The NHL starts an abbreviated 48 game season on Saturday, while I am glad the NHL is back, I really didn't miss it all that much. Perhaps it's because my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs have done sweet fuck all since, gulp, 2004. I also think that the hockey coverage in this country borders on the insane. I'm not even sure why TSN calls it's flag-ship program SportsCentre when it's really just the early edition of That's Hockey, that jerk Darren Dreger blocked me on Twitter too for no apparent reason. At least now they are talking about actual hockey and not that god-forsaken seemingly never ending lock-out. Showing that weasel Gary Bettman walking through a revolving door over and over really got tiresome. I really am not as passionate about hockey as I was in High School and University, but that being said I still enjoy watching the games, and if the Leafs can finally manage to get their shit together the passion will ignite again, and I'll be glued to TSN's 24/7 Hockey coverage.
I am your typical long-suffering Leafs fan. I've been a fan my whole life, living through the ups and the mostly downs. Speaking of Downs, many people have questioned my mental capacity over my support of them, especially recently. Frankly I am sick of all the absolutely horrible jokes "it must be spring because the Leafs are out" and all those hilarious and original signs outside of bars saying "free beer during all Leaf playoff games". You guys are about as funny as Dustin "Screech" Diamond's stand-up comedy...seriously look it up on YouTube, the Holocaust gets more laughs. While I do think it will be hard-pressed for the Leafs to make the playoffs (again, ugh) I think there is some good pieces in place for the future. If they get some consistent goaltending, this could be the year to see a Leafs playoff game in HD, finally. I picked Phil Kessel in the first round of my fantasy hockey pool (7th overall). I don't think I am as insane as everyone thinks I am for it. I'll go ahead and say the Leafs come in 8th, make the playoffs, only to lose to the NY Rangers in the 1st Round.
As much as I love the Leafs, I think I hate the Ottawa Senators just as much, what an abortion of a franchise. Come playoff time all the idiot fairweather fans tell me "well you gotta cheer for the Canadian teams" Fuck you. I wouldn't cheer for the Ottawa Senators if they were playing Al-Qaeda. I hate the Montreal Canadiens a lot too, the whole Quebec thing mainly, but the Leafs and Habs rivalry is really from a bygone day, and the Leafs-Sens playoff battles from the early-2000's are still fresh in my mind (which by the way the Leafs won all of). My room-mate from Saugeen-Maitland Hall, and throughout my remaining years at UWO, Matt "Loguezilla" Logue is a die-hard Sens fan. The first thing I found out about him he was from Burlington (ew) and the second was that he was a Sens fan (puke!). Surprisingly we still remain friends to this day, despite me taking almost every opportunity to harass him about the shitty Sens, he did block me on Facebook for about 8 months though, mostly because I still make fun of him for Cory Clouston. In conclusion, fuck the Sens, the Habs and any team that isn't the Leafs.
Fucking Spartacat. Let me tell you a story about this piece of shit. The year was 2007, me and my good friend Mikey "Concussion" Reed went up to Ottawa to celebrate our other good friend Jonny's 25th birthday party. We had tickets to the Penguins-Senators game, a marquee match up to say the least, and I dropped $90 on a ticket. The drive up was a bit of a shit show, it was a blustery late November day, and eastern Ontario was experiencing their first snow storm of the season. Pretty much from Picton, through Kingston all the way to Ottawa traffic was slowed to a crawl, and the visibility was piss-poor. There was jack-knifed trucks on the highway, I seriously thought I was going to die...I guess it didn't help that I smoked a joint during this whole experience. We arrived to Ottawa a couple of hours later than we wanted to. If you know anything about Jonny Clare is that he likes to party, and he does things like this the right way. He had rented a limo to take us from his house in Greely to the Corel Centre in Kanata. Mikey and I hadn't had a bite to eat since the morning as we were too busy focused on not dieing. So we get in the limo with the Chris "The Chit-Bang" Chitty, his brother Phil and their cousin Willie. All these guys are certified lunatics, I might focus an article on them at a later date. Anyways, in this limo there was a 60 ounce bottle of Grey Goose vodka. This bottle was gone by the time we reached the arena, I must've had 8 or 9 drinks on an empty stomach. Needless to say we were all shit-faced drunk, I crushed another couple of beers once we got into the stadium. Things are a little blurry at this point, I am sure we were all obnoxious drunk assholes. That smug bastard Spartacat sauntered into our section like he fucking owned the place, high-fiving kids, doing all the dumb shit mascots do. This is when Jonny piped up "Hey Spartacat you're a fucking loser!!". Spartacat came over and proceeded to spray Jonny in the face with silly string, Jonny, being the reasonable guy he is threw his full beer at him. Spartacat called over his hired goons, and they kicked him out. Chitty leaned over to us and said "I'm going to go try and smooth things out", his brother Phil correctly said "there is no way Chris is going to smooth things out", turns out he threw his full beer at a security guard and he was kicked out. Once we got the word, we all got up and left. Keep in mind folks this is all about 10 minutes into the 1st period. The game ended up being a dandy, Pittsburgh won 6-5 in a shoot-out.. We had to call the limo back and head back into town where we partied the night away. I'm still bitter at Spartacat for starting shit even after all these years. The picture above is one Loguezilla got for me, he said Spartacat was trying to mend fences, but I don't know if I'm ready to forgive and forget.
Anyways that's all I have for tonight. I went to Hot Italian Sandwiches the other day with the boys, and it was pretty damned good, but not enough for a full on blog review. The next stop is going to be a new Mexican place called Quesada, which I am pretty pumped for. That will warrant a full post!!
In the meantime gang, enjoy the NHL season, and remember pitchers and catchers report in a month. Follow me on twitter! @didhenley
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