Sweet Tea, Barbecue, and Bodychecks

Who is pissed off about the network TV schedule for this NHL season? It can’t be just me.

I fail to see that it’s any different than Bristol’s old TV schedule–the same five fucking teams, shown over and over and over again. The DEFENDING STANLEY CUP CHAMPION TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING slighted because they 1) had the bollocks to beat the Comcast’s favorite team in the Eastern Conference finals and 2) are playing the Hurricanes. Small-market teams given short shrift again because they’re not “marketable” (i.e. they’re not one of the five that were Favored of Bristol and now Favored (but not as much as the Flyers) of Comcast).

Gee, the more things change…..

Screw you, Comcast and OLN. Screw you for pandering to the lowest common denominator and being lazy. Screw you for falling back on what’s easy rather than actually putting in some work to market some of the smaller-market teams that have players that are exciting to watch. I couldn’t give two shits about Peter Forsberg, Joe Sakic, Jaromir Jagr, Sidney frickin’ Crosby, or Brendan fucking Shanahan–I’d rather watch Eric Staal, Rostislav Klesla, Marian Gaborik, Jarome Iginla, and (if Don Waddell gets off his ass and signs him) Ilya Kovalchuk. Screw you, Comcast AND NBC AND the NHL, for showing such blatant favoritism. If you’ve got a thirty team goddamn league, then give all damn thirty teams equal frickin’ time. The only reason the Hurricanes and the Predators and the Smoking Jackets and the Kings and the Ducks and the Stars and the Lightning and the Flames and the Sens and the Oilers and the rest of the teams that are buggered by this schedule don’t get any ratings IS BECAUSE YOU IDJITS DON’T BLOODY SHOW THEM! And when they DO get shown, the bias of the announcers toward whatever “marquee” team they’re playing is so disgusting that I can’t even watch more than half an hour of it.

I’m not willing to settle for just having the NHL on TV–to hell with that, and to hell with the people telling me to just suck it up and be happy with what I’ve got because it’s better than nothing. I don’t have that time for the “we’ll take what we can get and be happy about it” mentality.

I’d rather have nothing at all, if the alternative is more of the same old fellating of the same old five or six teams.

People, leave Luke DeCock the hell alone already.

“Wah wah wah, the N&O is biased against the Hurricanes! Boo hoo hoo, Luke DeCock hates the Hurricanes! Waaaaah, we don’t have any coverage!”

SHUT. THE HELL. UP!

I’m sick and tired of people expecting nothing but blind homerism from their local press, just sick of it. I’m sick of people bashing Luke DeCock because he has the unmitigated gall to wield the Reality Bat. I have to laugh when I read a post on a message board from some idiot with like four teeth in his whole head (and half as many braincells) calling the N&O’s chief ‘Canes correspondent “Luke Cock” and thinking that he’s somehow clever for saying that. Hello, did we just finish grade school? I also have to laugh at the people that get their panties in a wad whenever I say:

“If all you want is blind homerism, then you might be better off being a Bruins fan–then you can read the Boston Globe, which is all about fellating the Bruins.”

For example, one mental giant said the following to me:

You have repeatedly considered it your prerogative to order other fans to vacate the premises and follow another team. It isn’t, and they shouldn’t.

Have we failed reading comprehension? Perhaps we’re just a little oversensitive. All I did was make a suggestion–not an order. If it bothers you, then perhaps it’s because I struck a nerve.

Whatever.

Yes, I agree that Luke can be harsh. Yes, I agree that he can overdo the snark at times. But he’s Not. That. Bad. And everyone needs to Get. Over. Themselves.

Sheesh.

WHY, PJ? WHY?

My gods, why are people hitching their wagons to Eklund? If it’s not my buddy PredatorPaul agreeing to be the Preds reporter for that fraud, it’s my favorite wisecracking fireplug blogging for him!

PJ, buddy–RUN WHILE THERE’S STILL TIME, MAN! Surely you can do better than Eklund the Fraudulent!

…is to quote Sun Tzu to me.

And the whole martial thing is good, too.

Behold, the Paladin.

I geek out on the whole “gearing up for battle” stuff (and the mildly religious trappings do it for me too), though some of the more “old skool” fans may not dig on it much.

