HOLY MACKINAW...NORTE POSTS

Norte: Dispatch, this desk. I promised someone I would curb my sailor talk, apparently I swear a lot, so forgive me if you are reading this, but let me tell you bitches something. It's only one more sleep until the season starts.

That’s right dummies….hockey season starts tomorrow. I say hockey season cos everybody knows, the pre-season means nothing. It’s like watching fireworks on TV or brushing your teeth with your finger. Truth be told I didn’t watch any games. And quite frankly Vesa Toskala doesn’t have to win a single game in pre-season. Not one game. That’s how little the games mean. Of course alternately I don’t give a rat’s ass that the Ottawa team went 7 and 0. Or that their back up goalie went un-defeated. Their back up no less, as their number one goalie was probably too busy crashing his Ferrari or buying ugly clothes to play any of the games. And hey does anyone else wonder what convicted rapist he is going to want to paint on his mask this year? I digress. I don’t like pre-season games. You know what they’re like. They’re like playing video game hockey with your girlfriend.

This year excites me with the Leafs. My only problem is that I find when I think of my team this year, the word if comes up a lot. If we don’t lose lose the entire team to injuries. If Toskala shines as a number 1. If Mccabe regains his form. If Antropov, if Steen, if Wellwood. Shit even if Paul Maurice. I do think this is a playoff team and if bitches, if…a playoff team by March.

On another note. I have been hearing the question posed a few different times. Is Eric Lindros hall of fame material?

I would like to ring in with my opinion. Eric Lindros, for all intents and purposes should have been a Hall of Famer. Could have been too. But Eric Lindros is not hall of fame caliber. You want a far more difficult question…is Luc Robitaille? Regardless….I think that if Eric Lindros had actually become a Quebec Nordique instead of a Flyer, I believe he would be a Hall of Famer today. I really do think his career would have been different having not gotten mixed up with Bobby Clarke. Also….everybody knows that the reason Mark Messier was left off the Canadian Olympic Hockey Team in 98 was so that Lindros could step up and lead, (Messier style). And he didn’t. He would be a Hall of Famer if he'd of scored in the shootout against Hasek. Cos' we all know that Mark Messier would’ve, and then Mess would’ve basically forced Marc Crawford to put Gretzky on, and he would’ve scored.

On another note, my wife told me a story that in like 1996 Eric Lindros once spent a drunken night in a bar in cottage country trying to pick her up. The whole night he kept asking her if she knew who he was. He failed. Quite frankly a Hall of Famer would have sealed the deal. I know for a fact that if it was Peter Stastny trying to pick her up that night they would have had sex. Gretzky woulda had her bareback. That’s a Hall of Famer.

And on a sad note. Joe Bowen and Harry Neale’s last call together will be the Toronto-Detroit game. Joe Bowen could class up anything he’s so good…but he and Neale were like PB and J. Or Good Cop/Bad Cop. So…Holy Mackinaw that’s shitty news. Greg Millen is good. He's a goalie.