The Douchebag's Guide To "Trolling" NHL Players

First and foremost: DO NOT try to troll Dany Heatley using his tragic car crash as a means to get under his skin. That would be just awful for everyone involved in this sport.

Anyways…

Most everyone is aware of the “wife beater” heckles and the infamous photo of the Wild fans who brought photos of Varlamov in court for his run in with the law earlier this season.

Some of you also probably know that Puck Daddy’s Greg Wyshysnki’s blogged about this as “cold” but fair trolling. A few people over Twitter, ourselves included, voiced displeasure to Puck Daddy, saying that this sort of “trolling” should be kept out of the game, comparing it to Heatley’s tragic accident. In our opinion the comparison is fair, as it is a personal attack on an event that is very prominent and unfortunate in our world: irresponsible vehicular homicide, and abuse, whether it be on a woman, man, or child. So here is what we’ve gotten from some people in the hockey world: poking fun at abuse is okay, funny, and acceptable. Even if it didn’t happen. Okay, you’ll never see us doing this, but good to know. This is the last you’ll hear from us on the matter.

But to all the douchebag NHL fans who like to make fun of players and crimes they commit, no matter how classless and pathetic it makes them look as hockey fans and human beings in general, here are some more signs and pictures you can print off to “troll” NHL players who have had to deal with serious hardships, stress, guilt, regret, lost friends, lost endorsements, tattered reputation, and overall hellish turmoil. Because it’s “funny”.

Ryan Malone: arrested on cocaine possession, DUI

Patrick Kane and Brett Sutter: both beat up cabbies (Add mugshots for all, of course)









 Jeff Skinner: Because he is referred to as "hockey-Bieber" (This one was just for fun)

Chris Nilan: shoplifted 

Kevin Stevens: Caught with prostitute and crack

Potential sign: "Sorry to hear your marriage is 'on the rocks'".

Bob Probert: Caught with coke in his underwear

 

Potential sign: "Probert's cocaine is under there! Under wear?"

A few we don't want to add pictures to:

Joe Corvo: grabbed a woman's rear and beat her up

Mark Hardy: Drunkenly got friendly with his daughter

All of these examples are harsh and perhaps a bit risky to put in writing/pictures. But the fact and principle remains the same. No matter the severity, it isn't funny, and any fan caught "trolling" players by means such as this should be hastily removed from NHL rinks. If you were at all offended by this post, good. Now you know how these employees of the NHL feel when pathetic fans bring their personal lives into the rink. No room for it. Bring Matt Cooke back for game 7 before you allow this in a rink. 

Do you dislike an NHL player, and want to get under his skin but you don't see him on this list? Well the fun doesn't stop here. Just find some personal event that made their lives hell for a period of time and had them most likely on the verge of giving up. Put a representation of the event on a sign or picture, and be sure he gets a really good look at it, JUST to remind him that the thing he did, that he THOUGHT  he persevered over, and overcame the gut wrenching stress of, in fact will never go away, just as long as there are pathetic fans in the world like you to remind him. 

Any anyone who advocates this as "fun" and "fair", shame. 

Oh and if you think this is an overreaction, we'd love to hear why in the comments. As always, thanks for reading, and keep it classy Avs fans!

In Which We Blast The Disgusting Conduct of Minnesota Wild Fans

In the long, illustrious, award filled history of this blog, we have never sunk so low as to make attacks on fans of teams. But since the Minnesota Wild fans have sunk lower than the profit of the North Stars, it is time we break the threshold.

Now, beaking and poking fun at teams, players, and their fans, whether it be over Twitter, at games, on blogs, or what have you, is a great and fun part of hockey and it is engaging for the fans. All this being said, there are codes you follow and lines you do not cross. The Minnesota Wild fans have broken that code and crossed those lines and it is only game 4 of the series. We can trace this back to the end of games 1 and 2, when the Wild fans took to the internet to whine and complain about horrible officiating and blaming the zebras for everything. This is common practice amongst sore losers, and not a big deal.

