I found the Teal Spiel recording of the most recent show here. I encourage you to listen to all of it. If you just want to listen to the highlight of the show- me talking about Cheechoo – I ripped that part out and posted it here. Or maybe you can play it right now:

Maybe I was a bit manic, but it’s entertainment, baby! Gotta keep things hummin’ along.

I believe a Saturday evening AM radio show call counts as fame, so that’s what the title refers to.

So I discovered that finally, I get the NHL Network on DirecTV channel 215. I see it on the guide, I switch to it, and I see that there’s a show called Stanley Cup Summer. It’s about various Ducks players going to their hometowns and sharing the Cup with family and friends. Not exactly the kind of show I would want to watch, but it IS the first time I’m watching the hockey-only channel, so I figure I’ll give it a chance.

It’s one of those feel-good fluff shows, and they have pieces on Teemu Selanne and Sammy Pahlsson taking the Cup to Scandinavia (with graphics obviously created from Google Earth, which I found pretty funny). Then they switch to Chris Pronger, who took the Cup back to Ontario someplace to show his folks. They show him with a family friend who’s been stricken with cancer, and my heart goes a bit soft. A bit. Especially since he didn’t elbow her in the head, even though she was in a vulnerable position (a hospital bed in her living room).

But then this happens. He goes to a pediatric cancer ward in a local hospital to cheer up the kids. Here is my transcript directly from the show:

Chris Pronger (voiceover): You always wanna try and go see kids in the hospital… there’s not a lot of them in there but the ones that are in the cancer ward are going through a tough time. You want to bring a smile to their face.
Woman: Bill, do you want to introduce your granddaughter?
Bill: This is Taylor.
Chris Pronger: Ok.
Bill: My granddaugher.
Chris Pronger: Helloooo.
Bill: She’s a cancer survivor.
Chris Pronger: Perfect.

At this point I turn to my wife and said, “Did he just say ‘perfect’?” And then I laugh for about ten minutes.

Thanks NHL Network!

Yes, Virginia, there is a Sharks radio show. It’s called Teal Spiel, and it’s on 1220AM on Saturdays from 5 to 6:30pm. I just called in and ranted a bit about Cheech, but not in the way you’d expect. I learned about this from a Sharks message board called ChompBoard.com, and we happened to see this on the JumboTron last night. Serendipitous, doncha think?

Listen to the podcast if you get a chance. Don’t know when they post it, but I’m the second caller of the night, at the end of the second segment. Oh yeah, and when I said Marc Bergeron, I meant Marc Savard. I always get those two mixed up for some reason.

Last nights loss to the Kings was a heartbreaker. This was the chance for the boys to reign supreme in the Pacific and instead they laid an egg against a mediocre team with a has-been goalie who stood on his head. Disturbing. Change should be afoot for this team that seems lost right now.

If the Sharks lose tonight, could Ron Wilson be gone on Monday? Very possible.

If the Sharks lose tonight, could a major roster shake up been in the works? Very possible. It’s hard to put much stock into Eklund’s rumors, but his lead today of Toronto trading two veteran players to a team out West for a young forward and a young defensemen smells of San Jose being that other team. He also mentioned a player waiving a NTC. Ron Wilson’s obsession with a #1 defensemen has been well documented. Could this be McCabe for say Joe Pavelski and Christian Ehrhoff? Just a musing…With Kaspar/Mithcell/Setoguchi around and Bernier finally showing up to play – do we need Pavelski, who will be due for a raise as a RFA next year? We have Couture waiting in the wings as well. Ehrhoff, who is also due for a raise, is looking clueless lately and perhaps he should be moved while the value is still high. Signing Ozo to me means a defensemen is on the move. You don’t need Carle, Ehrhoff and Ozo – three duplicate guys who play a little soft and like to jump into the play.

But of course, the Sharks will win tonight – continuing their Jekyll and Hyde ways, and all changes could be off.

Just recently I found the Broadcaster’s Blog on the Sharks web site (now on the blogroll —>). The four Sharks broadcasters (Randy Hahn – TV play by play, Drew Remenda – TV color, Dan Rusanowsky – Radio play by play, and Jamie Baker – Radio color) are the contributors. It’s really a great inside look to the Sharks organization and players.

