The Morning Skate for Wednesday, August 8th

Bullet points for what you missed while dreaming of the Carey Price era...

• Carbo, The Flower, and Vinnie Damphousse are totally stoked the Breezer is coming. That makes three of us.

The August nights are getting cooler kids. Training camp is around the corner.

Another U.S. South Team Sold; Balls-Silly Nowhere To Be Found

Keep dreaming Hamilton and Kansas City. Looks like another Southern team ain't going nowhere. The Tampa Bay Lightning have been bought by a group which is led by former Florida Panthers coach Doug MacLean. Given they also bought the rights to the arena and surrounding properties, you can bet the team is staying put. Tampa actually has good attendance, like 20,000 per game, so for sure they are not moving.

OK, which Southern team is next in line?

The Morning Skate for Tuesday, August 7th

Bullet points for what you missed while having nightmares of an army of face-painted David Puddys...

• West-coast correspondent Panger took out his frustrations from his 13-hour United Airlines disaster on Bettman. Scroll down to the next post for one of the best rants on FHF yet.

Coming up later today, in-depth analysis of Jiggy's sports hernia surgery that will make you cringe like you've never cringed before (men only).

Panger Rant: Fuck the Fans

The Preds look like they’re staying put, a least for this season until they move to another unviable and ridiculous U.S. destination, most likely Kansas City to become the Born Again Scouts. If not K.C., then Las Vegas - I would make another joke about this, but Adam Proteau beat me to the punch. And Balls-silly (along with Hamilton and really all Canadian fans) gets bent over the NHL’s knee again, for the second time in 6 months. How can Canadian fans come to any other conclusion than Bettman is desperate to keep another franchise out of Canada? He’s already killed two Canadian teams. Plus he managed to have three teams into SoCal, two in Florida and only one in Quebec. Gary, please explain this to me. Right, you’re the Devil. No, that’s giving the little man too much credit…he’s Satan’s Little Helper.

Question: how can Preds' owner Craig Leopold (but really, Satan’s Little Helper) get away with screwing Balls-silly like this? I’m no lawyer (oh, wait…) but isn’t there some sort of anti-trust law that prevents this from happening? Leopold is saying all the legally correct things in the press - no solid offer blah blah blah - but isn’t it obvious that the NHL is blackballing Balls-silly? He made a much higher offer ($60mill will buy Mr. Leopold a lot more of whatever uber-rich assholes probably already have) and had some kind of agreement in place. Although the fact he hasn’t unleashed a Mr. Burns-like battalion of law-smiths may be an indication that I’m completely wrong. I’m sure HF33 can explain this to me.

Legal issues aside, does Satan’s Little Helper really hate the idea of another Canadian team, or does he fear that Balls-silly would become the Mark Cuban of the NHL? The history of SLH’s reign has been to tighten his grip on the NHL’s owners, so there is every indication he bears the main responsibility for keeping Balls-silly out of the NHL. What scares Satan’s Little Helper more, Balls-silly almost certainly bringing whatever NHL team he gets his crackberry-free hand on to Canada, or a maverick owner who has already demonstrated that he won’t play nice and bend over for Bettman? Balls-silly probably earned the second half of our half-assed moniker when he put tickets on sale in Hamilton before he had Leo’s name on the bottom line, but in so doing he has made it clear that he will not toe the NHL party line. And don’t think SLH didn’t take that as a slap to the pitchfork.

This raises an even more fundamental question to all hockey fans, although obviously FHF is not breaking new ground by posing the question: what the f-c-u-k was the lockout for? Increasingly more legit media-types are questioning whether SLH, the lockout’s champion of small market teams, is revealing a more fundamental preoccupation: the almighty dollar. And we’re not even going to get into sky-rocketing salaries here; as I said, that theme has already nearly been beaten to death.

