Five For Smiting

A Momentous Announcement Of Mind Numbing Proportions

2009-03-04T19:00:00.001-05:00

I've moved! Please adjust your fantasy blogger rosters accordingly. Hey, count yourself lucky I didn't ask to borrow your truck.

www.fiveforsmiting.com

I told you it would be magnificent.

It's So Obvious Now! Somebody Must Have Pictures

2009-03-02T19:40:00.004-05:00

Jason Spezza won't be going anywhere at Wednesday's trade deadline. Senators GM Bryan Murray said this morning he has heard all the rumours surrounding the Ottawa centre but hasn't had any calls regarding Spezza, who has a "no movement" clause that kicks in on July 1st. "Not one call about Jason so you can put that to bed," said Murray this morning. "I just want Jason to play well here."

Anyway, I'm still outraged.

Posting may be a little light this week (D-Day excluded...Bryan), so I'm apologizing in advance. You'll know why as soon as it happens. And it will be magnificent!

Leafs 4, Sens 3 (OT): I Am DONE With Jason Spezza

2009-02-28T21:34:00.005-05:00

Take him. I don't give a rat's ass what the hell you offer us, just take him. I have had it.

Eight years...EIGHT...since you were drafted. Fifth year in the Bigs. Eight million a year. And you're still an idiotic, uncoachable, infuriating waste of ice time I wouldn't trust to look after my dog. Ever wonder why your name never comes up when people talk about the leaders on this team? Watch this tape. Then watch a tape from your rookie year. You remember that one, right? That was the year you bitched and whined because Jacques Martin said you were a boy playing in a man's league. What do you see? That's right. You see the same mistakes over and over and over again. EIGHT GODDAMN YEARS!!

So which is it, Princess? Do you just not care? Or is it because you're about as smart as a bag of fucking rocks? Are you lazy, or are you stupid? My money is on both.

We lost, and it's your fault. We lost to THE FUCKING LEAFS!! And it's all on you. Thanks for that. Not content with taking two lazy ass hooking penalties, the last of which cost us the tying goal, you have to go an put one IN OUR OWN FUCKING NET!! The HELL?!? We don't have enough problems, you have to go and score on your own guys??

Fuck you, Jason. Eat it. Eat it, and get the hell out. Bryan, trade this piece of crap for everything you can get. Time to lance this fucking boil.

Sharks 2, Sens 1: I'm Shocked. Shocked I Tell You!

2009-02-27T19:26:00.003-05:00

Um...you didn't honestly think we would win, did you? Remember those halcyon days when the world was our oyster and the boys were ripping through the bottom feeders on the way to another Division/Conference/League regular season title? Remember how we would always seem to get the right bounce, the timely save or the big goal at exactly the right time, no matter how badly the team had played to that point? Welcome to the other shoe.

The Highs:

Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational...second line??? What?: Comrie, Fish, Shannon. It's enough to bring a tear to this cynical bastard's eye, especially this year. I can't remember the Sens ever having this much speed on one line, nor a smoother skater than Runaway Ryan. And neither can the Sharks. So I'm just going to come right out and say it. Please Mike, convince Hillary that Ottawa is Hollywood North (do you really think she'll notice?) and sign a long term deal here. We need you. Even if the flapping tie-down and the over sized helmet make you look like a Timbit.

We now reach out desperately for a stat that doesn't suck: A solid number fifteen on the Penalty Kill officially means that we aren't, at least in this category, in the bottom half of the League, right? Right. And if it weren't for The Captain's cold hands (they must be connected to his jaw somehow) and a Roto Ruutu post, we'd have had two shorties on top of that. Hey, you gotta take the gold where you can find it.

The Lows:

A lesson needs to be taught here: Hi Brian. I guess you probably figured I'd be talking to you, eh? Look, I'm not going to go all "newspaper sportswriter on deadline desperate for a hook" and blame it all on you. Not when you still have considerable moisture behind those mammoth ears of yours. But seriously, and this is something you'll learn...yes the original "hooking" call was crap. But Paul Devorski and Greg Kimmerly are two of the thinnest skinned, most inconsistent pieces of navel gazing fluff ever to don the zebra stripes (Trust me, I watched Kim come up through junior...I know). You are a rookie. Unless you have a letter on the front of your sweater, or another ten years under your belt...ZIP IT!! And put on some weight, will ya??

A special message to Filip Kuba: Are you still here? Go away.

The Creamy Middle:

With less than a minute left in the game, Beloved wandered into the Man Room to freshen up my drink (yet another reason she's the best that ever was) and asked "Are we winning?" "Nope", I answered. "Are we getting bitch slapped like you said we would this morning?", she asked again. "Actually...no. It hasn't been too bad", I said. "Well, that's something then" came the reply, and she left the room. In other words, Sens fans, it's all about the perspective. Thanks Beautiful.

Up Next:

Marvelous. Hey, look! It's the Laughs! Tomorrow night at The Bank. You may not have noticed but they are now a full five points ahead of us in the Division. Sucking the teats off a goat for a season...I can handle. Not making the playoffs for the first (and ONLY) time in twelve years...I can handle...ish. Finishing behind Burke's Army of The Insufferably Obnoxious Undead?? Unacceptable. (7:00pm, Cee-Bee-Cee)

Behind Enemy Lines:

Down Goes Brown. If he wasn't a Leaf fan, I'd totally let him date my daughter...if I had one. No, really, he's that good. The originator of one of the pee-your-pants-funniest Twitter parodies you'll ever read. Spark plug behind the rejuvenation of one of the best interweb feuds of all time. Ultimate exposer of Eklund as the absolute joke and total embarrassment to hockey that he really is (see "End Notes"). Not bad for a week's work.

Sens 4, Canes 2: Please Insert Demonic Laughter Here

2009-02-25T19:48:00.006-05:00

It has come to this, friends. With no hope of our own salvation, we have little choice but to content ourselves in the hollow pleasures inherent in dragging our betters into the morass of irrelevance and futility in which we've wallowed since...well...forever, inflicting as much shame and self-loathing as we can along the way. Yes, that's right. The Ottawa Senators are the Catholic Church of the NHL. I for one, say...BRING IT ALTAR BOY!! Oooh! April 6th. Habs. That could be fun.

The Highs:

We've switched his regular goaltender with Dominic Hasek. Let's see if he notices: Forty-three shots. Spectacular performance Alex. I have absolutely zero faith in your ability to replicate it, but bravo nonetheless. It was so good in fact, that I won't even mention that if not for your channelling the forsaken spirit of Swiss Pastry (remember him?) on the Eaves goal and yet one more Filip Fuck-up (the alliteration pleases me) on the second, you would have had the shut-out. Oh wait. I just did mention it, didn't I? Sorry. My bad.

I had no idea you felt that way about us: Antoine, if your goal last night was to put on a rockin' audition for the panting ~~meat inspectors~~ scouts in attendance (who are no doubt pawing through your underwear drawer as we speak) in the hopes of getting traded off this shit hole, consider it met. Two assists, a short handed break, sprawling to block shots, a missed-by-the-width-of-a-pop-princess-pube almost tip in... Truly, a thing of beauty. But just out of curiosity, where was that five months ago?

Speaking of Hillary Duff: Welcome back Mister Comrie! And a hearty welcome to that wily and elusive concept known as "secondary scoring". I think we can all agree to simply forget your brief exile to the decrepit ruin that is Wang Island and pretend you never left. Of course, if that were true, we wouldn't be where we are...but no matter, to more important issues! So...um...when is Hil coming to a game? And has she ever met Carrie? What?? Just askin'...

The Lows:

Oh, Captain, My Captain!: Um...Alfie? You do realize that when I call you Superman, I'm speaking allegorically, right? Five days after knee surgery, you're back. Three days after suffering a fractured jaw...you're back. Please...and I mean this in the kindest possible way...please go away. Go away to heal. You haven't had a real "Alfie" game in weeks. Your speed through the neutral zone is, to put it mildly, pedestrian. Rather than dart in off the half-boards as usual, you dump it into the corner because you can't make the cut to the middle. I saw you bail on a play twice last night, rather than take a chance on a hit further busting the jaw. And I understand completely. So take some time off. It's not like we're going to need you for a playoff run. And I'd hate to see your number go to the rafters five years before it should because you blew yourself up for a worthless season.

The Meszaros trade is now officially a draw: Hello, Filip. Rumour has it you LOVE IT in Ottawa. Rumour has it you would like nothing more than to sign a deal here and be as snug as a pair of fluffy bunny slippers. Gosh. That's nice. Oh...but rumour also has it that you're refusing to waive your NMC in a misguided attempt to make that happen. Okay then...here's the deal. Stop taking dumb-ass penalties because you're constantly caught out of position. Stop costing us goals because you always take the wrong guy on an odd man rush or fall for the cross over at the blue line. Stop getting muscled off the puck like a twelve year old girl along the boards or by an opposing forechecker. Stop playing like a stereotypical soft fucking Euro. Stop doing that, and you can stay. Don't stop doing that, and I will make it my mission in life to run you out of town on a rail.

Pithy Observations of Questionable Importance*:

If, like me, you never thought they could top "Nice try, Nogoalov!", I defy you not to shout out "From Russia with GLOVE SIDE!!" at your next meeting. But first a word of caution...it may not be as well received as you'd think. Trust me.

*I am not a corporate whore! Well, other than for monster corporations who put out funny commercials.

Up Next:

Oh sweet Jeebus. San Jose, tomorrow night, at The Bank. A local Ottawa radio station has been pimping this game with the tag line "Come see your Senators take a bite out of the Sharks!". Somebody should tell them that "taking a bite" out of a shark will only make it very, very angry. We're gonna need a bigger boat (7:30pm, SportsNet East with the local coverage).

Behind Enemy Lines:

Fear The Fin. Yep. That about covers it.

Just Throwin' It Out There...

2009-02-23T19:44:00.001-05:00

First, a disclaimer: I'm just a fan, nothing more, nothing less. Unlike some fan sites (who shall now and forever remain nameless...and un-linked, at least in my sandbox) devoted to this team, I have never claimed, alluded, pretended or otherwise implied to be some kind of deep cover insider "plugged in" to the Sens front office through some nebulous "source" in order to give whatever crazy idea I happened to pull out of my ass that morning a false veneer of legitimacy.

With that out of the way, here is the crazy idea I totally pulled out of my ass this morning: Jason Spezza is as good as gone.

With no hope of doing anything this year, why bring in Comrie, who is unrestricted in July if not to re-sign him? Mike has said he wants to stay. The Bryan has said he wants to keep him. That will run $4 to $4.5 million a year. And where, pray, will that cap space come from? Just getting Pastry off the books (finally!!) ain't gonna do it. I'll give you a hint...or more to the point...eight million of them.

As much as everyone holds up Verms and Neiler as our prime trade bait, I submit to you we are in possession of a far shinier bauble...one who will certainly bring a prospect or three along with a much improved first rounder over the 28th to 30th pick the Isles will now enjoy. One whose no-trade clause doesn't kick in until July. One who, after watching him loaf his leisurely ass around the ice yet one more time Saturday afternoon, I can say in all honesty has worn out even my considerable patience with incredibly gifted yet infuriatingly incorrigible giveaway machines.

Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves. But as you do, consider this: Chances are #89 won't demand a bonus if he's forced to break a sweat.

Habs 5, Sens 3: I See Your Clouston Effect, And Raise You The Suck

2009-02-21T17:40:00.004-05:00

Let this be a lesson to you. No one man can possibly stand against a tide of 23 lazy, no skating, no hitting, USELESS bags of dicks determined to incite me to violence.

Hey! Who's up for a bag skate?!?!

Screw Family Day. Welcome To The Real February Holiday

2009-02-21T13:59:00.007-05:00

The errands are done, the groceries unpacked, and the housework...um...ignored. The fridge has been stocked full of Mr. Labatt's finest, the big screen is warmed up and the Hi Def is Hi Deffing.

Gird your loins, children, for twelve hours of wall-to-wall Ron MacLean, those damn Timbit commercials that choke me up every time and an all-Canadian triple header.

Habs/Sens drops in about 45 minutes. Stop by and say Hi to those fine lawerly gentlemen at Four Habs Fans, won't you? Then take a quick tour through Dennis Kane's Excellent Montreal Canadiens Blog. Hubris? Maybe, but the title doth speak the truth. In either case, if a large man wearing a silk suit, gold chains and a pinkie ring starts following you around, don't worry about it. He's just looking for the Kostitsyn brothers.

Then the travelling circus that is the Toronto Maple leafs welcomes their former ring master, now overpaid Canucklehead back to the ACC with, I'm sure, all of the well-bred, rational decorum for which Leafs Nation is so renowned.

After that, wrap it up with the Battle of Alberta, brought to you by...The Battle of Alberta. Take heart, Sens fans! While their Bud Selig-ified standings have the Sens 17 games back of the Eastern Conference lead, they are but a scant 5 1/2 games from a playoff spot. Hell, the Mets choke up a lead that size before breakfast.

Finally, what better way to end a day like this, this most perfect of days, but to tuck your tired and beer bloated body into a comfy bed and dream of nothing but Fish, Comrie and who would prevail in a Hillary Duff/Carrie Underwood foxy boxing match. In Mazola oil. Naked.

Buckle up, my pretties. It's Hockey Day In Canada!

Sens 2, Preds 0: I Wish To Register A Complaint!

2009-02-17T20:35:00.000-05:00

Excuse me, miss?? Not sure if you're aware of this, but you have been declared dead. Ya hear me? DEAD! Dead and buried! Passed on! This team is no more! You have ceased to be! You've expired and gone to meet The Bryan! This is a late hockey club! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If we hadn't nailed you to the ice, you would be pushing up the daisies! Your metabolic processes are of interest only to historians! You've hopped the twig! You've shuffled off this mortal coil! You've run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible! This.... is an EX-PLAYOFF TEAM! And now...NOW...you run off five in a row?!?! Bloody hell.

The Highs:

No no, h-he's not dead, he's, he's restin'!: You finally got your shut out, Alex! Bravo! And for your just reward, you get the start tonight in Denver. I'm happy for you, really. But...um...you know how you tend to be a little...how to put this gently..."streaky"? A tad inconsistent? Yeah, sure you do. So, with that in mind...any chance you can give us a heads up before your next trip to the Suck Barn? Could ya? That would be great.

Remarkable bird, the Canadian Fisher, isn't it, eh? Beautiful plumage!: Fantastic game, Mike. No goals (natch), but your sweet pass to Furbligno (tm TUC), and the stupid speed that generated the (missed...natch) breakaway, coupled with your usual tentiness (tm...ME) inducing crash and bang more than made up for it. Pity you didn't have anyone special with whom to share it, eh? What? Why is everybody looking at me??

The Lows:

Well, he's... he's, ah... probably pining for the fjords!: Sorry Alfie, but nobody gets a free pass around these here parts, no matter how close he may be to a Living God. When you look out onto the ice and see SheanDon skating on a line with Heater and Giggles, you know you're having a bad night. And you were.

And now for something completely...the same: Note to the starched shirts at TSN: Please have P-Mag tested for a bi-polar disorder. Last week, the only thing that kept him from burying the Sens completely was his preoccupation with the genitalia of a certain Boston Bruin defenceman. Last night, we were the greatest thing ever to don the blades. Either he's very, very ill, or a complete fucking idiot. Your call. Oh...and one more thing. The next time Torts holds himself up as a paragon of communication and people management should be taken as a sign of the impending Apocalypse. Feast on the goo inside each other's skulls accordingly.

The Creamy Middle:

Okay, now your just being a bunch of cock teases. I'll let you in on a little secret. A buddy of mine (FFS-lurker-under-suitably-obscure-user-name and fellow cube dweller) came to me today to expound on his theory that you will in fact make the playoffs. When I opined that that was rather unlikely considering the (now) 22-5 streak it would take to get you there, he ponied up a crisp green Queen to prove me wrong (for the benefit of any American readers, that's a twenty dollar bill and not a seasick Ryan Seacrest...just so we're clear). I took the bet.

Pithy Observation Of Questionable Importance:

OMG!! hes cute! U thnk so 2?? Hes SO cute! ONO!! BRB!!1

LOL!!! 2 close!! C U aftr! KTHXBY!!

Up Next:

Puck drop in Denver in about twenty-five minutes. Not sure if Darcy Fucking Tucker will be playing as he took last night off for "personal reasons". I actually hope he does. It'll be nice to see Fish smash that shit eating mug against a stanchion once and for all. Just for old time sake, you understand (9:00pm, SportNet East).

Enjoy the STREAK everybody!

Sens At Preds Live Blog! Your Family Day Refuge!

2009-02-16T12:48:00.003-05:00

Once again, the estimable DHS has taken it upon himself to set up this evening's festivities on behalf of the OBC, who, by-the-by are a perfect 5-0 in the competiton for the coveted Watch Hockey And Type Witty Things Into A Computer For The Amusement Of Total Strangers Award (second in prestige only to The Nobel, as is my understanding). Combine that with the team's current four (FOUR!!) game winning streak, and we may well rip an ass-whuppin' hole in the fabric of space time.

So throw on a fresh wife-beater tee, break out the six packs, polish the gun rack and gas up the pickup, we're doin' hockey Nashville style!! Y'all come join us, y'hear?

Senators @ Predators Feb 16

I Will Have No Further Truck With This Foolishness

2009-02-16T10:53:00.009-05:00

First, allow me to apologize for my absence. I realize my promise to "see you tomorrow" was made four days ago, but as that great sage and eminent junkie, John Lennon once crooned, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans". That, and it would seem my muse had decided she needed the weekend off and took all of my pretty words with her, leaving me to gawp at a blinking cursor for hours on end.

But as I stared, slack-jawed at a blank screen, I began to notice something alarming going on at the fringes of our four (FOUR!!) game win streak. The "P" word is starting to creep into the conversation. No, not "Presbyterian" (I know!! I was as surprised as you!), but that other silly religion devoted to unattainable goals meted out by the unseen hand of an all knowing force...the "Playoffs".

Please, everyone, I beg of you. For the sake of the children, let us have no more of this crazy talk.

As pleasantly surprising as the Clouston Effect has been, the stark numbers presented in the raw mathematics (or as the Presbytes call it, "witchcraft") tell us that the Ottawa Senators making the playoffs this season is as likely as my recurring fantasy involving Nicole Kidman and Charlize Theron ever coming to pass (seriously, the schoolgirl outfits are one thing, but can you even get fresh flounder anymore??).

For sake of argument, let's say 96 points is the plateau a team will need to reach for the privilege of being prison raped by Boston in the first round. The Sens currently stand at 50 after 54 games. So, in order to reach that magic number they would have to go 23-5 over the last 28 games AND hope no less than three of either Florida, Buffalo, Carolina, and Pittsburgh fall off a cliff (I'm sorry? The Toronto what? Never heard of 'em). To put that into some kind of perspective, the San Jose Sharks started the season 23-3-2. Not sure if you've noticed, but we're not the San Jose Sharks.

So let's just relax, kids. Accept the fact that there will be no spring hockey in Hockey Country for the first time in eleven years. Content yourselves with the inevitable tenth place finish and the middling non Taveres, non lottery pick that comes with it. No really, try it. It's very liberating.

But above all, just celebrate the fact that, thanks to our Cloustonian Overlord, this team is at least fun to watch again. I know I am.

Sens 5, Flyers 2: War, Famine, Pestilence And A Three Game Win Streak Walk Into A Bar...

2009-02-12T21:23:00.003-05:00

I don't know if I should be elated...or very, very afraid.

See you tomorrow.

Sens 3, Slugs 1: Kerry Fraser Can Suck It

2009-02-11T22:13:00.002-05:00

Thirteen Buffalo power plays. Roughly five of which were deserved. Until tonight, I had no idea a triple minor was even possible.

So what does that tell us? First: Since they made him put on a helmet, Kerry Fraser has decided to use his whistle to maintain his centre-of-the-universe status. Second? Next time Gator should just say "Fuck it" and break Koleta in half.

No time for a full recap as we're right back at it tomorrow night against the Flyers and I really have to go to bed. After all, this is a school night and Her Majesty demands my full attention come morning. Look for a special, combined Creamy Middle on Friday, chalk full of ranty goodness.

In the meantime Sens fans, just for fun, look back on the last four games and ask yourselves "What if?"

Jason Spezza Wishes To Order Your Special Dialing Wand

2009-02-11T17:28:00.007-05:00

As if we needed one, today's Ottawa Citizen offers us yet one more reason why the Senators are trolling the depths of the standings rather than administering righteous bitch slaps as is their birthright. It would seem the boys have been bacon-ing up the butter, and for quite some time at that.

After five months of skating, from the first days of training camp in September to game No. 52 of their National Hockey League season tonight against the Buffalo Sabres, it's almost unbelievable to think the Ottawa Senators could be out of shape. That, however, is exactly what has become apparent. Their conditioning has been allowed to slip.

Now I'm the last guy anyone should come to for anything to do with physical fitness (my last blood test came back with the note "57% lard -- By rights, should have been dead last Thursday") but it would seem to me that if I were...say...the coach of a professional hockey team, I would ensure that my players remain at the peak of their conditioning throughout the season, if only to save my own job (and before the bleating Mimis chime in about how multi-million dollar athletes should know better consider this...you can do all the weights/cross training/cardio you want during the offseason, the rigours of an NHL schedule won't allow you to maintain it).

Remember how the media howled "Coach KILLERS!" after Coach Craig was canned? Sure you do. Remember all of those pretty words from both Hartsburg and Teflon John about how they didn't understand how the team just "couldn't compete" every night? Sure you do. And remember the last time you heard about the coach putting them through a Jacques Martin-esque bag skate following yet another crappy performance? Sure you...oh wait. I can't remember that at all.

Still, Clouston was surprised to find NHLers struggling to maintain the quick practice pace he favoured...[He] said it's simple: Teams play the way they practise. The Senators haven't played hard enough, despite daily exhortations from Hartsburg, and it's reflected in their record.
"You can't expect them to do it in a game if you don't do it in a practice," Clouston said. "That confidence and foundation is created in practise. Obviously your goal is to translate that into a game situation."

You know, the more this Clouston fellow speaks, the more I seem to like him. Suck it up, Butterguts.

Time to Shape Up, Senators [Ottawa Citizen]

Yet Another TSN Premature Ejaculation: The Cloustonian Conundrum -- Whither "Interim"?

2009-02-08T16:23:00.008-05:00

My Sunday morning routine hardly ever varies (and I very much like it that way, thank you Mother).

Up at seven (ish), shower, a pot of coffee, a thorough cover-to-cover read of the Sunday Citizen, including the completion of the Sunday crossword (the only one of the week worth doing...the weekday versions are obviously geared toward small children, the intellectually challenged and Jack Layton) followed by the destruction of a ridiculously unhealthy breakfast of bacon (about a dozen slices), eggs (three, scrambled and cooked with shredded cheese), hashbrowns (also with shredded cheese), english muffins swimming in real butter and orange juice, all lovingly prepared by Beloved, who swears she has no interest in my life insurance policies.

And I watch Dave Hodge and His Bloviating Quartet at 10:30, also known as TSN's The Reporters.

Dave Hodge, he of the sanctimonious drivel, asked a question this morning that struck me as rather premature and not a little unfair. To wit: If Bryan Murray gets fired before the end of the year, or even in the off-season, does Clouston keep the job?

