You Know It's An Off Day When...

Noodles has said that she will not read anything at all about this series because of what happened last season. She gave herself high blood pressure and Brooks-Eye Syndrome from reading every blog, article and comic about the play offs.

This year was different. She vowed not to open a single link or read anything at all. But we sent her this...Sidney Crosby must grow up to win Stanley Cup.

Let's read through this together, shall we?


Sidney Crosby must grow up to win Stanley Cup
Posted by Bill Simonson | The Huge Show June 08, 2009 10:00AM

I don't like the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Ha, glad he told us that. As if we didn't know by the title and the picture.

They remind me of how smug the Colorado Avalanche used be when we couldn't stand Patrick Roy, whiny Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg.

The ghost of Claude Lemieux is traveling with Pittsburgh during the finals as this talented bunch of so-called superstars have become an ice gang of crybaby cheap-shot artists. They know they are the weaker team next to the big Red Wings machine.

Wow. We didn't know that Claude Lemieux was dead. Ice gang? Are the Penguins the new Jets from West Side Story?

The good part about the bad blood in this series is Red Wings fans now have a team to hate for the next decade in Pittsburgh. Five games with the Chicago Blackhawks provided a platform for a future regional rivalry but pales in comparison to the ugly side of hockey we have witnessed from the Pittsburgh bench in this series.

A lot of people have been waiting so long to despise a hockey team and individuals as much as we did Colorado back in the day. This is good for hockey and good for the Red Wings.

Watching Detroit crush the Penguins on Saturday night was as fulfilling as anything I have ever witnessed in sports. Even better than when the Red Wings got Roy pulled in that epic Western Conference final Game 7.

If you have to hate someone to get up in the morning then we just feel bad for you. We don't even hate the Flyers that much and if that makes us fairweather hockey fans then we dare you to say it to our faces.

The sad part of this story is that Penguins coach Dan Bylsma, a Grand Haven native, never played the game the way his team has played in the finals.

The showboating and headhunting has no place in hockey. It's obvious Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are the malcontents who run the show and when their game is on they dance and throw it in the face of their opponents. Did Stevie Yzerman or Wayne Gretzky ever show up other teams?

When the little baby Penguins are frustrated, they can't handle it and lose it on the ice for all to see. Great teams and great players win and lose with class like the Red Wings.

Showboating? Are the Penguins secretly employing Alex Ovechkin? It's called emotion and talk about pot calling the kettle black. Did you watch the end of Game Six Ducks/Wings from this season? Pavel Datsyuk was trying to kill someone.

This ridiculous comparison of Sidney Crosby to Gretzky is propaganda spewing out of the NHL front office on the Nothing But Crosby network (NBC).

The Great One respected the game and never would resort to the dirty tactics Crosby delivered in Game 5 and his constant complaining to the officials.

Have we been watching the same NBC? Because Eddie Olczyk has made it his mission to demean and berate the Penguins every chance he gets. It's all about the Wings superiority and maturity with NBC.

Whining? It's sad when opinion are taken as facts. All the people that call Crosby a whiner, have you actually seen him "whine"?

Or is he just having a simple conversation with a referee.


Oh, and is that your captain having a friendly conversation with another referee?


Yeah, if Crosby's whining then so is Lidstrom. Get over it.

Lets be honest about Crosby. He's got great talent with an immature side to him that probably will never see a Stanley Cup trophy parade as long as the Red Wings are in business. He knows this and it kills him so the little sniper and his Russian buddy Malkin bask in the glory of home ice but have curled into the fetal position on the road in Detroit.

Crosby is no superstar until he gets multiple Cups. Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg of the Red Wings are more complete players than Crosby and Malkin.

We don't even understand that insult about Crosby. And Zetterberg has won one Cup, not mutiple. Datsyuk, two. Maybe it's multiple if you combine them.

And saying that they're more complete players is ridiculous. They're billed as two-way centers, scoring threats and can backcheck like hell. It took Zetterberg and Datsyuk about five years to reach this level of playing that Simonson speaks of.

Give Crosby and Malkin time, they'll be better than Zetterberg and Datsyuk.

The Game 5 win was a message to all that the Red Wings still are the class of hockey on this planet and plan on staying at the top for a long time.

The beauty of what will be a win over the Pens compared to last year is that the Red Wings became a better hockey team while Pittsburgh's thuggery lowered the street value of Malkin and Crosby.

Thuggery? What the fuck does that even mean? We are just shocked that someone thinks that the Penguins are thugs. That's beyond the realm of our understanding when it seems like the Pens are never physical enough.

And talk about smug, wow. Simonson really, really believes in the superiority and maturity of the Wings.

Yeah, because this is really mature and not "thuggery" at all.


