Deep breaths. It's going to be okay.

I woke up this morning, and after eating a very nutritious breakfast of Nutella with some white bread on it I booted up my computer and checked my email only to find this message from Schadenfreude.

"I'm sure you saw they traded Carter and Richie. At least not Danny though."

I'm fairly sure the noise I made right then was at a pitch only dogs could hear.

Can't you just see him chirping the other preschoolers?

As I've now officially entered hockey withdrawal, and am trying to make up for it with shit tons of baseball (which is just not the same...sigh) I felt like I needed a post to cheer myself up.

"So, Skippy," I said, "what could you possibly post on to make yourself feel better about the lack of hockey in your life?"

See Bruins drink. Drink, Bruins! Drink!

So the Bruins (and all of Boston by extension) are celebrating pretty fucking hard right now. 

Everywhere I go I keep coming across more tales of celebration.  But there is one that has particularly tickled my fancy-- the Bruins' now infamous Foxwood's party.

No, I'm not still drunk. Really.

When I woke up on Thursday morning, my knees hurt, my palm was throbbing, I had bruises on the tops of my feet and I reeked of beer.

Life was perfect.

Puckbunny Bulletin: Body Paint Edition

So you're a female Canucks fan, and you want to show your support for the home team. You could buy a slutty, tight T-shirt that has a V-neck so low it cuts into the word "Vancouver" on the front, but hell, everyone has those. You want to be different. Original. Also, you love nudity but hate paying all those fines for indecent exposure. What's a girl to do?

11 years of Quaker school, and it's come to this

As it may have become obvious by now, I have a colossal weakness for dudes who can throw (and take) a punch, especially if they can also bury the puck. As luck would have it, this series features two players, both with the same number (FATE), who happen to fit this criteria: Milan Lucic and Ryan Kesler. Let's take a look. People who are not fond of men whaling on each other for sport (in other words, the diagnosably insane) are advised to look away.

Procrastination will be the death of me

So it's 5:30 PM on the Monday of Game 6, the Bruins might be eliminated tonight, and I have A SHIT TON that I need to post before 8PM in case the 'Nucks take it on the road in Boston, like the Mavs did last night (GTFO, LeBron!!!!). So here goes the other half of my Hottest Players in the Finals post, complete with picspam.

Participant Observation

So, you know that feeling you get when you're watching the big game and you're in a bar full of people and you're all wearing shirts for your team and getting wasted and making cracks about players and commentators and generally soaking in the whole city's energy, and everywhere you look there are more fans and you think, "Ah! My people!"?

I don't.

The ultimate question of the Finals, answered

This year's Stanley Cup Finals have raised many burning questions. Between Luongo and Thomas, who is the better goalie? Who is more psychotic, Vancouver fans or Boston fans? And, most importantly, who is the sexiest player on each team?

Fortunately, the Vancouver Sun has come to our rescue for the latter question, at least as it pertains to the Canucks. Unfortunately, they got a lot wrong. Let's investigate.

The Sun ran a poll in which Vancouverites (Vancouverers? Vancouverians?) were given the opportunity to vote on which Canuck they thought was the hottest. Let's compare their top 10 to Skippy's own personal top 10. I'll run another post on Boston later this week.

Eeeeeeeeeee! New layout!

Look at it! Look at it!  Isn't it puuuuuuuuurdy?

Massive thanks to Shaina at notenoughbbq.com, who did these cute cartoon versions of us. 

They are scary accurate, considering that the dress Skippy is wearing in the bottom banner is eerily like one she actually owns that Shaina has never seen or even heard about.  It was just apparently magically channelled through her pen.

Shaina and I are bros from way back, having been on the exec board of Wellesley's Sci-fi club together for years.  Go check out her comic Steampunk Soiree if you like Victorian robots, pretty art or awesome things in general!

To make this marginally hockey related (not that it needs to be, considering), I give you a few more koans from the Zen of Puckbunnies:

So we've learned Alex Burrows is a cannibal...

I was innocently sitting on the couch, innocently enjoying innocent Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals, when all of a sudden...

Dude, did Alex Burrows just bite Patrice Bergeron?

IT HAS BEEN CONFIRMED

SKIPPY AND SCHADENFREUDE ARE HOCKEY PROPHETS.

We so called that the Bruins would face the Canucks in the finals.

I'm sure Skippy will post something with actual content about last night's mad intense game, the bad-assery of her future husband Tim Thomas and the fact that we now get to perv over Ryan Kesler and root for the B's at the same time which is the best kind of multitasking, but I just want to put it out there that we are fucking PROPHETS.

The Zen of Puckbunnies (Vol 2-- Bugaloo Electric Over Cedars)

Puckbunny Bulletin: Stay Classy

There have been several developments in the world of puckbunnies over the past few weeks. And by several, I mean two. Anyway. Let's start off with this:

The Zen of Puckbunnies (Vol 1)

The first of (way too) many hockey haiku posts.

If only Sensei knew this is what would become of my degree in Japanese literature.

Skippy's Get-Psyched-About-The-Bruins Post

I know Schadenfreude has already done one of these, but I felt it was important to do one separately, mostly because I need to independently work myself up for my (temporary) new team. Also, it gave me an opportunity to use THIS PICTURE:

A good rule of thumb: When your opponent is hemorrhaging from the face, keep punching. It means you're doing it right!

