Once a jackass, always a jackass

While I'm not a fanatical hockey fan, especially when the Canucks are on a frigging five game losing streak, I have much hatred for Gary Bettman. Hatred may be too strong of a word... how about disgust, repugnance, destestation, abhorrence... ;)

I'm definitely not a fan of Bettman's decision to have teams play other teams in their division 800x a year and meet their cross-country rivals once every three years. I get that travelling can be exhaustive, but once every three years? Could we at least have limited it down to once a year? Stupid...

So, the boys didn't do so well in the Olympics this year, or in other words, they sucked ass. While I don't think the press conference that Bettman held yesterday had anything to do w/ Canada or the US's poor showing, he did announce that while the NHL is committed to the 2010 Games in Vancouver, it's too early to speculate what their commitment will be afterwards.

I'm down w/ that, but what I'm not down w/ is the following comment:

But we are not extending the [Olympic] break. The Olympic schedule will have to adapt to us, not the other way around.

Hey jackass, I don't know if anyone has informed you, but you're not even close to being a God. Give me a break! Seriously.

We're on a frigging roll!

After the COC announced that they were forecasting 25 medals at the Torino Games, I knew that was an omen. Really what that meant was that Canada was going to come away from the Games with less than the 17 medals they got in SLC. Sometimes I wonder why these committees feel the need to put the pressure on the athletes, when they're probably already facing pressure from other venues.

Obviously, there's been some truth in my theory. Look at how many athletes, who were expected to medal, have faltered - Beckie Scott (individual medal), Jeffrey Buttle, Jeremy Wotherspoon… the list goes on. Up until today, we had a huge whopping 1G, 1S, 2B.

However, it looks like we are starting to get on a roll. Just got the CKNW news alerts stating that not only did the women's longtrack speed skating pursuit team (I know that sport is new… but wtf is this pursuit stuff about?) win silver, but so did the men's team *&* we got a bronze in women's skeleton (which is one hell of a scary sport).

So… at this point, we're standing in 5th with seven medals behind the U.S. with nine, but does it ever irk me that we don't have 2G… As I'm sure you've heard by now, as all the Vancouver papers have made it front page news, Dale Begg-Smith has won gold in the men's moguls. So, what's the big deal about him? Well, born & raised in Vancouver & the prick decided to ski for Australia. :
Ok, so in reality, my opinion on Begg-Smith is mixed. It does bug me that he's a Vancouverite, who lives in a condo in Coal Harbour during his drives around Vancouver in his lambourghini during his down time, and skis for Oz. His coach… Canadian. He was on the Canadian training team when he was younger for gawdsakes. Granted, I can also understand where he comes from. The dude is supposedly a self-made multimillionaire from the age of 15 or so. He had to manage and oversee his company and couldn't dedicate the time to the training camps as expected. So… the Canadian team booted him. So, why shouldn't he still be permitted to represent Canada if he's willing to his own $ into training? I don’t know… it would've been nice to hear the Canadian anthem playing, that's for sure…

Why can't we just let sleeping dogs lay?

Seriously... the Bertuzzi-Moore incident is going to be one of those neverending stories. While the movie was about the adventures of Bastian and Atreyu in a fantastical world, this story is about how Todd, in one dumb ass move, sucker punched Steve into a world w/out hockey.

Let me start off saying that I, in no way, condone what Bert did, but at the same time, hockey is a "violent" sport and emotions some times run wild. Plus, there's the whole fact that an additional 3 or 4 ppl jumped onto Bert, who was on top of Moore - so who really knows what caused the injury...

I digress... I thought that this story would, by now, have died off. We had the case brought to Supreme Court and to civil court in Colorado. Both have been settled or thrown out. Now w/ the betting scandal surrounding Gretsky, the lime light has been taken off Bert. But not for long...

CBC is reporting that Steve Moore and his family has filed a $15 million civil suit against Bert in Ontario. If they can't get to him in other courts, why not try Ontario... where the incident didn't take place...

I guess you've gotta give them props for being persistent. On the other hand... talk about timing. Why now? Why when all eyes are on the Olympics? Are they just hungry for media attn or do they want to ensure that Bert is continued to be painted in a bad light so if the team does win gold, he won't be seen as a "hero?" Either way, I'm sick of this shite...