As some of you may have noticed of late, things have gotten a tad dusty around my little corner of the interwebs.  There are two main reasons for this, the first being insolent monkey butlers. 

The second, and less believable reason is the rather startling discovery I made a while back that over the last (almost) four years, I've pretty much said everything I have to say.  I know!  I was as shocked as you are. 

I've always said that the moment this started to feel like a job instead of a hobby, I would disappear into the ether.  Of course it was only after the fifth or sixth three hour session staring at a blinking cursor in a field of white nothingness only to give up because I couldn't think of anything new to say or a new way to say it, did it occur to me that that moment had arrived.  And so, like all poor players eventually must, I'm stepping off the stage.

But before I do, I want to thank all of you who made this so damn much fun over the last three and a half years.  From the boys at Four Habs Fans and (yes, even) PPP and Battle of Ontario, to the OBC to MFP3 to Carina to Fisher for Jebus to Neil_Danz to every single person (Hi Mom!) who took the time to read and/or comment.  Without you guys, I was just some crazy dude howling at the moon.  But with you guys, I was some crazy dude howling at the moon with an audience!  And for that, I thank you most of all, and if I managed to amuse or distract you from a boring workday for even a minute or two, then I accomplished what I set out to do.

This is the part in these kinds of things where the author usually dons his purple smoking jacket (mine has elbow patches!) and waxes pretentious about the divine inspiration behind his or her work to a breathless populace.  I will now do the same.  After all, there's no attention whore like an old attention whore. 

And so, I will impart upon you as my final message, the five words that encapsulates everything I've ever written, the famous quote that has inspired me since that day in March of Aught Seven when I introduced myself to the wider world.  It has served as my muse, my over riding philosophy, and a perfect representation of everything I hope my scribblings have ever conveyed. 

I will now bestow them upon you, dear reader, for if everyone adopted the profound meaning behind these words, the world would be a better place indeed.

I have misplaced my pants.

Cheers, farewell and Go Sens.

SLC

A ridiculously tragic set of stars aligned themselves to produce pretty much what I expected, so everybody skates on this one.

That said, Friday is a new day and St. Louis is a new opponent.  Time to suck it up and strap in gentlemen.

Go Sens.

Last night was not a good night chez casa SLC, and personally I blame the entire city of Philadelphia.  That's right.  Every single inhabitant of that fetid swamp has incurred my unending wrath.  Welcome to Philadelphia!  Syphilis Upon The Schuylkill!  The Anus of Pennsylvania! (No, really...look at a map.)

What, you may ask, has triggered such an irrational dislike, such vituperative hyperbole?  Why would I tar an entire populace with the same broad brush of generalized loathing merely because without their monosyllabic howling, the Broad Street Bullies might never have existed, or because a few of their number have been known to exhibit sub-human behaviour from time to time?  After all, it's not like EVERYONE in the City of Brotherly Love has booed Santa.  Or cheered a career ending neck injury.  Or puked on an eleven year-old girl.  On purpose.  Is it?

Long answer?  At the same time as the Sens were busy figure skating their way to a 5-1 loss to the Flyers through an elegant series of semaphore and pantomimes, my much beloved Washington Redskins (come back Jack Kent Cooke!!) were getting absolutely curbstomped by a Philadelphia Eagles team led by a record setting performance from, it should be noted, a convicted dog torturing fleck of human feces.   So yeah...forgive me if I seem a trifle irked. 

Short answer: Because I can.· It's what I do.· Don't like it?· Go get your own blog.

Jump for the gore. Rape stand not included.

There was a hockey game last night.  The Sens won.  But it doesn't really seem to matter all that much, does it?

I can't presume to speak to what torment, real or imagined, 14 year old Daron Richardson was living because I was not her.  None of us were.

Nor can I presume to speak to the unimaginable grief Luke and Stephanie Richardson are feeling over the loss of their daughter, as I am not a parent.

