Today is "Shocker Monday", and Chuck Norris and I are going to give you a couple good old, rib-jarring shockers.

Shocker #1:  25 year old Red Wings forward Jiri Hudler was awarded $5.75 meeeleon dollars by an arbitrator, yet turned it down to head out to the good ol' U.S.S.R. to play for a team there and make a cool $10 million instead, tax-free by the way.  Yet, there is clearly another motive for this surprising move, however, and I know what it is.  My sources tell me that Hudler's girlfriend, Czech model Simona Krainova, (pictured above with Hudler), is a huge bitch.  There, I said it.  And I'm not talking about her height (she's 5'9")-  She's bossy, demanding, and over-bearing.  She has told media members how much she expects the young forward to spend on her engagement ring (think starter home.)  She interrupts him in interviews and talks down to him.  I would move to Russia too if I were stuck with this miserable wench.  We don't care how hot you are, honey, looks only go so far and men can only take so much of a lippy woman, no matter how luscious her breasticles are or how tight her dumper is.  So don't be too hard on poor Jiri, he's only trying to escape the claws of this aggressive cougar (did I mention she's 36 and 11 years older than Jiri?-  come on buddy, you're a millionaire athlete, you can do better than that.)

Shocker #2:  It should be announced soon that Detroit's beloved Motor City Bowl, annually featuring the best of the MAC against the best 6-6 team George Perles can find, will change its name to the "Little Caesars Pizza Pizza Bowl."  I'm not kidding.  The name is heinous, but I'm going to look at the glass as half-full, and consider that this will mean millions of dollars for Mike Illitch, which puts him one step closer to buying the Detroit Lions from the Fords.  A boy can dream, can't he?

Finally, John Mapplethorpe wants you to know that the Detroit4lyfe team physician is now on Twitter, and you can follow him at http://twitter.com/cpackey and tweet with him about Detroit4lyfe, Detroit sports, medicine, Jessica and Tony's break-up, whatever.  Now scram, before I give you another shocker..

If you want your innocent Stanley Cup hopes and dreams killed, then do business with Marian Hossama Bin Laden.  He will lead you on that he wants to be a winner, but then bail and go off to try and kill some other team's quest for dominance

After terrorizing the Penguins in 2008, he turned down a lucrative offer to jump ship and sign with the dominant Detroit Red Wings.  His strategic plan from within worked as he blew up the Wings' 2009 Stanley Cup repeat chances.  Detroit stupidly tried to give Hossama a chance to resign and continue his journey for that elusive Cup, but Hossama decided that he would take his Al Quaida, which means "one hand on the stick", moves to the Chicago Blackhawks, which also included a little more money for more fire power AKA more money so that his girlfriend can afford the better brands of pussy whips.

Hossama Bin Laden signed a ridiculous 12-year deal (a deal that will take Hossama to his hockey terrorist death bed age of 42) with the young Blackhawks.  And why not, it all makes sense.  The Blackhawks are a young, promising team looking to win their first Stanley Cup since 1960-61 and Hossama will be damned if they rise to the top.  He'll spend the next 12-years terrorizing this franchise, so they will not reach elite status and have their names ingrained on sports' most coveted trophy.

He's done it his entire career, but most recently he's done it to the Penguins in 2008, the Red Wings in 2009, and he'll be doing it to the Blackhawks for the next 12-years.  That is unless the U.S. Government can find him and put an end to Hossama's terrorism.

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UPDATE: This is clearly just a joke and I don't really believe Hossa is a terrorist, or that he even makes any team worse.  He's a great player as evidenced by his numbers.  If you don't have a strong sense of humor then just move along.  No need for profanity laced comments.

It's 2:46 AM on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, depending on what type of person you are.  Me, I'm a Tuesday night guy, but I know there are people out there who would view this 2:46 AM as Wednesday morning.  That's fine, but that's a discussion for a whole other post and day.  It is somewhat relevant though as for some of the NBA and NHL teams out there 2:46 AM signifies just two hours and forty-five minutes after the free agent period starts and that means butting heads on negotiations and hopefully giving fans of respective cities Christmas-like feelings when they wake up in the morning and see via however they get their news that their team signed a big name free agent. Well, that happens for the "It's 2:46 AM on Wednesday morning" guys who have to go to sleep because it's already morning and "boo hoo, I'm sweepy."  For guys like me, a real man (with a little wee wee), I'm able to stay up and see these types of deals, or lack thereof, go down as they happen.

