pardon my language, but....

...you have GOT to be fucking kidding me.



.

monday randoms: remember this thing ??!

so it's been three weeks since the last installment of monday randoms, mostly cause i've been a busy little bee... i will totally admit that i've also been absent because i'm thoroughly gutted by the state of affairs at the top of the calgary flames' food chain, and i'm not even sure what to write anymore, since everything that comes to mind (regarding my team of choice) is a total buzzkill....

- gio, bourque, and backlund all played in the world hockey championships that was eventually won by the czechs. nothing really notable, here, except that ray whitney was the canadian scoring leader, and gio scored more goals bourque. also notable: either mark messier doesn't know how to build a team, or you just can't put a winner together when nobody wants to play... the thing that pains me the most about the WHC is that it is the third pillar for the triple gold club, and who even cares about that tournament ?!? i mean, i don't understand how it gets to be compared to a stanley cup and an olympic gold ??!? i guess it's too late to change the criteria but methinks a world junior gold in its stead would have offered a FAR more impressive trifecta.....

- i'm officially scared about how good the oilers might be next year. paajarvi-svensson looks about ready, and we all know eberle's gonna play. mix in an actual goaltender and that team will be fun to watch AT LEAST. i'm not sayin' they're gonna win the cup or anything, i'm just sayin' that oilers fans can start to smile about things again. plus they don't have to watch staios old himself all over the defensive zone anymore....

- domebeers is my new favorite thing (next to the just-minted term "staios will old himself," which is pure awesomeness).... i was on the fence at first but i've gone all-in; i'm completely sold on the mix of intelligence, quirkiness, opinion, and brutal unabashed sarcasm.... if you haven't already, drop by for a read.

- darryl sutter's stay of execution is preventing me from getting a job. more turnover in the office would provide more openings for an interested, yet unqualified, person such as myself...

- i realize this has nothing to do with hockey, aside from the fact it was built at tim hortons. there is nothing better than daring someone to do something randomly strange, yet unremarkably distasteful, and having the result look a little something like this:

yes, that's a turkey sandwich on an m&m longjohn.... GENIUS !!! huge props to dgb for having the balls not just to order it, but to EAT it.... ;) also, congrats to dgb for having initials that look a little bit like beaker from the muppet show, eye-less and from the nose down. :P

- philly lost a tightly contested match to the hawks but even with the loss, i have to wonder if they won't be the more confident team going into game 2 tonight. both teams could easily tighten up defense, but if leighton can regain previous series form, it'll be WAY tighter... also on the flyers' side ? the legend of cooperalls, rocky, the hossa curse, the ghost of pelle lindbergh, and hextall's goal. against them ? mike richards manhandling the wales, and chris "elbows" pronger..... i must admit they'll most certainly lose the cup if the hockey gods ever awaken to realize how godawful their jersey's nameplates are....

til next week, my friends.
:)

sutter(s) dismissal countdown: day 85: black thursday

well, my friends: it seems as though we can stop the sutter(s) dismissal countdown clock at 85 days, since ken king announced that herr sutter ain't goin anywhere (and that means that brent's job is presumably safe and our team is gonna suck into the foreseeable future). yesterday will forever be dubbed "black thursday" by yours truly, cause i honestly think it'll mark the beginning of a brutal and depressing period for my favorite hockey team.

in the past few months, i've often compared my team to the toronto maple leafs (and not because they finished the season comprised of almost 30% former buds players) and i gotta say this is one more step towards that end. i lived in toronto during the john ferguson junior era and i watched him make mis-step after mis-step when it came to trades, drafts, and watching good players depart as UFAs. totally. depressing. and that's what i fear for my team now.

the 2008/2009 season ended with the calgary flames dressing a short bench because of blatant cap mismanagement. while i've heard rumours that this was actually the fault of michael holditch, and not darryl sutter, the fact remains that (by the nhl rulebook) my team should have forfeited those last matches, and likely didn't because bettman would have had to refund a whole lot of season ticket holder money. the fact that nobody got pink slipped following this debacle probably makes dale tallon wanna puke.

the 2009/2010 season was marked by a series of head-scratching trades, by the sutter regime, that were unquestionably the result of a man under pressure. was it the ownership group telling him to make the playoffs at all cost ? possibly.... or was it his own realization that a non-playoff year would totally jeopardize the safety of his own job ?? no doubt.

