#and drury said bet

[tylerpitlicktruther]

i just hope we have a good run in 2024-2025 at this point man 😔💙

[katenepveu]

Great news!

‘Lord Of The Rings’ Musical Co-Created By ‘Matilda’ Director Matthew Warchus Headed For Immersive Open-Air Performance In UK (Deadline)

... the Watermill’s managers are betting that their theater’s pastoral setting will lure fans. Hart said he “fell in love with the music” and “loved its folksiness” over the extravagant sets that bedecked Drury Lane.

Beginning July 25, 2023!

Does anyone one else remember that terrible Tolkien adaptation called The Lord of the Rings Musical?

It was super weird, very expensive with a moving stage, used almost none of Tolkien’s actual songs and was quickly forgotten…

[enterthecocoon]

Valentine’s date with a fusion

((OOC: This is a role between me and @letsaskbatgirl. For obvious reasons, this takes place before Killer Moth was arrested by Booster Gold))

Batrose was waiting outside his apartment, smiling as she was holding a bunch of potted roses to give to him. Drury opeed the door for her. "Ah, Batgi-I mean. Batrose." He chuckled. "Sorry, still haven't gotten entirely used to this yet! Please, Batrose, come in." She walked in, giving him the flowers. "Those are for you." She said, smiling softly and sweetly at him. "Don't let them die." "Aw, thanks.", he smiled. "I promise I won't!" He in return gave her dairy free chocolate candy, Pamela's vegan lifestyle kept in mind. "For you. No need to keep those unbroken, though.", he joked. She smiled, giving him a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you." He blushed a little, leading her inside. "Here, I prepared the table for us." She smiled and followed him in. He pulled back a chair for her. "So...you said we should announce...ourselves...to all of Gotham?" "We should. I know all of this secrecy is killing you." "What about you? How do you feel about this?" She shrugged. "What's the worst that's going to happen?" "Well, if you say so...and how do you think we should go about doing this?" "I don't know. But if you want to wait until after this fuse stuff is over, we can wait." He smiled. This sentence to him proved this wasn't the Pam in her talking, that this was really what his girlfriend wanted. "I think it's alright. Let's figure out a way to do it, then." She nodded. "I'm glad we can do that." "So, how about we watch something together?" How bowed down and reached out his hand rather dramatically. "Your jacket, Madam?" She giggled a bit, handing him her green demin jacket. Drury took her jacket and hung it up, then led her to the sofa. "Please, do have a seat. I'll be getting a VHS for us...do you like the Gray Ghost?" She sat down, smiling at him. "I've never seen it." She said, her eyes batting at him. He placed in the VHS tape. "Huh, that's surprising. It's an old Superhero show. Rumor has it that it served as the inspiration for Batman himself." Batrose smiled, waiting on him to sit down before crawling into his lap and hugging him close. "I love you." She said softly. "Oh!" He pulled her in and hugged her. "That's unexpected...but I love you too!" He smiled at her. "I'm glad to have you!" She smiled, snuggling up to him as they watched the tv show. Suited to an exiting orchestral fanfare, the TV show showcased the titular Gray Ghost going up against the wildest assortment of threats, and using gadgets that would feel very familiar to Batrose. "So, the first VHS is done. Should I get the next?", Drury asked, rocking Batrose on his lap. Batrose smiled, laying her head on him. "Yeah, but I don't want to move!" She said with a bright laugh. "Am I that comfortable?", he laughed with her. She nodded, just snuggling into his arms. "Yes." She said, blushing brightly. He straddled her in his arms. "You're adorable, you know that?" She giggled, kissing his cheek. "So are you. You are the more adorable one though." He hugged her tighter. "Okay, I won't move then. But you'll need to repay me somehow once you do get down!", he said with a wink. "Oh and how's that?" She whispered before giggling out of shock of what she was doing. "Well, what are you offering?", he kept rocking her. "What do you want?" She asked, smiling at him. "Truth be told, I was hoping you had thought of something." He kissed her cheek. "How about we switch places for the next tape, so I know what it feels like?~" She laughed. "Oh alright. I can do that." He laughed with her."Should I get us something to drink?" "Please." She said, smiling at him. He picked her up and set her down, then entered the kitchen to come back with two glasses of water. "For my dear lady~", he said dramatically again, handing it to her. "Actually, I have an Idea. How about the two of us go to the park together?" "A nature walk. You know me so well." She said softly, smiling as she got up. "I love looking at the stars at night." He got up, too. "Wonderful! I hear the lighting in the park is beautiful in the evening!", he then said in a faux serious tone "But do know you still have to make up to me.", and winked. He offered her his hand. "Shall we?" She took his hand, smiling. "Let's go." He led her outside, the park was dimly illuminated with old streetlights casting their reflections on the water, fireflies buzzed around curiously to inspect the moderate amount of other couples walking around Batrose smiled, making flowers grow near the other couples, wanting to make the others happy as well. They all smiled, the more religious ones taking it as a sign from above and the atheistic ones thinking this was all some extraordinairy but extremely romantic coincidence, one they would be sure to tell their children about. They went past a salesman selling crepès. "May I buy one for you?", Drury asked. She nodded with a smile. "I would love one." He paid for her choice of flavour, then bought one for himself. "We can eat it on that bench", he said, pointing to one that has a brilliant view of the reflecting river and the fireflies. Drury led her to the bench. Batrose smiled, snuggling up to him and kissing his cheek. He smiled back, pulling her in. "The crepè can't be as sweet as you, can it?" She smiled, looking into his eyes. "I do want to finally get it out there, but I want to know what you want." "What I want?", he asked, cocking his head to the side. "What do you mean?" "I mean. Do you want to tell everyone?" "We can.", he confirmed. She smiled, laying her head on his shoulder. He sat there, watching the water. "Why don't we take a picture or two together? On the bridge?" Batrose nodded, standing up to walk with him. "You got a camera?" He stood up, getting one from his jacket. "I wanted to ask you...what's it like being a fusion?" "It's weird. It's disorientating. You don't know which thoughts are yours and which thoughts are the other's." "Are you as smart as two people now? Or as strong? Or as fast?", he asked, leading her to the bridge. "Dunno. Never tried." She said softly, shrugging. "We should, while we have the time.", he suggested. "Like what?" She asked, looking up into his eyes. "Could you...say....lift that boulder there?", he said as they walked past a small one. Batrose shrugged, going over to the boulder and lifting it. "Yep... Pretty easily." "Impressive!", Moth said, taking out the camera. "Might I?" A bell like laugh came out. "Go ahead." He took a picture, smiling. She let the boulder down slowly, walking over to him. "My strong girlfriend!", he said, looking very proud. She threw her arms around him. "Yep. All yours." He lifted her in a spin. "Shall we test it a bit more, then?" "If you want." She said, smiling at him. She looked up. "The moon is so big tonight." "It's like a big, beautiful lightbulb in the sky...if you weren't here, I couldn't stop staring at it!" She giggled, leaning over and kissing his cheek. He kissed hers, too. After they took a few more pictures, he asked, "Could I give you one more test?" She looked up at him, curious. "Sure, I guess." He led her to a little abandoned parking house near the park, where a disowned, rusting car stood. "I bet one Movie date of your choice, all on me, that you can't break this.~" "And if you win?" She said, getting close to him. "A movie date of my choice on both of us, maybe?", he suggested. "I wouldn't let you pay for me, dear." She smiled softly, going over to the car, before trying to break it. After several attempts, only thing that came off was the bumper. "Hm....I count that as your win!", he said. Batrose smiled, walking over to him. "I guess you owe me a date night." "I sure do!", he agreed. Batrose smiled, taking a few more steps before stumbling a bit. "Everything alright?", Moth asked. "Yeah. Yeah. Just tripped over a rock." She said. "I still think it's interesting how a fusion changes you", he said, leading her back to the park. "If you feel up to it, wanna test how light I feel to you compared to when you're not fused?" She smiled, lifting him up. "Still light as ever to me." She said, before stumbling a bit and falling, somehow landing on top of him, her eyes going from green to blue. Drury didn't notice the eye colour change at first, it was the sudden presence of a second redhead that set him off. "Oh, hello, Barbara. Good to have you back!", he grinned, looking at her lying on top of him. Barbara smiled as Pamela just rolled her eyes. "I'll leave you two to your date. Get 'em, tiger." She said, walking away. "You'd think she had more of a sense for romance.", Drury joked, sitting up and embracing Barbara. "I think she was tired of being trapped with me." She said, hugging him back. "I love you, Drury." "I love you, too, Barbara!" She smiled, kissing him. "I've been wanting to do that, but I thought maybe it should be me, and not Batrose." "Please, go ahead.", he prompted, smiling. Barbara laughed, kissing him again.

[riddlesandqueries]

Excerpt

A brief roleplay scenario with @darcimasonusb​ and  @enterthecocoon​ concerning conspiracy, crime, and damsels in distress.

Though many criticized Drury’s taste when it comes to fashion, he thought it was a smart Idea to wait in casual clothes  that had reminiscent qualities to his Moth suit, waiting in an orange jacket, purple pullover, and green trousers, all toned down to more moderate levels as too bright colours would attract unwanted attention swirling around him. People really were just like Moths.

Someone who wasn’t looking for Killer Moth wouldn’t recognize him, so only his fellow rogue Edward Nygma, A.K.A. the Riddler, would be aware of his true self- and hopefully be persuaded to let him be part of whatever his grand plan is. Asking around in the darker parts of this city, Drury wasn’t even able to pick up on any rumors of what he may be planning - but there is always a calm before the storm and no doubt the only reason the Riddler would be silent for so long was because he was busy with preparations - whatever he may be preparing. He took a final sip of the milkshake he bought at the Hill street cafe, placed the empty glass on the table and stood up. His potential collaborator should be here any moment. He looked around: no sign of him yet.

Hoping that Mr. Nygma hadn’t forgotten about their meeting - or even worse, purposefully stood him up, he took out a Star Wars comic that he recently bought out of his jacket to diminish the waiting time while reading it. Perhaps following Jedi Knight Ki-Adi Mundi on his journey through the desert planet of Tatooine would bring him to less self-deprecating thoughts.

Conversely, dressing down for Edward was simply a matter of adjusting style. There was shifting colour to match the season, more deviance from the standard pallet, but there was never much mistaking, for those who knew what to look for, who he was.

Precisely on time, Edward closed his pocket watch as he strolled in, and pocketed it as he looked about. Ah, there. No mistaking the brand: obtaining a quick coffee to go, Edward meandered over to Drury. “Mr Walker?”

“Ah!” Drury recognized him, closing his comic book to put it back in his jacket and politely holding out his hand. “Mr. Nygma!”

Taken, shaken. “What were you reading?”

After shaking Edward’s, Drury led his hand back to the pocket and pulled the comic back out, the cover displaying a wise-looking old man with a white beard weilding a magenta-bladed Lightsaber, posing in front of animals and bandaged characters that Edward may have recognized as Banthas and Tusken Raiders respectively. Above the characters, the title of the comic was presented: Star Wars: Outlander The Exile of Sharad Hett - Issue 5.  "Oh, it’s just a little comic I read to pass the time. It just came out today, so I picked it up on the way here.“

"Oooo, new one. I’ll have to catch the new issue on the way back, I’ve been way behind.” he chuckled, wiggling his coffee. “No spoilers, hm?”

“Oh, you’re reading it, too?”, Drury asked. “I mean, if you’ve been behind, I could borrow you some of my comics. The story is getting a lot more interesting than the first arc and ties better into the new Movie.”

“Reading, no. Have yet to begin, yes.” he admitted. “Now…what’s all this about, Drury?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.” Drury responded. “You’re planning something big, aren’t you? I’d like to be part of it.”

Edward paused for a beat, brows raised, and then sipped his coffee with a smirk. “How’d you guess.”

Drury smirked back. He thought this a sign of admittance. “Your silence spoke more than a thousand words. You’ve been too quiet lately. And whenever I think "I sure wonder what the Riddler’s up to, I’ve not heard from him in a while”, the next day’s papers report on you trapping Commissioner Gordon in a virtual reality game. Or taking over a toy company. What’s it gonna be this time? I’d love to get involved!“

Edward’s smirk never moved, even at the mention of The Incident. Note to self, destroy newspaper archive. "You would, huh? I have to say, I don’t usually take on any accomplices.” he frowned, casually peering into his coffee, as if it had some counsel for him on the subject. “I confess, I’m a bit of a lone wolf about my affairs, and I think this one might be somewhat out of your wheelhouse, Walker.”

“C-come on, I’m sure I can be of help somehow!”, Drury interjected. “I can show you how useful I can be! We could look around if we see the Cops chasing some crook, I could make sure they don’t get them!”

“You think so?”

“I know so! Saving crooks from the cops is my modus operandi!”

How is that meant to match up with mine, I wonder. “Perhaps I need a demonstration.” offered Edward, having another sip. “To see what would actually be at play.”

Drury placed down his milkshake. “Should we go out and look for some criminal running for the cops? Shouldn’t be too hard to find in this city.”

“Sure~” Why not? It’d give him time to think of a polite blow-off.

“Excellent!” Drury got up and opened the door of his car. “After you!”

“Thank you~” he smiled, sliding in. This should make for a fun afternoon, looking about for mischief with a D-lister. But bothering the cops? Might want to start a little smaller. “I have an idea, Walker.”

An ecstatic “Oh? Yes?”, came out of a grinning Drury, eager to impress another rogue.

“Instead of hunting out those dunderheaded police, why don’t we raise the stakes a bit?” he offered slyly, smiling in clear conspiracy. “And pursue a criminal instead. Someone bright enough to think like us? That’s a challenge.”

“Oh…of course! Not quite my style, but I think I should be able to do it!”

“Not a sincere catch, mind you.” he chuckled kindly. “Just enough to shake up some street-level mugger, have a little fun.”

Drury placed his hands on the steering wheel and started up the engine. As if Killer Moth couldn’t handle a common crook. “Consider it done!”

Darci had a straightforward, however tame, day ahead of her. Take in the surroundings. Learn the area. Make note of any signs or signals that may cross her path. Street Smarts.

For this occasion, she wore a maroon coat over a black and white patterned pencil dress. Something autumn to get used to the times. The idea was to just walk around town and don’t look suspicious. And surprisingly enough, she was succeeding! Until she left the bustling crowded streets, that is.

Meanwhile, for the small-time crook known as Clyde, this had been a day of realisation. He was starting to notice how poorly thought-out his tactic of driving around the emptier streets of the city and robbing whoever walked around alone was - no one with a decent amount of money ever came to this part of the city, and the places they did come to were too crowded to pull anything.

But as if fortuna herself had heard him, he spotted a dainty, easily-overpowered young lady walk around the streets. Putting his mask on, he parked in front of her and got out of his vehicle. “Hello, lady.”, he said. “That’s a nice purse.”

Darci took a second to recognize the situation. She knew exactly what was gonna happen. Oh and what fun it would be. “Hello, person.” she replied. “That’s a nice mask.”

“Why, thanks.” he said dryly, taking out his gun. “I bet the purse’s contents are nice, as well. Show me.”

“Oh nooo.” she said in a rather monotone voice. “Whatever shall I do?” Darci walked up to him, with a funny sort of smile. She looked straight down the center pin of his revolver. “You know, you also have a nice gun!” she laughed. One hand crept onto the barrel like a spider while the other tucked her clutch behind her back. “It’s a darned shame isn’t it?” She had a solid grip.

Clyde became somewhat unsettled at the blonde’s reaction. Was she too foolish to realise the situation? Or perhaps, it was he who didn’t know what he was dealing with.

————

Meanwhile, looking for crime through a pair of binoculars on top of a building, Drury Walker’s sight fell upon the robber and his uncooperative victim. “Hey, Edward.”, he said, handing him the binoculars. “Isn’t that girl there being robbed?”

