10 things i learned about sports tonight

It was a moderately noteworthy night in Montreal sports here, with the TIM HORTON'S Heritage Classic and all, so I met a couple friends at one of the city's best (read: cheapest) sports bars, located in the heart of the gay village (read: correctly.)

It's been a while since I sat down in front of a wall of television screens at the Sports Station for a good ole fashioned night of sports osmosis. We were surrounded by acronyms - NHL, NBA All-Stars, WWE, ATP - and even some bass fishing superstars, as they all scrapped it out for screen supremacy and after my fair share of the brews from our $16 4-L pitchers and a $7 burger combo, I feel like I learned some things tonight and since I nearly died on my way home, with Sherbrooke from Lafontaine to Papineau basically one malicious strip of ice, I realized how fragile life is and, therefore, how important it is that I pass on these vital tidbits.

So with that: a TOP 10 LIST!

10. Canadian tennis fans have a reason to be excited

Even though he lost to Andy Roddick in the finals of some garbage tournament tonight, this Milos Raonic kid really has some juice. Now I know that no one cares about tennis, but if you haven't watched it in a while, well, there's a Canadian who can win a tournament with his serve now. A friend of mine who is a nationally-ranked player has a whole lot of good stuff to say about this guy, so I'm gonna go ahead and co-sign.

9. Two of the NBA's ten best players look like Wire characters

Now maybe you can tally this up to the fact that I've been deep into the Wire these last few days, but while watching the first half of the NBA All-Star game tonight, I couldn't help but think that two of the league's best players look a lot like the leaders of Baltimore's West Side.

Avon Barksdale = Kevin Durant

Stringer Bell = Amar'e Stoudamire

Come on, admit it. I'm right. They both look alike? Don't they?

I couldn't stop seeing the parallels while I watched, but maybe keep in mind that I'm the same guy that said Jacques Martin looks like Fievel from Fievel Goes West and that one of my buddy's mom's looks like Canadian Olympic curler Russ Howard.

I apologize.

8. Lenny Kravitz is still alive

I couldn't believe it either. Somehow he wiggled his way into the NBA All-Star starting line-up intros and it seemed like he was on TV for like 15 minutes. The All-Star game was muted so I couldn't hear what he was playing, but let me guess...

American Woman, followed by Are You Gonna Go My Way, followed by Fly Away.

Either way, the entire time he was on screen we were trying to remember the chick he used to be banging.

7. Kobe Bryant is totally unlikeable

What made him less palatable: the mock sincerity and humility he showed when shaking Bill Russell and Ms. Bill Russell's hands court side or him jacking up like a bazillion first half shots in the All-Star game?

Kobe, we know the game is in your house. We know you want to win MVP in front of the home crowd. We know you are the two-time defending champ. But damn man, let the game come to you and take over later. You don't need to drop 21 in the first half on like 30 shots. People are gonna defer to you later, because they semi-respect you.

Come on!

(P.S. I only watched the first half.)

6. Andy Roddick is bald

Cheap shot, but on the last point of his championship set against Raonic, he dove and his hat fell off. He hit the beauty winner, but it was revealed that he is Ryan Getzlaf/Herc from the Wire bald. I wouldn't have noticed it, except he reacted oddly to the situation. Instead of celebrating a championship won on an amazing winner, he rushed to put his hat on and then got up somewhat hesitantly and put his hands in the air, relieved. All in all, it was very unRoddick-like.

I laughed to myself... until I remembered he's banging Brooklyn Decker.

And then I ordered myself another drink.

5. Mike Cammalleri and Brian Gionta are pansies

Guys, it's -10C, you don't need to be doing the whole balaclava, over-the-ears get-up for the game just because it's outside. I mean, Brent Sutter and Fievel didn't even cover their ears, but you guys felt it suitable to dress like you were skidooers in Yellowknife. I think that right there says enough about the Habs' toughness this year.

