DISH NETWORK-FOX REACH DEAL- FDT HAPPY!

Lovely reports that the dispute has finally ended:

"Dish Network Corp. and News Corp. signed an agreement that ends a month-long blackout of 19 sports channels on the satellite television operator and prevents a possible disruption of local Fox broadcast stations starting Monday."

-WSJ

They had to get it done before Monday or they're were putting the fear of god in all of America with NFL games potentially being lost next Sunday.  

This was a nice little surprise to get on a Friday afternoon and now I can watch the Timberwolves, Wild, Gophers, and Twins lose from the comforts of my own home (actually moving within the next couple months but its nice for the time being).

So awesome stuff.  Almost as awesome as Mike Richards fighting Matt Cooke 7 seconds into their game.



Love the jabs Richards gets in the end.  No reason to stay classy when you're fighting king douche of the NHL. 

-thoy

FIRE DAN TERHAAR NOW ON TWITTER!

Exciting stuff coming out of the Fire Dan Terhaar base camp.  I guess that is what happens when you get a day off in the middle of the week and you still get up at 8 AM.

I got pretty bored so I decided to setup a twitter account to correspond with the blog.  You can reach that at:

www.twitter.com/firedanterhaar

Hopefully the blog and the twitter account will help each other out and get me to stay consistent with updates.  It will also allow me to update shit while I'm watching The Wild play outside the comforts of my home which is good seeing that the Dish Network dispute doesn't seem anyway close to reaching a resolution.

So follow me if you have an account and if not I'll keep it public so bookmark it.   Cool.

-thoy

TIME TO STEAL HALLOWEEN COSTUME IDEAS

Absolutely love these costumes.  Simple idea, simple execution, great punch.

At this early point in the Wilds season who would you nominate as their biggest cone defensively?  My nod would have to go to Marek Zidlicky.  Or is it Zidlitsky?  I don't know, the announcers haven't made up their mind ever since he joined the team in 2008.  Zidlicky is clearly an offensive defensemen but in the few games that I have been able to watch this season (once again, thanks dish network, not to mention extended hours at work) he has looked silly on his own side of the blue line.  However, could the Wild create a group costume like these Toronto Maple Leafs fans could for the 07-08 team?  Perhaps.  Who would make the four group party cut?  Zidlicky, yes.  Barker, yes. Burns, yes.  Zanon, probably.  The two rookie defenders for the wild, Clayton Stoner and Justin Falk, surprisingly pair for the teams best plus minus for any of the blue liners.  Obviously their not eating up a ton of minutes or playing in critical situations but I thought that stat line was pretty interesting considering I've seen them playing paired together for portions of the games where they both get to dress.  I hate the plus minus stat in hockey almost as much as keeping track of game winning goals.  However, both stat categories can offer insight if you look at them with a grain of salt.  Something that stood out at me while I was glancing at the Wild's plus minus stats was that John Madden, Eric Nystrom, and Chuck Kobasew combined for a -14.  I was under the impression that these three gentlemen were brought in to play key roles on the 3rd and 4th lines and actually provide some defensive stability to a team that really had none from a year ago.  Pretty alarming when the three also combine for a whopping 2 points on the year (2 goals from Madden).  Something has to give there.

Side bar- Falk came into General Sports yesterday with Nick Schultz, who was buying skates for his three year old son who out grew the skates he bought him last year as a two-year-old (Minnesota is crazy and Canadians in Minnesota are even crazier).  Falk was massive in size, height wise at least.  He soared over Schultz.  Both good dudes.

Back to the Halloween costume idea.  To go as a cone or no?

...I think I'll just dye my beard, cut a shitty mohawk, develop an aggressive attitude and go as Brian Wilson

-thoy

ITS HOCKEY NIGHT ON DISH NETWORK

 

Sigh.

Nothing like watching the wild on a shitty atdhe stream that is most likely giving my computer a virus.

Hey the Wild look good, Bobby Lu not so much.  It's hard to tell in between all of the lags though.

-thoy

ANOTHER REASON THE WILD SUCK

 NO ICE GIRLS!

 The Wild and the Excel Energy Center use dudes who pretend like they have an important job in the NHL.  Um sirs, you're worthless and make me angry when I attend games at my favorite sporting venue.  Your job is not worth value and no one is impressed that you can tie your own skates.

BUT, do you think Minnesota would produce enough good looking females to fulfill this occupation?  I wonder sometimes but I am optimistic considering a good 75% of the population knows how to skate---Completely made up that stat but it's factual.

Would they be able to have the depth of the Dallas Stars ice girls?  I don't think so.  Puck daddy brought a  video of fun in the sun to my attention this morning.  Video after the jump.

KING JAMES, SLOWLY BECOMING ONE OF MY FAVORITES

So how long until this is made into a GIF?  Too long.

