Talk about a disappointment! What went wrong? The Flyers, one of the best teams in the NHL for most of the season and even being #1 for a time, were expected to go far in this years’ Stanley Cup Playoffs. After a long and historical run to come within two games of winning Lord Stanley’s Cup last season, the Flyers were primed to finish the job this season with their young core of talent intact and a bolstered, more experienced defensive unit. The Flyers defense were the top-rated in the league by many and with a surprising rookie campaign from goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, goal tending did not appear to be a major issue for once. Heading into the All-Star break the Flyers had the best record in the NHL with a 33-12-5 record, 3rd best ever in franchise history.

My friends and I joke about the “mid-season slump” that happens almost every year during or right after the Flyers annual West Coast trip around the holiday season and right before the All-Star break. It’s stretch of about 10-15 games where the Flyers generally play poorly and lose games and valuable points. The Flyers will get some sort of wake up call (or coaching change) at some point during the slump and then start making a run towards the playoffs. This didn’t happen with this team, at least not like it usually does. They lost 3 straight games to the mighty Canucks, Kings and the Ducks right after Christmas and most of us were saying, “here we go again”. But then the Flyers went into Detroit, where they hadn’t won in 17 straight games (23 years) and WON! Finally the curse of Hockeytown was over (the 4-0 sweep in 1997 still stings a bit) and the Flyers went on to a 10-2 record (including the Detroit game) to get to the All-Star break. No mid-season slump and things were looking good.

Somehow though things started to slowly unravel after the All-Star break and the team was never the same, coasting into the playoffs with a 14-11-7 record and losing both the President’s Trophy and the top seed in the Eastern Conference. The mid-season slump did come this year, only it happened later and it never really stopped.

Some will point to the absence of Chris Pronger, a massive force on the Flyers D, as the main reason behind the Flyers troubles. Pronger was injured often and played only half the season and only 3 games in the playoffs. He played well enough to help the Flyers secure wins in games 6 and 7 against the Buffalo Sabres to advance but wasn’t a dominant player on the ice. In game 7 the Flyers dominated the game from the start and played like they did in January. Everything seemed just fine in Flyerland, until we met Boston.

Wanting revenge for last seasons’ historic comeback by the Flyers after falling behind 3-0 to the Bruins and winning 4 straight in last years playoffs, the Bruins came at the Flyers relentlessly and the Flyers just couldn’t match their energy and intensity. The Flyers played well at times, especially in game 2 where I thought the Flyers had the better of play, but overall they played poorly and it showed. Had the Flyers won that game 2, perhaps it sparked them to another win in game 5 or even take it to game 7, but it was not to be.

Some people will of course blame the inconsistent goaltending of Boucher, Leighton and Bobrovsky as the main reason. All three goalies had bad games and all three goalies had good games, but there were a number of soft goals given up. On top of that, the Flyers defense that had played solidly throughout the season without Pronger, suddenly became overly cautious and downright lazy. Opposing players were allowed into areas in front of the net and the team was getting beat to loose pucks in their zone. The Bruins also were very good at intercepting Flyers clears.

Then we have all the injuries. Now every team has injuries this time of year, but 6 players needed surgery immediately after the playoffs: Richards (wrist), Pronger (back), Meszaros (wrist), Betts (finger), Versteeg (abdomen), Leighton (hip). Jeff Carter and Scott Hartnell were both evaluated for possible hip surgery as well. That’s a pretty good list which includes their top two defenseman (arguably), the leading goal scorer, the captain of the team and best 2 way player, and a key penalty killer and defensive player.

Some, though very few that I’ve seen, will blame coach Peter Laviolette for not getting the team ready to play and there’s been speculation in the media of communication issues between Laviolette and Richards. Some will blame management for not getting enough big bodies to crash and bang with the Bruins and especially for not picking up a top goalie this past season. Truth be told there’s blame to be placed all around.

I blame on the whole damn organization really, from GM on down to the last player. Do I think the Flyers need a consistent starting-caliber goalie? Yes I do and that’s on Paul Holmgren. Despite Bob’s fantastic regular season he is still a rookie learning the NHL game who had never played as many games as he had this past season. I also think that Laviolette did a horrible job with the goalies and the now infamous “goalie carousel”, which is no way to show confidence in any one of them. But then how could he have any confidence? Not one of the three goalies played consistently through consecutive appearances.

There seemed to be a severe lack of effort from just about every player except for JVR and a few others, who was outstanding throughout the playoffs. How do you not “get up” for a playoff game, skate hard and give it your best? Players weren’t skating to loose pucks but instead gliding to them and getting beat. The Flyers outhit the Bruins in a few games, but the Bruins were clearly the harder hitting team.

Were the injuries that debilitating? Was there locker room issues between players and coaches? Who knows for sure but the people inside the “room”, but something has to change for next season. This team was too good to have thrown away one of their best chances in a long time to win a Stanley Cup and that makes me sad and disappointed. Who do you blame?

For Halloween this year and with the Phillies playing in game 3 of the World Series, I thought it would be appropriate to carve a pumpkin that meant something. While watching the game, we’ll have this pumpkin lit up and next to the TV to give the Phillies that little bit of mojo and propel them to a 2-1 series lead over the Yankees tonight. Go Phillies!!!

Let me know what you think of this and leave me a comment below!

I was going through my Google Alerts the other day looking to see if there were any hot topics that might be worth reading or writing about when I spotted them. 4 blog posts and 2 or 3 related articles at the bottom of a particular alert on a particular topic. What caught my eye was that all of them were blogspot.com domains. Really? There are dozens of good quality blogs about the topic that post regularly and I couldn’t believe that only blogger sites made the cut for the alert, though it was a Google Alert so they might be a little biased. Maybe it was a slow day in the blogging community.

