Over the top, out of the ground

It wasn’t Mario Lemieux of 1987, it certainly wasn’t Paul Henderson in 1972 and the whole World Cup of Hockey thing was a colossal bore, but Brad Marchand’s tournamentwinning goal the other night, while akin to a man beating a woman in arm wrestling (you’re supposed to win and if you don’t, how embarrassing is that, Ian MacDonald?), saved us face. That’s the best thing I can say about the World Cup of Hockey, other than that it’s over.

These kinds of tournaments were much more gripping in the Cold War era, when we despised the faceless, machinelike Soviet Union teams, and fought like mad to defend Canada’s hockey honour, usually with success but not always.

And please, no nasty emails from female arm wrestlers (many if not all of whom could probably beat me in an arm wrestle, but we’ll never know for sure), or social justice warriors in general.

Non-Sports Thought of The Week (end):

They are irritating, and as a band once sang, they are “blocking out the scenery” – they being in this particular instance, election signs. I noticed a couple of them were knocked down overnight Thursday in New Glasgow’s south end.

It’s ‘possible’ that a few years ago during a provincial election campaign, a sign was illegally placed within my sight, and with the property owner’s consent, I ‘might’ have called the candidate’s campaign office to ask them to remove it, and they ‘may not’ have removed it, and the sign ‘must have’ have been picked up by a gust of wind and blown into a dumpster later that day, after dark.

Also, I called a candidate’s house when this year’s municipal election campaign started, to ask that a sign be moved out of my sight – one of the ones that was pulled to the ground, co-incidentally. So that all being said, either the wind or another person knocked them down the other night. If I were going to do that, it would have happened weeks ago.

The Crushers/Bearcats matchup on Thursday night was unusual, in that it was a complete dud of a game, really. Most of the time, those two teams offer us an entertaining battle, although I’m sure the lack of fireworks and drama suited the Bearcats just fine.

Not much was happening out on the ice, the Bearcats took control in the second period and were never seriously threatened in a 4-1 win.

Crushers coach Doug Doull said after the game that the Bearcats “wanted it more” and as we all know – or should know – the team that wants it more will usually get what it wants.