The drive to a random building and the consequent climb up the fire escape was daring enough, but now, Edward wondered, as they scanned the area in broad daylight, was this the very picture of the Dark Knight’s moonlighting? Or, in this case, is it daylighting..?

Reverie interrupted, Edward calmly peered down to the scene in question.“Looks like it, Walker. What’s the plan?”

“We track the crook, incapacitate him and get the poor lady’s belongings back. Can you make out his license plate?”

“Not from here, but you know, we could probably catch up. Looks to me like they’re arguing.”

“That gives us more time! To the Mothmobile!” he exclaimed, despite knowing full well that the car they travelled with was not said Mothmobile. Edward followed, swift on Drury’s heels.

—–

Clyde just stared at the lady’s confused reaction. Was this some sort of self-defense strategy? “Hands off!” he shouted, trying to rip the gun from her grasp.

Darci was more than calm with an iron grip. “What’s the matter? Are you…” she lifted the gun out of his hands and held it like a cigarette. “Nervous?” Her deviance had shined through. Darci taunted him by fiddling with the gun. “Getting a closer look at this really makes me appreciate the craftsmanship… I think I’ll be keeping it!”

Then, in a rush she got a brilliant idea! It wasn’t everyday she could get to do this you know.

“Oh and! Let’s not forget all the trouble you put me through!” she dramatized the past minute “I’ll accept your jacket as payment!” She pointed the gun at Clyde, smiling as if to say ‘pleasure doing business with you!’.

Tapped, Clyde slowly pushed the sleeves off of his shoulders. “Didn’t know you were another crook…”

“Yeah, well, when you assume it makes an ass outta you! But you already did that when you pulled up here, didn’t'cha?” Darci held her aim steady, watching his move.

He carefully handed her his jacket, then raised his arms up.

“Good! Good! Now get outta here ya rascal!” she laughed, lowering the revolver. A job well done :). Darci folded the jacket neatly over her arm.

Carefully, the robber stepped back to his car, his hands kept up.

“Halt! I have seen everything!”  came a voice from the side, and as they followed its sound their eyes met a tall, muscular man in a full, overly bright Moth costume. Clyde wasn’t sure what to make of this. A new addition to the bat family? The red eyes of the bugman laid onto the Robber. “Worry not, fair citizen, for today, the Killer Moth seeks to bring justice. And you…” He now looked upon Darci. “Taking some poor, innocent soul at gunpoint and stealing his jacket…you should be ashamed of yourself!”

“Ack!” Darci jumped up in surprise and pointed the revolver at Killer Moth. Her hands were shaky. The tacky uniform. The overly enthusiastic voice. The oddly muscular body. It all set off alarms in her head. It’s obvious this is one of Schott’s toys.

“Damn you! You think you can just take me to em’ that easy? Yeah, I don’t fucking think so!”

Is this how Crooks usually react to being caught? Moth wondered. No wonder Batman is always in such a bad mood.

He returned by aiming his cocoon gun at her and having the other hand ready to start up the Wings on his back. “Resistance is futile! Drop your weapon.”

How long did he take to make this guy?

“Funny! I was just about to say the same thing!” she fired the weapon at Moth’s left wing and attempted to dodge behind Clyde’s car. Whatever his gimmick was, she didn’t want to see it in action.

Taken aback by the Gunshot, Moth tried to dodge by ungracefully leaping aside, landing on his arm and unwillingly shooting a blast of cocoon substance, revealing his gimmick. Having saved his wing in the process, he began to hover up in the air and surprise her from above.

“Oh Jesus fucking Christ!” she blurted out. The gunk from his gun looks like it immobilizes the target. Right.

“So that’s what you do! This bootleg action figure trick is getting old, actually.” she walked backwards and aimed again. “What is this? The third time he’s made someone like you? Jeez.”

1. 2. 3. Fire! She shot the cocoon blaster.

The bullet pulled the gun out of his hand, having it hit the street. Moth reached to his utility belt for a new weapon. Frightened by the shot, Clyde took away in his car. He didn’t care about these freaks killing one another, but he did not want to be involved anymore.

“Bootleg? I am the original! I never copy anyone!” Moth insisted, searching for a new weapon in his utility belt. Not that he was too worried: his suit was designed to tank a bullet or two.

Not wanting to hear his spiel, she tried to fire again. Click! “…” Clickclickclickclickclickclickclick!  She threw the revolver to the side. “…” There’s no way you’re winning this fight, Darci.

“Well, it’s been a fun time playing with you, but I really gotta go!” she secured her other items in her arm and skid underneath Moth to find ample means of escape.

“Oh, you’re not getting away that easily, you simple crook!”, he said, flying up behind her, grabbing her by the waist and flying upwards, though she did struggle a lot more than he had expected her to. Furthermore, she felt somewhat strange for a human being, much colder and harder. “What are those? Abs of steel?” Steel?

This scene, as it had played out before him, had been terribly amusing for Edward in the same fashion as a slapstick comedy, but that woman was just too familiar, and steel, of all the words, clicked it all together.

Strolling out of the alley, Edward waved at the pair. “Darci, hi! Is that you?”

Moth sat up and readjusted his helmet. “Edward, you’re here already? I’ve been trying to catch this crook, like you ordered!”

“You mean the crook who was robbing her and got away?”

“Edward!!! Hello!! :D!!” Darci lit up to see her good friend, and hastily wormed her way out of Moth’s arms with ease. That was simpler than I expectedbut oH MY GOD FRIENDFRIENDFRIEND!!! She leapt towards him.

Moth was visibly confused. Did he mess up again? “But…no, wait - she was the robber! I saw her hold the guy at gunpoint and took his jacket!”

Edward opened his arms and embraced Darci with an audible grunt at the impact, settling in with a suppressed cough. “Nice to see you again, sunshine. Drury, this is my friend Darci, she’s no robber. You yourself saw her being held up when we got off the roof: don’t you think it’s sensible to hold someone up when you get the upper hand on them?”

“I didn’t make out who was holding whom up, but..uh…” He took off his helmet and put his face in his hand in shame. “I messed up again, didn’t I? Darci, I think your name was, I’m really sorry for all the trouble I caused you!”

Darci turned to look at Drury. She took a minute to analyze his laugh lines and other distinguishable facial features. He’d be a very clean cut man if he didn’t have a bad case of helmet hair. “No, no you’re alright. You were just trying to do your job…and, hey, sorry about the whole 'bootleg’ thing. I thought you were someone else.”

His facial expression turned just a little less shameful, he reached out his hand. “It’s fine. Wanna start over? My name’s Drury, Drury Walker.”

She slowly let go of Ed and walked in to shake Drury’s hand. “…Darci Mason.”

“Heh, like the Doll?” he asked, then realised this may offend her. “Sorry, you must get that all the time. It’s just that my daughter loves collecting these.”

She gave a well-meaning smile, but her face crinkled into a worried expression. “Yeah, like that. It’s alright.” Darci let go of his hand. Change the subject to something else. Anything else.

“I hope you’re not hurt or anything…have you seen which direction my Cocoon Gun flew in?”

“I’ve seen worse days. Mm, it went…” retrieving 102899.MP4 After a brief pause:“That way.” she pointed southwest from where Drury was facing.

“Are you all right?” asked Edward, checking her over. “That mugger didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“I’m fine!” she laughed. “I even got some loot out of it! I think it’s a Nautica Jacket…”

“Ah, there it is!”, Drury said after finding the gun. “Thank you, Miss Mason, you’ve got a pretty good eye!”

Edward laughed softly, quite amused. “Nice score. Walker and I were on a hunt for criminals, just to see how they operate. He spotted you while you were getting mugged, so he came in to try and stop it.”

“So that’s why!” She snapped her fingers. “That sounds exciting!”

“It’s been fun so far: didn’t think we’d actually run into anyone interesting, so this is a real treat for me.” he nodded proudly. “Walker’s not aiming to hurt you, I promise…At least, as far as I know.”

“I’m not! I promise!”, Drury threw in defensively.

“There, see? Silly mistake~. We rogues can be such goofs.”

"Hmm.” Darci circled around Drury a couple times. Putting her hand to her chin and audibly saying “mmhm” more than a few times with a look of playful suspicion. After a sustained pause… “I’ll give him the Charles Atlas Seal of Approval!” she clapped!

[jfastereft]

"GOOD DAY BAD DAY!"  a poem  April 19, 2019 (Good Friday)  a.k.a.: "Do Unto Others . . . !"   a.k.a.: "Try Not To Be a 'Kicker;' But a 'Boxer!' "

 Jesus dies (today!) (once more!)  at 3 o'clock!

"He caused a riot!"   Yeah, it's [that's] the same-auld-talk:

"A riot he fomented - at The Church on Drury Lane!"

It's GOOD/BAD Friday! I'll-try-to-explain:

 Every day-is a good day, at least it is for some!

And, on THIS day, The-Jewish-Leaders    tend-to-often-"HUM,"

Happy and laughing, watching some fine crucifixion,

Of (so-called) BAD, BAD dudes, but-remember: Life's-a-"fiction!"   (pause)

 Fact-is: "One (wo)man's poison - is another one's cure!

One person's 'savior" - is another one's 'fuhrer!' "

No!  You're not crazy - when you have a BAD day!

Just-know, someone will be celebrating - just-a-"up the way!"

 While you are bleeding - and drenched with sweat,

Someone's having a GOOD time!  AND!  It's a sure bet,

That your BAD day, no matter how rough,

Will become your GOOD day, if you wait long enough!

 So, here's this guy       - hanging!       and bleeding,

But I-don't-hear       the hanger      pleading,

For his life, his precious life, his sweet life   per se,

But-He's-pleading-for-The-Good-Time-Priests, who-are-shouting: "Hooray!"

 Let's ask that everyone be forgiven - for having a good laugh,

At our expense!                  for, the aftermath,

Of anyone, kicking     a-"Boxer," when-he's-down,

Will be that the kicker - might-be kicked out-of-town!

 Moral: So, when someone else - is-having a BAD day, - - - Offer them your help!  And, for-them, even pray!  - - -  Give them help & hope & sympathy, even-if-they're-gloating- in-the-fray! Try, IF-you-can  - to-help-them       to-feel   "OK!"                           :) - OK?

fin  <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzUEL7vw60U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVKKRzemX_w

Postscript:  A funny things THEY-noticed, when they took Him down - - - From-the-cross-on-which-He-was-hanging, (1) He-did-not-wear-a-frown!  - - - And-(2) They-found an-inscription, bloody, on His back!*  - - - It-said: (pause) "This-was-A-GOOD-DAY-too, although-it-was-a-little-BLACK!" * - Scratched there, with his fingernails!

[hspn]

Remember that time you guys said I was 85 on August 14, 2022?

8th minute:

Me: Also re: Drury: I had no idea what he looked like until the other day. I assumed he was between 60-80 years old, but he's probably like 50. Brother: Agree. Particularly since he just gave us a history lesson, he seems like he should be 80. Me: I felt like Graeme was about to ask him if he had been there for all 60 matches. Brother: Lee would have. Oh, Graeme brought up Drury’s age, but did not say he was 85. Me: See, Graeme thinks he's old too. They're probably around the same age. Drury is 54. Graeme is 53. Judging from their voices, I’d have said Drury was like 86 and Graeme was like 35. Brother: I hope that he called GLS’ first game as a U8. Me: Graeme, age 8: YOU'RE 9 YEARS OLD WHY DO YOU SOUND LIKE YOU'RE 59.

Kalidou Koulibaly knee slides in celebration after scoring, 19th minute:

Brother: He did a knee slide. I’m not sure someone who looks older than GLS should be doing that celebration. Me: I bet Drury can give you all the stats of old players who’ve done knee slides. Because he saw all of them. Brother: I hope eventually he starts telling old man stories. Me: But then hilariously the old man stories are really only from the last 30 years because he’s only 54.

30th minute:

Me: ‘Everybody loves a goal from a center half.’ That’s the truth. ‘Because they’re so rare.’ I don’t think you watch enough Chelsea matches, Drury. Brother: What are you talking about? He’s seen every Chelsea match. Me: I hope he’s one of those people with a minute recall of everything in his life and the stats he comes up with are not from the researchers, but he’s just generating them on his own. Brother: Twenty years from now: Remember that time you guys said I was 85 on August 14, 2022? Fuck you guys.

[nothing-ventured]

(1/2) My Lady, I have landed myself in a right and proper pickle and I'm begging for your help! A fortnight ago I and some fellows and ladies of my acquaintance attended a truly atrocious performance at Drury Lane, and addled by the profound dullness of the spectacle, I proclaimed that I can and shall write better play. For how hard can it be, if the gentlefolk of our city already pay to see such thickheaded, pointless ramblings?

(2/2) Well, very hard, as it turns out! My friends took me on my word and a date was set upon which I would present them with the completed piece; and I haven't even a title for it yet! I have but a few days left! What am I to do?             

Alas! Your predicament is more common than you might think. However, as all clouds have silver linings, the absolute hordes of young ladies and gentlemen who have made similar bets have spawned a trade that serves just your needs. I will include a list of names of discreet authors down on their luck who will pen you a piece in record time. I believe one of them is known to have completed a manuscript in a single day!

However, should you feel pressed by your conscience to complete a play yourself, I have it on the very best authority--a young lady authoress who shall remain anonymous--that the task can be done within a few days. What is required is

a) a subject upon which one is passionate and knowledgeable;b) a structure, which ought to be the first thing written, outlining in great detail the events of the play; andc) a great quantity of coffee, for the writing out of said structure.

Whichever route you choose to attempt, I wish you the very best of luck, and hope this will prevent you taking any such silly bets in the future. Unless, of course, either your friends or the play is particularly irritating!

