Vomit Comet

So I heard an interesting theory on the radio this morning that made a lot of sense and I’ve been thinking about a lot. It’s in regards to the Leafs/Flyers series that will continue tonight.

It was said by one of the announcers that Philly coach, Ken Hitchcock, is going out of his way to be nice to the Leafs. The Leafs seem to play better when there is a hatred there and an intensity. The Leafs got by Ottawa this year and you know there’s a hatred there. They played Philly real tough in the playoffs last year when things started to get real mean. The Islanders and Senators the year before that definitely had some heat and when they go to Carolina there was no rivalry or hatred and they went right in the shitter.

The Leafs are made up of guys like Tucker, Roberts, Marchment and guys like that who play better with a burr in their saddle. They want it real physical, they want lots of lipping off and shoving and they’re not getting that.

When Hitchcock talks to the media about Toronto he is very very complimentary saying things like “we’ll need to get much better because we know Toronto will” “oh, they’re a great team and they’re going to push us to the edge” “well Sundin’s a great player and we knew it would be tougher with him back in the line-up” “we’ve been lucky to get a few by Belfour because he’s one of the best in the world” and things like that. The Flyers’ players are doing the same thing and it’s almost certainly by order of the coach.

You look at Jeremy Roenick. He is one of the most outspoken guys in the league who is always good for a quote to spark something and he has done nothing but praise Belfour and the Leafs. It’s obvious Hitchcock does not want to wake up the Leafs. I’m sure in the locker room they say all the same “Toronto are assholes” “fuck this guy” kinda thing but not publically. They’ve been very diplomatic and that’s something that the Flyers’ are not known for.

Philly is quite content playing an up and down game without much intensity because they’re winning at it. Philly plays tough but they’re not as big as they used to be and they don’t want this to turn in to a war. They wanna continue what they’re doing now and get the last laugh when they sweep the Leafs right out of the playoffs.

Toronto needs to find something to hate about the Flyers. You would think that the fact that they were eliminated last year by this would be enough but it has not been. In all fairness, the Leafs have not played poorly but they have not played that mean game that they can play and need to play to be effective. Philly has small guys on the team. You need to start hitting the Recchi’s, the Roenick’s and the Kapanen’s and taking advantage of that. That will accomplish two things. You’ll knock those smaller guys off the puck to create opportunity for yourself and you may upset them and begin to put some life in to this series. Toronto needs that.

I just thought it was an interesting theory and when you look back at the different series’ where Toronto has played well vs where they’ve played badly it usually has something to do with heat and rivalry. You can even go as far back as the wars with New Jersey. Toronto lost those series’ but they played well and they were long series’ and you KNOW there was hatred between those teams then.

Just something to think about.

Good Wednesday morning to all you bored people. (why else would you be here?)
So Calgary snuck by Detroit last night. I’m impressed. Detroit was missing Chelios but the Flames were missing Warrener and looking at the 2 organizations I would say that Detroit should have had an easier time making up for that than Calgary. Kudos to the Flames though as they are certainly holding their own in this series. Do I think that they have what it takes to get by Detroit? The answer is still no. But I hope I’m wrong and they’re starting to give me doubts. Besides Toronto/Philly, this has become the series I’m most interested in. Looking at things right now it seems to be the series that has the best chance of keeping a Canadian team in it.

This weekend I go to Montreal for the final Olympic team selection camp. We’ll practise/play all weekend and each player will get a phone call within the week or so following that camp and find out who made it and who didn’t. It goes without saying that I’m nervous but I’m also incredibly fired up.

It’s an odd feeling to know that you’ve worked for 8 years and it all gets condensed in to one weekend. Do well, you’re in. Do poorly, see ya next time. To be honest. I don’t like the system that we have in place for selecting the team. It’s my feeling that players should be evaluated on their performance all year. That is not the case for us. You are evaluated on your performance at this camp, and that’s it. Last year that worked in my favour. I don’t believe going in to this thing last year that I was being looked at seriously and that Bruno from Quebec was the guy they were really keying on. He had a bad tournament and I had a great one and from that, I got his spot. Obviously, I was thrilled to be named and to get the opportunity last year but at the same time you’re kinda left with a feeling of “well was that really fair?” It will happen in sport that an athlete will have an off game/tournament where they just don’t have it. That’s not a fair representation of their skills. Bruno had an outstanding season last year leading up to this and had one bad weekend and ended up losing his spot. Those are the rules and everyone knew it going in but you still can’t help but feel bad. Now I find myself worrying about the same thing. I’ve had a good season, better than Bruno. But I could be that guy this year who just has an off weekend. It’s something pretty daunting to think about.

