hockey blog march08

I went into the garage last evening to make some sense of the recycling bins and there was a sound I haven't heard in a long, long time.

Rain, pelting the roof of the garage and hopefully, rain reducing the size of the snow banks lining the driveway. With all the cold and snow and the long winter, rain has been relatively rare. But it's raining now. And it's going to be 13 degrees tomorrow. Maybe finally the end of the winter weather is at hand.

It is, after all, the last day of March. April showers bring May flowers, etc etc.

Long day of meetings ahead so I'm busy reading documents and prepping instead of pecking at the blog on the trip in. So, I'll be brief. A couple of follow up items of note from MOHA awards week.

First, Debbie Sabatino was honoured as MOHA Volunteer of the Year. Debbie puts in long hours across a range of duties for the association and it's nice that her work and commitment have been recognized.

Second, instead of gate fees this year MOHA has for food bank contributions and/or cash for the food bank. The effort raised $2175 in cash and more than 260 boxes -- three tonnes!! -- of food. See the photo below.

That could have been the theme at Joshua Creek Twin Rinks last night where the three minor peewee house league divisions turned out for their championship games. The evening featured something for everyone:

In Blue, the Vikings -- first place champs in the regular season -- prevailed with a 5-1 win over a feisty Wrangler team, putting an exclamation mark on their very successful season. Lots of familiar faces on the ice and in the stands in a game that stayed close for a long time until the Vikings pulled away.

In White (the division I convene), The Naylor Principle took control of the game and the Gators beat the Vikings 4-1 with an empty netter in a game that was much closer than the score suggests. Gator 'keeper Jonathan Baratta was simply outstanding as he turned back waves of Viking attackers.

Steven Naylor is a minor peewee player who in the three previous seasons with three different teams and three different coaches has played in three straight championship games, and won them all.

Earlier this season during some rebalancing he was moved from the eventual first-place champion Hound Dogs (who lost only two regular season games all year) to the Gators, who were struggling to stay out of last place.

In the second half of the season, the Gators' improved week after week. When the playoffs came, they played great to earn a spot in the final against the very talented Vikings, who went 5-0-0 in the round robin playoffs.

So, yesterday Naylor suited up for his 4th straight final with yet another team and coach. And no one -- I mean, NO ONE -- was at all surprised that his team won. It's a remarkable achievement. Back in October, people openly joked that we might as well engrave the trophy after the rosters are final. Wherever Steven plays, there's your winner.

It was a terrific game. Congratulations to both teams. You have much to be proud of.

So, that set the stage for the Red championship game, with the league-champion Wranglers against the gritty Vikings, who finished only a point behind them.

The game was as entertaining as hockey gets -- great saves, nifty dangles, big hits, lots of emotion. The Vikings led 3-1 in the third when the Wranglers roared back with two quick goals to send the game to overtime.

Now, at this point in the story I'm simply going to say that the ice was positively littered with players I have coached or whom I know very, very well. One of them is Viking power forward Brendan Dickie, the hero of a championship game I coached in two years ago when he scored a hat trick -- including the winner -- in a 3-2 doubt-overtime win. He made me a great thank-you card after that season and it's still on my fridge. Play for me once, you're on my roster forever.

Anyway, I said to the friend next to me as overtime started and Brendan moved around the ice, "What are the odds that he's got another one in him?" We both laughed and agreed only a crazy person would bet against him.

They played nine minutes and three seconds of the 10-minute overtime. There were incredible chances, and massive, heart-stopping saves and plays at both ends of the rink. So many kids on both sides played big, big games -- including the goalies -- perhaps particularly the Viking goalie, who seemed to stop his weight in pucks last night against the powerful Wrangler offence.

And with 57 seconds separating the teams from a shoot-out to decide the championship, Brendan Dickie found the handle in a scramble in front of the Wrangler net and buried the winner, just as he did two years ago.

PS -- If anyone from any division has pictures of game action, teams, etc etc send them to me. I'll post them here.

Thank you to all the coaches, parents and players from my division, and to the coaches especially for the gift. It will be enjoyed. Thanks.

The Leafs beat Montreal 4-2 last night, not that it matter anymore. More importantly, Ottawa lost -- again. I may have to cheer for the Habs this year!

Earth Hour today, the latest ~~gimmick~~ idea to get people focused on the notion that we're slowly killing the planet and maybe we could save some energy and cut costs and greenhouse gas emissions etc etc. The idea is at 8p tonight, turn out your lights for an hour, which will create semi-cool photo opportunities for the media to record images of skyscrapers going dark and whatnot.

Yes, I'm cynical, but you already know that. I've been asking people in my house to turn out the lights, turn off the computer, etc., for 15 years. It's not going well.

Further, I have have been a pioneer in reusing the Earth's natural energy to keep my beer cold. From late October though April, I keep it in the garage. And it works, too. Except for the odd week when if freezes, and then I lose weight and walk in straight lines more easily.

But good luck to those who wish to sit in the dark for an hour this evening. My house will be dark from 6p till god knows when. But not in support of Earth Hour.

We'll be out at Joshua Creek Twins Rink watching the minor peewee house league divisional championship games. And they better leave the lights on! (Pad will be sitting at home, no doubt playing PS3 -- but in the dark.)

If you're you're looking for something to do for an hour in the dark at home on a Saturday night, the Leafs and Habs are on TV. If you feel too guilty about your carbon footprint to turn the TV on, use a transistor radio and listen to the game that way. Fun!

If you go to Google today, you will note their home page is black -- not out of mourning for the Leafs, but it's kind of a riff on the whole Earth Hour thing. Dark. Get it?

Speaking of the Leafs, the newspapers are bursting with ideas on how to fix the team, all of which are derivatives of, blow it up. One example here.

The atom A Oakville Rangers bounced Orillia last night to win the OMHA championship. Congratulations to all on a great year.

Pad and I (and his mom, to make lunch) were up early today to get him to Brampton for the Ontario Lacrosse Association refereeing clinics. The place was filled with surly-looking teens who looked like they would rather be sleeping.

Speaking of Brampton, the bantam AA Battalion beat Kingston 2-1 last night, to tie their first-to-six-point OMHA championship series at five each. Each team has two wins and a tie, two games have gone to OT, and only one has been decided by more than one goal.

White Oaks pool is open again after a month of renos, so Chris is back in the water today. I'll be the cool dad watching while listening to music from the Oscar-nominated film, Across the Universe. Some 31 Beatles songs performed by an eclectic and top-notch group. Have a great Saturday.

Well, those two must-win games with the Bruins didn't really pan out all that well for the Leafs who are now officially booking tee times and . . . honestly, I don't have the energy to care right now. I said in November that the math was such that it was all but impossible for the Leafs to make the playoffs, and duh, I was right.

It's an embarrassment that a marquee franchise can't qualify for a post season that is one of the largest and least exclusive in all of pro sports.

It's awards week in Oakville -- all the minor hockey divisions are playing their championship games, a good number of them tomorrow.

We'll be at Joshua Creek Twin Rinks tomorrow night for the minor peewee red-white-blue games, starting at 5:30p.

These games are a big, big, big deal for the kids and there's always a huge turnout.

This year, MOHA is waiving the traditional gate fees and asking instead for a non-perishable food donation (or cash) for the local book bank, to be presented at the door as you arrive. Great idea.

Oh -- I haven't seen any guns on the streets for a full day now. I'm fine, thanks for asking.

Two more OMHA championships for the Oakville Rangers were won last night -- the Atom AE and Atom AA Rangers each won their respective series. Congratulations, coaches, players and parents.

Leafs at Bruins. Tonight. The latest "must win" game since, what? November? Yeah, I'll be watching.

If you can't get enough reading about l'Affaire Roy, as they call it in Quebec, there's more today here. There's also word the police are considering charges. Enjoy.

