fronts. I knew Horcoff was hurting, and it was likely the reason for his poor performance. I don't feel the need to boo Comrie either - but I was probably one of the few in attendance that didn't owe his Dad money on a crappy mattress and some end tables.
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