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Jan 5 - First day back
PHS - Post Holiday Stress. There should be
some type of way to "ease" back into reality after a 12 day snooze.
Today seemed like it would never end, especially since it started off
with a call from "the Government" asking me what the bleep bleep I
thought I was doing. Welcome to 2009, get the striped PJs ready
No time I'm watching a hockey game - guess
which one? Canada up 1 - 0 - Quick call the game! I would suggest the
poor old Swedes got jobbed with a pretty cheap call on the penalty but I
guess the zebras may have thought they needed to send a message. Don't
think it worked but we will take it. I think we will need it before this
night is over.
Did anyone notice - Canadian Women under 18
team kicked off this event with a close call - 16 to 1 squeaker against
Switzerland! And I thought they had bad teams in the junior event. Shots
80 to 7. Ya think they were trying to run up the score?
This means Canada would still have won 16 to 8 if
they had played without a goalie. YAWN.
Juniors - End of 1 - Canada has had about
400 good chances but can't seem to bury the biscuit. It's still 1 zip.
Clearly they need my undivided attention.
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Jan 4 – What did I tell you about the
Junior game?
Do you know how to spell “LUCKY”? 5.4
seconds away from heading for the Bronze medal game (and we would have
deserved it). Lapses after almost every go ahead goal to give it back.
Failure to capitalize on power play opportunities. Taking some stupid
(costly) penalties.
Other than the tying goal (pictured below) which
was a great effort by Eberle, it seems Canada’s saving grace was that
they are “a better shootout team”. This in itself is a bit of faint
praise as you don’t want to get there in the first place. However in
this case I guess it was good for us. Having said that I will again
repeat that I do not like shootouts as a way to decide games. That is
what overtimes are for. You play 60 minutes as a team game and then
bastardize things somewhat with the 4 on 4. This is bad enough, but
shoot-outs are wrong. Especially at this level. Ice time and facility
bookings are not the issue so decide the game the way it was meant to be
decided. – 5 on 5 – you score to win.
If Canada plays against Sweden like they did
against Russia, it will be Silver for sure - unless the Swedes self
destruct which is not likely.
Not to take anything away from the Russians who
played reasonably well (except for a bad run of penalties). They can
move and shoot the puck and never quit. Guess my 1972 reference was
right on the mark as it took last minute heroics to pull that one out as
well.
Now the problem is that I am at work Monday but
that’s OK as the Gold medal game is at 7:30 PM on TSN. Going back to
work after 10 days off is bad enough without having to miss “the big
one”.
FSMT Coming up – The Frank Sabatino
Memorial Tournament (FSMT) is rapidly sneaking up on us scheduled
for Friday, January 16 through Sunday the 18th. This House
League tournament is one of the premier tournaments going with
competition for Atom and Peewee championships. Just ask anyone who has
participated.
All of the local Atom Red and Peewee Red teams are
participating as well as teams from as far away as Ottawa and Windsor.
With 16 Atom Teams in four divisions and 20 Peewee teams in five groups
there will be lots of quality hockey.
For the uninitiated, this tournament was
established by a key group of volunteers in memory of Frank who was a
dedicated volunteer, convenor director and more with the Minor Oaks
Organization. Frank passed away in November 2001 and the FSMT has grown
stronger and better every year thanks to that same group of volunteers
who have stayed committed to it.
For more info on the FSMT check out their site at
www.fsmt.ca .
Not fair – You work hard. You support your
family. You retire and then - You may have missed the story – a 79 year
old Danbury Connecticut man purchased two lottery tickets in November
and dropped dead later that day. His widow almost threw them out – but
checked them – and Friday cashed one in for $10 million. Figures!
History
1935 – First Billboard Pop Music chart! I
did not realize they had Pop music back then?
1950 – RCA Victor announces it will start
producing Long Playing (LP) records. You know – those big round vinyl
things that had music on them. One side played for 23 minutes instead of
the 4 for a 78. They are so far gone they are actually coming back. Old
ones in good condition are worth big bucks. I hate to think how much
money we literally “blew away”. As “kids” we took whole stacks of them
and used them for target practice. Skeet shooting records with BB guns,
22 rifles and occasionally a 410 shotgun. DUMB – but it seemed like fun
at the time. Ditto – sports cards, comic books . . .
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Jan 3 – Friday was an interesting
hockey day. Get a post out of the was early as we have NFL wildcards,
junior hockey and a Toronto Ottawa Clash of the Titans” to deal with
today.