Out in Vancouver there's a goalie controversy of another stripe. Canucks' all-star 'keeper Roberto Luongo is expected to become a father for the first time next week. His wife is in Florida where she may give birth at a moment not considered convenient to the Canucks' schedule and playoff drive. So the question dominating radio call-in shows is, should he stay or should he go? Read more here.

Way, way back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was a fan of a magazine called National Lampoon. It was much more than a high-end Mad Magazine. It was smart and edgy and intelligent and fun (it was also rude, sometimes crude and very anti-establishment.) At the time, it was run by and featured the writing of some of the finest humourists and satirists ever assembled in one place at one time.

P.J. O'Rourke, Doug Kenney, Chris Miller, Michael O'Donoghue, Tony Hendra, Gahan Wilson and many other fine cartoonists and writers. Many of them went on to be the core writers for the original Saturday Night Live, and they wrote and produced some classic films, including Animal House.

My favourite writers from this cabal were O'Rourke and John Hughes. You know John Hughes for the movies he made -- Sixteen Candles; Pretty in Pink; Ferris Bueller's Day Off; Home Alone; The Breakfast Club; Christmas Vacation; and others.

Somewhere packed in a box in our house I have a copy of the John Hughes short story that Vacation is based on. I thought it was brilliant and hysterical when I read it as a kid and never let it go. When it became a film, the Christmas version became part of our family's holiday rituals.

Anyway, 10 years ago John Hughes, with no doubt a lot of money to sit on, decided for some reason that he had enough and dropped out. No more movies, no more books or stories. I wish he'd come back but I can understand the urge to go away, too (see the next post.)

Anyway, the Los Angeles Times was missing John Hughes, too, and wrote about what he's up to and what his work meant. Or, they tried to because they couldn't find him.

I'm going to ramble a bit for a minute as I bump my way toward Toronto on the train.

Last night I got the 6:35p train from Union Station as I often do and settled into a window seat, fired up the iPod and leafed through the Report on Business for the second time that day.

A young guy in a nice suit took the seat next to me and started reading -- I kid you not -- Nietzche, the 19th century German philosopher. My first thought was, dude needs a new hobby.

But I remember a time when I actually read Aristotle and Plato (admittedly, not Germans) without anyone telling me to, so I figured live and let live.

(Now, I also recall the heady days of my youth where we'd engage in raucous beer-fuelled debates over the relative merits of the thinking of Immanual Kant and Marcus Herz. Goodness, those were the days, huh? Nothing like a 2-4 of Keiths, a plate of chicken wings and a good argument about 19th century German insight into enlightenment. Don't get me started! The stories I could tell? Man, I could go on and on . . . )

Anyway. So while all this is happening, the train is rolling on and I'm listening to a song by Eddie Vedder called Society, which is from the film Into the Wild, which if you haven't seen, you should. It's the true story of a well-to-do kid from a well-to-do family who walks into the wilderness in Alaska, fed up with the material rat race that defined the world of those around him. It's a disturbing, thought provoking film, and the song Society sort of defines the essence of the movie.

So, I'm in a very mellow place -- browsing the newspaper, buddy on my right reading Nietzche, Eddie Vedder on the iPod.

The train is moving slowly and I look up and out the window, around where the QEW becomes the Gardiner Expressway. I see a police car moving west with lights flashing and going quite fast. In seconds, I see why. There are two other marked police cars and one unmarked, blocking east-bound traffic. A small white car -- a Civic or something -- is pulled over against the centre median. A woman is standing behind the car with her hands in the air. One cop has his pistol drawn, pointed at her. A second officer had a shotgun pointed at the driver's window. I can't see inside the car.

In seconds, the train has moved beyond this urban drama, which honestly I have to say I found quite affecting. It wasn't TV. It was life. I looked around the car on the train. It appeared no one else saw it.

My first reaction -- and it's always my first reaction -- was, why do I live here? Why do I subject my family to the inherent risk that comes to living in a metro area of four million people, many of them carrying guns and with a low regard for life? There are lots of good answers to that, but at that particular moment, I was hard pressed to think of one.

A few moments later, we were just past Mimico where rows of modest, well-kept brick bungalows back onto the tracks. There was a dad standing there with a little boy on his shoulders, and the boy was bundled in a snowsuit waving and the train engineer tooted the horn twice, much to the kid's delight.

Like I said at the outset, I'm just kind of rambling here. The contradictions in the different expressions of humanity in such a short period of time were a little jarring, even for the jaded and cynical like me.

Laura was gone to ~~wine drinking~~ book club by the time I finally got home and the boys were both downstairs. I just sat on the couch by myself for a while, until Chris bounded up the stairs, a ball of energy, blond hair and a 100 words a minute and gave me a big hug.

Chris may get more fun out of 50 minutes of Dick Delcoe ice time than is really fair to all the other kids. He had his final session of the spring last night and was, as usual, having a blast.

A mom watching asked me if "that one" was mine, as he finished a one-on-one drill and then struck a "Karate Kid" pose -- arms out from each side, standing on one leg like a flamingo.

Oh yeah. Big time. Life with Chris is like a non-stop fun-ride. Canada's next comedic genius in training.

Because of hockey we missed the start of the Leaf game, which may have been a blessing. The blue and white lost to the Bruins to pretty much shoot the silver bullet through the forehead of the specter of playoff hockey in southern Ontario.

So the Leafs will miss the playoffs for the third straight year for the first time since . . . well, since before they were called the Leafs.

That's a breathtaking achievement really. Especially when considered in the context that even during the horrific hockey reign of Harold Ballard, the Leafs never missed the playoffs three straight years.

Congratulations to everyone at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. You've finally set a record (other than on the balance sheet, I mean.)

As Bart Simpson once said, I didn't think it was possible to suck AND blow at the same time.

In the meantime, the usual thinkers are pretty much saying what you'd expect. Here, and here.

The QMJHL handed down suspensions to Quebec's ROYal family of hockey yesterday for that little bit of nastiness on the weekend. Owner/coach/legend/Dad gets five games, son/backup goalie gets seven.

You can read about the suspensions here, along with some interesting context on the history of violence and bad temper that Patrick Roy has shown over the years.

And you can read his comments on the mess here. He's right. It is too bad his son had to go through it. The guy's a kid. Maybe what he needs to do is ask why it happened. Where does someone learn behavior like that?

I'll be back among the working masses today so I don't have a lot to ruminate upon. But the QMJHL brawl the other night involving Jonathon Roy of the Quebec Remparts is an interesting thing to watch. It's on YouTube and clever readers can find it themselves, as I have no interest in promoting the budding fight career of a future beer league goalie.

If you didn't know, Jonathon is the son of retired NHL legend Patrick Roy. And guess what? Dad owns the team. And guess what? Dad coaches the team. Young Jonathon goes the length of the ice to attack the other team's goalie during an on-ice melee.

He seems like a swell kid and getting to be the backup goalie on dad's junior A team must be really cool.

One can't help but recall an old saying that uses baseball's lexicon to describe people who are handed every leg up in life and then . . . don't behave all that well. Simply put, it is that some people are born on third base and then live their lives like they hit a triple.

Coach Roy -- who can be seen on the video of the incident waving in the direction of his son -- denies he ordered his kid to fight.

Jonathon -- who gave the one-finger salute to the kids and other fans watching the game -- also denies he was doing dad's bidding, though he did apologize for that whole "finger" thing.

Not much in this saga is new to the Roy family, which is sad. You don't have to scratch far to find examples of this sort of daring-do, and not all of it on the ice.

In the regular season, Jonathon sported a 3.96 GAA (second worst among goalies with at least 20 games) and a save percentage of .866 (third worst in the league among goalies with at least 20 games.) If he goes undrafted by the NHL, maybe there's a UFC fighting career he could try.

