At Home in Hespeler

Ho-Ho-Ho: Go Helix Go!

Cool For Cats, Fluffernutter Helix, Leafs, Toronto Maple Leafs

Here in Toronto Maple Leaf territory, the news this weekend was big: Captain Dion Phaneuf finally learned how to score the big one.

Actress Elisha Cuthbert shared some good news with family and friends yesterday over lobster. Cuthbert and her long-term boyfriend, Toronto Maple Leaf player Dion Phaneuf, announced their engagement yesterday at a restaurant on Prince Edward’s Island, Canada.

The bad news is, million dollar condos and diamond rings don’t work as well on the ice as off.

Hockey Dion Phaneuf, Elisha Cuthbert, Toronto Maple Leafs

So sad to hear the news that Pat Burns has lost his battle with cancer. The former police officer and three time NHL coach of the year died today at the too young age of 58.

For Leaf fans under 55, the greatest Leaf season had the hard nose father figure of Pat Burns behind the bench. Few doubt that wonderful year would have happened without him.

The Leafs may be hapless and cupless in the colour TV era, but Burns was neither, winning a cup with New Jersey in 2003. Burns career coaching record is 501-353 (plus a bunch of ties) a stunning .744 winning percentage.

RIP Pat Burns: one of the good ones.

Hockey, RIP New Jersey Devils, Pat Burns, Stanley Cup, Toronto Maple Leafs

My friend Jim Hillis runs The Hespeler Project. He has cross-posted stuff I post here before, and has requested original material from me. I finally got around to giving him something, Changing the Hespeler Hockey Guard:

Here in Hespeler, we have what is euphemistically called, a favourite son. Kirk Maltby’s name is on the Stanley Cup four times, he played over 1,000 NHL games, 908 of them a few hours up the road in Detroit. For all his success, Maltby summered in Hespeler, worked out in the off season at the local YMCA and brought the Stanley Cup to the local bar, where his, and it’s, picture proudly hang on the wall.

We love him for none of that.

In Hespeler, there is only one stat that truly counts: did you buy a house in Galt? He never did, so we hung his jersey up at the Hespeler arena and called him ours.

He has had a distinguished NHL career and, sadly, this week called it quits. Retired at 37.

In the last couple of years, Maltby’s Jersey has been joined on the rafters of the Hespeler arena by Tim Brent. Granted, there was a meeting of a committee to have Brent‘s jersey, “ripped down, run through the chipper and burned like an American flag at a commune,” when there was a rumour that Brent was looking at a Condo in Preston, but the mayor (unofficial) arrived with some Grand River Town Hall Lager and sober second thought was replaced with a darn good party.

Brent was, however, always a marginal interest. Playing in Anaheim, he was wasting his career playing games at midnight on Tuesdays. Hometown boy made good, yes, but if your not up to see him on TSN, what good does it do anyone?

With Maltby’s exit from the game and Brent joining the Toronto Maple Leafs, however, an opportunity has opened up. Brent scored the Leafs first goal of the season last week against Montreal at a time when almost all of Hespeler was still up to see it.

He scored his second goal against Ottawa Saturday night, again during waking hours, this time on the CBC. Hockey Night in Canada for God’s sake: Don Cherry almost mentioned him on Coach’s Corner and there was a rumour at the Townline Tim Horton’s on Sunday morning that Rick Mercer may have him on his show – although it was agreed all round that they probably shouldn’t run into Pushlinch lake naked, Pushlinch Lake being in Guelph rather than Hespeler.

Being a Maple Leaf, Brent could easily surpass Maltby as our local hero by winning a Stanley Cup with Toronto. While that sounds like a lot, let it be said that nobody is suggesting he win a show-offy four cups like Maltby, but a modest one.

A-HA! I can hear the cries of Montreal Canadian fans in Galt pouncing. The Leafs win four lousy games and your already planning the parade. Well, yea, actually:

Around the parking lot at Townline Tim Horton’s a few times, just until everybody gets an ice cap
Across Townline road to Ellis Road and down to the arena
Around the arena parking lot, and then to Cooper Street
Down Cooper to Guelph Ave
Along Guelph Avenue to Ernie’s where, the ice caps being almost finished, we can start having our picture taken drinking beer with the Stanley Cup.

It may seem presumptuous, four games into the season. But us Hespelerites know the Leafs now have a secret weapon: A Hespeler Boy.

And no, we’re not opening the gates across the 401 that day. You guys get the Santa Claus Parade (official) and the Canada Day Parade and Fireworks: we get the Stanley Cup parades and picture day at Ernie’s with the cup.

Hockey Hespeler Project, Kirk Maltby, Mayor of Hespeler, Stanley Cup, Tim Brent, Toronto Maple Leafs

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Joni Mitchell gave a rare interview last week with the LA Times:

We (Bob Dylan) and I are like night and day, he and I. Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is deception.

Oh, my! Tell us what you really think Joni.

