Look At All That Shiny Hardware…

Duncan Keith and his temporary plastic teeth

 The NHL Awards ceremony at the Palms Las Vegas was definitely a mixed bag of genuine emotion, interesting entertainment, drunken merriment and funny soundbites.

 The only aspect I still can’t wrap my brain around is why in the world was Snoop Dogg part of any of this?  Now, I can understand why there was a Cirque performance (they were in Vegas, after all), but how often do you put “hockey” and “rap” in the same sentence?

Anyway, moving away from that befuddlement, the festivities were finally aired someplace besides NHL.com – VERSUS – for whom hockey has been very good and don’t forget, they’ll be broadcasting the DRAFT as well! 

Okay, since this is all about the Ducks, let’s start with the Bobby vs. Ryan sketch. Wait, that sounds confusing.  It’s not Bobby Ryan vs. himself in some sort of MPD fantasy land, its Bobby Ryan vs. Ryan Getzlaf!  Oh, and the painting really was done by Bobby.  My favourite quotes from Bobby: “Everyone says Canadians are so nice and you know what?  NOT TRUE.” and “If that guy calls me ‘Silver’ one more time, I’m gonna lose it.”  Let’s have a look, shall we?

  Not all the jokes were all that great, but as the MC Jay Mohr said to a heckler, “Hey, how many hockey jokes have YOU had to write?”

Here are a few of the funnies:

Jay Mohr: (referring to Alex Ovechkin) That’s a big, scary man.  After here, he’s gonna go into the Pacific Northwest and scare some campers…is he laughing?

Mark Wahlberg: This is Vegas and a lot of Canadians here too, so pretty much everybody’s drunk, right?

Detroit Redwings’ Pavel Datsuk: (accepting the Selke) I want to thank Management…for paying me…

Phoenix Coyotes Coach, Dave Tippett: (accepting the Jack Adams) It’s one of those nights where a lot of people stand up and thank their owners…I would do that except I don’t know all 29 of them.

Tampa Bay Lightning’s Martin St. Louis: (accepting the Lady Byng) I owe this award to Brad Richards because he told me that Christmas cards to the Referees works all the time.

Guy “Le Démon Blond” Lafleur: Thank you for mentioning I won the Hart [trophy] twice.  By the way, I also won the award for best hair 10 years in a row, but nobody talks about that!

Here’s the rundown: