A season review (a.k.a. Bring on the playoffs)

The Canucks have clinched the Northwest division officially.  In reality though, it's been a done deal since the new year.  It's at this point of the season that I can no longer pretend to get excited about the winding down of the NHL season.  82 games is too long; there is now a dead zone to me until April 11th.  In the meantime, I'm going to go through the 30 teams and try to say something about each of their seasons.


Anaheim Ducks


The Ducks' season seems like such a waste now.  They were inexplicably bad at the beginning of the season.  It went beyond Visnovsky's broken hand, they were just bad.  But then they found their footing and rose up from the West's basement to the West's limbo.  And now, they don't even have a shot at getting a big draft pick.  



Highlight: The whole team grew mustaches for Movember, and Jonas Hiller had arguably the best goalie mask of the year.

Lowlight:  Jonas Hiller cost me my hockey pool right off the beginning of the season.







Boston Bruins



The defending Stanley Cup champions are going to head into this year's playoffs as odds on favourites to reach the Eastern Conference finals once again.  I personally don't see them coming out of the East, but you've got to give them credit for stretches of complete dominance this year.


Highlight: 6-0 against Toronto, outscoring them 36-10.  Seguin records 11 points to Kessel's 3.

Lowlight: Brad Marchand.




Buffalo Sabres


What a bland season the Sabres have had.  I was trying to think of their season, and the only thing that popped to mind was Lucic running through Miller.  They're in a fight with Washington to make the playoffs, so they've been decent.

Highlight: Vanek and Pominville playing out of their minds for most of the season.

Lowlight: There was a point in the season where the fans were calling for Jonas Enroth to be the starter over Ryan Miller.  Now that they're right in the hunt for the playoffs, I don't hear them.



Calgary Flames


Ugh.  Kiprusoff's ridiculous talents are being squandered on a team that doesn't have an identity, doesn't seem invested in playing defence, and can't even manage to be competitve in the league's weakest division.  Oh, Iginla's pretty good too.



Highlight: Watching this highlight package, you would think the Flames were a pretty good team.



Lowlight: They're not.  This team is built around players that their GM traded away, then traded for.  There's a word for that: Clueless.









Carolina Hurricanes



I'm betraying my lesser knowledge of the Eastern Conference here: the Hurricanes were more nondescript to me than were the Sabres.  Their captain was useless for the first half of the season and that sunk them right there.



Highlight: Jeff Skinner has proven that he is more than just a rookie sensation (see: Steve Mason).



Lowlight: They brought in Kaberle, thinking it was a good idea (to their credit, they realized their mistake and traded him to the Canadiens).









Chicago Blackhawks



Although they have the same stars that won them the Cup a few years ago, this team just isn't deep enough to do so again.  Nevertheless, they are in the process of solidifying 6th place in the West while being 4th in their division.  That's unreal.  They've survived a tough division, multiple injuries to their captain, and Patrick Kane's douchiness.



Highlight: I really do hate this team, so everything they do is viewed through a pair of Fuck-You-Vision glasses, but I'll give them credit for leading the West for 6 weeks or so with the season in full swing (and being  6-2-2 in their last 10 games as of this writing).



Lowlight: A 10 game losing streak, their worst in 5 years.  









Colorado Avalanche



This is a young, skilled, hungry team that should (but won't) make the playoffs.  I know the season isn't over yet, but they simply don't have enough games left to gain ground in the incredibly tight West.  Next year looks promising though; especially if Matt Duchene can find his scoring touch with more consistency.


Highlight: Gabriel Landeskog is the front-runner for the Calder award for best rookie.  He's a very complete player and should be very dangerous in the years to come.

Lowlight: The reason the Avalanche won't be in the playoffs is because they couldn't win in their division to save their lives.  They have an abysmal 7 wins as of this writing, with only 1 more divisional matchup left on their schedule (Calgary).




Columbus Blue Jackets


This team was supposed to be competitive this year.  They brought in Jeff Carter and James Wisniewski in the off season and were poised to be a decent team.  Now, they're the worst team in the league, they've traded away Carter, and Rick Nash is likely on the way out too.  That leaves the team with Wisniewski and Jack Johnson to build around.


Highlight: They will likely get the #1 draftpick this year.  Seriously, that's as close as I could come to providing a good point to this season for the Blue Jackets.  #TankCityOnIce (I apologize for using hashtags...  I feel shame.)

Lowlight: Take your pick.  There's the inconceivable-in-Bettman's-NHL 1 point through their first 8 games.  There's the fact that their GM is utterly incompetent.  There's the fact that their franchise player wants out.  There's the fact that this is the worst team in the league by far.  There's the fact that Steve Mason is their #1 goalie.  I'll stop now.