[mitchbeck]

CANTLON'S CORNER: FOGARTY NAMED 12TH WOLF PACK CAPTAIN AND HE'S READY TO LEAD

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings HARTFORD, CT - For Steven Fogarty, being named the team captain for the Hartford Wolf Pack was a very high honor that left him both humbled and a bit surprised. “I didn’t expect it really. I've been here for four years and I’ve seen the ups and downs. I’m just being one of the older guys, I have always taken pride in being a leader.  We have a fresh new group here, and I’m very excited. I’m not the most vocal guy. I will say something when it needs to be said. I met with Boo (Nieves) and Lindy (Ryan Lindgren) (who were both named assistant captains). I think we're gonna have a very strong leadership group here,” Fogarty said. Lindgren is quite the loquacious player. If Fogarty isn't going to be vocal it's a pretty good bet that Lindgren will. “He’s got a pretty good set of pipes,” Fogarty said with a laugh. However, for the Wolf Pack, over the past few years, being named the captain has been a kiss of death. The preceding four were all traded during the season, something Fogarty is fully aware of. “Well, it was in the back of my mind,“ Fogarty smiled and chuckled acknowledging the obvious, “No, I’m not worried about that.” The Rangers have addressed a multitude of changes all throughout the first training camp of the "John Davidson Era," was kicked off. “We met with the coaches and asked everyone to embrace the change. It’s a whole new staff and a lot of other changes. We're starting over. I really got to see that in camp.” The offensive depth is palpable with the team. ‘We have some tremendous depth up-front and a lot of pieces from veterans like Danny (O’Regan) and Phil (Di Giuseppe), younger players with strong credentials; it’s the best depth we have had here. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun,” Fogarty said. He signed a one year deal last spring. The new Wolf Pack head coach, Kris Knoblauch, was effusive in his praise of Fogarty and spoke of the collective organizational input on the selection process. “I knew some things about Steven, but Jeff (Gorton), Chris (Drury) and Jed (Ortmeyer) and others filled me in about Steven, and what David (Quinn) saw of him in Rangers camp. For me, my interactions have been solid and matched up with everything that I heard that there was no better qualified to handle the captaincy.” Having a new staff takes some adjustment for everybody. “All of them have different levels of experience, but at the end of the day, you have to execute the systems in place. They’re to help us play the right way. The more eyes and expertise you can bring the better we can be. They brought in a lot more people to the organization to try to make us successful and hold us accountable. Players have to take advantage of it.” The recent cycle for Wolf Pack Nation over the past five years hasn’t been very good. Fogarty recognizes that and has an antidote for it. ‘Winning can take care of a lot things and solves a lot of issues. It boosts confidence. You're excited to come to the rink. It helps everything. It’s our main goal to play the right way. Everything will take care of itself. A winning culture takes care of a lot of problems." KRAVTSOV AFFAIR There's an early piece of drama for the Wolf Pack. It was astonishing that Vitali Kravtsov was benched. Maybe at game 10, 20, or in game 30, it could be understood, but game one, in the second period was extraordinarily unusual. He earned the benching and might be embarrassed , but that's the intention of a benching. The new head coach has 19 other players he has to handle and on the first night of game-play, he has to show he's in control of the team. It’s clear that with Drury present, he was given full discretion to do this. This was about more than just his indifferent play at the end of camp, but also in the pre-season game in Bridgeport and the first period against Charlotte. What is possibly fueling this during the negotiations between the New York Rangers and his agents were the promises made for him to come to North America. Clearly, he was hoping he would be playing in the NHL in New York, but he demoted and assigned here. This will require getting things smoothed out. While Kravtsov signed a standard NHL entry-level deal, he does have a European out-clause that could allow him to return to the KHL in Russia and Traktor Chelyabinsk who still hold his rights. When that clause can be activated and what conditions allow it to be invoked specifically are unknown. In addition, he is still WJC eligible. It would seem likely that he would be allowed to play for Russia at the WJC in December in the Czech Republic. The NHL and Russian Ice Hockey Federation do not have a formal transfer agreement. There was one piece of news that could be an inducement for Kravtsov to stay was the trade of Vladimir Namestnikov to the Ottawa Stars for New Jersey-born defenseman, Nick Ebert, who played one game in Belleville and has been assigned to Hartford. There could be a roster slot open in New York for a revitalized Kravtsov with some strong AHL play, possibly over the next couple of weeks. In a worst-case scenario, if he did go back, a la Ilya Kovalchuk when he left the Devils for the KHL, the NHL teams holds his rights until the end of his initially signed contract. Those rights could be traded. Kovalchuk was different because he turned 35 and was a free-agent who eventually signed with LA. Also, another possibility is that he could come back after the season in the KHL was over. It is likely to be worked out the Rangers who drafted him. Obviously he is very highly regarded and an important asset in bringing a competitive team to Broadway that can compete for the Stanley Cup, and that is the number one priority. The story of Ryan Poehling, now in Laval, should be conveyed to him. Poehling had a great WJC tournament last year and had a dream NHL first game on the last night of last year’s regular season against Toronto. Poehling had a hat trick, and five points including scoring the game-winning shootout goal. He had a strong camp for the Montreal Canadiens. Poehling is in Laval working on his craft and will be at the Bell Centre in the very near future. If Kravtsov lights things up in Hartford, he too will be at MSG among the bright lights soon enough. The Ebert addition to the Hartford d-corps forced the reassignment of Brandon Crawley, who was scratched along with Jeff Taylor last weekend for both games, to the Maine Mariners. The Rangers are already planning the Wolf Pack's 2020-21 roster. They signed defenseman Matthew Robinson to a three-year entry level deal. He had a strong training camp before being reassigned back to his junior team, the Edmonton Oil Kings (WHL). Ex-Pack, Conor Allen, has signed with HK Hradec Kravlove (Czech Republic-CEL) for the year. Ex-Pack, Corey Locke, who retired after the pre-season with HC Dynamo Pardubice (Czech Republic-CEL), has been named an assistant coach with Guelph (OHL) whose associate head coach is ex-Pack, Chad Wiseman. Locke becomes the 88th former Wolf Pack player to be involved in hockey as a coach, GM, or as a scout. Three former coaches are still behind the bench while three others are scouts. Read the full article

[goldmerryi]

This is the same handicapper who hit the Oaks-Derby double at Churchill

If Tiz the Law is to become the 14th winner of horse racing’s Triple Crown, he’ll have to follow an unprecedented passage after winning the Belmont Stakes regarding speaking June 20. With the pandemic pushing the 2020 Kentucky Derby to September 5, making it the Kentucky Derby 2020 Live Free second jewel this year, trainer Barclay Tagg will have to run a layoff of ably on depth of two months in the middle of the major races. Early signs lessening to him supervision in the 2020 Travelers Stakes concerning Aug. 8 as a sky-up, but plans enormously could regulate as the 2020 Kentucky Derby arena continues to materialize.

The yet to be 2020 Kentucky Derby odds list Tiz the Law as the 7–2 favorite to win the Run for the Roses. Other 2020 Kentucky Derby contenders pin Belmont Stakes entrants Dr Post (15–1) and Sole Volante (25–1), as adeptly as Triple Crown newcomers along along surrounded by Honor A.P. (5–1) and Authentic (8–1). Before making any horse racing predictions, you’ll twinge to see the latest 2020 Kentucky Derby picks from SportsLine’s Jody Demling.

A fixture in the horse racing world who has been writing roughly, talking roughly and betting in financial credit to races for years, Demling enters the 2020 Kentucky Derby as regards a major heater vis — vis his horse racing picks. He has the picked the winner in six straight races: the Saudi Cup, Gotham Stakes, Rebel Stakes, Louisiana Derby, Florida Derby and Belmont Stakes. At the Belmont, the first Triple Crown race of 2020, Demling called Tiz the Law the class of the showground and he pulled away for a convincing victory.

This is the same handicapper who hit the Oaks-Derby double at Churchill Downs nine become pass in the last 11 years. That means he held a ticket subsequent to the winners of both the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby approaching twice in his last 11 tries. Anyone who has followed him is mannerism happening.

A three-year-early son of Uncle Mo, King Guillermo appears safely in the 2020 Kentucky Derby sports ground based going on for his 90 qualifying points and №5 ranking regarding the Road to the Kentucky Derby. King Guillermo’s victory in the Tampa Bay Derby, in which he defeated Sole Volante by 4 3/4 lengths, came in the look of a layoff of more than three months. However, Demling believes King Guillermo’s four-month layoff is “not ideal” and doesn’t make aware including the horse in your 2020 Kentucky Derby bets.

Another shocker: Demling is high on Cezanne, even though he’s a 30–1 long shot in the latest Kentucky Derby odds 2020. He’s a goal for anyone looking for a vast payday. The $3.65 million get your hands on is loaded back potential and has the advantage of swine trained by the legendary Bob Baffert.

Baffert has trained five Kentucky Derby winners, including Triple Crown winners American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018. Baffert won’t be in the Triple Crown conversation this year after two of his summit contenders, Nadal and Charlatan, both had to slip out of the Belmont due to insult. But Cezanne is one of his 2020 Kentucky Derby contenders to child support an eye re after he won what Demling called a “dazzling” race in his maiden at Santa Anita regarding speaking June 6, appropriately confidently gain him in your 2020 Kentucky Derby bets.

The road to the 2020 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve has, due to a global public health crisis, stretched out through the summer and widened considerably. With the Derby rescheduled to Sept. 5 at Churchill Downs, the pool of potential contenders to create the 20-horse starting log on now welcomes late-developing types to colleague the horses that have already won major preps and earned qualifying points.

The bookmakers at William Hill continue to designate on conclusive-odds complex wagers on the subject of the subject of Kentucky Derby 146 and, as in years p.s. in this blog, well agreement a periodic see at William Hills higher-photo album odds and profile some of the contenders.

The substantially revised Road to the Kentucky prep season is coming into focus after a historic begin to the Triple Crown in the 152ndBelmont Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets more or less June 20. Tiz the Law solidified his status as the leading Kentucky Derby contender by winning the first (yet anomalous to type that) leg of the Triple Crown in dominant fashion.

Several qualifying preps for the Kentucky Derby are concerning tap for July, starting on the order of Independence Day taking into account the Los Alamitos Derby, followed hurriedly by the Indiana Derby as regards July 8 and later the points-proficiently-to-reach Toyota Blue Grass Stakes just roughly July 11, which is share of choice unprecedented racing matter in 2020: Keenelands summer meet.

In supplement to the Vegas futures, Churchill Downs conducted substitute Derby Future Wager pool from June 26–28. Tiz the Law led all individual horses not speaking of 2–1 after that the pool closed, taking into account Honor A. P. second at 6–1. The mutuel arena ranked third estranged of 8–1. Churchill Downs will have the funds for two more Kentucky Derby in the estrange away-off ahead pools, from July 17–19 and from Aug. 7–9.

Several weeks ago, Kentucky Derby watchers were poring more than the credentials of Bob Baffert-trained buzz horse Cezanne after he won by an impressive 2 lengths in his debut occurring for speaking June 6 at Santa Anita Park. Now, yet choice Baffert warfare has emerged to put occurring to reload the two-time Triple Crown-winning trainers arsenal for the Kentucky Derby. Uncle Chuck made his first begin upon June 12 going a two-slant mile at Santa Anita and overpowering four opponents, taking command yet to be in the first incline and drawing flattering of the auditorium in the second slope en route to a seven-length malingerer.

The son of champion Uncle Mo is owned by Karl Watson, Mike Pegram, and Paul Weitman, who have had much realization taking into consideration Baffert in years then, McKinzie mammal a notable recent example. Uncle Chuck is out of the Unbridleds Song mare Forest Music, who won two graded stakes during her racing days and with placed in two Grade 1 stakes. She did her best giving out at sprint distances, but shes with produced two graded stakes-winning foals one of which, Electric Forest, took last years Hilliard Lyons-Baird Doubledogdare Stakes at Keeneland going 1 1/16 miles. Forest Music furthermore produced Macleans Music, who lonesome raced following (earning a 114 Beyer Speed Figure) but has made some noise as a stallion, siring 2017 Preakness Stakes winner Cloud Computing.

Uncle Chuck is nominated to Saturdays Los Alamitos Derby which offers 20 Kentucky Derby points to the winner along furthermore three into the future payment Baffert-trained 3-year-olds. None of them are Cezanne; that colt will create his second begin in a two-tilt, one-mile portion optional claiming race at Los Al upon Thursday, July 2. Uncle Chuck is offered at 15–1 odds upon William Hills June 28 sheet, and Cezanne sits at 22–1 odds.

Will they be going on to respected replacements for Nadal and Charlatan? I have my doubts but to paraphrase D. Wayne Lukas, this pair will meet the expense of some facts totally soon. (UPDATE: Cezanne won the maintenance race upon July 2 by 1 lengths and earned a 106 Equibase Speed Figure. Bob Baffert said subsequent to that Cezanne would neighboring race in a stakes, but had not yet unchangeable which one to viewpoint in the coming weeks. As for Uncle Chuck, he posted his second win in as may starts in the July 4 Los Alamitos Derby, outfinishing stablemate and compound graded stakes winner Thousand Words despite nevertheless showing inexperience in the stretch and not changing leads.

This Bernardini colt made his first three starts last decrease upon turf, winning at Kentucky Downs and giving out seventh in a Grade 3 at Keeneland for trainer Joe Sharp, but was later switched to dirt at the subside of 2019. He made two starts to unventilated out the year, and took the second of those a six-furlong race by an eye-catching 7 lengths, unaided to be highly developed disqualified due to a drug forgive.

Resurfacing this year and staying upon dirt for trainer Tom Drury Jr., Art Collector shone during Churchill Downs truncated spring-summer meet, winning a seven-furlong maintenance optional claiming race by 2 lengths and moreover a 1 1/16-mile part optional claimer (his first two-slant dirt race) by 6 lengths. Art Collectors dam, the Distorted Humor mare Distorted Legacy, won a stakes race upon dirt at 1 1/16 miles and over and finished in the middle of second to peak-class turf mare Stacelita upon grass in the Grade 1 Flower Bowl Invitational Stakes at 1 miles. There are several stakes-winning route horses deeper in this colts female bloodline, which may have an involve upon his current 30–1 odds upon William Hills sheet. Look for this intriguing runner to create his taking into account begin in the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland a week from Saturday.

The Japanese Road to the Kentucky Derby series gained some high regard last year as well as than Master Fencer shipped stateside and ran a respectable sixth in the Kentucky Derby and fifth in the Belmont Stakes. Cafe Pharoah is the leader accompanied by this years society of Japan-based contenders, having won each and every one one three of this starts including two Kentucky Derby qualifying races by perspective lengths and quantity 70 points. In his most recent begin, the June 21 Unicorn Stakes at Tokyo Racecourse (view out cold), he ran bearing in mind an even-money favorite in a 16-horse arena should, breaking from the far outdoor and patiently down occurring to sit just bearing in mind the leader through the far slant, and moreover drawing off in in encourage stretch upon his codicils cue to win the in the region of one-mile race by five lengths.

This Kentucky-bred is a son of 2015 Triple Crown and Breeders Cup Classic winner American Pharoah, and he has some oomph in his dams (mothers) pedigree, too. Hes out of the More Than Ready mare Marys Follies, who won two graded stakes upon turf going two turns. Shes produced two graded stakes winners in the U.S. to date, including current East Coast-based runner Regal Glory, who captured two turf graded stakes races last year at a mile or longer and was recently fourth in last weeks Grade 1 Just a Game Stakes.

As of this writing, Cafe Pharoah is not stated to begin in the July 8 Japan Dirt Derby, the realize points race in the Japanese series. Hes sitting at 35–1 odds upon William Hills sheet, but interestingly closed at 14–1 odds in Churchill Downs recently completed Future Wager pool.

[mikemortgage]

Town by town, local journalism is dying in plain sight

WAYNESVILLE, Mo. — Five minutes late, Darrell Todd Maurina sweeps into a meeting room and plugs in his laptop computer. He places a Wi-Fi hotspot on the table and turns on a digital recorder. The earplug in his left ear is attached to a police scanner in his pants pocket.

He wears a tie; Maurina insists upon professionalism.

He is the press — in its entirety.

Maurina, who posts his work to Facebook, is the only person who has come to the Pulaski County courthouse to tell residents what their commissioners are up to, the only one who will report on their deliberations — specifically, their discussions about how to satisfy the Federal Emergency Management Agency so it will pay to repair a road inundated during a 2013 flood.

Last September, Waynesville became a statistic. With the shutdown of its newspaper, the Daily Guide, this town of 5,200 people in central Missouri’s Ozark hills joined more than 1,400 other cities and towns across the U.S. to lose a newspaper over the past 15 years, according to an Associated Press analysis of data compiled by the University of North Carolina.

Blame revenue siphoned by online competition, cost-cutting ownership, a death spiral in quality, sheer disinterest among readers or reasons peculiar to given locales for that development. While national outlets worry about a president who calls the press an enemy of the people, many Americans no longer have someone watching the city council for them, chronicling the soccer exploits of their children or reporting on the kindly neighbour who died of cancer.

Local journalism is dying in plain sight.

——

A rock outcropping painted by a local tattoo artist to resemble a frog greets visitors who follow the old Route 66 into Waynesville. Along with its sister city St. Robert, the military towns are dominated by the nearby Fort Leonard Wood, which has kept the county’s population steadily around 50,000 for the past decade.

Five of Waynesville’s eight city council members are former military, and Mayor Luge Hardman says the meetings run efficiently as a result.

“This is a small town where you can be from somewhere else and not feel like an outsider,” said Kevin Hillman, Pulaski County prosecuting attorney.

