Third man in

Yeah so I dunno about all this quote-unquote introduction stuff. Seems odd to me. Well jeez I’ve been a hockey writer for the last couple years blah blah blah. I assume that, since I barely care about what got me into this malarkey in the first place, so why should you? That said, here is a post detailing all of that and more!

Hello, discerning reader. You may know me from such hockey blogs as The Two-Line Pass and, well, that’s it. I used to be an actual hockey writer that covered the Boston Bruins, but because the newspaper industry is where it is (read: on life support), I got laid off. No one cared about hockey in Boston anyway until, say, mid-November of this season when the Bruins started winning every game.

So I started TLP as kind of a way to rant into the abyss about the stupid things going on in hockey, like the whole Barry Melrose-as-NHL-coach thing, and never expected anyone to care. Few, I suspect, do even now. But my long, meandering posts found me at least one fan, my dearest Wanye Gretz. He approached me to write for this site what feels like 14 years ago (in actuality it was only three!) and after a long, tumultuous courtship that involved us taking a break and seeing other people, we finally got this sumbitch kickstarted.

(Not that we aren’t still working out the kinks, obviously. As much as I’d like that record to my immediate right to be accurate, the Flames are not 82-0-0 as of this writing.)

To explain why I’m posting here, I guess I’d better hastily explain that, despite my Boston upbringing, I have always been a Flames fan. One of my earliest hockey memories is watching the Flames win the Stanley Cup when I was six and had no reason to suspect that Theo Fleury would become any sort of substance abuser. These were my salad days, and I’m sure yours as well.

At that age, it’s hard to explain to your friends why you don’t like the local team. Neely, Bourque and Oates could dominate games in NHL94 while I sat there plugging away with Paul Ranheim on my second line and weeping into my pillow every night (which, by the way, is how I imagine Ryan Smyth gets himself to sleep to this day). The ’90s, I don’t have to tell you, were a rough decade for me.

I am not, however, one of those rah-rah “omg i luv Andre Roy”-type fans. On the contrary, being my favorite team in any sport comes with the great burden of my being hyper-critical and generally unaccepting of the team’s moves, or at least whatever seems popular within the general fanbase. Bertuzzi signing? For it, 100 per cent. Phaneuf contract? Too goddamn much. Cammalleri trade? Fantastic.

Like Kent before me, I will suggest that, should you want to know more about me and where I’m coming from, you please check the above link to The Two-Line Pass. That should square you away very nicely.

As for what I plan to bring to this blog, well, it ain’t gonna Shakespeare. Unless Shakespeare hated Ales Hemsky and made poop jokes, in which case it will be almost exactly like that. I’ll leave all the serious posting to Kent. He’s much better at it than I am. I plan on focusing more on how bad the Oilers are and, by extension, how hilarious that is to us.

Okay, see ya out there. Go Flames and all that.