coming to you live from dialup internet in PEI.

Saga #2 ends. Saga #1 continues.

Here’s the biggest surprise of 2008. Brian Burke is the new General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. (Can you feel the sarcasm?)

Now, since this is such a big surprise, nobody’s been really talking about it for months and months. This, of course, means every possible angle of his tenure has not been talked about by every sports analyst in the country.

So this all means that I have a lot to say about this.

It's funny, saga #2 has resolved itself and yet Saga #1 is still going. Mats Sundin “says” he’ll be back in December. (Tomorrow is December). But he also said he’d make a decision by Aug 1. Soooo, don’t hold your breath.



Favourite quote of the week:

“The opposition has every right to bring down the government. But Stephane Dion has no right to take power without going to the people.”

Is Stephen Harper high? The opposition outnumbers the Conservatives.

In fact, I would say that whoever the coalition chooses to lead, they will have more of a right to govern than Stephen Harper. The majority of the country actually voted against him.

Finally some juicy drama out of Ottawa.

Obama.

Excuse me while I don't blog about hockey for yet another day.

But last night was history.

It's the polar opposite feeling to the one four years ago.

I spent my night twisting through Halifax's downtown, checking out different election parties for a story.

This is one of those things that people will remember where they were when Barack Obama became the President.

I was standing in the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame. Sidney Crosby's dryer was covered in empty drink glasses. There was a giant projection screen showing the results.

And I was amongst the black community in Halifax.

It was amazing.

Truly amazing.

They were so happy, joyful, tearful, jubilant.... relieved.

I had people telling me, that they never thought they'd see it happen in their lifetime.

People were in tears, and hugging, and just plain screaming. I had goosebumps.

So I leave you today with the story that came from that:

The election that lasted four years.

will finally be over tomorrow.
Here's my piece that aired on CKDU today at 5 p.m.

Palin injures Manny Legace.

Okay. Okay. She didn't injure him directly. But he did trip over her red carpet and suffered a "lower body injury". Palin, her husband, and entire hoard of children dropped the ceremonial puck at the game in St. Louis tonight.

Anyway T-10 days until the election. If there is any type of big dude with a beard in the sky... hopefully we won't have to deal with her much longer.


Now I'm the Magician.

Now that i've got that ridiculous story out of the way, I'm going to apologize for my long absence from the world of blogging nerd-dom (how do you spell that?). This was my first week in radio workshop at school. So there was a bit of a learning curve. You can check out past shows. Ok, it's not a great excuse. So there was this pack of wild dogs....


Ovechkin.

Last year's MVP is off to a super-slow start that has people wondering what's happened to the league's top player. The other day a wise person said, "stay off the drugs, stay on the booze."

Have some beer, man. I always do my best work half in the bag. Maybe it'll break your curse!


Duthie-isms

Being away for so long has also meant we're way behind on duthie-isms. We're basically up to our ears in them right now. I don't know why I say we, as if there's a crack team of journalists putting together this blog. It's just me. One day... one day. ummm, enjoy:

"When Torts eats pizza, he just looks so happy. Hard to believe it's the same guy whose post game soundbites have more beeps than a Roadrunner cartoon."

"“Hey Wilson, you need to turn those guys into a bunch of Wendel Clarks’!” Wilson, who majored in Sarcasm at University, responded: “Wendel was good, but how many Cups did he win?”"

"Hey, Sean Avery. Got a minute? Really sorry to bother you…hate to be a nuisance…but if it’s not too much of an inconvenience…I was just wondering if you might possibly…SHUTUP!

"It would provide me great pleasure if rookie Toronto rookie defenseman Luke Schenn married former world champion figure skater Lu Chen. Just say it aloud a couple of times. It’s endless fun for all ages."

Election hangover.

Well our election is done, and boy was it useless.


Let's back it up 8 weeks or so.

"I do think it's fair to say that in the past few months, and particularly over the summer, we have seen increasing signs that this Parliament is really not working very well anymore, it's becoming increasingly dysfunctional," said Prime Minister Stephen Harper on August 14.

So, this is going to be a bit of an outrageous question. It's really crazy guys... really really wacky. I doubt anyone else has the opinion. What the shit is different? What is stopping this new parliament from being "dysfunctional".

Let's not even get into the fact that Stephen Harper was the only person in Canada who thought that the last parliament was dysfunctional. But if it was dysfunctional before, how will it be any different now. It's still a Conservative minority, there's just a few small difference in numbers. I would almost say the opposite.

If anything I think this is going to cause more problems. Brand new cabinet ministers. Remember how good an environment minister Rona Ambrose was?