The panel, composed of the usual suspects was divided. What follows is the exchange as I remember it:

Damian Cox: "Sure, why not? They're playing way better than at any point this season, so give the guy a chance."

Michael Farber: "No way. A new GM is going to want his own coach."

Steve Simmons: "I bent my wookie!"

Putting aside for the moment that it was an act of purest stupidity to have even posed the question in the first place, coming as it does three freaking games into Clouston's NHL career (gee, Mike, did you hurt yourself jerking your knee that quickly?), I say "HELLS yes he does!"

You may not have noticed, gentlemen, but he seems to have found the "ON" switch. Sure, the Sens have two losses and a shootout win (in which they blew a two goal lead) to show over his three games, but anyone who has had the great misfortune to watch almost every game of this miserable season *ahem* can and will tell you those last three games are the best we've seen in over a year. That has to mean something. When one of the team's veterans tells a reporter that Clouston's practices are light years faster than any under Paddock or Hartsburg, that has to mean something. The fact that we seem to have regained a bit of our former swagger, however faint, after beating Buffalo and taking a point off the best team in the East after trailing by two, has to mean something.

In May 2002, Bryan Murray, then GM of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks promoted a young head coach out of the AHL nobody outside of The Bryan's inner sanctum had ever considered as NHL Head Coaching material. A year later, the Ducks came out of nowhere before losing the Cup Final in seven to New Jersey. That guy's name? Mike Babcock. And that has to mean something.

Don't get me wrong. I'm perfectly aware that this may just be a case of a team trying desperately to avoid the label of "coach killers" and would practice and play harder for anybody, maybe even this guy. But my point is, how do we know? How do you know?

Even if The Bryan gets canned before the end of the season (and here's saying he won't), why not let Coach Cory ride out the rest of the season. It's not like we're going anywhere. And come April or May, the GM, be it The Bryan or *cough*patquinn*cough* whoever, can sit down with the team and figure out if Clouston is the real deal. But to dismiss his chances after only three games?

C'mon, Dave. That's just stupid.

Sens 3, Slugs 2 (SO): From The Top Everybody!

2009-02-08T13:41:00.005-05:00

Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So lets sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again

Altogether shout it now
There's no one
Who can doubt it now
So lets tell the world about it now
Happy days are here again

The Highs:

Time to give the Grasshopper some love! Or at least a better nickname: We've had The Sieve (Lalime), The Dominator, Rayzor, Darth Gerber/Swiss Pastry. Now, after committing grand larceny on a suddenly-all-alone Dan Ellis in the opening minutes and standing on his head in the shootout, Brian Elliot needs a nickname befitting of his status as "Saviour from The Suck". Thankfully for us, neither his first nor last name lends well to just tacking on a "y" and calling it a day. Although..."I'm feeling very Elliot-y. In the pants." Yeah, that could work.

Haven't you heard? It's the new black: One of the more heartening things to come about as a result of The Bryan's bloodless purge, is the new regime's insistence that its a hell of a lot easier putting a three inch wide rubber disk into a twenty-four square foot space if said disk is somewhere within the vicinity of said space. The boys fired forty-two (42!) shots on goal last night, from everywhere and anywhere. They're not booing...they're saying SHOOOOOT!!

We now pause for a special tribute to Jarkko's face: Gotta hand it to you Roto, you certainly took...um...several for the team. If it weren't for your ability to slam your mouth into various bits of Adam Mair's equipment (stick, glove), Little Nicky never would have had an opportunity to open the scoring on the powerplay. And leaving the blood from the previous (uncalled) high-stick in hopes of convincing the referee that it should have been a double minor? Why, that's just gold. By the way, did Adam want to talk to you in hallway again? Just wondering.

The Low:

They're thawing Andrew Peters out as we speak: Tough break for Neiler. A nothing hit at the second period buzzer, quite possibly the softest he has ever thrown in a Senators uniform, results in a yelp, much grimacing and a painful hop, skip and a limp into the dressing room. Although everyone who saw it knows it's the same knee that caused him to miss six games earlier this year, thanks to the league's charmingly opaque injury reports, we are told he is suffering from a "lower body injury". Just once I'd love to see an honest report: "Tucker, Darcy -- Syphilis/Gangrene. Status: Karmic". Now that's not too much to ask, is it?

Pithy Observation of Questionable Importance:

In the pre-game intros, Eliot Friedman gave a shout-out to Greg "the excellent Puck Daddy" Wyshynski for this piece on Chris Pronger's possible new destinations, come the Deadline (Boston? Really? God help us). Why do I bring this up? Well, let's play Six Degrees for a moment, shall we?

A few days after I wrote this, Greg was kind enough to roll it into his Deadspin NHL Closer (he also has a comment somewhere on this site, but I'll be damned if I can find it). Greg gets the love from Eliot Friedman. Eliot Friedman works for the CBC. The CBC once employed a fine play-by-play man in the form of Chris Cuthbert. Chris Cuthbert's daughter is a celebrity hockey fan of some repute. So you obviously know what this means. Restraining orders be damned; I am this close to engaging in sexual congress with Elisha Cuthbert.

The Creamy Middle:

We finally won in a shootout! That's good! We blew a two goal lead. That's bad. The new coach seems to have lit a fire under the complacent asses of most of the team! That's good! There seems to be one notable exception and he wears #19. That's bad. We're starting to hit again! That's good! We lost our best hitter and only bona fide fighter. That's bad. We don't know if he'll be in the line up for Roto's first game in Buffalo since...the incident. If you're Roto, that's really, really bad. And the boys are finally starting to play the way we've always wanted them to and have always known they could, but either refused or were too uptight/confused/lazy to do so under Coach Craig. That's good! There's still no chance in hell we're making the playoffs. That's...Meh.

Up Next:

As mentioned, Wednesday night in that monument to what the Artsy Classes refer to as "Post Industrial Armageddon", Buffalo. And the boys had better buckle up. As we're enjoying Roto's first game in The Queen City since the Nibble in New York, remember the maxim "Ruff at home, Lindy on the road." Last night was the "Lindy" part. We're about to get a front row seat for the other one.

Behind Enemy Lines:

We're going back to the well on this, and reacquainting you with Sabre Kallisions. Why? Not only is Dani one of the funniest and well written young ladies on these here tubes but also because she's too nice to gloat too much after Peters pounds Roto into a puddle of ground Finn, come Wednesday night. That's why.

Update: It would appear that Neiler's injury was a bit more serious than "just the knee" as a lacerated right calf will keep him out indefinitely. So...yeah. You're on your own Roto. Good luck with that.

Glove tap to The 6th Sens for raising the question: Is this the last of Neiler?

Bruins 4, Sens 3 (SO): It's ALIVE!!

2009-02-06T19:25:00.007-05:00

So! I am ready for you meine liebe. Are you ready for me? Ready for Fuchsmachen?? Oooh, I love it when you're excited! Come then, my little Apfelstrudel! Come into my arms and let me hold you!

The Highs:

Oh Nicky, you so fine, you so fine you blow my mind. Hey NICKY!: At the risk of furthering an already alarmingly homoerotic theme (not that there's anything wrong with that), there may yet be hope for that dark time which will henceforth be known as A.A. No...not that one. After Alfie. One highlight reel goal, one ridiculous pass for the assist on Giggles' short lived go-ahead...Yep. I'd hit that. Wait, what?

My little runaway, run, run, run, run, runaway: Ryan, dude. Holy crap, I had no idea you had the wheels. Any chance you can get Fish to chase you around the rink a few times? He's been a little sluggish of late (personally, I blame Carrie), and I'm told he doesn't respond unless he has some serious competition. You know, like Seabiscuit.

Sweep the leg!: Brian Grasshopper, you grow stronger with each passing sun. Man who catch Phil Kessel wrist shot out of thin air, accomplish anything. Listen not to those who would doubt. No, really. Don't . Please? You're all we have.

The Lows:

You do realize, we could have taken Marc Staal, right?: Not your best game, was it Master Lee? But, I have to say that I'm happy you're getting your sophomore jinx out of the way during this, the most wasted of seasons. I look forward to seeing you come back to camp next year with roughly fifty pounds extra muscle on that skinny frame of yours. And the ability to complete a forward pass. That would be cool too.

You are dangerously close to being dead to me: In a game where everybody else finally got the message and flew around the ice, you were...you. I'm done defending you, Jason. Your goal was a gift from heaven, and entirely undeserved. Not sure you've noticed, but the Deadline fast approacheth. But deep down, you probably know that, don't you?

You can't spell "Fellatio" without "Pierre McGuire": Note to comedy club owners everywhere, your newest ventriloquist sensation is here! Not only can P-Mag (tm DHS) tell you that the Ottawa Senators Hockey Club has done everything the wrong way since expansion, but he can do it with Zdeno Chara's dick in his mouth! Reserve now! Seating is limited.

Creamy Middle:

A little tidbit relayed by the TSN crew during a stop in play caught my attention (no, really!). Apparently, the Floating Giggle Meister himself opined that the practices run by Coach Cory were light years quicker than those Coach Craig imposed on our little wall flowers. "Game speed", was the term used. If the resulting effort we saw last night is anything to go by, then maybe we (and by "we" I mean "I") may have given Coach Craig a little too much slack. Maybe that was it all along. Not that we'd have been a serious contender by any means, but...I'll leave you to ponder that as we cast a disinterested eye on the playoffs come April.

Pithy Observation of Questionable Importance:

Early in the first, Coach Cory glared at referee Dan Marouelli, after a typical Dan Marouelli fuck up, and I thought to myself, "By God, I've seen that face before! But where?" Then it hit me. This:

Led me to this:

Which led me to this:

Which means...Welcome to Ottawa, Coach Chucky.

Up Next:

The suddenly, and alarmingly resurgent Buffalo Sabres come a courtin' tomorrow night, the first of a home-and-home, and the last home game before we bury our playoff chances for good with five straight on the road. I hope, for the sake of the Buffaslugs, that they've studied last night's game tape. God willing, this ain't Hartsburg's Senators. (7:00pm, CBC)

Behind Enemy Lines:

Welcome D.O. and SBNation's Die By The Blade. Once a humble Blogspotter, just like myself, he's gone on to bigger and better things and we congratulate him. Let this be a lesson to all interweb scribblers everywhere...Who knows what circumstances await any of us in this murky future of craziness?

Kings 1, Sens 0: Welcome To The Suck

2009-02-04T19:31:00.005-05:00

So how's that "interim" thing working out for you so far, Cory? After watching this, are you gettin' that lovin' feelin'? Future so bright, ya gotta wear shades? Gettin' jiggy wit it? Other assorted, cliched pop references denoting "happy" but which are really just code for the bitter taste of regret? No? Huh. If it's any consolation, your new charges played the best game I've seen out of them in weeks, so there's that. Wait. That's not much of a consolation at all.

The Highs:

Oh sure. NOW he gets emotional: Coach Craig may have been many things, but never let it be said that classy wasn't one of them. Finally free of The Emperor's Message Monkeys, does he avail himself of one last opportunity to hang The Bryan in front of the national media for handing him a sac of crap and expecting gold? Does he rail against the collection of pudding pops he was asked to mould into a pro hockey team? Does he rage against the dying of the light? No, he does not. Not sure I could have done the same.

Dost mine eyes deceive me?: Because I couldn't remember having seen it before, I had to check the rule book to make sure it was legal. Yep, there it is, Rule 67.1: A player is allowed the ice he is standing on (body position) and is not required to move in order to let an opponent proceed. A player may "block" the path of an opponent provided he is in front of his opponent and moving in the same direction. Also known as a "Body Check". And it's perfectly acceptable. Who knew?

The Lows:

Someone didn't get the memo: Jeez, Giggles. I really do hate to keep calling you out, but really, you aren't giving me a lot of choice here. If it wasn't for your usual one-on-four dipsy-doodles (with the usual results) or the fact that I may have heard Dean Brown say your name without an accompanying "fans on the pass/shot/clear/actual skating" all of twice (maybe), you and I would get along just fine. And a wee bit of advice. When speaking to the press, referring to your brand new, fresh-out-of-the-box Head Coach by his first name doesn't exactly convey an appropriate level of respect for said coach, nor does it signal an appreciation of how deep the shit hole this team has become really is. Just sayin'.

I've always wondered what the bastard love child of Kafka and Midas would look like: He'd still have the magic hands, but instead of gold, everything he touched would turn into a molten pile of donkey dung. Two breakaways...one weak shot and one palsy stricken dribbler into the corner. Heater (HEATER!) all alone four feet from the net...off the post. Eleventeen billion shots, from anywhere and everywhere...twelve feet wide or right into that big purple crown on Quick's chest. But don't worry boys, a little CLR and a brillo pad and that rust will come right off. I hope.

You only get one chance to make a first impression...Jarkko: So...yeah. Any plans on showing up and letting your new Cloustonian Overlord know he has a first class shit disturber at his disposal should he decide to use one? Hmmm? Any plans? Any at all? Is this thing on?

Creamy Middle:

Naturally, because of the New Guy, I expected a big jump in enthusiasm and level of play, and by and large, that's what I got. The boys came out hard, played hard (mostly), took a ton of shots, actually hit a few guys in different coloured jerseys...all of the things that makes my pants happy. Of course, the fact that none of it made a damn bit of difference leaves me saddened to the depths of my soul. Bring on the lottery!!

Pithy Observation of Questionable Importance:

Yogi Berra is alive and well and living in Nepean: Gary Galley, former NHL defenceman/galumphing glacier and current Dean Brown analyst-y sidekick on both SportsNet and HNIC, uttered the following in reference to Kings rookie (and former Canadian World Junior erection inducer) Drew Doughty: "He's unpredictable, but he's consistent." Next, he'll be telling us that ninety percent of this game is half mental.

Up Next:

The imminent curbstomp at the hands of Big Zed and the Big Bad Broons marks the first of three straight Division games. That should be fun, in a repeatedly-slam-your-skull-on-a-cinder-block kind of way. On the upside, we're that much closer to the 11th of April. Why is that significant? Look it up. (7:00pm, TSN)

Behind Enemy Lines:

Say hello to Caveman Strong. Choice quote: "Randy Jones can lick my balls and if i ever see the fucker, I'm pulling a Marty McSorley on his ankle-bending ass." Now that's my kind of analysis.

Enjoy (HAR!) the game, everybody.

Kings 1, Sens 0: Um...Yeah. About All That Stuff I Said

2009-02-03T22:05:00.002-05:00

See, here's the thing. I forgot the wee fact that we have no talent.

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

See you tomorrow.

And If I'm Wrong, May We All Be Horribly Crushed From Above Somehow

2009-02-03T18:55:00.005-05:00

From my keyboard to God's ear...we will win tonight. You have already born witness to my prodigious prognostigatory powers, so doubt me at your peril.

Not only will we win, but we will crush the Kings. The Captain will consume them with lightning bolts from his eyes and fire from his arse. Or is it the other way around? Not sure, haven't seen the movie in a while.

The rest of the boys will come out like someone crammed their colons full of rocket fuel. Los Angeles may not survive the experience. Not just the team. The entire city.

A new coach will do that for ya. After that? We will return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Oh, and one last thing...the next headline writer to make pithy and oh-so-clever Apollo XIII references by rhyming "Clouston" with "Houston" gets my laptop jammed up the urethra.

Puck drop at 7:30, SportsNet East for your viewing pleasure. Be there.

The Bryan Takes Arms Against a Sea of Troubles, And By Opposing...Doesn't Accomplish Much, Frankly

2009-02-02T19:23:00.007-05:00

Well played, gentlemen. Yet another coach granted the sweet embrace of death, all because you can't or more aptly, won't look in a fucking mirror. Well played indeed.

Thirteen months this has been going on. Thirteen months of the same crap play, the same crap excuses, the same crap soundbites of "trying harder" and "have to play together" and "just have to keep it simple". Thirteen months of bad passes, dumbass decisions, lazy skating, no hitting, non existent forecheck, execrable backchecking...Thirteen months of SHIT!

In hindsight, I'll admit I was rather unseemly in my glee after you managed to get Teflon gassed last season. But it's obvious now it was only because I didn't know any better.

So you tell me, boys. How is this time going to be any different? How is this hard nosed, no-nonsense, "by all that is holy I can change them!" coach going to be any different than the last two hard nosed, no-nonsense, "by all that is holy I can change them!" coaches?

Will it make you, Giggles, actually go digging for a puck along the boards instead of flailing at it with your stick from five feet away, reaching so far that you're bent in half with your ass sticking almost straight up? Will it keep you from being the first guy to the bench while the other team comes screaming into our zone on an odd man rush so you don't get dinged with the minus?

What about you Alfie? God knows I love you, but will a new coach finally make you grab K-Rock or Verms or 6' 3", 230lb Schubie Doo around the neck for bailing on a play to avoid taking the hit and tell them to CUT. THE. SHIT?!?!

How about you, Fish? Think a new coach will inspire you to rediscover the net crashing, forechecking terror of hapless defencemen you were before you stuck your little-bit-rock-and-roll into her little-bit-country?

Oh, and Neiler, for your sake, I hope a new coach will remind you of the differences between playing like prick instead of just flapping your gums about doing it while hiding behind a linesman. In case you hadn't noticed, you're all we have left.

As for the D...every single putrid, rancid, decrepit one of you...Please, I beg. Pray tell, what will a new coach do for you? Will he teach you how to successfully complete a four foot pass? Will he teach you not to force your partner into a cross-ice breakout because you were too stupid to come back to support? Will he teach you how not to get flat footed at the opposite blueline? And most of all, will he show you how to properly clear a crease by putting an opposing forward on his ass instead of giving him prissy little shoves while you try and hook his stick?

And now, here we are. Again. We have "Interim" Head Coach Cory Clouston, fresh off the farm, nary an NHL game on his resume. Oh joy.

That said, it is truly my fondest wish that "interim" is code for "bag skate your worthless asses into the ice until your kids puke". But if, on the off chance it doesn't, there are other options available. That noise you hear in the distance, however faint, is The Pat Quinn Party Bus warming up, and it may just be heading this way. God knows, I'll do everything in my power to flag it down.

So go ahead, gentlemen. Tell me how this time will be different. Better yet, show me. Because if you don't, if you keep on keepin' on (again) sooner or later The Emperor will bring in somebody who will insist on it. But I don't think you'll like it. And this time, it won't be the coach that takes the fall.

Jackets 1, Sens 0: It Is Becoming Increasingly Difficult To Have Faith In This Hartsburg Fellow

2009-01-31T14:54:00.003-05:00

There's a scene in just about every sappy, inspirational, "Young Billy Bob overcomes his humble beginnings/debilitating mommy issues/history of inappropriate touching to become The Hero" sports movie where the coach tries to inspire his underachieving team by flying into a rage and getting himself kicked out of a game. Or maybe that was just Hoosiers.

In any case, as I watched, it struck me that this game would have been the perfect opportunity for Coach Craig to do just that. Consider: The boys were playing the second of back-to-back road games. We suck on the road. The game was in yet another non-hockey-market rink where the twin concepts of "energy" and "crowds" go to die. We really suck on the road. They didn't get into Columbus until two in the morning. Oh, and we really, really suck on the road. In other words, the three hours of crap we witnessed last night was damn near inevitable.

So did Coach seize the opportunity to fly into an inspirational, spittle doused rage when Gator was hit from behind by Derek Dorsett? No. Was he consumed by righteous fire after Neiler was kicked out for a non-existent instigator penalty for coming to Gator's defence? No. Did he scream or yell or jump up and down on a Gary Bettman bobblehead after the officials realized ten minutes later that you can't instigate a fight without actually, you know...fighting and announced that Chris' true crime was being "the third man in"? No. Was he frothing at the mouth and throwing sticks on the ice after watching aforementioned goat-fucker-in-training Derek Dorsett repeatedly cross check Heater in the chops as the officials searched their respective navels for any sign of competence? No.

And what of his own team? Did he abrade Young Master Lee for backing out of the offensive zone for no reason while we were on the powerplay early in the first? No. Did he throw a perfectly justified door punching, garbage can kicking, snack-table-overturning dressing room fit of pique after the second, in which his fearless warriors managed to register all of ONE shot on goal? I don't know, but judging by how they came out to start the third, the answer is...no. Did he take a timeout with a minute and a half to go in a one goal game and the faceoff in the offensive zone, thereby giving his big guns a rest and maybe a chance to pull this pile of shit out of the fire? No. Did he cave Filip Kuba's skull in with a towel rack for being Filip Kuba? No, no and no.

Last year, calling for the head of Teflon John was the easiest thing in the world. We all saw what his "philosophy" was, namely ride 11-19-15 into the ice on triple shifts, then, following the inevitable loss, throw some poor 4th liner under the bus at the post-game presser.

But Craig, I gotta tell ya, I'm having a lot of trouble keep the "Fire The Coach" tag in the closet of late. There are way, way, WAY too many things going wrong on this team for me to lay it at the feet of any one guy. That said, I'd very much like to see new things going wrong than a litany of the same mistakes, the same crap night after night after night. Sooner or later, I'm going to have to blame it on you.

Up Next:

Gird your Super Bowl loins by watching the Washington Capitals make us their bitches tomorrow afternoon. What fun!! Did I mention they beat Detroit today? So that bodes well. Luckily I will be too busy mainlining chicken wings to care (12:30pm, SportsNet East).

Enjoy the (football) game everyone. Go Steelers!

Brutal, Putrid, Nauseating, Useless Piles Of Pus Filled Scrotums...Pick One

2009-01-30T21:29:00.003-05:00

Jackets 1, Sens...Sweet. Fuck. All.

Dear Bryan,

With the trade deadline approaching and all hope of anything remotely pleasant happening this season, please banish the following wastes of ice time/oxygen to any place where their weak, incompetent, gutless, stick checking asses will suffer the greatest levels of pain and suffering. Like Long Island:

Alexandre Picard
Filip Kuba
Christoph Schubert
Filip Kuba
Either of tonight's officials
Preferably both
Filip Kuba
Alexandre Picard
Carrie Underwood (sorry honey, but you're obviously a distraction)
Whoever you have coaching the power play
Filip Kuba

Creamy middle to follow tomorrow. For now, Sens fans, feel free to drink heavily, refine the list, and, if you're anything like me, go and punch a few nuns.

Jesus Christ...Doesn't anybody know how to play this fucking game???

Emperor Attempts To Calm Frightened Populace, Swallows Fiddle

2009-01-28T20:02:00.017-05:00

Just because I am now completely numbed to the sucking and wanted to be sure of my own existence, I had planned to break my silence and throw up the usual boiler plate about last night's "game" (that was the worst game in history, blah-blah-blah...goal aside, I still want Picard's testes on a plate, blah-blah-blah...shut the hell up Gator, blah-blah-blah...USING CAPS LOCKS TO DENOTE FRUSTRATION AND INCOHERENT RAGE, blah-blah-blah) when this appeared on my television/in my inbox/before my disbelieving ears:

"Anybody that says we should blow up this organization should get their own bomb and go blow themselves up," Melnyk said at a press conference on Wednesday.

I'm sure I speak on behalf of most sentient beings possessed of opposable thumbs when I ask, with all due respect Mr. Melnyk...What. The. Fuck?!?!

You, of all people, should have known better. You, who packed a plane full of sticks and nets and jerseys and those gawd awful orange road hockey balls and went to Kandahar twice on behalf of Sens fans, on MY behalf, to shower our troops with reassurances that we had not forgotten them, should have known better. You, who sat with them and listened to stories from people who know a thing or two about your recommended course of action, should have known better.

