Pool Report: Words Fail

The original voice of “Hockey Night in Canada”, Foster Hewitt, is credited with coining the phrase, “He shoots. He scores!”.

I think play must’ve gotten faster since Foster’s day because now about all the game callers seem to have time to spit out is “Shoots. Scores.” Unless it’s Bob Cole, in which case the call is usually, “Is that in? I think so”.

But like writers, hockey announcers are always looking for new ways to describe repetitive action. And that’s been no more obviously on display than during the first two overtime games of the Stanley Cup Finals, where pucks have been “forked”, “paddled”, “wanded”, “banged” and “squibbed”.

Yahoo’s Puck Daddy website has been so impressed by the rapidly expanding hockey thesaurus to publish a bingo card for NBC sportscaster Mike Emerick.

Meanwhile, in the Infamous Writers Hockey Pool, the vocabulary remains the same. No new names at the top of the Poolie heap -– and unless the scoring in this final tilt picks up, the likelihood is that this will be the order of finish.

More Friday…

Lazy Sunday # 277: Frankie

There are no perfect fathers.

But all fathers love as perfectly as they can.

Have a Happy Fathers Day. And…

…Enjoy Your Sunday.

Pool Report: We’ve Arrived

For about as long as I can remember, the mantra has been “Americans just don’t like hockey”. What’s more, barely a Canadian TV sports panel goes by without mentioning the mistaken placement of NHL teams in “non-hockey markets”.

Apparently, that’s an argument of the past.

For it seems -- We’ve arrived.

Wednesday night’s Game One of the Stanley Cup Final drew a 4.8 overnight rating (6.42 Million viewers) for NBC, up 100% from last year’s LA/New Jersey series opener.

What’s more, well over half of those watching the game fell into the extremely desirable 18-49 demographic.

Chicago might’ve won triple overtime. But hockey won the night for NBC, delivering 28% of the total viewership in Boston and 25% in Chicago, two of the country’s major markets.

As the past half dozen Olympics have proven, our game has gone worldwide. And now, the toughest TV audience in the world, the one with the most viewing alternatives, has begun to embrace us.

Although you might feel this will hurt the chances of Quebec City, Saskatoon or Southern Ontario getting another team, it is still a very good thing.

Even the most die-hard Boston supporter has to admit that Wednesday night’s game was a classic. And classic games build loyal audiences.

How rabid are some Americans for the Canadian game? Well, diehard Bruins fans,The Dropkick Murphys, refused to start their concert Wednesday night until the game was over. When it went into overtime, they stayed offstage and had the venue play it on the band’s projection screens.

Meanwhile in Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Bill Clinton all used their speeches at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting to voice their support for the Blackhawks.

Bill especially likes the Chicago ice girls…

In other news – a quick reminder that you have until Saturday night to enter the Infamous Writers Hockey Pool Props Contest. Less actual hockey knowledge required. Same great prizes. Just ask David Kinahan, who’s won it more than once.

Details here.

As for the big dog…

Will Zmak holds his lead with the aforementioned Mr. Kinahan and Eric Anderson still within striking distance and a couple of other dark horses rising through the ranks.

More on Monday.

Pool Report: The Props Are Due

THE PROPS CONTEST

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a little history.

Betting on sports has been around as long as there have been guys who needed to pump up their self-esteem by proving they were right about something.

And for centuries money changed hands based on who won or lost a contest.

Then Las Vegas and the Super Bowl were invented. Pretty soon the smart guys who ran the Casinos realized that while you could make millions on who won a football game, you could make Billions with side wagers.

So Proposition Betting was created to give us sports degenerates an opportunity to blow our money on outcomes nobody in their right mind can confidently predict.

You might be wagering on the coin toss (Janet Gretzky's favorite -- seen here at Caesar's Palace with absolutely non-betting husband and Hockey Great One Wayne) or if a touchdown is made by a player whose jersey number is over 30.

Props are also not one bet options. You need to pick at least a half dozen. The odds of collecting on your bet are infinitesimal. But then, you can't put a price on a good time, can you?

So here's how the "Infamous Writers Pool Hockey Props"  works…

There are six bets. All are related to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Some require sports knowledge. Some only require guts! The player with the most correct answers wins. And a special piece of Canadian Hockey memorabilia (currently treasured by Yours Truly) will be awarded to the winner.

Should there be a tie -- uh -- we'll figure that out if there's a tie.

But this contest will definitely not be decided until well after the final game!

Entry is open to all current pool players, everybody who’s been kicking themselves for not getting in on the original action and anybody who thought Pittsburgh had this thing sewn up when the season ended.

