Sharpy's Corner

Busy Bee

2008-03-27T10:06:00.002-06:00

Ok - like a billion apologies for the state of the webpage these days. I used to pride myself on how quick news was posted, but real life and a job that actually requires me to work on the computer (as opposed to my old job where I could play on the computer whilst at work) has consumed the bulk of my free time.

I'm sure it's a complete coincidence that the biggest hiatus of webpage updates in the website's history has occurred at the same time as one of the biggest hiatuses of strong play in the team's history, but there you go. The story of our 5-0 loss to the C-Bros Bulldogs has been up as the main story for what seems like forever, but the report can really be cut and pasted to describe all of our recent stumbles. But, for those who need to reed a report on every game the Sharps play, here you go :

March 19 : 8-0 loss to the GB&E Generals. Sucked.
March 23: 5-4 loss to the Cannibals. Played well but lost, which sucked.

The story so far, heading into Friday's game against the Bullets: Thanks to the recent troubles, the Bee Sharps can only hope to finish as high as fifth place in Division V, so regardless of where we finish, we're going to be forced to play in that crazy death match tournament on the weekend of April 5-6, where four teams enter, but only one team leaves.

I'm also kept busy timekeeping games, and the playoffs will be one of the busiest stretches of the season for me, so I'm not sure how often the main site will get a going over during the ocming weeks.

But hey, it's been fun, hasn't it?

Preview : Bee Sharps vs Cannibals

2008-01-17T09:20:00.000-07:00

For someone with little to no friends, your humble webmaster has been ludicrously busy this week. So busy, in fact, that I can't find the time to write up the ever popular pre-game writeup for the Sharps' game against the Cannibals on Friday. So this will have to suffice.

Basically, if there was a writeup, it would contain some carefully worded paragraphs outlining how the Sharps are slumping, who is in the lineup, who is out, etc, and then the all important time and location of the game.

The location is mildly important. It's at the CAC Arena, which reportedly is Dustin Beech's favourite arena, so I expect a good game from him. Hence the picture above - look at him go! You know who else is back? Henry "18 Cent" Stremel after a long layoff due to an ankle injury - w00t! Jeff Cowie is missing the game, though, due to his regular gig as the PA voice of the Edmonton Oil Kings.

The Cannibals are technically ahead of the Sharps in the standingson account of the Sharps having about 8,000 more PIM than any other team in the league (but that never changes), and they just had their four game winning streak snapped.

So, in summary, Sharps are crap right now, Beech will score a hat trick, the fans will freeze in the coldest stands in the city (apart from the Icebox, of course), and the game is at 8:30 PM.

On Friday, January 18.

Game on!

Ouch.

2008-01-09T08:19:00.000-07:00

You know, there's a million reasons why we wouldn't want to rush a recap of that 11-3 spanking that the C-Bros Bulldogs laid out on the Bee Sharps on Sunday morning, but the one (actual) reason as to why it ain't up there for all to see is time. Yup. No time. Well, that, and the it does take a while for the putrid taste of one of the worst games in Bee Sharps history to be washed from one's mouth, but there will be a writeup.

And, with the pregame story for Saturday's game slated to go out on Thursday, the Bulldogs game should occupy the main page for a grand total of 17 minutes. Ah, control of the media. We were thinking about using an ultra-positive headline such as "Beech Scores on Penalty Shot in Sharps Loss" or "No Suspensions For First Time In Three Games Gives Sharps Moral Victory".

Stay tuned.

Safeway's Cold Christmas

2007-12-21T10:22:00.001-07:00

Not only are Safeway employees in Alberta set to strike in several store locations, but Marion Gaborik's neo-pseudo Darryl Sittler-esque performance against the New York Rangers must really have the executives at Safeway head office trembling.

For years, on several local broadcasts of Oilers, Flames, Canucks, (Jets?), etc, Safeway has offered a chance for a viewer to win $1,000,000 should any player score five (5) goals in one game. I used to chortle mightily whenever they would announce this "contest", knowing full well that the Todd Eliks and Steven Rices of the world were in no danger of padding my pocket with a cool mil with their dump-and-chase antics.

Well, now hope has filled me - Marion Gaborik's impressive five-goal performance against the Rangers is the first serious threat to Safeway's comfort level since, oh, the last player to score five goals in a game - ELEVEN years ago. Sergei Fedorov did it, scoring all five Red Wing goals, including the overtime winner, in a 5-4 win over Washington. I don't have my Official Guide and Record Book next to me, so I can't tell you when the last a time a player on a Canadian team scored five, but I'll bet you it was long before any Safeway marketing exec thought up this contest. And I'll bet you he was likely wearing #99 for the Oilers, too.

Speaking of five goal games, here's my amazing true story. My first ever Oilers game I ever saw was on my birthday on February 3, 1984. As a young Oilers fan, I was so excited to see Gretzky, Messier, Kurri, et al. Well, all three of those players were hurt and not playing. For Gretzky, it was the first game since his NHL record 51-game point streak had been snapped, and, as he was playing hurt towards the end of that streak, he took this game off. It was only his second NHL game missed in five years! And it had to be the one game that I actually went to!

Anyway, all was not lost, because the Oilers still had a third line checker named Pat Hughes. Hughes went on to have the night of his life, scoring five goals in a 10-5 Oilers win over the dreaded Calgary Flames. When a guy like Pat Hughes can score five in a game, there's hope for all of us. Don't forget to shop at Safeway. There might be a million dollars in it for you!

P.S. If Safeway workers DO go on strike, please DON'T shop at Safeway. I can never condone crossing strike barriers.

Default : The Two Sweetest Words In The English Language

2007-12-07T09:28:00.001-07:00

...as said by a great man once. Thanks to the Hungry Beavers and the Xtreme moving up, the Bee Sharps are now, by default, in first place in Division V. Kinda like when Gerald Ford got to be president when Nixon made a wrong turn into a career as a surveillance agent. Yeah, just like that (hence the cover photo. O, what a tenuous link that is.)

Still, this is no mean feat for us, because we've historically stumbled in the later months of the calendar year. Who can forget our mighty swoon in the winter of 2003-04, when we lost seven straight games? (Well, a lot of people, actually, but that's what the "History" section of the website is for.)

Actually, we've historically stumbled in most parts of the year, truth be told. To be six games over .500 at any time of the season is enough for a double-take. Actually, April has always been a good month for us, in the regular season, anyway. Can you believe we've only lost one out of six regular season games in April? Of course, most of those games came after we were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, so we had no pressure at all on us. One of these days, I'll display some of the amazing and completely useless stats, like :

- What our win-loss records are wearing our white and our blue jerseys
- Our records in various rinks that we've played in
- Etc.

The mind boggles at the knowledge that you, dear reader, will glean from this website over the coming weeks and months. Boggles....

