I’m as frustrated as a person that’s had January 23rd circled on their schedule because Bones is going to be in town, only to find out Bones is out until after the all star break with back spasms. I guess I’ll leave the “I’m as frustrated as” jokes to Larry the Cable Guy. But still, I’m pretty frustrated. Even more so because at about 5 Tweener e-mailed me to let me know Cam Janssen had been sent down for conditioning. There are few things that make me more excited than hearing a tough guy is in town right before I go to the rink. One of the others is me dressed as Little Bo Peep, but that is another blog. Anyway, the night wasn’t a total loss. There was one very scheduled fight between Mark Fraser of Lowell, and a Mohawk wearing Paul Bissonnette. It wasn’t much of a scrap really. Bissonnette landed a few hard rights, and Fraser didn’t do much of anything except get punched in the face. I got to speak to Bissonnette, and he was a very good guy. We talked a bit about the new jerseys, and fighting David Clarkson when he was in Junior. Good guy. Bones was in the house, but I couldn’t track him down to talk to him. I guess I’ll have to go on the road to see the all time AHL penalty minute leader before he skates off into the sunset.

This was a good hockey week for me actually. Thursday found me in the Garden for the Bruins and Islanders tilt. Naturally before I could be found at Halftime Pizza where I bumped into Cato, Mad Dog, Hoddy, and the other guy whose name I always forget. Along with that crew there were 4500 of our closest friends slugging down pizza, and 25oz’s of their favorite brew. I cannot believe how popular the place has become. I was turned onto Halftime last season by Killer. What were great about it were the huge beers, excellent pizza, and the fights on the plasmas. The best part however, was that there weren’t a zillion people in the place, so you could enjoy your pie, brews and fights in relative comfort. Now the place is a fucking zoo. It’s really caught on in a big way. Good for Halftime, bad for you and I. Oh yeah, Bruins won. No fights.

Mother is in the living room putting the Christmas decorations away with the NHL Network on in the background. She’s getting around in the wheelchair pretty well, and the doctor said she could put 50% weight on her ankle, so she’s allowed to roll around and put her decorations away. I know they’ve been driving her nuts, and she’s been driving me nuts asking me to bring up boxes for her. Up until now, it was a no deal. Now that she’s on the mend, she can have at it. She’ll be back before Sidney Crosby is back from his high ankle sprain he sustained last night. In about an hour I’m dropping her off at the movies with instructions she’s to actually go, and not stand out in front of the liquor store and ask someone to buy her beer.

I mention the NHL network because as I was brining up boxes for her, they were showing the Eastern Conference standings, and it struck me how huge of a weekend this is for Boston. At this point in time, Boston, the Rangers, and Atlanta are all tied with 49 points. New York and Boston play a home and home this weekend. This is a series that has playoff implications in January, and it’s pretty darn exciting. What with the football game Sunday, no one will notice, but still, I’m darn excited.

Boston needs to set a tone early today. I would get the puck deep and start taking the body right away on these guys. Orrsie and Thornton will hopefully be looking for each other to set a tone as well. 2008 Youngstar Milan Lucic, (Congratulations by the way) still has the cage on, so the other duties fall to Jeremy Reich. He’s a guy that hasn’t fought in a while, so hopefully he can get a hold of someone today.

Tomorrow’s game is even more important. New York has had Boston’s number in the MSG, as they have beaten the Bruins there in every contest for 6 years. I think its 6 years…maybe its 4….listen; you want stats, go to the NHL website. Come here for dick and fart jokes. Anyway, their dominance at home will play into the psyche of both clubs coming into tomorrow. In the Rangers’ room, the attitude will be, these guys can’t beat us in here, and in the Boston room, it will be the exact opposite. Can we win here? It’s Original Six, Old Time Hockey. I’m hoping for some real grudge match type victories from the black and gold.