And I'm sure you know it too. I'm sure you fervently wish you could have snatched the words right out of the air as soon as they left your mouth. And I'm sure you'll never say anything so crass and insensitive. Otherwise, please don't bother doing anything on our behalf ever again.

Rayzor Cares Not For Your Slavic Haberdashery

2009-01-28T19:31:00.002-05:00

The Kommerades Hackey League's woeful scouting department claims yet another victim, as Ray-Ray is forced to reiterate that he is, indeed, Russia's preeminent fashion queen.

In other news, Five For Smiting investigators have finally solved the mystery of where the first printing of the Ottawa Senators -- 2007 Stanley Cup Champion! baseball caps ultimately ended up.

A Fight Fan's Measured Response To Sanctimonious Drivel

2009-01-25T14:48:00.007-05:00

Ordinarily, I have nothing against Dave Hodge. Anyone who can sit that close to Steve Simmons and listen to his clueless stammering every Sunday morning without succumbing to the well nigh irresistible urge to drive an icepick through his own eardrums just to make it stop deserves a measure of respect in my book. But sometimes...

For those who may have missed it, dear old Dave went off on a wee rant between periods of last week's Sens/Caps game on the hockey topic du-jour, fighting and the possible banning thereof. In a nutshell, while decrying and tut-tutting the specious arguments and not-so-subtle name calling that has marked the debate from both sides of the issue, he helpfully adds his weighty oppinion by...giving us specious arguments and ever-slightly-more-subtle name calling before slapping on a coat of condescending sanctimony for good measure (full transcript here).

So to turn Dave's argument on its head, I too would like to propose a change to the debate "that might make the dinosaurs and the granola eaters agree on something."

I want the proponents of a fighting ban tell me that the game is more entertaining without a fight than it is with one, that the 18000 or so ticket buying souls who stand and roar during every single fight have been wrong all along. I want them to swear to me that now that fighting has been eliminated, they will flock to the rink and buy jerseys and beer and pizza and car flags in numbers never seen before.

I want them to tell me that in no way whatsoever should a player from their team seek to administer some kind of retribution on a fourth line call-up nobody from the other team who took a run at their star player and knocked their star player out of the game or season with an unpenalized cheap shot because it makes them feel bad.

And as long as we're engaging in stereotyping smear campaigns (Dave), I'd like to hear that they want fighting banned in hockey because it's too long to wait for the next UEFA Cup soccer game.

I want them to state, catagorically and without any doubt, that banning fighting will not cause an increase in stick infractions not only because the officials will always catch those fouls, but also because the NHL has such a stellar reputation for imposing subsequent fines and suspensions based, not on the name on the back of the jersey, but on the severity of the infraction.

I want them to finally admit that the "but nobody fights in the playoffs" argument is a canard, a red herring aimed at those who can't see or won't admit the difference between a regular season game in February and the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Final.

But most of all, I want them to watch tonight's All Star Game and tell me that that's the way they ultimately want to see the game played, bereft of physicality or emotion.

Do that, and I'll have no argument with them. I like hockey. They don't. But at least we'll be able to agree on something.

Sens 3, Caps 2: YES WE DID! AGAIN!

2009-01-21T19:27:00.005-05:00

Dear Mister President,

On behalf of all ~~three~~ Canadians who read this site, I'd like to congratulate you on the great occasion of your inauguration and the successful fumigation of your new home. I had no idea Raid manufactured Marine helicopters.

As I'm sure you'll recall, on the night of your election the Ottawa Senators defeated the Washington Capitals in overtime, one of the very few rays of light in this season of darkness. As it happens, we did it again last night, on the day of your inaugural. This can only lead to one inescapable conclusion Mister President. You are obviously an Ottawa Senators fan.

As I'm sure you haven't yet had the chance to look at the schedule, what with the endless balls and galas and not-at-all-awkward-looking-dancing, I'd like to bring to your attention that the Senators fourth and final game against the Capitals this season is slated for the afternoon of February 1st. You may notice that that is also Super Bowl Sunday. Given the confluence of a Sens/Caps game with yet another Great American Patriotic Event I ask that you, once again, harness the awesome power of your office to ensure a Senators victory.

Please rest assured, Mister President, I do not ask this of you for my own sake, for that would be selfish and petty. No, I ask this for the sake of those most innocent and trusting of souls, those whose very faith in all they hold true and dear and just in this world has been rocked to its very foundation. I ask for the sake of those who long for things to be not as they are today, but as they once were. I ask for the sake of those who can no longer go on in a world where up is down, black is white and where the Ottawa Senators are below them in the standings.

I ask for the sake of Leaf Nation.

Thank you, and may God bless America,
Five For Smiting

p.s.: I would also ask that you not include Aretha Franklin this time. That was, without a doubt, the weirdest version of God Save The Queen I have ever heard.

Habs 5, Sens 4 (SO): Well, So Much For That

2009-01-18T15:31:00.004-05:00

Due to certain dinner commitments, I was only able to see the first and third periods (as much as I begged, Beloved wouldn't allow me to wheel our hosts' television into their formal dining room. Something about "rude" and "idiot"), but judging from the excellent game recap supplied by The Artist Formally Known As Sherry, 'tis probably better that way. Alex Picard has already cost me five stress balls, two remotes and one neighbour so far this season.

The Highs I actually saw:

Stop that! Stop that! You're not going to do a song while I'm 'ere: Time was that Hab fans would wait until the game was well and truly in hand before breaking into song, and then, only in their own building. It is a sad commentary on the state of the New Habiness that they see no problem a) doing it in an opponent's building and b) doing it with more than eight and a half minutes to go in the third. On behalf of non-Hab hockey fans the world over, I'd like to thank Heater and Fish for delivering a giant Shut The FUCK Up!

Man who catch fly with chopstick accomplish anything: You do very well Brian Grasshopper. But remember...Okay to lose to opponent. Not okay to lose to fear. You fear. You lose. Now I go find chocolate bar with almonds.

The Lows I wish I hadn't:

Are you sure your name isn't Marouelli?: Lord knows we cause enough of our own problems so I try not to single out the officials no matter how incompetent they may be. Hey, it's a tough job, I know. But sometimes... Setting aside the absolute bullshit pair of calls on Giggles and The Captain that set up a Montreal 5-on-3 and the inevitable first goal, I would like it noted for both the record and the attention of Mr. Dennis Larue: Jason Spezza hasn't hit anyone since Little Suzy Brockmeier stole his Spiderman lunch box in the fourth grade. So...um...charging? Really?

Next time, try the hot dog vendor: 1-4 in shootouts this year, 8-21 all time. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. You have 22 guys on your bench, Coach, and I'd hazard a guess that 80% of them have had a least one breakaway at some point in their hockey lives. How about trying somebody other than 19, 11, 15 or even 20? Seriously, what the hell do you have to lose?

Creamy Middle:

Meh. ~~Heater~~ The boys did well to battle back for the point, but did we really expect anything different? As good as Grasshopper has been (brutal, seeing-eye-from-behind-the-red-line Kotstopoulos goal notwithstanding), it's a bit much to ask of a 23 year old rookie with all of four NHL starts under his jockeys to win a shootout for a team going nowhere. But on the upside, while the Sens are still the only team in the League yet to win three straight games, we get to spend the next two days listening to the deluded crow about our "unbeaten streak". That'll be fun, right?
Pithy Observations of Questionable importance:

He's a real nowhere man, living in his nowhere land: Speaking of Grasshopper, I'd be giving my agent a call if I were him. Four games into his Big League career and he has yet to appear on the Senators official website. And yet, a quick perusal of Bingo's roster leads one to assume that he is now dead to them. The way I see it, there are only two explanations. 1) The Ottawa webmaster has decided, in his or her alcohol induced depression, that it just doesn't fush *hic* fushing matter anymore YOUZE BASHTARDS!! *sob* or 2) Brian is actually asleep on the bus to Peoria and this is all just a dream.

Fetch...the COMFY CHAIR!: Back in days of yore, those crazy fun loving kids who ran the Spanish Inquisition had developed a rather effective way of interrogating heretics, witches, Episcopalians, Republicans and other undesirables. They would make their victims lie in a shallow pit with a board over their chest and pile heavy stones on the board until the cumulative weight either caused the poor bastard to confess his heinous sins or explode (either result was acceptable). What does this have to do with last night? If you were one of the thousands of heretical pigs wearing a Habs jersey at SBP, but had once proudly displayed so much as a pair of socks with The Condom Logo on it...I'd like to speak to you.

Up Next:

Tuesday night, at home against Alexander The Great, his sidekick Semin Stain and the ridiculously talented Washington Capitals (7:30, TSN). Here's a fun new game. Drink every time either Gord or Pierre utter the words "secondary scoring". If the Atlanta game is any indication, you won't see the third period.

Behind Enemy Lines:

Greetings to On Frozen Blog. Their subtitle is "A Haven for the Hockey Malnourished". I'll just let that delicious irony wash over you for a little while.

Sens 3, Thrashers 2: I'm Feeling SO...Um...Very... What's The Opposite Of Shame?

2009-01-15T20:20:00.005-05:00

Two wins in a row for the first time in six weeks! And better yet, two solid efforts in a row in...oh...thirteen months?

Unfortunately as my Live Bloggy duties/witticisms (HAR!) kept me from taking my usual copious notes, or even paying enough attention to what was going on on the ice (and also because I'm in a hurry) I'm pulling it all out of my ass* and rockin' the Creamy Middle Simpsons style. Go!

And I, for one, welcome our new goaltending overlord. I'd like to remind him that as a trusted member of the OBC, I can be helpful in rounding up Leaf fans to toil in his underground gummy caves.

Because sometimes the only way you can feel good about yourself is by making someone else look bad. And I'm tired of making other people feel good about themselves!

Can't sleep. Clown will eat me.

Please, old people don't need companionship. They need to be isolated and studied so it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be extracted for our personal use.

Dear Baby: Welcome to Dumpsville. Population: You

*It's a figure of speech! C'mon. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son!**
**Bonus reference, just because I'm in that good a mood.

Up Next:

Oh crap. Here's where we find out if the new found commitment to, you know, playing actual hockey is for real. Saturday night, HNIC, the Habs. They're like the Bruins, only less hurty. (7:00pm, Cee-Bee-Cee)

Behind Enemy Lines:

Where else?

Sens Live Blog And Group Hug -- Now With 70% More Profanity!

2009-01-14T08:00:00.002-05:00

As I mentioned last night, I have absolutely zero confidence the boys can repeat their dominating performance against the Canes. If the pattern we've seen since October holds true to form Sens fans, we're in for a dozen or so games of craptacular suckitude.

But is that going to stop the OBC from putting their perfect Live Blog record on the line? Oh Hells NO!

So join us, won't you? The gates open at 7:15pm, puck drop at 7:30pm (TSN with the coverage in all of its Pierre McGuire screaminess).

The usual suspects will be there along with (we hope) some specially invited guests. If all else fails, as I suspect it will...in spectacular fashion, we can always amuse ourselves by composing dirty limericks about Carrie Underwood.

Sens 5, Canes 1: A Win Of Heartbreaking Magnificence

2009-01-13T21:53:00.004-05:00

God that was beautiful. And also incredibly sad.

When this miserable excuse for a season finally reaches its merciful end on April 10th, we'll look back on this game and ask why. Why couldn't they play like that all the time? Why did it take 41 games to finally show us how good they could be? Why didn't they want to?

Will I see a repeat of that team, my team, tomorrow night in Atlanta? I haven't a clue. And if you held a gun to his head, I'll bet Coach Craig would admit he doesn't have one either. The smart money is on no.

But for one glorious game I could close my eyes and all of a sudden it was November 2007. All four lines were rolling, Giggles was flying, Alfie was dancing, Heater, Verms and Fish were scoring, the D was shutting 'em down, birds were singing, the Earth turned on its axis and all was right and good.

Considering how this year has gone, I'm happy to settle for that.

Halfway To The Golf Course! And Joe Corvo Will Continue To Haunt My Dreams

2009-01-12T19:15:00.006-05:00

Hey look! Tomorrow night's inevitable beat-down at the hands of the Hartolina Whaleicanes (Remember this? No, of course you don't. Than how about this?) marks game 41 of our 82 game schedule. My stars, how time does fly when one is chewing on drywall to keep oneself from setting fire to...well, everything.

You know what's really fun to do, in a stick-a-hot-poker-in-my-own-eye kind of way? Jumping into the way back machine and reading last year's Mid-Season Review. Wasn't I cute? Wasn't I just adorable, what with the hope and the faith and the total ignorance of what kind of shit pile the next twelve months would be? Yeah...good times. I have a feeling that this year's review may be a tad less rosy. That is if I can keep it from degenerating into nothing but a string of ShitPissFuckCuntCockSuckerMotherFuckerTits. So far, it's proving rather difficult.

Behind Enemy Lines:

Carolina On Ice is the source for all things Whaleicane. Between putting up brilliant posts of his own and moonlighting on one of the best hockey blogs on the tubes, Dave (or as we Spinheads have come to know him, WufPirate) dropped me a line the other day. After paying his respects to Sens Army (and saying ridiculously kind things about the OBC), he was kind enough to provide a scouting report on what we can expect tomorrow:

...They've lost 2 straight to Florida and Boston on the road after ripping four straight wins. They're playing better overall since the return of Ol' One Eye as coach, but this still certainly isn't a team that would be making a deep playoff run. Captain Brindy has the worst +/- in the NHL - the former Selke winner - if that tells you anything. Not really anyone playing with an edge besides Staalsy most nights. Cam Ward has been eating his Wheaties lately with the exception of Saturday's beatdown in Boston.

So, yeah. In other words...we are totally fucked.

A Shot Across The Bandwagon's Bow

2009-01-11T13:53:00.005-05:00

I haven't posted anything about the last two games for a very good reason. Frankly, I am running out of ways to say "We suck!". My ability to find new and funny words to describe the same mistakes or express my utter frustration over how a team as talented as this one (on paper) can fail to even show up game after game after game, has been completely exhausted. So I won't.

Let us instead, gentle reader, ponder the phenomenon of the "Bandwagon" and how the legroom on our particular conveyance has improved markedly of late as the fairest of fairweathers suddenly discover that there will be no playoffs this year and scramble off in search of something new and shiny.

To those poor, lost souls, I would offer this: Get fucked right in the ass by a herd of rabid wildebeests you infuriating bag of dicks. It is my most fervent wish to see all of you tied to a pole in a public square and skullfucked with a forklift. You drive me batshit insane. You fucking posers.

I'm not talking about the mouth breathing troglodytes who clog the call-in shows or message boards demanding Emperor Eugene fire the GM/coach/training staff/mascot after yet another loss. You can fault them for many things (grammar and proper sentence structure chief among them) but you can't dismiss their passion for the team. And I'm not talking about those who, out of well meaning if misplaced ignorance, continue to insist that trading Giggles will cure all of our ills. Sure, they don't know what they're talking about, but at least they're sincere.

You know who I'm talking about. You know who they are. You might even work with a few.

They're the guy who sits next to you at SBP; the guy who's only too happy to tell you how he got the tickets for free because his boss couldn't come, and then spends the entire game bitching about the drive into the rink, the parking rates, the line up at the concession and the price of beer before taking off ten minutes into the third period of a one goal game "to beat the traffic".

They're the guy who finds you in the bathroom as you're trying to take a quiet dump and shouts "Hey! How about that game last night, eh? That Mike Fisher looked really good!" over the stall door while you sit there gritting your teeth, pants around your ankles, knowing full well that this obnoxious sac of pus wouldn't be able to pick Mike Fisher out of line up.

They're the woman who festoons her cubicle with Sens flags and posters and coffee mugs and hair scrunchies and a 2007 Eastern Conference Champion commemorative mouse pad but ask her about anyone who played on the team prior to the Final and you're met with a blank look.

They're the guy who exchanges hugs and high fives after every goal with everybody in a bar packed to the rafters for Game 5 of the 2007 Eastern Final and then bumps into me you in overtime and asks "So putting the puck in deep...is good?" causing me you to miss Alfie's winner as I you stare in disbelief into the depths of a dilettante's ignorance. To this day, I you still want to cave that goat fucker's face in with a Zamboni.

But now, with our season in the crapper and the playoffs out of reach, look how they flee. The free tickets go unused, the bathroom is mercifully quiet and the mouse pad and hair scrunchies have been packed away. So to those snapping their ankles jumping off the bandwagon during the first tough season in over ten years, I say once more: good fucking riddance, asshats.

But before we let you go, know this: All sports are cyclical. Any true fan of any game understands that. The longer our team spends on top, the more brutal will be the inevitable fall. But as true fans, we also know that, barring something aberrant like an ownership more concerned with profit than winning or a 40 year stretch of organizational incompetence, our team will eventually rise again. And when it does, we will be able to stand tall with all of those who've stuck it out, whose passions have never wavered no matter how maddening things may get, and proclaim "This is MY team!"

What are you going to say then?

Code Red [Ottawa Citizen]

Slugs 4, Sens 2: You Want Fries With That?

2009-01-07T19:21:00.008-05:00

Hey, why is that man jumping up and down like that? And swearing? A lot? Oh...Oh, no. No, no, no! Oh, no! Bad, bad Ruut! Oh, wicked, wicked Ruut! Oh, wicked, bad, naughty, evil Ruut! You are a bad person and must pay the penalty! Naughty, evil, bad Ruut! Lucky for us (but especially for you), you didn't have to pay it last night.

The Highs:

Is it Giggles Finally Shows Up Night already?: Fantastic job, Jason. You played hard, kept your asshat turnovers (just) below your maximum allowable quota of three, potted a couple of goals and I do believe I even saw a back check or two. Well played. So, looking at the schedule...let's see here. Boston...no, too soon. Rangers? Hmm...doubt it. Carolina? Maybe. Ah! Here it is. Atlanta. See you again on the 14th!

The Bell tolls for thee: Holy crap, Brendan. I didn't know you had the wheels! Everytime I looked up, there you were, jumping up into the rush or banging down low on the cycle. Looks like your little stint in yonder press box has served you well. If you would kindly tell me where the hell THAT Brendan Bell has been for the last three months and promise to bring him back, I'll overlook the fact that the Buffaslugs first goal (15 seconds in) was the direct result of you pissing your pants and coughing up the puck in our own zone rather than take the hit to make the play.

The Lows:

Remember kids, speed kills!: Now, I don't mean to alarm anyone, but our defence is rather, shall we say, disadvantaged in the velocity department. A tad pedantic, if you will (not that this should come as a shock to either of you...*ahem*). But not until I saw the Slugs' speedy little rat fink forwards (hello, Mr. Roy) torch our D to the outside time and time again, or watched GATOR, of all people, get eaten alive by Drew Stafford on Buffalo's second goal, did I come to the full realization of how utterly, brutally, excerably slow we really are. Coincidentally, it was at this point that I also came to the full realization that I'll have to drink more if I'm to survive this season. A lot more.

Nice idea. Execution? Not so much: Mister Neil, front and centre if you please. Here is your pencil. Here is your empty pad of lined paper. You will write this down precisely 1000 times. "I will not kill my own team's 3-on-1 by attempting to goad Andrew Peters into a fight one hundred feet away". Now, into the hallway with you.

Okay, for realz this time: If that great sage and eminent psychopath Mike Tyson has taught us anything, it's that it really isn't sporting to gnaw on an opponent's extremities. In other words, Roto, biting another player is about as chicken shit a move as can be imagined (YA HEARD ME SWEDEN!). By your own admission, there is a line. You crossed it. It is only by the grace of the officials' natural incompetence that you weren't thrown out of the game right then and there. And it is only by the grace of God and Jason's two ensuing goals that you weren't mashed into a bloody pulp by the end of the second. I would invite you to ponder, over the next two games, why exactly I, Senator die hard that I am, wouldn't have minded in the least had that actually happened.

The Creamy Middle:

If you ever needed an infuriating example of how unfair it would be to make Coach Craig the fall guy for this pile-of-shit season, this game was it. The boys proved to me what I already knew. We can play with anybody, anyway they want, anytime. But, as has been the case for the last three coaches and twelve freaking months, that only lasted for about ten minutes. With few exceptions, the rest of the game was the same litany of disorganization, bad passes, lazy defensive zone coverage and the general "I look like I'm skating hard but I really can't be bothered to give a rat's ass" we've all become accustomed to. That's not a coaching problem, folks.

Pithy Observations of Questionable Importance:

Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!: Someday, if I can ever sneak past security, I'd like to ask the fans who pay two hundred bucks a ticket to sit in the first row why, exactly, they feel compelled to pound on the glass whenever the players are mucking it up along the boards within their vicinity. Seriously. Do they just want attention, or do they honestly think that by so doing the resulting cacophony will cause visiting forwards to get so distracted that they abandon the puck to the home team? "AAAAH!! He's banging on plexiglass!! And he has...POPCORN!!! AAAAH!"

Be careful. Music leads to dancing. And dancing leads to touching: I'm happy for you, Mike. I really am (you let her wear your pin and varsity jacket?!? Swell!!). But, um...at the risk of being indellicate, I gotta tell ya...considering your performance since you hooked up last March, her abilities as a slumpbuster are in some doubt. Then again, as she is impossibly hot, all is forgiven. And besides, thanks to you, I get to Google pictures like this:

Up Next:

Sweet merciful crap. Our ever so successful road odyssey continues tomorrow night against the Bruins. Not since the days of Orr, Esposito, Cheevers and Park have the Boston bears been this scary good. I'll leave you to ponder the inevitable massacre as I silently curse John Muckler, Zdeno Chara and Peter Chiarelli.

Behind Enemy Lines:

Do you like hockey? Do you like...er...seafood?? If the answer to either of those questions is "YES!" (and why wouldn't it be), then make your way to Stanley Cup of Chowder! Ah...I remember what it was like blogging about a good hockey team. Yeah. Good times.

Laffs 3, Sens 1: Our Long National Nightmare Continues

2009-01-03T21:50:00.003-05:00

Hey, on the upside, we're that much closer to having to do this.

The High:

Futility has rarely looked so beautiful: Damn, Fish. You were everywhere. You were banging. You were shooting. You were hitting posts. When all those about you were losing their heads, you kept yours about you, said "Fuck that shit" and smeared somebody in blue. In other words you did everything humanly possible to win this game short of...um...scoring. Natch. I am really, really going to miss you Mike.

The Lows:

Dearest Alexandre, how do I loathe thee? Let us count the ways: Aside from the usual brainfarts, crap passes, weak ass stick checks and being caught hopelessly out of position... 1) Perhaps the best strategy for a 5-on-3 advantage is to NOT shoot the puck in such a way as to miss the net by twelve feet, banking it off the back boards at roughly Mach 4, thus causing it to careen wildly back into our own end, killing the powerplay. Just sayin'. 2) Hey, Alex...you may want to...um, look out for...Blake's coming...just keep an eye on...he's trying the wrap...WHERE THE HOLY SHITFUCK ARE YOU????

1 billion Chinese, and the entire coaching staff, can't be wrong: Hey Schube, remember how you spent most of training camp and the first six weeks of the season pouting like a twelve year old girl because you wanted to play on the D instead of being a fourth line forward? Yeah, sure you do. So here's what you do. Watch this game tape, oh...a couple of dozen times. Pay particular attention to the third period, wherein the final two Leaf goals were a direct result of you shitting the bed. Issue apologies as necessary.

