Okay, for the purpose of memory, yours and especially mine, I am going to sum up the past three visa runs I've made from China to Korea and try to give you an idea of the level of frustration I have achieved in my quest for the oft-promised work visa. If you scroll back to my post entitled "Vacation 2017," that was in January. I had to get out of China for the second time since getting my business visa for my work at Renmin University. (not for, but AT)
I had a really great time with my friends in Korea, as I always do. And when I got back to China, I was still living in Beijing in the hostel where I couldn't cook or refrigerate anything. But I had already agreed, (while in Korea), to take a job in Taiyuan. So it could be said that this visa run/vacation allowed me to remain in China, move to Taiyuan and since I started working February 15th, it was the first time I paid to work for my new company. The trips to Taiyuan for interviews, moving, moving my stuff, ALL bills footed by me. The big one was paying the first three months of rent on my apartment. Again, no help from my employer. So I went broke in order to start working this job.
The March 2nd post, "New Place," was after I had been living in this apartment for about a month, and just a couple of weeks before my third visa run to Korea. My first from Taiyuan, but my second that would allow me to work in Taiyuan. I had finally made my apartment livable. It was not pretty when I moved in. That combined with the move and living for the first month in Taiyuan completely exhausted all my pay and holiday pay from Renmin.
On March 17th, I made another visa run. I had made a plea to management for help with this one. I cited all my expenses and told the second in command that I was flat broke. But payday was March 15th, (supposedly), and I was positive that I could cover the visa run with my first paycheck. Neither the help from management, NOR the paycheck came. I had to borrow money from the saintly HR co-ordinator, Faith, who had been instrumental in getting me settled in Taiyuan. So I stayed only two days in Korea and got back as soon as I could. I bought as little as I could in Korea too, just in case I didn't get paid as much as expected, or didn't get paid at all. This WAS a new company after all. The blog post, "Near Perfect Trip" describes how I was going to ask for a 4000 RMB advance on my end of contract plane fare. I did, and the request was ignored. The paycheck finally came, a week late, and it was only half a paycheck. You see, my new company does the old 2-week withholding of pay deal, (and, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that they don't mention it in their contract), so really, I was being paid in March for the 2 weeks I had worked in Feb. Nowhere near enough cash to pay Faith back, do a visa run to Hong Kong, for my work, (Z), visa, AND cover the next three months of rent, which would be due during that pay period.
So, it was arranged that I would be paid on April 10th, the FULL paycheck this time, and then I could go to HK and get my work visa. Well, in the mean time Faith and Samantha from HR both quit. I got a full paycheck, but it wasn't early and there was no visa run. Half of that paycheck went to cover my SECOND three months of rent and the rest went toward surviving another month. Some time around mid April I met the new HR rep. that was going to be doing Faith's job and would be in charge of negotiating my work visa. Her name was Miss Jang. I sent Faith a text about her saying, "She looks like she's in over her head." I also met Grace. She is the boss's P.A. And, I met the boss, Diana. I mentioned to every one of them how I needed to get out of the country by mid May and was hoping, practically BEGGING, that it would be on a Z visa run, NOT to re-re-REnew my business, (M), visa. Every one of them assured me there would be no problem. I think you probably know what's coming.
For the past month I have been HOUNDING all three of these ladies to the point of almost becoming obnoxious. The very last day, (May 18th), that I could be in the country of China without overstaying my business visa was fast approaching. I was frantically trying to find information on the visa run, the Chinese embassy in Hong Kong, hotels nearby, papers needed, flights, reservations, everything, I mean E VRE THENG was left up to me. All anyone else seemed like they were going to do was get my foreigner's work permit number and official letter of permission both dox from agencies I could not have gone to myself and both with company stamps on them. This will be important later in this tale of woe.
I started teaching the big boss, the owner, Diana, during this time. Grace also sits in on our classes as an emergency translator and a third participant in some exercises and games. I like Grace. She seems quite capable. And I am not hating teaching Diana. She's a great student! At the end of most classes I usually reminded them of my visa status and they both gave me updates and assurances that it was going to happen before May 18th. I found information on visa runs to HK VERY difficult to find. No real big surprise there. What I DID find describes the trip as a pain in the fundamental orifice! Evidently, the embassy is super picky about everything and applicants get refused for little things one at a time. Like the Gwangju Immigration Office in Korea. It sometimes stretches a three-day visa run into a week or more. This is NOT what I wanted to hear! But, with a full paycheck on May 15th I should be able to handle a few days, even a week in HK. The 18th was a Thursday so I knew I wouldn't be getting my visa in one day and would have to spend the weekend there. I told the gals that the visa run really SHOULD be made on a Monday or Tuesday so that it would be ready on the Friday, but I was okay with going at an odd time. I even found two phone numbers for visa information at the embassy, one was recorded info and one was an operator you could talk to. I don't know if it was English, Chinese or both because I tried to call the numbers and neither worked on my phone. I got a message saying I don't have long distance on my plan. ANOTHER thing I'll need HR's help in changing.
Anyway, I give these numbers to Miss Jang, because it would be a huge help to her being new to this and all. She tells me to shut up. He exact words were, "Honey, please be quiet!" This was texted so I was able to refrain from profanity. Then she actually went so far as to GUARANTEE that I would be getting the papers and going to Hong Kong by or before the 18th. Toward the deadline she even suggested I buy a ticket to HK, go to the airport and she would heroically deliver the papers to me before boarding. I said, "No. We will not be doing that."
The morning of the 18th she arranged a time to give me the documents at the school in my office. I got there on time, she was half an hour late. And didn't have the papers. I magnanimously told her that we'd chalk this up to a learning experience and that immigration offices all over the world were the same. She was apologetic saying I was right and she was wrong and all, but I have seen far too much of this Asian lie now and apologize later bullshit to feel anything but anger. I later said to Grace that Miss Jang's education was going to cost me a lot of money. I even said to Grace that I thought she wasn't capable of handling the position, particularly since I've been told that next semester there will be 5 new foreign teachers and this will need to be done for all of them. If they are new to this sort of career or traveling, it will be even MORE difficult than it had been for me. And I said to Grace that Miss Jang doesn't look like she can handle that.
So I then explained to Miss Jang and Grace that without the Z visa I couldn't get a bank account or a card that enabled me to buy a plane ticket online. I tried, I think it's called "C-Ticket" with my Beijing bank card and it didn't work. The reason I was given, you may remember, was because I am a foreigner. So Miss Jang wasted 2 hours of my final legal day in China trying and failing to do something the students I teach could easily do. I texted Faith and within minutes she had me a plane ticket and a train time. I would have to take the train to Beijing then fly to Korea from there. It was last second, expensive, and the schedule would be tight, but it was all that was available. Just before rushing home to pack and leave Miss Jang asked if I could fly from Korea to Hong Kong if they faxed or emailed me the documents. I said I'd be in touch with them but in the mean time they should get the documents and find out if copies were acceptable.
I bought my train ticket and met Faith's husband across the street from the train ticket store and paid him the money for my plane ticket. Again, Faith to the rescue! She even called me and told me how to tell the taxi driver to go to the train station. I got to Beijing and decided to go from the train station to the airport by shuttlebus. In LIGHT traffic that takes an hour and a half, but Beijing rarely has light traffic. I was sitting in gridlock watching the time tick away and envisioning the money for that first ticket going down an imaginary toilet. But luckily, my terminal, (T2), was the first stop on the shuttlebus and it got there 20 minutes before my flight was scheduled to take off. I had NEVER before had a flight into or out of Beijing Airport that was not delayed. In fact I was counting on this flight being delayed. I got to the check-in counter and asked if it was still possible to get on my flight. To my surprise, the girl at the counter said it was! Then, (of course), I checked my bag and it set off an alarm. I had to open it up and show everything in it. They didn't find the battery or bomb they were looking for. That wasted 5 minutes. I now had 15 minutes. I went to the scanner luggageless. The girl said, "You'd better hurry, your flight is boarding." Then Mr. Overkill, maybe BECAUSE I was late and he knew it, felt, fondled and passed that metal detector wand over me so many times I thought he was trying to cast a spell. He put his finger into the waist of my shorts in the back, pulled and looked down the crack of my ass! This is just getting out of hand, folks! The personal rights and freedoms violations we allow at airports because we just want to get where we are going are one sure sign that Big Brother is taking over.
I got through a lengthy immigration line and had a couple of minutes to find gate 11. Beijing Airport signage and layout is not the best. I saw signs that said, "Gates 1-11" and had arrows so I followed the arrows. They had those moving walkways that everybody here STOPS on and turns into moving STANDways to my never-ending irritation. Baggageless, I was able to deek out these blockers and get to my destination more quickly. I got past gates 1 through 10 and the airport ended. Where the HELL was gate 11? Luckily a young, pretty stewardess had seen my OJ Simpson impression and followed me shouting, "Incheon? You are going to Incheon?" So I followed her ALL the way back to gate number 11. Which comes before gate number 1. Chinese math.
I was the last person on the plane and I sat down almost exactly at the correct take-off time. The very first plane EVER to be on schedule in my experience at the Beijing Airport. Of course! But then we all sat in the plane on the runway for 50 minutes waiting to take off, so the airport's record remains intact.
I got to the Incheon Airport, which, incidentally, a fellow expat who lives in Korea posted an article online about. It was on the facebook page called OINK, which stands for Only In Korea. It bragged on and on about how awesome the Incheon airport was and how they've won the award for best in Asia. I posted, (and so did MANY others), that Changi Airport in Singapore can't be touched. Then I posted that the award was probably based on an internet poll. Koreans are invincible at those. I blasted through customs and immigration and waited patiently for my bag. I needed to get my Kindle and send Amber a facebook message letting her know I was there. Amber lives in Incheon and may have allowed me to stay at her and DB's place. But I hadn't had time to message them before leaving China. I hadn't had time for much. I just grabbed any clothes I could and threw them into my bag. Again, thanks to Miss Jang.
