By now, I'm assuming you've all seen the big news that we are the only blog to be a part of the Mondesi's House Dream Team...we'll be doing a weekly top 10 list, starting on Monday.
This is huge for us an PNA, finally taking us up a rung on the blogosphere ladder. We've busted our humps for the past 3 months, for you, the reader, and we really hope you enjoy our new digs over at Mondesi's.
As for last night, the Pens won their 8th in a row 4-1 over the Lightning. Jordan Staal finally pulled his head outta his you know what and scored two goals, which nearly doubled his season output. I hope this finally gets him off his slide, we could definitely use some offense from him during the final few months...
Ty Conklin had another outstanding game, and for once, it seems like the Pens are running on all cylanders. We're looking good in the standings are are on quite a roll...Let's keep it going boys.
PS - More news about your boy Snack writing for another HUGE blog will be delievered shortly...And make sure you look at the comments on Mondesi's House and defend our honor against that jagoff who called us "giant douchebags"...what an ass, we never even wrote an article for that site and already the trash talk begins...
Pitt won last night against South Florida. It was their first Big East win and a real confidence booster after losing two recent games to ranked teams. Without Cook and Fields, Pitt is going to have to fight and claw their way every victory, and they did just that last night.
From my perch at the bar, I noticed Keith Benjamin having another stellar game, matching a career high in points with 20. My man averages over 18 points per since he entered the starting lineup. I have to admit, I was never a big fan of his, but he's been surprising me thus far and I hope he keeps on playing the same way.
One thing the boys have to watch out for is foul trouble. Blair and Young each had 2 first half fouls, and with our rotation being so crippled, we need those two on the court. It seems to be a big problem for Blair, but hopefully he'll learn as the year goes on, and I'm assuming the physical play allowed in Big East games will work to his advantage.
Let it never be said that I don't support our local Duquesne Dukes, as they won last night too, beating Fordham in their Atlantic 10 opener. I don't really know much about these guys, so I'll point you towards Dukes Court, a full time Duquesne blog that has really barnstormed the Pittsburgh blogging scene. He'll have all the numbers your little hearts could desire and will probably have a better recap then my 4 sentences here.
As for the rest of college basketball, last night, we saw a play at the bar that made all of our jaws drop, and, sure enough, it looks even better today -
Yea, I know, I hate UNC too, but did you see that crazy bastard Hansbrough dunking on a seven foot seven monster? That big SOB was dunking the ball without even jumping. Diego's first reaction was "damn, I guess white men can jump."
Why the hell he would let a scrawny guy like that emabarass him is beyond me. I would have at least taken his legs out or given him a CYO sucker punch or something...
Note from Snack - Ference is a little punk who got his face beat in by a superstar who's never had to fight before in his life. He claims he's a physical player, but all I hear is him calling Crosby soft (aka the guy who embarassed you on national TV). Big Georges, I think it's time you teach this 5-10 Canadian a lesson. Show him he can't run his mouth and call out the best player in the league just because he happened to be the first unlucky victim of Sid "the Slasher" Crosby. In closing, go to hell Ference, score a goal sometime this season then call me, jagoff.
Nice recap of the Pens game by the big guy… Good to see the Pens keeping the streak alive down in Florida, where they usually play like crap sandwiches. Ty Conklin almost recorded another shut out last night, and even though he let one in he still played a helluva game. Crosby also looked unreal, and how about that big Georges, Hall, and Taffe line? I like them a lot, and there seems to be a lot of chemistry between those guys.
As far as the Panthers go, they look like a team in shambles and they can’t even fill their arena with a two ticket, free parking, and free food and drink deal for $50 bucks and that is sad… Hey, why don’t the Buccos offer a deal like that? Oh that’s right it’s because they can draw a sell out crowd simply by offering a crappy made in China bobble head. Man we suck and man am I not looking forward to another baseball season filled with false hope and disappointment! I refuse to let myself get caught up in the Buccos spring “hype” trap that seems to get me every year…
I hate NBA Basketball, but Gilbert Arenas’ blog on NBA.com is worth checking out, besides agent zero is the man.
Finally, check out my boy Basick Sickness he’s a hip hopper/rocker/entrepreneur who used to run the open mic hip hop night over at Hkan in the Southside. He has a new CD dropping real soon so be sure to be on the look out and make sure you cop it, it’s cosigned by Pierogisnat.com...
Until lata...
PS - That big news I was talking about is set to hit the blogosphere tomorrow, so be sure to check in with us and find out what all the hoopla's about. And there is some more bigtime news in the works, but it's totally in the planning stages right now, so I'll let you know more on that as it happens...
The Pens beat the Panthers 3-1 Tuesday night in front of a much-lower-then-capacity crowd in Florida.
The goals were scored by Petr Sykora, Sid the Kid and Big Georges, and all of them came in the second period during a three minute and six second tear. To be honest, we probably should have won 6-1, that's how good our offense has been playing. We've been looking like the Pens of old during our seven game win streak (our longest in almost a decade), and even our defensemen have been getting in on the action.
