Refs Rob Banks!! Pros Before Bros and More!!

Well it shouldn't come to anyones fucking surprise that Andre Proulx and his band of fucking cretins screw things up for us, they tried their damndest to do it in the East Final and they pulled it off in the Grey Cup.  What a fucking disgrace, shit like this is what makes the CFL look so unbelievably bush league.  Brandon Banks had won us the Grey Cup, it was a fucking GREY CUP WINNING punt return TD called back on a marginal call at best with 35 seconds left in the game. The Refs robbed Banks, the refs robbed Hamilton of their first Grey Cup since 1999.  Granted the Cats got off to a slow start, dug themselves a 17-0 hole and relied on field goals when they got to the red zone... but still my blame has to be pointed somewhere and it is directly at that french fuck Andre Proulx and his shit tornado of an officiating crew.

The outcome put a damper on the hilariously fun and delicious Grey Cup party held in my buddy Jeff's man cave.  It was all the cast of characters I've been attending Ti-Cats games with all season, plus a town eccentric or two.  I loved being back in Hamilton and falling in love with the Ti-Cats again and I can't wait to head back to Tim Hortons Field next year to heckle the shit out of people.  Because this is kind of a food blog too, I will post my power rankings of what we ate last night in descending order.

7.  Vegetable Sticks.  Yeah there was fucking vegetables there, I guess there has to be an "healthy option" but as my pal Dave would say "mmmm lettuce is for rabbits"  I guess they're good for some nibblies before the main course.  The "town eccentric" accused my friend Angela of being a cute little vegetable.... yeah.

6.  Sushi Rolls.  Believe it or not I really love sushi, especially the rolls, I spotted a whole tray of those delicious bastards when I was avoiding the "town eccentric" who was bitching about how much it was a disgrace the Ti-Cats uniforms don't have stripes anymore... when I pointed it out to him on TV that they did have stripes, he claimed it was a Grey Cup only thing.  So basically I crushed 6 or 7 rolls while getting away from that squid.

5.  Mozza Sticks.  These weren't just your everyday run of the mill mozza sticks, they had a nice spicy kick to them, jalapeno perhaps??  They were actually crunchy too, not soggy little turds like they usually are.

4. Sausage with cheese in them.  These were prepared before hand, and cut up into bite sized portions, they were available for picking while running up to take a piss or grabbing a beer or avoiding the town eccentric.  I was starving so I must've crushed 5 or 6 of these bad boys along with the sushi rolls before we ate.  I have the 6 toothpicks in my pocket to prove it.

3.  Chicken Wings.  They were just your everyday delicious chicken wings, nice bite to them, not overloaded with fucking breading.  I only had a couple but under normal circumstances could destroy 15-20 of those mafuckers.

2.  Buffalo Chicken Dip prepared by Tash.  This was the best Buffalo Chicken Dip I have ever had in my life, mainly because there was so much chicken in it, it was kind of like a pulled chicken sandwich with Buffalo flavour, fuck it was good, despite it being a dip it would've made for an amazing sandwich.

1c.  I copped out, there is a 3 way tie for the best food I ate last night.  First up is Steve's Five Alarm Chili, served at half time on a hot dog.  I've had plenty of chili in my day and this is amongst the best I have had, nice and thick a good texture, with a bite but not over-powering.  Served on top of a Juicy Jumbo dog, you can't go wrong.

1b. Lasagna prepared by Angela.  She tricked us! This was a lean lasagna with turkey and a bit of pork in it as opposed to traditional ground beef.  It was on point delicious and made with an outstanding 8 different kinds of cheese, I was very impressed!

1a.  Philly Cheese Steak Sliders made by Jeff and Dave.  My God.  These little fucks were good.  Generally I hate sliders... fuck sliders why would you have a miniature version of something bigger?  But I suppose at a party where food is plentiful sliders are a great way to go.  They marinated and prepared the flank steak with onions and peppers all day, then heat them up with some provolone cheese, there was a nice chipotle spice kick to it, these little fucks were very, very good.

Wash all that down with about 15 beers and you've got yourself a party.  Too bad the outcome was as shitty as it was!

