FHF Classic presents a Habs-Oilers preview and open thread

FHF headquarters is crazy busy today, what with all the lawyering and meth taking. So with our apologies, we've had to dig into the vaults to rerun an old Habs-Oilers preview from the 1982-83 season. Given the state of the Oilers today, this is probably way more entertaining anyway.

Waiting in line to see Chariots of Fire details - 8 PM at the Forum. This is not one of the rare Habs games on TV during the week, but at least we've got Dick Irvin on CFCF radio. Oilers are hot like heck, winners of 16 of their last 18. Habs are struggling, winning or tying only 70% of their games this year. The glory days may be behind us.

The newspaper will never be replaced - Oilers D Kevin Lowe somehow already has a newspaper named after him, Lowetide.

Hot like the "computer software program" Lotus 1-2-3 - Mats "Smurf" Naslund is on fire, 10 points over his last 5 games. Can Europeans succeed in the NHL? For the Oil, Wayne Gretzky is looking like he may break every NHL record someday. Currently on pace for a 200 point season. Messier, Anderson, and Kurri are on pace for 100 points each. Think we'll ever see that again? Grant Fuhr continues to solidly backstop a non-existent defence.

Cold like the prison Lech Walesa is stuck in - Habs have goaltending issues. Neither Sevigny nor "I ain't no Gump" Wamsley has been able to really step it up. Could you imagine having two decent goalies instead of two mediocre ones? That would be awesome. Oilers are playing way too well to have any cold players. This is a dynasty in the making, people. You know, if they could only beat the Isles in a playoff series.

It's like the final episode of M*A*S*H - The Flower is on the shelf with some knee trouble. Tripped on a pack of smokes he dropped. He'll never be the same.

Post game adult entertainment - More Heather Locklear, working undercover as a stripper (teehee!) from the hit show TJ Hooker. Enjoy.

OK, Now that We're Done Celebrating and Crying, Viggo Fucking Mortensen?? Are You Shitting Me???

Ok, it’s all over now. We’ve packed up the emotion and dismantled the stage. It’s not about “Oh, Happy Birthday Montreal Canadiens, we love you, you look so young for 100!” anymore. And poo-pooing on the ceremony a mere 24 hours later wouldn’t have struck the right chord with anyone. But it’s been 3 days now and we’re over it. And now that we are, one question begs to be answered.

VIGGO MORTENSEN ???!!!!!

That’s so left field that if measured in actual baseball geography, you would have to build a whole other stadium to the left of the current stadium and have your left fielder play there all by himself on a giant and separate fucking left field.

By choosing freaking Aragorn, the Habs just blew the doors open on the strangest, nonsensical, non-affiliated what the fucks one could think of to speak at the Habs’ centennial party.

I mean, at this point if you’re gonna go with Aragorn, you might as well go with the entire cast of nutjobs on the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

But why stop at Tolkien?

I mean if you’re going Viggan, you can venture even further and ask, I don’t know, Dolly Parton to introduce Patrick Roy! Wooooooweeeee!!!

Forget that, I mean, if Viggo’s in the house, why not just ask Harry and Sally to come on down and introduce Jean Béliveau!? That makes a ton of sense. Sally could have that famous deli orgasm right there at centre ice!

Hell, why stop there? I mean Viggo’s role in the ceremony was such a natural choice, to emulate that logic you would need to ask Freddy Kruger to introduce Ken Dryden.

And while we’re at it, maybe E.T. could have introduced some of the players. Get him to point at them with that glowing finger. Put him behind the goal and get his finger to light up every time the Habs score. Hell he should have been there.

Good job, Habs marketing brass, what a spectacular choice, asking Viggo Mortensen to walk down the red carpet on one of the most important days in this storied franchise's history. I mean what happened? Was Homer not available for the evening?

Or maybe you just could have asked fucking Benji to do the honors.

If you were going to make a splash in the surprise guest effect market, you could have asked Willy who would have been just ELATED to be there.

Viggo “Aragorn” Mortensen as the best choice to introduce Guy Lafleur? What you talkin’ bout Habs marketing brass?

Let's just enjoy this

We'll be along with a full review of last night sooner or later, but for now I just want to watch this over and over. Dryden may be wearing glasses, but he still has reflexes.

FHF looks back on 100 years... of blogging glory

Well this is it. The 100th Anniversary crap finally comes to end tonight against Boston, and we can all get on with our lives. Thank fucking god.

BUT, we are not without nostalgia here at FHF! You may not be aware that the history of FHF is a direct parallel to the history of the Habs. Herewith, please join us as we stroll down blogging memory lane.

December 4th, 1909 - Two barristers and two solicitors are cavorting with prostitutes in Room 127 of the Windsor Hotel in Montreal. Through paper-thin walls, they overhear John Ambrose O'Brien discussing his new team, the Montreal Canadiens. The four decide to band together to create a "weblog" that will chronicle the foibles of the team through sarcastic humour and daguerreotypes of attractive women. Their plan hits a snag when they realize there is no such thing as the "web." A quick call to Al Gore solves that problem.