while i hated the jokinen for lombardi, prust and a first rounder trade on deadline day in march 2009, i can actually somehow give darryl a pass on that one. he clearly hadn't looked at olli's underlying stats, and he obviously hadn't watched him play much, but he really believed that #21 would help his team win. i can also give him a pass on dealing phaneuf for what's starting to look like a very expensive sack of pucks (ian white notwithstanding, though i doubt very highly that ian white will make it through the summer in a flaming C), though i'm definitely concerned by the rumours that darryl hadn't shopped dion around the league, and possibly could've gotten a better deal.... what i cannot (and WILL not) get past is that he traded a young, workable 7th defenseman AND A DRAFT PICK for an overpaid, overaged, underable defenseman with very little to offer for his 2.7 million dollar contract, that further reduces the cap space to sign GOOD players.... oh, and i'm not sure when i'll get past the fact that he gave up on dustin boyd. these two acts are inexcusable and reprehensible in my book, and symbolize why the calgary flames are going to be mediocre at best for the next two to three years (minimum).

JFJ was given five years at the helm of the maple leafs and dug the team into a suitably deep hole in that time. i fear daz will do the same, get canned in the next 365 days, and we'll spend years trying to get out.

i can't even talk about this anymore, i'm too busy trying to decide which eastern conference team to cheer for next year. ps: i hope philly wins the cup for the following reasons:

1. the hossa curse
2. mike richards not just TOUCHING the wales but essentially ASSAULTING it.
3. one word: cooperalls.

see ya more often around these parts as i'm back to unemployed !
:)

backlund on backlund

Thank goodness that mickis has time to write. cause i sure don't. bless'im for being the only author at hitthepost to ever share anything these days.... bummer he's totally unaware of it.

ps: someone should tell poor backlund that he's not playing in the world cup.
;)


On Monday, we went out into the Calder Cup Finals with the Heat Abbotsford. Then I thought of course that the season was over and that it was time to take time off and rest ... But that did not happen when I got a call by Bengt Ake Gustafsson, just minutes before I could go on the flight back to Sweden where he said he wanted me to come and represent the Swedish national team and play the World Cup. I got a big shock but was very happy and it was not on the map that I would say no! The only problem was simply that my luggage was checked and would go all the way to Gothenburg. So when I landed yesterday Thursday here in Germany at Frankfurt Airport, so I got and Mats Naslund GM for the national team trying to stop my bags before they were flown home. We managed to stop them but it took almost 1.5 hours to get all the bags when they apparently got a little scattered! But finally I got the bags and we could take the car and drive an hour to arrive at the hotel in Mannheim where the World Cup is played. So I got to the hotel at 15 times and it was just to eat lunch and then sleep until 17 o'clock before it was time to go up again and get ready for my World Cup debut.

It felt really cool and fun to slide on the ice with all the guys in the Tre Kronor jersey. Even if I had slept little and had a long trip so I felt quite refreshed and I still think the match went pretty well and I had so much fun! I had to play 11 minutes and had three shots on goal. It was a bit strange to play on the big ice again and outer wing but thought I could handle it well anyway.

Tomorrow is a new game and then waiting Canada. There will be a tough match with a lot of speed and tough game! Should be fun to play against my teammates Rene Bourque, Mark Giordano and extra fun to play against my former teammate Tyler Myers who I played with last year in Kelowna. I hope we win so I do not invite him to dinner when the free food tastes much better!

Today I just rested all day and tried to take back some power from a busy week with much flying, migratory, poor sleep and colds.

It feels really good to have the same timing as Sweden again and be in Europe and have been so close to home! Must run now hockey final weeks of this season and then go home and take a much needed rest!

let's do it all over again next year, boys....

monday randoms: all about the 'nucks.

i didn't get a chance to write last week cause i was craaaaaazy busy working on a volkswagen commercial. have you ever looked at the spelling of volkswagen ? it's not english.

anyhow, i spent a bunch of time out in drumheller this weekend and it was a lot like the town's second syllable.... no offense to drum, i'm sure it's rad. but the job blew.... ;)

anyhow, here's some stuff for and from htp friend and regular commenter, goad. i've got eff all to say about anything flames-related (even though gio and bourque are reppin' canadia at the big show overseas, and the hitties took the whl crown), so this is gonna be a quick post, with a lot of canucks references. i must say that i really like goad a hell of a lot, i think he's a pretty awesome dude and our differing allegiances have resulted in a pretty nice little friendship.... which is precisely why, when i look at his young daughter in his adult-sized jersey, i smile. still, i'm somewhat saddened that she will lead such a hard life as a nucks fan..... ;)