Can't anybody play this game?: Sticking with the general defensive theme, it is a rare thing indeed for three defencemen to record a -1 on the same goal. And yet, just when we Sens fans had thought we had seen everything that could possibly go disastrously, putridly wrong this season, we were treated to the sight of just that. Kuba coughs up the puck on the half boards (as is his wont), squirting it toward the Ottawa net at roughly three miles per hour as both Gator and A-Train flail helplessly. One Dominic Moore goal later, the trifecta is complete, the game is tied and I'm pining for Steve Duschesne and Karl Rachunek.

The Creamy Middle:

THIS FEATURE IS DISCONTINUED PENDING THE AUTHOR'S ABILITY TO FIND NEW WAYS TO APPLY COSMETICS TO PORCINE LIPS.

Pithy Observations of Questionable Importance:

Ron Jeremy remains unimpressed: It only makes sense that Ryan Hollweg would be sporting that ridiculous porn 'stache. He is, after all, best known for inarticulate grunting and slamming less than willing ~~co-stars~~ opponents from behind.

God, I'm such a hopeless sap: It started in Edmonton during their Cup run, and it was awesome. Hell, we even did it in the Finals. And it happened again tonight in Toronto (and Ottawa...SUCK IT RUSSKIES!!). No matter how hokey or how contrived it may be, hearing 20,000 hockey fans sing Oh Canada acapella chokes me up every freaking time. Even if it's Leaf fans doing the singing.

On the flip side of that...: You would be hard pressed to find anybody who supports our troops more than I do (it's why Her Majesty pays me, after all) but at the risk of being branded a pinko commie terrorist lover who eats kittens in his spare time, I have to ask. Am I the only one getting a little unnerved with Don Cherry trotting out our latest Afghan casualties for some special Coach's Corner love? Tonight's episode featured the usual guttural "I'm trying really hard not to cry" noises from His Grapeness, but with the added bonus of some wedding pictures featuring the unfortunate widow. Don, your "I don't usually do this" disclaimer aside, you're getting a little further away from "honour" and much closer to "schtick" than I'm comfortable with.

Up Next:

Our road trip from hell continues tomorrow night in the leafy, totally bucolic and absolutely crime free heart of Newark, New Jersey. At least Fish will have an excuse for wearing his Thug Toque to the rink. He's just trying to blend in with the locals. (5:00pm, TSN)

Behind Enemy Lines:

Say hello to Interchangeable Parts, knowledgeable to the extreme, a fantastic source of all things Devils AND stupidly entertaining. Hockey loving women who can write. Now that is several varieties of hot.

Tavares vs. Hedman...Who Ya Got?

2009-01-02T16:36:00.003-05:00

You're The Bryan. You've finally listened to reason and blown up the team, having given up on the twin pipe dreams of squeaking into the playoffs as the #8 seed and the ensuing first round sweep.

So now, after playing your cards just right you find yourself sitting in a Montreal strip club pondering next day's draft ("Why yes, Bambi, that IS the first overall pick in my pocket. Why do you ask?").

One is some hybrid scoring machine/uber-leader, genetically engineered from DNA harvested from the sweat of old Mark Messier jerseys, and Steve Yzerman's discarded teeth.

The other is a giant Scandinavian mutant, a young Zedno Chara without the hands of stone or the blazing speed of a beached ocean liner.

You know your team can't score, or stop anybody from scoring on your team.

Tavares or Hedman. Who ya got?

Happy New Year! Your Ottawa Senators Resolutions

2008-12-31T16:13:00.008-05:00

This past Sunday, as I sat waiting for Hydro One to get the FUCKING POWER RUNNING AGAIN YOU BASTARDS -- I'M MISSING ALL OF MY FOOTBALL GAMES!!!, I listened to the soothing sounds of 100mph wind gusts tear the shingles from my roof. And I have to admit, warmed only by the soft glow of roughly eleventy thousand candles I couldn't help but become a little introspective. Part of it was the time of year, but mostly because I had nothing better to do. Other than bail 240 litres of water out of my sump pit every 90 minutes. But I digress...

My rage over the Calgary Cock-Up, so thoroughly documented in my notebook as a series of elegant, if indecipherable scribbles and one huge ink blot caused when my pen snapped in half had dissipated somewhat. By the time the juice was flowing again and the magic box informed me that we had already been pummeled in Vancouver (the "highlights" later confirming the craptacular level of play I had already suspected and have come to expect), I was too physically drained to get worked up about it. As for last night, I can't get too worked up over that either, knowing, as I now do, that such a brilliant, hard working, finally-played-like-they-can (Jason) effort is unlikely to be repeated for another 10 games or so.

So I thought a little more. What, I wondered, would the New Year's resolutions of Your Ottawa Senators look like? As we prepare to show our own Annus Horribilus the door (but not before kicking it square in the nuts) here are a few. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

Emperor Eugene resolves to think before speaking to a local sports media who would publish idiotic email exchanges masquerading as "journalism" mocking Mother Theresa's corpse if they thought it would get them an extra freebie at the Gasbag Grill and Buffet House.

The Bryan resolves to face the fact that blowing up the team in order to ensure a lottery pick (hello, Mr. Tavares) and missing the playoffs is far preferable to watching this underachieving bag of doorknobs squeak into the last spot only to be, once again, sodomized in four straight by Boston or Montreal.

Coach Craig resolves to go back to the only line combinations that seem to produce anything at all, no matter how anemic (see game file: Edmonton, Last Night) and, barring injury, illness or meteor strike just LEAVE THEM THE FUCK ALONE! That's as good as it gets Coach. Deal.

Giggles resolves to up his "play like I actually care about the game rather than being a lazy, loafing, petulant toddler on skates" quotient from every fifth game to every third. Barring that, he resolves to give back half of his salary so we can go get a real second liner.

Fish resolves to waive his No Movement Clause for the good of the team, my sanity and godless heathens everywhere.

Alexandre Picard resolves to accept the fact that he has no business calling himself an NHL caliber defenceman and quietly retires to open a floral shop in Joncquiere, Quebec.

Swiss Pastry resolves to visit an optometrist. No, seriously Martin. Get your eyes checked.

And finally...your humble scribe resolves to see the vortex of suck that is this season through to the end, comforted by the fact that no matter how bad it gets, it will never be worse than Year One ('92-'93), his inaugural year on the bandwagon. And booze. Lots and lots of booze.

Happy New Year everyone! Now go out and get plastered. You've earned it.

First Rule Of The Drug Dealer: Never Sample Your Own Wares

2008-12-22T20:27:00.007-05:00

Photo: Jana Chytilova

It may be time for an intervention:

OTTAWA-He may be one of the few holdouts, but Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk insists his team doesn’t need a miracle to make the playoffs and contend for the Stanley Cup this season.
The Senators’ boss, who was in town to play host at a skating event for underprivileged children at Scotiabank Place on Sunday, told a Toronto radio station earlier this week he believed Ottawa will finish top four in the Eastern Conference. He stood by those words Sunday.

With all due respect, Your Imperial Omnipotence, while I understand that one of your most important duties (along with ribbon cuttings at new concession stands and the occasional blood sacrifice of a Leaf fan) is to act as Grand Poobah Cheerleader for your own team. I get it. But not even you can, with a straight face, honestly call us "contenders" in light of the unmitigated torrent of excrement we've witnessed over the last twelve months, can you? I mean, c'mon...you, of all people, can't be that delusional, right?

"Watch this team. You're going to be very, very surprised. We have nine new players. We have a new coach. We have a new system. It's only 30 games into the season and we will be a Stanley Cup contender. Mark my words. You'll see. Just give them some time and that time is right now."

Oh, dear Lord. It's worse than we thought.

We Are All Senators! Whether You Like It Or Not!

2008-12-22T09:00:00.002-05:00

According to a reliable source, the Vancouver Canucks have been running ads throughout their fair city in which they attempt to indoctrinate the general populace into the belief that they are "All Canucks!" Your Honour, I present Exhibit A:

Further examples of their Orwellian thought control can be found here.

As you would expect (if you've been paying attention) this set the OBC cat amongst the Senators' marketing pigeons. What would, we wondered collectively, a similar campaign look like amongst the denizens of Sens Nation? Something like mine, we would suspect:

Let us now trip gracefully through the intertubes, capturing the true OBC zeitgeist of this lost season, shall we?

The Universal Cynic

Scarlett Ice

Hockey Schlock

Sens At Land's End

If you have any you'd like to create/share/inflict upon an unsuspecting public, drop us a line. We'll post the best, and mock the rest.

Hey, what else are you going to do? Watch the games?

Devils 5, Sens 1: Seriously. What Do We Have To Lose?

2008-12-19T21:13:00.005-05:00

Screw "tinkering" with the line up.

Bryan, listen to me. I want you to hit the airwaves tomorrow and declare that the entire roster has been sent down to Bingo. Then I want you to announce that the entire Bingo roster has been called up to play against the Stars.

Sure, we'll get creamed. But at least we'll get to watch a bunch of kids who actually care about the game.

If we're going to suck moose balls for the next four months, I demand that I be entertained in the process.

Hartsburg Rearranges Deck Chairs, Declares Team "Unsinkable"

2008-12-19T18:45:00.003-05:00

Puck drop in ten minutes, so let us dispense with the buzzing noises, shall we?

"I want to see every line work," said a frustrated Hartsburg. "When we start to work every night, every shift and every line, then it will start to turn. We've got to spread those three guys around. Let's be a blue-collar team."

"We are just going to try to simplify the game and work hard," said Spezza. "The way we were doing it before, it hasn't worked consistently. You don't want to complicate things too much. (Ruutu and Neil) like to play a pretty simple game. It's up to me to adapt."

"I'm excited about it," said Fisher, who hasn't scored since Nov. 27. "Every line has got a bit of skill and has got some guys that can play physical. It's kind of a different look, which maybe we need."

Sing it with me, children! Blah...blah...blah.

7:00 p.m., SportsNet East or RDS, for those of you of the poutine and Pepsi persuasion.

Behind Enemy Lines: They were the first to say pretty things about your humble scribe way back in aught seven, so it's about time I show them the love. Please say hello to 2 Man Advantage. And maybe beg them for mercy while you're there.

How Much Is That Doggie In The Window? A Lot Cheaper Than You'd Think

2008-12-17T18:50:00.003-05:00

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen. On behalf of Mr. Mousebat, I would like to welcome you to Mousebat, Follicle, Goosecreature, Ampersand, Spong, Wapcaplet, Looseliver, Vendetta and Prang Auction House and Bordello.

As stated on your invitation, we are here to dispose of the superfluous horseflesh of one Mr. E. Melnyk, entrepreneur, sportsman, equine enthusiast and general bon vivant. Upon satisfactory inspection of the individual lots, you will be invited to place your bids in the space provided below, subject, of course to the stated reserve price*.

Let's get on with it then, shall we? I'm sure we all have better things to do. Like DYI appendectomies, for instance.

Lot #5: Our first item is an exquisite example of the classical Bavarian workhorse. Note the strong thighs, robust upper body, and broad shoulders. Can be skittish if disgruntled, but a firm hand at the whip in combination with a rigidly repetitive training regimen (this particular breed is not noted for its intelligence) will produce a solid addition to any plow team.

Reserve: Third round draft pick.

Lot #12: The only true thoroughbred among this evening's offerings, this gelding has speed to spare. Utterly loyal and completely fearless, his work ethic is beyond reproach and matched only by his baffling inability to accomplish anything despite his willingness to die in the attempt. While he has pulled up lame on occasion, he has never failed to recover...given enough time. All that is required to keep him content is an ample supply of good oats, and sufficient opportunity to distribute Gideon Bibles to inner city orphans.

Reserve: Prospect not born in Russia AND second round draft pick.

Lot #20: Like all Lippenzaners, he is beautiful (note the rippling chest and impressive leg definiton), and highly trainable, given the proper voltage. He is also somewhat delicate. Smaller than most specimens of his breed, his lack of relative size is more than made up for by the grace of his canter. While it is unlikely he will ever fulfill his considerable potential, he would be a fine addition to any stable, if for no other reason than his ability to excite brooding mares.

Reserve: Second round draft pick.

Lot #25: While perhaps not the most magnificent of creatures, this cross breed will surprise and delight any prospective owner. Combining the strength and persistence of the Clydesdale with the stubborness of the North American Jackass, he will require a firm hand to ensure proper behaviour and the patience to instill obedience. A new master must be prepared to repeat training sessions as often as necessary if any behaviour modification is to be achieved. And I mean often. Like, a lot. With much yelling.

Reserve: Third round draft pick AND a younger, less expensive but above all, smarter horse of similar mien and temperment.

Lot #29: Free to a good home.

Reserve: Um...some pucks would be nice. Maybe some tape. OH! And cookies...peanut butter, preferably.

Lots #17 & #45: Our last, and only combined lot of the evening. Whether through some comical miscommunication or gross misrepresentation on the part of the original seller, these two swayback mares were acquired by the Head Groomsman completely by accident. We'll let these two go on the cheap.

Reserve: Please take them. Pretty please?
*All transactions must be finalized no later than March 4th, 2009. Cash, or certified cheque only please. No returns, exchanges or refunds. All sales final.

Thrashers 4, Sens 1: Time To Blow It The Fuck Up

2008-12-16T21:42:00.005-05:00

What happens when the fourth best PK lets the worst power play in the League beat you for two goals? What happens when your three best players, including the guy wearing the "C" and holding the express pass to the rafters can't seem to give a shit and are your biggest defensive liability? What happens when you can't beat a bottom feeding franchise that shouldn't even exist? What happens when a certain blogger has totally given up hope of anything good happening this season? You curse, you drink a lot, punch a few nuns, accept the inevitable and hang out the "For Sale" sign, that's what. Come back tomorrow for the fire sale. And believe me, everything must go.

There ain't no 2007-esque Miracle Turnaround coming for this team. Not this year. Blow it up Bryan.

Fuck, I hate this game.

Hawks 2, Sens 0: Excrement

2008-12-11T21:11:00.004-05:00

The effort I've put into this post is in direct proportion to the effort I witnessed on the ice.

And we shall never speak of it again.

Panthers 4, Sens 3 (OT): This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

2008-12-09T19:43:00.006-05:00

The hell? Here we were, thinking that you had finally figured it out. Everybody thought so. Four wins in five games meant that all was well, the corner had been well and truly turned and the rest of the year would be filled with sunshine, rainbows and lollipops. Then you go and shit the bed. Once more. With feeling. Don't make me sit you down again, boys.

The High:

They'll LOVE 'em in Zimbabwe: Do you know what happens to all of the "Championship!" hats and t-shirts that get produced before the team they're produced for loses said "Championship!"? They end up in some God forsaken corner of the world where countries change their name at the whim of comically dressed strongmen, and the locals are too busy chasing cockroaches for food to worry about the fashion faux-pas inherent in their "19-0! Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots!" commemorative wife-beaters. Now that the "Back In Black" good luck charm is done, I fully expect to see an entire village somewhere in Buttfuck, Tanzania matching their (very) gently used "SENS" jerseys to their 2007 Stanley Cup Champion Ottawa Senators beanies. Make it happen, UNICEF.

The Lowest of the Lows:

Viva Kuba Lib--Oh bloody hell...: I'm trying, Filip. I really am. Yes, the points are nice, and we certainly need them. So thanks for that. I've also come to reconcile myself to the fact that, despite your rather impressive dimensions, you will never make physical contact with an opposing forward. Ever. Fine. But do you know what else will make it exceedingly hard for me to ever like you? Jackass, dumb-as-a-bag-of-fucking-rocks, blind backhand neutral zone passes to nobody IN FUCKING OVERTIME! We have Jason for that.

Great, now the OBC's gonna have m'a legs broke: Hi Cody. C'mon over here Roto. There seems to have been some misunderstanding. It was quite evident to me, as I watched Keith Ballard go coast-to-coast, over, around and through both of you before taking the shot that led directly to Michal Repik first ever NHL goal (also nice of you to let Master Repik stand around in the crease) that perhaps you didn't quite understand your roles. Here's a clue...HIT SOMEBODY!

Surprise! The sucking will start......NOW!: On the upside, you all seem to be breaking the inevitable "oh, we don't feel like playing" portions of the game into manageable chunks. Ten minutes in the first, here...fifteen in the second over there... How very considerate of you. And a welcome variation for we home viewers, let me tell you. Watching you suck the hind end from a goat for entire periods at a time was getting pretty monotonous.

The Creamy Middle:

If this were any other season, I would happily write off the screw ups in this game...the three (THREE!) blown leads, the forwards' bewildering inability to adjust to the Panthers D jumping into the play (hey, that Bouwmeester dude is pretty good! We might want to keep an eye on him!), Kuba's brain fart in OT...to cite but a few...as just that, aberrant screw ups that are inevitable over the course of a long season. But this is NOT any other season. This crap has been going on for damn near a year. Not sure if you've noticed, gentlemen, but we're currently out of a playoff spot. Now I still have faith that we're better than that, but giving away points to the very teams who will be scratching and clawing for the 8th spot come March is a shitty way to prove me wrong.

Pithy Observations of Questionable Importance:

The friend of my enemy is also...Wait. How does that go again?: Somebody want to explain to me why we're booing Bryan McCabe? For what? Not being flexible enough? Sure, he "played" for the Laughs. So did a lot of guys. But really, compared to Domi, Belfour, Tucker or Gary Fucking Roberts, hating McCabe is like screaming at the poor minimum wage bastard who has to answer the phone at a call centre. Sure, it may be satisfying, but he has nothing to do with the fact that you have been, and are likely still being, sodomized by Bell Canada.

Thank goodness! I thought we were playing Jai Alai: Upon video review of K-Rock's goal to open the scoring, Head Zebra Dude Tom Kowal (who??) played to the crowd for a bit, and then deigned to announce over the mike that, since Jesse had been pushed into the goalie, Chris' tally was in fact a "good hockey goal". Oscar worthy dramatic pointing to centre ice thus ensued. Gee, Skippy, thanks for clearing that up. Here I was wondering what had happened to the base paths.

Yeah, Sparky? I need eleventeen cases of toilet paper: We live in a world where devices the size of a matchbook can hold eight billion songs. Where I can sit almost anywhere in the world, plug a four inch stick into my laptop and download pictures of Britanny Spears flashing her woo-hoo to an adoring populace. So why is it that an NHL official can't talk to the video replay booth without donning gear that looks like it needs to be hand cranked by Radar O'Reilly or some Dickensian street urchin? "Review that goal for ya, Gov'nah?"

Up Next:

Tomorrow night, off to the souless edifice that is the United Centre, for a date against Marty Havlat (provided he doesn't hurt himself between now and then) and the Chicago Blackhawks (8:30 p.m., TSN2...for those lucky enough...like me...to actually get it). Ah...to harken back to those heady days of John Muckler, Brandon Bochensky and Tyler Arneson! On the upside, Bill Wirtz won't be around to yell at you for actually watching on that new fangled tee-vee instead of getting your sorry ass to the rink. Bonus? Pastry with the start! WEEE!

Behind Enemy Lines:

It's been so long that the Sens have graced the Windy City that I needed something special to mark the occasion. Please welcome Second City Hockey. You may leave your polyester wrapped tributes to Gilda Radner and Eugene Levy with the bouncers.

Enjoy the game, everybody. Well, as much as you can, anyway.

Sens 3, Pens 2: In Which We Compare And Contrast "Shits" And "Giggles"

2008-12-06T16:32:00.003-05:00

Here's a hint. Giggles had the hat trick.

The Highs:

This? 'Tis but a scratch!: Sure, the natural hat trick was nice. Congrats on that, Jason. So is your continued ability to make the Penguins your personal whores (27 points in 20 games). But do you really want to know how to make the mouth breathers who normally howl "we gotta trade his ass!" during the call-in shows check themselves? Get up laughing after taking the biggest hit of your career and proceed to send the opponents a giant SUCK IT! by scoring a goal. Again. That would be perfect.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it...: Okay folks, we need a better nick name for the Big Line than either "pizza" or (ugh!) "CASH". They turned Atlanta into gooey piles of despair (but that was Atlanta) and followed that up by fashioning Julien's little boy toys into pylons while being among the toughest hombres on the ice (bonus points to The Captain for walking off a bullet to the top of his foot). I'm thinking "Two-Four". As in: If we're playing on Victoria Day weekend, it's because of this line.

Screw secondary scoring. You boys just keep on keepin' on: We would be remiss if we didn't mention the contributions from the supporting cast. The Winch, Little Nicky and Chris "K-Rock" Kelly keeping the Pens hemmed in their own end most of the time while being general pains in the ass...Roto Ruutu and his sneaky little elbows (somewhere Gordie Howe smiles...and asks for more tapioca). Then there's our boy C-Bass. Did you know he was playing with a broken toe? Neither did I. He laces on a pair of skates and spends three hours catching 100mph slapshots with his feet. Me? I'm lying on the couch, popping vicodin like candy while Beloved starts looking for a divorce lawyer.

The Lows (only two of which deal with the Cee Bee Cee):

Next time, just shoot the hostage: That was one hell of a dilemma, wasn't it Brendan? It certainly looked that way. How else to explain why, after watching your "pass" go squirting onto the stick of Jordan Staal like some palsy stricken wombat, you stood there, flummoxed, while Evgeni Freakin Malkin went streaking by you three feet to your right? Malkin's ensuing short handed goal to pull Pittsburgh within one with ten minutes to go in the game probably gave you a clue as to how to handle that particular situation in the future, yes? Look around, dumbass.

HURRY HARD! And get the HELL off my t.v.!: Mother Corp has been broadcasting curling for many, many years. I should know. For as long as I can remember (which is quite a few more years than I'd care to admit), there have been many a time when I have been lulled into blissful slumber on a Sunday afternoon by the dulcet tones of Don Wittman (R.I.P). So with all that experience, you'd think the pinheads that run the CBC would know how long the average curling match will run, and schedule the remainder of their programming accordingly, right? Right? Wouldn't you think? Yeah, I'd have thought so too, until I missed the first three minutes of this game for the semi finals of something called the The Capital One Grand Slam Of Curling. Dear CBC: If it doesn't say "Brier" or "Scotties" on the trophy, move it to Country Canada or Bold or whatever the hell you're calling your crap cable channel this week, and give me my fucking hockey game.

You're looking particularly amorphous this evening, Mr. Galley: I am the proud owner of a 56" High Definition television. Ma Bell extorts me to the tune of $110 a month for the privilege of beaming High Definition satellite signals into my home. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has an annual, taxpayer funded operating budget somewhere north of one billion dollars. HD cameras cost much, much less than that. So why did this game look like it was being broadcast from the bottom of a swimming pool?

Pithy Observation of Questionable Importance:

We are now 4-0 when wearing those hideous third jerseys. Now I don't generally subscribe to superstition (unless my lucky Redskins socks are involved) but if someone tells me the ~~I'm going to die~~ the Senators are going to lose unless ~~I keep a bowling pin jammed up my ass~~ they keep wearing that jersey...I'd have to think long and hard about it.

Creamy Middle:

Not as dominant as they were against Atlanta (but again...that was Atlanta) and there were times in the early going where it looked like the boys had slipped back into their evil ways of sloth, apathy and general crapitude AND Coach Craig's recurring habit of jamming on the brakes by throwing the trap onto the ice late in a close game still drives me batshit (safe is DEATH, Coach), but still a quality win. If the boys are on, as they were through a large portion of this game and as they were for the entire Thrashers game, it's obvious we can play with anybody. Sooner or later, they're going to start believing that. I hope.

