(Ed. Note: Our series "Puck Daddy's Guilty Pleasures" features puckheads from all walks of life answering questions about their own hockey-related guilty pleasures. It will run daily during the month of August. Have a suggestion for a "Guilty Pleasures" guest blogger?�Hit us on email. Enjoy!)
Today's Special Guest: Adrian Dater, Colorado Avalanche writer for the Denver Post, SI.com hockey columnist and our frequent sparring partner.
1. The Player You Most Love To Hate
Gotta be Cal Clutterbuck for me.
I've definitely taken a few potshots at him and his game, but to his credit he answers the media bell when asked about his style. You can't make up that kind of great, villainous name, either. He's actually a pretty decent guy and I'm sure I'd love him if he were on my team.
2. Other Than Your Own, The Team You Can't Help Rooting For
Tough question. I'm a New England native, so you'd think I was jumping up and down when the B's won the Stanley Cup. Sadly, no. A hazard of working in this business is losing the thrill of just being a pure fan, whether you want to or not.
I started to bond a little with Nashville last year, though. Gotta love Barry Trotz as a coach, and that whole lunch-pail gang thing.
3. Favorite Fight or Brawl of All-Time
Well, I got a book cover out of this one (cheap book plug time) ? so it's got to be the Patrick Roy-Mike Vernon fight in 1997.
A close second, though, is Mike Milbury pounding the Rangers fan with the shoe at Madison Square Garden in the '70s. Now that's when I really was a B's fan, and I loved every whack of that leather on the guy (wait, that didn't come out right).
4. The Hideous-Looking Hockey Jersey You Secretly Love The Most
If we're talking defunct jerseys, I love the old Kansas City Scouts ones.
A native American man sitting on a horse, with no identifiable hockey equipment anywhere in the logo - now that's classic.
(Of course, the team was supposed to originally be called the Mohawks, which partially explains the logo, until the Blackhawks objected to the name and they changed it to Scouts).
If I could find me a Steve Durbano 1975-76 Scouts sweater, I'd pay good cash money and wear it all day, proudly.
If we're talking current jerseys, I have to be a homer here and go with the aqua-blue, Avalanche third jerseys. Yes, players in them may look like some hideous form of 1970s, aspertame blue piece of Bubble Yum on skates, but I'm developing a bit of a man-crush on them.
5. Your Favorite Hockey Clich� (terminology, traditions, announcer-speak, etc.)
Man, this is going to be tough.
(About a 15-minute ponder)
I will go with "Gotta get pucks to the net." Because, no matter how much you may want to think otherwise, you don't get a goal if you don't get a puck to the net.
6. The Injury You Couldn't Stop Staring At (Non-Skate Lacerations
Only)
I think I recall an eye injury to Chris Drury once, when he played here in Denver. I think it resembled kind of like a deep Hawaiian sunset, with multiple hues of red, blue, orange and green all outlined with a menacing black. Throw a lei over Dru's shoulder and put on some Don Ho and maybe we could have had some fun with that.
7. Your Favorite Cheesy Hockey Reference in Popular Culture
I crack up, still, every time I see the "Devils, Devils, Devils!" guy who dated Elaine on "Seinfeld."
7a. Your Favorite Terrible Hockey Card Or Hockey Action Figure.
I have a Bobby Orr MacFarlane action figure, only he's in a Blackhawks uniform. The sight of him in that sweater is just so wrong, it's almost right.
8. Finally, What's The Thing You Secretly Respect Gary Bettman For The Most?
The fact that he's never once gone something like, "You know what folks, especially you Canadians here booing your lungs out here while I try to hand over the glorious Stanley Cup that you guys failed once again to win in a seventh game, your team would be playing in the AHL right now if I hadn't held tough on the hard cap a few years ago, so stick a sock in it, eh?"
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