UnClassy Spokane 2.0

After talking with MaMcP who got the lowdown on the happs after the cameras quit rolling from the billet bro, I now have a couple other things to say:

1. I heart Bob Tory's passion for the game and his team.
   
2. I effing can't stand Tokarski and would tell him exactly how classless and immature he comes off to his face in an effort to help the young man not be a douchebag.
3. Mitch Wahl can lick my proverbial left nut. You're an 18 year old young man, which means you're an ADULT. You are someone that young players from the States look up to as a member of Team USA. Take the high-road. Pointing at your Mem Cup ring as you're walking by the bus holding a fellow member of the 2008 Draft class who YOUR TEAMMATE attacked is immature and unnecessary.
   

As a fan, my rivalry with the Chiefs used to end once they stepped off the ice. I had a billet brother who became a CHief in a trade and enjoyed his time there. I appreciate the Chiefs organization for offering free tickets to my parents for every game TRI played up there one year after they had a HORRIBLE experience in the stands (they turned it down and have only been back on rooter busses since) AND for what a great show they put on in that arena. That rivalry has changed. As those kids represent that organization as leaders, I now will be adopting the motto of my fellow Maple Leaf Mafia member, Hammer, "Spokanistan. This is war."

We'll see what all the suspensions and fines end up being after last night. I'm sure the Ams will get whats coming to them as well, but REALLY,Spokane?! Really?! No need to goon it up OFF the ice, too.

really? for real?

Tuesday... not usually a BAD day, per se, but this one didn't start out too hot...

I woke up late. On purpose, but late. Left the house at about 8:20 to stop in quickly at Dr. S's office and get a persecription for something to make what I thought was bronchitis go away. Get into the parking lot, slow down and stop behind a minivan that is about to park and all of a sudden, her reverse lights go on.... she starts backing up.... she ignores the sound of my blaring horn and all I hear is *crunch* well, before I said, "fucking shit" and put my car in park. No damage... And oddly enough, she was wearing one of the breast cancer awareness Ams shirts. Hmm.. Like I told McMan, "I decided not to comment on it in the fear that I'd tell her she didn't deserve to don the logo of MY team if she's going to back into me."

So, after she parks the van and i go down the few more offices and park in front of my dr's office, I go in, see the doctor and he tells me I don't have bronchitis or a sinus infection. I have asthma. Oh. Joy. And please please please tell me why it takes 20 minutes to put an inhaler together... I'm assuming they had to hand craft the plastic holder there in the pharmacy at Walgreens.

Yeah. It was an awesome morning.... and to think, I was all ready to wirte a hockey post about training camp so far.... SO i'm just going to post photos from the annual Todd Klassen Memorial Classic game, which was held at the buttcrack of dawn on Sunday. (photos by MLM photographer VonHammer)



Me singing the anthems after running around the arena... i thought they were going to re-zam the ice. oops.


Thrilling hockey action = painting the nails in the stands

Clarification

After a rather angry email was recieved by the flying monkeys at the Musings, let me clarify some things:

1) This blog is filled with my personal opinions. in America, we can do that... freedom of speech is a WONDERFUL thing. I don't apologize for things I write here because I write what I feel and after years and years of holding things in, I'm done. I have to get it out or I get physically and mentally sick. If you don't like it, don't read it. I wont be offended, I promise.

2) Juraj "Big Guy" Valach was a great kid. I stuck up for him all season to people and fans who didn't think he was playing as well as he could, which he wasn't - he even said it multiple times. I stood behind that kid 100% and you can ask anyone about that. I was definitely his #3 fan in Tri (ma and pa being #'s 1 & 2). My mom and dad cared a lot for him and were very hurt by his words and decision not to come back to Tri. Being hurt and angry and not agreeing with his tactics doesn't mean we hate him or don't wish him well in the future... He's just got a lot of growing up to do, still.

3) I am a Christian by choice and practice, but Jewish by birth. That will never change. All my life I've grown up knowing the horrors of the haulocaust and what hatred and ugliness the Nazis stood for. A swastika isn't something I find humourous. I don't find ANY jokes about any of those things funny. I don't care if they're by stupid teenage boys who don't know any better or real Neo-Nazis.... Millions of people died for being who they were. If I had lived in Europe at that time, I probably would've been one of them, MAYBE one of the lucky ones who got out alive. Sure it's an emotional button that doesn't get pushed on everyone, but maybe it should be.

I'm stepping off of my soap box now.

Big Guy..... Bad Guy.

My parents Billet for the local WHL team. THis year they had a very talented 6'6" hockey player living with them from Slovakia. Juraj Valach, affectionately refered to as "Big Guy."



Juraj and McP in happier times...

He wasn't the first Slovak they've had in (the former) Casa McP, but he was the youngest - he was 17 when he arrived and didn't have a drivers license to drive the car the 'rents provide the player living at their house (legal age to drive in Slovakia is 18).