January 5th, 1910 - FHF presents the inaugural open thread for the Canadiens first game against Cobalt. Users are frustrated by their inability to telegraph fast enough to get their comments in. The most common remark published that night is ..-. ..- -.-. -.-

Late 1921 - FHF goes blue, as the word "fiddlesticks" makes its first appearance. Several users express their outrage at the use of such language, and go on to create HI/O.

October 1936 - Newly-appointed captain Albert Siebert is nicknamed "Babe Magnet" by FHF for his way with the ladies. The mainstream media picks up on it, but a typographical error in the Montreal Star the next morning drops the "Magnet" part by mistake, and the shorter "Babe" ends up sticking. Thus begins a disturbing trend of the MSM taking credit for bloggers' work.

1939-1945 - FHF goes dark as HF4, HF10 and Panger are off practicing law in World War II. HF29 gets a medical deferment for his long-standing opium addiction.

Sometime in the mid- to late-50's - HF4 introduces a character named "Jaro" who appears to be from somewhere behind the Iron Curtain. Jaro writes:

"My gad this agly pleyer Plante has so agly shark face he have to put mask to hide so agly face! Oh Plante! You so shark! Fat Bellyvo so snobb. He so “Hi I Bellyvo I have class, I eat cavyar, oh ho ho ho”. Fak you Bellyvo! And crybaby french pleyer racket Richard make me to laf so hard!!! He so slow and think everybady so scare becase he look at pleyer with big angry eyes. Hahahhaha! Oh I so scare Racket! You look to me with big mad eyes! I go hide now and you make goals meny time wile I hide. Screw you Racket! Nobady will remember your name in three weeks!!!"

Spring 1956 - Commentor moeman makes his first appearance, and immediately becomes a blog favourite with his clever song parodies. His first one starts:

One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock Rocket,
Five, six, seven o'clock, eight o'clock Rocket.
Nine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock Rocket,
We're gonna Rocket around the rink tonight.

Put your C-H on and join me hon',
We'll have some fun when the Rocket scores one.

We're gonna Rocket around the rink tonight,
We're gonna Rock-rock-rocket, 'till broad daylight,
We're gonna Rocket around the rink tonight.

When the Rocket scores two, three and four,
If our boys slow down we'll yell for more.

We're gonna Rocket around the rink tonight,
We're gonna Rock-rock-rocket, 'till broad daylight,
We're gonna Rocket around the rink tonight.

Buoyed by the support in parody form, Habs go on to win five straight Stanley Cups.

The 1960's - in tribute to the forgotten dynasty, FHF forgets to write.

September 1974 - HF10 is frustrated with his new namesake's third straight disappointing season, and offers the following take in our 1974-75 "René Levesque Le jour pure laine" preview:

"I've fucking had it with that floater Lafleur. Pollock seriously blew it by picking that glorified cherry-picker. Three fucking years of him mincing around the perimeter in that girlie helmet, averaging 28 goals a year? Meanwhile, Marcel Dionne goes second overall, already has a 90 point season, and Pollock just sits back and smiles while this pansy Lafleur does nothing. Dionne's gonna win multiple Cups with Detroit, mark my words, and Pollock's going to look dumb as Robert Stanfield's wage and price control ideas. Lafleur's career is gonna last as long as fucking disco. 130 goals in the QMJHL? Big fucking deal. Dionne scored his points in a real league playing with St. Catherines. Pollock needs to be fired for this shit."

February 23, 1985 - Patrick Roy makes his first appearance as a Hab. FHF goaltending expert Panger had this to say in the next day's game review:

"With a struggling Doug Soetart pullled, the Habs turnd to rookey goalie Patrick Roy last night. While he got teh win and didn't allow a goal, I'm reelly not happy with him. He's gangly-looking and dosn't fill the net. His anguls are all over the place. And this crazy butterfly style he was using just wont fly. I can see why they send him to the AHL after the game. The kid really doesn't have much of a fuchure, and I can't picture anyone ever having their blog handle named after him."

June 1989 - On the heels of the invention of a new software program called "Photoshop" by upstart company Adobe, GoldenGirl11 joins the FHF squad. She is immediately dubbed "Yoko" by several readers. But she quickly wins over the skeptical crowd with her ability to morph Lanny Macdonald's mustache onto 80's video babe Tawny Kitaen, thus cheering everyone up during the painful Stanley Cup loss to the Flames:


June 9, 1993 - Commentors L Dude, kevincrumbs and Boob Gainey are all arrested for looting tube socks during the second Stanley Cup riot in less than a decade. They are bailed out by LawyerGirl77, who amazes police officers at Station 23 not with her legal arguments but her ability to sing "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music in four different keys.

December 4, 2009 - Habs lose to the Bruins after 12 hours of pre-game ceremonies leaves the team drained of all energy and the ability to give a shit. Well, more so.

Here's to 100 more years of FHF!

Grab a delicious beverage, it's a Wings open thread and drinking game

So yesterday I had this whole thing planned about needing to get drunk tonight because the Habs sucked, making permanent some fine drinking game suggestions from the comments in Thursday's TMS and a couple of my own. Alas, our boys went out and shocked the world last night, turning a need to drown our sorrows into a glimmer of hope. Idea wasted.

