Confession time: there are only two "reality" shows I will admit to watching--RuPaul's Drag Race and wife Swap. I don't know why, but I love these shows. Anyway, I was watching Wife Swap yesterday and there was this girl...

..who looks like Jordan Staal became a 15 year old girl. THE STAALS ARE EVERYWHERE, PEOPLE.

Someone hold me...

The only skating going on anywhere is indoors nowadays, with temperatures above freezing probably every day until December for most of the home cities in the NHL, which means playoff hockey is right around the corner . Of course, that has been the case all season in Phoenix, which can only mean that the Coyotes are 100% ready for the playoffs.

What does this have to do with the Sabres in Bruins? It means that I am annoyed that Versus is still stuck on the East Coast. I knew this is what we were going to be dealing with from the outset, but that doesn't mean I don't have Bruin fatigue as we look at April coming down the pike. Even the Sabres are getting a little tired. On the other hand, I was just reminded the other day that the Ducks still exist, and that's only because I'm going to Anaheim this coming weekend. Anyways, let's recycle this same tired drinking game, shall we?

DRINK

... if DAniel Paille still has lingering resentment for is trade from Buffalo.

... if you think you hear a foreign language. Double if it turns out to be a thick Southie accent.

... if Andrew Ference gets traded mid game. I know its after the trade deadline, but I assume they have special rules for the Ferences.

.... if you think Andrej Sekera has one too many letters on his first name and one two few on his last.

Drinking player of the week.... Blake Wheeler

... Blake is originally from Minnesota, the 10th largest province in Canada

... Blake's are the second set of nipples seen on this site, and the first since -- never mind.

.... With a name like "Blake Wheeler" he probably went to a private high school. Oh, he did, right.

Questions from here.

My question is for Craig Anderson and Peter Budaj.  As goalies, what off-ice routines do you have in order to stay sharp both physically and mentally for games?  In the gym, do you focus on strength training, cardio, or both and what other tips would you give all the goalies out there?
Joey from Westminster, Colorado

Received this in my Gmail inbox just now... If you only click on one image to enlarge it today, make it this one.

Hola, kiddos. It's your main man Jeremy Roenick here. LD's been kinda busy recently, what with all the sleeping and the Leafs figuring out it's ok to win every now and then once it doesn't mater. Whata  bunch of Whopper jrs.

I've been a busy man on my own terms. My video blog over at the Kings site is going well. It's harder than you think doing videos for a team you sucked with. So many people are all "but JR, you sucked with the Kings. Why are you even talking about it?" I said right in the first 30 seconds of the first vid that it was a way to make up for my suckage. Jeez people, take notes once in a while!

I'm sure all you little losers with your computers and your tubes want to know about what it's like to be a real announcer on real TV. It's a lot of work, but nothing I can't handle. It's kind of annoying to always have to wear suits because it makes such a distance between me, the players, and the fans. If I had a choice, we'd all be dressed real comfortably. Or, we'd have everyone naked. ESPECIALLY the Ice Girls. Yep, I'd call it the Naked Hockey League, except we'd alow cups (of course.) I think it was the great Bobby Orr who said, when asked why he wore a cup and no helmet, "I can always pay someone to think for me." How can you argue with Bobby Orr? That's a class act all the way.

Alright, here are some more secrets of hockey broadcasting: the set looks huge, but it's really about the size of a small rowboat, if that.  And then they got the big lights and the makeup and crap, so it gets hot in there (which is why naked would be awesome, except you little peabrinas couldn't handle my naked awesomeness.) And bewteen you and me, Mike Milbury is an idiot. Ok, fine, maybe that's not such a secret. But he does smell like ham, and not the good kind of ham, either. You know that kind of ham in graded school that looked and tasted like it was made out of old gym mats? THAT's the kind of ham Milbury smells like. Yessir, if Milbury made a colone, it'd be eau do ham and regret.

Working in TV has a lot of waiting around. It's a whole lot of waiting, watching, waiting while someone else gets facts for you, and then it's GO GO GO. Then, it's the smae cycle until the next intermission. During these times, my mind wanders and I wonder about things. For instance, I wonder sometimes what would happen if someone beat Mike Milbury with his own shoe. I wonder if he would freakout, since he's on the other end of the match, or if he'd go into some sort of automatic shoe-ninja mode. Or maybe Mike's mellowed out in his old age, and he'd just flail aimlessly in self-defense. Either way, I'd sure like to see that.

Well, kiddos, that's about wraps it up for this edition of JR time. Tell your ma thanks for the meatloaf and the extra coffee yesterday morning after we...uh...we were just wrestling. Yeah. For fun. And those sounds you heard were ghosts.

(Just so you know, you were supposed to say "in 3D" to yourself in a booming movie narrator voice.)

H/t to Chris Botta for picking this one up. But just in case you wanted to relive the excitement and amazing graphics of Avatar except with hockey and probably not 8-foot tall blue people, you can catch the Rangers and Islanders playing in 3D. It's a game that won't mean much to the Islanders in the standings (Fowler/Hall/Segiun here we come!) but the Rangers are fighting for a playoff spot (and not doing so hot).

