Leaf Smack v1.2

Just a thought. Why won’t the NHL let Hamilton have a team?

Because Toronto will get jealous and want one too.

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Leafs Smack 1.1

Welcome to Toronto…

Home of the Leafs, and birthplace of Osama bin Laden AND his twin brother Jason Blake. Is there any wonder Mats Sundin wanted to leave?

Go Canucks Go!

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I am the Anti-Clone part I

Before I start though, I do have to say I love listening to Jim Rome in the morning while I work. This early clip started the lifelong enjoyment of the current king of smack:

If I wasn’t so self assured, I might have a problem with Rome. I am a Star Wars fan. Enough to the point I have collectibles, know all six films inside-out, and even looking at my desk or blog might convince Jim I am Star Wars guy. Maybe even after looking at me he might coin ‘Battlestar‘ guy. Fair enough. If he (or anyone else) wants to try to lay the smack on me because of my fandom, so be it. I simply won’t rise to the occasion. Though the practicum may execute itself a bit differently, we do live in a just and free society, in which we are allowed to like whatever we want. Period. Rome and the clones don’t like sci-fi. Whatever. To each their own.

I do agree with Rome on a great many things. There’s too much shit going on in the world as a whole (the sports world notwithstanding), and the media, the press are just not telling the right story. There’s far too much responsibility to the advertisers and very little to the truth. Rome really cuts through the cheese, IMHO, gives credit where it’s due, and lays the smack with the same moral compass.

And best of all, he’s fucking funny as shit doing it. Watch the clip again. And again. And again. And so forth.

Occasionally though, he gets his facts wrong. Like when it comes to hockey. Yesterday. After shitting on a fellow Canadian for wearing a Rush T-Shirt but admitting he only knows one song (Tom Sawyer), then following up with his [an American's] vastly superior knowledge of the greatest ever Canadian band, Rome decides to make it up to his Canadian listeners by talking hockey. As in Gary Bettman’s cover-up of the milking of player’s salaries to ease the economic uncertainty of the league by ‘re-investigating’ the fighting issue.

What issue? Oh, we mean the issue the asshats who actually never watched the game or care for it, that have to spew out because the fighting makes hockey as violent as gladiatorial combat from Ancient Roman times? The players don’t want to remove fighting. The coaches, GM’s and owners don’t. The league doesn’t. And mostly, the fans don’t.

And Rome was right about the two reasons. First, there’s the sense of vigilante justice. It’s not refined, but neither is hockey. But it works. It worked in the wild west, and it works now in the NHL (and all other levels of hockey for that matter). You go after my top scorer, I’ll fight you. Is there any reason that Wayne Gretzky, a relatively small man among his peers, never had any major injuries in his prime? Two words solve that issue. Dave Semenko. Two more words would be Marty McSorley. You hurt our star, we punch you. Again. And again. And again. And so forth. And it works. And it’s a fuck of a lot safer for the players than a skate or stick to the neck or head.

Very much like a chapter out of the book of the second greatest living Canadian, Don Cherry. And Rome gives loads of praise to the uniquely dressed hockey analyst. Almost too much. It’s like his take on hockey is verbatim to the former Bruins coach.

Which explains the logical disconnect to the second point. Rome starts it right. Fighting has a high entertainment value. Absolutely correct. Though it’s close to the lowest common denominator, it’s what will grow hockey into uncharted markets. Everybody loves a good fight. Even the grannies who say fighting is not Christian, not moral, not the right thing to do, they gawk, cheer, and even egg on when watching a good row. Fighting sells. There’s no denying that.

And that’s where his point finishes it’s logical course. Rome then goes on to say that hockey does not translate well to television, that Fox Sports needed to put the ‘Fox Puck’ in a lame attempt to help the average Joe follow the game, and so on, re-iterating that it’s an untelevisable sport. Well, he’s half right.

First, here in Canada, we have this show called Hockey Night in Canada. It has run for 57 years and is consistently one of the highest rated shows for the entire Canadian market. So don’t give me that shit that it doesn’t translate to television. The reason hockey fails in the US is this. You’re right in that the average American has trouble following the game. We big goons from the North all played since our very tender youth. All of us. We got up at 5 AM every freezing Saturday to practice, or to some tournament 4 hours out of town, to go into a freezing cold arena wearing a t-shirt, underpants and our hockey equipment and skate into each other at high speed for the better part of 10-13 years of our childhood. Most people from So-Cal can’t claim that. Or Phoenix. Or Atlanta. Or Miami. Is it any wonder why hockey really does well in markets like Minnesota, Detroit, Boston, Chicago, New York or Pennsylvania?

Simple. It’s fucking cold here. Hockey is a byproduct of living in the cold. Jim, it’s time you got that. Don’t blame the system. Don’t blame TV. And for the Gods sake, don’t drink the Kool-Aid Bettman’s serving.

Still Rome, you rock. Call Jim Everett Chris for me.

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Bringin’ the smack…

Welcome to Detroit, Michigan. Home of the failed US automotive industry, the highest crime and murder rates on earth, the Detroit Red Wings, and keeping that hockey organization as being the biggest customer of Geritol.

Right Chris Chelios?

Interdum vos ut volvo ferrus six.