SIDDO SKATES!!!!!!

OH HAPPY DAY!!!!!!


This picture is from this morning when our Captain took the ice for the first time since January 5^th! According to the Pens' website, "Crosby skated on the ice for about 15 minutes in full gear early in the morning at CONSOL Energy Center. He stick handled around some cones and shot a few pucks."

And speaking of making progress with injuries, Tangradi, Orpik, and Comrie all skated as well.

Soooo, doesn't this news just absolutely negate your Monday blues? :) Be sure to stay tuned to the Pens' website for the most current updates on the injured Boys' conditions.

A Little Update

{image via Front Porch Handmade}

I've been MIA from the blog for the past two weeks and I apologize.  Real life took over and I had to take a little break to keep everything afloat.  I'm sorry I left everyone hanging.

I had a wonderful giveaway scheduled to post today but after waking up to the news of the devastation in Japan, I decided to switch gears a bit.  Tragedies like this are horrific and it's hard to find anything positive in the images and stories you see in newspapers, on TV and online.  But then I hear about how people pull together to help and my faith in humanity is renewed.  So I'm hoping that the community of people who read AFOMFT can do a little bit too.

{image via Dazey Chic}

Starting Monday, I have seventeen amazing giveaways scheduled, and one will run each day until the end of March.  To earn five additional entries into any of the giveaways you want, all you need to do is to text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 to help with relief efforts (the donation will be billed to your cell phone bill).

Easy right?  Just donate $10 using the method I described above and you can add five additional entries into every one of the giveaways starting Monday.  And that's not all.  Since I've been so busy and haven't drawn the winners of the last few giveaways on AFOMFT, you can also add the five entries to those as well (enter to win a $50 gift card to iTunes, a $50 gift card to Old Navy or a $50 gift card to Ann Taylor Loft HERE, the Timmy Time DVD HERE, three Nickelodeon DVDs HERE, the Who Said Coo? book HERE) before I draw the winners Sunday night.  When all is said and done, that $10 donation will basically give you 95 more chances to win one of 23 prizes.  Not too shabby!

Since there's no way for me to verify that the donations were actually made, this whole thing will be via the honor system.  Please be honest - abusing this opportunity would be really crappy and I'm sure you won't want the kind of karma lying about donating will get you.

Again, I'm sorry about the lack of blog posts over the last two weeks but I promise come Monday, I'll be back with a vengeance!  In the meantime, get to texting....

An Original End-of-Winter Poem

It certainly doesn’t feel like spring is nearly here. Today, it’s gray and damp and cold around these parts. Still, I hold out hope the season will arrive before the end of April!!!

Here’s an end-of-winter poem that I wrote a couple of weeks ago. I don’t have a title for it yet.

Frozen earth thaws,
Pond ice recedes,
Icicles weep,
Snowmen bleed
As mountain brooks begin to sing.
Winter’s melting into spring!

********************

The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Liz in Ink.

At Blue Rose Girls, I have an original cinquain.

Concussed Crosbys

When it rains in the Crosby household, it pours. Two weeks ago, Sid's little sister, 14-year-old goaltender Taylor, suffered a concussion just like her big brother. Fortunately, unlike the elder Crosby, Taylor missed just a week and two games before returning to team practices. Given this latest turn of events, their parents must be very concerned about their children's futures in the sport they both love so much.


As for Siddo, well, according to Pittsburgh Penguins spokeswoman Jennifer Bullano, his condition remains the same:

“He is continuing functional rehab, but he is still experiencing symptoms.”

This is very distressing news. In the aforementioned article, GM Ray Shero makes an astute observation:

“We are a league where you can accidentally hit a guy in the head with your shoulder and not be penalized,” Shero recently told USA Today. “But if you clear a puck out of your zone and it accidentally goes in the stands, they give you two minutes.

Does that make sense?”

No, Mr. Shero, it absolutely does not. I've been hoping the NHL would crack down on the unnecessary violence for years now, to no avail. Without proper punishment, guys will continue to get hurt - "proper" being the key word. David Steckel went unpunished when the then-Caps forward delivered the first crushing blow to our title man's head. Fast forward a few weeks later when, as a Devils forward, he pulled a nearly identical move on our own Chris Conner. (Fortunately, he didn't connect with Conner in quite the same way he did with Sid.)

Then of course there is professional arse-hat Trevor Gillies. He was punished...with a paltry 9 game suspension for a dirty hit + punching a concussed victim who has yet to return + taunting his victim afterwards. Colin Campbell had a chance to really send a message, yet inexplicably he chose not to. Fast forward 9 games off the roster and 1 minute & 51 seconds back on it, when Gillies threw an elbow into the back of Cal Clutterbuck's head. He really got the message, didn't he, Colie? So what was the punishment for this latest assault? A 10 game suspension. You know, because the 9 game suspension was just 1 game short of this guy "getting" it. Campbell, himself proving to be a professional arse-hat, should hang his head in shame and offer his resignation.

