2007 NHL Playoff Picks - Round Two

1. I'd like to pick Anaheim in 4 but I'll let Luongo steal a game. I'll predict at least three shutouts for Giguere.
   
2. San Jose know how close they are, and Thornton will make himself known.
   
3. Buffalo will lose game one and likely game two before they figure out they're best to let Avery hang on Briere and get the puck to Drury instead, while throwing a blanket on Jagr.
   
4. If the Senators can close down Crosby and Malkin they can do it to Gomez, which will essentially eliminate offensive opportunities for New Jersey. With four deep lines it should be too much for the trap to keep in check.

All In Good Time

So in the end, for the first round, I swept the West and missed only the Rangers in the East. Not a bad record heading into the second round. Professionals always gripe about how hard it is to pick the first round because everyone is so close, which I've never understood. Now is when teams start getting close, and when picking a decisive winner becomes more and more difficult. In the official Sportsnet pool I've netted 62 points to tie for 9,260 (ack!) with our resident friends House coming in second with 55 and Cliff Coleclough barely trailing at 53. Don't forget to get your picks updated for round two! Interestingly enough I was close on the tie-breaker questions as well with my guess for "How many games will be played in Round 1 of the playoffs (all series combined)?" coming in at 43 instead of 40, and my guess for "How many will be the most goals scored in a series by one team in Round 1 of the playoffs?" coming at at 21 instead of 19. Nice.

Thank God for Facebook, it's certainly figured out what Classmates.com never could. Everyone I've ever known seems to be on it, including many folks I've long lost touch with. One of those people was James Yule, a good friend from Brampton I had lost touch with 16 years ago. My sister, Kim, scheduled a dinner with the three of us, our spouses, and James' eight-month old son James-Dylan. It was a great time catching up, and thankfully we were at no loss for words. JD is the cutest little guy with an amazing laugh - Kim took a video and I'll try to remember to put it up when I'm home later. This weekend I'm scheduled to meet up with another old high school friend, Renee, who I actually found originally on MySpace but have caught up with a bit more on Facebook. How did our parents meet up with old friends? Pony Express?

A Passing Feeling

Would you believe after all this time my finger still isn't healed from that little shower fall? It would appear the amateur doctors (ie. friends and family) I've spoken with have probably been right, it's likely a second or third degree sprain. Which means ice it within 48 hours.. oops. So where to next? Not sure.. I've learned to play guitar using my middle finger and thumb to hold the pick, I've learned to carry things without the use of the index finger. Perhaps like the cavemen I shall just learn to adapt. Or go to the doctor. I'm on the fence right now.

So my picks got spanked by the Rangers - for every intelligent upset I pick I often will put too much faith behind another team. I thought the Thrashers would be hungry for it, and appeared to have been sculpted in the same mold as the Hurricanes last year with a solid core group of young stars surrounded by rental veterans. Alas, it was not to be. Count me as one of the many who think the blame lies more with Hartley than Waddell, I've long thought Hartley has no place on an NHL team.

I'm still addicted to Facebook. If any of you are on it and I'm not your friend go ahead and add me. Good times. I spent last night uploading old pictures of friends, which isn't likely to sit well with them when they figure it out.

Finally, another school shooting, this one even bloodier than the past. Once again, we're patching bullet holes with band-aids when we throw the insanity blanket over the shooter and simply declare him as some crazed, evil lunatic who finally snapped. There's a reason these shootings happen, whether it's PC to say that or not. I'm not attempting to justify them, of course, it's a horrible thing. But I find it upsetting that rather than find out why they happen and working to fix that root problem we simply pass it off as simply as we can and move on. Thankfully these shootings don't happen often, but until we learn why these kids feel this is their only option they'll continue to happen. Regardless, my prayers go out to all of those affected, and to the hope that society can find a way to solve things.

2007 NHL Playoff Picks and Pool

With slight delay I present the official results of the first round of the 2007 NHL playoffs. It is followed by a link to join a pool and attempt to prove me wrong.

The Boys of Summer

I promise and I deliver.. somehow, some way. Excitement always follows me to Blue Jays games, folks..

