Playtime For the Leaf Nation

*As first published at www.hockeyinsight.com *


The powers that be in Toronto have decided to take the odd and mixed blessing of a week’s downtime in an Olympics-compressed schedule and have a little fun with it. The Buds spent the week jumping from brooding high-paced practices where Ron Wilson mused about fights breaking out amongst frustrated teammates, to games of dodgeball and a cavalier three-on-three tournament where the first goal was to have fun.

If cheering up the sullen troops was the aim, then he certainly hit the mark. When the young team left the ice everybody to the man had that “can you believe they pay us to do this” grin pasted all over their mugs. The talking heads have smelled blood in the water all this short season and in the scrum they had to do a double take at this new devil-may-care coach preaching the gospel of serendipity.

Wilson can’t really get anymore red-faced at the troops than he has at this point; they’re all in the same boat wearing dunce caps and big red targets. There’s a real bad taste to the Toronto air and if this streak doesn’t turn itself around soon everybody in the club from the top to the bottom is liable to be found hanging from the ACC rafters beside that ’67 Stanley Cup banner. In a city that sways on the poles of hyperbole, a couple of practices spent maxin’ and relaxin’ is either going to look like a stroke of genius or a declaration of war. A win or two on the upcoming road trip could see the Leafs a transformed team come back from the edge of dead with a good head of steam, but with Phil Kessel still weeks away and both starting (though uninspiring) goalies banged up but good, the team will have to do it with heart where talent is waning. A loss on Saturday will make this the worst opening season in Maple Leaf history and you can bet more than a few fans would remember the week-long lock in at the rec center as a centerpiece of the failure.



Win or lose, a good chunk of Southern Ontario is looking at the 6 – 2 Coyotes (who as of this writing just popped an overtime winner against the Red Wings) and wondering about what could have been.

There Ain't No Second Chance Against the Thing with Forty Eyes!

It's almost Halloween, and that's cool, because candy is cool, carving pumpkins is cool, girls dressed as sexy vampires, sexy nurses, sexy archeologists, sexy schoolgirls, sexy vampire nurses, and Princess Leia are cool, and scary movies are really cool.

These are the movies that have scared me the most. I list them here either because you can tell a lot about a man by the movies that that made him shit his pants or because I can't do all my posts about sports and still claim geek cred.

For the record, Richmond St. in London ON is the best place to spend Halloween.

#5. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

Young Master Jeremy was prohibited by his well meaning parents from watching any film featuring the talents of one Robert Englund. This put him at a social disadvantage whenever the schoolyard conversation turned to Freddy Kruger, which was I recall, every single recess of every single day of elementary school. So with the help of an arms length friend of the latch key variety, I finally found out what all the fuss was about. In terms of acting and production value, this was probably the low point in a franchise with some ups and lots of downs but nine year olds don't have that sort of perspective and I thought it was the sweetest film ever made. I wasn't scared, even for the first few nights, but for fun I'd play the "What would I do if I were dreaming right now" game, and after a while I got to thinking about just how goddamn vulnerable I was. You could never really be sure you were awake, and you could never be sure Freddy wasn't out to get you. Even if you were a nun-chuck Olympian, Freddy doesn't play by the rules, he could just turn you into a bug and crush you. Most important, I had been told by those in the know that only girls could kill Freddy. Before a week had passed I couldn't go into the laundry room without praying. I never really batted an eye at Jaws, the creature from the black lagoon was a joke, but there's a scene where Freddy's claws shoot across the water and onto the beach right before he jumps out of the sand and steps on Kristen's head that had me scared of beaches for a good two years. Worst of all, since the film was verboten, I couldn't ask my dad if he had ever played vigilante on a neighborhood child murderer without arousing suspicion. I had to face uncertainty all alone. I'm over it, but that burnt-faced so-and-so gave me a lot to think about.

#4. It

I read the book in Grade 7. The book was scary but with the book, there is so much going on that between the gradeschool orgy and the cosmic turtle and the ritual of Chud my mind was swimming too deeply to be scared. I watched the movie and for all it's spookiness they had to skip the best parts because how do you explain the ritual of chud on prime time. It all would have been fine, until I heard the story. The fella who sat next to me explained that on a dark and stormy night, he was trying to find "It" in his VHS tapes, and after failing fell asleep watching a comedy. When he woke up, he discovered "It" was recorded after the first movie, and as the lightning struck outside, he swore he saw a clown outside the basement window, just waving and smiling. That image, Tim Curry doling out balloons outside every basement window I have ever been in after dark, will never leave me. Thanks a lot Cory.