Dallas Stars



Dallas has had a confusing year.  They were the best team in the league for the first month, then were awful once Lehtonen got injured.  He's back, and they're currently leading their division and 3rd in the West.  Sounds pretty good right?  Well, they're only 2 points away from falling out of the top 8.  For a fan base that had to endure missing last year's postseason due to losing on the final day of the season, this must be a nerve-racking time.

Highlight: The Stars know how to win tight games; they're 12 games above .500 with an even goal differential.

Lowlight: It could be still to come.  The Stars have 2 games against division rivals San Jose.  Those 2 games will likely decide if the Stars finish 3rd, 8th, or even miss the playoffs entirely.




 Detroit Red Wings



Every year I think the Red Wings will start showing their age.  Despite Henrik Zetterberg's apparent efforts to make the Wings mediocre for the first half of the season, they continue to do things like break all-time records that seemed unbreakable.  Also, Lidstrom is almost certainly a T-1000 programmed to play hockey.  There's simply no other explanation.


Highlight: An all-time best 23 game home winning streak.  The previous best was 20.

Lowlight: The Hyde to their home record's Jeckyll, the Wings are only 16-21-3 on the road.  That's only one road point more than Montreal - the last place team in the East - has mustered thus far.




Edmonton Oilers


It's been the same old story for the Oilers this year.  They have great young talent in Eberle, Hall, and Hugent-Hopkins, but find themselves near the bottom of the standings once again.  This team is about 3 years and one elite defenceman away from being legitimate.


Highlight: For the first two months of the season, this team seemed as if they were a playoff team; their offensive power, bolstered by the 2nd ranked PP, can be explosive with the last two #1 draft picks, and another top 5 likely on its way.

Lowlight: They can't stay healthy.  Hall and Nugent-Hopkins have both missed significant amounts of time due to injuries and without them, this is still the Oilers team that tanked so badly that they wound up with the draft picks to acquire those two players.  And now Hall is having shoulder surgery and may miss the beginning of next year.

Although now that Hall is a zombie, he's impervious to further pain.

Florida Panthers


This team is Dallas-lite.  3rd in the East, they are only 5 points away from missing the playoffs.  Unlike Dallas, who could still wind up 7th or 8th, Florida is in an all-or-nothing position as they try to hold off Washington.  In all likelihood though, the Panthers will be playoff-bound for the first  time in a decade, after a near-complete roster overhaul.  They returned only 9 players from last year, and then traded Booth 6 games into the season.



Highlight: Versteeg is among their new players who have had a really positive impact on this team (and he was one of the few bright spots in my hockey pool).



Lowlight: Gm Dave Tallon had this to say regarding the Booth trade, for which the Panthers got Marco Sturm and Mikael Samuelsson: "We felt as far as an organization we get two top NHL players...".  Clearly Tallon doesn't watch the games, as those two are far from top NHL players.









Los Angeles Kings



Every year, I look through the teams before the season begins, and find myself terrified of the Kings.  Every year I think this will be the year they dominate.  I'm wrong every year.  They're certainly decent, but they find themselves in a fight for a playoff spot, and 3 of their final 5 games come on the road.


Highlight: A large part of why I jump to the conclusion that the Kings are a great team, goaltender Jon Quick currently has a 1.93 GAA, a .930 SVP, and 9 shutouts.  Nearly any other year those are Vezina numbers.

Lowlight: Dustin Penner provided one of the best punchlines of the year by injuring himself, and I quote, "reaching for more of my wife's delicious pancakes."  To his credit, he poked fun at himself in further interviews, and it led to fans doing things like this:

You know what, can I change this to their season highlight instead?

Minnesota Wild


On December 11th, the Wild were the best team in the league.  You read that right.  Since then, however, they are the league's worst team.  You read that right too.  Their poor fanbase has to deal with that absolute nosedive along with the fact that the club's is one of the most ironic names in history.


Highlight: Rookie coach Mike Yeo had this team playing above and beyond their potential and looked to be a serious contender for the Coach of the Year award.

Lowlight: ... And then the players remembered that they're the Wild.  Now, they're out of the playoff picture, and have a -45 goal differential.  That's atrocious for a team that supposedly is a defence-first team.




Montreal Canadiens


The last place team in the East, despite having an all-star goalie in Carey Price.  Why?  Because their offensive weapons were non-existant.  Scott Gomez went over a calendar year without scoring, and he's eating up $7 million of their payroll.  It's also probably telling that I didn't use that as their lowlight...  Oh, and this team decided that they could use Kaberle and acquired him from the Hurricanes (still somehow not the lowlight).


Highlight: Max Pacioretty is a 30 goal scorer a season after having his neck broken on a hit by Zdeno Chara.  Good for you, Max.

