Canadian Girls Are Amazing

It wasn't too long ago that I was singing along to an old Propagandhi song called "I'd Rather Be Flag Burning". But that is far from where I am today where all I feel is insurmountable pride and ... happiness for my country over the past 2 weeks of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Coming in, I was more disappointed than shocked when news polls were saying how it's more important to Canadians to win a gold in Men's Hockey than finish with a high medals total overall. Well maybe that's just because Canadians weren't as optimistic as I was about Canada actually contending with the likes of America and Germany or Russia. Well guess who we have to thank for the overwhelming success at the gold medals so far: Amazing Canadian Women. Out of the 8 gold's received so far, 6 have been by the most incredible, talented, high-spirited, crazy-good lookin' women. Maelle Ricker kicked it off with a kickass sport: snowboard cross, which was fastly followed by Christine Nesbitt, Tessa Virtue, Kaillie Humphreys, Heather Moyse, a bunkload of hockey players headed by Hayley Wickenheiser, and finally - my favorite - Ashleigh McIvor.

So if it's not gold it's silver. Well for silver so far our Canadian Girls own 5 out of the 6 events including Kristina Groves (Jeremy's time is done, afterall) and the cutest of them all: Jenn Heil! (No, we haven't forgot about you, Jenn!) Another local lady, Jessica Gregg, has also made me proud to be from a country that has so many amazing girls!!!! (even if they are living in Missouri...)

Amazing, amazing, just endless amazing. Hell! Clara Hughes has earned herself something like 4 Winter Olympic medals and 2 Summer Olympic medals! If that's not a sign that our women are made out of something special I don't know what is.

The bronze? Well that's just a ridiculous story. 3 out of Canada's 3 bronze medals are worn by women. And included in that is Joannie Rochette. This champion had her mother up and die on her in the midst of the Olympic Games. And she still competed. How? God knows. But she did, and won a medal. And for that, she will forever be the ultimate female Canadian competitor. Well, in addition to those hockey players that crush the dreams of the Americans. That's pretty cool too.

Next up is Cheryl Bernard, cougar. I mean curler. She will own and it will be great. After that? Who knows, but I am hopeful for more speed skating, bobsleigh, and snowboard.

So! I guess what I am saying is that I am putting away the Russian Bride Catalogue for good. I don't know what it's gonna take for me to ever win the heart of one of these amazing Canadian girls that amaze me in soooo much in all that they do - okay - there are amazing ones that aren't Olympians, too. But to start, I think I am going to take up freestyle aerials.

Testosterone Makes the World Go 'Round: Chapter 7A - Jock O Rama, Part 2 - My Dear Edmonton Oilers

Haha, what a title. but fuck it - it's MY blog, I'll do what i want with it. Including making this ridiculously long, and a little less focused than I wanted it to be.



Now that the unnecessary swearing is out of the way, here goes...

There were a lot of problems with the Oilers this year. So much so, that they finally decided to fire the coach. We needed a scapegoat after all!

As I have made it known, the salaries for these "heroes" are unfathomable --- HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. And that's for the shitty players like Gilbert. Get Real. The ultimate reason of Edmonton not making it into the playoffs for the 3rd straight year is the lack of motivation of the players. Having million dollar careers isn't motive enough apparently. The team lacks the leadership, spirit, urgency, guts, determination and commitment to build confidence to get better. The last remaining shreds of these qualities left on my 24th birthday when Ryan Smyth got sent to New York for Nilsson. Yeah, who? (Sure, Nilsson is a pretty good Oiler - but certainly not a leader like Smyth). The Oiler's needed a Ryan Smyth player - a player with grit, emotion...even Michael Peca didn't have Smyth's intensity when he was here... But he's gone, and we're left with Souray, Hemsky, Horcoff, Staios, and Moreau to pick up the slack. Moreau was great as a non-captain: he represented the hardest working oiler that struggled for every inch. But because of his lack of natural ability (Think Weight vs. Marchant in the 90s), he should never have become anything more than an alternate captain. Jason Smith was a defencemen, so that's a little different, since he had a more solid support network of players around him (like Smyth) with the required passion and skill to make them an exciting hockey club, at the very least.

The problems surrounding Oilers hockey, though, aren't embedded in the coaching or the management or even the young unmotivated, leaderless players. I think it's actually entrenched into the Edmonton culture. The city actually shapes itself on having NHL hockey as its #1 focal point, with everything else less important. Way up here on latitude 53, we convince ourselves that we have a culture & class that is simply incommensurable in relation to our Calgarian neighbors. After all, the socioeconomic base in Edmonton is made up of hard-working roughnecks - as opposed to those lazy good for nothing rednecks that live 300km south of us. We don't even attempt comparing ourselves to other major North American or World cities because we are just already so far removed any of them! We are about as significant of a city to some random Russian city, as that same random Russian city is to us!