The latest entry from Randy Hahn claims that Ryane Clowe will be out for an extended period of time:

If you were to come up with a list of 5 players the Sharks could least afford to lose to injury, Ryan Clowe would have to be on that list. He scores, he checks, he fights and he can play on any one of four lines. He’s going to be out long term and others around him are going to have to figure out how to pick up the slack…

That hurts. Clowe, before he was injured, was the playing the type of style that I think the Sharks should be playing. The kind of style they played against the Stars. If it is as serious a knee injury as it sounds, he could be out the rest of the year.

I like that Bernier has found a little sandpaper to go with his game, and I hope he understands that this is a big opportunity for him to step up his game and fill a desperately needed role – a skilled player that won’t take shit from anyone. A player that leads the team in physicality, while still being disciplined.

There’s a quite fascinating article on Ron Wilson in the Mercury today, and his tendency to swap lines around. Other coaches- Dave Tippet from the Stars, Mike Babcock from the Red Wings, and Scotty Bowman, are also quoted.

I think these other coaches ain’t got nothing on Ron Wilson. He throws out so many different looks in a single game I bet the NHL scorekeepers curse his name. In the case of the Wings, Zetterberg and Datsyuk almost always play together on even-strength and the PP, and with the Stars, Brendan Morrow and Mike Ribiero are also paired. I can’t name a single offensive pairing that has really been consistent this entire year. Joe and Michalek would be the closest thing we got, but I can think of plenty of times they didn’t play together.

This quote from Wilson is particularly interesting:

I don’t have the time to wait for a guy to play well. It might take only one guy or two guys that can ruin everybody else’s effort by not being alert, by not being involved. Your job as a coach is to recognize that right off the bat. You go down and say it’s got to be better, then when it’s not that next shift or two – boom! – you change lines.

I’m no hockey coach, but I question the wisdom of this. Two bad shifts gets you demoted? What if you’ve been clicking with a player for the past two or three games- one bad period and you’re back to square one?

I’ve been playing hockey for over ten years now. There are players that I’ve played with for so long where I just know their style, and I know where they are going to be and what they are going to do without having to watch. We’re more than the sum of our parts. In my view, shuffling lines this readily stunts the ability of the players to form those kinds of relationships with other players. Gretz just knew where Kurri was going to be. Can Marleau say that about Torrey Mitchell? No matter- he’ll be playing with Marcel Goc tomorrow night.

He’s won over a thousand games as a head coach, so clearly Ron Wilson knows a little bit about coaching. But is this the right style for this group? Can’t you motivate players without flipping them around like a three card Monty game? Isn’t building confidence in your players also a worthy goal?

I knew that title would grab you. What can I say, I play to my base. And although the plot of the play has nothing to do with Sharks hockey (which I only just found out by reading wikipedia), the title itself is still apropos.

The Sharks came out shooting. And shooting. And driving. And shooting. On Saturday, they had 17 shots all night. Tonight, they had 16 in the first period, 9 in the second, and 10 in the third. They dominated the first 10 minutes of the game, and what always seems to happen happened. There was a tricky rebound that bounced right to Mike Ribiero, and he chipped it over Nabokov for a 1-0 lead on the first Dallas scoring chance of the night. But the Sharks continued to fight, and Pavelski, on a great (one might say earnest) second or third effort swept a wraparound in before Turco could cover his far post.

Then, in the second, Dallas got an early Christmas gift with a shot from Niskanen that changed direction twice off of two different Sharks players and went in the net. The Sharks went into the third down 2-1.

But they kept digging, and we saw two beautiful feeds from Thornton to Setoguchi to take the lead, then Bernier was rewarded for his strong forecheck with a nifty little screened wrister that darted in on the near side. All Sharks goals were even strength, which is icing on the cake.

But as the Keith Jones in the Vs. studio seemed to say at every opportunity, the Sharks don’t play a consistent style. Tonight’s style suited them. With a billion division games coming up, I hope they continue to go with it.

The Sharks dominated the first ten minutes of this game. Turco kept Dallas from getting embarrassed early, with the Sharks getting many early chances and peppering him with shots…but you could see it coming. Dallas scored a cheap goal and just like that, despite all their early efforts – the Sharks were down 1-0. Then they fell down 2-1.