What I can do is speak to the nature of the debilitating Beast young Daron was, by all appearance battling. I can speak to feeling worthless. I can speak to feeling hopeless.  I can speak to the loss of interest in things once pleasurable. I can speak to the crushing fatigue that settles about the head and shoulders, like some invisible anchor that makes entire days an exercise in exhaustion, assuming the strength is found to get out of bed at all.  I can speak to feeling utterly and completely helpless.  And I can speak to the darkest thought of all, that of just surrendering to the Beast to make the pain go away.

I can speak to those things because 19 years ago, I was Daron Richardson, albeit six years older.  19 years ago, I went through what 16th century poet St John of the Cross called "The dark night of the soul".  And because the Beast rendered me incapable of seeing anything beyond the next day or even the next hour, I never spoke of it to anyone.  No one was ever the wiser until years later.

Again, I have no idea what was going on in the Richardson household.  I have no idea whether Daron reached out to anyone, as I so foolishly refused to do.  If she had (and I truly hope she did), I have no doubt that her parents moved heaven and earth trying to help.  The thing is, and as hard as it may be to accept, sometimes that just isn't enough.

I've never met Luke and Stephanie Richardson.  But if there are any words of comfort an anonymous internet stranger can offer to parents suffering from unfathomable loss it is this: ultimately the battle against the Beast is personal.  Solitary.  And sadly, no matter what resources are brought to bear, no matter how many people do everything in their considerable powers to intervene, sometimes the Beast wins. 

And there's nothing anyone could have done to change that.

Heartfelt condolences to the Richardsons.  And rest easy Daron.  May you finally find peace.

Update: Commenter "pcb" left this outstanding advice in the comments, also drawn from personal experience, and I didn't want it to go unnoticed.  Print it, laminate it, and put it on your fridge:

For all you with teenagers in your circle, talk to them. LISTEN to them. Watch their behavior. "I would rather die" is not something ANYone says flippantly. Give them the crisis line #(613 722 6914) if you can't calm them. Life at that age is so... extreme. And they haven't yet developed the self defense required to wait just one more day.

So it occurs to me when scanning my flimsy contributions to our Giant Senators Interwebs Support Group that it appears as if I only post after wins.  It's as if I'm trying to fashion some crazy alternate universe where the Senators are undefeated, the defence no longer gives me the night sweats, Alex Kovalev is the infallible embodiment of God on Earth whom I would totally encourage my male progeny to emulate and where our monkey butlers have finally thrown off their yoke of human oppression to rise up and destroy us all.

I would like to assure you that this is very much not the case.  All semblance to a conscious pattern is purely coincidental.  Sometimes life gets a little nuts, with other, less important matters getting in the way, matters such as work, love, health and the pursuit of the perfect pillow.

And fear not.  My monkey butlers are extremely loyal.

Jump for the junta.

Before we start, a quick word on the whole Rick Rypien imbroglio.

Before I began my career of selfless public service to Her Majesty (you're welcome Lizzie), I spent ten years slinging beer and flirting with drunk co-eds from behind a bar.  In every place I ever worked, from the high end spots where the regulars would tip an extra twenty if you put precisely the right amount of vermouth in their "extremely" dry martinis (tip to newbie tenders everywhere: just wave the bottle over the shaker) to those of...let's say lesser repute (and even lesser hygiene) where "clear bathroom of heroine addled hookers" appeared along side "slice new limes for evening shift" in one's job description, there's always one.  There's always one self-entitled, daddy's-trust-fund drinking fuckwit who thinks "The Customer Is Always Right" was inscribed in stone by the finger of God right after that bit about not screwing your neighbour's wife.

They had a look about them, this sub-species of homosapien, a look I could spot the second they walked in the door.  Mid to late twenties, usually under six feet, slight and almost always white.  With their pompous ass haircuts, meant to look messy but with each individual hair gelled to within an inch of its life to keep it that way, they tended to enter in packs, in all of their popped collar and jeans-ripped-just-so finery to sit at the end of my bar, ass-grab the waitress and snap their fingers at me (tip #2: if you ever want to see another drink, or have it served without a generous dollop of dish soap and bar rag drippings or even leave the pub with the same number of teeth you came in with, never, EVER, snap your fingers at the bartender.  Ever).