It was about 11 PM so I thought Amber and DB would probably just be going to bed. But I watched the baggage go round and round the carousel. Never saw my bag. An attendant or security guard or something comes up to me and barks, "Where you come from?" I said, "Beijing." He says, "Manila? Baggage not here." I said, "Not Manila, Beijing." He doesn't hear me because he's overvoluming me with, "Flight number. Flight number. Flight number." I point to the sign above the carousel that clearly says whatever the flight number was and from Beijing and read it for him. He says, "Go to lost and found." World class service right there, Incheon Airport!
I go to lost and found thinking that because I had checked in so late back in Beijing, and then had trouble with the alarm, they probably hadn't had time to put my bag on the plane. I reach the lost and found and the guy says, "Maybe next counter." MAYBE?
I go to next counter and there's a lady there talking to a guy from Fiji. She stops talking to him and looks directly at me. I say, "Hi. I can't find my luggage..." She says, "Wait your turn. I am talking with this man." So I apologize to the Fijian and we spark up a conversation about how frustrating it is to lose baggage. He was from the same flight as me. Then a THIRD guy from our flight shows up. He interrupts the lady to say, "Hey, this is my bag here, can I take it?" She says he can and then finally talks to me. She asks if my bag is in the pile of baggage behind her desk. I hadn't thought to look. And sure enough, there it is. Baggage handling at Incheon Airport - top notchi!
I get my bag and go through customs and out into the airport. It's now after 2 AM. I am instantly accosted by the sketchy taxi drivers that you expect in Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok etc., but not from the "best airport in Asia." I tell them I don't need a taxi when I want to tell them to fuck off and dig out my Kindle. I wonder if it's even worth contacting anyone. All buses and subways from Incheon Airport are now finished. It is close to exactly NOTHING this airport, so a "nearby" hotel is a 20 or 30 dollar taxi ride away and who knows how much it will cost. But luckily I check my phone and WeChat is working. I see a message from Amber that I am welcome to stay at her place. I try to send her a message. Incheon Airport wifi is down. Best airport in Asia in the most wired country in the WORLD and the wifi sucks. But I got intermittent coverage and managed to send a message that I was on the way. A 40=dollar cab ride later, I arrived at Amber and DB's by 3. They got up early the next morning too. I watched hockey and napped.
My visit was a lot of fun, as it always is with Amber, DB, and the Peet/Spiwaks who were elbows deep in a walkathon raising money for cancer research. I had arranged to stay until Wednesday this trip because that two-day turnaround over the weekend is horrible. Mostly because of the horrendous trip back to Taiyuan. Last visa run I had to wait 3 hours in the waiting room for my train. But I talked with a nice guy who was in the coal industry. Taiyuan is China's main coal city so I'm not so sure I should cheer for its prosperity even though the rich families are the ones whose kids I will be teaching. After the weekend I sent a WeChat message to Miss Jang saying that I could go directly to Hong Kong on Monday or Tuesday if she did three things: acquired the two documents I still needed, (which she assured me she had), emailed them to me, and found out FOR SURE if Hong Kong would accept copies of documents such as these. Remember, they are stamped. What good is a stamp or even a signature if it's photocopied? She gets back to me a day later with, "Are you going to Hong Kong? Have you renewed your Korean tourist visa? I've been working very hard so I'm replying to you now." A DAY LATER!!! I again ask if she's got the dox and if I can use copies in HK. She replies, "You need print it yourself. Must be color print."
I then take a deep breath and dive into an explanation of one of the picky, picky rules I've read about. The visa application needs to be downloaded onto a computer and filled in with typing. You can't print out the application then fill it in in pen. Even though it must be signed in pen. So I filled out as much of it as I could but there were some blanks for my alien work permit number, which was one of the dox Miss Jang told me she had acquired, and one for the name and address of the employer. I only had that in Chinese on WeChat and had tried to copy and paste from WeChat but couldn't do it. So I told Miss Jang I would send her the application and she could type in the Chinese and the number for me and send it back to me. Long silence from her. I sent, "So I need your email." She sends me her email. I send her the application and let her know via WeChat that I've sent it. She replies, "OK." FOUR hours later I send her a message, "Never mind, I will just fly back to China." Remember, she wasted Monday not replying to me. It's now Tuesday and I'm in the same boat she put me in in Taiyuan: I have one day and don't know what ticket to buy but I know it's going to be a crappy, expensive one because it's last minute. So I booked a ticket to Beijing. The next day I got a message from the travel agent saying that my flight was cancelled.
So I go back to the travel agency, (Unique Travel in Itaewon is the one I like), and the agent is pulling out her hair trying to find ANYthing but everything is full. Why then the flight I had booked was CANCELLED??? Maximization of profits. So I ended up deciding on another ticket. In the time it took to book that ticket THAT flight filled up. I had to take a flight on Thursday and arrive back in Taiyuan a day late. Well, not my fault. That day I got about 15 or 20 WeChat messages from Miss Jang asking if I'd decided to go back to China. Explaining that an interpreter, (Grace), would contact me. Apologizing AGAIN at her handling of the visa. Saying that she has been, "re arranged" and won't be in charge later. Then letting me know how nice it has been to know me and not to hesitate to ask for her help with anything in future and she hopes we will see each other again. She probably got the position the same way she handled it: assuming that SAYING you can do things is just as good as being able to do things. Then assuming that an apology will make everything all right when you can't do the things you are hired to do. Unbelievable! Well... in my experience in the ESL industry, BELIEVABLE!
So I got up at 5, said my goodbyes to everybody and was off at 6 AM. I got a 25-dollar taxi to Gimpo Airport, the one IN SEOUL! I can only imagine what it costs to get to Incheon by cab. The taxis used to be cheap in Korea. Now they are almost like Canadian taxis. Everything goes smoothly to Beijing. Even, to my surprise, immigration. I thought they'd give me some hassle knowing that this was my 4th renewal of my business visa and I HAD to be working in China. In Indonesia after my 4th renewal of my business visa there, I was almost refused entry. But the guy in Beijing didn't even flinch. I took the shuttlebus from the Beijing Airport to Beijing West Train Station from stop #7. The tickets can be bought right beside the information circle in front of the hallway that leads to the Airport Express. The bus comes every 30 minutes or less. It takes 1 1/2 hours or so and probably could take more than two in heavy traffic. I didn't have my train ticket yet, so I was not on a deadline like I was on the shuttlebus from the train station to the airport days before when I nearly had to eat my ticket. So after a much less stressful and not so trafficky ride of about an hour and 45 mins, I was at the train station.
I go into the entrance marked misleadingly as "Tickets Entrance," a hard one to find really, and after the requisite Chinese line-up I find out that if I want the fast, 3-hour trip I have to wait till 9 PM. It's about 11:30 AM. I ask if there's anything else and there IS one at 3:29 but it's a slow train that makes more stops and takes about 4 hours, and here's the kicker: standing room only! So I take that ticket and proceed to waiting room number 11. It is JAM PACKED with humanity! No seats available and very little standing room. And I've got a 4-hour wait followed by a 4-hour stand on the train. I DID get McLunch and sat in the crowded eating area of McDonald's for maybe half an hour but stood the rest of the time and stood in the dining car for the whole 4-hour train ride. It was even more nightmarish than it sounds since the dining car was packed with other standing passengers and I was leaning on one of the small tables from time to time and once during the trip a dude bought a meal and ate it, NOISILY, about 4 inches away from my head where my ears are. Grace had offered to get the school driver to pick me up at the station when I arrived, but this was when I had foolishly assumed I could just buy a train ticket to Taiyuan and go there. Instead of arriving around 2, when I could have been picked up, I got to the station at 7:30. I sent Grace a message saying that I would find my own way home and for some reason my WeChat wouldn't work. I was accosted by the sketchy taxi guys and went to the genuine taxi area. I said the name of the school, showed the driver the Chinese writing which says, "Please take me to Taiyuan number 5 High School," a landmark in Taiyuan and the driver says, "Hmmmm wo bu jr dao..." like he doesn't know. Just then, like a superhero, I get a call from Faith! She asks how things have gone and I get her to explain to the driver where I'm going. We then have a nice conversation until I reach my place. It's now after 8 PM and I make some Kraft Dinner, with hotdogs with relish. The KD and relish Heather got me from post. Can't find either in Taiyuan. So I ate supper with relish.
The next day I met the new HR co-ordinator, Amy. I had met her before, but she wasn't the HR co-ordinator before. Her English is much better than Miss Jang's and she seems like she may be able to handle the job. But she says to me, I will get the documents from the ministry tomorrow and give them to you. TOMORROW! Meaning STILL nobody had retrieved the damn documents! They had just lied to me and said they did.
I did get the documents! STANDING OVATION for Amy! But now we have to arrange a time to go to HK. I wanted to go this Monday, (tomorrow), but we can't for a few reasons. First of all, (of course I was the one who checked this...) Tuesday is a holiday in Hong Kong so I probably wouldn't be able to get the visa on Friday, so I'd have to spend a week in Hong Kong. Also, when I got back from my previous visa run and plans had been made to get me my work visa from Hong Kong back in April, the company drew up some new contracts. I think I will need to bring a contract from my employer and show it to the people at the embassy in HK and, obviously it can't be dated from February. That way the embassy will know I have been working without a Z visa. So they drew up new contracts. I guess I never got my copy of the new one because all I can find is one dated from February. So we're gonna probably need to draw up a THIRD batch of contracts. I will be doing a camp here as well as my normal classes for June so there is only a small window for me to do this trip properly. That will be on June 12. That gives the company 15 days to do the contracts and arrange flights and hotel for me. What do you want to bet they start on this June 11th?
But at least I'm working.
