Woah. Hockey Fights Are Back. And Ties Are Stupid...

Hockey. It's coming back...soon. Like Thursday I think.

I know the Chicago Blackhawks start the season in Finland or Korea or Iran or some really stupid place on earth so I'm not overly positive on when the NHL kicks off their ice charades. It's soon.

Part of the reason I do enjoy hockey is because you can fight during the contest. Make a big hit on the other team's star player? Star player's goon teammate is going to find you and try and slit your throat with his skate.

Marc Savard, one of Boston's superbly talented players got raped earlier in the game by ginger-boy Chris Neil of the Ottawa Senators. Milan Lucic, as noted by his Serbian name of destruction, doesn't like when that happens.

He tries to shove the smaller Neil around and make him mad. Neil responds by shoving back. Lucic, like any good Serb, decides when the puck drops, just to hit Neil in the nuts with his stick.

Neil, like any good ginger, quickly responds because he has no genitalia and begins to fight Lucic.

Lucic gets some good shots in and Neil actually hangs tight in the fight before it ends with Neil's face looking a lot worse than Lucic's.

Either way, it's professional athlete's, who could kill you and me, fighting in the middle of a pre-season game and the refs allowing it. That's why hockey is great. It's a sport full of talent and skill and huge hits and fights. Plus, some teams have hot ice girl cheerleaders too.

** On a side note...the NHL used to have ties. Teams would play 60-minutes of hard fought hockey and then go to overtime. If the teams tied at the end of overtime, the game ended in a tie. That's retarded, I know. Thankfully, nowadays, the NHL forces a short OT, then goes to a shootout to decide the winner. OT is neat. Shootouts are awesome. Ties are for losers.

The NFL, thankfully filled with non-losers, rarely has an OT game end in a tie because the teams are so exhausted from brutally destroying each other that one team usually screws up and allows a TD or field goal or safety and ends the game before OT can end with no scoring.

That leads me to last night's softball game that my co-workers and I played in...

We played our second game of the season, in typical Chicago fall fashion - a little warm weather, diagonal rain, wind, darkness, coldness and dust. We played a good team that got out to a big lead and we came back to tie it up, take the lead, and go back and forth with this team for 6 strong innings.

When the 6th inning ended, tied 14-14, the ump looked at his watch, and yelled, "TIME!! The next game has to start now! Game ends in a tie!"

...what?!?...a tie??? Are you f*cking serious?

We were pissed. Both teams agreed that this sucked. The game before ours went long and we started late. Now we had to end on time so the two teams behind us could play? It's not like it was 0-0 either. Both teams played well and still had another inning or two in them before we had to hit the bar...but nope. Game ended in a tie.

I couldn't imagine being a professional sports player and having to end the game in a tie. NFL football ending in a tie? Rarely ever happens. NHL? Nope, not anymore. Baseball? Aside from the All-Star debacle a few years back, no more ties. NBA? They'll play till 1,000 points are put up or Vernon Maxwell snaps and kills both teams. For Christ's sake I've seen a 3-day Cricket match take place in London so a tie wouldn't happen. And those f*ckers stopped to drink tea in the middle of the match!!

...which leads me to two final points...

1) Ties are f*cking retarded. Two teams go to battle and one comes away a winner. Wars don't end in ties. Sports shouldn't either.

2) Soccer is for weirdos. Soccer games end in ties. They flop all over the field for 90 minutes, scratch and scream at each other, and kick a ball. Soccer games end in ties. Soccer sucks.

That's all.

More Spooning With A Stranger coming soon. I enjoy writing too much to take prolonged breaks for actual real-world work. My plan for fall is to grow a beard, wear flannels, drink hot-alcoholic cider, and write. Hope it works out.

Special Thursday Link Dump...

It's been a little while since I did anything and for that I apologize. Life has been busy recently but that's not an excuse...There's been a lot of awesome stuff going on and I've had some grand plans, just unfortunately, not fulfilled. If you live anywhere other than a Taliban cave, you've probably seen most of the goodies somewhere by now. I missed my Monday Mark Morrison dump so here's some special goodies you may have missed.

- Boston sucks. I am a Yankees fan so I hate Boston. I'm glad Curt Schilling retired, because I hate his bloody socks. That said, this was something cool that happened in Boston. This goalie got pissed, swung his stick really hard, almost fell, then chucked what I believe was a milk crate onto the ice. The other excellent question is why the F there was a milk crate anywhere near the ice in the first place?


- Jordin Tootoo is a f*cking prick. He's been one of the NHL's biggest douchebags since the day he started playing. He picks fights, checks people randomly and runs away, and cheated on Kellie Pickler. He also sucker-punched Brad Staubitz of the San Jose Sharks a few months back. Staubitz remembered that and beat the living shit out of Tootoo's face a few nights ago. It was awesome.

- A woman thought that her boyfriend/ex-boyfriend was looking at child porn. So, while she was slightly intoxicated, she went to the police and turned in her laptop that she suspected her man had used to look up child porn. The cops took a gander around her computer and found some videos of some nasty stuff. It was the woman, spreading condiments on her crotch, letting her dog lick them off. The woman videotaped the acts when she was drunk, forgot to delete delete them and essentially turned herself in. Check out the story here and look at the police report. I love the fact that the filing officer had to write out the report and use all kinds of funny words that he invariably felt weird writing. And, no surprise, the lady was from Indiana.

- Spike Jonze is awesome. He is incredibly talented and never fails to come up with the coolest shit. He recently made music videos fun and pertinent again and is coming out with a movie soon. Here's the trailer for "Where The Wild Things Are" ...where the wild things are (Film Drunk)

- I put the "Crank 2/High Voltage" trailer up a while back and it was insane. Generally it's just as f'ing nuts as the first movie but it looks even more over the top. Now, you can watch the trailer at break.com and have your entire desktop begin to get destroyed. That's how intense the new flick is. It's a sweet trailer that makes you want to jump off a 46-story building and run people over with your car, but it's distracting because bullet holes and shockwaves on your desktop distract the shit out of you. Enjoy, again.

- NCAA Sweet Sixteen Basketball today:

Pittsburgh v. Xavier (Pitt over XU)
Duke v. Villanova (Nova over Duke in my bracket that matters)
UConn v. Purdue (UConn over Purdue even though UConn is distracted)
Mizzou v. Memphis (Mizzou over Memphis)

- Lastly, no more South Side Irish Parade in Chicago. People got too drunk, assaulted too many officers, and had way too much fun. I could care less because I never went. That just wasn't my thing. Plus I would have probably wanted to punch people's faces like Jordin Tootoo. And for the people that are "upset" about it, get over it. You can get drunk numerous other ways on St. Patrick's Day. You pricks.

Have a grand Thursday.