Tigers & Wolverines win tonight
So I had to work tonight’s Plymouth Whalers’ game and missed the entire Detroit Tigers’ game and all but 5 minutes of the Michigan football game, but the teams both won!!
The Detroit Tigers are heading to the World Series for the first time in 22 years! They hadn’t made the playoffs since ‘87, the year I was born. There was a TV in a room connected to the arena playing the Tigers game. When the Tigers won, the room roared and it spread across the arena. They won today’s game, 6-3, after being down 3-0 to sweep the ALCS.
And if that wasn’t sweet enough, the University of Michigan football team defeated Penn State, 17-10, to remain undefeated after seven games. They take on Iowa, who lost to Indiana today, next Saturday afternoon! Plus No. 2 Florida lost to No. 11 Auburn so U of M may just get that No. 2 ranking (or USC perhaps).
Sabres 3, Red Wings 2 (SO)
I didn’t enjoy this game nearly as much as I thought I would and I’m not talking about the score. I don’t know if I was so excited over the Detroit Tigers win that an early regular season Wings game seemed average, but I don’t think that was it. Anyways, the Wings were up early, 2-0, but the Sabres slowly climbed back into the game and won in the shooutout. Does anyone else miss IwoCPO’s game recaps? He was so good at them and that humor of his…my recaps don’t have that flair.
Former MSU goaltender Ryan Miller certainly was the star of the night outshining former Sabres goaltender Dominik Hasek.
“The first star’s the kid (Miller). Let’s not kid ourselves. He’s the best player and he kept them in the game. We didn’t execute on our power play. Any way you look at it, we’ve got to execute on the power play.”
Andreas Lilja didn’t play, again, for the third straight game. I much prefer seeing Lebda in there than Lilja.
Babcock said he continues to be scratched mainly because the team has won its past two games with Brett Lebda in the lineup. “Lils is a good player,” Babcock said. “I haven’t talked to him about it much, besides just, ‘Make sure you’re ready.’ “
Other blog game reactions…
- Sabre Rattling
- Bleeding Blue & Gold
- BfloBlog
Detroit Tigers lead ALCS, 3-0
The Detroit Tigers won their third game of the ALCS and need only one more win in the best of seven series to head into the World Series. To say that the city of Detroit and its suburbs has gone crazy with Tiger fever is an understatement. All I know is that if I was a member of the Ilitch family, I’d be pretty proud of my two teams’ successes. And to go from losing 119 games three years ago to one game away from the World Series is really impressive.
The Tigers are up in the series, 3-0, after winning tonight’s game by the score of 3-0. They will play tomorrow and hopefully win the series!
Local Hockey this Weekend
Friday, October 13th
- Detroit Red Wings vs. Buffalo Sabres @ 7:30 [home]
- Plymouth Whalers take on Erie Otters @ 7:30 [away]
- U of M hockey vs. Alabama-Huntsville @ 7:35 [home] ~ regular season opener
Saturday, October 14th
- Plymouth Whalers face London Knights @ 7:05 [home] + team autograph session following the game
- U of M hockey vs. Connecticut @ 7:35 [home]
Sunday, October 15th
None.
Stubhub Near Disaster
My mom called me with a ’scary’ story that has a good ending. Apparently, Stubhub had called my house about the two tickets I had purchased to the Yzerman retirement ceremony for $275 each in section 116, row 10 - which is an amazing deal since I bought them less than 20 minutes after the game announcement. Anyways…the guy who I had bought the tickets from backed out and refused to send them to me even though he had already confirmed the sale. My heart dropped when my mom told me this because I couldn’t get upper bowl seats for that cheap now.
But then Stubhub found two other tickets in the same row and section even though it cost them at least twice as much as the $275 price and I get my good tickets still. They’re actually being shipped right now! I was soo happy that there was a happy ending to that story. I would have been pissed off if the guy backed out and I got screwed over. Anyways, yay for Stubhub taking action and keeping their customer happy! 