Saturday, May 27, 2017
Sunday, May 14, 2017
The Legend of Bobby Orr
As the young boy in the rink dressing room began inserting his foot into his CCM Tacks, a voice from the shadows said, "What are you doing, son?"
The boy was startled and looked toward the far corner of the dressing room to see the old timer approaching. He said, "I'm just putting on my skates."
"No yer not!" corrected the old timer. "Not with yer socks on, son. Never with yer socks on."
The young boy, still holding the laces of his left skate challenged the stranger, "Why not?"
"Because Bobby Orr says not, THAT'S why not!"
"Who is Bobby Orr?" the unfortunate kid replied.
Unfortunate because, although there are no shadows in any dressing rooms, kids are now trained NOT to talk to strangers who might lurk there, and usually such strangers, no matter how well-meaning, get forcibly removed from dressing rooms, I, your faithful blogger, am, through the magic of blogging, that stranger. And I am going to keep that legendary boy off the ice by telling him of a game, a time, and, indeed a player that make true hockey fans stop what they are doing and get glossy-eyed in wonder at what could have been, and what could still be in the most exciting sport in the world. If you're a baseball fan, think of Josh Gibson in the negro leagues. If you're a football, (or baseball), fan, think of Bo Jackson. I bet there are hundreds of stories of evanescent athletes the world over who just didn't get a chance to live up to their potential. I count Bobby Orr amongst this group even though we DID get the privilege of watching his greatness for a short, but glorious time.
In my, and the opinions of most hockey knowledgeables, the only thing challenging the certainty that Bobby Orr was the best hockey player ever is the diabolical fact that he played in an era before arthroscopic knee renovations. Otherwise, he would have removed all doubt that he was the best, most revolutionary, most dominant player of hockey, (dare I say ANY sport? (I dare! I dare!)), EVER! Keep this in mind whilst I take us back to the beginning of the glory days of hockey, and so many other things. He was injured in 1967 in a charity-benefit exhibition game when colliding knee-on-knee with a teammate. This is when he was 18, folks. His rookie season in the NHL. Playing in charity benefits already. And every game he played after that, that is, practically every game of his far too limited career, was played in pain. We're talking bone-on-bone, no cartilage pain in the knee! By the end of his career, BOTH knees!
But this is not impressive until you hear what he did on one knee. Darryl Sittler, a guy who once scored 10 points in a game, (a record still untouched), said, "Bobby Orr was better on one leg than anybody else was on two." Consider that before Bobby Orr, most defensemen in hockey everywhere, stayed away from the offensive zone. The records for most goals, (19), and most points, (59), by Red Kelly and Pierre Pilotte respectively, were just sitting there all vulnerable-like. Now, to statisticians out there, okay, Doug Mohns, a defenseman, scored 25 goals and 60 points in a season, but he was playing as a forward on a line with Stan Makita while doing so. This was an era during which stats weren't as important as they are now so Mohns was listed as a defenseman, but wasn't playing as one. But also consider the forward pass in hockey was not allowed until 1930! So offense was a developing idea in pro hockey. If you got 50 points, you were a superstar. In fact POINTS weren't really a stat for many years. Only goals were recorded. So old timers like Joe Malone, Newsy Lalonde and the like, might have been better than we think. Nobody scored 50 goals until there was a war on and a good deal of the good players were overseas fighting. Even Maurice Richard would admit his 50 goals in 1944/45 should have an asterisk, I'm sure. It didn't happen legitimately until 15 years later, and it wasn't Richard, it was Boom Boom Geoffrion, although Gordie Howe got 49 and 47 in there. Not taking away from the Rocket! He DID get 45 legitimately, but, like Orr, we'll never know what would have been if circumstances were different.
And then, when the virtues of skill and offense were found to have dollar values, Bobby Hull and Phil Esposito blew those records away. But we're talking about forwards, whose job it IS to score. They rarely, (especially in Espo's case), strayed into the defensive zone or were any help there. It was largely, VERY largely because of Orr that Espo got his 76 goals in 1970/71 and this was all while Orr was also being defensively responsible and fighting and doing all the unglamorous jobs of a defenseman as well. Just as a teaser, Orr got a plus 124 in that season, the highest ever by any player in any position. Now I have never been a fan of the plus/minus stat. It is inherently misleading, but when it's this massive, there's something to it!
So this was the way hockey was before Orr. It was largely played by big, toothless, tough, low-paid grinders. And it was dull. A common score was 1-0 or 2-1. People satisfied themselves with believing that the excitement was in the competitiveness and the close scores. It was Slap Shot hockey. Easily the games that got the most asses out of seats and cheering were the ones with the most fights. It wasn't the low, but close scores. I hate the old close scores argument! I say, if close scores make sport exciting to you, try soccer. They sometimes don't even HAVE a score. And they won't give the fans any overtime if the score is 0-0 at the end of regulation time. Still, the fans of soccer, many from countries where it is the only sport they can afford, satisfy themselves with it. At least there's SOMETHING to cheer for! This is the same attitude hockey fans had in the dark ages of our sport and the dark ages of our countries. Speaking of the U.S. and Canada.
We had just gone through the great depression, the "dirty 30's" and then WWII. The countries and the sport were in a state of rebuild. And in no time things became prosperous. Unfortunately by the time every average man had a good job, a house, a car and a TV, Gordie Howe's glory days were over. We didn't get to see much of Mr. Hockey on TV. If we had, WE'D be as scared of him as every player in the NHL was. He was not the superstar we know today. Not by a long, long shot! He played in the days when I think hockey could best be described as "prison hockey." You had to fight. You couldn't avoid it. And if you wanted to prove you were tough and stay in the lineup, you had to take on the toughest guy. That was Gordie Howe. For a while. But soon people just stopped taking him on and gave him room. That's how he got all his points. Think of Happy Gilmore beating the living crud out of the player saying, "That's MY puck. You don't touch MY puck!" Then driving his head into the boards. That was Gordie Howe. And that was what a superstar was before Bobby Orr. Even if your team won 1-0 because Gordie Howe faked a punch to the head of the goalie causing him to flinch, then shot it past him while he was covering up, you were happy with the win. Skill, grace, and transcendental hockey savvy were not yet appreciated. They were clobbered. Gretzky, who always idolized Howe, played a game against him and lifted his stick and stole the puck. Howe confronted him later in the game and warned him never to embarrass him again like that. I don't think he'd idolize him so much if he'd played many more games against him.
So Orr knew he'd have to be tough. He KNEW he was good! And he had that whole list of things. For the love of Don Cherry, he was turning heads at the age of 12! NHL heads! The Bruins sent a scout named Wren Blair to a game to look at a couple of older players and they saw Orr. He was by far the youngest at the tournament but he played every minute of the game except the 2 minutes he was penalized and made the scouts forget about the other guys. When he was 13, the Orrs agreed to $2800.00 a car and a stucco job on their house to sell the rights to their son Bobby to Boston. When he was 14 years old, (what were YOU doing at 14?), he lived in Parry Sound, so could only play the home games on weekends for the Oshawa Generals, but still, playing against mostly 19 and 20-year-olds, got 21 points and landed on the 2nd all star team of the Metro Jr. A League. While having sleepovers, smoking his first cigarette and maybe even kissing a girl. I mean, his parents probably didn't allow him to play the road games because he would get home after his bedtime! A true prodigy!
The next year he played the full season and got 29 goals and 72 points. Let me refer you back to the NHL records of the era: 19 and 59. And although I've seen no footage of the days when he was playing Jr. hockey, I'm sure it would look the same as his NHL footage: total domination. He probably made the 19 and 20-year-olds look silly. SILLY! I saw footage of Connor McDavid courtesy of Hockey Night in Canada, when he was 14. He was playing with kids much older and making them look silly. But not to the extent I'm sure Orr did. Don Cherry, (blessed be His name), stated that he saw him pass up points against expansion teams and never run up the score! So his stats could have been a lot bulkier if he had the mindset of the modern player, (or businessman). I guess I'll never know. This is the advantage we have today. Nobody saw this domination of Orr but family, friends, opponents and the Bruins' scouts. The Bruins' scouts who represented a team desperate to win a cup! Their last win was 25 years before and fading from the memory of the fans. Their stadium was echoing. Their debtors were calling.
Much, (or EXACTLY), like today, I believe this desperation was the ONLY reason the Bruins took a chance on Bobby. No team wanted to play offensively, especially with their defensemen! Their job was behind the centre line, CERTAINLY not beyond the opponents' blue line! But that just hadn't worked. For 25 years. This kid was too good to waste. So they took a chance. I absolutely HATE that teams have to be so desperate to "take a chance" on offense. I firmly believe a strong offense wins in most sports most of the time. I don't believe, I KNOW, it's a helluva lot more fun to watch, even if you don't win! The Bruins, and the Oshawa Generals, were about to find out how lucrative an exciting offensive team could be.
Bobby played the next season and broke the goal record for defenceman in the league with 29 goals. The next year he broke his own record scoring 34 goals. In the next season he scored 38 goals and after a 22 year absence, got the Oshawa Generals to the Memorial Cup! These three more years for the Oshawa Generals compiling mouth-watering stats gave hope to the Bruins' front office. Could he do for the Bruins of the NHL what he had done for the Generals? The only reason he wasn't playing in the NHL as a little boy was because of the minimum age of 18 rule. Yet another thing that makes you wonder what might have been. Orr broke all the records ever recorded for defensemen in the minors in his ensuing 3 years playing for the Generals. He DID have his problems with injury, however. Perhaps a sign of things to come. In the game of hockey, if you play at the speed of light, you will encounter some darkness. This was said by a very knowledgeable hockey man and it has held true for several stars who have injured themselves flying into the boards, the net, the glass, the bench, other players or anywhere you shouldn't be speeding into. The recent spate of concussions and knee-on-knee collisions in the NHL may be one of the main dangers that has lead to the infuriatingly defensive, careful, absolutely dead boring, (and I'd like to add cowardly), hockey that is the norm today. It has become as careful and defensive as yesteryear. They might just as well bring back the no forward pass rule, I sometimes think. Sadly, Orr may be its best argument. Hey, but at least we HAVE hockey to watch, eh?