Next Up:

The barrel of yuks that is Jacques Martin brings his Florida Panthers to The Bank on Monday night (7:30pm, Sportnet East or...RDS for you coalition types). Remember how Now Florida Head Coach but Then Nobody Peter DeBoer jerked The Bryan around for a month last summer before The Bryan finally said "fuck it" and signed Hartsburg? Yeah, me neither.

And hey! We finally get to see that Bowmeester kid! Don Brennan should have him traded to Ottawa for Jason Spezza, Dany Heatly, Daniel Alfredsson, the athletic staff and a small block of cheddar by the end of the first period.

Behind Enemy Lines:

Well, lah-di-dah, look who's made the big time! A scant six weeks after being mentioned on this very site, The Litter Box has been drafted into Mirtle's SB Nation army of hockey blogger brilliance. Coincidence? I think not. Congrats, Whale. Well deserved, indeed.

You're Next Sidney -- Fear The 'Stache!

2008-12-04T19:32:00.008-05:00

Personally, I'd prefer the entire team follow Gator's lead and rock the badass Fu Manchu (except you Fish. Jeebus, you look like my prom picture...minus the mullet), but this works too. Think about it Neiler! It's like a codpiece! For your face!

I feel it. Can you? It's coming back. The mojo, I mean. The "Oh hells, we are SO better than this" feeling. We beat the Rangers. We beat the Leafs. Throw the last Islanders game out the window as the final lesson on how not to play a hockey game, a lesson well and truly learned. And we made Atlanta cry.

The Big Line is scorin'. Fish, The Winch, Gator and A-Train are rockin'. Oh, and before I forget, Roto, Neiler and C-Bass are a knockin':

Neil will likely skate on a line with Jarrko Ruutu and Cody Bass to see if they can create some energy against the Penguins.

So, Sidney. Y'all ready for this?

In Other News...Thrashers And Talons And Live Blogs, Oh My!

2008-12-02T19:57:00.007-05:00

Yes. Well. With that wee bit of messy unpleasantness safely behind us (drunken midnight rantin' can be very cathartic, if a little hard on the laptop...personally, I blame Lloyd Robertson), we turn our attention to the next cellar dweller to kick our asses...the Atlanta Thrashers (Tomorrow, 7:00pm, on TSN in all of McGuire's screamy goodness).

The last time my rather well cushioned posterior (I prefer "Rubenesque", thank you very much) came into contact with an SBP seat, Atlanta was in town. As my reward for miraculously making it through yet another 365 days without a cardiac event of any kind, my Dad snagged us a couple of 100 level seats for my birthday. Ten rows up, just off one of the corners, they were sweet indeed.

And that night, so close to the ice, I gained an entirely new appreciation of just how stupidly, insanely good Ilya Kovalchuck can be when he wants to. You can't see it sitting in the rafters, and television will never do it justice. The one image indelibly burned into my memory is the sight of his taking a pass just inside his own blue line, not thirty feet away from me, and within two strides hitting full speed as he blew past all of our forwards. Seriously, the entire section made a kind of awed *ooof* noise, as we watched the hot dog wrappers get sucked into the vortex he left behind. Oh, and we lost the game.

My point? We're screwed.

Behind Enemy Lines:

As improbable as it may sound for a last place (until tomorrow...WEEE!) team that draws slightly smaller crowds than the local IHOP, the Thrashers are blessed with quite a number of quality bloggers. I'll highlight Do The Thrashers Have Large Talons here, but only because I love the name. But do yourself a favour and peruse the others in The Falconer's roll. Who says the South can't do hockey? Now that' enough out of you, Winnipeg...

Doin' it up, Cover It Live style:

Because we're suckers for punishment the OBC, led by our intrepid emailing machine, Dany Heatly Speedwagon, will once again be polluting the tubes with half formed opinion, off topic tangents about various foodstuffs and lots of ampersands cleverly disguised as curse words. Join us, won't you? If for nothing else than the inherent joy in slap-typing OH JUST STFU PIERRE!!! over and over again.

You Disgust Me

2008-12-02T00:03:00.004-05:00

Note: The following has absolutely nothing to do with the Ottawa Senators, hockey or even sports. But it does have everything to do with my unending rage with what is going on with my Government. This is the only platform I have with which to make my views known. If you look up at my banner, it states "Combining Senators hockey with contempt of the human condition". This post is all about that contempt. If you're here for the funny, my apologies. Check back in tomorrow.

To Mister Stephane Dion, Mister Jack Layton and Monsieur Gilles Duceppe:

You disgust me.

I am a Civil Servant. The oath I swore upon joining the public service was to uphold, to the best of my ability, in an absolutely impartial fashion, the policies of the Government of the day, duly elected by the people of Canada. It is a duty I take very, very seriously. It is my job to respect and administer, regardless of my own personal politics, the wishes of Cabinet as expressed by the mandate given to it by the Canadian electorate. You, gentlemen, in your seedy, underhanded scheming grab for power, deserve no such respect.

All of this was brought about by the Tories' move to cut public subsidies to political parties, a subsidy I happen to support if only to keep the grasping influence of well funded special interest groups out of federal politics. But...

You have no mandate. Six weeks ago, the Canadian people voted for a minority government headed by Stephen Harper. Now, you three are telling the roughly eleven million people who cast ballots in that election, that we all made a terrible mistake and that you know better than the rest of us. Perhaps I haven't made myself sufficiently clear...WE DIDN'T FUCKING VOTE FOR YOU!!!! You disgust me.

Your "coalition" depends upon the support of a political party whose stated aim, it's very raison d'être, remains the secession of Quebec and the destruction of my country. You disgust me.

Your purported Prime Minister, Stephane Dion, leader of the Liberal party, the man rejected by the electorate, yet the man who you tell us is the best man to lead us out of the economic crisis gripping the planet, the man you say is best suited to navigate the quagmire that is Afghanistan, at the cost of 97 Canadian lives so far, will be replaced next May, barely six months into your eighteen month agreement, by a new leader. That leader will also become Prime Minister without even the slightest hint of any kind of mandate save the three thousand or so Liberal delegates at the convention. You disgust me.

This is nothing less than a political party making a deal with the devil in order to remain "entitled to its entitlements". This is nothing less than a group of vainglorious, pissant little cockroaches who have deluded themselves into thinking that they know better about what this country wants, whether we know it or not. This is nothing less than a naked grasp for power, for power's sake. This is nothing less than a Coup D'Etat.

You disgust me.

Isles 4, Sens 2 : We Officially Welcome You To The John Tavares Sweepstakes And Cooking Show!

2008-12-01T18:48:00.006-05:00

AHA! I'm on to your little game, Bryan. Oh yes I am.

You thought you could fool me, didn't you? You clever, clever boy!! You made sure all of those press conferences were peppered with all of the right words like "concern" and "disappointment". You tsk-ed and tsk-ed and tsk-ed. TEEHEE!! And when the losing just keeps on keepin' on, you even throw out the possibility of a trade to keep it fresh! To keep me on my toes! Oh heavens, but you did have the players in a twist! My stars! HA-HA!! But I'm onto you now Bryan. Oh yes I am. You can't fool me anymore, you naughty, naughty man.

It's odd, really. No, not ME, silly. It's odd that I didn't catch on sooner. All of the signs were there. The little twinkle in your eye every time somebody asks you "what's wrong with this team??" Trading for Picard and Kuba. Somehow convincing Verms and Fish not to score any goals. Transplanting Jason's brain into Alfie's body...all the better to ensure that two-thirds of our top line make the same dumbass mistakes with the puck. And of course, there's the ice that everyone has been bitch-- *GASP!* That was you too, wasn't it?!?! My GAWD man!

But don't worry Bryan. This will be our little secret. I won't tell a SOUL. Honest. Honest and for true! HEE-HEE!! And just in case any of those nasty wasty prying peepers try to get it out of me...again...I'll be wearing one of these. Want one? Really. Go ahead. That lottery pick will be TOTALLY worth it!

Sens 2, Leafs 1 (SO): The Burke Era Begins As Swimingly As One Would Expect

2008-11-29T19:07:00.000-05:00

Photograph by : Wayne Cuddington, The Ottawa Citizen

Yes, I realize I had promised to post this yesterday. But in order to give my title any kind of credence, I had to wait for the Conclave to finally release the white smoke from the chimneys of the ACC. Anybody else fairly certain that Richard Peddie goes commando under those cardinal's robes?

The Highs:

Holy crap! So THAT's how it works: It's been so long since we've seen it that I had completely forgotten the fact that, through what I'm sure is some crazy oversight by the Rules Committee, it is technically possible for the Ottawa Senators to garner a second point by way of the shootout. Something else that had slipped my mind: It's only a gimmick if you lose.

Maybe we'll hold off on the boots and hand bag idea: Something SALE said to me in the live blog gave me pause. "Oh SLC, I'm glad you have something good to say about Smith again." Now, I'll admit, perhaps my expectations were rather high following the Smith signing. But what I hadn't expected (nor have I enjoyed) were the six weeks of relative invisibility to start the season. So when I see glimpses of the Gator I thought we were getting, I definitely feel the need to point them out here. If only for Meaghan's sake.

Gerber WHO?: I have no idea how long he'll be able to pull it off (mostly because he's never managed it before), but The Auldinator reminds us what it's like to have a money goalie protecting a one goal lead. I found the lack of anxiety induced heart palpitations, normally associated with every opposing forward's rush up ice from the middle of the second period on, rather comforting.

Well, at least it wasn't a backup: I'd be remiss if I didn't give a brief, albeit extremely grudging, shout out to Vesa Toskala. Without him, this game is over by the end of the second and our live blog is dead in the water as Leafs Nation stampedes for the exits. But if I could ask one small favour Toska...the next time you want to follow six weeks of suck by channelling the spirit of Johnny Bower, would you mind not doing it against us?

The Low:

This should never be seen in print anywhere, ever again: From the Citizen's game story..."Just 59 seconds later, Mikhail Grabovski outmuscled Chris Phillips, skated out on the right side of the Ottawa net and passed across the crease to Kulemin, who was heading toward the left post. He had no problem. Room service." 'Nuff said.

The Creamy Middle:

Say it with me, kids. Every. Point. Counts. So there's that.

I don't know if it was the lack of animosity between two rivals on the ice (Roto Ruutu's welcomed efforts to the contrary notwithstanding), the fact that I've been more concerned with our own team's problems than I have been with poking a detestable arch-enemy in the eye, or if the surprising level of civility in a live blog involving both Sens and Leaf fans caught me off guard, but I wasn't as emotional about this chapter of the Battle of Ontario as I normally would be. Seriously. I didn't get to swing the Ban Hammer even once during the entire game. Where's the fun in that? C'mon Laffers. You can do better. See you on the 9th.

Pithy Observation of Some As Yet Undetermined Importance:

This has nothing to do with this game in particular, but everything to do with those of us who are passionate about The Game in general. It seems Wrap Around Curl, damn fine writer and friend of FFS, is having some difficulties with the pencil necked corporate cockroaches who run the Spokane Chiefs, defending Memorial Cup champs and the object of WAC's delightfully obsessive affection.

Putting aside the usual and extremely tedious "MSM vs. Blog/Internet/New Media" cock fight, I ask the question: why on God's green earth would a junior hockey team play the heavy and wave the lawyer card in the name of "image control" at a blog that gives that same team more exposure to more people across the entire continent, and no cost to them I should add, than a thousand marketing monkeys could ever hope to do in a thousand years? And more important, what happens to sites like hers, or mine, or any of the thousands of fan-generated blogs across all sports should the Chiefs get away with it? I feel a Sunday Soapbox coming on.

Up Next:

Once again, our travelling circus of panic and frustration takes us to Long Island for a date with the Islanders. Television coverage? Zippo. Nothing. Not a sausage...Bugger all. Am I at all disappointed with this? Considering the way we've played against them so far this year, not in the absolute fucking slightest.

And The Earth Takes One Small Step Toward Axial Equilibrium -- Sens 2, Laffs 1 (SO)

2008-11-27T22:31:00.003-05:00

Holy crap that sucked. Holy crap that was sweet. Live blogging is hard. Brian Burke is now officially second guessing himself. And who's the bag of dicks who told Toskala he's a real goalie?!?!

Creamy Middle to follow tomorrow. For now, let us just revel in the sweet, sweet taste of no longer being the worst team in the Northeast.

I Can See No Possible Way In Which This Can End Badly

2008-11-27T18:18:00.003-05:00

Just a reminder kids...live bloggin' the Battle of Ontario!

Please join us for an evening of enlightened discourse as members of the OBC and charter members of the Barilkosphere debate the relative merits of their chosen hockey teams in the spirit of mutual respect. Revel in the gracefully civilized point-counterpoint of well reasoned argument. And all this in real time!

God Save The Queen at 7:15. Puck drop at 7:30. First "Fuck the Leafs! Cock!" at 7:32

TSN Bravely Refuses To Believe Burke's Soul Still For Sale

2008-11-26T21:30:00.002-05:00

I'm sorry, did I miss something?

The last time I looked (or had Pierre McGuire yell at me about it), MLSE's latest foray into the land of Cantankerous Irishmen Not Named Pat Quinn has yet to yield any real results. But fear not stout, albeit delusional, blue and white clad yeomen, a quick perusal of TSN's home page assures you all is well:

OTR brings us Bobby Clarke, waxing rhapsodic with "words of praise for Brian Burke...admitting he was a fan of his work as a general manager. But while he thought Burke would do a good job for the Maple Leafs, he expressed some concerns". My guess is those "concerns" centre largely around no longer being the biggest egomaniacal blowhard in the Eastern Conference.

Not to be outdone by Michael Landsburg and his carbon fiber cheek bones, the intrepid NHL on TSN panel "discuss who they think will stay and who will go when Brian Burke takes over" (emphasis...um, not theirs).

And finally, Bob McKenzie sets aside his onion belt as he struggles to remember that dusty old saw about actually confirming something before reporting it as fact (sooooo 1985!) and offers us, in his usual gripping fashion, that "The Brian Burke-Toronto Maple Leafs saga is close to reaching its logical conclusion." Settle down there, Bob.

For those keeping score at home, that's three items on the main page of Canada's self proclaimed sports leader about a story that hasn't even happened yet. And they wonder why the rest of the country presumes that the "T" in "TSN" stands for "Toronto".

For the record, my guess as to why Burke hasn't yet ~~surrendered to the Dark Side~~ signed with MLSE? Neither camp can agree on who has to water Cliff Fletcher twice a week.

Sens 4, Rangers 1: Ontario Hydro Assures Me The First Half Was Quite Entertaining

2008-11-23T10:24:00.006-05:00

At ten minutes of three o'clock, I was all set. The chores had been finished. The groceries packed away. The dog suitably distracted by his Darcy Tucker chew toy. And with my first wobbly-pop of the day freshly opened, I settled in for some live-bloggy goodness and the Great Cash Grab Unveiling of 2008. Then everything...blacked out. And this time, it wasn't the booze. My house was a dark and powerless as an MLSE board room.

Three minutes spent flicking the light switches on and off (useless, I know, but it's encoded into my male DNA. I also push the up button multiple times on the off chance that this time it will work and the elevator will get there faster) followed by a panicked scramble to the basement...nope, the breaker panel looked fine. At two minutes before puck drop, I called the Ontario Hydro (sorry...Hydro One!) emergency hot line whereupon a friendly, and not a little un-sexy computerized voice informed me that "a power outage has already been reported in your area. Service should be restored by...four...forty...five...p.m." Gimme that chew toy, dog.

The Highs (or at least those I actually saw):

It's official. Bring on the Apocalypse!: One of the few things that actually made it into my notepad reads thusly: "19...hard in the corners?!?!". Mine eyes did not deceive me, for our boy Giggles did indeed battle along the boards, with two particularly memorable occasions late in the second where, on the same shift, he physically separated the D-man from the puck on the forecheck. Sure, it was Wade Redden...but still! Fantastic job, Jason! Now let's see you do it against a real defenceman.

Long Sault is erecting a statue as we speak: Most rookies get their first few goals on the cheap. A weird bounce, an empty net, a seeing-eye shot from the beer stand...whatever. Not our boy Jesse. He busts his ass straight down the middle with somebody hanging off his back and lifts a one-handed backhander over the goalie's shoulder for his second goal of his career. If you drink enough, and squint a little while watching the replay, you'd swear it was that other number 18.

My pants are erecting a statue as we speak: Imagine how distracted the Rangers would have been had Jarks actually done something illegal. If anyone needs a reminder why we're paying Roto Ruutu...well, let's just say no one on a vanquished opponent ever said this about Vaclav Varada (glove tap to Al at Hockeyshlock for capturing the sweet bitterness). Take it away, Mr. Mara!

So, we can’t let guys take liberties on our teammate like that and he did and he didn’t answer the bell. …it’s something I had to do for the team. It’s too bad that they did score the power play goal and got us in a hole. I guess he won the battle, because they did score on the power play.
The only Low I want to talk about:

So, how many is that now, Roy? Eight? Nine? I'm pretty sure it's nine. We've been in the League for 16 years, and we've had nine different jerseys. Look, I understand how you want to milk us for everything we have...after all, "fan" is short for "fanatic" and those skull waxes ain't going to pay for themselves. But could you at least pretend you're putting a little effort into it? Your latest bit of marketing "genius", following hard on the footsteps of our friend Spartacus and (blech) "A Force United!" looks like it was cobbled together by very enthusiastic yet slightly delayed preschoolers.

Upon setting eyes on your new creation for the first time, non-hockey fan Beloved asked me "Sens? Isn't 'Sens' just a nickname? Why is it on the sweater?" And there's the rub. You don't see any other Canadian team producing lame-ass third jerseys festooned with colloquialisms, do you? Can you, in your wildest delusion fueled dreams envision Montreal coming out with "Habs" emblazoned on their chest, or Toronto's big blue leaf replaced by "Perpetually Hopeless"? Of course you can't.

We had the chance. We once had a logo that would have stood the test of time and become as iconic as the "CH" and the Winged Wheel. It was this one. But you couldn't leave well enough alone, could you? You had to let the marketing "experts" slither and crawl their way into your consciousness, like cockroaches after breadcrumbs, with meaningless MBA created buzzwords like "rebranding" and "revenue streams" and "synergy".

So here's the thing, Roy. Buzzwords are the sign of uncreative minds and even weaker intellects. And so is your jersey. We aren't some desparate franchise looking to get noticed in a crowded non-hockey market. We are the Ottawa Fucking Senators. And it will be a cold, cold day in Hell before I buy something that tells people otherwise.

Pithy Observation Of Questionable Importance:

Here's what I wrote following the (first) loss against the Islanders:

Joe ("Joe"? Really? "JOE?") MacDonald. Michael Leighton. Mike Smith. Jonas Hiller. Craig Anderson. Brent Johnson. Patrick Lalime (Jesus wept...). What do these names have in common? They're all backup goaltenders. They're all backup goaltenders who have started against the Senators this year. Sixteen games played; seven backups have started against us. And the first five listed herein? Totally kicked our ass. Make of this information what you will.

This is from Ottawa Citizen sports dude Wayne Scanlan:

It has more to do with circumstance than any lack of respect, but the opposition continues to pitch backup goaltenders at Ottawa. Washington started Brent Johnson in place of José Theodore, Florida used Craig Anderson instead of Tomas Vokoun, Anaheim went with Jonas Hiller (the Ducks saved J.S. Giguère for a game in Montreal the next night), Buffalo went with Patrick Lalime (a former Senator) and not Ryan Miller and the Islanders started Joey MacDonald with Rick DiPietro out injured. Philadelphia came in here with Antero Niittymaki and not starter Martin Biron. And yesterday, the Rangers rested their ace goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who stoned the Senators on Monday, in favour of Steve Valiquette.

Want to know why newspapers are dying? I wrote mine a week ago. Wayne wrote his last night. And he got paid for it.

Creamy Middle:

Holy crap! We actually won the game! I have no idea what to do with this information.

Up Next:

Mark your calendar kids. Not only do the aforementioned Perpetually Hopeless roll into the Bank on Thursday night (no word on whether they'll be hauling a vaguely Burke shaped duffel bag with them), but it will also mark the Ottawa Blogger Collective's second foray into the wild and wooley world of the Live Blog (7:30 p.m., SportsNet East). Expletive filled hilarity will no doubt ensue.

Behind Enemy Lines:

As much as it pains me to admit it, the Laffs are blessed with (if quite undeserving of) one of the best fan blogger bases in the entire League. Second only to ours of course, and possibly the Habs. Today's featured Barilkospheric (TM-PPP) contributor is Loser Domi, and her Wonderful World. Come to our Live Blog, LD! We'll have such fun. And bring the LOLeafs.

Habs 3, Sens 2 (SO) -- I Too Have Been Violated By The Cold Cold Finger Of Injustice

2008-11-21T19:39:00.005-05:00

Seriously, Don. Would it have killed you to use just a little? The chafing is killing me.

The Highs:

You shall know him by Stereolepis gigas. And you shall fear him: And that is why we love you, Cody. An absolute animal on the boards, drawing penalties, and no matter what anyone tells you, Begin got lucky. If you don't fall down in that fight, little Stevie is still picking up his teeth out of the ice. Keep it up and not only will you stick with the big club, but someone, someday, may come along and produce extremely stylish, yet highly practical collectible day wear in your honour.

B-I-N-G-O! B-I-N-G-O! B-I-N-G-O! And BINGO's where they played-OH!: I can't decide if the fact that Bass-Foligno-Zubov for the most part out-performed everybody else (including Heatzzasson...a little energy, if you please gentlemen) is a sign that perhaps Mucks didn't rape and pillage our farm system to the extent that I had previously thought, and that the future is indeed bright, or if it's a relative indication of how brutally craptacular the rest of the team has been. Little Nicky's goal leaves me further conflicted, and not a little bit vexed. I need help.

Excuse me, but I'd like to see more of that team, if you don't mind: The first fifteen minutes of this game were pretty sweet. White jerseys flying every which way, left, right and through the air, as they scrambled around in their own end, beaten to every puck, unsure or unwilling to deal with the hornets' nest buzzing around them while shots rained down upon them from all directions as if hurled from the finger tips of an angry god. Holy crap, I miss last November.

The Lows (easy...I'll get to it in a minute):

So...um...where did that team go?: From the fifteen minute mark of the first, it was as if somebody had flipped the switch to "off". The hustle disappeared, the forecheck evaporated, and all of a sudden, we were sending one man in deep while everyone else stood still at the blue line. Had it been any other opponent (i.e.: not a team playing as putridly as our own), we would have been out of it by the end of the second. Now, whomever could have orchestrated that? Who, when things were going so well, could have persuaded the boys to adopt such a defensive posture with a scant one goal lead? I haven't a clue! But whoever it was Craig, he had better pull his head out of his ass and make sure the team learns something. Namely, you don't EVER get off the gas.

We have now officially "lost" the Meszaros trade: Between Filip Kuba's repeated one hundred foot passes through the neutral zone to the guys in the different coloured sweaters and Alex Picard's baffling inability to be in anything like the proper position to defend anything, it will truly be a wonder if my television survives the season.