It’s clear that Satan’s Little Helper and his cronies believe there is more growth (read: greenbacks) in trying to sell the game in hockey backwaters rather than in guaranteed hockey markets. While this may actually make some economic sense - how much more money can you squeeze out of an already hockey saturated market? - but didn’t Bettman say that the lockout was ultimately for the fans i.e. to achieve competitive balance, reining in players salaries and, by implied extension, ticket costs? Then again, what are Canadian fans going to do? Stop going to games? Right. Satan’s Little Helper can effectively fuck Canadian fans and all his has to worry about is some piss-ant blogger calling him names.

Or maybe he knows Balls-silly has demonstrated - twice - that he will do anything, and more importantly pay anything - to get his hands on an NHL franchise. There has already -shudder - been talk of further expansion, so maybe Satan’s Little Helper is just posturing to get $250Mill or so out of Balls-silly for a crappy expansion team. Nothing would make tight wad owners like Jeremy Jacobs and Bill Wirtz happier - except stealing candy from babies, of course Hence SLH's power: he makes uber-rich owners richer.

Maybe there’s a reason NHL owner’s are lining up bend way down to kiss SLH’s ass after all. And, whatever Satan's Little Helper's main motivation, it seems clear that he and the owners don't give a rat's ass about the fans - as long as they've already paid for their tickets.

Bowman to Leafs: "No, Seriously, Fuck Off"

As we wrote way back on June 26th, Scotty Bowman has no interest in joining the Laffs. After reports surfaced over the weekend that he was about to become President of the 1967'ers, Bowman sent off an email to TSN telling them it was total bullshit.

The important part of the story here, besides my eternal happiness, is the use of email by Mr. Bowman. They always say Scotty's best skill is being able to adapt to the times; there's your proof.

Habs Owner Now a Good 'ol Boy of NASCAR

George Gillett's mission of taking over the Sports Universe rolls on. The Habs, Liverpool FC, and now Gillett Evernham Motorsports in NASCAR. All that excitement over the race in Montreal this past weekend must have gotten to his head. The team has 3 teams in Nextel Cup, one in Busch Series and other minor teams as well.

I for one have been happy with him as an owner. You don't hear anything about him, and to me that's a good thing. So grab a pinch of Skoal, a Bud Light, some 40W oil, a Confederate flag and your semi-attractive cousin and toast the acquisition.

The Morning Skate for Monday, August 6th

Bullet points for what you missed while having nightmares of the California Golden Seals unis...

• The Morning Skate is still hungover from the weekend bachelor party of Fifth Hab Fan Mike. Another quality Saturday evening at Le Faucon Bleu in St-Jovite. The best strip club in the Laurentians has slipped a bit in the last year or two, but still didn't disappoint. Special thanks to Martine the really fun brunette for making the evening special.

We'll get back to hockey as soon as our head clears...

I've returned in time for this???

After dealing with United Airlines of Incompetency and two flight delays that resulted in an 13 hour trip from the Bermuda Triangle of hockey news, Orange County, I arrive home only to find that the Habs have repatriated the most reviled player in recent Habs memory? The "player" who made Baron Von Pylon look like the ghost of Larry Robinson? Please tell me I'm still asleep in row 4B. Or that the plane crashed and I'm in H-E-double hockey sticks. You know, the place where Cristobal Huet and/or Carey Price and/or Jaroslav Halak and/or Cedric Desjardins will be every third defensive shift this winter.

More tomorrow (well, later today given it's 2:53 am MDT, fucking United) when I can absorb this atrocity, try to understand why the Hockey gods hate me so very, very much and analyse all the other goings-on in my absence.

Thanks For Ruining Our Weekend, Bob

Well it's official. The Breezer has signed and will be in a Habs uni once again.

HF33 and I have such a great weekend planned. We are off to the wilds of the Laurentian mountains north of Montreal for the bachelour party of "fifth Hab fan" Mike. Drinking, BBQ'ing copious amounts of meat, drinking, and of course, strippers. The perfect weekend. Now Gainey has gone and ruined it all by signing the Breezer, undoubtedly forcing the topic of discussion all weekend to this nightmare.