But then I thought, fuck it, there are a million other reasons to get drunk! Some of my favourites for tonight's game include:

• Celebrate! Optimism! Delusions! Interesting fact about tonight's teams - Habs actually have more wins (11) than the Wings (10). We'll just ignore the number of losses part of their records;
  
• Habs are wearing their 1910 blue and white Leafs jerseys. You can pretend you're a Leaf fan and then you will really need to drown your sorrows;
• Habs are dropping like flies (Gomez is out). Soon all those "let's just have Hamilton play" jokes from last week may really be true;
• Puck Daddy's McSplooging on the Habs;
  
• Your girlfriend just left you;
• Saturday.

So at 7 PM from the Centre Bell (on a very slim CBC regional coverage), take your preferred 1910-era cocktail and drink as much as you want when:

-someone clears the puck over the glass
-a defensive turnover in our zone results in a Wings scoring chance
-The Urologist falls down on a PP
-Gui tries a wraparound
-Carey tries a reach around (around the net, you pervs)
-Pleks or Squid goes down with an injury (reach for the bottle)

For the RDS viewers
-BB says Guillaume
-BB says "j'ai pasd'problèmes avec ça"
-Joël flirts with someone rinkside

For the CBC viewers
-Bob Cole mispronounces a French-Canadian or Euro name
-Bob Cole does play-by-play of a play that happened, like, 10 seconds before
-Carbo tries to sound intelligent

Not-so-gratuitous Simpsons quotes to get this party started:
"Son, when you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get."
"Marge, I'm going to MOEmaN's. Send the kids to the neighbors, I'm coming back loaded."

Hockey Players Like to Make Love to Beautiful Women and Lose to the Pittsburgh Penguins : Pens 5 - Habs 4

It's hard to know where to begin. Another loss, "to build on". Somehow the coaching staff has found contentment in taking the positives out of an overall negative situation. Rumors have been coiling around the team like a venomous snake and have transformed a classy organization into tabloid fodder that would make the Brits proud.

It's easy to stir controversy when the team is losing. You feed off the negative energy and become far more receptive to the the angry tidal wave that fans and media set-off. When the team is winning, they become untouchables. You can snort coke off a lama's ass if you're at the top of the standings. Nobody wants to hear it, nobody wants their bubble to be burst.

Well, KA-fucking-BOOM!

Forget your bubbles, forget your fabled team, forget the honor, the legacy, the legend. Forget your Béliveaus, your 100 years, your 24 cups. What we have today at the Bell Centre is a round- the-clock circus. Shriners galore. The team should trade in the hockey helmet for the fez and start taming elephants instead of opposing goaltenders.

And it's embarrassing. Why does this team need to grab headlines for all the wrong reasons? Everything that is supposed to go down in history becomes marred by controversy. On an afternoon where the Habs are playing the league leading Bruins, THE  hated rival, love or hate those pajama jerseys, it was all leading up to something; something eventful, something to remember. Instead, that game turned out to be the reference point for the ensuing collapse. Kovalev was benched for the third, totally slighted before the very fans that were cheering his All-Star MVP honors a week before. 

The wheels came off at that point, and odd reports concerning player conduct started propelling the eager rumor mill, which only needs the faintest breath in Montreal to reach incredible momentum. The media took to this side of the story and went to town with it. 

Last night, Ron Fournier promised he would be staying in studio all night to ensure proper coverage of a story that would have a drastic impact on the city. He alluded to the fact that players may even be arrested on the tarmac as soon as the plane would land. 

What we have that passes as hard news is that Andrei Kostitsyn and his little brother Sergei are both horny young males, who may enjoy a drink or two or three or drugs and may like to hang around a "shady" guy. And this is supposed to become the headline of the year. You think Gotti may have had a drink or two with some high profiled athletes? Professional athletes shmooze with wise guys and this is what we use to stir the pot more?  

How naive does the media think the public is? A portion of the story does raise some eyebrows, like why "Shady guy" allegedly had financial data that belonged to the players in question. Is there a gambling controversy on the horizon? It's hard to tell, but this is not the kind of news that makes it to the front pages in Montreal. This is supposed to be old wives tale material that begins with, "I heard he slept with her and partied with them and drank this much and woke up naked in this park and got traded because of...."

Are we supposed to call the Kostitsyn party route news? How is stating the obvious news? Athletes party. they party hard. The sleep with beautiful women. They do it for free, they pay for it. The booze it up, they eat their filet mignon at night, and they have their pasta lunch and nap before games. So in the midst of this losing streak, all of this unnecessary attention to the most irrelevant gossip only serves to disassemble the entire image of a team that today looks like a blazing sinking ship.

You want news? This is news. As a result of last night's loss, the Habs are now just four points ahead of ninth place Carolina. That's all I want to hear about. Maxim Lapierre can bequeath his entire estate to a snail for all I care. Saku Koivu can tattoo a picture of Oprah on his ass.

Enough with this circus.