So finally Bobby Orr turns 18 and is eligible for the NHL. He signs for a whopping $25,000 and there were untold bonuses too. To give you an idea, it was 1966 and there were only 4 other players, all proven vets, getting more than 25 grand at the time. The Bruins were pulling out all the stops and rolling out the red carpet for Orr. He didn't disappoint. He scored 13 goals and 28 assists for 41 points. Now that sounds pretty average but that won him the Calder Cup for rookie of the year. It was pretty impressive, particularly for an 18-year-old! In his second year he had an injury but still managed 31 points in limited action. Again it sounds like nothing but it was considered star worthy. Then in the 68/69 season Bobby Orr got 64 points. Remember, Pierre Pilotte's NHL record of 59? Gone! Even if you are a fan of Mohns, Orr beat him too. At the ripe old age of 21. But this was small potatoes. Orr was just rounding into form. Rounding because of only one good knee, of course. heh heh.
The next season, 1969/1970, I was 3 years old. I only WISH I was old enough to fully appreciate what Bobby Orr did that year! As a 7-year-old I actually went to Buffalo and watched the Sabres play the Bruins in 1974 when Bobby Orr's star was brightly shining and was STILL too young to get it. It remains to this day one of the biggest regrets of my life that I saw Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge, Johnny Bucyk, Wayne Cashman, Gilles Gilbert, even Terry O'Reilly and I not only didn't appreciate any of them, I was voting for the Sabres! I like the French Connection. Gilles Gilbert, Rene Robert and Rick Martin. Shows how much I knew! When I was 7! I couldn't even tell you who won that game. Probably the Bruins. All I remember clearly was the taste of sour cream and onion chips which I HATED! Ha ha ha. Now I love sour cream, onion, and sour cream and onion chips. I was SO different as a kid!
The 1969/70 season of Bobby Orr was when the whole world recognized his power. If you want a very good account of it, go here. I'll just share the highlights. It is agreed to be the best season by any hockey player EVER! And I don't even think it's Orr's best! Just try to bring yourself back to the year of 1969. The Beatles made their last public performance on a rooftop. The 747 and Concorde were just out. The Pontiac Trans Am Firebird was the hottest car around. Woodstock! Apollo 11, Charles Manson, Abbey Road, the internet was ARPANET, Elvis "In the Ghetto," The Guess Who, Sweet Caroline, Come Together, groovy, Bewitched, Bonanza, Ironside. This is what I'm talking about.
Orr gets 14 points in the first 7 games! That's 2 points a game! Gretzky would be hard pressed! In the 80's! And he was a centre!
Just a miraculous start! He's gotta slow down. That's what everybody thought. And he DID...
but not much. This was unheard of! 38 points was far more than a respectable total just past the quarter post!
So everybody is assuming he'll slow down. I don't remember this spectacular year by Orr, but I DO remember Gretzky's 50 goals in 39 games. He, like Orr, just got BETTER as he went along! By his 54th game Orr had 84 points. Do you know how many players scored more than that this year, (2016/17)? SIX! In the whole year! Bobby had over 20 games to go! And this is in an era BEFORE the 80's when NObody had ever even come close to this! This is a spectacular season for a forward and Orr was NOT a forward! AND he still had 20 some games left! Can you imagine the GOD this guy was to hockey fans, never mind Boston Bruin fans!?!? The mind boggles! At the half way point of the season he broke the assist record for defencemen. Three nights later he breaks the record for points. HIS record. Remember he's 21 years old!
By March he has 100 points, 74 assists, and 27 goals, ALL records for an NHL defenseman. But he's not finished yet. He ends up with 33 and 87 for 120 points. THEN come the playoffs! He demolishes the playoff goals and assists marks for defencemen and scores THE GOAL. Everybody has seen this picture.
Orr won the Art Ross for scoring in the NHL, a feat no other defenseman has ever accomplished, (except himself), he got the first of 8 Norris trophies for best defenseman, (again nobody else ever did this even though most have longer careers), he got the Hart for MVP, and he won the Conn Smythe for playoff MVP. Nobody has won 4 except Lafleur and Gretzky who won the Art Ross, Hart, Conn Smythe and the Stanley Cups, but Bobby Orr, in his 4 personal trophy year ALSO won the Stanley Cup making him the only 5 trophy winning hockey player ever. It will be nigh onto impossible for anyone to do that again since it would have to be a defenceman leading the league in scoring on a team that wins the cup and he dominates the playoffs. In a hundred years that is probably not going to happen! That's why Bobby Orr is considered to be the best. But that's just one season. Let's continue.
The next year he becomes the first player ever to record 100 assists. In 1970/71 he gets 37 goals, 102 assists and 139 points. The point total has never yet been eclipsed by a defenseman although Paul Coffey scored 138 in his brilliant 1985/86 season. As mentioned, his plus 124 is so crazily better than anybody ever it almost proves the stat as meaningless as it is. And he won the Hart for MVP and the Norris for best defenceman again. I hope you don't mind my interchanging defenceman and defenseman. I don't know which is right.
The next year he won four trophies again. He got the Norris as a matter of purer course than any award ever given to any player. He also got 24 playoff points and the Conn Smythe for doing so. He got the league MVP, the Hart, of course. And since the Bruins beat the NY Rangers in the final, he got the Stanley Cup again. That's 4 pieces of hardware again. Remember how rare that is! Let alone FIVE! I think I love him WAY more knowing he beat the Rangers!
In my opinion, knowing how hard it is, and how rare an opportunity arises for a defenceman to score a goal, his best season may have been his last full season. Which begs the question, "Where could he have gone from there?" He scored 46 goals and 89 assists in 1974/75. 46 goals wass just an astronomic number never before mentioned concerning a defenceman. He GOT that in the 70's! This is BEFORE the 80's when skill and creativity were most appreciated in the wonderful game of hockey. And even in THOSE days there was only one defenceman who approached the status of Orr. I would say more than approached too! Paul Coffey was a phenom the likes of which hockey would be lucky to find ever again! But STILL not the gift sent down from Olympus that Bobby Orr was!
Just to fire them off at you, I'll list a few more impressive facts: He remains, and probably will always be, despite his short career, the only defenceman with 9 career hat tricks. When was the last time you saw a defenceman getting a hat trick? Rare as an honest ESL boss! His career 1.39 points per game is a crazy goal for a forward to consider, never mind a defenseman. It's important to note that in his big, breakout year he also had 125 penalty minutes. He had to play tough AND offensive, unlike the majority of high scorers in the NHL. There are forwards who are considered superstars in the NHL who have never approached his statistics. In 1979, (coincidentally or not? Gretzky's rookie year), he became the youngest player ever inducted into the hockey hall of fame.
The next year he was pretty much bankrupt. Without cash. Even being so highly paid! How did this happen? Well this is an all too familiar side story to every story we hear nowadays. We are just now beginning to notice these screwjobs and get angry about them. Soon, hopefully we will DO something about them.
Toward the end of his career, when his knees were shot, Boston offered Orr a contract to stay with the team. They could not imagine him elsewhere. They went so far as to offer 18.5% of the Boston Bruin franchise. WHICH HE DESERVED. His agent, the criminally convicted liar and fraudster, Alan Eagleson, (who served time in prison and was removed from the NHL Hall of Fame), had an arrangement more profitable for himself with the Chicago Blackhawks and hid this offer of Bruin ownership from Orr. He signed with the Hawks. He then had another operation and this one finally rendered his career a no go. So, YEAH, he DID have a lot of money as a player and we wonder where that might have gone, BUT, he could be the 18.5% owner of the Bruins by now! A million or maybe billionaire. There is nobody in the Bruins organization who would begrudge him this share in the franchise. Except, of course, the greedy scumbags who actually control it.
Gordie Howe was another example of a commodity being exploited. He was happy that the Detroit bigwigs gave him team jackets whenever he wanted. And while he was giving and taking beatings night in and night out, those jacket gifters made untold MILLIONS!
Here I am torn.
I'm torn again at the decision of whether I respect Gordie Howe and Bobby Orr more for just playing the game they love and not considering the financial details, or wish the two of them had held their owners' feet to the fire knowing, what they OBVIOUSLY knew: the money THE OWNERS made was exponentially humungous compared to the money they were offering the players. Now, I think, in the cases of several athletes I've seen, financial details were not within their personal realms of understanding. Fine, if Gordie or Bobby want to plead ignorance or lack of intelligence, I'm okay with that. But, I think Bobby was smarter. Possibly, and I'd go so far as PROBABLY not Gordie. But I think one of the greatest rip jobs in professional sports history was the trade of Bobby Orr to the Chicago Blackhawks.
Alan Eagleson was disbarred, criminally convicted and found guilty of fraud in the arena of trying to STOP things like he perpetrated on Bobby Orr from happening to NHL players. Jerk! He was involved with several NHL players including Darryl Sittler, who gave that previous quote. Gordie Howe was screwed by the Red Wings management for being nice and not shrewd. The very fact that the players NEED an association to fight for their rights is witness to the corporatization of the most exciting game in the world and it makes me want to blow a toilet full of puke every time I hear it.
I'm not on either side of the lockouts, strikes and bickering over money, by the way. I'm on the side of getting back to the good old days of hockey, and of Canada, and I assume the U.S. when people had good jobs and pay that everybody knows is fair. When there was a pretty good chance you'd own your home someday soon. When you had a job, social life and a partner that was steady. When hockey players, (musicians? artists?), were exhibiting the freedom and creativity that people exhibit when their primary needs are satisfied. When people were taking chances in sports and life. When things were not nervous, pedantic and uninspired. When sports weren't either.
