Kent Huskins: Heartbreaker

Editor's Note: The following post was written by the freshly devestated Lisa McCallum, who is a first-time contributer to seanmccallum.com. You can read and hear more of her work at: Lisa McCallum's MySpace page.



Over the phone - and who knows how much that will cost on our cell phone bill - you suggested I make a sign for good ol' Kent Huskins. Well, let me tell you. All week I had been talking about him and how excited I was to possibly talk to him (I don't even know what he looks like or what position he plays, just that he's won a Stanley Cup and that's good enough for me!) so I went on and on to Blake about how cool the game was going to be. What an added bonus? I purposefully bought tickets for that specific game cause I just knew I'd have hook-ups.



So after our phone conversation, I made a stop at the drug store specifically to buy some bristol board so I could make a sign for Kenty. I even told Blake that I'd be embarrassed to hold it, but darn it - I'd do it for Kent. So, I then spent the next two hours painting "Oakville Loves (it was actually "hearts") Kent Huskins" in nice pretty paint. I was so proud of myself. Off we went to the game about 5:30pm - had to get there early to see the boys warm-up! What a perfect place to hold up my sign?



So, we get to our seats which were 7 rows up to the right of the net - money seats - we've got our big, tall beers in hand, the crowd is getting revved up for the big game and finally the players come onto the ice to warm up. As I'm getting the sign out from under our seat I heard Blake say, "I don't see him". Well, no problem I thought.. I'll just check what number he is in the program. 40. Defence. GREAT! I'm sure I'll find him now. Then I heard Blake say, "I don't think he's playing this game." "What do you mean he's not playing this game? What does that mean?" I was still completely lost and perplexed as to how some players "don't play" some games. I said, "oh so maybe he's just sitting on the bench and they'll only play him if they REALLY need him, but he'll be on the ice right?" or even better, "He's already warmed-up I bet, he doesn't need it tonight but he'll be playing. FOR SURE."



I'm not sure Blake knew how to break it to me. So just in case, I took a picture with my sign so I could somehow make it to your blog. I didn't just spend 2 hours on a sign I've never made for anyone else for nothing!! Still, I was keeping positive. Maybe he just didn't feel like warming up with the team, but SURELY he'd play.



................................weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell........... 5 minutes before game time, 3 players are listed on the jumbotron of who is "Scratched" from tonights game: Kent Huskins being one of them. Can you imagine my disappointment? Heart. Broken.






Regardless, it was a WICKED game! 3 fights right in front of us and 3 out of the 4 goals in front of our net!! Great game but no Kent. As soon as I can get the picture onto the computer, I'll be sending it. I still hope to make the blog.






Heart broken and truly yours,



*Lisa

Flagging Down a Cab, Boston-style

For my money, there's no better way to flag down a cab than to pretend to throw ice-balls at them while stepping somewhat precariously into oncoming traffic.

In Ronnie's defense, almost every cab that drove past us had their "Vacancy Light" turned on (is "vacancy light" the appropriate term? It is now), and not one of them stopped to pick us up. Who the hell does that when it's 2:30 in the morning and -15 degress? Our limited weekend experience taught us that the cab drivers in Boston could be supreme A-holes, although the one dude from the Sudan who gave us a Coles-notes history of the Sudanese Civil War was top shelf.

(As a side note, 30 seconds after this video was shot, another cab driver responded to a black man's inquiry as to why he wouldn't pick him up if he had his "vacancy light" on by throwing a chicken wing at him and saying: "Take this. I hear you people like fried chicken"... I didn't manage to get the narrowly averted race riot that ensued in the aftermath on tape, but needless to say, the defense rests as far as the general character of Boston taxi drivers goes.)



More Beantown highlights to follow shortly.

The Splendid Splinter

Ted Williams was one of the greatest hitters to ever live. He was the last player to hit over .400 (.406 in 1941), but lost the MVP that year to Joe DiMaggio, who put together a 56 game hitting streak in the same season. Teddy Ballgame won the triple crown twice (1942, 1947), took time out of his playing career to serve his country on two separate occasions, and hammered the last pitch he ever saw into the bullpen at Fenway Park. He's probably the best left fielder to ever play the game, but as far as Boston sports personalities go, he wasn't nearly as memorable as some of the other Sox tin hat franchise's storied history, and truth of it is, the above clip is more impressive to me for its footage of the old ballyards than for anything else.