So, in conclusion, first place, yay, good luck to the Xtreme, and all that.

Sharp Dressed Men (and Woman)

2007-11-27T11:18:00.000-07:00

or

I've always wondered this : which of our two Bee Sharps jerseys do more people prefer? I've always been partial to the blues, myself; it was our first jersey before we introduced the whites om Year 2 (well, technically, black practice jerseys that we wore for our first ever game are our first), and we have a slightly better record while wearing the blues. Interesting to note that we have worn our whites more than our blues since we started wearing two different jerseys. Anyway, for those who are so included, why not mark down your favourite of the two jerseys by voting in our poll in the right hand column on this page?

And while I'm at it, to answer another frequently asked question, no, we won't be getting a third jersey anytime soon. Many designs have been bandied about over the past couple years, but the only new Bee Sharps design might be for the summer team(s) at some point in the future.

As another fascinating aside, did you know how close the Bee Sharps could have been to being called the Mighty Ducks? We found a metric tonne of Anaheim Mighty Ducks jerseys, both home and away, on sale for $20 a piece at a Sport Chek at around the same time that we were ordering our first Bee Sharps jerseys. I suppose we must be thankful for such small mercies that I chose to walk on by that day...

Welcome Back, Gordie

2007-11-21T08:34:00.001-07:00

Just three or four days ago, some of us were talking and reminiscing about one Gordie Winchester, goaltender for the Souls and the Prowlers for years, before being cast off from any steady goaltending duties a couple years ago. He was ever so pleased, then, to get the call to be the starting 'tender for the Yellow Jackets in 2006 and, even though he didn't have as a good a year as he would have liked, we all admired him for his tenacity and dedication to the game.

Gordie told us that he was pretty much quitting after that Jackets' season, and none of us had seen or heard from him since then....

Well, look who came out of the woodwork last night to play for the GB&E Generals (formerly the Prowlers) - yup! Gordie! And he even backstopped the Generals to a 4-2 win, their first victory in over a month. Well done, Gord. We knew you still had it in you.

Moose Droppings

2007-11-12T14:13:00.000-07:00

Once again, real life has got in the way of the updating of the Bee Sharps website. Well, real life, and a bucketload of penalties from Saturday's game. Takes forever to type up the game summary. That's what happens after playing one of the chippier, dirtier teams I think we've ever played.

Update soon - enjoy the pictures n' stuff.

Brooms

2007-11-07T08:20:00.000-07:00

As much as I love the baseball, I can't hide my disappointment over the past few years with the quality of the World Series. Ever since the Arizona Diamondbacks went and beat the New York Yankees in seven thrilling games (well, five thrilling games and two blowouts) in 2001, the Fall Classic has usually been an anticlimax of sorts. This year's inevitable sweep by the Red Sox over the Rockies was simply par for the course, given recent affairs.

Here's a short article/rant that hits the nail on the head, for the most part, from No Mas.

The Curse of Pat LaForge, or How I Left Pat LaForge Of My X-mas Card List

2007-10-29T08:26:00.000-06:00

The revolt against the Oilers new gamewear practice jerseys continues, as outlined in this article by esteemed hockey write Terry Jones of the less esteemed Edmonton Sun. I particularly like Oilers' president Cal Nichols's comments towards them. Mainly, though, I quite like how Jones, at the end of the article, points the finger squarely at CEO Patrick Laforge. LaForge has done a great job in conning the local public into believing the Oilers need a new arena and that it's perfectly justified to pay $50 for just the opportunity to pay far too much for Oilers season tickets.

But I think that ol' Pat has had his first big misstep since he started calling the shots for the Oilers, as the new jerseys that he wanted so badly have landed with an indelible thud. His claim that the Oilers might be able to change the design come the 2009-2010 season leads me to believe that the Anthony Henday Drive will be completed, sans self-defeating traffic lights, e'er the time that Oilers actually look good on the ice again.

Quite Amazing, This Computer Magic

2007-10-25T00:51:00.000-06:00

Now, this won't make any sense to anyone once this article actually goes up, but I included a link to a story about the Chicago Blackhawks in my last post. And lo! All those Google ads that I have on the site (please visit the sponsors' sites, by the way. They help out the team.) are related to....yup. The Chicago Blackhawks!

Wow! I'm new to understanding this interweb search proxy ping hyper mega net thingy, but that's quite something. It's like the interweb KNOWS what I'm thinking......

Well, my favourite TV show ever is a little show called "Doctor Who", so I've included a link about that show right HERE. This is an experiment to see what kind of ads pop up.

(And again, thanks to the anonymous sponsors whose ads appear on this site. They really do help out.)

It's Been Five Long Years...

2007-10-23T17:46:00.001-06:00

Can you believe it's been five years ago today (October 23) since beesharps.com went online? Wow...quite remarkable, that. The site has been the one aspect of this team that either makes us the most hated or liked team (no one out and out loves us) in the whole ERHL. We're like the Maple Leafs - we get all the media attention (entirely due to our doing), yet we've no results to show for it.

Five years ago, the Chicago Blackhawks still sucked. In fact, they've pretty much sucked for 15 years, dating back to their impressive run to the 1992 Stanley Cup Finals. The team has been run by "Dollar" Bill Wirtz since, oh, about 1933, and has been run into the ground with amazing efficiency for the past decade or so. Wirtz wouldn't televise home games for the 'Hawks, convinced that if fans could watch the games on TV, they wouldn't bother to buy tickets. The move ended up alienating an entire generation of hockey fans in Chicago who are now more content in watching the AHL Wolves than the once great Blackhawks.

Well, Wirtz, the Robert Mugabe of the NHL, passed on not three weeks hence, leaving the tattered remains of the Blackhawk empire in the hands of his son, Rocky. Instead of staying the misguided course, Rocky waited barely a fortnight to make sweeping changes to his new team, as outlined in this article from The Hockey News :

WINDS OF CHANGE BLOWING IN CHICAGO

I miss the Blackhawks of old. Those mediocre teams with such players as Denis Savard, Doug Wilson, and Al Secord which would always crush even more mediocre teams like the North Stars and Red Wings in the playoffs for the right to be crushed even worse by the Oilers (or, in tragic circumstances, the Flames). Here's hoping the Hawks will be back in the playoffs, getting swept in the second round, soon.

One Of These Days.....

2007-10-16T12:39:00.000-06:00

...the Sharps site will updated with the story of our loss on October 13 vs the Xtreme. But, really, with two weeks in between games (due to what we'll call an ERHL scheduling quirk), would you really want to read about a loss for nigh on a fortnight?

No, neither would I. When it does come up though, just look at the main photo, which is quite something. You can see Sean Schoenberger of the Xtreme still in the shooting position, and the puck is still in the air after just hitting the back of the net mere nanoseconds before. And all thanks to my delightful girlfriend who dutifully attends nearly every game to support us and take pictures for the website. Thanks, Puddin'!

