The Sedins, Free Skating at Fenway

 

When the Sedin brothers got drafted 2-3, it was a bit hokey.

As in, yes Mr. Burke, it would be neat if there was this pair of odd-looking Swedish brothers with crazy twin-sense that could dominate the league, but come on.  Tons of brothers have played in the NHL, and nobody got to call “we’re a package” before.  Lame.

A lot of Canucks fans, used to being dumped on by their team, figured they were too soft.  They started calling them “The Sedin Sisters” and all that stuff.  College kids were taking a shot every time one of them got knocked off the puck, and were needing their stomachs pumped by the third period.

Well, for those of you who hadn’t noticed yet, the investment has been seriously paying off.

Fans in Vanvouver definitely know by now, but is the rest of the league’s fan base aware?  Aware that these guys are in the leagues top 20 players, and there’s probably only a couple player-pairs on other teams you’d rather have?  They were scary good last night.  Again.  In the past, I’ve just said “scary” (read: appearance).  But they’d make me damn nervous if I was a defenseman and they had solid possession.  They certainly don’t need it long to score.

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 I just read Deadspin’s article about free skating at Fenway before the Winter Classic.

What a neat thing that the people putting on the game have done for the fans (the article is about how scalpers got the free tickets first and are selling them for human babies + a Kings ransom).

I just wanted to mention something about the skate, and it isn’t meant to take away from the intent of the promoters letting people skate – it’s a really nice solution actually.

I’ve gotta believe they’re having people out there skating, because (not sure if this is common knowledge) new ice is awful.

Playing professional hockey means playing in a big buildings, which also tend to host concerts, basketball games, conventions and all that other jazz.  For the most part, they’re able to just lay boards over the ice and make that the floor, but occasionally you’ll play somewhere that they just put the ice back in.

ITS HORRIBLE.

The ice comes up in big chunks, the puck slides like it does on a driveway, and it feels like the rink is uphill in every direction.

Only once it gets carved up, flooded, hacked apart, flooded, scarred and healed does it function like a normal sheet, which, I’m sure, is why the promoters have the rink in early and are “letting” locals have a free skate on it.  Well played, good sirs.

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Congrats to Michael Vick for winning the Eagles award for commitment to the principles of sportsmanship and courageppppfffffffffffff!!!  Haha, sorry, I almost kept it together there.

He really won that award though. 

Commitment to sportsmanship and courage, or to not breaking parole and paying off his debts?  Yep, kids, there goes a shining example of how to do it right.

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Here are some of my thoughts on shot blockers.  Oh, and check back tomorrow for an extra special Christmas edition!  Santa is guest blogging!  Or Jesus might – still waiting to hear back from his PR guy.

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Thats all for today folks.  Happy holiday shopping.  I’m gonna go buy my fiance a knife set, because it’s the easiest present you can wield to make the line shuffle left… OR ELSE.

A Links Course

 

I’m not quite in the frame of mind necessary to be simultaneously insightful and sarcastic as I usually try to be when I write.  Without going too far into detail, and without being too much of a Debbie Downer, I’ll just say that I almost lost my brother last night (who’s also my best friend and best-man-to-be).  He’s apparently on the mend though.  If you wanna know more about Jeff, here’s his personal site.

So, what you get instead, is Bourne’s Blog’s version of a clip-show.  A bunch of links to stuff I’ve written recently, or just feel like linking to.  Hope you enjoy:

 

 

1)  Personal travel stories I gathered in quote form from six current/past NHLers – Dale Hawerchuk, Josh Gorges, Chris Higgins, Brett McLean, Eric Nystrom and Bryan Trottier.  Personal Travel Stories

2) For Yahoo! Sports hockey blogger “Puck Daddy”, I contributed Five Reasons I Love Hockey.

3) An email interview I did for Kuklas’s Corner’s Patrick Hoffman a few weeks back – If you can tolerate a couple uninteresting answers to start, it gets a little better. An Interview About Myself… and the NHL

4) An article I wrote a few weeks back about Trevor Smith being a step away from Islanders-ready (and if you ask me, I’d swap him out with a person they think is ready right now). Trevor Smith

The Start of Everything Great

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Ahhh Monday, October 5th – the start of everything great.