Wings 9, Coyotes 2
The Detroit Red Wings took on the Phoenix Coyotes for their third game of the regular season in front of the crowd at Joe Louis Arena. I watched the game while working on my english paper so I won’t have play by play comments, but just the goals and random comments Ken Daniels and Mickey Redmond brought up during the action (sometimes it is so random!). You can check out the official scoresheet at NHL.com. The Wings definitely brought their offensive game tonight!
Goals
First Period- Henrik Zetterberg (from Pavel Datsyuk & Nicklas Lidstrom) & Coyotes’ Comrie (from Morris)
Second Period- 3 goals from Mathieu Schneider (Datsyuk got another assist), 1 goal from Jason Williams on the power play (Lidstrom & Zetterberg earned the assists), Datsyuk and Samuelsson also score a goal apiece
Third Period- Kirk Maltby got a goal with an assist by Lidstrom and Draper. Samuelsson scored his second goal of the game with help from Robert Lang. Jovanovski scored for the Coyotes.
Random Facts / Stories
- Earlier today, Tomas Holmstrom went up and shook Curtis Joseph’s hand. CuJo said something like, “I figured I’d see you tonight.” Holmstrom came back with a witty response: “Well, it won’t be face to face.”
- Coyotes’ Jeremy Roenick lost 17 pounds over the summer.
- Greg Johnson will stay with the team and play a role in player development. He had to retire after an EKG test came back with an abnormal result, details about what’s wrong have yet to be released. His salary ($500,000) will not count against the cap.
- Brad Norton now uses Steve Yzerman’s former stall.
- Manny Legace was called Jimmy Buffer when he sat in between CuJo and Hasek in the dressing room.
- Holmstrom and Franzen sit on the same side of dressing room as the two goalies. A player joked that Ozzie was added to make that side of the room better looking.
- Schneider notched his second ever career hat trick in tonight’s game.
- Toward the end of the second period, the Wings notched three goals one minute and thirty-eight seconds apart.
- The Wings went 2 for 5 on the power play tonight.
Yankees pitcher dies in plane crash
Major sports outlets and even news outlets are reporting that New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle has died in the small plane that crashed into the condo tower in Manhattan earlier today.
A law enforcement official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Lidle was on the plane. And Federal Aviation Administration records showed the single-engine plane was registered to the athlete.
- The plane was registered to Lidle.
- There apparently was an emergency call from the plane about a possible fuel problem.
- Lidle’s passport was also apparently found in the road.
- Lidle and his passenger died in the crash, but apparently no one else was killed.
Visit CNN.com for the latest news regarding to this story. My prayers are with the Lidle family.
Update: The Sunday after the Detroit Tigers eliminated the New York Yankees, Lidle talked about his passion for flying.
He explained to reporters the process of getting a pilot’s license and said he intended to fly back to California in several days and planned to make a few stops. Lidle discussed the plane crash of John F. Kennedy Jr. and how he had read the accident report on the National Transportation Safety Board Web site.
Lidle, acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies on July 30, told The New York Times last month that his four-seat Cirrus SR20 plane was safe.
“The whole plane has a parachute [that can be deployed in the event of emergency] on it,” Lidle said. “Ninety-nine percent of pilots that go up never have engine failure, and the 1 percent that do usually land it. But if you’re up in the air and something goes wrong, you pull that parachute, and the whole plane goes down slowly.”
10/11 Wings Notes
Just some various notes in regards to the Detroit Red Wings or the league in general…
- Is anyone else pleased that Andreas Lilja won’t be playing tonight, again? Both him and Tomas Kopecky will be sitting out in tonight’s game against the Phoenix Coyotes.
- Both Johnson brothers missed training camp and the start of the season due to Greg Johnson’s abnormal EKG test results. Greg will not be playing for the Wings this season as he has just filed retirement papers. His brother Ryan, who is five years younger, has been allowed to return to practice. Thanks to George at Snapshots for the link.
“I’m doing great,” he [Ryan Johnson] said. “We’ve been very thorough to make sure of things, but everything is going to be fine.”
