DIVORCING THE HABS

January 28, 2010

Dear Lawyers, (EDITED CLEANED UP VERSION)


I have this problem and someone recommended that i speak with a lawyer or four. Let me explain. I have been married to this wonderful partner for let see, well about 100 years give or take a few months. Over those years we have enjoyed numerous ups and downs. During certain years, maybe aroud 24, they were like winning the Stanley Cup. They were top of the world years baby. Then there were some other years mixed in there that had some highs and lows but as long as we weren’t living in Toronto I took it with a grain of salt. But you see the problem has gotten progressively worse. I would say the last 17 years have been pretty dry (wink) you know no Stanley Cup years for me and the Mrs. Most recently I have been realy struggling with the question of divorce. You see my wife and I have been going through this particularly tough patch. There doesn’ t seem to be any consistancy in our relationship. One day its good, the next few bad, followed by a few more good ones and then some bad ones again. You get what I mean? Anyways I’m really close to throwing in the towel.

The thing that pushed me to this point was last week we decided to do a little trip to NJ (yeah I know the asshole of the U.S. but pretty much as close as I’d gotten to one in a long time). HOLY CRAP man! The Mrs. put out like 3 times that night. I was spent. So the next day we decided to return home and seeing as the night before had been so incredible I decided we should maybe do a NY theme night at home. My wife loves NY and it is my second favorite city after Montreal. So I figured hell why not! HOLY MACREL! That night the Mrs. put out 6 times….YAH EH! 6 times. I felt like the bionic man (well maybe that was the viagra). Anyways. So we get to talking and were thinking hell our relationship might be taking a turn for the better so lets take a trip to Florida and see what happens. Well screw me. On Tuesday night in Miami I get only one go at the Mrs. and she goes right off to la la land like I wasn’t even there. I don’t get to discouraged though cause I know the next nights got to be better in Tampa. BUT F?&K ME I don’t get any! NOTHING! Not even a hand job. So now I’m really pissed and I think divorce is for sure the right way to go. No other options. I’m soooooo… friggin tired of this up and down roller coaster. But everyone tells me. GET A LAWYER….so what do you think guys any solutions.

OH P.S. My Mrs. has a father who is always grumpy, never smiles and makes some seriously questionable business transactions. She also has an Uncle who at every family get together is always talking about some system no one gets. OH and my Mrs. has two friends. One is a whale and totally not dependable. The other is from some eastern country and seems to be the stable one but the Mrs. can’t make up her damn mind which one is her best friend so things get confusing all the time. Oh and she has these guy friends (3 of them) who are all like 4 ft 2 and they can really be an unpredictable bunch but I hear one of them actually makes like 8 million a year at his job.

Hope you can help

Yours truly,


Desperate in MTL

SAME OLD SAME OLD

OH BRETT!

Its January 20, 2007, its about minus 100 degrees at historical Lambeau Field. Its early into the first overtime. Green Bay and NY Giants are all tied up 20-20. Brett Farve has the ball he fades back and throws it......into the arms of Corey Webster of the NY Giants. The Giants take the ball back and out comes Giants kicker, Lawrence Tynes who then proceeds to kick a long field goal for the 23-20 overtime win and a trip to the Superbowl. A dejected Farve leaves the field still in search of a return to the big game. Twelve years have gone by as he has tried fruitlessly to make another Superbowl appearance. Fast forward to January 24, 2010 Farve and his team (now the Minnesota Vikings) are in New Orleans Saints end of the field its a tie game late in the 4th quarter. The team needs only 5 to 7 yards to put their place kicker back into position after receiving a too many men in the huddle penalty. Its third down. Farve rolls to his right running towards the side line (more like limping) he has the field wide open in front of him. All he has to to is wobble the 5 or 7 yards and do a classic I'm a pansy second base slide and out comes the kicker to do his job. But no! This is Brett Farve. The rejuvenated, reinvented Farve. The bionic Farve (we have the capability to build the worlds first and repeatingly retired quarterback. We can re-invent him, make him faster, make him stronger. We can teach him not to throw stupid passes at the most critical time in a game). Well almost right until that last one, because there he was running across the field on those bionic legs, looking 26 year old again, getting every fan in Minnesota wet and hard. Then he does it! He looks left, into the middle of the field and sees with those bionic eyes only what someone with bionic eyes could possibly see. He reels back that arm and he attempts a cross body pass right back into the middle of the field. What happens? Is it the story book ending for the 40 year old compulsive retiree you ask? Is he going back to the Superbowl to try and recapture another title 13 years later. AH NO! INTERCEPTION and the game ends in a tie. (what a let down after all of that) Ok so start overtime. New Orleans wins the coin toss (only in American sports could the possible outcome of the second most important game of the season be decided by a coin toss in sudden death overtime). They take possession, ramble down the field, set up a field goal and as they love to say in war, sports and love; THE REST IS HISTORY. Same old, same old.

