You’ve got to be thought about to be talked about.

It’s a line my mom always said to me as a kid and it’s something that I thought about this morning while doing some of my Ducks reading.

I came across a few polls on Yahoo! Sports asking fans who their least favorite teams are. Any idea which teams came up quite often? That’s right, the Ducks, the Red Wings and a few other high profile teams. It seems that the more I read about the Ducks, the more I read from Ducks haters. It used to bother me at first, mostly because I’ve never understood bashing other teams. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got about 3…or 5…maybe more like 10 teams in the league that I don’t particularly like either, but I’m not about to bash on their success or failures. Hockey probably wouldn’t be as exciting without those teams in the first place. However, on the same note…I bet if you were to ask the same people who “hate” the Ducks which teams they think are likely to be a Cup contender…I bet the Ducks are on that list as well. Of course the Ducks are constantly going to be mentioned, even after the rough start, this is a GREAT team…you’ve got to be thought about to be talked about, right? Trust me, there is no one out there talking about the Kings (yea okay…I had to do it).

My dad’s philosophy on the whole “hate” thing is this…if you’re going to put that much passion and energy into hating someone or something so much, you must really love them. Well, maybe love is a bit strong here…but I think you get the point.

On the same note…I came across a lot of talk about a hit Chris Pronger put on Pavel Datsyuk during Wednesday’s game. Check out The Two-Line Pass.
Now, I haven’t seen a replay of the hit (the computer I’m currently working on won’t allow me to access it) so I don’t have much in terms to say of the whole thing and really for the most part I don’t even want to get into it. I did notice that it seems to be a battle of...elbow or no elbow...interference? Penalty? Or just dirty 'ole Pronger. So I guess...check out the video, and be your own ref for this one.

I do stand by this though, and have in the past...
Chris Pronger is 6’6’’...SURPRISE...his shoulder is going to meet heads no matter what! Move on.

Tonight the Ducks and the Vancouver Canucks are meeting for the first time in the regular season. You can file those Canucks under the 10 or 15…maybe 20 or so teams in the league that I don’t particularly care for (yea I noticed that number seems to be getting larger too). I’m not going to pretend that I’m good on predicting “match-ups” so I wont. Instead, I’ll let the good folks at the OC Register do it for me. Here’s a something showing how the teams are looking right now.

Goals per game:
Ducks 3
Canucks 3.11
Goals against average:
Ducks 3.18
Canucks 3.22
Power Play:
Ducks 18.2%
Canucks 16.7%
Penalty Killing:
Ducks 81.8%
Canucks 78.6%


And finally...here is one of my FONDEST memories from the 2007 Playoffs!











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