HiR:tb Toots (@warwalker)
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By junior on May 2, 2008, at 10:30 pm Mike: What’s going on with the comments on your blog, dude? A couple of days ago, you posted some questions about hockey; being the resident Canadian know-it-all and puck freak, I of course immediately mashed keys on my word toaster and zipped you off a responding thingamajig. Something weird happened and the page took a long time to load and refresh; when it did, my highly lucid, very entertaining, undeniably witty and terribly endearing and informative comment was nowhere to be seen. I tried re-submitting it, but wordpress started making fun of me, telling me “Dude. You totally already said that.”
So I figured maybe there was a software update that forced the comment into the moderation queue or something. Patience. All would become clear in time, right?
Well, my astonishingly incisive insights remained noticeably absent from your site again the following morning. My brain couldn’t handle it. I have this knowledge, my brain said. It’s not fair – I must, I simply MUST share it. Cue the mashing fingers again, bash the submit again, only to find WordPress definitely getting tired of my same old shit and pointing out, “Dude. I told you yesterday, you said that already. Piss off.”
My brain was in agony, but I continued to run with the “software update/moderation” thesis. I mashed another comment about your next post this morning and felt a bit re-assured that it was not immediately posted on the site; surely this second instance of comment disappearance was corroborating evidence that the thesis was fact. Calming down almost to the agitation level of a normal human, I visited your site again this evening as part of my therapy and to partake of the virtual camaraderie of the blogosphere. Feeling suitably inspired by your posted musings, I shared the scattered intellectual goulash that is the product of my mind, a veritable epistemological jambalaya, by once again setting sausage fingers to keys and mashing away upon the “submit” button.
This time, though, my blather nonsense drivel verbal diarhhea wisdom was posted instantly, summarily disposing of my working hypothesis as to the origin and nature of the black hole into which these comments were disappearing, leading to a rather comical spit take involving hot tea and a seltzer bottle (okay, okay, that didn’t happen in real life – but it will be in the movie.) The tiny neural cortex in my head, generously described by those unfamiliar with the anatomy of the higher mammals as a “brain” immediately sputtered into action and coughed out one word, urgent and imprinted with the utmost import upon my consciousness: comment!
I returned to the hockey post yet again and examined it carefully, only to find that infuriating “No Comments” phrase taunting me via the electrons on my screen. Fingers mashed keys again, and the submitt-erator was once again engaged. WordPress was a little short with me this time, I thought – it was somewhat uncalled for, that portion of the resulting error message that wearily pointed out that “Dude. You. Totally. Said. It. Already” and then went on about how I ought to “get a life” and “fucking leave it alone already you simple-minded douchebag”*.
So. Um. I thought I’d tell you there seems to be a problem there. And I am trying very hard to resist the temptation to post here what I was trying to post there.
Every day, in every way, I get a little bit better.
———-
*It is possible – I’m just saying “possible” that I completely made that last little bit up.
By junior on May 1, 2008, at 1:41 pm Quickly: I can’t believe Montreal coach Guy Carbonneau started Jaroslav Halak in place of Carey Price at goaltender in last night’s Game 4 matchup with Philly. Bonehead move. I do not understand the thinking behind that; Price had not played poorly in game 3, despite what the sportscasters are blathering about in their 30-second soundbites, not even in games 5 and 6 in the Boston series when the Habs allowed 10 goals in two games. Although it would be fair to say that Price was not brilliant in any of those three games, the goals allowed were not attributable to negligent goaltending; it took a team effort to surrender leads consistently and quickly. On Monday night in particular, (game 3 vs. Philly), Price was screened badly by his defencemen on the first two goals. If the Habs’ blueliners would either stand up at the blueline a little more, reduce the gap between themselves and the attacking Philadelphia forwards and possibly generate the occasional offside OR get the hell out of the 22 year old netminder’s way, he might have had a chance. Since they chose to do neither….not so much. It is true that Price made a mistake on the third goal, but what of it? Is Carbo sending the message that one mistake will result in a player’s butt being nailed to the bench? If so, I suggest he examine the game film a little more carefully, especially any footage he might have filed under “Kovalev, A: defensive coverage”. I suspect that file might be a little thin, so it won’t take Guy long to review the available material. Also, the Kostitsyns’ pictures ought to be showing up on the side of a milk carton any day now. Anyone having knowledge of their whereabouts is invited to contact Canadiens’ management and advise.