Last night was my first chance to meet up with House, who may or may not hold some form of relationship with our old friend, Shady. Alongside him were Cliff Coleclough and splat king (aka fiduchie boy) who had kindly invited me along for their annual Blue Jays opening day trek. Regardless of having left from the far reaches of Mississauga I ended up being second to the Purple Pig where I met up with House and enjoyed a Guinness as we made our introductions and chatted. The others followed with House enjoying the rib appetizer and myself partaking in the Pulled Pig Sandwich with a salad.

We made our way to the Rogers Centre and our seats in the 10th row of section 105 under the cover above the right field bullpen. The crowd was 50,000 strong - an oddity since the 1993 season - and fairly loud compared to your average Toronto sports gang. The festivities began when, for reasons unknown to us, a steroid-infused freak in section 104 took issue with five topless gents in our area that had painted F-R-A-N-K on their collective chests. For most of the game these boys would taunt the man dubbed "Marshmallow Man" and his bald head, while 'Mallow would flex his muscles, gnarl his teeth, and oddly, drop his pants and separate his arms in a "come and get some" style pose. Dropping trou seemed to be the impetus behind section 105's decision to chant "MARSH-MALLOW-MAN", and soon after, "KICK HIM OUT".

Of note, as well, was that Royals right fielder, and Canadian boy, Mark Teahen became the object of our scold solely due to the fact he was the only player within earshot from our seats. Someone behind us had come up with the nickname "Teabag", which immediately stuck, and poor Teabag was mercilessly taunted throughout the game by F-R-A-N-K, House, splat king, myself, and many others. Cliff, I must note, seems much more docile and controllable than most of us, except when I accused him of lusting after men in ponytails; that was the only brief hostile moment I witnessed by Mr. Coleclough. I should also note that splat king decided to chant "TEABAG! TEABAG!" at nearby attractive women more than once, and I'm not sure he was making any reference to a baseball player at all at the time.

Of final note and warning to others - learn from our mistakes. Do not order popcorn at the Rogers Centre. It is not popcorn at all but, in fact, cleverly disguised salt cubes meant to encourage you to buy more watery American beer for $7.50. We had the last laugh, though - House simply yelled "FREE POPCORN FOR FRANK!" a couple times and threw the bag at F. Apparently intoxication can make saltlicks a tolerable snack.

Drank Like A River - Part II

So as Rick hinted that there is a little more to the story from this weekend, but really he did a fairly good job of telling the bulk of the important stuff. As far as the remainder of the story goes I will do my best to fill in the blanks.

So after the 90min wait to cross the border, a quick search of our car and a declaration of 6 scones (I wasn’t letting them confiscate them) we finally were stateside. Now I have to admit I wasn’t seeing what all the excitement was about. Buffalo form my vantage point didn’t look all that great. Anyways we continued down the highway to our first stop at the aforementioned Consumers Beverage. Now we were already late due to the busy border so we wanted to get to our first destination quick. The only problem was google map was a little misleading and the direction we had did not lead to store, but rather a big box music and video store, which I can’t remember the name (Rick fill in the blank). We took a quick look around for the CD’s we were interested in and found them, but not at a price that warranted purchase. Anyways we asked for directions and found that Consumers Beverage was indeed on the road we thought it was, but it was still a few miles up. So back on course we headed up the road to make our purchase. I’m not sure what all Rick purchased, but I held myself to 4 bottles of premium ales, Unibroue Éphémère Apple, Unibroue La Fin Du Monde, Unibroue Quelque Chose (yes the one mentioned in the past that you drink hot) and St. Bernardus Abt 12. Rick was like a kid in a candy store and could barely contain himself at the site of all the incredible beers that our wonderful government keeps out of Ontario.

Anyways from there we headed in search of Guitar World. So this was the one stop that Paul was most interested in. He had been reading about what an amazing store it was and the hoped to view a few of the guitars on his dream list. Now the interesting thing about Guitar World is the people that frequent it. If you are a guitar player in the Buffalo area it seems the thing to do is head down to the local Guitar World and do what can only be described as wanking on a guitar turned WAY up. It was a great store for any budding musician and carried a great selection at a great price, but gave me a good headache. Paul and Rick both found a guitar that they loved and I’m sure they are both plotting a way to get it back into Canada now.