This is a couple of new pictures we took of Emma, the GoonBlog Girl, for Christmas this year and albeit late we thought we’d use the trouser-bump-inducing photos to make a special announcement - We’re slash… slash… slashing prices like Todd Bertuzzi on our popular hockey t-shirts in order to make room for some new designs and inventory. These high quality shirts feature our tagline “Shoot Pass Punch” and a huge version of our awesome logo on the back. The front features a smaller version of our logo’s text over the heart. They were $20 but now you can get one for the low, low - virtually no margin for us - price of only $15 USD.

Check out the t-shirt page for more information and to place an order - or just ogle the clip of Emma modeling the truly wonderful garment. Several of all sizes are still available and we assure you - the shirts are truly dope.

And don’t forget to say hello to Emma on her very own MySpace profile, but don’t start picking out the wedding favors just yet.. She’s got lots more of her sexy photos on display and will even say hello if you make the effort to do so first. Here’s to a safe and prosperous 2008 to all our readers!

For those of you that were looking to read something interesting about hockey, I apologize. To be honest, is there even anything to talk about these days? Didn’t think so.

So I had a bit of a boon doggle a few weeks back and wanted to share my adventures with you all. My employer was recently purchased by a German company and they had us all over for a Christmas party / meeting the week before XMAS. Yeah you read that right…a Christmas party, not some fuckin politically correct Holiday party!

Me and the crew headed across the pond to see our comrades. The flight was in two parts; part 1: Boston to Amsterdam / part 2: Amsterdam to Dusseldorf. Lucky enough for me I was upgraded to Amsterdam. Nothing beats first class when you have to fly but first class on an international flight is simply orgasmic. The plan consists of: whack a few stiff drinks back, have a nice meal, drink a few glasses of quality wine with dinner, whack a few more stiff drinks back and then pass out. Next thing you know it’s the next day and you are landing in Europe. I would like to apologize to my fellow passengers as my gas that night was horrific.

The connecting flight and meetings in Germany aren’t worth mentioning. Although, I will say Dusseldorf is a decent city. We spent sometime touring around and hit a few of the hot spots that included great brew pubs. A good time was had by all.

The fun starts on the way home as me and another colleague decided to spend Saturday in Amsterdam. We had to connect in Amsterdam anyways and thought why not spend a full day and night being tourists in Amsterdam. This would enable us to catch an earlier flight back to the states the next morning as we would not need to travel from Dusseldorf at O dark hundred. Anyone been to Amsterdam? Than you know what I am about to write. For those that haven’t, I have but one recommendation…..GET YOUR ASS TO AMSTERDAM ASAP!!!!

Forget Vegas for a bachelor party or Myrtle Beach for a guys golf weekend, the land of the clogs is the place to go. Amsterdam is similar to New Orleans as it is below sea level. It is surrounded by canals named after colors which makes getting around a no brainer even for those that need GPS to get home everyday from work. We began our day with a stop at the Anne Frank house. If you don’t know the story of her you might wanna re-think if all those drugs you did in High School were really worth it. It was a very moving experience and for me to say that is pretty amazing as I have a heart like Vince McMahon. Her family lived in fear of their lives for 2 years never once leaving the house. Can you imagine living like that in 2008?

We hit a few shops afterwards as my colleague loves to stuff his luggage with useless trinkets from around the Globe. At one of the shops we asked for help locating a good local eatery for lunch. The kind lady sent us along to a great pub called Durty Nellies. The food was great and the Heineken was even better. It’s kinda like drinking Molson in Canada. The difference from US Molson and Canadian Molson is night and day. I’m not a big Heineken fan in the US but it was very tasty in Holland.

Now that our bellies were full, along with our bladders, it was time to venture out to the Red Light District and “Coffee Shops”. Wholly shit Goonblogers, I walked into paradise and I was still alive! As we walked down the street there are hundreds of doors with Red Lights lit above them. The streets were packed with horny men from all over the world looking for action. The entire industry is regulated in Holland and the “workers” are tested on a routine basis for diseases. They even segregate things so that certain parts of town have the white chicks then you can move on to Asians, blacks and even some trannies for those real SMF. I thought it was my duty an honor as a GoonBlog contributor to research and educate our readers in case you ever get the chance to visit this gem of a spot.