The Daily Guide, which traces to 1962, was a family owned paper into the 1980s before it was sold to a series of corporate owners that culminated with GateHouse Media Inc., the nation’s largest newspaper company. Five of the 10 largest media companies are owned by hedge funds or other investors with several unrelated holdings, and GateHouse is among them.

GateHouse and another company, Digital First Media, follow a strategy of aggressive cost-cutting without making significant investments in newsrooms, said Penelope Muse Abernathy, a University of North Carolina professor who studies news industry trends. But all newspaper owners face a brutal reality that calls into question whether it’s an economically sustainable model anymore unless, like the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, the boss is the world’s richest man.

That’s especially true in smaller communities.

“They’re getting eaten away at every level,” said Ken Doctor, a news industry analyst at Harvard’s Nieman Lab.

Newspaper circulation in the U.S. has declined every year for three decades, while advertising revenue has nosedived since 2006, according to the Pew Research Center. Staffing at newspapers large and small has followed that grim trendline: Pew says the number of reporters, editors, photographers and other newsroom employees in the industry fell by 45 per cent nationwide between 2004 and 2017.

In the mid-1990s, when former Daily Guide publisher Tim Berrier was replaced, the newspaper had a news editor, sports editor, photographer and two reporters on staff. Along with traditional community news, the Daily Guide covered the Army’s decision to move its chemical warfare training facility to Fort Leonard Wood in the 1990s, and a flood that swept a mother and son to their deaths in 2013.

As recently as 2010, the Daily Guide had four full-time news people, along with a page designer and three ad salespeople.

But people left and weren’t replaced. Last spring, the Daily Guide was cut from five to three days a week. In June, the last newsroom staffer, editor Natalie Sanders, quit — she was burned out, she said. She made a bet with the only other full-time employee, ad sales person Tiffany Baker, over when the newspaper would close. Sanders said three years; Baker said one.

The last edition was published three months later, on Sept. 7.

“It felt like an old friend died,” Sanders said. “I sat and I cried, I really did. Because being the editor of the Daily Guide was all I wanted for a really long time.”

The death of the Daily Guide raises questions not easily answered, the same ones asked at newspapers big and small across the country.

Did GateHouse stop investing because people were less interested in reading the paper? Berrier said about 3,600 copies of the Daily Guide were printed in the mid-1990s. At the end, GateHouse was printing 675 copies a day.

Or did people lose interest because the lack of investment made it a less satisfying read?

“As the paper declined and got smaller and smaller, I felt that there wasn’t as much information that really made it worthwhile, so I did eventually stop” subscribing, said Keith Carnahan, senior pastor at Maranatha Baptist Church in St. Robert.

Berrier blames GateHouse, who he said “set the Daily Guide up to fail.” Others are less sure. Sanders, the former editor, and Joel Goodridge, another former publisher, blame both GateHouse and the community for not supporting the paper.

Goodridge said some businesses found they could advertise much more cheaply in free circulars dumped at local stores. He now works at a college in the nearby town of Rolla. His job at the Daily Guide was eliminated during the relentless downturn.

“When I first got into the newspaper business, it was intriguing, rewarding and I felt like I was doing something more than generating profits,” Goodridge said. “I felt like I was doing something for the community. As the years went by, it changed.”

GateHouse said the Daily Guide, like many smaller newspapers across the country, was hurt by a dwindling advertising market among national retailers. The paper supplemented its income through outside printing jobs, but those dried up, too, said Bernie Szachara, president of U.S. newspaper operations for GateHouse.

Given an unforgiving marketplace, there’s no guarantee additional investment in the paper would have paid off, he said. Szachara said the decision was made to include some news about Waynesville in a weekly advertising circular distributed around Pulaski County.

“We were trying not to create a ghost town,” he said.

——

Residents of Waynesville are coming to grips with what is missing in their lives.

“Losing a newspaper,” said Keith Pritchard, 63, chairman of the board at the Security Bank of Pulaski County and a lifelong resident, “is like losing the heartbeat of a town.”

Pritchard has scrapbooks of news clippings about his three daughters; Katie was a basketball player of some renown at Drury University. He wonders: How will young families collect such memories?

The local state representative, Steve Lynch, would routinely cut out a story about people recognized in the paper, add a personal note, laminate it and send it to them — a savvy goodwill exercise.

Historians worry about what is lost to future generations. Many of the displays in a small museum of local history in St. Robert are stories retrieved from newspapers.

Residents talk with dismay about church picnics or school plays they might have attended but only learn of through Facebook postings after the fact.

“I miss the newspaper, the chance to sit down over a cup of coffee and a bagel or a doughnut … and find out what’s going on in the community,” said Bill Slabaugh, a retiree. Now he talks to friends and “candidly, for the most part, I’m ignorant.”

Slabaugh acknowledges some complicity in the Daily Guide’s demise. He said he angrily stopped buying the paper when it wrote about a drag show at a local community centre.

Beyond the emotions are practical concerns about the loss of an information source. The bank routinely checked the Daily Guide’s obituaries to protect against fraud; Pritchard said you’d be surprised by family members who try to clean out the accounts of a recently-deceased relative.

At a time when journalists and police are often at odds, it’s somewhat startling to hear local law enforcement unanimously express dismay at the loss of a newspaper.

Like many communities, Waynesville is struggling with a drug problem. The nearby interstate is an easy supply line for opioids and meth, police say. The four murders in Waynesville last year were the most in memory, and all were drug-related.

For painful, personal reasons, Pulaski County Sheriff Jimmy Bench wishes the Daily Guide was there to report on the December death of his 31-year-old son, Ryan, due to a heroin overdose. It would have been better than dealing with whispers and Twitter.

“Social media is so cruel sometimes,” Bench said.

Without a newspaper’s reporting, Police Chief Dan Cordova said many in the community are unaware of the extent of the problem. Useful information, like a spate of robberies in one section of town, goes unreported. Social media is a resource, but Cordova is concerned about not reaching everyone.

Local authorities still write news releases and, in the final days of the Daily Guide, the overworked staff often printed them verbatim — even giving front-page bylines to the marketing director for the Waynesville School District.

“I thought it was great,” said Waynesville School Superintendent Brian Henry, later adding: “Nobody’s really stepped in and filled exactly what we had with our newspaper.”

Posting press releases to official Facebook pages isn’t quite the same. County coroner Nick Pappas said readers are more suspicious of news releases than they would be of a fully reported news story.

“I’m not going to put out anything critical of myself out there,” said Hillman, the prosecuting attorney who just started his third term in the elective office. “I mean, that’s the truth. What politician is?”

——

This isn’t a hopeless story.

Dotted across the country are exceptions to the brutal new rule, newspapers that are surviving with creative business plans. In North Carolina’s Moore County, owners support the 100-year-old Pilot with revenue raised by side businesses — lifestyle magazines, electronic newsletters, telephone directories, a video production company and a bookstore.

Philanthropy is supporting other efforts to fill gaps created by journalism’s business struggles. Report for America, which sees itself as a Peace Corps for journalists, has sent young reporters into communities in Mississippi, Texas and elsewhere. It has relationships with newsrooms across the country, including The Associated Press. The American Journalism Project is raising money to fund local news, and recently announced $42 million in pledges.

What this effort means for Waynesville, and many small towns like it, remains to be seen.

It briefly had an alternative after the Daily Guide folded. A local businessman, Louie Keen, bankrolled a newspaper, the Uranus Examiner, that was delivered for free. The paper had some journalistic spunk, revealing that the Waynesville mayor had blocked some residents from seeing her postings on the city’s Facebook site. Mayor Hardman said it was inadvertent and quickly corrected.

The paper lasted five issues. Named for the tourist complex Keen owns, he said the Uranus Examiner was shunned by local advertisers because he used to own a strip club and uses sophomoric jokes to promote his businesses.

So Waynesville and St. Robert are left with Darrell Todd Maurina’s Facebook site, which he calls the Pulaski County Daily News.

A former Army civilian public affairs officer who worked at the Daily Guide in the 2000s, Maurina posts live from community meetings, reports on accidents on the nearby interstate and publishes obituaries. It’s meat-and-potatoes local news.

When he’s not at meetings, he works from a windowless office in the basement of his home. Court documents and papers are piled on the floor and coffee table near a police radio scanner, fax machine and television. On his desk are a well-worn Bible, small American flag and a signed photograph of President Gerald Ford thanking Maurina’s father for his support.

Maurina typically is awake before 5 a.m. to check the local radio station, if the scanner hasn’t roused him earlier.

“I really believe that as large newspaper chains cut staff of small newspapers, and small newspapers wither and die, that’s going to cause major problems in communities,” he said. “Somebody needs to pick up the slack and, at least in this community, I’m able to do that.”

Maurina’s efforts have some support, even from the city councilman who said he once threatened to throw Maurina out a window over a disagreement about a story.

“He’s an equal opportunity agitator,” said Ed Conley, another council member. “He tries to be fair, and to be honest about it, he does a good job, but he’s just one person and he’s limited by social media.”

Maurina declines to share many details about the finances for his online site. He also acknowledges some holes in his coverage, especially of sports.

For local athletics, some people turn instead to a Facebook site run by Allen Hilliard, a former Daily Guide stringer and school bus driver who has been posting photos, videos and newsletters about local youth and high school teams. Hilliard isn’t making much money from his time-consuming hobby, but like Maurina, he takes pride in providing a community service.

“If I quit doing it, then essentially there would be no (sports) coverage of anyone,” he said.

Maurina says he knows journalists need to go back to the basics to survive –or revive — in small-town America.

“We need to go back to what was done in the late 1800s — being everywhere at every event, telling everyone what the sirens were about last night,” he said.

Good idea. Who’s going to pay for it?

——

Associated Press Business writer Alexandra Olson in New York and video journalist Peter Banda, from Waynesville, contributed to this report.

——

Follow Dave Bauder at https://twitter.com/dbauder and David A. Lieb at https://twitter.com/DavidALieb

Moving for Sunshine Week, held annually to highlight journalism’s role in fighting for government transparency.

from Financial Post https://ift.tt/2Jh983p via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

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David Hopkin steps down as Bradford City boss after just SIX months

David Hopkin steps down on Bradford City boss after only sixty months leading

David Hopkin leaves after 3-2 League One-defeat in Walsall on Saturday

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[bewerken] [bewerken] External links [bewerken] External links Wikipedia Wikipedia has an article about: Midfielder leaves with the club as second from the bottom and three points of safety

Phil Casey for Mailonline

Published: 10:15 GMT, February 25, 2019 | Updated: 10:29 GMT, February 25, 2019

David Hopkin is the Bradford manager after only six months responsible for the Sky Bet League One side.

Saturday's 3-2 defeat in Walsall left the Bantams 23rd in the table, three AFC Wimbledon

Hopkin said in a statement: "I'm disappointed, but find that the time is ripe is for me to step aside and allow someone to come in and try to keep the club in League One.

<! –

League One

Premier League

Championship

League One

League Two

Scottish premiere

Scottish Div 1

Scottish Div 2

Scottish Div 3

League 1

Series A

La Liga

Bundesliga

& # 39; I have given everything in the past six months.

& # 39; The club means a lot to me, as a former player, and that's why I made this decision – with a quarter of the remaining season.

& # 39; I would like to take this opportunity to thank the incredible Bradford City fans. This was a very difficult season for everyone involved and they showed me a lot of support. I wish the club the very best for the future. "

Interim-chef Julian Rhodes added:" Our thanks goes out to David, who has taken great pains since he took over the helm last year

& # 39; I know how hard he has worked, in extremely difficult circumstances, and he leaves with great respect and on behalf of everyone in the club we wish David and his family the very best for the future. "

Martin Drury is installed as manager of the attendant for Saturday's game against Portsmouth and will be assisted by Anton McElhone

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My Favorite AOM Podcast Interviews This Year (So Far)

Over the years doing the AOM podcast, I’ve had the chance to talk to hundreds of writers, scholars, and experts from a wide variety of fields and walks of life. The goal of the podcast is the same as the website: to provide information to help men live a well-rounded and flourishing life. Episodes explore how to live a life of both contemplation and action, while having some fun along the way. The show topics cover everything from history and philosophy, to social/professional skills, to parenting, to self-defense and physical training/fitness, to pop culture and literature.

While I’ve enjoyed talking to all my guests, below I highlight my personal favorites so far this year. They’re not in any particular order. If you haven’t listened to the podcast yet, the episodes below will give you a good idea of what you’ve been missing out on. Listen to a few (or all) of them and then subscribe using your podcast player of choice. I’d love to have you join in on my conversations with some really interesting folks.

And if you’ve been listening to the podcast for awhile now, I’d appreciate it if you could give us a review on iTunes or whatever podcast platform you use. It’s a fantastic way to support the show and help other people discover it.

The Era of Bright Expectations

After WWII and before the Korean War, America experienced a short period free from the fear of war and conflict. People were optimistic about a future of peace and plenty. My guest in this episode, Earle Labor, calls this time the “era of bright expectations.” He experienced it firsthand as a young man who had just graduated from college, and shares his remembrances of the period in his book, The Far Music. The era’s burgeoning sense of optimism inspired him and a few of his college buddies to set out on a road trip up to the Canadian wilds in search of the spirit of romance and adventure. 

Earle had been on the show before to discuss his landmark biography on Jack London, and it’s just really enjoyable to hear Earle reflect on his young manhood.

The Leader’s Bookshelf 

It’s been said “Leaders are readers.” But what should a leader read? Admiral James Stavridis set out to answer that question by polling 4-star generals and admirals in the U.S. military to get their best recommendations. He’s served as the commander of US Southern Command, US European Command, and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe. In his book, The Leader’s Bookshelf, Admiral Stavridis explains why reading is fundamental for all leaders and provides a list of 50 books suggested by senior officers.  

We began our conversation by discussing the culture of reading amongst military officers past and present, including Generals James Mattis and George Patton. Admiral Stavridis then shared tips on how to read more, even with a busy schedule, and how to get more out of your reading. 

How to Increase Your Courage and Bravery 

For thousands of years, philosophers and writers have debated the nature of courage. What is it? Are some people born more courageous than others? Can you learn to be courageous? Robert Biswas-Diener set out to answer these questions in his book The Courage Quotient by looking at courage through a scientific lens. 

In this show, Robert explained how he defined courage for the purpose of his research and how he went about studying and quantifying this quality. He then explained how courage manifests itself differently in cultures of dignity, honor, and face. We then discussed the genetics of courage and how people can learn to be more courageous. Finally, Robert gave brass tacks advice on what you can do to manage fear and increase your propensity to action, including carrying lucky charms, thinking about yourself less, and avoiding self-handicapping. 

How to Lift More, Run Faster, and Endure Longer 

How long can a human run without stopping? What’s the most weight a human can deadlift? Will someone ever run a mile in less than three minutes and thirty seconds?

In this show, Alex Hutchinson and I discussed these questions, which he set out to answer in his book Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance. First we talked about the history of the science of human performance and the three competing theories about how to measure and improve it. We then conversed about the factors that have an influence on our performance including, pain, thirst, muscle strength, diet, and mental fatigue. Then Alex shared insights from the latest research on how you can manipulate those factors to run faster and longer and lift heavier weights. 

What It Really Means to Be Self-Reliant 

When you hear the term “self-reliance,” what do you think of? Living off the grid in a cabin somewhere? Doing everything yourself, and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps?

Do these images get at what it really means to be self-reliant, or is there a deeper and even more profound meaning to be grasped?

Indeed there is, and Kyle Eschenroeder helped us unpack it. We discussed insights from his Pocket Guide to Self-Reliance, including what most people get wrong about self-reliance and how he defines it. We then got into specific tactics you can use to trust yourself more: spending time in solitude, developing an inner scorecard, not seeking advice when you’re first starting a big project, and using intentional introspection. Finally, we discussed how to jive self-reliance with belonging to a community and how to know if you’re becoming a self-reliant man.

