Av Mercy

After their 4-3 overtime victory over the Rangers, the Colorado Avalanche said all the right things about how to replace injured comrades Joe Sakic and Ryan Smyth. "You can't," said Wojtek Wolski. "You don't," replied Scott Hannan. "But... you did," said the scoreboard. I mean, Wolski himself scored the winning goal in overtime, along with an assist. He was replaced, if for this night. Just say it. No one will be mad.

That's All For Weather, And Now Sports — Sometimes I wonder if some Calgarians go to Flames games on a purely subliminal thought process. "Oh my, it's cold out there. My gosh, 15 below Celsius. Oh hey look, the Flames are in town! That should be a good game. Let's go there." If that's the case, shame on Dallas for ruining their trip to the Flames game by winning 3-2 in overtime. After all, it's in the 50s in Texas. Hasn't Alberta suffered enough?

Fucht The Hecht — The phrase "home-and-home series?" Totally misleading. If, say, Buffalo is playing a home-and-home against the Philadelphia Flyers, for example, I'm imagining two straight games in Buffalo. If they played one in Buffalo and one in Philly, I'm thinking "home-and-away series." (Irregardless of nothing, earlier this morning I had a near miss involving my plastic glass, because I forgot to unthaw it.) The Sabres ruined the return of prodigal hockey players Martin Biron and Daniel Briere, winning 3-2 thanks to Jochen Hecht scoring the go-ahead goal with a few minutes left in the third. They play the Flyers again tonight to complete the home-and-away series.

Oil Can't — Said Devils captain John Madden of their 3-1 win over the Edmonton Oilers, "There is a real fine line between winning and losing." Indeed, and we call that a tie. Madden's empty netter wrapped up a rather close game throughout. Wrap ... oh, dammit, I didn't wrap my gifts yet. I don't have any wrapping paper. Maybe if I empty my bag of potato chips and turn it inside out... it'd be shiny. They wouldn't suspect a thing.