Anyway, probably in the next day or two, the site will be updated. Definitely before the Oilers' next loss, which will come in the form of a 4-2 defeat in Phoenix on Thursday night.

I mean, come on!

2007-10-12T18:19:00.001-06:00

Seriously? This? :

No, really.....this? :

Sigh........ :

A lot has been written on the magical interweb about these monstrosities already, so I'll just sum up what everyone (and I do mean everyone) has said about them :

Practice jerseys
Apron strings
Stupid stripes that don't go all the way around the arm

I mean, seriously? Look at that last photo. If you're gonna be stupid enough to have a partial stripe on the arm, then at least have a reason for the gap in between. You know, like the number appearing on the sleeve. But look at the number. It's above where the sleeve stripe is!

What really bugs me is that the template used for the new Oilers jersey is almost exactly the same as that of the Florida Panthers. Compare the two :

It reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns loses control of his nuclear plant and is forced to live with his lickspittle Smithers. In order to earn his keep, Burns heads off to the grocery store. When looking for cereal, he sees Krusty the Klown in the aisle, selecting a box of Krusty O's. Noting that the box has a picture of Krusty himself on it, Burns instantly believed that everyone in the real world has a breakfast cereal named after himself. Burns looks vainly for a box of "Burns O's" until he finds a box of Count Chocula and, on the slight similarity between the Count's visage and Burns's own, comments, "I suppose this one looks a bit like me...".

And that's what it looks like happened here. It's like the Oilers, about three minutes before the RBK designers were about to head home for the weekend, were given two or three choices of templates for their new jerseys, none of which really looked like their current set. So, they chose "Default Template 2" to brand themselves with, walked out the door just before it was locked up for the weekend, and instantly regretted not looking into this whole new jersey thing sooner, instead of being left with the last turkey in the shop.

I mean, the Oilers could have stuck to their guns and stayed with something similar to their classic set. The New Jersey Devils did. So did Minnesota. Nobody held a gun to the Coyotes' heads and told them to remove anything resembling good taste and class.

And before you think that I'm against change, I personally think that the RBK experiment is worthy. I like the slim cut of the new jerseys, and I think that teams like Washington, Dallas, and Boston now have the best jerseys they've ever had. The Oilers could have done so much better, but, like last year's total collapse after the team's magical Stanley Cup run in 2006, this is the second big disappointment for the Oilers in as many years.

Field of Dreams

2007-10-09T18:37:00.000-06:00

Okay, so the MLB playoffs are going semi-horribly, with my Cubs prediction crashing and the Rockies winning, offset only by the Evil Empire of the Yankees falling in the first round again. I guess I'll throw my support behind the Cleveland Indians, if only because Cleveland is a dump, and dump cities never seem to win anything anymore.

Still, I am in such a baseball mood that I am delaying my already delayed diatribe on the new Oilers' uniforms to bring you this :

This is a photo of a baseball stadium I built a while ago out of Lego. It sat on my dinner table for a year and a half before I tore it down, but not before taking several pictures of it. Building Lego ballparks has always been my main outlet to celebrate my passion for baseball. One day, I'll post photos of all the stadia I've built over the years, but here's my most recent pride and joy/secret shame :

Lego Baseball Park

Baseball!

2007-10-02T20:11:00.000-06:00

I was only able to watch Monday night's one-game playoff between Colorado and San Diego out of the corner of my eye and with the sound off. Ah, well. It's not like I missed much, right?

I was torn about which team I wanted to win...or rather, which team I wanted to lose. There's the Padres, who always seem to make the playoffs in baseball's worst division, the NL West, only to get swept in the first round. Did I really want to see that again? Then there's the Rockies, who haven't made it to any sort of playoff dance since the 1990's. I like to see new teams in the playoffs from time to time, but not the Rockies. First off, I think their uniforms are the worst in baseball (always my first tiebreaker for deciding which team to cheer for), but mostly, a USA Today story from last season exposed the driving policy of the Rockies. That being seeking out men of faith to stock both their on and off field positions.

Now, it's one thing to mix religion and politics, but religion and sports? Sport is its own religion. If there was a god, his prime directive wouldn't be to increase your slugging percentage.

Of course, the Rockies won an absolute thriller over the Padres, 9-8 in 13 innings on a controversial play at home plate (divine intervention, obviously.) So now that leaves the Rockies playing the Phillies in the first round of the NL playoffs, along with the Cubs against the Diamondbacks. In the AL, it's the Yankees against the Indians, Red Sox vs the Angels.

No one need cheer for anyone else in these playoffs - it's the Cubs or nothing. The Phillies always lose (they became the first major league sports team in history to lose 10,000 games earlier this season), and they're never lovable when doing it. The Diamondbacks already won it recently, robbing the Yankees of any post-9/11 euphoria by stabbing that city in the heart again in 2001. The Angels won it all in 2002, the Red Sox in 2004, everybody hates the Yankees, and the Indians won the Series in 1989 (yes, I know it was in Major League, with Charlie Sheen as their star pitcher), so they're out, too.

It's been since 1908 since the Cubs won the series, and they're just about the coolest sports franchise around. I am predicting the Cubs to win over the Indians in the World Series! And may it snow in November if I am wrong.

Welcome to Sharpy's Corner!

2007-09-29T12:04:00.000-06:00

Hi, folks. This here is a new blog about the Bee Sharps. I have been thinking about doing one for some time, but the planets have finally aligned and here its - the Bee Sharps have entered the blogosphere.

What will happen on this site? It will be a more laid back, informal commentary on the Sharps and the world around them than you would find on our parent site, www.beesharps.com. I started up a column there a couple years back called "Sharpy's Corner", and I managed all of 11 articles in almost three years. (Those articles have now found a home on this blog). The problem is that I would have to think of an idea that could sustain a longer article before even beginning to write it down. Now, you can read every random thought that comes to my mind, warts and all.

I'm looking forward to this blog partly because of its lack of maintenance compared to the official Sharps website. This time around, I'm letting the good people at blogger.com do the work with the design and updating, and seeing that I can post new entries fromany computer, this blog just may be updated more often than the team site.

Anyway, I (we? I must get my tenses straight) hope you enjoy both this blog and the Bee Sharps website.

