So the Oilers play the LA Kings tonight in another meaningless game do they? And Gregor is doing married guy stuff before his show and asked us to write the GDB on his behalf? How will we live with the pressure of trying to describe a game that will be forgotten by 99% of us within days?
Fingers and brain don’t fail us now!*
BETTER THAN NOTHING
A great many folks have done a great many things in the name of "better than nothing." Say you are the unfortunate fellow in the picture above. You say to your wife "Honey, now that the kids are grown up and have left the house we should get a pet! How about a Golden Retriever?"
When the wife strolls in with two spider monkeys and digs up boxes of old childeren’s clothing from the basement you quickly come to the sobering realization that the dog you wanted probably isn’t on its way. But do you shun the creepy little buggers? No. You dress them up in the family’s finest and grimace your way through a series of photos at the local Walmart.
You know why?
Because it’s better than nothing.
BETTER THAN NOTHING 2
Now what if you are this little girl? Your parents have set up the video camera and on the eve of Santa’s arrival you get to open an early Christmas present. Little would you know that they watch the Jimmy Kimmel show and he has put out a challenge to viewers to give their kids crappy Christmas presents and video their reactions.
How are you to know that Christmas has turned from a joyous day for Children into a joyous day for Jimmy Kimmel and his burning desire to ruin everything? As this big Chicago Bears fan opens up a Packers jersey and promptly flips her Dad the Christmas Bird, we can see that in some cases something is definitely not better than nothing.
WHAT’S IT GONNA BE?
So Oilers what’s it gonna be tonight? We will be tuning into the game from beginning to end despite the fact it is Friday night, there are a myriad of other things to do and we know this game doesn’t exactly mean the world to you.
Jason Strudwick described this in gory detail in his earlier article and we can’t help but ask ourselves how we are supposed to find inspiration to watch the game when the millionaires collecting bags of cash can’t be bothered to get amped up themselves.
But tune in we will. Why? Because it is better than nothing. Even the worst Oilers game in history is better than nothing. Even a 1-0 shutout loss to some awful team on a Sunday afternoon is better than nothing. Even a pre-season game between split squads of the Oilers and the Columbus Blue Jackets is better than nothing.
And in a few short weeks that is exactly what we will be left with. Nothing.
So go Oilers. Snipe a few would ya?
LINEUPS, TENDER AND SCRATCHES
According to the Oilers twitter feed the scratches tonight are Belanger, Omark, Barker, Petrell and Fedun. More information to follow as it becomes available. Linus Omark also tweeted the message above which suggests he is either confused by something or the question mark key on his Blackberry is stuck. More information on that too should we find out more.
MORE
Apparently Linus Omark didn’t tweet about a hundred frustrated question marks because he found out he is a healthy scratch tonight. Even though he tweeted it right around the time he would have been finding out the bad news. We can safely make this conclusion because he tweeted in his charming way that we are all wrong if that’s what we all thought.
Ha ha! Jokes on us right Linus? And you thought he was on a different page than Oilers management. Scratch that kind of thinking you negative nelly.
*That’s obviously what she said
I feel bad for PRV.
Omark’s ?????? tweet came immediately after Paajarvi tweeted about reading on the way to Edmonton. He just probably knew the recall rules unlike management.
That monkey penis threatened my manlihood. I felt like he was challenging me; with it just hanging out like that.
Who the hell does he think he is? Ill punch a chimp out!
That didn’t take long…
Someone help me out here.
Alberta. The richest province.
Quebec. Always asking for transfer payments.
Québec City. No NHL team.
Government in Quebec pays for new NHL arena.
Alberta local and provincial governments pay how much for an arena in Edmonton?
The Quebec govt. is free to toss around $$$ because it is courtesy our tax dollars, kinda like free money. Merci Alberta.
EBERSQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Wow is khabbi bad. Time to turn in the empty vodka bottles, buy a new Skoda and drive into the sunset.
Doughty just runs Petrell into side boards with the puck 25 feet away. What exactly is interference these days?
Is that monkey clear of thetans yet?
And this is why Hordi and Eager play 5 minutes a night…
Someone should inform Khabibulin that we can’t finish 30th anymore. He can quit playing ~MVP~ hockey anytime.
Proof positive that Punch Imlach was wrong. Now I realize that this game is meaningless, but clearly sometimes you can beat them on the ice when you can’t do it in the alley. Otherwise the oil would be about 0-78 this year. The softest, fluffiest, friendliest team ever. You could throw a net over guys walking down 118 ave and find 5 with more fortitude. Shameful.
I thought we all agreed that the jones, Horcoff, Smyth pairing didn’t Work… So why is it back again?
Hopkins really isn’t afraid to throw his weight around… just wish he weighed more!
I am sure glad our 170lb 18 year old has to even the score physically on Brown. It will make a man of him.
Is starting Khabibulin our gift to LA to allow them to leapfrog Calgary in the standings?
Potter with a face wash on Fraser. Put a letter on his jersey, toughest oil on the ice.
At least Oklahoma City won, despite our wise GM taking their best player out of the line-up. Don’t understand how that call-up goes out without anyone in the front office calling him on it.
So with the PRV call-up, Olcyk finally gets canned, right? That’s how many foul-ups now?
What a pathetic effort. So bad that seeing Calgary mail it in to Col didn’t cheer me up.
How can a blue collar province with so many workers getting their hands dirty daily, how can their pro hockey teams be built to be so timid? Especially Edmonton??
