Still surviving...

...even though that cursed Gerber machine of mine is still acting up.  Actually, it was fine today until noon.  After lunch, it ate four attempts at the first thing I tried to make, practically doubling the amount of fabric needed and quintupling the time to cut it.  After shutting it completely down twice, and shutting down the program I was using down twice, it finally admitted it was having another Gallil card error", and straightened up right after.  It's like an alcoholic- once you can get it to ADMIT what's wrong, it does fine...

Anyway, I was just over at my handy-dandy hockey score site, and wanted to give a vague update on what's going on.  Everybody but Finland and the UK are now officially in the playoffs.  And so...

The Czech league is in the quarter finals, along with Sweden, Switzerland, and Slovakia.  More on them as teams get booted.

The Asia league has a four-team playoff, and traditional Korean powerhouse Anyang Halla is getting trounced by season champs Oji Eagles of Japan, who lead 3 games to 0.

Austria is down to the semis, and my team there, Rekord/Fenster/ VSV Villacher got knocked out by Linz.  Vienna, Salzburg, and KAC Klagenfurt are the rest of the final four.

France has made it to the quarterfinals as well, with the big three of Angers, Rouen, and Briancon doing fine.  Fourth-place Chamoix, though drew 8-14-4 Epinal- and are getting clobbered.

Speaking of teams that only show up in the playoffs, Italy's 6th place Asiago is about to do it again.  The original "just enough to make the playoffs and then we'll get serious" kids have beaten top seeded Val Pusteria 5-2, 6-3, and 6-2, and are one away from disposing of yet another higher ranked team.  Another win puts them in the finals again.

Krakow in the Polish league is much like that.  They finished the season just 2 games over 500 in sixth place- and knocked out 28-6-4 Sanok 4 games to 2 to advance to the finals.  There they face 2nd-ranked Jastrzebie.

In Norway, Lorenskog finally finished off pesky Lillehammer, and will go on to face season champ Stavenger Oilers in the semis.

The German DEL finally started their rather odd playoff bracket today.  They have six teams getting a first round bye while just two series play.  One of them is my Grizzly Adams Wolfsburg- who snuck into the playoffs on a last-game win- versus Nurnberg, who beat them 3-2 today.

In Russia, SKA St. Pete finished off the Steelers of Cherpovets 4 games to none, and await the other three teams in the semifinals.  Dynamo has Red Army down 3-1, and the Meteor guys are also up 3-1, but it looks like the Russian Snow Leopards and SYU are going to go seven.

One last note- Laurie is a background check away from being gainfully employed again!  I sure hope they don't catch that meth bust in '03...