Hello Friends:
Two of my nieces and one of my nephews made their First Communion on Saturday. It’s just our luck that the two communions were at the same time, so Tim and I headed to my God Daughter’s FHC in Queens while Tara took our niece and nephew’s in Garden City. Everyone looked great and had a wonderful time.
Thursday is the 4th annual Running for Rebecca at (the park formerly known as) Maurice Park. First of all thank you to all who have donated. As of this writing, we are at $812.20. Math’s not my thing, but that’s 187.80 short of my goal. So if you want to help me get there, here is the link.https://www2.heart.org/site/TR/HeartWalk/FDA-FoundersAffiliate?px=17407286&pg=personal&fr_id=6396
And obviously if you want to participate, it’s 5:15 this coming Thursday. To all who have already committed, I can’t wait to see you.
Onto the week that was…
NHL PLAYOFFS: Rangers send Penguins back to the Igloo (sorry)
I have to be honest, I really thought I’d be writing a much different blog post about this series.
It’s not so much that I didn’t think the Rangers could come back from a 3-1 series deficit, shoot I’ve seen them do it before, to the Penguins as a matter of fact. It’s just that they looked so bad in Games 3 and 4 that I wondered if they had it in them. Those games in Pittsburgh were hard to watch.
But they came home in Game 5 and after going down 2-0, came back to win 5-3. Igor Shesterkin, who had gotten pulled in both Games 3 and 4, seemed to slowly but surely get his mojo back. Then Friday night, they went back to Pittsburgh. With the fans derisively chanting Igor, Igor, and booing Jacob Trouba for his clean hit on Sidney Crosby that cost number 87 most of Game 5 and all of Game 6, they once again fell behind. But again, I saw Shesterkin back to making some of those crazy saves he made for us in the regular season. This one looked like it was heading for OT, but Chris Kreider scored what might have been the luckiest goal in NHL history. The puck bounced off Pens goalie Louie Domingue went up in the air, and bounced into the net. I thought I was seeing things on that one. But man what a relief to get the series back to the Garden for Game 7.
And although they once again had fallen behind, I saw a couple of times where Igor basically robbed Crosby. So while I wouldn’t say I was super confident going into OT, I knew we had the edge in goal. Of course I’ve been burned by Crosby so many times, I could just picture him scoring the goal that would send us home for the summer.
Instead, defenseman K’Andre Miller drew an interference penalty, and a minute and a half into the power play, the Breadman himself, Artemi Panarin scored the game winner. The space he had to score was unbelievable, the Pens D and goalie Tristan Jarry gave what looked like a hole the size of a nickel for Panarin to shoot at, and somehow that was enough.
To say I was overjoyed would be an understatement. Not only for the obvious reasons, but also because I really can’t stand the Penguins. And what happened in Game 1 only solidified my resentment of them.
It appeared that the Rangers had taken the lead late in Game 1, on a goal by Filip Chytil off a highlight reel pass from Kaapo Kaako. But the Penguins challenged the goal, saying Kaako had interfered with Domingue. The replay clearly showed that Kappo was pushed into Domingue, but the boobs in Toronto who are in charge of this stuff called the goal off. The result was a game that went into triple OT., and the Penguins stealing Game 1.
The worst call I’ve even seen (or non-call as it were) was in the 2014 Cup Finals, when the Kings scored a goal while they had one of their defensemen lying on top of goalie Henrik Lundqvist. Even the NHL eventually apologized for that (sometimes in August if I recall correctly) I’m sure there will be no apologies for this screwup, but man, was I ready to let the league have it if the Rangers would have lost. It’s still ticks me off though. Because I still feel like the league prefers to see Sidney Crosby advance.
But the Rangers took care of that, despite the leagues best efforts. Now it on to Tobacca Road and the former Hartford Whalers. The Rangers had their hands full with these guys all season, and unlike the Penguins, these guys can roll out scorers on all their lines. This is going to be a tall order, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
In other hockey news, the Islanders fired their head coach Barry Trotz.
I have learned over the years to question GM Lou Lamarillo at your own peril. I’ve seen this guy fire coaches in the middle of the season, only to see the new coach get handed the Stanley Cup a couple of months later.
But the Isles not mailing the playoffs this season hardly seemed to be the fault of the coach, who BTW has just led the Isles to two straight Eastern Conference Finals. Remember, they opened the season with a 13 game road trip and then were ravaged by COVID. Unless it comes out that Trotz was hosting super spreader parties at his house, I really don’t get why they made this change. Then again, I thought the Rangers were crazy to fire their President and GM last year. So you can’t go by me.
TWO QUICK FOOTBALL NOTES-
1) Far be it for me to tell rich folks how to spend their money, but $37.5 million for Tom Brady to commentate on NFL games seems a tad excessive no? I thought the $$$ they gave Tony Romo was ridiculous and this is more than double that. My question, if Brady doesn’t retire before FOX’s deal with the NFL expires, are they still on the hook for it? (I’m only half joking about that too)
2) Far be it for me to tell people what to watch on the telly, but seriously, if, with hockey and basketball in playoffs, and MLB in full swing, you tuned in to see the NFL reveal the 2022 schedule, you really need to do a lifestyle priority check. A guy I worked with at OTB used to say “These guys would bet on the cockroaches running across the floor.” The NFL could put up one of those test pattern bars and people would tune in. And then call WFAN to discuss it.
GLOBAL WARMING-What Happens in Vegas…..
Lake Mead, a Colorado River reservoir, is at 30% capacity having lost much of it’s surface over the last 40 years. In addition to the obvious issues of lack of suitable water, another issue that has come up (literally) are human remains.
There’s a belief that some of the remains that have re surfaced are those of some unfortunate souls who crossed hairs with the mob.
One of the hints that are leading experts to conclude this was that one of the recovered skeletons was found in a rusty barrel. Geoff Schumacher, Vice President of the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, told NBC News…. “I think a lot of these individuals are drowning victims. But a barrel has the signature of a mob hit. Stuffing a body in a barrel”
The bigger concern of course is keeping that part of the country hydrated. Lack of sustainable water should alarm everybody. But everyone who has seen Goodfellas and The Godfather 1000 times loves a good mafia story. And if this can grab people’s attention, maybe someone can do something about the water shortage.
Wishful thinking? Could be.
Thanks again for supporting Running For Rebecca
Stay Safe
and Have a Great Week
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