With the 2-1 defeat of the Calgary Flames, the San Jose Sharks have officially clinched the Pacific Division, a 1 or 2 seed in the playoffs, and have eliminated the Calgary Flames from contention! WOOOO! Mighty fine work for one night.

But the two games left aren’t meaningless – we want another Western Conference Regular Season Champions banner, darn it! (Well, some do). Technically, that’s out of our hands, as Chicago wins the tiebreaker and has a game in hand, IIRC. Yeah, in the grand scheme of things, those banners don’t matter compared to that one other one. But darn it, I don’t want to face Detroit, and I want to do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening.

So, yeah. Happy times.

Wait, last night was a joke, right? Right?

Oh, and I swear, the Sharks are the only team that gets bandwagoners only when they’re doing bad. Things going normal, they’re winning games, and it’s just the regulars. Sharks lose 8-2, and BOOM! Dozens of people come out the cracks just to piss and moan, using phrases such as “choke,” “no heart,” and “lose in the playoffs.” Same thing happened last year during the Anaheim series. If the Sharks actually win the Stanley Cup, will they lose fans?

By the way, the Gamecenter standings will be put on indefinite hiatus because of a long story that ends with my subscription accidentally being canceled. Anyone who wants to keep up with them, or do them for their own team and send them to me, be my guest.

On March 5, 2010, around 1:50 into the third period, Scott Nichol received a pass from Torrey Mitchell, rang it off the post, and then continued on his way, trying to set up for another chance. In no way was he endangering any Canadiens player, attempting anything cheap, or really doing anything except for trying to score a goal. Maxim Lapierre, following Nichol, slashed him, and then cross-checked him from behind. Nichol flew full-speed into the boards, hitting his shoulder, and crumpled onto the ice. He laid there for a while, his legs twitching (yes, twitching) in pain. When he got up to say some things I am sure are not suitable for a family atmosphere, he was holding his arm close to his chest, trying to keep his shoulder in place. He did not return for the rest of the game, and is now expected to be out for 7-10 days (in Sharks-speak, that’s usually 2-3 weeks at the very least).

Lapierre got no penalty, no beat-down from any of the Sharks players, nothing. The only penalties that arose were from the scrum afterwards, to Jay Leach and Travis Moen. Lapierre was actually smiling after it, if you can believe it.

Now, I admit, I’m incredibly biased. Nichol plays for the Sharks, and Lapierre doesn’t. But really, if Nichol didn’t twist his body so that he’d only end up with a shoulder injury, it would have been his head crashing into the boards, and his neck absorbing that force. There was a very real possibility that he could have been paralyzed or worse.

I can go on about how I think that’s a dirty cheapshot and something that should be completely removed from the game, as well as Chris Lee’s complete inability to see something so completely obvious 15 feet away, but that’s been dealt with. People have talked about it already and a 4-game suspension has been doled out.

The thing that gets me, the thing that really pisses me off, is the insistence by some fans – largely Montreal fans, but some other ones as well – that Nichol deserved it because of all the cheap shots that he has thrown throughout his career.

In short, to some, Maxim Lapierre has become Bernie Goetz.

They feel that the violent actions of one can be justified if the victim has committed crimes in the past, and could possibly commit crimes in the future. They feel that by physically hurting Nichol and keeping him out of the game for weeks will improve the NHL, and that Lapierre should not be indicted because he was doing a public service, or because it “would take 10 more of Lapierre’s hits to make up for all of Nichol’s cheapshots.” People are wishing injury on Nichol, and that’s just wrong.

Has the situation gotten so bad in the NHL that some fans are wishing for more dangerous hits like that on borderline-dirty players? Has it gotten to the point where fans no longer trust the referees and the NHL’s supplementary discipline, just like how New Yorkers had completely lost faith in their police force? The entire Sharks-Canadiens game was an example of a game that got completely out of hand, where cheap-shots were being doled out like AOL CDs back in the lates 1990s, but that’s just a rare occurance, right? I’d like to think so, but the reaction to the game and the hit itself is worrying.

There are jokes about Colin Campbell’s Wheel of Justice and, of course, DGB’s famous suspension chart. The thing that worries me is that the jokes are true. People were wondering if Lapierre would even get a suspension, which, for an obviously dirty play such as that (disregarding any outside factors such as the perpetrator, the victim, and how the rest of the game was going, it was unquestionably dirty), should not even be a question. And then add to that how people were commenting how it was a good thing – have I been transported back to the early 80s?

I like the hits and the fights that make up good, physical hockey. Douglas Murray of the Sharks is one of my favorite players, and is well-known for his ability to dish out huge and completely legal hits. Fighting to settle scores without resorting to cheap shots is, in my opinion, the best way to administer justice so that the players can feel satisfied. David Booth did it with Mike Richards, and for all intents and purposes, the score from Richards’s headshot has been settled. I am not advocating to take out the physical play of hockey – I just don’t want the players and the fans to feel like the only way to dole out justice is by cheapshots on players. I don’t want Lapierre, or any other player, to be Bernie Goetz.

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the famous “Miracle on Ice” game. If you have no idea what that was, I first wonder why you’re browsing this particular hockey blog, and then I suggest you go rent/download/buy the movie Miracle. I myself am going to watch it for the 18,483rd time tonight.