I must digress before you click away, if you haven't already.

Reportedly Marian Hossa has been offered anywhere from $3.75 million to $4 million per year to sign a long-term contract with the Detroit Red Wings.  Ken Holland has insisted many times that the Wings can not break the bank with Hossa as they would have to cut ties with players they really cannot afford to lose.   That being said, the Wings definitely want Hossa to resign.  I mean, who wouldn't want a guy who averages a little over 30 goals a season and is just 2-years removed from having a 100 point season?

Remember, Hossa turned down big money from the runner up Pittsburgh Penguins a year ago to sign with the then Stanley Cup Champions, Detroit Red Wings because he had an insatiable appetite to win a Stanley Cup and the Red Wings, who paid him a little under $7.5 million this past season, were his best chance.  At the time it was a lovable decision, unless you were a Penguins fan, one that any true sports fan has to respect: a player who doesn't care about more money and security (even though he was getting plenty of it) to try and accomplish his dream of winning the Stanley Cup.

Sure it can be looked at from the other side and argued that Hossa merely hopped onto the Wings bandwagon, but reality is he joined one of the best run organizations in hockey, turned down a lot of money to do so, and entered into a situation to achieve what I believe is all young hockey boys' dreams: to hold up that 35 1/4 pound silver plated cup at the end of the season and then bath your dog in it when it's your turn to keep it over the summer.

As everyone knows, the Wings lost to the Penguins in this year's Stanley Cup Finals which made Hossa an easy target for point and laugh jokes, kick-me signs, and photo shopped pictures of just about anything anti-Hossa.  Hossa's disappearance from the NHL Finals this year made people wonder if the Red Wings would even consider re-signing him, but it was never thought that Hossa would jump ship yet again from a runner up team.

That seems to be exactly the case, though as he has reportedly turned down Detroit's latest offer.  Although negotiations may continue to occur, if he ultimately does reject the Red Wings final, and not a penny more, offer then he will be negating every admirable thing he did a season ago (again aside from Penguins fans views) and put himself in another vulnerable position for school-boy-bitch-bashing.  He'll be selling out not only by Red Wings standards, or Penguins standards for that matter, but selling out on his own standards.  Just a year ago he didn't really care about money and wanted to win a Stanley Cup and now all he cares about is getting a better offer?  Weak sauce.

The fact of the matter is, the Red Wings still provide Hossa with his best chance to win a Stanley Cup.  Four Stanley Cups in the last 12-years is still the best in all of the NHL.  Throw in that Ken Holland is probably the best GM in all of hockey and Mike Illitch will continue to do whatever it takes to make his Detroit teams winners, even if it means upping the $5 Hot and Ready pizzas to $10, it's a lock that Detroit possesses the best odds to win a Stanley Cup year in and year out.

So in my book, Hossa has only two options: stay loyal to a team for once in your life and finish the job he started a year ago when he signed with the Wings or sell out.

One decision comes with love from Hockeytown and anyone who respects the game of hockey and sports in general while the other decision comes with loads of Hossa and hummus hate (I'll always hate hummus).

I can tell you right now, I will no longer feel any sympathy for the man who has lost not one, but two Stanley Cups in a row.  I will certainly not feel sorry for him if he leaves the Wings and they happen to beat his new team in next year's Finals. Wouldn't that be ironic?

Make the right decision, Marian.  Re-sign with the Detroit Red Wings or "I will destroy you."

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In honor of tonight's NHL Draft and the former No. 1 overall pick, I figured I would put up a hockey post.

Congratulations to Chicago Blackhawks young forward, Patrick Kane on landing the cover of the EA Sports NHL '10 video game (h/t Zoner Sports).  This is quite a feat for the 20-year old kid, especially considering all his buddies and him probably still play the game in between laser tag and duck-duck-goose.

As I'm sure you notice from the picture, joining Kane on the cover is his now trademarked mouth guard hanging half out of his mouth.  He may never live this bad habit down.  Chicago fans might call him a teething pitbull, I think this baby just misses his pacifier.

And Johan Franzen takes exception.