US Dumped – So much for the great rematch
with Canada. The Slavs had a different agenda. It goes to show in a
winner take all game the dangers of running into a hot goalie! Janus
stopped 46 shots in the game (a lot from outside) and likely won’t be
real popular with the Yanks when he returns to the Erie Otters next
week.
"This was the best game of my life . . . unbelievable," said
Janus, a 19-year-old who has not yet been drafted by a NHL club. "Oh no.
I wasn't thinking (about Erie). Maybe I can't go back. Maybe they're not
going to like me (in Erie). I hadn't thought about that."
Erie did not seem too upset based on the Sports
lead in the Erie Times-News:
Janus gives all-World effort
Otters' goalie makes 46 saves, powers Slovakia to upset of U.S.
in Junior championships
It may also suggest why Quinn has already said he
is going with the “tested” goalie. To quote Yogi (Berra not Bear), let’s
be careful it’s not “déjà vu, all over again”. According to the media
Canada has Russia already beaten and is home and cooled out ready for
the final. Does anyone remember 1972?
Regardless of who plays who in the gold game, they
need to rejig this tournament so that the game is not Monday. I am
supposed to be back at work Monday and the Gold Game will clearly be a
distraction.
Local Front – I will not name names to
hopefully avoid centering out the kids (people can figure it out and I
will be happy to tell them) but we went to watch a Ranger game last
night and I was embarrassed, disgusted, surprised
disappointed as an Oakvillian to see how it played out.
Being simplistic, I always thought our goal in the
MOHA was to develop players, instill a lifelong enjoyment of the game,
and teach values like team play, sportsmanship and fairness. Talent
would be noticed and recognized as kids moved up and on. Either the
cabal has changed what MOHA stands for or does not know or care what
goes on at the rink (and I understand this is a regular occurrence –
don’t the parents care or are they afraid to make waves?).
For perspective, I understand that there is a
difference between Rep and House League hockey, that AAA is different
from AE and that Minor Midget is different from Novice. Coaches were
told in the selection process and in meetings (or at least they used to
be) that if a player was good enough to be on your team he / she was
good enough to play and that he / she should be played relatively
equally. There was also recognition that in a close / important game
(playoff, tournament final etc.) that a coach likely would shorten the
bench a bit towards the end of the third period (5 minutes?). Dust off
the old adage – a chain is only as strong as its weakest link – hockey –
a team is only as strong as its third line – teams win championships –
not individuals. If you don’t play kids in “challenging” situations, how
do they learn?
Also, I am also not a big fan of the “Goal Suck”
opportunity that has been opened up by the removal of the red line for
two line passes and that some coaches feel is their best (or only)
offensive tactic..
Anyway back to last night’s game – a certain
individual seems to specialize in goal suck play, prominently stationed
at the opposing blue line for most of his shift and apparently allowed
to manage his own ice time as he seemed to only come off when it suited
him. As the first two periods were relatively close, I did not pay that
much attention to it as I was also chatting with folks but was obvious.
The third period however, was a classic. Oakville got a couple of early
goals to open a three goal lead and yet here is Player X floating out by
the blueline trying to cherry pick. Exactly what is anyone learning from
that – or maybe I should say what “positive” behaviours are he and his
team mates learning! The other disturbing aspect is that he lived on the
ice for the third period which had to be noticed by everyone in the rink
who was watching the game. I know it was by all the “opposition”
supporters around me. In the last five+ minutes of the period I think he
made one ten second stop at the bench (I think it was for a drink).
There were a number of folks there last night,
including some “directors” so the three monkeys (speak no. hear no, see
no) should be well aware. Lift carpet, sweep under, replace carpet.
(Just for the curious, I would give the coach a holiday for what I saw
last night and let him know what would happen if he did it again).
If this is now what MOHA promotes and supports I am
glad to be out of it. Isn’t that what “we” all criticized the GTHL for
in emphasizing how horrible they were, how they were win at all costs,
how they put kids on the bench just to fill roster requirements or grab
money. Yesterday I couldn’t spell GTHL, now I are one.
This is what the MOHA value statement used to be –
Did it get changed?
“To play our game as a team,
and conduct ourselves both on and off the ice, at all times with a sense
of fair play, consistent with the principles of good sportsmanship, with
dedication and commitment and in the spirit of friendly competition,
while being gracious in victory as well as defeat.”
Hmmmmm!
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Jan 1, 2009 – Happy New Year’s to
all (or almost all). A quick post as we’re off to Grandma’s House – I
get to be the big bad wolf. I better - I had to get up this morning and
make my toffee popcorn as "someone" forgot to do it yesterday!
