Retro Post from June 11, 2013

There's probably no greater sadness that hits a writer right in the feelsies when something he/she wrote is gone forever into obscure recycling piles or crashed hard drives or poor memory keeping (Filmbin 1.2, anyone? Anyone?). 

I once lost an amazing fake Danny Boyle interview in the trenches of another website's submissions pile and have been pining for it ever since. Realizing that I have no idea what may happen in the world of Internet, I am on a small mission to reclaim all my posts that have been published on other sites. If you've already read these, thanks! If not, enjoy them for the first time!

-ogie

Original site; http://whatculture.com/sport/nhl-the-stanley-cup-and-then-there-were-two.php

Let’s face it, if you are reading this it’s because you have lost the feed on the football channel, you live in the top half of North America or at the very least have a fond appreciation for a game that draws the distinction between fighting and just roughing (roughing is when you keep your gloves on). But for you football fanatics that may have accidentally clicked here, I promise to throw in some football-related trivia later on.

If you are new to the sport of hockey, you could not have picked a better time to start watching the streaming live feeds out of Russia or the Canadian broadcasting company (CBC.ca). The best four games out of seven Stanley Cup Championship featuring the Chicago Blackhawks and the Boston Bruins begins June 12 and this series will make every other game you watch from now on pale in comparison, like having high speed internet compared to a 28.8 dial up modem.

After a hardly-grueling 1/2 season marred by the owners not letting the players start until after the Superbowl was over in a strategic (and lame) cost-cutting measure, a couple of unusual winning streaks and some high profile movement at the trade deadline the race to the Stanley Cup playoffs was it’s usual superficially hyped up event as sports reporters from around Toronto and Vancouver clamored to speculate which 16 of the 30 teams would make it into the playoffs to face their respective teams in the finals. Vancouver found it would take them only the minimum 4 games to stop that dream from happening and break out their golf clubs (as all hockey playoff games are best of sevens for maximum suspense and ticket sales).

This is not the place to bore you with the details of the failed March to the Cup by various teams but what the heck, you are here now anyways so here’s a couple of highlights from the two teams that are still going at it.

In the Eastern Conference there was drama; the Toronto Maple Leafs had the most epic collapse since Mali scored 4 goals in the final 11 minutes to tie Angola in the Africa Cup of Nations tournament in 2010 or Manchester or Liverpool scoring three goals in seven minutes to tie AC Milan in the Champions League Final in 2005 (you’re welcome, footballers).

Clawing their way back from a 3 games to 1 deficit, Toronto was poised to make their way in the second round with a commanding 3 goal lead with 10 minutes left to play in the decisive game 7.  Just over 30 minutes later, the Boston Bruins completed their comeback and sent the Maple Leafs packing and crying back to Canada. Here’s the raw drama of that final 30 minutes condensed nicely into a 3 minute video. It’s funny because it’s so sad…

Then there was the break-out of Old-time Canadian hockey featuring two Canadian hockey teams, the Montreal Canadiens and the Ottawa Senators. This is the type of hockey nobody wants to see which is why this face-breaking hit was replayed repeatedly until something better came along, which was these few minutes of pure awesomeness a couple games later.

In the Western Conference Chicago did it’s usual winning thing in it’s division. Yet they had their fair share of drama as well, giving the Detroit Red Wing faithful the finger as they clawed their way back from a similar 3 games to 1 disadvantage only to win the game 2x in the deciding game 7 after their first game winner with less than 2 minutes left was disallowed due to a public mugging going on of a Chicago player at the Detroit bench. They went on to score again in overtime, defeat last year’s champions the LA Kings and do it decisively in only 5 games.

Now, after three playoff rounds, the Bruins and the Blackhawks are the only two teams left skating. Both teams are equal in stature, beards and all-star goal-tending. Boston does have the giant Slovak Zdeno Chara on their team while Chicago has the seldom played semi-psychotic Dan Carcillo who could bite out Chara’s innards if need be.

If you have yet to see what all the fuss is about in North America and those northern European countries, now is the time to do it.

Where You Been Dad?

Dads. Can't be created without'm. It's safe to say that pretty much every one of you who reads this blog has a dad somewhere in their past (except you, Steve. You suck and were conceived by a mixture of LSD, wallpaper paste and a series of poor choices).

And sometimes as Dads, we have to do certain things whether we like it or not such as admit paternity, pay child support, maybe be ready when that child of yours you completely forgot about tracks you down after they finish high school and/or are on the run from the cops.

So what do you do with a kid once you got'm?

A) Train them to accomplish everything you feel you failed at in life
B) Just hold onto them for dear life so nothing bad ever happens, except perhaps death by accidental smothering.
C) Treat them like little grown ups as soon as possible by giving them responsibilities, explaining facts not fictions, keeping them away from media violence, the internet, firearms, schools, malls, America.
D) Sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. Maybe even later introduce them to drugs because you are the 'cool dad'.
E) Grow the Fuck Up and Be A Dad.

Answer after the jump;

A Different Look at Bobby Ryan

The one thing that being in the NHL nowadays seems to lack is human interest. Most players come with some type of prep-school degree or wealthy parents that could afford to keep their kid in $400 skates, $200 sticks, out-of-town tournaments or schools etc as they made their way up in the hockey ranks through the years and performed well enough to be noticed by one or two NHL scouts in their mid-teens. Draft day is a lot of mixed emotions, a lot of players who have trained their whole lives with the support of their parents get passed over for one reason or another. Most find hockey employment in the minor leagues or in Europe, others make the mature decision to invest more time in schooling than hockey and some just return to their homes and make do with what their future now has in store for them.

