Update of the Day; Hockey Thoughts

In spite of how I put it last night, yesterday wasn't ALL bad. I brought the heater that Mary Ellen loaned me (yay!) in to work, and it definitely helps (double yay!) with the super-cold there, especially on my legs (where I find it's more difficult to wear three or four layers). Also, stitch and bitch was good, and after I got home and blogged, I put Santa Claus is Comin' to Town in the DVD player and Carlos and I got into the spirit of the season (he's very good for moral support, though frankly he's way behind in Christmas knitting, the slacker).

However, today I woke up with a bit of a headache, not awful but annoying on and off all day, and it snowed again (not a lot, but you know me, any is too much), so you can't say today is great either. Oh well. Tonight instead of a Christmas special, I'm watching Despicable Me 2, fresh on DVD. Bought it at Best Buy, got a free minion lunch box with it! Or, as I call it, small project bag. Tomayto, tomahto.

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The human mind is an interesting thing. How can I simultaneously feel that It can't possibly be just two weeks to Christmas AND How isn't it Christmas yet?

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If you're a Bruins fan, I don't have to tell you that things have been super-duper-extra-ultra crazy in Bruins-world over the last week. If you're not a Bruins fan, let me sum up by telling you that the team is out west this week, meaning games that start at 9:30 and 10*; that a half-dozen players have been called up from the minor league this week to cover seven absences (from injuries and one pending suspension); that the flu is making its way through the team; and that two of the suspensions from Saturday's game have been handed down (the third should be by the end of the week).
*I guess that part's only crazy to me: it's like they aren't playing! I can't stay up that late.

So, yeah, crazy-ville. And two more players could easily have been injured by plays they were involved in, but luckily for us (and Providence, since they need to have enough players for their own games), Miller and Marchand seem to be okay after being boarded and kneed in the head, respectively. As you might imagine, the other players in those incidents are the ones who have been suspended. Dion Phaneuf got two games for the boarding incident, and James Neal got five for the kneeing in the head (Shanahan's deadpan explanation of that suspension is pretty hilarious: "...This is kneeing." Yes, it is.).

What you may not know is that when a player is suspend, his salary for those games goes to the Players Association (for the emergency fund), so these announcements commonly include how much money the player is forfeiting. I felt a little queasy on Neal's when I noticed that for his five games, he's giving up more than double what I make in a year, but I had to laugh at Phaneuf's: $66,666.66. How awesome is that? His action was so evil, his penalty is the number of the beast! (Actually, Neal's was far more intrinsically evil ... but not according to the numerology.)

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How about some more Christmas hockey video? Here are the Ottawa 67's.

Fun, right? I love the naughty and nice list.