My point is that the whole team turned in a Game 3 performance that was a big pile of meh (much to my delight, I might add). To single out Price and bench him as a result has nothing to do with encouraging accountability among the players, and any efforts to justify it on those grounds are ridiculous. Once you accept that, it’s obvious that playing Halak in game 4 was a mistake – down two games to one in the other guy’s barn, you need to win and carry the series back home tied. Going down 3-1, knowing you’ve already surrendered home ice advantage, and heading back home is not a plan for success. The rest is easy: if you have to win this game, you play your best goaltender, no ifs, ands or buts. Choosing instead to turn to a guy with limited NHL experience and who hadn’t played in something like three weeks until the 3rd period of game 3 is not a wise choice.
As it turned out, Halak did not play terribly. He was facing the wrong way for two of Philadelphia’s goals, but at least one of those goals was a direct result of more incredibly bad team defensive coverage. Halak could not be blamed for the loss, but he did not play well enough to steal a win either. It’s possible that Price would not have raised his game to such a level either; we’ll never know, though, because Carbonneau kept his powder dry and his best player on the bench in the Habs’ most important game of the season to date.
I actually like Guy Carbonneau even though he spent all those years as a player wearing the bleu, blanc et rouge and then toiling away in obscurity and boredom for the Dallas Cattle Rustlers (or whatever they’re called). I think he’s shown himself to have some flair for coaching; you can’t argue with the success that the Montreal power play had in the regular season, and there’s no doubt the team over-achieved this year. Both of those things are symptomatic, in my opinion, of good coaching. Even good coaches make bad decisions, though, and tapping Jaroslav Halak on the shoulder last night was one of them.
By junior on April 29, 2008, at 9:32 pm Sometimes I don’t know why I do it. I get excited about the potential of a technological gizmo or geegaw and try to supercharge (a la Tim “The Toolman” Taylor) its capabilities with *ahem*, I believe the term is “budget-conscious” accessories. For example, about a year ago now, I was fooling about with an old Compaq Presario laptop computer (Windows 95 operating system and about as much memory as an absent-minded gnat) and trying to modify it in such a way that I could use a wireless PCMCIA card to connect to the Internet via our wireless router. The point was not to create an awesome computing and gaming machine; what I really wanted was a more or less portable tippy-tappy device that would basically be solely dedicated to blogging. Although I couldn’t justify the substantial expense involved in purchasing a new laptop for that purpose, I could justify spending a few bucks on a wireless card and a little bit of my time trying to bodge together a workable system. I did a bunch of research on the Internet about rescuing dinosaur machines and reclaiming them for limited purposes, I found a supplier for some replacement parts I needed to make the old machine operable (LCD screen, cable connecting motherboard to display) and managed to find a cheap and theoretically compatible wireless card on eBay. I bid on the card and won the auction, I ordered my replacement parts from Singapore, and when everything arrived all in one place, I took the machine apart, carefully re-assembled it and fired the rig up again.
Nothing.
After many hours of booting, re-booting, tweaking, re-tweaking, booting, re-booting and damn near booting the thing out the window, it slowly began to dawn on me that the claims in the wireless card manufacturer’s documentation that the device was “compatible with Windows 95” might not be entirely accurate. A little further research on the Internet suggested very strongly that the card was in fact compatible with Windows 95SE – but not Windows 95. I’ll give you three guesses which version of Windows the little laptop was not capable of running.
Undeterred in my quest, I moved into problem- solving mode: if the project was failing as a result of constraints related to the machine’s operating system, it made sense to try and change the operating system. I boldly delved into the world of Linux – an OS that I previously knew absolutely bugger all about – and determined that I might be able to make the thing work with a version of Linux known as DSL, which stands for “Damn Small Linux”. It was difficult to know for sure whether this would work, because Linux is an open source operating system – designed, built, and supported entirely by a diverse community of coders, not all of whose considerable nerdly skills are fortuitously paired with substantial linguistic abilities. The result is that the documentation available in relation to Linux is of immensely variable quality and – because of the many versions of the thing available – I found it difficult to have any confidence that I was getting the definitive word on any particular issue. Moreover, some of the stuff was just too damn dense for someone without professional IT skills to penetrate and digest without many hours of study.