But despite our best efforts, we still can't retain (or build) our hockey talent. UFAs sell out for the beachtowns or the big cities and the "talent" that we do get will have "difficult" seasons (Lupul, Peca, Stoll...). Edmonton is a stepping-stone, a boot camp, a place for players to get better so that they could peak by the time they can actually get out. A league conspiracy, perhaps? Maybe.

As mentioned, Edmonton goes nuts on trying to promote itself as a city that is absolutely crazy for hockey above anything else, where the players are loved and admired more than Bono or Madonna or Elisha Cuthbert, depending on who you are. But despite all the "oil money" allowing near-sell-outs for 17 thousand seats for 41 games a season, there are some other absolutely ridiculous things associated with our game that the Oilers of the Eighties wouldn't even begin to recognize (i mean, if they weren't all still involved with the organization). Perhaps this new NHL has just made it that much more difficult for players to focus on just loving the game with incredible passion and desire - to just go out there - night after night - and win games.

This blog is called Testosterone Makes the World Go 'Round. And hockey is a very macho, very testosterone-driven game. We cheer when men smash fists into eachother faces (Oh, women's boxing was @ Shaw Convention Center tonight - there's another re-enforcement of some of Edmonton's culture). When we get scored on, we curse and throw things and shake our fists in the air, and when we score, we drink $7.75 Molson Canadian as the foghorn blares and that horrible Kid Rock song gets blared through the PA system (good thing the oilers dont score that much, hey?) When an ex-oiler comes to town, we BOO and heckle mercilessly, regardless of how much that player invested into the city when he was here.

The beer is kind of a big deal. Despite the insane cost of it, it is uncommon to see a fan without 2 glasses in their hands. That's $15.50 of liquid-idiot maker. Per period. True, they stop selling beer after the 2nd, but more often than not, this rule gets flexxed to accommodate the fans - and more sales get made. By the end of it, you will be walking by stacks upon stacks of empty plastic glasses that will make their way into hundreds of plastic bags and eventually into our landfills. You will be walking amongst the most densely packed room of half-intoxicated "people who call themselves fans". The social problems might even outweigh the environmental problems when it comes to alcohol consumption at hockey games. Over the years, I have seen people be thrown out for drunken belligerence - fighting, throwing, screaming - just being plain disruptive. These young males are always incredibly incapacitated at games that I can't help but think what else they could be doing with their money outside of the public arena. I mean, have you no shame??? With a little bit of temperance and maybe a tad bit of reason, this kind of beer money could go a long ways to tackling any of the world's more pressing matters. We're talking serious money here after all!

SO yes, hockey's expensive. That greasy german sausage that will give you a heart attack, the keychains and jerseys that are all made in China, the 5th and 6th glasses of Canadian, The tickets... They charge the prices they do because of the propaganda about how wonderful it is to be able to go & watch hockey games. They say to get your tickets now because later, it will be too late and they'll be sold out. Yet nearly all games will have some 1/2 price singles available, at the very least. Usually you can track a pair of at-cost tickets down if you look hard enough. But when I was @ the San Jose game in March, I was especially frustrated when I found an empty pair of seats to help myself to at the top of the lower bowl (~$100 tickets), and the kids in the row behind me were playing their PSPs!!! Hell, these kids should be in my standing room square! In front of me were two women who were more "into" eachother than anything remotely related to hockey. Hair twirling, shoulder rubbing, and thigh touching continued for half the 1st and all of the 3rd periods. (They were downstairs in the club area, purportedly drinking, through the entire 2nd.) So frivolous spending and drunken ignorance and utter lack of appreciation for where you are. This is Oilerfan culture. It is driven by the monetary system of having the cash available to oneself that will get you the attention or admiration of the people around you. The exorbitant prices are paid by companies and handed out to the spoiled "fans" that go to these games probably won't even know anything about hockey. When this happens, the "team support" is nothing more than ignorant drunken loud retardedness of the people that spent just as much on alcohol as they could since they didn't have to buy the ticket. It really all amounts to a class thing, where those of you snobby or rich enough to drink ridiculous amounts and make asses of yourselves, and getting awkwardly laughed at by the few relatively sober people there about how inappropriate you are. But at least you are getting that attention.

Oh but there's more. Thanks to CISN Country 103.9fm, getting that attention is made into even a bigger deal! "Smooch-cams" have been in place for many years now, where the camera man scans the fans during stoppages of play and puts only cute-looking couples on the jumbotron screen. A sex-craving coliseum of seventeen thousand will CHEER!!!! when the couple finally kisses, since they are after all totally smashed on all the overpriced beer. The wetter the kiss, the louder the cheers. Testosterone makes the world go 'round.

