Poetic Playoff Prophecy Vol. III: Final-ly

I have no one to blame for this but myself. I wrote some time ago, no doubt giddy from a promising beginning to another post-season, that if the Red Wings found themselves in the Cup finals, I would incorporate the sonnet into the poetic playoff predictions.
Sonnets, it turns out, are fucking hard to write at [...]

Out.Coached.

I know what you may be thinking but — despite the title in the header of this blog — this is not a website dedicated to the Chicago Blackhawks Game 4 performance.
In fact, one of the reasons we named the blog ‘Dirty Games’ is so that we could call that sort of cheap, thuggish and [...]

Never, ever make a mistake

Athletes are taught, from a very young age, that they shouldn’t “play tight”.
Playing tight, a whole whack of Junior, Pee-Wee, Amateur and Professional coaches will tell you, leads to nothing but losses. If you are too terrified of making a mistake to relax and play your game, the theory goes, you’ll be too tense to [...]

F–k rationality, it’s an ode to Darren Helm

This post should absolutely be a scathing indictment of the media’s swine flu coverage. It could also easily be a heart-wrenching opus about how Manny Ramirez testing positive for steroids crushed whatever was left of a little boy’s love for baseball. Poking fun at Jack Layton’s Star Trek outfit or writing an incredibly offensive parody [...]

Winners Never Quit

One of the easiest things to do in life is to say ‘fuck it’ and walk away. Things ain’t happening. You get the short end of the stick. You keep shooting and nothing goes in. It goes in and then it doesn’t count. You show up on time and the bus breaks down. Do a [...]

Pick on the Red Wings, not Detroit

I wrote a post the other day that drew a little bit of attention to our little corner of the internet. Who would have thought that unleashing amusing insults about another hockey team and finding great YouTube clips of players you really like would receive more attention than an earnest discussion about the future of [...]

Poetic Playoff Prophecy Vol. II: Round Two, Fight!

Well, the first round somehow went mostly as predicted by my seat-of-the-pants verse. We went 7/8 on overall predictions with the Flyers over the Penguins in seven games being the one we totally whiffed on.
No matter. In my own egotistical little world, I think this gem, made before a single playoff puck had been dropped, [...]

New faces, old hate

Mr. Getzlaf, good to see you again. Mr. Niedermayer, it’s been too long. Mr. Pronger … don’t ever touch me. You’re an asshole.
It’s Ducks vs. Wings again, and I couldn’t be more excited, but things are a little different around here this time. We all still remember the epic battle we fought in 2007. Who [...]

Frodo Baggins explains why the Sharks are losing

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Yeah … this is an essay about JRR Tolkien, the hero’s journey and how it applies to flameouts in [...]

NHL Poetry: First-round playoff edition

We’re in the playoffs, primed for a cup or a monumental choke job – there’s really not a lot of middle ground for the Wings anymore – and it’s time to make some predictions, through everyone’s favourite forms of lazy-man poetry, the haiku and limerick. When we get to the second round, I promise, I’ll do sonnets.