Thursday, June 04, 2009

Mornings with Mr. Canoehead...

It's all raisins off an Oldsmobile, friends ... raisins off an Oldsmobile ... hey, The Tao of Stieb was interviewed by the Las Vegas Sun, awesome.

Former Senators goalie Ray Emery possibly signing with the Philadelphia Flyers and becoming their No. 1 goalie. Rush Limbaugh wants you to know, "What we have here is a little social concern in the NHL. The media has been very desirous that a black goaltender do well. There is a little hope invested in Emery, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of the 2007 Senators team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried that team."

Randy Johnson, who got his first major-league win as a Montreal Expo, going for his 300th against the Washington Nationals. There's a good case to hope that he doesn't get it today in front of a empty stadium in Washington, but gets it in his next start in Arizona, where he used to pitch.

TSN's Rod Black saying, "The Jays have arguably the best hitting in the major leagues" during last night's Angels-Blue Jays game when they are seventh in runs scored in a 14-team league, eighth in home runs and fifth in both on-base and slugging percentages (oh, but first in batting average, love). Granted, everything is an "arguably." Nevertheles, it was a cruel, cruel joke to hear that brilliant bit of misinformation on a night when there was a fellow Napaneean in the broadcast booth. (Avril Lavigne was there.)

The reaction earlier this week to a WNBA team, the Phoenix Mercury, selling sponsorship on their jerseys. Practically every square inch of every professional sports venue in North America is covered in advertising. The second a women's league sells advertising on the jersey, it's considered blasphemy. How dare a league for female athletes say, "Us, too," and try to make a buck. By the way, if you read any of the coverage of the Mercury, you are hereby obligated to watch the WNBA.

The 20th anniversary of opening Rogers Centre being a bigger news story in Toronto than the 10th anniversary of the last game at Maple Leaf Gardens. The latter passed with hardly a peep in February. Typical Toronto. They celebrate a monstrosity and ignore a place which had soul, since being reminded how the Gardens has been left to rot is just too embarrassing.

(Torontoist chronicled how all the tire-kicking in the 1960s and '70s over building a domed stadium that presaged two generations of sports fans being stuck with Rogers Centre. In other words, they could have built a dome in 1965, been hailed as visionaries, then it would have been obsolete by the 1990s, right in time for the retro ballpark craze. Instead, as Dan Shulman put it on Prime Time Sports last night, Southern Ontario sports fans have Rogers Centre for the next "30, 40, 50 years ... no one is building a 40,000-seat baseball stadium in Toronto any time soon.")

Seeing a headline in the Kingston Whig-Standard which has both "Frontenacs" and "major coup," only to find that owner Doug Springer and general mangler (not a typo) Larry Mavety are still running the show.

(The Frontenacs are hosting the OHL all-star game. That's nice.)

The ol' alma mater, Queen's University, killing its homecoming weekend and calling the spring reunion weekend which replaced the best Homecoming weekend in Canada a "success." It's not much of success when it passes without most alumni, including this one, didn't even know it was held.

4 comments:

Big V said...

"This gives us the opportunity to showcase what we believe is the best facility in the Ontario Hockey League as well as the beauty of Kingston."

One reason why its not th best in the OHL...
The Home team can't access the bench from the dressing room without going on the ice. SO if there is an equipment issue the trainer has to wait for a whistle, run off the ice, do whatever they have to do, then wait for another whistle to get back to the bench...

or

If a player is hurt, they can't just walk to the dressing room, again, wait for a whistle, then skate off.

This is something that is normal for the AWAY team...

sager said...

Awesome point, V ... granted, this is the same facility where 3-4 days before the first game, they didn't have rubber matting in all areas of the Frontenacs dressing room.

Every time Springer talks, it's reminiscent of something George Costanza once said: "Jerry, remember, it's not a lie if you believe it."

Springer believes it is the best

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Amrit Ahluwalia said...

Rush Limbaugh - the most knowledgeable of hockey commentators. Quelle pro.