I actually saw a play today where we had a breakout from our end and who was out there leading the rush, Sid the Kid, Geno Malkin, Ryan Malone? Nope, it was Brooks Orpik. The same Brooks Orpik who hasn't scored a goal in something like 2 seasons. You know you're playing with confidence when a player like him is leading the charge to the net.
Sid's goal was a thing of beauty too. He split two defensemen and then wristed one right past the goalie, a move that, as Bob Errey said, only a handful of people can actually pull off. God bless the fact that two of the maybe four or five people who can currently reside on the Pens team, and don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.
And what can I say about Ty Conklin that every major media outlet hasn't already? He's playing some incredible hockey, and would have had his second shutout in a row if it wasn't for a late goal that trickled through his pads. He's won all 8 of his starts this season, and I swear to God, if he's still playing like this and Therrien yanks him to put Fluery in (when he returns), I will go down and beat some sense into that no good Frenchmen.
Three Stars
Third Star - Geno Malkin
Second Star - Ty Conklin
First Star - Sidney Crosby
Notes - The All-Star starters were announced today, and as expected, Sid the Kid led the league in votes. Surprisingly, veteran Niklas Lindstrom crept to within 30,000 votes of Crosby to lead the West All-Stars in votes. This will be Crosby's second All-Star game, and look for fellow Penguins Geno Malkin and at least Sergei Gonchar and possibly Ryan Whitney to make the squad as bench players.
What a weekend folks… what a weekend… no beating around the bush today I am just going to get right down to it…
I’d really like to write a recap of the Steelers game for you, but my tailgate party started at about 3 in the afternoon, and even though we lost, the party didn’t stop until 3 in the morning. Needless to say my memory of details of the game isn’t all that great. Therefore I will just talk about/recap the things I do actually remember and also the things that I’ve heard the most bitching about over the last 24 hours.
The first drive for the Lers started off so promising as we drove the ball down the field and scored a TD to open the game. So far so good, everyone is happy, and everyone is fired up, I couldn’t think of a better way to start the game off. Now it was time to kick off and as everyone who’s seen a Steelers game this season knows, kicking off is crapshoot and this time the Steelers crapped out. Maurice Jones Drew took the kickoff 96 yards to the 1 yard line and the game was quickly tied at 7. Way to go special teams coach (I don’t even know what your name is and I don’t care cuz you will surely be fired within days or weeks) Why wouldn’t you use the same type of high short kick that worked against the Jets? Jagoff...
The rest of the first half was a struggle for the Lers to say the least. The Jags D-line made the Steelers run game almost non-existent as they were just working our offensive line over, constantly pushing them backwards. Due to the fact that Dookie Davenport was struggling to find any room, Big Ben was forced to take the game into his own hands. Ben was forced to throw for most of the half, which ultimately led to 3 costly interceptions. Rashean Mathis picked Ben twice, returning one for over 60 yards and a touchdown. That INT hurt, but the one that proved to hurt the worst was the one Ben threw right before halftime, while the Steelers were in position to kick a FG before the clock hit zero in the half.
The third quarter came and went and the Steelers fell even deeper into the hole starting the 4th quarter down 18 points. At this point a lot of people were probably counting the Steelers out, but Big Ben provided some of his best play of the night while under tremendous pressure. Ben led two touchdown drives within a 5 minute period, throwing TDs to Santonio and Heath, and bringing the Lers to within 5 points of the Jags, after missing a 2 point conversion on the 2nd TD.
Now it was finally starting to get interesting. After being behind for a good majority of the game, the Steelers were back within one TD of taking the lead. The Steelers got some help from Gararrd as he threw his second pick of the night to Ike Taylor, who returned it to the 16-yard line. Shortly afterwards the Steelers scored again on a one yard Dookie TD run. Now the Steelers were up a point and going for 2 to make it a 3-point lead. Arians called a fade play to Hines, which worked, as he snagged the throw with an acrobatic catch in the back of the end zone… but wait what’s this? A yellow hankie on the field, holding on Sean “Turnstyle” Mahan, 10-yard penalty replay the down. Of course the Steelers missed the 2 and were forced to settle for the slim 1-point lead.
After forcing a Jags punt the Steelers held their destiny in their own hands, as all they had to do was run out the clock and the game would be over and we could all party like rockstars. This did not happen. The Steelers faced a 3rd and 6 in their own zone, and instead of calling a pass play to Heath Miller or the sure handed Hines Ward (which woulda ended the game) freakin Arians calls a QB draw…. Yes that’s right a QB draw play, maybe Arians was confused and he saw that #10 was on the field and thought it was Kordell still running the offense. Talk about your all time backfires, we can’t run all day long but Arians calls a run play when we need yards most… it doesn’t make any sense to me either, but I’m pretty sure that coach Wiz woulda had a better play call up his sleeve. (I’m sure he was probably thinking thesame thing as he watched the game from his lazyboy in Arizona)
We all already know what happened next… shitty punt, 3rd and long conversion, 4th down kick in the nuts QB draw run by Gararrd, field goal Scobee, 70 thousand people going home drunk and angry. You can bitch about the holding call on the running play by Gararrd, but whats the point it won’t change anything. I do think its BS you can call a holding on Mahan on the conversion, but you ignore the call against Hampton… such is life though I guess and this year just wasn’t the Steelers year. Good game played by both teams here, and definitely one of the more entertaining games I’ve ever had the pleasure going to see.