4. Jerry Lawler is a face *

Somehow, Jerry "Burger King" Lawler is a face?!?!? WHAT? How could anyone ever cheer for this guy? It's been 18 years and I still don't forgive him for this...

Lawler got what was coming to him tonight though. He got beat down hard by the Miz.

Note: Who would have thought that in 2011 Jerry "the King" Lawler would be capable of a 15-minute main event match and Bret "the Hitman" Hart would be walking around like a fragile relic.

Note #2: WWE, listen to me, you've got to stop doing that Wrestlemania board promo thing. They keep shooting people with this camera angle so that this gigantic Wrestlemania board hanging in the rafters appears behind them and it's so obvious they are only doing it so they can use it later in promos. It probably looked cool the first time they did it, but they're doing it for every match.

Note #3: I realized tonight that the WWE is all about branding. That's it. Catch phrases and finishers and that's it. I bet some of the best and most creative ad execs grew up as wrestling fans.

Note #4: My buddy huuuuuuh-Reeeehn sums up Lawler's old school appeal perfectly: "How ridiculous is the one piece unitard? What the fuck?"

Note #5: Did you know that Triple H has a movie coming out?

Check this:

Is that curly haired kid the evolution of the ginger from the Big Green. Man, talk about a crap sandwich. I actually can't wait to see this thing. Bad Movie Marathon Entry #1.

3. RDS hockey exists with Joel Bouchard's hair

Maybe the most disappointing part of the evening: RDS covered up Joel Bouchard's hair during tonight's game. I didn't think I could watch a Habs game here without seeing Joel Bouchard's rubbery, unnatural doo.

If I had paid money to watch the game, I would have asked for it back.

Apparently the Habs weren't all that impressed either, because they chose to drop that gigantic coiler out there tonight. To be truthful though, it didn't seem like people were all that fired up for tonight's game.

Note: By the way, search 'Joel Bouchard' on google images and I guarantee you will not find a more out-of-er results for a quasi-celebrity. You would expect the kind of 'passed out, looking gonzo' results that come up from a good friend's facebook photos, not from a 'respected' professional hockey commentator.

2. Lebron is illuminati

Or maybe he was just shouting out his boy Jay-Z. Or showing off his favourite geometric shape.

Nah, I'm gonna go with the secret society angle. Oh Lebron, I saw it. You guys were all dancing around during your introductions and you were goofing around until, right at the end, you threw up the diamond sign right before the cameras panned away.

As the message board fanatics say "in before the illuminati shitstorm/"

Yep, we have irrefutable proof that Lebron supports the globalists' agenda, people. Lebron, like illuminati brothers Jay-Z and Eminem and Diamond Dallas Paige, is just a puppet in the Rockefeller and Rothchild plan for global enslavement.

DDP - Drive Down Proletariat?

1. Do not cut from a Habs game to Bass fishing in Montreal

The Sports Station in the Village has about 40 flat-screens pasted to the walls. When I arrived, 90 percent of the TVs had the Habs-Flames game, with the remaining screens showing the end of the Roddick-Raonic match. Once that ended, they all went to the hockey game. At one point, during the second period, the manager of the bar decided to throw the NBA All-Star game on because someone had asked.

Unfortunately, the manager wasn't paying too much attention because he threw on a bass fishing show. I didn't notice, because I was facing a wall with seven flat-screens, but the people facing me starting making a scene since two of their three screens were showcasing a snake slithering through some water.

The manager came over and reassured everyone that he was trying to put on the basketball game, but the bass fishing continued and, with the game still close, people started to lose their patience. At one point, the fisherman's line tensed up like he caught something and we all started to cheer. He reeled the puppy in and his buddy scooped it up in the net. The fisherman grabbed the fresh-water fish and posed with it and we all went crazy. The manager got the picture and he quickly turned the game back on.

Sadly, that was probably the only thing that Habs fans got to cheer about tonight.

* Sports Entertainment tidbit

The land of HAL(ak)

After Game 6, where Jaro Halak fell from the sky to stop 53 shots, Montreal was hit with a bizarre, out-of-season blizzard. A friend at work joked that the snow was falling because the Habs had tied the series and hell had frozen over.

