Jason Shaya
(Twitter: @Jason_Shaya)
1) Before the third period of Sunday’s game against Houston, the referee called a penalty on Charlotte because “too many players were skating around the ice before the puck drop.” How did this even become an issue? It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of that being a penalty in addition to actually being called. I was perplexed on the radio trying to figure out why we started the third in the box.
2) Only the West can celebrate a yearly ritual of going door-to-door with an empty bag begging people to give you food. Halloween is society’s enemy.
3) The travel this weekend was awful. Not a single person got enough sleep. But, I give this team full credit considering they took four points in three games. The Sunday game in Houston was hard-fought and the Checkers battled the entire 60 minutes despite exhaustion. There’s not much time to recover, either. The team leaves Charlotte at 6 a.m. on Thursday to do it all over again in three different cities that are nowhere near each other in the order that they play them.
4) Sporting the best hair on the team this season, Matthew Pistilli, scored the game-winning goal on Friday night against OKC with 44 seconds left. It was good to see him rewarded with power-play time within the last minute of a tied game. His first goal of the season proved to be huge for the team. Moments like that can really build confidence.
5) Every single time I think of Milwaukee,
this comes to mind. Something tells me you’re going to hear that about 10 times on Friday night’s broadcast.
6) I heard a really funny story over the weekend by Steve Latin, the head equipment manager of the Checkers. He told me about a young, overly eager locker room attendant in Anaheim and Latin’s request for a bucket of steam. I still laugh at the line when the kid says to Seve, “I can get the steam in the bucket, but I can’t get it to stay in there by the time I get back to the room!”
7) There are three people that changed the way I view the world: St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine of Hippo and economist Thomas Sowell. My suggested reading of the latter is Applied Economics and Vision of the Annointed. Sowell is interviewed on the greatest thing the internet has going: “Uncommon Knowledge.” Sowell is 81 years old now and William Buckley described him as, “A scholar who has devoted his labors to looking behind the clichés of abjection.” And no one has ever done it better.
8) No goalie should play three games in three nights with tough travel where it is avoidable. He looked off on Sunday after putting together two excellent performances every single game this season. That being said, the Checkers could’ve won Sunday’s game and it wasn’t Michael’s fault by any means.
9) On Sunday, my uncle did the “Scores Around the League” segment for the radio show in both the first and second intermissions. Someone said on twitter that he "spoke with a smile,” which was exactly the case. The segment has never been more interesting than hearing it from a man with an Iraqi accent. That got me a free dinner after the game!
10) Radio broadcasts this weekend are as follows:
Friday at Milwaukee 610AM WFNZ - 7:45 p.m.
Saturday at Grand Rapids 610AM WFNZ - 6:45 p.m.
Sunday at Rockford 1660AM WBCN - 5:50 p.m.
11) Joe Thornton’s words after losing 5-2 to the Rangers last night, “They were probably the softest team we played on the trip. We should have had these two points.” Soft? Look who’s talking! Is he going to chirp the next team they lose to for “not showing up when it matters”?
12) Just as the Checkers head to play Grand Rapids on Saturday, the Griffins lose their top player, forward Gustav Nyquist, to a slumping Detroit Red Wings team looking for offense. Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Dan Cleary, Nick Lidstrom, Todd Bertuzzi, Johan Franzen and more, yet, they forgot how to score, amongst other things.
13) Twitter.com/Jason_Shaya is where to follow me on Twitter. I’m not very good at remembering that I’m on there or what to even write, but I think I hit a homerun with my tweet last Friday.