The Parting of the Ways

2007-09-29T10:35:00.000-06:00

(04.08.07) Is it a sign of advancing age to look wistfully back at buildings and places, and yearn for their existence once they are no more? I'm only 32, and I come from Camrose, Alberta, but already, large chunks of my past in that esteemed city have been long since paved over with shiny senior citizen condominiums and pseudo-rustic gazebos; actual history replaced with manufactured nostalgia. The very hospital I was born in 1975 was replaced with a new healing centre years later. My first kindergarten school? Gone, replaced by a condo. The home in which I spent my first five years of life? Gone, replaced by a patch of grass.On top of all those buildings, one more relic of my dwindling memories of growing up in Camrose is soon to join them. The Wild Rose Arena, Camrose's first indoor arena, has seen its last game, housed its last boyhood dream, and is scheduled for demolition later this year. Built in 1926, the rink was Camrose's only rink until the ultra-modern CADRECA was built for the country's centennial in 1967. (No one remembers what the name CADRECA actually stands for, but the point became academic when the rink was renamed the Max MacLean Arena in the 1990's). As the population of Camrose and the surrounding area has grown over the decades, the city's two rinks have become increasingly taxed with increasing demand for ice slots. The fact that the Camrose Kodiaks, one of the country's top Junior 'A' hockey franchises, has outgrown its humble rink (the Max MacLean Arena), was also pressing on the city's mind as the 20th century drew to a close.

So, this fall sees the unveiling of a brand new complex, the Camrose Regional Sport Development Centre (catchy name, innit?). The facility will house a 300-seat "utility" rink, but the centerpiece will be the 3,000-seat main arena that will house the Kodiaks and push both the AJHL games and the international Viking Cup tournament to a whole new level. I don't want to sound like I'm a stodgy old coot, resistant to change like so many ex-Reform Party voters (the majority of Camrose's election base). I'm overjoyed about the new rink, and it will undoubtedly lead to Camrose hosting major tournaments such as the Centennial Cup (aka Major Canadian Bank Cup).

However, the old Wild Rose Arena has been elbowed out, nudged to the sidelines like many a wallflower at a barnyard dance. They held a final free public skate on April 1, and I specifically made the trip back home to soak up the final days of the grand old rink. I hadn't been there since I stopped playing there in 1990. Back then, amazingly, there was no glass along the sides of the rink (fans and parents of the players were an attentive lot in those days), but plexiglass and safety netting now spanned the whole ice surface. In one end of the rink, there was a small food stand tucked into an alcove that always had smoke billowing out of it, as the ventilation was quite poor. The rafters and support beams were a thing of beauty in the intricate lattice work. Behind the net on one side of the rink, not far from the smoking hot dog stand, was a small section of seats that were actually about 10 feet above the ice. The stands were condemned long ago, but my Dad remembers watching a senior hockey team called the Camrose Maroons there in the 1960s. Underneath the stands was a dank, dark walkway that led to the other side of the rink. Towards the opposite corner of the rink, the floor dipped alarmingly towards the wall, leading one to believe that the whole arena was gradually sinking into a vast sinkhole.

But it never sank. It stood the test of time for over 80 years, and was home to many a hockey memory to me and many others. One of my last ports of call during the farewell tour was to have a quick peak in the dressing rooms, the same rooms where my Dad would tie my skates while I adjusted my shoulder pads and slipped on my #6 IGA Mall'Ers jersey. I was amazed to see how big the room actually was (I've obviously spent too much time in the K of C dressing rooms). I stood in the room for a few seconds before noticing a small child, not twelve years old, sitting on the bench by the door with his skates on. I risked humiliation (you know how kids are these days) and said to him, "I used to play in this rink when I was your age. I've got a lot of memories of this place."

The kid looked up at me, almost matching my own nostalgic expression, and replied, "Yeah. Me, too." Twenty years difference in our ages, almost forty years between mine and my Dad's, and we all had memories of this beautiful rink at different times of its existence. I shall miss that rink as I would miss an old friend.

---

Another old rink will become no more in the near future. Historic old Westmount Centre Ice, as most have probably heard, will be drastically revamped, replacing most of its middle section with that most dreaded a sign of urban sprawl, a Home Depot. Presumably, the area currently containing the ice rink will be home to the window and door department. The rink only stood some five years, and has little history behind it, but the earliest video footage of a Bee Sharps game originates from that rink. This was back when the proprietor of the local watering hole used to videotape the games played next door at the rink, then show them on the bar's big screen TVs afterwards for the players' collective amusement and embarrassment.

Over the past couple of years, however, the videotaping stopped, along with the flow of hot water in the showers and beer in the dressing room (the latter due to a mall policy). I'm not sure the same amount of tears will be shed over Westmount as it would over the Wild Rose, but it nonetheless bears mention.

Cold Reception On A Colder Day

2007-09-29T10:32:00.000-06:00

(11.28.06) As I write this, I am getting ready for what should be an emotionally charged night at the cinema. And no, I'm not going to see Happy Feet (will anyone even know what Happy Feet is two months from now, even if it is, for some reason, the number one movie in North America right now?).

A friend and I are taking in the pay-per-view match between the Edmonton Oilers and the Anaheim Ducks tonight. I've rarely seen a PPV game; I don't have the required digital cable box, and I am not popular enough amongst my friends and colleagues to be invited over to view one at their homes. My friend once told me about the raucous atmosphere that existed at a PPV event held at the cinema, and this upcoming Oilers-Ducks game seemed like a perfect occasion to experience a live PPV NHL game for myself.

There was no hope of obtaining tickets to be at the game in person tonight. The Oilers are a massive success at the box office, and the return of Chris Pronger only made the pickings for seats even slimmer. Let me put my feelings towards Pronger the player out there right now. I love the guy. I think he's the best defenceman to ever wear an Oilers jersey (Paul Coffey not excluded). Even though he only played here for a year, he could be my favourite Oiler of all time. Seriously. I was more enthralled with his play than I was when I was a kid watching Wayne Gretzky. I never wanted to be Gretzky as a kid, but Pronger has inspired me more and more to want to be a defenceman. Again - seriously!

Pronger's performance last season, especially his play in the Stanley Cup Finals against Carolina, was awe-inspiring. At times, it looked as if the Oilers would win the Cup solely on the will and talent of Chris Pronger. We lived, died, lived again...and then finally died again with Pronger and his Oiler teammates. But we were grateful for the exciting Cup run, and were anticipating many more such runs with Pronger on the blueline.

And then Pronger left. The last shard of glass hadn't even been swept off a bruised and battered Whyte Avenue when Pronger, catching some sun rays in Mexico, let it be known through his agent that he wished to be traded. Amid the continuing denial that the Oilers' magical run was over, now came news to the fans that their greatest thoroughbred wanted to play his trade in a different pasture. Somewhere else. Anywhere but here.

Forget the rumours as to why Pronger wanted out, and also forget Pronger's own consistently ambiguous reasons for wanting to go. He signed a long term contract with this team, and should have played it out. That contract was not only a bond with the team, but a bond with the community.

This is a city which has seen many a star player leave well before we thought their time here was up. Gretzky, Coffey, Messier, Weight, Guerin, Joseph, etc. Other cities would develop a sort of malaise about this continuing exodus. Fans in other cities would lose interest in their team, stop caring, and stop attending or, perhaps even worse, lose interest, stop caring, yet still attend the games (nothing is more deceptive to a franchise owner than a full building full of disinterested fans).

