Mark Messier must be pretty dumb. He hung around the Rangers organization for years after he retired trying to be involved in the front office without them ever really giving him a serious job. He was reportedly interested in a number of vacant GM jobs last summer and now he is in Edmonton with the same half-ass job description he had in New York. If New York and Edmonton won't give him even an Assistant GM role or, my favourite made-up job: Special Advisor to the GM, then he must be pretty useless... "No, Mark, you can't elbow Sidney Crosby into signing a contract with us." Breaking News: I have never been a Messier fan.
Paddyfest: Equal parts "Good times having some pints with friends" vs. "Avoiding eye contact and trying to escape the time-vampire dipshits you don't want to talk to".
Ice cube dispensers on a fridge are great for when you want 1 or 384 ice cubes.
The San Francisco Giants gave CF Hunter Pence a 5 year, $90 mil deal (18 a year). Does that mean that is what Colby Rasmus is worth? Rasmus, who signed an arbitration deal for $7 mil, has very similar offensive #'s and is 3 years younger.
I think my favourite commercial right now has to be the Wax Vac ear cleaning commercial. The guy using the q-tip is fantastic and the people using the Wax Vac look like they just got a shot of morphine.
Andrew Wiggins was on the cover of SI. He is the youngest Canadian to ever get the cover. TSN is airing all of his Kansas games. He has been projected to go #1 in the next NBA draft. It would be a huge kick in the stomach for Canada basketball if he doesn't live up to the hype when he gets to the NBA (especially after seeing how last year's #1 pick, Canada's Anthony Bennett, has struggled so far). I hate to say it but he seems like the kind of player that could benefit from more than 1 year of college ball. Tons of skill but needs to be tougher and more determined.
This winter a car crashed into a light post and flipped onto it's side on Main St in Listowel. That's impressive. I mean I've been drunk before but never snap-a-light-post-in-half-flip-my-car-on-it's-side-on-a-Tuesday-morning drunk. I don't think.
Heard on the radio that Canada football (soccer) is now ranked 111th. How is that even possible? There must be countries with a population the size of Listowel that are ranked higher.
Tom Papa is a funny guy...
What a lost season for the Red Wings. Their top 5 centers are hurt and have been for most of the season. That's 5 by the way - even their first call up to play center got hurt. It will be a small miracle if they squeak into the playoffs with the lineup they are rolling these days and if they don't make it then their trade deadline pick up of David Legwand was a waste of a prospect and a pick. It was a bad trade anyway... more on that later.
Funniest tweets I've read lately:
- "Umm" - The first horse that was ridden.
- That's a beautiful turkey! I can't even tell that you just traced your stupid fuckin hand. I'm available to babysit weeknights and weekends.
- Manslaughter sounds a lot worse than murder. I propose murder be renamed manslaughter and manslaughter be called whoopsiedeath.
- Before you get married ask yourself: is this the person you want to watch stare at their phone the rest of your life?
- I just drank so much Gatorade I could literally kick a basketball right now, or however sports work or whatever.
- Remember today that you are beautiful. No not you. The person behind you. Oh, you thought.. HAHAHA... No. No.
- I can almost always tell when a movie doesn't use real dinosaurs.
I see more and more "movie star" actors doing TV series (Kevin Bacon, Jeff Daniels, Matthew McConaughey, Don Cheadle, Kevin Spacey, etc) and I wonder if it's because they watched Breaking Bad.
The stars all seemed to be lining up for the Jays at the start of last season. The Yanks and Sox seemed to be in decline (or at least in an "off year"). The Orioles and Rays were young and good, but not overly scary or unbeatable. Now... The Sox are WS champs, the Yanks signed Tanaka to go along with Jacoby Elisbury, Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran as well as re-signing SP Hiroki Kuroda. Sure the Yanks still have holes (they basically don't have an infield, Cano is gone, Rivera and Pettite retired...), but they will still be improved. Hard to imagine as many things going as well again as they did for the Sox in 2013 (near perfect pitching, career seasons for several players, old man Ortiz playing at an amazing level...) but they will still be tough. So many things went wrong for the Jays last year that they almost have to be better this year without doing anything to their lineup. So, even if they did add a starting pitcher it still seems like it's going to be way more of a challenge to win the division then it did before last season started.
