Mindless Thoughts

Sorry but if you want detailed whatever about the Ranger/Penguin series then spare yourself and stop reading now. So many different thoughts are flowing in and about that this simply will not have no journalistic ebb or flow.

In other words ramble on is the key word today as we get ready for Game 3. This is of course our house and we make the rules so deal with it.

How sad it is really is when you look over the web and can not decide which is more pathetic seeing Penguin fans trolling Ranger fan sites and reporter blogs or Ranger fans with their finger pointing? At least Ranger fans can spell along with using better grammar form and style.

That does not take away from some of the nonsense Ranger fans have been spewing since the end of Game 2.

Some favorites: Mike Keenan would out coach Tom Renney. Hello but other than 1994 what has Mike Keenan done besides destroy every franchise dumb enough to let him be a general manager?

Can we give credit to where credit was due once and for all for 1994? Give it to the players who won the playoffs while their coach was already job hunting even as the playoffs were on going.

You want to give real credit then give it to Bob Gutowski who got Neil Smith and Mike Keenan to stop their feuding and work together. Give it to Mike Richter and Brian Leetch who played their hearts out.

But do not think that it was Keenan because the players won in spite of him not for him.

Another one: Jagr has been ineffective.

Put the crack pipe down and open the yellow pages to the community mental health pages and dial one of the numbers. Jagr had 2 assists in game one so the bigger question is does he have to score goals along with assists in every game in order to be viewed as effective?

Sorry folks but Jagr actually has been playing his best hockey of the year over the last month so please get real and off his back.

Still more: Get Hollweg and Orr back in the lineup to give the Rangers a physical presence. Can I ask why?

Now had people questioned why Hollweg was taken out of the lineup after the Devil series in the first place we would have agreed. That is a decision we still scratch our heads over.

If anyone needs to take a seat we have to say it is Brendan Shanahan who is more than a step slower and his shot timing is not there.

This one really made no sense: Bench Nigel Dawes because he has been invisible.

Uh huh sure let us break up the only 2 guys who have been effective on the forecheck in Callahan and Dawes. It seems so long ago that those same people were having hissy fits demanding that Dawes be recalled from Hartford.

And we can not forget that one single poster over at the Blueshirt Bulletin who for reasons that escape us wants Freddie Sjostrom benched. It is like a broken record with this poster and the only thing we can think it is has to be that he misses Marcel Hossa that badly.

Here is what we are not seeing people talking about:

Jagr calling out a fellow player on the ice as he did Crosby in Game 2. Hello Commissioner Bettman when you have Hall of Fame bound players in front of the world questioning the ethical play of the player you want the NHL to be marketed about then you got a serious problem.

Sidney Crosby is a truly talented player who has a skill set that even some of the very best in the NHL are no where near matching. That he taints himself with the antics of diving only hurts himself and the game.

The worst possible nightmare for the NHL would be for the Stanley Cup to be decided on a call that may or may not have been a dive. It would seriously damage the sport to where the NHL would be lower than even wrestling in credibility.

How come the NHL which had over a week to work on the ice conditions at the Mellon Arena yet could not prevent the ice from being so poor? Really it is not like we are talking about an arena that is hosting a circus during the day and then a hockey game at night or several events during the week.

When people are saying that the ice at Madison Square Garden is of better quality then that sounds so scary. There is no excuse at all for the NHL who knew the Penguins were going to host the second round to have not come in until after game 1 to work with the folks at Mellon Arena on the ice conditions.

What happens if the Penguins move on? The weather will get warmer as the days on the calendar are turned. Fix it before a player Ranger or Penguin steps into a rut and tears an ACL. Poor ice has caused many a career to be ended.

And to end this on this note: Here is the real difference between Ranger fans and Pittsburgh Penguin fans:

You do not see Ranger fans resorting to dressing alike, waving a towels or needing some kind of cheap gimmick to show their support.

We really wish that those who run VS or TSN or the CBC would simply open up their telecast with just the audio, with the camera panning the arena and showing what real support is actually like. Show the good old decibel meter with the noise level in triple digits during pregame warm ups.

We also have some advice to Penguin fans who have repeatedly trolled Ranger fan sites, Ranger reporters blogs or any message board for Ranger fans. Do not and we repeat DO NOT give Ranger fans a reason to come together, your best hope is to let sleeping dogs lie.

Ranger fans have been too busy fighting each other but push just so far and you will discover to that Ranger fans will forget their own differences and you will truly regret it.

This series has not even gotten warmed up yet and the last thing one would be dumb enough to do is take on an entire fan nation. Google the Ranger then the Penguins and just in sheer numbers you could be looking at the fans version of Custer's Last Stand.

Then again Penguins are not the brightest of fans so oh well find out why New Yorkers are not ones to tick off.