And now...the moment you've all been waiting for: In the NFL, if the officials blow a call that changes the outcome of a game, Emperor Goodell will at the very least apologize to the team so affected. Somehow that makes things a little easier to bear for the mutinous fan base. It doesn't change the result or the fact that they were outright robbed, but it does provide a small salve to the outraged multitude. The League knows it fucked up and will try to get it right the next time. Not so in Gary's brave new NHL. No, all we get are platitudes about how "quick the game is" or "we leave it up to the discretion of the referee". Or worse, not a fucking word. So in light of that, I'd like to offer an apology. I'm sorry Don. I've misspoken. Please allow me to amend my comments from last night:

If it were up to me Don, you would be waking up in your hotel room, roughly four hours hence, with a rabid porcupine ripping your, shrunken pus filled ballsack to pieces with its bloody, slavering teeth. And if we miss the playoffs by a point, I will make it my mission in life to ensure that actually happens while you are simultaneously being violated by an engorged elk.

I hate ~~drunken~~ ~~enraged~~ shoddy composition.

Creamy Middle:

Any coach looking to maintain his salary will tell you that an official can't affect the outcome of a game. If a call goes against you, the logic goes, than it's up to you, as professionals, to overcome it and make sure that it becomes a non-factor in the final result. To which I say BULLSHIT! If A-Train's goal counts, as everyone but the most myopic Sens hater and a certain incompetent, pride filled fuckstick agrees it should have, then we go up by two goals with a little over a period left to play. The Montreal D would have had no choice but to cheat in an effort to generate more offence, leaving them open to the odd-man rush going the other way. God knows we Sens fans have seen that scenario often enough.

You don't think, given how desperate both teams were for the win, we wouldn't have been able to score the insurance marker? Or at the very least, would have more easily kept the pressure in the Habs' end instead of ours, therefore rendering their second and "tying goal" moot? Setting aside the bloody "non-visible" injury that should have given us a four minute power play going into the five minute overtime, the verdict is as clear as the guilt and embarrassment in Don Van Massenhoven's conscience. We were royally fucked.

Up Next:

And the hits just keep on comin'. The New York Rangers roll into the Bank tomorrow afternoon for a matinee. And we all know how well we do in those. Not sure who gets the start between the pipes for this one. Then again, I'm no longer sure it matters. On the "upside" (if you're a marketing cockroach type) the team is unveiling it's newest cash gra...er...I mean third jersey. Please God, don't let it be this one.

A Special Message To Don Van Massenhoven

2008-11-20T21:09:00.003-05:00

What...the...FUCK! Were you sick the day they taught you the Possession Rule on delayed penalties? Or were you too distracted, stroking that porn-stache while reminiscing on your days as an alter boy? JESUS. JUMPED. UP. CHRIST!!

There are bad calls. They happen all the time. There are even bad calls that cost goals. Scrambles around the crease, or maybe a close off sides that gets missed. I can understand that. But THAT?!? That was a fucking embarrassment.

Asshat.

UPDATE: We lose 3-2 in a shootout. Of course, this game should never have gone to overtime, let alone a shootout, isn't that right Don? Yes. That's right. And it wasn't just the A-Train GOAL was it? No, it wasn't. We should have started the OT with a four minute powerplay instead of two. But apparently, to you, you incompetent bag of scrotum sweat, "blood" does not equal "visible sign of injury".

If it were up to me Don, you would be waking up in your hotel room, roughly four hours from now, with a rabid porcupine ripping out your ballsack with its bloody, slavering teeth. And if we miss the playoffs by a point, I will make it my mission that that actually happens.

Creamy Middle to follow tomorrow. I need to calm down.

Geez...I Thought WE Were A Tough Crowd

2008-11-20T19:15:00.005-05:00

The Montreal Canadiens are 10-5-2. The prohibitive favourite to win the Northeast Division, and touted as one of the teams to come out of the East and go to the Finals. Their goaltender, despite an alarming lack of facial hair (or puberty, for that matter) shows all the signs of being the real deal. And they have three forward lines fast enough to make me (and our defence) break out into a cold sweat.

But they have hit a bit of a rough patch, of late, winning only one in their last four. So what to do? The answer is obvious. This is November. The playoffs are a scant five months away. You pull up your socks. You work harder. You get back to the things that made you great!

Or...just fire the coach.

The wheels, they wobble and there's blood in the water. This pleases me. I always mangle my metaphors when I'm happy.

GAME ON!

Splendiferous!

2008-11-19T19:39:00.003-05:00

Huzzah! The wayward and prodigal son of the OBC makes his triumphant return to Capital City! Happiness and shirty hilarity ensues! Cody "I'm prettier than Georges Laraques" Bass has been called up from Bingo. Playing the part of the fatted calf...Martin Gerber.

H/T to the boys at Sens Army for the clue in.

Rangers 2, Sens 1(SO) -- Maybe That Nice British Feller Was On To Something

2008-11-18T18:52:00.005-05:00

Photo: Ottawa's own, the incomparable Yousuf Karsh, 1941

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning -- Sir Winston Churchill

The Highs:

My CPU is a neural net processor, a learning computer. The more contact I have with humans, the more I learn: He is coldly efficient. He is emotionless. He is implacable. While not flawless, the search for those flaws will drive mortal men mad. He has been sent from ~~Cold Lake, Alberta~~ a strange and distant place to save us. He is...The Auldinator.

Reunited and it feels so...um...less sucky: Kudos to Coach Craig for finally coming to grips with a reality that had forever eluded John Paddock. Namely, no matter how much you might wish it weren't so, sometimes putting all of your eggs in one big, bad-ass basket, isn't so bad after all. At the very least, putting the Big Line back together might allow we fans to actually cheer a goal every once in a while.

Not bad, Brendan. Now go stand over there and don't touch anything: I have to say, based on what I saw in training camp, I had zero confidence in your ability to do anything but totally crater an already abysmal defence. Now, I'm man enough to admit when I've made a mistake, so I'll state it here, and for the record: I was only half-wrong. Keep not screwing anything up too badly, and maybe figure out how to get a pass onto a stick blade rather than into somebody's skates or five feet wide, and we can reassess. Oh, and #9? Really? Well, I'll give you points for your ambition, if not for your self-awareness.

So...any chance you've figured it out yet?: Easily the hardest we've seen you boys work since the second game of the season. That funny tingling sensation you may be feeling this morning is called "an epiphany". Embrace it. Do what it tells you to do. Follow it unto death, for it will lead you to the Promised Land. In other words, and I reiterate for those of you who may have some difficulty with subtlety...WORK YOUR ASSES OFF! Not sure if you've grasped this little factoid, but it's the only way we're making the playoffs.

The Lows:

Dammit! What did I just say?: Seven minutes, by my count. They took seven minutes off in the third. During those seven minutes, the Rangers beat us to every loose puck, drilled everything in white, and pretty much set up a camp site in our zone, complete with binder twine kitchen, Kum-Bay-Ya and a latrine. The result was as inevitable as it was lexically impossible...Sjostrom's tying goal. Here's hoping his grateful teammates thought to give him that missing vowel.

So, Coach. About that shootout...: Giggles. Roto Ruutu. Verms. Jarks, I can almost understand. He's surprisingly good at this kind of thing. But Jason? The same Jason whose last goal came before a black man was elected President? Or Antoine, who, you may have noticed, had already been stoned on a breakaway not twenty minutes before? Just a thought, but you might want to try somebody else in such circumstances. Here's a hint. He wears #11.

Creamy Middle:

That single point was well and truly earned. But more important were the small...incredibly small signs of hope. The hard work (those Nixonian missing seven minutes notwithstanding). The passes that actually went tape-to-tape instead of tape-to-zamboni driver. And if Coach can resist the itch to over engineer the lines and keeps HeatZzaSson together, the second and third lines may actually build on the infinitesimal iota of chemistry they've started to create (I'm looking at you numbers 20, 22 and 18). As my fellow OBC and co-Scarlett Ice scribbler DHS posits, there may indeed be a dim light at the end of the tunnel. If we're lucky, it isn't an oncoming train.

Pithy Observation of Questionable Importance:

As Gary Galley reminded us (early and often), it's tradition for a player, when facing a former team for the first time, to "pin some cash to the bulletin board" to serve as some kind of reminder to his teammates that this particular game is of special importance. Putting aside how cute Gary looks in his onion festooned belt, I couldn't help but wonder how Reds' fellow Rangers felt as Tom Renney stapled Wade's lazy, stick-checking ass to the bench for most of the third period. My cash-on-the-bulletin-board says it was something like "Holy crap. No wonder they didn't try to re-sign him."

Up Next:

Maxim "Ow! My pretty, pretty face!" Lapierre and his fellow (and suddenly shaky...2-1 Canes final as I type this) Montreal Canadiens roll into the Bank two nights hence, attempting, as is their wont, to exact perverse revenge on Roto Ruutu's elbow (7:30pm, SportsNet East). Far be it for me to tell The Bryan how to do his job, but with Fish and Neiler both doubtful, and Carbo's minions no doubt feeling a tad ornery, it might be a good time to call up a certain Mr. Bass. Seriously Bryan. Do it. If not for me, then for shirtless children all over the Third World.

Behind Enemy Lines:

FHF for the game thread (...oh, HF29, why can't I quit you?!?) and stripper pics (of course), but I'd also like to introduce you to The Notwithstanding Clause, a relatively new and totally worthy addition to the Habs corner of the interwebs. Anyone who consistently calls out the troglodytes who troll the message boards, is definitely a friend of mine.

Rangers 2, Sens 1 (SO) -- I Know What I Hate. And I Didn't Hate This

2008-11-17T21:43:00.004-05:00

Well, at least we didn't suck...the first eight minutes of the third notwithstanding.

Alex needs a new nickname (Alex The Great? The Auldinator? Help me out folks). Reds owes his coach an apology...and his teammates a crapload of cash. A few words on Kitty-Bar-the-door.

And...um...yeah. Craig? About that shootout line up...

Creamy Middle to follow. See you tomorrow kids. And remember, you can only take one shot on a shootout, so play nice.

Isles 3, Sens 2 -- We Now Pause For A Dash Of Much Needed Perspective (Even For Me)

2008-11-16T12:14:00.006-05:00

Coming off yet another embarrassing loss to the Montreal Canadiens, the Senators saw their record drop to four games below .500. Sitting dead last in the Northeast division for the first time since expansion, the Ottawa media pulled out all the stops and gleefully fanned the flames of a growing fan revolt.

"FIRE THE COACH!!", everyone screamed. "BUNCH A NO GOOD BUMS!", came the cry. "TRADE ALFIE!" "LYNCH SPEZZA!" And, most oft heard of all..."WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS TEAM?!?"

They couldn't buy a goal. The second and third lines had pretty much vanished. The defence was too old, too slow and absolutely, unequivocally, brutally soft in their own end. To top it off, both goalies were sucking the hair off of giant moose testicles.

Yes, there was revolution in the air, and metaphorical blood in the streets. Clearly, the panic stricken hordes would tell anyone who would listen, the time had come to just blow the whole damn thing up and start over. We weren't going to win a damn thing with this lazy, clueless, underachieving, uncaring bunch of losers and their new Head Coach who obviously didn't have a clue what he was doing.

The Sens record at the time? 6-10-1. The date? November 17th, 2006.
The Sens record today? 6-9-1. The date? November 16th, 2008.

Kinda freaky, huh? If memory serves, that season ended pretty well.

In other words...Lighten up Francis.

Up Next:

Tomorrow night, on the road, against the New York Rangers (7:00pm, SportsNet East). So here's the plan, Fish. Get to the blueline, fire it deep, and go after it as if your ass is on fire. It's not like you have to worry about this guy going into the corner with you.

Behind Enemy Lines:

One thing you quickly realize while touring the Rangers' corner of the hockeysphere, is that a frightening majority of Rangers' blogs take themselves very, very seriously. Not so with our guest, Scotty Hockey. Insight? Check. Analysis? Check. Solid? Check and check. "Everything I say is important" pomposity? Not a trace. I like that.

Isles 3, Sens 1 -- It's Getting A Little Pitchforky In Here

2008-11-14T18:43:00.005-05:00

Please form an orderly line at the registration desk. Note, torches will only be issued upon presentation of valid Standard First Aid and Level C CPR Certification. Also, punch and pie will be served following the burning. Thank you, FFS Management.

The High:

Please remain on the line. We'll get to you when we're damn good and ready: As I settled into the Man Room and flipped on the tee-vee, I discovered something rather unsettling. Apparently, ExpressVu's satellite had taken it upon itself to scramble my subscription package such that half of my regular channels were either red and locked out (Bell-speak for "You want this channel? Give us more money, bitch!") or, as was the case with three of the four SportsNet channels, had evaporated completely. After thirty-five minutes on hold and another fifteen spent with a very helpful (and LOCAL!!) if somewhat frazzled techie (please, for "Alex"'s sake and the sake of her sanity...switch out your Smart Cards people!), we were back in business. The upshot being, by that point I had missed the first twelve minutes of the first period and therefore remained blissfully ignorant of the general crapitude taking place on the ice.

The Lows (Royal Sampler Edition):

Whew! Good thing we got rid of that Euro-Soft D-man, eh?: Mister Kuba, I watched Mister Meszaros. I swore at Mister Meszaros. And you sir, with your paltry +3 despite your 15 points and the way Trent Hunter beat you like a dead hooker while a foot away from your own crease to score the winner, are exactly like Mister Meszaros.

How dost thou kill me? Let me count the ways: Now The Bryan tells us that we pick on Giggles because it's "fashionable". Let me give you a run down on a few other things which, in some circles, are considered "fashionable". Not making a blind back pass from behind the offensive red line into the slot, when your only supporting player is standing two feet away...also behind the net. Not attempting, while on the power play, to make a pass from behind the offensive red line to the far point...through four defensive sticks. Not taking a hooking call in a tie game, because, as usual, you were caught flat footed by an onrushing forward. But above all, it is most certainly not considered "fashionable" to allow yourself to be beaten to a loose puck, deep in your own zone, when your goalie has been pulled and you have a 6-on-freaking-3 man advantage! In fact, in some circles, that's considered grounds for a public stoning.

Not sure about you guys, but I'd be getting mighty offended: Joe ("Joe"? Really? "JOE?") MacDonald. Michael Leighton. Mike Smith. Jonas Hiller. Craig Anderson. Brent Johnson. Patrick Lalime (Jesus wept...). What do these names have in common? They're all backup goaltenders. They're all backup goaltenders who have started against the Senators this year. Sixteen games played; seven backups have started against us. And the first five listed herein? Totally kicked our ass. Make of this information what you will.

Ladies and gentlemen, the role of Icarus will be played this evening by...: Ryan Shannon. I feel genuinely sorry for Ryan. Brought up from Bingo, his first assignment with the Big Club consisted of trying to decipher the alchemic stylings of that swirling, unpredictable beast known as Danon Heatzza. Only Danon Heatzza is at war with itself and last night, was in no mood to truck with the naive aspirations of a minor leaguer. Then to top it off, Icarus got smoked.

Whew! Good thing we have Cody to...I'm sorry. WHAT??: Other than the inability to score a goal, the butter soft defence and the general fucknuttery that has characterized this train wreck of a season thus far, the one thing that has stood out is our continued, and baffling, habit of having our collective asses handed to us when the going gets dirty. So how does The Bryan address this now that he has a new hole to fill due to Young Master Ryan's unfortunate condition? He calls up...Illya Zubov. Somewhere in the wilds of upstate New York, Cody Bass chews the heads off live trout.

Pithy Observation of Questionable Importance:

You don't know what you got, 'till the Second Assistant To The Third Associate Producer pushes the wrong button: Just as I was reconnected to civilization, that nifty little graphic bar at the top of the screen disappeared for about five minutes. It was just...gone. Over the years, it's become such a natural part of my sports viewing experience that I've long taken it for granted, like screaming at Dan Marouelli or surfing for porn between periods. Its complete absence left me totally discombobulated. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know anything. What's the score?!? How much time is left in the period?!? Where's the out of town scoreboard?!?! For the love of God, SOMEBODY TELL ME WHO IS SPONSORING THE PENALTY KILL?!?!

The Creamy Middle:

I am at a complete and utter loss. Just out of curiosity, if we lose to the worst professional hockey team on the face of not only Mother Earth, but also thirty-seven percent of all theoretical planets orbiting Alpha Centauri B...um...what does that make us?

Up Next:

For the first time in recorded history, I'm thankful for HNIC's monopolization of Saturday nights. Tomorrow night, we're off on the road to Rhode Long Island for Suck Bowl II, but thankfully, there is no local television for this one. Beloved will be happy to hear that. I may have frightened her a tad last night, you see.

Who knew you could chew straight through a mattress, box spring, carpet and most of a floorboard and never wake up once?

Habs 4, Wankers 0 -- Seriously. WTF Was That??

2008-11-12T19:27:00.006-05:00

Ten games. That's how long I've managed to hold on to my vow of being a kinder, gentler, pink and squishy, "Oh the boys are young and need positive reinforcement instead of nasty words" kind of blogger. Ten games. Then you go and cock it all up by letting Chris Higgins (CHRIS HIGGINS!!) make you his prison bitch. Ten. Fucking. Games.

The One, Infinitesimal High:

Of lipstick wearing pigs: In a shocking turn of events, never before seen in Ottawa, our boys actually turned the usual platitudes ("We just have to work hard!", "We have to be accountable!", "No one is happy about the way we played!", "I LIKE SOUP!") into honest to God results on the ice. Personally, I was astounded. My astonishment would have turned to outright flabbergast had it lasted for more than the middle ten minutes of the first period.

The Lows:

Speaking of which: Hell of a start you got off to, there Jason. Yep, one hell of a start. Nice to see Coach Craig calling you out in public could have an effect. Hard in the corners, threw some hits...even took a run at Koivu. Nice. So tell me, Jason. Did your testicles shrink, or did you just figure you had fulfilled your Man-Up quota for the evening and shut it down for the last two periods? Just curious.

You will feel shame. You will feel shame and beg his forgiveness: Alex Auld played his balls off. Alex Auld single handedly kept this game from becoming an even bigger embarrassment than it eventually was. So maybe, just maybe, you guys can help him out a bit. By that, I mean, your assistance would be appreciated. To further illustrate my point, I shall restate it thusly: GETTING TORCHED ON FEWER THAN FOUR BREAKAWAYS WOULD BE OF SOME FUCKING ASSISTANCE!!

Bus to Binghamton, now departing Gate 1: When that alcohol induced aneurysm, which I have no doubt lies buried deep within my cerebral cortex finally pops like an ass pimple some time around the 21st of February (hey look, we're playing the Habs!), and I droop dead where I sit, the coroner will have no choice but to enter "Alexandre Picard" under Cause Of Death.

If only we had a trio of offensively gifted forwards with which to spark some hope!: Ten minutes to go in the game, down by three. CASH line nowhere to be found. You picked one hell of a game to make a point, Coach.

Somebody needs to stick a cock in his mouth: Shut up, McGuire. Really. Just shut the fuck up. Yes, Jarkko throwing the elbow was dirty. Yes, it was dirty, even though it was on Maxim Lapierre, who ranks just above Darcy Tucker on the International Scale of People Who Should Be Sodomized With A Buick. And, yes, it was deserving of a suspension (which was duly administered). But spending the next five minutes screaming as if we had just witnessed Roto Ruutu tearing the heads from live kittens at centre ice, just makes me want to slam your skull into the glass until the noise stops. So quit it.

The Captain cries because you suck: You made Alfie do this. If I were the rest of you, I'd be thankful it was a pane of plexiglass, and not my neck.

Creamy Middle:

Everything you need to know about this game, is perfectly encapsulated in the following:

I heard the names Spezza, Heatley, Alfie, Fisher, and Neil last night. I may have heard "Winchester" once, and Foligno was mentioned when he fell down on the third goal. That's seven forwards. Most teams dress 12. It's not a good sign when almost half of your attackers are invisible. I think Spezza and Fisher each played 45 minutes last night.

The authors of such perfect insight? Four Habs Fans. You know...the opponent.

Up Next:

Tomorrow night, the first in a home-and-home set against the Islanders (7:30pm, SportsNet East). How far have we fallen? Both Gord Miller and his loyal sidekick, Zippy Wondernuts attempted to put our mind at ease by assuring us that the Isles would provide "a more evenly matched test". C'mon guys. That's just mean.

Sens vs. Habs: The Safety Word Is "Banana"

2008-11-11T15:01:00.004-05:00

This may not end well.

Remember the good old days...and by "good old days" I mean "almost exactly a year ago"...when the boys would roll into Montreal and the air would be filled with carefully scripted sound bites emanating from the Hab locker room about how they were "looking forward to the challenge"? Or Guy Carbonneau endlessly repeating how the Sens "were a good measuring stick" and "it'll be interesting to see how we stack up against them"? Remember those days? Yeah...good times.

Not sure if you've noticed, but...um...those days are gone. Montreal, reigning Miss Eastern Conference (as elected in the MSM), are coming off a brutal and embarassing loss to *cough* the Laffs and spent the last three days being publically flogged by their own coach. In short, they are not happy campers.

So yeah...buckle up boys.

On the upside, for the first time this season, I once again get to darken the game thread at Four Habs Fans, those purveyors of all that is great and wonderful in the world of pole dancing/hockey fan goodness. Join me, won't you?

No, really. Join me. Please? I get lonely amidst the gloating hordes of conquering opponents.

Thank You

2008-11-11T11:11:00.000-05:00

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— John McCrae

I Could Have Sworn I Left It Right Here...HEY! ANYBODY SEE A GOALIE COACH??

2008-11-11T10:20:00.000-05:00

Find the coach, win a prize.

As I watched Friday's "game" in Carolina three things sprang to mind. Well, more than three, but only three that don't involve the copious use of the words "fucking" and "Corvo".

First, I realized that there would be no Creamy Middle. My natural loquacity aside, there are only so many ways one can use the word "BLECH!", or describe the sight of two Senators forwards colliding at centre ice before it gets repetitive.

Secondly, if the League truly wants to drive away casual fans in markets it has no business being in anyway, having both teams play the previous night is a hell of way to do it. Bonus points to the schedule makers for making sure both the Sens (at home, over the Flyers) and the home town Whaleicanes (road loss in Washington) had to fly into Raleigh during the wee hours. Remember those roughly 812 Ottawa-Hartford exhibition games, circa 1994? Yeah, this game was just like those...only less exciting.

And the third thought that occurred to me was this: Where in blue fuck is Eli Wilson?

You remember Eli, right? He was named as our goalie coach in August 2007, the summer after the Cup run. Not because we needed a goalie coach. You see, we already had one of those. His name was Ron Low. No, the reason Ron was given an assistant coaching position (and subsequently swept up in the Great Teflon Massacre of 2008) and Eli Wilson was named as his replacement was strictly due to placate one Ray-Ray Emery (the gift that keeps on giving), who insisted that his hand picked, off-season swami be brought on staff full-time. And as we know, that turned out swimmingly.

So as I watched Gerber on Friday night, that question popped into my head over and over again; where's Eli? And the reason this popped into my head over and over again, was because I watched Pastry make the same mistakes over and over again.

And they're the same mistakes he's been making over and over again for the last three years. He's too deep in his crease. He drops to his knees on every goddamned play (both Carolina goals went high-glove, you'll notice). It takes him a ridiculous amount of time to even react after a shot hits him, let alone to track the rebound. He constantly slides out of position when moving laterally. And most important, his confidence is absolutely shot.