The Rise and Fall of the American Heavyweight Boxer

With boxing on the wane in America for the past twenty some odd years, it’s easy to forget how much of a cultural juggernaut it was for much of the 20th century. Boxing was not only a common recreational pastime and athletic pursuit for young men, and a wildly popular spectator sport, it was a metaphor for manhood and other American cultural struggles as well. When two men stepped in the ring, it wasn’t just two men fighting. The bout could become a battle of white vs. black, nativist vs. immigrant, or democracy vs. fascism. 

In this episode, Paul Beston and I talked about his book The Boxing Kings, and legendary fighters like John L. Sullivan, Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, James Braddock, Joe Lewis, Muhammad Ali, and Mike Tyson. Along the way Paul provided insights how each of these heavyweight greats became conflicted symbols of masculinity in America. 

Think Like a Poker Player to Make Better Decisions 

How do you make good decisions in a complex world? Former poker champion Annie Duke suggests thinking like a poker player. She shared insights from her career as a professional poker player on how to make smart decisions in the face of uncertainty. We talked about the role of luck, both good and bad, and then discussed some of the biases that prevent humans from thinking probabilistically. We ended our conversation discussing ideas from her book, Thinking in Bets, about how leaders can use these principles to help the groups they lead make better decisions.

The Incredible True Story of the Renegade WWII Pilots Who Helped Win the War in the Pacific

In 1942, the United States was fighting a war in two major theaters: Europe and the Pacific. But in the early days of WWII, the US and its allies had a “Europe First” strategy which resulted in more troops, supplies, and attention being funneled to that theater. American forces in the Pacific were charged with protecting Australia from Japan, but given scant resources to fulfill that mission. 

But as Bob Drury reveals in his book, Lucky 666, a group of enterprising and rebellious bomber airmen stationed in Papau New Guinea grew tired of playing defense against the Japanese and decided to take the war to the enemy by going on daredevil, near-suicide missions. In this episode, Bob and I discuss the incredible true story of this renegade crew. 

Everything You Need to Know About Diet & Fat Loss

When it comes to fitness and nutrition, the nutrition part can cause a lot of confusion. There’s so much information out there about the best diet to follow and often the advice is contradictory. Robert Santana is a registered dietician and a PhD candidate in exercise and nutrition science. In this show we discussed all things diet and nutrition, beginning with a big picture overview of the three main macronutrients our body uses to function. Robert then debunked a lot of popular ideas people have about nutrition these days as well as the science of fat loss. We ended our conversation discussing my experience in cutting weight, what I eat from day to day, and why trying to get six-pack abs isn’t necessarily a healthy goal. 

Why You Need to Embrace Small Talk

If you’re like a lot of people, engaging in small talk can feel awkward and tedious. Consequently, you avoid it as much as you can. But if you want to get ahead both personally and professionally, you need to embrace these little exchanges. In this episode, Debra Fine, author of The Fine Art of Small Talk, explained why small talk is actually a big deal and isn’t just a waste of saliva. She then shared the biggest obstacles people have to engaging in small talk and the two mindset shifts you need to make to get over those obstacles. We finally discussed specific tactics you can start using today to begin conversations, keep them going, and end them gracefully. 

Should a Man Care About How He Dresses?

To hear a lot of guys tell it, real men don’t care about style. Where did this idea that men don’t care about their appearance come from, has it always been around, and is there validity to it? Tanner Guzy sought answers to these questions in his book, The Appearance of Power. 

In this episode Tanner argues against the idea that real men don’t care about clothes and lays out a case for style being a valid part of masculinity. We discussed why caring about how you dress is typically thought of as effeminate, why men should think of clothes as an amoral tool, and how that tool can be a valuable means towards accomplishing your desired ends. 

How to Overcome Nice Guy Syndrome

We’ve been told since we were little kids to “Be nice.” But what if being nice isn’t really that good and it’s making you and those around you miserable?

That’s the provocative argument Dr. Aziz Gazipura makes in this episode. We began the show by talking about what people think “nice” means, but how it usually plays out in reality. Dr. Aziz then dug into the issues that pop up over and over again in the lives of people pleasers, like anxiety, depression, anger, and resentment. He then shared specific tactics from his book Not Nice that the chronically nice can start using today to be more assertive, like saying no without feeling guilty, getting over feeling responsible for everyone’s feelings, and stating your preferences.

What It Means to Be a Quiet Professional

We live in a time of hype and self-aggrandizement. But in this episode, Rob Shaul, founder and president of the Mountain Tactical Institute, argues that what the world needs more of are quiet professionals — people who’s only focus is to get the job done well. We began by unpacking the foundational definition of a quiet professional, and then Rob walked us through the traits and attributes he thinks one must develop to embody this ideal. 

The post My Favorite AOM Podcast Interviews This Year (So Far) appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

My Favorite AOM Podcast Interviews This Year (So Far) published first on https://mensproblem.tumblr.com

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What We Learned: Puzzling out the Hamilton trade, plus draft grades

A pretty good rule of thumb with any trade is that the team that gets the best player typically wins.

Everyone knows you can’t win without stars, right? And the argument can certainly be made that Dougie Hamilton is probably about a top-10 defenseman in the world. The two guys coming back to Calgary for Hamilton, Micheal Ferland, and star defensive prospect Adam Fox are certainly not on that level.

You can like Noah Hanifin (just 21) as a player with a lot of room for growth. You can like a versatile higher-end forward like Elias Lindholm (just 23) for much the same reason. But you can’t delude yourself into thinking either of them will ever be the kind of contributor that Hamilton is and has been.

Yet the Canadian media started circling the wagons pretty hard in defense of Brad Treliving, whose decision to trade Hamilton is interesting for a lot of reasons. Let’s first take the claims that Hamilton was not well liked in the Flames dressing room, which have been persistent. They were persistent in Boston, too, so maybe he’s just not a “good fit” on teams like this.

Now, because you can’t win without top talent, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for a team like the Flames or Bruins or, say, the Toronto Maple Leafs to bow to the pressure from inside the room. Hamilton would go to museums while the rest of the team went to Cheesecake Factory for lunch, and that was the big problem? Hamitlon got sick of having a hangdog expression every time the goaltending or the Flames’ lack of depth blew another winnable game?

It seems to me that the hegemonic hockey culture might need some fixing if that’s the kind of thing that leads to an irreparable rift, especially in two rooms that would certainly pride themselves on having lots of leadership. If your leaders can’t find a way to make that relationship work for the good of the team, that’s a leadership problem and not an individual problem. Because let’s be honest, the Flames outscored opponents by 13 in all situations when Hamilton was on the ice this season. When he wasn’t on, they got outscored by 45.

This isn’t even a “look at the underlying numbers” argument. This is the definition of “watch the games,” because the Flames were one of the worst teams in the league with Hamilton on the bench even when they had him, so what makes them think trading him is going to work out well?

You can make the argument, I guess, that Hamilton really succeeded in Calgary because he played with a perennial borderline Norris candidate in Mark Giordano, and before that in Boston he played with future Hall of Famer Zdeno Chara. His numbers with both those guys are phenomenal. But both suffer without him; Giordano got badly outscored last season with someone other than Hamilton as his D partner, scoring 25 in almost 525 minutes, but conceding 43. Moreover, Hamilton’s numbers with everyone who isn’t a low-tier NHL defender or worse (i.e. Jyrkki Jokipaka, Kris Russell, or Deryk Engelland) are almost as good as his numbers with elite guys. It’s almost like, I dunno, Hamitlon is a star.

Few are dumb enough to actually argue against Hamitlon as a hockey player, so that’s where the behind-the-scenes shivving comes from. Tale as old as time, in Boston, in Calgary, elsewhere. Not that Hamitlon is joining some kind of burgeoning superteam like Phil Kessel did when he got traded for being the hot dog guy or whatever, but would it surprise anyone in the world if the Hurricanes have more success than the Flames next season?

Because Hanifin looks good at 21, has a nice draft pedigree for himself, but what do you think his ceiling is? It’s almost certainly not “top-10 defenseman in the world,” which is what the Flames just gave up. And they’ve already said they’re putting TJ Brodie back with Giordano, then partnering Hanifin with Travis Hamonic. I’m interested to see how that works out in much the same way I am interested in NASCAR races for the crashes.

Hamilton, meanwhile, has the potential to turn Jaccob Slavin into a borderline All-Star.

The real key to this trade, then, seems to be the decision to swap out Ferland, who used a favorable deployment on the Gaudreau/Monahan line and a high shooting percentage to net 20-plus goals this season, for Lindholm. I think you could pick any random fan out of the opening-night crowd and have that person put up 17-18-35 over 82 games with Gaudreau and Monahan (and hell, the Flames were probably two failed right wings away from trying it). But Lindholm is indeed a top-six winger-slash-center and that’s something Calgary needed badly. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Ferland turn back into a pumpkin away from two higher-end talents, but maybe Carolina can find a buyer who doesn’t understand how shooting percentage regression works. (Dale Tallon on line 1?)

The Adam Fox throw-in is just that. Calgary needed to make that deal because it was pretty apparent that Fox intends to stay at Harvard for at least one more season and had no desire to sign with the Flames.

Let’s break the trade down this way: Carolina got a star who makes just about everyone around him better — but also has interests outside of hockey, golf, and going to the Tilted Kilt 40 times a year — plus a decent bottom-six forward they might try to flip, and the rights to a nice prospect they may or may not be able to sign. Calgary got two complementary players who have room to grow but will likely never be impact players independent of other stars.

There is, of course, a chance that Hanifin and Lindholm combined contribute more than Hamilton and Ferland. But I wouldn’t bet too much on that.

In the end, if you don’t have a good amount of elite talent, you don’t win much in the NHL. So maybe if your elite talent is a little outside the norm of how hockey traditionally operates, you should do what you can to accommodate those players rather than ostracize them. Stars are exceptionally rare and must be guarded jealously.

If nothing else, it saves the Calgary media from having to spin another inadvisable trade to a fanbase that already has plenty of reason to be skeptical of this front office.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: Apparently Isac Lundestrom is fairly NHL-ready, maybe a year or so away. I don’t know that this fact helps them all that much because they probably have, like, a year or two left of this team being any good — especially up front — but they did what they could picking 23rd. The rest of the picks, they got some value, but this team has immediate needs. B-

Arizona Coyotes: I doooooo nooooooooooooooot understand the Barrett Hayton pick. Filip Zadina was right there! I guess Hayton’s a center but most draft boards would have put him in the late teens or early 20s at most. At five? C’mon man! But they drafted the English kid in the seventh round so, stiff upper lip then. D+

Boston Bruins: Apparently people like the Jakub Lauko pick but he was a third-round choice and, more importantly, the Bruins’ big target this weekend went to LA instead. Don Sweeney’s gonna be scrambling to get stuff done this week, and he’s working from a disadvantage now. C-

Buffalo Sabres: The Sabres finally have a good defenseman! And made a few other good picks including Matej Pekar and Linus Lindstrang Cronholm. Hard to line up against this draft, to be honest, except to say a team like this should be making more than six picks. A

Calgary Flames: When you don’t pick until the fourth round and you trade away an elite player, that’s bad, to me. F

Carolina Hurricanes: Much like the Sabres, they had a tap-in pick to make and made it. Jack Drury seems like he’s gonna be a decent college player at the very least (and he’s going to the program that recently produced NHLers like Jimmy Vesey, Alex Kerfoot, and Ryan Donato). Plus they got a top-flight defenseman. A

Chicago: Pretty easy to like the draft they turned in here. Boqvist is gonna be a player, and Jake Wise looks like great value where they got him. Plus, y’know, if you pick four times in the first 74 picks, you’re in good shape. B+

Colorado Avalanche: I’m not totally sure I get why they needed another goalie but the value is there with Gruabauer for a second and some dead cap space. That’s what teams like Colorado should absolutely be doing with their cap space all the time; get good players for nothing. Anyway, Martin Kaut, alright fine, that’s a safe pick. B-

Columbus Blue Jackets: Like Colorado, they probably made a too-safe pick in the first round but I think that’s mostly fine because this is a win-now kinda team, especially if they gotta start trading talent for fear of not being able to retain them long-term, so whatever. C-

Dallas Stars: I like that Adam Mascherin pick. He should not have been there in the fourth round but he’s 5-foot-9 so that explains everything. He’s one of two 5-foot-9 guys the Stars drafted. But to even it out, they took a guy who’s 6-foot-8 and two who are 6-foot-4. C

Detroit Red Wings: To get Zadina at 6 when he should have been gone at 3? That’s very good. To get Veleno at 30 when he should have been gone in the mid-teens? That’s great. To get a Lowell guy at 81? That’s genius! (Also of note: I don’t get the Xavier Ouellett buyout at all.) A+++++

Edmonton Oilers: Evan Bouchard at 10, maybe a little bit of value there since I mostly saw him listed in the 6-8 range. But that Ryan McLeod pick at 40 seems like it could be a real smart one. He’s one of those protypical “first-round talents available in the second round” that GMs always talk about to reassure fans that their picks are actually good. B+

Florida Panthers: This kinda felt like a whole draft of playing it safe. Which, I don’t understand that organizational philosophy since this team needs higher-end talent to take a step. Then again, Florida is good at finding talent in the draft, generally speaking, so I’ll give them a little bit of the benefit of the doubt here. C+

Los Angeles Kings: The guys they picked this year are largely immaterial because they got Ilya Kovalchuk and, in doing so, prevented a few teams in their division from doing so instead. Pretty good! B

Minnesota Wild: That Filip Johansson pick was a huge reach at 24. An almost “what are you DOING?” pick. But Jack McBain might really turn into something. Puts it somewhere in the “this is fine” range, especially because this is another team that’s gonna really need a serious rebuild in like two or three years. C

Montreal Canadiens: You knew they were gonna screw it up and they did screw it up. They really think Koktaniemi is gonna solve their problems. And it seems like they were mostly drafting for need, which is never a good idea. D

Nashville Predators: Only four picks, none before No. 111. Not ideal but this team is barely thinking about the draft. They probably shouldn’t have even shown up. Just Skype in next time. C-

New Jersey Devils: A 5-foot-11 point-a-game defenseman at No. 17? Seems like a bit of a value pick there, a little, maybe. But hey, it’s 2018 baby! Why not? Of course, they also didn’t pick again until the fourth round, so that’s not ideal. C+

New York Islanders: I like the Wahlstrom, Dobson, and Wilde picks. Ruslan Iskhakov seems like a bit of a reach but he’s going to college so he’ll have plenty of time to develop and he’s just a little guy. Looming over all that, however, is the Tavares thing. B

New York Rangers: Woof. Baffling. If you have three first-round picks you just have to do better than this. It’s not quite the Connor-Barzal-Kylington goof-up but it’s not far off. I truly don’t get it, even if I think the guys they did take are, like, fine. D+

Ottawa Senators: For the one millionth time: I like Brady Tkachuk’s game a lot, but he shouldn’t have gone fourth. There were mitigating factors behind his weirdly just-okay production, but it seems like Ottawa (and others) really talked themselves into this one. People were saying Tkachuk can be a center but if you’re not a center in your draft year, in a development league, you’re probably not an NHL center. Miss me with the “Koktaniemi played wing but he’s a center” argument, too, because that guy played in a men’s pro league. If you’re picking a wing, take Zadina. Not hard. C-

Philadelphia Flyers: They got Farabee basically right where they should have. Jay O’Brien, on the other hand, seems like a bit of a reach. Split the difference and maybe you say they’re a little below where they ought to have been? C-

Pittsburgh Penguins: Calen Addison looks like he could be a good gamble but they only had four picks so that’s tough to come back from. C+

San Jose Sharks: Huge reach on Ryan Merkley, didn’t get Kovalchuk, might get Tavares? I’ll be nice and not give them a D because, well, maybe they get Tavares. C-

St. Louis Blues: Looks like they got nice value on Dominik Bokk but I really liked that Scott Perunovich move at No. 45. Nice little draft. B

Tampa Bay Lightning: The Bolts, of all the teams in the league, picked a bunch of tall guys and an okay-scoring QMJHL winger. Not sure I get it. D+

Toronto Maple Leafs: The Leafs took four defensemen and all but one of them were under 5-foot-11. Again, it is 2018. B-

Vancouver Canucks: I love Quinn Hughes so much and Jett Woo looks like he could be a good one. Vancouver…. did well? A-

Vegas Golden Knights: Yeah, an expansion team with one pick in the first 99 is not doing well at a draft. And even Ivan Morozov (No. 61) seemed like a reach of sorts. No thanks. D+

Washington Capitals: Alexeyev might be a bit of a value pick at 31. Not so much Martin Fehervary. But whatever, you win a Cup and you don’t really care about this stuff. C

Winnipeg Jets: This was basically the most normal, regular draft any team had. Everything seemed more or less right where it should have been. So I guess you say that’s any easy C.