Many hours of booting, re-booting, tweaking, re-tweaking, booting, re-booting and damn near booting the thing out the window, I came to the conclusion that the thing just wasn’t going to work, and that project was cast aside both literally and figuratively; the component parts were shoved underneath a couch in the computer room at our old house and there they remained, collecting dust, until we emigrated to Juniorvania. The whole pile of stuff is now sitting in my shop, silently reproaching me for my unforgivable hubris. Total cost for this portable computing version of the Tower of Babel: a couple hundred bucks worth of replacement parts, taxes, shipping and brokerage fees, a substantial number of somewhat frustrating hours of my time, and a minor bruise to my confidence in my own rationality. If I had just spent that money (and a little more) on a slightly more powerful, perhaps used, machine, I’d be typing this entry – about something else – on my little blogging device.
My point in reciting all of this (no doubt fascinating) history is really to set it out as a bit of a cautionary parable for myself. Why? You may recall that a few months ago I took the plunge and bought a digital SLR – a Canon Digital Rebel XTi, to be precise. Recently, I’ve been photographing some of the birds in the trees out back, but my Sigma 18-200 lens just wasn’t able to get me close enough to get the kind of pictures I wanted, so I started casting my eyes longingly around teh Intarwebs at things like this. Not having the inclination, skills and weaponry necessary to knock over a bank, and thus being economically ineligible to acquire such a device, I decided that I needed to come up with a Plan B. Behold:
The thing arrived last Friday, and I fiddled about with it some on the weekend. This morning, I had to scramble to fit it on to the camera because I saw some deer grazing in the field out back, quite a distance away next to the edge of the woods. So far, the biggest challenge for me is focusing on the subject with sufficient sharpness to produce an image of any clarity. My initial review of this morning’s study on the eating habits of the family cervidae indicates that most of the pictures are a tad on the blurry side. I have my severe doubts about the quality of this lens – it just can’t be any good at that, um “price point”, at least not in relation to the glass the pros use. Indeed, in general it seems to me that the images produced by this lens are noticeably “softer” (even the ones that are in focus) when compared to images produced by the Sigma, and the colours seem to be somewhat less vivid.
The question for now is whether it’s good enough – or another intransigent Compaq Presario.
For now, here are a few of the first attempts with this lens that did turn out with some degree of sharpness:
A hairy woodpecker on the suet feeder.
Two American Goldfinches on the special feeding sock we got for them (yes, Wal-Mart LOVES us, thank you – $24.95 worth).
Henry is underwhelmed by the performance of this lens.
By junior on April 27, 2008, at 9:58 pm Your Glorious Leadership, having ensured that the sun would shine and the birds would chirp this weekend, spent yesterday and today attending to various Public Works, including (but not limited to) the Great Raking of Leaves and substantial output from the People’s Department of Garage Tidying. From these works, your Glorious Leadership has divined two truths:
- Having a garage to tidy is fun. For a little while; and
- Some leaves just will not be raked.
Some time was also spent Saturday morning attending to Certain Veterinary Errands for the betterment and well-being of the indigenous Juniorvanian fauna, an exercise that can only be described as spectacularly ill-conceived from an international trade/balance of payments perspective, given the astonishing outflow of Juniorvanian currency involved. Although the doctor in question is well-liked and respected by your Glorious Leadership, it would be more in keeping with that gentleman’s economic modus operandi if he wore a black mask, forced us to raise our hands before relieving us of our treasure, and placed it in a burlap sack marked with a large black dollar sign before creeping rather quickly out the back door to a waiting getaway car. I’m just saying that my experience would be enhanced with some better production values.
By junior on April 24, 2008, at 8:05 am I posted the other day about Damien Cox’s ridiculous “story” that the Leafs’ efforts to woo Brian Burke were going to shift into high gear with Anaheim’s elimination from playoff contention.
That was Monday. Apparently, the “inside sources” relied upon to give that story credibility were sorely, profoundly and rapidly mistaken; according to David Shoalts’ story in the Globe and Mail this morning, not only has Burke confirmed that he will be remaining with Anaheim pursuant to the terms of his existing contract,
Sources on both sides of the matter say no contact was ever made between the Leafs and Burke or the Leafs and [Ducks owner Henry] Samueli.