All those players I listed before have been booed upon their return to this city while wearing another team's uniform. And I think it's great. There's a small minority of fans and journalists in this city who don't think Pronger should be booed, and that we should all respect Pronger's reasons for leaving. Of course, that won't happen, and it shouldn't. When Pronger hears the boos tonight, he will be hearing the boos of a city that cares. A city that, despite experiencing heartbreak from many past unrequited love affairs with its heroes, still has the passion to love their current team, and chastise those who have spurned it. The passion that this city has for itself and, by extension, its hockey team, is unlike any other.

Chris Pronger will experience that passion tonight.

Doctor...Who?

2007-09-29T10:19:00.000-06:00

(10.03.06) Last time I got on my soapbox in Sharpy's corner, I prattled on about my adoration of America's pastime. No, not morbid obesity (that's more America's passion than a pastime), but the grand old game of baseball. (Ed. note : It's been a while since that article was posted on this, the most non-prolific example of a blog that this site has. Stanley Kubrick pumped out films with greater frequency during his career than this.) Baseball seems worthy of mention again right now as the playoffs are about to begin, easily the most exciting time of the overly long baseball season.

But an even more thrilling television event is on the horizon, that being the Canadian debut of the second series of the new Doctor Who on CBC. For those who don't know, hockey is a distant third on my list of passions in life (my number one passion now is obvious; she knows who she is). Doctor Who has always been near or at the top of that list.

A brief history, while trying my best not to sound like a full on nerd : Doctor Who is a science fiction show that was shown on the British Broadcasting Corporation originally from 1963 until 1989. It featured a mysterious guy known only as the Doctor who travelled around through space and time in a 1950's police telephone box, solving crimes in his spare time. As the years went on, it was revealed that the Doctor could change his appearance when he was mortally wounded or when he feared typecasting. As a result, several actors went on to play the role, with Tom Baker (here's a pic in his usual attire and expression) the most famous, especially on this side of the Atlantic.

For some reason, a brief sighting of an episode on PBS (in the same year that Jesse Hey was born), glorious in its witty writing, cardboard sets, and freaky music, had me hooked and I was on my way to becoming the closet Doctor Who uber-geek that speaks to you today. Unfortunately, the show was finally cancelled at about the same time that my interest in the series was most rampant. The show looked to make its long awaited return to our screens in 1996, with the help of the Fox Network in the US. A pilot movie was made, but the tradition and uniqueness of the original show was lost in a flurry of motorcycle chases, tacky romantic subplots, and Eric Roberts.

Fascinating aside! : It's interesting to note that Fox also managed to ruin another favourite obsession in 1996, as that was also the same year they debuted the Foxtrak laser puck for their hockey broadcasts. And, in keeping with the hockey theme of this website, and thus validating the presence of this article on a rec league hockey website, did you know that the same man who created Doctor Who, a Canadian named Sydney Newman, was also a producer of the very first experimental broadcast of Hockey Night In Canada in 1952? True story! When Newman died in 1999, I almost thought I owed it to him and myself to go to his funeral.

Anyway, back to Doctor Who. After the failure of the Fox movie, the fortunes of the show seemed to be firmly entrenched in the realm of side tables at Star Trek conventions and the basis of a popular song knock off of Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll, Part II". Fast forward to 2003, when, seemingly out of the blue, the BBC commissioned a new series of Doctor Who to be broadcast in its classic timeslot on Saturday night on the flagship station, BBC One. The show became a massive hit in the UK, regularly finishing in the Top 10 most watched programs each week, and raking in several prestigious awards.

Here in Canada, the show was a bit of a minor hit for the CBC. Filling a slot once occupied by the Stanley Cup Playoffs (vacated thanks to the 2004-05 NHL lockout), the show averaged about one million viewers each week opposite the bafflingly popular televised karaoke contest known as American Idol. Series Two will air Monday nights on CBC at 8:00 PM, starting on October 9.

Now, I wouldn't bestow the virtues of something, especially a television show, on this website if I didn't think that it was really, really good. It would have been tough to introduce the old series (you know, the cheap one) to people now without having to apologise for it beforehand. But this new series is fantastic. It looks and sounds terrific, it's fun and exciting, and it's made for the average viewer and does not require any knowledge of the shows' past history to enjoy it. Basically, imagine that George Lucas made new Star Wars films that were actually even better than the originals. Yeah, Doctor Who is THAT good.

And no, I don't work for the marketing department at the CBC (although I may someday, thanks to the good folks at Corus Premium Television). So do yourself a favour and check the show out - Doctor Who, Monday nights, 8:00 PM, CBC. 8:30 PM in Newfoundland.

Or tape it and watch the baseball playoffs, instead.

The Boys Of Summer

2007-09-29T10:12:00.000-06:00

(04.03.06) I love baseball.

It seems like an unpopular thing to admit these days. I mean, nobody loves baseball anymore, do they? It's slow, it's boring, the overpaid players are juiced up six ways from Sunday on every chemical under the sun designed to build up bulk and fuel 'roid rages from here to Barry Bonds's locker stall. But I don't care.

I love baseball!

This passion of mine towards the great American pastime is, admittedly, a relatively recent turn of events. Great events in baseball's history seem to gain and lose its fans through the course of history. Baseball was king in the United States for much of the 20th century, until the lure of the NFL's new championship game, the Superbowl, was too much for sports fans to ignore upon the creation of the Superbowl in 1967. It's a shame, as some of the greatest teams in Major League Baseball history played during that era, teams like the three-time champion Oakland A's and the "Big Red Machine", the Cincinnati Reds.

Baseball slowly rebuilt its fan base, despite the 1981 season being chopped up due to a player strike. The 1986 World Series, or, more accurately, the bottom half of the ninth inning of Game 6 of that series, played between the New York Mets and the Boston Red Sox, was such an incredible moment in sports history. I vaguely remember the Toronto Blue Jays winning the American League East Pennant in 1985, but it was that conclusion of Game 6 in 1986 that sparked my interest in the sport. This was, of course, the infamous Bill Buckner play, where Mookie Wilson's harmless ground ball dribbled through Buckner's legs at first base, enabling Ray Knight to score from second base, giving the Mets a 6-5 win. That tied the series at 3-3, and the Mets won the series two nights later, but who remembers that?

I spent my childhood and....um....part of my adulthood building baseball parks out of Lego and re-enacting the Buckner play on my brick infested field of dreams. When the Blue Jays won those back-to-back World Series in 1992 and 1993, even the most steadfast of baseball decriers stood up and cheered. That sentiment ended with a thud for pretty much everyone I knew when a players' strike cancelled the 1994 World Series, a series that most of the country seemed convinced the Montreal Expos would win. (People forget that the New York Yankees were also enjoying their best season in years, and would have provided more than a stiff challenge for the Expos).