Gremlins – I did not have a New Year’s Eve
post as the Gremlins (AKA Number 2 son) got me booted off the internet
again. Cogeco cut off our service for the balance of the month (one day)
due to excessive bandwidth use. For those of you with budding propeller
heads in your families, this is going to become more of an issue over
time as service providers start enforcing their service agreements and,
or push to make more money. Streaming downloads chew up bandwidth. As #2
is busy on his “pirate” sites downloading “content”, the bandwidth meter
is ticking away. Our Cogeco package allows us 60 Gig traffic per month –
a reasonable amount which would never be exceeded under MY normal use –
Email, blog, occasional download. However, when you start pulling down
movies TV shows (entire seasons) etc, the dial goes up in a hurry.
Cogeco never seemed to care before as when I had two prop heads at home
I never got busted. Now it sees the big brother is watching as bandwidth
has become an issue. There is only so much that can go through the pipe
and that is what the ISPs are selling – SOOO – they are not playing
hardball. Be warned. If I go “dark” near the end of the month, you know
what happened. Of course, I can always “borrow” an unsecured wireless
signal from the locals but that’s a pain.
Canada / USA – I watched the Junior game
last night (sober) and thought it was one of the best games I have
watched for pure entertainment in a long time. I did not say it was a
well played or officiated game – I said it was entertaining to watch.
Down 3 – 0 early, it would have been easy for Canada to mail it in as
essentially this wasn’t “THE” game but they came back big time and the
USA did not get over it. Prior to the game, in his comments I though
Rolston sounded like a pretty good, sensible coach but he seemed to have
a meltdown on the bench – especially after the bench stick work / on ice
“whack” post the Canucks second goal. From then on he seemed to have
lost his composure which I think helped Team Canada as well.
Oakville Guy – No not John Tavares (although
press and media seem to think he is a one man team) – How about Steve
Mason. Third straight shut-out for Steve (who IS an Oakville graduate
not just a once was here, then took off kind of guy). Hardly gets a
local mention, but the Blue Jackets seem to like him as covered on their
site.
Mason Sets Columbus Record in Win
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) -Rookie
Steve Mason was in the minor leagues for the first month of the
season and didn't get to play for the Columbus Blue Jackets until their
13th game.
Since then, the 6-foot-4 phenom has quickly
emerged as one of the NHL's hottest goalies. On Wednesday night, he
became the first Columbus goalie to post shutouts in three consecutive
games, stopping 27 shots and leading the Blue Jackets to a 2-0 victory
over the Anaheim Ducks.
"After my first game, I felt that I had the
confidence that I could play in this league and it's grown in every
game," Mason said, who beat Edmonton 5-4 in his NHL debut on Nov. 5.
"The time's gone by real fast ever since I've been here. It's been an
interesting two months already. I'm trying not to get too far ahead of
myself, but every game I play I'm getting more and more comfortable."
Mason extended his shutout streak to a
franchise-record 182 minutes, 8 seconds and lowered his NHL-leading
goals-against average to 1.69. His fifth shutout tied injured Vancouver
goalie Roberto Luongo for the most in the league.
(Courtesy of Columbus Blue Jackets web
site)
I would have to say he is doing “pretty
good” – way to go Steve!
More Toys – based on some of my recent computer stress and
complaining Shaun and Becky got Jane and I (well basically me) a D-Link
External drive enclosure for Xmas. How exciting for Mom! With all the
pictures etc that are now routinely stashed on computers these days it
is easy to get careless on back-ups and if they go – they’re gone! This
is a neat toy - my big decision was whether to daisy chain my two new
500 Gig drives and break the Terabyte barrier, or to set-up RAID
mirroring for drive redundancy. How’s that for Geekism? For you
non-geeks, RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks and was
something once reserved for the true nerds in hermetically sealed,
climate controlled, elevated floor mainframe rooms and servers costing
$$$$$$$. Now it is as easy as a point and click menu set-up choice for
the home yahoo – AKA moi. RAID means even if one drive completely self
destructs, all of your data is safe on drive number 2. Having been burnt
once years ago on a project, I am careful (some might say anal) on
backups and would suggest that all of you take a look at your own stuff
– NOW! (this is also part of why I take offense at the some of the
garbage insinuations emanating from 1026 Speers).
Emancipation Proclamation – In 1863 Lincoln
freed the slaves – too bad it does not apply to my house. On the flip
side, in 1959 Juan Batista got the rude wake-up call from Fidel – the
new big dog in town and fled to the Dominican Republic. Until his recent
passing of the baton to brother Raoul, Fidel was (I think) the longest
serving continuous “ruler”. Monarchies don’t count (figureheads) so
Lizzie does not qualify.
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