Lowlight: Even after throwing some pretty bad stuff into their synopsis, I still have a tie for their lowlight.  This team traded Cammalleri in the middle of a game!  Seriously?!  I think I have to give the edge to their coaching "controversy" though.  The city of Montreal lost their collective minds when the Canadiens hired Randy Cunningworth as their head coach because he doesn't speak French.  This is clearly a catastrophe despite the fact that their coach back when they were a dynasty didn't speak French.  And maybe this would be a legitimate gripe if translators didn't exist, but they do, so get over yourselves.  Also, Montreal, please don't lose it on me for not using the accent in your city's name.  I did it so you could practice staying calm.




Nashville Predators


Unlike the Kings, this team is legitimately scary.  They play amazing defense, somehow have the best PP in the league, and loaded up at the trade deadline for what could be a serious run at the Cup.  They also extended Pekka Rinne's contract.  I hear he's a pretty good goalie.


Highlight: This team traded for Hal Gill, giving them a Suter-Weber, Gill-Klein top 4 defense.  Right there, they addressed what knocked them out of last year's playoffs.  Ryan Kesler had his way with them because Suter and Weber matched up against the Sedins, allowing Kesler to single-handedly eliminate Nashville.  You'd better believe that won't be the case this year.

Lowlight: Rinne is tied for the league lead win 41 wins, but isn't in the top 5 in either GAA or SVP.  That's because he's had multiple games this year where he struggles with consistency.  If he maintains his form, it's a non-issue, but it has to be in the back of their fans' minds.

Rinne is also the recipient of the NHL's prestigious Niel Patrick Harris lookalike award.

New Jersey Devils


Martin Brodeur is clearly not the same goalie he once was.  Even so, he's been good enough to make this a team that will once again be in the playoffs.  With a likely matchup against the Florida Panthers, the Devils have a chance to make a bit of noise come April.


Highlight: Rookie Adam Henrique will be in the Calder discussion along with Landeskog and Nugent-Hopkins and rightfully so.

Lowlight: Brodeur still getting it done just underscores that this team needs to find a legitimate number 1 goalie to replace him.  I could be wrong, but I don't think Hedberg is that guy.  This team doesn't feel as if they have a proper identity right now.




New York Islanders

The Islanders have the offensive ability to score 3 goals per game, but unfortunately have the defensive incompetence to allow 4.  Just as often as Moulsson and Tavares provide offense though, the team dries up offensively.  The feast or famine quality to their season leaves the Islanders starving more often than not.  They've been shut out 9 times this year.

Highlight: Matt Moulsson .  He gets dogged for being one-dimensional, but let's be honest, when that dimension is "putting the puck into the net a lot", you can live with it.  Hell, you should want to live with it.

Lowlight: Rick DiPietro is arguably the biggest punch line in the NHL.  But unlike Penner, who is funny in the Ha-ha way, DiPietro is funny in the makes-you-want-to-curl-into-a-ball-and-weep way, which is to say, the opposite of funny.  Seriously, the most he has done to deserve his 15-year, $67.5 million contract is getting healthy long enough to re-injure himself.  Screw Wall Street, Occupy DiPietro.

Oh... Never mind, you're clearly busy with... whatever this is. 

New York Rangers


For the moment, the Rangers are the class of the East. The blueshirts should be in the East finals, so we can look forward to plenty of John Tortarella antics.  But if they bow out early, I desperately want TSN to hire him for their panel.  One key to the Rangers success (but certainly not the only key) has been the simple fact that they're healthy.  They're a very good team when healthy, which has been an unfortunate rarity for them over the past several seasons.


Highlight: Remember when I said that Quick would win the Vezina nearly any other year?  Say hi to the reason he won't.  Henrik Lundqvist has 8 shutouts, one less than Quick.  But he edges Quick with a 1.93 GAA (tecnically a tie) and a .932 SVP.  Beyond the numbers though, Lundqvist simply has another level; one that has earned him the rightful nickname "King".


Lowlight: Artem Anisimov racks up 16 PIMs celebrating a goal by "shooting" the Tampa goal.  Begin at the 0:45 mark.  As a bonus, you get to hear the audio of Torts and the ref talking.








Ottawa Senators


The Senators are trying to hold onto a playoff spot and represent Canada in the East.  A month ago, it looked as if they were a lock for a playoff spot, now it's just probable.  Even if they do make it, can they knock off the Rangers or the Bruins?  Well, all I can say is that this is a team that can fall apart against average teams, but can also beat the Penguins 8-4.  In other words, I have no idea.


Highlight:  Erik Karlsson currently has 27 more points than any other defenseman.  He's been criticized by some (including myself) for not being all that defensively sound, but in all fairness, scoring a goal is just as effective as stopping the other team from scoring.  Maybe he's just trying to usher in a new defensive style where on a later shift he feels justified in letting his check skate by him seeing as he's already scored, so it just negates a goal against.


Lowlight: Down the stretch, goaltender Anderson injured his finger, keeping him out of action.  Since his return, he's played as if his hand was amputated.  This team needs better between the pipes.








