Season (P)Review: Michal Handzus
Last Season: 3 G, 5 A, 6 PIM, +4, 8 Games Played
Word That Best Describes His Season: Lost.
I must admit, I’m not too familiar with Michal Handzus. There are three things I know about him:
1) He’s a good defensive center. I don’t really have anything to go on with this except for a Selke nomination back in 2000 (and Earl can tell you about how that award is bullshit), but I think it’s safe to say that Handzus is an above-average defensive forward. I mean, I could do stuff like “analysis” or “fact-checking,” but who the hell am I, Upton Sinclair? I got shit to do, like… um… eat. (Whew, almost blew my cover there. Nice save, Kelly.)
2) He was injured most of last year with a knee injury. I’m a little nervous about this, just because the Kings signed a solid defensive center coming off a knee injury to shore up their offense and that didn’t work out too well. Even worse, both Alyn McCauley and Handzus have first names that sound normal but are off by one letter; they’re like twins! Anyway, Handzus played in only 8 games last year so he might start off a little slow. Even worse, he just got a tonsillectomy, which is probably the 2nd lamest injury you can miss time for. (The first? Appendectomy. I don’t know why, it just is. Who has the list in front of them? That’s right, so shut up.) Given the Kings’ penchant for signing guys who don’t realize that they actually have to play to earn their money the past two seasons, I’m cautiously pessimistic about Handzus’ knee.
"Meemee!!!"
3) He kind of looks like Beaker from the Muppets. At least he does to me. Wouldn’t it be funny if they did that “Sounds of the Game” thing with Handzus and you could hear him calling for the puck and he was all, “Meemee!” That would be awesome.
So yeah, that’s pretty much all I got when it comes to Handzus. What do you people want from me? I’m not Earl, okay? I can’t do “analysis,” whatever the hell that is. Do you know how hard it is to write about every single Kings player? I’m pretty sure everything I wrote about Raitis Ivanans was made up. Oh well, at least I get paid handsomely… wait a minute, Wild Wing isn’t on the $50 dollar bill! Damn you, Sleek!!!
***
The Kings are unveiling a new mascot this Friday at Frozen Fury. They haven't given out a picture of him yet but they have revealed his name: Bailey, named after former scout Ace Bailey. I think that's pretty cool. They also gave out his jersey number: 72, after the average temperature in Los Angeles. I think that's pretty cool too. I don't know why some people get bent out of shape about the Kings having a mascot; he won't distract from the game too much and kids will like him. (I always think it's funny when people talk about the tradition of sports. It's for fun people, calm the fuck down!) Welcome, Bailey; I already like you more than Brian Willsie.
9 comments:
Well, I'll tell you what, a mascot lion beats the hell out of the X-Team or the Kings Krew or whatever the hell they've been trying to plug in for a mascot since Kingston was retired. Those idiots were embarassing. I realize having Wild Wing around makes the term "embarassing" difficult for some to grasp in a relative sense, but...
I think it was two years ago, when the Oilers knocked the Quacks out, I saw two guys from EDM coming out of one of the games and pondering the statue in front of the Pond. "We have a statue of Gretzky in front of our building.", one of them said kind of quizically. I couldn't have laughed harder.
I'm still rather disappointed he didn't get a pink slip when the new ownership came in...
Lamest injury to lose playing time for has to go to former Sharks center Darren Turcotte. In 1997 he punctured an ear drum with a Q-tip swab and was held off the ice
for weeks because he was having trouble keeping his balance while walking.
Bad mascots are bad, but good mascots are great. So if he's funny and the kids love him, why the heck not.
"Meemee!!!"
Just awesome. Keep that up and I may just pay you.
As for the mascot, I'm pretty excited. I always feel weird trying to draw a humanoid king next to caricatured animal drawings of ducks and sharks. We'll see what it looks like, but generally I'm OK with the notion of mascots, too.
Next stop? Orange highlights on the Kings jersey.
I know it's going to be a lion; it'll probably look like the Manchester mascot. Maybe he'll be orange.
I wholeheartedly approve of a new mascot, and I hope this lion beats the pants off the Senators' lion. The Sens lion is like a walking checklist of all the ways to fail to make a kick-ass mascot. Please, Kings, learn from Ottawa's mistakes! (And while you're at it, could you learn from Ottawa's on-ice mistakes and beat the Ducks a few times for us? Thanks.)
Oh, and fantastic comparison to Beaker. It's surprising, actually, how many NHLers look like him. Or talk like him (Bobby Holik comes to mind...).
When I think of people who sound like muppets, I always think of Mike Richter. Also, that one ref who sounds like he doesn't have balls.
Oh, and why the hell is the Senator's mascot a lion? That doesn't make sense.
(And while you're at it, could you learn from Ottawa's on-ice mistakes and beat the Ducks a few times for us? Thanks.)
Surprisingly (?), the Kings don't have big trouble against the Ducks lately--they each won four times in the series last year.
If anything, the Kings really need to improve results against the set of teams that require a flight to get to--particularly Dallas, who beat the Kings 8 times last year.
72? Why not 67? Tradition of the team...
Yeah, I dunno. I'm still trying to process Youppi!'s "number," and it's been two and a half years.
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