I returned from my gloomy sports weekend in Pittsburgh and jacked my little weenus all day Monday (not at the table, Carlos!) trying to figure out how/when I would start writing again. It was a tough weekend for my ego, my liver, my knuckles, and this blog:  Being in Pittsburgh drinking away my sorrows and punching in dry walls while two of my esteemed sports teams decide to lose three out of a possible four to the very city I'm visiting does not bode well for any of the aforementioned things (by the way, thanks to John for picking up the slack with a few great posts, as usual).  Anyway, it's late Monday night and I'm finally feeling up to the task, I think.  I just popped two tylenols and I'm ready to kick this little hangover to the curb.

Despite the losses, I left the city of Pittsburgh with my head held high.  Most city's have teams that are completely irrelevant, so it still felt good knowing Detroit would have a first place MLB team and an NHL team that most would still refer to as being a dynasty in the past 12 seasons win or lose against Pittsburgh this past weekend.  I will admit that Sunday bruised the ego a little as the Penguins were at PNC with the Stanley Cup and the Pirates were commemorating their 1909 World Series victory over the Detroit Tigers by having the two teams wear throwback jerseys.

At any rate, I'll take my city of Detroit teams over Pittsburgh's any time of the week and twice on Tuesdays.  I don't care if the Steelers win Super Bowls and the Penguins won this year,  we're Detroit4lyfe for a reason.

The next big move for the Red Wings will almost undoubtedly concern the future of Marian Hossa.  After losing the Stanley Cup to the team he denied an extension from, Detroit has a big decision to make as to whether or not they will re-sign him longterm.  While it was almost a guarantee before the playoffs, Hossa's inability to put the puck in the net in the latter stages of the playoffs might have the Red Wings reconsidering how badly they want to lock Hossa up for multiple years. Personally, I think the Wings would be crazy not to want him back and they should, by all means, get him to re-sign.  If seeing the team you rejected a contract  with walk away with the Cup you so desperately wanted when signing with Detroit isn't enough motivation for Hossa to play out of his mind during next season's playoffs, then I don't know what would.  Re-sign the man and let's get him the Cup in 2010.

As for the Tigers, they cling to a three game lead over the Minny Twinkies in the Central Division after dropping two of three in Pittsburgh.  I can't say I was excited about the pitching match ups for Saturday and Sunday's games seeing as Armando Galarraga and Dontrelle Willis were on the bump.  They disappointed as most are beginning to expect from the two and, sure enough, the Tigers lost.  It will be interesting to see what Detroit decides to do with the latter 2/5 of their starting rotation.  It's looking more and more like Zach Miner might get another shot at starting while Willis either accepts a Minor League option or gets clipped for good.  No matter what the Tigers do, something desperately needs to change there.  If I were Dave Dombrowski, I would be on the horn, around the clock, trying to figure out if there are any trade options available.  I have to believe there is something out there that's better than letting the animated Willis run out there every five days and fail to hit the broadside of a barn, pitch after pitch.  I love his energy, but I like pitchers who throw strikes a lot more.

Thankfully we won't have to see either of those two when the Tigers have their three game set that begins Tuesday against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium.  Justin Verlander, Edwin Jackson, and Rick Porcello are all scheduled to pitch for the Tigers this series.  If they pitch as well as they have lately, the Tigers will almost certainly be sweeping their way back to Comerica Park.  In the three's last 61.1 IP (spanning their last 9 combined starts) they have a combined 2.20 ERA and a 5-1 record.

General State of the Blog Update:

With the Red Wings being finished now, this blog will start to look a whole lot more like a strictly Tigers blog.  We will be having Tigers live blogs, analysis, and cinnamon because Tigers love cinnamon, but don't feel discouraged if the Tigers are not your bag.  As other stories develop with the other Detroit teams and creative ideas come to mind those will be posted as well.  Stick with us on it, though.  If you'd like to discuss the state of the Pistons (draft coming up), Red Wings, Lions, or Michigan's fine college sports teams please feel free to bring up your thoughts, ideas, etc. in our Forum. You can also discuss general sports stuff in the forum as well, so take advantage of that luxury.  Do it....Do it.

And finally, for some comedic relief, here's the (UK) trailer to the hilarious movie The Hangover. I plan on seeing it for a second time sometime this week.

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Today is a dark day in Detroit.  The Detroit Red Wings lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, 2-1.  The Penguins won their first Stanley Cup since 1992, and became the first team in professional sports to win a championship in a Game 7 on the road since the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Orioles in Baltimore in Game 7 of the World Series 30 years ago.  The Wings came up just short in their bid to win back-to-back Stanley Cups for the second time in the last 12 years.  But let's be clear on one thing:  Ricky Bobby didn't know what he was talking about.  The Wings may not have won the Cup, but they had a great run and did Detroit proud.  