The result is plain to see. The players get tentative and fearful of making a mistake, because they don't trust him to make the stop if a risk blows up in their faces. And when the five guys up front are constantly keeping one eye on the goalie, you lose hockey games.

If I can see it, if the twenty thousand people in the stands can see it, if everybody watching the game on television can see it, or if guys like Wayne Scanlan or Bruce Garrioch can see it, yet choose, for whatever reason to ignore it, and it's been going on for years, then it raises the question:

Just where in blue fuck is Eli Wilson?

How To Make Shootouts More Interesting: Decapitation!

2008-11-10T17:03:00.002-05:00

In most sporting events, convention dictates that he (or she) who first demonstrates a new technique in sanctioned competition, is bestowed the honour of having that technique named for him (or her). To wit: Alois Lutz enjoys some fabulously sequined props for having invented the figure skating jump that bears his name while high jumpers have Dick Fosbury to thank for his Flop (little known fact: in a suspiciously close decision, the IAAF voted to dub this the "Fosbury Flop" rather than uphold Great Britain's motion, "The Floppy Dick")

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...The Schubie Doo.

Optional skull crushing will add .05 to the degree of difficulty.

Sens 4, Flyers 1: Only Then Will You Be A Man, My Son

2008-11-07T18:42:00.002-05:00

There's nothing like the first time, is there? The years spent dreaming about it. Those sleepless sweaty nights all alone imagining what that moment will be like. The mounting excitement of the chase, the end goal so close you can almost taste it, and then, finally, everything falls together perfectly and you experience that climactic bliss for the first time. And it is magnificent! Nope, there is nothing like the first time. ...*sigh* Hmm? Wazzat?

I'm talking about scoring your first NHL goal. What the hell did you think I was talking about? Perv.

The Highs:

But wait, Jesse! There's more!: So here's what you do, Coach. Write down the numbers 11, 12 and 18 on a piece of paper. In ink. Then have that piece of paper laminated. Next, take it down to the corner of Rideau and Dalhousie. Finally, enter one of the many fine (and totally hygenic) boutiques along that stretch of street and hand that piece of laminated paper to the large, colourful man behind the counter and ask him to tattoo that fucker on your forehead. Backwards. That way, everytime you look in the mirror, you'll be able to fight the temptation to take Jesse off this line. The boy has earned it.

In which A-Train unveils The Testes of Steel Defence to a grateful nation: Not content with simply doubling his career high for goals scored in a season, or shooting hard, high and often enough to make Antero Niittymaki dribble a few superfluous "i"'s from his peehole, our intrepid hero revealed the newest arrow in his shot-blocking quiver early in the third period: facing the shooter, flat on his ass...legs spread wide open. Picked up the block too. Ladies and gentlemen, I can only sit uncomfortably in awe of that kind of courage...while making a funny hissing noise between my teeth.

Of leopards, spots and Spezzas: Fine, Jason. Have it your way. We give up. Three times (by my count) you made passes through the middle of the offensive zone, that by rights, should have have ended up 200 feet away in our own net. Three times you connected with an open man. And three times Dean Brown exposed himself for the stat-spewing homer he is by ejaculating all over Gary Galley while extolling your "unreal vision". If I add that to the ridiculous pass through the Flyer crease to set up Heater and the fact that you chose the safe play and dumped it rather than trying to beat a 1-on-3 at the blueline (HE CAN BE TAUGHT!), I can live with the occasional brain fart. I said occasional.

The Lows:

One of these things is not like the other: Maybe it was because the rest of the D has shown a rather marked improvement over the dreck we witnessed in the first five games, or perhaps it has to do with his tender years, but it may be time for Young Master Picard to take a confidence boosting tour of Greater Binghamton. I fear he may be feeling a touch of the vertigo.

You play. To win. The game.: There's a saying amongst we football fanatics, one that doesn't involve "Aw c'mon Ref!" and "Of course I want that seventeenth beer, honey. It's Sunday!" and it goes something like this...The only thing a prevent defence does is prevent you from winning. Pretty clever, non? Yeah, I thought so too. And I'll leave you to ponder that the next time you see Coach Craig pull the trap trigger when we're up by two.

Pithy Observations of Questionable Importance:

Don't worry Anton. A few more and they'll get it right: As I've mentioned before I love the crowd shouting out the last name of an Ottawa goal scorer. Now I love it even more. After A-Train scored, they tried their best, God love 'em. I can only attribute the resulting ANTON SPLXRTXZ..OV! to their stunned disbelief at having witnessed his second marker of the year.

Well, that was...interesting: And the season's first nominee for Most Hilarious Breakaway of the Year goes too...Schubie Doo! While coming to a dead stop while the puck sits uselessly between your own feet while standing in the crease is a novel approach, allowing yourself to be subsequently pile driven into the cross bar may have been a bit much.

Up Next:

Down to SWEEEET CAROLINE! WAH! WHA! WHA! to face the Hartolina Whaleicans, with whom we are currently tied for the last playoff spot in the East. I think. I'm too lazy to look it up. Swiss Pastry with the start, so that shouldn't last long. On the upside...good luck getting the song out of your head. You're welcome. (7:00 p.m., SportsNet East)
Behind Enemy Lines:

A big, mint julep-y Mah word! to WufPirate and Carolina on Ice. Well written, informative, pretty to look at and quite often hilarious. Yeah, I'm not sure Peter Kormanos deserves it either.

Sens 2, Caps 1 (OT): YES WE CAN!

2008-11-05T19:45:00.005-05:00

Hello, Ottawa.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that ScotiaBank Place is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of Cyril Leeder, Bruce Firestone and SpartaCat is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our hard work and perseverance, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer told to panicky fans and unscrupulous media in numbers this city has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours just for the chance to be heard on the call-in shows, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.

We are, and always will be, the Ottawa Senators.

It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by ~~Don Brennan~~ so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of our stick blade and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this game at this defining moment, change has come to Ottawa.

But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you.

This is your victory.

You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our season -- laziness, blowing a damn-near full two minutes of five-on-three powerplay time, worst defensive crisis in a decade...Martin Gerber.

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

It can't happen without Fish, The Captain, Heater and Auld, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

So let us summon a new spirit of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

Tonight, I think about all that we've seen throughout our 16 years in the NHL -- the heartache and the hope; Joe Fucking Neuwendyck; the heartache; the struggle and the progress; the heartache; the Finals; the heartache; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that Hockey Country creed: Yes we can.

At a time when the fans' voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, we lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the rafters. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the upper bowl and depression across the beer concessions, we saw a city conquer fear itself with a new coach, new players, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the pucks fell on our crease and Ovechkin threatened the net, we were there to witness a goaltender rise to greatness and a game was saved. Yes we can.

And this year, in this game, Mike Fisher touched his finger to a puck, and cast his shot, because, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, he knows how he can change.

Yes we can.

Ottawa, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves -- if our children should live to see the next post-season, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.

Yes we can.

Five For Smiting would like to take a moment, on behalf of a grateful planet, to thank the American people for not cocking it up three times in a row. Congratulations (and apologies), Mr. President-Elect! And for your people's sake, I hope you can get that Stupid-White-Guy smell out of the upholstery.

Notepad Chicken Scratch: Sens 2, Caps 1 (OT) -- FISH!

2008-11-04T22:08:00.002-05:00

It was sloppy. It was ugly. It was always in doubt. And it was entirely well deserved.

Holy crap, we finally beat the Caps.

Tomorrow night...sweeping tales of redemption, bad ice, the incredibly fucking scary Alex Ovechkin and how one man will unite us all. No, not him. Him.

Slap Shot Welcomes Us Anew With Open, If Slightly Apprehensive, Arms

2008-11-03T20:00:00.010-05:00

The Gray Lady has once again thrown open her intertube gates to the great unwashed of the blogosphere, plucking from obscurity mere plebeians, such as myself, and elevating us to hither to unknown heights of slighly less obscurity! And for that, I am grateful.

Here's our first go around, a whirlwind tour of the Northeast Division.

Three things you may want to note. First, you really should visit all of the participating blogs. They're very, very good (insert So why did they pick you? joke here).

Secondly, I've taken the rare risk of throwing off my carefully constructed cloak of anonymity. Why, you may ask? For the same reason any fine, upstanding man with a wonderful home life and a solid job would. To show off to my mom.

And three? PPP and Chemmy. Man, I can't get hide from you guys anywhere, can I?

If A Slump Falls In The Floridas, And Nobody Sees It, Do We Still Get The Points?

2008-11-02T14:02:00.003-05:00

There are two things you can count on during the Senators' annual early season two-game swing through the Sunshine State. The first being the Emperor's Luncheon, in which Eugene The Fantastically Magnificent descends from on high and deigns to host a team meal at whatever giant mansion happened to catch his fancy that week (funny how the team always seems to win the game immediately before this little bread breaking, no?).

The second? I will never actually see the games. It always screws with my mojo. Just like the players, we basement dwelling blogging types need a few games to get properly acclimatized to the ebb and flow of the regular season, if for no other reason than to properly adjust our undergarments and convince mom to bake another plate of cookies. So when that two game vaccuum comes around every October, I always find myself blinking in a bewildered fashion and scrambling to throw something, anything up in this space just to reassure myself that I am still, in fact, capable of forming a coherent sentence. Not only that, but it forces me to come up with something original.

And as you can plainly see...I hate that.

Oh yeah, almost forgot...we lost the game in a shootout.

Up Next:

Well, it was fun while it lasted. Alex Ovechkin and his Sens-killing cohorts roll into the Bank on Tuesday night. You remember them, right? On the upside, I'm told someone has invented a device capable of carrying images of live sporting events through space using nothing but vaccuum tubes and rubber bands so that we may enjoy these events in the comfort of our own homes. My stars, what an age we live in! (7:30 p.m., SportsNet East).

Behind Enemy Lines:

If it's the first Capitals game of the year, it has to be one of the Founding Fathers of the hockey blogosphere, Japer's Rink (seriously, when JP first appeared on the Tubes, I was still looking for the "any" key). And I couldn't be ~~prouder~~ (stupid internal grammar Nazi) more proud than to number among the 1,677 sites listed in the blogroll.

The Captain Loves Us, And Wants Us To Be Happy

2008-10-30T20:18:00.008-04:00

Other than those impossibly cute six-year-olds-falling-all-over-the-ice Tim Horton's commercials, not much surrounding hockey chokes me up anymore. And, in this modern age of Me-First pro athletes, there's even less that justifies and rewards my scant and ever decreasing faith in those who play the game we watch and obsess over. Today, some of that was restored.

The Senators announced today they've signed their captain to a four-year contract extension believed to be worth $21.6 million that includes a "no-movement" clause, which will allow the 35-year-old to finish his career in an Ottawa uniform.

As Sens Army points out, The Captain accepted a rather large hometown discount in order to stay with the team that took a sixth round flyer on a skinny kid from Gothenburg. And all he's done for us in return is...everything.

Sorry, Mr. Finnigan, but would you mind terribly if we asked you to move over a bit? We're going to need the room in the rafters.

Sens 5, Sabres 2: Well I'll Be Buggered...

2008-10-28T14:37:00.004-04:00

At about 9:20 last night I flipped from the World Series of Mud Wrestling (aside: Tim McCarver in HD frightens me...deeply) to TSN for a little MNF goodness, and what to my startled eyes should appear in the crawl at the bottom of the screen? Senators 5, Sabres 0. Holy. Florking. Shnitz.

Convinced I had misread that, I stayed up to watch SportsCentre, and whaddya know...we won. Three points (2 goals, 1 assist) for Giggles, two (1 and 1) for Heater, 2 assists for The Captain and a goal for Schubie Doo to boot! (Aside #2: If that doesn't keep #5 in the line up, Coach, you and I will have issues).

Added bonus? Adam Mair losing his mind:

OCALA, Fla. — Expect to see Adam Mair get the book thrown at him by the NHL. A league official confirmed to Sun Media today that the league is reviewing the incident of Mair marching down the hallway late in the Senators' 5-2 victory at the HSBC Arena to try to get Ottawa winger Chris Neil.

It should be noted that I didn't see the original unpleasantness that led to Mr. Mair's willingness to fork over his next game cheque or three (screw you and your overpriced channel, NHL Network!) so I'm a little hesitant, for once, to editorialize. Suffice to say though, anytime Neiler can infuriate an opponent into a confrontation in which Jarkko Ruutu stands as the voice of reason, he's earned his money...and made most of my special places tingle.

The best part? Neiler wasn't even in the room.

Neil and Mair had both been thrown out of the game at the time of the incident, but Neil wasn't in the club's dressing room yet.

See Buffalo? This is why you can't have nice things.

Up Next:

Thursday night, the boys are in that hockey hotbed of Miami, Florida for a rematch with the Tabby Cats. Ordinarily, I'd mention the local t.v. coverage at this point. But there isn't any. Again. Nope, nothing available but...you guessed it...the NHL Network. I swear by all that is holy, Gary, if you make me pine for the days of A-Channel and Gord Wilson, I will cut you.

Behind Enemy Lines:

Welcome to The Litter Box. Fantastic name, and a very informed read. There may be hope for that market yet, no matter what Winnipeg says.

Leafs 3, Sens 2: It Being Sunday, We Turn To A Higher Power

2008-10-26T21:01:00.002-04:00

Aw...crap.

The Singular High:

Mr. Neil welcomes you to the big leagues: To hear Leaf Nation tell it, Luke Schenn is some sort of bastard hybrid built from a combination of Cliff Fletcher's senile imaginings and bits of Hap Day's dessicated corpse. That may all be well and good, but the youngster may want to pick his spots a little better. Hint: Running after Chris Neil to "avenge" a hit on a teammate that never actually happened isn't one of them. So...how's your face feeling today, Luke?

The Lows:

This is as good a place to start as any: Oh, how innocent and lovely it all seemed at the time. You, the rugged, macho impresario and me, the coquettish ingenue seduced by the swagger and musky odour. But like all summer romances, Gator, things fade. Perhaps not seeing the number on your back as you fish yet another puck out of our own net would rekindle the flame. Oh...and maybe hitting a few guys too. That would be nice.

Another such victory we are undone: According to legend, those words were related by Dionysius to his King, Pyrrhus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans. Hence, the term "Pyrrhic Victory" has come to define a meaningless gain at the cost of the greater good. What does this have to do with anything? Filip Kuba has 11 points in 5 games. Damn near a record. Very nice, yes? Um...no. In those five games, with his 11 points, he's barely breaking even at +1.

This bit always worked for my mom: I'm very disappointed in you. Honestly, of all the things I imagined could possibly go wrong this year, you weren't one of them. And yet, here we are. You won't hit anyone. You're constantly caught out of position. And when those big meanies in the different coloured shirts bother our poor goalie, you just stand there like a useless lump. So, Christon Phillchenkov, what do you have to say for yourself?

Creamy Middle:

I've climbed down a little from the ledge I found myself on roughly 13 hours ago. Losing to the Laffs will do that to me. Being one point out of last place in the entire freakin' League will do that to me. Sure, we can't (or won't) hit, can't (or won't) shoot, can't (or won't) clear the crease, can't (or won't) take care of our own zone, and yeah, the D is getting torched to the outside before getting its ass handed to it night after night after night... But, no, this isn't the worst Senators team since '93. It can't be. 15, 19 and 11 aren't exactly Bob Kudelski, Sylvain Turgeon and Jody Hull, and never will be...thank Christ. Which brings me to...

Unsolicited Advice Because I'm A Fan, And I Know Everything:

Stop screwing around, Coach: The top line stays together. Full Stop. If you can't figure out how to get Verms or Fish or Kelly or anybody with a fucking pulse from the bottom three lines to the front of the net, then you don't deserve the Big Whistle. Yeah...we're fickle bastards, we fans. Deal.

A small side bar with regard to our achilles heel: Buckle up, Alex. You're the man now, dawg. Until Brian Elliot is good to go, our playoff hopes rest squarely on your 6'5" shoulders. Oh...you think October is a little early for that kind of pressure? Check the standings, buckwheat. Two points is two points, no matter when they come. What's that? Gerber? Screw him. He's done.

There are far too many things wrong with this team that will fit here: But I'll get to them. Never fear.

Up Next:

Tomorrow night, on the road against the division leading (and undefeated in regulation) Buffalo Sabres. There's no local t.v. for this, and since I was too cheap to spring for Centre Ice (Sorry Gary, but Sunday Ticket ate up my entire Useless Subscription Budget for this year) I will be mercifully spared the inevitable ass raping we'll be enduring. On the upside, it leaves me free to craft a 3000 word opus on how many things are wrong with this team. Won't that be fun?

Behind Enemy Lines:

Fellow NY Times unpaid intern/indentured serf Kate, at the Willful Caboose brings her special brand of gleeful incredulity to our little corner of the Tubes. If I can offer but one piece of advice...enjoy it now Kate. Because the inevitable crash really, really sucks. Trust me.

Notepad Chicken Scratch -- Leafs 3, Sens 2: Worst Senators Team Ever? Discuss.

2008-10-25T21:32:00.005-04:00

You wouldn't think so, would you? On paper, we have to be better than the '92-'93 team, right? You remember them. Won 10 games all year. Didn't win a road game until the end of March. They were so bad that the League was convinced they threw the last game of the season for the privilege of taking...*cough*...Alexandre Daigle first overall. Of course, now, everybody knows we weren't good enough to fix games.

So why are the feelings exactly the same? Could it be the ridiculous number of shots we give up? Could it be that once the opposition scores a goal, I'm convinced the game is over because we have NO FUCKING OFFENCE?? Or, could it be we have the slowest, dumbest, softest goddamn defence ever to curse an Ottawa crease? Yeah, mostly that one.

The Creamy Middle to follow tomorrow...as soon as I wash the bile from my mouth. And apropos of nothing...Gator, consider yourself officially on notice.

Now, I Don't Mean To Alarm Anyone...

2008-10-25T14:42:00.003-04:00

The Toronto Maple Marlies sit two points ahead of the Ottawa Senators in the Division...
We currently find ourselves mired in 13th in the Conference...
We currently find ourselves a scant one point from being the worst team in all of hockey...

So what does it all mean? It means I'm busting out my parachute pants and digging my silk shirts out of storage...IT'S 1993, KIDS! WHEE! Can't touch this!

Of course, none of that matters tonight.

Have I mentioned I'm a Washington Redskins fanatic? No? Well, I am. Stupidly so. No, really. I'm giving serious consideration to naming my first born "Riggo". Even if it's a girl (Beloved has some strong feelings on the subject...damn Cheese Heads). If I ever win the lottery the first thing I'd do is buy season tickets and fly to D.C. for every game.

Now, considering how the 'Skins have performed for the last...oh...15 years, this little fact has left me open to no small amount of ridicule (hellooooo...Erin. Check the standings lately?). But no matter how badly my 'Skins sucked, no matter how hopeless things looked after yet another 4-12 season, only one thing mattered...Did they beat the Cowboys?

Welcome back to the Battle of Ontario. No matter how bad this season gets (and it's shaping up to be extremely unpleasant), come April, only one thing will matter to me...Did we beat the Leafs?

Nothing else matters, boys. Curbstomp those bitches.

Panthers 3, Sens 1: Urge To Kill...Rising...

2008-10-23T20:09:00.008-04:00

Coach Craig crafts Friday night's lines. Not seen? The pitchfork wielding mob.

Okay...deep breaths. I won't swing the rant stick. Not this early. This is, after all, still October. Hell, we've only played five games. And as much as some of my most favoured interweb scribbling colleagues seem to enjoy it, I'll give things a little time to settle down. So, no. I won't swing the rant stick. But I sure as shit know where it is...Coach.

The Highs:

You know what? Fuck it! You don't deserve it: I could mention the fact that Fish actually played like Fish and if not for a few sticks and skates, may have actually scored. Buy I won't. I could mention that for only the second time this season, we actually out shot an opponent over an entire game, despite getting only three (THREE!) pucks to the net in the first. But I won't. I could laud the play of Schubie Doo, and lament the fact that it took Coach Craig this long to get him back into the lineup. But I won't. And I could also mention that our PK is clicking along at a ridiculous 92%, good for fifth in the League, having given up a scant 2 goals in 25 kills. But I won't do that either. And do you know why I won't mention any of those things? Well, because...now listen closely boys, because...you know, I'm not sure you noticed but...we...LOST THE FUCKING GAME! THAT'S WHY!

The Lows:

You are now officially dead to me: Goodbye Martin. I've had it with you. I'm not even going to bother sugaring it up with cutesy nicknames. Get out...Martin. We made excuses after you folded under pressure and lost your starting job two years ago. Easy to do after Rayzor stepped in and we went to the Finals. We made excuses after you folded under pressure last year. "It was the distractions", we said. No more excuses. Go away. Take the $7M you've sucked out of the organization, and go...oh, I don't know...stuff eclairs with your shrivelled dick for all I care.

Those who do not learn from history, are destined to repeat it. I read that somewhere once: The Bryan tried it. It didn't work. Teflon tried it. It didn't work. The Bryan tried it again. It didn't work. So, Coach Craig...after observing your team spend the first twenty-five minutes playing like a fourth grade floor hockey team, replete with flailing sticks, missed assignments and passes to nobody, think you'd like to try it again? Here's a hint: Put 'em back together and let your boss figure out how to fix this mess.

About that whole "harder to play against" thing...: We were promised. We were promised a new, pain-in-the-ass, hard as nails, opposing-forwards-shitting-their-pants-as-they-go-to-the-net defence. I look forward to that defence actually showing up.

Pithy Observation Of Questionable Importance:

Wait, what?: Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you the following exchange between the TSN broadcast crew:

Pierre McGuire: "I've seen Zednik in his undergarments. That scar is nasty!"
Gord Miller: "Again, you're talking about players in their undergarments."
McGure: "What can I say? I have good taste."

Considering this started around a discussion of the scar on Richard Zednik's neck...make of it what you will.

Creamy Middle:

Our "#1" goaltender blows moose cock. The D is slow and as soft and offensively anemic as it's ever been. And other than 11, 19 and 15, we've got nothing on the front end. On the upside, we all have a front row seat to the inevitable, nail biting dogfight that will be the "race" for eighth place in the conference. I'm sure that our eventual first round sodomizing at the hands of Montreal or Pittsburgh, will make the agony of the next five months all worth it. Yeah. No problem.

Up Next:

Tomorrow night, the Anaheim No Longer Mighty Ducks come to the Bank (7:00pm, SportsNet East). Fortunately, tomorrow night is also the tenth anniversary of Beloved foolishly agreeing to be my wife, so I'm probably going to miss this. That said, I'm willing to guarantee I'll have a better night, no matter what happens on the ice.

Behind Enemy Lines:

The one, the only, Battle of California. Brilliant. Insightful. And best of all, they sound more desperately hopeless than I do. But not by much.

Notepad Chicken Scratches: Any Other Bright Ideas?

2008-10-22T21:31:00.005-04:00

Hey...um...Coach? The drawing board is over there.

Panthers 3, Sens 1. Coach Craig's little experiment leaves us rather underwhelmed. Nice of the boys to front-load the excrement for this one. And Pierre McGuire makes an inordinate amount of homoerotic references. Even for him.

Stay tuned for all this, and more! Coming to you in the next Creamy Middle tomorrow night...ish.

In the meantime, I'll try very hard to resist the urge to feed my Martin Gerber Collectible Voodoo doll into a wood chipper.