I'm not fighting the masses on the train today as I am taking a day off -- the boys are at home enjoying the final day of the four-day Easter Break, so, so am I.

And besides, there's still golf on TV, which means it must still be the weekend, right? (Rain screwed up the final round at Doral, so the PGA is mopping up today -- literally and figuratively.)

In spite of having an 8a Easter-morning hockey game, we managed to enjoy the day just fine. Magically, the Easter Bunny somehow made all the eggs and chocolate invisible to eyes under 20 years old until after the hockey game was over.

And then we had a couple of nice meals, including sitting around the dining room table like civilized people for a family dinner that didn't involve eating a pizza pop over the sink while someone was standing in the mud room banging a hockey stick on the door, screaming that we're going to be late. (That would usually be me, just for the record.)

In between there was basketball, golf, basketball and hockey on TV, some work to be done so I could stay home today, and hanging out with/around the kids.

Pad and I watched the Will Smith movie, I Am Legend, which is not precisely what I'd call uplifting family holiday viewing. But it was very compelling and even though the dog in the movie dies, we liked it. (We don't care for the dog dying. Bambi's mom can take a round and that's OK -- part of the circle of life etc etc to be stalked by men with guns and scopes and all that. But leave the dogs alone. OK?)

Toronto's improbable run at an NHL playoff spot -- as doomed as the chocolate cake Laura made yesterday -- continues tomorrow with a game against Boston at home. The Flyers have done the Leafs no favours, beating NYI last night. Carolina needs to beat Washington and the Rangers need to beat the Flyers tomorrow.

The fact is that scoreboard watching is a pastime of the damned -- if you need to rely on others to get the job done for you, bet on things to go badly.

The Leafs' main problem right now isn't that they are four points out of a playoff spot with six games left. In and of itself, a team might get lucky and cope with that.

No, the bigger problem is that there are three other teams between them and eighth spot, not to mention the team already holding that spot -- the Bruins. The Leafs and Bruins have a home-and-home series this week and to keep within shouting distance the Leafs must win both games in regulation time -- no giving away the extra point for OT losers.

And make no mistake, right now the Bruins are over-achieving as losers, with just one win in their last 11 games.

So, not only do the Leafs really have to run the table, but they need four other teams -- a quarter of the conference -- to go into a 10-day four-wheel sideways drift of hockey carnage and calamity at the same time.

The chance of that happening are slim to none, and slim is over at the saloon saddling up his horse to leave town.

I will admit it's entertaining and fun and I love the wide-eyed optimism that Chris brings to this playoff pursuit.

OK, it's the start of a new week. The first full week of Spring. I almost screamed this morning when I looked out and saw a fresh dusting of SNOW on the ground. So, you can all use a laugh.

If you watched as much sports TV as me on the weekend, then you've already seen the Bud Light ads featuring Will Farrell as Jackie Moon, his character in the current comedy Semi-Pro.

The minor atom AA Rangers swept Peterborough last night to win the OMHA championship. Congratulations to the team and parents.

The minor peewee A Rangers beat Burlington last night to win the Tri-County title. Well done, guys.

The Toronto Maple Leafs, who a month ago could not have beaten the minor atoms or the minor peewees, rallied to dump Ottawa 5-4 last night. They will still miss the playoffs, but they're sure making it interesting.

Chris and his house league minor peewee white Flyers skated to a 1-1 draw with the Gators today. The Gators are off to the final next weekend, and we're off to . . . ., well, maybe the Beer Store.

Coach Russ Smith and the Gators will play Brian Metler's Viking's in the final and it should be a good one. Good luck to both teams, who worked hard to get to this game.

Interesting turn of events in minor peewee red, courtesy of a quirk of the playoff format -- two pools of four, the team with the best record in each pool advances to the championship game. Regardless of the records of teams in the other pool.

It turned out that one pool had two teams with records better than any of the teams in the other pool. But because the pool winners advance regardless of their records, it leaves the 3-1-0 Wolfpack on the outside watching the 2-2-0 Vikings play in the big game vs. the 4-0-0 Wranglers.

There have been some emails, as you might expect, but no one is bitter and twisted (that I know of.) Everyone knew the format when the playoffs started. And the Vikings were the only team to beat the Wolfpack in the playoffs.

Neat story about Grainer Court in Oakville in the weekend Beaver. One street, 12 houses, four kids playing OHF championships this month. That's pretty cool. Read about them here.

Yes, it's true. I didn't write a word in the blog on Friday. For those of you slowily backing away from your PCs, no, it's not because I've found religion and was observing Good Friday in accordance with my strict Jesuit upbringing.

It was more because a. I was tired b. I was helping Laura with school parent council stuff (what has happened to my life!!??) and c. it was a veritable sport-o-rama on TV, as it will be again today.

However, out of respect for the way the loyal readership checks in here with near fanatical zeal (and the way you remind me that I didn't write for an entire day), I'm back.

The Abbey Park High School junior team lost its second game in as many days on Thursday, 1-0 to Blakelock. Basically two one-goal losses in very close, entertaining games. The quality of the hockey is very, very good -- given the mix of AAA and AA athletes that dominate the rosters of the teams I've seen so far, I guess that should not be a surprise. I'd say the game is slightly faster than the AA level we saw all winter, and it's a fair bit more physical. The mix of grade 9 and 10 athletes means there are age ranges from 14 (like my kid) to 16. And a lot can happen between 14 and 16, and some of the 16 year olds looked like they were married with kids and in need of a razor.

The other cool thing, as I've noted here before over the years, is that the hockey, lacrosse, soccer and other minor sport programs in Oakville are a community melting pot. My kids have friends and teammates at schools all over town and when those schools compete against each other, it both adds to the rivalry while dulling some of the natural instinct to go out and hurt someone that adolescent boys often carry around.

So, Pad made the team and now they prepare for tournament play that defines the short HS junior schedule. More late as we figure that out.

It wasn't always a given that my kid would try out. Over the winter he said he didn't think he would -- Ranger commitments, lacrosse pre-season workouts, music and guitar, plus homework, etc. OK, fine. Your call, pal.

So one day we're dropping him off at Glen Abbey for a Ranger practice. The Abbey Park senior hockey team is just finishing a game. The place is packed, and a predominantly large portion of the crowd is girls.

The bantam AE Rangers lost a 3-2 decision last night to Whitby, so Whitby wins the OMHA championship in straight games. Coach Mitch Kvasni has much to be proud of with this team. They rang off something like 27 straight wins at one point this season and in fact had not lost a game in 2008 until the Whitby series.

One of my kids played a season under Mitch and he was a great coach and mentor, as I'm sure he was to the Rangers this year. When you made a bonehead play, you heard about it. When you played great, you heard about that, too. And he really taught the game.

Congratulations to all the bantam AE Rangers on a great season, and to Whitby on a well earned championship.

The minor peewee A Rangers go for the Tri-County championship today, 5:40p at Oakville Arena, vs. Burlington. They won the first two games 10-2 and 5-2 and are hoping to take the title at home. Stop in on your way home from the Beer Store and cheer the boys on!

My kids did a whole lotta nothin' yesterday, which they are entitled to do occasionally. And once I got some of the stuff I helped Laura with outta the way, I put on my lead-lined radiation-repelling TV-watchin' robes and settled in for some aggressive channel surfing. Tiger Woods at Doral. NCAA March Madness ALL DAY! NBA. Leafs in Buffalo, actually winning again.

As Laura worked downstairs for a while and the boys were immersed in PS3, I then turned on both the TV in the family room (basketball) and the kitchen (hockey) and cooked dinner, listened to Rush at a very loud volume and enjoyed myself.

