Finally, the Columbus hockey fan can now weep openly...

In the lamest block buster trade of the year, Rick Nash who is probably the only 'bona-fide' superstar to have never played in a playoff game (apparently he did drive to 4) is heading to the New York Rangers and in return, Columbus doesn't have to answer any more of Nash's emails. So it's a win-win-win.

If you have a Rick Nash playing card you can get one indistinguishable Russian, one funny-named guy, a young defenceman that couldn't make the Calgary Flames and a first pick next year which will most likely be somewhere in the top 20.

Columbus moves someone who showed all the leadership potential of a young Alexandre Daigle and the scoring ability of Alexei Yashin (or vice versa).   New York moves The Dube and New York potheads have to try and find some drug-related nickname for Nash.

And exactly 4 seconds after the trade was announced, all nhl pundits turned to the Roberto Luongo situation and tried to pinpoint exactly where Mike Gillis was for a reaction.  He was found somewhere between 'don't-give-a-shit lane' and 'seriously, go-get-laid avenue'.  

Roberto Luongo; poet of the poker table

The eight Canuck fans throughout Vancouver that still care about Roberto Luongo's fortunes were groaning at hearing that he had bowed out of the high-pressure Las Vegas poker tournament after 4 days of intense competition, which ironically was also the same amount of time it took for him to bow out of the 2012 playoffs.  I went and did some research on his time playing with the 'Big Boys' because $10 000 of BC's taxes were allocated to his wor-cation and i wanted to find out how much the BC Lottery company was able to get their name out there with their 'celebrity spokesperson'.

Here it is; the girl obviously has no idea who roberto luongo is and a very shaky understanding of hockey in general, like she isn't sure if there was a position called a .... goalie?  Then there's an awkward bit about a butterfly stance which could have been well-played by any self-respecting Italian playa' but it's Luongo were talking about here.  He talks with the exact same level of emotion that we come to expect of him so it's good to see he is still retaining his form when being interviewed about playing in a high pressure environment and then being booted out two hours later. 

http://youtu.be/CMk3qE20j-s

Thankfully through the infamy of the internet and certain unreliable sources, ogie here has found the biggest concern other teams have expressed to Mike Gillis about their willingness to trade for Luongo. Surprisingly it's not his contract, his inability to score on the other team's goalie, or that he has yet to return Todd Bertuzzi's whiskers. 
It's this;

http://lybio.net/roberto-luongo-poetry-hd/sports/

He totally doesn't understand iambic pentameter. 

ogie

What's Another $10000 for our Broken Dreams?

Roberto Luongo is in the news once again.  After becoming invisible since being benched after game 3 of the Canucks first round playoff loss he appeared last week to give his thoughts on the Cory Schneider affair, his time in Vancouver and what to do if someone offers to spot your $10,000 entry fee for a place in a world-class Las Vegas poker tournament.  

Luongo of course, is the hottest goalie commodity unofficially on the trade market since those fifteen minutes when Marty Brodeur hired an agent as a practical joke to mess with Lou Lamorello.  Canuck haters want him to go to Toronto where he can see what it's like to play in a tough hockey market while Luongo supporters want him to go to Florida where he can be closer to his family and he will never have to worry about answering media questions.  However, thanks to his well-deserved ten year contract, few teams are seriously willing to pony up the goods to get that final chip that will enable them to lose in the first round of the playoffs.    

Luongo would rather just play poker and who can blame him?  Well, it seems that most of BC thinks that using taxpayer's money to spot someone who makes $5 million a year $10,000 to go play with 6600 other players (including his less famous brother Fabio Luongo who somehow found $10000 in his underwear drawer to pay his entry fee) isn't the best investment for their money.  They could have bought Tom Fergus twice over.  But if you are the BC lottery Corporation, you go with someone who is publically noted for choking when the chips are down. 

if you got this joke, you're old.

Roberto Luongo is one of the most popular celebrities in all of BC and his presence in Las Vegas, where he is as identifable as the present Tom Fergus, is more than proof enough that he is making a worthwhile contribution to the betterment of our society.  That website's hoodie must have set them back a cool $30 as well.  Although $10G could have bought 1000 starter poker kits for the disadvantaged children of British Columbia or ten tickets at a Canuck playoff game, I am happy that it is being used as a 'thank you' gift from the people of BC for his dedicated work as the Canucks most visible punching bag (after Maxim Lapierre).   

I personally can't wait for my son to be able to distinguish between the hammer and pocket rockets when he's playing with those other marks in his kindergarten class. 
  