#3. The Silence of the Lambs

So, you tell yourself you're being silly. There's no such thing as monsters, its all your kids stuff. Well I've got some bad news for you sunshine, crazy serial killers do exist. And Anthony Hopkins exists too. So chew on that as you take out the garbage at night in the dark. Just you think about it. Are you smart enough to evade a genius maniac after your tasty love handles? No, you aren't.

#2. 1408

Stephan King strikes again. I watched this movie, during the day and it just freaked me out. You get the idea that when they made this movie they did exactly what they set out to do. Everybody but John Cusack knew not to fuck with that hotel room, but he just had to go and do it. What got me wasn't so much Mr. Cusak's torture, but the way the other folks treated the room, and the stories and images of the other people the room had eaten. I mean, this room can tailor make a nightmare that will tweak you just the right way, forever and ever. If it gets a chance it'll trap your family too. Yep, I will never never stay in any room 1408 so long as I live.

#1. Fire in the Sky

On the worst night, I spent an entire night on a couch with all the lights on just thinking about it. I hope aliens do not exist, but I think if they do, then they're messing with us. The syrup scene is just the limit. If you haven't seen this movie, maybe don't.

I'm giving honourable mention to The exorcist, and to 28 Days later. Happy Halloween.

A Gentleman's Game

If you didn't see it, it's here. Clifton Smith got hit so hard his girlfriend died. Dante Wesley did a bad bad thing. It was dirty, it was brutal and it appeared to be committed with intent to injure. So of course, pushes were exchanged, names were called, and honours were defended. But no punches were thrown and thanks in part to player's restraint, the official's prudence, and even coach's boldness, the situation on the field calmed down as fast as it had flared up, save for Wesley's temper tantrum on the sidelines for the half minute it took for the ref to eject him. Smith got up and walked off the field under his own power, mumbling something that sounded like Cantonese and calling Coach Morris "Professor Buttonsworth". Wesley is suspended for next Sunday, a punishment everybody except Clifton's mom thinks is adequate. Cased closed, on to week 7.

I was born and raised on hockey, to me this is fucking amazing.

One: The minute the cheap shot happened, everyone and their dog with a level head went right to work making sure nothing escalated, no fist fights, no retribution, serendipity baby. The NFL is so vehemently against fighting because they have made the decision that it doesn't wash with their image and they stick by it. The NHL has hummed and hawed about fighting like it was abortion legislation for as long as I've been alive, and they're no closer than when they started. All they know is that they don't like the game the way it is. I don't have anything against emotions spilling over, but the staged stuff is consensual ridiculousness and I can't be the only person that feels that way. So make the former acceptable and stop condoning the latter right? Nope. The league that regularly eats the PA for breakfast kowtows to the goons. Whaaa?

Two: The aftermath was; there was no aftermath. One game suspension and on with the show. The NFL doesn't have to pontificate for a year and a half on the nature of violence in society, press criminal charges, or cry in Barbara Walter's lap. The NFL is as pleased as punch with the way their game has evolved, everybody from the owners to the commentators will tell you that same thing.

This is very good, because I'm a sports fan and the only off field drama I want is cheerleaders gone wild and the odd dog fight. I don't want to see fucking Kelly Hrudy weigh in on how children are going to react to bloody noses, I want to see sports being played and the men playing them composed, honoured and pleased to be doing so.

So, maybe the NHL is more unsure of it's identity because of its place in the sports pecking order. It's a mite easier to be content when half your owners are billionaires. Maybe it's a function of it's history to always be in flux, after all, the NFL never had a Maurice Richard, never had a summit series, never had a miracle on ice, never had a Todd Bertuzzi (although they've had a few Sean Averys). What ever the reason, I'm not concerned that the two leagues are so very different, I just think the NHL could learn something about cohesion from it's big brother, and a thing or two about composure from a Sunday afternoon cheap shot.

Gerry Bettman: A Bad Person(?)

I would like, if I may, to take you on a journey back in time to a special year they saw fit to call 1993. Snow and Meatloaf had hit albums, Bill Clinton brought sexy back to the white house, and the NBA snuck a trojan horse monkey wrench into the works of a surging National Hockey League in the personage of one Gerry B. Bettman.