Each worker is set up in a room about 12×10 that includes a glass front door that they sit behind in very little clothing, basically bra and panties along with a bed. Some are located on the second level from the street and include showers. When they are “occupied” they pull a shade down on the front glass door. The going rate is $50 Euros’ for 50 minutes. That is the opening bid and is negotiable based on your demands. So for example: Chris would probably like a girl to whisper into his ears Tie Domi’s fighting major statistics while he eats pizza off her breasts. The Ref may want his lass to sing the Canadian National Anthem while he throttles her like an Alaskan hunting seal pups. Those requests may cost a bit more.

Walking into a room, you may feel shame similar to being escorted to the sin bin after committing a foolish hooking penalty in the offensive zone but exiting the room, the euphoric feeling is similar to being the new kid who takes down George Laraque with one punch, not that I would know or anything!

The “Coffee Shops” do not sell any alcohol but they can sell you enough Hashish and Marijuana that you forget alcohol exists. The first one I entered was about half the size of a typical hockey locker room and EVERYONE is smoking. I was stoned before I even asked for a menu. It brought me back to the days of Al’s basement in high school. You don’t have to worry about bumping into anyone and having words as all the patrons are in very good moods.

It was a quick 24 hours and very blurry from a recollection standpoint but I hope I painted a good enough picture for you. The place is insane and I highly recommend visiting it before you leave this earth.

It was hockey week in Acton for me this week, as I got in three live games. I haven’t seen MOL in days, and have been living off beer and rink pizza, but these are the sacrifices one makes to make three games in three nights. One of these days I should write about where to go for good food and drink at all the arenas I have been to. Remind me on that.

The adventure started on Wednesday in Lowell as the Devils took on the Springfield Falcons. I have seen the Falcons a couple of times this season, and they are pretty fun to watch. Robbie Scremp is a great hockey player, and they have Ryan Flinn, who in my opinion is one of the most intimidating looking guys in all of hockey. He just looks mean eh? Apparently, he isn’t mean looking enough for Lowell’s Mark Fraser to want a piece.

Lowell went down 3-0 in a very lackluster start. Fraser had enough and challenged Flinn near the blueline in front of the visiting penalty box. They started out sizing each other up and a little spin cycle action. As they got started, Flinn and Fraser each traded some right hands, and Fraser managed to get the front of Flinn’s jersey up over his face. Sightless, Flinn threw a couple and tried to squirm his head back through the opening so he could see, and try to get Fraser. Fraser didn’t use the advantage of Flinn being sightless as well as I would have liked, but did get a couple in when he had the advantage. When Flinn got his sight back he threw an uppercut that missed by this much, and had it connected, Fraser would have been lights out. Sadly he missed, and that was it. The stripes separated them, and off they went. I call the fight a surprising win for Mark Fraser.

The ending of this game was easily the strangest thing I have ever seen at a hockey game. Evah. Lowell had been down 3-0, but fought their way back to tie the game at 3-3. OT came and went, and they went on to the shootout. With Lowell having a 1-0 advantage and Springfield being down to their last opportunity to force sudden death shootout, Viacheslav Trukhno came in on Frank Doyle with ideas on being the game saver. Well, Doyle looked like he stopped him, as it appeared he put a rebound in the net which is a no no in the shootout. Referee Terry Koharski waived the goal off, but the puck wound up in the back of the net. After conferring with the scorer’s table briefly, he skated over to Lowell’s bench. He must have told them they won because Devil players started pouring off the bench to congratulate Frank Doyle. The Springfield bench was upset and called Koharski over for a little chat. So after a little discussion, Koharski decided that Springfield had in fact scored and he motioned to some of the remaining players on Lowell’s bench they need to get back. So, if you are having trouble following, he changed his mind. Lowell comes back. They go first in sudden death and don’t score. Obviously Springfield comes down and scores on their first sudden death shot, wins the game 4-3.

In all my years of watching hockey I have never seen anything like that. I was under the impression as the referee, even if you blow a call and you know you’ve blown it, you stick to it. One never ever changes their mind right? Truly a bizarre moment in my hockey watching life.

