Last night it was confirmed that Chris Chelios will spend the weekend playing for the Grand Rapids Griffins on a conditioning stint. The best part of this news is that they are playing home games on Friday and Saturday. My prediction is that we’ll have a couple of sell out games this weekend.
December 2, Detroit News: “I think that’s the plan,” Chelios said of being sent to Grand Rapids, the Wings’ American Hockey League affiliate. “I’m probably going to go play Friday and Saturday there just to get some minutes in and then come back and be ready.”
December 2, Grand Rapids Press: Chris Chelios is coming to Grand Rapids.
“Not a knock against the American League, but it’s going to be a little slower pace,” Chelios said. “It’s probably better for me to start there and get hopefully 20-some minutes a game and get ready for the pace here.”
My sister Brooke brought the Sean Avery issue to my attention.
December 2, Yahoo ! Sports: Sean Avery knows all about the punishment that comes with saying something inflammatory on the ice, from time in the penalty box to having a stick swung at him.
On Tuesday, he learned how harsh the league can be about things said off the ice.
Avery was suspended indefinitely by commissioner Gary Bettman for making “inappropriate public comments, not pertaining to the game.” The punishment came down only hours after Avery used a crude term about his former girlfriends now dating other hockey players.
I checked the local news to find that Ada has a boil water advisory. I’m not sure if it includes my office or not. I’ll have to find that out before I make tea this morning.
Yesterday I watched some Cnet TV blooper reels; Buzz Report, Molly Wood, and Tom Merritt.
Tags: On Friday Theresa and I took Drake out to do a little Trick-or-Treating. We ended up going to some family houses for his first real Halloween. He was so cute and adorable. He wouldn’t say ‘Trick-or-Treat,’ but he did say ‘Please?’ at every house. He was also real good with saying ‘Thank You’ to everyone.
Saturday night the Grand Rapids Griffins suffered their first regulation loss against the Milwaukee Admirals. Drake spent most of the game on my lap leaning back and just watching the game. I’m not sure what was up, but it took him until about half way through the third period before he started applauding and really reacting to the game.
The game started real bad for Daniel Larsson. He only stopped 3 shots out of the 7 he faced. Which did get him replaced by Jimmy Howard. After the 5th Admiral goal I don’t think Larsson even needed to look at the bench to see that Curt Fraser was taking him out. The good news is that the Griffins were able to get four of those five back, but just couldn’t get it done in the last moments of the game.
November 1, Griffinshockey.com: Tom Galvin’s first goal of the campaign gave the Griffins a short-lived lead during a 4-on-4 only 2:15 into the contest. Backpedaling with the puck above the left circle, he found the top of [Drew] MacIntyre’s net with a seeing-eye wrister. [Read More]
Curt Fraser made this comment to the Grand Rapids Press:
November 2, Grand Rapids Press: “There’s nobody in the building that feels worse than him,” Fraser said. “He’s a proud kid, and takes a lot of pride in what he’s built up and accomplished over in Sweden, being the best goaltender there. To have something like this happen is totally out of character. But all of us make mistakes, and he made a few tonight, but his teammates tried to take care of him.”
Sunday was a nice relaxing day at home. Drake and I got some serious play time in. In the afternoon I noticed that Tetris Party was out and available. I went to download it and first needed to buy more Wii Points. I then needed to make room on my Wii. Once it was down and installed Theresa and I had quite a fun time playing around with it. I foresee many hours of Tetris playing in my future. I think yesterday the Wii logged us at about 3 hours of Tetris playing.
This last weekend was busy, real busy. Friday night was filled with Red Wings hockey. I grilled a steak on the George Foreman, and once again it was more done then I would have liked. Even after all of the years owning this thing I still cannot get steak correct on it. Eric and Megan were at the house to stay the night.
Saturday morning was kind of strange. Once Drake got up and exhausted his attention in my computer we went into the TV room to watch a little Saturday morning cartoons. Instead of Drake being all hyper, running around, and waking up Eric and Megan, he just sat on me, then started to lay down on me. He didn’t want to do anything he normally does on Saturday mornings.
Once we were all up and ready we left Grand Rapids for Frankenmuth. My dad’s parents were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. The car ride there was perfect. Drake took a good nap and was not cranky once he did wake up. Dinner went well, which included the best chicken I have ever had. (Which reminds me that I need to pay my Dad.) Theresa and I are going to have to go out there sometime. She was working and was not able to go with us. Drake ate lots of food, was social, and only had one small meltdown. We needed to leave dinner as soon as everything was finished so we would be able to make it back to town in time for Griffins hockey.