Chapter One (A New Season) starts here:

High-bandwidth version Low-bandwidth version

Watching that gives me goosebumps. Seriously.

And then we have last night’s game agin the Thrashers–which I missed by dozing off in my computer chair FOR FIVE HOURS. When I woke up, it was 10:30, the game was over, Patrik Stefan was in the hospital after a collision with Erik Cole (I won’t even call it a hit–from the way the Thrashers announcers described it, it sounded more like a collision), and Joe, Lord of Evil had carried the ‘Canes to a 5-4 win. And Andrew Hutchinson assisted on all five Hurricanes goals–damn, if he can keep it up in the regular season I think we’ll have a real find on our hands.

So I’m at Sunday’s game agin the Panthers (which would have been a real sellout had it not been for those STHs that feel that they don’t need to come to preseason games), and Martin Gerber has given up a second goal–when all of a sudden I hear the following from this woman about 5 feet away:

“This goalie sucks! We need to get rid of him right away.”

Uhhh, exsqueeze me?

Let’s review:

PRESEASON. ONE GAME. NO HELP FROM THE GUYS IN FRONT OF HIM.

I don’t blame Gerbs one bit for two of those goals–but chucking him under the bus already, after ONE PRESEASON GAME? WTF?

Pavel Brendl–why did we make him a QO again? Some mental giant on a message board once said that he had to be good just because he was the 4th overall pick in the Draft in 99 (was it 99? Is it important?)–if that’s the case, then I must be Agnetha Fältskog just cos I’m part Swedish.

After hearing ChuckandtheletterK and KAdams talk up Andrew Hutchinson during Friday’s beatdown of Les Crapitals de Washington, I decided to pay him some close attention on Sunday–and I must say, I am impressed. Smooth skater, aggressive on the forecheck, and a vurra nice shot. I was also very impressed by resident lounge-lizard Mike Zigomanis. Dudeman’s been all over the ice, pouncing on every potential scoring chance like Danny Markov on a Balshoi Piotr. I think he really wants to try sticking with the big club (and I admit, so far it’s been nice watching him make fools out of the people that called him “a pure scrub” just because of one game where he didn’t manage to do a whole lot).

Be interesting to see how the ‘Canes fare against Atlanta on Wednesday, especially now that they have Peter Bondra (goddammit, why can’t he go out of our damn conference?)

…tell me where the negativity is?

I don’t see anything negative in this article at all–unless of course you consider the facts to be “negative” like it seems half the Caniac Nation (est. 1997) does.

The Crapitals played like crap last night, people! If the ‘Canes hadn’t blown them out like they did, then something WOULD have been wrong! But no, you have the less-intelligent citizens of the Caniac Nation (est. 1997) pissing and whining and crying about this morning’s article in the N&O.

“Boo hoo hoo, Luke DeCock hates the ‘Canes! Boo hoo hoo, Luke bashes the team! Boo hoo hoo, Luke snarked at me once!”

Grow up, people.

Luke DeCock does NOT hate the ‘Canes, he does NOT bash the team unfairly (unless you consider reporting the facts to be bashing), and if he snarks at you SNARK BACK AT HIM! He’s a big boy, he can take it!

Let me give you an example of some gems from some of the genii in our fanbase:

Well as usual the N&O still found little positive to report about a 6-0 blowout, 12,500 attendance for an exibition game, and a win in our first look at the new shootout. Oh yeah, and a shutout from our goalie of the future in his first NHL outing.
Instead they chose to point out that there was a 30minute wait to buy tickets and that the Crapitals are terrible and only had only 5 NHL veterans. I especially enjoyed this quote. ” If the Hurricanes had not won by this much something would have been wrong.” I don’t know about anyone else but I rarely expect a 6-0 blowout from any hockey game regardless of who is playing.

And another idiot said the following:

I like to think that DeCock has been told by the fools running the N&O to keep things as negative as possible. They really suck! Here we had a GREAT crowd for a pre season game (record attendance), the game was much fun and they run a picture of the the one part of the arena that had the fewest seats full. I mean, the top was full AND flat out rocking. The people at the N&O were hoping that no one would show up and that the team would “suffer” …….. oohhh the EVIL rich players and owners. That’s the way these people think. What this crowd said to me was that while the work stopage was a pain, we are happy with how things worked out and we are excited about OUR team and getting the season started. Raleigh deserves a hockey team the Raleigh News and Observer does not deserve the right to cover the team from a hometown perspective. Personally, I don’t believe this clownboat thinks at all. But that’s just me.

