I'm behind on my blogging. I have a trip to Citi Field that I need to blog about, but I'll save that for later. For tonight, we're breaking out the running diary of a great night of TV. The Rangers are trying to get to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in 20 years, we have Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals in the NBA with the series tied at two, and the National Spelling Bee Finals. I meant to get this started earlier, but I was taking care of stuff with my next baseball trip coming up tomorrow. Here we go:
8:37- We're beginning round 7 in the spelling bee. Taglioni is the first word of the round and the girl gets it wrong. We're down to 10 spellers. One of the many reasons that I wanted the Rangers to win Game 5 was that I wanted to be able to focus on the spelling bee. I find this captivating. I think I might be totally stealing this running diary from Bill Simmons. He might have done a spelling bee running diary in 2007 or something.
8:40- The Rangers and Canadiens are scoreless with three minutes to play in the first period.I really don't want to see them have to go back to Montreal for Game 7. The last time they had a home game with a trip to the finals on the line, this happened.
8:44- Penalty on Marc Staal. The Rangers have been taking too many penalties.
8:45- Rick Nash put the puck in front of the goal with the net wide open, but nobody was there for the Rangers to convert the shorthanded chance.
8:47- The Rangers have killed off a minute of the penalty and we're going to the first intermission. It's spelling bee time!
8:48- The most polite speller goes out on chartula. We're down to nine spellers.
8:49- The next speller makes potAto-potAHto pronunciation joke with guttatim and gets a good laugh. He spells it correctly.
8:51- I was five years off. Bill Simmons did the spelling bee diary in 2002. I wouldn't have guessed that ESPN has been televising it for that long.
8:52- I was just glancing at Simmons's's's diary and the most shocking thing is that the pronouncer was some guy named Dr. Alex Cameron. Who? I can't imagine the spelling bee without Dr. Jacques Bailly. Easily my favorite Jacques of all time.
8:54- Wikipedia says 2003 was Jacques Bailly's first year as the official pronouncer. I've served as the Dr. Jacques Bailly for several school math bees. Other bee experience: I won my schools geography bee in seventh grade (I correctly identified water as Canada's most abundant natural resource for the win). In eighth grade, I went out in the first round as the defending champion (stupid Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn, the format had changed, many people went out on the same question). And when I was 18, I was stung by a bee for the first time (it happened at camp).
9:00- Dactylion was the last word, which apparently is the tip of the middle finger. I don't think the speller asked for a sentence. I'm sure that could have had an interesting sentence.
9:02- Our next speller is named Tejas and his favorite historical figure is Winston Churchill. I might have to root for this kid.
9:03- Tejas went out on hallenkirche. I need to find somebody new. We're down to just seven. Tejas has three more years of eligibility. He redshirted last year.
9:05- We start the second period and Carl Hagelin gets a good shorthanded chance, but can't score.
9:10- Subban just got sent to the penalty box. Time for the Rangers to take the lead.
9:12- The Rangers hit a post on the power play. I thought it was in. Nuts.
9:14- The Thunder have an early lead over the Spurs. One of my students this year loves Jeremy Lamb for some unknown reason. He was upset today when he found out that I wasn't going to be in school tomorrow for Jeremy Lamb's birthday. Lamb has taken a few DNPs this year in the playoffs and almost got a one trillion in one game (one turnover ruined it), but he's been playing more lately for the Thunder.
9:20- We get an angry reaction from a kid who goes out on kabaragoya. Down to six.
9:21- I'm trying to decide who to root for. I don't know if we have any non-Americans left. In recent years we've had some Canadians that have made a run. They can win their own national spelling bee. A Canadian winning our national spelling be would be as silly as us having our National Grammar Rodeo at the Sheraton Hotel in Canada.
9:23- The definition of the current word (brindisi) is "a drinking or toasting song." The girl gets it right. That might be enough for me to root for her from now on.
9:26- The Rangers are going on the power play again. Seriously now, the Rangers need some goals so that I can focus on the spelling bee.
9:27- Lundqvist makes a save on a shorthanded chance for the Canadiens.
9:28- I just decided to go with the spelling bee on my phone and watch the game on TV on mute. Why didn't I think of this sooner?
9:29- The Rangers fail to score on the power play again and Lunqvist just made a ridiculous blocker save on a puck that was deflected by Dan Girardi.
9:36- The Rangers score first and a girl goes out on aetites. Dominic Moore scores on a nice pass from Brian Boyle. We only have one girl left and it's the one who got the drinking song word right.
9:38- Irbis? A Russian word that came from Mongol? That's rough. She gets it wrong. No more girls unless everybody goes down this round.
9:41- We end the second period with Brad Richards in the box for another 1:48 to start the third period. I could really go for two more goals.
9:44- The Spurs just went up by two. I kind of feel guilty about not watching more basketball (in general, not just tonight). But there just haven't been many good games since the first round. And since the Heat are going to the finals, I don't really want good games in the finals. I just want them to lose every game by 25 so that it's not stressful. That's not going to happen of course. My guess is we'll get some good games in the finals. But last year we got a very memorable finals, but most of the games weren't really close. So we'll see.
