CanadianGuitarist

Jacksonville at Chicago Jacksonville's probably deflated after Monday, and Chicago still has a reasonable shot at the division crown. Minnesota at Detroit - Jared Allen said on PTI this afternoon that there's more pressure on Minny to win this game. He was probably just being polite - there's no way Minny loses. Houston at Green Bay - Gut feeling, and Houston did handle the cold in Cleveland two weeks ago. Cleveland at Tennessee Ken Dorsey? Tennessee by 100. Cincinnati at Indianapolis Atlanta at New Orleans - New Orleans isn't realistically making the playoffs, and their "home" record has an asterisk. Atlanta wins a good, but close, game. Philadelphia at NY Giants NY Jets at San Francisco - Favre rallies the troops after last week. Imagine what the spread would be if this were a week 13 game. New England at Seattle Kansas City at Denver Revenge for Week 4. This time it's at home, and they can nail the Chargers' coffin. Miami vs. Buffalo (at Toronto) - No weather advantage, no home-field advantage (I see more Canadians showing up for the novelty than Buffalonians to root for the Bills). And Losman, who's still afraid of bright lights and big cities? Miami by ten. St. Louis at Arizona Dallas at Pittsburgh Washington at Baltimore Tampa Bay at Carolina - Toughest call of the week. Gut feeling again.

No, only one PRP per product. If you've had your original 360 replaced altogether, you'd need an new PRP.

The Oilers win their second straight, with a needless 5-4, come-from-behind win. It's their third in four, but how long does MacT have a job? He deserves some slack given the high expectations placed upon a young team, along with the so-so goalie trio, but they're in the bottom half of both goals for and goals against, they're in the bottom five in shots against and PK, and only one player is among the league's top 50 in scoring.

I don't remember that either....when/how was it said?