Great:   This week kicks off the start of the 2009 – 2010 NHL season, and the excitment in North America is at it’s highest level in years.  08-09 saw the league make great strides towards regaining national interest, and this season got out of the gates even quicker than the one past.  It’s year five of the channel Versus’ NHL coverage, and though they do a slightly worse job of covering it than the Detroit Lions defense does of covering anything, it’s still a positive sign that this year’s opening day game had the highest ratings they’ve ever had by a run-away. 

Welcome back NHL season, and a welcome to Bourne’s fantasy hockey dominance – my guys have 12 points already, and my goalies have an average save percentage of like  .952!  …wait… what??  I’m losing with those stats?  Someone must have created a stupid league.

Also great: The NFL season just finished it’s fourth week, and we’re finally getting into the heart of the year.  My Jets are 3-1, which, despite a Mark Sanchez implosion last game, is the type of start any team would happily accept.  Good stuff from Gang Green.

Also great: The NBA season starts soon.  Not that I care all that much, but I like watching Lebron dunk on fools like the league is playing on Fischer-Price hoops.  I like the phrase ”posterize” (the act of dunking so hard on someone that they become the guy getting dunked-on in the poster on the wall of a kid’s room), and I like buzzer-beaters.  But really, it’s about Lebron (and the Cavs awesome team chemistry).  He’s like Tiger Woods – he makes an otherwise barely interesting sport mandatory to watch when he’s involved. 

Also great: My lady-friend and I are moving into our first place on Thursday.  Well, the first one we’re trading our own money to stay in, anyways.  As the Phoenix residents have explained, we’ve now entered the second six-month season, simply known here as “bragging”.  88, blue and clear here today.  How’s things Alaska?  Boston?  (Sorry, I had to).

Also great: 46″ Sharp Aquos, in the box, waiting to be opened.  Next topic.

Also great: Now that I got my Negative Nancy article out of my system (the firestorm-inducing piece in the Arizona Republic), I have a bunch of positive-ish columns coming out this week.  I’ll be linking to them here, because I’m not certain I’ll have time to blog later this week with the move and all.  The article’s title will become a link the second they become available around the ‘net.

Monday: HockeyPrimetime.com – The Last Two Cents For Fleury

Tuesday: USA Today – A New Season Begins

Wednesday: The Hockey News – Life After Hockey

Whenever Botta Wants: Islanders Point Blank – Trevor Smith

Two more quick things:

One: Give HockeyPrimetime a thorough check-out in the coming weeks.  They’re focused on providing quality original content, while amalagamating some of the best hockey stuff from around the ‘net.  They have radio shows in the works, and they built this site.  Hence, I’m a fan.

Two: If I may, I’d recommend reading the pieces for USA Today and The Hockey News.  The USA Today piece is a nice, light piece on how the start of the season feels, right before the marathon season begins.  If you like the piece, please, let them know, since they took the (massive) risk in hiring me.  The Hockey News piece is an article that stands in stark contrast to the USA Today one, but is strong in it’s own, different way.  It carries a lot of my own honest emotion about leaving the game, and was theraputic to write.

I hope you enjoy them all, and most of all, enjoy this hockey season.  Islanders, for the Cup! (enjoy the money I lost on that bet, Vegas…)

Take Your Ball and Go Home, Jim

 

Still in my relative infancy as a writer, I’ve been encountering a frequent problem:

How can I write honestly and accurately about NHL news, when the players in question are not only playing like dogs and making poor decisions, but personal friends?

How can I sit down and write something about Dany Heatley conducting himself in a less-than-professional manner this summer, something that could show up in USA Today, when I know and like him?  What if he reads it?

Will I ever get another genuine comment?  Am I a leper next summer in Kelowna?  I don’t want to start alienating people.

The solution, thus far, has been to not touch those topics, but it’s getting increasingly hard to do that as writing has morphed into an actual job.

I’m still feeling out the boundries, but I’ve started getting more confident in my ability to give opinions without coming off too snide.

The good news? 

I’ve never met, let alone seen, Jim Balsillie.  And you know what I think he should do?  Take his ball and go home.  That link will take you to Hockey Primetime.com, where I explain his current situation a little better.

