Happy St. Paddy’s Day to the Irish and those who wish they were Irish.
But, hey, don’t drink green beer today, because that’s a dumb American thing and a dead giveaway that you aren’t actually Irish. A real Sionainn or Padraig wouldn’t whet their whistle with a brewski laced with food coloring.
Sure would be swell to be down at The Toad in Osborne Village today for a gathering of the Irish and wannabe Irish. I hear the lovely Shannon will be holding court, and her lovely sister Maura might sit in as well. I have fond memories of sitting on a Toad stool during St. Paddy’s Days past.
The all-St. Pat’s team:
Padraig Harrington
Patrick Ewing
Pat Summitt
Patty Berg
Patrick Kane
Patrick Mahomes
Patrick Roy
Pat Quinn
Pat Riley
Lynn Patrick
What in the name of Arthur Guinness were the Toronto Maple Leafs wearing for their skirmish vs. Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday night? Unless my peepers were playing tricks, that sure looked like a green shamrock on the jersey front. And green pants, green gloves, green trimming and green lids. Yup, they were as green as Kermit. I’d swear it was a nod to the Irish and St. Paddy. Hmmm. Perhaps National Hockey League commish Gary Bettman can remind us of the ban on all specialty unis on specialty nights, which is actually a ban on the Pride Rainbow.
It’s about those 18,000 missing Jaromir Jagr bobblehead dolls: The kidnappers are demanding a 2010 Barbie doll in exchange for their safe return, although word on the street is that the scofflaws would settle for a Barbie original from 1959. Hey, don’t laugh. The Mattel-Stefano Canturi 2010 Barbie is valued at $302,500, while a Barbie original once sold at auction for $27,450. And that was before Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie made a big deal out of Barbie on the big screen.
I don’t spend a whole lot of time on X, but I caught this post from deep-dive analytics guy Garret Hohl last week, re the Winnipeg Jets: “All 3 lines with Ehlers on them was over 60% xG. Ehlers highest xG on the team.” Hmmm. Something tells me I should have paid more attention during Mr. Shlanka’s algebra class at Miles Mac.
There wasn’t a spare seat to be had in the Little Hockey House On The Prairie the other night when the Disney Ducks came calling on the Jets, yet there were close to 2,000 unoccupied chairs two nights earlier for a visit from division rival Nashville Predators. That makes sense to whom?
On the subject of head counts, two Professional Women’s Hockey League games attracted 13,736 customers to Little Caesars Arena in Motown and another 9,006 to the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Saturday. Hmmm. The bigger the venue, the bigger the gatherings. Seems to me Ponytail Puck might have sold itself short by booking most of its frolics in small barns.
So, the goon element has arrived in Ponytail Puck, with Toronto’s Brittany Howard told to sit down for a game after taking the lumber to Catherine Daoust of Montreal. Howard is also out of pocket $250, ditto Rebecca Leslie, for yanking their foes’ face cages. Hmmm. Somewhere Deputy Dawg of the NHL, George Parros, is saying to himself, “So that’s how it’s supposed to be done.”
The PWHL trade deadline is Monday afternoon at 4 o’clock eastern. Hmmm. Does James Duthie know about this? I mean, will James gather his cast of thousands at TSN and spend nine hours hosting an exercise in excessive tongue-wagging? Of course not. Other than Cheryl Pounder, they’d struggle to name nine players in Ponytail Puck, let alone gab about them for nine hours.
Headline on the Sportsnet website: “Flames mailbag: What to expect from Brzustewicz?” Hmmm. Another vowel would be nice.
Anson Carter is leading a push for an NHL expansion franchise in Atlanta, which is already a two-time graveyard. Hmmm. How does a former journeyman forward who could score only when in collaboration with the Sedin twins collect enough coin to get involved with high rollers? Do TNT, MSG Network and Rogers pay him that much to flap his gums?
Caught a bit of a Blue Jays game the other day while channel surfing, and I noted Toronto shortstop Bo Bichette doing a bit of the hot dog thing. Hmmm. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone so obsessed with their hair since Farrah Fawcett in the 1970s.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is on the hunt for a running mate in his bid for the White House, and New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers is on his short list. Hmmm. I wasn’t aware of a Tin Foil Hat Party in the U.S.
Apparently former rassler Jesse Ventura has also been shortlisted by RFK Jr., which brings to mind this quote from funny guy Alex Kaseberg when grappler Jesse was governor of Minnesota: “Many people criticize ESPN for selecting a horse, Secretariat, as the 35th of the 50 best athletes of all time. I say why not select a big animal that can’t verbally communicate? The voters of Minnesota did.”
No one asked me, but I’m prepared to give Briane Harris the benefit of the doubt in the Curious Case of the Contaminated Curler. I don’t care what the squints in lab coats say. There’s no way Briane had her hand in the juice jar. Not knowingly. Pebble People don’t do that sort of thing, unless they’re Russian, in which case Vlad Putin’s mad scientists use all athletes’ butts for pin cushions. There must be a logical reason why gremlins appeared in Briane’s pee, rendering her unavailable to Kerri Einarson and the Gimli Gals at the recent Scotties Tournament of Hearts. There just has to be.
I find it interesting that when an athlete in a warrior sport like football is outed as a doper (hello, Andrew Harris) many ignore his squeals of innocence and assume him to be guilty. Yet there’s been no such tut-tutting of a curler. Why is that? Because the rabble still doesn’t think of Pebble People as true athletes, or they can’t see the benefits of curlers juicing up? Well hello. Have you seen the size of some of the guys on the grunt end of a push broom these days? The front ends of some men’s teams look like they come off the assembly line at John Deere or New Holland. But no. Briane Harris does not look like farm equipment.
They’ve done the unthinkable and recruited a head hunter to ferret out a Sugar Daddy for the community-operated Edmonton Elks, and the one-time Canadian Football League flagship franchise could have a private bankroll in place sometime during the upcoming crusade. If not before. Hmmm. That ought not be viewed as a bad thing. The last two men to join the Lords of Rouge Football, Amar Doman in B.C. and Pierre Karl Peladeau in Montreal, have made a difference in their once-ailing markets. Head counts on the Other Side Of The Rocks have risen dramatically since Doman began to pay the bills for the B.C. Leos, while Pierre Karl knows enough to let his football people make the football decisions, and his Larks are Grey Cup champions. So there.
I wonder if we’ll ever see something similar unfold in Good Ol’ Hometown, where the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have become the flagship franchise of Rouge Football under the guiding hand of CEO Wade Miller and the watchful eyes of a community-run board of directors. You don’t suppose David Asper is still holding out hope, do you?
So the Dickenson boys have become a tag-team in Calgary, where Craig has joined little brother Dave as a senior consultant with the Stampeders. Hmmm. How is that going to work? Since little brother Dave is both head coach and GM, what exactly does big brother Craig bring to the table, except maybe Dave’s lunch? I mean, it sounds to me like a go-fer job.
And, finally, it appears that Winnipeg doesn’t want me as much as I want Winnipeg. That is to say, reports of my return to Good Ol’ Hometown have been greatly exaggerated, since landlords don’t seem to like the cut of my jib. Hmmm. Was it something I wrote? Well, I don’t know what I can tell them, except to say it’s the only jib I have.
The River City Renegade 
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