The DGS Super Special Announcement

Guess what readers! Down Goes Spezza is looking to become a little more user friendly. Also, we're looking to expand our media productions in 2 ways. What does that mean, well it means the following 2 things.

#1. Down Goes Spezza will soon transition to www.DownGoesSpezza.com it's own URL. This will make me easier to find on the internet and such.

#2. Down Goes Spezza will be starting the Down Goes Spezza Podcast. All you need to know is that it's coming. DGS will tackle current NHL issues and delve into the hobbies of other bloggers and hockey personalities. I'm excited and you should be too. The first episode is targeted for January, we plan on releasing an episode every OTHER week. Our podcast will feature the amazing personality of DGS head-writer and editor Matt. More to come as time permits.

#3. Down Goes Spezza will enter other forms of media. We're looking to start doing some hockey photography at games either Amy or I attend. This may not work out but if not, there might be a non-hockey branch of DGS that starts dedicated to our love of the fine arts. Since both Amy and Matt are musicians/poets/writers you may want to check that out at some point. The future of this endeavor has yet to be decided.

OFFsides 2010: The Flyers Blogger Party

First off, major stick taps and thank yous all around to the guys from Flyers Goal Scored By for putting together today's awesome event.

I only got 2 pics of the event to come out halfway decently on my phone. My Droid's camera is ultra sensitive and I'm not a pro with it yet. Anyway here they are.

DGS is on the right.

DGS on the left, the REAL Sarah Baicker
on the right.

Anyway, I would love nothing more than to do this again. Hopefully I can put some of my event planning skills to help make this event bigger and more awesome. If you were AT the OFFsides 2010 and want your pictures on DGS, email them to DownGoesSpezza and I'll get them up here.


Now onto the actual game itself. Honestly, I'm not gonna do a recap, rather I'm gonna share my story of what I saw from the seats.

I ended up at the game with a ticket that was acquired from a friend for next to no monetary cost for me. A huge get well soon to Amy who was too sick to attend the game with me.

I sat next to a very nice fan named Tom. A Flyers fan. He and I had a great hockey related conversation during the game. He showed a maturity and understanding of the game I have rarely seen. What surprised me most was that he was 16. This worries me, because quite honestly, if he can write half as well as he talks, I'm going to be out of a job once he finishes school. Anyway, I wish the kid the best of luck as he follows his dreams, he's going to go far.


Now sometime on Sunday, I'm gonna write a HUGE DGS announcement, stay tuned for it.

Drink Up! The Official Flyers 2010-2011 Drinking Game

In keeping up with my friends at Hoosier Hockey who wrote a post on an NHL drinking game, we here at Down Goes Spezza have come up with our own, Philadelphia Flyers drinking game.

(Warning: We don't drink at DGS, feel free to poke fun at what we come up with because of that.)

So here we go.

What you need:

Jack Daniels Whiskey
your favourite Vodka (Jason: my resident alcohol expert big stick tap for his help with the recipes, recomments Ultimat, I have also heard good things about Stoly and Absolut)
Cranberry Juice, Sprite and Coke and Orange Juice
Captain Morgan
heavy cream
Bottle Kahlua
Enough bottles of Sam Adams Boston Lager so that everyone playing has 1.
Champagne

How to "win": Last person standing wins.


When the game starts:

If Boucher is in net: pass out the bottles of Sam Adams in honor of the New Englander, Boucher. Make toast and take a sip.
If Bobrovsky is in net: Make a White Russian for everyone in the room, take a sip.
If Leighton is in net: Mix the sprite and cranberry juice and chug it. We start drinking alcohol "Leight"er.

If it's a Flyers home game: continue sipping your Sam Adams with every "BOOSH!" chant in the Wells Fargo Center.

With the other goalies:

Drink your White Russian every time Bobs gives up a deflection goal
Make a sea breeze and drink that everytime Leighton forgets to close his 5-hole. (Note: First person to yell "close your legs Leighton!" does not need to drink)

(Amy's Note: If Matt keeps the bad puns up, I will revoke his posting privilege.)

