4x4 hockey

Watched BOS v MTL.

Endured 60 minutes of the most boring hockey since, well, the other night when BOS played DET.

A late goal by Bergeron sent it to OT.

Five minutes of fire-wagon hockey.

I might not have 20/20 vision but Hellen Keller could tell you that 4x4 hockey is 4x better than 5x5 pinball/grappling/trapping.

I'd like to hear one decent argument against 4x4 hockey that doesn't rest on: "It's not hockey/it's not traditional/what would it do to the record books/they took our jobs..."

Oilers finish 5th

Made you look.
It's 21-century hockey sweaters, but a Top 5 finish nonetheless.
Anybody still wearing the crashing meteor to games?
Or is everyone out looking for the next saviour? Personally, I'd say the Oilers need the next Wayne Gretzky.

Kudos

In a world of neanderthal navel-gazers, OHL prez David Branch is unusually enlightened. Branch handed a season-long suspension to the talentless POS who delivered this hit.


This isn't the worst check in the world, but enough is enough.

The perp has 13 points and more than 300 PMs this year. He's a 20-year-old preying on a 16-year-old on this hit. And he's a repeat offender, having delivered a far worse hit on John Tavares last season.

The other kid is lucky to be alive. Did he "keep his head up?" Did he "turn into it?" Whatever. It's hockey. Not ballet. But also not NASCAR or MMA.

Am I the only one who would prefer to see skating, passing, shooting and scoring? Am I the only one who is happy Tavares survived that hit to play in the NHL (and probably star for 10-15 years?) Is the cliche about blood-thirsty hockey fans the reality?

Here's a fairly indicative comment from the Globe, but you can see the same sentiment expressed anywhere this hit is being discussed:

I was at the game and this was just another body check - nothing more - nothing less. A clean hit. Give us all a break!! These suspensions are getting ridiculous. If you wanna play the game you better be prepared to get hit!!

The assistant GM of the Erie Otters cried about Liambas winning the Otters' Humanitarian Award for reading to retarded children, or something. Keith Jones, whose career may even have ended due to concussion issues - or maybe he was born brain damaged, not sure - defended the hit. A curly-domed Toronto hack managed to string together 750 words - sans ellipses - in defending the collision as a "hockey play."

We've come a long way since the Oilers dynasty. Down the wrong road, I'd venture to say.

Here's the portrait coming to a post office in Southern Ontario in the near future. Let's see if he makes it to the top of the charts before an old lady fingers him as the kid who stole her loaf of rye.

Scalloped Potato

Some bad news for one of the newest Spuds.

Add rookie forward Michael Grabner to the long list of injured players on the Vancouver Canucks roster.

Grabner suffered a fractured ankle during the pre-game skate on Sunday against the Colorado Avalanche and is expected to be out of the lineup for up to six weeks.

Pardon my French, but how the fuck do you manage that???

Might be a long season for the Potatoes.

It's good to be King

Here's your one-tier health care. Enjoy the lineups, sheep.

Math genius

PHOENIX -- After being jaw-boned by NHL commissioner and New York lawyer Gary Bettman, numerically-challenged Arizona bankruptcy judge Redfield T. Baum kissed Bettman's ring and approved the sale of the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes to Bettman's NHL for $140 million.

The sale leaves about $11.3 million that could be divided among ex-owner Jerry Moyes, investor and ex-head coach Wayne Gretzky and the City of Glendale. But that figure is expected to shed a few million when lawyer fees and other administrative costs are subtracted. It will take several months to determine the exact payouts.

Baum couldn't explain why Bettman's $140 million was more attractive to creditors than the $242.5 million Canadian billionaire Jim Ballsillie was offering. But Baum did say Ballsillie's intention to move the team out of Glendale figured heavily into his decision to accept the inferior league bid.

On a related note: Following the sale of the team for $100 million less to the NHL, Bettman's chief fart-catcher Bill Daly said if the league can't unload the team on an owner who will keep the team in Arizona, the league will look to relocate the franchise.

The inevitable

News item: TORONTO — Goldman Sachs has launched a legal battle against Canwest Global Communications Corp. to shield their joint specialty-TV assets and protect the two firms' partnership from Canwest's creditor protection proceedings. In documents filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice Monday, Gerald Cardinale, managing director at the Wall Street giant, charged that Canwest — bowing to demands from a group of creditors at its main holding company, Canwest Media Inc. — has attempted to move the profitable assets into the filing by dissolving the subsidiary, automatically delivering the shares in the unit to CMI, the parent.

"The ship's sinking fast, let's take as many passengers down with us as we can."

With that command, Captain Leon jumped into his personal "batho-sub" escape pod and left poor Sacks of Gold,man clutching an empty bag and an IOU not worth as much as the paper it was written on.

"Curse you, Captain Leon! we've got our own escape clause, we shall prevail," Sacks of Gold,man hissed as he speed-dialed his fleet of platinum rescue experts.

Captain Leon really only had the "burn-and-run" play left in the playbook. With that play now on the field, it appears the game is all but over. You just don't beat New York bankers and lawyers at their own game with their money. It doesn't work that way.

But that won't stop Captain Leon from trying.

Hope that batho-sub is depth-charge proof . . .

Halloween

Looks like the Habs are dressed as barber poles for tonight's game.
Another bunch of guys came dressed as Toronto Maple Leafs.

Goebbels would be proud

This awesome spectacle, which traces its origins to ancient Greece Nazi Germany, kicked off downtown Friday. It was wall-to-wall coverage on every station viewable in the Greater Victoria Area. At one point, our chief carnival barker, Premier Gordon Gecko, was up there with the local anchor-thingies dressed in the full Team Canada regalia, including the mitties.

Good to know that $100 a month in health care premiums taxes, socialized car insurance that's 50% more expensive than Alberta's, a 7% provincial sales tax, and a property transfer tax that costs homebuyers $12K on the average $600K house, will help fund a $32-million fun run across the country in the middle of winter.

Not everyone was amused.

But it worked, apparently.

Those involved in previous Olympics have attested to the legendary power of the torch to erase public feelings of indifference ahead of the Games.

"It's like a switch goes on, and everything changes," recalled Fraser Bullock, chief operating officer for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

After watching gold-medal Olympians Catriona Le May Doan and Simon Whitfield carry the torch for the first time, spectator Philippe Charette found himself wiping away tears.

"Just seeing the torch right in front of me, just seeing the whole thing.... It gets to you," said Mr. Charette, who seemed embarrassed by his show of emotion.

Dog paydays in the desert

GLENDALE, AZ. -- The National Hockey League announced Monday that a tentative deal had been reached to buy the Phoenix Coyotes out of bankruptcy from non-owner Jerry Moyes.

The league intends to run the franchise further into the ground before flogging it to some rich, feckless wannabe who will either have to throw money down a hole to keep the franchise in Glendale or pay a whopping great transfer fee to the other 29 teams in the league to move it to a thriving hockey market north of the 49th parallel.

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly wouldn't disclose who the sucker, er investor, for the club might be. But word on the street is former Oilers owner and current lockdown poster-boy Peter Pocklington has hocked his mom's kitchen for almost enough to afford the down payment, and the big banks are reportedly lining up to lend him "guaranteed" money to fund the balance with an eye to "recapitalizing" the franchise moving forward.

Stay tuned.