At Least One League Debut, Though!

Well…I almost saw an NHL game last weekend

Technically, two NHL franchises were playing hockey.  So, there's that.  

So, some of you are aware that I tried to go to a hockey game a little while back and Ran Into Some Issues with the weather that day.  Well, the game was rescheduled for this past Sunday, and again I made the trip.  Mother Nature cooperated, but the two teams very much did not.  Jerks.  

The game was between the New York Islanders and the Philadelphia Flyers.  Heading into the last week or so of the season, things were looking promising for this game, as both teams were fighting for playoff spots in the eastern conference.  It could have very well turned out that this final game of the regular season would be a make or break game for at least one of the teams heading towards playoff time.  

Well, earlier in the week, the Islanders clinched a playoff spot, so the only thing they were playing for would be for seeding, and a first round matchup with Pittsburgh instead of Florida.  Not an overly substantial change.  The Flyers' story was much more exciting.  

Going into the penultimate day of the season, the Flyers stood one point behind the Boston Bruins, who had a Saturday game against a long-eliminated Ottawa Senators team.  A win by Boston would force Philadelphia to win both their Saturday and Sunday games to earn a playoff spot.  A win-or-go-home scenario for our Sunday game?  No.  Boston proceeded to get humiliated by Ottawa to the tune of a 6-1 poleaxing, leaving them clinging to a 1-point lead over Philadelphia for that final playoff spot.  

Philly played against Pittsburgh on Saturday night and won, securing the 8th seed in the Eastern conference and rendering Sunday's game 100% meaningless.  

Sunday's game saw New York scratch 12 players, including pretty much every one of their star players that I would have been interested in watching.  The Flyers scratched six of their finest players as well, keeping them fresh for the playoffs and not risking injury in a pointless game.  

Philly ended up winning, for what that's worth. 

He Own The Chiefs

Hooray!  Jeremy's Back! 


Yeah, slacker.  What's up?  


Well, me for starters.  There's been a lot going on in Jeremy Land lately, but the key thing to note is that I've been sick.  It sucks, and I'm probably going to have this lingering cough for another week or two, but such is life during the winter.  Winter sucks.

So, here's what you missed:

I actually had a couple amusing status messages towards the end of last week that never made it into Blag form.  The first was "Weirder?  The lyrics to 'Karn Evil 9' or the title?  Discuss."  This was the song playing on my radio when I woke up that day.  It's a good song that you've all heard, though to be more specific, you've probably heard the second part, "Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Part 2" which only serves to make the title that much more ridiculous.  That's the 4-minute long part of the 29+ minute ordeal that actually gets played on the radio from time to time. 

The next day was "Oglethorpe Day," for which I extended a special greeting to Ogie Olglethorpe.  That's funny if you know anything about either Oglethorpe Day or the 1977 film Slap Shot.  They two things have nothing to do with each other. 

So, not long after that, I decided to walk outside around a city for a while on the coldest day of the year with a lingering doubt about the state of my health.  This was not smart, I know...but if you saw the picture of the milkshake I was supposed to get, you wouldn't have any further questions.  My cold got worse and left the remainder of my weekend a coughing sneezing couch-denting mess. 

That takes us to today, the first day in a few that I've felt like a human being again, and I'm right back to work, hammering away.  It's the type of sacrifice I'm willing to make for your edutainment.  You're welcome. 

Is He Allowed To Ride The Goalie?

Funnier: A hockey player riding a horse, or a jockey on skates?  Discuss  

If it's only the jockey, this may be a toss-up.  If the horse was skating too, I really think we're talking some pretty next-level comedy right there.  

So, for today's Sametime Status, we're examining the effect of a single letter change on a word.  In hindsight, this might have made for a really fun Theme Week...in fact, it still might...stay tuned.  

Anyway, the words "Hockey" and "Jockey" are only off by one letter, and mean very different things. We'll ignore the fact that one is the name of a sport, and the other is the name of a participant in a sport because that takes away from everybody's pleasure, and we don't want to do that here.  So, picture if you will:

Hockey players are often fairly large expanses of humanity.  Not always, certainly, but when people think of the stereotypical hockey player, they think of the 6 foot plus goon with muscles on top of muscles, minimal teeth, and a predisposition to punching others.  This is a stereotype, people...and as you know, all generalizations are wrong.  Anyway, hockey players wear thick pads over most of their body, have a helmet, skates, and a graphite composite stick.  Imagine this person riding a horse.  

Horse racing jockeys are typically folks of minimal stature wearing remarkably colorful clothing, leather boots, a helmet, and carrying a riding crop.  Imagine this person being checked into the boards of a hockey rink by a 6 foot 230 pound defenseman.  

I honestly don't know which of these mental pictures I find more amusing.  

Did They Honestly Not Expect This?

Don Cherry is reprimanding the internet.  This will go well  

Yeah...the internets don't take very kindly to criticism.  Especially from 81 year old Canadian curmudgeons.  

So, to understand today's Sametime Status, we have to take a couple steps back to talk about hockey.  Every non-Olympic year, the NHL puts on an all-star game.  Because nobody gives a blue crap about all-star games, the league has struggled with finding ways to make it profitable enjoyable.  They've done North American players versus the rest of the world's players, Eastern Conference vs Western Conference, a fantasy hockey draft...all to no avail.  People still didn't care.  

So now, we have a new 3-on-3 divisional tournament.  The first period features the Pacific Division versus the Central Division.  The second period will have the Atlantic Division take on the Metro Division.  The third period will pit the winners of the first two periods against each other in a winner-take-nothing-all fight to the finish.  Guess what...nobody cares.  

To spice things up, the league decided to let the fans choose the team captains, then have the league fill out the rest of the rosters.  As you might expect, the fans went Internet all over the voting, and things took a turn.  

The 2016 All-Star Team Captain for the Pacific Division team is none other than John Scott.  

Unless you're really into hockey, you don't know who John Scott is.  John Scott is a 6'8" enforcer who over the course of his NHL career has averaged a goal every 57 games.  He is not what one would describe as a "Skill Player."  He received the highest number of votes of anyone in the Pacific division, but the final tally is a mystery since the league removed all traces of standings and the voting as a result of the fan campaign to select Scott.  Go ahead...try to find it.  I dare you.  

Fast forward a couple of days, and John Scott was traded to the Eastern Conference.  Conspiracy theories abound that this trade was made simply to restore the "dignity" of the All-Star Game, since his skill set is in remarkably short demand league-wide, and the team that traded for him immediately transferred him to the minor league.  If this were the case, people got very indignant about the league pushing for this to happen in order to override the fan vote, and deny Scott the ability to play for the prize money (Yes, the winning team gets to divide up a cash prize for winning the tournament.  No, the Pacific division is not going to win, regardless of Scott's participation).  Also, an NHL player is now assigned to an AHL team under an AHL contract, with himself and his family forced to move across two countries to relocate to his new team.  All so that the league isn't "embarrassed" by having a different type of player in its All-Star Game.  If the conspiracy theories are to be believed.  

Conspiracy theories aside, hockey (And Fashion) genius Don Cherry took it upon himself to use his TV segment "Coach's Corner" to take the fans to task for voting John Scott into the All-Star Game and setting this whole chain of events in motion.  He Began This Rant by calling the fans on the internet voting "You jerks..."  Yeah...the internet is probably going to have something of a problem with that.  You can watch the entire video, if only to hear the theme song the second time at the end.