How about that beautiful shirt from WEBLEEDBLUE.com? What a way to open up the new year by the New York Rangers and here on DOINow.com. As always, check out the archives on the right hand of the site and feel free to spread the word about this blog!
The Rangers held their first game of the year, at the new MSG, this past Saturday night, embarrassing the last place Buffalo Sabres 6-1. The game was over 10 minutes into the first period, as the Rangers earned their fans a 50% off coupon at Papajohns, if you choose to eat that shit, by scoring 3 consecutive powerplay goals.
This game was exactly what the Rangers needed and exactly what they should've done. Sometimes when you hear stats, trends and facts suggesting one thing, usually, the game plays out another way. However, in this case, everything happened the way they should've. After all, the Sabres started their back-up goalie, Michal Neurvirth, who played last night. The Rangers should've blown away the Sabres, if they were really an upper-echelon playoff team, and the Rangers just did that.
The Rangers powerplay was a thing of beauty. I can't remember clicking this well at any other point this year. The days of the Tortorella PP seemed like a distant memory watching this game. The Rangers got 3 quick power play goals, all in succession, by Brassard, Kreider and Nash. MSL assisted on two of the power play goals, with one excellent pass to Brassard. The Rangers really worked the deflection tonight and they were all over Buffalo.
If that wasn't enough, Dan Boyle threw in an even strength goal, making it 4-0 by the time the first period ended. Fans were already checking the train schedules home, as this game was done in the first period!
Carl Hagelin extended the lead to 5-0 in the second, before Henrik Lundqvist allowed a soft goal to Drew Stafford immediately afterwards. I guess you can't blame Hank at this point, he's like a new puppy. Whenever the Rangers get a huge goal, he immediately lets the other team score on him. It's happened all season, and it happened here. At 5-1, it doesn't bother you as much.
That wasn't all. Jesper Fast, fighting for the 12th forward spot on this stacked forward team, added another goal. Between Fast & Miller, Tanner Glass is having a hard time cracking into this line-up, pun intended.
Henrik Lundqvist, who I've been hard on all season, and justifiably so, earned his keep, saving 24/25 shots, against the last place Sabres. I thought Tablot should've started this game, since it seemed like an easy game and would've gave Hank some rest, but AV likes to start Hank against cream puff teams to boost his stats and ego. Of note, no reporters asked any of the Rangers about Zuccarello taking a team picture without King Contract in it.
Hank was tested hard twice in the game and came up big. He gave up juicy rebounds and was out of position, but he was able to hold down the fort, outside of the soft goal to Stafford. His level of play has increased. Let's see if AV has the balls to start him all 3 games on this west coast trip against top competition.
There's not much to say about this game except that it was a complete team effort. Everyone played well. The only thing you could really shake your head on was a silly icing by JT Miller before all the goal scoring in the first period. However, that's being nit-picky.
This win may have been the biggest complete team effort all season. Everyone played sharp. This is a game the Rangers should've dominated. They did. Great teams should destroy weak teams. The Rangers did just that against the Sabres. This game featured slick passing, great defense and many lit lamps. The guy who has to play the Rangers horn after every goal got a work-out tonight. A work-out any Rangers fan is happy to see.
However, play time is over. The Rangers now embark on tough 3 game road trip on the west coast, taking on the Ducks, Kings and Sharks, before returning home to the Islanders. There are no weak teams on the horizon. This will be a litmus test for the Rangers and it's time to handle business.
All I have to really add is that the Rangers did their job and did it well tonight. It's hard to judge anything, because Buffalo is atrocious. We will find out who these Rangers are come next week at this time.
I'll be back Thursday to recap the first Rangers road-trip game against the Ducks. Until then, I give everyone on the Rangers an A+. Everyone held their own, did their jobs and showed why you don't want to face the Rangers on any given night. LETS GO RANGERS.
After the Rangers put an asswhipping on Buffalo and after 2 NFL playoff games, I was ready for some UFC. As a customer of UFC, I go out of my way to watch the big fights, but skip the small shows. UFC just runs too many shows to keep up on. I prefer the days of old. Even one PPV a month is too much for me. However, the big fights I'm either at a bar, or invite friends over and order it. Due to shitty weather here, I decided to buy the PPV and have some friends over.