One Last Curious Thing About The NHL that I Wanted to Bring to Your Attention

With a pressing emergence of global warming and ghg emissions, I wonder why pro-hockey is never criticized for its immense carbon footprint. I have never seen a game delayed on account of a late flight either. They always make gametime. They always get paid. I don't know if it was The Amazing Race that made me first think about how hockey teams charter flights to cruise around North America, or if it was all of the flying that is involved with hockey that made me think how ridiculous the Amazing Race really is. Either way, I feel confident that I could still lead a comfortable life knowing that the Oilers would have only 60 regular season games and The Amazing Race was cancelled forever.

I love hockey though. Go Ducks Go!

This Is Hockey!

Ch 54.

It was an amazing end to the season. Since the trade deadline at the end of February, the Edmonton Oilers have gone from being one of the most volatile inconsistent depressing teams in the NHL to watch, to being something reminiscent from a team from about 2 decades ago.

Nobody would have ever seen this one coming. All seemed so hopeless. Injuries plaguing the entire defence, aging veterans feeling the strain of over-exertion & endless expectations of fans & coaches, a forward line that has combined for only 161 goals (the 6th lowest in the Western Conference) so far, and a goaltender that faces about 30% more shots than his team is able to deliver to their opponent on any given night. Nobody would have seen this coming.

But it happened. It was party due to the economy, partly due to the players' changing attitudes, partly due to Daryl Kaatz taking charge, partly due to Bettman being bought out & finally leaving the league.

League-wide salary reduction was the one key factor in which made Edmonton Oilers transform from a farm-team that only ever develops players' skills to the point that they are good enough to be traded away for more affordable draft picks, into the 2009 Stanley Cup Champions. The dissolution of 12 teams and re-invention of the Winnipeg Jets & Quebec Nordiques made the league incredibly more competitive. The season was shortened by 10 games, and it was made sure that from this point forward, every team would play every other team in the league at least twice each season. No-Trade clauses were enforced (even if Chris Pronger was having a hard time not sleeping with his teammates' wives), but not until this happened:

Ryan Smyth came home.

That's right. The heart & soul of the Edmonton Oilers resumed his leadership role as Captain, sending Ethan Moreau back to being the (appropriate) position of fourth liner. The grit & dedication & determination of Smyth to make his home team thrive in this New League was incredibly appreciated and noticed all around the league, such that other former Oiler greats cued up to join him in Kaatz's organization. Amoung these were Doug Weight, Todd Marchant, Michael Peca, and Eric Brewer. Scott Niedermayer couldn't wait to get away from Mickey Mouse & Chris Pronger: One being a an over-sized smelly rodent that goes around smelling like cheese & living in Fantasyland, and the other being Mickey Mouse. This rebuilt Edmonton team allowed them to annihilate every other team in the league for the last 25 games of the 2009 season. Sheldon Souray was the team's points leader, with 32 assists to Horcoff and 26 to Hemsky at the end of the season.

By having the total team salary cap halved to $25M, players realized that in addition to their materialistic and over-consumeristic ways, their "hollywood days" were finally over. They were going to start to have to playing for the love of the game, just as the Oilers of the 80s did so well. All other pro-sports have yet to understand the implications of this unbelievable over-compensation of our favorite jocks, especially since none other are so physically tolling as hockey is! Yet, despite any abuse on the body, hockey players still understood that these were the necessary steps to take in order to promote the game & make it better. They would only have to get used to having their wives buying the no-name BBQ sauce for a change.

Gretzky cried. Again. Not because he knew his wife was going to be bored commuting between her mansion in that new Windermere development in Edmonton, WEM, and the River Cree Casino, and not because he was about to leave +30°C year round temperatures where there was nothing to do but coach & golf, but because he couldn't make hockey - the only real game - a go of it in the middle of a desert. It was really kind of sad, but after him hearing that Winnipeg was going to become the home of the Coyotes, he was absolutely gleeful & could only offer up the suggestion that the team be renamed "The Prairie Wolves". (since the desert isn't really the prairies)

You see, Wayne Gretzky was incredibly happy to be asked by Daryl Kaatz to become head coach of the Edmonton Oilers and couldn't wait to return with his boys in the Blue & Bronze/(orange) and destroy those desert dogs back in Winnipeg who played with about the same amount of intensity as they did when they were on the golf course.

Todd Bertuzzi & Sean Avery have been spending their spring/summer together in some of Toronto's finest private golf clubs aswell, since Toronto was the only team that would have them; and the players had to donate a large portion of their salaries to local sports charities for kids.For whatever reason, noone wanted to ever play golf with either of them! oh wellll...

