(Ed. Note: Our series "Puck Daddy's Guilty Pleasures" features puckheads from all walks of life answering questions about their own hockey-related guilty pleasures. It will run daily during the month of August. Have a suggestion for a "Guilty Pleasures" guest blogger? Hit us on email. Enjoy!)
Today's Special Guest: Mark Madden, host on 105.9 The X in Pittsburgh, columnist for the Beaver County Times and a former color commentator for World Championship Wrestling. He's a die-hard Pittsburgh Penguins fan.
1. The Player You Most Love To Hate
"Love to hate" implies some level of underlying respect. I prefer to just HATE.
I HATE THE FLYERS. I was so happy when Pittsburgh boy RJ Umberger got traded to Columbus, because it meant I could root for the Flyers plane crash again. Those low-rent scumbags kicked the Penguins around FOR YEARS — literally, FOR YEARS, 42 games without a win at the Spectrum, 15 FRIGGIN' YEARS — so recent domination of the Flyers is more glorious than D-day. Here's the scoreboard, bitches: 8-0 in 2006-07, playoff elimination in '08 and '09, three Cups to your two. It's a shame "1975" is a tough year to chant. The Flyers' thug-life style has been an embarrassment to hockey for 40 years, and IT DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE.
I hate Gretzky, too. A mincing little skirt. Overrated because he's not French, and from Ontario. Simply wasn't as good as Mario. Just wasn't.
I hate Jagr, too. There are 28 other teams to play for. He and Talbot should NEVER have signed with Philly. If you played for the Red Sox, you shouldn't play for the Yankees. If you played for Liverpool FC, you shouldn't play for Man United. If you played for the Penguins, you shouldn't play for the Flyers.
Man, I hate a LOT of people. I reserve the right to come back to this one. Oh, [expletive] - Tom Barrasso. I could go on and on about that clown. See below.
2. Other Than Your Own, The Team You Can't Help Rooting For
Geez, I hate EVERYBODY. Aren't you paying attention?
I tend to root for ex-Pens, especially one with whom I've got a good relationship, and Pittsburgh products. The Bruins winning the Cup was OK by me — I like Recchi, Ference and rookie Matt Bartkowski, two ex-Pens and a Pittsburgh kid. But, in general, I like seeing Montreal do well. Great tradition, great jerseys, great logo.
I attended a game at the Forum back when and the atmosphere was ELECTRIC. Hockey is a secondary sport in so many NHL markets, but it means the world in Montreal. The whole culture depends so much on Les Canadiens. It's the same way in Toronto, but those schmucks act too entitled. They haven't won since 1967, but Leafs fans still act like their team is something special. It's a garbage franchise that squanders limitless resources.
3. Favorite Fight or Brawl of All-Time
I hate that part of hockey, but ...
In 1974, the Penguins played an exhibition game against the WHA's Cleveland Crusaders at the Civic Arena. I don't know what the Pens or the NHL could have been thinking ... no accountability in a game like that. Anyway, the benches emptied. The fighting was so furious, the game had to be called. Steve Durbano of the Penguins had been ejected earlier, but CLIMBED THE TALL GLASS to get back on the rink and in the fight. Battleship Kelly of the Penguins hit a young Paul Baxter TWICE WITH THE SAME PUNCH. Kelly socked Baxter on the jaw, Baxter's head ricocheted off the glass, and Kelly clipped him again with the follow through. Battleship was the best fighter the Pens ever had, and maybe the best fighter EVER. That night was like Vietnam on skates.
In terms of an individual bout, in 1975, the Penguins' Bob Paradise stomped the tar out of the Islanders' Clark Gillies, considered by some hockey's reigning heavyweight.
Before the Civic Arena went NUTS, it went SILENT for a split-second. We couldn't believe what we saw.
In Mario Lemieux's first home game, he pummeled poor little 5-foot-9 Gary Lupul of Vancouver. Lupul died 23 years later. They say the beating he absorbed from Mario had nothing to do with it.
