Sunday, January 29th...

1 - Today's Out-of-Town Scoreboard:

Tree 1 theDING 0 (1st Intermission)
Mother Goose 1 Internet Culture 1 (1st Intermission)
Writing Addiction 5 Master Chief 0 (3rd Period)

(This game is about to get ugly. The Master Chief himself said if they gave up one more goal the blood would flow.....that was when it was 4-0.....now it's 5-0.....back to you Bob...)

2 - Remeber all the Mickey Mouse jokes going around about the Anahiem Mighty Ducks? The best one I remember was when a mouse actually ran on to the ice at the Arrowhead Pond in Anahiem. No one threw it on the ice, it just ran out the gate during the intermission. Well, after an appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals, and a change of ownership, the Mighty Ducks are prepared to axe the final bond between the present team and Emilio Estevez's Disney Ducks. Are you sitting down? As of next season, the Mighty Ducks of Anahiem will become... the Ducks of Anahiem, or, more appropriately, the Anahiem Ducks. Anahiem fans took the news well (Quote from comments: 'We can only hope they get rid of the teal and purple too, top five worst jerseys ever.'). The new name doesn't roll of the tongue that well, but nobody said respectability was free.

3 - For all the talk about Dave Dickenson, Casey Printers, or Kerry Joseph coming to Saskatchewan, wouldn't Jeff Garcia look good in Green and White. Evidently The Leader-Post thinks so. It would be nice to be able to line-up across from Calgary and ask 'hey, how many Pro-Bowls has Burris been to?' The effects of failing to land Garcia are two-fold. For the Riders it means they will still be without a top-notch starting QB. For the Rider's fans it means their vocabulary will still be limited to 'Burris Sucks!' and 'Bring Back Joe '747' Adams!' The lone exception is the University Section, where they'll probably be talking trash with Ballsy (only Regina people will get that) or slurrying their request for another cold one.

4 - The champagne has been cracked, the cigar's have been lit, and the Prime Minister crowned, but the fat lady hasn't even started warming up her vocal cords: Election Investigation? For all I know this could be old news, but I havn't heard any follow up reports, so maybe they are investigating.

5 - Maybe there is no room for goons in the new NHL. According to www.hockeyfights.com the last five NHL scraps, as of 1:54 AM on January 29th were between:

Derek Boogaard (Wild) and Jody Shelly (Blue Jackets)
Oleg Tverdovsky (Hurricanes) and Marian Hossa (Thrashers)
Brian Willsie (Capitals) and Ryan Whitney (Penguins)
George Parros (Kings) and Scott Thornton (Sharks)
Marcus Nilson (Flames) and Karlis Skrastins (Avalanche)

Okay, so we've got a guy named Marian fighting a Russian who had to be rescued by his goalie in his only other pro fight four years ago. We've got a Swede (Nilson) taking on a Latvian (Skrastins, who by the way is one punishing hitter), and a guy (Whitney) who spent his pre-NHL days playing U.S. college hockey (where fighting is banned) taking on another guy (Willsie) who's only been in one other NHL fight, and failed to land a punch during the entire bout (he did manage to smack his opponent once with his stick though). There's no doubt that Boogaard vs. Shelly is a heavyweight tilt, but Parros and Thronton are cruisers at best. And that's over two and a half days worth of games. Maybe Mike Ulmer was right.

6 - Mario Lemieux Retires

Quote: "If I could play this game at a decent level, I'd come back and play."

I was on a plane heading from Amsterdam to Helsinki two years ago, having a nice chat with a middle aged man from Wisconsin who was born and raised in Turku (home of Saku Koivu and Kipper), moved to the U.S. and was flying back to Finland on business. As soon as he found out I was from Canada the conversation inevitably switched to hockey. Seeing as how I was from Canada, he couldn't possibly comprehend why I would cheer for an American team. My answer: Mario Lemieux. Since I was old enough to understand the game of hockey Lemieux and the Penguins have superceded national duty. Players have come and gone in Pittsburgh, but Lemieux has always been the man. He'll be forever remembered as the man who scored a goal on his first NHL shift, the man who put the puck between Ray Bourque's legs and fired it over Andy Moogs glove, the man who had the whole world thinking he was going to pass the puck to Larry Murphy, and instead burying it to win the 1987 Canada Cup, and the man who had the whole world thinking he was going to shoot before letting the puck slide between his legs to Paul Karyia in the 2002 Olympics. He stats will never compare with Gretzky's, but, then again, stats are for losers. Lemieux's hockey accomplishments will never reach the level of a scientist's, politician's, or general's, but for a young boy who grew up dreaming of playing on a line with Mario Lemieux, they're pretty flippin' amazing.

M.O.F.