… After all, things are supposed to be better once you’re the big cheese! I am looking forward to seeing what you’ll do with the Thrashers. ;-)

You know you’ve f-ed up when you cause Johan Hedberg to lose his cool and break his goalie stick over the net. Thank you Boris Valabik for scoring an own-goal tonight. And thank you Thrashers for helping me learn just how much pain one person can take.

Thank you Bruins for just crushing my spirit.

And, while we’re not on the subject, $200 for Casino Night tickets. The Thrashers are lucky I love them enough. That’s me … a sucker.

At least Slava had a beautiful goal tonight. Almost made up for everything else. Almost.

Would it kill shop.nhl.com to have some Atlanta Thrashers T-shirts for players who, I don’t know, actually PLAY for the Thrashers? OK. They have a few current players, but of the shirts being offered for sale, more than half are for players that are not on the team anymore! There are seven “Player Apparel” options at the NHL Shop and here’s what we have:

1. 1 long-sleeve Ilya Kovalchuk shirt. GOOD
   
2. 1 short-sleeve Kari Lehtonen T-shirt. GOOD
   
3. 1 short-sleeve Colby Armstrong shirt. GOOD
   
4. 3 (count ‘em 3!) different short-sleeve Marian Hossa T-shirts (and hey! 15 percent off! Yes, I mock!). BAD. Very bad.
   
5. 1 short-sleeve Bobby Holik shirt. BAD.

So three T-shirts out of the seven being offered for purchase are current Thrasher players. I realize the necessity of getting your inventory sold, but damn it! Three Marian Hossa T-shirt options and only one Kovalchuk? And no Slava Kozlov? As we like to say in the South, that ain’t right!

I am not sure why I occasionally think of, and wonder, “Whatever happened to Chad Kilger?” But I do. Rumors swirled when he refused to report to the Florida Panthers from the Toronto Maple Leafs, but I guess he’s just … not coming back? So I did a news search. Here’s the only bit I could find on him, published December 6, 2008:

Chad Kilger, who played his minor, junior and NHL career as a forward, has joined the local pick-up hockey ranks, but not at his old position. He’s playing nets. Still waiting for the scouting reports.
- The Cornwall Standard Freeholder

Hmmm…

I was kind of excited to see Nathan Gerbe playing yesterday for the Buffalo Sabres. There he is, all 5′6″ of him, taking Martin St. Louis’ place as inspiration to vertically challenged men (and women) everywhere.