Now the question remains, where do we go from here? With an already depleted O-line and Red Beard Faneca almost certainly departing in the offseason, the Steelers will have a lot of challenges to face and questions to answer. Can we really afford to resign Faneca and Big Ben? Can the players stay out of the slammer during the summer time? Will Hines Ward every finally realize that the Locker Room bar in the Southside sucks and cut ties with it? All questions to ponder during this offseason.
Well this weekend sucked if you're a Pittsburgh fan. Just about the only thing that went right was the Pens winning on Saturday 3-0 over the Panthers.
But then everything turned sour. The Steelers lost, dashing our Super Bowl dreams, and on top of that, Pitt had to go ahead and lose to Villanova on Sunday. Thanks for the double kick in the nuts boys. I was hoping for another Pittsburgh Parlay if you will, and instead all I got was a 1-2 record and an ulcer growing in my stomach.
Just to add a little more salt to the wound, they had to tell me Hines is getting his knee chopped and remind me that Alan "Haggar the Horrible" Faneca is probably leaving via free agency. The team is in transition, and Snack does not enjoy change as much as some of my compatriots in the blogging world. At least youngster LaMar Woodley looked good last night, registering 2 sacks and getting in Gerrard's face almost every time he was in.
One more little thing to add about the game, I didn't notice the holding on that 4th and two play in fourth quarter until I saw the replay today. I figured that hole opened up way too much on a middle linebacker blitz, but since I refuse to watch Sportscenter when the Steelers lose, I didn't see the replay until now.
But enough with my ramblings, here's some links to keep ya busy, Diego apparently got a half day or something so knowing him he'll be drinking by noon and may not be able to post until tomorrow...
First and foremost, for those of you who don't own a TV or have been hit in the head with a rock recently, American Gladiators is back on NBC. Last night's premiere was awesome, and the new generation of gladiator is pretty badass. Bar none the best two gladiators are Helga on the women's side (she's as big as Snack and just mauls these poor girls) and for the men, it's Wolf. He's definitely the smallest (and oldest) gladiator, but he wears his hair like Ben Stiller in Dodgeball and is so 80's-riffic that I'm not so sure he wasn't on the original. Throw in the Hulkster as host and you have yourself one helluva show.
For those of you who may not know what American Gladiators is (you damn youngins need to recognize), it's basically a game show where big steriod monkeys beat the ever living snot out of some poor little guy who usually has some kind of sob story. Last night's storylines included the fiesty female Marine, the man who tried out 14 years ago (and they felt the urge to say that about a million times), and a little guy who weighed about 140 lbs. The gladiators talk horrible, horrible trash and then maul these ex-high school athletes. The events include Pyramid, where the "contestant" climbs a foam mountain while these giants await them at the top to throw them 50 feet onto their faces, and the Eliminator, a full on obstacle course that includes climbling the pyramid and SWIMMING UNDER F-ING FIRE!!!
Here's a quick clip from last night, and you'll totally understand what I mean...
The Chargers and Giants won yesterday and not surprisingly, no one around here cares. Neither one of them will make the Super Bowl, and now they're just fodder for the big boys waiting to devour them next round. I'd still rather have Big Ben then Eli or Phil Rivers, as he's proven he's not a soft punk like the two of them. We'll count Super Bowl rings at the end of their careers and see who wins...
Roger Clemens went on 60 Minutes last night to defend himself against these steriod allegations levied against him in the Mitchell Report. He asks for the benfit of the doubt, and I'll give it to him for now, because the only reason this guy fingered him is he was pressured by the federal government to testify. I dunno about you, but I know plenty of people who have cracked under less pressure and just told the feds what they wanted to hear. So we'll see.
A little more Roger news, breaking news on ESPN.com is that Roger Clemens is filing a defamation suit against Brian McNamee, claiming 15 things he said in the report were "untrue and defamatory". Stay tuned boys and girls, things are about to get real ugly.
And finally, with football season over, it's time to focus on our Buccos and Pens again. Check out MLB Trade Rumors and the new Bucco Blog forum if you're a mega dork like me and like talking about trades and free agents with people who actually have an idea what's going on. They're good reads, and it's always good to keep up on your Pittsburgh Ball Club.
Our Pens aren't back in action until tomorrow night, when they take on the Panthers again in the last leg of a home and home series. Hopefully they play as well as they did last go round, and Ty Conklin needs to keep his spectacular goaltending going too.
