Did you like the new goal song? (I'm already tired of it. LOL). How about everything else? I thought the opening ceremonies stuff was good as usual, with something new from Icy.
It's been a long time since the Komets have had a defenseman as strong as Mario Larocque. He and Dupuis together might be the most physically strong pairing in the UHL. J.C. Ruid definitely has the longest reach in the league. I thought Goodwin might have been the Komets' best player as far as all-around game.
The Komets looked much better as far as systems, but that might be in part because QC just stinks right now. The Mallards' defense is horrible, and the forwards aren't getting back much to help. There's way too much talent on this team for this to be happening. Jason Tapp made some amazing saves, but did you notice there was no one around to help him out on rebounds? The Komets were getting great scoring chances.
As for the officiating? Has anybody ever considered that the players just aren't paying attention? Coming into the game the Komets had had 12 power plays compared to their opponents' 20. The same thing happened in the first and second period again Saturday. That's three different refs. It might be time to take a peak in the mirror.
Wasn't it nice to see Eddie Long back again?
Comments
Unsung hero tonight has to be the line of Gascon, Morency and Labarre. They created a ridiculous amount of turnovers. Labarre has been a pleasant surprise.
We finally have some defenseman on this team not afraid to shoot the puck on the powerplay. I remember Bingham said they will shoot a lot before the season started.
I personally disliked the new goal song-and I thought the officiating was horrible tonite-It was hard to believe that the referee was actually at our bench talking with the coach tonite-something we would have never seen last season. Anyways-loved the pregame festivities and enjoyed the 8-3 blowout of those ducks!! GO KOMETS!
I loved seeing Bingo gettiing into the game and showing some heart to the guys!!!
At the start of the game I told my wife I loved seeing Rock dish out some hits, but it seemed like he wasn't that great at handling the puck, 3 assist later...foot in mouth!
I don't think the ref blew too many calls, but he seemed to let the first call go so the guys could play, but when the next player wanted to pay them back, he would call it. The whole Rudenko thing was a joke!!! He got rocked into the boards in front of the bench and looked like a rag doll, nothing called! He took a skate to the other side of the ice and threw a hit on the Duck that got him and all hell breaks loose. (And how does Tapp not get a call for leaving his crease to grab a Komet?)
If the ref is going to let them play, call it both ways! On that note, I hope the Ducks recover from the game. I think the trainer had more shifts than some of the players!!!
PS Sorry Larry, but I didn't like the song either. I tried to come up with a chant, since I had eight times to try, and nothing...
Is that the only goal song you plan on using? I know you said you had a few in mind.
I liked the song.
song wasnt that impressive but since you cant play the mother of all songs, nothing will ever measure up. thought the komets hustled the whole game. the rock and guy were tough! hukalo still cant hit the net and it was nice to see a player (rudenko) stick up for himself. i got the feeling during the national anthems that this was going to be a special year. let me be the first to say it. this is the colonial year!!
Hawthorne has to be anti-full strength hockey...did they even play 5 minutes tonight full strength?
Gascon was a very nice surprise. He plays 110% at 150mph the whole time he is on the ice. I agree with the previous post, the line he was on did an excellent job at getting turnovers and blazing the puck to the other end.
Johnny-B-Very-Good tonight. He looks like a different player. He plays physical, aggressively, and he is a pretty good PK guy. He was even out there in key 5-3 PK's. I don't think "Nothing At All" ever gave him a real shot at the PK unit. He will definitely blossom under Bingham.
Sorry Larry the PA Guy, but that song is lame-o!!! I hate it. I can't understand it, it is confusing, I just stood there staring into space. The song you played right after the Name That Movie Promo would have been a much better choice. Please don't settle on that one. Maybe try out 5 total and let the fans pick which sounds best. Just an idea. I heard no Black Eyed Peas tonight either. Pump It would be a good choice for goal song too. I will stop...
Oh, I forgot, the Rock is the real deal. I haven't seen a D-Man in this town that good for a real long time. He plays his position really well. He is very sound. He passes well, handles the puck, shoots, hits, takes the body, and is always in the right position. He is a big dude too. I could see him talking the talk more this year than that sorry excuse Jorde did last year. But, I bet he won't say a thing. The Rock is going to be a favorite this year.
Every penalty against the Komets tonight was a correct call. The lack of consistant calls though drove me nuts.
BIG plus it seemed like the Komets got to EVERY loose puck. That kind of aggression is great to see.
i would like to congratulate Jim Hawthorne as tonights UHL Idiot award winner. He called more penalties and dished out more minutes than anyone else this evening. I hope the boo's at the end of the second period when he left the ice were heard in Lake St. Louis. 2 of QC's goals he should have had an assist on!
