When you care enough ...

It's the playoffs, so only the stalest will do!

Friday, 1C:
Henrik Zetterberg celebrates his third-period goal that gave the Wings a 2-1 lead.

Saturday, 1B:
Detroit's Henrik Zetterberg, right, celebrates his game-winning goal Thursday with Pavel Datsyuk.

Sunday, 1D:
Tomas Holmston, right, celebrates his goal with linemate Pavel Datsyuk.

Can't wait for Monday's sports section. On a streak, gotta respect the streak, right?

Just stop it

Dear cousins downtown:

Under the general heading of "no more stupid sports heds that play on people's names," see Datsyuk, P. If "Dat's it," "Dat's more like it!" and "Dats the question" were all the rage last year, what makes you think you've come up with something original this year?

Cut it out. Now and forever. Please.

Forbidden heds

Q: I thought heds that played on sports figures' names were forbidden under all circumstances.
A: They are.

Q: Does that mean two heds in four days mangling Pavel Datsyuk's name provide a sure sign of the apocalypse?
A: Almost certainly.

Q: Would the desk have been saved from the flames of eternal torment if it had settled on whether the short form should be "Dat" or "Dats"?
A: No, probably not.

Forbidden heds

Ndamukong Suh appears to be joining Pavel Datsyuk on the list of Detroit athletes who invariably call forth tedious plays on their names when they appear on the pages of certain dailies. It'd be nice if this habit ended, but breath is not being held against that occasion.

The upper instance is a little weirder. It's from a blog, where writers' choices are likely to get a little less interference from the desk, and that may explain why it's so, like, Zen, or whatever that vague scent is.

That's the problem, I think. I'm expecting "the chosen one" to be either Obama* or some annoying child actor in a karate-n-symbolism movie. I don't get a connection to hiring a new GM for your mediocre basketball team, and it'd be nice to know that the appearance of a sports exec with a family name like Cho didn't set off a round of "ah so, grasshoppah" in the toy department.

* Yeah, sorry, too much time in the swamps of Fox.

Why no chicken?

No peeking now, sports fans. The Red Wings are playing Anaheim in the first round of the NHL playoffs. One of these heds from the hometown fishwrap commemorates a Detroit win; the other, a loss. Can you tell which is which?

Need another hint? In one, the Wings won 3-2 in overtime. In the other, the Wings lost 3-2 in overtime. Getting warmer?

Read more »

Night of the forbidden hed

What is it that's getting into the drinking water downtown? In one day's effort, we complete the hat trick of Datsyuk/Dat heds and drag out the summertime equivalent of "Christmas came early" -- particularly clueless in this case, given that, as a rule, people in coffee (or pretzel or bagel or doughnut) shops don't scream for ice cream.

Please. If this is a contest, would someone just declare victory and leave home?

A dat which will live in infamy

Sorry. I'm running out of snarky things to say about this monumentally stupid and overused sports trope. (If you missed the other installments in this series, yes: Pavel Datsyuk has distinguished himself again on the ice.)

But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln -- it was almost perfect having Armando Galarraga doing the Eye Institute commercial this time.

Must be spring

The birds are calling, snow is in the forecast, and somebody downtown has forgotten how mind-bendingly lame it is to make hed plays on Pavel Datsyuk's name. 

One can only hope

Perhaps, having raised the question ("Dat's All?") upon the Wings' exit from the playoffs two months ago, someone felt obliged to answer it. Either that or we have a new data point for measuring attention spans downtown.

I'll miss Datsyuk, who was an important part of the overall cultural picture as I tried to adapt to the folkways of the new hometown. I can do without the annual welter of "Dat's" heds. On the bright side, the hed could have said "It's official: Dat's all."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh

Sad it was to see the Red Wings bounced from the playoffs before the last frost of the spring (and before the Superior Fish folks even got the "Octopi Supply" sign unrolled). Sadder still to think of Pavel Datsyuk packing for home with a year left on his contract. Saddest of all, though: Someone downtown still thinks a "Dat's" hed is worth the top of the sports front.

They're called Forbidden Heds for a reason, you know.

(And yes, traditionally, it'd be nice to have the shutout and the goal "send" the Wings home, rather than "sends.")

No, but thanks for askin'

A simple rule is hereby proposed for stylebooks everywhere:

When in doubt, use the grownup spelling.

I'm certainly not suggesting there's no g-droppin' in hockey. (Just heard a nice fat one midway through the second period here). If you wanted to bet that it's unusually frequent among hockey announcers, though, I might suggest that's not only a dumb bet but a pretty boring one. If that's the most interesting thing you hear, you need a lot more Don Cherry in your life.

This isn't even a pickin'-and-grinnin' g-drop -- the sort presentation editors use as a way of showing they respect your people's quaint habits and didn't really just ride in on a turnip truck from New Jersey. Rather than a dumb excuse, it has no excuse at all. (OK, maybe one -- another capital letter actually won't fit in the reefer. So shave the picture or shrink the hed a couple points.)

 As for the stupid question, let's not be too quick to assume a winged victory would be an "upset." Datsyuk just made it 1-0.