On the starting pitcher subject, the Jays approach has been puzzling. Not signing anyone makes no sense to me. There may be better quality pitchers available via trade but the price to acquire one would be along the lines of Lawrie, Rasmus, Encarnacion or Bautista, which would create a huge hole in the lineup that the Jays don't have the depth to replace. They have extra arms in the bullpen but that's not enough to get a good starting pitcher. I can't imagine they want to further deplete their prospects or trade draft picks, which leaves signing a free agent as the only other option. Rushing Stroman or Drabek or Hutchison into the lineup before they are ready is a disaster waiting to happen, plus you are going to need those guys when one of the starters inevitably gets hurt anyway - and a fill-in role is much better suited to where they are at in their careers. If they had signed someone and one of the young guys is absolutely tearing it up in AAA, then they would have a surplus of starting pitchers, which would be a great strength that gives the Jays opportunities to improve wherever else they need to. If whoever they had signed stinks or gets hurt, well then you can take your chances with one of the young guys and see what happens - that's called depth. Now if/when any of the starting pitchers fails or gets hurt they have nothing. Other than saving money, I can't see the logic in not signing a pitcher this past winter. The boiling point was losing out on Ervin Santana, but if he wasn't the guy they really wanted anyway, then they should have made stronger efforts to land any of the other options this past winter - and there were several. The same theory applies to other free agents. Sign Stephen Drew to play second base and let Goins continue to develop. If Goins learns how to hit by mid season or next year and you want him to be the everyday 2B, then you have options and trade chips. All the good health and strong seasons from the rest of the lineup may not matter if the pitching staff is as bad as last year.
Stick it in Your Ear: Eric Clapton's "Driftin' Blues" from his 1975 "EC Was Here" album. Excellent bluesy stuff. I could listen to this all day.
I made my Canadian Olympic team predictions in a post last year and was off by a few guys, but still pretty close. Really gotta wonder what Martin St Louis did to not make the original team. Leads the league in points since the last Olympics, won the Art Ross last year and carried the Lightning while Stamkos was out this year. Is he completely useless on defense? Did he shit in Crosby's equipment one time? Did he hit on one of Yzerman's daughters? Must be something.
Speaking of the Olympics, it's nice that we can all stop pretending to care about ski jumping or luge or any of the other useless sports that no one really gives a damn about. Don't get me wrong - I'm as proud to be Canadian as the next guy, but be honest... you gonna watch some women's biathlon next time it's on tv? There apparently has been discussion of the NHL running their own Olympic style tournament every 2 years and not sending their players to the Olympics any more. That would be perfect... then we could just not bother with any real tv coverage of the Olympics at all.
Justin Beiber got busted for DUI and street racing in Florida. Following in Britney Spears' footsteps just beautifully isn't he? Wonder when he shaves his head or has his picture taken getting out of a car with his vagina showing.
Watched the Vince Carter special on Sportsnet and the part that stood out the most to me was when he described what was going through his mind as he took the shot (that he missed) at the end of the game in the playoffs against the 76ers. He was thinking about how he would celebrate once the shot went in... whether he would jump up on the score table or run into the crowd or pose on the court. Even now Carter still has to stop and pose for the crowd and cameras after a dunk. God I love hockey players.
I went to a dentist appointment recently and forgot to bring my phone with me. It was awful. I had to look at my surroundings like some kind of hobo.
Has Ken Holland lost his touch as GM of the Wings? The once Golden Boy NHL GM is on a streak of very poor moves and the Wings are starting to finally pay the price for it. Here is a quick run down of some of his recent bad decisions: Re-signing Todd Bertuzzi and Dan Cleary, signing free agents Jordin Tootoo, Mikael Samuelson, Carlo Coliacovo and Ian White. He also traded a 1st round pick for D-man Kyle Quincey and then re-signed him to a 2 year deal - now he can't give him away. His saving grace has been the draft picks that continue to turn out and give the Wings hope for the future. Gus Nyquist, Tomas Tatar, Tomas Jurco, Riley Sheahan, Anthony Mantha and Peter Mrazek (plus others) are all very promising young players, but how much of that credit goes to Holland over his scouting department? He gave up a highly touted prospect, 3rd round pick and a roster player for Legwand at the deadline as a last-ditch effort to make the playoffs. That's a big price to pay for someone they won't have past this season and with a team so banged up that even making the playoffs, nevermind a long playoff run, seems very unlikely anyway. Maybe I wouldn't be questioning Holland if Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Franzen, Weiss, Helm and everyone else who has been injured this season was in the lineup and the Wings were in a comfortable playoff position.
I probably shouldn't but I really like the Old Spice commercial out right now.... "Old Spice! Take a look at my son..."
You know it's been a long winter when you are excited that it's only -5.
Cheers!
Bonesmided