I didn't hate baseball after the strike, but I did become indifferent. Sure, I watched the World Series every year, on and off, but baseball had more or less fallen off my radar. Nobody outside of four of the five boroughs of New York wanted the Yankees to go on the run that they did in the late 1990's, winning the series four times in five years. Did that keep people from truly loving the sport, including me? Possibly. Even the underdog story of the Anaheim Angels and their "rally monkey" in 2002 filled me with intense apathy.

In 2003, things changed. Both the Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs were in the playoffs. This was monumental. Neither team had won anything since before the Industrial Revolution, often losing spectacularly in the process. And they both did it again. Boston imploded in their series against the hated Yankees, and the Cubs, thanks to a Buckner-esque play on the part of one of their fans, blew it against the Florida Marlins.

The Cubs incident was remarkable. It illustrated how, for some reason, an inning, a game, a season of baseball, can all be decided on one little insignificant play. The play in question on this night occurred in the 8th inning of Game 6 of the National League Championship Series. The Cubs were leading the series three games to two, and were leading the Marlins 3-0 in the top of the 8th. They were five outs away from winning the series, and it looked like they would be four outs away when the Marlins' Luis Castillo hit a harmless pop fly into foul territory, where the Cubs' Moises Alou made to catch it. That's when Cubs' fan Steve Bartman, sitting in the first row of the seats along the third base line, decided that this ball was going to be the one he kept as a souvenir, and reached out to grab it, thus knocking it out of Alou's outstretched glove. Alou was furious at Bartman, and, in those one or two seconds while Alou fumed, you could just sense it - the Cubs were going to lose.

Foreshadowing is almost part and parcel in baseball. English teachers should teach foreshadowing using examples of historic baseball games, instead of tired novels from long dead authors. Maybe if they had, I would have passed English 30. Twists like the Bartman/Cubs incident are almost so profound, you'd think the games were rigged. Cue the most theatric moment in baseball history, if not all of sports history, the 2004 American League Championship Series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.

As long as I live, and as long as I have lived, I will have never seen a more intense, amazing, and utterly incredible moment in sports than that series. I mean, there have been some great baseball movies made (Field of Dreams, The Natural), but the Red Sox-Yankees series defied all explanation. The Red Sox, suffering from the "curse" of trading the great Babe Ruth to the Yankees back in 1918, the same year as the last Sox' championship, could only win the World Series again, it would seem, if they went through both hell and New York. And they did, losing the first three games of the series. To fully push the Sox to the point of utter desperation, the Yankees beat them 19-8 in Game 3.

And then, the magic happened. The Sox staved off elimination in both Games 4 and 5 with extra inning wins. In Game 6, Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, his tendon stitched together seemingly with duct tape, as evidenced by his blood soaked sock, led the Sox to a win to tie the series at 3-3. But the Red Sox always lose, right? They always have, and even after the Sox jumped out to a 6-0 lead in Game 7, I was just waiting for the collapse to happen, but it didn't. Somehow, it didn't, and the Red Sox had vanquished the Yankees. They then went on to win the most anticlimactic World Series ever played when they swept the St. Louis Cardinals, but, in keeping with the sheer magic of baseball, won the fourth and final game on the same night as a total lunar eclipse.

We're lucky we have video footage of all this, because I wouldn't believe some old codger in a retirement home if he spun me that yarn. And that's the magic of baseball. Unlike almost every other sport, time is not the enemy. No deficit is insurmountable, and no lead is safe. Anything is possible, and it is so intense to watch. Come playoff time, the game is almost tailor made for television. There seems to be time enough for five or six extreme close-ups in between each pitch to build up the tension...and then the batter fouls the pitch away, starting the whole pressure cooker again.

I never got into the Edmonton Trappers until it was far too late, and I now regret it. It will take me a while to drum up the enthusiasm to go to Cracker Cats games on a regular basis, but I will. There is no better way to spend a lazy afternoon than sitting in the sun watching a baseball game. Baseball seems to be an acquired taste, and my appreciation for it increases with age. With the 2006 MLB season starting up, I will watch and wait for baseball's next magical moment. I shouldn't have to wait too long.

Nike's Not So Swift Move

2007-09-29T10:04:00.000-06:00

(12.13.05) So it's Christmas time, and, for most of those who celebrate such events, the mass over consumption of candy, food, booze, and cheaply made yet exorbitantly priced disposable electronic goods has begun, and will continue unabated until...well, really, does it ever relent? Manufacturers are always wanting you, the consumer, to continue the steady cash flow from your bank account to their overstuffed coffers, and will do anything to ensure that the monetary life force that gives them all a reason to live does not dry up.

One of those manufacturers is a little company based out of Portland, Oregon, called Nike. Now, the economic practices of Nike could fill a Sharpy's Corner on its own, but would not necessarily be relevant to the general tone of this website (which is often described as a "reasonable way to waste two hours of your life that you didn't really know what to do with, anyway". Funny, I've also heard that said about most Michael Bay movies). Anyway, the one aspect of Nike that does pertain to the here and now is the fact that they have been designing the uniforms of the International Ice Hockey Federation since the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. To their credit, the boys and girls from Nike came up with some nifty designs for the participating teams; indeed, the Bee Sharps have utilized the Nike design for hockey superpower Kazakhstan as the basis of their home and away jerseys.

Well, now Nike, in their constant attempt to be "cutting edge", have made a misguided turn towards such previous attempts at trying to change the hockey world (think "Cooperalls") with the re-design of Canada's on-ice look, to be debuted in late December at the World Junior Championships in Vancouver. The new design, called the Nike Swift, features new space age fabrics, air vents, and aerodynamic striping patterns that culminate in one of the more notable eyesores since the Vancouver Canucks decided in 1978 that Halloween was worthy enough to be celebrated all year round, and dressed according to that belief. Here's a picture of Simon Gagne shoe-horned into the new "duds" :

And shoe-horned is the optimal word here. One of the more enduring images from the Team Canada practice in August to launch these atrocities was Todd Bertuzzi requiring the help of three of his teammates to stretch his new jersey over his shoulder pads. The jersey is designed to be snug (for "snug", read "too small") to increase aerodynamics and cut down on the overall weight of the uniform. According to the official Hockey Canada press release (which you can read for yourself here), the design has managed to shave off an astounding 500 grams of weight, resulting in a much faster player. Because, of course, it was the jerseys that were slowing the game down all this time. Sorry, Jacques Lemaire. We forgive you.

Of course, the new jerseys have hit the shelves across the country in time for Christmas. But, despite the decrease in fabric used to make the jerseys, the price to own one has, alarmingly, remained constant. Of note, the replica jerseys are designed to fit more like a traditional jersey rather than the versions that will be worn by the players. This is entirely dependent on the size of the sports fan wearing the new jersey, of course. Given that the USA is also trotting out a similar design (which, like Canada's, is almost completely devoid of any strping whatsoever, resulting in what looks like a glorified, $120 practice jersey), Keith Tkachuk had better get on the eliptical trainer. And fast.