In other words, the lightning quick action that was characterized as imminent by Mr. Cox in his column evidently did not include so much as even a telephone call to seek permission to talk to Burke.
Wow, what a whirlwind!
This means Damien needs to change course with his columns, of course. No problem, when in doubt, Cox can simply go back to bashing Maple Leaf management with poorly-thought out complaints (which, I would point out, needlessly distracts everyone from the many legitmate complaints to be made) . This from the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” file:
All along, however, Burke knew there was a real chance that the Ducks’ hardnosed president, Michael Schulman, would not give the Leafs the chance to talk to him.
And he was proven correct, or at least Schulman made it clear no such permission would be forthcoming if such a request was received (emphasis added).
So the Ducks made it clear that they wouldn’t give the Leafs permission to talk to Burke if they asked for it, right? I guess that would explain why the Leafs couldn’t secure the Messiah’s services, right? Wrong, oh ye of short sight and no column space! Behold the wisdom of Cox:
What’s truly incredible is the MLSE board of directors doesn’t seem to have any sense of urgency here, or a particular game plan in place.
They’re just sort of meandering along, swimming in 23 per cent profits and imagining how nice it would be to have a front man who would attract all the attention and stop people from calling them unflattering names.
They would have loved for Burke to be that person.
But his current employer quite smartly decided he was too good to lose.
In other words, MLSE’s braintrust was:
- rightly interested in Burke’s services – he is after all, the personification of all that is godly in the hockey world;
- required to wait until the end of the Ducks’ season before even seeking permission to talk to Burke;
- made aware, almost immediately thereafter, that permission to speak to Burke would not be granted if sought;
- guilty of “meandering” and not having a plan because they did not then immediately get on the blower and – uh, do something, I guess – ask for permission to speak to Burke anyway.
Far be it from me to defend the likes of the MLSE board but come on, Damien, think it through: you’ve just assured us that they did have a plan, and that it was the right plan to have (how could it not be, involving a fellow who can walk on water and all?). When the plan falls through because of forces beyond MLSE’s control (i.e. the actions of Samueli and the Ducks), is it really fair to carp on about inaction?
For the record, I do agree with his point that Justin Pogge ought to be playing in the Marlies’ AHL series. How ’bout tracking down the justification for that rather than wasting my time with abject bullshittery.
What’s the over/under on how long it takes Cox to turn this little episode into the Leafs’ “failure to secure the services of Brian Burke”, another exhibit to be endlessly paraded in front of the readers as some kind of shorthand confirmation that there’s nought but clowns in the boardroom who, if they were only capable of reading the local newspaper, would be much better prepared to secure an immediate championship for the Leafs?
By junior on April 22, 2008, at 8:47 pm Game 7 between the Capitals and Flyers is now going to overtime. A pretty good game with some (again) horrid officiating. It is difficult to know what gets a guy a penalty in this league any more. Ritual decapitation? Is that always a penalty? Even late in the third period of a tied game 7? Argh. The situational ethics of NHL officiating continue to frustrate me.
My picks for the goal scorer: for the Caps, I have to go with Ovechkin, he’s had at least four amazing chances so far tonight, the guy is just a force of nature; for the Flyers, I just know it’s going to be Daniel Briere, and then I’ll have to think about that stupid fist-pumping thing he does for the next few weeks.
Update: Crap! At least it wasn’t Briere. Dilemma: sounds like the Habs play the Flyers in the next round. I hate both teams.
By junior on April 21, 2008, at 9:46 pm Watching Game 6 of the Caps/Flyers series tonight, I was struck by how great a game Mike Green was having. From the hit he laid on Sami Kapanen (the one where they had to get the Philly Fire Department to pick l’il Sami out of the rigging up in the rafters) to his rapid and purposeful sprints up ice, to his masterful puck handling along the Flyers blueline while on the attack, Green made me a believer. I wish this guy was on our team.
