Takes and trash talk from both ALL sides of the NHL's most obscure PATHETIC* rivalry

* Thanks, Kevin Lowe!

Monday, September 18, 2006

Ducks forget to dress Pronger for his debut

Yee-ouch. Ducks opened up their preseason with a stinker, losing 7-1 to the Kings. Thank goodness it was radio-only, as that may have saved me from clawing out my eyes.

On the main stats that mattered, Kings went 4-7 on their PP while the Ducks went 0-8 (generating a pitiful 4 PP shots).

Scoring per my notes:
8:02 1st L.A. Avery 1 (Pushkarev, Norstrom)
11:47 1st L.A. Dallman 1 PP (Armstrong, Moulson)
0:58 2nd ANA Getzlaf 1 (O’Donnell, Melin)
7:55 2nd L.A. Moulson 1 PP (Armstrong, Dallman)
13:00 2nd L.A. Dallman 2 (Armstrong, Brown)
7:25 3rd L.A. Willsie 1 PP (Avery, Sopel)
16:40 3rd L.A. Belanger 1 (Thornton, Willsie)
18:47 3rd L.A. Pushkarev 1 PP (Weaver, Dallman)

Note that Leighton and Garon played the first thirty minutes and Bryzgalov and LaBarbara finished off the game.

Anaheim roster:
G – I. Bryzgalov, M. Leighton
D – F. Beauchemin, S. O’Donnell, J. DiPenta, S. O’Brien, B. Salcido, K. Huskins
F – R. Getzlaf, C. Perry, D. Penner, R. Niedermayer, S. Pahlsson, T. Green, R. Shannon, B. Melin, K. Stewart, S. Thornton, T. Gillies, B. Ryan

L.A. Kings were notably without D. Cloutier, R. Blake, C. Conroy, A. Frolov, A. McCauley, A. Kopitar, and P. O’Sullivan.


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I know preseason doesn’t count for anything, but here’s a little tip, Ducks.

A fair amount of people (thank god I wasn’t one of them!) paid regular-season prices to see what might have been Chris Pronger’s first game in the Duck uniform (against the cross-town rivals, no less!). Instead they paid regular-season prices to see a prospect squad half-ass its way to the team’s worst individual-game result since the lockout.

If you want to generate some local excitement about this year’s chances , if you want a fanbase of repeat customers who will pay to attend games, try not to fuck ‘em on the first day of school.

They may be fake games with apparently fake hype, but it is not fake money we’re spending.

See ya Wednesday for a better effort,

Sleek

[EDIT: Though I appear to have lost the ability to comment there, Duck's Blog has some firsthand reaction to the game. Also, Dan Wood of the OC Register has begun his own MSM Ducks blog today--that has some promise.]

[EDIT2: Another entry on Mr. Wood's blog indicates that tomorrow's lineup against SJ will feature J.S. Giguere, S. Niedermayer, C. Pronger, F. Beauchemin, T. Selanne, A. McDonald, R. Getzlaf, C. Perry, D. Penner, T. Marchant, T. Fedoruk, and S. Chistov. I sure got lucky in picking which preseason game to attend!]

9 comments:

VeryProudofYa said...

at the VERY least they could have put out a marquee player.

Maybe they're building up hype for the Ducks.Kings remath coming at the season's start.
One would hope.

Anonymous said...

Regular season prices? That sucks!

Drew said...

My wife wanted to go to the pre-season opener here in Columbus the other day, but I said "no" for precisely this reason. I won't pay regular season prices for what amounts to a glorified scrimmage.

NHL hockey is a business, and I understand this. Baseball teams are able to charge considerably less for spring training games I would guess because they are in minor league stadiums. But I imagine that football (a bad financial comparison for hockey due to its extreme popularity in the USA) and basketball hold their exhibition games in the same venues as the regular season.

It would be nice if hockey would slash prices in half for pre-season since the quality of play is rarely up to regular season standards, but I know that will never happen.

Kent W. said...

Im surprised you guys are playing RS ticket prices for exhibition games...

That said, it's really hard for anyone to predict pre-season game results, GM's included. The Flames iced a squad featuring exactly none of their stars on Sunday but won the game 3-1 anyways. They could have just as easily lost 7-1 though.

If you want to see an ugly line-up, check out the Canucks Im going to have to watch play the Flames tonight. Ugh. At least my tickets were cheap.

Earl Sleek said...

Im surprised you guys are playing RS ticket prices for exhibition games...

Actually, now that I'm looking at the tickets, they may be slightly discounted. Still, the tickets I got for tomorrow night have a face value of USD $74.

I haven't seen the regular season tickets face value yet, but still, it is not chump change.

Kent W. said...

Brutal.

I paid $18 each for my tickets. The seats are located somewhere in stratosphere...but you can still see the ice, which is all that matters (and Im fairly certain even those tickets are pricier than 18 bones during the regular season)...

Im not certain what the prices are like down in the lower bowl (if they're even available)...

Drew said...

Tickets here in Columbus are the same for pre-season and regular season.

I'll wait until the games mean something to fork over any money.

VeryProudofYa said...

I haven't seen the regular season tickets face value yet, but still, it is not chump change.
___


Well, I've ordered tickets for when the Rangers come to play in November, and they're a pretty penny ($100+).
Then again, I've got bitchin' seats.

Earl Sleek said...

I should note (if I haven't) that though I am no season ticketholder, I do purchase from one.

So I am referencing a face value price on a preseason "season ticket". Don't know how different that is, though.

Mine are bitchin' seats, too. That's why it's cool to be a Ducks fan. I wouldn't be able to score these seats in Toronto until I was 80.