Oh, and what's that, you say? "Thankfully, the NHL, at least, still has tradition on its side". Not so fast. Reebok is currently designing a similar skin-tight jersey to be used by all 30 teams in 2006-07, including different coloured jerseys for goaltenders. It's all for the improvement of the "on-ice product" of course (remember when hockey was called a "game"?), but we all know it's about the money. Reebok and the NHL are banking on the millions of superfans out there to remain as current with their fashions as their heroes are on the ice.

I should know. In a past life, as some who know me may be aware, I was known as "Jersey Steve" because of my propensity of wearing a different hockey jersey every day. I had about a hundred jerseys in total (I still do), and was constantly sucked into buying each new one that came out. I even own a New York Islanders "Cap'n Highliner" jersey. Ick. Thankfully, I saw the light a few years ago, and stopped shelling out my not-so-hard-earned money on these things, but, sadly, I am in the minority. The vast majority of sports fans out there are sucked into buying, especially around Christmas, new home jerseys, away jerseys, third jerseys, retro jerseys - I mean, where does it all end?

Doesn't everybody know that the art of the hockey uniform was perfected with this? :

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2007-09-29T09:59:00.001-06:00

(09.02.05) Oh, what an exciting time to be a hockey fan/player, as we are heralding the return of rec league hockey, and it's pale imitator, the NHL. Actually, the return of the 24%-less overpaid millionaires of the National Hockey League is getting me all giddy. Yeah, I missed it, and the lack of the NHL probably reduced my interest in the great game of hockey over the summer months. Mind you, if you had to play defence with Scott Hutcheon all summer, wouldn't you get sick of the game, too? How do you do it, Landon?

Anyway, nobody from the NHL or NHLPA read my page-and-a-half-long solution to every single on-ice problem the NHL is facing these days (click here to read that), but the stuff they did tinker with should be exciting. It's about time they put in shootouts. Now all NHL fans can whine and cry out that a shootout is no way to decide a hockey game - a complaint reserved purely for the international fan for many years (and AHL fans, but then, we never had any of those last season in Edmonton). The Sharps have yet to endure a shootout, or, to use the more colloquial European football term, "penalties", in our brief history. Heck, we only had our first tie game last year. There are Wal-Mart employees who have been paid more overtime than we have.

Also, the NHL has finally followed the ERHL's lead and removed the two-line pass. I predict Martin Brodeur will break Grant Fuhr's record of 15 assists in a season in '05-'06, and will be the first goalie to have a goal of his waved off because he shot the puck from outside that strange trapezoid crease that will be behind the nets this season. Finally, it's also nice to see that the NHL went out of its way to appease the fans of the Minnesota Wild and kept that dreadful no-touch icing out of the game. Races to negate icing calls are to the Land of 10,000 Lakes as NASCAR is to Carolina, and both competitors have an equal number of teeth.

The Yellow Jackets had as bipolar a season as one can imagine this summer in the ERHL, winning their first seven games, then never again for the rest of the year. It's good to see Adam Dickinson leave, too, as his 25 goals in 11 games were just dragging the whole team down. We'll also miss Ernst Gerhardt and Matt Stephens, both of whom are bolting for not-so sunnier climes, but at least Matt will have a mini-farewell tour for the first few games of the season.

Personally, after the Jackets' season wrapped up, me and Bee Sharps superfan Brandi went on a road excursion throughout the American Southwest. Utah, for those who have never been, is Mars. It is the planet Mars. Some truly unbelievable scenery unique to that region, like Mars (I've been there. Twice). Also, there are these strange beings called "Mormons" who water down their beer and wear full body underwear in the middle of the desert. There not so strange on Mars after all (again, been there. Twice).

I also managed to finally get to the bottom of my bootleg....err, I mean my 100% legally obtained version of Photoshop. The results of my sleepless experiments are littered about the newly polished beesharps.com (call it version 2.2, if you must). The hockey cards and pictures have all been redone, the colours match those of our jerseys and, oh yeah, we have a new logo! Typically, if I was in a marketing department, I'd have included some inane press release, rife with such buzzwords like "brand synergy" and "wordmark" and give you an indepth three-paragraph explanation behind the meaning of each wing on Sharpy's back. Fortunately, it's my belief that marketing departments will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes, so, here's my press release for the new logo :

Here's our new logo. I think it looks kinda neat.

Now, wasn't that a lot easier? Hope you like the new look, and we'll speak again in the future.

Website Woes And Whimsy

2007-09-29T09:58:00.000-06:00

(04.26.05) Summer is almost upon us! About time too, I say. There's nothing quite like the feeling of straggling into the rink in shorts and flip flops, playing hockey in a rink some 20 degrees colder than the outside environ, then slipping into same shorts/flip flops and wander out into the still prevalent sun of a northern Alberta summer.

I also look forward to this time of year because it means that I take a nice break from this website, beesharps.com, that you all hopefully enjoy. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy doing the site and all that, but we all need a break from even our greatest passions, and the summer months is when I take my sabbatical from the grind of game summaries, statistical anomalies, and the assorted day-to-day tasks that it takes to maintain probably the most bombastic, over-the-top rec league website out there.

Part of the reason I take the summer season off (sorry, Yellow Jackets) is that the statistics kept up by the off-ice officials during the game are, well, a little lacking. I discovered this last season, as several of our games didn't list the roster on the gamesheets, and with half the players in summer league wearing beat up practice jerseys emblazoned with a hastily created #11 made out of discarded sock tape, I need all the help I can get. How else am I to fully represent the lineups of both teams, thus alerting each player as to the identity of the player from the opposing team that once said something bad about his mother?

Plus, it's nice to come home and relax after a game. In winter, it usually takes me two hours to update everything that needs updating after a Bee Sharps game. If you think two hours is long, you should have seen me at the beginning of this odyssey.

The Bee Sharps website started, inconspicuously, in October 2002. I honestly can't remember who suggested the idea to me, but it was a notion that was swimming around my head ever since I had wanted to make a website about my Playstation NHL '98 Team England squad. Wouldn't you want to follow the exploits of superstar English centre Nick Brain, or to see how many bad goals Angus Gray had let in against Kazakhstan?

Well, having run a website for my old band Flying Saucer Moonship (the last version of which can be found here, for those interested), I decided to have a crack at my first sports website. I begged, borrowed, and stole bits of code from all over the web (thanks to those anonymous sites who helped me out in the dark days) and set about creating the site. My main objective and guiding force in setting it all up was this : if I was a fan and the Bee Sharps were my favourite team, what would I want from their website? The answer : statistics, history, records, stories, and pictures.

