Misery En Scene:Leafs vs. Sens Rookie Game

I had hoped to watch the Leafs – Sens rookie game last night, and maybe write a little bit here about the game.

Unfortunately, the game wasn’t on LeafsTV – hey, what are the chances that anyone who is willingly extorted by MLSE pays for this service would be interested in actual hockey being played by actual Leaf prospects – so I had to wait instead for the tape-delayed feed being shown on mapleleafs.com.

Actual Video Footage of Jared Cowen Skating

I don’t want to say that the online feed was difficult to watch, but let’s just say that what the video quality lacked in “herky”, it made up for in spades with “jerky”.  The video player in my browser was delivering about six frames per second;  as I tweeted earlier this evening, it occurred to me that this must be what the world looks like for Matt Carkner after he fights Colton Orr.  Anyway, I quickly found myself longing for something slightly easier on the eyes, like for example an epileptic seizure.  At one point, I thought the video feed had died completely, as the image on my screen didn’t appear to move at all for an extended period of  time.  The confusion was cleared up, however, when I realized that the camera was just showing the Senators’ Jared Cowen playing defence.

On the plus side, spending time watching the game using this feed allowed me to appreciate more fully the superior visual technologies available in today’s modern era: things like “flip-book animation”, for example.

I don’t know if anybody else was experiencing the difficulties with this feed that I was, but I sort of assumed that the Maple Leafs’ video servers were crumbling under pressure with so many people watching, just like Maple Leaf goaltenders have been doing since the lockout.  I don’t suppose it’s fair for me to wonder aloud whether fault should be found with the Leafs’ IT folks;  after all, after several consecutive years of hearing that the team is “building for the future”, who could have possibly known that many Leaf fans might have some interest in seeing what the prospects look like?  It’s planning and foresight like this that gave us the Andrew Raycroft/Vesa Toskala era, folks.

In any event, at some point I saw Jerry D’Amigo with his arms in the air, so I assume he scored a goal.  Either that, or he was trying to scare away a bear.  I don’t know, it was a little difficult to follow the narrative.  Are there many bears in the vicinity of the John Labatt Centre in London?

In the end, I have no insight to bestow upon you.  Instead, I give you a photo of the most wicked awesome baby booties ever manufactured – these were given to Spouse and I by a co-worker the other day:

Furious G's tootsies are gonna be covered in style.

Little known fact: the Montreal Canadiens ordered several sets of these in their team colours for Gionta, Gomez and Cammalleri.  Anyway, Furious G is going to have the coolest shoes on the block.