Last night, Florida's Keith Ballard lit up his second goalie in as many games. After he attempted to decapitate his own goalie, Tomas Vokoun, last week he slammed into Colorado's Craig Anderson during the end of last night's game in Florida. While searching through the dumpsters in the back of the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise -- like I do every Wednesday night -- I found a yellow crumpled up piece of paper. On the top, in really shaky handwriting, it read "My hit list. By Keith Ballard." Today, I present the list to you unedited in its original form so we can better understand the mind of goalie crippler Keith Ballard.

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My Hit List

by Keith Ballard

Tomas Vokoun - cause he always call me "buddy". Grrrr! I'm not your buddy, guy!

Craig Anderson - Because it makes me feel alive.

Jose Theodore - I need the scalp of a Capitals goalie. It's for a scavenger hunt I'm doing with the team!

Rick DiPietro - He's the only goaltender that can get hurt and nobody would blame me.

Miikka Kiprusoff - Why do you have a name that nobody can spell? WHY DO YOU TORTURE US SO???

Jacques Plante - It would be so much easier to hurt goalies if it wasn't for him.

Felix Potvin - Who names their kid Felix? I mean, really, who does that?

Ilya Bryzgalov - WTF random letters?!?

Cristobal Huet - WTF is FTW spelled backwards. Weird.

Garth Snow - I hate to see a stupid goalie in a position of power. Long Island must be full of liberal hippies who allow this kind of insanity.

Chris Osgood - For being smug.

Patrick Roy - The meanest goalie of them all!

(Somewhere in a late model sedan in rural Kansas)

[Dave Tippett at the wheel, singing along to some Patsy Cline on the radio. Vernon Fiddler stirs in the back ]

DT: Mornin' sleepy head!

VF: Where are we? Why are we on a gravel road?

DT: We're in Kansas! Headed north!

VF: But I thought we were going to St. Louis. I understand the Coyotes not springing for plane tickets any more, but couldn't they at least have got us a GPS? Or a map?

Jim Vandermeer [in the front seat, waking up]: Wait... How come we aren't on the interstate?

VF: I guess we're headed towards Nebraska.

JV: Nebraska?

Zbynek Michalek [in the back, awake the hole time]: NEBRASKA!!!!

DT: No, everyone, I'm not lost, and we're not heading to Nebraska. That would be crazy! Take a look out the right window!

VF: SWEET JESUS WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!

DT: It's a tornado, Vernon! I brought you up this road to teach a valuable lesson.

VF: Never fall asleep while you're driving?

DT: No! The lesson is this: No matter how much we blow, we can do some serious damage!

[silence]

VF: Lesson learned, are we going to get out of it's way?

JV: You know, seeing a twister in person, I can see why those chasers want to see one. There's beauty in their strength. What a fascinating phenomenon.... This is a real thrill, thanks coach! I think I'm ready to beat the Blues!

VF: Yeah. So are we going to turn around?

DT: Nah, let's see what it looks like on the inside!

7pm. EST. Tonight. Be here.

That's right, after a week or two off, we're firing up the ol' liveblog. Join us here at 7 PM eastern where we'll cover the Leafs/Habs tilt (at least.)

and hey, it could get crazy. There might be special guests and monkeys on skates:

I don't know if any of you knew this, but Schultz had a birthday over the weekend. He is now somewhere between the ages of 18 and 37. We had a party with an Islanders themed cake (it went down easy), gifts and a Bettman pinata. LD got him a sweet shirt, Dave got him a postcard from North Carolina, and I, of course, got him a restraining order. If you want to get him something and somehow forgot, I have a brief suggestion list for you.

- Islanders tickets.

- Chaser. In bulk.

- Snuggie

Oh, now I need to write about a drinking game. This game will be played in Toronto. I didn't even know they had hockey in Canada.

DRINK

... if Jason Blake does something that would make Schultz cry. Twice if it would make LD cry.

... If it comes out that the actions that lead to Patrick Kaleta's suspension were otivated by an infinte sadness.

... whenever they incesently make mention of Matt Ellis' return to his home province of Ontario. Seriously, media, get off it already.

... for every fight. Thrice if it is among Maple Leafs.