Gold Star Award

How did Ken Holland have this good of a weekend? Ken Holland!

Minus of the Weekend

It makes me sick that these kids are mostly 2000 birthdates. I hate it!!!!

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Week

User “GeauxPreds1” is absolutely a Preds fan.

“Roman josi+ a small add for David Pastrňák.”

Signoff

No.

More NHL coverage on Yahoo Sports:

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via HYPERLINK Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

[lillaxtrigger]

The ghostly maid: The bakers death trap

Under alone tree atop a small hill, both Trevor and Pike appeared in a wave of sparkles. “-eady yet! I..I...I.” Trevor says. Pike shakes his head and “Oh...Oh man. Way to warn a guy.”. Trevor pulls out a veil of blue liquid out from his pocket and says: “Hazel said we had to deliver this potion to somewhere called Drury lane.” He looks around and sees grassy mountains surrounding them. “But all I see is a bunch of empty mountains. That old crones trajectory was way off. Are we even anywhere near civilization?”. Pike got his attention by poking him, then pointed down. Both of them look below and see a village at the bottom of the mountains. The setting sun behind the mountain casts the village in shade. The sunlight slowly fading on the dam near the town. “Huh. Cute town.”. Going down the mountain, they pass by an overarching sign that reads: “Bakerville.”. “Still can’t believe we have to be delivery boys to some old witch. She won’t even let us bring Jewely along.” Trevor complained. “Maybe you shouldn’t have wasted all that mind control serum baking those muffins.”. “They didn’t even work.”. The sun had finally set. Both boys reach an eerily empty intersection, the only thing keeping them company were the lamp posts lighting the streets. “Well...this is kinda spooky. The heck is everybody?” Trevor asks. “Maybe they’re all sleeping.”. Trevor looks around and sees somebody under one of the lamps. “Oh, wait. There’s someone.”. “Maybe we can ask for direction.” Pike says. As both of them approached, Trevor thinks aloud: “What’s he doing under a streetlight, anyway? He looks like some kind of creep?”. “Trevor, be nice.”. Approaching the dark figures back, Pike asks: “Excuse me, sir. We’re trying to find a street called Drury lane. Do you know where we can find it?”. The figure didn’t respond and simply stood still, as I it didn’t here the boy. “Oy, branleur! He asked you a questions! You gonna say something or stand there like some open mouthed idiot?” Trevor exclaimed. The dark figure starts turning around, it’s body revealing to be made of cookie, its face and limbs decorated with icing, and its teeth and claws made of sharp candy corn. “Oh...” Trevor utters Opening its gaping maw, the sugary monster roared at the both of them. They start running in the opposite direction, screaming as the beast chases after. The monster runs to a dark alley, where it pasts some garbage cans. After the monster passes and enters one of the buildings, Trevor and Pike come out of the garbage cans. “What was that!? Okay! It- it looked like a person cookie.” Trevor asked. “Was that really a gingerbread man?” Pike wonders. “Who cares what it was! Have Hazel warp us back.”. “You heard what she said before we left. She won’t bring us back until we delivered the potion and get the money.”. “Screw the potion! Let’s just make a break for it!”. Both of them started running out of the ally and past one of the building. They heard the sound of whimpering coming out of one of the broken display windows. Looking through, both of them saw a man crawling on the floor towards them. “P-pl-Please help me.”. Pike reached over to the man and was about to help him up, when he saw the gingerbread man coming out from the shadows and grabbed the poor guy. Both boys could only watch as the monstrous cookie man picked up the man and started shoving him into its mouth. The screams of the man were muzzled out as he was stuffed inside gingerbread mans sugary maw. After swallowing the poor soul, the monstrous treat looked at the two boys and let out another roar. Trevor and Pike ran off into the streets. As they sprinted through the streets, Trevor exclaimed: “Please tell me I’m not the only one who saw that!”. “You mean how we watched some pour sap get eaten by an over sized sugar cookie!?”. “Do gingerbread men usually eat people!?”. “No! They usually aren’t alive either! I think you were right! We should just get outta here!”. They looked towards where they entered the village and saw three more life sized gingerbread men in the way of their means of escape. “There’s more of them!?” Pike exclaimed. “And their blocking our only exit!? We’re trapped!”. The three gingerbread men see the two and start dashing towards them. Trevor and Pike sprint off. As they ran, they passing by more and more of the cookie men. “What are we gonna do!?” Pike exclaimed. “Maybe we could eat them. They are just cookies.”. “Yeah, okay. Tell me how that turns out.”. Trevor looks back and sees the mob chasing them growing. “Uh, well...D-do you have any ideas?” “Let’s just find someplace to hide for now.” Pike suggests. Upon turning the corner, the mob sprinted around, past a broken in home. After the mob was out of earshot, the boys peeked out from the split open door. “Did they see us?” Pike said. “Don’t think so. Guess gingerbread men aren’t really that smart.”. “Well duh, I bet they have chocolate chips for brains.”. A shadow comes out of the darkness and grabs the both of them. The figure holds both of them up against the wall for them to see that it was a beefy man wearing a chefs hat. Once the man got a good look at them, he said in a foreign accent: “You...You two are made of flesh!”. “Yeah, glad you noticed. Can you put us down?” Trevor said. The man released the two boys and said: “I thought everyone in the village was already devoured. It’s amazing that you boys are still alive.”. “Uh nope, we just got here. Are carnivorous cookie people common here?” Pike asked. “No. I afraid not. The gingerbread men shown up here only a couple weeks ago and started gobbling up everybody in sight. It did not matter who they were, men, women, children. Their lustful hunger soon consumed everyone of Bakerville. We must find a way to stop this army of carnivorous cookies before they make the entire world their pastry platter.”. “Yeah, no. We’re not doing that. We’re getting outta here.” Trevor said as he was about to climb out the window. “Wh-what?”. “Trevor, we can’t just leave. They’ll find there way out of town and kill people.” Pike states. Trevor got back inside and responded with: “With what? Diabetes? They’re cookies. The modern world has stuff that can destroy these guys countless times over. The world will be fine. Lets just focus on getting out of here.”. “You’re wrong, child.”. Both boys look to the chef, who tells them: “These frosted fiends are enchanted. No matter how many times they break, the monster always come back together. Why do you think no one could fight back against them?”. Trevor groaned and said: “Fine. How do we stop them?”. The chef pointed out the window, to a small shack up on a hill. Gingerbread men march out of the shack one by one, going down to the village. “That is where all those sugary monster are being made. If we can get up there and stop them from spawning, we can then figure out a way to thin them out.”. “And how, pray tell, are going to get past the legions of walking bread?” Trevor said. “There’s an armory on the other side of the village. If we can sneak past the hordes of delicious monsters, then we can figure out a way to get inside.”. When the coast was clear, all three of them started heading down the street. “Wait a second. We didn’t catch your name.” Pike said. “Just call me the muffin man.”. A couple gingerbread men were hanging out near an alley way near a broken wooden fence. The three were standing around the corner, near the fence. The muffin man looked around and saw a lone brick on the ground. He threw the brick over the zombies, making a clunking noise upon landing. Both cookie beasts rushed over to check the noise, giving the boys an opportunity to cross the ally. They then found themselves looking towards the town square and a horde of gingerbread men. “The armory is just up ahead. We need to find a way to get to the square.” the muffin man pointed out. Trevor looked around and saw a building with a picture of fireworks on the big window in front. With a sadistic smile, he says: “I got an idea.”. Both of them snuck to the building, where upon looking inside was a shop. “Alright guys. Look for anything we can use in here.”. Pike looked in a drawer and found a box of matches. The muffin man looked in the cabinet and found a big tube. Trevor checked in the cupboard and found a small cupcake. Pulling it out, he looked at the tiny treat and wondered where it came from. The small ball on top, opened up to show an eye, which shocked the boy. Looking at him, the cupcake started to expand. The muffin man saw this and yelled: “It is going to explode!”. As both he and Pike were starting to back up, Trevor frantically looked around to try and find a place to dispose of the frosty bomb. He saw a steel bucket in the corner and acting fast, dunked the cupcake into the bucket and placed it upside down. Trevor then sat on the bucket and closed his ears. The explosion was so strong, that it broke the windows of the building. All three of them got right up from the blast, the bucket laid split open in the corner. “Is everyone okay?” Trevor asked. “I think so. Could do without this ringing in my ears. You don’t think the gingerbread men heard that, did you?” Pike responded. Looking out the window, they could see all the gingerbread men in the square, staring at them with their soulless gumdrop eyes. “Yep.”. All of them started heading toward the store. The three jumped behind the counter. “What do we do!?” Trevor screamed. Pike looks behind him and sees a box full of fireworks. “Hey, how about we use these.” he said as he pulled out the box. “But we need something to fire them out at.” Trevor said. The muffin man pulled out the tube and said: “Stuff them in here!”. The boys stuffed all the fireworks into the front end of the tube. Pike got out the box of matches, lit one of them, and tossed the matched into the back of the tube. The fuses to the fireworks lit. The muffin man took the tube and pointed it out toward the window, just as the army of gingerbread closed in. A barrage of fireworks shot out the end of the tube. The fireworks rocketed towards the mob, exploding as they hit the gingerbread. Trevor peeks out from behind the counter, only for Pike to make him duck back down. The firework explosion could be see from high above the mountains. After all the fireworks were set of, Trevor and Pike looked up from the counter to find that all was left in the town square were broken up pieces of burnt gingerbread. “Ha! And you said these things were invincible. I like to see them come back from that.” Trevor gloated. “Um, Trevor.” Pike uttered as he looked at the window. Outside, the broken pieces began to slowly put themselves back together. “Ah...Well crap.”. “That’s not the only thing we need to worry about.” the muffin man said. Trevor and Pike looked up at him to hear him say: “That light show has been seen through out the whole village. We need to book it before we are over run with more gingerbread then we know what to do with.”. All three of them dashed out of the burnt up store and through the square. They headed down a quite road, when suddenly they saw a dozen frosty fiends heading their way. All of them quickly turn around, only to see a dozen more behind them. Pike points to a lone alleyway, shouting: “Through here! Hurry!”. They race into the alley, the gingerbread horde right behind them. Knocking down whatever was in their way in hopes of slowing their pursuers down along the way. They jump over a fence and land on the other side. Trevor gets caught on something. He turns around and sees the gingerbread horde breaking through, one of them grabbing his shirt. The muffin man breaks the arm off and all of them and makes a break for it. The sugary monsters break down the fence. Th muffin man quickly opens a door in the alley and said: “Quickly! In here!”. All of them rush inside. The muffin man peaks out to see the mob run right past them. “Okay, I think we’re safe.”. Both he and Pike hear the sound of chewing. Looking back inside, they see Trevor eating the broken off arm. Trevor looks over and see Pike and the muffin man giving him the most concerned stare. He swallows and then says: “What?”. He see them stare at what Trevor was eating. “...I’m hungry.”. They still stared at him. “...Oh, stop giving me that look.”. “Can I have some?” Pike asks. Trevor looks at the arm, then at Pike. “Okay.”. Pike breaks off a piece and asks the muffin man: “So muffin bud, how far is this armory now?”. “Um-U-uh, We-we shouldn’t be too far now. Cutting through the town square saved us a lot of time. I think it should be close now.”. When the coast was clear, all of them shoved off. With no more gingerbread men in site, they found a small shack in the distance. “There it is. The villages weapons are all stored in that house right there.” the muffin man said. “Seems kinda dumb to put all your weapons in one place, isn’t it?” Trevor says. “We’re normally a very peaceful secluded town. So we don’t really need to arm ourselves that often.”. “Let’s just get the weapons and get going.” Pike said as he reached for the door. When he tried to turn the knob, it wouldn’t budge. “Is it locked?”. The muffin man suddenly pulled him back, shouting: “Look out!”. Something dashes over to them and nearly bites Pike. Backing up they saw a big brown snake, with a white streak on its back that extended all the way up to its tail. “Is that some kind of snake?” Pike asked. Trevor sees something shaking at the end of its tail. Looking closer, he sees a key attached to the tail end of the snake. “That’s the key to the armory. Why does that snake have it?” the muffin man exclaims. The snake lunged straight at them. They dodged out of the way, with Trevor trying to grasp the snakes tail, only for it to slip out and the boy to fall. As he got up, he noticed that his hands felt very sticky. Licking them, he said: “This taste kinda like cinnamon and frosting.”. All of them looked at the snake as it coiled itself up. The bottom of the coiled up snake resembled a cinnamon roll. The cinnamon serpent lunges at Trevor, opening it’s mouth as it prepares to bite. The boy evaded the serpent and instead dashed and bit down on a lamp post. With nothing but the candy corn teeth in it’s mouth, the snake snapped the metal pole in half. The lamp almost falls down on Pike. It’s glass shattering on the ground. The muffin man lift the lamp in an effort to bash the snakes head in. But missing, only seem to have bashed cracks in the ground, making the lamp stuck. The cinnamon serpent climbed up the armory, watching our heroes from the roof. It then dived down to Trevor, it’s mouth open and ready to strike. The boy manage to side step out of the way and grab the key. But the key was still attached to the snake, dragging Trevor along the ground. After several seconds, the snake jerked its tail, making Trevor let go and fling him into a wall. The muffin man sneaked behind the serpent and grabbed it from behind. The snake struggled to get out of the bakers muscular grip as he told Pike: “Pike. Grab the key off of its tail! I can not hold it for long!”. Pike slowly approaches the snakes flailing tail, the key swinging about as it did. He tried to grab it, only to be slapped by the key. The boy quickly yank the key off out of the snakes tail and said: “I got it!”. The snake slips out of the muffin mans grasp and quickly coils around the boy. It opens its mouth and tries to take a bite out of Pike’s head, but Trevor holds the snake by the neck back with all his strength. The muffin man tries getting Pike out of the cinnamon serpents grab, but proved too strong. The snakes head was coming closer and closer, Pike could see its chocolate chip eyes beating down on him. That moment, Pike knew what he had to do. As soon as it was in reach, Pike bit down on the top half of the snakes head and pulled it off. The serpent let go of Pike and started rapidly slithering around in a panic. All three of them look on as the cinnamon serpent slithered off as, Pike chewing the remains of its head in his mouth. He chuckles as he lifts up his hand to show the key. After unlocking the door, all of them found in the armory a stockpile of colorful weapons. Trevor ran in and picked out a pink shotgun with red and white striped barrels hanging from the wall. “Dibs on this.”. He notices a little bag tied to the stock. Digging inside, he pulls out a red bean and licks it. “Are these jelly beans? Why would this have jelly beans instead of shells?”. “Those bean are the shells.” the muffin man states. “Whaaat?”. Breaking open the barrel, he tries putting in two beans and finds they fit. Pulling the barrel back on the stock, he hears the gun cock and says: “Nice.”. Pike sees what looked to be a water gun with light brown goo dripping from the nozzle. Picking up the gun, he swipes his finger on the nozzle and tastes the goo. “Honey?”. Shooting it out, he saw the goo stick to the wall. The muffin man picks out a small cannon that one could carry around like a gun. Aside was a giant stuffed sack. From the sack, he pulls out a gumball as his hand and shoves it into the cannon. All of them look in the back room and see pieces of brightly colored armor litter the floor. A horde of gingerbread men are roaming about the edge of town. They see the out three heroes in the distance and start running towards them. As they approached, the horde sees them with pieces of the armor on parts of their body. The muffin man took aim at the encroaching mob and fired a gumball out of his cannon. Upon contact, the gumball explodes. One of the frosted fiends got up close to Trevor. The boy stuck the shotgun into the gingerbread men’s mouth and fired, breaking apart its head. The pieces started to pull themselves back together, but Pike squirted honey at them, making them stay put. Pretty soon, the whole mob was in pieces, unable to reform under the coats of sticky honey. “Alright, we got em.” Pike exclaimed. “Do not celebrate just yet.” the muffin man said. He points to the house up on the hill and said: “As long as that bakery is still in business, is nightmare will never be over.”. “Well then, I guess well have to be the health inspectors.” Trevor said as he posed with the shot gun. “What?” “You know, health inspectors shut down restaurants and stuff because they’re...Never-Nevermind.”. Just then, the ground shook beneath them. A huge looming shadow overtook them. Turning around, all of them saw a giant brown wall with arms and legs that roared at them. “It is the brownie beast! Run!” the muffin man shouted. All of them booked it away from the monster as it was falling over. They escape from being crushed under the fudgy fiends square girth. They look back and see the brownie beast getting right back up, lifting itself from the shallow, but wide hole that was made under it. It starts walking towards them, prompting the three to run. The muffin man launches gumballs at the chocolaty chaser, but this didn’t even slow it down. Pike tried slowing the monster down by spraying honey along the ground, but when the beast stepped on the sticky trap, it only uprooted parts of the rocky road under its feet. “Nothing’s working!” Pike screams. They hear another roar ahead and find another giant brownie beast lumbering towards them. “Come on! Another one!?” Trevor shouts. Stopping in between the two giant beasts, all of them looked to side to side and saw nowhere to run. “We are boxed in!” the muffin man said. One of the thick walls of fudgy goodness was about to tumble on them. They avoid being flattened by the skin of their teeth, but soon see that the other wall of chocolaty delight was soon tumbling down. With no escape, they brace themselves for their delicious demise. When the brownie beast fell, they saw the top of the monster get caught by the other one. Trevor and the others were squeezed into the small gap beneath them, spared from the monsters crushing weight. Both brownie beasts lift themselves up, Pike sees small pieces of the top of the monsters broken off. They started running towards one another. Trevor starts to panic, shouting: “What do we do!? What do we do!? What do we do!?”