- goad emailed me these to point out that canucks managment care more about their ladies than flames management, and i gotta say it hurts but he's right... that's a WHOLE WALL of ladies jerseys (and not a pink one in sight) !!! also ? the merch store at the garage is ugly. but so's bobbylu and he's still rather annoyingly effective. ;)



the thing that pisses me off the most, though, is that over a year ago i was musing about making "i heart (nickname) " shirts -----like gio, lombo, kipps etc, and the fucking dirty nucks merch team did it first.... upsetting. infact, if i didn't hate them so much, i'd probably really like them. ;)



- mikeH took off to salmon arm last weekend and had to put up with even more canuckleheads:

- and finally, mikeH also discovered this gem:


- i bought new nailpolish the other day cause it looked like a really nice true royal-ish blue.... it wasn't until i got it on my nails that i realized it was totally canucks blue. also ? it's called "pacific blue." ugh.

- i still think the nucks are gonna beat the hawks, if for no other reason than to totally toy with my emotions; one minute you think they're gonna be eliminated, and the next minute bobbylu is standing on his head. *hate

i guess that's it for now. i apologize for my truancy. also ? i'll be in the hat for a few weeks comin' up, so if anyone's around lemme know.

:)
[sutter(s) dismissal countdown: day 68]

update on backlund by backlund

mickis gives us an idea about how rough travel is on an abbotsford team.... from his blog:

Division Finals

Tomorrow starts Round 2 of the 2010 AHL playoffs, and we meet with Hamilton Bulldogs after winning the Rochester Americans. It was a tough series that we managed to win but it took seven games for us to be able to pinch victory. We started the series well and won the first match but then lost three straight games and then it felt very heavy and driving, but we came back and became stronger as a team and lifted us and won their last three matches and thus the series! It was not the only game in terms of a tough series but also resmässigt. We began to play two matches away in Rochester and then after the second game we went bus 3 hours to Toronto, got there at 2 am and fell asleep at 3. At 5:30 bell rang again when it was time to wake up again and fly home to Abbotsford. The plane left at 7:15 and we made a stopover in Edmonton for about 50 min. The flight took about five hours in total. Then we played three home games and flew then back day after the 5th game and then it was the same trip again, sleep late, get up early (5:20) and fly at 7:15 and then land in Toronto at 16 because there is 3 hour time difference and after it was the three-hour bus and then we came to Rochester again! So there is no [luxury] not here in the AHL clean the backyard of the NHL, one can say where it is luxury o glamor.

After the 7th match which we won, we went in the bus just over 2.5 hours to come to Hamilton to play against us tomorrow. Travel becomes a bit easier now because Hamilton is just 45 minutes from Toronto. But we still played only two away games, tomorrow and Sunday and then three home games and then two away again if needed!

I look forward to playing this series when Hamilton was the second best team in the league this year so there will be a tough match series but I think we have a really good chance because we are a true warrior gang!



i'm not sure which part of the translation i prefer, "pinch victory" or "warrior gang."

[sutter(s) dismissal countdown: day 56]

what goes around.....

in november, my buddy jHo tagged me on fb in the following photo cause, as a flames fan, he thought it was pretty effin' funny:


here's a pic mikeH took this afternoon:

.....MUCH less funny.

*sniff*


[sutter(s) dismissal countdown: day 55]

monday randoms: sans photos (sorry !)

it seems that the off season is gonna mean i have zero inspiration to write much over here, especially if i have to watch the dirty 'nucks win playoff rounds.... the only person i'll be happy for ? htp friend and commenter goad, who is a standup guy and just loves his team... i wish i felt right in posting the kickass photo of him, in full facepaint, slammin' garagebeers with his pops at the 7-2 win the other night.... anyhow, the canucks are the reigning champs of the overcelebration (having taken the title from a relatively tame-of-late ovechkin) with shane o'brien big-upping a fight win, and alex burrows cracking the figurative champagne after potting an empty netter....

- in keeping with this train of thought, mikeH did a little research on the LUU plate ordeal, and emailed me the following information, suggesting it's not THAT weird to see that series concentrated in a certain area of town:

"that series came out a couple of years ago and at the time, all of the plates probably came together at least as far as Calgary. I guess now they send all orders from a central shipping location in Edmonton, but back then they had a local Calgary distribution hub that would have got the entire 1,000 plates from that run.