So what did BC taxpayers truly get for their $10,000?  A martyred sports celebrity who has all but played his last game as a Canuck to hock a website that features some guy that just looks to reek of too much after-shave, carries the weight of unfulfilled expectations on his shoulders and a future cocaine habit.  Yep, that sounds about right.
      
  

The Day The Music Died

Not content on just winning the 94 Stanley Cup, he decided to basically
take over the whole team identity in his quest to destroy Linden forever.

There have been many embarrassing moments for the True Canuck Faithful (if you were born after 1990 you're not one of them).  Heck, all you have to do is watch any Gretzky milestone video and there's a group of Canuck pylons sharing the ice for eternity with the Great One.

Even Mario Lemieux picked Gary Lupul to be his first of what was to be less-than-stellar career in beating up small people.

But there has been no greater embarrassing moment for the True Canuck Faithful than this catastrophe that happened in the summer of 1998: Mark Messier standing victorious over the Vancouver media, basking in his crushing defeat of the Canuck logo/brand.  He may as well have arrived via fighter jet and had a 'mission accomplished' sign behind him.

It still hurts...

In a move akin to making Godzilla mayor of Tokyo, it was Orca Bay's first headlining move after seizing control of the franchise from Arthur Griffiths Jr.  Probably because 1994 was the last time owner John McCaw was sober and he had just taken his head out of his giant pile of money to find he now owned an NHL team.  A Canadian based team at that that had forged a bit of an identity through years of dedication by Stan Smyl and Trevor Linden.  Therefore he had to crush it.  I don't know why.  Maybe because he liked to crush people's dreams.  

At least this one fought injustice.

So, being an American, he hired other American advisors to create a team that America would like because, you know, America.  New logo, new coach, new captain.  It was the worst betrayal since Pope Clement V handed over the Knights Templar to the King Philip.  


And the rest has never been the same.  

    

A Vancouver and Columbus win-win situation?

In hindsight, the PA announcer shouldn't have
 started playing "Riot" by Three Days Grace.

First off, on behalf of all of the province of Vancouver I apologize for the lackluster effort put forth by the Canucks in refusing to win 16 straight games to win their first Stanley Cup for the third time.  We can only blame Roberto Luongo for so long  for failing to win the cup in 012, 94, or 82 where i heard he actually didn't even watch one game of the FINALS because he was busy playing with his GI Joe action figures. 

Not saying that Canuck fans are still feeling burned by last year's debacle, but I'd go so far as to suggest that as you read this, someone is working on building a time machine to go back to 1978 and shout 'Luongo sucks' at his parents as they were copulating so that he would never grow up to become a professional goaltender, thereby not disappointing the entire Canuck nation by not stopping each and every goddamn puck that was sent his way by someone in a Boston Bruin sweater.

In all reality i would have nothing against Luongo if he played on any team but the Canucks however let's face it, Vancouver is like the Toronto Maple Leafs of goaltending.  It's where good goaltenders go get verbally assaulted by scrawny or overweight sports reporters that are breathing heavily just holding their microphones up. Vancouver is a black hole that sucks up talent and morale and leaves an empty husk of a man; it is the Jennifer Lopez of NHL cities.

But it's summer and the only hockey news right now is when and where is Luongo going to take the remaining decade of his luuuu-crative contract.  Some dreamers (read Torontonians) want him to don the blue and white so that they could find out if it's theoretically possible for someone to have two assholes torn into them by their rabid fans. I have on good authority that Luongo is hoping to be moved somewhere where he's not expected to have a .990 save percentage, cure leprosy and personally escort every fan to their seat before the game so hello...    

Florida. Considered a favourite for no other reason than that's where his wife is from and nobody will know him. Toronto is considered a favourite because that's where Brian Burke is and Vancouver desperately wants to pay them back for that whole Mats Sundin thing. Plus, Toronto fans mistakenly believe everybody wants to play for them despite the one glaring fact they then would be playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs.  

So while Cory Schneider gleefully wrings his hands at being given the opportunity to crack under pressure once Luongo leaves, all i can say is that i don't blame the guy. I mean after all, he won 75% of his games last year against sub .500 teams. And he very nearly won 2 whole games against the eventual Stanley Cup winning LA Kings. Plus this year he will find out who the hell this Jason Garrison guy is that everyone is talking about. 

We all know goals wins games so in a perfect and sane hockey world (usually only found in my hockey pool), Roberto Luongo goes to Columbus for Rick Nash. Columbus gets a decent goalie that most of Ohio will have no expectations of and Nash gets to play for a team that already has at least 6 other scapegoats to blame when they don't win the cup again next year. It's a win-win.

In unrelated news, Canada's social health care system breathed a sigh of relief in hearing that Sami Salo has decided to head to Tampa Bay to join their IR list.