He’s a fan, we’re not, so my commentary will be significantly different from his. Which would explain why we’re letting Mason Baveux comment on the hockey lockout. Mason?
Thanks for the bloggery keys again lad, as there be something important in the air. The National Hockey League has locked out the players, what means there ain’t no hockey, at least for the Big Show right now. For folks like Davey, it might as well mean there’s no mints in Madagascar, so move on, but for the rest of us Canadians, it might as well mean the end of life itself.
Now this isn’t to say there’s a fungus that makes all the pucks disintegrate, or you could get cancer from hockey tape, so’s it’s banned, nope. It is what you call a labour issue. Like any labour issue there be two, maybe seventeen sides to the story.
The players make a jeezly great amount of money playin the game. You’ve all heard of some Sweedish guy signin up for 122 zillion dollars over 10 years to play the game, what’s got too many vowels in his name to be able to pronounce it, let alone spell it out without the spellcheck havin a stroke.
You also know that the teams make enough money to buy small countries outright. I think Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment own about half of Ecuador and most of Trinidad right now, what they bought during the economic downturn of 2008. So’s its not like nobody has any cash to spread around. There’s money in the kitty.
Considering that the guy whose handlin the puck has about a 1 in 10 chance of havin his career shitcanned every time he steps on the ice, I can see why they want them big payday contracts.. They say a career in the Big Show is about six years.
Don McKenny, what was part of the Uke line in Boston, then in Toronto had his knees turned into some kind of puzzle for the doctors back then, when he caught something on the ice. Most likely some twat tossed coins on the rink, nice hot coins he’d been holding in his pocket, what melted in a bit and then Dom come a hareing around the blue line, building up some speed with the puck and over he goes, one knee pointing at Detroit, the other at Montreal and one ankle lookin to New York. Rob Gilbert was another one, what broke his back in the OHA and had spinal fusion surgery in 1960. Back then the docs knowledge of the back was “Jeeze there’s a lot of bones in there”, so’s it was amazing he could walk, let alone skate.
Now that explains why the players want the good paydays. If you’re good enough for the Bigs you have a pretty good chance you won’t make it past 35 as a player, you get the money up front.
As for the owners, well, they want to maximize their return on their investment to use their terminamology. In English, that means make even more money, so’s they can buy the rest of Ecuador and put a bid in on Holland. You can see where my sympathies are. They sure as shiite aren’t with the owners.
The owners gotta know that there’s not but a dozen folks batshit crazy enough to sit around and watch them work on the consolidated balance sheet at $100 a seat for the nosebleeds. The owners don’t do shiite that people will pay to watch and they know it, but they still think they’re all-friggin-mighty important. That’s like sayin the cashier what puts the float in the till every day at IGA is the single most critical part of the whole process of buyin celery.
But tell 20 or 40 thousand folks that you’re puttin on a hockey game and what they want to do is to go watch hockey. As well buy a $3 beer for $10 and a $2 hot dog for $12, plus pay a flat hunnert for a seat so high up you need oxygen to stay alive the whole four hours. And watch the boards change advertising every six seconds and have that goddam “Na Na Hey Hey” song played at them forty two times an hour, loud enough to rip the hairs off the beer guy’s ear lobes.
The owners got sweet FA without the players and they know it. Without a bunch of butts in seats to watch hockey, the owners are going to have to make obscene amounts of money another way, like maybe gettin a friggin job?
So what happens if we lose the whole season? The players will always find a place to play the game and at least make a little money to keep body and soul together, as well as make payments on the Escalade. The owners will write it all off as a tax loss, so they’s not out much.
Us fans? We can get us some too. Junior A, or CHL, or AHL. Damn fine hockey, perhaps better than some of the NHL teams out there. More gratitude from the owners for forkin out the greenbacks for their team. More gratitude from the players for comin out to watch and cheer and buy a beer and a program and a hot dog.
Plus we’d get to watch some good hockey. And that’s what we really want to do. Go Marlies!
