Quacked

Without wishing to engage in an online flamewar with opponents whose lack of intelligence makes them a hazard around fire, I would like to highlight what I feel has been a unfortunate byproduct of the latest Bobby Ryan rumor circus: delusional Maple Leafs fans.

(PHOTO: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

I don’t make any secret of the fact that I’m a huge fan of Jean-Sebastien Giguere. Growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canada, for the uninitiated), I had the chance to watch him play as a teenager. Since then, I’ve taken a keen interest in his career no matter where he has played.

A trademark Giguere trait — insofar as I’ve been able to gather from myriad interviews and first-hand accounts — is being a good teammate. Even at 34, now relegated to a backup role in Colorado, he seems comfortable in that role.

Coming off back-to-back starts in which he allowed just a single goal, the Avalanche brass are giving him a chance to start his third consecutive game tonight against the San Jose Sharks. Giguere will be spelling starter Semyon Varlamov, who has struggled of late.

Rick Sadowski of NHL.com has penned a brief story with a few quotes that illustrate what kind of support Giguere gives the Avs behind the scenes.

Giguere remarks how he empathizes with Varlamov in spite fo his own desire for more playing time:

“I’m here to be a good teammate, too,” Giguere said. “I’ve been through what he’s going through many times. If anybody in this room knows what he’s going through, it’s me. I talk to him as much as I can and try to keep him positive, try to keep him smiling. [...]“

Although salary cap concerns may have ultimately run Giguere out of Anaheim on a rail, there’s no doubt he has a special place in Ducks history — and in the hearts of many of the team’s diehard fans, too.

Whether his recent good fortune proves temporary or long-lasting, it certainly has been a pleasant diversion for fans like me during an otherwise dismal 2011-12 season for the Ducks.

This is what happens when Jean-Sebastien Giguere gets angry. You do not want to make him angry.

Admittedly an odd spectacle when such a composed individual finally cracks. Ryan Smyth must bring that out in people (he certainly does in Ducks fans).

Now let’s watch what happens when you strike the stick of a man teetering on the fringe of sanity and composure.

(PHOTO: Ric Ernst/Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service)

Although this isn’t Ducks fare, and it isn’t Schadenfreude Saturday yet, it was a slow news day after another loss to the Kings last night. Onward and upward, I guess.

Mark Recchi’s medical credentials have never been in question. With that in mind, the good doctor has diagnosed his latest patient — the Vancouver Canucks — as “the most hated team [he's] ever played against” in an interview with CBS Boston.

In the post-mortem differential, Recchi also deigned to offer his hypothesis on where things went wrong for the Canucks:

“I couldn’t believe their antics; they’re falling and diving. It was very frustrating, but at the same time as the series wore on we knew we were getting to them and we knew our physical play and our skating, I think it caught them off guard a little bit.”

Most of his accusations aren’t news to fans of Western Conference teams, and no doubt some of them are being levied in the name of gamesmanship (and are no doubt easier to cuff with a hand wearing a heavy Stanley Cup ring). But for a sport whose players attract criticism for a lack of candor in their interviews, it’s always interesting when a player (or ex-player) gives us some color.

Image courtesy Anaheim Ducks.

In the pantheon of Ducks goaltenders, seldom has there been an individual among them whose mask wasn’t of the highest aesthetic calibre. Translation? When you play for a team whose nomenclature is derived from cartoon mallards, it’s virtually impossible NOT to have an awesome mask.

The latest to carry that torch is Dan Ellis, whose new cage was unveiled today. Its design is said to “honor the military”, and it’s not hard to see why. If these guys were taking care of business abroad, Osama would have been toast ten years ago.

Maybe.

(PHOTO: Mark Avery/Orange County Register/KRT)

Last week, our favorite Finnish fireball — that’s Teemu Selanne to you laymen — took to a blog he apparently keeps and shared some thoughts about, among other things, road trips and “old school” coaching methods. At least, that’s what can be ascertained from Google’s translation of the blog. I don’t read Finnish (it’s a matter of principle really, too many vowels).

Searching through the sea of misunderstood idiomatic Finnish that had been translated, this interesting anecdote surfaced:

I am reminded of a funny story of an ex-teammate Dustin Penner, a bit lazy guy, which was to deal with harder strokes and words. Carlyle gave so yes haipakkaa [sic] throughout the year that, if properly horrified, Dustin how to bear it. Carlyle repeated very often someone say fuck’n Penner, fuck’n Penner. After a period of Dustin told us, laughing, that he already began to suspect that his first name really is fuck’n. Well, it probably also helped to laugh about the fact that we won the Stanley Cup that year.

To the surprise of precisely nobody, it turns out Dustin Penner was (and if his stats are any indicator, still is) a lazy player and coach Randy Carlyle hated that. The practical upshot is that the collection of pejorative nicknames Ducks fans have been amassing for Penner has a new entry, one that is officially validated by somebody who witnessed his work ethic firsthand.

How did this go a week without being noticed? Well, it was posted in Finland, and with the time difference and the Earth’s rotation, coupled with setting the clocks back an hour and… hey, look over there! It’s Dustin Penner’s career!

More than just a pretty face. So nice we posted it twice.

STOP THE PRESSES!

Idle curiosity got the best of me today. I dove into Google Analytics to find what drives people to Quacked, and as it turns out, there’s not a hell of a lot that does it.

But a particular curio of interest to internet travellers is none other than esteemed Ducks alumnus Aaron Ward. Furthermore, it seems that searches for Ward comprise a large percentage of the top search referrals to Quacked. See for yourself:

Ward, whom you may remember as being on particularly friendly terms with us before he blocked our account on Twitter (the internet equivalent of a child putting his hands over his ears and shouting, “LALALALA!”), is apparently still a topic of interest to some.

Well, to himself, if I had to guess.

He’s an ex-Ducks player… never liked him… schadenfreude and all that good stuff.