Looking into the Abyss

Not really.


I'm still a little shellshocked, right now.

Wow, first place in the League. Right now, of course. It just boggles my mind--of course, it also bugs the piss out of me because of the idjits that decided to come out of the woodwork and start acting like fuckheads because (for starters) Scott Cullen at TSN refuses to put the Hurricanes at #1 in his power rankings despite the fact that the 'Canes have been winning even though they have a metric assload of injuries.

Look, fellow Caniacs--the guy has made it clear that he doesn't like us and that that's why he refuses to rank us any higher than 3rd or 4th. Therefore, it is useless to hammer him with metric assloads of mouth-breathing stupidity and semiliterate rantings about jealousy and disrespect and whatever else. In fact, it's just plain wrong to hammer him with all that crap in the first place--and if you've done it, I don't EVEN want to hear you bitching about assy behaviour from fans of other teams.

Capisce?

In case you haven't noticed, the theme of this post is "Don't be a frickin' dumbass, you frickin' dumbass."

(and no, there will be no frickin' sharks with frickin' lasers on their frickin' foreheads in this post.)

AND ANOTHER THING!

I have a serious problem with people that act like shitheads in another team's barn. You go, you cheer when your team scores, you shout encouragement to your team, and then you get in you car and go the hell home after the game. Period. If you can't say anything nice to the home team's fans, then just shut the hell up. If you can't be respectful toward the other team's fans as a guest in their house, then just stay the hell home. If any of the home team's fans act like fools toward you, get an usher to deal with 'em. If you see any of your fellow fans acting like fools, tell 'em to knock it the hell off and stop making you look bad--and if they turn their guns on you, get an usher to deal with 'em.

Of course, I say this as somebody who's taken the law into her own hands when ushers refuse to take care of fellow Caniacs that feel the need to show their asses.

Teams that I hate, and fanbases that I hate, I don't hate out of jealousy. I don't envy them their success--the gods favor those that they feel are worthy, and I learned long ago not to argue with them--and arrogantly blowing my hate off as "envy" doesn't do anything except reinforce that hatred, because if it's one thing I don't envy it's an asshat with a small e-peen.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

An open letter to a dirty thief.

Dear "Mr. Pheer":

I didn't give you permission to hijack my Atom feed and pass off stuff that I post in MY blog as your own writing so that you can turn a profit. I've disabled my blog's feed now, specifically because of you and your scumsucking thievery.

To my readers that have been inconvenienced by this, I give my apologies. My blog isn't the only one that this miserable piece of monkey-crap has decided to thieve from--he's also thieving from Kukla's Corner, Jes Golbez's Hockey Rants, Vancouver Canucks Op-Ed (the proprietors of which have disabled their RSS feed), and several others.

Fuck you very much you dirtbag, and please get the hell off the Internet.

Sincerely,

The Acid Queen

(BTW, readers--eWoss.com DOES have my permission to syndicate my blog.)

Oh man.....

Poor Walt, he just can't catch a break (and he'll never live down his preseason suspension, either).



Image sent to me by Mae in San Jose.

Completely random entry.

OK, so I tell somebody a couple weeks ago that IMO the Northeast is the most competitive division in the NHL, and that the NW was the most competitive until the Canucks went into the tank.

Then the Canucks wake up and start playing better, the Leafs go into the tank, and I'm wiping egg off my grill.

Errrr....oops? :D

Weighting Game

You've all been waiting for this post, haven't you?

Yeah.


Here's the deal:


TO ST. LOUIS:


Carolina's first-round pick in 2006
Toronto's fourth-round pick in 2006 (the one we got for O'Neill)
Chicago's fourth-round pick in 2007 (the one we got for Vrbata)
Mike Zigomanis
Jesse Boulerice
the rights to Magnus Kahnberg

TO CAROLINA:

Doug Weight
Erkki Rajamaki

Wow.

My thoughts:

Wow.

Do I think the 'Canes overpaid for what may well turn out to be a rental? It certainly looks that way....however:

On one hand:

The Hurricanes acquire a hell of a playmaker. Not a Ron Francis, no--but somebody who can still set 'em up quite well.

On the other hand:

The loss of Mike Zigomanis and Jesse Boulerice will hurt our depth, as will the loss of those draft picks.

But on the gripping hand....

Neither Ottawa nor Philly get the guy, and the Hurricanes are positioning themselves to go deep.

The 2006 draft is projected to be on the wimpy side once you get out of the Top 10--so the loss of the draft picks comes as no surprise to me, because JimR has a tendency to trade out of wimpy drafts and trade in to stronger ones. When the 'Canes acquired Stephen Peat from Washington, Jesse Boulerice's days were numbered because of his post-lockout struggles on the ice. His attack of the Stupids during the Hurricanes' last game with the Crapitals effectively sealed his fate, so losing him was a foregone conclusion. Ziggy, though moving for great justice !!!, was pretty much at the end of his rope with the 'Canes. He had to move for the sake of his development, and he can get some quality ice time in St. Loo. Magnus Kahnberg wasn't going to ever be signed by the 'Canes, so he was no great loss as far as I'm concerned. Rajamakki, if he comes back over to North America, will serve as depth in Lowell (which is not a bad thing).

In the final analysis, this is a very good trade for Carolina, especially since some of the pressure will be taken off our existing centers (and the burden of icetime will be taken off the Warchief somewhat) and the team will get a guy that is known to several of the players and the coach. It's also a good trade for St. Loo, in the sense that they get some draft picks and depth guys to help rebuild the team in the wake of their continuing post-lockout fire sale.

Farewell, Mr. Whalercane.

Saturday night saw the retirement of Ron Francis' #10 in a very moving ceremony.


And, in a move that came as a surprise to absolutely no one that's paid any attention at all to the history of the Carolina Hurricanes, Bristol showed their collective asses by refusing to even acknowledge it.

One cool thing was this:



How neat is that, eh? Every 'Canes player wore a Francis jersey for warmups.

The ceremony was quite moving, and really very simple. The Mighty Forslund served as master of ceremonies (and did a wonderful job), and The Eternal Captain led the Hurricanes out onto the ice one last time. The folks in Section 328 started a "RONNIE FRANCIS!" chant that wound up getting picked up by every section, and stopped only when the man of the hour started to speak.

The whole thing is here.

Some folks were a little annoyed by little ticky-tack things, but honestly? I thought they did a very good job. It wasn't a big overblown gaudy thing like Messier's number retirement was, and it took exactly as long as it needed to take. It was, in all ways, a lot like Ron Francis--low-key and businesslike, with a minimum of hoopla and a lot of class.




Farewell, Mr. Francis. Thanks for the great memories.