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

* Thanks, Kevin Lowe!

Thursday, September 20, 2007

The burning question: How funny is evil?

Well, not too much to report from last night’s SJS 1 – ANA 0 preseason game that isn’t being capably reported elsewhere. It certainly wasn’t the most exciting hockey game, but I think it indicates that preseason or not, the Sharks and Ducks take each other quite seriously.

  • I have completely flip-flopped on the San Jose road jersey. Seeing it in person, I hate it. The blue and the orange don’t really get along, but maybe more painful was the bottoms of the jerseys. The white part below the horizontal stripe looks like each player is wearing an untucked dress shirt worn below their jersey—it just screams “sloppy”. Then again, the color scheme kind of screams “colorblind”, so pick your poison, I guess.


  • It’s tough to say who really looked good out there for the Ducks—I was really impressed with a first period shift for Bertuzzi-Getzlaf-Perry (a line I’ve been hoping to see this coming year), but apparently Coach Carlyle wasn’t. The rest of the game was played with Kunitz-McDonald-Bertuzzi followed by Miller-Getzlaf-Perry, which both seemed to be decent while unproductive combinations.


  • On the Sharks, the guy who probably scared me the most all night was Jonathan Cheechoo. Ron Wilson played a much more mixed lineup, and for the most part the SJ prospect-kids looked pretty good, especially on the blueline. Alexei Semenov is a pretty big monster out there, by the way, which became super-evident when he got in a fight with a comparative midget named Travis Moen.
But hey, I’m stalling. My real burning question has to do with our new goaltender Jonas Hiller, who played a serviceable 60 minutes and could replace Ilya Bryzgalov as Anaheim’s backup this year. Last night at the game we had a good debate about assigning Hiller a nickname. The hilariously-offensive suggestion? Hitler. Now I know that there are hundreds of super-valid reasons why we shouldn’t go down that road, but I have to admit, I had a great time last night with the drinky catcalls “Nice save, Hitler! Watch that five-hole, Hitler!”

So I guess I’ll leave it to the readership. If I need a good talking-to about the appropriate use of historical mega-villains, let me have it. If you think the inappropriateness makes it all the more hilarious, I’m all ears. If you’ve got a better suggestion that will get me out of this debate, I’m certainly open for one. And if you think that this nickname should be reserved strictly for Kings assistant Dave Lewis, I’ll take that into consideration.

Hitler—yay or nay? Rip me a new one in the comments.


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LATE NIGHT EDIT: OK, OK, the Swiss have spoken. Hitler's a no-go. I shall instead stick with his more common nickname "The Killer" instead.

Sorry for any drunken insensitivity, Markus. I'll offer this as a peace offering (hopefully you're a Chow Yun-Fat fan):

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

I completely agree with you about the uniforms. In addition to the problems you mentioned, I also couldn't read their names on the back of their jerseys. And I've got better than 20/20 vision. Still not as bad as Dallas though.

VeryProudofYa said...

What about Sieg Hiller?

Earl Sleek said...

I also couldn't read their names on the back of their jerseys.

Hm. This might have been true also, but by that point I was pretty much calling all Sharks by the same name: Orange.

Anonymous said...

Hmm. "Hitler" is a tough sell, Earl, but if anyone can pull it off, it's you. Just be careful. The last thing you want is to miscalculate and wind up pledging to name your second born, "Hitler".

You have a bad track record with this stuff.

Anonymous said...

You know how I feel about the Hitler thing. Just don't.

andy grabia said...

Earl, check your Facebook account. I sent you a message.

GOILERS!

Earl Sleek said...

Just be careful. The last thing you want is to miscalculate and wind up pledging to name your second born, "Hitler".

Hmm. Good point. "Teemu Hitler" does have a nice ring to it--I'd better stay sober in the delivery room.

Earl, check your Facebook account. I sent you a message.

Shh! I don't want to let on what a Facebook slut I am!

Miss. Scarlett said...

Hitler—yay or nay?

Well, I generally feel 'nay' about Hitler but what about those people that are actually called Hitler? There has to be some who are unrelated, right?

I'd better stay sober in the delivery room.

I think you should be more worried about actually coming out of that delivery room alive.

Anonymous said...

earl how did Kontra-band look?...im hearing he might be a liability?

those uniforms are a disgrace....they go right next to the wild wing 3rd jersy or the islander "gorton" fish sticks jersy...matter of fact same dumb orange

Anonymous said...

how bout phyliss hiller?

Earl Sleek said...

earl how did Kontra-band look?...im hearing he might be a liability?

I thought he looked all right. Pretty poised and it is nice to have a puckmover back there. He might be a liability to some degree, but it didn't really show last night (everybody was playing pretty tight).

I don't know how defensive he has to be, though. I don't really see him anywhere in our top 4, I think.

how bout phyliss hiller?

I could go with Ghost-Face Hiller, maybe, given his plain white mask.

Anonymous said...

ghost face hiller now u got somthing...hard to chant though...

how bout...just jonas..and they can rock "my name is jonas" from weezer when he makes a great save..

bri-bot said...

how bout...just jonas..and they can rock "my name is jonas" from weezer when he makes a great save..

that would be amazing. :D
how did the penalty kill look without sami?

Patty (in Dallas) said...

I don't like to advocate making light of Hitler, but if you must, I think it's funnier with people that look like him, rather than names that are marginally similar.

So I'd save it for Dave Lewis.

Earl Sleek said...

ghost face hiller now u got somthing...hard to chant though...

Oh, I doubt very highly that the Anaheim crowd will be chanting "Hitler, Hitler!" either. Those prudes. :)

how did the penalty kill look without sami?

I'm actually pretty bad about watching our PK in person--most times I am more occupied by the guy sitting next to me in the penalty box. I know there were zero pp goals, so I assume it was awesome! And from what I did see, it looked good enough--although they were using a forward combo of Getzlaf and Miller at times, kind of odd.

Anonymous said...

Well...nicknaming a European player Hitler is one of the worst ideas you could have come up with. I'm sure you have a different view, but for Europeans, Hitler is still a No-Word and yelling this name is just a DON'T! But on the other hand, nobody will handcuff you for doing it...

In Switzerland, Hiller was refered to as Hiller "the Killer", because he used to kill the opposite offense :)

Cheers
Markus, Switzerland (yes, even here we read your blog, it's awesome!)

Anonymous said...

Haha, nice job! Peace offering accepted...

If you you're gonna be in London, let me know...I'll offer you a beer or two :)

Earl Sleek said...

Alas, no London for me. But hey, if you have anything worth reporting, I'm a sucker for guest posts!

Anonymous said...

Guess I'm 18 months too late...was in Anaheim in 2006 and got a media pass (I used to write for a Swiss version of THN)...so I got some insight information after the games, in side the locker room...hell, what a good time it was :)

Earl Sleek said...

Well, no worries, but I'm not concerned about locker room access or anything. If you're going to be there and have anything to note, you'll be closer than Rudy or I will.

And don't let the lack of media passes deter you--the next media pass I get will be my first.

It's an open invite for anyone going to the games in London--you want to write something about attending those games, we'll most likely post it.

Steal Thunder said...

Wait a minute?

Facebook has made it to Grabia in Edmonton?

Aww crap, it used to be the cool thing to do...