Immediately after looking at the first one, the red flags went up. Spam Blog! Built entirely for AdSense, there were ads all around the content, but not in the content of the postings so I decided to read. After reading the first sentence, I could tell that this was one of those blogs that was pieced together by some spam bot, but overall it was somewhat readable and kind of made sense. Still, I knew it to not be 100% genuine and I closed that tab in Firefox. On to the next.

Lo and behold, the next one looked almost exactly like the first. Same site design, same topics, nearly the same ads in the same places. Great! 2 for 2 on spam. On to the next. Wow, 3 for 3 on spam blogs! Again, almost the same exact blog with different pieced together content about the same topic. I clicked on the fourth and I wasn’t surprised to find that this one was just like the previous three. All four of them had different sub-domains hosted on blogspot.com, with very similar content existed and then I noticed that this one linked to one of the previous 3 that I had seen.

I decided to take a closer look at this last one. At the bottom of every posting was a series of three links. They weren’t tags or categories, just text links to other blogs that looked exactly like the previous four, with slightly different, but similar content. I started going through the links, opening up different tabs for each site and grew more disgusted every time I clicked on a link. All in all I discovered nearly 50 blogs that looked exactly alike in design, layout, and footer text and all of them were cross-linked to each other. The topics varied somewhat, but it was clear when reading the posts that the content was pieced together or stolen with missing words in sentences and odd words in strange places.

How could Google allow this on their own platform? They claim to approve websites that get accepted into the AdSense program based on their Quality Guidelines, before that site can place their first ad. I’ve seen spam sites built for AdSense before and have seen my share of spammy blogs on Blogger, but this was different. To have so many sites linked to each other, clearly built for nothing more than manipulating the blog alerts and generating advertising revenue. Yet, Google turns a blind eye to this type of behavior, why? Because they are profiting from the advertising being generated. I guess Blogger gets a free pass on ignoring the webmaster guidelines.

What does this tell us about Google? That’s it’s not OK to spam and manipulate our search results, unless it makes us money too. It makes you wonder what else they might allow into the SERPS, or how their algorithm actually works. Do those websites that pump the most money into AdWords get a bonus in the organic SERPS too? How much of a bump do AdSense sites get in the SERPS? I’m wondering how many other spam-blog-networks are out there just like this one. My guess is there are more than many of us realize.

To say the least I was very disappointed when I found this, particularly when I use Google’s services all the time. Tools like Analytics, Webmaster Tools, Google Alerts and AdSense. They build great tools and services that help people and website owners make the most out of the web and I have no problem with them making money, but it is bothersome to see these spammy sites so blatantly ignored so they can make a little more money.

For the second straight year the Philadelphia Phillies are going against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series for the right to go to the World Series. Last year the Phillies beat the Dodgers in 5 games to advance, but this year the Dodgers are a better team, but then again so are the Phillies. I think the Dodgers will give the Phillies a better run this year, but my pick is Philly in 6 games, especially if Hamels pitches the way we know he can. With Lee pitching great and the offense ticking along the way it is, if the Phillies get a few strong outings from the starting pitchers and have the bullpen come through in the clutch, the Phillies will advance.

I’ll admit the Dodgers scare me a little; they have a good offense that can pack on the runs with good pitching too. The Phillies pitching will have to be better than it was against the Rockies for them to advance. The same goes for LA however. If their pitchers don’t pitch well, the Phillies will jump all over them and that’s what I’m hoping for.

Game time is 8:07 on Thursday! Go Phillies!

Here are some photos from the Ducks-Flyers game at the Wachovia Center in Philly, where I took my son for his birthday. The Flyers lost 3-2 in a shootout with Teemu Selanne scoring all 3 goals for the Ducks, including the only goal in the shootout. The Ducks scored with 16 seconds left on the clock in the 3rd with the goalie pulled and the extra attacker. They got a nice fat rebound and Selanne was there to bang it into an open net. Unfortunately, new Flyer Chris Pronger was the closest Flyer to him and Selanne had snuck in behind him. Pronger did score a goal however and the power play looked good again. We got to see Richards’ goal up close and it was a beautiful shot – I didn’t capture it on the iPhone however. Still a good game by the Flyers, they played well and had energy, outplaying the Ducks in my mind for much of the game. Watching Getzlaf and Selanne play and seeing former Flyers Lupul and Sbisa up close again was fun as well.

My son made a sign that we made at home and tried to get the camera guys attention, along with help from people in section 109, but we unfortunately didn’t get on the screen or on TV. Should I have slipped him a $20 or something?

Enjoy some pics from the game, taken with an iPhone so some aren’t the best quality. Click for full size image:

Pregame view from our seats:

About to face off to start the game:

1st period action:

2nd period action:

Face off in the 2nd period:

Flyers on the PK:

Tried to get a decent shot of Pronger:

Face off to start the 3rd:

Briere and Carter skate to the bench:

The closest thing to a fight all night – surprising with these 2 teams:

Anaheim goalie, Jonas Hiller – one for the Ducks fans:

Welcome to my website about, well, me!  I am the Director of Information Technology at a law firm where I run the IT department and manage the firm’s online presence including website development and SEO. I enjoy writing quite a bit and am currently in the process of getting my first book published which involves a fantasy world that I have created and developed since my early teen years. I also thoroughly enjoy hockey – I play it, I watch it, I live it and am an avid Philadelphia Flyers fan. I watch all the NHL games I can though and enjoy a few other teams in the league, but no one tops the Flyers and the 2009-2010 season is our year. The Hockey News thinks so: Three Reasons the Flyers Will Win the Cup.

This blog will mostly be about my writing and the computer work I do, while showcasing some of my online work and being a central hub to some of the things I do and love. Hopefully it will be an enjoyable stop for some and provide some interesting reading.

That’s all for now!