His play deteriorated in the 2nd 1/2 of the season - no one really knows why except for maybe he was homesick? That makes the most sense b/c he picked his play up a little when the team flew his sister over from Slovakia in February/March. (she stayed at my parent's house for two weeks.) After that, with the exception of the game winning goal in OT of game 4 of the 1st round of playoffs, it seemed all he did was take stupid penalties (possibly b/c he wasn't taught how not to) and whine about not getting enough ice time.

So the day of the WHL Euro draft, my parents got a call from Annie Fowler of the TCHerald reguarding the comments Big Guy had made. Here's part of the article resulting from that phone conversation:

"Ams trade Valach to Vancouver, take 2 in import draft
This story was published Thursday, June 28th, 2007
ANNIE FOWLER HERALD STAFF WRITER

When Bob Tory lost veteran defenseman Matt Swaby in the Edmonton Oil Kings expansion draft June 5, he was confident the Tri-City Americans defensive corps would be solid with the return of Juraj Valach, T.J. Fast, Jarrett Toll, Tyler Schmidt, Eric Mestery and Brock Cornish.

What the Americans general manager did not foresee was Valach not returning to the team. The 6-foot-6, 210-pounder from Slovakia notified Tory earlier this week that he would not return to the Western Hockey League unless he was traded.

So, Tory traded Valach to the Vancouver Giants for their 54th overall pick in Wednesday's Canadian Hockey League Import Draft.

"We had a curveball thown our way," Tory said. "It was surprising and a little shocking. We spent a lot of time developing him. He said he did not enjoy his time in
Tri-Cities and blamed the team for him not being drafted last week (in the NHL entry draft). If he doesn't want to be here, I don't want him in the dressing room. He's not our worry anymore."

Valach's billets, Ma and Pa McP of Kennewick, went to the NHL Draft in Columbus, Ohio, in hopes that Valach would be drafted.

"He told us before he went home in April that if he wasn't drafted he wouldn't come back," said Ma. "He did not like having to make public appearances with the team. He didn't have the community spirit; he came to play hockey. I hope he's happy in Vancouver, but I don't think he will be happy unless he's playing at home (Slovakia)." ..."

SO yeah.... That kid was pampered here in the Tri-Cities. It came out later that he had even fired his agent and gotten a new one, which Bob thinks had a lot to to with the whole thing. Let me weigh in with my opinion of why he didn't get drafted:
note: I am not nor have I ever been affiliated with any NHL team, nor am I a coach/gm/scout.

• When you aren't willing to buy into the system and be a part of the team, you're not going to put up the numbers/stats that you're capable of.
• When you aren't willing to learn how to use your large, large body for something other than taking penalties, you're not living up to your potential or taking advantage of the opportunity you have playing in the Canadian Hockey League.
• Constantly calling the coach an idiot isn't going to make him any easier to get along with. Maybe there's a reason you're riding the pine that doesn't have to do with your playing.
• Many employers check the myspace of people they're going to hire. I think NHL teams may just do the same thing, it'd be something I'd do to see if the kid was someone I wanted in my organization. If those teams looked at his myspace when I did, they would cross him off the short-list - hell, even the long list - ASAP. I spent an entire day wondering if my parents were living with an anti-semite b/c the whole page was covered in neo-nazi/hitler crap. I emailed him to see wtf was up and he said that the guys in the locker room called him a nazi, so he put all that up trying to fit in. This little Jew was NOT impressed. At all. Tell the other teammates to come talk to my mom or I about the Nazis, the halocaust or the stars-of-david we wear around our neck.
• Hockey players are the worst gossips of anyone I have ever met in my life. They're worse than high school girls by FAR. This creates a HUGE network of men who talk and talk and talk.... Maybe he forgot that his coach was a part of the Hartford Whalers (80-82), Edmonton Oilers (82-83 with Gretzky and Messier), and the Philadelphia Flyers (85-90). THEN he went on to coach in Seattle fron 94-00 and then for the Philly Phantoms before coming back to the Dub to coach here. That's a shit-ton of contacts, kid. And we all know Donny doesn't hold back on telling people what he really thinks about ANYONE. Think about that.

Don Nachbaur will seem like a kitten compared to Don Hay (who coached here 2 coaches before Schnacks). He will still be expected to be out in the community, he will still have a few asshat teammates who aren't as nice as he'd like and he's not going to have a billet that does EVERYTHING for him like my saint of a Ma did.

I know his comments weren't directed at my family. If he would've been unhappy in the house he could've moved like several other boys did during the season, but it doesn't make his actions any less classless or hurtful. He could've at least done it before the expansion draft so we'd still have Matty.... Ugh... our D... Please, LA, send TJ Fast back to us!!!