You see, I believe sports is the best analogy for life, and at the same time it might be the best reflection of life. While life was hard and there was an epic struggle to rise above the poverty and hopelessness of society, people had to scratch and claw and fight. So did hockey players. But in the glory days of the 70's and moreso the 80's when things had loosened up enough to allow people more freedom than ever before, we had our best hockey ever! Skills! Excitement! Goals! And still the fights! Now since the greedy less than 1% have made us scratch and claw again like the days of the depression, hockey has become a frustratingly boring game of soccer on ice. Frustrating because those of us who remember the 80's know what could be. And this poor excuse for our favourite game just makes us as depressed as the people in soup lines during the depression.
"What I'm sayin' kid, is today is an environment in which Bobby Orr could not have existed. He would be told to clutch and grab, clog the neutral zone and block shots. Do you want to play like that? Do you want to stain his memory by stopping at the centre line during a power play? I hope you don't. The future of hockey is depending on you."
Then the man from the shadows left the dressing room. He didn't say another word.
...to the young Connor McDavid! Hah! I'd like to include that but after the game 7 Edmonton played this year, I still think freedom in hockey is being suppressed. Freedom. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Ovechkin can't play like Ovechkin because the stupid management thinks he should play fewer minutes and block shots and backcheck rather than shoot or set up plays. Which he has perfected all his life. No, do the opposite of your nature and we will give you lots and lots of money!
This is what has ruined sports and our whole world.
At least that's what I reckon.
The boy was startled and looked toward the far corner of the dressing room to see the old timer approaching. He said, "I'm just putting on my skates."
"No yer not!" corrected the old timer. "Not with yer socks on, son. Never with yer socks on."
The young boy, still holding the laces of his left skate challenged the stranger, "Why not?"
"Because Bobby Orr says not, THAT'S why not!"
"Who is Bobby Orr?" the unfortunate kid replied.
Unfortunate because, although there are no shadows in any dressing rooms, kids are now trained NOT to talk to strangers who might lurk there, and usually such strangers, no matter how well-meaning, get forcibly removed from dressing rooms, I, your faithful blogger, am, through the magic of blogging, that stranger. And I am going to keep that legendary boy off the ice by telling him of a game, a time, and, indeed a player that make true hockey fans stop what they are doing and get glossy-eyed in wonder at what could have been, and what could still be in the most exciting sport in the world. If you're a baseball fan, think of Josh Gibson in the negro leagues. If you're a football, (or baseball), fan, think of Bo Jackson. I bet there are hundreds of stories of evanescent athletes the world over who just didn't get a chance to live up to their potential. I count Bobby Orr amongst this group even though we DID get the privilege of watching his greatness for a short, but glorious time.
In my, and the opinions of most hockey knowledgeables, the only thing challenging the certainty that Bobby Orr was the best hockey player ever is the diabolical fact that he played in an era before arthroscopic knee renovations. Otherwise, he would have removed all doubt that he was the best, most revolutionary, most dominant player of hockey, (dare I say ANY sport? (I dare! I dare!)), EVER! Keep this in mind whilst I take us back to the beginning of the glory days of hockey, and so many other things. He was injured in 1967 in a charity-benefit exhibition game when colliding knee-on-knee with a teammate. This is when he was 18, folks. His rookie season in the NHL. Playing in charity benefits already. And every game he played after that, that is, practically every game of his far too limited career, was played in pain. We're talking bone-on-bone, no cartilage pain in the knee! By the end of his career, BOTH knees!
But this is not impressive until you hear what he did on one knee. Darryl Sittler, a guy who once scored 10 points in a game, (a record still untouched), said, "Bobby Orr was better on one leg than anybody else was on two." Consider that before Bobby Orr, most defensemen in hockey everywhere, stayed away from the offensive zone. The records for most goals, (19), and most points, (59), by Red Kelly and Pierre Pilotte respectively, were just sitting there all vulnerable-like. Now, to statisticians out there, okay, Doug Mohns, a defenseman, scored 25 goals and 60 points in a season, but he was playing as a forward on a line with Stan Makita while doing so. This was an era during which stats weren't as important as they are now so Mohns was listed as a defenseman, but wasn't playing as one. But also consider the forward pass in hockey was not allowed until 1930! So offense was a developing idea in pro hockey. If you got 50 points, you were a superstar. In fact POINTS weren't really a stat for many years. Only goals were recorded. So old timers like Joe Malone, Newsy Lalonde and the like, might have been better than we think. Nobody scored 50 goals until there was a war on and a good deal of the good players were overseas fighting. Even Maurice Richard would admit his 50 goals in 1944/45 should have an asterisk, I'm sure. It didn't happen legitimately until 15 years later, and it wasn't Richard, it was Boom Boom Geoffrion, although Gordie Howe got 49 and 47 in there. Not taking away from the Rocket! He DID get 45 legitimately, but, like Orr, we'll never know what would have been if circumstances were different.
And then, when the virtues of skill and offense were found to have dollar values, Bobby Hull and Phil Esposito blew those records away. But we're talking about forwards, whose job it IS to score. They rarely, (especially in Espo's case), strayed into the defensive zone or were any help there. It was largely, VERY largely because of Orr that Espo got his 76 goals in 1970/71 and this was all while Orr was also being defensively responsible and fighting and doing all the unglamorous jobs of a defenseman as well. Just as a teaser, Orr got a plus 124 in that season, the highest ever by any player in any position. Now I have never been a fan of the plus/minus stat. It is inherently misleading, but when it's this massive, there's something to it!
So this was the way hockey was before Orr. It was largely played by big, toothless, tough, low-paid grinders. And it was dull. A common score was 1-0 or 2-1. People satisfied themselves with believing that the excitement was in the competitiveness and the close scores. It was Slap Shot hockey. Easily the games that got the most asses out of seats and cheering were the ones with the most fights. It wasn't the low, but close scores. I hate the old close scores argument! I say, if close scores make sport exciting to you, try soccer. They sometimes don't even HAVE a score. And they won't give the fans any overtime if the score is 0-0 at the end of regulation time. Still, the fans of soccer, many from countries where it is the only sport they can afford, satisfy themselves with it. At least there's SOMETHING to cheer for! This is the same attitude hockey fans had in the dark ages of our sport and the dark ages of our countries. Speaking of the U.S. and Canada.
We had just gone through the great depression, the "dirty 30's" and then WWII. The countries and the sport were in a state of rebuild. And in no time things became prosperous. Unfortunately by the time every average man had a good job, a house, a car and a TV, Gordie Howe's glory days were over. We didn't get to see much of Mr. Hockey on TV. If we had, WE'D be as scared of him as every player in the NHL was. He was not the superstar we know today. Not by a long, long shot! He played in the days when I think hockey could best be described as "prison hockey." You had to fight. You couldn't avoid it. And if you wanted to prove you were tough and stay in the lineup, you had to take on the toughest guy. That was Gordie Howe. For a while. But soon people just stopped taking him on and gave him room. That's how he got all his points. Think of Happy Gilmore beating the living crud out of the player saying, "That's MY puck. You don't touch MY puck!" Then driving his head into the boards. That was Gordie Howe. And that was what a superstar was before Bobby Orr. Even if your team won 1-0 because Gordie Howe faked a punch to the head of the goalie causing him to flinch, then shot it past him while he was covering up, you were happy with the win. Skill, grace, and transcendental hockey savvy were not yet appreciated. They were clobbered. Gretzky, who always idolized Howe, played a game against him and lifted his stick and stole the puck. Howe confronted him later in the game and warned him never to embarrass him again like that. I don't think he'd idolize him so much if he'd played many more games against him.
So Orr knew he'd have to be tough. He KNEW he was good! And he had that whole list of things. For the love of Don Cherry, he was turning heads at the age of 12! NHL heads! The Bruins sent a scout named Wren Blair to a game to look at a couple of older players and they saw Orr. He was by far the youngest at the tournament but he played every minute of the game except the 2 minutes he was penalized and made the scouts forget about the other guys. When he was 13, the Orrs agreed to $2800.00 a car and a stucco job on their house to sell the rights to their son Bobby to Boston. When he was 14 years old, (what were YOU doing at 14?), he lived in Parry Sound, so could only play the home games on weekends for the Oshawa Generals, but still, playing against mostly 19 and 20-year-olds, got 21 points and landed on the 2nd all star team of the Metro Jr. A League. While having sleepovers, smoking his first cigarette and maybe even kissing a girl. I mean, his parents probably didn't allow him to play the road games because he would get home after his bedtime! A true prodigy!
The next year he played the full season and got 29 goals and 72 points. Let me refer you back to the NHL records of the era: 19 and 59. And although I've seen no footage of the days when he was playing Jr. hockey, I'm sure it would look the same as his NHL footage: total domination. He probably made the 19 and 20-year-olds look silly. SILLY! I saw footage of Connor McDavid courtesy of Hockey Night in Canada, when he was 14. He was playing with kids much older and making them look silly. But not to the extent I'm sure Orr did. Don Cherry, (blessed be His name), stated that he saw him pass up points against expansion teams and never run up the score! So his stats could have been a lot bulkier if he had the mindset of the modern player, (or businessman). I guess I'll never know. This is the advantage we have today. Nobody saw this domination of Orr but family, friends, opponents and the Bruins' scouts. The Bruins' scouts who represented a team desperate to win a cup! Their last win was 25 years before and fading from the memory of the fans. Their stadium was echoing. Their debtors were calling.
Much, (or EXACTLY), like today, I believe this desperation was the ONLY reason the Bruins took a chance on Bobby. No team wanted to play offensively, especially with their defensemen! Their job was behind the centre line, CERTAINLY not beyond the opponents' blue line! But that just hadn't worked. For 25 years. This kid was too good to waste. So they took a chance. I absolutely HATE that teams have to be so desperate to "take a chance" on offense. I firmly believe a strong offense wins in most sports most of the time. I don't believe, I KNOW, it's a helluva lot more fun to watch, even if you don't win! The Bruins, and the Oshawa Generals, were about to find out how lucrative an exciting offensive team could be.