I think I'm going to have to stock up on some canned goods, find a flashlight and some rifle ammo tonight, then. I mean, this is fucked, right? I just watched a series featuring Alex Ovechkin, Nick Backstrom, Mike Green and Alex Semin and Hal Gill was the most dominant player on the ice.

Can't quite get over the upset tonight, although when I really think about it, it's not all that wild.

The Capitals are quickly becoming the East-side Sharks. They rule over the regular season, but their style just doesn't seem to fit into playoff hockey.

They were thoroughly shut down this last week by an overachieving Canadiens team. And while Halak played two of the most solid back-to-back games in recent memory, it was the system that really killed the Caps. Sure, the Caps had a lot of chances, but the Habs kept collapsing on them and really kept Washington's snipers to the outside. Hall Gill and Josh Georges and Markov got in the way of countless shots and knocked away so many pucks that the Caps couldn't get too many cheapies. Hall Gill was a difference maker? Fuck the heck?

As soon as the pressure came down on Ovechkin, he reverted back to his old World Junior self and disappeared. He just started floating around, waiting for the puck. I've complained about this all year. Loved Ovech. Loved him. Seriously. But after watching the Sedins over the past year and a bit and just how they work the puck around and thread pass after beautiful pass to each other in ways I've never seen before, I kind of lost a bit of appreciation for Ovechkin's game. His game is individual and it makes the team overly dependent on his rushes and his shot. Washington's whole game plan seems to revolve around getting Ovech or Semin the puck for a shot and then crashing the net. It's kind of boring and predictable. When the Caps were winning, Backstrom was flying and creating chances and Ovechkin was hammering people. Tonight, Ovechkin wasn't physical at all and he didn't skate unless he was getting the puck.

The Canadiens, on the other hand, capitalized on the few chances they had and boom! That's it. Six months wasted for Washington.

I watched the game on delay at a friend's place. I turned off my phone so I couldn't get any updates. And as the game wore down, I had to close the blinds to the street in the final minutes, because we were still a minute or two behind on DVR and we didn't want to get tipped off to the win from some massive, spontaneous street orgy. (At one point, we actually fast-forwarded a bit too far by accident and saw the Caps celebrating early in the third. We all got depressed because they were jumping around after a goal. We rewound the DVR to see what happened. And wouldn't you know it, the goal was disallowed. It was fucked up. That's some 21st Century drama, right there.)

Anyways, that game will definitely end up costing me like $200 over the next two weeks as I watch the game at pubs after work. But that's a happy $200. Plus, I couldn't ask for a better team to try to knock out Crysby and the Pens.

Montrealers are celebrating this one right now, though. If I had been downtown or if I didn't have to work tomorrow, I would be too.

Police sirens are ringing out across the city. Horns are blaring. People are screaming. A section of St. Catherines is shut down (or at least it looked that way from Berri-UQAM.) I don't think anyone can believe this just happened.

Right now, we're living in the land of HAL. Jaroslav Halak just burned the highest scoring team in the league (and probably earned a couple mills in the process when contract time comes around) and Hal Gill proved he's no longer a punchline.

Let's call it McGuire karma...

1:30ish mark if you're impatient...

Let's hope the run continues. (Only so we get more JOEL BOUCHARD HAIR!!!)

Can you say Canucks/Habs finals?

game 4 round 1: vancouver 6 - l.a. 4/game 5 round 1: vancouver 7 - l.a. 2/game 6 round 1: vancouver 4 - l.a. 2

Like that sharty Staind song... IT'S BEEN A WHILE....

Don't think I forgot about this thing, because I didn't. Don't forget I'm a fanatic and even though I'm normally a rational person, I noticed that the Canucks won every single game I didn't write something about and I'm not going to funk with the power of the jinx. Don't forget I'm the guy that once yelled at a friend during a World Junior Championship final because I correlated a U.S. comeback to the fact that he stopped ripping putrid farts. Don't ever forget that.