Well, the pictures were the hard part, as we had no visual record of our games through the first one and three-quarter seasons of our existence. Team England to the rescue! I decided to create a Bee Sharps team in the PC version of NHL 2002, recreate certain plays from Bee Sharps games, and take screen captures of the results. Sometimes, I would enjoy playing the game so much that I forgot the pictures and led a computerized Bee Sharps onslaught against teams that we probably had just lost to in the "real world". We may have never beaten the Chain Gang on the ice, but, by gar, we got their number in robot land!

Thankfully, Landon Lewsaw obtained a digital camera from work in February 2004, and the site really approached legitimacy after that. Not that the digital camera was top notch. Landon received it for free from his place of work, and there's a reason that it was free. It is a huge machine; a true relic. It reminds me of the cameras on The Flintstones, both in its size and form, as well as in its function. In order to properly take a picture, one must press and hold the button for at least three seconds, allowing enough time for the small pterodactyl inside the camera to hurriedly chip away the image he sees onto a nice piece of granite. After taking a picture with this thing, hold up the camera to your ear, and you can hear the little dino-bird inside crack wise, with dented beak, "Meh, it's a living."

By the time the 2004-05 season started, the amount of information I wanted to put up on the site was stretching my work time to over three hours. Thankfully, a new version of Microsoft Office dropped into my lap, complete with a program called FrontPage. With this program, I no longer needed to tirelessly adjust ream upon ream of gobbledygook html code. I could now quickly, and easily, create and update pages in the blink of an eye like the rest of the free (and not so free) world has been doing since, oh, 1997.

My night of work begins with the typing up of the scoring summary, followed by the updating of the statistics and career statistics pages (all these are done with Microsoft Excel, for those who are inclined to know). I then upload the photos from the camera disk and create the photo page for the game. Next, I update the hockey cards, schedule page, and records page (if any records were broken that night). At this point, I update the front page, choosing a title picture and snappy headline. The last thing I do is the game write-up. I do this last as I use the summary and photos to jog my memory of the night's action. I will admit something here - I don't actually read my own write-ups. For shame! After almost two hours of working, I'm quite done for the night, as my bleary eyed expression would tell you. I then slump off off bed, and await the inevitable emails from James Seabrook, my unofficial proof reader, who points out all the broken and incorrect links that I happen to have missed from the night before.

So there you go. For those of you out there who think I don't have a life because of this site, I honestly do, but rarely have I closed a pub down with my fellow Sharps teammates after a game. I also would be remiss if I didn't mention all the help I get keeping this little time waster of a website afloat. The afore-mentioned pictures are most often taken by Brandi Charles (that's me girlfriend!), Jackie Lewsaw, Greg Anselmo, and Bess Sadler (if any other Bee Flats have taken pictures, please let me know!). Our plus/minus statistics are also tabulated by Bess and Brandine, although Jackie, Jannette Hurshowy, and Lisa Schulz have also helped along the way. Finally, the BeakBoard that we all enjoy venting vitriolic on about all things Sharps was created and maintained by Matt Stephens who, sadly, along with his wife Bess, will be defecting to the red state of Virginia soon, bent on bringing down the Republican machine from within. Fear not, though, as the Board, and this site, will continue to run until indifference renders it obsolete.

Thanks to all for reading.

Noche Del Hockey sobre hielo En México

2007-09-29T09:52:00.001-06:00

(03.10.05) March is upon us, and with it, my favourite time of year on the sports calendar. Even with no NHL to keep the masses occupied during what would be the playoff run right about now, there is still plenty to entertain me. No, it's not the NCAA basketball and accompanying March Madness that stirs the pot for me, nor is it the overpaid professionals of the NBA that causes me to pause on my way up and down the TV dial (if my TV had a dial, that is). Is it the crack of the bats one can hear around south Florida as 30 baseball teams not playing in Montreal gear up for the upcoming season that entice me so? No, good people, it is something even better.

As I type this, Mexico is preparing for what should be an intense match against South Africa in a tournament being played on Mexico's home turf in the Distrito Federal. The Mexicans are coming off of a close 2-0 victory over Luxembourg on March 7, while South Africa defeated Armenia on that same day. Ireland rounds out the five-team tournament. Why am I informing you of this, you may ask? Because this isn't soccer I'm talking about here. No, it is the 2005 IIHF Division III World Championship...of ice hockey.

Mexico always seems to be the host of one major international tourney a year, thus confirming its hotbed status of Canada's national sport (and you thought it would be New Zealand, didn't you?). They previously hosted the 2005 Under 20 Division III Championship (aka, the 'D' Pool) in January, a tournament won by host Mexico, who coasted to a perfect 5-0-0 record over such ice hockey juggernauts as Iceland, Turkey and, yes, those dastardly Kiwis.

Mexico's meteoric rise up the hockey rankings will depend on how they do against the mighty South Africans. That afore-mentioned victory over Armenia, where the Soviet Red Army hockey team clearly never exerted their influence in the days when Armenia was under the yoke of the USSR, was an ugly one, the final score being 33-1. Yes, 33-1. Let's take a look at this for a second. There were some NFL teams this year that didn't score 33 goals. Heck, that's half the amount of goals the Bee Sharps have scored all year. Yes, 33-1. South Africa opened the scoring 1:10 into the first period, a period in which they scored 11 goals, outshooting Armenia 21-2.

The South Africans scored six more times before the halfway mark of the second period, when they decided that the first period onslaught on their goaltender, Gary Bock, had battered him, and so in went his goaltending namesake Ashley Bock to try and stave off the Armenian assault. Ashley failed in his quest, however. With just 52 seconds to play in the game, and South Africa clinging tenaciously to a 33-0 lead, Simon Yeghyayan slipped one past Ashley Bock, a goal since called "The Shot Heard Round Yerevan". South Africa managed to stem the uncoming tide, and held on for the victory. The final shots tally was 59-5, in favour of South Africa (no, really). Michael Fraquet was Darryl Sittler for a day, registering 10 points (4G, 6A), and finishing the game +12. The sound you hear is that of NHL scouts bristling. One really must question the sadistic nature of Armenian coach Gagik Vardanyan, though, who left poor Armen Lalayan in net for the entire game - clearly a holdover of the old Communist regime.

And this is just one game from one tournament, one of several IIHF tournaments that take place each spring to determine hockey bragging rights around the planet. Similar tournaments are gearing up in places such as Debrecen, Hungary, and Eindhoven, Holland. The dream, perhaps one day, is for a true World Cup of Hockey to take place, featuring the top 32 hockey nations on Earth, as is done in soccer. I can see it now : the opening match of the 2012 World Cup between Canada and Armenia, with a ceremonial puck drop by Armenian-Canadian film director Atom Egoyan. One word of advice for the bettors : bet the over on that one.