Now:

Every time Daniel Carcillo takes a stupid penalty: Pass shots of Jack around.

If Jeff Carter scores: Pop the champagne and toast to Carter scoring on something other than Lisa Hartnell

When Jeff Carter misses wide: Use vodka and orange juice to make one screw driver. First person to make the comment of "But Carter scores on Mrs. Hartnell" chooses who has to chug said screw driver.

When Jody Shelley fights someone: Make a round of mimosas for the whole crew. Everyone has to drink it because NONE of you are as tough as Jody Shelley.

When Chris Pronger elbows someone:
If he's called for it, shots of vodka for everyone in honor of what the victim of said elbow will be doing to forget the pain.
If he's uncalled for it: Attempt to steal your neighbors starting goaltender drink without being caught, if you pull this off, your neighbor has to finish said drink after you inform of it. If you fail, you must finish all of your drinks for it.


If Nik Zherdev takes a shift where he gives crap: Have your favorite non-alcoholic drink of choice
When Nik Zherdev stops giving a shit: Pick up random alcoholic drink: have some to forget about why Zherdev sucks.

When Andrej Meszaros makes a bad pass, or is caught out of position, or turns the puck over: Face palm, grab 2 shots of vodka, drink up. Hope that when you wake up forget how terrible he is. (Note: If someone jokes that Ryan Parent is better, the first person to make said joke does not need to drink. Also, if someone wishes for Ryan Parent back, they are officially cut off from drinking and should be taken to the nearest hospital.)


Last person standing wins.


(EDITORS NOTE: WARNING! PARTAKE IN THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK! IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE OF 21 IT IS ILLEGAL IN THE UNITED STATES TO PLAY THIS GAME. ALSO, DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE. FINALLY, DGS IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING YOU DO WITH REGARDS TO PLAYING THIS GAME.)

The Blogging Psychologist: Case Study #2: Alex Burrows

Seriously, my GM is out
to get me. He changes
the uniform every year.

So in today's second installment of my blogging psychologist profiles, we look at Vancouver Canucks Alex Burrows. I know it's been a while since we did our first profile, Chris Pronger, but do check it out if you need to remember how this works.




Anyway, Mr. Burrows has presented with claims of feeling that a Mr. Stephane Auger is out to get him. Now some of these feelings may be based on Mr. Burrows inability to process what's real and what's not. Others may be an overreaction to legitimate concerns. Luckily we here at Down Goes Spezza were able to analyze the data that we were given. Unlike Mr. Pronger who showed traits of many mood and personality issues, Mr. Burrows only displays the traits of one personality disorder. Mr. Burrows appears to suffer from Paranoid Personality Disorder.

Bro, I heard you're good at
defending, well defend me
from Auger, please.

Kesler dude, can you see if
he's out to get me?

Mr. Burrows has had a feeling that many people are out to get him. We all remember his little tiff with NHL referee Stephane Auger for being out to get him. Now Burrows spent a lot time in the penalty box which proves that he was either making an excuse for being a horrible hockey player, or, he was right, Mr. Auger was out to get him. Now, I think we should side with Mr. Burrows as Mr. Auger has made a near infinite amount of some questionable calls.

Wait? Even goalies are out to
get me. FML.

Now of course, Mr. Burrows has shown flashes of talent on the ice. But he also seems to have some other complaints. For one, he keeps talking about the Sedins as if they are one person. He sometimes  attempts to deny the existence of Daniel Sedin.

All in all, I feel like it's safe to say that Mr. Burrows is slightly paranoid in that he feels like the referees are out to get him. But hey, you never really know with these guys, suffice it to say that Mr. Burrows probably has Paranoid Schizophrenia, not Paranoid Personality Disorder. This is because of his hallucinations regarding the lack of existence of one "Daniel Sedin".