Johnson, who was placed on injured reserve last Wednesday, is hoping to be back on the ice today, but his return to the lineup will depend on when he regains his conditioning.
- Thanks to reader Hoser for pointing out this comment found in the middle of John Buccigross’ column on ESPN.com.
I’m trying to capitalize on creative jolts by immediately writing them down so they don’t disappear like Pavel Datsyuk in the playoffs.
Ouch. Sure Datsyuk hasn’t done very well in the playoffs, but he did just come off a rib injury at the start of the 2006 playoffs. Ouch.
- Thanks to another BtJ reader, Joe, who emailed me a link to an interview with Gary Bettman on WallStreetJournal.com.
WSJ: Where are you looking for new sponsorship deals?
Mr. Bettman: We’re out talking to lots of sponsors. We announced a deal recently with Pepsi, Gatorade and Frito Lay. We’re in negotiations on a deal we hope to conclude shortly. We just made a deal with [over-the-counter cold remedy] COLD-fX. We’re in the pipeline. Again, there’s a time lag to sponsorship business, particularly when we were down for a year. Our longtime sponsors, the Anheuser-Busches, the Dodges, stuck with us. We were grateful. They believed in what we were doing with the game. Another long-term sponsor is MasterCard. I don’t want to omit anybody. But I think other people who hadn’t been doing business with us, wanted to take a bit of a wait-and-see attitude to see how strongly we came back. The reaction we’ve seen last season has been very positive.
WSJ: Do you plan on putting whole games on there [the renovated website]?
Mr. Bettman: We’re not ready to announce it, but in the not-too-distant future I think you’ll see us streaming games.
Shopping for a Wings Fan
I seem to have a weakness when it comes to purchasing Red Wings memorabilia, photos, media guides, t-shirts, etc. Here are some recent finds that I found while looking for random Wings stuff…
- The only item on this list that I have bought: The Captain. It is a 128 page book produced by the Detroit Free Press and consists of articles from his rookie year through this summer all written by Free Press writers and there are a lot of Mitch Albolm columns, so if you don’t like his writing you may want to stay clear. But I just got it in the mail today and love it, even more so than the SI Commemorative Edition. It has a ton of wonderful photos and I really enjoyed reading the articles dating back in the 80s before I was even born or when I wasn’t old enough to read the Wings coverage. It cost me just under $20 after you add in shipping.
- A Red Wings skin for your laptop at NHL.com. [$29.99]
- I love eBay. I have bought and sold many things via this auction website and you can always find great buys for hockey memorabilia as well as the random crap that you’ll be surprised someone actually bid on. For all my affordable 8×10 autographed photographs, I buy from Pacific Coast Memorabilia. They currently have 163 signed Red Wings items, which doesn’t include the hundreds and hundreds more they have for the other NHL teams.
- You can buy a NY Rangers t-shirt made in honor of Shanahan’s 600th goal at NHL.com. [$19.99]
Niklas Kronwall Autograph Signing
The Goalies’ Den will be hosting an autograph signing with Wings defenseman Niklas Kronwall on October 29th (Sunday) from 2-4pm. What’s special about this place is that they let people bring items they want signed in advance and were able to pick it up later if they couldn’t make it to the signing for an extra $5 charge.
I’ve been debating if I want to buy a Hank or Kronwall jersey and I’m pretty sure I’m going to go with Kronwall. I tend to like the players who overcome severe knee injuries and Hank (fortunately) hasn’t had any that I know of. So I might buy a Kronwall jersey and then get it signed as well as an 8×10 photo, because I do need more signed memorabilia…
Where: The Goalies’ Den in Troy
When: October 29th from 2-4pm
Cost: $10
Gordie Howe will also be doing an autograph signing at The Goalies’ Den, but not until December 17th from 1-5pm.
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One more autograph signing to be aware of…
This Saturday night on October 14th, the Plymouth Whalers play the London Knights. After the game, the team is doing an autograph session so if you want autographs of up and coming players, be sure to make it to the game and stay afterwards!