Cats in Grey Cup! Raptors! Saluteghazi! Etc!

In the second time in as many years the Hamilton Tiger-Cats are heading to the Grey Cup!  Despite the best intentions of the most atrocious refereeing I have seen in my entire life (Head Referee Andre Proulx is a Quebecois piece of shit and surprise surprise he was completely biased towards the Alouettes).  Mind you I had a wobbly pop or two and was busy yelling at Duron Carter that his dad Cris Carter didn't love him, so maybe I shouldn't be the best judge?  Seriously though in that first half there was many questionable calls by that shitty refereeing crew, they basically gift-wrapped a Montreal touchdown, and robbed Brandon Banks of a punt return TD.  Speaking of Brandon Banks, what a gem, nothing better than being in the crowd watching someone break 80+ yards for a TD, jumping up and down, screaming, high-fiving and hugging all those around you... well I was in the pisser for one of the TD's and probably shouldn't have hugged the guy next to me.  The Ti-Cats are now a perfect 7-0 at Tim Hortons Field...what a home field advantage we have, it's always loud as fuck in there when they're on defense, mind you it's not Seattle or any other NFL or NCAA stadium, but for 25,000 fans we make a ruckus.  I love how they refused to touch the Eastern Division trophy NHL stylez, the trophy they want to win is the Grey Cup! Unfortunately I won't be on TSN during the Grey Cup like I was for the Eastern Final game!

The Week Ahead: vs. Calgary in the 102nd Grey Cup (11/30). I think the Ti-Cats have a way better shot of winning this game than they did last year.  Last season they had to play the Roughriders in Saskatchewan in front of a massively partisan crowd when it was fucking ice cold and snowy out.  This time they play in a true neutral site under a dome at BC Place in Vancouver.  Calgary has been the best team in the CFL from the jump.  Calgary won both match-ups against us this year 10-7 in July and 30-20 in August.  The Cats have been a much better team since those two games, so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.  Either way I am pumped to watch this game, Oskee-Wee-Wee!!

Holy Fuck the Raptors are good.  After years (decades?) of mediocrity I've put up with all my teams it feels so good to cheer for a team that has quickly become amongst the NBA elite.  The Raps went a perfect 3-0 last week including an absolutely dominating performance against the surprising Milwaukee Bucks.  That game featured the NBA debut of the Brazilian Kevin Durant and new cult hero Bruno Cabaclo.  His first two points in his NBA career was a thunderous alley-oop dunk which literally had me jump of my seat cheering.  Then they go out and completely embarrass the Cleveland LeBrons on their home court.  This is one unselfish, tight knit group that has really gelled, GM Masai Ujiri pulled off a major coup trading John "Sleepy Lion" Salmons to Atlanta for Sweet Lou "Somali Pirate" Williams, my friend Steve has encyclopedic knowledge of the NBA and he told me in the off season what a great pick up that was, and he has been proven 100% correct.  I typically loathe marketing bullshit, especially if it involves hashtags, but the team and the fans have truly picked up on the whole We The North thing, it was awesome seeing the massive contingent of Raptors fans in Cleveland cheering them on, and players after the game were saying how much that meant to them. As Mike Wilbon said last week on Pardon the Interruption  "The Raptors aren't just under the radar, they're completely off the radar because they're in Toronto."  The players know this, the fans know this and it has created an "Us against the World" mentality with this team.  I think they won't be off the radar for much longer, this team is for real, they likely won't with the NBA Championship this year, but I see a deep playoff run.

The Week Ahead: vs. Phoenix (11/24), @ Atlanta (11/26), vs. Dallas (11/28), @ Los Angeles Lakers (11/30).  As long as the Raptors keep playing like they've been playing they could easily have another great week.  Dallas will be their biggest test, but they shouldn't look past Phoenix and Atlanta, both team have great players, and now with the Raptors being 11-2 they've got a target on their back and teams are going to bring it every night against them.  Fuck the Lakers and Kobe though, I hope they beat those squids 168-30.

If you were to tell me last week that the Leafs would go 2-1 against Nashville, Tampa Bay and Detroit, I would've been very happy with the results.  But the 9-2 drubbing by Nashville and the surrounding bullshit around Saluteghazi (PS I am over calling anything -gate, Watergate happened in 19 fucking 72 it's been over 40 fucking years, time to come up with something new) has left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.  You know what, I do not blame the Leafs players whatsoever for not doing the whack salute after beating Tampa, the constant circus surrounding this team must have finally got to them.  That game against Nashville was unbelievably bad, everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.  If the LA Kings or Boston Bruins were to lose 9-2, you'd see the highlights on TV and go "holy shit" and forget about it, but the Leafs lose 9-2 and on NATIONALLY televised TSN SportsCentre they spend practically the entire hour long show dissecting every aspect of it, panel after panel of fat old retired plugs publicly calling for blood, no wonder the rest of Canada hates Toronto and the Leafs, if I was a Jets fan or whatever and I go to watch the nightly sportscast, and they spend the entire episode talking about the Leafs I would be pissed too.  The non-salute thing was obviously on purpose, and it was emotional 20-somethings thinking they had to prove a point against their "fans" booing, throwing jerseys on the ice, not to mention the absurd amount of vitriol spilled about them on social media and on sports talk radio.  Of course it was handled sloppily, no one bought Dion Phaneuf's excuse that they were trying to change things up, but it is a fucking joke how the media and some fans took it.  A win is a win who gives a flying fuck if they didn't raise their sticks to the 1000 real fans that attend games at the ACC amongst the thousands of corporate suit dummies that are just there to schmooze their potential clients. Lost in all this bullshit is they played really well against both Tampa and Detroit and if the season ended today they'd be in the god damned playoffs.  But because they lost 2 shitty games and they didn't raise their sticks it seems like the sky is fucking falling.

The Week Ahead: @ Pittsburgh (11/26), vs. Washington (11/29).  A pretty light week for the Leafs, which is probably welcome for the team after all the crap that went on in the last week.  Pittsburgh, as usual are really good, and that should be a tough game, but besides Ovi the Crapitals are just that - Crap.

After an absolutely obscene amount of snow fell on the Buffalo area last week, the scheduled home match-up against the Jets had to be moved to tonight in Detroit... well I guess that is one way for the Bills to get on a Monday Night game.  It's currently 17 degrees and sunny in Buffalo, where in the blue hell is all that snow going to melt too... I am sure there is flooding conditions everywhere, and the game on the 30th against Cleveland is in doubt too.  All this certainly does not help the Bill slim playoff chances.

The Week Ahead: vs. New York Jets (11/24), vs. Cleveland (11/30).  The Jets are absolutely awful, but they did beat Pittsburgh recently, Michael Vick seems to have some gas left in his dog murdering tank.  Cleveland has been one of the surprises this season, the Bills really need to win both these games if they want to even think of the Playoffs, as their December schedule (@Den, GB, @Oak, @NE) is going to be very, very tough.

The Jays did fuck all this week, but it is the off season after all.  Of course those Masshole shitting, puking, fucking puke shit Boston Red Sox go out and sign Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval today....

As usual hit me up on the Twitter @HDH2112 if you want to talk sports with me! Even if you want to tell me this is the worst blog you've ever read, I love feed back!