Asunto: Satirical Commentary

Somewhere to post funny stuff relayed to your team(s).

I suggest renaming this thread, "Exile"...

As our club prepares to take a run at 9th this season, down here in the lowly third tier of the Canadian standings, we would like to make the strong suggestion that the PPM staff make a new trophy for the league's 9th place finisher. Kind of like the old WHA, teams of hasbeen's and goingnowhere's battling it out for the Avco Cup, or whatever that brass pot was called...

Due to some mild interest in our introduction of Brian, our team swami, we have decided to do a short intro to some of the other behind-the-scenes people down here in Dunnville...

We could call the 9th place team irrelevant after the nfl draft last picked overall and give them a picture if a new car.

We prefer to maintain the illusion of relevance...

Hmm we could call it the San Jose shark award?

(The following is a copy of a press release issued earlier today in Division III.V of the Canadian hockey league.)

AP) Dunnville Mudcats' attempts to introduce new concepts to the PPM game are back in the news again today. The club's, "Teams of Quality and Distinction" promotion has hit a major roadblock today after attempts to publish a list of qualifying teams were met by threats of legal action by organizations competing in the event. The clubs in question, apparently fearing ridicule and derision from other teams in the PPM world, threatened to take "unrestrained legal action" should their names be released. The seasonal activity invites select teams to join a "list" capped at fifteen to compete in an unofficial friendly tournament and benefit both organizations. Nicknamed the "C List" and widely disregarded by other teams in the PPM world, the tournament has again struggled out of the gate,
in just its second full season of activity. Despite regular advertising and even the inclusion of a limited edition hockey puck due to be released next month, the absence of interest in the out-of-competition friendly has forced team officials to unsuccessfully pressure PPM officials to allow the Mudcats to recruit league-controlled franchises. Mudcat President and GM Paul Roedb hit back at the teams on the list who refused to allow their names to be released as, "a bunch of *#&$ers"and, "those same sons of &$(#hes that I used to call friends". Messages sent to the office of Jordan LePip, team Public Relations Specialist and creator of the unique event, were left unanswered.

(Correction - Division III.3)

Howie Meeker - My family wasn't rich by any means and we moved a lot. When we had a fireplace that was the focus in the evening - if not, especially on Saturday's, then it was Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC) (not the TV, that's for sure, just the hockey. And the Gong Show...). God Bless Dave Hodge but he was boring. My first real memory of colour was Howie, his hockey white boards, the X's and O's and the alto voice. But even as a kid it didn't take long to figure out that HNIC was paying this strange man decent money to sit there and babble on. So, as I began to understand the game more, I started to listen to Howie more. And I began to understand the game, not the sport - the spectacle. Howie retired too soon. Maybe 7-8 years ago my Mom told me she had spotted him at a peewee tournament in the Duncan area of BC. Just this year she told me, as far as she knew, he was still around. I am sure a lot of young people nowadays don't know about Howie Meeker or think he was a joke. Howie still watches the grass grow. Howie is a true hockey man.

The Leafs - I was born in TO but we moved a lot. My brother, to this day, is still a diehard Leaf fan but I just couldn't get into their losing as much as them. I loved them then though - they were very good: Sittler, McDonald, Salming, Turnbull, Hammerstrum, (anybody remember Brian Glennie's hipchecks?) but they just couldn't get over the hump and, in those days mostly, that hump was the Philadelphia Flyers. Some guy in our church had season tickets and when he was out of town he would sometimes send them down our way and we would have a couple of "Blues" to go see our heroes. Great memories...I had tickets to the game when Turnbull set a record for defencemen with points scored in a single game. It was right around Halloween I remember (go check it if you don't believe me and don't call me a liar!) and I had the mother of all colds and my folks told me to choose between going out for candy or the game and, I...umm...chose Halloween. Regrets? Some but as a kid the big thing from this one was growing up and making hard choices, which was the big lesson. It's called being a kid.

Scotty Bowman - I am a Hab fan. I grew up watching Courneyer (sp?) fade as Lafleur rose. Shutt/Lapointe/Lemaire/Gainey/Dryden/Robinson/Houle...and the list just goes on and on. What a stacked team. The guy I really loved and the man who really got me hooked on hockey though was the coach, Scotty Bowman. He was so intense, so focused and even as a 10 year old it was obvious that this guy was all about winning. Some guys build winners; Bowman built champions. I don't care if he had Lemieux in Pittsburgh, he almost did it in St. Louis, he did it repeatedly in Montreal, again in Pittsburgh and his fingerprints are so all over the current Hawks line-up a forensic expert would seem silly in a court of law. He is on a different level and I don't think we will ever see, or at least for a very long time, a hockey mind that can compare with Scotty Bowman.

Bob Cole - I am amazed whenever I get home that on HNIC the voice of Bob Cole can still be heard. Has he retired now? They say that the senses of taste and smell can be tamed to produce memories but for me it is sound, and that odd, excited voice of Bob Cole, winding up in the living room. "Getting in there!", "Gobbling it up" just tangled up and are classics. My brother and I always joke that, "Bob can't do radio.", and he can't, by the way. Don't look at your TV set and listen to this guy call the game and you quickly realize how dependent he is on the viewer being capable of seeing the action. But just the association of him with Saturday night, the professionalism of his voice and the entire symbol of him as the guy who called the game that most of the nation watched every Saturday makes him a great Canadian folk hero, forever, I would think...

Al Arbour - For many years, I was under the impression that Al Arbour was a brilliant hockey man. What that great Islander team did to the Oilers the first time they met in the finals made me rethink my understanding of the game. I remember all the Oiler fans saying, "they got lucky" and all that bullshit. I assume diehard Oiler fans still say the same thing. Others say it was all Billy Smith but I don't buy that. From my memory of that series it was the best counterpunch hockey I had seen up to that point - the Italian national football club's "soaking up the pressure" and "stealing" 0-1 scorelines. They made the Oiler back corps look what they really were - a very average group of higher-than-middle blueliners and a reasonably good goalie in Fuhr. Then, when the dynasty ended, Arbour just kind of disappeared, like almost all of the key components of that team. Usually that means they were great at what they did but not of what they knew about the game. I love Al Arbour and respect him immensely but, at the end of the day, I assume he was a "player's coach" who could get the most out of his guys and what we saw on the ice was a product of the collective ability of the players...

The Oiler Dynasty - It's a good thing nobody reads this &$*% cause if they did there would be a riot in a few minutes. He's going to disrespect the Big Oil? Yeah, kind of. I don't think the Oilers were the legend that they are made out to be - I would give them credit for maybe 70% of it. Sather was a smart guy who got Gretzky through the expansion system of the time and then took advantage of the drafting system of the time to get some of the key components of what became a "great" team. Gretzky-Messier-Kurri I have no major arguments with, especially Messier. The Anderson's-Fuhr's-Huddy's and Lowe's were very average guys in my mind. Coffey was a beautiful skater. That's it. My "problem" with the Oiler dynasty wasn't so much of who they were, it was more how the league treated them. This was the last of the "evening up" of NHL officiating or close to it. "Gretzky's Office" is an acronym for, "the league doesn't allow you to touch that guy when we he is being photogenic behind the opposing goal"...The Oilers were good TV and the league let them do it, for obvious financial reasons...Then it was over and here comes the trap, Barry Trotz's 4 line systems and Corsi numbers. The NHL had their last hurrah from the old days but was keenly aware that having hockey discussed in the same discussion with roller derby just wasn't going to hack it in the 21st Century...