The Net of Stormbringer: Issue #10, Volume One

The Canes are *still* winning...and they've been doing it so much that it is getting to the point where they have been picking up at least a point per game for a solid month. Outside of that factoid, writing about such outstanding consistency is tricky without sounding like a broken record...so, I shall take the rest of this issue, and talk about some other hockey AND non-hockey tidbits.

First, things, first...The Acid Queen now has Carnival of the NHL #12 a.k.a. "CarniStaal" (cute, eh? though, that name sounds an awful lot like CarnoSaur) up. And the Eternal Captain and I command you to go forth and take a peek...NOW!!

Second, not only was it good to see the Leafs beat the Lightning last night (shut up Leaf haters...the Canes will take all the help they can get to keep their lead in the Southeast right now), but also good to see O'Neill get points again (shut up O haters...I don't give a rat's a** about how "mean" he was to fans (for the record, I think the fans to whom O was "mean" deserved his wraith...frightening how many people there are who *really* need to learn autograph and/or post-practice etiquette)...and from a fantasy standpoint, see Sundin get back to being his bad scoring self, as if the eye injury never happened. Also, thanks to Center Ice, I liked the segment with the Wish Foundation boy who got to meet the Lightning and Hockey Night In Canada crew.

Third, did you see a certain fight attempt during the Flames/Canucks game last night? Looks like Jesse "The Bull" Boulerice and his getting K.O.ed in one punch by the then Stars enforcer in 2002-03, Downey, has been toppled from numero uno on the Most Embarassing Hockey Fights list. And BTW, you know a moment is bad when it gets Don Cherry and Co. to laugh like little girls, to paraphrase someone in the link. There's only one other moment that was just as, if not more embarassing, and it did not happen during a fight...in a 2003-04 Canes game vs. Philly, two Flyboys were getting their druthers together behind a net in their end during an overtime, and ran right into each other! When I saw that, I was seriously checking the backs of the two players' jerseys, making sure they did not say "Mutt" and "Jeff" or "Twiddledee" and "Twiddledum".

Fourth, my dad has gone insane. BUT, in a *very good* way...he went and bought all four seasons of Curb Your Enthusiam yesterday afternoon. AND ALSO, he went ahead and got me a Jerky Maker, something I have been wanting since I have found out how expensive jerky, my new snacking addiction, is. And I can now use a Jerky Maker with all of the beef we recently received from keeping the two cattle I mentioned two weeks ago here. Unfortunately, I can't actually use the Maker until I get a dehydrator in which to dry the jerky strips after processing them. But, no worries there...we'll probably get it either later today or sometime tomorrow, knowing how often our Wal-Mart visits are.

The only bad thing about now having a Jerky Maker? (an Eastman Outdoors one to be precise...with five different flavors I can't wait to try, starting with Original!) That kind of makes my plans of recording the Good Eats episode about jerky somewhat obsolete. I say "kind of" and "somewhat" because I still plan to record the said episode...any episode where Alton Brown, my other Food Network god besides Kaga, promotes a favorite food of mine as "hip" rocks my socks.

And fifth AND last, but certainly not least, I got my tickets to the Canes' Ron Francis Night (on January 28th) in the mail this past Friday...WOOT!! :D Many, MANY THANKS to Svandijk1 @ Scout.com's Canes board. Speaking of Ronnie, I figure what better time than this, the tenth issue, to enquire you dear readers about a potential new Francis collection item. Yesterday, I got in the mail a 1988-89 Hartford Whalers Yearbook (only two more, 1981-82 and 1982-83 to go!!), and accompanying it was a circa 1982-83 Whalers charity brochure. Well, after a little inspecting of the brochure, to find out if I want to keep it or use it for trade bait, I found the following picture...

Is that Ron Francis? Nobody else in the charity brochure comes remotely close. The only other recognizable person in there being Gordie "Mr. Hockey" Howe. And considering all of that AND the fact that it was around 1982-83 the Whalers got rid of every player but Francis, I *really* think it's Ronnie. But at the same time, I cannot tell because my family does not think it is him AND that darned hat is hiding his brows.

I probably have wasted some space, especially since my gut tells me that is Ron. But, there's never any harm in asking for a second opinion...and hey, whether that dude if Ronnie Francis or not, that is a *really* good impression of the MLB logo.