(stolen from Google, of course)

If Crosby wants to be Gretzky he had better start winning some Cups and respecting his opponents. Malkin will never be a star outside of Pittsburgh and his homeland because he has no respect for the game.

Maybe one day Bylsma will be able to show them how to win and lose with dignity. If you're a hockey mom or dad you want your kids to be like the Red Wings and not the Penguins.

That had to be one of the most undeducated blog posts we've ever read and we pretty much write crap and rely on pictures to recap games. As if we didn't already have reason enough to dislike the Wings media we go and find that.

The only good part was when Simonson complimented Bylsma or at least we think he did. We aren't sure because the whole thing was worse than a Julia Roberts acceptance speech.

We were so upset with the blog because of how black and white it is. It's like Penguins=Bad and Wings=Good. So immature.

LeTude wrote an email to Bill Simonson which pretty much sums up how we felt about what he had to say.

Dear Mr. Simonson,

I am writing to you as a die hard hockey fan. After reading your entry titled 'Sidney Crosby must grow up to win a Stanley Cup', I find myself asking the question if you have ever watched hockey before this series. The fact that you put the word 'thuggery' in the same sentence as the Penguins and/or Crosby or Malkin is almost laughable. As for headhunting, I think even Babcock said that he did not mean 'headhunting' in a bad way because both Crosby and Zetterberg were doing it. I guess that makes Zetterberg just as much of a 'thug' and 'headhunter' as Sidney Crosby. If you disagree with that, and apparently believe that setting a physical tone is 'headhunting' then I suppose every team in the NHL is guilty of 'headhunting'. May I ask what showboating you are speaking of? Last time I check, no one had ever said the Penguins were guilty of showboating. Are the Penguins young? Yes. Did they get frustrated in Game 5? Yes. But I remember back to Game 4 where the Wings, once 3 goals had been scored in the time span of 5:37, began bickering at each other, losing their composure, and trying to get into after whistle scrums. I also remember seeing Kirk Maltby skate past the Penguins bench and elbow Sidney Crosby in the face. Classy or Classless? Thinking back to the Chicago series, Franzen sticks his fingers in Patrick Kane's mouth and rips his mouthgaurd out and throws it on the ice with a smug look on his face. Classy or Classless? I would say that both of those actions are about as cheap and classless as you can get.

The Red Wings are not perfect, and no, neither are the Penguins. Watching the Penguins take penalty after penalty was hard to watch. But seeing penalties not be called against the Wings in the first two games, such as Zetterberg apparently becoming a goalie, in my eyes, was harder to watch. I, unlike most fans, are not blaming the refs in any way, shape, or form. Let the boys be boys I suppose. Saying that the Penguins have basked in the glory of home ice but then curl into the fetal position while playing in Detroit makes no sense either. Neither team has lost on home ice yet. So wouldn't it be fair to say that Detroit, as well, has curled into the fetal position on the road as well, while basking in the glory of their home ice? The first two games of this series could have easily gone either way. Out of six goals two of them were extremely lucky bounces and one was the softest goal Fleury has ever given up in his playoff career.

Most people say the series should have come back split or even the Penguins coming out with a 2-0 lead. But that's not the way that it happened and the Penguins overcame that. All I can say is Game 5 was not a typical game played of the Penguins. Let me remind you this series is far from over. Yes composure was lost but the Penguins have forgotten about it and moved on. A loss is a loss, 5-4 in overtime, or, 5-0 in regulation. Yes the Red Wings are a very talented, well oiled team, with world class players. In the same respect though, the Penguins have world class talent even excluding Crosby and Malkin.

Honestly though, instead of ripping the Penguins down to make yourself feel better, why don't you take a neutral stance on the situation and give credit where credit is due. The Penguins fans in Pittsburgh have given the Red Wings all the credit in the world for Game 5, however, it seems as though the classy fan-base and media of the Wings have had a very hard time giving the Penguins credit where credit is due. Even though the Penguins were clearly the better team on Mellon Arena ice. If the situation was flipped and the Red Wings had been beaten 5-0, and anyone in Pittsburgh wrote an article or a blog showing such a lack of knowledge I would personally be extremely embarrased and write the same e-mail to them, as I am writing to you. A little bit of advice for you, next time you go to write anything about hockey ever again, you should really think about everything you are saying and take a neutral stance on the situation instead of trying to rip the opposing team down, all while failing miserably and making yourself sound like an absolute moron.

Usually comments made in articles and blog posts don't bother us. We just read them and leave, not even thinking twice. But something about this article made us see red.

We know that this is overkill for one silly little blog written by some silly little man but in some way it isn't.

This is frustration over every article written where people complain about how much people write about Sidney Crosby. Do they realize that they're just adding to the numbers? This is frustration over every blog post written by men who think that they know everything about hockey. We know hockey just as well as they do and we are just as passionate about it.

Whatever. We'll be over it by tomorrow.