A Tear, A Curse, and a Link

 

I’ve got this weird soft spot for sports.  Like, I could watch a four hour documentary on blind people curing baby tigers with cerebral palsy and not flinch, but the second somebody is involved in some impressive sports feat, I tear up.

Mark Buerhle pitched a perfect game yesterday, that included a wall-scaling catch from his replacement center fielder, who was just chucked into the game to be a defensive specialist.  Nice call by Ozzie Guillen on that one.

Anyways.  Congrats to Mark Buerhle on accomplishing such an unbelievable feat, and receiving a phone call from the freaking president for it.  That’s the part that got me.  It was just… it was… so special… siiigghhh…

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So, I try to keep curses out of my writing as much as possible, because I hope to someday do this for a living, and it’s generally frowned upon by reputable newspapers.  But, in order to keep it sounding conversational, I tend to slip the odd curse in, because, um, I slip the odd curse in in conversation.

Regardless of your stance on that, let this serve as a little disclaimer.  The following picture contains a well placed f-bomb, and I love it.

 

 

 

I love that somehow my blog in the NHL off-season has become the chuckle-hut, and people continue to send me hilarious stuff to include in the blog.  You’re really makin’ my job easy.  Keep ‘em comin’!

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In other news, the fires in Kelowna have subsided.  Thanks for all the well wishes.  We had a little scare that our beautiful resort was about to be the Okanagan’s biggest bonfire, but she was saved!  The camp is ready to go as planned, and thanks to the fire, we even got a couple nice room upgrades.  Take a look at this picture taken from the lake that shows how close we were to losing The Cove:

 

Phew.  It just barely made it.

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As for a little real sports writing, my take on how the drafting of John Tavares will help Kyle Okposo out will probably be up in the next hour or so at www.hockeyprimetime.com.  Check it outtttt.

Fringe Sports

 

At last, the CFL season has started.  Time for some serious coverage.

Aaaaaaaahhh, just kidding!

You lucked out this time readers.  It’s one of the very few sports I can’t quite get into (see also: any league that starts in “W”).  When I do follow, I claim to be a fan of the Lions and Roughriders, which means that every year I have a 25% chance of a favourite team winning the Grey Cup (which, I believe, is slightly better than the Jets chances most years). 

The league was way better when it was a nine team league and two of them had the same name (Roughriders).  That wasn’t embarrassing at all.  Nope.  I see no problem there.

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While I’m on sports that I’m a fringe follower of, let me touch on tennis quick:

 As per a recent message I got from a reader: are we all taking the greatness of Roger Federer for granted?  It may not be the case worldwide, but I know in North America Federer isn’t held in nearly as high esteem as Tiger Woods, despite the fact that his showing at this years Wimbledon (especially the final) was simply breathtaking.

I still don’t care to watch every point of a quarter-final match against Madeup Randomguy (where I would watch Tiger Woods mini golf against his kids), but it’s probably time I at least mention the greatest tennis player of all time.  So ya…  Roger Federer - congrats on that.

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By the way, my first contribution to Hockey Primetime’s temporary site (www.hockeyprimetime.com) is up - a little analysis of who I thought gained and who lost in this years free agent flurry (aren’t you sick of the word “frenzy” after “free agent”?).  Check it out (or I’ll kill you. Seriously.)

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 Last but not least… I inverted a small bird.  Clunked ‘em with my car.

Can we please have an open discussion about that stupid game birds play, where they fly out in front of your car, at car height, from ditch to ditch, at the last second?

I’m convinced that the fly-by game is like doing drugs for birds.  I bet its such an adrenalin rush.  And you know they aren’t just trying to get to the other side.  They can fly.  Height is a non-issue.

The first bird won the game, got his fix, and scared me.  The second bird was clearly trying to impress his friends by taking a big hit (getting especially close) and didn’t even make it to the far side of my car.  A big hit, indeed.

Clunk.

Overdose.

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*Footnote: If you want your time chewed to pieces like mine, check out www.textsfromlastnight.com (heavy parental advisory on the content, it’s offensive in every way possible, and hilarious).