Lets jump to game 3. Matt Cooke knees Tyson Barrie. Wild fans were ignorant enough to say it was either a clean hit, a “hockey play”, finishing a check, not dirty, what have you. This is not really a big deal either, but it sets a nice foundation for how utterly stupid some fans can be. Now keep in mind, we are going beyond Wild fans at this point, and just pointing out how narrow minded and biased hockey fans in general can be, using the Wild fans as an example.

Also in game 3: Andre Benoit gets injured off of a huge clean hit along the boards. He goes down, and he isn’t getting up. All is quiet for a few minutes until he starts skating to the bench with aid of a trainer. This is when Wild fans start to cross the line. They boo him. A person gets hurt on the ice and they boo him when he is able bodied enough to stand under his own power. That is a disgusting display of sportsmanship and everybody in that building who uttered even the slightest “boo” should be ashamed. When a person is hurt, most people go beyond love of a hockey team and wishful outcome of a game, and show happiness when the person is ok. These Wild fans who booed cast a horrible, unlikeable light on their fan base and the team, players, and other fans should be embarrassed.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. Lets moves on to game 4. Much like game 3, Varly was the only reason the Avs didn’t get blown out. Wild fans are actually smart enough to catch on to this, believe it or not, so what do they do to retaliate to his amazing performances? They start bringing up the past and take to the internet again and call Varly a “wife beater” phrased in many creative ways. Here are some examples:

These are the more rated PG examples, and only 3 of hundreds. Again, we aren’t speaking for all Wild fans when we say this, but the ridiculous way they’ve acted in this series is enough for the generalization. They are garbage hockey fans who take it too far. They are poor excuses for fans of hockey and are just plain stupid. Worst fans in the league? For sure. How they can justify a personal attack on an athlete they don’t even know is beyond us. This is on par with everybody calling Joel Ward horrible racist names when he knocked out the Bruins in overtime a few years ago. Come on Wild fans, you guys are a JOKE. You win the game, even up the series, boo our hurt guys, stick up for Cooke, who I scum, and you STILL have the audacity to call the opposing goaltender a wife beater? They even had signs in the crowd in Minnesota.

Let’s compare fan bases:

When a player gets hurt, do you boo?

Every other team in the NHL: No! Wild fans: Obviously!

When a dirty player blatantly injures the opposition do you take accountability as fans and show no bias when it is that obvious?

Every other team in the NHL: Most of us would say yes. Wild fans: It’s not his fault!

Oh and let’s put this into a very harsh perspective. You don’t see Avs fans holding up signs and tweeting how Dany Heatley is a murderer. Why? Because Avs fans aren’t despicable individuals and that would be horribly offensive to everyone. Well that applies to Wild fans too, so smarten up. You guys are a joke.

5 Things The Avs Need To Do To Be Successful in Game 5

5. Ryan Wilson needs to bring it

Wilson needs to play like the Ryan Wilson of old. He needs to be the solid, defensively responsible, and most of all heavy hitting. Wilson needs to punish the top Wild scorers and make them work hard for space on the ice. Now, this doesn’t mean he needs to seriously injure one of the Wild’s top players, but tire them out.

4. Level The Playing Field

The Avs were severely outplayed in every possible way in game 3. The Wild crowd was loud and the home team fed off the energy. If it wasn’t for Varlamov the game could have been 6 or 7-0. Imagine if Berra was in net all game. Colorado was outhustled, out shot, out chanced, and if they want an ice cubes chance down under to win game 4 then they need to just play better all around. Pucks to the net, hard in the corners, smart passes, puck possession. Yes it sounds like a post game interview with Jonathan Toews, but that’s what the Avs need to do to be successful.

3. MacKinnon

Nathan MacKinnon was insufferable in game 3. Every time he got the puck he tried to do something cute, make a big play, or snipe it from a distance. We’re not saying the success of game 2 is going to his head, but he needs to step back from the spotlight and start playing smart hockey again. MacKinnon messed up and gave up the puck twice on a 3^rd period powerplay opportunity, and kept getting stick-checked when he tried to carry the puck into the zone when he could have easily passed it or dumped it on. He had his worst game in the NHL on Monday night; not because the Wild defense did an amazing job shutting him and the top line down, but because he shut himself down trying to make the highlight reel again. Hopefully Roy had a sit down with him and told him to keep it simple. The Wild defense are not going to be as easy to pay around as they were in game 2, and he needs to adjust.