Entries must be sent to seraphic77@gmail.com anytime between now and the 8:00 pm Eastern faceoff for Game Two on Saturday June 15 in Chicago.

Like the rest of the pool this year, we’ve built in a delay to compensate for how fast the NHL is trying to get through this thing.

Your six Hockey Propositions are:

1. The 2013 Stanley Cup winner will be decided in:

     a) Four Games

     b) Five Games

     c) Six Games

     d) Seven Games

2. The total number of goals scored in the Final series will be:

    a) Less than 20

    b) 20 to 30

    c) More than 30

3. Chicago Goalie Corey Crawford enters the final round with a .935 Save Percentage. Boston’s Tukka Rask's average is .943. At the end of the final series, the Highest Goalie Save Percentage will belong to:

a) Crawford

b) Rask

c) Neither

4. "Hockey Night in Canada"  icon Don Cherry always confidently predicts the winner of each game prior to the opening faceoff. For the FOURTH game of the series, he will be:

a) Correct

b) Incorrect

For non-Canadian players -- CBC's "Hockey Night in Canada" is streaming all games at http://www.cbc.ca/sports, usually in more languages than English.

Unless Bob Cole is calling the game, in which case your guess is as good as mine as to what he just said.

5. The Leading Scorer in the final series will be:

a) David Krejci (Boston)

b) Nathan Horton (Boston)

c) Patrick Sharp (Chicago)

d) Bryan Bickell (Chicago)

e) Other

6. The Captain of the winning team is the first player to hoist the Stanley Cup and skate a victory lap. The Cup is then passed to each member of his team. And it's usually passed to someone the player holding the Cup feels is especially deserving. The Goalie of the winning team will be:

a) One of the first six players to hoist the Cup

b) The Seventh to Twelfth player to hoist the Cup

c) One of the remaining players to hoist the Cup

Tough enough? C'mon, suck it up! How often do you get a chance like this?

Pool Report: Crushed!

In the end, it wasn’t even close.

A couple of overtime periods aside, Chicago pwned Los Angeles. And what can you say about Pittsburgh falling so hard to Boston…

Crosby

Malkin

Iginla

Neal

Letang

Not a single point against the Bruins from the whole bunch! Aren’t  you glad you stuck with scoring leaders when making your pool picks?

Well, they’ve all been moved over to the golf course now, so a couple of the storied “Original Six” teams can settle this thing.

And the standings in the Infamous Writers Hockey Pool are about to undergo a major shakeup. Can Will Zmak hold on to what looked like an insurmountable lead? Or will Barry Kiefl, currently buried at 11th but with a full team of healthy Hawks, be able to close the distance?

Puck drops on Wednesday and tomorrow we add the Props Competition for those who want to take another shot at some Pool Glory. Entries will remain open until Saturday.

The Standings as we enter the final round…

Lazy Sunday # 276: Stronger Beer

I’ve been from one end of the country to the other this week, each day reminded more than once of what a special place I’m blessed to live in.

There were the natural moments, like walking out my motel room door one morning to come face to face with an entire herd of Elk, who seemed to all look up and make eye contact in unison and then, just as uniformly, returned to grazing.

But mostly, it’s been the people. We really are awful damn friendly. And what’s more, not a single conversation I had, either casual or serious, ever touched on the hot topics of the day on the news or in my social media streams.

No whining. No regurgitating the talking points. It seems most of us just have better things to do.

On the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massascre, I had a beer one with a guy who’d been there and only wanted to talk about all the happiness he’d found in this country. On another, I shared a brew with a bunch of guys heading off to do the back-breaking work of fighting forest fires and joked about the dangers.

We’re not only friendly, we seem constantly imbued with a sense of joy.

Or maybe we’ve still got a bit of a buzz going from the drinks we shared the night before. Since, after all, we do have stronger beer.

I gotta hit the road. So have a cold one for me today. And –- Enjoy Your Sunday.

Pool Report: Say What?

How does Round Three threaten to end this quickly? Both East and West are one win away from declaring a winner barely a week after the conference championships started.

Somebody in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles needs to step up.

Penguins, let’s pin this up in the room…

Kings, you got this…

I don’t know. Maybe we’re looking at the first”Original Six” Stanley Cup final in years?

And perhaps a major change in the standings in the Infamous Writers Hockey Pool…

Speaking Truth To Power

Since the following video of testimony in the current American IRS investigation has gone virtually un-broadcast on Canadian TV and most American media as well, I thought I’d offer it here.