For a city that has witnessed a lot of success with its professional sports teams, we haven't experienced a whole lot of championship Game 7's in Detroit recently.  In fact, Detroit teams have been involved in just 2 in my lifetime.  But in this same span of time (and I'm no spring chicken), we have NEVER HOSTED a championship Game 7 in the city of Detroit.  So, it goes without saying that we're pretty excited about tomorrow night's Stanley Cup Final Game 7 between the defending champion Detroit Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins at Joe Louis Arena, which gets underway at 8pm ET on NBC.

The Wings have been involved in 19 Game 7's in the illustrious history of the organization, winning 12 of those series.  They are 5-3 in Game 7's since 1987.  The Wings are 3-3 all-time in Stanley Cup Finals that went a full 7 games.  This is the first of 6 Stanley Cup Finals in the last 14 years for the Red Wings that is going to 7 games.  The Detroit Tigers have played in 2 World Series in the last 25 years, but neither went past 5 games. The Tags are 2-3 all-time in Game 7's, all of which were in World Series play.

So that brings us to the Detroit Pistons and our 2 and only 2 championship Game 7's of the last 4 decades for Detroit teams.  The Detroit version of the Pistons are 5-5 all-time in Game 7's (their predecessors, the Fort Wayne Pistons, were 0-1).  They have been to 5 NBA Finals since 1988, winning 3 titles.  However, the 2 NBA Finals that they lost both went to 7 games.  Both of these Game 7 losses were absolutely heart-breaking, quite possibly the most devastating losses in my Detroit sports life.  Let's take a trip down memory lane:

June 21, 1988; Game 7 of the NBA Finals between the Detroit Pistons and the Los Angeles Lakers:

The Detroit Pistons had finally gotten past their Eastern Conference arch nemesis, the Boston Celtics, in the Eastern Conference Finals. They ran into the juggernaut that was the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals. "Showtime", led by Magic Johnson, James Worthy, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, had won 4 NBA titles in the 1980's to this point, including the 1987 Championship.  After that title, coach Pat Riley had guaranteed that the Lakers would repeat in 1987-88.

The Pistons surprised the Lakers by winning game one at the Fabulous Forum in Inglewood, taking advantage of a tired Lakers team that was coming off of consecutive 7 game series against the Utah Jazz and Dallas Mavericks.  After the Lakers won games 2 and 3, the Pistons won the last two games ever played at the Pontiac Silverdome to head back to L.A. for game 6 up 3-2.  Isiah Thomas stepped on Michael Cooper's foot in the third quarter of game 6, severely spraining his ankle, yet he missed only 35 seconds after sustaining the injury before returning to the court with a significant limp.  He scored 43 points including 25 in that third quarter, but the Pistons would lose by a point when Jabbar hit two free throws at the end of the game after Bill Laimbeer was whistled for a phantom foul.

Game 7 was a nightmare. The Pistons led by 5 at the half, but during the halftime break Isiah's ankle stiffened up and he played very little during the second half. The Pistons fought back valiantly from a 15 point 4th quarter deficit to make it a one point game in the waning seconds, but after A.C. Green hit a lay-up to make it a 3 point game, fans started to rush the court with several seconds left on the clock, and Zeke was knocked to the court by Magic Johnson as time expired, yet the referees called no foul and did nothing about the fact that the fans had interrupted the game prematurely.  The Lakers rushed to the lockerroom to celebrate.

June 23, 2005; Game 7 of the NBA Finals between the Detroit Pistons and the San Antonio Spurs:

The Pistons were the defending NBA champions.  The Spurs had won the title in 2003, and this was the first NBA Finals matching the previous 2 champions since 1987 when the Lakers battled the Celtics.  The Pistons had a much more difficult path to the Finals, beating Central division rival Indiana in the conference semifinals in 6 games and Shaquille O'Neal and the #1 seeded Miami Heat in 7 games in the conference finals.

The home team won the first 4 games of the series before the Spurs won a pivotal game 5 in Detroit.  This was the game when "Big shot Bobby" Horry hit a three pointer from the corner when Rasheed Wallace left him to open to double team the ball in the corner.  The Spurs won by a point in overtime.  Down 3-2, the Pistons went to San Antonio and won game 6 before a hostile crowd, becoming the first road team to win a game 6 being down 3-2 in an NBA series.  Unfortunately, the Spurs pulled out a 7 point win in game 7 by shooting lights-out from three point range.  The Pistons core of Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince and Rasheed Wallace would return to three more conference finals, but never again to the NBA Finals.