The NHL at the time was indeed surging; Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky shared time on Prostars, they were superhero teammates, equal and awesome. In fact, between the Mighty Ducks movie popularizing the hash-mark "triple deke" and league wide roster of arguably the best players ever (Lemieux, Roy, Gretzky, Hull (uggh), Messier, Gilmore, Fleury and on and on), the NHL was looking to take a real big space at the American sport table. North of the border the news was already out, it was getting less and less okay to make fun of "Rabid Canadian Hockey fans" and lo and behold, the with the playoff quarterfinals underway all signs pointed to Lord Stanley's Cup being decided between the two Canadian original six franchises. At that point in time no one I knew could give a flying fuck whether the league's new position of commissioner was occupied by Lucifer himself.

Then it happened, the high stick heard round the world. I'm not going to pretend that I can prove it, but my gut tells me Kerry Fraser got a talking to before hand from the new boss about his plans for California and Lord Stanley and I'm as sure of chicanery now as I was when I was thirteen. The rest is bizarre history; two work stoppages and a lost season, two great Canadian cities stripped of their franchises, and half a league's worth of failing teams a spitting distance from the Tropic of Cancer. And of course we have this summer's desert Blackberry clusterfuck.

Even putting all that aside, the real point is the NHL has underachieved. Tickets are just not selling in a bunch of key markets, various TV deals have left networks with shitty ratings shaking their heads and placing hockey somewhere between woman's basketball and elephant polo. Under Bettman the league has made lots more money, but opportunity for the sort of breakthrough everybody was expecting has come and gone.

I know there was a plan, and I'll even admit that a lot of the teams sputtering now could have been successful with less boneheaded management, and I'd be willing to let it slide if it wasn't for that smugness. That shit-eating grin, the way he's always touching Ron MacLean, the way he can just deny deny deny ever making mistakes in his long tenure.

Okay, maybe hockey fans are just disposed to dislike him. The guy is a politician, he's a businessman, and he sports a naturally sleazy disposition. His public character could possibly consciously channel Vince MacMahon because that fills a role and takes heat off the club owners for unpopular decisions. You tell all that to the tourists. Take a look into this man's eyes. This is a man who just plain doesn't like hockey. He likes money and he likes cameras and he likes power, but he just doesn't get it and worse, he doesn't care that he doesn't get it. For those of us that have genuine devotion to the game and it's place in our national identity, who equate Bettman's entire career with the worst sorts of treason, to have a fella who just doesn't care calling so many of the shots makes for a frustrating eighteen seasons. But brothers and sisters, there ain't no hero waiting in the wings to right all his wrongs, the new boss will more than likely be same as the old boss, but hope springs eternal, and just maybe...

Week 5: Thoughts on the Haves and the Not-Haves

There are five undefeated teams left sitting pretty after five weeks of season, and nine that have managed one win or less. While there has been no shortage of great games, it seems to me that for every close game we have to sit through two unmerciful beatings the likes of which we could have predicted the tuesday prior. Five games this Sunday had more than 20 points seperating winners and losers. There were good close games (Buffalo and Clevland notwithstanding, if that game were any more boring and shitty they would have had to call it soccer) but a good third of them weren't much more than afterthoughts. On this point I really don't want to sound vicious, but if Seattle can beat Jacksonville 41 nil what business does Jacksonville have being in the same league?

These discrepancies in talent, motivation and\or just general having-shit-togetherness are all the more bewildering when you take into account the setup the NFL built for itself to avoid this very same problem. The NFL has the candy shell of competitive capitalism with a soft chewy oligarchical center where revenue sharing and a salary cap basically levels the field, bonuses notwithstanding. Even the differences in revenues, ranging from large fortunes to very very large fortunes, doesn't help explain why The Vikings (lowest) can be perfect while the Bucks can be 0 and 5 and still belong to the Billion Plus club. What it speaks to I think, is leadership that wants a superbowl the way I want a piano keys made of rhino horn compared to ownership that wants to kill a rhino. So if the Lions can be a perpetually terrible and embarrassing with wicked draft pick after wicked draft pick, and the Colts and the Patriots can just win win win till they're blue in the face, maybe that's the real NFL message to the world. You can be a team that has inspired heads of state, dedicated and knowledgeable coaches, and hard working players that follow the game plan and live in a state of competitiveness, excitement and victory, or you can be a bunch of hacks given every advantage chasing your tails who never get and never deserve to get out of the basement.

Franchises, like life's opportunities, are not handed out to the best and brightest, or even the most capable, they are given to millionaires. You can buy a place at the table but if success could be bought, then you can bet the Cowboys wouldn't have spent the last decade watching the second half of the playoffs on TV's, no matter how big they are.