Luckily, the prognosis is good for Mr. Burrows. We must talk through his feelings about people like Mr. Auger and maybe have him hang out with both Sedin twins. Hopefully Mr. Burrows will then be able to function on society.

Flyers Excuses For Tonight's Pitiful Effort

So the Flyers gave a pitiful effort tonight in a 2-1 loss to the Blue Jackets. Luckily, the DGS SuperSpies managed to get into the Flyers lockerroom and we heard all the excuses on why the Flyers sucked tonight.


Scott Hartnell: "I felt like I overskated the puck because of the lack of hair to slow me down."

Nik Zherdev: Was convinced that Mathieu Garon was a Russian mob boss even though Garon is 100% French Canadian. (Per his interpreter, a guy who might actually be in the Russian mob)

Sergei Bobrovsky: "Mr. Boss-Lavi put me on bench"

Jeff Carter: "The bleach in my hair sunk into my brain."

Chris Pronger: "I vowed to have one game where I didn't elbow someone's skull in, this was that game."

Claude Giroux: "Wait, there's an NHL team in Columbus, I thought the world was joking. Oh merde."

Andrej Meszaros: "Rick Tocchet thinks I'm awesome."

Michael Leighton: "I literally broke my back carrying this team to the Cup Finals last year, cut me some slack...seriously I'm LTIR right now"

Matt Carle: "I saw the Dallas Stars were playing well, so I decided to imitate their defensemen, sadly I imitated them from last year." (Jason better love this one)

(Warning: Bad Pun Alert)
Blair Betts: "Never got an effective warmup in because Rick Tocchet thinks I'm the team bookie"

Danny Briere: "I kept looking to pass the puck to Hartnell, but I could never find him on the ice."



And there you have it

Ilya Kovalchuk comes clean about why he got scratched.

So tonight, the world was shocked when Ilya Kovalchuk was scratched by the Devils for last night's game. Luckily the DGS-SuperSpies were able to get a hold of Ilya after the game and ask him what was going on. With that, we have Ilya's reasons for why he got scratched, straight from his mouth.

(Editor's note: We were gonna run another psych profile today, but DGS had to go hurt his knee during a pickup hockey game)

• Needed time to be schooled in the idea of playing defensively on the ice
• Has a little known "reverse Escrow clause" in his contract, he gets paid 100% of his contract but will miss 18% of games over the 15 years.
• Needed to visit his shrink to talk about the depression of spending 15 years in NJ.
• Just realized that he agreed to spend 15 years in NJ
• Threw a hissy fit because Martin Brodeur ate his pregame meal
• Told the coaching staff he wanted a "nap time" clause during games in the manner of Ondrej Pavelec
• Had to fulfill his role as a Russian Spy.
• Wanted to fly back to Russia to have his family from famine caused by Kyle Wellwood playing in the KHL.
• Didn't see the need to dress as Buffalo lacks enforcers. (Stick tap to Kevin S. of In Lou We Trust)

The Secret Transcript: Rick Rypien Vs NHL Fan

Last night, Rick Rypien attacked a fan during a 6-2 loss by Rypien's Canucks to the Minnesota Wild. Yes, the Wild scored 6 goals against Luongo. That was news to me too. Ok, so here we go.


Rick Rypien, you got the Sean Avery treatment, and what you did was improper and inexcusable.


I think that's enough of a joke it itself.


What I learned from all this:

1. Damian Cox is an idiot. Seriously, there is NOTHING redeeming about him.
2. The Canucks are just as bad, the Stars suspended Avery on their own before the NHL got involved, Gillis should have done the same thing.
3. Rypien needs anger management. 

The Last 4 Unbeaten Teams and Their Dirty Little Secrets

So we have 4 unbeaten teams in the NHL, all of them are rather surprising, and this got me thinking, why is that these teams have stayed unbeaten for so long. Needless to say, I sent the DGS-SuperSpies to find out, and what they learned was rather enlightening.

