Yes, I'm sure you've seen the things before--those little stuffed hamsters that "sing and dance" when you squeeze their foot--and, well, I am now the owner of one that wears a Team Canada jersey, has a helmet and stick, and sings "Oh, Canada". LOL
It's quite the most ridiculous piece of hockey related paraphernalia I've ever purchased (okay, technically my mom bought it for me)! What can I say? It was too cheap and too silly to pass up! =P
Anyway, I just realized that I totally forgot to write anything about Kevin's book (Barilko Without a Trace)launch. It was at the HHOF on Monday from 12-2pm, and there were quite a lot more people than I expected. The coolest part of the launch was that they announced that a deal had made to purchase movie rights to the book! Very exciting! Apparently Kevin didn't even know that the deal was a done thing until that day.
Apart from that, well, it was an odd experience for me. I recognized a lot of people--the HHOF staff and many guests from the HHOF Presents class were there--but socializing has never really been one of my skills, so most of the time I was just standing around on my own, waiting for Kevin to be free so I could congratulate him and take a proper leave (which didn't happen until about 2:20pm). *sigh*
Not that I regret skipping two classes (one of which was an in-class test--thank goodness the prof was kind enough to give me permission to write it later!), but I wish I'd managed to make more of an experience out of it, rather than just standing around feeling completely awkward for two hours.
So anyway, that was that. Next weekend, of course, is Induction weekend!! I'll be down at the Legends game with Stephanie on Saturday, and volunteering on the Sunday and Monday! ^_^ Very exciting! Unfortunately I haven't a clue as to what I'm supposed to do yet. ^^;; Ah well, Jackie said she'd email me with more details, and if she doesn't, I'll be sure to email her mid-week with questions! I hope I do a good job volunteering!
Well, no NHL hockey pools this year (d'uh!) but Sportsnet is running a Weekly Euro Challenge, so if anyone's interested in joining my "RamblingHockeyFangirl" group, just email me and I'll send you the group password!!
If you're one of the MCBC usual suspects or Blogging Hockey Chicks, check your inbox (or possibly your spam filter) and you should have an email from me already. Please let me know if I somehow managed to forget you and you'd like to join!!
Oh, to play is pretty simple. All you do is pick 12 players, 2 each from a "Super Group" (Forsberg, Jagr, Nash, Thornton, etc.), Sweden, Russia and the Czech Republic, and 1 from each of Finland, Slovakia, Switzerland and Germany. It's weekly, so you can change your picks each week if you so desire. Basically all you're looking for is points, so it's really quite simple. ^_^
Actually, speaking of European hockey, I've ordered a Forsberg Modo jersey and t-shirt, plus a Modo scarf and baseball cap. ^^;; It was pretty expensive (just under $200 US), but considering that shipping was $30 US, I figured I'd better buy all the Modo stuff I'd ever want in one shot, because it would be dumb to pay that much shipping more than once. The Modo site is pretty impressive, actually. Some of the pages are mirrored in English, including the shop!! I wonder if this is something they added for this year, or if they've always had an English mirror? So yes, you can check out the Modo site at http://www.modohockey.se.
If only Kladno had an English mirror!! I'm not learning Czech anywhere near fast enough to suit my desire for hockey news! =P
What happens with no hockey? I come home from school around 9pm and Steph, Nathan and I all sit around the tv watching BASEBALL. *gasp*
Okay, so it's not that shocking for Steph since she watches playoffs of all sports, but my brother and I? I've always thought baseball to be one of the most boring sports you could possibly watch on tv (live is another matter, though), and Nathan is not a sports watcher period. (Pre-lockout, however, he did start watching hockey thanks largely to my influence.)
So yes, it was an extremely strange way to spend a Wednesday night. I believe I just caught Johnny Damon's grand slam, and we stuck around for another one and half innings after that, so we saw him get another homerun as well. It was funny because Steph was saying how she kind of "liked" Damon, or "Neanderthal man" as we called him, and although we thought it funny, with the way he played, he ended up vindicating her admiration.
Anyway, I think three paragraphs on baseball is quite enough!! =P
In actual hockey news, I quite appreciate Andrew Ference's honesty in describing the whole lock-out/CBA situation as: "it's asinine and it's both sides." I heartily agree!!
What wasn't so impressive, however, was that he went on to say: "Even if you're not going to talk to the other guy, why not put forward some ideas you have so the public can see them and can say, 'These guys are putting forward an effort.'" Just putting forward an effort for the public is NOT going to cut it. Why do you think we're in the current situation? As I said before, I believe it's largely because both the Leauge and NHLPA spent so much time making an effor so the public could see them that they didn't put any serious effort into working together to get a new deal done. Now I know I'm repeating myself a lot, but frankly, I--and I suspect a lot of people share this feeling--don't care about them "putting forward and effort", what I want to see is results.
Well, I went to the Great Canadian Hockey Call To Arms with my friend Anna. Thank goodness for her, otherwise it would've been really sad!! We were the only two who showed up--and we were five minutes late, to boot! So yeah, we stood outside the ACC and booed for about five seconds (and definitely not at the top of our lungs! =P) and then went to dinner!
LOL
It was kind of fun, actually, but like I said, thank goodness for Anna or it would've been really dry--not to mention a complete waste of tokens! At any rate, we had a good time just talking and having dinner, so even though the GCHCTA was a bust, at least my trip downtown wasn't wasted.
Chris Chelios' recent comments on Bettman, the lockout and the League can be found on the Detroit Free Press website.
Although I agree with some of his comments, especially those regarding contraction and the US market for hockey, I think his opinion is too unilateral in assigning blame to Bettman to be wholly credited.