And don't forget that I'm a lazy fart.

But we made it, didn't we Canucks fans? It was a rocky road. I spent all of games two through five in a haze of alcohol and in times that could be described as grand. Game Three hurt me. To steal a line from someone more profound than I, I was a pendulum that night, swinging from date to game. I was sort of nervous about both. I drank more than I should have and spent less time devoted to each than is permissible, and I couldn't get out of my own head. Luckily, my date was forgiving and she talked me through my ups and down. Game Four, I spent on the run, as I watched a Marlon Brando (circa Last Tango in Paris) meander like a sore thumb through a nifty loft party with the Wind-Up Radio Sessions and some other bands without names. It was all good laughs, even with the dead hipsters and teeming polygamists. I got updates from Fredward Scicssorhands throughout the night and I was so damned euphoric, I walked home from Griffontown, singing along to 'Wanna Be Starting Something' looped to repeat on my iPod the entire time. I watched the game highlights alone in a Pizza Pizza on St. Catherines, surrounded by club stars and junkies. Game Five, I spent with my charming date again and I was far more comfortable with her and the team and things were just peachy all around. Game Six, well, I made amends with Roberto Luongo and I feel as if I've about four of my nine lives during these past two weeks.

Sammy Swedeheart? Come on, that's pretty good...

L.A. is going to be scary good as soon as they get that goaltending sitchy figured out. They are deep. They are punishing big. They have all the ingredients you need. They're what the Chicago Blackhawks were last year. It kind of dawned on me too why they've become good and the Oilers have fallen off so badly - the Kings took away all the players that made the Oilers tough to play against, ie. Smyth, Greene and Stoll. Anyways, we haven't heard the last of that squad. And I'm talking about the Kings here.

There is a lot to be excited about in Canucks land. We didn't even have our second line rolling in that series and we managed to knock off a deep team. The Sedins have lived up to their billing and Sammy, with his playoff reps, shoot-first-and-hit-everything-that-moves mentality are complimenting the Twins nicely. The Wellwood-Bernier-Demitra line has been a surprise and the D, with the emergence of Edler as a bonafide star, are shoring up at the perfect time.

Luongo seems to be gaining his confidence again too and hopefully he is just starting to hit his stride, as we are poised for a rematch with Nemesis Kane and the Hawks. The speed of the Hawks scares me a bit, but I love how it feels like the Canucks are never out of a game.

If there was ever a time to 'Getcha Popcorn Ready,' it would be now. This series is going to be a dandy.

Not only that, folks, but the Habs are doing what no one has expected. I went to work today and it seemed even the most hardcore fans of the Rouge et Blanc were cracking jokes about the Canadiens and how they would blow it tonight. But Jaro Halak descended from another planet and put on a show that reminded me of Bobby Lou against the Stars and Ducks a couple years ago. He was unbeatable tonight.

The Halak/Price debate is officially over (even though it has been for months, for all intents and purposes.) The city is buzzing right now. Cars are honking, flags are waving, people are yelling, cops are scowling. It's great stuff.

My favorite part about all this, though? We get to see Joel Bouchard's hair again on Wednesday.

Have you seen his hair in HD yet? If a shark had hair, I'm sure it would look like Joel Bourchard's.

I have been lazy though lately, I'll admit. Our old pal Jung sent me a nice email the other day that sort of kicked me in the patooter to keep writing.

This city is like a gift and a curse. It's literally non-stop inspiration. I've been pretty much relegated to Centre-Ville since I arrived (my own doing) and lately, I've been meandering around the Plateau with some folks who know the score and it's just money. Little pubs on every corner. Restaurants run by grannies in nooks and crannies. Too much to see and do.

The last two weekends have been absolute gems. You know how you feel when you're on vacation and you spend your time aimlessly following your immediate impulses and your stomach? That is what I've done the past two Saturdays and I haven't been let down at all.