They did not quit. They played with the same intensity and it paid off. Setoguchi is the sniper that has been missing at Jumbo Joe’s side. Marleau was finally opening it up and using his speed. Bernier actually made himself noticed with a goal, some big hits and one of the lamest fights I’ve ever seen.

Dallas didn’t look good to me – they’re not gonna make the playoffs this year unless they get some more offense. This is the perfect time for the Sharks to rattle off four or five wins and get some distance in the Pacific. Can they maintain this effort? Will Setoguchi’s effort make it easier for Dougie Wilson to part with a major forward to get the coveted big time defensemen? With Toronto crumbling, would McCabe waive his NTC?

So I watched the Detroit game this morning, and (thanks to Center Ice) the Columbus game this afternoon. Both were disappointing, and for different reasons.

The Detroit game was a bummer mostly because it’s clear that Detroit is much better than the Sharks right now. Their breakout is crisper, the cycle steadier, and the scoring chances quicker. They spring a winger almost every single breakout, always with enough speed and skill to make a play even on an able defenseman. The Sharks played ok in the first two periods- the first two goals were off the post- but both goals came on bad turnovers, now officially an epidemic. Then the third the Wings opened it up and made the Sharks look stupid.

The Columbus game was even worse, because the Sharks played listlessly and sloppily the entire time. They took a lot of penalties (and probably should have gotten more called), had very few long possessions, and again committed idiotic turnovers in their own zone. They had every excuse in the world to lose- back to back away games less than 24 hours apart, against a solid home team. But excuses don’t fly at the highest level of sports.

It’s so hard not to be impatient at times like this, and start calling for the coach’s head, for top players to be benched or traded away. Especially since the illness is one of effort and work ethic and not of talent. It’s hard not to think that Ron Wilson is no longer getting through. The fact that he still juggles the lines continuously, once seemingly the work of an eccentric hockey genius, now seems pointless and desperate.

I grit my teeth and try to remember that other than the Devils, no team in the NHL has played fewer home games up to this point. Still, we don’t have a homestand longer than two games until late November. I hope the Sharks can find a way to staunch the bleeding by then, or they’ll have to work their way out of a big hole come the new year.

For whatever reason, I still watch PTI. Kornheiser and Wilbon are pretty entertaining. And when Mercury is aligned with Mars, they talk about hockey, usually pejoratively. Today was no exception, when they talked about the big Koci-Chara fight that left Koci a big bloody mess:

Barry Melrose Rocks had a post on this, in the glorious theme of “Dan LeBatard is a moron”, but I’ll talk about Tony. Like LeBatard, he knows nothing about hockey, and doesn’t care to find out. Fine by me, but when you open your big yap, all the mystery dissipates. You’re a moron.

Tony:

I’m sick of fights; I’m sick of designated goons. I know in the arena, these are very popular things. I thought as a culture, we had gone beyond this.

Yeah, which is why UFC is the fastest growing sport. Get over yourself. Clearly you have no idea that there is an unwritten code in hockey that still exists. Unlike basketball, their ridiculous comparison, where nobody knows what the hell is going on, and no one knows how to fight anyway.

Tony again:

The people that run hockey are old hockey players. And they believe this is a test of masculinity, and it’s nonsense.

Thanks, Dr. Gray. This from a guy that does color for Monday Night Football every week, a sport that is more dangerous, and more tied with masculinity than any sport I can name other than cockfighting. Where a guy taunted another guy who was unconscious on the field.

Listen, David Koci is a dope. If he doesn’t fight, he’s out of the league in about 30 minutes. There aren’t too many people like Koci in the league any longer, and that’s a good thing. I’ll be honest. Fights are entertaining to me, mostly because the participants are willing and able. If fighting was one or more guys ganging up on a weaker player, I would be leading the charge to ban it. And I think that fighting does sometimes serve a purpose to the game.

Funny how they didn’t mention that the guy who rearranged Koci’s face is Zdeno Chara, a highly skilled and coveted player in the NHL. Proof positive it ain’t always scripted theater.