The oil won cups because of the skill of their players but also because they were the toughest, meanest team going. Lowe of all people should realize this. The notion that rule changes will favour skill and the notion that these rules will be enforced uniformly were apparently incorrect. Time to toughen uo for 2012-13.
“Hi! My name is (insert name ______________) of the Edmonton Failers. I’m not really a professional athlete and hockey player…but I play one on T.V. I will make more money in one year than you will make in your whole life. It was ezee-peezee lemon squeezee.
“I only had to dedicate every minute of my life perfecting my craft. I had to spend over 10,000 hours in the gym, on the ice, in training and many times away from my friends and family family at practice and tournaments, in order to realize my dream and get the smallest opportunity to play in the best league in the world. Ezee-peezee lemon squeezee.”
EDIT: To be fair, I did not watch the game tonight
*excluding Penner
@ Wax man Riley
Fair enough young squire, but you can’t have it both ways. If what you say is true then this particular organization and collection of nut-less nancy-men have suffered a tragic case of millionaire amnesia. If I worked that hard and had that kind of character and determination to join this little club then I think I would have more pride in my performance and respect for the fans. This group of terds has shows none of that (imo).
You have a good point with that last line (actually the one before it but I like the word terd, too).
I will also add, to be fair I haven’t watched most of the last few games, save for the ones I went to, so I haven’t had the misfortune of watching them float around. Last game I was at, Hall was playing, and he never floats. I can imagine them going through the motions, la-dee-dah, collectin’ dem cheques. For us season ticket holders, multiple-mini pack holders, 1 game a year people, or cable subscribers, this can be painful.
I wonder if Omark would have mailed it in tonight. Or Van de Velde. Or Green……
“Millionaire amnesia.” I like that. I wonder what the golfing is like in Palm Springs right now…… oops, let in a goal.
Gagner’s “big game” was a once in a lifetime game.
Sure, he’s played a lot of games, but he’s also played brutal defense in a lot of games, and five years later, he still plays brutal defense and rarely wins a puck battle in either o-zone or d-zone.
How many goals against do you see Gagner two feet or more behind his check, or giving up on the play? Way too many for my liking.
You want him on the team? Fine. Just give a few others at least half the chance that Gagner got, and continues to get.
Yea that’s why he’s a plus player on this team, cause of his god awful defence.
@Time
And that would have nothing to do with playing with decent linemates, right?
Good for Sam, he’s a plus player. Still doesn’t change the fact that his defensive game could improve a lot. Hopkins has only been in the NHL a year and could teach Sam a lot about defensive positioning and checking and not being so easy to push off the puck. Just sayin’.
Not all players on the Oil get the same kinds of chances to develop and the same quality of linemates. Sure, some of it is timing and luck of the draw, but PRV and Omark have gotten a raw deal in my opinion, and I know I’m not the only person who thinks so.
I’ll give Sam credit for working hard and trying to improve, but we’re a 29th place team and should have lots of time for helping more than one player to improve, don’t you think?
And just for fun:
Iginla, Calgary Flames’ superstar: 78GP, 31-33-64 34yrs old
Eberle. Edmonton Oilers’ 2nd year draft pick: 73GP, 32-41-73 21yrs old
Eat Sh!t Flames!
Detroit Red Wings:
“Hello, Oilers fans, look at your team, now back to me, now back at your team, now back to me. Sadly, they are not me, but if they switched to a mix of grit and skill, they could look like they’re me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re at the game watching a team your team could look like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s a ticket to the Stanley cup finals. Look again, the ticket is now celebratory beverages after winning the cup, Anything is possible when your team switches to a mix of good skill and grit, and not the undersized team of today, I’m on a horse.”
I liked it!
Wax Stamp of Approval!
…didn’t watch the game
why didn’t PRV play? some call up fiasco?
did someone say there was an incompetence issue with the clubs’ management????????????
nah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
edit…a hundred & fist comment
Oilers only allowed 4 call-ups. Paajarvi would have been 5 because they did a paper transaction a little while ago.
Basicly the Oilers get confused counting to 4 and go to 5. Pretty much basic incompetence.
basic incompetence?
oh my when did that start?
Seriously? SERIOUSLY???
Do we have confirmation on that? Cuz if that’s confirmed…
*ready to snap*
Confirmed by Dan Tencer of all people. Of course he didn’t use words like “incompetence”
(that explains why I didn’t hear it)
Thanks!
Four games to play,Tickets to some tropical Island booked.Easy to see why the slow start.The kings are playing sutter hockey boring but effective sutter hockey.Next year the games will have more meaning for the Oilers so There should be a better result.
pssst Arch…seeing as how you & me are the only ones on the interweb right now … tell me …didya see the monkeys’ penis? i didn’t see it at all and now it’s been all blue patched…didn’t notice anything ‘cept the Cathy Bates look-a-like…
I did see it but I questioned if that’s what I was seeing until Wanye confirmed it. It was serious Wang.
Let’s see here…..1…..yep………2…….ah ugh………3…….ok………4……..yea that wasn’t so hard?
EDIT: oh wait!…. 5…….damnit!! This is tricky
@Arch…is this on our coach or our GM…
gawd i thought Renney could count at least…i know the other guy can’t
GM and Assistant GM. Rick Olcyk should have known this stuff. Not his first call-up/waiver mix-up.
It all has to do with them calling Paajarvi up and sending him back on paper a little while ago so he was eligible to play for OKC in the playoffs.