You see what I have to deal with, here. Love the team to pieces, hate some of the “fans”–I think that all the people that piss and whine about Luke DeCock and his reporting being “negative” all the time should just piss of and go become Bruins or Leafs fans. Then they can get nothing but sunshine and happiness courtesy of the Boston Globe and the Toronto mediots. What’s next–people are going to piss and whine if Laviolette expresses his displeasure with how our power play is going?

(and for the record, our power play is still pretty brutal–4 for 14? Better than under Chairman Mo, but still brutal.)

Sheesh.

Go ‘Canes.

…that I’m a sympathetic individual–at least when it comes to certain once-free spending teams in the NHL.

Check this out.

That last letter just kills me–and of course they had to have the token letter from the redneck whining that he’ll never attend another hockey game ever (he must be the vendor I argued with at work the other day, who had zero fucking clue about what happened in Hartford and the events surrounding the departure of the Whale…and then treated me as if I was stupid just for pointing out how full of crap he was).

MEMO TO RED WINGS FANS:

YOU ARE NOT THE MOST DEVOTED FANS IN THE GAME, SO GET THE HELL OVER YOUR DAMN SELVES ALREADY. I swear to Malik, half the people calling themselves “fans” of those classless (except for Steve Yzerman and possibly Andy Delmore) motherfuckers in Detroit couldn’t even name the members of the Production Line and when they played. They probably wouldn’t be able to say even two sentences about Ted Lindsay without having to look it up. If you’re devoted, you should know something about your team and be able to talk about them other than to say “UR TEAM SUX, UR JUST JEALOUZ CUZ WE HAVE THREE CUPZ” or some other such low-IQ chav nonsense.

I have absolutely zero sympathy for the fans of high-spending teams that are whining because those teams have had to dump all these players on account of a salary cap that EACH AND EVERY OWNER approved. Half these people are the same ones who whine because division champs get the top three seeds in each division–again, something that each and every owner approved.

Folks, I suggest you get the hell over it because this is the way it is–and your owners voted for it, so blame them instead of blaming the Nashvilles and Carolinas of the league.

Ron Francis announces his retirement

And so it has come to pass–Ronnie Franchise has made the decision to walk away from the game.

I am sad, but at the same time not sad.

Like I’ve said before–I’m personally neutral about Ron Francis, but I’ve always respected the hell out of him and his skills. He was hockey’s equivalent of Edwin Moses, in that he wasn’t the fastest guy out there or best pure scorer–but he was one of the greatest students of his sport, and that’s what made him so good. It always pissed me off to see people dissing the guy–especially some of the more rednecky types down here who bashed him because he was slow and didn’t score umpty-ump goals–because that was just a gross display of ignorance on their part. The guy had 20+ seasons of 20+ goals, and that was even while playing on some truly abysmal teams in Hartford and Carolina.

The man’s always been one of the most–if not THE most–underrated player in hockey. He’s also always been one of the best, and I consider it a privilege and an honor to have had him on my team.

Fair winds and following seas, Mr. Whaler.

I got my grubby little paws on something very nice today–a complete rundown of how our prospects did in the rookie tourney in Ottawa a few days ago.

Boy, aren’t you thrilled.

Andrew Ladd was easily the best player in the tournament, with 4 goals and three assists–the scouting report says:

looked like the most NHL-ready player in the tournament .. quick stick, nice big reach .. extremely active lumber is his finest weapon .. constant energizer along the boards keeps the puck in the opponent’s end thanks to his physical might and resilience .. just mows through guys with his body .. fearless character guy without mental complexes .. gets involved in corner battles and doesn’t give up until the puck is in the net .. active, mobile penalty killer who hounds defensemen ..exceptional balance .. nifty backhand beat the sprawling Loic Lacasse low glove-side .. a step ahead of every guy on the ice on every single shift.

