Brouhaha in Boiler Hall

The high school in which I served most of my 25 year stretch was the largest in the Greywater School Board. The building had a signature architectural feature, a long hallway with a south-facing window wall overlooking a sun-dappled courtyard on one side, and the boiler room and sundry mechanical bits on the other. 

Boiler Hall was colloquially known as Perv Hall, as it was at one time a notorious venue for what we now call sexual harassment, formerly known as boys being boys. The boys habituating the hall were mostly the jock types, which included not only the usual suspects from the starting lineups of the football, basketball, and hockey squads, and their hangers-on, but also the elite junior hockey players who were only in town because they'd been drafted by the local Jr. A team.

The elite players certainly saw themselves as such, and carried on accordingly. This lead to friction with the locals, and particularly a sub-group of locals informally referred to as the "Shallow Lake Boys."

Shallow Lake is a hamlet roughly half-way between Owen Sound and Sauble Beach. It's not a college town or anything like that. It's pretty much all hard-working, hard-partying, dump-truck drivers and diesel mechanics, and the hard-working and hard-partying women who love them. It's the kind of place a caring dad spends years in the garage with his young son fixing up a 500 horse-power hotrod that'll be ready to go on Junior's 16th birthday.

The brainiacs running our Board figured the best strategy for educating our guest hockey players was to keep them together as a class, maybe on the theory that they'd bring out the best in one another. Alas, it doesn't work that way. Put twenty obnoxious and entitled elite male teens in a room together, and they don't bring out the best; it goes in the opposite direction. They get more obnoxious and more entitled, which I'm sure any seasoned educator can tell you.

 I was only favoured with "teaching" these wankers once, when their regular babysitter was away. I thought I'd take the opportunity to discuss with them the very real-life imperative to have a Plan B just in case your dreams of NHL stardom fail to come true.

Well! Did that ever piss them off!

With one exception, every single one of them absolutely knew they'd be raking in the millions sooner rather than later, so what's this shit this out-of-touch teacher is talking about?! 

That exception was Joel Ward. To the best of my recollection he's the only one out of that class who managed to make a decent career in the NHL. Most of the other guys faded out of hockey after a few years in the minor pros. When you're 29 years old and playing on the second line for the Mississippi Mud Hens for two hundred bucks a week and a free apartment, well, hopefully that's when they recalled my words of advice.

The tensions between the Shallow Lake Boys and the out-of-town Jr. A guys was building. It wasn't that both groups weren't equally vulgar in their sexual harassment, but in a high school setting these bullies were always backed up and cheered on by their tall blonde and generally very hot girlfriends. Over the course of the semester several of the girlfriends changed allegiances and became "Puck Bunnies." I think that was the straw...

While I missed the actual festivities, I heard many detailed accounts. A Shallow Lake girlfriend called a recently defected Puck Bunny a skank, a couple of would-be NHLers took exception, and, long story short, those elite athletes were given a good thrashing by the local boys.

Not too long after, the Board prioritized changing the culture in Perv Hall. The elite athletes were disbursed throughout the system instead of being grouped together. By the time I retired, Perv Hall was perv free, harassment free, and a safe place for even the geekiest and most nerdy of misfits.

I call that progress.

Washington Capitals star Joel Ward spoke out about racism in hockey years ago

It took one tweet from never-quite-made-it NHLer Akim Aliu to shine a light on racism in hockey.

Joel Ward actually had a half-decent career in the NHL. And while he was never a "star," he certainly had a starring moment in that Boston series.

Joel passed through Owen Sound as he was coming up, and I had occasion to chat with him now and then. Quite a well-rounded young man by my estimation.

There may be folks who want to dismiss Aliu as a case of sour grapes; he never quite made it, so he blames racism.

Joel made it, and here's what he was saying about racism in the NHL years ago.

https://www.nhl.com/news/washington-capitals-left-winger-joel-ward-deals-with-racist-tweet/c-629915


There's nothing new about racism in hockey.

On the other hand, hockey likely isn't any more racist than the society it's a part of.

Is there anything on Brendan Shanahan's resume that would suggest he is qualified to lead the Leafs?

I sure can't find it.

Great career as a player.

Pretty much a non-entity in management. Winning at international tourneys is not the same as winning in the NHL on a regular basis.

Ya, he put in his time at head office, but is that all that his Leafs sinecure is about?

And how about that so-called house cleaning...

It's been a blood-bath at Maple Leafs HQ over the past few days...

... but Kessel and Phaneuf are still on the payroll?

WTF???

Why incompetent front office "pukes" like Brian Burke will always have jobs in pro sports

The illustrious Brian Burke waxed wise on the state of media relations in the NHL the other day. Apparently it shouldn't be part of Phil Kessel's job to talk to media pukes on a regular basis.

If you recall, the Kessel trade was one of Burke's key moves when he was "rebuilding" the Leafs. Burkie seems to think that just because Kessel has been the top scorer on a Leafs team that's missed the playoffs for 8 out of the last 9 years,  his "team-building" skills have been exonerated!

Not so fast, Burkie!