So we need to exorcise the championship Game 7 demons tomorrow night.  Ironically, the Tigers start an interleague series in Pittsburgh tomorrow evening.  Coincidence?  Well, yeah, actually it is.  But let's go for the sweep anyway- we can accomplish a lot by doing so, including honoring the 1909 Detroit Tigers who lost a World Series Game 7 to the Pirates.

Go Wings! LET'S EXERCISE THE DEMONS!

The folks in Pittsburgh have been whining all series about why their "beloved" Penguins haven't won the Stanley Cup Finals.  (I put beloved in quotations because let's face it, they don't really give a crap about the Pens except when they go deep into the playoffs.  The few people I know from Pittsburgh admit whole-heartedly that most people in Pittsburgh know very little about the Penguins.)  One thing I've read from Pittsburgh whiners is how Henrik Zetterberg supposedly violated rule 67.4 in game 1 and cost the Pens the game when he piled in between Osgood and the net.   Now, first of all, they showed every angle of that scramble in front of the net on NBC, and you could not see Zetterberg actually making direct contact with the puck in any of them.  Secondly, even if he did, you have to "gather the puck into your body", grab the puck with your glove, or smother the puck to violate rule 67.4.  Zetterberg clearly did none of these things.  Finally, even if he HAD done one of these things, the Penguins still would have needed to make the penalty shot, and even then the goal only would have tied the game.  So I'm sick of hearing about how Zetterberg's "cheating" cost the Pens the game.  The main offendor was smilinlikeabutchersdog.blogspot.com, which by the way, completely stole their entire post from the yahoo blog puckdaddy.  (Come on people, giving credit to the other blog for "the vid finds and the quotes" doesn't give you the right to plagiarize.  That's unoriginal and sad.)

In any case, I would love to hear the blogs out of Steel Town talk about how Pens defenseman Rob Scuderi lived in the crease in the third period of Game 6.  Scuderi made more saves than Fleury in the third period.  Most of them were legit, but the last one where he was splayed out in the crease, reaches for the puck not once but twice with an open glove, and makes a kick save followed by hitting the puck with his left glove, was much worse than anything Zetterberg did.  I wouldn't even have brought it up if it weren't for the Pittsburgh people whining so pathetically about Zetterberg's actions.

A legendary Game 7 goes down on Friday at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. It's the first Stanley Cup Final Game 7 in Detroit since 1955. 

Go Wings!

A lot has been said this entire Stanley Cup Finals series about the rematch.  The rematch being the Detroit Red Wings vs. Pittsburgh Penguins for the second year in a row, with Detroit taking last year's Cup in Game 6 in Pittsburgh.  As you all know Detroit has a chance to repeat history and clinch the Stanley Cup with a Game 6 victory in Pittsburgh.  That's not the only history they would be repeating, though.

For starters this would be the 12th time the Red Wings hoist the Stanley Cup in their illustrious franchise history, and 5th in the last 15 years.  The Wings currently stand in third behind only the Montreal Canadians (24) and the Toronto Maple Leafs (13) in all-time Stanley Cup Championships.

Another interesting history note is that nine teams have won back-to-back Stanley Cups in its history.  With a win tonight, the Red Wings will win their fourth (fourth!) back-to-back Stanley Cup.  Only one team in Stanley Cup history has won more back-to-back championships and that is the Montreal Canadians who have won a ridiculous seven back-to-back Cups (5 in a row at one point and 4 in a row at another point).  Toronto has two different strings of three Championships in a row, too.

It's not a given tonight as the Wings will have to play in front of a very lively Melon Arena crowd where the Pens have been just as dominant as the Wings have been on their home ice. Also, the Penguins are coming off the shalacking of a lifetime so they will definitely be playing to prove they won't just roll over after last game's embarassment.

I expect this to be a very good game, but with Datsyuk back in the lineup and making everyone around him better, I fully believe the Red Wings and former-Penguin Marian Hossa will be hoisting the Cup on the Melon Arena ice as Pens fans facepalm in their seats, once again.  Wings in 6, Wings tonight, Wings4lyfe!

GO WINGS!

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