Of course, Green’s play was overshadowed by that of certain a hairy Russian force of nature. What a play Ovechkin made on the go-ahead goal; he blocked the point shot of his constant tormentor Timmonen, then immediately broke for open ice between the two Flyers defencemen, instinctively knowing that the partially blocked shot would surely be recovered by Kozlov and that he had an opportunity for a breakaway – but only if he didn’t hesitate. Ovechkin took two lightning quick steps towards centre and was eight feet past a now very alarmed Timmonen and the much maligned Kozlov hit Ovechkin on the tape with a beautiful pass as Ovie blazed up the middle of the ice. Everybody in the rink, including Martin Biron, knew that Alex the Gr8 would not be denied, and moments later the Caps had taken a very improbable lead.
The Philadelphia fans had barely resumed breathing through their open mouths when, for a change, it was the Flyers who took a “too many men” penalty (really, Gabby – three of those in the last couple of games is waaaaay too many). On the ensuing powerplay, Ovechkin was served up another beautiful pass, this one from Brooks Laich and Ovechkin hammered that thing so hard, everybody seated in the stands behind the goal ought to immediately drive to the nearest church, synagogue, mosque or temple and thank the resident deity or deities that Ovie’s shot bulged the twine, because if that puck had hit the glass it would have killed everybody in the first six rows. Do you think that game will shut the TV monkeys up about Ovechkin needing to “step up”? Probably not; five’ll get you ten that’s still the main theme harped upon by the flapping gums – “monster” or not.
Alex’s interview on TSN after the game was awesome; it was so obvious to me that he wanted to strap the blades on and play  Game Seven RIGHT NOW. This guy is Rasputin on skates – aside from the near spooky physical resemblance, there is the matter of Mr. Ovechkin’s superhuman constitution to be addressed. He played a shift in the second period that lasted well over two minutes of concerted attack. The Flyers may well need a group of Russian assassins and some cyanide-laced confections to take down their hirsute nemesis, because neither the substantial hits applied within the rules by Richards, Umberger and others, nor the straight up punches to the back of the head administered by the ever-classy Derian Hatcher have done the trick, and the hitherto-successful Philadelphia scheme for Ovechkin prophylaxis by the constant application of major doses of Timmonen has run its course. Ovie has figured out how to get away from that coverage, as evidenced by the six shots he had on goal in Game Five and the further seven (not to mention two goals) he added tonight.
This is going to be a great Game Seven.
Can I ask what the hell Pierre McGuire was babbling on about when he kept referring to Martin Biron’s “active glove”? Umm, Pierre, that’s just stupid. No goalie has a “passive” glove. They catch stuff with them. They’re called “trappers” and “blockers” for a reason; these items of equipment represent an active concept. Anyone who stands there just waiting to get hit, is… well, Andrew Raycroft does that. Perhaps that’s a bad example, but you get my meaning.
As for the other game this evening, I didn’t see much of the Habs/Bruins Game Seven. I did see Game Six of that series and much of Game Five too. One thing I don’t understand is the media babble about Carey Price supposedly having come apart at the seams. The so-called experts point to the ten goals surrendered by the Habs ‘tender in those two games and lazily conclude that Price played poorly. Now I’m no Habs fan, but I do know a classy and talented kid when I see one – Spouse and I were lucky enough to see almost all of Price’s games with the Hamilton Bulldogs during last year’s Calder Cup winning run – and Price is most certainly getting a bum rap from the wags on that one. Yes, he coughed up the puck late in Game Five to put the B’s ahead, and yes, he looked rattled after he made that rookie mistake, but none of the five that got past him on Saturday night in Game Six could be called soft goals. The pundits ought to have been asking where the defensive coverage and veteran leadership was on the Habs bench; how, it might fairly be asked, were the Bruins allowed to continually come back and score throughout the third period? With the series on the line, the Habs got a questionable effort from the Kovalev unit, for example, which was a -3 on the evening. I do not recall hearing much mention being made of that fact; it’s too easy, I guess, to point the finger at the goalie. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for whatever kind of Habs-related misery there can be, but it’s the job of those in the media to correctly identify the reasons why the Habs suck, not to pin the whole shootin’ match on a twenty year old rookie who was playing in the WHL last year at this time.
