Right, so exactly how much time do we have left on this planet? I've heard 12 years from everyone but Beto (Robert) O'Rourke, who's running for the presidency of the U.S., tells us it's 10 years.
You know, if people stopped with all of this Chicken Little crap, maybe we'd take things a bit more seriously. We've been told we'll all drown, fry or die 1,001 different ways and most of what we've been told hasn't happened. Manhattan isn't underwater, the polar ice caps are still there and Greenland is still solid. Maybe if we just all hold our breath, we'll solve the carbon problem.
Anyway …
Prayer answered
Nothing made me smile more than watching the Toronto Maple Leafs go down in Game 7 to the Boston Bruins. Knowing that Leafs fans will have to wait at least one more year brings me much joy as it did to thousands upon thousands of other hockey fans.
photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The best part of it, though, came before the game and it came courtesy of Brad Karp. Karp is a morning radio host with Country 93.3 in Fort McMurray, Alta., and actually did this on his morning show: calling the 24-hour prayer line of 100 Huntley Street with the request that a prayer be read on behalf of Canadians coast to coast for the Leafs to lose Game 7 so that he didn't have to listen to Leafs fans again.
It's really funny to listen to but all of the credit goes to the very sweet lady on the other end of the line who giggled at first when Karp made his request and then tried to find another way to word the prayer so as to not make it sound negative. Karp kept on prodding her to come up with something to bash the Leafs but she held firm, telling Karp whatever happened that night in Boston was God's will.
Kudos to her, for sure, for keeping her cool but Karp is my new favourite radio personality. What a brilliant idea to troll Leafs fans by doing that. Naturally, some Leafs fans took to the phone lines to let Karp know how much of an (censored word not within the boundaries of good taste) he was but I had a right good laugh listening to it all. If I was still working in radio, I would have had a field day with it.
Our prayers were answered after all because I haven't heard a peep about the Leafs since they lost. Long may the silence reign.
Oh, look … another one
As much fun as I have picking out soccer players who take a tumble courtesy of the hydrogen/oxygen mixture which permeates our breathing capacity, we must never forget that hockey players still come a close second.
Esa Lindell of the Dallas Stars is the latest victim of the natural air follies and it all happened in Game 2 of the series between the Stars and St. Louis Blues on April 29. Blues forward Robert Bartuzzo was checking Lindell in the St. Louis zone on a shift and proceeded to put the stick against Lindell's back. Lindell proceeded to pull off a damn-near triple Salchow as he headed for the ice. Getting up with absolutely no dust on him, Bartuzzo checked him again and this time, he simply fell as gravity got a hold of his skates.
One look at the entire sequence and you'll see Lindell was trying to set Bartuzzo up the entire time. Lindell isn't even looking at the puck – he's taking a sidewards glance at Bartuzzo, waiting for him to come at him and once he does, Yahtzee. Once the referee blew the whistle, he got up and smiled, thinking he sucked Bartuzzo into a penalty. Bartuzzo did get a crosschecking penalty but Lindell was also sent to the sin bin for embellishment (diving).
A penalty like that used to be called diving and was announced as such. They should really bring back the dive because nothing warms my heart more than hearing a player get rung … unless the Leafs are losing in Game 7 to the Boston Bruins.
And finally …
Good Idea: Scoring into an empty net to seal the deal in a hockey game.
Bad Idea: Missing an empty net to seal the deal in a hockey game and watching the other team head back down the ice to score.
Perhaps the most famous example of this is Patrik Stefan when he managed to flub it in 2007. It happened again only this time in a minor hockey game … of course.
No idea where this happened but it looks like somewhere in Canada and it's on Pavel Barber's Instagram feed, where you'll find plenty of hockey stuff. Anyway, the gold team in the video coughs up the puck in its own zone and a player from the black team gets it right in front of the yawning cage … and channels his inner Patrik Stefan, firing it as wide as you could get. He throws his arms in the air and looks at the referee. What do you want the referee to do? You missed it, you tool. The ref didn't make you miss.
Sure as crap, the gold team goes down the ice and scores on a one-timer from the point. It literally happens that way. Every. Single. Time. Same thing happened to Stefan when he missed the open net against the Edmonton Oilers when he played for Dallas – absolutely blew it and Ales Hemsky went down the ice and scored to tie the game.
It's the one thing people remember Stefan for because his career wasn't exactly one you'd write home about, especially for someone drafted first overall in 1999 by the Atlanta Thrashers. Patrik Stefan lives!
Until next time, folks ….