Most of your critics who think they could do a better GM job than you do are probably right. Keeping a mediocre team mediocre isn't really a mark of management genius, is it?

Hell, I could do that!

And everybody knows that Burke's one and only Stanley ring had next to nothing to do with Burke.

But here's why Burke will not only survive, but thrive in the front office; certainly not with one particular team, but in general.

First of all, those years as Bettman's bumboy back in the '90's cemented his cred as an old boy insider.

Secondly, but just as important, the NHL is an entertainment franchise, and entertainment franchises need villains!

As any grade 9 drama teacher can tell you, there's no drama without villains, and the NHL needs its share of villains, on the ice, behind the bench, and in the front office.

So, inept as he may be as a GM, Burkie is doing a good job in his villain role. That's why I'm writing about him, and that's why you're reading about him.

Keep up the good work, ya old puke!

Canadians celebrate glorious triumph over lone gunman who failed to bring down state

I don't know about you, but I'm finding it all a bit much.

The facts; a troubled 32 year old Canadian drug addict, armed with an antique hunting rifle, murdered a Canadian soldier in cold blood, and then stormed into the parliament buildings, where he was dispatched to his reward by the very professional actions of the Sergeant-at-Arms, Kevin Vickers.

That's the story, and that's where it should stay.

Instead, we've got politicians of all stripes, and their media fans across the political spectrum, making this out to be some great victory of good over evil.

Here's what should matter. If Mike Bibeau had been given some psychiatric attention, which he was clearly looking for, this incident would never have happened. Instead, he gets all sorts of media attention after the fact, which will only encourage the next Bibeau who has exhausted all his options and wants to go out in a blaze of glory.

The politicians, especially the Harper gang, are milking this to the max. This was a terrorist attack, not the last suicide-by-cop chapter in the life of some desperate and isolated loser. Yes, we are canadastrong, we will not be cowed by terrorists...

And the ever-accommodating media are all over this frenzy of jingoism. Yesterday's CFL game between Ottawa and Montreal never matched the spectacle of the pre-game ceremony celebrating Canadian resolve in the face of terrorism. They even had the biggest Canadian flag in history available for the occasion! The televised OHL game between Kitchener and Owen Sound likewise paled in comparison to the pre-game tribute to our military.

Tonight's NHL game on the CBC was similarly preceded by a rousing tribute to the great Canadian spirit, as exemplified by the heroic actions of our courageous men and women in uniform, who so far as I can tell, made news this past week by getting run over by a car or being shot in the back.

And then Don Cherry gave over the entirety of Coach's Corner with more of the same, which was a disappointment to anybody who just wanted to watch the Leafs play the Bruins.

Clearly, this past week has been an emotional one... and just as clearly, Ottawa and her media acolytes are working over-time to manipulate those emotions...

LET'S TEACH THOSE ISLAMIC TERRORISTS A LESSON THEY'LL NEVER FORGET!!!

Bombs away...

The inevitable collapse of professional sports in America

If I were a betting man, I'd be going short on any pro sports entity in North America.

Big time sports entertainment depends on a viable middle class market to buy the seats.

We'll always have the TMZ fodder filling the court-side seats at the NBA finals, but what's happening in the rest of the arena?

Geriatric racist Donald Sterling should grab that two billions on offer and run for the hills, because in a few years an NBA franchise isn't going to worth more than a KFC franchise. Maybe less, because we gonna have to eat long after we give up on b'ball.

And seriously, where is the PGA gonna find its market in ten or twenty years? Have a good look at the crowd at Pinehurst this weekend. What do you see? Lots of middle-class middle-aged retired white folks. That's an endangered species.

Going forward, middle aged white folks are more likely to be clerking at the A&P than spending a week at a PGA event.

That's because the "job creators" that the entire Washington elite has been championing with tax breaks and government contracts for the last fifty years has stashed the breaks in offshore tax havens and created only min wage jobs with no benefits.

The folks who find themselves in those jobs don't find themselves at professional sporting events; NBA, NHL, PGA, or whatever.

One of the most visible manifestations of the dwindling market for big time sports is NASCAR. Watch a race these days and you'll see vast swaths of empty bleachers. Ten years ago all those bleachers were filled with paying customers.

All professional sporting leagues in North America were premised on a middle class market with disposable income.

Absent that, those professional sports leagues will soon be as dead as the middle class.

Struggling Bruins blow limp Leafs out of Boston Garden 8-0

Oops, I guess when a global finance conglomerate pays millions of dollars for naming rights to one of the most storied rinks in hockey, we should play along by calling it the "TD Garden".

No matter. The defending Stanley Cup champs have been struggling lately. Been a shade under .500 since December. It's got to the point where your Boston hockey-heads were beginning to doubt a playoff appearance, never mind another Stanley Cup final.

Contrast that to the story in Toronto. The Leafs were coming off a two game winning streak before tonight's game. Yup, two in a row is what they call a winning streak in Toronto.

Two in a row is all it takes to get the Toronto media types speculating about a Leaf's playoff run. As if!

Playoff speculation was crashed into the end boards by tonight's blowout. Nevermind 8-0; they were lucky it wasn't 12-0! Tim Thomas barely broke a sweat on the way to his shut-out.