The next and final major stop on our tour was Walden Galleria a large mall, largely under construction on the outside. Not pretty to look at, but had a wide variety of great stores to satisfy just about any shopper out there. Our first stop was an attempt to secure dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Rick had been hyping the Kobe beef burger and we were all looking forward to our first meal since breakfast. Unfortunately it was not to be as the lineup for dinner was well over 2 hours at that point. Its amazing what people will do to eat there. We toured the mall after that and spent some time in Best Buy were Rick found his copy of Son Volts new CD including the bonus disk and Paul amazed the crowd with his mad Guitar Hero skills. I was surprised to find that most of the merchandise really wasn’t cheaper than back home and I really wonder why cross border shopping is so popular.

At that point we were all very hungry so we headed out in search of food. Now the one thing we didn’t count on was that the Sabre’s were apparently playing and the thing to do in Buffalo during a Sabre’s game is to go out and watch it at a restaurant. It seemed that ever place we went was at least a 1-hour wait. So after driving around for almost an hour trying to find a place we stumbled on a restaurant that promised true barbeque and to our excitement it delivered. Nothing can beat true slow smoked barbeque cooked for almost 8 hours. I had the beef brisket, Rick enjoyed pull pork, while Paul ventured in a different direction and enjoyed one of their 2-handed burgers. Fully satisfied he headed back home.

The cross back into Canada was relatively uneventful. Rick and I were fully prepared to pay our dues on the beer we had purchased. So when the border guard asked what we had done for the 7 hours we had spent in the US we said we purchased 23 beers (my 4 and Rummy’s 19). What we didn’t expect was the response from the border guard. He looked at us with a shocked face and replied, “What? No hard liquor, no cigarettes???” and then with a sad little wave sent us on our way. I felt sort of sad for the guard who was expecting to nail three guys on a booze-cruise, but was happy to know that our haul wasn’t going to cost anything extra. So ended our adventure into to Buffalo and my first taste of life outside of the LCBO. Oh one more thing I should mention. When waiting to cross a border there are certain do’s and don’ts.

One thing that I feel should be added to the don’t list is yelling, “PECKER!!!” at the top of your lungs with all the windows opened, but then these are the things that can happen when traveling with Rick………….. Told you I would post it Rick =P

Drank Like A River

I won't begin to think we can't best this past weekend later this year, so fortunately for Mark, it wasn't all downhill from here as he espoused during the Phelps concert. The Friday night show was all I could have hoped for - Hugh's Room really is the best small venue club in Toronto. Dinner, while expensive, was quite good, and I always respect a bar that will have four craft beer taps for their single macro (Keith's). Kelly Joe Phelps was absolutely on all night, the things he does with an acoustic guitar baffle me. His voice is much better than I've ever given him credit for - I think had he been born in the heyday of blues he'd be a household name, but in the words of the great Brian Wilson, he just wasn't born for these times.

I introduced the brothers to Anna Olson's bakery, and specifically, her chocolate crinkle cookies. They now know that I wasn't making things up, they truly are the greatest cookies man has ever known. It took us 90 minutes to cross the border and I've promised Mark I'd let him tell that part of the story. In fact, Mark can cover the whole American border side, I'll move on to booze.

Part of our trip was a trip to Consumer's Beverage, a chain of convenience-style stores in the Buffalo area that serve only beverages. Similar to my previous Buffalo-area trek to Premier Gourmet I have become more steadfast than ever in my newfound disgust for the LCBO and The Beer Store, which makes yesterday's Zonk banter more timely. Kip, Shaz, and myself had previously discussed the benefits of living in a province with the world's largest liquor buying power. But it's begun to occur to Mark and I, as craft beer aficionados, that that buying power has slowly turned into the mass purchase of macro beer. Finding something that isn't a major product or pale lager has become difficult, and our greatest LCBO sources (Sandalwood, Weston/7, Steeles/410) have all turned their back on us. In the meantime, as I slowly experience what a private system has to offer, I'm far more impressed. The selection was intense, I could literally spend $100 a week there and probably not run out of options for two years, not counting the fact they constantly bring in new products and phase out the old.

That said, the one element of our system that continues to work is that it feeds the tax base and lessens the load on the rest of us, which I like. The system Mark, Paul, and I decided on during our travels was of licensing independent purveyors rather than outright privatization. Allow the LCBO and TBS to continue as they are, but provide an option for those like us who prefer something different while keeping the system so it continues to provide income to our Governments.

Discuss.