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True Blues fan / charity-lover.

We're big fans of the "Grow one for the team!" Blues Beard-A-Thon charity effort in honor of the playoffs.

It can be fun to look at some of those pretty weird beards out there.

This gal, however, wins the weird beard award.

By a long shot.

Broadcaster Kelly Chase tweeted out this photo yesterday, big version below.

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Ken Hitchcock, offensive genius?

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Joy and happiness to you, St. Louis hockey fans. The lockout is finally over, the Blues are actually good and you have another site to read about them, Mound City Sports (@moundcitysports on Twitter), written and produced by former veteran Post-Dispatch Blues beat writer Dave Luecking. The site, which features game reports and analysis, launched last week, just in time for the abbreviated hockey season.

Luecking covered hockey for the P-D for thirteen years, from the 1988-89 season through 2000-01 when he decided he needed to stop traveling and stay home and spend more time with his son who was then in grade school. He went back to work in the newsroom on the sports copy desk, eventually rising to desk chief, until he was laid off last September after a total of 28 years with the paper.

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Sunday night, it looked like the Blues might have hit a bit of a wall. Right about the time the second period opened, the Minnesota Wild just seemed to start pushing the Blues around. Watching the game, I thought to myself, "Wow. I knew it was going to happen at some point, and here it is."

The 'it' in question was fatigue setting in. Which may, of course, sound bizarre, considering we're talking about a hockey team playing in the first week of the season. How in the world could these players be fatigued, after an extra long offseason and less than a fortnight's worth of play?

Of course, it worked out in the end for the Blues Sunday night, as they put together a third period rally to tie the game, then pulled out the victory in overtime, 5-4, going to 5-1 on the season. Still, for that middle period, this was a team that looked badly winded.

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It was a night of important rebounds for the Blues -- two of them, to be exact.

The first is relatively easy to spot, as the team rebounded from their first loss of the season, a tough 3-2 defeat by the Blackhawks in Chicago, by beating the Nashville Predators last night 3-0. Back home at the Scottrade Center, the Blues looked almost frighteningly good, pushing a very Nashville club around the ice, imposing their collective will from beginning to end. (Particularly the beginning, as the Note outshot the Predators 9-3 in the first period.) Nashville did try to rally in the third, but even then the Blues never panicked, never got rattled, and kept the pressure on.

Admittedly, a one game losing streak isn't the most impressive thing to rebound from, but even so, it was mightily encouraging to see the Blues come back strong, after a back to back, after a loss, after continued proof the United Center should just be razed immediately and put on one of the best teams in the Western Conference.

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I'm including this picture just to remind everyone there are those who are less fortunate. God, that poor, poor woman.

The St. Louis Blues have played exactly two games this season, which is more than enough for me to say this, without equivocation: The 2013 St. Louis Blues are the greatest hockey team in the history of having a history of hockey teams. 
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A Blues sweater for all seasons.

The most recent NHL lockout became a memory on Saturday as the Blues blanked the Detroit Red Wings 6-0 at the Scottrade Center. While covering the first of this 48-game season, photographer Jon Gitchoff asked these fans how they spent the lockout. Here are their responses, which include crying, cursing the birth of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, prayer and several rounds of EA's NHL 13. But they came back, proving again that St. Louis sports fans, if nothing else, are a loyal bunch.

See Also:
- Slideshow: Fans of the Blues Home Opener
- St. Louis Blues' acquisition of Ken Hitchcock (Best Of St. Louis issue 2012, Best Move award)

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Tonight, at the Scottrade Center, the fated, the long-awaited, the eagerly anticipated 2013 Blues season will get under way. 
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The powers that be in the National Hockey League finally got together, pulled their collective heads from their collective asses, and got a new collective bargaining agreement hammered out. (You like the repeated use of collective there? That's the kind of topnotch journalism you pay for with the RFT sports department, baby.) It's a good thing, too, since the NHL season has pretty much passed us by already, and I know of at least a few people who have lost interest completely in the sport. It's a shame, but that's kind of what happens when you just...go away occasionally.

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Goodnight, sweet prince.

So there's a union dispute in the news right now that could have far-ranging consequences. No, I don't mean Hostess/Wonder Bread closing down and the hit our nation's morbidly obese could take due to a sudden Twinkie shortage. More »