You do not have to share this woman’s politics or world view to understand her feelings. This is how most of us feel when we’re put in the position of having to confront government or the massive bureaucracies (both public and private) that intersect much of our lives.

But unless we are willing to confront those powers, to have this woman’s passion and courage, their strength and their capability to determine our futures grows unchecked.

Suck it up, kids! Being quiet changes nothing for the better.

Pool Report: And The Hits…

…just keep on…

…coming!

Breaking sports news video. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL highlights and more.

And a couple of up-to-now “hot” goalies in Pittsburgh and LA still feel like they got hit by a bus this morning.

Series in the East and West turned suddenly nasty this weekend. And I got a feeling they’re both gonna get meaner. When you have four teams that have all won the Cup in the last four years, you’re dealing with a lot of guys who remember how good winning felt and want that feeling back in their lives.

Same thing goes for the Infamous Writers Hockey Pool. David Kinahan, multiple winner of the Props contest is nipping at leader Wil Zmak’s heels, while past champ Barry Keifl is burning up the charts on the strength of Chicago’s scoring power.

I’m in transit today, so this has gotta be quick, unless I want to be one of those guys who writes in a Starbucks. But there should be a lot to report when we get back to this on Friday.

The standings as of this morning.

Lazy Sunday # 275: Gratitude

I’m in the middle of nowhere on a boat, looking up at a star filled sky. There are no words to describe a moment like this –- beyond…

Gratitude.

Enjoy Your Sunday.

Pool Report: The Final Four

The Conference Finals commence tomorrow. Boston vs Pittsburgh in the East and LA vs Chicago in the West.

While up here on the grassy knoll, I await the man in Dealey Plaza to open his umbrella. Because also moving into the finals is Referee Brad Watson, the man who’s non-calls sealed Toronto’s fate.

As I predicted after the Toronto debacle, all the elements remain in place for a pre-determined in the NHL boardroom Boston/LA ealing of America Stanley Cup Final with blind Brad slowing the bubble-topless limo carrying the Hawks and Pens as it approaches the railway overpass…

You may not be buying any of this, but somewhere at the Toronto Star, a frazzled editor, desperate for readership is pulling my resume from a dusty filing cabinet and wondering whether I can stretch the Rob Ford saga for another week.

However, were such a conspiracy actually in the works, it would require some spectacular games through Round Three for dominant teams like Chicago and Pittsburgh to fall by the wayside. And that could get quite entertaining.

At any rate, Wil Zmak continues to dominate the Infamous Writers Hockey Pool, still dogged, however, by David Kinahan, Eric Anderson and –- Larry Bambrick? Hey, where’d he come from?

And for those not given to conspiracies –- there’s Will Pascoe, previous two time winner, starting to make his move and still with a full roster. Referee Brad might be the only thing that can stop him. 

Make Your Own Mayor Ford Crack Video

The story that just won’t go away –- or –- just keeps on giving in Canada these days is that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was allegedly videotaped smoking Crack cocaine. The website Gawker broke the story and launched a $200,000 crowd-funding campaign to buy the footage.

Meanwhile, two Toronto Star reporters also said they had seen the same video but refused to pay for it since cheque-book journalism isn’t ethical. However, launching a campaign of character assassination based on unsubstantiated sources apparently is, and things have grown from there.

I had my own personal run in with the Toronto Star making stuff up several years ago. Back then I was on a TV magazine show called “Pizzazz” and when we were ready to launch, the local press was provided with an information package that included a tape of the pilot, lots of pictures, cast quotes and episode guides on which to build their reviews.

The Star review was scathing and humiliating. Problem was, its content revealed the TV critic had never watched the tape we sent. The show reviewed had no relationship to what we had created and provided.

The folks at the network (Global) being media savvy themselves, knew you didn’t go to war with people who bought ink by the barrel and tried to work the back channels to get another review, maybe a feature story that might undo the damage.

My approach wasn’t as civilized. I called the editor of the paper and told him his newspaper had printed lies. He called the reviewer into his office, found out what she had done and relieved her of her duties. She was made to apologize to me personally and the creators of the series.

Later in life, she learned from the lesson and went on to become a pretty good journalist. The network was royally pissed at me for going behind their backs, but we got over it and later I learned that they were genuinely appreciative.

Whatever rapprochement they officially made with The Star was above my pay grade. I do know that no apology or retraction was ever printed.

So maybe you’ve only got my word that any of the above happened. Except that I can prove it, if I have to.

Anybody who’s an adult realizes that when it comes to hard news and people in power sometimes the press goes on fishing expeditions, laying out assumptions or unsupported information in the hope of getting somebody to talk.

