Ogie's Answers to Everything...Part 33

People often ask me at work "Ogie, why aren't you wearing any pants?" and I just look at them and laugh. Then I realize that I don't work with anybody and I need to get some sleep.

But I can't, there's too much shit going on out there that craves my attention. Like why the hell is TSN the breaking news for any gossip concerning the Vancouver Canucks? Shouldn't the Vancouver Canucks be breaking their own news first. Sometimes I swear that new Canuck president Trevor Linden is getting his daily 'to-do' list from Bob McKenzie and the morning edition of Sportsdesk.

Trevor, your answer is ...

That said here are Ogie's other solutions to some things that keep me awake and mad at night.

Issue 1 - The NHL disparity of East vs West. 

It's been over a month now since the LA Kings defeated the Chicago Blackhawks for the 2014 Stanley Cup. It was an incredible series that showcased everything that was great about the NHL. Hitting, beards and no Pierre McGuire. That said, the Kings had to delay their party for a week as per NHL regulations the winner of the Eastern Conference was allowed a shot at the title. Despite an overwhelming majority stating the end result was as predictable as the Dawson City Klondikers/Ottawa Silver 7 Stanley Cup match of 1905, the NHL still insisted that the Kings play five more games against the New York Rangers who could only milk the emotion of the death of Marty St. Louis' mom for so long.

Barring the Boston Bruins win over the much-favored Vancouver Canucks (cough) in 2011 the West has dominated the NHL for the last five years. The East Coast teams, despite the easier traveling schedule, the massive amounts of press and Sidney Crosby has done nothing to make the East competitive vs. the West. Western Teams such as Phoenix, Nashville would be shoe-ins for the playoffs if they had to go against Eastern Conference teams most of the time. But due to stupid 'geography' they can't.




So What to Do?  

Realignment and relocation. Let's face it, nobody knows anything about the new divisions anyways. It's all organized by travel to save a few bucks for East Coast owners on hotel bills. If Detroit can be traded to the Eastern Conference for Winnipeg, why can't the Phoenix Coyotes be traded to Washington for the Capitals? They are always talking about moving anyways. It's time to make this a reality. Maybe we could just pack up Columbus and put them in Saskatoon. It's not like anyone knows where either of those places are, am I right? In fact, why not just put more teams in hockey-crazy markets? If Chicago can have both the White Sox and the Cubs represent them in baseball, why not have Florida move into Vancouver, give them a set of our old jerseys? How awesome would that be? Well, except for Luongo but shit, the Canucks are still paying him anyways.

Vancouver has plenty of extra hockey jerseys to choose from...

Issue 2 - World Politics

Iraq is being invaded by ...let's just call them Iraqis. The Ukraine's Crimea has been annexed by Russia causing lots of angry speeches to be made in the United Nations but not much else. Rio has been invaded by international soccer players that are leaving the country in a peculiar state of crisis; they will have 12 new soccer stadiums but a crushing underclass of citizens that are starving and in need of health care or other basic government programs.

So what to Do?

Ignore it all. After all, none of these countries have anything closely resembling an adequate hockey team. In Iraq these new 'terrorists' are being called ISIS by the American media which means they either have no clue who Archer is or have just reached the near-bottom of media laziness. The only ones in North America who are really concerned are Haliburton shareholders. Their CEO, Dick Cheney is demanding military intervention to protect his oil wells.

Ukraine - Crimea was annexed for the same reason; oil. It's an essential source of Russian state-owned oil and natural gas. Crimea also has no hockey system to speak of. Let's just get rid of the United Nations as well, as they also have no hockey team worth mentioning.

Brazil - Ogie has the easiest solution to your problems; dismantle and sell their soccer stadiums for food and other essential services on Kijiji. It will employ thousands, make millions. You could sell them to 2018 World Cup hosts, Russia, which just goes to show that when it comes to politics, world sports bodies don't give a shit, just as long as Coca-Cola or Sony remains a sponsor. Lego would be a natural.

Lots of assembly required...

Issue 3 - The Continual Crap We Are Fed from Established Media and Internet Home Pages

Look, I get there are slow news days. But really there isn't. News used to be respected and at it's best should be the voice of those who can't speak for themselves, not for the benefit of whoever is the highest bidder. We have teacher strikes going on in British Columbia, representing the future of our kids and our social education system, we have the continuing dissent regarding Northern Gateway representing the economic future of China and Dick Cheney. There is the ongoing purge of basic human voting rights in Canada through the Fair Elections Act. We are currently on this road to make ourselves the spitting image of America and the ones that should be stepping up in nationalistic defense are burying these issues to a degree behind the usual bull-shit 'stories' of Kim Kardashian, mass murders in North Bumfuck, Texas and funny pictures that are 'viral' (Yahoo's unofficial slogan; skimming Reddit today for tomorrow's news the day after that). 

Breaking! Bear sits on bench - in other news, the Prime Rate went up 2%

What To Do 

Educate ourselves. Find a better homepage. Stop bitching and start caring. Offer solutions. Everyone complaining about the teachers seem to have no solutions other than 'suck it up and be grateful you have a job'. Yet they complain that kids are getting stupider, everything is too expensive and that teachers have it easy. Shouldn't we all be having it 'easy' by now? Why is that right to have it 'easy' only reserved for the rich and powerful? Because we are conditioned to believe that, thanks to our media influences.

I was filling up my gas tank the other day at a small town in BC (Merritt, to be exact) and this man made a comment about how much we were getting ripped off at the pump. He then proceeded to tell me that Norway owns it's oil and gas and puts its revenues into the good of their country. That got me super-excited as I knew that and told him so. I suggested that Canada needs a political party that advocates state-owned industry (Nationalism) which he took to mean Communism. But despite that, the thing is we, as strangers, were discussing matters that actually pertained to us. He didn't mention the Kardashians, FIFA or that Stanley Park is a pretty decent park. We talked of what matters to us. We should keep doing that with random strangers. At least try to have a discussion.

Anyways, this shit was bugging me. I feel better now that it's out of my head. Have a good weekend.

David Beckam and Rob Cordry show off the new Fox TV Soccer Ball for
FIFA 2014's American audiences.