But it was playoffs that was the most fun. The Oilers crushed Vancouver in 4 games the first round, Winnipeg Prairie Wolves were swept too, and the Calgary flames were not only swept, but shut out the entire series. In the end, the Edmonton Oilers won the Stanley Cup in 5 games over the Montreal Canadiens, only because in 1 game, Roloson played Left Wing.

- The Changed Rules -

In order to make the NHL better, these rules were incorporated into the league:

- No Touch Icing
- No more Delay of Game penalties for simply clearing the puck from your own end over the boards
- Smaller elbow pads
- Mandatory visors
- Less stick infraction penalties --- let the players skate through hooks, trips
- Goalies can make contact anywhere.
- 16oz glass of Molson Canadian : $5.

Testosterone Makes the World Go 'Round, Part 2: Jock-O-Rama!

Chapter 7, Part 2: Jock-O-Rama!

Edmonton is a sports city. Thanks to 5 Stanley Cups and 13 Grey Cups, there is good reason to be proud of living in such a city that can rival other great cities. The 2 New York teams only have 4 cups each, for example, and have been around for more than 30 years. We celebrate our athletes and tend to idolize them & associate them with one of the leading reasons which make this city sooo darn grand.

On a different level, high school football in the States is one of the most religious past times for All- American boys. By being a competitive mean challenger and champion, you can win the fame and respect from your community, state, and if things keep going well, your country. With this fame comes fortune. Despite any salary caps, society places such a high value on its athletic champions that they make up the most well-paid people on earth, next to CEOs and movie stars. In addition, overzealous sponsors offer millions of dollars to these guys to either hit a ball, tackle an opponent, or make the free throw.

So where is this going. Well I was really turned off of sports for a while because of how utterly stupid sports can be. The 2004/05 NHL lockout really just ticked me right off. I saw nothing but money-grabbing lazy uneducated oofs that had dog fight parties, injected steroids, took cheap shots at eachother (eg Bertuzzi and S. Stevens, and Zidane), robbed pawn shops (Mr. OJ), cheated on their wives, chewed bubblegum and scratched their balls. The inability for these "champions" to make sport legit and being better role models for our youth finally caught up with me. Even CFL'ers, despite being paid less than anyone in all of pro-sports, would run around celebrating like little girls after the TD. Why should these people be rewarded for acting so stupid? Isn't some modesty/humility an attractive quality at all anymore? How about integrity and morality?

I played hockey for 13 years so I definately know the thrill in the challenge, the win. As well as the empty hole left after losing the finals in Minor Hockey Week or Playoffs. I know how fun it is to act like a total idiot (have you met me?), whether it be getting into a fight or getting the over time winner. But this competitivism often goes too far. If you are just rubbing your opponent's nose in it, that's one thing, but it usually comes to more than that.

In these team sports, there is so much competition. There is the expectation to do well both within your own team and within your division/league. All-Star Role Model goaltender Patrick Roy was accused of encouraging his own goalie son to get into a fight last Spring, after his boy had been out-scored 7 to 1. There is pride and reputation on the line after all.

So what about it? Nobody got seriously hurt. True. But what about those times when things get totally out of control? Today's society has less restraint than I have ever seen before. You can get beat up for wearing the wrong team colours walking down a street at night if not careful, depending on the degree of belligerence/drunkeness. Pride. Toughness. Power. Some people neeeeed these things in order to have enough confidence to get through life. Back in Southern California in the early 80s, punks and jocks would get into fights all the time because of the different schools of thought. Without the ability to conquer another group of people, or team, how could a guy show that he has what it takes to be a an honorable leader. How can he prove to be a reasonable provider or care-giver for his family?

I used to be somewhat athletic. I ran & played hockey. I used to love performing when certain girls were in the crowd. I would get some of the best times in long distance races and would often be called up to play higher-tiered hockey. I was awesome. Without athletic ability, guys can be really limited as to ways they can attract members of the opposite sex. The one biggy is through myoozik. Piano lessons is often a starter step towards rock & roll stardom but if you aren't playing guitar or bass by highschool, usually that dream can get flushed away too. BRAINS and HUMOUR are the alternatives, if the athleticism and musical ability are not quite there. But neither of these are really quite the same either, especially if the person who you might be attracted to is the least bit athletic or musically inclined. Sure, sure, opposites attract. I mean, look at the (current) wives of Dennis Kucinich and Donald Trump. Yozwza! So I suppose if you have enough brains to make it through real estate, politics, or comedy - Jim Carrey is with Jenny McCarthy?!?! - then the power to you. But then again, a lot of the time, people just aren't that darn funny.

So sports. The easy, most obvious way to be able to hold your head high. Pound that chest. Try to be +500 on the season and don't shame your team by sleeping with your line mates wife. I'm going to the gym.

GO OILERS GO!!!

(...i'm not really going to the gym...)