The Universal Cynic

...because it's St. Urho's Day. I suggest you go take it out on a grasshopper.

I twittered about it on Friday, but in case you missed it -- the NHL announced late last week that the 2009 NHL Awards will be held in Las Vegas -- the first of a three-year stint that will take place at the Palms Casino. Apparently the league assumed that screaming, "Hey! We're still culturally relevant!" would have seemed too desperate (bonus points if done outside of ESPN's headquarters).

I'm kind of interested to see how the media handles this prurient overload of sorts. Vegas for the awards show on the 18th of June, followed by the Entry Draft in Montreal beginning only eight days later on the 26th? Hmmm...any early guesses on which journalist attempts to slide in a visit to the Spearmint Rhino/Club Super Sexe on their expense account? ("No, really -- it was a business lunch!")

Long story short: You can replace a 54-40 appearance with watching Sidney Crosby attempt a showgirl-esque strut -- it's still going to suck.

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And I'll just put this out there now, seeing as I've already received a few e-mails: No, I haven't even considered starting a bracket yet. I usually end up doing around 4 or 5 -- I'm planning at least one "Sports Gal/stupid chick" special, where I select winners solely based on dominant animals and colour preferences (bank says this ends up being the most successful sheet). FYI: Seeing as I'm not an American, my preferred schools come from connections to alumni or faculty. These include Arizona State, Cornell, Duke, and UCLA. Yes, I understand what my odds are like in that grouping, but the Blue Devils remain as my least favourite of the four (somewhere, Dick Vitale just had a seizure). On the plus side, it does give me an excuse to reset a classic Pete Gillen clip. BEAVAH! Ahem. Sorry.

More later.

Sorry for the lack of posts -- I'm caught up in a bit of bracket madness. Only I would take two weekends to sort this out (one to decide which sites I'm signing up for and the other to actually fill out the brackets themselves). The whole thing is kind of ironic because I'm a total "Miss Chalk", as Michael Wilbon would say. Have I mentioned how much I love March Madness? The nonstop action...the one and done...the ability to get down...the cinderella stories...the ability to get down...

(I totally should be in Vegas right now.)

On a semi-related topic, did you read The Sports Gal's column on the NCAA? I want to be friends with Bill Simmons' wife. Here's a sampling:

Tennessee (2) over Butler (7): Bill was watching Memphis play Tennessee recently and said they were the two best teams, so I remember that one. He doesn't think I pay attention, but I do. Unless he's having an annoying sports call with his friends. Then I start slamming cabinets and thinking of ways to make the dogs bark.

Take note: This is how you play the dumb chick role in sports for the purpose of humour. The only thing is, I don't think she's joking.

In other news, I'll be hitting up the St. Louis game tonight (and am fully relieved by the news that The Manatee will be starting -- it'll prevent me from heckling during the starting lineup announcements). Seeing as that I've been blogging a lot more lately, I fully expect a franchise rep to track me down and throw me out of the building.

(That's a joke, OSHC lurkers. Just because you don't have a sense of humour doesn't mean the rest of us must follow suit.)

A couple more things...

Surely you must have heard about this by now. Two questions: 1) How many kicks at the can does the CFL need in Ottawa and 2) Why is this city so hellbent on repeatedly humiliating itself?

And finally...for all those who cry, "What does this have to do with hockey?!?" whenever lighter fare is presented, may I present the following statistic: The post currently with the highest hits for searches and views on TUC is this one. No hypocrisy there, I'm sure.

More later.

Obviously there isn't much to talk about if the media is still going on about incidents in St. Louis and Pittsburgh. By the way, my favourite part of the St. Louis game involved the constant shots of John Davidson furiously texting on his Blackberry (or similar), after the non-goal-but-really-was-a-goal. I'm guessing the correspondence looked like this:

To: garybettman@nhl.com
CC: stephenwalkom@nhl.com
From: johndavidson@stlouisblues.com

WTF!!!111 *pissed*

To: johndavidson@stlouisblues.com
CC: mickmcgeough@nhl.com
From: garybettman@nhl.com

LMAO! PWNED!!!! :)~

(Aside: You know that all NHL front office members send missives that appear to have been written by a 14-year-old, right? By the way, those aren't real email addresses, so don't even try.)

It's unbelievable to me that the most brutal ref in the league (it's a tight race to be sure) shares the same surnname (in pronunciation) as a legally blind cartoon character. Why isn't Deadspin on this?

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At about 2:30 am on Wednesday morning, I went back to watch the Edmonton-Ottawa game from February 20th that I had saved on my PVR (one of the best games of the year, by the way). I did this because I remembered Martin Gerber had played in that game, and I wanted to compare his performances. There wasn't that much difference that I could see: His positioning is better, and he doesn't cower in the back of the net as much, so I'll give him credit for that. The biggest issues that still remain: 1) Loose pucks and rebounds; 2) Not knowing where the puck is and 3) Plodding overall movement that always seems to be half a second behind the play. During one attempted save in the St. Louis game, Gerber reached back and over his head with his trapper in a slow, sweeping gesture, long after the puck had flown past him. It reminded me a lot of the manatees The Driver and I swam with in Central Florida last month.

Wait a sec -- if manatees are methodically slow and gentle, and Gerber is methodically slow and gentle...

Looks like someone's got himself a new moniker.
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Just for the record, my NCAA bracket still lives. I went 26-6 in the first round, and a disappointing 9-7 in the second. Biggest troublemakers so far: UNLV, who haven't been relevant since I was in junior high (until now), Louisville and Winthrop (Cinderella team, my ass). I had them beating Notre Dame in the first round, and Oregon in the second. A long shot to be sure, but Oregon bugs me. Check that...their colours bug me.

(Now I'm starting to sound like Bill Simmons' wife, so I'll just stop there.)

Anyway, three of my final four are still alive, and I've got Georgetown beating Joakim Noah and his muumuu in the championship game.





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One thing I'm not looking forward to if the Sens play Pittsburgh in the postseason: Their oversensitive fans. (And yes, they are more sensitive than Sens fans -- trust me.) I guarantee if the two teams faced each other, and I wrote something like, "Sidney Crosby dives more than Greg Louganis", a number of Penguins fans would likely email and accuse me of being homophobic. On the plus side, they have amazing foreshadowing skills and kick ass at decoupage.

And finally, just out of curiosity, do you think this person still thinks Pittsburgh won't make the playoffs?