A moment of silence.

Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion was called up to the Eternal Game early this morning after a brief battle with stomach cancer.

Thoughts and prayers go out to his family, who are in Montreal tonight for Boom Boom's number-retirement ceremony. No obituary I write could do justice to a man who was a member of one of the greatest teams ever (the Canadiens team that won 5 Cups between 1956 and 1960), so I'll let TSN's article do the talking for me.

Rest easy, Boom Boom.

Trade Deadline thoughts

So I'm sitting in a training session about the North Carolina Education Lottery all day. I come home to see the following headline:


'CANES ACQUIRE MARK RECCHI IN DEADLINE DEAL WITH PENS

Bloody hell.

Some days, I really hate my yob--this is one of those days, if only because I missed the breaking of this one because I was sitting in an hotel ballroom learning how to use a spiffy lotto terminal from Andy Delmore (or at least, some dude from Nebraska that looks like him).

I mean, damn.

But anyway. The Hurricanes give up the following:

Niklas Nordgren: Nice guy, worked his ass off, but he was really having a lot of trouble here and only recently seemed to be finding a groove to fit in. I'll miss him, but not overmuch.

Krys Kolanos: The fans in Lowell thought of him as the second coming of Krispy Kreme Brendl, only without the production that Krispy would turn out when trying to get called up from the minors so he could slack off for NHL pay for a while. No great loss.

Second rounder in '07: This is the second '07 pick that the Hurricanes have given up this season. Meh. I find myself not getting overly upset about it....right now, anyway. After this season I'll probably be fit to be tied.

And in return, they get a little less evil on the Jes Golbez Evil Scale, and they get Mark Recchi--which brings me back to Wagergate.

I don't regret the "WTF"ing I did when the whole story first broke, because really, the NHL is not exactly in the position where it can afford to think "any pub is good pub". I mean, it's just not that "big" in terms of the four major sports (well OK, three major sports plus NASCAR), so until the League gets its head out of its collective ass and starts actually doing something to broaden its appeal (note: the Instigator Rule is NOT that "something") it's going to have issues whenever something like Operation Slapshot comes along, no matter how big or small it is.

But anyway:

People bet on other sports, but not the NHL. Fine--I can dig it. Let Tocchet get his ass handed to him for getting involved with the whole money laundering thing, and we'll move on.

Mooooooving right along:

I can't be the only one who fell down laughing at Jeff Friesen getting traded back to the Ducks, the team that he bashed left right and center when he got traded there from the Sharks in 2002 (and then bashed some more on his way to New Jersey). That was just funny, right there. Feel free to join me in the pointing and laughing.

Sandis Ozolinsh to the Rangers? Wow, I didn't see that one coming. I've always liked Sandis, and I was very happy to see him doing well in the Olympic games for Latvia. I think he'll be a good match in New York, especially since the Rangers don't really have any defensemen that I'd consider very offensively-minded (except maybe Fedor Tyutin).

Vancouver's finally got their Cloutier replacement, and it's Buffalo's Miikka Noronen. Wow, let's just parade that Cup down Robson now. Just kidding, Canucks fans. Noronen's not a bad little goalie, but he's not been tested in the playoffs (but then, neither have either of the Hurricanes' goalies). I look forward to seeing how he'll hold up to the pressure in Vancouver.

TO: Kevin Lowe
FROM: The Acid Queen
RE: Sergei Samsonov from Boston for Marty Reasoner, Yan Stastny, and a second-round pick, Dwayne Roloson from Minnesota for a first-round pick and a conditional pick

Kevin,

I was wondering if you have any more of whatever weed they're growing up in Alberta these days. If so, please bag some up for me and I'll collect it from you at the Draft this June.

Love,

AQ

p.s. I used to have such a crush on you--but damn you've let yourself go over the last couple years. What the Hel, man?!

Washington Capitals' malcontent ex-captain Brendan Witt was dealt to Nashville for Kris Beech and a first-rounder. Beech goes back to the team that got him in the first Jagr trade (the one that landed him in the District), and the Preds get the mindless toughness that David Poile drafted back in 1993 when he was the Capitals' GM. You have no idea how many times I typed "Crapitals" and had to edit, people. Seriously.

Wow, Olli Jokinen decided to re-up with Florida after all? Keenan must have pictures or something.

And finally, I don't think that Pierre Lacroix is as crack-addled as some are claiming he is. Theodore's gotta pull his head out of his ass sometime, and he needed to leave Montreal anyway. Do I think he'll help the Avs soon? Pry not. Do I think he'll become Patrick Roy v2.0? Gods I hope not--only one of that choking-in-elimination-games-motherfucker is enough. But Theo was in dire need of a change of scenery, and really Colorado is not a bad location to relocate to--just ask my sister. He'll turn it around in time.

Just my 1/50 of a Loonie.

Oh for the love of the gods.