Bobby played the next season and broke the goal record for defenceman in the league with 29 goals. The next year he broke his own record scoring 34 goals. In the next season he scored 38 goals and after a 22 year absence, got the Oshawa Generals to the Memorial Cup! These three more years for the Oshawa Generals compiling mouth-watering stats gave hope to the Bruins' front office. Could he do for the Bruins of the NHL what he had done for the Generals? The only reason he wasn't playing in the NHL as a little boy was because of the minimum age of 18 rule. Yet another thing that makes you wonder what might have been. Orr broke all the records ever recorded for defensemen in the minors in his ensuing 3 years playing for the Generals. He DID have his problems with injury, however. Perhaps a sign of things to come. In the game of hockey, if you play at the speed of light, you will encounter some darkness. This was said by a very knowledgeable hockey man and it has held true for several stars who have injured themselves flying into the boards, the net, the glass, the bench, other players or anywhere you shouldn't be speeding into. The recent spate of concussions and knee-on-knee collisions in the NHL may be one of the main dangers that has lead to the infuriatingly defensive, careful, absolutely dead boring, (and I'd like to add cowardly), hockey that is the norm today. It has become as careful and defensive as yesteryear. They might just as well bring back the no forward pass rule, I sometimes think. Sadly, Orr may be its best argument. Hey, but at least we HAVE hockey to watch, eh?
So finally Bobby Orr turns 18 and is eligible for the NHL. He signs for a whopping $25,000 and there were untold bonuses too. To give you an idea, it was 1966 and there were only 4 other players, all proven vets, getting more than 25 grand at the time. The Bruins were pulling out all the stops and rolling out the red carpet for Orr. He didn't disappoint. He scored 13 goals and 28 assists for 41 points. Now that sounds pretty average but that won him the Calder Cup for rookie of the year. It was pretty impressive, particularly for an 18-year-old! In his second year he had an injury but still managed 31 points in limited action. Again it sounds like nothing but it was considered star worthy. Then in the 68/69 season Bobby Orr got 64 points. Remember, Pierre Pilotte's NHL record of 59? Gone! Even if you are a fan of Mohns, Orr beat him too. At the ripe old age of 21. But this was small potatoes. Orr was just rounding into form. Rounding because of only one good knee, of course. heh heh.
The next season, 1969/1970, I was 3 years old. I only WISH I was old enough to fully appreciate what Bobby Orr did that year! As a 7-year-old I actually went to Buffalo and watched the Sabres play the Bruins in 1974 when Bobby Orr's star was brightly shining and was STILL too young to get it. It remains to this day one of the biggest regrets of my life that I saw Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge, Johnny Bucyk, Wayne Cashman, Gilles Gilbert, even Terry O'Reilly and I not only didn't appreciate any of them, I was voting for the Sabres! I like the French Connection. Gilles Gilbert, Rene Robert and Rick Martin. Shows how much I knew! When I was 7! I couldn't even tell you who won that game. Probably the Bruins. All I remember clearly was the taste of sour cream and onion chips which I HATED! Ha ha ha. Now I love sour cream, onion, and sour cream and onion chips. I was SO different as a kid!
The 1969/70 season of Bobby Orr was when the whole world recognized his power. If you want a very good account of it, go here. I'll just share the highlights. It is agreed to be the best season by any hockey player EVER! And I don't even think it's Orr's best! Just try to bring yourself back to the year of 1969. The Beatles made their last public performance on a rooftop. The 747 and Concorde were just out. The Pontiac Trans Am Firebird was the hottest car around. Woodstock! Apollo 11, Charles Manson, Abbey Road, the internet was ARPANET, Elvis "In the Ghetto," The Guess Who, Sweet Caroline, Come Together, groovy, Bewitched, Bonanza, Ironside. This is what I'm talking about.
Orr gets 14 points in the first 7 games! That's 2 points a game! Gretzky would be hard pressed! In the 80's! And he was a centre!
Just a miraculous start! He's gotta slow down. That's what everybody thought. And he DID...
So everybody is assuming he'll slow down. I don't remember this spectacular year by Orr, but I DO remember Gretzky's 50 goals in 39 games. He, like Orr, just got BETTER as he went along! By his 54th game Orr had 84 points. Do you know how many players scored more than that this year, (2016/17)? SIX! In the whole year! Bobby had over 20 games to go! And this is in an era BEFORE the 80's when NObody had ever even come close to this! This is a spectacular season for a forward and Orr was NOT a forward! AND he still had 20 some games left! Can you imagine the GOD this guy was to hockey fans, never mind Boston Bruin fans!?!? The mind boggles! At the half way point of the season he broke the assist record for defencemen. Three nights later he breaks the record for points. HIS record. Remember he's 21 years old!
By March he has 100 points, 74 assists, and 27 goals, ALL records for an NHL defenseman. But he's not finished yet. He ends up with 33 and 87 for 120 points. THEN come the playoffs! He demolishes the playoff goals and assists marks for defencemen and scores THE GOAL. Everybody has seen this picture.
Orr won the Art Ross for scoring in the NHL, a feat no other defenseman has ever accomplished, (except himself), he got the first of 8 Norris trophies for best defenseman, (again nobody else ever did this even though most have longer careers), he got the Hart for MVP, and he won the Conn Smythe for playoff MVP. Nobody has won 4 except Lafleur and Gretzky who won the Art Ross, Hart, Conn Smythe and the Stanley Cups, but Bobby Orr, in his 4 personal trophy year ALSO won the Stanley Cup making him the only 5 trophy winning hockey player ever. It will be nigh onto impossible for anyone to do that again since it would have to be a defenceman leading the league in scoring on a team that wins the cup and he dominates the playoffs. In a hundred years that is probably not going to happen! That's why Bobby Orr is considered to be the best. But that's just one season. Let's continue.
The next year he becomes the first player ever to record 100 assists. In 1970/71 he gets 37 goals, 102 assists and 139 points. The point total has never yet been eclipsed by a defenseman although Paul Coffey scored 138 in his brilliant 1985/86 season. As mentioned, his plus 124 is so crazily better than anybody ever it almost proves the stat as meaningless as it is. And he won the Hart for MVP and the Norris for best defenceman again. I hope you don't mind my interchanging defenceman and defenseman. I don't know which is right.
The next year he won four trophies again. He got the Norris as a matter of purer course than any award ever given to any player. He also got 24 playoff points and the Conn Smythe for doing so. He got the league MVP, the Hart, of course. And since the Bruins beat the NY Rangers in the final, he got the Stanley Cup again. That's 4 pieces of hardware again. Remember how rare that is! Let alone FIVE! I think I love him WAY more knowing he beat the Rangers!
In my opinion, knowing how hard it is, and how rare an opportunity arises for a defenceman to score a goal, his best season may have been his last full season. Which begs the question, "Where could he have gone from there?" He scored 46 goals and 89 assists in 1974/75. 46 goals wass just an astronomic number never before mentioned concerning a defenceman. He GOT that in the 70's! This is BEFORE the 80's when skill and creativity were most appreciated in the wonderful game of hockey. And even in THOSE days there was only one defenceman who approached the status of Orr. I would say more than approached too! Paul Coffey was a phenom the likes of which hockey would be lucky to find ever again! But STILL not the gift sent down from Olympus that Bobby Orr was!
Just to fire them off at you, I'll list a few more impressive facts: He remains, and probably will always be, despite his short career, the only defenceman with 9 career hat tricks. When was the last time you saw a defenceman getting a hat trick? Rare as an honest ESL boss! His career 1.39 points per game is a crazy goal for a forward to consider, never mind a defenseman. It's important to note that in his big, breakout year he also had 125 penalty minutes. He had to play tough AND offensive, unlike the majority of high scorers in the NHL. There are forwards who are considered superstars in the NHL who have never approached his statistics. In 1979, (coincidentally or not? Gretzky's rookie year), he became the youngest player ever inducted into the hockey hall of fame.
The next year he was pretty much bankrupt. Without cash. Even being so highly paid! How did this happen? Well this is an all too familiar side story to every story we hear nowadays. We are just now beginning to notice these screwjobs and get angry about them. Soon, hopefully we will DO something about them.
Toward the end of his career, when his knees were shot, Boston offered Orr a contract to stay with the team. They could not imagine him elsewhere. They went so far as to offer 18.5% of the Boston Bruin franchise. WHICH HE DESERVED. His agent, the criminally convicted liar and fraudster, Alan Eagleson, (who served time in prison and was removed from the NHL Hall of Fame), had an arrangement more profitable for himself with the Chicago Blackhawks and hid this offer of Bruin ownership from Orr. He signed with the Hawks. He then had another operation and this one finally rendered his career a no go. So, YEAH, he DID have a lot of money as a player and we wonder where that might have gone, BUT, he could be the 18.5% owner of the Bruins by now! A million or maybe billionaire. There is nobody in the Bruins organization who would begrudge him this share in the franchise. Except, of course, the greedy scumbags who actually control it.
Gordie Howe was another example of a commodity being exploited. He was happy that the Detroit bigwigs gave him team jackets whenever he wanted. And while he was giving and taking beatings night in and night out, those jacket gifters made untold MILLIONS!
Here I am torn.
I'm torn again at the decision of whether I respect Gordie Howe and Bobby Orr more for just playing the game they love and not considering the financial details, or wish the two of them had held their owners' feet to the fire knowing, what they OBVIOUSLY knew: the money THE OWNERS made was exponentially humungous compared to the money they were offering the players. Now, I think, in the cases of several athletes I've seen, financial details were not within their personal realms of understanding. Fine, if Gordie or Bobby want to plead ignorance or lack of intelligence, I'm okay with that. But, I think Bobby was smarter. Possibly, and I'd go so far as PROBABLY not Gordie. But I think one of the greatest rip jobs in professional sports history was the trade of Bobby Orr to the Chicago Blackhawks.