In the midst of all this, I got an email from a consultant in California who's doing some work-work for me and among other things, he asked what a Canadian like me is doing on Good Friday

I said I'm drinking a beer, listening to Rush and watching hockey -- all of which was true at that moment in time.

So I rushed home yesterday afternoon and got to Glen Abbey to watch Loyola edge Abbey Park 4-2 with an empty net goal. It was a fast, physical game with a large, loud crowd. High school hockey is fun to watch and from all accounts, more fun to play.

Abbey Park hasn't picked its final junior team yet (another exhibition game this afternoon) so Pad and others don't know where they stand. But the boys played well on Wednesday against a bigger, faster team.

Later at Glen Abbey, the peewee AA Rangers lost 4-2 to Aurora, so Aurora wins the OMHA title. They were fast and passed well and despite winning only once, the Rangers were in it all the way. Two of their losses were by a single goal. Congratulations on a great season.

Still later at Glen Abbey, the AE bantams dropped a 4-0 decision to Whitby, to put themselves in a big hole in that OMHA final. The game was closer than the scoreboard suggests, but Whitby played with more fire in the third period and put it away. Whitby can win it all on home ice Friday, but the Rangers will have something to say about that first.

Today is the first day of spring, which means we can no longer set a record for winter snowfall here in Toronto The Whiney. But maybe we can aim for a spring rainfall record!

Incredibly, Bobby Orr turned 60 today. Gallons of ink will be spilled by better people than me talking about Bobby Orr and the greatness he brought to hockey. I was a little kid when he came into the league and turned being a defenceman upside down. Overnight, a position that was previously defined by greying Harry Howell suddenly became glamourous and exciting and the rock-star destination for everyone. Imagine what he might have done with healthy knees?

The record books will say he played 12 NHL seasons, but the last three were so cut short by injury they hardly count. Eight Norris trophies as best defencemen over the other nine years. Wow. Twince NHL scoring champion. As a defenceman. Two Stanley Cup rings.

One Christmas I got a book called Orr on Ice, and I still have it. It was sort of Orr on training, on equipment, on the basics of hockey. I read it a thousand times.

And of course the truly stunning thing about Orr is that he's 60. We see him on TV in those GM ads, or for Mastercard, and he looks good enough to lace up and go end to end and win one more for Harry Sinden.

Even though he hasn't lived here for four decades, Bobby Orr is Canada. He's what we all wanted to be. He's what our dads and moms wanted us to be. He's who our sisters wanted to marry. He's the guy we would play golf with and share a beer just because he seems like such a good guy. A good kid.

Hockey of a different stripe today -- Pad suits up for the Abbey Park High School junior team in its exhibition opener vs. Loyola, who in their first game crushed St. Thomas Aquinas 12-0, we're told.

But it will be a learning experience for the Abbey Park boys -- the team hasn't been picked yet so they're still competing for spots. Plus, the game is at Glen Abbey, which is walking distance from both schools so a fairly large, boisterous turnout is expected.

When I told Pad last night I hope to get to the game he said, "Geez, do you think that's a good idea?"

The AA bantam Rangers burned off some ice time last night, scrimmaging for an hour right after the single A squad did the same thing. The team decided to forego the flood so the two scrimmages kinda melted into one for about 20 minutes and it looked like a lot of fun.

I stayed and watched the scrimmage and thusly missed the Leafs 3-1 win over the Islanders in their "Not Dead Yet" tour of North American rinks.

The game, which only prolongs the inevitable as the 8th-place Flyers also won, is notable for one thing, and one thing only.

If there was ever a play that summarized an entire season, it was the 197-foot clearing slapshot off the stick of Islander Rob Davison. This play is destined for every highlight reel, every blooper collection, every compliation of hockey video clips that will ever be done from this moment until the end of time. Unlike Bobby Orr flying through the air in 1970 to score a Stanley Cup winning goal in overtime, this one will be there as the cautionary note to all goalies and defenders, a sort of hockey version of the warning not to operate heavy machinery after using certain medications.

I have no doubt that even with the win, Leaf goalie Vesa Toskala was reaching for the pain killers last night.

The bantam AE Rangers dropped a 5-1 decision to Whitby last night, opening their OMHA final with a road loss. I didn't get a full report on the game, other than Whitby is a very good team and the Oakville crew are confident that they can pick up their game for the second match Wednesday night at home,

I have no doubt that they will be ready. Whitby always has good teams and if you're still playing hockey at this point in the season, you must have beaten some good teams.

The Leafs, looking more and more like the Marlies, host the Islanders tonight as the playoff death march staggers to the finish line. Pre-game coverage here.

I was watching golf on TV a few weeks ago and Tiger Woods was dicing and chopping some hapless rival. I said to Patrick that if he was really smart he'd pay extra close attention to what Woods is doing these days because it's truly a once-in-a-generation phenomenon, bordering on once-in-a-lifetime.

As absurd as it sounds, people are asking if he could actually go the entire 2008 season without losing.

But he has won every time he's played in the last six months. In golf, that's unthinkable.

He plays at Doral this week (he's three-time defending champion) and then the Masters (he's won it four times) and then . . . well, as someone said recently, if it's covered in grass and has 18 holes, Tiger is the favourite to win.

Patrick started the day at 6a, 10 minutes later than me, gobbling down a traditional Irish bagel and cream cheese before running out the door for another round of high school hockey tryouts. Actually, he didn't run -- I drove him.

I was halfway to the GO Station when I discovered I forgot my Blackberry so I went home (it was ridiculously early anyway) so I went home and chatted briefly with Laura before returning to my appointed rounds.

She didn't have much time to chat as she is playing hooky from work today to accompany Chris on a field trip to the Ontario Science Centre.

The AAA peewee Oakville Rangers beat York-Simcoe 1-0 yesterday to win the OMHA championship. Congratulations to the team and coaches. Very exciting.

Some of the other OMHA finals involving Ranger squads are just getting under way and I'll post results as I get wind of them.

The bantam AE Rangers are in Whitby this evening, and at home Wednesday night (8:30p, Glen Abbey Green). Come out and support the team!

Those very same minor peewee white Vikings pictured below locked up a place in the MOHA championship game today, taking a hard-earned 2-0 win over Chris and the Flyers. And then their coach promptly announced he was boarding a plane for Florida. How cool is that?

The other finalist would also appear to have been decided, with the Gators having a death grip on the slot as virtually every combination of tie breakers goes their way, regardless of what the other teams do.

Congratulations to both teams -- in fact, to all teams. It's been a fun season and it's not over yet.

I had -- correction, we had -- a whole bunch of bantam AA Ranger parents in our house last night (which explains why I didn't get to call my mom and dad last night) enjoying a social evening together over a few frosty sociables and some great pot-luck food.

The fist-fights were kept to a minimum and the debate pretty much devolved to a a simple: "it's was the defencemen's fault/the forwards didn't score enough."

It was good fun and we all agreed we should have done it sooner (and maybe at someone else's house!)

Kidding. We had fun although Chris (who was trying to sleep) noted that it was by times louder than the Springsteen concert he saw last fall.

One other thing: why is it that no matter how much room you have in your house, everyone wants to stand in the kitchen?

Those same Ranger parents will haul their kids to Milton today for one last game, the result of which will almost certainly leave them one point out of qualifying for the Tri County championship series, which no one wanted to play in anyway.

The conversation last night continued to revolve around "woulda, coulda, shoulda" from Bell River.

Here's a surprise: the Leafs lost last night to Buffalo. The hardest job in Toronto right now might just be that of a beat writer at a Toronto newspaper covering the Leafs, trying to find new ways to say "they're not dead yet."

Usually reliable sources told me today that long-time (or should that be long-long-long-long-long time MOHA vice president of house league, Wayne Moorehead, has told senior conveners he will not run for re-election this spring.