Quick Hits: Because Saturday Night NEVER HAPPENED! Get it?

2008-10-21T19:36:00.006-04:00

So, who gets to keep the credenza?: Channelling his inner home wrecker, Coach Craig plays a vigorous game of Line Blender and just like that, Danon Spezley are no more. Thought #1 when this flashed through my inbox? Meh. Sure as hell can't hurt to try since nothing else is working. Thought #2? This lasts two periods. At the most.

I'm sorry Martin, but I'm just not that into you: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. In completely unrelated news, Pastry gets his fourth straight start.

Suddenly, Sens fans pine for the robust physicality of Riccard Persson: Memo to Filip Kuba. Um...you do realize this is a contact sport, right? You'd better start hitting something. Anything. Please? Hell, start with the stick boy, and work your way up.

Toronto! Now 100% More Obnoxious!: The best part of my own little alternate universe in which Toronto has two teams? Imagining the anguished, 100 years-in-the-making howls of futile rage from Leaf Nation as the Oshawa Pud Wankers bring their twelve die-hard fans to ecstatic Nirvana while parading the 2067 Stanley Cup around the parking lot of Scarborough Town Centre.

Florida at the Bank tomorrow night (7:00p.m., TSN). Help control the pet population. Have your panther spayed or neutered. Do it! Or Pierre McGuire will yell at you.

Sens 6, Yotes 3: They're Just So Cute At This Age, Aren't They?

2008-10-18T17:00:00.001-04:00

Of course, they'll eventually grow up. And will try to eat us. But, hey! Sorry Wayne, not this time.

The Highs:*

*all Highs listed herein exclude the 3rd period in its entirety. No, seriously. The 3rd was just a big ball of suck.

So you want to be The Captain? Now you can! Johnny, tell them how!: Yes, you too can find out if your Little Timmy will ever make the big leagues, with our new home version of "Am I Tough Enough?" First, using a 3/8" bit, drill a hole in Little Timmy's knee. Then, remove a chunk of loose bone. Next, send him out onto the ice exactly seven days later and have 250lb defencemen try to kill him. If he plays on your team's top line, and records two assists, you win! It's fun for the whole family!

Atonement ( \ə-ˈtōn-mənt\) n. 1) reparation for an offense or injury: Ladies and gentlemen, Jason Spezza! Now you may be surprised, but I haven't put him up here for his four points. No. In actual fact, the things that have earned him this, without doubt the highest honour he may ever achieve, were those actions that screamed "YES! HE CAN BE TAUGHT!" These last not only include the four points, but also the 4.2 seconds of actual, hard core body contact (including a sneaky little elbow to Ollie Jokinen's noggin) in the first period, and, most important of all, the three (THREE!) occasions where he chose not to be himself and opted for the safe play up the boards rather than the blind pass through the middle. Being so out of character, you may have missed them. But trust me. They actually happened.

With your mountains so lovely...your treetops so tall: Roto Ruutu, while not at his pestering best, nets two goals. To put it another way, he's now eight goals away from his career high. And we're still in October. Combine this with A-Train's first goal of the season (a phenomenon not normally seen before March) and the conclusion is inescapable: End times are upon us.

This doesn't mean we're pickin' out curtains or nothin': Bravo Pastry! 34 saves, out of 37 shots, and the only reason we didn't blow a four goal lead in a third period in which we were outshot a zillion to three. Now string two games like this together and maybe, just maybe, I'll find a tiny, minute, infinitesimal glimmer of hope that you are in fact, The Man... HA HA! Just kidding! That will never happen.

The Lows:

This is becoming increasingly awkward: Fish...dude. You're not making it easy for me, are you? I have long expressed my man-crush for you. I've stuck by you through your (multiple) owies and your ridiculously long goalless droughts. But it's getting hard, man. You have to give me something, anything, I can use to justify your enormous cap hit. Hearing Dean Brown say "Fisher" without "giveaway" would be a good start. Getting back to the 30 goal, heart and soul, corner crashin' guy that made me love you in the first place would be even better. Otherwise...well...Erin may have a point...

This is obviously a plot to keep me awake at night: In years past (excluding the last three months of last season), being up 4-0 after two periods was reason enough for me to nod knowingly and begin drunk dialling friends and family in order to gloat over yet another glorious victory. Needless to say, this made me very unpopular among these last, which probably explains the plethora of "You're gonna choke!" voice mails I've been getting lately. So, yeah. I'd really appreciate it if ya'll could quit it with the "I don't feel like skating" portion of the third period. Thanks.

Pithy Observations of Questionable Importance:

If, like me, you're old enough to remember the pre-Perestroika-"DA! We love Russki!" days when Canada's greatest and most feared foe was a collection of emotionless cyborg KillBots known as the Soviet Red Army, then you, as I do, experience a visceral, completely involuntary and well nigh uncontrollable urge to destroy a Lada at the mere mention of his name...Viktor Tikhonov. So imagine my surprise when I heard Dean Brown utter those very words in reference to a twenty year old whelp of a boy who plays right wing for Phoenix. Now obviously, it can't be the same person. Which leaves but one conclusion. The forces of evil have resurfaced and, as we speak, are preparing their army of clones in a bid for world domination.

I don't know whose idea it was, but P.A. Screamer Dude Stuntman Stu's little trick of shutting up and allowing the crowd to shout out the last name of Ottawa's goal scorers last night was fantastically awesome and should immediately become a staple of all Sens games. It won't of course. As soon as the wheels of retarded cheddar who run the marketing department realize that the crowd might be doing something completely spontaneous, they will immediately rush to drown out the noise with Stompin' Tom's "The Hockey Song".

The Creamy Middle:

Ugh. It was sloppy. It was clumsy. At times, it was impossible to watch. It was also worth two points. And if we play like that tonight against the Bruins, we're dead.

Up Next:

Um...yeah. Kinda gave it away there, but the Big Zed (they hate that down there in the 'Merica) lumbers into town leading a Bruins team Sports Illustrated picked to finish ahead of us in the division (that would put us in third, for the mathematically challenged). Are we going to take that?!?! Oh HELLS...um...well, maybe? Personally, I blame Tim Thomas. (7:00 p.m., CBC)

Behind Enemy Lines:

Welcome to The Jumbotron, a new, talented and extremely entertaining addition to the Bruins blogger base (alliteration! Wheee!). They will be appearing shortly in my blogroll if for no other reason that they referenced The Captain's knees of steel thusly: "Holy. Fucking. Shitballs."

Leaf Nation To Sens Army: "The only real Sens fans are 15 and younger"

2008-10-16T20:16:00.003-04:00

It's a rather pathetic failing of mine that most of my "I remember exactly what I was doing when" moments revolve around sports. Sure, there were those seminal moments in history that everyone born after the Kennedy assassination has mentally bookmarked (9/11, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Challenger explosion, the end of the Iran hostage crisis...if you're of a certain vintage...ahem).

But pretty much all of my total recall involves some sport or another. Ali destroying Spinks in The Battle of New Orleans, one of the greatest 15 round title bouts of all time? In my pyjamas, sitting in my grandparents' basement, downing 7-Up and eating salt and vinegar chips. Witnessing my first no-hitter on NBC's Saturday Game of the Week (Jack Morris, Detroit Tigers)? Ditto. Only without the pyjamas.

And on it goes...Miracle On Ice? At home, sick as a dog with the flu. Punchup in Piestany? Screaming obscenities at the t.v. under the last roof I would ever share with my mother (Don't worry, she's still alive. I just moved out a few years later. She didn't). Game 3, '87 Canada Cup? A teen dance club in Cornwall (I was 16 and perpetually horny...don't judge me). Joe Carter's home run? A bar called Hurley's in Ottawa South. About a week later, they turned it into a grocery store.

And I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing the very moment the Ottawa Senators were reborn.

Now you both may be asking yourselves "What in Jesus-jumped-up-Christ does this have to do with anything??" Well, let me tell you. It has to do with this:

I often wonder where all these “lifelong” Sens fans came from. The team is not that old. Who did they cheer on before the Sens came, the 67s? Is Ottawa filled with former Habs fans who leapt off at the first sign of trouble (ie. – most of the 90s) or is OKIAs that stoppde cheering for the Leafs once the Sens got (regular season) good (ie – the latter part of our current decade.)

This particular pearl of wisdom came from commenter blurr1974 on a post at (and it pains me to say this but only because it involves the Laffs) the superbly written Pension Plan Puppets, but it's not an uncommon sentiment amongst Tannenbaum's Army Of The Wallet Bearing Undead.

They are quick to heap scorn on anyone with the temerity to *GASP!* turn their back on the Original Six once an expansion franchise lands in their laps. They cannot grasp how we, who live outside of the 905 can possibly transfer our allegiances to one of them young 'un upstarts, dagnabbit! The fact that the Opening Night crowds in Vancouver (1970) Winnipeg, Quebec City and Edmonton (1979) and yes, even Ottawa (1993) were not composed entirely of newborns shitting their Huggies boggles their imagination. So, blurr1974, let me try to enlighten you and your bretheren. Again. I'll type this slowly, since it seems some of you have trouble with basic logic: Your city is not our city. Your team is no longer our team.

Sure, before we were awarded a franchise, all Ottawa hockey fans were easily divisible between Leafs and Habs. We didn't have much of a choice, did we? Personally, I was a Habs "fan". But it was purely an accident of geography. Cornwall was closer to Montreal than Toronto. Throw in the French-Canadian side of my family, and voila; Allez La Sainte Flannelle! But it was strictly a marriage of convenience. Ottawa, an hour down the road, had always been my second home (GO RIDERS! NORTH SIDE SUCKS!).

And then a funny thing happened, blurr1974. As I lay in my dorm room at Carleton University on December 6th, 1990, drinking beer and listening to 54Rock on the crappy clock radio on my bedside table, the news guy broke into regular programming to announce something that would change my life forever. The NHL had given Ottawa a team. They gave me my team.

Yeah. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing. So with all due respect blurr1974, please don't ever cast aspersions on the legitimacy of my devotion. The only reason I can't call myself a "lifelong Sens fan" is through the simple, and completely accidental fact that I happened to have been born before the team. Oh, and the #13 Jamie Baker, vintage 1993 jersey hanging in my closet kindly advises you to stick it up your ass.

Red Wings 3, Sens 2 -- So What Have We Learned From This, Class?

2008-10-12T14:42:00.000-04:00

Well, for one thing, we've learned that it's not very wise to pull four of our five players off on a line change while nursing (and I mean nursing) a 2-1 lead as the most hellacious transition game in the league is busting down the wing. Right this way, Mr. Franzen.

The Highs:

The kids are alright, Part I: Ho. Ly. Crap. Little Nicky's second period goal, scored on the rebound with two defencemen draped on his back after splitting the D on an end-to-end rush, is now 1A on my list of most spectacular goals scored in Senators history, only slightly behind Giggles pwning Sheldon Souray in OT. Somebody with more interwebbing skills than mine own needs to get that up on YouTube. Like, right now.

The kids are alright, Part II: It so happens I'll be enjoying Thanksgiving dinner at my uncle's place, a half hour down the road, in bucolic Long Sault, Ontario, home of our very own Jesse Winchester. I'm told that the Winchesters are acquaintances of the family (mostly because, if you live in Long Sault, everybody is an acquaintance). I may ask for directions to their house, if for no other reason than to prostrate myself at the feet of Jesse's father in order to properly thank him for impregnating his wife. Yeah, you might say I'm becoming a bit of a fan.

We now pause for a damning by faint praise: Against my better judgment, I'm going to cut you some slack here, Martin. Sure, you probably should have had that last shot. After all, real money goalies don't allow a winning goal with less than two minutes to go, no matter how many crazy bounces it takes. That said, being out shot 41-22 makes it pretty tough to blame the goalie for the loss, and you did come up with some spectacular saves, without which this game was over by the end of the second. And don't take this the wrong way, but do you know what else real money goalies do? Steal games their teams have no business winning. Just sayin'...

The Lows:

Somebody needs a time out chair: Look Christoph, you've made it abundantly clear you'd rather be a sixth D-man than a fourth line forward. We know that. But maybe, and I'm just spit balling here, but maybe your coaches think you're more useful to the team playing on the wing, whether or not you agree with them. So how about you stop pouting about it and, oh...I don't know...look like you give a shit about playing the game? Thanks. That'd be cool.

*Sigh* Let's do it ALL over again, starting with the electrical college: It seems to me, the consensus was pretty clear coming into the season. The only way we're going to go anywhere, was to work harder than our opponent. Everybody said it. More than a few wrote it. And one of the team's more enthusiastic supporters may have even spent most of Saturday afternoon yelling it from his own rooftop as he cleaned out his eave troughs...or so I heard. So what happened? Three games in and the boys are 1-for-3 in the "beat the other guys to a pulp" department. So let's try it again, shall we? All together now! LET'S GO FORE-CHECK! (clap-clap clapclapclap).

You cannot cure herpes, but you can contain the outbreaks: Mike Milbury just keeps popping up, doesn't he? If his polluting TSN's That's Hockey wasn't bad enough, there he was, bloviating on The Satellite Hot Stove. Great. Mike Milbury and Al Strachan on the same panel. Their combined egos may well tear open a hole in the fabric of space-time and destroy us all.

Pithy Observations of Questionable Importance:

C'mon guys, it's the home opener! Why did everybody look like they were waiting for root canals? A little excitement during the player introductions shouldn't be that hard to muster, should it? Fish, next time I want to see you go Ray Lewis on your team's ass and do a Dirty Bird at centre ice. You've got a whole year to practice. GO!

Now I don't know who, or what, is in charge of the team's Pump Up The Crowd division, but my money is on a wheel of retarded cheddar. First came that ridiculous and embarrassing We Are SPARTA! intro last April *shudder* (as much as I've attempted to repress the memory...it just won't go away!). Then we get saddled with what may well go down in the annals of marketing as the lamest slogan ever..."Sens Army: A force united!" Ooooh, be still my groin! So yeah, about those intros there Edam...if you want to sustain any kind of crowd noise (a rarity in and of itself at SBP) you might want to try introducing the training staff and coaches first. If memory serves, Ed Sullivan didn't say "Ladies and Gentlemen...THE BEATLES!...coming up soon. Please welcome Harvey the Musical Wombat and his all kazoo quartet." Get it?

Memo to Roy Mlakar: No offence to Lyndon Slewidge, but I think our anthem could have done with a little more Swedish hottie.

The Creamy Middle:

This one is easy. The boys had to come out with their absolute best game to have a chance. They didn't. They lost. And frankly, they deserved it. If it weren't for Pastry (there's something you won't see here very often), and the erection inducing play of the kids (take a bow Messrs. Foligno, Winchester and Picard) the final score would have been much, much worse. The nice thing about watching an October game I really didn't expect them to win in the first place, is that the inevitable loss doesn't tend to cost me as much, either in sanity or fragile household items. Lay an egg like this in March? Let's just say my dog really hopes that doesn't happen.

Up Next:

Week 3 kicks off next Friday, with The Great One's Phoenix Coyotes in the house (SportsNet East with the coverage). Please forgive the mixed sporting metaphors in that sentence, but at this rate, the 08-09 season is going to take roughly eleventeen years to actually play.

Behind Enemy Lines:

Tracy, one of the Hockey Ladies Of Greatness, opens her heart to the internets at True Coyote Love. Be sure to pop in and say hi, won't you? After all, everybody loves puppies. Even Gator.

Happy Turkey Day, everyone!

MAN DOWN!

2008-10-10T19:48:00.009-04:00

Oh, goody...

The Captain in for his 50,000KM alignment...

Fish extremely doubtful with The Ouchy Loin...

23 hours away from our home opener with The Defending Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings...

...who lost their home opener, on Banner Night no less, to, of all teams, the Toronto Maple Marlies.

Nope. I see no way in which this could end badly.

Can I at least have my Bass back, Bryan? Pretty please?

Cam Cole: Giant Flags Prevent Canadian Teams From Claiming Cup

2008-10-08T19:57:00.006-04:00

Getty Images

It's been fifteen years since a Stanley Cup victory riot (as opposed to run-of-the-mill First Round victory riots) took place in the streets of a Canadian city. In the years since the Habs claimed Big Ugly in '93, five of the six Canadian teams have been to the Final only to come up short every time (I'll leave you to deduce the odd team out. Hint: Try the Google).

How could this be? Was it the skewed odds inherent in the fact that only 6 of the league's 30 teams, or 1 in 5, ply their trade on our soil? Of course not.

Could it be that our teams were handicapped right out of the gate by the twin disparities of a crushing exchange rate (for most of those 15 years) and an unwillingness to lavish giant subsidies on billionaires who wanted to build revenue generating cash cows at taxpayer expense? Revenue, it should be added, that would solely benefit those billionaires? Don't be stupid.

Then perhaps it was those teams not based in Canada absolutely refusing, until it was imposed on them from above, any kind of revenue sharing agreement or salary cap that would lessen their ability to strip mine talent from our teams through ridiculous and predatory free-agent contracts, knowing that any losses they incurred in the process would be, unlike their Canadian counterparts, fully tax deductible? Pshaw.

No, the reason a Canadian team hasn't won a Stanley Cup in 15 years is...we're too obsessive about the game of hockey:

Why don't teams from Canadian cities win more often, when we care so very much? Because we care so very much.
Why don't more big-name free agents want to play in Canadian cities? Because we strangle them with our passion, cover their every twitch and mis-step, examine their private lives, call in to talk shows to discuss ad nauseum every minute happening in their season.

I see. It's all my fault then.

And so, as I, wearing my Jamie Baker #13 jersey, ensconce myself in my Man Room with its walls painted Senators' Red, and settle into my Ottawa Senators Officially Licensed recliner beneath the framed autographed photos of Daniel Alfredsson, Dany Heatley, Mike Fisher, Steve Duchesne and Lance Pitlick, to watch TSN's two hour season preview, I promise I'll stop caring so much that I become the single largest cause of my favourite team's inability to hold a two goal lead.

So thanks for pointing that out Cam. You've saved us all a lot of grief. And I, for one, can't wait to read your corollary story on the (obvious) eventual 08-09 Cup Champs, Nashville Predators.

We Just Care Too Much [Ottawa Citizen]

Come Back Shane! Come Back! SHAAAAAANE!

2008-10-08T19:24:00.005-04:00

OTTAWA (SLC) -- The Ottawa Blogger Collective (©TUC), a ~~drunken~~ ~~disturbed~~ loose confederation made up of three of the finest Senators blogs gracing the internet, along with another of lesser repute, announced today that their nascent plan to corner the Cool Stuff Dedicated To Obscure Fourth Liners market will have to wait, as the star of their fall line, 21 year old centre Cody Bass, was demoted to the American Hockey League. One blogger, wishing to remain anonymous remarked, "I hope they call him up soon. That basement full of malaysian seamstresses ain't gonna pay for itself." Rumours that their plans also included a guerrilla campaign to get Bass voted to the All Star Team remain unconfirmed as of this writing.

Sens 3, Pens 1: All Your Boards Are Belong To Us!

2008-10-05T17:24:00.006-04:00

Oh hells yes! Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about! As both of you may recall, some of the more astute (ahem) observers of our little club postulated that in order to be successful, the boys would have to work their asses off. I'm happy to report that Coach Craig has a firm grasp of the obvious and instructed his charges accordingly. The difference is, this time, they actually listened.

Pithy Observations of Questionable Importance:

From all accounts, Swedes are a stolid and practical lot. Lord knows the number of allan keys cluttering my tool box can attest to that fact. So the only logical answer as to why they would design a state of the art hockey arena, and make it look like a giant golf ball is...they must be Leaf fans. Thank you! Thank you very much. I'll be here until Thursday. Try the veal.

I generally don't pay much attention to what the competition committee comes up with over the summer (unless it has something to do with Brendan Shanahan saying something stupid), but I must compliment them on their tweaking this year. The two minor rule changes regarding guaranteed offensive zone face-offs on delayed penalties and delaying commercial breaks on icings are nothing short of brilliant. The first, because it allows for more creativity when the goalie is pulled, and the second because it will shorten the amount of time Pierre McGuire can yell at us.

The Highs:

The name is Dany...but my friends call me "Heater": Two games, three goals (47 to go!) including punching a hole clear through Marc Andre-Fleury on one of the prettiest power play goals you'll ever see. But that's not what has me inappropriately aroused. No, it's this. Late in the 2nd, with the Penguins on the power play in a one goal game, our $45 million superstar threw himself in front of a point shot and got the block. I'll leave you to contemplate the "A" on his jersey while I clean up the mess on my television screen. And ceiling.

The Ice Man cometh: Alex Auld is six feet, five inches tall. He moves about the crease with all of the speed and grace of a snow plow. And all he did was hold two of the most dangerous players on one of the most dangerously offensive teams in the league at bay for 59 minutes and 59 seconds. He was calm. He was cool. Our other guy? Um...not so much. I love the smell of goalie controversies in the morning!

If you ask nicely, maybe MAF will give you the puck: Congratulations to Jesse Winchester, who capped off a truly stellar debut with his first (regular season) NHL point when he assisted on Verms' breakaway goal in the third. Strong on the puck, got his nose dirtied, started going hard to the net...fantastic job Jesse. No, really. Of course you do realize that had your little blind back pass that started the play gone the other way, you would be feeling the point of my pen in your eye socket, right? So we're agreed. That's just the kind of hypersensitive prick I am.

Oh no you di-INT!: If there is one play that perfectly illustrates the fact that we are not the Sens of old, it was Big Rig putting Matt Cooke on his ass after Mr. Cooke (thanks for the power plays, putz!) took exception to The Captain's attempt to teach Max Talbot to keep his head up when coming down the trolley tracks. Contrast that reaction with the aftermath of Mark Bell's hit on Alfie last March (where our boys basically stood around and pushed stuff) or how Steve Downie basically got away with attempted murder, and that's all the rest of the league needs to know.

The Lows:

Um...I hear the beer was warm?: Not a damn one. I'll even overlook letting Orpik off the hook for running Roto Ruutu and The Captain from behind with no retaliation (although I will file it away for December 6th). Breathe it in, boys. This won't happen very often.

The Creamy Middle:

Three out of four points in the first two games. Not bad, but considering what happened yesterday, there is a wee caveat. Coach, your first job after that pressurized mettle tube hits the runway tomorrow is to take the tape from this game and make about 50 copies. Give it to everyone on the team, including the water boys, with orders that they are to watch it every night before they go to bed. The tender ministrations of their wives/girlfriends/miscellaneouses (hey, I don't know what the water boys are into) can wait. This it too important. If we're going to go anywhere at all this year, we need 80 more efforts just like it.

Up Next:

Six days hence, Saturday, October 11th, coast to coast on the Cee-Bee-Cee. In case flying halfway to nowhere and eating salted herring weren't enough, our home opener comes against the defending Stanley Cup Champs, heavy favourites to repeat, and general schoolyard bullies, the Detroit Red Wings. Thanks Gary! On the upside, getting them this early in the season can only improve our chances. As was proven last season, games in October mean squat in the greater scheme of things. We can only hope they feel the same way.

Behind Enemy Lines:

Let's give a warm, and above all, humble, welcome to Behind The Jersey, the grand-daddy of all Red Wing blogs. Everything you ever wanted to know about Chris Chelios' addiction to prune juice and the seniors' discounts at the Wallgreen's can be found here. Remember when this game was being hyped as a Cup preview? Yeah...good times.