OK, early day at work this morning, so there weren’t any SCFblog links from yesterday.  I’ll try to get some up today.

I only got to see some of the game, so I only have a few things:

– Someone needs to explain that tripping call on Marchand.  A guy is coming in to clean Marchand’s clock along the boards, and Marchand ducks.  They call tripping.  The CBC said clipping, which was silly.  It wasn’t the safest play, but you can’t defend yourself against a check?  I didn’t like Marchand hauling down Ballard by the head, but that wasn’t nearly as bad as the CBC made it out to be.

– Lapierre looks incredulous no matter what he does.  He has a face made for theater.  Expressive.

– The CBC showed the crowd at Rogers Arena in Vancouver cheering when Luongo was pulled for Schneider.  It’s hard to feel for a fan base when that kind of thing happens.  I hate it when Avs fans do it, and I hate it when any fans do it to their team.  I know the fans are frustrated, but that’s pretty harsh. Sure, it isn’t every fan of the Canucks, and by now, it shouldn’t have to be qualified like that.  When you give him the big “Luuuuuu” one minute for a save, then applaud him being pulled the next, what does that say?

– I said it before, and I will say it again: It is never a series until it goes to the other team’s barn.

– TSN showed a replay of the Tim Thomas slash on Burrows.  They didn’t roll the tape back enough to show the stick checks Thomas was getting.  Meh.  This is a little closer to reality.

– Alain Vigneault is in denial.  His post-game pressers sound like he’s talking about another game.  Like cricket.

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So who starts game five for Vancouver? I think Luongo.  He’s bounced back before, and I think he will look better back home.  After the last start for Schneider, would Coach AV put his confidence in his backup?  I don’t think I would.

Game five is going to be electric.  For all the talk of the Bruins being done, they are right back in this thing.  Tim Thomas bailed the team out in the first game, and he’s been excellent in games three and four.  The Bruins needed good goaltending in these home games, rather than great goaltending.  In game 2, Tim Thomas deserved better from his team.  In games three and four, he got it.

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I turned off comments on the blog for a bit.  Sorry, but that’s the way it goes.  For your bonus content, check out this post by Derek Powazek about comments.

I got a comment on my post yesterday that threw me off for a bit.  It was a little snarky, a little passive – aggressive, and not worth dealing with.  It pissed me off.  Don’t bother looking for it, because I deleted it.  I was mad for most of the day.  And frankly, I don’t need to be angry over comments on my blog.

As much as we want hockey blogging to be about community, sometimes that community a pain in the butt.  I don’t need to defend  every opinion I have, or every word I write.  The more energy I spend on those comments, on clarifying and placating, the less energy I have for writing.  I want to have a conversation about hockey, but being dragged through the dirt isn’t a conversation.  I have my opinion, you have yours.

Stephen King talks about having an ideal reader, that person you focus on and write for as your audience.  For him, it’s his wife.  For me, I have two idea readers.  Both of them are people I respect, and people who are much better hockey writers than I am.  Neither of them leave comments here.  And at the same time, no offense here, but I don’t write for comments.  I write what I think, and I write what I feel.  If comments are going to take away from the writing, then they are gone.

Part of why I stopped writing was that I was too worried about what people felt.  Read that Powazek post; he says exactly how I feel.  Worrying about what people think about the writing is part of what kills your voice.  And I am no longer willing to do that.

If you need to get ahold of me, you can do so in the comment form up above, or hit me up on Twitter (@tapeleg).  At some point, I will turn comments back on, but not today.