The downside? It leaves little time for a quasi-neurotic guy like me who likes to spend a lot of his time ranting and raving to do much of any ranting.

This is the city of characters, but I feel I've got no time to write about them. I'm too wiped by the time I get home to put anything together. But that's no excuse. That's just me being lazy.

It seems everyone I meet is in a band or living this alternate life after work, where they are following their ambitions. It's time I started doing the same. Whatever that is.

No more excuses.

(Just no more Canucks updates. The power of the jinx is real, my friends.)

And a very late RIP to Guru. Gifted, Unlimited, Rhymes Universal.

game 1 round 1: vancouver 3 - l.a. 2 (OT)

Oh what a day to be alive!

It doesn't get much better than playoff hockey and I'm finding out that all the hyperbolic grand tales I've been told about Montreal and this time of year are not exaggerated.

This city really is gaga over their Habs. It's all over the papers. Everyone talks about the game. And tonight, it was somewhat surreal, as I ventured from spot to spot in Centreville and the Plateau and saw how deserted the streets were during game time.

On St. Catherine's, bums peaked in through cafe and pub windows to watch the games. At the Sports Superstation or whatever the hell it's called, people cheered and chanted with every play in the game like they were watching it live, in person. I caught a part of the second period -- since our cable is (still) cut -- at an old school diner near Beaubien Metro beside a guy who would curse 'sacrement' each time a Habs player fanned on a shot. At one point he turned to me and stated 'c'est du vrai hockey, ca.'

The diner was a beauty. Everyone who worked there was dressed entirely in white. One guy had on the white, paper hat like they used to wear in the '50s. A Gord Van Tighem clone with a handlebar stache and a toothpick in his mouth, haggled the old Quebecois waitress lady about the bill and they traded good natured barbs. He finally walked out, chest puffed out and satisfied with his performance. An old guy with ginormous ears and veiny arms who worked at the diner chopped peppers for 20 minutes, just knocking them down one by one. One guy hidden in the corner of the bar, out of television view, worked his gums with a cup of coffee in front of him. It was like I had travelled through a time machine by walking through the door. Each booth had a tiny jukebox for frigsakes, although I was too self-conscious to sit down and browse through the song selection.

And all these kids and young gangsters wandered in and out and hung out in the booths and were loud but they got along with everyone like they hung out there all the time. One chick in braces who at the age where she was just on the precipice of losing her innocence and becoming broody or serious or sexual, hung off a kid a couple years younger than her and joked to everyone "c'est mon chum." The little dude was embarrassed and he just smiled and couldn't say anything. "T'amerais ca, eh?" she kept joking. The poor kid kept smiling like an idiot. He obviously would.

A friend called me and I was too embarrassed to answer because my conversation would have been in English and I was surrounded by such a French atmosphere that I didn't want my words to break it.

I was only at the diner because I was trying to meet a former co-worker from the newspaper. But I was late and he didn't have a cellphone and I walked into the pub, forgetting I was wearing my Kesler jersey, and just caught all these blanks stares as I searched for him during a commercial. I felt like a harmless zoo animal wandering through that pub, with everyone staring at me in silence with bemusement. I zipped up my coat, watched a few minutes and bounced.

Glad Plecky scored in OT and hope this series goes on for a while. My roommate Freduardo told me that Montreal goes nuts during "les series" and I have to agree.

Quick note: Because I'm watching a lot of the games at pubs, I don't get to hear much of what the announcers are saying or what the analysts blab about. I know that a face-off is called a "mise en jeu" and that delay of game is "retarde la match," but that's about it. However, one thing I do appreciate about watching hockey on the French network is when it comes to the intermissions. RDS has one clear advantage over CBC or TSN or just about anywhere else: Joel Bouchard's hair.

Is that a hair hat?