Ok. I'll be alright.


In hockey news, an update on the cause of Alexei Cherepanov's death, story from the Canadian Press is below:

MOSCOW - Russian hockey player Alexei Cherepanov, who collapsed and died during a game, had heart problems and probably should not have been allowed to play, a regional investigator suggested Tuesday.

Yulia Zhukova said Cherepanov, who died Monday playing for Avangard Omsk in a Continental Hockey League game outside of Moscow, apparently had chronic ischemia - a medical condition that occurs when the heart or other organs do not get enough blood.

"Checks will be conducted to clarify, in particular, why the sportsman with such an illness went onto the ice," Zhukova said.

Cherepanov's agent, however, said NHL tests showed him to be healthy.

A lawmaker suggested that the 19-year-old first-round draft pick for the New York Rangers may have died due to negligence on the part of paramedics.

Pavel Krasheninnikov, who sits on the Russian Hockey Federation's supervisory council and is a member of the State Duma, said there was no ambulance on duty at the Moscow region arena where Cherepanov was playing.

He also asserted emergency workers took too long to respond and didn't have a defibrillator - a medical machine that shocks the heart. It was unclear how much time it took paramedics to respond.

"There are elements of negligence here," Krasheninnikov said.

Vladimir Shalayev, the managing director for the newly formed Russian league, said a preliminary autopsy showed Cherepanov had a "hypertrophied heart."

"It has nothing to do with yesterday's game, there were absolutely no injuries," Shalayev said in televised comments. "He was not injured during this game."

Cherepanov's agent, Jay Grossman, said the player had tests at the NHL combine before last year's draft that didn't reveal any heart problems. He has been told that players in the Russian league receive regular heart and blood tests, similar to those given in the NHL.

The incident caught the attention of a high-level government meeting, chaired by President Dmitry Medvedev, to discuss how to revitalize Russia's deep sporting traditions.

"A person should not be allowed to take part in competition if he has ischemic heart disease," Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said. "This means that in fact there is no preliminary health control and monitoring. And this system should be very well-defined."

Former Rangers captain Jaromir Jagr played a shift with Cherepanov and was talking to him on the bench shortly after they left the ice. Cherepanov then suddenly collapsed, according to a Rangers spokesman who talked to Jagr.

There was no collision that preceded the collapse, the spokesman said.

Amateur video taken at the match showed players and coaches gathered around the Avangard bench and then carrying a player who appeared to be Cherepanov.

Cherepanov scored the first goal Monday and had eight goals in 15 games this season, his third with Avangard Omsk.

"It was really kind of a surreal thing for the players," Grossman told The Associated Press. "He was skating in on a 2-on-1 with Jaromir and then they came back to the bench. Jaromir was talking to him and he told him he has to score on that play. The next thing you know, he collapsed.

"(Jagr) went with him into the dressing room area and they revived him for some time and then he didn't make it," he said.

The 1970 Canadian Federal Election.

There's something wrong here... I didn't realize it was winter... or 1970. I totally missed out on New Years, must've slipped my mind. Is Pierre Trudeau running? Where am I?

Evil Reptilian kitten eater?

This has nothing to do with hockey, but I think it's funny.

Roadie anyone?

Alberta became the host of the 2012 World Junior Champions on Thursday. Calgary and Edmonton will split the hosting duties.

“This is an exciting day for hockey fans in Alberta and throughout Canada," said Hockey Canada president and CEO Bob Nicholson. "The bid group from Alberta put forward a great plan, and the site selection committee was particularly impressed with the bid's focus on making tickets affordable for all hockey fans.”

The announcement completes what looks like a four-year string a fantastic roadies for Canadians (especially now that Zoom airlines has ceased taking us all across the Atlantic for those European tournies). Coming up in December, Ottawa will host the tournament. We'll roll over to the land of living skies (Saskatchewan) for the 2010 tournament, with the games split between Regina and Saskatoon. Then the United States hosts in 2011, but are still undecided of which city will host, but it has been narrowed to Buffalo, Minneapolis or Grand Forks (I assume it will either be Buffalo or Minneapolis, since Grand Forks was the last American city to host).


And in something completely non-hockey related (except maybe for the fact that Ken Dryden is an Member of Parliament and Prime Minister Stephen Harper is writing a book on hockey)...

It looks like Canadians will be heading to the election polls in October. Harper recently called the Parliament "dysfunctional" despite the fact that they haven't been sitting in quite some time...and the fact that most of the dysfunctionality (is that a word?) came from the Conservatives (see: Maxime Bernier)... but who's nitpicking?