CanadianGuitarist

No worries. The Liberal leadership convention, which it sounds like what you were thinking of, was December 2006. Stephane Dion surprisingly won, beating expected victor Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae. Paul Martin retired shortly after the January '06 federal election loss. Here's what I'm ashamed of. I don't remember when the convention started, or how it worked. I do remember that Dion was named new leader on a Saturday night at about 6:45 eastern, as Ron MacLean mentioned it during the hockey pre-game. Montreal beat Toronto 4-3 that night in a shootout. The winning goal was scored in the seventh round by Sheldon Souray. I probably remember that so vividly for a few reasons: One, my grandfather is blind and a little uncomfortable away from familiar surroundings, so he rarely watched hockey at my place. This was an exception. I also had some buddies over for a Madden tournament that day, and they watched Two Girls, One Cup between games. It may not have been TG, OC (I've never actually seen it, but have put two and two together), but the reaction was similar.

Man of 1004 Friends wins this thread. That's the only one of his names I remember that well.

I damn near loaded up on those the night of Summerslam when I went over the border. The idea of a beer of any size for .99 excites me. Even malt liqour in Canada is like, 5 bucks at its cheapest.

The huge return was your first comment of the game? That's pretty generous. I lost 34-10. Russell threw SIX picks. Even with five, I could have seen some humour in it (think the beginning of Jim Mora's "Playoffs?" rant). I might have had more sacks than picks, though.

This has surely been brought up somewhere here before, but does anyone else see the similarity between the name "Andruw Jones" and the word masturbation?

1. Whose big-win momentum carries through to this weekend-Chicago or Carolina? I like the Panthers this week. It wasn't just a memorable last-second win for the Panthers; they were the better team for about 43 minutes. 2. How well will rookie Matt Ryan and a running game that left footprints on every Detroit defender perform against the best defense in the NFC last season? From Just John: Hammer, meet nail. 3. Can New England circle the wagons after the most catastrophic loss in recent memory against their division rivals? CanadianChris eluded to this being the most overanalyzed/overhyped game ever. I'm guilty of that. I'm seriously committed to boxing it on my ProLine this Sunday. I'm that unsure. Eventually, my answer is yes. New England is a substantially lesser team without Brady, obviously, but come on. New England will not blow the Jets away, but they'll win. 4. Will the clowns that said "Anybody could shoot the lights out behind that line with those receivers!" finally realize that they're retarded? I don't know anyone who ever said that......*sweeps dirt under rug* 5. Can Cleveland rebound in a huge divisional game? Cleveland is a much better team than we saw last week, and I'm staying on their bandwgaon. Pittsburgh is a better team than either of the aforementioned two. My answer is no.

I always liked Martin; Anyway, I think you summed up the mindset of about 75% of Canadian voters. For the first time ever in the '06 election, not a single riding in the Hamilton area elected a Liberal MP; I don't see that changing this year.

I'm blaming EMHE.

Point extremely well-taken, but I'm banking on younger voter turn-out, where they don't know of the Rae mess, and the NDP's stance on social issues.

1. Who will win the Hart Trophy? Jarome Iginla. I expect him to give a huge boost to Bertuzzi, who I think most(not all) Flames fans are going to welcome. 2. Who will win the Vezina Trophy? Henrik Lundqvist. 3. Who will win the Calder Trophy? Steve Stamkos. 4. Who will win the Art Ross Trophy? Iginla. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 55-60-115. 5. Who will win the Richard Trophy? Alex O will sneak by Jarome here. 6. What team had the best offseason? Tampa seems the most obvious answer. But adding Hossa while defending the Cup and not really losing anything? This one's Detroit. 7. What team had the worst offseason? Vancouver. Easily. 8. Which team will be the most improved over last year? I think Edmonton. They were long eliminated by the time the snow started to melt, but a red-hot finish and the adding of grossly underrated Visnovsky gives them a big edge in the Northwest with Vancouver and Colorado on the way down. 9. Which team will be the biggest disappointment? Toronto, but it's progress. Most Leaf fans I know are cautiously optimistic. Ottawa seems like it could be an answer, but I think Emery was hands-down the biggest reason for their troubles last season. 10. What was the best offseason move? Phoenix's trade for Jokinen. Michael Ryder is close (See answer 20). 11. What was the worst offseason move? All things affiliated with Sundin. 12. Who will make the playoffs that didn't last year? Tampa, Edmonton, Chicago, Phoenix. 13. Who will not make the playoffs that did last year? New Jersey, San Jose, Colorado, Nashville. 14. Who would make your All-NHL first team? Iginla, Crosby, Ovechkin, Lidstrom, Chara, Lundqvist. 15. Who will be the division winners? Montreal, Pittsburgh, Washington, Detroit, Dallas, Minnesota. 16. Eastern Conference Final: Edit: What the hell, I'll say Montreal over Boston. I originally said Pittsburgh, but #17 should give you indication as to why I changed it to Boston. 17. Western Conference Final: Detroit over Chicago. 18. Stanley Cup Final (and winner): Montreal over Detroit. Yeah, it's homer time. 19. Who will win the Conn Smythe Trophy? Carey Price. 20. Make one bold prediction. Michael Ryder and Todd Bertuzzi each finish with more than 60 points.