By junior on April 21, 2008, at 9:17 am With the Anaheim Mighty Ducks eliminated from playoff contention last night, cue the Toronto media hype about Brian Burke, incoming General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Part Time Saviour of All Mankind. Details remain unclear concerning His Holiness’ expected time of arrival here in the GTA; it is also unknown whether he will be flying in through Pearson, teleporting, or merely decreeing out of existence all space and time between His current location on the left coast and the foot of Bay Street (heads up, Idaho!). I give you exhibit A, the babbling prattle of Toronto Star columnist Damien Cox:
It begins today. Officially, that is. Unless Gord Kirke has presented the MLSE board with an entirely different game plan, Burke has been the No.1 target of the Leafs since John Ferguson was fired in January and he’s still the No.1 target.
This thing is now going to heat up quickly.
“It’s going to go from 33 1/3 rpm to 45 rpm in a hurry,” one source said.
Is that quotation really to be taken seriously? First, am I to believe that someone [the source] said “33 1/3 rpm to 45 rpm”? Ignore, for a moment, the astonishingly anachronistic (and not particularly compelling) metaphor. Even back in the old days (when people read newspapers, for example), if and when people made reference to long playing records, nobody added the “rpm” part in to the sentence, which means it’s likely that Cox just dropped it in there. How the heck am I supposed to rely on a quote that I’m fairly certain has been monkeyed with? Okay, you can stop ignoring the astonishingly anachronistic metaphor now: evidently , Cox couldn’t find anyone under the age of seventy willing to discuss the situation. “It’s going as rapidly as ye olde prunes through the digestion of King Henry,” quoth one scribe. Finally, I assume that in using this figure of speech the “source” (demanding anonymity for obvious reasons, given the incredible sensitivity of this most highly secret information) meant to suggest a sudden and substantial increase in the pace of activity. Is that sense of frenetic acceleration truly conveyed in this sentence? Would you be left with the impression of a sudden frenzy if the “source” had spelled out the metaphor in more arithmetic terms: “The lazy revolution of this LP is going to increase in frequency by somewhat less than 40%“?
What a great load of bollocks, I say. What is the story here? What is it, exactly, that is gathering such profound momentum that only an obsolescent metaphor will suffice to describe the massive approaching wave of Burke-mania speeding towards the parched hockey desert of Hogtown, at last joyously quenching the insatiable thirst for the Hockey Wisdom that only He (Praise be his Name) can bring?
Well, if you read the “story” closely, here’s what it actually reports: Brian Burke is the General Manager of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. He has been for a couple of years. It is generally believed that the Leafs are interested in hiring him as their General Manager. They became interested in January, when they fired the last unfortunate idiot who held that job. Burke’s team finished losing its playoff series last night. So now they can pick up the phone and call him. Y’know, to find out if he’s interested. Unless, of course, the source is wrong and Gord Kirke has a different plan. [Pause: sound of crickets chirping.] To be more concise: having thought about it since January, the Maple Leafs might call Brian Burke soon.
Invigorating, isn’t it, the chilling rush that comes with just being associated with the breakneck pace of this unstoppable coronation? Thank God – er, I mean, “Thank Brian Burke” that Damien Cox had that anonymous source willing to go out on a limb and share with him – and by extension, us – the thrilling and lightning-fast unseen front office machinations of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment and the National Hockey League.
By Almighty Burke, I’m glad to be alive!
By junior on April 19, 2008, at 12:45 pm A couple of days ago, I congratulated myself for sticking with this blog project fairly consistently. I then promptly disappeared for a couple of days. So it goes.
A few things:
As I type this post, I am seated out back of the family estate here in Juniorvania on a Muskoka chair that needs a coat of paint and some TLC. Nevertheless, the birds are chirping, the wind is rustling through the trees, even I can see that there are buds in places that used to feature only bare branches, and the daffodils have announced their yellow presence throughout my general vicinity. I am in my shirt sleeves and the sun is shining. I do not have to work today, and in a couple of hours I’m going to go in and watch a playoff hockey game. The wireless signal produced by the JBC geegaws is of sufficient strength to permit me to chronicle my indolence from this most favoured position. Life is good.
I became aware of this as a result of a comment by PPP in a post over at Pension Plan Puppets. It’s truly sickening.
