RILEY FUCKING NASH

Apologies to Asiaoil, who I foolishly took offense to after seeing my thoughts on this worthless prospect seemingly turned into a personal attack on myself.

Asiaoil usually makes great comments, and if I wasn't so fucking tired right now I might haven't have responded in the petulant manner which I did.

Still, Riley Nash strikes me as an idiot of the first degree. Woo Hoo, going to an Ivy League college, to reprise Ryan O'Neil's role from Love Story, or whatever the fuck else he's there for.

He's a first round NHL draft pick for fuck sakes. Fuck school when you're a miserable BC hockey league star, miraculously drafted so highly. You call that good business, turning down the shot at playing professional hockey, after getting chosen in the first round draft of the greatest pro league in the world?

Not me. I call that bad business. There are times to bide your time, and times to jump into a pool of sharks. Times to play safe, and times to go for broke. Seems to me like Riley wants to go to his college, party and fuck co-eds, then sashay over to the pro ranks, and somehow, despite the fact he's not even developing properly anymore, show his first round credentials and waltz into the Oilers lineup. Sorry shmuck, that's not how it works.

It's a marathon, winning the game of life, and a marathon making a pro sports career. I was talking on Lowetide's blog the other day about how young players foolishly stop developing their weaknesses, right at the last post, when they're in major junior hockey, not understanding that they're still so many fish compared to the 1,500 active professional players at any given moment.

Just because you're drafted highly, doesn't mean fuck all, not unless you develop and develop and develop until the head coach of your pro team simply cannot afford to ignore you at training camp.

What's Nash done? He's fucking regressed, that's what. Okay, enjoy your education, and forget the pros. You're not going to make it sucker. That kid riding the Saskatchewan bus wants it more than you do, is working harder, is probably younger, and by the time you're facing off against him in training camp, will have forgotten more about what it takes to succeed as a hockey player than you're likely to ever know.

Rant over.

what the fuck

Oilers are too good for a lottery pick, not good enough for a playoff winning run.

Business as always.

The good:

Penner
Smid
Brule
Visnovsky

The bad:

Moreau
Pisani
Khabibulin
Kevin Lowe

The ugly:

Oilers chance of winning the cup in the next decade

Spot the Difference

I have to admit, the 27th place Oilers(It's November 30th) make me laugh more than they make me cry. Who put this bunch of clowns together, with most of the top six too small to do anything but slink around the perimeter of the ice, all the while hoping none of the glass defencemen(I love the defence when healthy btw) doesn't get carted off ice?

I just want them to end up in 30th place, win the lottery, and pick the best player available. Let's face it. it's our only hope at this point.

Hockey's a game about talent.

And the Oilers haven't got much.

Check out other teams in yhe NHL. The great players always rise in hockey. Bums go round and round, but the cream always rises.

Except in Edmonton Oilerland. We have "prospects" who are always drafted low in the first round or lower, who we hope will turn out to be "steals", but never fucking turn out to be anything much at all.

Stamkos in Tampa. Crosby in Pittburgh. Parise in New Jersey.

Oilers have Souray, who's horribly injury prone. Ditto Khabibulin. Ditto Visnovsky.

OIlers have pluggers who aren't really worth very much unless you're Kevin Lowe. Then you end up with Horcoff, Staios, Nilsson, Moreau all for the bargain basement price of around 12. million a season.

Then there are the wonderful kids. But none of them are doing very much.

No real defensive stud either.

This is a mediocre joke of a franchise. The Cleveland Indians of the NHL.

Sad sick and entirely fucking true.

A Question:

Given the reality of a seemingly endless procession of mediocre/bad seasons:

Is there hope for the Edmonton Oilers?

Incredibly shit contracts for pedantic, unoffensive players who can't score in a brothel.

A bunch of dwarves, in a game almost entirely dictated by size.

Nothing special coming down the pipe, unless you're smoking one.

Anything else?

Oh yeah, a General Manager who clearly doesn;t know how to do his job, a "President of Hockey Operations" who should be a New York Rangers scout, and a corporate mindset more geared to blackmailing the community than improving itself as an on ice product.

Ancestors who were killed in the wars. One of them, an 18 year old from Ontario, blown to pieces after being in France for 4 weeks. They never found so much as a shred of him - I've got a pic of him somewhere, he looks just like a tin soldier.

But even though everyone else in the internet are sanctimoniously making announcements, today i want to examine a thought: Every asshole these days loves to yap about how old time hockey players wouldn't stand a chance in today's uber NHL, so I want to pose the question: WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO A 2009 PANSY ASSED NHLER, TWILIGHT ZONED INTO 1959?

No special diets laid out by specialist staff no...just steak and chips...three times a day I'd imagine. When he complains, the other players just look at him and laugh, like he's nuts or something.

Then postgame, no special fluids to rebuilt his chemicals, just beer beer and more beer.

He wants to train, like in 2009 - but once again the player's culture mocks him. They stay fit by playing in the games - so what's this idiot's problem?

His equipment is ahem, primitive? Who wouldn't love to see their most hated goalie twilight zoned to 1959, NO MASK??? No special fatboy lightweight goalie equipment either - just leather stuffed with horsehair crappola.

Skates and sticks, wood and leather only please. Soggy equipment. No helmets to protect sissy heads.

Play a few bad games during the adjustment? No problem! The 2009 dude simply gets cut and ends up in the AHL - forever.

Ditto if precious gets injured.

Gordie Howe runs him into the boards head first? Depends. If at home, the crowd boos a little. If away, it cheers. The refs do nothing.

After the season, time to get a job. Like when my dad saw Gordie fucking Howe in April, sitting in a santa style grotto in the 60's, at the Bay. Yikes. And he was lucky not to have to go get a real job.

But, provided precious can hack the reality of the man's game, I would think after a few months, he would start to realise that he was actually in a cool situation. A part of a real team, not just a collection of overpaid fuckwits. being able to shag pretty girls left right and center, without any fear of consequences.

Thought: How many games would Mike Modano's teeth have lasted in 1959?

I'm starting to get bored by the Oilers

Once upon a time, when I was a youngster, the Oilers ruled the universe of hockey.

Then, while still a youngster, I got to see my team turned over like a Times Square hooker.

Then, for the next decade or so(longer but I'm getting bored with even counting the years), the OIlers were a mediocre franchise, team, everything. The model of a pathetic, small market franchise.

Last year they finally fire dodo MacTavish, and bring in Quinn etc. Great. Good times ahead.

But no one bothered to tell the general manager that the players stink. No one has bothered to tell the general manager that his job is to manage the fucking team. But since he obviously doesn't the Oilers today are essentially in the same position player and contract wise as they were before he was hired.

Please.

I'm simply starting not to care. Seriously. Last night against the Avalanche, all I could think was how small the Oiler forwards were. You know, just like the last time Dallas pasted them in the playoffs. Come to think of it, 2006 aside, that was the last time this craptastic franchise has even been in the fucking playoffs.