I'd always been somewhere between Liberal and NDP. I took a hard swing left after AdScam three years ago, and like it over here. I don't think most voters are as party-loyal as I am at this point, so leadership and presentation are going to be a big issue. With that, I don't think the Liberals can win, given how weasel-y Stephane Dion is. (John Kerry is not the current U.S. president for much the same reason). I also think this is the first time ever the NDP have a legitimate shot at a minority government. At this point, Jack Layton is well-established enough that he can be the alternative for the Canadian left, which I think many Canadians inherently are. As discussed with my moderate grandparents last week, I do not dislike Stephen Harper, but I simply do not agree with his vision for this country. Again, like I said, a lot of voters, in my opinion, do not base their vote on a staunch ideology the way I do. To Harpers' benefit, even if the GST cut was small, it is symbolic: He did what he said he would. On the other hand, using the Dion-Reagan idea: I'm a lower-middle class Canadian. Harper's campaign centred around helping me through tax cuts. The only two times I've ever had to pay at tax time was the two years he's been in power, and it's totalled nearly three thousand dollars. I know it's circumstantial based on working two jobs at a time, etc., but what if I had a child? That three grand has been more than 10% of my income per year. Also, I was tied up most of today and yesterday, but I planned to create and subtitle this thread "Hyper-election mode!"

Sergio and Paddy coming down the stretch, like at Carnoustie. Hopefully with a similar result. Add Ben Curtis to the mix today, though. "Of the last twenty PGA Champions, thirteen were first-timers. Of the seven that weren't, four were Tiger Woods." Off the top of my head.....2005 Mickelson, 2004 Singh, 94 Nick Price. This'll be the forum for a pretty good few weeks of golf. Mickelson could have entered the PoY discussion, but barring a few more wins for today's champ, or a lot more wins for someone else, I think Tiger gets the nod. Does JB Holmes get a captain's pick? I think so. Does Monty get one? Worked for Weir last year. And the silly playoffs are a mere two weeks away. Edit: Sergio's in the drink at 16.

Camillo Villegas gets his first win. It also locks Vijay Singh up for his first FedEx Cup. There's plenty of good football and baseball storylines to talk about, so barring anything major, see you during the Ryder Cup in two weeks.

Not the start I was hoping for. Still, a loss with differing games left is probably less embarrassing than my "Rams Score 18" tiebreaker pick.

My thoughts on the day: * I have never seen a fake field goal, and this was the first safety I remember watching live (though Sunday Ticket is probably to blame for that). * I may renege on my Thursday comment of "Indy's being overlooked, aren't they?" Peyton looked nervous a lot. * I can't believe Atlanta scored 34. I don't follow college football, but Ryan looked good and he was entertaining to watch. The same of Reggie Bush, who I never saw play at USC, but understand it was pretty different from New Orleans. * I don't know who to pick between NE-NYJ next week. * I had a feeling Buffalo would come out strong. I didn't see them winning, and I certainly didn't see them scoring 35.

Agreed. Apparently, so awesome that they're playing on TBS next Sunday? Is that a first?

I don't remember this whatsoever, but I was off the WWE by the time KotR '99 rolled around. Fill me in?

My first thought. The second was also mentioned, Austin helping Mankind win the title.

