Monday Sports Ramblings on a Sunday... deal with it

I know there is going to be like 4 or 5 people saying "what in the fuck is going on?!? My boy HDH is posting his weekly sports ramblings on a Sunday?? Has the world gone topsy turvy?"  Well it is with a bit of a heavy heart to announce that my 9 months of unemployment bliss has come to an end.  Apparently "The Man" doesn't let you live off EI forever, so I had to become a working slug again. I won't be able to write my sports ramblings tomorrow because I work until 6 and the Raptors play at 8, since I am off Tuesday and the game is being broadcast on TSN you can bet your sweet fanny arbuckle that The Jack Armstrong Drinking Game will be played.  I imagine my ramblings will return to their regularly scheduled slot on Mondays next week.  Now that I am employed and not spending all my money on beer every night, I will be purchasing a podcast mic, the podcast will be in full swing when sports gets good in the spring with the NBA/NHL playoffs plus the start of the Blue Jays season.  I promise.

Even though the last two Raptors games were on Sportsnet channels (Hey TSN, what's the deal with fucking curling anyways? Worst sport ever) elements of the Jack Armstrong Drinking Game were still employed, specifically the finish your drink if Steimsma or Bebe plays rule.  Beers were chugged when that happened.  Pretty much those guys only play in garbage time, and we witnessed both sides of garbage time over the weekend.  The Raptors played one of their best games of the season against the Hawks on Friday and one of their worst games Saturday against Houston.  That Rockets game had let down written all over it, second night of a back to back, playing a really good team (who played like shit in the first half too!) Meh it happens it's an 82 game season, just like how they can't get too high after the Hawks win they can't get that low over the loss to Houston.  In other news the NBA trade deadline came and went with GM Masai Ujiri standing pat.  I like that move, obviously they could've dealt expiring contracts in Landry Fields and Chuck Hayes and gotten something, but Ujiri is putting a lot of stock in not messing with the team chemistry and I like that, there is no sense in making a move just for the sake of making one.  Speaking of the NBA Trade Deadline how markedly different is it from the NHL Trade Deadline, holy fuck.  First of all there was actually trades of consequence in the NBA Deadline with notable players on the move (all of which happened right before the 3 pm deadline) did ESPN or Fox Sports 1 have 14 hours of breathless coverage with multiple panels of squids saying a lot of things while saying absolutely nothing at all??  The pre-cap NHL trade deadline was fun, the Leafs picked up the likes of Ron Francis, Brian Leetch and *sigh* Dougie Gilmour.  But now it's just 3rd line slugs being shuffled like deck chairs, yet TSN and Sportsnet have all day coverage, and have been advertising it for months.  I don't think there is anything more overblown in all of sports than the Canadian coverage of the NHL Trade Deadline, it's absolutely absurd.... yet people still watch, I guess that's why they keep pumping it out!

The Week Ahead: @ New Orleans (2/22), @ Dallas (2/23), vs. Golden State (2/27), vs. New York (2/28).  New Orleans has beaten us already this year, and that was without The Count, Bert from Bert and Ernie Anthony Davis.  Dallas and Golden State have beaten us too, I am really looking forward to seeing Golden State play, holy fuck they are a good team, and if they do beat us at least we can still beat the living piss out of shitty Andrea Bargnani and the laughably awful Knicks the next night.   The NBA is really obsessed with back to back games this year, I guess that's a consequence of having a week long All-Star Break. If the Raptors can emerge 2-2 from next week, that would make me happy.