Hugo Contant’s only connection to countryman Jean Pierre Masse was that he happened to be close enough on Causeway Street after the game to see Masse try to walk past about two dozen drunken Bruins boors.
“He (Masse) was wearing glasses,” Contant recalled yesterday. “And he had a red Canadiens shirt on. When he approached them, they began yelling things like, ‘Go home, you French (expletive)’ – things like that. I heard (Masse) laugh and say, ‘We don’t want to fight . . . we don’t want any trouble,’ as he tried to pass. Then someone punched him once, maybe twice, in the face. He went down and his eyeglasses came off.
“That is when I see this other man in the Bruins shirt walk up and kick him in the head, while the man was still laying in the street,” Contant said. “And then he kicked him again in the face. That’s when I ran to him, because I thought they would kill him. When I got to him, I thought he was dead. That is when I screamed, ‘Look what you’ve done!’ ”
It is truly astonishing to me that some people apparently have so little going on in their own lives that they would even consider physically assaulting a complete stranger because of his support for a rival sports team. All joking aside, I have real difficulty conceiving of the complete and utter lack of basic civility and humanity that facilitate the commission of such an act.
Obviously, such behaviour is unacceptable. As I indicated in my reply to PPP’s comment, I think that morally, we are obliged to prevent such things from happening where possible, and that we must see to it that those who do offend in this way are punished severely. If we do not, we are to a certain extent complicit in this outrage. There will be a tendency among newspaper columnists and other social commentators, eager for the easy angle I suspect, to try to make this an issue about Boston sports fans, or perhaps American culture; any such attempts to neatly confine the issue are, in my opinion, misguided because they fail to admit of the possibility that it could have happened anywhere. Neither the City of Boston nor the United States of America has cornered the market on hooliganism and loutish behaviour.
Keeping that proviso in mind – that I do not suggest that either Bostonians or Americans are uniquely or especially morally defective – it seems to me that at the very least, the Boston Bruins ought to be all over this incident. They ought to be making an example of the waste of skin in the Jason Allison jersey ( ! ) who did this to Mr. Masse and any other person that they believe to be involved. For starters, they ought to be taking steps to ensure that nobody who participates in anything remotely like this is ever admitted to a Bruins game again. They ought to go public with an announcement to that effect, and they ought to make it clear that they will not tolerate, under any circumstances, any kind of association with those who behave in such a fashion. The other NHL clubs ought to be adopting similar policies and security measures, and the league as a whole ought to speak out immediately and emphatically on this issue, making it clear that violence and hooliganism will not be tolerated in any way. I recognize that the NHL is big business, and that taking such a stance may be more problematic in certain markets than others (I’m looking in your direction, Philadelphia). I further recognize that the last thing the league wants to do, on the best of days, is to re-ignite the eternal debate about the role of violence in hockey, a topic that will inevitably arise as those with sport-related agendas and small brains will point to fights on the ice as somehow “causing” an incident like this. Nevertheless, this is an opportunity for the league to take a principled and ethical stand on an issue of general societal importance; we ought to demand no less from good corporate citizens.
As for our own individual conduct, we should each of us remember this sickening incident and see to it – by policing ourselves – that no one around us is ever permitted to cross the line separating civilization from barbarism again. Long before the scumbag in the Allison jersey went off on Mr. Masse that night, he was asshole. There were people around him who knew he was an asshole. They failed to make it clear to him that he was behaving like an asshole and that he needed to not be doing that. Those who failed to discourage such behaviour are not guilty of assaulting Mr. Masse; they do not have his blood on their hands. They have, however, most assuredly failed us and failed our society in general.
