RED WINGS WEEKLY OUTLOOK


On Monday October 17 the Red Wings defeated the San Jose Sharks 3-2 in OT. Jiri Fischer's goal from the top of the circle with less than a minute left in overtime gave Detroit their sixth win in seven games on the season. This was a great win for Detroit. I predicted a good game. San Jose is one of those teams who always plays Detroit tough no matter how well or poorly they are playing in a particular season. And with the revamped rules opening up the game a little bit more for the teams in the old mid-price range level (like San Jose) the unpredictability plays very well into lesser known teams and could be a huge boost for their year. I am glad I predicted this victory. It lets me know, as a good season indicator how well the Red Wings will do based on my understanding of NHL teams. This is a good feeling. Now I realize this is the middle of the week and a game has been played and the Red Wings have two games back-to-back this weekend, so I am giving you readers out there a look to this weekend and my predictions for their games.

Friday at home against the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, Detroit faces a somewhat gutted Ducks team. Still reeling from the loss of Paul Kariya two years ago taking a 7 million dollar pay cut to play for Cup-contenders Colorado coupled with the exhorbitant price paid for an aging Sergei Federov, who might not play due to a groin injury this weekend, leaves the Mighty Ducks a serious contender to lose to the Red Wings on Friday night. Don't forget the Red Wings hired ex-Ducks coach Mike Babcock to coach them from behind the bench this season. And so far it has been fruitful for the Red Wings. But the Ducks are tricky, especially at the Pond, but this is at the Joe, so I'm expecting a Red Wings victory and Stevie Y gets his first goal of the season.

On Saturday Detroit flies an hour to Columbus, Ohio to face the Blue Jackets. Columbus' offense this season has been anemic, to use a great sports cliche, but what do you expect with Rick Nash injured. This injury bug hitting the NHL seems to be pretty normal. I imagine the majority of the players spent their season off playing somewhere or at least trying to stay in shape, but nothing can prepare them enough for the grueling NHL game. However, it will be the second game in 24 hours for the Wings, which can cause a little fatigue, so Columbus could surprise the Wings and come out fresh and fast. Hopefully the Wings can counter with good defense and a strong outing from Manny Legace as well as a quick goal right out of the gate.

Let's hope the Wings can pull off a couple of victories this weekend. I realize its early, but Nashville has a couple of games this weekend against the struggling Blues and those pesky San Jose Sharks, and the way the Predators are playing, everyone is picking them to win out the division and possibly be one of the better teams in the conference this season. Adding to that notion, the Predators are still undefeated and have two games on the Wings already due to scheduling. So let's hope they get their first defeat of the year this weekend.

All right ice hockey fans! Those are my predictions and recaps from this week for the Detroit Red Wings hockey team!

THE SIX DEGREES OF ADAM FRUCCI

I really don't know how this works, but I've been doing some studying on the Internet, searching and studying, finding and laughing, chuckling and thinking, pondering and writing, scribbling and speaking Russian, etc...etc

So basically, I search friend's names to see if they have done anything Internet-worthy recently at random so I do not forget how to love. I searched his name in a few places and found it both hilarious and awesome. (Shhh...he doesn't know about this, so be careful around him, he can be a bit touchy and might take offense to this off-kilter type humor. I love the kid, but c'mon, he knows where I live and ultimately could kill me in my sleep. I doubt he will because we are friends, but I have not spoken to him in a little while so he could be a crazed killer for all I know now. I highly doubt that though, he is a fun-loving guy and likes to throw dance parties and not chew tobacco, emphasis on the 'not'. I actually don't believe I have ever seen him chew tobacco. That's good. I don't think I've seen him smoke all that much either, maybe never, I can not be sure though, there are those nights...)

