Dear Steve: You Are A Gutless Punk Ass Piece Of Shit

I hate the preseason. Absolutely loathe it. Putting aside, for the moment, the incredible rip-off these games are for the fans, it strikes me as the height of madness for a team to put its best players on the ice (let us here pause and give thanks to Gary and his Merry Band for mandating that teams must play a minimum number of “stars” in the preseason) in a meaningless game with a bunch of wannabes looking to make their bones by running at your starters. Which, of course, brings me to Steve Downie, dipshit extraordinaire.

OTTAWA - There's no telling what Steve Downie did to his chances of making the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday night, but it's a certainty that he won no friends on the Ottawa Senators.

The 20-year-old prospect knocked Senators centre Dean McAmmond out of the game with a concussion following a vicious second-period hit that sparked a melee and led to the Ottawa veteran being wheeled from the Scotiabank Place ice on a stretcher.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve never liked Downie. He's been nothing but a punk throughout his entire career, a mini Claude Lemieux without the skill or Darcy Tucker without the brains. Remember, this is a guy who got kicked off his first junior team for knocking a rookie's teeth out during practice after said rookie had the temerity to get upset after a hazing. And if the OHL had done the right thing and thrown him out of the league right then, he would have been promptly dispatched back to the cave from which he was hatched, would never have been in a position to get pissy about a clean hit from Schubert, skate 50 feet looking for payback (but never against Schube, oh no, never that. Schubert is much bigger than our fuckstick hero) and jump a foot in the air looking to take somebody's head off because the poor little piss ant was embarrassed at being put on his ass. Nope, if the OHL had done it's job, Dean McAmmond would have spent last night with his kids instead of a hospital room trying to remember his name. But they didn't, so here we are.

So, no Steve, I've never liked you. Not when you were in junior, not when Pierre "CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?!?" McGuire tried to wrap you in the Canadian flag at the World Juniors until I wanted to puke and certainly not now. Thank your lucky stars that there are classless GMs like Bobby Clarke around to draft classless assholes like you.

I think I'll let Brian McGrattan take it from here:

"He'll get what's coming to him," said McGrattan. "He'll do it to the wrong guy and somebody will put him out of hockey. You do that at his level a couple of times, guys in junior won't do it, but guys at this level will. He'll get what's coming to him next time we play him, that's for sure."

I'll be waiting for that day. And when it comes, I'll be the first one to piss on the lifeless carcass of your "career".

McAmmond Injured In Senators Win [TSN.ca]

Thanks Bryan. Now Go Find Twelve More Just Like Him

Back in my pre-buttergut days, before I discovered the twin temptresses of beer and bacon, I played minor hockey, football and high school basketball (by “played” basketball, I mean “sat on the bench and waved a towel in an excited and inspirational fashion until the coach put me in at the end of a blowout”) and on every team I’ve ever been on, there’s always one. One guy who may not be the most talented player or whose contributions won’t always show up on a stat sheet, but a guy without whom you have absolutely no chance of winning anything. One of my football coaches called them “spoon guys”.

Thankfully for us, we didn’t attend a Catholic school, and therefore, the turn of phrase caused no undo alarm. Coach’s basic point was that every successful team had on it a player, who when handed a teaspoon and told to dig a hole through a brick wall, would salute smartly and have at it, bug-eyed and foaming at the mouth, until either the hole was duly dug, or the player died in the attempt, his spoon-hand nothing but a mangled, pulpy mass.

Since his rookie days as a Senator, Mike Fisher has been that guy. And he will be That Guy for the Senators until 2012.

It looks as though Mike Fisher won't be going anywhere for a while. Fisher has signed a five-year, $21 million extension with the Ottawa Senators. He will earn $1.5 million this season.

Fisher scored 22 goals and dished out 26 assists in 68 games with the Senators last year. In 384 career NHL games Fisher has totals of 92 goals and 100 assists and a +49 rating.

Now, I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve always had a bit of a man-crush on Fish and I was getting mighty nervous at the thought that we’d lose him for nothing or worse, traded for yet another Russian pansy and a case of Metamucil (hello Mucks) as free agency loomed. I was terrified that the Senators wouldn’t recognize how valuable a guy who goes 100mph in every shift of every game really was to the team, regardless of his point totals. Thank Christ I was wrong, and like Alfie before him, we can safely call Mike Fisher a Senator for life while the Leafs die a little more inside.

There will be a night, ten to fifteen years from now, when the number 12 will be lifted to the rafters of Scotiabank Place (or whatever the hell it’s called by then) to take its rightful place beside Alfie’s number 11 and the 8 of Frank Finnigan.

If you’re there, look for me. I won’t be hard to find. I’ll be the idiot holding up the spoon.