As a result, to lead us into the upcoming weekend jaunt to Paul Revere's former stomping ground, here are some of the more entertaining figures in Boston Red Sox history, as well as the reasons we cherish them so:


Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd:

"That's what you get for building a ballpark on the ocean".

- Oil Can, explaining why the Sox-Indians game was postponed due to fog... And yes, the Indians still play in Cleveland.


Manny Ramirez:

Click HERE to see one of the all-time clips of Manny being Manny. My favourite part is the Red Sox announcers laughing hysterically as Jason Varitek grounds into the 1-6-4-3 DP.

"Sometimes you just wanna fix your friend's hair..."


Carlton Fisk:

There are few home runs more memorable than THIS ONE.

(By the way, they really need to bring back that tradition of fans running all over the field after a history-making home run. That looks like a lot of fun... except for the guy who gets the forearm shiver from Pudge.)


Bill "The Spaceman" Lee:

(Taken from Wikipedia) Lee's popularity was because of his personality, which gave him the nickname Spaceman. The USC graduate was an intelligent, articulate, humorous voice, and his outspoken manner meant his views were frequently recorded in the press. He spoke in defense of Maoist China (once visiting, only to lampoon it endlessly), population control, Greenpeace, school busing in Boston and anything else that happened to cross his mind. He berated an umpire for a controversial call in the 1975 World Series, threatening to bite off his ear and encouraging the American people to write letters demanding the game be replayed. He ate health food and practiced yoga. He claimed his marijuana use made him impervious to bus fumes while jogging to work at Fenway Park. He sang Warren Zevon songs at times, and in an act of mutual admiration, Zevon recorded a song entitled "Bill Lee" on his album Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School. In a college town like Boston, his views were shared by many youths, and they quickly became Lee's biggest fans.

Despite his views on off-the-field matters, Lee was respected by fellow players, who believed his cajoling of the press took pressure off the team, and his attitude on the field was pure business. He was intensely competitive, and worked quickly, which always endears a pitcher to his teammates.

But Lee would often speak out on matters concerning the team and was not afraid to criticize management, causing him to be dropped from both the Red Sox and Expos.

Lee countered his offbeat politics with a strong sense of the game. He is an avowed purist and traditionalist, speaking out against the designated hitter, AstroTurf and polyester uniforms, while conversely extolling the virtues of day games and Sunday doubleheaders.

In THIS interview while playing for Les Expos de Montreal, he revealed the secret to pitching success: "I just had a lot of pancakes before the ballgame, in the morning, and then I went out and had a beer and a steak, and ah... go get'em!"


Wade Boggs:

The subject of one of the greatest on-air interviews of all-time, the transcript of which can be read HERE.



And with that, I'm off to enjoy a few Boggs of my own.

Robert Gordon Orr

I'm not afraid to say that this tribute video gives me a mild case of the eye-sweats.

Just about anyone who was fortunate enough to have seen Bobby Orr play hockey will argue to the death that he was the greatest player to ever play the game. And the chances are, if you were to ask the consensus greatest player of all-time, Wayne Gretzky would probably tell you the same.

His numbers are absoloutely staggering: an unprecedented 8 Norris Trophies (I love the line delivered by Harry Howell when he won the Norris in 1967, quipping: "I might as well enjoy it now because I expect it's going to belong to Bobby Orr from now on"); winning the Hart, Norris, Art Ross, and Conn Smythe in the same year (first and only time it's ever happened); an incomprehensible +124 in the 1970-71 season (plus 124?); and perhamps most mind-boggling of all, winning the scoring title in 1970, as a defenseman... I mean, these are things that simply aren't supposed to happen.

Yet the kid from Parry Sound made them happen. He scored arguably the most famous goal in the history of professional hockey (second in my books only to Nikolai Borschevsky's '93 Game 7 overtime winner in Detroit), and his performance in the '76 Canada Cup on one leg is the stuff of which legends are made.

I remember a few years back on Coach's Corner when Don Cherry showed a highlight reel of some of Orr's most memorable plays. And the thing that struck me was how ridiculous Bobby made everyone else on the ice look. We're talking about the hundred or so best hockey players on the planet at the time, and they might as well have been me and the rest of the lads in the OTHL for all the chance they had of catching him. And the goalies were rendered unequivocally helpless. It was almost comical. They never had a prayer. And again: these were the best goalies in the world.