Love it.

-thoy

THE NHL IS BACK. ALL IS GOOD- TWINS, DISH NETWORK ARE NOT

Greetings on a lovely Sunday evening in October from beautiful Minnesota (as always).

Apologies for the lack of updates. A lot has happened in the world of hockey directly effecting this blog since I last checked in. The biggest nuisance I have had to deal with is this garbage that my television provider, dish network, has laid on me and the rest of its nations subscribers. We lost FX, National Geographic Channel, and Fox Sports North if you didn't hear about the mess they created. Practically unannounced I might add. I was unaware of these channels contracts ending with Dish until watching an episode of Terriers late when messages from GetWhatIPaidFor.com started scrolling on the bottom of my screen informing me that I was losing these channels in basically 24 hours...Well thats just great. So not only did I lose all Minnesota sporting events not named the Vikings but the awesomeness that is FX dramas and comedies. Total blow to my tv whoring.

This news put a halt on some of the ideas I was working on for the blog. I did a dry run of a running diary during one of the Wild's exhibition games that was televised on channel 45. When I was done I was kind of dejected because I didn't know when I would actually be able to view a game next. A coworker poked fun at me by saying that this is what I wished for, not having to listen to Dan Terhaar anymore. Total cop out. 

There is the bright spot that I have the Center Ice package. Does this mean that I will be able to watch the Wild feeds from their available channels? I have no idea and neither do any of the customer service representatives at Dish Network. So it remains to be seen whether or not I will be able to view Minnesota Wild games. That question will be answered when the Wild resume play on Thursday and have their first Fox Sports North telecast. So I guess I'll just have to wait and see...

End of rant.

Regardless of this shit, the NHL returned to my life this past Thursday and I couldn't be more elated. After watching the Twins do what they do best, lose to the Yankees, my mood wasn't altered Wednesday night because it was NHL season eve. That and my mens league team had yet another dominating win that evening. After hearing about the Twins lose Thursday night (Adult kickball holds priority to watching an intimidated mlb team) I couldn't care less because I had the Wild-Hurricanes game from Finland to watch later. Than the Twins lost again Saturday night and I was as happy as I get because I just had watched the Tampa Bay Lightning look awesome in their opener vs Atlanta. When I got home late Saturday night/Sunday morning I opened up facebook and was welcomed to a mountain of status updates from fed up and angry Twins fans. It made me think that maybe I should be a little upset too. I guess I'm just lucky the start of the NHL season and the Twins losing to the Yankees in the ALDS seem to happen the same week year after year.

AAAhh us Minnesota fans. So tired of mediocre finishes. Here is to hoping the Vikings win Monday night and Randy Moss scores 4 touchdowns and Brett Favre dick pictures don't get mentioned too many times. I wish I could say we have the Wild to look forward to this season but that would be almost as bad as the Twins fans that were lying to themselves before the Yankees series saying "it's different this year, we're going to do it!." The Wild didn't look too hot while in Finland. My biggest concern with the team is that they have been trying to transition to this offensive style of play the past season into this one with a complete lack of team speed and quickness. I watched portions of multiple games over the weekend and bottom feeder teams from a year ago had a jump and get up to them that made Minnesota look like a team from the mid 90's trap oriented NHL. Even our skill players don't have explosiveness to them that allows them to penetrate the neutral zone and create rapid offense. Mikko Koivu is great and can create space but he usually opts to pass or fire a long shot once he gets that space. Havlatt gets the most clear cut chances with his speed but he usually duffs his opportunities as he proved twice in late game situations in their second game in Finland. Not to mention his terrible shootout attempts last year that caused him to start hiding when the Wild were ever involved. Makes me wonder what ever happened to this Martin Havlatt!

The team needs more speed. Which doesn't make sense why they sent Casey Wellman down to the AHL. Michael Russo tries to explain:

"The theory is, why have extra guys eating up salary-cap space if there's no games or they're not playing? As for Wellman, he's not going to be sticking on the Wild if he's only going to be getting nine shifts like he did Friday or scratched like he was Thursday. I think he could help, personally, but the Wild wants him to play and play a lot -- in key situations."

http://www.startribune.com/sports/wild/blogs/104649324.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUBP7h_47cQiU47cQU17cQ_bDaEP7U

This makes sense considering that since the '07-'08 season they have had an example of why playing young inexperienced players on 4th lines on a inconsistent basis doesn't work so well in the NHL. cough...James Sheppard...cough. dud. However, with no speed or quickness on the roster for the immediate future must only mean one thing- when Pierre Marc Bouchard returns to the lineup within the next couple weeks we will learn that he has missed two years because he was undergoing some Tony Stark like engineered surgery where he is super fast, super creative, super strong, and super indestructible. Looking forward to it.

MORE FUN AND EXCITING STUFF AFTER THE JUMP