Do I still have to write about the Leafs?  I will never jump ship and support another team, but that doesn't mean I have already given up on this season and have very little desire to even watch the games anymore.  There is pretty much no reason to watch the Leafs, they are so fucking bad... I suppose a good captain still goes down with his ship but for fucks sakes there is only so much abuse I can take.  When the Raptors and Leafs are on at the same time it's Raptors all day, the Leafs probably still crush the Raptors in the ratings, and I will never understand that.  I know basketball isn't as popular as hockey in this country, and will probably never be but Jesus Christ who in their right mind was watching the 26th place Leafs lose to the 27th place Hurricanes on Friday when the 2nd place Raptors were crushing the 1st place Hawks.  Sportsnet was airing that shit sandwich of a Leafs game on regular Sportsnet while the Raptors were banished to the fringes of television on Sportsnet One.  I actually did switch over to watch the end of the Leafs game against Winnipeg last night as the Raptors game was all but over, and it was good to see them actually win.  Must be a big relief for the boys, all that losing must take a toll on them mentally... plus doing all that losing in the fishbowl that is Toronto makes it 20 times worse.

The Week Ahead: vs. Philadelphia (2/26), @ Montreal (2/28).  Light week for the boys, fuck the Flyers and the Habs though.  Please can we beat the fucking Habs, I hate them so much... I hate getting all maple boner about it, but the Leafs-Habs on a Saturday night is always fun no matter how bad the teams are... oh the Raptors play on Saturday? Fuck that sentimental shit I am watching that.  Speaking of forced Canadiana is there anything worse than that Scotiabank 5th season commercial where that precocious little girl with the bug eyes gives this impassioned speech about wishing the summer away to play and going to Winnipeg in January for a tournament then all these dorks gather around her and applaude... I really, really, really hate that commercial, like I want to throw my remote through the TV screen when it comes on.  PS as far hockey tournaments go I used to work in a hotel and everyone on staff LOATHED when hockey parents and their shitty little kids invaded the hotel.  I am sure my boy SPEPLING really hates that commercial, and he hates commercials more than anyone on earth.

Despite it being colder than a witches tit outside, the boys of summer are back! I feel like R.A. Dickey does in this picture when I think that we are just weeks away from baseball season, I'll take some Grapefruit League action from sunny methy Florida at this point.  I think the Jays are going to have a good season this year (something I say every year) but this year I actually mean it.  The 2012-14 seasons were all filled with over promises and under delivery but this year is different.  Marcus Stroman and Drew Hutchinson are going to have break out seasons on the mound, plus there is ol' reliable Mark Buerhle and R.A. Dickey, the 5th rotation is up for grabs but I would love to see either Aaron Sanchez or Daniel Norris take that spot.  The line-up is amongst the best in baseball, I think everyone is going to fall in love with Josh Donaldson this season.  Plus there is still Russel Martin, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Reyes... my fuck they will score a lot of runs.  Hopefully to fuck they stay healthy, that's where things got sideways last year when Edwin Encarnacion got hurt, and the year before when Jose Reyes got hurt right off the jump.  I will be doing a full season preview a little closer to the start of the season, so be on the look out for that but squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee baseball is back!!!

This week's Squid of the Week is goaltender Andrew Hammond of the Ottawa Senators.  Not only does this squid play for the god forsaken Senators he wore this monstrosity of a mask in a recent game:

The fucking Hamburglar.  Why in the name of fuck would you want to have history's greatest monster painted on the side of your mask.  Fuck that little asshole Hamburglar, if I had five minutes alone with him..... People have said it's Alfred E. Newman, but that's totally the Hamburglar.  It makes absolutely no sense, almost as much as Peter Budaj have a psychotic looking Ned Flanders mask:

That wasn't his only mask with Ned Flanders, really who likes Ned Flanders that much?! "The handle is Flanders but my friends call me Ned! Hello Flanders."

A Squid of the Week and C'Mon Bud!! This weeks C'Mon Bud!! goes to Jim Hughson of Rogers(TM) Hockey Night in Canada.  He's done this before and he did it again on Saturday calling Leo Komarov of the Leafs "The Russian Heat Seeking Missile".  First things first, it's a terrible nickname, and secondly Leo Komarov isn't even Russian for fucks sakes, he was born in Estonia and he plays for Team Finland internationally.  Jim Hughson is terrible enough as it is, but when he pulls shit like that you just need to give your head a shake and say "C'Mon Bud!!"