But before we move on...

Dear 2010-11 Flyers,

Put down the golf clubs for a second and pay attention.

We started off this season with high hopes. I mean, wet-behind-the-ears rookie goaltender beating the Penguins at the opening of the Consol? Could it get better than that? No, apparently, because when Game 4 against the Bruins came around Bob looked like the most experienced player on our team. When the best forward in any given game is James van Riemsdyk, you know you’ve got problems.

It wasn’t all bad. Claude Giroux came out of his shell and proved to the league that he was the Second Coming of AWESOME, a fact I had known for some time. JVR notched a Gordie Howe against the Tampa Bay Lightning, demonstrating that we live in some form of alternate dimension. Jody Shelley was useless except occasionally when he pounded someone’s face in, which was highly entertaining.

We should have, however, seen the collapse coming. Losing Chris Pronger was a sign from above that things were probably not going to work out, as the Flyers require a certain blindside-elbow-per-capita ratio to be maintained in order for them to do well (it’s an indicator, like plus-minus or the Corsi score). Our goaltending decided to dissolve right at the worst possible time, our forwards suddenly couldn’t score even if someone had obeyed my commands and hogtied Tim Thomas in the trapezoid, and our defense seemingly decided that it would be rude to not allow the other team the opportunity to shoot, crash the net, and then poke the rebound home.

But hey. Maybe you all just got tired. Maybe you got bored with this whole “winning” thing and felt like seeing what failure was like. Maybe you decided that it would be unfair to keep taking so much airtime away from the Phillies. We’ll never really know. Holmgren and Co. will do a hack job (probably) on this team during the offseason, and then in October we’ll all re-gather, ready for another go-round.

And this time, maybe you’ll make it to the finals before folding like a card table.

Love,

Skippy

p.s. Now I have to root for the Bruins, you motherfuckers.

Changing of the guard

Well, I dug out my Bruins shirt from the bottom of my laundry basket (yeah, I'm gross like that) and started browsing pics of Ference and Bergie on the Googlies-- I have a new team to get excited about.

I was saving this for a rainy day

and while today isn't exactly rainy (though Wednesday was a mess when were trying to have stalkerventures at the Garden-- though I may possibly be not supposed to talk about that), I still could use a good cheering up.

So I present to you the next in my series of disturbing Flyers photoshops:

BB!ROO.

That's all for nowsies, but things to look forward to from Shadenfreude probably include a "Well now we have to give a shit about the Bruins" post/picspam.  It will include Ference's fantastic Canadian flag tattoo.  In fact, it may consist entirely of Ference's fantastic Canadian flag tattoo.

EDIT:  It is now raining like a bitch.  I am apparently psychic as well as a prophet of hotness.

Jonathan Toews deep-throating a Popsicle? Jonathan Toews deep-throating a Popsicle.

FANGIRLS EVERYWHERE NEED TO SEE THIS VIDEO:

Yes folks, that is various members of the 2010 Blackhawks, including Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, having a popsicle eating contest. SHIT IS GAY.

Why do you do this to me?

Well, they didn’t get their asses kicked. Instead they chose to take Skippy’s heart and use it to practice their slapshots or some such madness. Maybe Carcillo nommed on it with his gums or something. (Question for the ages: why does Carcillo wear a mouthgard? He has no teeth to protect!).

IT'S LAYDEEZ NITE.

It's Ladies' Night! Cheap beer! Hot menfolks! Free Patrick Kane with proof of I.D!

To distract myself from the fact that all of Boston is creaming itself over the Bruins, this post goes out TO THE LAYDEEZ. And dudes who like dudes.  And pretty much anyone with eyes.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

I THINK WE ALL NEED TO CHEER UP.

So I bring you the first in what is sure to be a long, looong line of photoshop abominations.

Last night I totally couldn't sleep and in that strange state where you are thinking, but it's not exactly coherent and you can't quite control it, my inner monologue went something like this:

"At least we scored against the... meows. Meooooooooow.  Meeeeeeeeeeow.  We should separate out all the catboys, like Mike Richards..."

So because my subconscious thinks he is a catboy, I present the following.

Fig. 1- Captain Catboy

You know you want a piece of that, you dirty furry.

THERE.  Now you are sufficiently cheered up.

Karma

Rarely do I turn off hockey games. I have sat through more pain and suffering just for the sake of watching hockey than I'd like to admit. But when Boston scored tonight to make it 7-3, I made Schadenfreude hand me the remote so I could turn off the TV and end this.

What had I done wrong? How had I failed them? I had all of my lucky talismans--I had been sleeping in my Giroux t-shirt, avoiding the Dropkick Murphys, and was currently curled up under my Phillies blanket. I had been careful not to disturb the karma. Unfortunately, I was starting to come to the conclusion that maybe they were the ones who had failed me. Like, with some really shitty defense, lack of offensive support, a limp-dick power play and goaltending...well, shockingly, goaltending that was bad but not exactly our main problem tonight, right boys?

The one consolation that I keep giving myself is that it's Game 1 There are at least three games left for them to continue breaking our hearts, because they're a Philadelphia team and that's what they do. Monday night, everything will start over again, and I'll sit in some bar in Boston staring up at the TV and praying hope against hope that my team won't embarrass me this time.

Which is starting to look decidedly unlikely.