Gretzky VS Armstrong

Somebody left this on the comment board and it seems like it’s worth a bit of thought here. By the way, if you want to do a similar thing and leave random topic suggestions, feel free. Just don’t get all pissed off if it either takes a long time for us to use them or we don’t end up using them at all, we’ve got lives too and there are some things we just don’t have any thoughts on.

here’s a good topic for discussion…over on espn they;ve got a poll rating the top 25 athletes in the past 25 yrs…. Gretzky doesn’t top any of the writers
lists, Lance Armstrong does however.
Anonymous | 01.16.04 – 7:27 pm |

After thinking about it for a couple of minutes the reason for this seems pretty simple. Actually there are a couple of reasons. For one thing ESPN is a mostly American organization and as much as things have changed over the last few years, hockey doesn’t have the same level of acceptance in America as it does here in Canada. Let’s face it, the States might have most of the teams in the NHL and the league might be run out of New York but hockey at it’s core is a truly Canadian game. A lot of people actually think that it’s our national sport, and for good reason. Our official national sport is lacrosse, or so I’m told but the way that a great deal of Canadians live and breathe the stuff, hockey might as well be considered our game. Hockey to us is like football to America. It’s the sport that people get together and talk about more than any other. It’s the highest rated sport on TV here. A lot of our kids play it. Hockey is a very important part of Canadian culture. Now having said that it should be a lot clearer why Gretzky, even though he was arguably the greatest player the game has ever seen, didn’t make tops on anybody’s list. He was the best in a sport that Americans, including I’m assuming most of the writers doing the selecting don’t really care all that much about or know that much about. It’s easy to pass a guy over in your personal rankings if you have no idea what he accomplished or better yet simply don’t care.

But more than that, Gretzky was simply really good at what he did while Lance Armstrong has a story attached to him. Armstrong came back from cancer that could have easily killed him to become the most dominant force in cycling. To a lot of people, he’s a hero, and for good reason. And not only is he a hero, he’s an American hero and let’s not forget where a lot of these writers are from and where the company they’re working for is based. Sure cycling isn’t among anybody’s favourite sports, at least nobody I’ve talked to but Armstrong is somebody that’s easy to get behind and easy to cheer for. Everybody wanted to see him beat the odds and when he actually did it, he earned all of the praise he got. But beyond that, he earned a place in a lot of people’s hearts for what he had done and the significance of it. Armstrong taking top honours over Wayne Gretzky makes perfect sense, at least from where I sit. And don’t forget, all of these rankings are purely opinion to begin with and no opinion is ever wrong unless there are factual errors in it.

Ok, comment away.

Mad Cow, Very Very Mad Cow

Lately we’ve been hearing so much in the media about Mad Cow Disease that I thought it was time to get a different perspective on the situation and again, we here at Vomit Comet World HQ have come through. If you want to hear the lowdown on BSE right from the source, all you have to do is
click here.
Remember to turn up your sound and watch out for profanity, because this cow isn’t holding anything back! Why should he, he’s mad for crying out loud!

Tenants Roasting On An Open Fire

Well it’s certainly been an interesting night here in the land of Steve, and for all the wrong reasons.

It’s about 10 PM and my girlfriend and I are just doing our normal nightly stuff. We’re on our computers checking our email, that sort of thing. We eventually migrate out to the living room to watch the news and just sort of wind down the day. The main topic of our conversation keeps drifting back to the assholes in our building who it seemed were for some unknown reason painting their place at such a stupid time of night and how much it was going to suck to have to sleep in paint fume heaven. As we talk, the smell gets stronger and stronger, and starts to smell less and less like paint. Curious to be sure, but I’m not thinking much of it up to now. Then the fire alarms go off and we’re suddenly evacuating the building. It seems that one of the bottom floor apartments somehow caught fire and everybody has to get the fuck out of the place like right now, no waiting! I can’t even begin to describe to you on how many levels this completely and profoundly sucks. First of all, according to the handy dandy temperature thingie on my computer, it is exactly -21.6 degrees celcius outside right now. For those of you who don’t know what that means, it pretty much boils down to it’s fucking cold and now I’ve gotta stand in it for an as yet undetermined amount of time and possibly catch frost bite and lose a limb or 2. But more than that, it sucks because well, the fucking building’s on fire! You know, the building with my house in it. My house, pretty much everything I own, you know, all the stuff that defines who I am.