Without question, Wayne has one of the toughest and most thankless jobs in minor hockey, not just in Oakville, but anywhere. Administering the house league operations for one of the largest minor sport organizations in Canada is a massive undertaking that requires skills in motivational speaking, stand-up comedy, military mobilization, political organization, blind luck, good humour, Jesuit patience, and a high tolerance for the telephone.

In my experience in minor hockey in Oakville as a parent, trainer, coach and convener, Wayne's guidance has unflinchingly been to always do what's in the best interest of the kids. Play hard, play fair, always do what's right.

I'm sure he won't be far from the action, but it will be strange for a while without his ubiquitous emails reminding us to do our budgets, evaluations, parent surveys, police checks . . . I could go on and on.

Here are the minor peewee white Vikings, none the worse for wear after their nail-biting OT loss in Milton this week.

Meanwhile, the AA bantam Rangers played their second last game of the year last night, shutting out Caledon 2-0 in a game, as I have mentioned, that meant nothing to either side.

Blog traffic is off a bit this week as March Break sends people to places other than their computers. And blog production is off to, as I try and do some break-like things with my time.

Our visitors boarded a plane early today back east and the boys slept in late. We moved kinda slow after having my sister and her husband in for dinner, which was a lot of fun and the type of thing we don't get to do very often being far away from both families.

Tonight, we return to Caledon where the other team promises to show up this time. The game means nothing to either side so we'll just go and watch the boys be boys and hope everyone has a good time. In Caledon. On a Friday night. On March Break.

You care about the Leafs. And you care about gas prices. And you care about global warming. And mostly, you care about the work of the national study group on donair production and safety. If you ever had late night munchies, you care. Read about the group's important work here.

Back in early January there was a horrible car accident in which seven Bathurst (NB) High School basketball players and their coach's wife died.

No doubt many of you have seen the movie, We Are Marshall, about the rebuilding of that university's football program after their entire team was lost in a plane crash in 1971. Yesterday, the man who rebuilt that program -- and brought the broken heart of the school back together -- went to Bathurst on his own dime to talk to the kids.

Anyone playing in any March Break tournaments? I haven't heard much buzz. Send me your stories and pics.

No sooner that I ask, then I receive word of the minor peewee white Vikings losing 2-1 in the finals of the Milton March Break Madness Tournament.

Coach Brian Metler's team beat Burlington 4-3, Milton 3-2, another Milton team 3-0, and lost their final round robin game 3-2 vs. Orangeville.

They met the same guys in the finals and lost 2-1 in the fifth, one-minute OT (one player was removed from the each after each minute.)

Now I know a lot of guys are sitting out there saying, "You went to see Bon Jovi?"

Yes, actually. I did. I took Laura to see the band three or four years ago on the Bounce tour and I was kinda so-so on the whole idea but went anyway. And it turned out it was one of the best, most entertaining concerts I ever saw.

He opened the show with the title track from the current Lost Highway CD, which was good but not rafter-raising. He then reminded everyone it wasn't TV they were watching and to get out of their seats, and launched into (You Give Love A) Bad Name and then Raise Your Hands followed by Runaway, the 1982 single that launched Bon Jovi into the stratosphere of North American rock.

As a band, Bon Jovi gives people what they came to hear -- a string of top 10 hits, one after another after another. My brother in law, at dinner before the show, said he wasn't sure he knew more than one Bon Jovi song.

The band went through six or eight more numbers -- including a terrific version of Blaze of Glory introed by Jon on guitar singing the opening verse and chorus of Dylan's Knockin' on Heaven's Door -- before the show achieved what I would call lift off.

Not all concerts get to lift off. This one did when the band ripped into It's My Life followed by Bad Medicine/Shout medley. At that point on, no one sat down much for the rest of the night and there was lots of show to come.

At this point I will mention that when we saw Bon Jovi the last time, Laura really enjoyed the show but was disappointed he didn't sing Bed of Roses. And while our seats were good -- section 102, one row from the floor -- she would have liked to have been close to the stage.

Our seats this time were again in section 102, facing the stage dead on, row nine. Excellent seat, but at the other end of the floor from the stage.

So I let it be known to Bon Jovi during one of our email exchanges (he was chirping at me about the Devils beating the Leafs twice last week) that Laura would need a close up. And for chissakes, sing Bed of Roses.

So right after Bad Medicine, Bon Jovi leaves the stage to let Ritchie Sambora sing his song, I'll Be There For You.

When the lights come back up, Jon Bon Jovi is standing on the metal packing crates behind the sound mixers, right at the bottom of the aisle. The only thing between him and Laura was eight rows of seats and 73 body guards, none of whom would have had a chance had she decided to go fo it.

Then he sang current hit (You Want To) Make a Memory followed by, you guessed it, Bed of Roses. I gave him a wink and the big thumbs up. He's a decent lad. (Pictured below, on the box, singing to Laura.)

As he warbled through bed of roses the elfin-like Jersey boy walked along the top of the first-row rail all the way back to the stage, leaving swooning hockey moms in his wake. It was quite a spectacle, actually.

The band then rocked through Who Says You Can't Go Home, Have a Nice Day, Faith and Prayer, before returning for a three-song encore that I thought was a little flat after the energy of the second half of the show.

For those who sniff at Bon Jovi, I say live and let live. I've seen more concerts then many people have read books, and this was a good concert.

Bon Jovi isn't the best musician on stage -- but he surrounds himself with the best.

He can sing, he can write hit pop songs like very few people have done over the last 26 years and he has undeniable presence on stage.

The audience was easily 65 per cent hockey moms. Which, you know. That's not a bad thing. If you like that sort of thing. I'm just sayin'.

A personal highlight for me was when the woman behind Laura asked her to sit down. During the encore. What planet are you from?

The Leafs continue to chase a playoff spot the way Don Quixote chased windmills. Bet on the windmill.

It's thrilling and fun and entertaining, but the best thing the Leafs could do is mail it in for the next few weeks and get a decent draft pick.

I'm late getting to the blog today because I got up and then went downtown with Chris and my sister for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, and then we bought the game Rock Band for Chris.

And now it's really loud here and I have to do a conference call with California and Prague (talk about duelling time zones) shortly.

My sister and her husband are in town from points east and tonight we're all trekking off to the Bon Jovi concert at the ACC. Bon Jovi puts on a heck of a show and has enough top-10 hits in his catalogue that the band could play for hours and play nothing but songs you know.

Now, given my druthers I'd druther have been in Hamilton last week to see Springsteen. Like a hockey dad I know who not only went to Hamilton, but also Rochester and Buffalo. In the same week.

My sister and Laura will enjoy watching Bon Jovi. Me and my brother in law will enjoy watching the women who show up to watch bon Jovi.

Did you catch the Leafs' come-from-behind OT victory over the Flyers last night?

You will recall -- or maybe not -- just after New Year's I challenged readers to guess how much coin I had collected from emptying my pockets into Tupperware containers on top of the fridge every evening after coming home from work. This habit achieves a couple of things -- it really, really annoys Laura and it creates a big-ass pile of coin.

I had already run the pennies through the coin counting machine at a grocery store, because even I am not that much of a loser to count that many pennies. There were almost exactly 4,000 pennies, or $40 worth.

Last night I spent an hour rolling the good stuff -- nickels, dimes and quarters.

So, first let me say that of the dozen or so of you who ventured a guess, only two went above $100. Of those, only one came anywhere close -- Oakville hockey dad/coach Carlo Cece guessed $372.70 so he "wins."

Sadly, as I declared at the outset two months ago, there's no prize. I'm keeping the money. I will buy Carlo a coffee sometime. But if he rolls up the rim and wins, Christopher says Mr. Cece has to split the haul with him.