9:49- Intermission and two commercials. It's the dreaded triple Urkin. The Dodgers start soon which could bring the rare quadruple Urkin into play.
9:51- The Canadiens are only on their second power play of the game. Hopefully they'll be 0-2 soon. Hopefully the Rangers will be 1-4 and up 2-0 soon.
9:52- Can you bet on this in Las Vegas? I'm not going to google it to find out, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. You really deserve to lose money if you're betting on kids in the spelling bee. And we're down to four spellers. I think I missed somebody getting eliminated.
9:54- This guy has a word with two accent marks. I thought this was an English spelling bee.
9:55- And he got it wrong. This is America, we don't use accent marks. We're down to three, which means we'll be going to the championship words after this round.
9:56- I don't like having non-Americans in our National Spelling Bee, but I feel like we should invite kids from England and just give them words like color, honor, connection, and analyze.
9:57- When kids ask if they're pronouncing words right, Dr. Jacques Bailly has been saying that they'll let the speller know if they hear something wrong, but they don't guarantee anything. I think that's a change from years past. I feel like there was controversy that led to this.
9:59- The first championship word is spelled correctly. Three spellers, 24 words left. The Rangers win the opening faceoff of the third period and send the puck down the ice.
10:01- The Rangers killed the penalty and I'm back to spelling bee on the phone, game on TV.
10:03- Previous winning words. I definitely would have gotten some of those right. Therapy? Those spellers were amateurs in 1940. The winning word was luge the year I was born. And that was a Winter Olympic year.
10:07- One of the kids gets Kierkegaardian wrong. We're down to two unless everybody gets their word wrong.
10:10- We're down to 17 words. I want to see them get through all 25 with no winner. There have been two winners a few times, but it hasn't happened since 1962. How would Twitter react to not having one winner?
10:13- A kid goes down on corpsbruder. The other kid needs to spell two words correctly to win. Antigropelos (waterproof leggings) is the first of the two words.
10:15- And he gets it wrong! It's not over yet. This is the spelling bee equivalent of the Helsinki episode of 1919. The first kid asks Dr. Jacques Bailly for a word he knows this time. If I'm Dr. Jacques, I'm finding the hardest word on the list and giving it to him.
10:16- He gets skandhas right.
10:18- The other kid gets Hyblaean right. Twelve words to go. Dr. Jacques Bailly just started reading the wrong sentence. That's the first gaffe he's ever made. In his entire life.
10:19- Feijoada doesn't feijoada this kid.
10:20- Great reaction by the other kid to getting the word augenphilologie.
10:21- And he gets it right! That had to be the hardest word so far.
10:22- By the way, the Rangers are 7:17 away from winning. They need another goal. The spelling bee is helping to distract or I'd be pretty anxious right now.
10:23- The Rangers just had a three on one, but didn't get a great shot out of it.
10:24- Penalty on the Canadiens. Now is the time for a power play goal. Let's get some breathing room.
10:28- We're down to five words. A tie is becoming a real possibility. I want this to go to the very end just because I don't want it to end. But really, why don't they have a list of 250 championship words? If they can go that long without a winner, then I'm cool with it being a tie. But they've come this far and then it's just going to end with no winner? Lame.
10:30- Stichomythia might be the last word the first kid spells. There are only three words left, meaning that if the other kid gets his word right, there won't be enough words left for somebody to win.
10:31- The other kid gets feuilleton. He seems nervous. Derick Brassard just had a breakaway, but couldn't score. 1-0 with 2:22 to go.
10:32- The kid seemed really nervous (he said, "Whatever" instead of "Feuilleton" before spelling the word) but he gets the word right. And nobody wins!
10:33- The Canadiens have pulled the goalie with 1:53 left.
10:35- Lundqvist just made one of his head saves. The shot was way too high anyway.
10:36- Glove save by Lundqvist. 1:08 to play.
10:37- 33.8 to play. Faceoff at center ice.
10:38- Hand pass in the Rangers zone brings the faceoff to the neutral zone (speaking of spelling, I always spell neutral wrong, but this time I got it right on the first try) with 22.5 to play.
10:39- Sorry, Zaza Pachulia, we're not going to Game 7. The Rangers are going to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in 20 years! I'm really excited about not having to worry about Game 7.
10:44- It's 10:44 and I haven't even checked the Dodger game yet.
10:47- The Spurs are up by 17.
10:49- The Dodgers and Pirates are tied at one in the second.
10:51- Dee Gordon drives in a run with two outs to give the Dodgers a 2-1 lead. I could keep this going, but the most exciting parts of the night are over. It's time to relax with an Eastern Conference Champions beer before my trip tomorrow. I'll have more on that next week. For now, I'll just say that I have to remember to go the right way on the only road or I might end up in Newfoundland.
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