Things actually turned out pretty well though, all things considered. The fire didn’t end up being as serious as it could have been thanks to somebody’s quick thinking in calling the fire department right away. It was contained to 1 apartment and we only had to be outside for about an hour and a half or so. The city even eventually came around with a nice warm city bus for all of us to sit in. We were all able to get back in before midnight which was nice since I had visions of having to sleep on the bus or at some place that they’d have to open up for all the new homeless people. The sucky thing now is that the whole building smells like a big camp fire and I have this ungodly craving for a hotdog.

More later, assuming I still have a house by then.

Voting Update

Well, if you’ve been over to Salty Ham this morning (AND YOU’D BETTER HAVE!) you’ll notice some slight changes to the order of leaders in the pole that they have up. If you haven’t noticed you’re a tool and I have nothing to say to you.

It seems that Wes is now DESTROYING everyone in site (or should i say on site… heh? heh?). But I mean he must be cheating if he’s winning, right? That seems to be the mentality here. So I assume Wes is cheating and I am the rightful leader despite being far far behind according to that cool little bar graph thing.

Public Service Announcement From Your Friends At VomitComet

In these difficult times of poor visibility, bad road conditions and heavy traffic in the GTA it is necessary to keep a steady state of mind. Understand that, as upset as you are, as frustrated as you are, as in a hurry as you are on that highway to get to work… so is every other person in every other car that surrounds you.

That guy that just pulled in to your lane just ahead of you without signalling, just about causing an accident so he can say he was off the highway 15 seconds before you were is in just as big of a rush as you to get to work. It’s important to find techniques for dealing with these frustrations. We here at Vomit Comet are here to help.

When you feel the slightest inkling, the slightest twinge, even the slightest desire to stick your head out the window and flip the guy off while screaming prophanities regarding his mother’s carriage please remember all that we’ve said. That people are in the same rush as you. We here at Vomit Comet suggest that when these urges rush over you you allow them to take over. I mean… the guy just cut you off, right?

Get that window open good and wide, get your head as far out there as possible so this prick can hear you and let him know what you think, speak of your intimate goings-on with his significant other, speak of your opinions of his father, speak of the unproved truth that the people he calls parents are actually so, give a reach back and hurl that ice scraper in your back seat down and see if you can help chip some ice off of his windshield.

These are all very healthy things to help you relieve stress. I mean, you don’t know the guy, right? So what harm could it possibly do? This way you’ll be in a great mood and won’t take out your frustrations on your friends and co-workers. There’s nothing wrong with having complete strangers feel the wrath of your road rage.

Remember. We here at VomitComet Co. are here for you. These helpful tips should help us all live a better life.

Take Care of Yourselves… And Those You Know And To Hell With Everyone Else.

Salty Music Is Kickin

If you wanted to see Matt throw up a music review, now is your chance. He said he would and true to his word, he did it, and now it’s here for you to see since you’re hero and mine, that would be me, went in and pushed a couple of buttons to make it all public since that’s like my job and stuff. So did Matt like the album? The answer to this burning question can be found
here.

And don’t forget that Salty Music is your source for at least some of the hottest music news going today. Just about every day, your fearless music section editor, that would be me, tries to update you on the comings and goings in the world of music. Check that out and stay informed, at least as informed as I’ll let you.

In closing, thanks to the people who have voted for Matt and I in the Salty Ham poll, that’s cool of whomever thought enough of either one of us to do that. But no matter who wins that thing, all of the folks over at The Ham are really great, so love them all. You can vote in the poll by going to
Salty Ham’s main page.

Later all.

Oh Come On!

Any of you who visit this site who are also visitors to
Salty Ham
have probably noticed that they have a joke of the day on the main page. It’s a cool feature and some of them aren’t too bad, worth a laugh for the most part, or at least a giggle. But everybody, no matter how good they are, has their off days, and for The Ham, today is that day. Click over to the main page and take a look. What you’ll find is humour greatness on the level of such gems as:

Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?
Because he was dead.

Or,
Why did the second chicken cross the road?
Because he was stapled to the first one.

What makes this one worse though is that it’s long and you’re reading it thinking that it’s going to go somewhere, and it doesn’t. But I think that what makes me the most upset about the whole thing is that I laughed at it. Yes, against my better judgment, I laughed at that joke. Just shoot me now. Actually don’t, maybe tomorrow’s joke will be better. Either that or they’ll use one of my 2 suggestions from above. Time will tell.

Speaking of Salty Ham, if you’re a follower of that site, go over there and vote in the poll. It’s a good question.

More later perhaps.

It’s Back

Well despite the fact that you didn’t miss it, there’s a new edition of The Towel Snap bein’ put up today over on Salty Ham Sports.