Almost every dad or mom who laced up a kid's skates at 5:55a on a weekday morning has -- even for a fleeting moment -- allowed their mind to wander to that bright, sunny corner of your brain where you think, "maybe I'll laugh about this when he's playing in the NHL." Chances are you won't, because you kid has a better chance of being attacked by a shark that is struck by lightning while you're winning the lottery than he does of going to the NHL.

So, the thought passes quickly for most of us. At the same time, many more parents -- especially those of you with high-end hockey talents -- wonder if there might be a university education somewhere in your child's future, paid for by some big American Division 1 school.

Realistically, the chances are almost just as slim as getting to the NHL (maybe deduct the shark attack from the equation), but never mind that. It's OK and it's natural to wonder, "hmmmm, what if . . ."

A fellow hockey dad pointed me to a very interesting piece at US College Hockey Online that points to a growing trend in the big college ranks to not recruit hockey players from high school, but rather from tier-two junior teams like the Oakville Blades. It's easier to scout a few junior leagues than hundreds of high schools. The colleges get bigger, more mature and better hockey players, as opposed to taking a chance on skinny kids in high school. They get men.

They have more and more 21-year-old freshmen and 24-year-old seniors. The calibre of college hockey is way, way up.

The dark side of it is that kids who were terrific students lose their academic edge while riding a bus for two years in the Saskatchewan junior league hoping for a shot at big time college hockey and end up struggling in the classroom. The student experience is also not quite what we all might have imagined it being.

If you bothered to click through to the item in the Globe and Mail that I pointed to yesterday about the guy in Orleans, ON, with the massive wall of snow in his yard, you no doubt said something like, "Gee, that's a lot of snow." Or, maybe you called 9-1-1 and dispatched a truck with rubber walls.

We used to live in Ottawa and in the nation's capital they get way more snow as a matter of routine than Toronto does even in a year like this. Laura and I were talking the other night about the winter of (I think) 1995-96 in Ottawa. Patrick was an only child and very young. And it started snowing in November and never let up.

I actually had to get up on the roof of the house to shovel snow off because of the threat of roof collapse. And when I got up there I could look across the neighbourhood and see lots of other guys doing the same thing, sort of like demented, freezing, snow-covered versions of the chimney sweeps in Mary Poppins.

So, as you rest your back after a weekend of coping with the big storm that rolled through, keep it in context. I'm guessing very few of you finished the driveway and then shoveled the roof, too.

Oakville Ranger teams are having quite a run this spring in the OMHA playdowns. Below is a list of nine -- nine! -- Ranger teams that have made it to the finals. Of particular note, the atom AE, atom A, and atom AA teams are all in the finals, which is an extraordinary feat for one age group.

Here are the teams in the finals (so far). Pretty impressive. Good luck to all the rest of the way. Go Rangers!

Novice A

OMHA FINALS

Minor Atom AA

OMHA FINALS

Atom AA Final

OMHA FINALS

Atom A

OMHA FINALS

Atom AE Grp 1

OMHA FINALS

Peewee AA

OMHA FINALS

Bantam AE Group 1

OMHA FINALS

Peewee AAA

OMHA FINALS

Midget AAA

OMHA FINALS

I took the boys to see the new Will Farrell movie, Semi Pro, yesterday afternoon. There's no nudity (good thing) but the language is a bit raw. In fact, it's very, very raw. Mom didn't make the trip and we were all glad about that.

As soon as the movie was over, Chris turns to me and says, "I'm never going to be allowed to watch this movie again, am I?"

Not until you're chief justice of the Supreme Court, buddy. Then you can do what you want.

So I had to coach Chris on what to say when we got home and Laura asked how the movie was.

"It was a very fine film," he replied. We knew there would be a supplementary question, as we were ready.

Laura then wheeled on her heel and said, "OK. You guys didn't even go to a movie! Where were you?"

Yeah we went. It was really, really funny. And inappropriate. And Chris now knows some words with more than four letters that I suspect Patrick and his teammates use routinely to greet opponents from Burlington and Georgetown.

Did you ever see the movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Way, way back in the 20th century, around 1978 or so. Anyway, in that flick, Richard Dreyfuss kinda slips a gear and starts getting messages from space and constructs a massive mud plateau in his living room. It didn't go over well with his wife.

Anyway, there's a guy in Orleans, near Ottawa . . . well, he may need to get a hobby. Because all the snow this winter seems to have him going all Close Encounters on his neighbourhood. And not with mud.

Click here to read more and see a pretty amazing photo. Make sure you click on the photo to enlarge it.

Not all of the AA bantams went to Caledon to stare at the walls, BTW. Speedy forward Patrick Griffin played in a game that mattered for the AA minor midget Rangers, and he scored the winning goal in a 3-2 win over Niagara Falls. The victory sends the minor midgets to the Tri County finals. The Rangers lost the first two games of that one and fought back to win three in a row. Way to go.

Well, it's almost noon on my first day of vacation and I've worked all morning. But it's not like I shortchanged the kids -- Pad just got up and Chris has been up for a bit but went right to the Wii to play Super Smash Brothers Brawl, which apparently is the big news in the Wii world this week.

(Thanks to Dave R. on the Flyers for grabbing a copy for Chris at Wal-Mart on Sunday morning!)

I'm not exactly sure what it's about, but I'm told that every single gaming character in the history of Nintendo is in the game. And that the Smash Brothers get into a brawl of some kind, and it's just super.

Not sure what the rest of the day will hold, but I'm going to stop working soon. Very, very soon.

So, Sunday afternoon me and Pad and a AA Ranger teammate and his mom pile into the car for the drive to Caledon for a game that means nothing. The sun was out, the roads were clear and dry and we're standing on the cusp on March Break.

We get to the spanking new Caledon East Arena, cleverly located in Caledon East, at 5:30p --the requisite hour before game time. By 6p, we are still the only team in the building. The manager pro tempore (that's Latin, for "Gerry") calls the real manager back home and says, um, where's the other team?

Calls are made. Ice schedulers are hassled. More calls. Some emails. Confirmation that yes, we were in the right place as instructed.

No clear answer was available but one thing was certain at 6:25p -- Caledon wasn't showing up for a 6:30p game, and there was no referee or linesman or timekeeper.

So, for the THIRD time this season we dragged our asses back to Oakville from a road game without actually having played a minute of hockey.

On another (Georgetown), the home team didn't schedule the referees. Insert your own joke here.

Anyway, it's kind of typical of the way things have gone for this team in the last few weeks.

But, we did get a lovely drive in the country. As I said to the mom with us, we should have stopped and bought pumpkins and apples!

Chris and I made it to Maplegrove last night and joined three other Flyers to take up arms against five Vikings in the minor peewee white snowstorm three-on-three challenge. Big brother Patrick refereed the game and then we went to Tim's for hot chocolate. Incidentally, the parking lot at Tim's was filled with snow plows -- the police couldn't even get in!

The streets were plowed this morning so we had a better turnout for practice -- which became the Flyers-Eagles snowstorm challenge.

And just in case any of my neighbours forgot to put their clocks ahead last night, I was out at 7:45a snow blowing the driveway.

Today we had five skaters and a goalie pretending to be a skater most of the time.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I'm glad we braved the weather both times. There are some pictures here.

When I got home last night, Laura said that if it was OK to drive to Maplegrove, then it was OK to walk to the barbeque to cook dinner. So I did. When we lived in Edmonton we used to barbeque all winter too, and the neighbours really thought we were strange. Our neighbours still think we're strange, I suspect, but they view the barbeque as one of our few normal activities.

Brampton beat Belle River last night to win that six-point OMHA bantam AA semi final seven to one.