Feel-good stories of hard-working Canadian (and American) boys making it to the Big Show are becoming more and more rare. Brian Bickell's life story made for interesting fodder in last year's Stanley Cup. His play and 'sushi support' to eventual Conn Smythe winner Patrick Kane was an integral part of the Blackhawks win which showed not only on the score sheet (17 points in 23 games) but also on capgeek's pay scale. He was rewarded with a substantial raise from $600,000 a year to an average $4 MILLION a year over the next 4 years. Not bad for a kid from Orono, Ontario.  And while the Staals are this generation's version of the Sutter brothers, it is unlikely you will see that many players from one family anymore with such mid to lower-middle class roots.

The NHL publicity department, catching the Sutters
looking typical on the family farm.

The NHL publicity department catching the Staals,
looking kinda stupid on someone's farm

So, move over Brian Bickell, we have a better story here.

Say hello to Bobby Ryan (aka Bobby Stevenson).

What's a Deadline and the NHL's Atlantic Division

Holy Crap, like a Tie Domi elbow, the hockey season is already here and hitting us in the face! It took exactly one night for the TSN panel to have something to get excited about; George Parros getting knocked out during a fight (albeit in an unexpected way). You could almost feel the excitement in the TSN station as every video editor rushed to find similar fight clips that ended with someone literally going 'lights out' to end a fight to incorporate into the usual discussion that does nothing but eat up precious minutes as everybody says 'debate' a lot but nobody ever takes the anti-fighting stance. What we need is a good Piers Morgan, Alex Jones debate, then that will make for some good television. 

As is, there is no debate over fighting if nobody is willing to step up and say 'You're wrong and I'm right'. Not to name-drop but TSN's James Duthie even tweeted me telling me to listen more carefully when i asked him the same thing. He came off as bit of a jerk about it, but maybe I'm being too sensitive. Apparently Stevie Y (Tampa Bay), Jim Rutherford (Carolina), Ray Shero (Pittsburgh) and Scotty Bowman (retired) are on the anti-fighting side but looking at their teams, I can see why they don't want fighting. 

Lost in the Opening Night Parros highlight; Grabvoski tweeting Toronto coach Randy Caryle after his hat trick to thank him for not seeing his true potential and giving him the opportunity to go somewhere and actually score some goals. 

Anyways, a quick look at the Teams as the season's underway.

Fan Psychology and the NHL's Central Divsion (2 0f 4)

First, an odd thing happened this weekend. Somewhere, somehow this blog went a little bit viral. I went from my usual 20-30 views a day to approximately 2000 in one day. I feel something akin as to how Florida must have felt back in 1996, the Year of The Rat when they surprised everyone by not only making the playoffs, but also making it all the way to the Finals before anyone in Florida noticed that not only did they have an NHL team, they also only had to beat some team called the Colorado Avalanche to win some giant trophy that would make millions of Canadians extremely pissed off. Thankfully, that didn't happen.

My usual viewing audience before September 28th

I know 2000 people reading what i wrote isn't NHL worthy (maybe Tier 2 junior) but still it was a pleasant surprise to log into.

Sept 28th; can you feel the tension in the air?

Yet, with the views came the inevitable critiques. A lot were negative but in saying that, in comparison to views it was less than 1%. Which is fine, everyone has their own opinions and they are fine to never check out this blog again. Then this epiphany came along that really put in perspective and gave me a better appreciation of what it takes to be a pro athlete.

You Can't Listen to the Haters.

Frickin' simple. Pro athletes get hate in spades, from opposing players to their fans to their own local media (hello, Vancouver Province). They got to where they are through practice, taking the losses and trying again. If they quit every any time someone called them out for poor skating, play-making or improper use of the apostrophe, then there would be nobody to play hockey or write blogs about it.

Everybody is willing to tell you what you are doing wrong, even if you are not (case in point, I have 3 kids and my father, hearing me use the microwave this morning, told me that I shouldn't be using it to heat up the baby's milk because it kills the nutrients. Never mind that I wasn't heating up the baby's milk, he assumed I was doing something wrong and felt it his duty to inform me, despite having no evidence of any wrong-doing).

If you actually listen to those people, most of them anonymous commenters that offer no proof of their own abilities be it in hockey, writing, or basically anything they critique then you are going to have a hard time enjoying what you enjoy, especially when it comes to doing something you love. Hopefully hockey players love what they do, as a select few of them are paid huge amounts of money to continue doing it. This doesn't come from just being in the right spot at the right time; it comes from putting in a lot of personal time and effort, from continually practicing and practicing despite the willingness of some people to tell you that, despite all contrary evidence, you suck.

I write this blog because I like doing it. It's my 'me-time', my personal ice rink to speak where i can go out there and try new things. I'm not a professional writer, I have never been paid to write. Each blog takes roughly 3-5 hours in writing, linking, finding images, proof-reading. I don't mind it, as I said, it's enjoyable and if 20-30 other people enjoy it as well, great.

Much like playing professional hockey was once a dream of mine, so too is to get paid to write. I may have started too late in life but the enjoyment is still there. After all, I can still remember the last time a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup and I have Don Cherry's Rock'm Sock'm 1-10 on VHS, so yeah. I'm old. Claude Lemieux old. But when the enjoyment ends, I'll retire from writing. Until then, do what you love, no matter what the haters say.

And if you don't like my views on the new NHL then by all means, you are free to link me to your blog and I just might read your opinion, even if they don't agree with mine.

Okay, getting off my soapbox now and back into the Show.