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General Interest Questions 1. Who are you and what's your business here? I came here with a dwindling interest in wrestling in 2004, though my tenure officially began as an opponent of the Iraq war. 2. When did you discover an interest in wrestling? Earliest I remember is about six, watching with my dad. 3. The Company Line: A. Which companies have you actively followed in your tenure as a wrestling fan? B. What have some of your favourite companies been? Your least favourite? (In theory, your answer can be the same - if you were growing up a fan of the technical wrestling WCW brought to the table but thought the end of the line for them was some of the worst television this side of My Mother The Car, that's cool). C. What is your favourite company right now? Any reason why? A. WWF from 90-98, ECW from 98-01, WWE from 04-mid'06. I caught an episode here and there of ones unmentioned, but never all that often. B. There was never a point I disliked or made a point not to watch a company, but I found WWF to get really boring during my ECW markdom. C. Not applicable 4. (Not So) Favourites: A. Who were your favourite wrestlers (or gimmicks) growing up / when you first started watching wrestling? B. Who were some guys you couldn't stand? C. Who are your current favourites (if applicable / different from A.) D. There was a 4th question here, but it basically ripped off the entire premise of a thread (or more than one thread, in theory) that already exists in General. A. Hogan as a six-year-old. Bret took over as my favourite around '91. I always liked the Mountie as a kid. As a rule, my all-time five are Bret, Owen, Terry Funk, Mick Foley, and Steve Austin. I've got loyalty to Canadian wrestlers, and the ECW mark in me still has a soft spot for RVD, Dreamer, and Taz. B. I've always disliked Michaels. He's the only one that really jumps to mind. C. I don't watch enough to know who's still around. I'm wildly entertained by Santino whenever he's on, though. Specific Questions about your Interest 5. How would you gauge your current interest level in the product? Do you still get butterflies of excitement that make you look forward to upcoming PPVs? Did you ever? Do you watch every televsied wrestling program live, or just a few - and FF'd via DVR at that? If you consider right now to be the most interested in wrestling you've ever been, the rest of the questions in this section can be skipped over. Minimal. 6. At what point in wrestling history (if it's not now) would you consider your interest to have been at it's peak? When were you compelled to watch every second of televised wrestling AND shell out money on PPVs, get excited about the release of video games, have TV/PPV parties with friends, etc. Somewhere between 97 with the Hart Foundation, and the summer of '00 before we all realised how much trouble ECW was in. 7. At what point could you tell your interest was dipping and why do you think this happened, or what specific event(s) triggered the decrease? Was there anything even specific? Just a gradual interest loss of interest? Retirement (or death) of a favourite? A boring title reign on SmackDown in the Summer of 2004? The ECW mark in me carried over to about 2003. I completely lost interest(with one exception) after they folded, but happened to catch a Benoit match here or there that always impressed me. I always kind of got back into it for the Rumble-Mania stretch (and still do to a degree), but Benoit winning in '04 got me really back into it until about June '04, then it just kinda dwindled. The exception mentioned was my buddy's indy fed, which ran from the summer of '02 until early '04. 8. Have you ALWAYS stuck with wrestling even during times of low interest, or are there any lengths of time you stopped watching for a period only to come back at a later date? Sure. If it's on, I'll check it out during a commercial on Monday Night Football or whatever, but I don't take an active interest in getting into the characters. I'll likely still do the Rumble-Mania thing for a while, even if I'm knowing who fewer and fewer people on the card are each year. 9. If applicable, at what point did you decide to pack in the wrestling fandom? All my answers have kind of led to this. The Benoit incident really made me stop caring. I don't recall ever saying "Chris Benoit murdering his family makes me never want to watch wrestling again", but I do recall saying "I've been kind of disinterested since Benoit". Interesting Questions of a Somewhat Random Nature 10. What style of pro wrestling best resonates with your personal tastes? Has it always been this way, or have your tastes changed over time? It's always been about technical wrestling primarily, but I enjoy all styles: garbage, high-flyers, brawlers, storytellers. 11. Where do you "draw the line" with the whole "suspended disbelief" deal? Do you tell critics to "relax because it's just wrestling and you should enjoy the matches" (aka TNA fans about everything that happens on Impact!), do you come up with solutions that the writing team didn't bother to think about but you figure "it's there if you read between the lines" (aka "WWE Apologists"), somewhere inbetween, or do you take your greatest joy in watching wrestling to deconstruct everything that makes no sense? Kind of a hybrid of all three. Sometimes the fun is knowing it's all a show, and asking questions like "why don't they have instant replay by now?". There was a point where I planned on making a career in the ring, so I tended to take things seriously, but would know it was show at the same time, which kind of straddles questions 1 and 2 above. 12. Do you attend live events? And more specifically, do you get a thrill out of big arena shows, do you prefer the smaller 'intimate' settings of the local indy show, or would you rather forget the whole thing and watch everything unfold on your HDTV without dealing with 'the marks'? No as a rule, but I've been to Armageddon will be my third WWE show live in the last eighteen months (my buddy took the liberty of ordering me a ticket each time), which contrasts the four ECW/WWE live shows I went to in my life prior. And, the indy shows I mentioned. 13. If applicable, what are the best and worst experiences you've had going to a show live? I stammered yelling at a fat wrestler at an Indy show, which led to a chant of 200 people calling me queer. I'm over it, though. 14. What are your favourite matches, moments, or events? It's kind of funny - my three favourites (in prinicple) are all remembered for the lows of their careers: Bret/Montreal, Benoit/muder, Owen/death. So, I'll say my favourite individual moment/event is Foley's first title win.

</rant> While I'm still a little uneasy given the finish-line stumbling of Tuesday, my faith is being restored in the Habs after a shaky November. I was especially pleased with the balanced scoring in tonight's game, but moreso, two victories with an exclamation point over a longstanding thorn in the Habs' side.

I've beaten this horse to death, then kicked it when on the ground - so why not some more? It seems to me that a decrease in scoring can be called, in large part, a by-product (byproduct?) of the expansion wave. Nine teams in nine years means nine starting goalies, but 162 skaters. I'm sure in 1991 there were more than 162 world class hockey players not in the NHL, but if it's an 18:1 ratio, the talent pool's going to get a little diluted. And what Barron said, times a hundred thousand. Why should the rules change? I don't mind tinkering, a la the new faceoff rule regarding penalty killing, but that's a tweak. That's not drastically altering anything to the point where it would trivialize the records of Gretzky or Orr. Bigger nets would. A mandate on goalie equipment size is kind of grey area in that regard - I hadn't considered the point TakerHart made. Getting back to Barron's truth - who cares if a game is 2-1? Homeruns are more exciting than strikeouts; does that mean a pitcher's duel is boring? A low-scoring affair doesn't necessarily mean drab hockey. I've made this case a hundred times, but put two teams that I'm neutral to on the ice. Given the option of a pretty goal or a great save. Does anyone remember Paul Coffey's blocked shot in the '84 Canada Cup? I could watch a play like that 100 times and not get bored of it. It seems to me that this discussion is beating around the bush of what will be the same conclusion, again: The rules are being changed, needlessly, to cater to fans that aren't interested.