Philadelphia Flyers


In the offseason, the Flyers sent Mike Richards on his way, making Claude Giroux the focal point of their offensive game.  Good call.  He's third in the league in scoring, could win the Hart trophy, and along with the ageless Jagr, mask Bryzgalov's occasional incompetence.


Highlight: The emergence of Scott Hartnell over the past two seasons has been wonderful to watch.  He looks as if he's having fun out there every night (Hartnell down!) and edges Dustin Penner for funniest thing of the season with his "Suck it Phaneuf!" gem.


Lowlight: Chris Pronger, their captain and defensive cornerstone sustained a severe concussion and was shut down by the team for the season.  That was a huge blow to this team and will ultimately prove costly come playoff time.








Phoenix Coyotes


Does any team over-achieve as much as the Coyotes do?  There are serious talks they could be located in Quebec City (keep calm about the absent accent guys) next year, yet may be playoff-bound (they sit one point out of the picture right now).  The city of Glendale committed nearly $25 million to keep the Coyotes in Phoenix for this season, and the team responded by playing dead-puck hockey to an incredibly effective, boring "T".


Highlight: Fans showed up to games.


Lowlight: They fell asleep during it.








Pittsburgh Penguins


Think back to the start of the season.  It was becoming apparent that Crosby wouldn't be back anytime soon due to his concussion.  You looked at this team and thought, well, they're good, but not great, or even really good.  Then Malkin announced he would try this year.  Yeah, apparently the player who was unanimously considered really good, wasn't trying.  And boy, when he does: he leads the league with 99 points, and the Pens (now healthy) are the 4th best team in the entire league.

Highlight: Oh come on, nothing was going to top this.  In 16 games this year, Crosby has recorded 25 points.


Lowlight: Between Malkin, Crosby, Jordan Staal, and Tyler Kennedy (all centers), the Penguins have lost 110 man-games to injury.  Imagine the season that could have been.




San Jose Sharks


If you read my blog regularly, it's no secret that I'm not a fan of Joe Thornton, or the Sharks in general.  I've bemoaned their makeup for several years, and this year it may come back to bite them.  As it stands now, the Sharks sit in 8th in the West, only one point from missing the playoffs (although they're also only one point from the Pacific division lead and finishing 3rd).  Their fates do rest entirely in their hands though: their final 4 games are a back-to-back with Dallas (current division leaders) followed by a back-to-back with LA (with whom they are currently tied).


Highlight: Logan Couture (who I do like; San Jose, you should immediately build around Couture) has pretty much single-handedly given the Sharks the opportunity to make the playoffs.  And, oh yeah, this is only his second season in the league.

Lowlight: Their whole season really.  With largely the same team that went to the Western Conference Finals last year, they might miss the dance entirely this year.




St. Louis Blues

Can you think of a team that at the start of the season, no one thought would be a contender? (It's easy: Columbus)  Well can you think of any of those teams who have solidified themselves as serious contenders?  The Blues are the best team in the whole league (currently tied with the Rangers with 105 points)!  They were 6-7 when Ken Hitchcock took over; since then they're 42-13-9.

Highlight: The main reason that the Blues have had success this year has been the play of their two goalies.  Starter Joroslav Halak is 25-11-6 with a 1.90 GAA (which is 2nd best in the league).  Oh, and he's 6th in SVP and 4th with 6 shutouts.  Backup Brian Elliot is 23-9-3 with a league-leading 1.48 GAA.  If that's not enough to impress you, his SVP is .943 and he has 9 shutouts.  He leads the league in every goalie category except for wins, but only because he's their backup!

Lowlight: Um... that it took them 13 games to hire Hitchcock I guess...




Tampa Bay Lightning


Like the San Jose Sharks, the Lightning lost in the Conference Finals last season.  Unlike the Sharks, the Lightning will certainly miss the playoffs this year.  This has led to many writing off last year as a fluke, but I disagree.  Exhibit A: the highlight.  Exhibit B: the lowlight.  They'll be just fine.


Highlight: Someone take Steven Stamkos off of video game mode.  Dude has 55 goals, 9 more than Malkin.  Unquestionably the best pure scorer in the league at the moment.

Lowlight: Tampa shut down defenseman Matthias Ohlund before the season began so that he could have surgery on both his knees.  The surgeries were done so that he will be able to play with a much lower risk of developing chronic knee problems in the future.  A season without your best defenseman is going to be a tough one no matter who you are.




Toronto Maple Leafs


Brain Burke has not done a good job in Toronto.  One good acquisition he's made has been Phil Kessel, although he had to give up the pick that turned into Tyler Seguin, and you've already read how that season series turned out.  A season that had legitimate post-season aspirations is dead: the Leafs are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs... again.  This makes it 7 years running.