MSG, a leader in delivering state-of-the-art, cutting edge technology to viewers, announced today that it will telecast the March 24 Rangers-Islanders matchup from Madison Square Garden in 3D, the first network hockey telecast ever produced in 3D.  MSG will also be the first network in America to offer home viewers a live 3D sports telecast.  In 1998, MSG was the first regular provider of sports coverage in high-definition television, producing all Knicks and Rangers home games in that emerging format.

The Rangers will host a special viewing party of this historic telecast at the Theater at Madison Square Garden that will include appearances by popular Rangers alumni Mark Messier, Adam Graves, Ron Duguay, Nick Fotiu, Ron Greschner, Dan Blackburn and others, as well as fan contests and giveaways .

Well, if you're lucky maybe you can punch Mark Messier and not get arrested. Or if you're a girl, Ron Duguay will probably try to pick you up. So there's that. But Dan Blackburn? Really???

This post was written entirely last night, then I forgot to publish, and it went off to the abyss of the internet. Disgusting. But I did want to jump in here and rewrite it since I missed last week's opportunity for a drinking game.

Boston fans and people from New Jersey will have the most vested interest in tonight's game. If my Midwestern stereotypes are correct, then that pits two of New Yorks most hated groups against each other. So long as one of these teams loses, they'll be happy. Neither team is in first place this season, and Bostonians might even label the Bruins a disappointment this season, as they sit 4th in the Northeast. They do have a hold on the 8th spot in the East though, only one point ahead of the Rangers. I guess that could make New Yorkers happy. Even better news is that the Devils have a brand new Kovalchuck to bandy about in their efforts to defeat the B's.

Wait, what am I doing? You didn't come here for game analysis, you came here for a drinking game.

DRINK

...any time Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond is simply referred to as "#22". That guy's got hyphens like I got paternity suits.

... if Vanna White is referenced in any attempt to make a Travis Zajac joke. And let me tell you, there are a TON of Travis Zajak jokes out there. I won't list them for brevity's sake.

... if new Devils acquisition Martin Skoula looks lost on the ice. It's not because he is still learning the system. He ALWAYS looks lost on the ice.

... if any Bruins fans lament the fact that Dennis Seidenberg hasn't scored any goals since coming over in a deadline trade. Never mind that he is a defenseman or has 3 points in 6 games.

Drinking player of the week: Andy Greene

- A native of Detroit, he often gets asked if his personality is "more Eminem or Kid Rock". He doesn't have an answer to that, because he is more Smokey Robinson.

- He isn't afraid to poop right there in his breezers.

- Andy thinks the extra E at the end of his surname will make people think "panache". And they do, as panache also ends with a silent E.

Far be it from any of us to understand the complex workings and goings on in the mind of Mike Milbury, but apparently, he's now supportive of Alex Ovechkin and his (debatable) dirty hit on Brian Campbell. It was label a major and game misconduct by the on-ice officials, which is a fastball down the middle for someone who has been very critical of AO in the past. If you remember, during the Olympics Milbury said the Russians -- of which AO is -- brought their "eurotrash" game. That, being the most recent example of Milbury's playa hatin'.

So maybe this is all an elaborate ruse. Maybe, knowing that we would all yawn and ignore him if he criticized AO since we've come to expect it so much, Milbury pulled a reversal on us and didn't criticize because he knew that would be so unexpected, out-of-left-field and newsworthy that we would blog about it. Maybe, just maybe, I fell for his elaborate ruse. For a guy who tried to make the show all about him when he was GM of the Islanders, I wouldn't put it past him. It's the saying; "I may be dumb but I'm not stupid."

Milbury's dumb as a rock, but maybe he's not as stupid as we think.

And then again, every idiot has a good idea once in a while.

Here's the video. Shield your eyes.

Have you ever watched a Preds game and thought "Boy, I could use a bottle of wine". Nashville heard and misunderstood your lamentations, and is now announcing their 2010 Wine Festival and Tasting! As if to signify the classiness of the event, the entrance is under the "Premium seating awning".

I'm sure you all have questions about such a sophisticated evening. Hopefully, I can answer a few of them.

- What if I don't like wine? Good news! There is a spirits tasting as well! And Budweiser. If you are classy enough to want wine, then surely you will want nothing less than the King of Beers.

- Will we have enough space for all this fun? I sure hope so! It's being held on the floor of the arena!

- I love silent auctions. Are there any at this event, and how would you describe it? Extensive!

- No wine tasting is complete without an anthropomorphic, felt covered feral cat is there. Can we count on one? Of course you can! This is a wine tasting after all!

If they had to designate this the 2010 version of the Festival, that seems to imply there were others. I guess the Predators know what Nashville wants. I would have pegged them as a whiskey city, however.

I love a lot of people in the hockey world. John Tavares. Jeremy Roenick. Barry Melrose. And then there are a few people who grind my gears, one who I don't think has been mentioned much before on the blog -- Chris Pronger. The dislike -- hate is such a strong word -- is mostly based on a long, storied career of dirty elbows. So, for that reason and because it's such a sweet ass deke, here's Patrice Bergeon turning Mr. Pronger into one of the following (your choice):

A) Traffic cone

B) Large, awkward white guy

C) Chris Chelios

D) Any Eddie Murphy character from the last decade