. The muffin man sees a narrow space between their legs and says: “Both of you! Huddle to me!”. The boys got huddled close to the chef, both monsters closing the gap. They slam into each other, with enough force to shake the houses. All three of them were saved, the tight space between the monsters leg kept them from dying. They see both of them backing up, with their faces cracked. More bits of brownie start falling off. Pike thinks for a moment before saying: “Guys. I got an idea. We need to keep making them slam into each other.”. “What? Why?” Trevor asks. A big chunk of brownie fell to the ground, almost crushing the boy. He looks up and see that the chunk fell from them top of the monster head. “Oh, I get it now.”. The muffin man loaded another gumball and fired at the beasts eye, agitating it. The monster charged forward at all of them, this time jumping in the air. With quick foot, they run out of the monsters way as it slams into the ground. The other monster charges towards them, but stops short when he trips and falls on his chocolaty companion. Both of them get up and show that their cracks have grown. “One more time should do it.” Pike said. Both monster start charging at each other, all three of our heroes duck under them. When both brownie beast slammed into each other, the broke apart. Chunks of brownie scatter all throughout the street. As Pike was hosing them with honey. Trevor took a bite out of one of the brownie chunks and said in disgust: “Eaugh! Way too much butter and oil. I can barely taste the chocolate fudge.”. The muffin man looks ahead and sees the bakery close. All three of them managed to make to the shack up on the hill. Trevor looks from behind the bakery and see an army of ginger bread men marching out the front door. “We need to find a way inside, without getting caught.” Pike said. “Why bother going in? Why not just set the house on fire?” Trevor suggested. No! No! I...I mean no.” the muffin man blurted out. “Whoa! What’s with you? Why not burn this place down?”. “Um-Uh-Because...Because there are ex-explosives in the back. If we set them off, the entire village might be engulfed in flames, along with all of us.”. “Fine. How do we sneak in?” Trevor said in disappointment. The muffin man points to a window near the roof. “We go in through that window. That is the safest way inside.”. “And how do you suppose we get up there? None of us are tall enough to even reach it.” Pike looked at his honey gun, then at a small mound of rocks nearby. Pike shoots out honey at the wall all the way up to the bottom of the window. Trevor and the muffin man then throw countless rocks at the honey. The rocks stuck themselves onto the wall, making the perfect climb up to the window. When they broke inside, they balance themselves on top of the beams near the ceiling. Looking down, they saw gingerbread men manning over sized electric ovens. One of them dinged, the gingerbread man pulled out a giant cookie sheet. From the cookie sheet rose a dozen more gingerbread men. Another oven went off, coming out was a giant cake with a big mouth that drooled frosting. One more oven dinged, showing a big pie with a scary face. The pie barfed out raspberry jam that melted through the floor. “How are we gonna shut this place down?” Pike asked. “I bet if we cut the power, that’ll stop the ovens.” Trevor suggested. The muffin man looked ahead and saw a fuse box. He stood up and aimed his cannon at the box. But before he could fire, a big cake jumped up and chomped on the wooden beams, making all three of them fall to the ground. They got up, surrounded by killer baked goods, about to pounce on them without mercy. Suddenly, a voice ran out. “Stop!”. The horde of deadly desserts backup. Trevor and Pike looked around, confused as why they stopped. “That voice.” the muffin man uttered. They heard the sound of evil laughter in the air. A single spotlight shines above, revealing a single gingerbread man on a throne made of cake above them. “Hello. Did you miss me.” he said. “Wheatly.” the muffin man said. Trevor broke out in laughter at the site of the treat. “Oh my god! That’s just perfect. All these other gingerbread men have been man sized flesh eating monster, and then look at this guy.”. We see that the gingerbread man in question was no bigger then an ordinary gingerbread man, much smaller then his man eating counterparts. “He so tiny. I could just eat him up in one bite.”. Trevor laughter slowly died down, with him finishing with: “That’s great.”. “Are you done? Because I would like to ask something. Muffin man, did you really think that two kids would be able to stop me? How desperate are you for help?”. “You know this guy?” Pike asked the muffin man. “Oh yes, we go way back. Tell these children how you brought doom upon this entire village and the eventual entirety of the human race...father.”. Trevor was drinking a glass of milk, when he suddenly spat it out at one of the gingerbread men, making him melt on the floor. “Father!” both Trevor and Pike exclaimed. The muffin man sighed and said: “Yes. I’m afraid that this is all my fault.”. “All I wanted was a child to call my own. Somebody to run this bakery when I pass. So I made a child the best way I know how, by baking one. With the help of a magic powder, I filled Wheatly with as much love, life, cinnamon as I possibly could. He came out of the oven that day with so much innocence in his gumdrop eyes. I taught him so much about baking sweets and pastries. But just as we were becoming a family, he ran away. I never saw him again...Until today.”. The muffin man looked at his baked son from below and asked. “Why? Why do all this? Why do this to me?”. Wheatly looked down at his father and said: “Why? Why do this? Because you brought me into a world that saw me as nothing but food. I wondered what the people did to the other baked goods you gave away. So I followed one of them home, and I was utterly horrified at what I witnessed. My fellow cookies, being devoured right before my eyes. I didn’t want to believe it, but I found that all of the humans ate people like me. So I stole the magic powder you used to bring me to life and I ran, I ran as far as I could. One day swearing that I’d get my revenge on humanity for their crimes. I will take this planet in the name of sweets everywhere! And then the human race shall be our snacks!” Wheatly laugh manically to the sky as his chortles echoes through the mountains. Trevor and Pike look at the muffin man with contempt on their faces. “What?” he asked. “You mean to tell me that you made a living baked good, something that people ate, and you didn’t think that it may have been a bad idea? I mean what’d you think was gonna happen!?”. “If you wanted a son that badly, why didn’t you make it out of something we don’t eat, like wood?”. “In retrospect, it was not the brightest of idea’s, was it?”. “No!” both Trevor and Pike exclaimed. “It’s too late now for regrets now! You shall die a horrible sugary death!”. All of them ginger bread monster start closing in. “But, just feeding you to my army of walking bread would be to quick and painless. No...You deserve to burn in agony!” Wheatly madly cackles as he pulls a nearby lever, opening a trap door beneath our heroes feet. They fall through, the hole taking some gingerbread men with them. After a rough landing, Trevor, Pike, and the muffin man got up and saw Wheatly looking down at them from above. “Release the beast!” he shouted. The giant gate behind them slowly rose from the ground. A giant donut hopped out of the gate, roaring with green filling coming out of its mouth. “Is that a donut?” Pike asked. The giant donut jumped up and tried to crush them, but our three heroes dodged out of the way. It looked over to the muffin man and spat out it’s green ooze at him. When he evaded the goo, he saw it eat through the concrete floor. “Boys, be careful! This donut has a deadly acid filling!”. Pike shot out sticky honey around the donut to try and trap it. The donut saw his and spewed out acid, melting the honey. “Honey ain’t doing anything.”. The muffin man launched a gumball at the death filled treat, but this made acid cover half the floor with the donut still in one piece. The acid melting the gingerbread men that fell inside. All of them watch their footing among the sizzling floor. “There has to be a way to beat this thing.” Trevor said. He looked around the acid covered pit to find a way to defeat their pastry predator. The boy looked over to the gate which the beast came out of and saw the steel bar still hanging out. He jumps over to the gate and shouts: “Hey! You over-sized cream puff! Over here!”. The pastry turns his attention to Trevor and starts hopping towards him. “Trevor, what are you doing!?” Pike exclaims. When the donut was about to pounce on him, Trevor dashed under the pastry and shouted: “Muffin man! Shoot above the gate! Now!”. The chef shot a gumball above the gate, making the bares crash down on the donut. Acid spewed out of the pastry, with Trevor barely avoiding the deadly green goo. All of them watched as the donut started dying down under the grate. “And that is how the donut deflates?” Pike quiped. Both Trevor and the muffin man give Pike weird looks. “...No?...Alright then.”. They managed to climb out of the pit, and pointed their weapons at Wheatly, the muffin man showing hesitance in doing so. “Alright...We beat your stupid donut...Anything else you wanna throw at us, you overly decorated sugar cookie?” Trevor said as he was catching his breath. “Oh ho ho. Believe me. I got way more where that baking in the oven.”. “Wheatly, stop this madness. It’s pointless. We can find shelter for you and your bakery monsters.”. “I don’t want protection from the world. I want the world!” Wheatly exclaims. The cookie cackles to the sky like a madman. “Sheesh, did you add nuts to him too?” Pike said. Upon hearing that, Wheatly became instantly anger and shouted: “Get them!”. The muffin man blasts a path ahead, and they sprint through the crowd. “What do we do?” Trevor “We need to get to the kitchen! I have an idea.” the muffin man says. They make it inside the kitchen, barricade the door, and destroy any gingerbread inside. “Now we destroy the ingredients.” Trevor said as he pointed his shotgun at one of the cabinets. “Wait.” the muffin man shouts. Trevor looks over to him and ask: “Why? We can stop them from spawning if we destroy the stuff they’re made of.”. “True. But they can just as easily get more.”. He looks to the side and sees an old lone stone oven in the corner. I know a better way we can end this. Hand me some of those ingredients. We are going to bake for our lives.”. The muffin man got out a large pan and a mixing bowl. He hands Trevor some eggs, flour, and a big bag of yeast and says: “Trevor, my boy. Mix these into the mixing bowl thoroughly.”. He turns to Pike, points to a cabinet and says: “Pike, hand me what is in that cabinet over there.”. The boy opens the cabinet and find a box full of dynamite. “What the- Is this dynamite!?”. “I did say I had explosives in the back.” the muffin man said as he lights the stone oven. “Yeah, but why keep them in the kitchen cabinet?”. “I got the mix ready.” Trevor said. “Good. Now pour half of it in the pan. Quickly now.”. Pike carries the box over to the muffin man and says: “Here’s the TNT.”. The muffin man grabs some of the dynamite and drops them in the pan. Trevor covers the dynamite in the mix. All of them put the pan into the oven. The muffin man leans over to his oven and whispers. “Don’t worry old girl. You been with me for so long and cook so many sweets for me and residence of this once peaceful village. But I need you to do this once more for me put everything you got into it. Then you can finally take your eternal rest.”. Trevor and Pike looked at the scene before them, weirded out that the macho baker was whispering to his oven. “So...what do we do now?” Trevor asks. The muffin man points his cannon to the wall and fires his last gumball at the wall, making a way outside.. “We leave.”. Wheatly was sitting upon his throne barking orders to his army. “Check the front door! Check the back. Check everywhere. I don’t want a single one of them slipping from my grasp.”. He notices some of the gingerbread men getting pushed back. A wave of yeasty dough washes over and soon floods the room. Wheatly screaming as it rises up to his perched throne. Trevor, Pike, and the muffin man watch from a safe distance and see the shack flood with expanding dough that soon explodes, leaving behind nothing but burnt ash and dough remaining. “Whelp, that should take care of that glorified baking disaster.” Trevor comments. “Perhaps, but I fear we may be to late.” the muffin man says. All of them looked down to the village to see mob of monstrous baked goods roaming the streets. “The village is already overrun with these monster. It won’t be long before they find their way out of the mountains.”. “Is there any way we can stop them?” Pike asks. “Well, I did have this plan that involved destroying the dam and flooding Bakerville. But these beasts could easily swim out of the waters. I ordered a potion that could change the water into something that can completely destroy them, but I’m afraid it might not get to us in time.”. When Pike heard him say that, he pulled the potion he was carrying in his pocket and says: “You mean this potion?”. Looking at the potion, he exclaims: “Yes! Yes! This is exactly what I need! The one thing that can save humanity from this sweet scourge. But why do you two have this?”. “We were sent to deliver this stuff to ya. All apart of Hazels potion delivery service.” Pike comments. “But how are we gonna blow up an entire dam. That thing’s huge.”. “Oh, I don’t think we need to worry about that.” Trevor says as he pulls out a bunch of TNT. “When did you take that?”. “I swiped some before we bolted out of that shack. Like my butler Barnard use to say. You never know when you need a stick of dynamite.”. All of them start making the trek towards the top of the dam. “Ya know Trevor, after all this is done, I think I might ask Hazel for workers compensation.” Pike comments. “On what grounds?”. “Psychological trauma.”. The muffin man stopped and said: “Shh...Do both of you hear that?”. “Hear what?”. The air of silence was slowly broken as the sound of barking approaches. They look behind them and see a pack of cakes closing the distance as they bark with mouths in between their layers. The three of them start running uphill for their lives from the birthday desserts. As they run, they try to slow the monster down, by shooting at them. Pike’s honey gun could only get small bits of the pack. But when Trevor aimed his weapon, the dogs took bites out of his guns. Trevor licked his gun and said: “This is made of candy.”. He looks at the muffin man and said: “Why are your weapons made of candy!?”. “It’s the hardest thing we could make in the village. We don’t get many imports other then food. We figured it’d be more useful in case we run out of provision.”. “That’s not useful! That’s impractical!”. They manage to reach a tree, climbing all the way to the top, they see the cakes jumping up to try and bite them. Thankfully, they couldn’t reach. “Raaagh! I’m getting sick of all these sugar monsters!” Trevor shouted as he threw whatever was left of his shotgun at the cakes. The frosted monster swarmed the shotgun, eating every single piece. “Yeah, me too. I think my sweet tooth’s rotted out by this point.” Pike replied. “Never fear. We are close to the dam. If we can make it there, by jumping along the trees and throw the potion in, then we’ll be safe.”. They jumped from tree to tree while the cake pack was following them. Trevor nearly fell to the ground when a branch he landed on broke, but the muffin man caught him and pulled him up before the cakes could take a bite. Finally, they reach the dam. “Alright, time to throw the potion in.”. Pike got out the potion, pulled the cork out, and threw it into the waters. They all watched as the transparent liquid turned solid white. “Now what?” Trevor asks. “Now...we jump in!” the muffin man exclaims as he jumps out of the tree. Trevor and Pike follow suit, all of them landing in the white liquid. The cakes mindlessly jump in as well. They break up as they try to struggle to get back to shore. All three of them surface from the white liquid. Pike smacked his tongue and said: “Is this milk?”. Trevor drank some of the liquid and said: “It is milk. Why is it milk?”. “Because all sweet baked goods go well with a hearty glass of milk. It is their weakness.” the muffin man explained. “Yeah, I’m about done here. Let’s just blow this dam thing up.” Trevor commented. After getting out of the milk, they looked down at the other side of the dam. Trevor pulls out the box of matches and a stick of dynamite. Pike shoots honey to the wall as Trevor lights the TNT. He throws the stick of dynamite to the sticky spot and the honey catches the explosive. Before Pike could shoot at the wall again, something swooped in and pilfered his honey gun. A familiar gingerbread man landed on the dam’s top and pointed the gun at our heroes. “Don’t move.”. It was Wheatly, with half of his face and lower torso gone. “How are you still alive!? We blew you up!” Pike exclaimed. “Put the dynamite down.”. “Or what? You gonna shoot honey in my breakfast cereal?” Trevor taunted. The gingerbread man shot Trevor's hand holding the stick of TNT. With his free hand, Trevor emptied all of the dynamite out of his pockets. “Now slowly back away.” Wheatly demanded. The muffin man stepped in front of the boys and said: “Boys, no matter what happens to me, I want you to destroy the dam.”. “What are you gonna-” Pike asks. The muffin man dashes towards his beloved creation. “I said stop!” Wheatly screams. He starts firing globs of honey at the baker, not one of them slowing him down. The muffin man tackles Wheatly and in a sticky mess and throws the honey gun to Pike. When he caught it, Pike said: “Trevor, start chucking the dynamite!”. Trevor picks up the dynamite on the ground and starts throwing them. Pike rapidly fires globs of honey at the dam until it finally runs out. Half of the sticks of TNT stick to the wall, while the others that missed fall to the ground. The first stick of dynamite explodes and with it, starts a chain reactions that makes the other sticks explode as well. When the smoke cleared, the dam was seemingly still in one piece. Thinking he won, Wealthy laughs manically. But soon stops when he hears the sound of cracking. He looks down and sees milk start to gush out among the cracks. The dam soon bursts open, milk pours out from the other side, flooding the path below. Wheatly and the muffin man get swept up under the milk. The honey washes off along with Wheatly. Trevor and Pike run after the muffin man to try and rescue him in time. The muffin man reaches out for the boys. Trevor grabs hold of him with his honey covered hand and pulls him up from the sweeping diary. The sugary monsters that were roaming the streets of Bakerville look up and see a white wave quick approach the town. They try to run, but the milk was all to eager to sweep them up, flooding the entire village in a matter of seconds. They wash their hands in the white diary and look down to the bowl of milk where the village used to be. See the soaked pieces and crumbs of the sugary monsters float by. “We did it. We saved the world.” Pike cried out. “Yes.” the muffin man said in a depressed tone. He looks at his hands, holding pieces of cookie in his palms. “But at what cost?”. “About 100 gold.” Trevor said as he held out his hand. The muffin man and Pike look at Trevor as they boy wore a smug face.

