By Kevin Adshade
I'll be all over the place with this one, so just bear that in mind. The younger crowd will like this because they collectively have the attention span of a two-year-old (same here), the older crowd will like it because Gordie Howe gets a mention. You ever notice how Pictou County councillor Ed MacMaster looks like Howe, who retired from the NHL at age 52? He's even got the same sloping shoulders, although MacMaster probably doesn't keep his elbows as high. (As a politician, that'd be a good way to approach things when necessary. Or even when it isn't.)
Did you ever notice that MacMaster has been a politician for almost as long as Howe played hockey? Maybe longer if I thought much more about it, which I won't.
Statistical Oddity: Howe, Mario Lemieux and Mark Messier would be on the high side on anybody's list of the all-time great hockey players. Toss in Gretzky and Orr and you'd have probably five of the top seven, at least. Howe, Lemieux and Messier were clutch players when it mattered most; they combined for 490 career playoff games, 253 playoff goals and a dozen Stanley Cups (Messier won six, Howe four and Mario two), but none of the three ever scored an overtime goal in the playoffs. Joe Sakic, who also was no slouch, leads all-time with eight overtime goals in the post-season.
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Interesting thing about the weather: It's frigging cold out. According to some guy on the Internet, if you're making a backyard rink it's desirable to do it in temperatures of at least -15 degrees if you want the best ice surface possible. The colder the better, he says.
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Sooooo... I heard about that bath salt bust in Lyons Brook the other day and not for the first time thought about how things don't get done half-assed in Pictou County. Whether it's winning Stanley Cups, voting on-line for something we don't even care about, a bagpiper at the door for every Auction 45 tournament or selling bath salts, we do it big. You can't buy this kind of publicity – someone should fill out one of those postcards and send it to MoneySense to show Pictou County just what we have! This should take us out of the Top 170 and into the Top 158! You like living in an area where some guy's gonna get severely buzzed up, run naked through the streets in broad daylight and maybe chew someone's throat out? Well, load up the moving van and settle right in! Have a beer, and some pizza with brown sauce! No pizza? Then have another beer!
Not much surprises us these days, but it's mind-boggling that anyone would actually try bath salts if they knew anything about them. All I know is it freaks people out, and life is freaky enough.
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The only good thing about the Baltimore Ravens beating New England is that Patriots fans can now shutty uppy.
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Wifey has always liked Phil Mickelson, the golfer. I think it's his aw-shucks demeanour on the golf course, except for the times like when he had a brain cramp and pulled out a driver on the 72nd hole instead of a 3-wood and cost himself a U.S. Open title, the doofus. Mickelson earns about $47 million (a year!) and was recently quoted in a golf magazine about how rough it is paying such high taxes in California. Mickelson later apologized for talking about such insensitive things in a public forum, but didn't apologize for what he said (I actually respect him for that). The people who can't find jobs or who live paycheque to paycheque would love to be able to pay as much in taxes as Phil does in sunny California. Go ahead, hit me with that tax bill.
Kevin Adshade is a sports columnist for The News.
