{"id":142,"date":"2010-12-16T11:47:11","date_gmt":"2010-12-16T18:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theloungeisback.wordpress.com\/?p=142"},"modified":"2010-12-16T11:47:11","modified_gmt":"2010-12-16T18:47:11","slug":"do-you-have-avs-fever-yet-and-if-not-why-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=142","title":{"rendered":"Do you have Avs fever yet? And if not, why not?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure id=\"attachment_143\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-143\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/theloungeisback.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/12\/yip.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/theloungeisback.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/12\/yip.jpg?w=150&#038;resize=150%2C150\" alt=\"\" title=\"yip\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-143\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-143\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brandon Yip<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nHah, watch. Next week, they&#8217;ll lose three in a row cuz of my post.<\/p>\n<p>We have a rule in our house that you can only watch *TWO* hockey matches every week, so at least one every week is the Colorado Avalanche.<\/p>\n<p>What a fun, spunky team they are to watch. They are ridiculously young, I think their average age is maybe 24 or 25, almost everyone on the team is a rookie, second-year or third-year player, and yet they are NO. 1 IN THE ENTIRE NHL in goals scored. They have scored 112 goals in 31 games, which mean they are on pace for 300 goals.<br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_144\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-144\" style=\"width: 99px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/theloungeisback.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/12\/paul-stastny.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/theloungeisback.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/12\/paul-stastny.jpg?w=99&#038;resize=99%2C150\" alt=\"\" title=\"paul stastny\" width=\"99\" height=\"150\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-144\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-144\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Paul Stastny<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n<p>And with this very young team, they are 17-10-4, they have won four in a row, they are tied for first place in the Northwest Division with 38 points. Hockey is so weird. In the Western Conference, there are only two teams with losing records &#8212; there are 13 teams with winning records! How is that possible? It&#8217;s because of the dreaded &#8220;three-point&#8221; games, where no one loses. \ud83d\ude42 In a three-point game, one team gets a 2-point win, while the other team doesn&#8217;t get a loss, it gets a single point for losing in overtime or a shootout. (If you think this is complicated, hockey for a while actually had four columns &#8212; wins, losses, overtime losses and ties. That was REALLY impossible to keep track of!)<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_145\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-145\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/theloungeisback.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/12\/craig-anderson.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/theloungeisback.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/12\/craig-anderson.jpg?w=150&#038;resize=150%2C102\" alt=\"\" title=\"craig-anderson\" width=\"150\" height=\"102\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-145\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-145\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Craig Anderson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>So what does that mean? Almost every team in the NHL is a winner! \ud83d\ude00 It also means you have to have an incredibly good won-loss record to make one of the 8 playoff spots in the West. You could go 45-30-7 and miss the playoffs the way things are going (Apparently, back in the old days, when you had 21 teams and 16 playoff spots, you could have a pretty bad won-loss record and make the postseason. Not so anymore.). So, in the West, you have 12 teams that have between 33 and 43 points. The Avs are currently tied for second in the conference. If they lose their next game, they could drop all the way down to sixth. If they lose two games in a row, they could drop all the way down to 10th. It&#8217;s crazy. And exciting. Every game counts!<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_146\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-146\" style=\"width: 108px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/theloungeisback.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/12\/chris-stewart.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/theloungeisback.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/12\/chris-stewart.jpg?w=108&#038;resize=108%2C150\" alt=\"\" title=\"chris stewart\" width=\"108\" height=\"150\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-146\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-146\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chris Stewart<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Hardly any of their players are famous. Milan Hejduk (pronounced like &#8220;Hayduke Lives&#8221;) is fairly well known. He is their one old veteran who was on the team when they won the Stanley Cup in 2001, but he has hardly played lately Chris Stewart is a rising superstar and was on pace to score 50 or 60 goals, but he broke his hand &#8212; but the team hasn&#8217;t slowed down. Their best players are Paul Stastny (son of Hall-of-Famer Peter Stastny), who has a big missing tooth and is either a Czech or an American, depending on who he wants to play for in the Olympics :lol:; Thomas Fleishmann, who scored a hat trick last night, Brandon Yip (I love his name!), David Jones and Matt Duchene. One of their better players, Peter Mueller, hasn&#8217;t played a single game all year and may not play for them at all this year because of a concussion he suffered in preseason. None of these guys are very famous, but they are leading the entire NHL in goals scored. Their goalie is Craig Anderson, an American who backed up Ryan Miller in the 2010 Olympics. Even he was hurt pretty bad and missed about a month, but that hasn&#8217;t stopped the Avs.