I suppose I'm going to have to take that "Heavy Metal" quote out of my post about Erik Cole and his fractured vertebra now, because freaking nobody got that it was not wholly serious--which, I guess, is what I get for assuming that some of my readers are either smart or well-read enough to not need a Grade 1 primer for everything I post here.

I'm not bloody screaming for anyone's head--trust me, if I were I wouldn't be quoting Hanover Fiste (if you're that movie-impaired, go rent "Heavy Metal") AND I'd be a lot more persistent in posting about it. But I stand by my anger, and I stand by my Billy The Rapist comment, because a lot of the Pens fans that have defended the hit or said that Cole "got what he deserved" are the same people that defended the Pens' signing Billy Tibbets right out of prison.

I'm not posting Orpik's address, I'm not saying he should be kicked out of the League, I'm not even demanding that he be given a career-ending hit in retaliation--which are all things that certain individuals in message-board land have done or called for (and actions that I've decried--but I guess since I didn't do it here, it didn't really happen). But I have the right to be angry about the hit, a right to be angry about the lame-ass "justifications" for it, and I damn sure have a right to be angry about the paltry suspension. Had Colesy been playing for one of the Favored Teams, I guarandamntee that suspension would have been a lot longer.

You want to tag me with an unoriginal title like "Canidiot"? Go ahead. You want to bring up Jesse Boulerice as if that somehow makes me unqualified to render any sort of opinion whatsoever? It's all you. But you can also take that tar brush that you feel the need to swing at me because of a few mouthbreathing idiots that think that being angry qualifies them to be even dumber than they already are, light it on fire, and shove it where the goal light doesn't shine.

Get the Hel over yourselves, people.

I got your "respect" right here.

Joe Tasca of Off-Wing Opinion decided to take a little potshot at me when posting about Brooks Orpik's hit on Erik Cole.

POSTSCRIPT: With all due respect to the Acid Queen, I don’t recall her screaming bloody murder when the Hurricanes had Jesse Boulerice on their roster. Boulerice, if you’ll recall, was charged with and convicted of assault after clubbing Guelph Storm forward Andrew Long in the head with his stick during an OHL playoff game in 1998. Long went into convulsions on the ice and suffered a severe concussion and facial injuries.

Boulerice was banned from the OHL. But he was upstanding enough to play in Carolina.

"Respect". Yeah, right.

For those who don't feel like following a linky, I'll just C&P the comment I left there:

A long time ago, long before he came to Carolina, I made peace with Jesse Boulerice.

I mean, let's look at this--Boulerice has never tried to justify what he did. He's never tried to defend it, he's never tried to make himself look like the wronged party, and he's had no repeat incidents. Plenty of fans have tried to justify that horrifying incident, but every time Jesse's been asked about it he's been pretty consistent in saying that it was stupid of him to do it and that he wishes he could have that moment back so he could make a better decision and NOT swing that stick.

But hey, don't let me keep you from swinging the tar brush at me.

For that matter, Joe, don't let that keep you from swinging the tar brush at the 'Canes...again.

One head on a pike, please.

Saturday night, 23 guys wearing the Sightless Eye took the ice against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Two and a half hours later, 22 of them left with everything intact.

The same can't be said for Erik Cole, who was pile-driven head first into the boards by Pens defenseman Brooks Orpik and suffered a compression fracture in one of his vertebrae and will miss the rest of the season.

If I said I'm not angry at what happened, I'd be lying. If I said that I didn't want to beat the ever-living crap out of the low-lifes that cheered that hit and said that Cole "had it coming", I'd be Richard freaking Nixon. How anyone can call that hit clean is just beyond me--and yet, that's what some Pens fans (and others, including Brooks Orpik) are doing.

Of course, these are the same people that defended Billy The Rapist when the Pens signed him right out of the joint, so really I can't say I'm surprised.

The guy left his feet when delivering the hit and took a lot more than three steps to get there--if that's not charging (on top of boarding), I don't know what is. It was completely unnecessary, completely unconscionable, and to be quite honest it's completely in character for Michel Therrien to send a goony player after the other team's leading scorer--especially if it's Erik Cole, who pretty much humiliated the guy in the 2002 playoffs by scoring the tying goal in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.

To quote the sage philosopher Hanover Fiste (rent "Heavy Metal" sometime if you don't know who he is):

HANGIN'S TOO GOOD FOR HIM! BURNIN'S TOO GOOD FOR HIM! HE SHOULD BE CHOPPED INTO ITSY BITSY PIECES AND BURIED ALIVE!

And a hefty suspension and fine would be nice too, but somehow I don't think it'll happen.

I'm all ate up with the burnination over this, seriously. This isn't an arguably "clean" hit like the kind that a certain retired part-Slovak defenseman used to dish out. It was just low down, dirty, and shameful.

Further takes on it from CasonBlog and Red and Black Hockey

Get better soon, Colesy. The prayers of the Caniac Nation are with you.

Waiting for the Worms

Some of you are waiting for my take on Brooks Orpik's hit on Erik Cole the other night.

You'll be waiting a few more hours--I'll post when I get home from work in the AM.