2. Secondary scoring

O’Reilly, Parenteau, McGinn, and the rest of the Avs forwards have a combined 4 points. The 2^nd line itself has been bad, and Parenteau has been useless. If the top line is going to continue to try and be cute, then everyone else is going to need to step up. In all honesty, the Avs are the ones who should be down in this series.

1. Solve Kuemper/ Get better shots

The Avs weren’t stoned cold by Kuemper. They just took horrible shots and generated 0 chances. How many times did you see the Avs float a dopey shot in from the circles? Too many. Out of their 22 shots, how many actually had a good chance of going in? Scoring chances favoured the Wild almost 10 fold, and if the Avs can get some good shots on Kuemper, they can score some goals.

Matt Cooke: How Is This Guy Still In The League?

We've all seen the Cooke hit on Tyson Barrie and we all know the scenario. Wild will lose Cooke, Avs will lose Barrie. If you’re a Wild fan, player, or Mike Yeo, you’re ecstatic. If you are anyone else in the world, you’re disgusted. How the heck is Matt Cooke still an NHL player? This guy is dangerous. Don’t buy his “reformed” act, because it isn’t true. Below is a compilation of just SOME of Cooke’s dirty plays in the NHL. Feel free to forward this onto NHL Player Safety Department, because they need to get this scum bag out of this league. What a disgusting, poor excuse for an NHL player.
EDIT: And for some reason, he isn't a repeat offender.

Shoutout to all the Youtube users whose videos we used.

Avs/Wild: How They Match Up

We won’t waste your time talking about how the Avs are finally in the playoffs again and what a magical season this has been. You’re busy, we get it. Unless you’re a 60 year old woman with many cats, or a 45 year old tech wizard that has a pet snake named Gus. Then you probably have all the time in the world. But for the sake of our normal readers, we’ll keep it short and sweet. Here is our expert analysis of the Avs/Wild series:

Positional Matchups:

Center:

The key here is depth in relation to skill. Hey, that sounds like a new advanced stat. Let’s call it Skepth. Down the middle, the Wild have Koivu, Charlie Coyle, Kyle Brodziak, Cody McCormick, Jake Dowell, and Mikael Granlund. Now, obviously not all of those guys are going to play every game, but other than Koivu, they have no scoring. The majority of these players are grit players. No variety.

The Avs on the other hand have MacKinnon, Stastny, O’Reilly, Malone, and Paul Carey for the time being. Already the top 3 trump the entire Wild roster of centers. A healthy Matt Duchene and John Mitchell sometime down the road, possibly in the series, will give it even more of a boost.

Winner: Avs

Right Wing:

Avs have Parenteau, Cliche, Talbot, and right now Ryan Wilson. Not the strongest group, but line juggling by Roy has given the Avs a pretty solid top 2 lines offensively and a skilled group on the checking lines.

The Wild have Dany Heatley, Jason Pomminville, Nino Niederreiter, and Justin Fontaine. If this was 2009, the Wild would win this one hands down. It isn’t 2009, but you still have to give the Wild the edge here. Solid scoring, some young legs, and a random guy no one has ever heard of until this article.

Winner: Wild

Left Wing:

Landeskog, McGinn, McLeod, Bordeleau, and O’Reilly when needed.

Zucker, Parise, Moulson, Haula, Cooke.

The big story here: Parise. Multimillionaire extraordinaire who will never play up to his contract, and Moulson who was only ever good while playing with Tavares versus a talented Swede, 2 tough guys with some offense and energy, and McGinn who has stepped up rather nicely. Need we say more?

Winner: Avs

Defense:

On D, the Wild boast the inconsistent Keith Ballard, the vaguely familiar Marco Scandella, and Jon Blum, How I Met Your Mother’s Barney Stinson All Name Team Jonas Brodin (Bro-din), and not quite developed but they haven’t given up on him yet for whatever reason Jared Spurgeon. The 5’9 168 pound push over. Oh and then there is Ryan Suter who needs to play 30 minutes a night. Suter is better than any Avs dman, but those 30 minutes a night are going to wear him down against this fast Avs team. The Skepth statistics are not in the Wild’s favour.