• Team: -Dallas Stars-
  Reasons for Winning: Players no longer feel any pressure to perform because Mike Modano is no longer around to tell the stars stories of picking up a giant trophy in June after winning a 16 team tournament. Because of this lack of pressure, the Stars have concentrated on having fun on the ice and have accidentally won a few games.
  Reasons to Lose: Because Andrew Raycroft will be forced to play a game at some point this season.
  
• Team: -Nashville Predators-
  Reasons for Winning: Opposing forwards tend to be scared of the giant goaltenders in net for the Predators. On the other end of the ice, no one tries to block shots off the stick of Shea Weber out of fear that they will become the next Sami Salo.
  Reasons to Lose: They are the Nashville Predators.
  
• Team: -Toronto Maple Leafs-
  Reasons for Winning: Because the Leafs no longer employ Vesa Toskala. Also, the Leafs finally caught onto the idea that maybe pissing off Brian Burke is a bad idea.
  Reasons to Lose: If Colton Orr can lose a fight, then the Leafs can lose a game.
  
• Team: -Tampa Bay Lightning-
  Reasons for Winning: Employ a team of winners known as the 2008 Philadelphia Flyers.
  Reasons to Lose: In a second lapse of judgement, Steve Yzerman will trade Dan Ellis's problems to the Montreal Canadiens for Carey Price's cigarettes. This will cause Ellis to take up smoking before games leading to him to run out of money as well as talent. (PS: Dan Ellis's Problems will cause Habs fans to riot.)

The Home Opener

Tonight's not about humor. For that, have a laugh at the Wiz telling  Sean Avery what he thinks about him.


So last night I attended the Flyers/Avalanche game at the Wells Fargo Center. The Flyers raised their 2009-2010 banner in honor of the Stanley Cup runner up team and winner of the Prince of Wales Trophy. Anyway the Flyers aired their video tribute to the team reminding us fans of some of the great moments of the season like

• Brian Boucher stopping Olli Jokinen in the great shootout of game 82.
• Dan Carcillo scoring in OT of game 3 against the Devils in the first round.
• Peter Laviollette's great time out speech down 3-0 in game 7 against the Boston.
• Mike Leighton's great saves against the Habs in the Conference Finals
• Mike Richards shorty against Halak
• Jeff Carter sealing the win in game 5 against the Habs with an empty netter.

What's missing? Every reference to Simon Gagne who was a key contributor to the playoff success of the team.

Why is that you ask? Well no one has said anything for sure, but from following Sarah Baicker and Frank Seravalli on Twitter has shown both sides of the story.

My opinion is not an easy one to follow, as a fan of both the Flyers and the game of hockey, I totally wanted to see Simon's important moments up there with the rest of the team. History cannot be rewritten, Gagne was one of the most important parts of the Flyers for the last decade.

As a fan of pro-wrestling, mainly the WWE, I am in no way shocked by this. Vince McMahon has removed countless WWE Superstars from videos that the WWE uses on television all the time. He's pretty much ordered Chris Benoit be removed from WWE history in every way after the 2007 Benoit double murder suicide incident. He's removed multi-time World Champion Jeff Hardy from the videos that air as every show starts because Jeff Hardy now works for rival promotion TNA. 

Now there are some big differences between Gagne and the WWE. For one, both the Lightning and Flyers are part of the NHL, so using Simon Gagne should NOT be a legal problem, whereas in wrestling, if one company uses footage from another company's show, they would need to pay for it. Also, the Flyers know that Gagne had a huge following here in Philadelphia, most fans loved Simon Gagne. Had Simon gone up on the video, there's a good chance he would have gotten cheered before the Philadelphia boo-birds rained down boos on the Flyers front office personnel, (noticeably absent during all this was Flyers GM Paul Holmgren).

The Flyers were left in a lose-lose situation regarding Gagne in last nights video. Either put him up and let an energetic, demanding fan base possibly ruin what could have been an important moment regarding the success of a team because of one player, or, do what they did, and leave Gagne out, knowing full well that he was an integral part of the team's success.