Funny thing, in spite of Benoit, is that 2007 was the highest grossing year in the history of the WWE. I'm sure those numbers are padded to a degree (there was no internet in 1987 and much less merchandise in 1998), but there you go. I stopped watching wrestling for about 3 years after ECW folded. (Ironically, keep reading). So I didn't get to see much of Saturn as a Radical, but I recall a guy who got a pretty lousy gimmick, worked stiff with a jobber, and broke up a rape after wrestling. I saw a bit of Dean Malenko's ECW and WCW stuff and was always impressed. I was surprised to hear of how poorly Bret spoke about him in his book. Eddie Guerrero as a cheating face was an awesome character. I remember his ECW days, saw a bit of his WCW work, and loved his WWE days. What made his face character so awesome is echoed in his title win over Brock at NWO '04, when he went ballistic, celebrating with the fans and hugging his mom. I don't remember the actual match that well, but I'm sure he was crafty in it, and that strikes me as the essence of Eddie. If any of the Canadians here remember the recap show The Score did after Eddie passed, Josh Mathews' remembering of Eddie is probably the most quintessential description that springs to mind. To add to the irony column, my ex at the time of Eddie's death was as into wrestling as I am. She asked me the following Tuesday if I saw the Eddie tribute, and my answer was honest: I cried during the Benoit segment. She did too. As sad and unexpected as it was, I don't think it was what made his legacy though. He had plenty of good matches and memorable moments, it wasn't his untimely death that made him a legend. As far as Benoit? I'm probably one of the biggest bleeding hearts on the planet, but I have absolutely no sympathy for him, brain damage/roid rage or not. He killed his fucking son. Maybe I'm being unfair, since I've had a little trouble coming to terms with the fact that at 16 years old, I idolized him. I can appreciate good wrestling, and he was unquestionably one of the hardest-working and most skilled wrestlers I'll ever see. But after ECW went under, it was Chris Benoit's Rumble win and title win at WMXX that brought me back. Dozens of times, I compared it (along with Eddie joining him in the ring) to the BoSox World Series win that fall, or Phil Mickelson's Masters win four weeks later. But it's absolutely tainted now. I can still watch a match with him for a few minutes and appreciate the wrestling before I think "Hey, this guy killed his family...what the hell?" And then it's all downhill. The legacy of a profession, regardless of how much it dictated a person's memory, should not trump personality. I'm pretty drunk, and this is still a pretty touchy subject for me (The incident on my Bday will likely be brought up in the Chocolate Socket in a few minutes). So, that's my thoughts on all of them individually. As far as the Radicals - I was only watching the WWE sporadically at that point, but I remember them making such an impact in their debut, being a part of the 10-man tag with a ridiculously hot crowd, but then kind of being split up and nothing from there. The WCW was absolutely a sinking ship by Feb. 2000. This wasn't the final nail in the coffin, but it was close.

He didn't hit himself with the bat. He just hit the bat. It was stupid, but not nearly as stupid as the way you worded it made it sound. Also: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK SHIT DAMN FUCK FUCK TAINT RIMJOB BLUETOOTH MEECROB PASTRAMI FUCK Also: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK SHIT DAMN FUCK FUCK TAINT RIMJOB BLUETOOTH MEECROB PASTRAMI FUCK ? I know it's too little too late, but, man, six in a row for the Jays. Imagine if Cito'd been there since April. I don't mean to be "woe is us, the world's out to get us, etc.", but isn't kind of ridiculous that a team that could win 90 games could finish fourth in the AL East, while three time zones over, a playoff team could be sub .500?

I missed that promo when it aired and have always wanted to see it. I believe it was from around Taboo Tuesday 2004 when he was about to face Randy Orton. Your info was enough. I didn't know what to search on YouTube until you offered Taboo and Randy. .

WHY? I used to be that way. But I've been single for all of 2008, by choice. It's a lot more enjoyable and less stressful. This. I used to be that way too, and still think every now and then it'd be better having someone; but right now, I can't imagine being attached. A girlfriend would probably mean spoiling (even a little), and that would seriously impede my forthcoming house purchase plans. I can still go get drunk or play golf basically any time I want. That's the way to go.

I can't tell you how uncool this is when you're wearing headphones and not expecting it. Well, now I'm starting to giggle, so nevermind... CWM beat me to it, but it wasn't much better without headphones.

Two sports-related "hunh?" 's from new tunes. One, the new song with Zac de la Rocha has a line that says "Crenshaw 84". Now, I was told about it: My bro and Dad heard it about two weeks ago and mentioned the same line, also confused by it. So when I heard the song being introduced, I pretty well focused on listening to that, so I could shed some light on it, but I'm also at square one. A golfer named Ben Crenshaw won the '84 Masters tournament, which is what initial instinct was when my Dad and bro brought it up. Still, that doesn't seem like it would fit in to a song sung by de la Rocha. Anyone? Also, the new Offspring song pisses me off. Both times I've heard a DJ say "Kid you're gonna go far", I think that Pink Floyd's Have a Cigar is the next song to be played. (Similarly, I disliked Times Like These by the Foos the first couple times I heard it, because in passing, it sounded like She Sells Sanctuary by The Cult). Anyway, bailing the new Offspring tune out may be the fact that, if I'm hearing correctly, they mention Mario Lemieux.

That's AWESOME that videos of in-game highlights can go online. On the other hand, your horribly open receiver will give the impression that my defence is shit, when I wasn't too disappointed in my d today. Hey, if it fools everyone, maybe it's worth it.