<\/p>\n<p>They will be fun to watch all year and it should be a roller coaster ride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hah, watch. Next week, they&#8217;ll lose three in a row cuz of my post. We have a rule in our house that you can only watch *TWO* hockey matches every week, so at least one every week is the Colorado Avalanche. What a fun, spunky team they are to watch. They are ridiculously young, I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=142\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Do you have Avs fever yet? And if not, why not?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,31,1],"tags":[86,130],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haruko-sportswriter","category-hockey","category-uncategorized","tag-avalanche","tag-hockey-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hpEa-2i","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1917,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=1917","url_meta":{"origin":142,"position":0},"title":"My favourite Olympic hockey memory","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"February 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The truly epic shootout between the U.S. and Russia a few days ago reminded me of one of my favourite Olympic hockey memories. It isn't the most famous moment in Olympic hockey, not by a long shot -- it can't compare to the Miracle on Ice or Sidney Crosby's overtime\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/1998-dominik-hasek.jpg?fit=641%2C420&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/1998-dominik-hasek.jpg?fit=641%2C420&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/1998-dominik-hasek.jpg?fit=641%2C420&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3135,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3135","url_meta":{"origin":142,"position":1},"title":"10 reasons why the Stanley Cup playoffs are better than the NBA playoffs","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"April 19, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Thank goodness my town has a hockey bar now where I don't have to argue with the bartenders to turn switch the basketball game that no one is watching to the Stanley Cup playoff game. My favourite era of hockey was from the 90s to the early 2000s, despite\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hockey&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hockey","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=31"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/stanley-cup.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/stanley-cup.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/stanley-cup.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/stanley-cup.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/stanley-cup.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3104,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3104","url_meta":{"origin":142,"position":2},"title":"USA TODAY story: Does Big Tobacco desire the marijuana market?","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"April 12, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I wrote about this a few weeks ago, but here is another article on the same subject from USA Today -- the fear that Big Tobacco will take over the legal marijuana business. Most legal marijuana businesses in Colorado, Washington and Oregon are small mom-and-pop operations. And they are heavily\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Tobacco&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Tobacco","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/legalweed.jpg?fit=660%2C371&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/legalweed.jpg?fit=660%2C371&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/legalweed.jpg?fit=660%2C371&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":892,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=892","url_meta":{"origin":142,"position":3},"title":"Happy Easter &#8212; Jesus Christ Superstar (angels with white afros and go go boots!)","author":"Haruko Haruhara","date":"April 7, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy Easter -- Jesus Christ Superstar, an amazing and controversial rock opera made by an agnostic Canadian (that everyone thinks is Jewish but isn't) 40 years ago, an amazing film was made deep in the Israeli desert a few months before the Yom Kippur War. I'm blown away at the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Haruko movie reviewer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Haruko movie reviewer","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=28"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/qXVh3y_FH4A\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":517,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=517","url_meta":{"origin":142,"position":4},"title":"Arizona considering tax on smokers, obese","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"April 2, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Hah, that race-baiting Arizona governer Jan Brewer is now suggesting that Arizona impose a tax on smokers and the obese. Arizona Medicaid may consider a $50 annual tax on smokers and the obese. What I find it funny is that Republicans piss and moan the loudest about NANNY STATE, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;right-wing douchebags&quot;","block_context":{"text":"right-wing douchebags","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=54"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/state-flag-arizona.jpg?fit=600%2C399&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/state-flag-arizona.jpg?fit=600%2C399&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/state-flag-arizona.jpg?fit=600%2C399&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4054,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=4054","url_meta":{"origin":142,"position":5},"title":"My long-overdue eulogy for Ted","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"June 16, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a post I started a half-dozen times over the past three years and I could never get through it. I would set it aside and then revisit it a few weeks or months later and then I still wouldn\u2019t be able to finish. 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