I'm looking forward to what could become the world's biggest sideshow Sunday. The death of Rogers will mean a prolonged ceremony to what will likely be a predominantly American crowd, many of whow likely won't know who he is. Couple that with no tailgating and a Dolphins victory - this could be quite the trainwreck.

What is Matt's "rental policy"? "Renting" it means to buy it for the purpose of using it once, then returning it. A former co-worker notoriously did this with camping gear the long weekend in August each year.

Working nights this week has fucked my sleep up, so I'm two days late to the party. "Sloppy seconds" really isn't that bad. CC essentially said everything I would have. Impressive win for the Sens last night. For the talk of lack of offence, specifically from the Big 3, Heatley's quietly on pace for 50. Ditto on the underwhelm for the rehiring of Maurice. For all the talk of his success thanks to an underdog Cup run in '02, he did put some poor Canes teams on the ice. Furthermore, knowing the core of his team so well after his stint with the Marlies, he could have got one Leaf team into the playoffs. But that's a whole other can of worms.

I recall a WWF magazine I had in the summer of '95, in which a Vic Venom notes column said "Why hasn't Razor received any title shots from his friend Diesel? He wants to know, and he wants to know now!", which seems to me he was at least considered for a main event push. He was certainly over enough. On the other hand, there wasn't a heel champion (save three days) for a span of about 30 months - essentially all of Razor's time as a face.

Why does Rachel Ray insist upon saying what EVOO stands for every single fucking time she uses it?

I remember bringing up the Mitsubishi tournament from The Score a year ago when they were determining best team or player performance. In light of the "worst ever" discussion in the NFL thread, I thought I'd mention the current tournament being run, "Best team". Here's the brackets.

"And that's why I'm here to teach Lisa a very valuble lesson! If things don't go your way, just complain until they do!" "That's a pretty lousy lesson" "Hey, I'll be a pretty lousy Prime Minister!"

A friend of mine once theorized that every male in the world has willingly watched wrestling at least once. My dad was the one who got me into it. I remember him being pretty into it from around the time I was born ('84) up until the mid 90's, and he still catches replay shows every now and then, but doesn't make a point to. I've essentially stopped watching since Benoit's incident. My mom never liked it, but she did say that when she was first dating my dad, she would watch and let him know what happened, since neither of them had a VCR and my dad worked when wrestling was on.

And the Rams get the same signature treatment the Raiders got yesterday.

I remember saying in the pre-season they had the components in place to succeed (returns of Bergeron and Kessel), as well as the likely rebounding of Ryder, and the rise to stardom of Savard. I never envisioned the B's playing this well; their defence has been solid from what I've seen, Thomas (though cooling off a little) has been out-of-this-world, and as Max said Saturday, Fernandez has been a perfect backup.

How did you do that? Split his cable feed from outside and buy an STB from somewhere else?

God damn - I'm only two back of a wild-card tie if the Bears win!

My bar picks, ProLine, and KKK Bowl picks are all uniform. Rian Lindell might owe me about a week of his salary. Edit: 17-10 Chiefs. Damn. I still think the Jets will come back, too.

How exactly would a coalition government work? I mean this literally, in two senses: Do they actually wrest power from Harper, or just agree to work together to overturn every Tory motion? In a more accurate sense, it's pretty tough to imagine any of the three leaders working together. I still stand by my "ridiculous" claim re: 1.89 per vote, although I suppose 30 million isn't that big a deal all things considered. Still, Harper's motives for eliminating it in the first place seem suspect; his intent to stick with it after all seems spineless. I know that's giving him "damned if he does, damned if he doesn't" stance, but, oh well.

Need the Bears to come through...

I'd make the case for the 95-98 Wings over the current crop. Four straight years of no worse than the conference finals, two Cups, and the single-season record for wins. The aformentioned loss in the Western final (the only one of the four in which they weren't in the Cup final) spawned one of hockey's best rivalries. One of my favourite sport quotes ever is "I can't believe I shook that friggin guy's hand."

I have no problem whatsoever with the '07 Pats being thrown into the mix. They didn't just win 16 regular season games, they dominated them: 35-40 points a game, and more than 50 on two occasions. They might be remembered more for the blemish of losing the Super Bowl, but no team in the big four ever started a season with eighteen straight wins.