Halloween hockey = super scary.

Hello hello, folks! Happy Halloween to everyone, first off. I might as well open with something positive sooo... let's start by saying first that I haven't drank myself into a coma yet! SOLID.

So today, I worked. Ten hours. At the mall. Which was dead. Needless to say, there was hockey on ALL DAY. That I missed.

Oh, wait, apparently I didn't miss ANYTHING.

See, there are four teams I follow semi-religiously to insanely. They are, as follows- St. Louis Blues, Carolina Hurricanes, Calgary Flames, and Buffalo Sabres. The Blues and Canes are the newest additions. I started picking the Blues up after Jay McKee signed with them a couple years back and it stuck- so hard, in fact, that I have their third jersey. It's the coolest jersey that isn't the Sabres third (or the Canes third, because that is pretty badass) and that team is freaking awesome. The Canes I explained earlier- thank you, Rachel and Chad LaRose. The Flames I've stuck by for the last thirteen years- ever since the Winnipeg Jets left. You know how I picked them? I wanted another west team that wasn't in the desert. Theo Fleury's photo that I ripped out of a magazine was on my wall. Sold. Simple. And the Sabres... I mean, I live in Buffalo. I'm from Buffalo. It only makes sense. I've loved the team since I knew what the heck hockey was.

So today, all four teams played. And the results were downright spooktacular (I'm using this as a bad adjective here). Blues and Sabres were both shut out. The Blues were shut out by the Panthers, 4-0. 34 shots by St. Louis, and approximately zero percent of them reached past the goal line. The Sabres were blanked by the Islanders. I don't really understand what it is with the Sabres and the Islanders (minus earlier this year when we effed up Dwayne RoliePolieGoalieson something fierce. But that's usually how it goes- the first game of the year we played them last year I think it was 7-1 or something like that, then we lost the next three times. Nice to see that isn't changing thus far. A 5-0 loss isn't easy to digest in any spectrum, but the Islanders? We couldn't get ONE GOAL ON THE ISLANDERS? Oh well, at least Biron got his 200th win. I guess I can pretend to be happy for a second.

Oh wait, that second is gone.

The Flames... well they looked pretty bad against Detroit. Thankfully it was only 3-1, but to give up a goal less than a minute after scoring the first goal of the game, then give one up shortly thereafter? Ridiculous. Thank you, D. Brent Sutter was not pleased, you could see it in his face that he probably wanted to go out there and sock Mark Giordano right in the kisser. Thank God he didn't, because Detroit wouldn't have had a pylon to weave around! And who needs defense when you have... just standing there?

And that brings me to the Canes. Ohhhhhhhhh boy, the Canes. Where do you even start?

I guess I will start by saying that I am watching the replay of that game now. And good Lord, this is really, really, really bad. I mean, I already watched the highlights, and I thought THAT was bad- since they lost by five and all. But when you actually WATCH the game... wow. First off, Aaron Ward... I don't know what that guy is thinking half the time he is on the ice this year. I don't know if Scotty needs to sock him in the other side of his face to even things out, or if maybe he's a Boston Bruins mole who is trying to sabotage the team on purpose, but he just looks like he doesn't know where he is. The rest of the D doesn't look all that much better, so it's not like there's much to compare to. Thank God Timmayyyyyyy is back soon because sweet Jesus, if the D isn't gonna do anything at least beat the crap out of peoples faces. Leighton looked kinda.. bad, but I can't blame too much on him- unlike Tripp (Tracy, the color analyst on FS-Carolinas, who I'm pretty sure has some sort of awkward obsessive man-crush on Staal and Cam), who seems to be ready to burn Leights at the stake. True, six goals IS a lot, but it's not like they (being really anyone on the team) played any better the other seven losses before. It's all a team effort. I don't know what more Mo can do with the team besides staging fights to the death at Center Ice for who stays on the team. This is bad. Brandon Sutter scored a goal tonight- the ONLY goal for the Canes in their 6-1 loss to Philly- which was his first in the NHL (Edit- The lovely Rachel has let me know that this was actually his second goal. This is why I keep her around because her vast knowledge of all things Caniac have helped me much the past year. THANKS RACHEL!). They're talking about him staying in the NHL, which would be awesome because I like they guy- I have his helmet, and he's a Sutter so I gotta show some love. At this point though, I don't think he'd be too worried about going back to Albany. Ugh. Hopefully I'm celebrating a win tomorrow against San Jose, because if not I'm sure someone is getting fed to the lions.

So yeah, Halloween's been pretty beat. At least the candy is free! Right?

When in Rome.