They say.
4. The Hideous-Looking Hockey Jersey You Secretly Love The Most
The old green, gold and white extravaganzas the Oakland/California (Golden) Seals used to wear. That ensemble (white skates included) was DA BOMB, yo. Plus, they SUCKED. They looked like a slo-pitch softball team with bad taste, and they DARED TO SUCK. Hideous yet compelling.
5. Your Favorite Hockey Cliché (terminology, traditions, announcer-speak, etc.)
Anything Mike Lange says.
His catch-phrases often HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH HOCKEY. "Michael, Michael motorcycle!" WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? I've learned many things from Mike; one thing is, it's not always what you say, it's HOW YOU SAY IT. DELIVERY and RHYTHM. He's a blueprint for hockey announcers. He GETS THE PEOPLE WITH HIM. That's tough to do.
I also like when announcers say the two-goal lead is the worst in hockey. IDIOTIC. It implies a one-goal lead would somehow be better. It's such a typical hockey cliche, Canadian puck snobs acting like sage wisdom somehow trumps math and logic.
6. The Injury You Couldn't Stop Staring At (Non-Skate Lacerations Only)
I never got to see Jordan Staal's foot after it got sawed in half during the 2010 playoffs. I hear it drew quite a crowd. I saw Kevin Stevens after he fell to the ice, face-first and unconscious, in the 1993 playoffs.
His face looked like a potato chip that had been stepped on. Absolutely GROTESQUE.
I was in the runway to the Penguins' locker room, just feet away, when Darius Kasparaitis hit Eric Lindros with his legendary, concussive body check. Lindros tried to get up, and kept falling. Kaspar did the same thing to Denis Savard: He looked like a marionette with a half-dozen strings cut. Later, when I did the Pens' post-game show from the runway, I interviewed Kaspar and introduced him as (cue Joe Elliott impression) "THE LITHUANIAN THUNDER GOD!"
We were a good showbiz team, me and Kaspar.
Here's a funny injury story: Penguins goalie J-S Aubin got knocked silly by a puck to the melon and had to be removed from a game up 2-0. Tom Barrasso replaced him, allowing three soft goals to lose, 3-2. At game's end, Barrasso stormed into the trainer's room and loudly berated a still-prone Aubin for being soft, for not playing hurt, and for letting the team down. Quite an ironic lecture coming from a guy who pulled the chute more than anyone, a known quitter/hypochondriac.
The punchline: When I asked Aubin about it, he said, "Yeah, somebody else told me about that. But I was so out of it, I didn't hear a word he said. I don't even remember him being there."
7. Your Favorite Cheesy Hockey Reference in Popular Culture
Happy Gilmore as a hockey player. I met Adam Sandler not long after "Happy Gilmore" was released, and we agreed that deep down, it was a hockey movie, not a golf movie.
7a. Your Favorite Terrible Hockey Card Or Hockey Action Figure.
In 1974, I think, Jacques Lemaire's hockey card had him as a member of the Buffalo Sabres, and his uni was airbrushed accordingly. I just assumed he got traded. Hey, no internet then.
8. Finally, What's The Thing You Secretly Respect Gary Bettman For The Most?
I think Gary Bettman's mostly crap, a New York lawyer who never watched a hockey game until he was paid to, a man with no deep love for hockey. It's just a job to him. But I do respect Bettman for taking great pains to keep franchises from relocating, and only allowing it as a VERY LAST RESORT.
No matter how few people might be supporting a team at a given time, A) things run in cycles; they invariably get better and B) those few people LOVE THAT TEAM, and moving it would damage their lives IRREPARABLY.
When the Penguins were at low ebb pre-Lemieux, there were under 7,000 people at the Civic Arena a lot of nights. But we LOVED THAT TEAM, and LOOK AT US NOW.
Bettman was a wolverine when it came to the Penguins' battle to stay in Pittsburgh, just below Mario on that particular totem pole. God bless him.