The Oakville Rangers AAA bantams had a good showing at their regional qualifying tournament but missed out on a spot in the semi finals. The Rangers went 2-1-1 -- they were one of only five teams with a winning record -- but the tie breaker must have gone against them because I didn't see them down for a semi final today. St. Catharines, Halton, Burlington and Hamilton will decide it.

Tough 2-1 loss to the Devils for the Leafs last night. For the true believers who still hung on a thread of a hope that the Leafs could make the playoffs, um, it's time to give up.

The bantam Ranger AAA team is putting up a strong showing in the SCTA qualifying tournament in Guelph this weekend. Dave Brennan's team is 2-0-1 in their first games, posting 2-1 and 4-3 wins over Guelph and Niagara Falls. They tied Hamilton 1-1.

So, we have a couple of under utilized people around the house on a snowy, first Saturday of the March Break.

How about send them outside to clear the driveway and have a snowball fight? Patrick used the available technology to good advantage.

The bantam AE Oakville Rangers shutout the Windsor Jr. Spitfires 2-0 to sweep their OMHA semi final in straight games Friday night. Matt Reagan stoned the Spitfires' top scorer on a penalty shot with less than two minutes left in the game to:

Meanwhile, back home, the AA Rangers nipped Caledon 5-4 on goal from Alex Laramee with 40 seconds left. The game meant nothing, but it was wildly entertaining.

The AA bantam Rangers lost 2-1 in lovely Georgetown last night, so I'm fairly certain that's the end of their season, more or less. They have three games left but if my math is right they can't advance to the Loser Bowl final. Jack Gillis was terrific in goal last night for the Rangers, in a game played at the stupidly small Memorial Arena, an ice surface barely larger than the three-on-three rinks at ice2ice.

What's more stupid is that there was ice sitting unused at Georgetown's lovely Alcott arenas. I don't think the small ice gave either team any great advantage. Both sides looked awful, Georgetown won, end of story.

My concern was safety. If you've never seen this rink, it's hard to convey how small it is. But it's REALLY small. Oakville Arena looks like an Olympic ice pad in comparison.

Three kids (two Raiders, one Ranger) were ejected from the game for hits from behind -- I don't think any of the hits were deliberate, I think simply that when you put kids that big (many of these kids are six-foot-plus) in a rink that small, you are unduly risking serious injuries because no one has the time to protect themselves, they have trouble getting out of the way. As soon as you do anything, two guys are on you and you're face-first into the wall.

One of the Georgetown dads said to me after the game, "Hey, our junior A team used to play all it's games here."

They also USED TO allow people to smoke in hospital delivery rooms while babies were being born. It doesn't mean it's a good idea. I think there's an interesting question to be posed about liability if there's a serious injury and the OMHA and the local association had opted to use that rink over an available regular size one for certain age groups -- say, major peewee AA or AAA and up.

Anyway, good luck to Georgetown the rest of the way. They play with a lot of sandpaper in their game and will be tough in the Tri County final. It's looking like they'll play Burlington, but the Eagles lost last night (4-3 to Flamborough? WTF??) so I don't think it's settled yet.

The Rangers host Caledon tonight and then, tomorrow night in the teeth of what is being billed as the biggest snow storm of the winter, they travel to Caledon for a 6:30p game that means nothing to either team.

One thing Memorial Arena does have going for it is the lovely flat-screen TV in the lobby, where we huddled before the game to watch the Leafs toy with the Bruins like a cat with a dead mouse. Except that's probably an insult to dead mice everywhere, because the Bruins didn't appear to have even that much life in them. The Leafs are now if the ridiculously strategic position of being 11 point clear of last place in the east, but still six points from a playoff spot. Which means they will finish ninth or 10th, miss the playoffs but still not get one of the truly primo draft picks.

It's a PD day in Halton, so March Break is on in our house (except for me.) Not a creature was stirring when I bolted the house this morning.

But --attention coaches, managers, hockey moms, parents, players, etc etc -- let me know your tournament results. Send me your pictures (even if you're not posing with a trophy.) I think there are 11,243 minor hockey tournaments in southern Ontario next week, so let me know how you do. Send a game recap. Teamoakville Nation wants to know! Send photos and info to the usual spot -- here.

For us? Not so much. The sun is setting on Ranger bantam AA hockey, so I expect :Lump One will sleep in a lot. We really wanted to get Chris's team into a tournament but so many of the Flyers are away we couldn't muster enough kids to fill a golf cart. We have a couple of practices planned, but that's it. So, we'll do some stuff closer to home -- my older sister (and JUST for the record, all my sisters are older) and her husband are going to visit for a couple of days, so we'll eat well and tell lies and do all of that stuff. I also have some work to do, which really hurting the balloting when Dad of the Year voting starts.

In case you haven't heard, Environment Canada is saying there is a 100 per cent chance of 15 centimetres of snow for the Toronto area on Saturday. I'm no math whiz, but 100 per cent doesn't qualify as "chance" right? Where I grew up, we called that a certainty.

Assuming it happens it will push the region to within striking distance of the all-time recorded for snowfall around here at since they've bothered keeping records. (I understand the winter of 1243 was a bitch in Toronto and the 401 was a mess for days at a time, but no one measured the snowfall.)

I gave Patrick a primer yesterday on how to operate the snow blower and now he's an entrepreneur, of sorts. The guy across the street offered the boys money to do his driveway for him, and presto, they're in business. (Yes, it would have been a better idea in November, but better late than never.)

As part of the learning curve Pad was out after school practicing on neighbours' driveways. He (we) did ours and six others. Chris was there with shovel in hand, helping out, doing the front walk, etc. If there's a buck in it, Chris is down with it.

Pad said running the snow blower is fun. He's right. It is. But don't tell his mother. She needs to think it's really hard work that requires time on the couch watching hockey or golf upon project completion.

The AA bantam Rangers beat St. Catharines 6-1 last night and travel to Georgetown tonight for what is basically a must-win game, if they harbour aspirations of getting to the Tri-County finals. (Eds note: Teams returning to Tri-County play after elimination from the OMHA playdowns routinely call it The Loser Bowl. No Tri County team ever started it's season with a goal of being the Tri County champs. Because to do that, you have to be eliminated from the tournament that really matters. But, it's all hockey and right now it's the only target they have.)

Some days it's hard to be sure exactly what this team aspires to, but the one certain thing is that when they show up ready to play they can be as good as any team in their age group, period. And when they don't, well, . . . you finish the sentence.

Georgetown leads the pool the Rangers are in with a 3-0-1 record. Oakville is 1-0-1, and they tied in their previous meeting Sunday night. Ergo, they need to win.

The bantam AE Rangers are in Windsor tomorrow night to continue their OMHA semi-final with the junior Spitfires. Oakville leads that series with a pair of wins, outscoring Windsor 11 to 3 in the first games. Windsor continues to use it's team web site to provide inspiration for the Rangers, a strategy that's working well. Good luck to both teams this weekend.

Leafs play the Bruins tonight as the Leafs march toward mathematical elimination from the post-season continues.

Here's how I know winter's overstayed it's welcome: when Chris says, "there's too much snow and I want to wear shorts again," well, then it's time for a change of season. Snow: be gone!

Chris went to bed last night wildly optimistic that today would be a snow day and he could sleep in. So anxious was he on the issue of sleeping in that he got up at 5:45a to see if Halton had, in fact, closed the schools so that he could, in turn, sleep in. There's some perverse logic somewhere in there on the whole "get up early to sleep in" thing, but I think it's only perceptible to 11 year olds.

He wasn't the only one up at 5:45a. I was up to take Pad and a buddy down the street to tryouts for the Abbey Park High School junior hockey team. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Grades 9 and 10 and a mix of various levels of house league and rep kids up to AAA. It was a mixed bag for sure.