Barrie will most likely be back for the Avs, but we’re still waiting on word about Jan Hejda. The Avs don’t have a lot of depth at this position either. After Hejda and Johnson, the experience of our defense is lacking, especially with Corey Sarich out with back spasms. But Benoit, Barrie, EJ, and Holden have proved they can add a great deal of offense, and Hejda is a great shutdown guy. Guenin (actually had to Google search his name to spell it right, why is it so hard?) can be good on the back end but he can be bad as well. Skepth wins this one for the Avs

Winner: Avs

Goaltending:

Ok so the Wild goaltending is a mess. We went to their website and looked at the roster just to see who was on it after Kuemper and Bryzgalov, and it shows Backstrom, Curry, and Harding as well. A mess. But hey, the Avs get to play Bryz who was just dynamite against the Pens those many moons ago. High scoring games? Yea, for us.

Battle of the Russians! The Avs boast Varlamov who is awesome and Jiggy who is getting old and won’t play unless he has too. Oh and there is Reto Berra as well and of we have to play him for whatever reason, we’re already screwed as it is.

Winner: Avs

Series prediction:

Game 1: Avs

Game 2: Avs

Game 3: Wild

Game 4: Avs

Game 5: Avs.

Avs in 5. You heard it here first folks! But your predictions in the comments section if you so desire. We’d love to see what you fellow Avs fans think.

Oh and Skepth is ours. Patent pending, copyright 2014.

The 1 Year Jigaversary; A Look At Some Of The Dearly Departed

One year has passed since Jean-Sebastian Giguere ripped the Colorado Avalanche players apart for giving up on a hopeless season and looking more forward to a trip to Vegas than playing out the remaining games as professionally as possible. To sum it up, what Jiggy did was remind his lazier, less skilled teammates that there was still hockey to be played and they should actually try. That lit a little bit of a fire under the Avs and they started to play a little better, ending the season going 4-3-2.

So yes, a year has passed, some players have moved on, and oh yeah, the Avs are 4^th place in the NHL, 2 points out of 1^st in the Northwest Division. The pros stepped up, and they are playing real hockey now, and some lazy, terrible, not-good-enough-to-play-in-the-UHL  players have moved on. Let’s check up on them shall we?

Ryan O’Byrne: Remember him? We try not to. O’Byrne went to the Leafs in exchange for a 4^th round pick and then the Leafs figured out just who Ryan O’Byrne was and decided not to sign him. See? They can still sort of run a hockey team. O’Byrne now plays for HC Lev Praha of the KHL. The KHL. Where washed up NHLers go to die.

Greg Zanon: Remember his beard? That was pretty much the only good thing about his time in Colorado. Zanon can also be remembered for winning the “Most time spent flopping around on the ice out of position other than Roberto Luongo” award. Zanon was so bad that the Avs decided to buy him out. He has since found a home for the San Antonio Rampage in the AHL. He has played a whopping 21 games and has 4 assists. He didn’t score for the Avs either. Don’t you miss him?

David Jones: Jones played the majority of last season making Paul Stastny and friends look just dreadful. Jones had 3 goals and 9 points in 33 games, and we shipped him off to Calgary. He has 17 points (9 goals) in 48 games this year, which is better, but we probably speak for everybody when we say Alex Tanguay injured is better than David Jones healthy.

Shane O’Brien: Put Jones and Zanon’s write ups together and you get Shane O’Brien. Just add in very untimely lazy stupid penalties and absolutely no offense or defence, and there ya go.

So thank you JS Giguere. For trying to light a fire under these guys and for exposing the toxic elements that had invaded the Avs dressing room. And you made everyone else realize how much Joe Sacco didn’t mean to the team. The winner in all this? The 2013-14 Colorado Avalanche. The 2^nd place winner: The KHL, who will eventually serve as home to all these players and the players can look forward to horrible hockey conditions, no crowds, and not being paid by billionaire oil tycoons. 2 out of the 3 things listed there are characteristics of every Bettman expansion team other than Nashville.