Mason Baveux Goes Oly
We turn the blog over to our pinch hitter Mason Baveux for his, um, unique take, on the Olympics in Sochi. Mason?
Thanks for bloggery Davey as you know I watch er close enough for four people, let alone just meself.
The Openin Ceremonials were what I’d expect from a country what was Commie for so long. It looks like they sold off the producin rights to the drug-addled dope heads what did the French Winter Olys in 1992 in Albertville. There was dancers flyin all over the place while they shot pictures down on the arena floor and then reenacted the Battle of Kursk with flyin rigs and no tanks. Plus they left out the bit about Stalin killin about a third of the population when he woke up from a four-day vodka toot. Not all of us are as forgetful as that, doncha know. Citius, Altius, What the Fookius?
As for Sochi, there were enough stories about rooms without doors, or taps that dispensed hot and cold sewage that I don’t need to bring that back up. Oh and the shots of the main drag in Sochi havin friggin palm trees for chrissakes. Jesus Mary and Gord, do those dough-heads at the IOC not check an atlas before they give up the rights? It seems they got snow alright, if you consider ground up ice that’s sloppier than the ex-wife’s twat to be real snow-snow. Crap lads, hold the Winter Olys somewheres they have Winter. Should maybe write that down as Rule #1.
I was all wound up to report on the Snowstyle Skiing what it is a new Oly sport, when I come down with a case of of the flu what caused me to be on my arse for near close a week. They fed me full of over the counter cold medicine that when mixed up with the rum I was takin for medicinal purposes caused a couple of issues. I think Canada won some Gold Medals there, but all I could see was some girls and a couple of guys fallin down a hill arse over teakettle on skis, what then get a score. Seems you get the high score if you don’t actually die. I think I missed some in there from the medicine, so’s it not the whole story.
I want to take a moment here and talk about the Gay Right thing what was all in the papers before the Sochi Games. It’s like CCM or Bauer for skates. Some like the Taks, other like the Bauers. I’m a CCM guy, so don’t be wavin your Bauer’s at me. And don’t come round with some raggedly ass Nike skates. There just wrong and then there’s Wrong with a capital letter. I’m from the old school of what you do in private is up to you. If you like this or that equipment, that’s your choice and as long as you’re not offerin something I don’t want and are willin to accept a polite “Eff Off” then I got no issue.
When the Russian government and Vladimir Putin gets up on the back legs about the gays not bein gayish in Sochi, then maybe they should look at some of the sports, like two-man luge, ice dancin or Bobsleddin then think for another eleven seconds afore openin your borscht hole. Don’t be a bad host or a bad guest, but if your host is offerin you a roasted goat ballsack covered in chocolate sprinkles, you can just say no, politely and wait for the Chex Party Mix to come by again. A good guest don’t do nothin to offend and the host don’t offer somethin that’s goin to make people angry. A bit of give and take, is all I’m sayin.
Fancy Skatin: Patty Chan did a fine job today, nailin a Silver in the Fancy Skatin and that Japanese 19 year old kid is goin to be a killer come 2018 wherever the hell they’re hostin next. I was confused, or mebbe I didn’t hear right, but one of the Oly commentators said Patrick Chan had a chink in his armour. I didn’t near but laugh my rum across the room in a spit take that Sid Caesar woul’d laughed at and now he’s dead, don’t you know.
Girl’s Ski Jumpin: Holy Fook me! I’m for it.
Cross-Country: Mother of Pearl those folks are fit. I’d like to see them change up the biathalon though. Two loops, one clockwise, one counter, but they meet in the middle where the gun range is. No targets, except your competitors across the way. I think that’d change it up a bit and harken back to the early days of WWII when Finland took on the Russkies and damn near beat their asses.
Tag Team Luge: This’ere a new one, but I think they missed the boat. They should start side by side and be allowed to duke it out on the way down. Sort of like the bike pursuit in the Summer Olys. One chasin, and one runnin away from the other, but we’d have to say no to the spikes in the gloves.
Canada’s gettin’er done over there. And I’s back to the Benlyn with the Codeine and the Captain Morgan chaser. Later.
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