We talk some football, we talk some baseball… that’s about it really but I would suggest you go check it out because this one was hard. it’s easy to rant about hockey. No hockey this week. Americans are rejoicing, Canadians are crying and the Swiss are impartial (as usual)

You can also look for me to throw up a CD review or two over the next little while on the Salty Ham Music section. Hopefully, the first one today – time permitting.

No Use For A Name

Good Monday Morning to you all,
It’s kind of a slow day and I’m not sure if I really have anything relevant to say… but I’m just gonna start typing and see what we end up with… I’m pretty sure there’s a few things I wanna talk about.. so Let’s Go!

I checked out the Green Bay/Philadelphia playoff game yesterday afternoon. What a battle. That was a classic football game right there. Although, Favre and the Packers really should have gone for it on 4th and 1 rather than trying to pull Philadelphia offside. The Eagles hole season was on the line… no one was gonna jump the gun. It’s been the running game that’s got it done all year for the Pack and that was the worst possible time to stray from it and it did end up costing them. Though in all fairness to the offense, when your defense pins someone down at 4 and 26 and still lets them get to the first down maybe you need to look at them. Aside from all that, something bothered me in watching the post-game show and the Eagles celebration. That, of course, was the verbal bashing that the commentators laid on Brett Favre.

Now I won’t argue the fact that no matter how many fathers you’ve had die on you lately and no matter how many records you’ve set in the NFL and even how many people have said you’re one of the greatest ever that was still one of the worlds shitties passes of all time. There was no chance that any good was gonna come of it. He put his receivers in a situation where they had no chance to succeed and ended up turning the ball over. But let’s look at the big picture here. The Packers don’t even get close to where they did without Favre’s inspired play over the last month or so. From the Monday Nighter just after his father died all the way up until the Overtime of yesterday’s game he was the best player on the team and arguably the only reason the Pack gets that far. He probably made a few hundred good plays to get them that far and it’s all forgotten after one bad one. If the defense could have held McKnab and the Philly offense and FOURTH AND TWENTY SIX it never would have happened. It was a team loss. I guaruntee you not one player went in to the dressing room blaming Favre… it’s just us… the fans and the media that could possibly spin it that way.

I gotta admit I was kinda rooting for the Pack just for that emotional underdog I guess. You have to admire a guy that can put all that out of his head and just go out and win. Favre was quoted as saying that he didn’t want the season to end because up until now he had football to distract him from the pain of his loss…now he’s got free time on his hands. In any rate it sets up for a great NFC Championship game next weekend.

I don’t know how many of you saw the Leafs game on Saturday but it was one of the most god-awfully boring games I’ve ever seen… and I’ve seen some boring games before. (See entire Minnesota/Anaheim playoff series last year). The thing that gets me is that we’re still willing to talk about it. The Leafs played New Jersey – long acknowledged as one of the best trapping teams in the league and thus the most boring to watch. Every team that they play knows EXACTLY what they’re going to do…. and no one can beat it. They clog the neutral zone, force the rush to one side, cut it off and dump it back down.

Everyone keeps saying that it’s what’s wrong with the NHL but you can’t fault anyone for it. It’s simply great coaching. You may not like to admit it, but that’s what it is. A coach acknowledges that he may not have the most talented squad in the league and needs to find a way to win. New Jersey has got 3 Stanley Cups in the last decade so how can you ask them to stop doing it. They aren’t breaking any rules. Sure it’s boring… but they don’t care. They care about WINNING! And that’s what they’re doing. They have a big tough defense, a world-class goaltender and a few forwards who can finish when they get the chance. That’s all they need.

Everyone out there saying that they need to find a way to get rid of the trap or make it illegal is looking at things the wrong way because no matter what you do someone will find a way to beat it. What the league really needs is more coaching like that of New Jersey’s and Minnesota’s and other teams. Not because we need more trapping, but because a coach as smart as say Pat Burns would figure out a way to beat it. It’s that simple. Instead of whining about seeing your team lose 1-0 game to a boring team you need to tip your hat to a team that plays their system perfectly and wins Championships because of it and look at your own coach to beat it.

I’m not saying I know how to beat the trap (although I do think if you’d just activate a defenseman to join the rush on the opposite side of the force you’d open up more options) but the other coachs are paid to know it so let them figure it out. Scoring lately has been up around the league so don’t complain about the 2 or 3 teams out of 30 that are boring. It’s still the fastest game out there and sometimes watching a 1 goal game is just as intense as you sit on the edge of your seat waiting for that one break.

Well this has been a very sporting post. Maybe I’ll be back later with something else… Maybe I won’t… But maybe Steve will… or maybe you people shouldn’t be so needy.

Later