Game Five, Washington/Philadelphia: I was left with two lingering thoughts following Knuble’s goal in double overtime to end Game 4. First, I wondered where this game would fit for Caps fans in Bill Simmons’ “Levels of Losing” taxonomy. At first, I was convinced that this had to be a “Level XII” or “Achilles Heel” loss because it seemed to me that Washington’s defencemen were revealed to be so obviously and woefully overmatched in this game (particularly the uniformly execrable Milan “Here, Let Me Tee That Up For You” Jurcina) that no other description could possibly apply. On further review, however (he says, holding the little black phone to his ear and jamming the other finger, the one with the whistle clipped on to it, in his other ear to staunch the crowd noise) I believe this to have been a “Level VIII” or “Dead Man Walking” loss: Jurcina in particular had played badly in the series prior to Game 4, and even the otherwise heroic Mike Green had committed some costly turnovers in all three previous games, so I think it would be a little false to characterize this loss as revealing a hitherto secret weakness on a contender. Rather, it seems to me that this loss was one from which mentally, it is likely that there is no coming back for the team. The Capitals got such outstanding goaltending from Cristobal Huet, and as a team they hung in there so tough in the face of an amazing amount of adversity – the five minutes shorthanded in period one, brutal officiating that allowed the Flyers to unleash their elbows at will, their own stupidity in taking not one, but two “too many men on the ice” calls, more brutal officiating that had Victor Kozlov in the box for a laughable goaltender interference penalty with less than three minutes to go in a tied game that they HAD to win – and they came so close to winning in spite of it all, but it was not to be. The point is that they had the chance to turn the tide in the series – a win in that game, in the face of all that adversity would have given their legs an incredible burst of energy stemming straight from enhanced confidence. Instead, they went down 3-1 and have to suspect, in their heart of hearts, that it is not meant to be. They are Dead Men Walking.
Second, as I have noted elsewhere, in my opinion the person who ought to be most ashamed of his performance in this post-season (with the possible exception of the aforementioned Mr. Jurcina) is Steven Walkom, the NHL’s Director of Officiating. Seriously, what the hell is going on this year? There have been goals scored when the attacking team was offside. There have been goals disallowed because the official was “intending” to blow the whistle. The types of calls being made within games and from game-to-game vary so broadly and erratically that the referees have become nothing but a laughable source of frustration for the fans and players of every team. In what world was it fair for the referee to banish Kozlov for goaltender interference (please read, “being propelled into the goaltender by an opposition player”) with 3 minutes remaining in the third period of a tie game, and yet no call at all was made when a Philadelphia player (it may even have been Knuble, now that I think of it) steamrollered right over Huet in overtime? Bugger the fiction that it’s fair to “let the players decide” by putting the whistles away: that philosophy of officiating gives an advantage to a team that takes physical liberties with its opposition. If you can make it into overtime with a bunch of muggers and goons, your opposition is doomed because they don’t stand a chance of surviving the extra frame. This type of “situational ethics” is exactly the kind of thing that engenders suspicion of the officiating in general. If it’s a penalty in the first period, it’s a penalty in the second overtime. Call it, and call it the same for both teams. How hard is that to understand as a mission statement for the zebras?
Twenty-five minutes to game time now. I need to go run a couple of quick errands, then settle down in front of the tube. Ovechkin and Semin need to dominate early in this game, and the Caps need to score early and often. If they can win this one, who knows what might happen – but I suspect they are Dead Men Walking.
By junior on April 16, 2008, at 12:41 pm I forgot to post anything specifically commemorating the event (I was too busy dissecting the centurion-related pre-game lunacy), but yesterday was the one year anniversary of HiR:tb. Postings were sporadic at best in the first few months, but all in all I’m pleased with myself so far for sticking with this project to date – I have a bit of a history of beginning things and then losing interest and moving on to something else. It’s been a fun year, and I’ve made some friends in the course of forcing myself to write a little something at least every couple of days. I have amused myself, if no one else, and I have managed to craft a sentence that includes the phrase “sandwich gobbling cowboys”; this literary achievement alone, I feel, justifies the continued existence of my little portal into teh Intarwebs.
This interesting little fellow also turned 15 last week. Yes, fifteen. You can see by the expression on his face  that he’s Juniorvania’s happiest new resident. Currently leading the civilized world in the little-known category of “number of twigs, sticks, leaves, branches and other assorted woodland detritus tracked into a residential home”, Popeye keeps busy with his hobbies: avoiding the cat, rubbing himself along the length and breadth of every available piece of furniture, and attacking that damn stuffed turtle like it’s Satan himself. He is available to appear at Conferences, Symposia and Hockey Banquets for a reasonable honorarium, to be provided in unmarked non-consecutive cookies prior to the engagement in question. Prospective clients please be advised: his green room rider includes a non-negotiable requirement for suitable napping facilities and no warranties are made as to the absence or control of flatulence.
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