I swear, I just sit mesmerized whenever he's on because his hair looks like it's a rubber wig or something. It's jarring. I wonder what would happen to it in the rain. I wonder if this guy takes this thing off when he gets home and hangs it on a hook. It's impeccable. It's like impervious to a nuclear explosion. Some alien life form will come upon a post-apocalyptic Montreal and they will clear away some rubble and discover this hairdo. They will take it back to their planet and study it for centuries, but even with all their advanced technologies, they will never be able to conclude its chemical properties.

Second note: Couldn't all hockey commentators and analysts be part of the mafia. I'm thinking Darren Dregher and Gino Reda types, here. Don't they all dress and talk like wiseguys? Honest question here.

On to the Canucks stuff...

I recapped each game during last year's run and even though we got ousted in the second round, I feel like it would be a jinx if I didn't throw a little comment down after each game.

So we got the Kings. This team is kind of... um... scary. They're young. They're physical and they're pretty damn talented. Kopitar scares me. Drew Doughty scares me. And Johnny Quick was pretty stellar tonight. We're definitely in for a good series.

Last year, we caught the Blues in the first round and I spoke about how Andy McDonald made me hold my breath every time he touched the puck. Trees have rings to show their past. During the playoffs, I have shit-stained undies. That's Andy McDonald. That's Pat Kane. I'm not entirely sure who the shit stain guy will be on the Kings this series, but I found Stoll was front and centre whenever anything was happening.

Tonight, as was the case all season, the Sedins bailed us out. And again it was Mr. Hanky. This guy is playing on another level right now. It's like any pass he gives winds up being a scoring chance. In overtime, he set Samuelsson up with that beauty from behind the net, but he had a pass a few seconds before where he whipped a 360-no-looker cross ice right onto Erhoff's stick that was straight up X-Box 360. I couldn't believe it. This guy is seeing things a few seconds in the future. It's a lot of fun to watch right now. That goal they scored on the give-and-go is just the latest in their growing collection of ESP highlights.

You put this chick out there with the Sedins right now and she'd probably pop 25 ginos.

Luongo still looks like he's battling it a bit out there, but he didn't have much of a chance on either of the pucks that got past him. It's too bad we can't throw our d-men out in front of Quick, because they really do a good job of screening goaltenders. Luongo came up huge with that desperation save in OT, but we were also lucky to get there after Edler made the pokecheck on Kopitar when Luongo was swimming ten feet out of his crease, like someone freaking out on acid. Hopefully tonight's win settles him down a bit.

Edler, man. Where did that come from? Looks like he wants to make the jump. He was a beast, just beheading Kings all night. He was dominant. I wonder if it's just playing with confidence, because some games he looks like he can't make a correct decision. If he plays like he did tonight, we might not be so thin on the defensive end. I thought Erhoff and O'Brien played well. Bieksa didn't make any Bieksa-esque blunders and I liked how he was trying to mouth some of the young Kings, who were playing their first playoff games. Salo played decently. Andrew Alberts is a plug.

Up front, Burrows was flying. A friend of mine at work came up to me today, as I was wearing my Kesler jersey and repeated "my friend played hockey with Burrows and he's a cock-sucker. He's a cock-suck-er." He's not a nice guy, I guess. So what? He compliments the Sedins perfectly right now and he was playing that sandpaper role to a 't' tonight. Raymond had a strong game. Samuelsson, of course, had a great game. I like what he's going to provide this team. He's been there before and he's a pretty serious guy. With guys like Burrows, Bieksa and Kesler in the dressing room, it seems like Vancouver was always a fun place to play, but it kind of lacked in professionalism. I don't think Samuelsson will let anything slide. Kesler looked really serious tonight. I didn't think he played his best game. See, I can be somewhat rational when it comes to Kesler. He got beat in the face-off circle by Stoll and Handzus all night and he just didn't seem to want to get involved physically. Hopefully, he just had some butterflies because of his increased role and expectations brought on by that contract. That Samuelsson goal really was huge. It takes a lot of pressure off.

Anyways, it's nice to have playoff hockey back in my life again, even if it means being driven nearly to the brink of insanity by CBC's continuous loop of its only four commercials.

Small price to pay. And I was probably already insane anyways.