Which brings me to today’s edition of “Get a grip, people”:

The contract negotiations with Andrew Ladd’s camp are stalled at the moment–which means that, of course, half the Caniac Nation (est. 1997) is freaking out thinking that JimR is going to let the guy go back in the draft and wind up benefitting another team. It’s “ZOMG SIGN HIM TO WHATEVER HE WANTS AND PUT HIM ON THE FIRST LINE” kind of freaking out, that’s what I’m talking about here.

OK, now–this is the part where I point out that this is much the same thing that happened with Eric Staal. He came to camp so that we could see how he did, and when he made a convincing case for being on the team, THEN we signed him. Ladd’s in town. He’ll be in training camp. If he makes as convincing a case for being NHL-ready as Eric did in his first training camp, then he’ll be signed and on the team–otherwise he’ll be returned to Calgary (the Hitmen, not the Flames) and we’ll keep negotiating.

SO STOP FREAKING BITCHING ALREADY.

Hurricanes Warchief picked as Tar Heel of the Week

So now we have two camps in the Caniac Nation (est. 1997): The Francis Loyalists, and everyone else.

The Loyalists need to get a grip–Ron Francis isn’t here anymore. He’s not coming back. And I have yet to hear anyone with half a clue say that Rod Brind’amour is a better captain, so get over yourselves and stop with the drama please. The Ron Francis era was as good as over when Chairman Mo was deposed. Ronnie has a personality that doesn’t mesh well with somebody like Peter Laviolette–who has a lot of respect for the man (as damn well he should), but who has a more aggressive style and personality than Ronnie likes in a coach. Rod isn’t a quiet guy like Ronnie is. He lays it on the line and there you go–Ronnie’s a lot more mellow and laid-back, which is fine most of the time but it’s not what the ‘Canes need right now.

Of course, everyone else needs to get a freaking grip as well, and stop bashing Ronnie for requesting that trade to the cheatin’ Leafs. Ronnie does what Ronnie does, and I’ve stopped questioning it a long time ago because that’s just the way Ronnie is. I am personally neutral toward him, but I respect him for what he’s accomplished and the class he has as a player and a person. He’s earned the right to punch his own ticket, and if he chooses to go back to the Make-Beleafs or the Pens or whatever, then so be it and good luck to him.

In other news, Mark Missinghair has finally gotten it through his head that he lost what he had a long time ago (that being his hair), and he’s finally going to retire tomorrow.

And it’s about damn time, too.

Good riddance to bad trash.

Cue all the New Jersey fans and the Stevens apologists with their “ZOMG YOUR JUST MAD CUZ YOUR TEAM SUX N WE HAV 3 CUPZ D00D” and “Scott Stevens has only been called for elbowing FOUR TIMES in his whole career, therefore he’s a good player and you’re just upset about Shane Willis and Ron Francis.”

I’ve got two words for those folks:

Fuck off.

Scott Stevens being called for elbowing only four times in his career doesn’t make him a clean player any more than the horrors wrought upon the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina qualify as urban renewal. In other words, just because it’s legal to lop your own nards off in the public square, that doesn’t mean that it’s right.

You can lay blame on the guys that he’s hit all you want–but that doesn’t change the fact that this man was the master of the cheap hit. Even notorious Stevens fanboy Bill bloody Clement admits that Stevens pushes the limits of the rules with his hits (which is as close as he’ll ever come to saying that the guy’s a cheap-ass piece of shit that’s just really good at disguising his handiwork).

For every unlucky sod like Shane Willis or Eric Lindros, there’s a guy like Ron Francis who really did get cheapshotted by a man who’s a master at leading with the shoulder and following through with the elbow.

I say this as somebody who is neutral about Ron Francis, by the way.

I challenge you to watch the tape of that hit, people. It came AFTER Francis had passed the puck, Stevens left his feet when he made that hit, and he followed through with the elbow. If it was anyone else that had done that, the refs would have been all over him like Don Koharski on a cruller and he’d have been suspended. But since it was Scott Stevens the zebras just looked the other way–not even a penalty–and gave the more classless members of the Devils fanbase lots of ammo for jackassery (not that they needed any more).

You can go on and on until you’re blue in the face about what a great player he was and how he revolutionized the position of defenseman–and I won’t argue with you. But it doesn’t take away the fact that he was still a cheap piece of shit whenever he had the chance.

Good riddance, fuckhead.