What’s struck me about the Ford Affair is how concerted the efforts have been to defend the original allegations. Among these was a story printed last Saturday with the headline “Digitizing A Fake Rob Ford Video is a Technical Impossibility”. You can read it for yourself here.

Now, I work in the film business and I knew that was bullshit.

But it was a question people who really want Rob Ford gone were discussing in my social media streams. And no matter how hard I tried to explain that fakes were easy and the tools were readily available and cheap enough for even a low level drug dealer to afford, I was excoriated for having that opinion.

So here’s the proof.

The video that follows was made by a guy in Ajax who paints cars for a living and isn’t a trained video professional. He accomplished it in less than an hour.

Does this suggest that the Gawker/Star claim is false? I can’t say. Does it suggest somebody might be trying really hard to unseat the mayor? Maybe.

Decide for yourself. Nothing pisses off the media more. 

Pool Report: It Was 20 Years Ago Today

Something just didn’t feel right this morning. I woke up under a cloud even though the Sun was shining. Everything seemed misplaced, disjointed. I just couldn’t shake off the sense of doom.

I figured maybe I just wasn’t in the mood to write this morning’s Infamous Writers Hockey Pool report. But although the Senators and Rangers have both breathed their last, nothing about that should have afflicted me.

Out West, the Hawks and Wings are involved in an epic contest. And I mean, epic in the best, non-teenage girl sense. On the coast, the Kings and Sharks are going to Game Seven. How great is that?

So I should have been excited about where the Playoffs might go from here. No, it was something else…

And then I remembered. It was 20 years ago today…

Twenty years ago, referee Kerry Fraser looked the other way and didn’t see Wayne Gretzky viciously cut the most holy Maple Leaf of all time, Doug Gilmour, the incomparable “Dougie”, with his stick.

It was overtime in Game Six of the conference final in LA and the Leafs had the Kings on the ropes. One goal would send them to the Stanley Cup final against the Montreal Canadiens. It promised to be the dream matchup final of all time.

But Kerry didn’t make the call. And then, seconds later, the player who should have been cooling his ass in the penalty box scored.

And then they killed us in Game Seven and the dream died.

Twenty years ago today, Kerry Fraser became the most hated man in Leafs nation –- and so far no true blue Leafs fan has gotten over the tragedy.

And today I sit in the basement of the Infamous Writers Hockey Pool, ironically 99 (Gretzky’s number) points behind the leader, Will Zmak, who has a lot of Kings on his pool team.

No wonder I feel so crappy.

Lazy Sunday # 274: I Drive Your Truck

On June 21, 2006, Staff Sergeant Jared C. Monti, 71st Cavalry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, US Army, led a 16 man patrol on an intelligence mission in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan.

The patrol was attacked by 50 enemy fighters and almost overrun. Monti personally engaged the enemy, directed his men to a defensive position and called for fire support, accurately targeting combatants who had closed to within 50 meters of him.

Staff Sergeant Monti then saw one of his men was lying wounded and calling for help in the open ground between him and the advancing enemy.

With complete disregard for his own safety, he made three attempts to rescue his comrade before being mortally wounded, sacrificing his own life to save a fellow Soldier.

For this act of uncommon valor, Jared Monti was awarded his country’s highest award, the Medal of Honor.

This is Memorial Day weekend in the United States, and across the country, flags will hang from front porches and open windows to honor those who serve or have served and those who have fallen in the service of their country.

Many of those homes will display a second flag. A simple one with a red border on a white field enclosing a gold star. This is the flag presented to parents whose son or daughter lies among the fallen.

Two years ago, one Gold Star Parent, Paul Monti, Jared’s father, appeared on the local NPR station in Oxford, Mississippi to talk about what it was like to have a son killed in action.

Among the things Paul Monti discussed was Jared’s truck. How he still owned it and still drove it from time to time.

“It’s got his DNA all over it. I love driving it because it reminds me of him, though I don’t need the truck to remind me of him. I think about him every hour of every day.”

Paul Monti went on about the truck in detail, it’s connection to his loss and what it symbolized to him.

Not far away, in Nashville, Tennessee, songwriter Connie Harrington listened in her car, forced to pull to the roadside as her eyes welled up with tears. She frantically scribbled down every detail she could, went home and wrote a song.

Last month, that song, “I Drive Your Truck”, sung by Country star Lee Brice, reached number one on the Billboard charts.

Among the people who heard it was a woman who called Paul Monti. Her son had died in the same battle as his son –- and like him she assuaged her grief by driving his truck.

This weekend, give a thought to those who serve and those who grieve the fallen.

And Enjoy Your Sunday.