Alan Eagleson was disbarred, criminally convicted and found guilty of fraud in the arena of trying to STOP things like he perpetrated on Bobby Orr from happening to NHL players. Jerk! He was involved with several NHL players including Darryl Sittler, who gave that previous quote. Gordie Howe was screwed by the Red Wings management for being nice and not shrewd. The very fact that the players NEED an association to fight for their rights is witness to the corporatization of the most exciting game in the world and it makes me want to blow a toilet full of puke every time I hear it.
I'm not on either side of the lockouts, strikes and bickering over money, by the way. I'm on the side of getting back to the good old days of hockey, and of Canada, and I assume the U.S. when people had good jobs and pay that everybody knows is fair. When there was a pretty good chance you'd own your home someday soon. When you had a job, social life and a partner that was steady. When hockey players, (musicians? artists?), were exhibiting the freedom and creativity that people exhibit when their primary needs are satisfied. When people were taking chances in sports and life. When things were not nervous, pedantic and uninspired. When sports weren't either.
You see, I believe sports is the best analogy for life, and at the same time it might be the best reflection of life. While life was hard and there was an epic struggle to rise above the poverty and hopelessness of society, people had to scratch and claw and fight. So did hockey players. But in the glory days of the 70's and moreso the 80's when things had loosened up enough to allow people more freedom than ever before, we had our best hockey ever! Skills! Excitement! Goals! And still the fights! Now since the greedy less than 1% have made us scratch and claw again like the days of the depression, hockey has become a frustratingly boring game of soccer on ice. Frustrating because those of us who remember the 80's know what could be. And this poor excuse for our favourite game just makes us as depressed as the people in soup lines during the depression.
"What I'm sayin' kid, is today is an environment in which Bobby Orr could not have existed. He would be told to clutch and grab, clog the neutral zone and block shots. Do you want to play like that? Do you want to stain his memory by stopping at the centre line during a power play? I hope you don't. The future of hockey is depending on you."
Then the man from the shadows left the dressing room. He didn't say another word.
...to the young Connor McDavid! Hah! I'd like to include that but after the game 7 Edmonton played this year, I still think freedom in hockey is being suppressed. Freedom. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Ovechkin can't play like Ovechkin because the stupid management thinks he should play fewer minutes and block shots and backcheck rather than shoot or set up plays. Which he has perfected all his life. No, do the opposite of your nature and we will give you lots and lots of money!
This is what has ruined sports and our whole world.
At least that's what I reckon.
Monday, May 8, 2017
Everybody Drink the Brawndo
I just watched the Penguins get thumped and even though I was trying my best to just enjoy the hockey, I couldn't stop my brain. The first culprit was these commercials for some loan refinancing company in America in which people are talking about how they lowered their interest by 40 or even 50% on their student loans and saved thousands and thousands of dollars. Where to begin? I see countries GIVING away education to citizens, (regardless of financial status), who want to use their brains, make their lives better, make the lives of others better and with very little doubt, inject immeasurably more back into the economies of the smart countries that didn't charge them to get an education. Then there's dumb countries like the U.S. and Canada corporatizing education. I started thinking chicken and egg-like. Are the U.S. and Canada dumb for turning education into a racket that makes few rich and hurts the entire country, or has this practice already lead to people being dumb? So then dumb people rise to positions in which they could change this, but refuse to. And then I went a bit further into the realm of conspiracy and wondered if pricing all but the wealthy out of proper educations wasn't just a tactic DESIGNED to make these countries dumb. Dumb enough to vote for people like Donald Trump, Christy Clark,
or even, (and thank GOD, he's out of the race now), Kevin O'Leary.
I can just imagine what HE would do for education! And if you don't remember, here is Trump's pick for Education Secretary, Betsy Devos:
Now, I don't know exactly what goes on in the States or how deep this horrible scam they have turned education into runs, but I know it's pretty evil in Canada. My country actually uses the student loan bait and switch. They promise GRANTS for people from poorer families, (the ones that will take longer to pay off loans and maximize profits), then after it's too late to pull out of the agreement, like when you are already attending classes, surviving from emergency loan to emergency loan, they change their minds about the grants they had promised you, but offer you a high interest loan when they're positive you have no choice but to accept it. That is what happened to me, and that's why I will never pay back my student loans. I'd sooner go to jail. I wonder if they have this scam in the U.S. too. Americans are fond of thinking they've got it tough and Canada is this wonderland of free education and healthcare and all that nonsense, but they only hear the good stuff. They haven't LIVED in Canada and learned the truth.
I also wonder if the laws are the same on the maximum amount of interest allowable by law. I know in Alberta 23% is the most allowable because some of those payday loan places, (again, put up in low income areas and targeting the poor, who take longer to pay them back and can be bled for more), were busted for charging too much interest. But I guess it varies across the country. If I'm in Newfoundland I could get charged up to 60%! And then if I am charged even MORE, there's no telling if the perpetrators will be properly prosecuted. Is this law the same for student loan providers? Is it provincial or federal? Is it enforced? Are students paying back 60% or more on their STUDENT loans?
I've read that the rate of 7% is pretty common on student loans in Canada. At that rate, if it takes you 15 years, you will have paid more than twice your loan. This article says that a typical loan burden in Canada is $27,000, though, that's from the most recent Stats Canada numbers on this, taken in 2012. It can very easily cost a student that much in one year to go to a school in Canada now. So interest, if the scumbags at the banks actually ARE limited to charging 7% interest on student loans, (and I doubt the shit outta that), would be about 1900 bucks a year. Doesn't seem like much - until you live in Canada. A person with a university degree can work his ass off for 10 bucks an hour and STILL not have 1900 bucks a year extra. Been there, done that. So in 15 years of working midnight shifts, maybe clawing your way up to 12 or 13 bucks an hour, you might manage to pay off the interest. MIGHT!
And the situation is even more dire in the States and the U.K! The Globe and Mail article stated that the returns on a B.A. are not what they once were. I'll say! They are actually falling below the cost of investment. The solution? Don't go to school. Don't get educated. Stay dumb. It's almost as if this is the plan...
Then my mind got even MORE hideously capitalistic and I thought, "What a great time to start making derivatives and shorting student loans!" This is what happened to the housing loan market. Greed made people actually start betting on people not paying back their loans. HOPING they'd fail and their dreams of owning homes would fall short, making CDS, CFD and whatever other downright Satanic derivative buyers cream their Armani suit pants. I guess I'm not the first person to think of that either. Here's an article that includes a "smart," (I'd prefer "predatory"), investor telling an interviewer that if you want to take advantage of the student loan bubble, buy Navient. They loan money and student loans are up, which drives college tuition up, which drives student loans up. It's actually CALLED a rip-off in the article. But, wisely, he doesn't get into how to profit from the loans that WON'T be repaid. At least not on the record.
Because I have exactly no faith in the vultures who people Wall Street and whatever its equivalents may be in countries around the world that are creating these student loan bubbles, I have little doubt that there will be a crash. And because the loans are guaranteed by the country, it's going to be taxpayers who bail out the lenders, so the lenders don't give a flying fuck. Here is a very good summary of the 700 billion bank bailout of 2008. It has now cost in the 16.8 TRILLION dollars according to the article, and it's nowhere near finished. And really not much has been done to keep it from happening again. The key line in the article was, "The industry is not afraid to do it again because they know no one goes to jail and the government will bail them out." Maybe the industry will just do to the student loan market exactly what they did to the housing market. Could the next big financial crash be in the student loan area, and not in housing?
And at the risk of straying too far into unknown territory, is it not possible that this loan consolidation company doing commercials during hockey, Sofi, I think it was called, (Social Finance?), just goes looking for these impossible to collect loans? Loans, like mine come to think of it, that have had money paid into them, some with more money paid back than the original loan and 100% of the remaining debt is solely from interest. They buy these loans off the banks cheaply. Let's face it, the banks know they won't be repaid so 50, 40, 30, probably even 10% is a win for them, especially since they've already been paid back more than they loaned. Then these companies offer their services to the people who took the loans, for a fee, of course. They knock off a certain amount like the 40 or 50% they talk about in the commercials. This way pay it back or not, the company still makes a profit. Furthermore, the company takes out CDSes, (credit default swaps), on the loans worth more than they paid for those loans. This way Sofi gets even MORE money if they person doesn't pay the loan back! It looks like everybody wins, no? UNTIL companies can't pay the CDSes any more and the government, (taxpayers), are on the hook. Now, I'm no expert in this area, but do you suppose this isn't going on? Do you suppose this is why Navient is buying back its stock thinking that their company is worth "far more than the sum if its parts?" Just something I think about while watching hockey.
That's ONE of the things I was thinking about as Washington handed the Pens a drubbing in their own barn this morning. Well it was morning to ME anyway. It was good to see Crosby back. I like watching players like him and McDavos. They do a lot of little things that don't get noticed by most. Some, especially in the case of Sid the Kid, are dirty little things, but they make big differences in the game. Things you probably wouldn't notice if you haven't played. That makes watching the game more fun. Another thing that makes a big difference to me is the announcer. It was Mike, "Doc" Emrick. I like his announcing. He has more words for "shoot" and "pass" than anybody. And he often slips really fast jokes into the call. Today he says, "There are a number of referees who thought there should be a call on that play. I agree but then I'm not wearing stripes. Some think I should be but..." and without a stop, a laugh or anything launches into an ad. An AD! If I remember correctly it was an ad for some holiday resort somewhere. I was personally affronted! I go to great lengths to illegally watch live streams of hockey online that are usually stolen from NHL Center Ice or just rebroadcasts onto youtube from Russian feeds of Canadian broadcasts or whatever. I get heavily pixelated picture a lot of the time. I get stoppages due to crappy wifi a lot. And it is all worth it so I am not exposed to the further dumbing down of North America through commercial ads. Now they're sneaking them into the broadcasts! Sickening!
