Unity of Rings

An article in TSN this morning talks about the possibility of the Pittsburgh Penguins moving to Hartford, CT.

Personally? I hope that doesn't happen. I hope the Pens manage to stay in Pittsburgh despite the worst efforts of PA Governor Rendell, who is sounding more and more to me like CT Governor John Rowland during the waning days of the Whalers' tenure in Hartford. Should I just write a letter to the Federal Bureau of Prisons and ask them to reserve Rendell's federal inmate number now?

On the other hand, if it does happen it'll be strangely karmic in a way--Pittsburgh stole Hartford's best player back in 1991 (with the help of then-GM Eddie Johnson, who immediately jumped ship to the Pens as soon as the Whalers' season was over--gee, collusion much?), so Hartford's taking their team. That would just blow my mind.

This whole scenario is whack on so many levels--from Ed Rendell's attempts to scuttle the slots bid that the Pens are contractually tied to (Isle of Capri) in favor of a deal that he (Rendell) has personal ties to, to the prospective buyer's open pondering of moving the team to Hartford, to the whole feeling of "deja vu" that I'm getting for some odd reason.

What's next--Rendell's going to effectively say "fuck the Pens" and mortgage the entire state treasury in a futile attempt to bribe the New England Patriots to move to Harrisburg? Crocodile tears at a farewell press conference? Four years of inter-fanbase holy wars?

Wow. Just....wow. If I'm the Lemieux group, I'm planning to wage a big PR war to show how the plan that I favor is better than Gov. Rendell's "Plan B", and doing my damndest to come off looking like one of the "good guys" in case circumstances force the team to move. But that could just be me.

Jimmy's got it covered, folks.

Hugh Kellenberger, who opines on the Hurricanes for the Rocky Mount Telegram, recently wrote a column which appeared in Vancouver's National Post. In this column, he says:

[Hurricanes GM Jim Rutherford] must sign coach Peter Laviolette to an extension, and the time to do it was yesterday.

...If [former Hurricanes coach Paul] Maurice deserved nine years after only advancing into the playoffs three times and past the first round once, Laviolette deserves at least another two.

Believe me, I appreciate where Hugh is coming from--I adore Peter Laviolette and what he's done with the Brothers of the Sightless Eye, and I want him to stay too. But in his haste to beat the "keep the guy here" wardrums, Hugh's forgetting something very important:

Chairman Mo's contract extensions were all given to him after Season's End, rather than during the season. That's how JimR's always done it. That's how he'll always do it. Believe me, Hurricanes ownership and manglement wants Lavi to stay, too (and you can bet your ass that Uncle Pete will open the wallet and throw whatever he has to at him to keep him here)--but they're not going to engage in contract negotiations during the season because both Lavi and JimR see it for what it is:

A Big Distraction.

So relax, folks. Enjoy the wonderfully amazing and fun ride that this season (with all its up and downs) has been so far. Hail Joe, Lord of Evil on his return to the ice this season after being out for most of it with a knee injury. Pray to Eir (or whichever deity you worship) for Erik Cole's swift recovery from his broken vertebra, and knock on wood that there'll be some playoff games that he'll get to play in.

But don't sweat Lavi's contract negotiations--cos Jimmy's got it covered.

Go Canes.

Well I had this idea....but it's all over now.

I was ready to do up a nice big April Fool's joke and turn the Virtual 'Cue Shack into a Red Wings slobberblog for a day, complete with lots of fangirling about how much I adore the team, the town, and (most of all) the hundreds of fans that grace the RBC Center with their wonderfully friendly presence every time the Wings come to R'lyeh.

And then my sigmoid colon leaped up to viciously throttle the shit out of my cerebellum in a desperate attempt to save mankind, and that (thankfully) ended that idea.

You have no idea how painful it was for me to even think of writing the last part of that first paragraph, by the way. My hands attempted to fly to my throat of their own accord and choke the life out of me for merely considering changing my blog to that load of complete and total horse-dookies over the other idea I had, which was to turn my site into an NC-17 festival of clever semi-pr0nographic photochops featuring me in compromising positions with a certain tattooed and chin-pubed birthday boy who beats down all and sundry in the name of the Calgary Flames. Complete with background and cutesy netspeak and all the other assorted fangirlish trappings.

Which would have been a very nice (if delusional) April Fool's joke (and birthday wish to my favorite April Fool*)--but this lottery stuff that I had to deal with at work the last two days has got me so beat down that I couldn't do more than a picture-post the other night when the 'Canes clinched the division while I was down at Stop-n-Rob showing my twitchy Nepali co-worker how to validate winning tickets and give people their money so they could buy more cheap beer and even cheaper blunts (and, of course, more lottery tickets).

Which is sad, when you think about it--but in a way, it's kind of its own April Fool's joke (and far more clever than Golbez's cheese-ass attempt to fool his readers into thinking that he'd turned to the Dark Swedish side.

*:I'm 100% positive that Darren McCarty doesn't read STB&B--but what the hell. It's the thought that counts.