You Can't Always Get What You Want: The NHL Edition

Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals was last Friday with the Pittsburgh Penguins taking home the Stanley Cup over the reigning champion Detroit Red Wings. One of the many storylines surrounding the series, which was a rematch of last year's finals, concerned forward Marian Hossa who had been with the Penguins during last year's series and had joined the Red Wings in the off-season as a free agent in pursuit of the Cup. In theory, a promising idea since the Red Wings are proven contenders every year, but unfortunately Hossa found out the hard way you can't always get what you want. I imagine it stings that much more to lose to many of his former teammates. Ouch.

Earlier this season the NHL had a nifty ad campaign with several stars literally stepping out of photographs to say a few über-serious words about The Game. This one with the Penguins superstar captain Sidney Crosby is particularly great considering how the finals played out:



And here's a little follow-up spoof I put together a couple days ago for his former teammate Marian Hossa:



Honestly, I feel a little bad for the guy. On the flipside, I have no sympathy (because I'm a bitter old Oiler fan) for Ty Conklin who has unbelievably been in the Stanley Cup Finals (as back-up goaltender) in three of the past four years with three different teams with no Cup ring to show for it. Triple ouch. Coincidentally, another former Oiler goalie Mathieu Garon was traded to the Penguins halfway through this season and got to hoist the Cup before him, heh heh.

Exuma - You Can't Always Get What You Want [originally by The Rolling Stones]

...but sometimes you can get what you want. For a long time I've been meaning to a commission a drawing from Alex Robinson, the most excellent comic book artist of Box Office Poison, Tricked, and Too Cool To Be Forgotten. So last week I finally sent him my proposal for Jane and Stephen, two of his characters from Box Office Poison, to re-enact a notable album cover. Any long-time reader should be able to guess what band's album cover I asked him to "cover". Yesterday I got an e-mail from Alex with a scan of the brilliant result and it'll be in the mail to me today! Check it out! By the way, Alex and fellow comic book artist Mike Dawson (Freddie & Me) have a podcast called The Ink Panthers-- now on iTunes. It's basically two friends riffing on a variety of random topics (i.e. identical triplets, prerequisites to calling oneself a Rush fan, safety of baby bike trailers) without, say, the obnoxiousness of morning radio DJs on a classic rock station. They're only three episodes in and still working out the kinks, but it frequently makes me chuckle maniacally to myself on the bus to work.