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.