So, under insurmountable pressure from the widespread blog community to "freakin post something already, we are sick of the stupid sink," I will succumb, and here goes.
So last week I got my Iron Ring. Wikipedia has informed me that the rumour I've been spreading that the rings were originally made from a collapsed bridge, is not true. Ah well, I will continue to spread it anyways.
So last week was also reading week. Or reading "two days" as us poor engineers have been forced to call it. Rose and I spent the week laying around doing nothing. It was great. Nothing included watching Olympics all day, and Seinfeld all night. The hockey team aside, it was very exciting to watch.
Speaking of the hockey team, well... everyone has their own opinion. Who shall we blame.... hmm let's see. Most people blame Gretzky, which apparently he is willing to take. The players however, blame themselves. Could blame the refereeing. Personally, I'd like to blame the system. We've all placed too much stock in this tournament. How can you expect the best team to prevail in a tournament of single game decisions? I mean, sure the World Cup of Soccer is a tournament of single game matchups, but then soccer is weird that way. And NFL and CFL, well they don't count. I mean, you only have a 16 game season anyways. But every other major sport (in North America) has some sort of "best of" series. So what am I saying here.... basically that I don't think the Olympic tournament is set up to properly assess the best team.
However, if Canada were have happened to win this time around.... we'd of course be the best. So in effect, I haven't really said anything.
There are so many other reasons that we lost that don't include bashing Gretzky, or Hockey Canada, or Todd Bertuzzi. If you care to add your opinion, feel free.
So back to nothing. Yeah, it was pretty nice to do nothing. I realized I have a complex, though. I did about 9.5 hours of work last week for Stantec, but I probably worried and thought about it for 37 hours. (Note-to-self: never be self-employed). I definitely didn't enjoy my "holy days" as much as I should've. Which makes me look forward to April, when Rose and I are going somewhere hot and beachy for 2 weeks when our last exams of our undergrad lives are done. Because then I will truly have nothing to do.
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Well, I think I'll weigh in on the hockey thing. My theory goes something like this:
When I was watching the Olympic team I had this strang sensation. After a while I figured out what it was. I felt like I was watching a Leafs game. Every team has its personality. I probably don't watch enough "other" hockey besides Leafs game, but just the contrast of an Edmonton or Vancouver game on the late CBC broadcast is enough to see it.
In any case, the hallmarks of a Leafs team: sloppy defensive play - bad positioning, rely on goaltending, dump and chase offence - lots of cycling along the boards, not good at dealing with the trap - the neutral zone is not our friend.
These are my personal observations, feel free to disagree. The upshot of all of it though is that you end up with a team that takes bad penalties from being out of position, gets caught in their own end with their pants down and can't score. If you can't tell, I'm a little frustrated with the Leafs lately.
In the Olympics, however, the higher calibre of player can make up for some of these shortcomings of the "system" (or in the case of the Leafs, perhaps the "non-system"). It's a bit more subtle, but I think it's still there.
This leads to my final, sweeping conclusion. There are two possibilites the way I see it that Team Canada looked like the Leafs. Option 1: Bryan McCabe's presence causes a shift in the aura of a building and all members wearing jersies with maple leaves (be they red or blue) are drawn to a certain style of play. Option 2: Pat Quinn.
I'll let you choose. Keep Occam's Razor in mind. Choose what you think is simpler.
I'm pretty sure Pat Quinn shows up at the first practice and says "Boys, just go out there and play some hockey. Pretend you're 7 and playing shinny on the pond behind the barn." And frankly, with the group of guys he had, in 2002 it worked like a charm. If those guys were playing shinny on the pond behind the barn, they'd be particularly awesome.
However, they ran into teams playing some really organized defence and some high powered offence. And a couple hot goaltenders. And suddenly shinny wasn't cutting it.
I've never been an undying fan of Pat Quinn, I've also never been a big criticizer of him. He's done a decent job (in terms of team performance) with the Leafs over the years, and in Salt Lake the results were a storm of awesome. How much of the good is his fault? Of the bad? Dunno. But I'm moving my thinking more to the criticism side of things. If the Leafs' performance last night is any indication, it may be that he's looking for another team to play shinny with soon....
I hasten to remind you droppers-of-hockey-names-that-I've-never-heard-before that we did win the women's hockey gold and the men's curling gold, so the games weren't a total write-off - and Cindy Klassen, from Winnipeg (who went to MBCI - Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute - for goodness' sake!) took home five medals.
As far as the men's hockey debacle, I am supremely unqualified to talk about hockey, mostly because I own an American passport. But even though it doesn't excuse the last two 2-0 losses, there's at least a silver lining to the Switzerland game - the guy who scored both goals to beat us (whatever his name was) is from Sault Ste. Marie. And the coach of the Swiss team - is from Steinbach. Go Manitoba!!!
Oh yeah - and Beerpants, State College is definitely hot and beachy. You should come hang out on our vast and open expanses of sandy panoramicity sometime. I'm pretty sure that wasn't a word...
Wow. Don't know a thing about hockey or the Olympics. Don't have a T.V. but I'm glad you had time to do nothing. It's always nice to be unproductive once-in-a-while (see Office Space for details). Anyway, hope all goes well in the last months of the last days of school for the rest of your life. Or not. Anything could happen!
Took you long enough. I tell ya! I don't post anything really either, so I can't talk, but I never started to post things on a regular basis. You on the other hand, had us going and then, BAMM, nothing for weeks, moNTHS, YEARS!!!!!!!! Okay, not really, but it was fun to read about nothing!
so how is nothing going for ya! haha
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