What evil lurks in the heart of a sport's writer, who has the nerve to chastise such deities as Darian Durant, or the Toronto Maple Oafs?
The crux of the issue lies in a well-researched concept of what is commonly known as the middle child syndrome. The first baby is the angelic cherub whose photos abound in such numbers that the middle baby is relegated to the back pages of the albums and the subsequent additions to the roster are often left to drink turpentine in the laundry room. At least that's how things worked in my neighborhood.
My younger brother has since turned to single malt scotch, and plenty of it, but the turpentine shooters he enjoyed as an infant left him a terminal Leaf fan, forever trapped in an otherworldly fog of failure and endless bewilderment. But who cares about him? It's me who writes these little ditties and it's me who got the second hand clothes, and eventually got the keys to the '67 Chevy Bel-Air after my older brother lost his license to some demonic confrontation with the RCMP. Who's the angel now?
The upside of being the middle child is a built in prescience of what is ahead, a veritable ESP, and many ofus end up as wandering mystics and healers. I have chosen to use my gifts to help you gamble. You're welcome.
This column is part one of the scientific experiment to see if my theory holds water, or is soaked in a turpentine, cider or scotch, and whether my reckless ridicule of the Leafs is with just cause, or simply tainted with some unnamed jealous fury buried deep within my twisted psyche. Deep stuff eh?
This column began just mere hours before the Leafs and my Habs squared off on Hockey Night in Canada, and as God shines his 3-D light on my big screen TV, I hereby implore you to sell your wife's cherished family heirlooms and essentially follow me as ifI just came down from the local ski hill with a new set ofsporting commandments.
Either way, Don Cherry is still an imbecile and regardless, as to how far his dementia has spread,I intend on taking solace in a rare Montreal loss by referring to such luminaries as Chris Berman and Chris Schultz. Both of these supposed experts in the field of sports prognostication continue to suggest they were either first born children or lumped into the middle of some runaway family of European colonists with no TV and nothing to do, but incessantly replicate their ethnicity. On top of that, their records on weekly predictions make me look like a Yaqui Indian shaman at a peyote party.
Let's begin with Dion Phaneuf and admit while he is a physical presence on the ice and has a deadly slapshot, he is far from a feared fighter and his nose would lend credence to the idea that I have tobogganed down lesser hills than that bulbous facial anomaly.
Ex-Hab Mike Komisarek is in the same boat, minus the nose, and therein lies the reason Montreal didn't resign him. Premature balding centres like Phil Kessel support my lab tests that the pressure of failure in Toronto is tantamount to lying on the battlefield in WW II and pretending you're already dead. He wants to die, but the Leafs spent so much to get him they can't afford the bullets to put him out of his misery.Little Nazem Kadri has all the skills to rip apart a tier II midget league and it appears that the grinders are scoring all of the goals. With that said, anyone can have an errant puck ricochet off of their chin and into the net. It's like winning the lottery only different.
The Leafs are in a state of disrepair. Kind of like ground zero in NYC except the fans have yet to begin the rush to a lemming's like drop to the streets below. An adventure in 3-D on national TV could result in mass suicides and an alien life form bursting through the chest of Brian Burke. Heads will roll, fortunes will be won and lost all because of me, unless
I have been to the mountain. I have worn Leafs pajamas, hand me downs of course, and have denounced them as nothing more than a bunch of second round draft picks. They will soon torch that rink and I will be here to watch the sad parade and even stoop so low as to share a turpentine smoothie with the lost soul of my younger sibling. My older brother is also a Leafs' fan, but his pathological disorder is more loosely connected to his time in the drunk tank.
Sharing a cell with a 300-pound Habs' fan will bring him around soon enough. Toronto is two games over .500 at home, Price is resting and the Habs just played Detroit last nightso either roll the dice or go with your gut. Leafs in an upset - low scoring and brutal to watch - check the box scores, I was right.
