Guide to Lazy Blogging

For some time now, Collision has been nagging (read:begging) me to get off my sorry ass and post something, ANYTHING. Now, he says it's because he doesn't want to dominate an ostensibly pan-league blog with Av's drivel. But, see, I KNOW Collision and his heart of gold, wrapped in stone, and I know this is just his way of asking me to share my scintillating(read:barely extant) wit with y'all. The problem is, no one wants to read the whinings of a poorly informed, knee jerk reacting, devilishly handsome fan of the number one team in the league. Blog posts entitled "Oh Noes! We losted a game!", "We Won, But Not By Enough" and "Canucks I'd Go Gay For" are unlikely to gain a readership. Well, that last one *might* get some hits, but you get the point. So what to write about?

Fine point analysis of a teams needs, play style, ice time, lineups, coaching- you know, hockey "facts" a la Collision- escapes me. I'm more of a broad strokes guy, and I sort of compare those strokes to patterns I see on the ice. Like, when I yell "WHY THE FUCK IS CODY HODGSON ON THE ICE?!", and Alain Vigneault pulls him off, never to be seen again, I think Coaching=GOOD, and when 6 defensemen are injured and the Canucks lose a few tight games I think D-Men=NECESSARY. See, that's just the kind of hockey analysis you aren't gonna get from "research" or "books". You can only get that from growing up in Canada and skimming the stats page once or twice a week, (mostly to see if a Canuck made it in the top 10, if they didn't it was 'politics'). I care not for "reality" but for perception reported as "fact". This approach does, though, get me into a little trouble when anyone who knows anything about hockey reads my work. This doesn't stop millions of other bloggers around the world, and it won't stop me. Here's a little look behind the scenes of the writing process.

The first thing is to come up with a sensational, somewhat believable (but totally bullshit) premise, like, "Which Canuck is The Awsomest? It is indeed a difficult question. While the Sedins are each very awesome, I can't tell them apart and therefore must take them out of the running. Luongo is VERY awesome, as is Kesler. I don't know the names of any of the other players on the team, so, we've narrowed it down! How to decide?" Everyone wants to read about your teams stars and only them.

Next, rankify stuff. While I will never be able to come up with a metric so useful as the Professional Scope of Stopping Pucks, I may come close while hiding my own idiocy. Here Goes: "Imagine if AWESOME and TOTALLY RAD had a baby, and SUPER COOL and BADASS also had a baby and those two stupid babies grew up and met at a bar and had a cocaine and booze fueled one night stand and THEY had a baby and THAT baby grew up and got a leather jacket. Ryan Kesler is, like, three of those. Luongo gets a 2.7 on this scale" It's got everything you need: Unassailable logic, cogent analysis, Ryan Kesler...

Next up, make some comparison to some player from years gone by. "Kesler is like a smarter, funnier, more handsome Doug Gilmour, only better and tougher and more badass." This kind of spot-on analysis is why people come to your blog!

Then you just claim to understand the game in your blood or DNA or hypothalmus or whatever and then throw out a bunch of conflations of players and events that lazy readers won't ever check up on: "Doug Gilmour broke his leg in a playoff game and got a cortisone shot and came back and saved the Stanley Cup from being blown up by Powers Booth" OK fine, it was Bobby Baun who broke his leg and scored the game winner, Jean Claude Van Damme that saved the Stanley cup (which is total bullshit - All due respect to Edward James Olmos, Powers Booth is the baddest-ass of the paunchy, pock-marked set, how the HELL did JCVD get him?!)(Note to self: Pitch Powers Booth/Edward James Olmos buddy movie) and Doug Gilmour who got a cortisone shot on his wedding day to be able to get his ring on, but who cares? If it fits the narrative, or distracts from the fact that I really have nothing to say, truth has no bearing on whether i should print it.

In closing I would like to say, Canucks rule all others drool.

-jefcanuk on injured reserve pending appeal of Kesler restraining order.

p.s. I may want to look into writing a script that auto-deletes comments wherein I am called an "idiot", a "retard", "ugly", "stupid", "gaytarded", "the least knowledgeable blogger known to man" oh fuck it. I'll just lock the comments section.