TAMPA BAY, FL – Some poor shmuck in Edmonton is about to lose his job and that shmuck’s name is Oilers General Manager Craig MacTavish. Why? Well, for those of you on vacation and the other two gazillion people who just don’t care about hockey, NHL free agency began this past week and saw Benoit Pouliot change teams for the fifth time in five years to the tune of $20 million over five years. What?!? This rivals the Lufthansa heist in the movie Goodfellas and it’s only a matter of time before Mrs. Pouliot starts wearing a mink coat, while driving a pink Cadillac around Alberta as proof of the theft, and MacTavish winds up hanging from a meat hook in the back of a refrigerated Canadian bacon truck. This GM is clearly a Ray Charles visionary and sees something in the former Rangers, Lightning, Bruins, Canadiens, and Wild winger that nobody else does. Four effing million per for a guy who knows how to kill attack time in the offensive zone by taking stupid penalties and plays small for a guy standing 6-3. MacTavish served his time for vehicular manslaughter back in the day but this move is like committing suicide.
Another Rangers related item regarding free agency: was Ryan Callahan traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning back in March to become an Assistant GM? The Lightning raided the Rangers roster by adding Anton Stralman and Brian Boyle for money the pair weren’t going to get from the Blueshirts. It’s a numbers game in trying to fit contracts under the salary cap but these guys now have plenty of dough to spend on sun tan lotion as the three former Rangers have their reunion party on a Tampa beach.
Listen, I don’t care much about baseball these days but another move that has me scratching my chin is JGClancy’s Oakland team getting two-fifths of the Chicago Cubs starting rotation in a trade for a Double-A shortstop with some injury concerns. My money says this shortstop winds up being somewhere between Ivan DeJesus and Shawon Dunston rather than the second coming of Ernie Banks. “Let’s trade two.”
I read where Oscar Meyer frankfurters bested Nathan’s Famous in a taste test, this after Joey Chestnut won his ninth consecutive Mustard Yellow belt in the competitive eating circuit’s Nathan’s hot dog eating contest. There’s just something very wrong about men going down on that many wieners, 61 to be exact, in ten minutes time. If memory serves correct, Marilyn Chambers once devoured that many in a movie I once saw.
The Who Cares Department: LeBron and Melo are shopping around… The World Cup is down to eight teams, I think… Another NFL wide receiver, LaVon Brazil, is facing a year-long ban for testing positive for wacky tabacky… My dog is unaffected by fireworks… Wayne Gretzky is heading a group to lure the NHL into a Seattle franchise, while Hartford is first on my list… The Mets suck and, the Mets suck… The Yankees aren’t much better. It’s time to blow up the WNBA.
Thank you and good day.
DJ Eberle, tomorrow.
