Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Wednesday Tidbits from the Webosphere and Twitterverse

The Preds played well but lost a tough one last night. We're in eighth place after Anaheim beat Edmonton in a late game. St Louis, who is a point behind us, and has a game in hand, plays tonight at Chicago and tomorrow night at Detroit with a chance to pass us before we play at Chicago Friday night. Anaheim plays at Vancouver and San Jose visits the slumping Oilers on Thursday in games that can affect our placement in the top eight.

SportsClubStats places us at a 49.4% chance of making the playoffs as we sit on April Fools Day (no joke). Obviously, if we win our last five, we're in. With 4-1 we have a 99.5% chance, 3-2 drops to 86.4%, and beyond that it get's bleaker and bleaker.

The Landlord - Scott Laughlin of XM 204's Hockey This Morning show had a great interview with fan favorite Joel Ward. You can listen to it on the net here. Who could ever have imagined what an impact Joel would have before the season began. I recently had a poster from Houston add the following tidbit "I'm so glad you guys are enjoying what Wardo brings up there (and so happy that he's getting to show his stuff in the NHL). He was a great guy down here in Houston, well-liked, never met a microphone he didn't want to talk into, so we heard a LOT from him. :) You know his self-imposed nickname down here was The Landlord because he was constantly winning bets and getting the guys' per diem. :D" Who would have know that about the big guy! Thanks to Ms Conduct for that inside information. I'll have to ask Joel about that.

Sean Leahy took exception to my comment on twitter last night that Sully was a lock for the Masterton Award this year, responding "@PredsOnTheGlass Richard Zednik would like to speak with you :-)" I freely admit that Zenick had a much more life threatening injury and it was a miracle that he lived long enough to leave the ice and get initial treatment (wouldn't have happened in the KHL). However, no one can top Sully on the "perseverance" aspect of the required qualities. Twenty-three months is a long time to work to get back on the ice.

Good updates all around from the local non-MSM including Paul McCann, Mark at View from 111, Forechecker, Brandon Felder, Rachel at What the Puck, and Codey at Section 303. I love reading all the different takes from the passionate writers we are blessed with that follow the Preds.

MSM man John Glennon, who had his wings clipped by the honchos at the Tennessean, delivers the good news at Inside Predators that Arnott may practice some on Thursday and that Antti's injury is "day to day" instead of long term. Also, Jed Ortmeyer may be recalled and that Jones and Belak are still questionable for the weekend. Thanks John, you get the POTG version of the Masterson for perseverance and dedication to the sport of hockey for your efforts under trying circumstances at the Tennessean.

Both Forechecker and Mark at 111 discuss the Channel 5 news story on Trace Kimler, a 13 yr old with Ewing's Sarcoma, that the Preds have befriended. The family's personal Blog is here. As Mark say's, (the news about Trace) "was a slap in my face that brought me back to the reality of what is really important".

Another little known fact in Predators circles is that there is a guy in Franklin named R___ P____ (not sure if he is public with his name) who's blog is the Red Light District. He is is a partial Predator's season ticket holder and writes under the pen name of The Hockey God. He has an incredible web site that covers the whole world of hockey with a daily preview of every NHL game as well as interesting stats and well researched information about all things hockey. If you don't have his site in your Google Reader, he is a must addition. He also contributes to Chris Wassel's The Program
(another must add). I'm hoping to have R___ on POTG Radio as a guest next Monday night or soon thereafter.

Self Promotion - Our stuff is now being "syndicated" to another outlet, Fellowship of Hockey, which is brought to you by the creators of HabsCast. One of our main goals at POTG is to provide original content to other sites that have no Preds coverage so that the rest of the North American hockey world will see that we actually do have fans and writers that care about hockey in our non-traditional market.

That's it for now. More updates later as the news breaks.

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass

Post Lunch Addition - Mule Train Arrives in Columbia!


Not an April Fool Item

Just so that the long time stereotype that we are a bunch of unsophisticated hillbillies here in Tennessee won't be allowed to die, the Mule Day Wagon Train arrived in town this afternoon causing traffic to stop and almost making me be late getting back to work after lunch. Thank you Mule Day for perpetuating stereotypes so that they will never die! Unfortunately, the only April Fool story here is that 100,000 people will come here to see it over the weekend.

Hillbilly Stereotype Part II - In HockeyBuzz's Julie Robenhymer's blog about the Columbus - Nashville game last night that she and Ek attended, she reports "
Every now and then the video board would highlight ways to know if you're a Nashville fan (think Jeff Foxworthy)". We do it to ourselves.

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