UFC is a niche sport. I feel when you watch it with casual or non-fans, you're trying to sell the sport to the people you're watching it with. Luckily, one of my friends is into it as much as I am. The others either fell asleep or went home after the football. Tonight's show was a tough show to sell a new fan on. I miss those Strikeforce Showtime shows of old, where you had a 2 hour show with exciting finishes. It's tough to attract new viewers or sell the sport to casuals when you have a PPV show full of decision finishes.
I'm not going to recap every fight. Go check out the MMA sites for expert recap and for the results. I will say, I enjoyed the PPV, but even as a hardcore fan, I found the show boring. It's tough to be up and get amped for slow fights that drag to a decision.
I was glad to see Cowboy Cerrone win, and hopefully, he will get a title shot in the future. He is marketable for the UFC and he's always got a fighting chance to win.
The main event sold me on this show. I just miss the old UFC's, where you would get 2-3 marketable fights. It's easier to sell on your casual friends and you get rid of all the dreck that it takes to get to the big fights.
As far as Jones vs Cormier, I thought Cormier fought a great fight. He fought his fight. However, Jones is just a phenomenal athlete. The one thing that I enjoyed the most, was that these guys didn't do the usual post-match hug or interview praising their opponent. I paid for this show, thinking that these guys really do hate each other. I left this show thinking the same thing. I didn't feel like a "mark" who was sold on a fake issue after this event.
Many times, after purchasing these expensive PPV's, I feel ripped off. I didn't get that feeling tonight, but I also didn't feel like I got a great show either. That's the crapshoot when you buy these events. Overall, I enjoyed the night with my friends and felt the UFC delivered a solid event. I'm looking forward to 1/31.
As you're reading this, it's 3:30AM, EST on Sunday morning. I'm wide awake and decided to order the NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 9 PPV. Luckily, Cablevision told me this would be a free purchase when I decided to cancel my order. Why did I decide to cancel? Cablevision said this would be in HD, but it came in SD. That was all it took when I complained, and since I'm a "Gold" customer, Cablevision said this sushi shit show was on the house.
I'm halfway through this show and I'm not impressed at all. I doubt I will do a full review of this show because I'm not hooked or entertained. I've been doing WWE reviews recently, because I have enjoyed the product for different reasons, such as the MSG House Show entertaining kids and a Raw that I thought hit on all cylinders. I'm not going to waste my time doing a review for the sake of being negative, so I'll just give my quick thoughts here.
The first match was a 4 man tag team match. Nothing makes sense. I feel like this match is a fuck you to Shawn Michaels. Every team does 287374343 super kicks and no one sells. This comes off as totally indy and not major league level. There's no selling and there is no story to be told. It's just a collection of botched and overly contrived spots.
The presentation is also terrible. Being in SD in 2014 comes off indy and not professional at all. The crowd is about 30 feet away from the action which takes the crowd heat out of the match for me.
One of the reasons I ordered is because Jim Ross was doing commentary. However, he doesn't know anything about the product, which means he knows less than me. He's probably mentioned Bruiser Brody about 3838483 times, which would be relevant if it wasn't 1985. Matt Striker, who is terrible on commentary, just hits his basic cliches and stuff he reads off wikipedia.
I'm a new viewer of NJPW. The announcers haven't explained to me once why any of these matches were happening. Maybe that's because of the booking, but how should I know? This is supposed to be their Wrestlemania, but it just comes off as a collection of botched indy spotfests. It would be great if the announcers told me why these matches were happening. There is no story telling at all.
Maybe I'm too Americanized. However, I miss the video packages that I complain about during WWE PPVs. If you order a WWE PPV, you know why matches are taking place and 20 minutes of video packages are a waste of time. However, this is a PPV for a new audience. A video package explaining what and why I'm seeing something would be crucial.
I know JR did his homework, but he comes off just like me, a new viewer. He said he didn't want to pronounce words because he didn't know how. I get the allure of JR, and that's why I bought the show, but the announcers aren't doing anything for me. I'd be interested if other people agree with this. JR also seems to be calling out the wrestlers for not selling or telling a story, which I wonder is because he's just as American as me. I also wonders what melts faster next to a high powered radiator - plastic or Matt Striker. Just brutal.
Anyway, as I leave you, I'm sticking with this NJPW PPV before I fall asleep. The grainy SD and JR & Striker running through their cliches should get me there in no time.
Let's go Lions.
Feedback, comments, thoughts can go to:
Sean McCaffrey
BULLSMC@aol.com
@NYCTHEMIC on the twitter
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