Drinking Player of the game: Mike Komisarek

- Mike is one of the many, many, many, many, many hockey players to have dated Elisha Cuthbert.

- Komisarek is coming back from an injury. Word is he strained a muscle posing during yet another photo shoot. Curse his boyish charm.

- Komisareks parents immigrated from Poland before he was born, without a penny to their name. They scratched and clawed their way to the American Dream, and were able to raise two children who both became very successful. They were even able to pay for the training and leagues necessary for Mike to play hockey and develop to the point that he was able to join the NHL and become a millionaire. The Komisareks regretted coming to America when Mike started dating Cuthbert.

Lost in all the hubbub of another Red Wings screwjob -- seriously it's like one a week at this rate -- is Flames coach Brent Sutter letting the public know about a secret has has, apparently, been keeping for some time.

If you're not familiar with the WWE or pro "wrestling" the most popular act of the last decade plus has been Degeneration X. And the surprise announcement was that Sutter is, in fact, part of the stable. How he kept it such a secret for so long, we may never know.

While the Wings were arguing on Friday night that Dan Cleary didn't interfere with Miikka Kiprusoff -- it doesn't look like he did -- Flames coach Brent Sutter made light of the situation by telling the Flames to... Well... Here's the screencap and a first hand account of what transpired.

Brent Sutter: Are you ready?

Red Wings Fans: Huh?

BS: I said Detroit, are you ready?!

RWF: What the hell are you talking about?

BS: I thought this was Detroit... I said ARE YOU READY?!?!?

RWF: WOOO!!! YEAA!!! DX!!! GREASED UP HALF NAKED GUYS!!!

BS: Then for the thousands in attendance and the millions watching around Michigan... LLLLet's get ready to SUCK IT!!!

Jarome Iginla: And if you're not down with that we got two words for ya!

Flames bench (in unison): SUCK IT!!!

You know what rocks? Free stuff.

I've become friends with a guy who runs a comic/action figure/ random memorabilia place. He happens to be a huge hockey fan (for the Habs...frowny face) and is actually a pretty chill guy.

So imagine my surprise this morning when I went over to say hi and he said to me "Hey, I was going through some old stuff, and I found some Leafs cards I set aside for you." Now, I'm not a card collecter, but free Leafs stuff is always a-ok with me.

Anyway, here's one of the cards I got. It makes for a fine moment of Zen:

Now THAT is a mustache that gets you an uncensored show in an awkward timeslot on HBO, until it gets cancelled due to low ratings.

All right, a game in the western conference! Actually, today's Detroit-Nashville game was as well, but St. Louis and Dallas each play west of the Misissippi. Not even the Wild can say that! This is exciting! I need to think of an especially funny post for Tuesday's game.Wait, what's that? The game is on Wednesday? Amateur night? REALLY?! That. Is. AWESOME. Sure, Christmas Eve is nice with all the presents and everything, but Thanksgiving Eve, or amateur night as it is known around these parts, is in many ways much, much better. You get all those people out at the bars and clubs looking forward to a 4 day weekend. People that have no idea how to handle themselves. People that would typically stand out as lightweights are surrounded by other light weights. For regular drinkers like me, it can be the best night of the year. For that reason, for my entertainment, I am not going to give you a nice, funny drinking game this week. I am going to make you drink until your liver learns to speak and tells you to stop.

DRINK

... every time they say "puck". You better believe I'm serious about this. You're drinking hard.

... through all shots of the Dallas skyline. TV crews love the Dallas skyline.

... Whenever the Stars turn over the puck. And you'll have to drink, because they will say that the "Stars turned over the puck!"

... If the Blues' playoff chances are mentioned, take a drink for every Cup Finals they didn't reach in their time in the league.

Drinking player of the week: Marty Turco

- Earlier in his career, many worried about Turco's goaltending. He seemed like he struggled in pressure situations, was prone to prolonged slumps and was commonly a candidate to be traded or replaced. Now, later in his career, the Stars aren't as good and nobody cares.

- He had the shiniest pads in all the league.

- Turco will certainly be the most frequently mentioned player in the game for the Starts.

Good luck and even though I say you should drink heavily, make sure you have a DD. Don't drink and drive, be safe and have a Happy Thanksgiving!