The Brett Lawrie Era is over.  Holy shit-balls did Alex Anthopoulos (herein referred to as AA, I am sick of typing Anthopoulos) pull off a major move.  Josh Donaldson is only the best 3rd baseman in baseball, and is 2nd behind Mike fucking Trout in WAR over the last two seasons.  Donaldson has said all the right things so far, calling the Blue Jays uniforms 'sexy' (they are!) and saying that he has watched 1000 hours of Jose Bautista swings and emulates him as a player *swoon*.  Plus he is under club control for the next 4 seasons! It is kind of weird to see Brett Lawrie go, I assumed he was going to be a Blue Jay for years to come, but you know what he is kind of a douche-bag, ease up on the Red Bull and quit being such a fucking spazz bud.  I am really not too heartbroken to see him go, Brett Lawrie has had smoke blown up his ass since the second he came to the organization from Milwaukee, mainly because of his passport (fun note, Oakland is actually probably closer to his hometown in BC than Toronto is), and really he has only shown flashes of brilliance and he has been injured A LOT.  The guy is a fucking band aid.  AA has taken a Pros before Bros attitude this off-season, jettisoning the likes of Adam Lind, Anthony Gose, Colby Rasmus, Brandon Morrow and now Brett Lawrie, and brought in clubhouse stalwarts Russel Martin and Josh Donaldson.  Clubhouse chemistry has been an issue the last few years, John Gibbons even went as far as to say he needs more "mature adults" on the team.  Getting rid of Brett Lawrie ramps up the maturity level on this team significantly.

The Raptors suffered a bit of adversity for the first time this season, first they went 2-2 (it was weird seeing the Raptors lose, I forgot what that was like) and secondly they lost DeMar DeRozan to a torn groin tendon.  Ugh.  DeRozan has been remarkably durable throughout his 6 year career, and this is the first significant amount of time that the All-Star will miss.  They say he could miss a month of action, or about 14 games, luckily the Raptors have built themselves a nice little cushion so even if they only go .500 over that stretch they'd still be in excellent shape.  You never know with groin injuries though, it could take DeRozan a lot longer than a month to get back into game shape.  Luckily the Raptors have solid depth, "Sweet" Lou Williams, James Johnson, or Grevais Vasquez could easily take his spot in the starting line-up, and they still have Landry "Remember Me" Fields to come off the bench.  The Raptors lost two tough ones, Dallas is a great team, and the Raptors never quit that entire game, but that Lakers OT loss last night stings, especially after the Grey Cup debacle and the fact that Kobe Bryant is a fucking squid and I hate him.

The Week Ahead:  @ Sacramento (12/2), @ Utah (12/3), vs. Clevaland (12/5) .  Everyone knows the West is a far superior conference than the East, but the Raps finish their quick west coast trip against two of the weaker sisters in the conference with the Kings and the Jazz, it's tough for any team to go west and play but if the Raptors want to be considered amongst the NBA elite they HAVE to beat these shitty teams.  The game against the Cleveland LeBrons on Friday should be really good, Cleveland has to have revenge on their mind after we destroyed them on their home court a couple of weeks ago.  

After all the bullshit surrounding the 6-2 loss to Buffalo, the 9-2 loss to Nashville and Saluteghazi, the Leafs have been a pretty fucking good team.  They haven't lost in regulation since that 9-2 debacle.  The Leafs looked pretty good last week, coming back to tie Pittsburgh only to lose in OT against Sid the Squid, and then they completely dominated Ovi and the Crapitals.  But on a sad note my new hero Leo Komarov had to leave Saturdays game after Ovechkin delivered a cheap shot that should've resulted in expulsion from the league.  I am sure Leo has some KGB contacts, so Ovechkin better get someone else to start his car for the foreseeable future.

The Week Ahead: vs. Dallas (12/2), vs. New Jersey (12/4), vs. Vancouver (12/6).  The Leafs have a pretty home heavy schedule for the next few weeks because they are getting kicked out of the ACC at the end of the month for the World Junior Tournament, so even though they've had trouble at the ACC the last few seasons they need to take advantage of this stretch.  Dallas and New Jersey are both sub-500 teams, so they should win those, but the way the Leafs have been this year you can't trust the fuckers and they could come out flat as a pancake those games and completely shit the bed.  They'll crush Vancouver though, fuck the Canucks.

The Bills were very impressive last week, they kicked the living shit out of the woeful Jets under some pretty shitty circumstances and made short work of the Browns yesterday.  Unfortunately it is too little too late, while they sit at 7-5 now and are "in the hunt" for a playoff position, it is going to require a miracle for them to get in the playoffs.  Stranger things have happened I guess, but I am certainly not counting on it.

The Week Ahead: @ Denver (12/7)  I just mentioned miracles, the Bills need one here against Peyton Manning and the Broncos at Mile High... if they can upset them... then the Packers and the Patriots and kick the shit out of the Raiders like they should, you never know!!

Once again don't forget to follow me on the Twitter @HDH2112.  See you next week!