ALLARD: NO AMOUNT OF PILLS CAN COVER UP SENS' ILLS, OR MAKE THE BLUES GO AWAY

Whoa, boy. Jean-Pierre Allard was waylaid by Edna Babblecock at the Sobeys out in Kanata the other day, and this exchange ensued.

Forgive me for not having chimed in lately but us old gals have been catching up on our sleep since the Senatorium Country Club kept us up all night the week before the Tides of March when they suffered a rude awakening, courtesy of the same suspected effin' Ducks. The question then was the same as it was last June. To be brave men, or not to be. Of course the answer remains the same.

Fortunately, two games later, they sort of woke up against the Whiny Coyotes and snatched a very unconvincing 4-2 win when Mike "Un-Finisher" Fisher ("Muff" for short) decided it was grand time to score a goal or two (poor boy was stuck on 19 goals for 19 agonizing games), lest the Mighty SOPO starts crying in his soup and order local cheerleaders to rake The Carp Hunter over the coals.

Truth be told, it would be a welcome change from the Citizen, aka the official bible of the Senators, or he gospel on the TIMOR (Three Idiots and Morons On the Radio). Meanwhile, we’re terribly worried about Johnstone Apork, to the point where we missed that win over the Canadiens last week.

We’re not sure if it’s the new meds that that sneaky pill-pushing Dr. Ballard is giving him, but it seems he’s taken lately to posting his always accurate though highly unpopular posts about his beloved Red Army team on the Off The Goaler Posts on the Internets.

Apparently, he came back -- Ballard, not Apork -- from one of them think-tank conferences convinced that all of our heads' ails could be cured if he started us on those THC-laden pills. Maybe we’re not quite right in the head no more but we quickly said no thank you. Because if truth be told (hope this is not an infringement), we're still quite buzzed from when our husbands came back from Korea in the mid-1950s and kept insisting we try their "rollies," despite them having an ample supply of cartons of Sweet Caps that we had kept fresh in the freezer for them.

SHINE ON, YOU CRAZY SENS FAN

But Mr. Apork couldn’t resist trying them and apparently, he says the piped-in music at the Lodge now sounds so much clearer. He's been coming down with a severe case of the munchies from the slop they dare serve us at meal time which he says has stopped tasting just like what he used to feed his old and trusted Rottweiler when he lived alone in Vanier and was scared to death from the constant traffic he could see through all them cracks in the wall right after he became enchanted with the Floyd's deliriously masterful Piper At The Gates Of Dawn?

Plus the old fool thinks he's a poet laureate.

Anyways, other than making us wonder if he really is a fan of the Senators, or just a mean old Leafs and Devils advocate, we’re thinking it’s rather pointless for him to obsess (is that even a verb?) over "Posting" his opinion.

After all, it's turning into Facebook for the silver-haired set since apparently, after some comments that Mr. Apork shared with his audience members, some of them have gotten this totally insane notion that just because they share memories of way back when the YMCA on Argyle was known as the Ottawa Auditorium which was home, among other hockey leagues, to the Cradle League in the late '50s and early '60s, the precursor of the ODMHL, they’ll get together for a beer or two. Why, even one of the proprietors has chimed in and said he’s game for a get-together.

Sorry, dudes, but I can speak on behalf of Johnstone and inform you he is not a huge fan of blind dates, certainly not with some guys who can’t spell correctly and others who are in denial mode and still think they’re going on Elegant Street this June to be part of the Senators' Stanley Cup float. Anyways, he’s stopped drinking ever since Alfie missed the Anaheim net and hit Scott Niedermayer instead, so convinced that he was hallucinating.

So all this to say that our friend Mr. Apork is in total disarray. Why he's even worried stiff that his team will get beat by professor Murray (Andy from the Blues) tonight and that the other Professor Murray (Bryan), the one who suddenly is of the most imbecilic opinion that you only need one goaler to win a Cup, will give the local media, and the Fox network too another meltdown like he performed on poor little Jimmie Fox back when the two Murray head coaches last met in December 2005.

Perhaps he should have known better than to put his blind faith in Dr. Ballard, who has a giant poster of the Cream's Eric Clapton and an autographed jersey from Inge Hammerstrom in his waiting room. Because he's been singing the blues ever since.

Jean-Pierre Allard
Ottawa, ON
March 20, 2008