There is no denying the Farve has been one of the most talented and illustrious Quarter backs in recent NFL history. His accomplishments abound and he has already punched a ticket to the Hall of Fame. This Farve however just can't get the idea its over when its over. Since his first coming out (no he isn't gay) of retirement to return to the NY Jets he has only help feed the fire of disappointment. No there is no denying that he lit a fire under this young upstart Vikings team and that they had a fantastic 2009-2010 run. The unfortunate part is Farve couldn't close the deal. You see that has been his problem for more then a decade. Once you close a deal you think for sure there are more to come. You convince yourself as time progresses that its just around the corner. Waiting for the right game, the right balance of offense and defence. With the right coach, the right receivers and a decent running game combined with his imaginary bionic body he convinces himself that it can be found. The deal can be done. That to redeem himself for more then a decade of lost deals that he can, he must find the big one. The dreams and stories of Disney are based on plot lines like Farve has built over the last 12 years. The unfortunate reality is a old man in a young mans game, searching for past glory only come to understand (well not in Farve's case) that the deal is going elsewhere; that the only difference between you and 32 other quarterbacks in the league is your age, diminishing talent and inability to close the deal. All bionics aside..

LES CANADIEN, LES CANADIEN

What to make out of this team suffering from some type of bi-polar disorder. I have no idea what to make of this team and its Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde personality. Every part of me wants this team to be the Dr.Jekyll. To be good, to be focused on achievement and winning. There is this small part of me however that wants them to be Mr. Hyde. I have been a Canadiens fan ever since i knew how to skate. My father and grandfather (and grandmother) were staunch Habs fans. I learned about hockey in a back yard rink built by my Dad and i dreamed of greatness sitting on the floor by the couch every Saturday night watching the Canadiens dominate. My youth took me from 1965 to 1983. My first eighteen years on earth were marked by 10 Stanley Cup Wins (3 which i don't remember) The first time i really started to appreciate what winning meant was in 1970-71. From that point on I grew up expecting and believing that the Cup belonged in one place and to one team only. I wrote off their failures from time to time as simple luck on the part of the other teams. I shrugged off and accepted that basically every 2 years the cup would come back home. Then came the NY Islanders with Bossy, Potvin, Smith and Trottier.  Followed by the Edmonton Oilers and some guy named Gretzky.

The unfortunate reality is that after 1978-79 the cup didn't come around for another 6 years. I turned 21 that year (85-86) and watched the Habs win it against the Calgary Flames in a bar on the West Island surrounded by many of my old high school friends with whom i still hung around. The Cup went away again until 1993 a total of 7 years passed and many things changed. I watched them win the cup in my living room with my 16 month old Daughter sitting on my lap.

All during those times of drought, or between lapses i always believed the team was just adjusting, finding itself again, preparing itself for another run. Now in 2010 some 17 years since the Cup was paraded down Ste Catherines' Street. I have watched, as all fans have, as this team has seemingly squandered opportunities, ruined young draft choices. Has let slip out of their grasp players and coaches who later became stars elsewhere. We have watched as coaching changes (12 since 1984) have done nothing to help the team win. We watched in astonished bemusement as Tremblay, Cournoyer and Houle were named to lead the team. I remember on that day thinking that putting those 3 guys in charge was like putting Goofy, Micky and Donald Duck in charge of the Disney Corporation. Needless to say the Roy departure only added to the feeling i had. As everyone knows things have not improved from there.

So here we are knee deep in the back of the lab experiment being conducted by Dr. Gainey. Hopelessly trying to figure out exactly where were going with all of this. I am not a fan of Gainey the GM. Nor of the way the front office has turned this organization into nothing more then a glorified image of its past history. I think it really struck me how low this organization had become when Saku Koivu was allowed to leave this storied franchise without so much as an inkling of respect or recognition from Les Canadien. Yes i know Saku never brought a cup to Montreal and yes there was much to do about his lack of french..blah..blah..blah. The direction of this team has become so messed up as a result of past history, the media, us the fans and more importantly this belief that the organization belongs to Francophone Quebec. So whats going to happen? Your guess is as good as mine. The team has no Captain, no number one Goalie and a Coach who supposedly has a system but can't seem to get the players to play it. That unto itself requires no more elaboration. This team needs serious fixing. What really gets me going is this idea that making it to the playoffs some how will redeem the season, or past 17 seasons. That if we make the playoffs we just build on that and move forward into the 2010-2011 season. That makes no sense to me. The organization many of us love is broken and a mere playoff appearance isn't going to fix anything. I won't elaborate any further, the 100+ blogs and chat rooms have dealt enough with that. I will say however that this team isn't getting anywhere near the Cup again this year or for many to come. That my friends is what happens when you manage and operate based on the past and not the future.

Stay tuned friends for my upcoming Mens Olympic Hockey predictions.