The Last of the Mohicans: A Book that Eats like A Meal

As I am wont to do, when I began to read this novel I posted as much on facebook and received congratulations for doing so from two of my more bookish pals. Then I recieved more comments from others in person, then a conversation about the novel from one of my more non-bookish pals came up. Before too long I came to grips with the fact that I was the last English speaking person to have read this book.

I scored it from the hyper-discount rack at chapters along with two other books I should have already read. I had watched the movie with my mom just before I started the book. The movie, I thought, was pretty good, its hard to judge violent period piece movies before Braveheart (everything changed after Braveheart) but I liked it all the same and my mom thinks its just great. I know everybody and their dog likes to yak about how the book is better than the movie, but brothers and sisters, these two stories are kissing cousins at best. The flick really strays from the original story, and adds subplots that really amount to themes 180 degrees from the book. I'll throw in a disclaimer though, because there are more books in the series so the movie could have just compressed plots me being none the wiser.

This book is wonderful, and probably everybody should read it. It's a nice look at at least one man's opinion of Montcalm that strays considerably from the heroic image we're taught in school. The story is the sort of exciting that makes you ignore a ringing phone, interesting the way that makes you pester your family with misguided insights into first nations issues, and reads just like a nineteenth century New Englander's Lord of the Rings.

In order to corner the saucy gentlemen market, Cooper jumps the shark large late in the book and has the heroes running around in furs pretending to be a bear in the Huron's camp. It's ridiculous but is prefaced with quotes from Midsummer Night's Dream and I suspect conforms to some matter of form requisite of fiction in his day and age. Other than that the story is of folks killing folks, warriors being heroic (I found enough parallels with Homer to get a little more excited than probably necessary) and the French being smug ditherers. It gets pretty heavy when a Huron brave smashes a baby against the rocks and splits his mom's melon with a tomahawk, but having read all the Mercer Mayer books I am no stranger to gore.

Apart from the violence, the groovy language and the history, the best part of the book is to have a look at the attitudes of the characters, and the differences between whites and indians, English and French, and between Huron and Delaware. To hear Cooper say tell it, if there's one thing Indian's hate, it's other Indians, perfectly in keeping with what I know of human nature. The real action comes between two rival tribes, and they have all sorts of mean racist sentiments towards each other's tribes that I didn't understand, like when I watch All in the Family.

So read this book if you haven't already. It's great and you'll learn more about our continent and the fiction it has spit out.

The Invention Of Lying: a film i saw recently that i will now review

Before I review this film I am obliged to tell a story. It's a story about a boy and a girl, in the early part of this very same decade. The boy asks the girl to accompany him to a film, and that film was a film about a house. This house was a strange one, it contained corpses, and not just a few corpses, several, say, a thousand. And despite the film featuring the talents of a future "The Office" actor, that girl who agreed to see "an art film" insisted her date owed her one romantic comedy for every corpse in the film. "The Invention of Lying" is #42.

So Ricky Gervais gives us another turn of the RomCom wheel, as a down and out dude who develops the ability to tell untruths in a world where that sort of thing has never been done. He turns his gift into fortune and glory with a trip to the casino (But sir, I was on thirty) in a few minutes and spends the rest of the movie getting the girl but not before committing a most fundamentally bizarre act of ?blasphemy?.

OK, so, nobody ever told a lie right, so Ricky tells his mom, who's on death's door, that there will be an afterlife full of love and happiness. As fiction has never been realized, this idea is a new one, and as no one on earth has never before born false witness, everyone assumes that because someone said it, it is true. So apart from being rich and famous, the protagonist is now seen as, and acts as, a medium for "The man in the sky". Ricky delivering his layman ten commandments on the back of pizza boxes would have been the funniest part of the movie, but it was kind of ruined by weird timing and an obvious lead up.

The most remarkable thing in this film is the director\lead actor\producer's ability to have Louis CK not be funny for an entire flick. My thinking is that old Ricky got a little uptight about anybody topping the old eh eh eh... no wait no hey-I'm-a-British-person and thusly hamstringed the whole of his formidable supporting cast. Maybe I'm wrong, it seems like Jennifer Garner speaking frankly about masturbating before a bad date should be funny, but, no.

It was alright, but it wasn't nearly as good as it could have been with the seven thousand A-list cameos. I like his standup and I like his style, but on this side of the pond you have to do better than this if you want to make the move from sensation to institution. A swing and a miss kids.