Highlight: Kessel had his traditional fast start (just like the team).  This year however, he's kept his pace up (unlike the team).  His 36 goals make a career-high for him, playing on a line with the rejuvinated Lupul.

Lowlight: This team fell apart down the stretch.  Add to that the fact that neither Reimer nor Gustavsson has made a resounding claim to the starting goalie spot, and it could be a long year next season for the Leafs... again.




Vancouver Canucks


The Canucks have once again taken advantage of the fact that they play in the Northwest divison; they locked up their division before any team other than St. Louis had even clinched a playoff berth.  They got David Booth from Florida in a one-sided deal, and can finish no lower than 2nd place in the West.


Highlight: The second best goaltending tandem in the league.  Roberto Luongo has come into form down the stretch, and Cory Schnieder has been great all year (2nd best SVP in the league).

Lowlight: After they beat the Bruins on January 7th, the Canucks began a two month period where they played bad hockey.  They continued to gather points in the standings somehow, but were doing so in the worst, most uninterested way.  An NHL coach reportedly said "Oh, the Canucks are jsut playing 70% right now", which is all very well and good for the last couple weeks, but not for two straight months.




Washington Capitals


The Caps find themselves in a race with Buffalo for the last playoff spot in the East.  This season, they've fired coach Bruce Boudreau and under Dale Hunter, begun to play a more complete style of hockey.  They also made the best off-season acquisition in Thomas Vokoun for $1.5 million.


Highlight: Ovechkin is peaking at the right time.  In March, he has 10 goals in 14 games.

Lowlight: The once-reveared Mike Green is an afterthought due to injury and poor play.




Winnipeg Jets


The Jets have returned to Winnipeg!  (But not the Jets who left in the first place, but another franchise, meaning the Jets' all-time leading scorer has never played a game for them, but nevermind because the Jets are back!)  The Jets had the opportunity to be the worst team in the league and not have any of their fans harp on them for it.  Rather than fall back on that, they chose to play like gods at home for their fans and nearly make the playoffs.


Highlight: The Jets fans proved to Gary Bettman just how another Canadian franchise would fair with a strong economy when the club sold their 13,000 season tickets in 17 minutes.

Lowlight: They may have played like gods at home, but on the road, this team was still the Thrashers.


*Credit To Alex Chipman Koty for fact checking my mistakes, as well as weighing in on his Kings highlight of the year:

Grow your beards

Vancouver fans, the Northwest division has been clinched by your Canucks.  We must take our cue from Shea Weber and Zdeno Chara and begin our playoff beards early (a.k.a. now).  As exhibits A through B, just look at this.

So for the guys, put your razors away.  Ladies, please don't kill the guys for purposefully making themselves scruffy and caveman-like.

The tradition of growing playoff beards is supposedly good luck - or rather, shaving is considered bad luck.  I don't believe in superstition myself, but choose to stop shaving as a sign of fandom.  I will also be booking a hair appointment to put green and blue in my hair shortly.

Anyhow, since the playoffs are approaching, that will be at the foreground of my thoughts (just in time for finals too!) so there will likely be more hockey-related posts in the coming weeks.  I'll be sure to temper it with normal stuff too.  

Is it too late to sign Harden to a contract?

There are a lot of OC pictures on my Facebook page

Boredom makes one do strange things.  Things like purusing your own Facebook page, and then realizing there's a disparity in your pictures.  If you were to scan over my profile, it would appear as if I go out with friends to drink all the time.  In pictures in which I'm tagged, dating back to October 2nd, 2011, in 78% of them I am drinking either on or off camera.  The numbers are even more skewed if you exclude two pictures that don't even have me in them: one of Daniel Sedin, and one of Ryan Atwood.

Although I've rarely looked better.

This doesn't bother me per se, but I sat there thinking that it really wasn't representative of me at this time.  I mean, I can count on both hands the number of times I've been drunk in the calendar year.  That's 7% of the time, but 78% of my pictures.

One hand if you've got double vision from drinking.

Of course, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it is in fact an accurate representation.  When I'm with friends, we typically don't bring cameras along to document our every movement.  The cameras only appear when the drinks are out too.  they're friends or something.

So as disprportionate as my pictures are in terms of blood-alcohol level-to-total days, it is a fair snapshot of me and my friends.  I don't know where I'm going with this, it was just something I noticed and felt the need to write about. 

Fuck you weatherman, I hope you get blown to Oz

Well, March 15th had been marked down as what was going to be a joyous day; Community returned!!  (Oh, and happy birthday to my favourite DAVIDsTEA girl, I hope you had a good 20th, Megan.)  PVR all set for the 5:00 airing, I went about my business knowing I'd soon be wishing I had a Troy to my Abed.

Bowties are cool.  Cool cool cool.

