NOTES

A few days old, but for completeness’ sake, a new parody at Lighthouse Hockey: Cliff Ronning’s Notes on “NHL Team Finances, Part 1”

Well, I thought it was funny. Seems that “Holy Shit! 76,000 Pages?!?” meme didn’t take off quite as I had expected it to.

Ronning was one of those guys who was a solid, if unspectacular, real NHL player that somehow morphed into goddamn Mike Bossy when controlled on a Sega Genesis. At least, for me, he did. Craig Janney, too.

Ironically, both guys ended up playing for the Islanders. Neither actually morphed into Bossy, though.

APPLICATION

New post on Lighthouse Hockey: LHH Zeitgeist: What a Nassau County RFQ Application Looks Like.

Maybe one of the guys submitting RFQs to Nassau today will finally be the guy to end this saga forever. Maybe the light is starting to seep into the tunnel. I won’t hold my breath, but there is hope.

One of the worst aspects of the Islanders’ seemingly never-ending quest for a new arena is uphill battle to get the information out there. Mention “Islanders” to someone and, if they don’t respond with “who?,” they’ll immediately think of bad hockey and a bad arena. And these theoretical someones include Islanders fans the world over. How it got this way is a story worthy of Elmore Leonard. Everybody has villains and heroes and assholes and no two readings of it are the same.

Charles Wang is going to get the majority of the blame from a lot of corners because it’s easy. He’s the billionaire who runs his team on a shoestring, never says a word, pushes for stupid personnel moves and isn’t a good ol’ American or Canadian hockey lifer. He’s also probably a communist*. 

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LAUGH TRACK

New post on Lighthouse Hockey: TBS Announces New Original Series, “Everybody Hates the Islanders.”

First a few notes:

1. I realize that the “Everybody Hates…” meme died around the time the second episode of Everybody Loves Raymond aired, and certainly way before Everybody Hates Chris first premiered. But considering the news that spawned this particular parody, I felt the jacket fit. I’m also not 100% thrilled with using another press release so soon after Snakes N Lockouts, but it’s a different medium I guess, so I hope no one minds. 

2. I absolutely despise Everybody Loves Raymond. There’s a fine line between characters being funny-obnoxious and being unbearably, unconscionably “I hate these people” just plain obnoxious. The Barrone family never even saw the line before zooming right over it by a mile. Larry David crosses the line on Curb Your Enthusiasm, but the situations are so outlandish that it either works or it moves so quickly, you don’t think about the gaps in logic. Raymond seemed to strive for a certain realism (and ran at a much slower pace) that made it’s characters seem like just garden variety assholes. The worst part is when people in my family who enjoy the show say something like, “Oh, it’s just like us!” No, it isn’t. It’s not even close. If my family was one 1/64 like the Barrones, I would have faked my own death and moved to Helsinki years ago.

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Narrative is a big thing in sports. Anytime anyone can pin a standing attribute to a team, it’s their job to break the narrative (if the team so chooses).

So if you’re a team that always loses in the playoffs, that’s your narrative and every article written about you is going to mention that fact. If you’re a small market team looking to keep a good roster together in the face of the rising price of doing business, that’s your narrative. Maybe the laconic Russian with the inconsistent performances can be elevated to “Universal Super Narrative” by now. 

Basically, if something happens twice to your team, there’s your narrative. It will have written itself. No further research is necessary.

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GRIEVANCE

(Wow. Stand-alone post. It’s been a while)

So, just to recap today in NHL news: Nash is in, Visnovsky wants out and Weber’s still waiting. And three of five teams in the Atlantic Division are involved.

While the Rangers acquire Rick Nash for some middle sixers and a prospect, and the Flyers have their sights set on one of the league’s top defensemen, the Islanders have a guy who wants to void his trade to Long Island. Three All Stars, two arrivals (one potential) and one potential departure.

All of this makes Islanders fans wrap themselves in a cocoon of despair and vow they’re done with Visnovsky, Garth Snow, the team, Sparky the Dragon and anything else within their spitting distance that’s blue and orange.

And I have to admit, I may be creeping ever so slowly towards that same course of action.

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SENSELESS

New post at Lighthouse Hockey: LHH Zeitgeist: Nassau Leaders Announce Plans to See “The Dark Knight Rises.”

By now, everyone has had their say on Friday’s tragedy in Aurora, Colorado. What happened in that movie theater was shocking and senseless. 

As I said in my note in the above parody, the article was written a few days ago and auto-posted today to mark the release of the movie. I didn’t even hear about Aurora until about 9:15 Friday morning, about two hours after the story ran. The “Dark Knight Rises” is the only connection between the silly satire and the very real shooting. But it’s enough of a connection that I felt something had to be said. In light of what happened, the focus of the parody becomes very trivial.

I hate that there are people like this Holmes maniac walking the streets. I hate that anyone with a plan and a lack of empathy can get guns, tear gas and easy entry into a room full of people.

And empathy is what I think it really boils down to. We can spend a lifetime blaming society, gun laws, schools, parents, businesses like AMC, Warner Brothers and DC Comics, Heath Ledger, Obama, Bush or anyone else we’re pissed off at. The point is, it happened because one guy didn’t give a shit about ending the lives of a bunch of people he didn’t know.

I won’t even pretend to have even the slightest clue about what the families of the victims are feeling right now. I assume it’s a combination of anger, confusion, sadness and about a million other emotions. But they have my empathy.

Little is known about Holmes right now but anyone that would do something like this is clearly in need of mental help and had been for a long time. If he was a person who was depressed and isolated and looking for help and not finding it, Holmes has my empathy. Once you cross the line he did, he losses it.

If we all took a few minutes to identify with how someone else my be affected by our words or actions, we’d all be a lot better off.