So you have to wonder who Leaf GM Brian Burke is going to blame this fiasco on? Lately it's been the fans and the media. Together they make Burke's job the hardest front-office job in the NHL, according to Burke. They are unrelenting. You'd almost think they expect their team to show up in the playoffs after four years of Burke in the big chair.

Who can imagine such a thing?

How about those Leafs

The lame-ass Leafs proved again that they are indeed lame ass.

For some reason the Leafs brain trust believes that we'll keep paying for mediocrity forever. Hey, maybe they're right?!

After all, there's still a waiting list for the highest priced season tickets in the world of professional hockey.

But mostly, those season tickets have become a perverse status symbol. The deal among the mover and shaker crowd in Toronto is that you hold season tickets just to show that you can, and then you don't go to the games to show that you think the team sucks.

Excuse me, but how does sell-out after sell-out with thousands of seats empty give Leaf's management the message that they need to clean house? Shit, they'll happily play in an empty arena as long as all the seats are paid for!

The lame-ass Leafs just lost to the even lamer Canadiens.

At least the Canadiens have given their fans something to cheer about in the last 45 years.

Political propaganda has no place in professional sport

It was hockey night in Kandahar this evening.

Before the Leafs- Rangers match we were treated to a parade of Canadian Forces folks doing camera takes with the loved ones they had left behind when they embarked on their duty to defend us from the towel-headed evil-doers over in Afghanistan.

Do they even know that as they are taking their bows at the Air Canada Centre the big dogs at NATO/ISTAF are negotiating a peace agreement with the very Taliban they've been fighting for ten years?

I love hockey. I used to play the game, at a very minor level. I have watched Hockey Night in Canada since the early 60's.

I am disgusted with how the people who run the game today are happy to sell out to political interests.

Hockey Night in Canada is a sure-fire audience. It consistently has among the highest ratings in Canadian television. That is just too juicy a market for our politicians to resist.

Almost 160 Canadians made the ultimate sacrifice in our Afghan adventure. Thousands suffered life-altering injuries. We are now negotiating "peace" with the very people we went over there to remove from power.

Sorry folks, that's a war we lost.

Which doesn't slow down the politicians who want to wring a few votes out of it.

How about those Leafs?

With last night's well-deserved loss to the Jets, the Leafs have gone 0-3 since coach Ron Wilson went on the twitternet to boast about his contract extension.

That was a real head-scratcher. Who gets a contract extension as a reward for three years of failure? Seemed to be Brian Burkes way of telling the critics to go f*ck themselves.

Alas, Wilson is just a symptom of the leadership vacuum that permeates the Leafs both on the ice and in the front office. Brian Burke lucked into a Stanley Cup ring in Anaheim with a team he had virtually nothing to do with building. What's he managed to build in Toronto?

Phil Kessel was supposed to be the foundation of the new Leafs. While Kessel is finally having a decent year, he's not a leader, either on the ice or in the dressing room. Trade him while he's hot, and bring in somebody who can inspire the troops.

Sean Avery's available!

Leafs extend commitment to mediocrity

SI.com is reporting that the Toronto Maple Leafs have given Ron Wilson a contract extension.

Read and weep, Leaf Nation. Anybody who thought the recent sale of the Leafs by the Teachers Pension Plan was a sign of good things to come must be suicidal today. After all, you'd think that Rogers and Bell would have a vested interest in fielding a contender. All Teachers ever had an interest in is ROI. (That's return on investment for you Leaf fans who don't sit in the golds.)

Wilson is in the last year of a four year contract. His team has missed the playoffs under the first three years of his tutelage. He has a losing record overall.

And this is cause for a contract extension?

Assuming SI has its story straight, what this is, is more proof that it's the GM who needs to go.

Bill McCreary: referee extrordinaire

I was having a beer with Bill one day in the early '70s. In the back of my '69 GMC pickup. Had a cap on the back. Sort of a hunter type thing, although it wasn't insulated. But it gave you a bit of privacy when you were sitting on a side street in Guelph at two in the afternoon, drinking beer.

Had the old Chevy straight six. 250 cubes if I remember correctly. Not whiplash material. But enough to keep a mobile beer shack mobile.

So I was quizzing Bill about his decision to go into the referee business. He'd been having a reasonable junior career. Every junior hockey player in Canada thinks they're going to the NHL. Bill explains how he's probably not going to be a first round draft in the big show. Might have a few years as a third liner if he's lucky. On the other hand, a referee makes a decent dollar, and his career can last twenty years or more.

I thought he was nuts in the head. Turn your back on a chance to play in the bigs?

Like I said, that was the early '70s. It was another ten years before Bill refereed his first game in the NHL. He did his last one this year. Bill had it pegged right. The referee career has longer legs than the player career. Along the way he did more than a dozen Stanley Cup playoffs. Ref'd a couple of Olympics. Broke up a thousand brawls between the toughest NHL brawlers. Shared the ice with the brightest lights in hockey for the last quarter century.

Good call, Bill. But remember, you were wavering. It was me who said go for the referee gig.

You're welcome.