Other than that i really enjoyed the evening. Can't wait till next week, two games.
Now i would like everyone to turn to page 7 of tonights game night program, can you identify that smiling man?
That's not a smile, it's a grimace. That ice was d--- cold!
I didn't see too many calls tonight that should not have been made, but I saw a few more that should have been called. Remember, this is how the league wants the refs to call it. My whole problem is with consistency, as you'll see in Monday's column.
Truthfully, I didn't think the game was that entertaining because of all the calls, and I blame at least part of that on the players. Man, there were some stupid moves out there.
I really wonder why it takes players so long to adjust.
Have you ever noticed that it's always blame the refs? Don't the players have some responsibility to adjust as well?
Really guys, the penalties against the Komets were deserved and should have been called. The problem with Jim Hawthorne and several other officials in this league is the calls are not consistent. I also will never understand why the OHL can have two officials at many games and yet the UHL only has one. I would not want to try to do these games alone.
Very nice overall effort....the PP unit was impressive (6 PPG) I wish that Guy could have scored on that breakaway...he really hustled out there tonight....the D played really well, especially to allow ZERO shots in the 3rd. The team kept playing hard...even with the big lead. I was impressed with that. I think they did OK with the shorthanded situation. It was clear why Quad City got Parson. Time will tell how they fare this season.
So no one has answered any questions, why didn't they call the boarding to Rudenko which would have squashed the big tangle and why wasn't Tapp called for leaving the crease and getting involved in the fight?
I also have to say Tapp should get a "Best Actor" nod for the "flip" he did when skating to the bench and tapping into one of the Komets on the way.
Excellent opener, indeed. Remember many of these guys (both teams) are very young players that have never seen more than 3500 fans at any game they've played in. After the nerves settled down, K's really took control. Some observations:
OMG... poor Jason Tapp. That guy would pay money to be a backup goalie on the Komets, or any other quality team. It's surprising with these many good players (5,8,13,19,83) that QC is getting hammered like they are though, so far this season.
71 - the real deal. This is a good example supporting Blakes idea of having a d-man of the week award. Defense is so much more challenging than most fans know. A d-man has to be always thinking and always working. Thank goodness PB was able to get him here. The appeal was to finally have a big tough and sometimes dirty defenseman. Surprise! He's also good with the puck, shoots on net, commands the PP, and sees the ice very well.
33 - can't skate.. Big tough guy with little skills. Can anybody say LNAH?
Nice to see chippiness out of 22 and 23. Someone had to deliver a message to Otten, as he was crunchin guys pretty good.
Nice to see 2 play so well and show leadership, and 19 on the puck and the body big time, and 4 with a little more determination than in preseason games. Scoring from all lines.
28, very cool. Always wanted a guy like that when watching him play for Rockford. Big reach. And 10 is a nice surprise, (so far).
I totally agree with Tony E (maybe the smartest, most fair and least-homerness poster) on the K's deserving every penalty they were called for. No doubt, and something they must work on. Justin covers it on his blog as well. Definitely would like to have seen more 5-on-5.
Is Muskegon as good as their start to the season, or have they not played against good defense yet? Seems like Robinson is one crafty guy and always a part of their success, even with the key players leaving this year.
As the K's have gotten bigger and tougher, it looks like a lot of other teams have also. K's will have plenty of physical challenges... At least we're in much better position than recent years, and K's are not only tougher but also move the puck really well.
6 PPG is a K's record since joining the UHL!
Bleed orange and black...
I have been wanting to see the UHL have two referees in games....at least have each team have about 10-12 games per year and in all playoff games. Of course, I'm sure that the cost is the primary reason for not doing it. But it would be a good way to help out the officials and perhaps help them advance their careers to the higher leagues.
Can someone help me out with Richardson's major penalty. It seemed like it was called two stopages later. No one sitting where I was saw what happened. The only thing I saw was Yoder go off after getting checked into the boards, then a minute later Richardson is off with a major elbowing. Was that the play?
officiating consistency or the lack thereof is probably what gets my goat the most.
I don't blame Rudenko for his penalty because i thought he was getting knocked around without getting the calls. the 2 major penalties witin 90 seconds of each other, doesn't seem right, especially richardsons elbow, didn't that happen 2 - 5 minutes before it was called, i did notice richardson after the game jawing with the ref in his street clothes.
Richardson swears he didn't hit the guy, and the Komets are going to send a tape to the league.
I don't have a problem with Tapp on the Rudenko play as much as I do with MacIntyre not getting a third man in. The players didn't seem to have a problem with Rudenko call.
Can't believe how bad QC was. Truthfully, I was expecting some kind of melee late, but they didn't seem to have any fight left in them. Tapp I thought really deserves credit for keeping his head in the game when most of his teammates clearly did not.