Senators Sign Fisher To Extension [TSN.ca]

More Fun With Hummers (It's Probably Not What You Think)

You know how it is. You're zipping along the highway, not a care in the world. You're calm. You're courteous. You're happy as a clam. Maybe you're thinking about how great your life is, having accomplished everything you've ever dreamed of. Maybe you're thinking about how promising, how so goddamned sweet the future looks. Then suddenly some maniacal asshole in the next lane does something to ruin it all. We've all been there. We know how that feels. Ray Emery certainly does.

OTTAWA - A West Ottawa retiree is accusing Senators goalie Ray Emery of trying to run him off the road before threatening to kill him during an alleged case of road rage earlier this week. Jean V. Therien alleges in a police report that the 24-year-old Senators goalie swore at him and called him an "old bag of bones" and an "old fool" before threatening him.

Now, far be it from me to doubt Mr. Therien's account of what happened. I could hardly accuse a retiree, one of my elders whom I've been taught to respect and admire, of hyperbole and preening for the media after realizing that the other driver involved in this incident was a famous, deep pocketed and much loved local athlete with a history of vehicular mishaps. After all, I wasn't there. But, um, anything you'd care to add Mr. Therien?

Mr. Therien, who admits he cut Mr. Emery off on the westbound Highway 417 near an off-ramp moments earlier, said the threat came after Mr. Emery repeatedly swerved into his lane. "If I had not got out of his way, there is every reason to believe I would have ended up in the ditch."

Ah. Yes. I see. Mr. Therien, please rest assured that I mean this with the all due respect, bearing in mind that I drive that highway everyday. You are my elder after all and I would hate to cause offence. Maybe, just maybe, you should, perhaps, not drive like a fucking moron.

Now I'm going to type this slowly, because I know that neither you, nor your fellow "retirees" read all that quickly:

1) When changing lanes, make absolutely sure there isn't the biggest fucking vehicle ever mass produced occupying the space beside you. And if you can remember to use that little stick thingy poking out from the steering column, that would be great too. It makes a little light on the back of your car blink really fast, thus signifying your intentions. It's really neat. Just don't forget to turn it off.

2) Should you suddenly be seized with the urge to move to the passing lane, do attempt to actually overtake the vehicle to your immediate right. I can't stress this enough. If you're moving at the same speed as that vehicle, YOU'RE IN THE WRONG FUCKING LANE YOU IDIOT. Those nice people flashing their brights at you aren't saying hello.

And one last thing Mr. Therien (although I could offer page after page of advice to you and your ilk). Had I been driving that Hummer, you would have ended up in the ditch.

Ottawa Driver Says Emery Threatened Him During Road Rage Incident [Ottawa Citizen]

Emperor Goodell Cares Not For Your Life Saving Drugs

WARNING: What follows is a non-hockey related post as we wait for something, anything worth mocking to emanate from Palladium Drive. If anyone objects to NFL football appearing on a site devoted to hockey, Five For Smiting would like to offer the following, with all due respect: Piss off. I like football and it's my blog. So there. Thank you, come again.

For obvious reasons, the NFL has arguably one of the toughest drug policies of all the major sports. While the NHL and MLB continue to whistle past the graveyard that is steroid abuse ("What about Barry? Oh, that's glandular."), the NFL was forced some years back to toughen its stance after All Pro D-Lineman Lyle Alzado caused them considerable inconvenience by having the temerity to die from the side effects of a career spent juicing. Fifteen years later, the league has let it be known that if you're caught, the wrathful vengeance of the Commissioner's office will be swift, and damn near biblical in its severity. What we may not have been aware of until now, is that this also applies to fat middle aged guys in golf shirts.

NEW YORK (AP) - Dallas quarterbacks coach Wade Wilson was suspended for five games by the NFL on Saturday for buying and using performance-enhancing substances.

Why, you may ask, does a man whose primary function is to carry a clipboard and scream at rookies for three hours every Sunday need a performance enhancing substance? For the most nefarious of reasons of course. To save his life:

He said he took the drugs to try to ''improve the quality of my life'' after living with diabetes for more than 20 years. He acknowledged he acted without ''proper medical supervision.''

So while we ponder Coach Wilson's seeming inability or unwillingness to research that new fangled substance "insulin", we can only applaud the NFL for its blind adherence to dogma no matter the mitigating circumstances. If Tony Romo suddenly figures out how not to throw the ball at the guys in the other coloured jerseys, we'll know exactly who to blame. And the Emperor will be watching. Of that you can be certain.

Cowboys QB coach suspended for HGH [TSN.ca]

Update: According to Deadspin (and who am I to doubt Dear Leader Who Is A Living God), Coach Wilson's "quality of my life" quote, actually referred to "quality of my hard-on". So in addition to sharing svelte, Adonis-like figures, Coach Wilson and I receive the same emails. However, my original point still stands. Emperor, I beseech you; leave the man alone. If he ain't between the lines, he ain't a threat to your league. Otherwise you risk the Wrath Of Wife. You've been warned.