Around 9:30 or so, I turned the TV on, hit play, and....  A tornado watch weather chart was on my screen.  Um, what?  Exchanging a nervous look with Craig, we remembered that the recording had been set to begin 3 minutes early.  Phew!  So we began fastforwarding.  And kept fastforwarding.  By the 7 minute mark I was resigned to the fact that it had been preempted for a stupid tornado watch.  You really fucking Britta'd that one, weatherman!  Seriously, there's an annual tornado season, you should be prepared down there in the States, or, you know, don't live where Mother Nature throws temper tantrums.  You're lucky that watching TV online is a thing, or else the meteorologist would be pointing out Hurricane Tyler coming to fuck your shit up on his little green screen.

If you piss me off, I'll send Zeus after you; the two of us go way back.

Thanks for bearing with me through that little outburst, it just seemed so unjust.  Funnily enough, I just finished writing a short essay called The Injustice of Justice, and I really like the ending of it.  So humour me here and read it.  As a thank you, here's a picture of Annie's boobs.

Get your mind out of the gutter.

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Humans hold to the notion that there exists a concept called justice in the cosmic sense.  It is upon this flawed notion that we have built our society, and because of this, suffering can flourish.  This logical fallacy, seen clearly represented by the Just World Hypothesis discussed in The Myth of Justice, along with mankind’s selfish beliefs about justice, allow suffering to continue to exist.

For all the talk about empathy and togetherness that pervades society, at the heart of the matter, humans are selfish creatures.  Evidence of this can be found by examining the most influential text we have: The Bible.  Christianity is the largest religion in the world in terms of adherents and it is without question the most influential. At its heart is the text that has bred the notion that the human race is the center of the universe.  Genesis explicitly states, in fact, that the Earth is man’s to rule as he pleases.  This is important because it is upon these beliefs that most of today’s societies were built – North American society for a certainty.  For humankind, the son of God is the Sun of the solar system: the center.  Whether it is true or not is irrelevant; the belief exists, and from there, the problem of suffering is born.

Within our minds, we shrink the universe’s center down from our race as a whole, to an individual basis.  Each of us believes that we personally are of the utmost importance, and our worldview is consequently altered on a person to person basis.  It is difficult to fault anyone for doing this, after all, it is the underlying message of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: the self is of the utmost importance, because one must ensure the self’s safety so as to continue experiencing life.  For example, one only worries about the respect of others so long as their need for food and water is being met.  Everything else is gravy, as it were, so when the headline reads “Two dead from blindside vehicle collision”, one of our first thoughts is “I’m glad it wasn’t me.”

Consider that headline again.  After our initial thanks for not having been killed, one word in that headline begins to muddle our conceptions of justice: blindside.  The victims did nothing wrong except occupy a physical space at an inopportune time, yet their lives have been taken away.  This event flies in the face of what both religious people and non-believers alike have taken from the Bible: behaving in the right way will yield positive results.  The religious person must believe that God is good and just, and adherence to His wishes will bring good fortune, or at the very least, ward off misfortune.  For the non-believer, this message exists in the Just World Hypothesis.  The Just World Hypothesis, in short, proposes that if one is good, good things will befall said person, with the converse holding true as well.  From the converse, we get perhaps the most quietly terrifying human mental process: victim blaming.

A police officer conducting a seminar on sexual assault was asked how women can help reduce the risk of being sexually assaulted.  His response was “Don’t dress like a slut.”  His words have been echoed by thousands of people who seem to think that women are at fault for someone else assaulting them.  Wearing a football jersey is not an invitation for someone to tackle you; nor is dressing provocatively an invitation to be groped.  Yet still there exist people who believe that dressing like a slut is why women get sexually assaulted.  Why?  Because, according to the Just World Hypothesis, for their worlds to continue to make sense, they must believe that women are doing something to deserve what happens to them in cases of sexual assault.

For the majority though, a certain level of enlightenment has been achieved, and they can plainly see that Mary doesn’t deserve to be raped just because she wore a short skirt and high heels out to the club, just as the (hypothetical) deceased car passengers didn’t deserve their fates.  It is far more telling, when discussing our misconception of justice, to examine scenarios in which the Just World Hypothesis checks out: what about when someone has done bad?  Do they now deserve to have bad things befall them?

Let us return once more to our hypothetical car crash.  What if the victims had just finished robbing a bank, when, in an unrelated car crash, they were both killed?  Are they now deserving of this misfortune, or at least more deserving than if they hadn’t transgressed written law?  On the surface, this scenario seems to be much tougher morally, but it really isn’t.  Justice cannot be administered by some karmic force that holds the ‘bad’ in check; only the courts can hand down justice, as written law dictates.  Just because these hypothetical robbers were objectively bad people doesn’t mean that it is just to have their car be blindsided.  An adequate application of justice would be for them to be apprehended, tried, and sentenced.  Just so long as the sentence isn’t the death penalty, in which case, justice is not being done.   Capital punishment is false justice, for murdering a murderer (or robber) only adds another layer to the initial transgression.  Yet the death penalty continues to pass for justice in certain places.  Dorris is spot on in proclaiming justice to be a myth on a cosmic level.