Monday Night Shamelessness: Vikings 30 Packers 23

I will never again be able to watch Brett Favre play without the mute button. Nobody without a grudge that touches madness is going to say Number Four is anything but the reason they build halls of fame in the first place, but this shit is too much. It's like Michelle Obama fell out of her dress on a slow news day. Those bastards had a perpetual loop of blind praise going that put pop radio to shame. Say viewer, would you like to watch a highlight reel of the special Brett Monday nights again? No? Too bad.

Football, professional sport, is a product. Ok, fine, but can we as viewers, fans or otherwise, be granted one iota of intelligence, of self respect? We understand what the game meant. This isn't the Superbowl; there's nobody sitting on the couch keen on getting to the commercials. I will bet my left nut that not one viewer watching this game didn't know there was some history for these two teams and these two quarterbacks. So the good folks at ESPN ought to get to work filling the dead air with banter that doesn't make me flip to Kimbo Slice reruns as soon as the play gets called dead. I'm not saying don't milk it, for god's sake, I'm not against pomp, but every one of them sounded like a drooling idiot. I demand a small measure of the sublime be retained in an event that really was special for football. This isn't Temptation Island.

As soon as the clock expired they swarmed the man with a shamelessness the likes of which I have seen only once before, (The cameras following Jordan into the locker room after his championship) and Brett, always a professional but never eloquent, gave them a few polite sound bites that I have reheard about a million times since.

The real story of course is that the Vikings beat the Packers, and it was a team effort that gave the latter a beating much worse than the score lets on in all measures except for those concerning Adrian Peterson, who was dwarfed by his teammates efforts. It's worth mentioning that Jared Allen had maybe the defensive game of the season so far, making the makeshift Packers O-Line look like they didn't belong in the league, but the league loves it's quarterbacks...

And now, the football sun also rises, we move on to week five, where Peyton or Eli or Drew or Mark or whomever will make some new bonehead stat and everybody will shit their pants yet again. There's a point to all of this, Football is a goddamn wonderful thing without the talking heads repeating the fact over and over like orangutans who just learned English. Hows about letting the game do a little bit more of the talking.

The Vikings and their momentum are going to keep on winning next Sunday and unless the Ram's recruit some Mac Trucks for linemen it's going to be very very embarrassing day in St. Louis.

The rudderless Packers get a week off to lick their wounds and think about whether or not mediocrity is going to be acceptable.

Being Erica: The Curious Sensation of not being Pandered to

For those of you who haven't been following the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's stab at Carrie Bradshaw, Being Erica is the life and times of one 30 something just-shy-of-hot Toronto Urbanite who through the help of her magical shrink goes back through time and relives the highs and lows of her pretty-girl-by-the-numbers in search of transcendence. It's very nearly as terrible as it sounds but the season finale had me scratching me Gulliver and anxious for more.

A summary then: Erica uses her visit back in time to prevent the momentous death of her older brother, a very serious time continuum no-no, and is berated by Dr. Tom who ends their sessions altogether and promptly tells her to stick it where the flux capacitor don't shine. As soon as she gets back to real time, her brother, now a successful fellow with a family, dog, etc etc, dies in a car accident, and the Hades gets it's soul back. Erica begs Dr. Tom to set things back, he agrees, and disappears. The end of the episode and the season has Erica being swooped into the new office of a new shrink, who says that she'll be handling things from here on.

So the viewer learns that there is more than one magical psychiatrist, and that she is so much more important than everyone else that she even has a backup. This got me thinking of a few possibilities my inexperience let me think might just happen.

One: This Erica bird is more than just spoiled; her life has some special significance, like she's meant play some integral part in the cosmic ballet, stop a plane crash or push somebody in front of the subway Gunslinger-style.

Two: There is a supernatural war going on between rival magic shrinks and Erica is a pawn between two rival demigods in an eternal Freud vs Jung chess match. With Light sabers.

Three: Erica under her new shrink would become an agent of chaos, having Carte Blanche to go back in time and fuck with everything.

No No and No.

The new shrink made her peer and her temporary patient kiss and make up, Erica went on to learn about overcoming insecurity with communication, and I like a jilted lover contemplated how one ordinary man could go about getting a show cancelled.

I shouldn't be upset. From Spike to CNN to Discovery, 90% of television is devoted entirely to making me happy. The shitty Dharma and Greg remake notwithstanding, the electric world is my happy place. Being Erica is tailored to my better half, like twist-top wine bottles and Ricky Gervais. The plot twists push towards emotional growth, romance-heavy sex, and magic for the sake of good. In short, this show is liable to make you cringe and get to work cleaning out the garage, and that's okay. The view from Mars is a little sadder, but a little wiser.