Now each box contains 50 plates, so in theory they could have been spread around to 20 registries, but typically (are) order(ed) in groups of 500. That means that in terms of distribution, its likely that all the plates were given out in Calgary and area, and probably from 2 or 3 registry offices."

i don't know if i buy it.... after watching the nucks down the kings (or as goad calls'em, "the queens") with a string of outrageously strong third periods, i'm afraid of how far they might go....

- i never realized that hockey would edumacate me in geography but yesterday it did just that.... tsn aired a quote from darren helm, suggesting why he didn't want the detroit-phoenix series going to a game seven:

"Yeah, we need to finish it off as soon as possible. It's tough. That three-hour time change (to Phoenix) and the four-hour flight each way is rough. It's really important we have a big game Sunday. Get the win and then get some rest before the next round."

my initial reaction was that helm simply has no clue that arizona is in the mountain standard time zone, and therefore only TWO hours behind detroit (eastern daylight time). in researching my retort, i discovered that arizona does not recognize daylight savings. who knew ?!!? the whole stupid state is on mountain time in the winter, but then they don't spring ahead or fall back in the summer --putting them in line with pacific standard time in the summer....

i can't believe darren helm is smarter than me. ;)

- my xmas tree is still up

- i very nearly posted a backlund on backlund entry the other day, as there was a new report published over on his blog.... after translating it, however, it appears to have been written by his mom, and describes her trip to calgary/vancouver with mickis' sister madde.... other than suggesting that iggy and conny are really nice dudes, there's not much hockey-related info in there....

- lombo was getting some well-deserved kudos from the tsn panel yesterday during phoenix's statement 5-2 victory in detroit. lombo's killing it on the ice, looks sharp with the gio stubble, and is still writing the henhenhen on his stick.... <3> how effin' sharp does bryzgalov look ?!??!

- speaking of former calgary flames -----the ones who got the boot during darryl sutter's reign---- mike cammalleri is absolutely lighting it up for montreal. well, as much as anyone can possibly light it up for the habbies, i guess....

- and finally, my mum sent me this, so i thought i'd share:

"The first testicular guard, the "Cup", was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important."

i've had a headache for four days now, so this is all you get. i have a feeling it has a bit to do with the amount of net surfing this girl does....
;)

have a great week !!!!

[sutter(s) dismissal countdown: day 54]

because i love my nerdy blog buddies: pt1

since the flames are a bunch of losers and there's no real honest-to-goodness hope of change in the management ranks, as of right now i thought i'd start a new little series and look at some of my favorites on the blogroll..... these'll be short n' sweet cause (let's face it) i don't really know that much about most of the nerds who love hockey around the globe....

sometime last year, mid-season, nick in NY from my nemesis site held a liveblog of a game between his minnesota wild and my calgary flames... also attending was ms.conduct who seemed pretty effin' rad cause she's a hockey fan from houston texas, PLAYS hockey (goaltender supreme), and knows her shit ---especially when it comes to the AHL... she's an aero's fan by way of geography, and a wild fan by extension.... so she gets to see the baby flames live and in person a few times a year, so we've had more than a few conversations about things like: how terrible chris chucko is... ;)


she's also a clutterbuck fan, which i fully supported up until his season-ending check on gio (totally clean, mind you, but totally sucky).... she got a lot of props in both the blogosphere and the MSM for her "ya can't spell calder without cal" campaign, and offered sincere condolences when her favorite guy took out my favorite guy....

the inspiration for writing this little hat-tip is both because i think she's pretty hilarious, and she has a massive hate-on for kiprusoff... you see ---he boned her in a couple of fantasy pools, historically, and she's holding tight to those hard feelings... my guess is that this year she hates him for doing so well; presuming that she steadfastly refused to draft him again.... a few days ago, when discussing jonathan quick, she pointed out:

"Someone on Twitter last night compared him to Kipper, which burns. I don't like Kipper at all. That mayyyy have something to do with how badly he screwed me in a couple of fantasy leagues 2 seasons ago. I mayyyy be a bit of a grudge holder. Mayyyybe. Still, there's nothing lovable about Kipper. He's shady and greasy and a diva (see: 2010 Olympics - Team Finland)."

Because i heart kippy, and always hope for others to do the same, i sent her the following picture and a note suggesting that you really can't hate a guy when you see how adorable he is with his 4-year-old son, aaro:

to which she responded, "His kid's a greasy little sieve, too. ;)"

...and that's why i love her stuff....
:)

[sutter(s) dismissal countdown: day 48]