RDS is reporting that the deal is worth 700k, with an additional 700k in bonuses available. Bonuses for what? Limiting the number of players skating by him to 3 per game? Keeping his plus/minus above minus 40???

As we have mentioned before, this is a mixed blessing for the FHF. Sure, he sucks, but at least now we have comedy material for the whole season.

But our weekend is still ruined. F U Bob. The FHF mantra of "Trust Bob" is being stretched to the limit here.

Je Me Souviens - The '86 Stanley Cup Riot

Je me souviens is the newest FHF feature of crappy filler while we wait until the fucking season starts. The title says it all. If you don't know what it means, read a license plate. Or go use The Google.

I have been "lucky" enough to have participated in the 3 major riots in Montreal over the last 25 years - the Stanley Cup Riot of 1993, the Guns 'n Roses riot of I was too stoned to remember what year it was, and the subject matter of this post, which was the "best" (read: craziest) of the 3.

That whole 1986 playoff run was magical, and insane at the same time. To give the riot some context, let's try to summarize those playoffs and the season with some bullet points:

• 20-year old Patrick Roy, in his rookie season, became St. Patrick by taking over as starter, winning a bunch of games to close the season, then having a 1.92 GAA in the playoffs and winning the Conn Smythe;
• That whole team was a bizarre mix of leftover 1970's stars like Bob and Big Bird, and 8 rookies, and their regular season had been mediocre - 40-33-7;
• The Oilers were eliminated in the playoffs by Steve Smith scoring into his own net off the back of Grant Fuhr's legs. Remember, the Oilers should have been in the Finals; 2-time defending champs, they had won the first-ever Presidents' Trophy and The Great One had a record 215 points (that number still freaks me out);
  
• The Habs had to beat a pesky Hartford Whalers team in the Adams Final, in OT in Game 7;
• Rookie Claude Lemieux played like Mario, scoring 10 post-season goals, while at the same time beginning to earn his rep as a shit-disturber;
• The shit-disturbing led to this at the end of Game 4 of the Finals:

So that's the mentality we were dealing with. The whole city was in a Claude Lemieux - John Kordic (RIP) insanity.

I can picture where I was as I watched the final game - the basement of Bram Something-or-other's house in The Luc (Montreal suburb for you out of towners). As the game ended, about 15 or so of us who were there sort of moved toward the TV screen for some reason, then exploded when the horn sounded. Then someone said, "let's drive downtown and celebrate! It's gonna be wild down there." We had no idea.

We end up in the area of Ste-Catherine Street and Crescent, and from there the whole night becomes a series of images in my mind. First, excited celebratory screaming and hollering and high-fiving. It was amazing. Then, as the hours wore on, the first sounds of glass breaking. Then, the first images of fires burning. Then the fire engines showing up. Then the crowd literally commandeering the fire engines. Then the crowd building a massive bonfire right in the middle of the street - the kind of fire that lights up the sky. Then a bunch of idiots pushing a car towards the bonfire, me understanding the chemistry of explosions, and running the other way. Then people carrying looted clothes. While I did not loot, I am embarrassed to say I did climb up on a fire truck and partied on top of it. Young and stupid (I was 17), or at least part of the mob mentality.

The riot dragged on like this, fires and looting and dancing on fire trucks for as long as I can remember. There was no sign of any cops anywhere. It was weird - the mob really controlled the street. By about 4 or 5 AM everyone was just tired of rioting - that's the only reason it stopped.

The denouement takes place at Dorval Airport, where the mob had moved to welcome home our heroes, armed with freshly-looted tube socks. I vividly recall the mob taking over the terminal, sleeping on the luggage carousels as we waited for the flight. Never saw the Habs come in, I am not sure why. Dragged my ass home at about 10 AM to finally face my mom and her questions as to where the fuck I was all night.

I was at the riot, Mom. In 20 years it'll be a great story.