Moving along. I found out this information today. I think I already knew, but it refreshed my memory. If this is the same Adam Frucci I know, then he is listed under the "acknowledgements" section on this Jim O'Rourke site. The only other name I recognize along with Adam is C. Spencer Yeh, a musician whom I recently witnessed play with the Paul Flaherty/Chris Corsano duo forming the Flaherty-Corsano-Spencer Yeh trio. Paul plays alto sax, Chris plays drums, and Spencer plays violin and uses his mouth/throat as well. Spencer is also the man behind Burning Star Core, for all of you noisy m-er f-er(s) out there. Okay. So the connection between Adam and Spencer is apparent--they both are fans of Jim O'Rourke and contributed to this gentleman's "worship" page. How they contributed, I am not sure--you can ask Adam, he posts on this blog.

So the Flaherty-Corsano-Spencer Yeh trio set was an opening act for the Michigan band Wolf Eyes. (as a sidenote: there comes a time when live music gets boring and passe. but every once in a while if you take a chance, it can pay off. earlier this summer i went to a few shows and was rather bored, especially when i was alone. but seeing these guys perform the other night was amazing. i had a great time.) As I said, Wolf Eyes is from Michigan and this is where I am from. They are based out of Ann Arbor. I grew up just east of Ann Arbor and frequented the small city often, especially to go frolfing (disc or frisbee golfing) at Hudson Mills Metropark in the Dexter/Ann Arbor area on North Territorial Road. (However, I would suggest taking Ford Road to M-14 to US-23 and get off at the North Territorial exit because if you try to take North Territorial from Plymouth, it takes forever because once you get to Washtenaw County it just turns into a winding country road where most people use caution when driving.) See. That should confirm my closeness to where these guys call home. But, to make it even more interesting and more of a connection to Adam Frucci, I will delve further into the history of Wolf Eyes due to my uncanny nerdness. Wolf Eyes guitarist Aaron Dilloway is originally from Brighton, Michigan, where I am imagine he went to high school at Brighton High School. My freshman year of high school, the freshman basketball team, which I was a part of, traveled to Brighton to play their team. I remember it vaguely, but I am sure we traveled back to Canton victorious and I stole a black t-shirt with "Brighton basketball" in orange along with an orange basketball logo, which I still have to this day. However, since we traveled to Brighton, that meant the JV and Varsity teams played at home against Brighton. We barely made it back in time to see the Canton Varsity team being defeated by the Brighton squad featuring senior Drew Henson leading the way.

Drew Henson, if you remember, went on to be a star quarterback at Michigan who left U of M a season early to go play baseball for the New York Yankees minor league team because they had drafted him out of high school. Now you might say, "where is this going", but for most of you I think you know. Adam is from the Northeast where the Red Sox play baseball. Now if you are alive, you probably remember a feud between the Red Sox baseball team from Boston and the Yankees baseball team from New York. They do not like each other. Therefore Adam should hate Drew Henson because Adam is from the Northeast and grew up despising New York baseball and their historic victorious teams. (Ironic that he lives in New York now--but he lives in Brooklyn, so I guess he should be a old Dodgers fan then, not a Yankees fan.) So that branch has been quelled, for now. Also, while Henson was at Michigan, a young man who was battling for the quarterback position after the 1997 Championship team led by Brian Griese graduated, goes by the name of Tom Brady. So that means Henson and Brady were both quarterbacks at Michigan at the same time. Weird! Now Brady is the poster child of the Three-time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots. I know Adam is a fan of them. He has Sunday Ticket now or some other football package and I imagine spends a great portion of his Sunday watching football, eating turkey dogs or chili, and horsing around with Matt and Tim in their apartment. (On another sidenote: After failing to make a mark in the minor leagues, Drew Henson is now Drew Bledsoe's (a former New England Patriot quarterback) backup for the Dallas Cowboys. Jesus this is getting deeper than I expected.)

Well. I don't know if that was a truesix degrees or not, as I said, I've never done one and don't really know how they work. I am a Neandethal. It doesn't seem like it, does it? But this is how my mind works. Especially on a Friday at work when there is not much to be doing and friends to remember. I could add a connection to Chris Miller living in Chicago right now, but it would be going way-y-y-y-y-y out on a limb and can wait until later.



So there you have it. Cheers my fellow compatriots. If you have read all and are laughing right now, please feel free to give me a call. I would like to hear from you. If you don't have my number, feel free to email me, I'd like to hear from you electronically.



In one month: Bill Martin!