DP TV
January 29th, 2008 by murph
Call up your cable operator and tell them “I Want My DP TV!!”. The Isles’ netminder was a big part of the All-Star Game festivities this past weekend. Sorry for the delay in getting all these up…I was out of town again this weekend and didn’t get to watch the festivities until last night.
First off with Marty Brouder taking the weekend off, DP was named the starting goalie for the Eastern All-Stars.
During Saturday’s skills competition, DP started off the evening with a pair of goals (2 goals/4 shots) during the revised Obstacle Course event.
Next, DP robs Marion Gaborik of the Minnesota Wild during the Shootout event with a sweet toe save.
The Versus Network had DP mic’ed up all weekend, which led to this humorous exchange before Ilya Kovalchuk’s attempt in the Breakaway Challenge event.
Kovalchuk should light the puck on fire or light himself on fire, and then do a back flip on the ice.
With comments like that, Ricky might just have a career in hockey broadcasting in his future after he’s done with the Isles. However, Versus’ plan later backfired when they left DP’s mic on. DP stops Gaborik again during the Breakaway Challenge but tweaks his hip. As he skates over to the Bruins’ Tim Thomas to ask him to take his place, DP drops the F-Bomb on live TV. Good thing it was only Versus and only like 10 people were watching.
This also led to gasps of horror across Long Island at the thought of DP missing any games because of an injury during the All-Star Game. Isles’ PR head honcho, Chris Botta was swamped with calls, emails, and people at the All-Star game asking about DP’s status for Sunday’s game. DP assured everyone he was OK and ready to go.
With DP still mic’ed up for the All-Star Game, things did not start well. DP is chatting with the Versus play by play announcers as they drop the puck to start the game. Then there’s a lousy clearing pass by Montreal’s Andre Markov that ends up on the stick of the Western Conference’s Rick Nash who breaks in alone on DP and scores just 12 seconds into the game, an All-Star Game record. Ooops.
The good news is that was the only puck to get by DP on Sunday. Ricky made 12 saves in the period and his All-Star teammates scored 5 unanswered goals for a 5-1 lead after the first period of play. The East went on to win 8-7 on a Marc Savard goal with just 21 seconds left. Just a fantastic job by DP all weekend.
Finally, two more videos for you from Islanders TV, first here’s Ricky saying goodbye to Atlanta and headed back home. And finally, I’m not sure if this was part of the All-Star Weekend or not, but it was pretty interesting - McFarlane toys is going to add DiPietro to their NHL Action Figure line, here’s video of DP having his face scanned in for the modelers.
Be sure to check the Islanders Army recommended links to the right, I’ve added a lot of the Islanders Blogosphere’s coverage of the festivities. Especially Botta’s NYI Point Blank blog, where he has short Q&A interviews with some big hockey names like Stan Fischler, Adam Proteau of The Hockey News, Ray “Chicken Parm” Ferraro, and Greg Logan of Newsday.