I’ve posted stuff for the Miracle on Ice in the past – here is an essay I wrote for a college app once upon a time that examined the political and social implications of the game, here are wallpapers that I posted yesterday, and here are two banners from way back when.

What makes this anniversary so great and prominent, besides the fact that it’s the 30th, is because of an event that happened last night. It was a big event unto itself, no matter what the outcome: the Canada and USA men’s hockey teams were battling it out in the Olympics. Not in a medal game or an elimination round, but just the preliminaries that serve only to establish seeding. Basically, a meaningless game. But Canada was expected to win, and win big – and they didn’t. The US pulled out a 5-3 win on the back of two Brian Rafalski goals and some stellar Ryan Miller goaltending.

That was the celebration after an empty-net goal. No, seriously.

Second-most viewed hockey game in the US since the Miracle on Ice, and second only to the US-Canada gold medal game back in 2002. Pretty impressive, considering it was on MSNBC, which a lot of people don’t even get. Something like 30% of Canada watched it.

But really, this post wasn’t meant to be about last night’s game. As Brian Burke said (and I’m paraphrasing here), “You don’t win any medals from being first in the preliminaries.” Next Sunday is the gold medal game. It is only possible for one of Canada, Russia, and Sweden (the three favorites going into the Olympics) to play in it. This is going to be fun.

The 30th anniversary of the famous “Miracle on Ice” is on Monday, and so in honor of the anniversary, I made two wallpapers to commemorate the famous team. I’ve only made one resolution, but if you want a smaller resolution I’ll be happy to do so.

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When, in the course of television broadcasting, it becomes necessary for the target audience of 18-49 year olds to alter their television habits which have connected them with a network, and to assume among the powers of the remote, the wide array of other networks that their cable or satellite subscription entitles them, a decent respect to the network requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the boycott.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all time zones are created equal, that people are endowed by their viewership with certain unalienable rights, that among these are live, quality, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Neilson ratings are instituted among networks, deriving their just powers from the television viewers. That whenever any network becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the viewers to complain or boycott it, and to switch to a different network, giving them the viewers and therefore the advertising revenue. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that networks long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown that viewers are more disposed to suffer, while bad programming is sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, making the viewer pissed off, it is their right, it is their duty, to boycott such network, and to watch illegal streams and torrents of their programming. Such has been the patient sufferance of these viewers; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former viewing habits. The history of NBC is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over their viewers. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

They have refused to air the Olympic Opening Ceremonies live on the West Coast, despite the host city being in the same timezone, instead tape delaying the Ceremonies for three hours and allowing Them to be already posted on Youtube before those in the Pacific time zone could watch Them on television.

They have refused to air the Olympic events live on the West Coast, a practice that has not allowed the results of the events be a surprise.

They have aired the Michael Phelps races three hours later for West Coast back in 2008, despite the tape-delay making the races begin at 11pm or midnight instead of 8-9pm, which is a much more reasonable hour as well as being live.

They have ignored the effects of the internet on tape-delayed programming.

They have chosen to air the most anticipated of the men’s hockey group play games and one of the most anticipated non-medal event in the Olympics period, the game between Canada and the United States, on MSNBC and ice dancing on NBC.

They have repeatedly aired the footage of a man dying with little to no warning to the viewers.

They have chosen to have Boston and Philadelphia play each other in the Winter Classic, two teams that have little rivalry history, and who would be much better suited to play other teams.

They have decided to deny the Washington Captials in the Winter Classic, citing that the team would not attract good enough ratings, despite having one of the league’s most dynamic stars in Alexander Ovechkin.

They have refused to broadcast any Western Conference team other than the Detroit Red Wings or Chicago Blackhawks despite the West being an overall better conference over the past few seasons.

They have removed original scripted programming to install a fourth talk show in their nightly lineup.

They have broken Conan O’Brien’s contract just seven months into its term in order to reinstall Jay Leno to the Tonight Show despite Mr. Leno’s new talk show’s dismal ratings.

They have removed all of Mr. O’Brien’s Late Night video clips from Hulu and various other internet video websites.

They have strictly controlled all posting of their content on the internet and have not allowed a vast majority of it to be available to a viewer under any circumstances.

In every stage of these errors we have petitioned for change: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated mistakes. A network, whose identity is thus marked by every act which may define a wildly incompetent organization, is unfit to be a top network.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our fellow east coast viewers. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by the network to extend their sub-par and tape-delayed productions onto us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of their exclusive contracts with events and programs. We have appealed to their logic and sense of fairness, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common network availability to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our favorite programs. They too have been deaf to the voice of fairness and common sense. We must, therefore, refuse to watch their network.

We, therefore, the viewers of the United States of America, from our computers, appealing to the common sense of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people suffering through the programming decisions, solemly publish and declare, that these united viewers are, and of right ought to not suffer through inept decisions; that they are no longer confined to viewing the network for certain programming, and that all exclusive Olympic and NHL contracts between them and the governing bodies, ought to be totally dissolved. And for the support of this declaration we mutually pledge to each other our opinions, our rights, and our sacred honor.