As much as I believe that Bettman made some serious errors in the expansion of the League and in other areas, I also believe that a great many other factors and sources contributed to the League's current problems.
I won't go into my particular opinions too much here since they probably aren't as fully informed and/or researched as they should be, but suffice to say that I neither fully absolve nor fully condemn either side in this entire mess. That is to say, I believe that neither the League nor the NHLPA are as honestly concerned about the welfare of the NHL as each side professes to be.
The great amount of effort both sides have put into pointless PR battles--effort that would be much better served and appreciated had it been channeled into getting a new CBA worked out--is disgusting. There are umpteen different possible and reasonable solutions that have been proposed by analysts and professors and all sorts of people that I'm sure could easily be mixed and matched or otherwise adapted to suit both sides if they weren't both so professedly fixed on "salary caps" and "free markets."
Anyway, I really hate to ramble on about the lockout and CBA &etc. because the stupidity of it all just drives me nuts, so I'll end here. However, I would like to recommend Bruce Dowbiggin's book Money Players, as it greatly informed my current opinions on the NHLPA and League. I read it over the summer and found it both interesting and insightful. Check your local library for a copy! I borrowed it from the UTM (University of Toronto Mississauga) library, of all places!
I know I said that my tact for dealing with the lockout was going to be apathy, but hey, without hockey I haven't had any excuse to yell/scream, and besides, it sounds fun. =P So yeah, I'm actually thinking about doing this. They may think I'm crazy, but I'm going to email my usual HNIC crew and see if anyone's interested in coming with me as well.
So yes, if you're interested in reading more about this event, check out the webpage:
Well, I'll start off with a direct quote from the comment section of a Kaberle fanlisting join form: "Tomas and I are getting married when Ilona hooks up with Jager. Yep. <3333 him"
ROFL
I know, it's awful, but even though I told myself I shouldn't laugh at applicants for my fanlistings, I just about died when I read that. It's funny but the only really funny/strange comments I get are from the Kaberle fanlisting, and they're always in a similar vein. Now don't get me wrong, most of the comments are very normal, like "Go Leafs go!" or "Kaberle is cool," but there are some that make me laugh and/or raise an eyebrow and shake my head...
The "I can't believe people actually wrote this" list...
"Tomas and I are getting married when Ilona hooks up with
Jager. Yep. <3333 him"
"Tomáš is the hottest guy I've ever met!!!"
"omg he is soooo hot"
"Kaberle is damn sexy!!"
"I am also a FRANTISEK Fan! Hot brothers m'kay"
"I LOVE KABERLE SO MUCH, I WANNA BONE HIM!"
"engaged to tomas"
Remember, these are exact quotes!!! The first one and the second last ones are definitely the best (or is that worst?) of the lot. =P I sincerely hope there never was or will be a time when I would actually think something like that, much less write it down and email it to someone!!
But enough of that.
In other fanlisting related comments, I really desperately want to change my Avs' fanlisting layout to get rid of Kariya and Selanne, but the problem is I love the way it looks right now! When I made the layout I knew they'd likely only be around for one season, but I figured I could always keep the background and text and everything and just replace the layer with the players' collage. Unfortunately, my .psd (Photoshop) file got wiped out when my computer died last summer, so now the only file of the layout I have is the jpg. *sigh* Ah well, maybe one of these days I'll stop being so lazy and just make an entirely new layout.
Dang! I missed "Making the Cut" yesterday because I was writing a position paper (due today, of course). *Sigh* It's unbelievable how much time I spent on the stupid thing considering how little it's actually worth! The measly little 3-5 page position paper (double-spaced, 12pt. font) is worth only 10% of my mark for this term, and I spent a good 8 hours on it!! Argh!
Anyway, some good/exciting hockey-related things are coming up for me! I just received today an invitation to the launch of Kevin's book Barilko Without a Trace! Even though it means I'll be skipping at least one, possibly two classes, I'm definitely going!! ^_^ My very first book launch--so cool!!
Then on Nov. 8th I'm going to be helping out at the Hockey Hall of Fame induction!!!! Again, I'm going to have to miss class, but I already mentioned it to my Czech prof, and she's cool with it (she knows how much I love hockey!). There's a good chance that I'll be helping out over the weekend as well, so it's going to be a very fun and exciting weekend for me!! The greatest part, of course, is that RAY BOURQUE is going to be inducted this year!!! Woo hoo!! I have no idea what I'm going to be doing, but hopefully whatever it is, I'll be able to get a good view of him. ^_^ Yay!!! Taking the HHOF class was probably one of the best things I ever decided to do!!
Leafs' upper management is stupid, just plain stupid. *sigh* If you got the Toronto Star today and read the Sports section, you'd have seen an excerpt from Damian Cox and Gord Stellick's book '67: The Maple Leafs. Their Sensational Victory and the End of an Empire which talks about how GM Cliff Fletcher tried to get the ownership to sign Gretzky, but failed. *sigh* It was before I was even born, but it's still depressing to read!
Here's a quote (of a quote) from the Great One himself:
"We were talking about something between $2 million and $3 million a season...And you know, the ridiculous part is Vancouver was offering me $8 million a season. But I wanted to be a Leaf in the worst way. I told Cliff, 'I'll do whatever it takes to make it work. You can defer my salary for 25 years if you have to. Whatever it takes to get the deal done.' But he couldn't get the deal done."
>_< BAKANA BAKA!!!! (Stupid idiots)
Anyway, if you're interested in ordering an autographed copy of the book for $34.99 (GST + handling incl.), you can call Starphone at 416-350-3000 category 5239--I'm going to!