But then I started thinking, "I wonder what I would do if Huawei came up to me and asked me to promote their cell phones and services during my classes. Would I be strong enough to tell them to stick their offer up their "pigu," or would the school insist? If the school insisted, would I do it then? Are we all eventually destined to be forced into this capitalistic nightmare the world is turning into?" I thought back to the joke Doc threw into his broadcast almost as if it weren't allowed. Then I thought about the recent interview with Trump in which he clearly does not understand the former president George W. Bush's joke about the reason the oval office is round. He said it's so there are no corners to hide in. Trump doesn't get it. So many questions! Does greed kill humour? Was even Dubyuh better than Trump? I can't stand to see people sitting back and allowing the destruction of our education system and our world. I wonder if those who can do something and don't are just as guilty as the scumbags who jump at the opportunities for reasons of greed. But one, maybe the ONLY, solace, respite, last bastion of hope for the weary, is when we can laugh at the magnificent jackasses these spirit-sucking swine appear with their lust for money and power and stalker-esque obsessions with themselves.
And I started wondering, down the road, hopefully WAAAY down the road, when people are drinking Brawndo, eating extra big ass fries and watching "Ass!" and "Kicked in the Balls," will that be the only humour remaining? Fart jokes and slapstick? Will we lose all wit and thinking humour? If so, I am glad I won't be here.
Is the world turning into one "extra big ass" Idiocracy? And is it getting that way because most people's attitudes are, "Go away! Batin'."?
This kinda ruined the hockey game for me. More than the score.
I don't know though... Maybe if I could just dumben up, go with the flow, do what I'm told, be a good consumer, drink the Brawndo etc., etc., I could at least, then enjoy a hockey game.
or even, (and thank GOD, he's out of the race now), Kevin O'Leary.
I can just imagine what HE would do for education! And if you don't remember, here is Trump's pick for Education Secretary, Betsy Devos:
Now, I don't know exactly what goes on in the States or how deep this horrible scam they have turned education into runs, but I know it's pretty evil in Canada. My country actually uses the student loan bait and switch. They promise GRANTS for people from poorer families, (the ones that will take longer to pay off loans and maximize profits), then after it's too late to pull out of the agreement, like when you are already attending classes, surviving from emergency loan to emergency loan, they change their minds about the grants they had promised you, but offer you a high interest loan when they're positive you have no choice but to accept it. That is what happened to me, and that's why I will never pay back my student loans. I'd sooner go to jail. I wonder if they have this scam in the U.S. too. Americans are fond of thinking they've got it tough and Canada is this wonderland of free education and healthcare and all that nonsense, but they only hear the good stuff. They haven't LIVED in Canada and learned the truth.
I also wonder if the laws are the same on the maximum amount of interest allowable by law. I know in Alberta 23% is the most allowable because some of those payday loan places, (again, put up in low income areas and targeting the poor, who take longer to pay them back and can be bled for more), were busted for charging too much interest. But I guess it varies across the country. If I'm in Newfoundland I could get charged up to 60%! And then if I am charged even MORE, there's no telling if the perpetrators will be properly prosecuted. Is this law the same for student loan providers? Is it provincial or federal? Is it enforced? Are students paying back 60% or more on their STUDENT loans?
I've read that the rate of 7% is pretty common on student loans in Canada. At that rate, if it takes you 15 years, you will have paid more than twice your loan. This article says that a typical loan burden in Canada is $27,000, though, that's from the most recent Stats Canada numbers on this, taken in 2012. It can very easily cost a student that much in one year to go to a school in Canada now. So interest, if the scumbags at the banks actually ARE limited to charging 7% interest on student loans, (and I doubt the shit outta that), would be about 1900 bucks a year. Doesn't seem like much - until you live in Canada. A person with a university degree can work his ass off for 10 bucks an hour and STILL not have 1900 bucks a year extra. Been there, done that. So in 15 years of working midnight shifts, maybe clawing your way up to 12 or 13 bucks an hour, you might manage to pay off the interest. MIGHT!
And the situation is even more dire in the States and the U.K! The Globe and Mail article stated that the returns on a B.A. are not what they once were. I'll say! They are actually falling below the cost of investment. The solution? Don't go to school. Don't get educated. Stay dumb. It's almost as if this is the plan...
Then my mind got even MORE hideously capitalistic and I thought, "What a great time to start making derivatives and shorting student loans!" This is what happened to the housing loan market. Greed made people actually start betting on people not paying back their loans. HOPING they'd fail and their dreams of owning homes would fall short, making CDS, CFD and whatever other downright Satanic derivative buyers cream their Armani suit pants. I guess I'm not the first person to think of that either. Here's an article that includes a "smart," (I'd prefer "predatory"), investor telling an interviewer that if you want to take advantage of the student loan bubble, buy Navient. They loan money and student loans are up, which drives college tuition up, which drives student loans up. It's actually CALLED a rip-off in the article. But, wisely, he doesn't get into how to profit from the loans that WON'T be repaid. At least not on the record.
Because I have exactly no faith in the vultures who people Wall Street and whatever its equivalents may be in countries around the world that are creating these student loan bubbles, I have little doubt that there will be a crash. And because the loans are guaranteed by the country, it's going to be taxpayers who bail out the lenders, so the lenders don't give a flying fuck. Here is a very good summary of the 700 billion bank bailout of 2008. It has now cost in the 16.8 TRILLION dollars according to the article, and it's nowhere near finished. And really not much has been done to keep it from happening again. The key line in the article was, "The industry is not afraid to do it again because they know no one goes to jail and the government will bail them out." Maybe the industry will just do to the student loan market exactly what they did to the housing market. Could the next big financial crash be in the student loan area, and not in housing?
And at the risk of straying too far into unknown territory, is it not possible that this loan consolidation company doing commercials during hockey, Sofi, I think it was called, (Social Finance?), just goes looking for these impossible to collect loans? Loans, like mine come to think of it, that have had money paid into them, some with more money paid back than the original loan and 100% of the remaining debt is solely from interest. They buy these loans off the banks cheaply. Let's face it, the banks know they won't be repaid so 50, 40, 30, probably even 10% is a win for them, especially since they've already been paid back more than they loaned. Then these companies offer their services to the people who took the loans, for a fee, of course. They knock off a certain amount like the 40 or 50% they talk about in the commercials. This way pay it back or not, the company still makes a profit. Furthermore, the company takes out CDSes, (credit default swaps), on the loans worth more than they paid for those loans. This way Sofi gets even MORE money if they person doesn't pay the loan back! It looks like everybody wins, no? UNTIL companies can't pay the CDSes any more and the government, (taxpayers), are on the hook. Now, I'm no expert in this area, but do you suppose this isn't going on? Do you suppose this is why Navient is buying back its stock thinking that their company is worth "far more than the sum if its parts?" Just something I think about while watching hockey.
That's ONE of the things I was thinking about as Washington handed the Pens a drubbing in their own barn this morning. Well it was morning to ME anyway. It was good to see Crosby back. I like watching players like him and McDavos. They do a lot of little things that don't get noticed by most. Some, especially in the case of Sid the Kid, are dirty little things, but they make big differences in the game. Things you probably wouldn't notice if you haven't played. That makes watching the game more fun. Another thing that makes a big difference to me is the announcer. It was Mike, "Doc" Emrick. I like his announcing. He has more words for "shoot" and "pass" than anybody. And he often slips really fast jokes into the call. Today he says, "There are a number of referees who thought there should be a call on that play. I agree but then I'm not wearing stripes. Some think I should be but..." and without a stop, a laugh or anything launches into an ad. An AD! If I remember correctly it was an ad for some holiday resort somewhere. I was personally affronted! I go to great lengths to illegally watch live streams of hockey online that are usually stolen from NHL Center Ice or just rebroadcasts onto youtube from Russian feeds of Canadian broadcasts or whatever. I get heavily pixelated picture a lot of the time. I get stoppages due to crappy wifi a lot. And it is all worth it so I am not exposed to the further dumbing down of North America through commercial ads. Now they're sneaking them into the broadcasts! Sickening!
But then I started thinking, "I wonder what I would do if Huawei came up to me and asked me to promote their cell phones and services during my classes. Would I be strong enough to tell them to stick their offer up their "pigu," or would the school insist? If the school insisted, would I do it then? Are we all eventually destined to be forced into this capitalistic nightmare the world is turning into?" I thought back to the joke Doc threw into his broadcast almost as if it weren't allowed. Then I thought about the recent interview with Trump in which he clearly does not understand the former president George W. Bush's joke about the reason the oval office is round. He said it's so there are no corners to hide in. Trump doesn't get it. So many questions! Does greed kill humour? Was even Dubyuh better than Trump? I can't stand to see people sitting back and allowing the destruction of our education system and our world. I wonder if those who can do something and don't are just as guilty as the scumbags who jump at the opportunities for reasons of greed. But one, maybe the ONLY, solace, respite, last bastion of hope for the weary, is when we can laugh at the magnificent jackasses these spirit-sucking swine appear with their lust for money and power and stalker-esque obsessions with themselves.
And I started wondering, down the road, hopefully WAAAY down the road, when people are drinking Brawndo, eating extra big ass fries and watching "Ass!" and "Kicked in the Balls," will that be the only humour remaining? Fart jokes and slapstick? Will we lose all wit and thinking humour? If so, I am glad I won't be here.
Is the world turning into one "extra big ass" Idiocracy? And is it getting that way because most people's attitudes are, "Go away! Batin'."?
This kinda ruined the hockey game for me. More than the score.
I don't know though... Maybe if I could just dumben up, go with the flow, do what I'm told, be a good consumer, drink the Brawndo etc., etc., I could at least, then enjoy a hockey game.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)