As selfish creatures, we’ve built our lives around the fact that each of us deserves prosperity, a fact that can unfortunately never be true.  We need to see that the world does not make perfect sense.  It’s time that we stop thinking God or the divine will step in and make everything right; He gave humankind the Earth to rule.  We’re steering the ship now.  “An eye for an eye only succeeds in making the whole world blind” said Ghandi.  It seems that even the words of one of the most revered people of the 20^th century are not enough to open our collective eyes to the injustice of justice.  Or maybe we’ve already been blinded.

I apologize: There is no coherent theme to this post

So for the past three days, the outside of my right thigh has been numb.  I don't know why; I haven't knocked into anything with it.  It doesn't hurt, it's just a bizarre sensation; imagine the feeling of having a body part fall asleep, but without the pins and needles.  That's the best way I can explain it.  I don't see a need to seek a medical opinion about it, I figure it'll go away on its own and it's not as if it's causing me any distress.  Also, could you imagine going to see the doctor and telling them "My leg is numb, but there's no physical reason for it, no visible signs of any problem, and it's not in any way impeding my ability to walk perfectly fine... Fix it!"

My grandma on the other hand, has been experiencing hearing problems for the past several months and brushes off the notion that she should see a doctor, although, in all fairness, it could just be that she doesn't hear my sister insisting upon it.  She's like the opposite of a hypochondriac.  (Hyperchondriac?)

No mention of leg-brain.... It's clearly out of date.

Anyhow, it would seem that my brain is located within my right thigh and is likewise numbed, because it clearly doesn't work very well.

When I was at work on Tuesday, my co-worker handed me my tips and I put them into the pocket of the apron I was wearing, and promptly forgot about it.  End of the night rolled around, I clocked out, took my apron off, tossed it into the laundry basket, got changed and headed home.  I only realized I was without my money at around 1 in the morning.  Thankfully, that co-worker is a saint and she didn't have a problem with going through the laundry while she was opening the next morning to find my money.  Thanks Arri.

Anyhoo, my mind also hasn't quite adjusted to the time change, although unlike my leg, I know exactly why this happened.  The clock on the DVD player in the living room for the longest time was an hour ahead, because it doesn't automatically adjust itself and I am too technologically illiterate to know how to change it; it was far easier to just know that it was an hour fast.  Well now it's proving to be quite difficult to un-know that fact and as such, I have caught myself being very surprised to find how late it is in the day over the past week or so.  So if I am an hour late to meet up with you, now you know why.

The math geek in me adores this, although I imagine things get pretty weird when negative-two o'clock rolls around...

Speaking of time (I've decided that the random things I'm writing about here will be tied together with forced, cheesy segues; did you catch the first couple earlier?), it's March Madness time.  I love watching college basketball despite the fact that I have no knowledge of any of the schools competing.  This year, I've decided to fill out a bracket, and I'm making my selections based entirely on a flip of a coin.  According to chance, the Final Four will be Kentucky, Memphis, Syracuse, and St. Mary's.  Then, in the Final Four, Kentucky beats Memphis, and St. Mary's upsets Syracuse, before going on to defeat Kentucky in the Championship game.  You heard it here first: St. Mary's will be your 2012 NCAA champions.

A quick Google search tells me they're in California and their team name is the Gaels, because what is more Gaelic than California frat boys?

If you feel like being entirely wrong about a sporting tournament, or, infinitely more hilariously, consider yourself to be an expert on the March Madness tournament, throw your picks down in the comments, we can have a bet.  The stakes: my dirty laundry tip money.  Takers?

Finally, turning from a sporting event that I adore but know nothing about, to one that I adore and do know quite a bit about (how are you liking those segues?  It's literary genius isn't it?), I would much rather watch the Canucks play a good, tight game and beat the Coyotes 2-1 (as long as it's not in the shootout, the shootout is the antithesis of excitement), instead of an objectively more entertaining 5-4 loss that features 76 shots combined.  Also, Mason Raymond is not a first-line player for any team.  If you must move Burrows (and he played very well on the third line), then bump Kassian up to the Sedins' line and keep Raymond doing what he is actually competent at: checking.  Watching him be on my team's top line personified what the shootout is: an abortion of entertainment.

While this is an impressive shootout, this in no way should ever be how a semi-final game ends.  Unless the NCAA wants to adopt and adapt this for basketball; that would be awesome.  Imagine a layup contest to decide a game.  (That's how St. Mary's is going to seal the title, calling it now.)

School Skills 101: The Study Sheet

Hey, you there.  Are you currently going to school (not like literally travelling there, but you know, enrolled)?  I bet you get pretty stressed out during exam time, am I right?  Well this is your lucky day, because I'm pretty much a knowledge guru.