If all goes well, put up a tribute to Simon on Thursday, the Bolts are in town and he's gonna get one hell of an ovation.

The DGS Podcast Debut

My good friend Peter Evans was nice enough to have me on his podcast, Up the Pucks! last night. It was a great experience and we got to talk hockey and it was awesome.

So here's the link to my episode: hear the voice of DGS!

Enjoy

Here's to another run at the Stanley Cup

Dear Flyers Fans and People Who Read This Blog Because They Find It Entertaining, Stupid, Funny, or You're so out of your mind that you just ended up here,


It is time for the Flyers to take a run at the Stanley Cup. They are my favorite team to win it all. (Well yes). Every team has a clean slate right now, even the Edmonton Oilers. Every player has a clean slate as well, even Wade Redden, Kyle Wellwood, Keith Ballard!

Every GM on the other hand is on his team's hot seat, (Read: Paul Holmgren) because of the stupid, self destructive, unpopular moves.

So be prepared to sit back, relax, give up 18% of your pay to ESCROW (sorry Dan Ellis) and HERE WE GO.

HOCKEY IS BACK TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sincerely,

Down Goes Spezza

Some Slightly Serious Predictions Regarding the NHL 2010-2011 season

Wow, another post with no comedy in it. Sometimes things happen, like total excitement regarding the new season. Now, I already picked the winners of the major NHL awards in a guest post on PKLC. 


With that, I'm gonna pick some important Flyers stats for the upcoming year:




Leading Scorers:


Jeff Carter: 47G 30A
Mike Richards: 32G 45A
Chris Pronger: 8G 43A




James van Riemsdyk:


improves on last year: 21G 24A


Nikolai Nikolay Zherdev: 27G 21A


Hartnell-Briere-Leino line


Hartnell: 32G 23A
Briere: 33G 44A
Leino: 15G 34A










I did the defensemen in this classic DGS post. 




So yeah:




Now for the NHL picks




Atlantic Division:


Devils (3)
Flyers (4)
Penguins (5)
Rangers
Islanders


Northeast Division:


Bruins (2)
Sabres (6)
Maple Leafs (8)
Canadiens
Senators


Southeast Division:


Capitals (1)
Lightning (7)
Thrashers
Hurricanes
Panthers














Central Division:


Blackhawks (3)
Blues (8)
Red Wings
Predators
Blue Jackets




Northwest Division:


Canucks (1) (President's Trophy)
Avalanche (4)
Wild (7)
Flames
Oilers


Pacific Division:


Sharks (2)
Kings (5)
Coyotes (6)
Ducks
Stars






West Playoffs


Canucks def Blues 4-2
Wild def Sharks 4-3
Blackhawks def Coyotes 4-2
Avalanche def Kings 4-3


Canucks def Wild 4-2
Avalanche def Blackhawks 4-3


Avalanche def Canucks 4-1


Campbell Bowl Winner: Colorado Avalanche




East Playoffs:


Maple Leafs def. Capitals 4-3
Lightning def. Bruins 4-3
Devils def. Sabres 4-3
Flyers def. Penguins 4-3


Maples Leafs def. Devils 4-3
Flyers def. Lightning 4-0


Flyers def. Leafs 4-0


Prince of Wales Winner: Philadelphia Flyers




:Stanley Cup Finals:


Game 1: Flyers 4 Avalanche 3
Game 2: Flyers 2 Avalanche 3 (OT)
Game 3: Avalanche 0 Flyers 1
Game 4: Avalanche 4 Flyers 1
Game 5: Flyers 7 Avalanche 4
Game 6: Avalanche 2 Flyers 5


Stanley Cup Champion: Philadelphia Flyers
Flyers win series in 6








Disagree, want to flame me?


Well, go for it.


Also, PS, I'm appearing on the Up the Pucks! podcast with Brandon and Peter next week, on the podcast, I will justify my picks.

Paul Holmgren's Excuses

The best goalie the team ever had...
and still could outplay the current
kids on the team.