Game two of the week came to me via my good friend and birthday girl Bridget. She e-mailed me Thursday evening and asked if I wanted to go to the Bruins and Capitals game that evening. The answer? Yes. Yes I did. Thanks yo, and happy birthday.

Jimbo and I saddled up for Boston at 5, and arrived at Halftime Pizza at 6. Good timing indeed. With a large cheese secured, and a 25oz. Bud to wash it down we settled in for the fights. The tape of the evening was all Dennis Bonvie, so I was pretty psyched. It was all his fights as a Bruin, and his only NHL goal was on the tape as well. It got me to thinking about the Bruins team of 2000-01, and ’01-’02 when Bonvie was there. Those were a couple of my favorite teams because you could tell they cared about each other, and were very tight. Those guys were always sticking up for one another.

Once inside, we got our seats and the game began. Boston was soundly outplayed in the fist, but Milan Lucic was looking to get a spark going in the building by taking on Capitals defenseman, John Erksine. I thought the fight was a decent scrap. Both guys are very heavy punchers and it showed as Erksine landed a very hard right to Lucic’s temple, and the big 19 year old went down. Win Erksine, and it was the first one I think I’ve seen Lucic lose all season. Nice job though in taking him on and trying to get the boys started. This seems like a good spot to mention, I like the Bochenski for Hnidy swap a lot. Hnidy is a gritty defenseman (which in case no one noticed, is exactly what Boston needs), and Bo wasn’t playing anyway. Good swap.

After the game we went to Sports Grille Boston for 1 (4) and then back to the office so Jim could get his car. Obviously we went to Hooligan’s for a night cap (4) and on home. I left Jimbo in good hands at the bar, and got out of there before I thought Karaoke was a good idea. As an aside, Jimbo was not well Friday and couldn’t come to game three of the week.

This is called a segue. Game three was a Radiators Team event at the DCU Centre. I took my team, and their significant others, as well as honorary Radiator Kara to the Worcester Sharks and Manchester Monarchs. Manchester was killing Worcester, and I am really surprised there were no fights. I thought for sure Worcester would try to start something after going down 3-1, and then 4-1, but nothing. There was even an instance with 2.6 seconds where there was some pushing and shoving where I thought both coaches might give the tough guys a tap, but alas, nothing. All in all, it was an outstanding week. If I wasn’t afraid MOL would leave me taking the van while I keep the dog, I’d do it all the time. But really, do I need to give her another reason?

Happy New Year everyone. I trust everyone behaved themselves last night? Well, barring that no one got caught with the farm animals? Good good. I spent the first day of ’08 horizontal watching the outdoor game in Buffalo. I have my annual New Year’s cold, and it was a great way to spend the first waking hours of’08.

The game itself was really interesting. Trust me to everyone out there in the Midwest where the game was inexplicably blacked out. It brought back a lot of memories for me of playing on the pond for hours on end, I’m sure I was even more nostalgic for the guys out there that made it all the way to the top. It was cool to see them battling snow in the first, sleet in the second, bad ice throughout, and more snow in the third. I do have one issue though.

I am a reasonably smart man. I think I am more “street smart” than classic “book smart”. As such, I realize when I am being manipulated. Did it seem a little too convenient that Crosby wins it on the last shot of the shootout in front of a crowd that size? A little too “neat” don’t you think? Maybe I’m giving the NHL brass a bit too much credit though. I mean, here is a league that can’t realize expansion back in Canada would be good for the game by taking a team out of a market that doesn’t really care (Nashville. I’m looking at you) are they really smart enough to rig a game that way? I didn’t think so.

A couple of Goonblog favorites are looking for jobs. Joe Rullier was released from his PTO in Bridgeport, and it is with a heavy heart I have to report Gordie Dwyer was cut in Portland as well. I always liked Rullier. While he does play dirty sometimes, he will also fight honestly, and has very quick hands. Dwyer is one of the nicest guys I have ever met, and a decent player to boot. I would not mind seeing either signed by the beloved Lowell Devils. First beer is on me boys.