Staal Brothers Lose Their Right To PAAAAAARRRRRTY(!!)

Eric and Jordan Staal got arrested for underage drinking (Jordan) and causing a nuisence and disturbing the peace in Cook County, Minnesota this past Saturday morning.

Overall, I agree with the sentiment that the event that caused the brothers' arrests really sounded no different from most other hockeydom boozefests (they *do* happen, people, get over it). BUT, I have to disagree with a few who say that it is no different from the tailgate parties outside of the RBC Center...seriously, getting flaming drunk AND heckling oncoming traffic? Maybe at the HSBC Arena, BUT NOT at the RBC Center...unless I have passed through and by the wrong tailgaters during my Canes game frequenting days. o_O

Anyway, after reading the following (Ooh!! Mug shots!!), which got released a little later after the N&O's above linked piece, me thinks the Staals just had the misfortune of falling asleep in the wrong place at the wrong time...

"Curran said the brothers were among several partygoers who went to bed when authorities first gave the group a warning, and when authorities returned to kick the entire party out of the resort, they first had to wake the Staals up.

"What is unfortunate is at the end, the entire group was asked to leave the hotel, including Eric and Jordan and some of the others that had gone to bed when the first warnings came in," Curran said. "They were asked to go to bed, and they did. ... A couple of the kids kept going. That's what caused the continued disturbance."

That said, I think I feel very safe in conjuring what this mess would have been like if it was a Beastie Boys music video...

*cut to a wilderness resort, where Eric and Jordan Staal are in a room decorated with pure white walls, artwork, and furniture*

Jordan: "Hey Eric...do you like parties?"

Eric: "Yeeeeeah..."

Jordan: "We can invite all our friends...and have beer, wine*, and pie!"

Eric: "Yeeeeeah!!"

Jordan: "I hope no bad people show up."

*cut to the two or three guys who were still cutting up when asked by the police and/or resort staff "to go to bed"...and uncannily enough, they are dressed to the nines in clothes similar to the Beastie Boys', right down to one of them wearing a Def Jam tee, and another wearing a 'bling bling' chain, AND in an all red room*

Cut-ups: "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

*insert an electric guitar strum...only to be interupted by a record scratch here*

Hmmm...I think we better stop there. This could turn out to be just as bad as the time I had the Carolina Hurricanes' five largest stars at the time turn into Twisted Sister over Paul Maurice's griping about Josef Vasicek playing hockey stick guitar...

Current Music: "Breaking The Law" by Judas Priest

* - We know the only 'soda' served at *that party* was Rum 'n' Coke.

Edit as of July 26th, 12:50 AM: It appears that both Mr. DeCock and ESPN missed a rather interesting detail, which was pointed out by one Eric McErlain...

"I've just gotten hold of the official press release from the Sheriff, and the entertainment factor just went way up. As it turns out, the entire party was actually warned that if they didn't knock it off, they faced deportation from the United States..."

O RLY?!

Just goes to show that while most bachelors go bar hopping, others (try to) go international border hopping...

Big Joe Goes

A week or two ago, I had mentioned over in the 850 The Buzz blog that I was way more than willing to bet that the Canes would keep Josef Vasicek because of his "untapped potential", among other things. Folks, as of yesterday, I would have lost such a bet.

And that would have been one of the rare few times where I would not have minded doing such a thing. I said what I did because of having the fear that the Canes would keep Josef due to the occasional blather about all the "untapped potential" he supposedly has. The only "untapped potential" I remember from the dude is his sweet pass to Martin Gelinas to win the 2002 Eastern Conference Finals. Five years is a long time to keep someone who doesn't do diddly around...even if part of those five years was spent in Nashville...

That said, why Jim Rutherford decided to bring the guy back this past season will always be quite a perplexer...on up there with the forming of Stonehenge, that face on Mars, and whatever the heck happened to Chuck Cunningham...

Current Music: "Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth..." by Primitive Radio Gods

Josef Vasicek Is Going Back To Raleigh, To Raleigh...

...I really think so.

And the 2002-03 Canes Reunion Saga STILL continues. *sighs*

As Dave Barry would say, have aliens from the planet Twinkie invaded Jim Rutherford's head?! Belanger for Big Joe?! Belanger is certainly a faster skater than the Condor. I thought we shipped off Josef for the very fact that he didn't really fit in with Laviolette's (usually) speedy system of play. o_O

So, who are we going after next? Jaroslav Svoboda? Sami Kapanen? Hey...as long as it's not Peter Forsberg. And that's the only decent thing I can say about this overall trend.

Also, Ryan Bayda has been called up from Albany to the big club. Unless we hear otherwise, this appears to not bode well for either Erik Cole and/or Scott Walker, who got hurt in last night's Bruins affair, and are said to potentially have minor injuries.

Current Music: "Walkin' In A Hurricane" by John Fogerty