[mitchbeck]

CANTLON'S CORNER: PACK PACK FOR CHARLOTTE

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings CROMWELL, CT - The Hartford Wolf Pack head back to the proverbial lion’s den when they the streaking and offensively-talented Charlotte Checkers for two games on Thursday (12/13) and Saturday (12/15). In their last meeting, Friday night in Hartford, the Checkers sliced and diced their way to a 7-4 victory at the XL Center. Head Coach Keith McCambridge and his assistant, Joe Mormina, spent their practice day working on breakouts and offensive zone entries, issues they have had against both Charlotte on Friday and then again against the Hershey Bears on Saturday. McCambridge doesn’t view the losses as a "two steps back," or a perfect game and certainly not disasters either. “We know we're facing a very good team. Clearly, we want those parts of our game to be sharper and you see teams come through the American Hockey League who play very well. In both games, there were some good blocks of time in which we controlled the play and we want to accomplish the things we want to. We don’t think we took steps backward. We need to improve in some areas," He said. "The season gives you ups and down and we want to see things level off. We’ve had some personnel changes, and that’s the AHL. We have to make adjustments. We're playing in, I think, one of the best divisions in the AHL with Charlotte, Wilkes Bare is always good, Lehigh Valley, Bridgeport, Springfield, and Providence.” The first line of the Checkers consists of the CCM/AHL Player-Of-The-Week in Martin Necas, as well as Nicolas Roy, and Janne Kuokkanen. It's certainly a top-flight trio. “They're all the same size, about 6’1 or 6’2. All good size guys and all have great speed. So, it's just not one player on a line, it's all three. It makes it tough for anybody in playing them,” McCambridge stated. After knocking off Hartford, Charlotte did the very same thing the next night in Springfield against the Thunderbirds. They were down two goals, scored two in the last minute of regulation, and then won in overtime. There are 20 players at different levels and classifications on the depth chart as part of the strata in the AHL. Vinni Lettieri, in his second professional season, has eight points in seven games with the Pack but sports a minus-5. He's a player that has to play, not just on offense and defense, but play different styles of hockey as well. “For Vinni and his game, it's two different styles as he has plays in two different leagues. When he is here, he's an offensive threat and can score goals and has done that, and during a lot of transactions when a player goes to the NHL, he drops to another (skill) level. For Vinni, it’s a matter of maintaining his good work habits, finishing checks, staying on top of pucks, that helps him keep those habits in place and those are going to help him have more opportunity the next time he goes to New York,” McCambridge observed. The splitting up of a player's game from circumstances like Letteri's requires a very delicate balance that has to be managed. “No question, it can be a tricky thing to manage and shift gears on, but a lot of players have to reinvent themselves. Players have to take that opportunity to play in the best league in the world and a lot of players are eager to do so. Vinni has been open about handling that. He has an excellent work ethic and that’s a good place to start." On defense, there's Libor Hajak. In 26 matches, he's a minus-1 and his game is rounding out. The coaches have worked on adding physical play to complement his already strong offensive instincts and very solid skating skills. “His overall game is improving. He is closing (gaps) much better. His strength (in one-on-one battles) and is such a good skater, he has always handled the puck well and we're very pleased with his direction.” said McCambridge." While Hajak is not as physically big, but he's starting to look like a young Tomas Kloucek, the one-time Wolf Pack rearguard who's now retired. Peter Holland’s play includes a team-high 17 assists and six goals (23 pts) and his work with the younger players has pleased McCambridge. “He’s been very good for us a highly-skilled player. He has a very high hockey IQ.  He has the experience and leadership that our young players can lean on. Peter’s work ethic has allowed his game to really blossom here, and he has been providing scoring for us, so I give him high marks.” Clearly, it looks like Alexander Georgiev will play at least one, if not both games, in Charlotte leaving Marek Mazanec, who hasn’t played since November 18th, in a backup role. “We're aware Maz hasn’t played in a while. We're going to be talking to Chris Drury (the Wolf Pack GM) about what they want to do with Georgy” The Pack will fly to snow-covered North Carolina Wednesday because the roads in the area are super-treacherous given they do not have the snow-clearing equipment and supplies so abundant in the Northeast. PACK MOVEMENT The revolving door that has become the entrance/exit to the Wolf Pack locker room continues to turn. Coming back from New York is Cole Schneider. He was recalled but scratched for both games of the Rangers' Florida trip. Also returning is Steven Fogarty who played in ten games and had no points. In the Rangers game in Tampa Bay on Monday night, he had 9:23 of ice time. The Rangers have five of their next six games at home. The Pack schedule is the opposite with five of their next six on the road. Heading back to the ECHL Maine Mariners are Terrance Wallin, and Alex Kile, who scored his first AHL goal in his second game Saturday in Hershey. After being drilled in the head by the Bears' Beck Malenstyn, who received a match penalty for it, Ryan Lindgren didn’t skate yesterday and was in a non-contact jersey for Tuesday's practice. Lindgren will be evaluated to see if he can play this weekend in Charlotte, though it's not looking likely, but, he will be on the trip. Malenstyn was hit with a two-game suspension by the AHL. Credit teammate and defense partner John Gilmour in coming to his defense in his first AHL scrap. Despite Kevin Shattenkirk’s shoulder injury last night, the Rangers still have one extra defenseman in Brendan Smith. It's unlikely a recall from the Wolf Pack d-corps is coming. PLAYER MOVEMENT Ex-Pack goalie, Chad Johnson, was claimed off waiverd by the Anaheim Ducks from the St. Louis Blues. The Blues are having plenty of problems both on-and-off the ice. Former CT Whale, Logan Pyett, has moved from Hershey to KooKoo (Finland-FEL) for the rest of the year. Another Hershey Bear has exited in Sergei Shumastov who signed with Springfield. Ex-Pack, Adam Cracknell, is on the move again. He was traded from the Toronto Maple Leafs to the Anaheim Ducks for ex-Sound Tiger, Steve Olesky. Cracknell leaves the AHL Toronto Marlies for the San Diego Gulls undoubtedly a huge weather upgrade Charlotte recalled goalie Callum Booth (Salisbury Prep) from Reading (ECHL), The Marlies also added former QU Bobcat goalie, Michael Garteig, from their ECHL affiliate, the Newfoundland (St. John’s) Growlers. There are rumblings that Providence Bruins' Slovakian-rookie, Martin Bakos, might be heading to Europe particularly to Mora IK of the Swedish Hockey League according to; hockeypuls.se Former Yale defenseman, Adam Larkin, goes from Reading (ECHL) to Greenville (ECHL). Former Wolf Pack, Kodie Curran, has signed a one-year extension with Rogle BK (Sweden-SHL). The Sound Tigers lost RW Josh Ho-Sang to recall by the Islanders but received back goalie Christopher Gibson. Ex-Pack, Miika Wiikman, has left Coventry (England-EIHL) for HC Anglet (France-FREL) Ex-Pack defenseman, Julien Brouillette is playing for the new LNAH team in St. Jerome, Quebec. The team was moved from Berlin, NH because after ten home games, the attendance was dreadful. This is the first year in the Quebec-based league. The team’s assistant GM is ex-Pack, Dave MacIsaac. There is no information if he migrated with the team. Prior to the LNAH, the team played for two years in the Federal Hockey League (FHL). At the IIHF U-20 Challenge Cup in Asia, host Malaysia won for a second year in a row downing Krygystan 4-2 in the final. At the IIHF U-20 Division-1 tourney in Fussen, Germany with five countries participating, the tournament has begun. Two sons of former AHL’ers, Kristaps Skrastins and Renars Cipruss, are playing for Latvia. The countries in the tourney are; Belarus, France, Austria, Norway, Latvia, and host Germany. The World Junior A (WJAC) tournament has begun in Bonnyville, Alberta with just five teams. They are the US, Canada (has two entries with an East and West squad), the Czechs and the Russians. The Czechs have current UConn goalie, Tomas Vomacka, and a future Husky for next fall in Matej Blumel, who's from Waterloo (USHL) as well as Zach Malik, the son of former Hartford Whaler, Ranger and Beast of New Haven d-man, Marek Malik. The Canada West squad also features another future Husky in Carter Berger from Victoria (BCHL). The team assistant coach is ex-Pack, David Wilkie, the current head coach for the University Nebraska-Omaha (NCHC). At the upcoming WJC tourney in Vancouver and Victoria, the Swiss will have Ranger draftee Nico Gross, who plays with Oshawa (OHL). Russia has Vitali Kravtsov, the Rangers first round pick from last summer. The Czech team is loaded. They have current Ranger, and ex-Pack, Filip Chytil, as well as this week’s AHL Player of Week, Charlotte’s Martin Necas and last year's number three overall pick, Filip Zadina from Grand Rapids. Finland has UMASS-Amherst goalie Filip Lindberg on the roster. Lindberg is unbeaten thus far for the Minutemen, the current #2 team in the nation. The US squad has Darien native, and former Avon Old Farms star goalie, Spencer Knight, who's a sure bet to be a first-round NHL Draftee.  Another goalie, Cayden Primeau from Northeastern (HE), is the son of ex-Whaler, Keith Primeau. Two Ranger defenseman draft picks from last summer, Joey Keane and K’Andre Miller, as well as two Yale rearguards, in Greenwich’s Phil Kemp and Jack St, Ivany are on the roster. Another defenseman, Mattias Samuelsson, is from Western Michigan (NCHC), and the son of former Nighthawks and current Flyers development coach Kjell Samuelsson. Up front is Jack Drury of Harvard (ECACHL). He is the son of Ted Drury, an ex-Whaler and is the nephew of Trumbull's Chris Drury, the Wolf Pack GM. If Drury makes the team, it would make the Drury’s part of an elite group of US hockey families that have had two or three players on a US World Juniors team. The top of the exclusive list is the Tkachuk’s, who have had five starting with father Keith, then his sons Matt (Calgary) and Brady (Ottawa) and their cousin Casey Fitzgerald (Boston College) and Jimmy Hayes (Wilkes Barre/Scranton-AHL). Some of the other brother and family combinations include; the Broten brothers, Neal and Aaron plus a nephew Shane Gersich, one-time Ranger draft picks and ex-Pack’s, twin brothers Peter and Chris Ferraro, and the Eaves brothers, Patrick and Ben Eaves, who are the sons of former NHL’ers father Mike, and uncle Murray. This year, the Hughes brothers will be added to the list. Jack is the likely #1 overall pick in the 2019 Entry draft this summer. Quinn (Michigan-Big 10/Vancouver) and Mike Anderson return to the team with his brother Joey (Binghamton/New Jersey), who was the captain last year. Two other sons of NHL players are among the invitees. One-time Avon Old-Farms is Winged Beaver, Tyler Madden, who father John is now the head coach in Cleveland and Josh Norris, whose father, Dwayne, scored the WJC winner for Canada in 1990. The 2021-22 venue was announced as Red Deer and Edmonton with next year in the Czech Republic in Ostrava and Trinec, Sweden announced their team and it includes Rangers draft pick, Nils Lundkvist. Blake Richardson, the son of ex-Danbury Trasher, Bruce Richardson, is now playing for Andre-Laurendeau (QCHL). On April 23-24 an international hockey game dubbed “The Last Game” will take place at the North Pole to bring attention to climate change. Some very big names are slated to be involved including Jari Kurri (Finland), Slava Fetisov (Russia) and Mike Richter (USA). The game participants will also include people from science and other disciplines to be involved. Read the full article