A guru is one who has great wisdom in a certain field and helps impart it to others.  Also, this is a shitty movie.  Boom!  Two facts for the price of one.  You've been guru'd!

Depending on your instructor and what course you're studying for, you may be allowed to bring a cheat sheet with you to your exam.  You may be tempted to do what the rest of your classmates do, and fill a sheet of paper with reference dates, equations, and topic ideas with writing so small that a snail would need a magnifying glass to decipher, but I implore you, do not do this.  Everyone is doing this, likely with almost identical information; if you want to rise above your classmates, you'll need to have something different.  Lucky for you, I've been guruing my ass off to prepare for you, the perfect study cheat sheet.  You're welcome in advance.

Guru Tip #1:  Know Your Topic

For those of you who are writing an answer-based exam (multiple choice, short answer, that sort of thing), I'm going to let you in on the most sure-fire way to prepare a study sheet:  Get the answer key.

Seriously, nothing can go wrong with this.  It's foolproof.

You may think this is cheating, and from a strictly technical standpoint, it kinda is, but it's all in the approach.  Don't just up and ask your teacher for an answer key, you need to be subtler.  If you keep it on the down-low, it's all good.

Enlist the aid of an accomplice to distract your teacher with a question about the material while you sneak into their office to search for the key.  Feel free to make copies of anything that seems like it has the slightest chance of being pertinent, after all anything written down on paper is meant to be read and shared with the general public.

Alternately, if you are in dire need of an answer key, offer your teacher sexual favours in exchange for the answers.  A good rule of thumb is that the depravity of said actions on a scale from 1-100 should be inversely proportional to your mark in the class.

**If you have succeeded in obtaining an answer key, don't bother reading on, you're set. If you obtained the key without your teacher's knowledge, remember to purposefully answer a few questions incorrectly so as to not draw suspicion.  If sexual favours were needed, proceed to the nearest bar to drink away the memory of what you did, you sick, sick pervert.

Guru Tip #2:  It's not always about information

You'll be tempted to cram in some "useful" factoids like "the length of a right triangle's hypotenuse is equal to the root of the sum of it's legs' squares" or a quick overview of which homophone you're essay needs (see what I did their?) or basic facts like "Teddy Roosevelt was a badass", but don't waste your valuable space.  Actually, keep the Roosevelt one in there, even though it's not something you might be prone to forget because, seriously, it's not even debatable how much ass that man kicked.

The Dream Team

Take it from your guru, positive reinforcement is the way to go.  Use the space that those boring facts would have occupied to give your confidence a boost mid-exam.  That way, when you draw a blank on "Who was in charge of Operation Cobra, a significant American victory for the Allies, during WWII?" you can turn to your cheat sheet to find several helpful sentences, including, but not limited to:

• You can do this.
• You're awesome.
• Think hard, you know this one.
• Teddy Roosevelt is watching over you.

With this positive reinforcement in mind, you can now turn back to your exam and confidently write the correct answer: "Theodore Roosevelt, in spirit".

It's a little known fact that "Teddy Roosevelt" is accepted as a correct answer to every exam question.

Guru Tip #3:  Essay Help

Chances are you're not getting through a semester without having to write an essay exam.  If you feel that you aren't a strong writer, these can be pretty intimidating.  If the essay is on a novel, the best way to prepare is to read the book twice, talking it over with a classmate (preferably one who is as smart as, or ideally, smarter than you), perhaps seeking out some discussion questions for practice.  But let's be realistic: you're a college student, you don't have time for all this reading nonsense; your schedule is busy enough with all those frat parties and wacky hijinks.

See how impressed those two girls are?  You don't achieve that through no book-learnin'.

Fear not, guru to the rescue!  Jot the following go-to topics on your cheat sheet, find the quickest way to relate your novel to them, and you're golden.

• The Holocaust
• Famous psychology experiments (Milgram, Asch, Zimbardo are your bread and butter here.)
• *If you live in Vancouver, you can also then relate said psychological studies to the Stanley Cup riot; be topical, and your professors will eat it right up.
• The theme of love
• The Holocaust (seriously, 65% of university novels, and 100% of high school novels can be thematically linked to the Holocaust.  Guru'd!)

You now have all the tips you'll need to craft a masterpiece of a study sheet for your exam.  All you need to do now is to write it out, and you'll be getting an A shortly (and there's only a slim chance you had to trade sex for that A, good job!).


If you're the kind of person who reads an article about making a study guide right through to the end however, you're likely also the kind of person who will procrastinate on actually making one, and wake up 25 minutes before the exam begins in a panic over your procrastination.  As your guru, I had the foresight to deal with this problem.  I've prepared a template study sheet for you, just print it off and head to your test.

You may as well just hand this in as your exam, it'll still get an A.