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The Confluence

Pens Notes:  Long Break in the Action

by Tony on 12/18/10 at 10:56 AM ET
Comments (5)

Weird quirk in the schedule this week for the Penguins, with the rest of the week off after their loss to the Rangers on Wednesday night.  They’ll host the Coyotes on Monday night.

Someone’s always got something to say about the Penguins, positive or negative, but the level of discussion was ratcheted up a notch or two this week with the lead-up to the Winter Classic.  The first episode of the HBO “24/7” special prompted dozens of articles from MSM and bloggers alike.  It appeared to me that overall the majority of hockey fans enjoyed the first show, with it’s unprecedented access in the locker rooms among other things.

Other stuff:

- Keeping on the subject of the Winter Classic, I read with not-so-much surprise an article from the Washington Post’s Mike Wise complaining about various aspects of the first episode of “24/7”.  I say not-so-surprised because Wise is no stranger to anti-Penguin articles, such as this one when he demeans Sidney Crosby back in ‘09.  So I wasn’t surprised when I saw Wise using obviously condescending terms in describing the Penguins as “angelic”, “cute” and “apple-cheeked”, while portraying his Capitals as “dejected”, “dark” and “brooding”.  Hold on a second, Mike.  What the hell did you expect HBO to show?  At the time of the taping, the Penguins HAD won 12 in a row, and the Capitals HAD lost six in a row.  As Capt. Jack Ross eloquently stated in A Few Good Men, “these are the facts of the case, and they are undisputed”.  Of course the Penguins are going to be giddy, wouldn’t you expect the Caps would also be had they been the team to go on that sort of a winning streak?  Moreover, of course the Caps are going to be brooding, they’re playing like condensed horse crap, do you really think they should be joking around in the locker room? 

Episode Two next Wednesday will have some changes, there’s no doubt.  First and foremost, the Penguins have a new streak, only this time it’s a two-game losing streak.  That quirk in the schedule I mentioned eliminates any possibility for the Pens to string any wins together for the next episode, probably.  So while you probably won’t see the dejection that the Caps locker room currently has, things aren’t going to be peachy keen in the Pens locker room with four straight days of practice, where HCDB is sure to be wanting to put a stop to that streak.  On the Washington front, the Caps will have a tough test tonight in Boston, but then face struggling teams in Ottawa and New Jersey on Sunday and Tuesday, respectively.  The Caps will get things straightened out soon enough, too much firepower for this to go on much longer.  I’m just enjoying the hell out of the inside access, can’t wait to see what else comes up.

- According to the Baby Penguins’ excellent beat writer Jonathan Bombulie, when recently demoted forward Dustin Jeffrey was informed he was going back to W-B/S, HBO cameras were “three feet from my face”.  Really interested to see how that discussion went.

- Speaking of the Baby Penguins, rugged forward Eric Tangradi is surely making a case for a call-up of his own.  The “Big Dog” has 8 goals and 11 points in his last 6 games.  Going to be tough to bump someone out of the lineup with the team playing so well (the two previous games notwithstanding), but one thing’s for sure, the Penguins have to be very happy with how Tangradi is progressing.

-  Count me among those who are not happy at all about how the Alumni Game portion of the Winter Classic is being handled.  The mere 10,000 tickets sold out in minutes.  Not surprisingly, you quickly saw hundreds of tickets pop up on Ebay and StubHub for 10x the face value.  Then we find out that the NHL Network won’t be showing the game in its entirety, just in spots.  To be clear, I’m not disgruntled because I failed to get tickets.  In all honesty, I could’ve gotten press passes for the entire lot of Winter Classic activities through Paul, but passed on them.  Personally, if I were to go, I would want to experience the Winter Classic with my son, as opposed to high above in the press box.  But I’ve read upset Penguins fans after they got shut out from Alumni game tickets, not only because of ticket agencies but no doubt because of the NHL saving tickets for their corporate buddies.  In addition, only 10,000 seats available?  Heinz Field does hold 65,000, doesn’t it?

Oh well, enough bloviating.

Filed in: Pittsburgh Penguins | The Confluence | Permalink
 Tags: NHL-Hockey, Pittsburgh+Penguins, Washington+Capitals,

Comments

The mere 10,000 tickets sold out in minutes.

Then we find out that the NHL Network won’t be showing the game in its entirety, just in spots.

 

Oh well, enough bloviating.

No,no,no-Tony! This is just bad, the way they’re handing the Alumni Game. It should be harped on and for long periods of time. Over & over again.

Posted by Lindas1st from New England on 12/18/10 at 12:16 PM ET

- Count me among those who are not happy at all about how the Alumni Game portion of the Winter Classic is being handled.

I’ll second that. 10,000 tickets sold, it seems, to scalpers and no television. Why all these press releases if nobody can watch it?

Posted by StevieSteve on 12/18/10 at 03:48 PM ET

Well I had read that the reason for the seats being limited was just in case the weather was bad and they had to move it to Consol.  Even then, they could have had more seats.  I’m more upset that they won’t be showing it on TV since I definitely won’t be getting to see, stupid inventory counts.

Posted by pens fan in baltimore on 12/18/10 at 07:15 PM ET

I got tickets to the Alumni Game…but, yeah.  The way they’ve been handling the selling of the tickets to both the Alumni and Classic has been horrendous.

SO many tickets on sale for 3, 4, 5 times the amount.  I’ve been bitching about it for a while, now, too.  Something needs to be done about the whole StubHub/EBay culture altogether.  These sites should be used for fans that can’t go to events they’ve purchased tickets for to be able to sell their tickets to other fans that can and WANT to go to games - not for people who are, for all intents and purposes, scalpers who try to rape and pillage the wallets of the fans that want to go to events by charging hundreds of dollars more than the face value of the tickets.

It’s f*cked up.  Plain and simple.  And, with as greedy as some of the owners in some of these professional sports leagues can look, I have no idea why it hasn’t been stopped, yet.

There’s got to be a way to put a stop to it…

Posted by Flashtastick56 from Milford, CT on 12/18/10 at 10:23 PM ET

Well, you’ve gotta rein in TicketExchange first, which is nothing more than NHL-authorized scalping….

The fact that you can go on an NHL team website, buy tickets from a season ticket holder that has decided to sell them, but only for an extremely inflated rate, is absolutely preposterous…

As I’ve said before, the NHL should implement a 10% markup limit on tickets sold via TicketExchange….

Posted by Tony from Virginia Beach, VA on 12/18/10 at 10:31 PM ET

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