The NHL must get serious about this. Eliminating headshots would not make the game less exciting. In fact, the NFL implemented stiffer penalties for headshots midseason, and guess what? Headshots went down! Imagine that! And ratings didn't suffer, the games weren't less exciting, and even professional arse-hat football players like Pittsburgh's own James Harrison admitted that they were more conscious about the hits they delivered. Proof it can be done. As for Gillies, Islanders GM Garth Snow and coach Jack Capuano know exactly what kind of player he is. They know exactly what they're getting when they put him in the lineup: a thug on skates. He played in 354 AHL games, scored only 7 goals and 14 assists. In that same number of games, he was assessed 1,471 penalty minutes. I'm with Clutterbuck: "There's no way that guy should be in the National Hockey League."

Tonight, we face the Sabres for the final time this season. It's Kovy's first home game since rejoining the team. In honor of the occasion, please enjoy this lovely wallpaper that longtime good Friend of The Show Jaime made for me to celebrate the return of my first favorite player:

Many, many thank yous, Jaime!!! :) Click to enlarge for full-sized wallpaper.

We haven't lost to Buffalo yet this year, which bodes well for me, as I have an on-going bet with my coworker, Johnny Sabre. ;) My Facebook profile pic for a week is on the line. Kuni is a game-time decision.

Don't let me down, Boys! DO IT.

GO PENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MARCH: Two Versions of an Original Acrostic Poem

I sometimes like to write rhyming acrostics. Here’s one I wrote about the month of March last week:

Melting snow, mellower days,
A brighter sun with warmer rays,
Robins
Chirping. Beat the drum.
Hallelujah! Spring has come!

Here's a slightly different version of the March acrostic that I wrote this morning:


Melting snow, mellower days,
A brighter sun with warmer rays,
Robins
Chirping. Let’s all cheer.
Hallelujah! Spring is here!

***************

At Blue Rose Girls, I have an acrostic poem titled Crocus.

Ben has the Poetry Friday Roundup at The Small Nouns.

AK72

Hello, again, my wonderful old Friends. I have missed you all so much.

To be honest, I don't know how many of you will see this because my hiatus is turning out to be much longer than I intended. Much like our title man, I am experiencing some setbacks in my condition (though, mine are not as serious as Siddo's). Those of you who have befriended me on Facebook know the situation, but for those who don't, long story short: my doctor and I are facing obstacles in my treatment due to my health insurance. I'm still not feeling well, which is the reason for my absence here.

(Click to enlarge)

So what finally brought me back tonight? Facebook Friends of mine also know that I am very excited - ecstatic, really - about reacquiring one Alexei Kovalev. You see, had I started a hockey blog a decade ago, it would have been called The Alex Kovalev Show. He was my first favorite hockey player. I have been beside myself since he came back to us last week. (Haha, as woodstock put it, "You've wanted him back since the day after he was traded.") I cannot wait to finally see him in a Pens uni again on March 20^th. SQUEE!!! If Siddo is able to come back this season, seeing him on the same ice on the same team as Kovy will absolutely be a dream come true for me. :D

YYYYYEEEEESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Welcome back, Alex!

There has been no news of our fearless leader. He's still not symptom free, which means he's still not exercising, which means he's still not able to come back. A concussion is a brain injury that only rest and time can heal. There is a very real possibility we may not see him again this season. But I'd rather wait until September to see him in action again than see him come back too soon and suffer a setback or worse, [*gulps*] end his career prematurely.

Take all the time you need, Siddo. We'll all still be here when you get back.

At this point, I'm just going to try to get The Show back on track slowly and ease my way into it in time for the playoffs. Hopefully by then, my condition will improve and I'll be feeling well enough to deal with the anonymous keyboard warriors who made writing for TSCS too difficult and stressful for me while I've been ill. For now, I'm going to shoot for one quality post a week. I hope there are still a few people out there willing to share my love of the Penguins, their Captain, and an old favorite of mine. :D


Tonight, our Boys are back up in Toronto for the second of back-to-back away games versus the Leafs.

GO PENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here & There: March 2, 2011

Some Notable Books Lists
2011 Notable Children’s Books (Association for Library Science for Children)

2011 Best Fiction for Young Adults (Young Adult Library Services Association)

2011 NCTE Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts (A Year of Reading)

Amelia Bloomer Project Top 10 for 2011 Representing the best of the best from our annual booklist of appealing feminist books for young readers, ages birth through 18 (Amelia Bloomer Project)


Here & There
Have You Heard the Word?: National Poetry Month is a great time to share the joy of poetry with children (School Library Journal)

The Civil War: Beyond the Battlefield (School Library Journal)

Sing a Song of Science: Scientists in the Field by Erica Zappy (The Horn Book)

New Knowledge by Marc Aronson (The Horn Book)

What Makes a Good Picture Book Biography? by Viki Ash and Thom Barthelmess (The Horn Book)

Starred Books: March/April 2011 (The Horn Book)

Books and Authors: Talking with Linda Sue Park by Monika Schroder (Booklist)

Fall 2011 Sneak Preview of Children’s Books (Publishers Weekly)