She had more to say regarding Grace Slick and Janis Joplin being drunken tramps – they were “sleeping with their whole bands and falling down drunk” – and Madonna:

Americans have decided to be stupid and shallow since 1980. Madonna is like Nero; she marks the turning point.

Madonna as anti-Christ. There’s an argument I can get behind.

Other revelations in the Joni Mitchell interview:

The Red Hot Chilli Peppers are neither red, hot nor chilli peppers.

Jakob Dylan plagiarized his fathers last name.

The Led Zeppelin song Going to California, heretofore thought to be written about Joni Mitchel, was really written about That Girl Marlo Thomas.

The reason the Toronto Maple Leafs have not won a Stanley Cup in 40 years is that Joni Mitchell cursed them by writing about them in her song Raised on Robbery.

Jose Feliciano is the judge for the People Magazine’s most beautiful people.

Bob Dylan mumbles

Sandra Bullock has filed for divorce from her wayward husband, Jesse James. While Bullock was apparently devastated by revelations of James multiple affairs, she was equally appalled by a picture showing him in Nazi dress, using his finger to mock-up a Hitler moustache and giving a Nazi salute:

The photo shocked me and made me sad. This is not the man I married… anything Nazi…have no place in my life. And the man I married felt the same.

Am I the only person in this world who sees the iron cross that James uses as his business logo and thinks of the Nazi’s?

People Magazine came out with their 2010 Most Beautiful Woman issue for 2010, and the winner is… Julia Roberts?

Even in her prime 20 years ago I wouldn’t put Julia Roberts on my top 50 beautiful women list, a list that includes my wife, my neighbour and my singer. But in an edition of People Magazine that will heavily feature Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts will be on the cover as most beautiful? Absurd!

Fluffernutter Bob Dylan, Going to California, Grace Slick, Jakob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Jesse James, Joni Mitchell, Jose Feliciano, Julia Roberts, Led Zeppelin, Madonna, Marlo Thomas, People Magazine, Raised on Robbery, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Sandra Bullock, Stanley Cup, Toronto Maple Leafs

Fifteen year old Johnny Bower lied about his age to join the Canadian Army in 1940. “I had to,” he says. “All my buddies where there.” He was called up by the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders and shipped to England, where he spent the war until discharged in 1944. Last night, the last goalie to win the Stanley Cup as a Toronto Maple Leaf (along with legend Terry Sawchuck), recited Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae’s In Flanders Fields during a pre-game ceremony at the Air Canada Centre.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Remembrance Johnny Bower, Nov 11, Toronto Maple Leafs, WWII

When I got an iPhone a few months ago one of the first things I downloaded was the Leafs app. Instant updates, standings, scoring leaders, all right on my phone. Of course, hockey season hadn’t started yet and last years scores, standings &tc. where still showing. Once pre-season started, the app remained the same. Two, three games into the pre-season, I’m still seeing last years scores and schedules. Surely though, it would be updated for the regular season.

The day before the first game the following message appeared on the app:

Notice

We are gearing up for the release of a new version shortly. Unfortunately scoring and stats updates will not function until we get you the new version.

Clearly an organization not prepared to begin the season. It’s as if, on Sept 30th somebody in the offices said, “holy shit, season starts tomorrow.” The sad reality is, the team on the ice has played like a team that doesn’t quite realize the season has started. As of the next game, 10% of the season is gone, and the 0-7 Leafs still have not updated their app.

A prediction then: the Toronto Maple Leafs will win their first  game once their iPhone app has been updated for the 2009-2010 season. Stay tuned Leaf fans, I’ll let you know when the update is done, and we’ll test my theory.

Hockey apps, iPhone, Maple Leafs, Toronto Maple Leafs

Back in the early winter of 2002 my five year old son, and his hockey team, were invited to play at the intermission of a Cambridge Hornets hockey game. It was one of the first, if not the first, game Peter Zezel would play with Cambridge.

Zezel joined Cambridge after almost dying in 2001 of hemolytic anemia, a rare blood condition. Zezel ‘s return to hockey was an accomplishment after his near death, and he was the night I saw him the most dominant player on the ice. He didn’t score all, or even any goals as I recall, but when he was on, the play revolved around him. His passes where ungodly, his puck control far above anybody else on the ice.

Off ice, Zezel was considered a class individual, who retired from a fifteen year NHL career in 1989 to be close to a family member dying of Cancer. His imdb page notes that he was Mustang Player#1 in the 1986 Rob Lowe Cynthia Gibb hockey um… classic, Youngblood. He was also Rush Guitarist Alex Lifeson’s cousin.

Yesterday afternoon the family of Peter Zezel made the decision to remove him from life support after a return of the hemolytic anemia. He was 44 years old.

Hockey, RIP Alex Lifeson, Cambridge Hornets, Cynthia Gibb, hemolytic anemia, NHL, Peter Zezel, Rob Lowe, Toronto Maple Leafs, Youngblood