At the back end of the day, Pad and the AA bantam Rangers host St. Catharines this evening at Maplegrove as they try to catch up on Tri County round-robin playoff action. Tomorrow, they're in Georgetown. Friday night they host Caledon. Saturday, they're in Caledon. Sunday . . . we don't know yet. But lots of hockey coming as we head into March Break.

Sidney Crosby set up the winning goal with less than three minutes left in the game as he returned after six weeks off with an injury, leading the Pens to a 2-0 win over Tampa.

And Peter Forsberg returned to the NHL last night, helping the Avs past the Canucks. This guy has more come backs than The Who.

Kinda quiet today, so you may have to amuse yourselves. No Ranger hockey in our house last night. No protests. No house league games or practices. No Leafs. A night off from hockey.

Me, I laid on the sofa and read, which I honestly almost never do. Laura I think wasn't happy to come home and find I hadn't moved for two hours.

Speaking of lazy people, the Leafs host New Jersey tonight as their March Campaign to the Torment the Truly Deluded continues. I think it was sometime in December when I proved here with the magic of math that the Leafs could not make the playoffs. That in terms of the numbers, the probability was so low as to collide statistically with the number of people who think Elvis is alive on an island with Princess Diana.

But one need only listen to morning talk radio in Toronto for a few minutes to realize the town is teeming with morons (EDS NOTE: I save that designation for those 18 and over. Kids are permitted to cheer frenetically for the Leafs based on nothing more than "Just Because") who think the Leafs will make the playoffs.

Right now, this second, the eighth-place team in the East -- the final playoff spot -- is the Flyers. They have 74 points in 66 games, or, they are EIGHT games over .500.

Which means the final playoff spot in the East will likely require (based on an 82-game sked) 90 to 93 points.

Let's give the Leafs the benefit of the doubt. Let's say they have to get to 91 points to make it. That assumes a lot of bad hockey by some other teams while the Leafs start playing like Punch Imlach is behind the bench in the mid-1960s.

Right now the Leafs have 68 points. They have 15 games left. So (stay with me here. Don't let go of the rope and stay back of the yellow platform line) they need to get 23 out of a possible 30 remaining points to hit 91.

Now personally, I bet the eighth place spot will be more like 94 or 95 points, in which case the Leafs need 26 or 27 of their remaining 30 possible points.

Are you getting the picture here? Do you think Mats and Darcy have booked tee times?

Even getting 23 of 30 would be a feat of staggering accomplishment for Toronto (winning 11 of 15 and tying one), who certainly have never had a run like that this year. Or last. Or the year before that.

In conclusion: No Leaf playoff hockey this year. Mats works on his short game. Leafs screw up chance to get first or second draft pick.

You can read a Globe and Mail take on the same topic here. They did their own math and came to the same conclusion. But I did mine first!

When we lived in Edmonton in the mid-1990s, there were two local bumper stickers I remember. One said, "Please God, Give Us One More Oil Boom. We Won't Piss It Away This Time."

The second one said, "My Two Favorite Teams are The Oilers and Whoever is Playing Calgary."

That's how I feel about the Leafs and Sens, and every time the Senators lose, I smile and remember that one.

And I'm smiling again today as the Senators, God love 'em, lost AGAIN last night, 3-1 to the Ducks. Game story here.

For reasons that neither of us understand, beyond, of course, that it's winter, it's cold, and we are silly sometimes, Chris and I have taken to calling each other "Dude" a lot. It's endlessly annoying to his mother. Anyway, in that spirit something silly to divert your attention as we sit on the cusp of yet another storm storm.

The AA bantam Rangers settled for a 2-2 with Georgetown last night, which actually was a better result than I expected given the events of the past few days. I stayed home with Chris. It was a late start, I had already spent four hours at a rink on Sunday, and I was tired. I wasn't in the mood to listen to parents scream that the Oakville Rangers are responsible for global warming. I think the Rangers have lots of hockey to play this week to catch up with the others in the Tri-County playoffs, but there's no schedule yet.

So last night I was puttering around and Chris was in the family room impatiently waiting for the FOX NASCAR broadcast to end and The Simpsons to start.

I went in and sat with him as the cars did their thing -- go fast, turn left; go fast, turn left.

I told Chris that NASCAR is the biggest sport in North America, from a fan-base perspective. Bigger than NFL. Bigger than NBA or MLB. Way, way bigger than hockey.

Where on Earth did that come from, I asked (secretly thinking to myself that it was, in fact, a fairly perceptive question, given that NASCAR likes to trace it's roots to the southeast and moonshine runners and whatnot.)

"Well, when I watch King of the Hill, I hear them talk about NASCAR. And those guys sound like hillbillies."

Oh. Now that makes perfect sense. But they're not all hillbillies. Just some of them.

BTW, Chris loved Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. I suspect that may have also influenced his perception of NASCAR. It's practically a documentary.

Many, many years ago I worked in downtown Halifax at the region's largest newspaper and me and my colleagues were young and single and worked silly hours and ate poorly and none of it mattered because we were young and single and no one was waiting around to see when and where we'd turn up except maybe our editors, who only cared that we did our jobs, and maybe our mothers, who liked a phone call on weekends.

After work we'd often hit the clubs around Halifax, which in those days had a lot of live music and being a university town there was a youthful energy around Argyle Street.

There was this hotshot young guitar player who would come through town every few months and it was hard to get through the door to see him, but it was worth the effort because he was special. He was blind, having lost his eyesight at a young age to cancer. And he would continue to fight cancer throughout his life.

Tragically, Jeff Healey died on the weekend at the too-young age of 41. You can read about his amazing life here.

The bantam A Rangers lost 3-0 in Southpoint today, losing their semi final in three straight. It was a great run by the A team and they have much to be proud of. Well done guys.

The Oakville Rangers bantam AE squad won their second in a row today over Windsor, 3-1. The Rangers love that web site (which I've never seen, but they tell me is a source of endless inspiration.)

The AA bantam Rangers return to action tonight in the Tri-County playoffs, which is where teams go once eliminated from OMHA play up to and including the quarterfinals. They host Georgetown tonight at 8p and it will be interesting to see if they can get their heads into the game after the draining experience of the Belle River series.

An entertaining day of house minor peewee play today -- Chris and the Flyer lost a game but boy was it fun to watch and Chris scored a goal and hit a post.

There was a lot of attention given to the tragic and untimely death of Windsor Spitfires captain Mickey Renau-

An entertaining day of house minor peewee play today -- Chris and the Flyer lost a game but boy was it fun to watch and Chris scored a goal and hit a post.

There was a lot of attention given to the tragic and untimely death of Windsor Spitfires captain Mickey Renaud on Feb 18. Only 19, he was from all accounts more than just his team's leader, he was a respected friend to all who knew him.

So, unknown to me and virtually all other parents on the bantam Ranger AA team, two weekends ago prior to our team playing in Belle River, coach Lou quietly put a simple, small number 18 sticker on each of the Ranger helmets as a gesture of respect.

So before the double OT loss Friday night, Laura and Patrick were driving to the rink (younger brother Chris and I arrived separately later.)

"Well, no matter what happens tonight, you're going to get to play again. That kid won't."

Perspective is important. Classy move by the coach, and a good reminder from mom.

It wouldn't be Sunday if I didn't have the Leafs to complain about. All I'll say is, what the heck is up with all this winning? It just seems like too little, too late.

I was too busy and too tired to spend time writing here yesterday. And I'm about to run out the door to minor peewee house league games. But . . .

The bantam A Rangers lost twice to Southpoint -- 4-3 on Friday, and a 5-4 heartbreaker in OT yesterday after digging themselves out of a 3-0. They go to Windsor today to play game 3.

The bantam AE Rangers, somewhat motivated by some poorly chosen words on the their opponent's web site, thrashed Windsor 8-2 in the opener of their series. Game two is today, noon at Joshua Creek.