Gretzky was great. Lemieux was at times breathtaking. But neither of them could make the opposition look like a bunch of kids out on the pond they way #4 did. He was a man amongst boys.


Bonus Coverage: Bobby Orr on Don Cherry's Grapevine, taken from 1987. They really need to bring this show back. Love the concept of Grapes sitting up at the bar with Gerry Cheevers playing the role of Cherry's McMahon.

Click HERE for Part 1

Click HERE for Part 2

Basketball Jesus

Mythic Boston sports figure #2 in our four part series is none other than Larry Legend himself.

I was too young to really appreciate everything Larry Bird ever did on the basketball court, but his autobiography "Drive" was one of the first books I ever read, so I've had this image of a scrawny white kid shooting freethrows alone in an Indiana Gymnasium dancing around inside my head for close to 25-years. But through the magic of YouTube... WOW! I mean, this guy could literally do it all. And maybe the only thing better than his steals, 3-point buzzer beaters, ridiculous no look passes, and tenacity around the ball was his shorts. Those were absolutely glorious.

Click HERE to see a compilation of some of Bird's more ridiculous plays set to Cypress Hill's "Rock Superstar" (the pass he makes at the 1:13 mark should never be attempted by another white man. Ever.)

And Click HERE to see a piece put together which chronicles Larry Legend's best trash talking. That's right. Not only did the Basketball Jesus light it up with game on the court, but he had the bad-assed swagger to go along with it. He truly was a legend.

Straight Cash, Homey

CLICK HERE to see: Straight Cash, Homey! from Amir on Vimeo.

Straight Cash, Homey: (phrase)

The means by which Randy Moss pays his bills.

Reporter: "Write the check yet, Randy?"

Moss: "When you're rich, you don't write checks."

Reporter: "If you don't write checks, how do you pay these guys?"

Moss: "Straight cash, homey."

In aniticipation of this weekend's upcoming road trip to Boston, the seanmccallum.com blog will be posting daily reminders of exaxtly why it is that we love Boston and its sports figures as much as we do.

For my money, there's no better personality in Boston right now than the great Randy Moss. This is one of the all-time reporter-athlete exchanges, and goes a long way in explaining why athletes are so much cooler than regular people. In a million years, I could never come up with a quip this good. What a legend.

Bonus Clip: Randy Moss and Jason Williams attending the same highschool. Sick.

Breaking News: Dalton McGuinty is THE MAN

On September 3, 2007, it was reported that the sitting ministry had proposed the introduction of Family Day, to be held annually in February. On October 11, 2007, Premier Dalton McGuinty, the day following the re-election of his party to a majority in the Legislature, announced that Family Day had been created via Order-in-Council of Lieutenant Governor David Onley, and would occur on the third Monday of February, effective beginning in the year 2008. The first Family Day in Ontario will be on February 18, 2008. This Family Day brings Ontario's long weekend total up to nine, which is equal to Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and the territories.


So maybe this isn't exactly breaking news, but for me, it came as a sort of revelation while walking down College Street today. I felt like Homer Simpson standing in line for the free keg of beer he was in the process of accepting in return for the concession of his union's dental plan...

What most of you don't know (and really, how could you?), is that February 18th, 2008 is my 30th birthday. That's right. And for my money, nothing says "the magic of family" quite like going out and drinking to the point of inducing vomit and then ending up at Sang's for cold tea and General Tso's chicken at four in the morning.

In life, there are few things more depressing than turning 30. It's tough to pretend you're still trying to "find yourself" as an idealistic twenty-something when your driver's lisence clearly states that you're closer to 40 than that night you turned 19 and puked into your hands at Philthy McNasty's. Tough to believe, I know. But the one thing that is clearly more depressing than the above-mentioned statement of fact is having to turn 30 on a Monday... in February. But not anymore.

So thank you Dalton. You have made my impending suicide-contemplating jaunt into middle-age slightly more palatable. And for that, I owe you huge.

In retrospect, maybe I should have given you more thought when I voted this last time around. I find it difficult to imagine the Green Party granting me such consolation.