As we know, another season has come and once again, the Flyers don't have a true #1 goalie. Now, Paul Holmgren actually DID acquire a #1 goalie after trading a 7th round draft pick to the San Jose Sharks for Evgeni Nabokov. Now, Nabby spurned the Flyers for the KHL. After this the Flyers were spurned again by Marty Turco. Now after this the Flyers passed on UFAs: Antti Niemi, Jose Theodore, Peter Budaj, Dan Ellis (and his problems), Chris Mason (thankfully not Steve Mason's slump), Martin Biron, Antero Niitymaki, (hey, Hextall came back for 2 rounds)   Vesa Toskala (sorry NHL goaltenders only), and trades for people like: Jaroslav Halak, Jon Bernier, Tim Thomas (yeah...bout that), Thomas Greiss, just about anyone else.




Anyway, the DGS SuperSpies managed to get a hold of Paul Holmgren and ask him what is going on. He offered us the following reasons for why the team hasn't signed a goalie yet.

• Still believes Ron Hextall will one day come back and save us all.
  
• Afraid that acquiring a goaltender would cause Chris Pronger to elbow his head off.
  
• Thought that players who wear funny pads were just defensemen in costume
  
• Said that Jeff Carter scared away every married goaltender because of his habit of sleeping with teammates wives.
  
• Because while playing the NHL video games "Be a GM Mode", he was able to win a Cup with Vesa Toskala and Andrew Raycroft as his goalies.
  
• After watching Martin Brodeur and Tim Thomas eat everything in sight, was afraid that the rest of the team would starve to death if a goalie was acquired.
  
• Is waiting for John Ferguson Jr. to become GM of the Boston Bruins so he can trade Brian Boucher for Tuukka Rask.
  
• Has the secret plan of trading Andrej Meszaros and Brian Boucher to the Rangers for Henrik Lundqvist or to Calgary for Mikka Kiprusoff (Sutter and Sather haven't decided who gets the honor of doing that stupid deal yet)
  
• Because hey, since the Vezina went to its current format in 1982, how many winners actually won a Cup?
  
• Chris Osgood has been on how many Cup winning teams?
  

The Blogging Psychologist: Case Study #1: Chris Pronger

Well, as mentioned in an earlier post, DGS is a student of the art of psychology. Now with my nasty case of writer's block over the last few days, I've been trying to find something to write about, and it finally hit me, why not use my knowledge of psychology to develop profiles on NHL personalities. Depending on the success of this post, I might keep doing it, or this could be a one off. (Warning: DGS reserves to the right to just forget that this existed and write other stuff as well.)

You think Lauren was the only one
who wanted out of Edmonton?

With that being said, I've picked one of my hometown boys to be my first victim target patient person to study.
The lucky winner is: Flyers Defenseman Chris Pronger

Be mindful of the fact that I am evaluating Chris Pronger's actions on the ice/during interviews as basis for these observations, so I could totally be wrong about Chris Pronger the human being. (As for Lauren Pronger, that's another post for another time.)


Kleptomania: A lot of people think that Pronger's love of swiping pucks during the Finals may have been caused by kleptomaniac urges; but that's not all that kleptomania is. See if he was a suffering from this disorder he'd be stealing everything. Goalies water bottles, stick tape, Rick DiPietro's MRI results, Brian Gionta, and Kerry Fraser's hair.


Narcissistic Personality Disorder:  Chris loves attention. Narcissists love attention. Chris talks down to everyone (see Gibberish comments, anything involving Adam Burish during the Finals). Chris gets jealous of other people's success and retaliates by elbowing their skulls off. Chris considers himself to be the best in the world at what he does. Chris is awesome. Chris is the NHL's apex predator, coiled like a viper, ready to strike when the moment is right. Yeah, Chris Pronger is NPD alright.

I have that hardware, and
I love myself

With that, I have finished my ideas on Pronger. Coming up later, Sean Avery, Daniel Carcillo, Alex Burrows and Stephane Auger.

Please feel free to request any profiles as well.