We got home, picked Theresa up, and headed to the arena for the Griffins home opener. The Griffins’ website provides a better game story then I could come up with…
October 25, Griffinshockey.com: Grand Rapids needed just 1:42 to net its first home-ice goal of the campaign. From the right boards, Mattias Ritola sent a long cross-ice pass to Garrett Stafford, who ripped a shot past Marc Denis from the left circle.
Goal number two came courtesy of a power play less than two minutes later, when Muskegon native Justin Abdelkader set up in front of the Hamilton cage and redirected Jonathan Ericsson’s low shot from the left point at the 3:19 mark. The onslaught continued at 4:51 when Ritola finished off a 2-on-1 by blasting Cory Emmerton’s pass over Denis’ shoulder from the slot, making it 3-0 and sending Denis and his four saves to an early shower in favor of Cedrick Desjardins. More…
One we got home from the game I was able to watch the thrid period of the Wings game. When I first turned on the game I was mildy disapointed because they were down 4-2. They did end up winning in a shootout.
Sunday was afternoon hockey with the Griffins. George James Malik does a good job with this one…
The Grand Rapids Griffins dropped a 3-1 lead against the Norfolk Admirals before Ryan Oulahen’s late-second-period goal and a perfect third period, punctuated by an insurance marker and an empty-netter that gave Justin Abdelkader his first professional hat trick, pushed the Griffins past Norfolk by a 6-3 tally. Ville Leino must have read the pre-emptive press release regarding a Red Wings call-up before the game, because he posted three assists. Continue reading the entry…
The Griffins had not seen the Norfolk Admirals in town for about five years. Which brings me around to the new AHL and NHL schedules. There are more cross conference games this season then ever before. Well, at lease for as long as I can remember. It was last year during the summer that I read an article that was talking about how the Griffins and some teams from the east had to work together with the AHL to get some games scheduled. This is a great step in the correct direction to having a minimum of a home and home with every team in the league. The NHL has gotten very close to that. Every NHL team will see every other team at least once this season.
Now that the weekend is done I have to get back to work this morning. Oh, and I do have a few pictures of Drake from this weekend that I’ll have to get posted soon.
Michael Zuidema reports that Griffins coach Curt Fraser has appointed Darren Haydar the Griffins’ captain, and he gave an “A” to “The Big RIg”:
October 10, Grand Rapids Press: Darren Haydar will be the Griffins’ captain this season. Haydar was signed in July after serving as captain last season for the Chicago Wolves, who won the Calder Cup. Landon Wilson and Jonathan Ericsson are the alternate captains.”Darren’s got great experience at it, he’s been a captain for a long time. We had a long talk with him and I think he’s the right man for the job of leading this team,” Fraser said. “Wilson has been around for a long time and he’s really a good guy, and a real strong presence in our locker room. Ericsson, out on the ice, leads by example and that’s kind of players I’m looking for to lead our team.”
If injuries or recalls affect the status of any of those players, Justin Abdelkader and Ryan Oulahen will fill the alternate roles.
With the state that the Griffins are in I support Haydar as the captain. He has been around the AHL for a while, he has been captain in Chicago, he has a Calder Cup.
Darren Haydar is in Traverse City for Red Wings training camp. He sat down with Michael Zuidema of The Grand Rapids Press to talk about why he went from the Chicago Wolves to the Grand Rapids Griffins. It does seem a little strange to see a player move from the Calder Cup champs to a team that is going to be doing a lot of rebuilding this season.
September 22, Grand Rapids Press: “I already crossed sides once going from [the] Milwaukee [Admirals] to Chicago. I’m making my way around the lake,” Haydar said, laughing. “I’m just trying to give myself the best opportunity to make it at the NHL level. Detroit plays a skilled game, and I feel like I fit their mold.”
Haydar hopes to make a strong impression on Red Wings coaches during training camp at Centre I.C.E. Arena, but he knows that Detroit’s depth makes cracking the lineup a difficult task.
George James Malik from Mlive.com also makes mention of the Haydar interview.
September 22, Mlive.com: Grand Rapids Griffins forward Darren Haydar is a tremendous point-producer at the AHL level, and he was spectacular for the Chicago Wolves on their way to the Calder Cup last season, but he tells the Grand Rapids Press’s Michael Zuidema that “jumping ship” to an up-and-coming franchise wasn’t a difficult decision