But, can’t worry about that. As I said I’m fired up and ready to give this a hard push. I’m going in with a few minor nagging injuries. Things that are just more annoying than painful really but I don’t see them providing much of a problem on the weekend. My back’s kinda beat up and my knee is pretty tender but once you get in to the games I find those things seem to leave your mind and you just focus on what you’re doing. I’m sure that will be the case here. I’m looking forward to this. Though, the week of waiting for the call afterwards is something difficult.

By the way, yesterday we did an above average amount of hits. Just goes to show you that you’re never too old to enjoy the word penis.

Be back later.

Hello, All.
I haven’t posted here in a while and I”ll be truthful with you. I’ve just had nothing of any relevence to say about anything. I still don’t but I have nothing better to do so I figured I’d hop on and just write whatever comes to mind. Sometimes this random crap is what sparks the most interest on the comment boards. So we’ll see what comes up.

I sat down to watch the Colorado/San Jose hockey game last night and I couldn’t help but think “man I’m glad I didn’t write a predictions column for this round.” That was intentional. When I looked at the matchups for this round it would have all been guessing. The only one I could pick was Detroit to beat Calgary and so far Calgary is hanging tough. (though with the injuries to their blue-line they may not for much longer) There was no satisfaction in picking winners for me as it would have been strait guessing. So if I’d been wrong I would have just got the “wow you don’t know anything.” and if I had been right I would have just felt like I made a lucky guess. So I didn’t do it. But wow have these games been good. Montreal has been beaten badly in their first two games but I don’t count them out yet. I do count out Colorado.

That’s tough for me. Colorado and Toronto are my teams. I’m torn on how to feel. I love the Avs’ but they’ve got a high-priced line-up that is not getting the job done. I usually like to cheer for the low-budget, no superstar teams which is certainly San Jose. They’re all young guys, or character guys that are outworking Colorado at every turn. They’re up 3-0 now (which I did not see coming) and Colorado will NOT beat this team 4 strait times. All that’s left is to see if Colorado can make it interesting.

I’m not gonna touch on Toronto much. They’re down 2-0 but have been in both games. We’ll see what happens but they’re in pretty tough now.

On to something else. I discovered a new guilty little pleasure for myself this weekend. Much Music ran on the weekend (and may have before, I’m not sure.) a show called Battle of the Ex’s. Now usually I think these shows are stupid and try to stay away from them but for some reason I found myself watching it. They would pick a couple and then run down all the things that each person had done since the break up, good and bad, and award points for it. It’s such a shallow thing to do and was really kind of lame but I found it fun. Some of them were very lopsided and it was neat to watch Britney look like a fool. Sure I hate Justin Timberlake but as his career continues to sky-rocket after they break up, hers goes in the shitter for a while. She’s started to pull herself out lately but the show didn’t acknowledge that which was fine with me. I believe Britney lost that battle 45 to -15. It was kind of a lame idea probably targeted to get the pop-loving teen girls to watch but like I said. It was a guilty little pleasure for me. I know everyone’s got them. Any show where I get a chance to see someone I don’t like get humiliated is probably gonna be alright with me.

I didn’t get to see RAW last night. In Canada RAW is carried on TSN and it was bumped while TSN carried the hockey game. It did come on at midnight but I was far too tired to stay up ’till 2am for it. They’re replaying it at 8pm tonight but I’m sure by then I will have heard what happened and not end up watching as there are 2 very good hockey games on CBC tonight. It makes me wonder. We do get Spike TV up here and I can understand why in Canada RAW doesn’t show up on Spike and we have to watch it on TSN while Spike runs StarTrek re-runs or something. But on a night like this where TSN won’t show RAW live, why not permit Spike to do so? I know TSN would argue it would hurt their ratings later but still. I mean I still would have watched the hockey game as it was a big one but I could have started flipping around on commercials to see what was going on. And I’ve already talked to 3 people today who were fit to be tied since they hate hockey and had to miss one of their favourite shows became 2 teams in a different country in a different time zone were playing. It’s a sore spot around here for non-hockey fans when the Leaf games during the regular season pre-empt RAW but they don’t even bother trying to fight it since the Leafs are everything around here. But these guys were quite pissed that a game on the other side of the country was effecting what they watched. Especially on our satellite dish where there are 2 TSN stations so that there can be one for alternate programming. Oh well.

I’m gonna say that’s enough for right now since my mind’s a blank but I’ll probably be back later as it just seems to be one of those days