Richardson did elbow the player, but it was a 2 min penalty, not a 5 min major and a game misconduct. The play happened right in front of me, I even leaned over to my friend to comment on how we got away with an elbow, then 30 seconds later Hawthorne blows the whistle.
I'm baaaack... I loved the song. I thought it was fun and it sure got more people excited than the Ole song did.
I was confused about the Richardson call. I didn't even see anything happen and all of a sudden he was getting kicked out!
And yes, QC was awful. I felt sorry for Tapp, none of his teammates were there to help him out!
All in all, the game was exciting and I am looking forward to a winning year. Hope everyone has a good weekend!
The song was okay, pregame wasn't my thing but oh well and why oh why do we have to do the Twist, that's the one that should go next.
Great power play for the K's and for that matter the penatly kill wasn't that bad either. St. Pierre olny bad goal was Parsons third, St. Pierre had no chance on the first two.
The Komets are taking way too many penatlies. Tonight they got lucky and ran into a real bad team that couldn't capitalize unless they had a 5 on 3. Rudenko's call was totally legit. I agree that we need players to stand up for themselves but not at the expense of taking a 5 min major for a hit that was boarderline against him. When Rudenko got hit along the K's bench I felt it was boarderline interference but nothing else and what does he do, takes a stupid 5 min major. Can't speak to Richardson's Penatly because I wasn;t looking to the ice at the time.
Blake, your're spot on that Ruid's got to have the longest reach in the UHL, I loved the way he could get those center ice passes.
Nice article about Kayaga in the morning paper about how they like his would ethic but apparently don't trust his skills enough to put him on either the PP or the PK because he hardly saw the ice last night.
I liked Gascon, Hukalo played extremly well last night, other than that the game was pretty fair.
I didn't like the song, Larry please find something else, You cant understand it and the beat is hard to follow. Very impressed with the team though.
Speaking of Jason Tapp Can anyone tell me why he was even between the pipes last night he recieved a game misconduct at 18:29 in the third in his game the night before. Isn't there a rule that if the time on the misconduct isn't finished in the current game it has to be served the next game? Just a question cause I seem to remember some komets in the past gettin Misconduct at the ends of games and being out of the lineup the next game.
Larry, the goal song was great!!! Will you people never be happy with anything?? I was always a big fan of RR#2, but found this one just as good. Evidently people don't have any talent on figuring out a chant. We had one going instantly. As far as the game. AWESOME!!!! After talking to one of the players after the game, he said that about half of our penalties were good calls, and the other half stunk. He said that they expected it with Hawthorne and that they'd just have to work on the penalties that we did commit. Watching Bingham from time to time was great also. How nice to see an animated coach!!All in all, loved it and the jungle was Rockin!!! Great job guys
Komets played great. No flow in the game though, I understand they are trying to open up the game, but to call every single thing is going way overboard. To tell you the truth I almost to the point of wishing they would let it all go if they are going to give each team 50 powerplays a game. I thought the goal song was decent, though it needed to be louder and clearer in my opinion. I think it has potential for chants, we just need to give it time. Constantly changing we will never find anything. I think it was Joe Satriani "Crowd Chant" right ? At least around me people seemed to get into it. The most important thing was the Komets looked great and finished all their hits.
On the Rudenko penalty, Otten literally about broke Rudenko in half by the bench and was never called for anything. I applaud Rudenko for getting him back. Maybe he shouldn't have taken hum down that hard, but if anybody else saw what Otten did to him, I would have clocked the guy too. Also, no penalty on Tapp leaving the crease and the third man in were a complete joke!! Those 2 penalties should have been whistled right away. At that point, the game was totally out of control, as far as Hawthorne was concerned. Oh, and yes the players were upset about Rudenko's whole deal because of the botched calls not made also. I know retaliaton is never a god thing, because the ref only sees that, but sometimes a hit is just necessary to let the guy know that you're not going to take his abuse.
Zero shots on goal in the third period was impressive, though I thought maybe one or two could have been called on-goal if the scorer had decided it the other way.
Fans need a song that we can sing to, one that is memorable, has some repetition and a definite end so we know when we can count out the goals scored. The new song is about as good as a Quad City Defenseman.
I seem to remember someone mentioning a chant for this song...but never said what it was. So, whoever you were, tell us so we can try it and decide if we like it.
glad the ks won but i agree with blake, the way the game was called made it tough to watch, if they are going to call it like that just forget the ref and have the teams alternate two minute power plays all game, what made it even worse was the sleepy music they played after every call. i kind of liked the new goal music though,, pa guy you have a tough job, keep up the good work,