When I saw the tape of Rypien playing shirtsy-poo with the Minnesota fan, my immediate gut reaction was "It's one of THEM!"  Watching Dippy Douchenozzle going all "Bro!  Did you see that dude?  That was AWESOME!" with his chuckle buddy (I told you, they travel in packs) and high-fiving the crowd on the way out of the arena confirmed it.  And the threatened lawsuit for "assault" locked it in stone.  He was indeed one of THEM.

My point?  The customer is not always right.  And while the six game suspension was inevitable, because the league had to, well, do...something, I also found it regrettable.  Whatever Zippy Numbnuts said to set Rypien off should have been revisited upon him ten fold.  I would not at all have been dismayed had Rick pulled Young Master Engquist from his peanut gallery and proceeded to pound the little shit into a pulsing puddle of goo.

As a matter of fact, I am of the firm belief that special ushers should be scattered throughout the arena.  These last would have as their sole duty the task of finding assbags of this ilk (if you've ever sat next to one, you know who I'm talking about) and usher them down to ice level where they would be free to hurl all of their tough-guy invective upon their target of choice, as they had previously done from the safety of their club seats.  To his face.  At centre ice.  How's that for between period entertainment?

Oh yeah, and the Sens played a game last night.  Jump for the WINSIES!

Last night was an embarassment of epic proportions and we should all go to the box and feel collective shame.  And by "collective" I mean "Erik Karlsson".  Also, Alex Picard can eat a bag of dicks.

Now let us never speak of this again.

Game 1009.  Hat trick.  1000 points.  Any questions?

I have to tell ya, Coach, I'm having a hard time keeping it together.

After losing the first two games to Buffalo and (GACK!!) Toronto to open the season it was possible to step back a little and tell myself that, as astounding spectacles of craptacular hockey as those performances were (and they were), it was only the first two after all.  Once the boys got their legs under them, all would be lollipops and unicorns.

Then came the Caps (3-2OT loss but with a markedly better effort) and the Canes (WIN!).  Suddenly the planet had righted itself just a little bit and began turning ever so slowly upon its axis once more.

OHH YEAH!  Here we go!  PREPARE FOR THAT UNSTOPPABLE JUGGERNAUT THAT IS OUR OTTAWA SENATORS AND WOE BETIDE ALL WHO STAND IN HER WAY!  AS LONG AS THEY DON'T STAND THERE IN A MENACING FASHION FOR ANY LENGTH OF TIME!  'CAUSE THAT MAKES BRIAN LEE CRY!  UNICORNS AWAY!

Next up, a 4-3 loss to the Habs.  And a blown three goal lead.  Okaaaay...shake it off SLC.  A hiccup.  An aberration.  A mere trifle.  Almost a piffle, really.  Nothing to see here, good people.  Please return to your homes and places of business.

Then came last night.  Last night, I utterly...and completely...lost my shit.  Totally.

Have a seat, children.  Uncle SLC wants to tell you a story.

Once upon a time, in a land now long forgotten called "Hockey", there lived a vile, evil creature called "The Suicide Pass", and whenever this awful creature appeared, a brave young man would get hurt, sometimes quite badly.

The way The Suicide Pass worked its awful, evil ways was quite simple.  It would possess the body and soul of one young man, emptying his mind of all thought and foresight, and cause that young man to push a frozen rubber disk forward into the feet of, or slightly behind another young man wearing the same coloured sweater.  This second young man, either looking down or behind him, preoccupied as he was with the task of retrieving the rubber disk so his "coach" wouldn't yell at him anymore would almost never see a third young man, this one wearing a differently coloured sweater, coming toward him.  This third young man very much did NOT want the second young man to find the disk because then his "coach" would yell at him.  So to make sure this didn't happen, the third young man would strike the second young man very, very hard, sometimes hurting the second young man quite badly, while the first young man, still possessed by that foul, evil, awful, giggling creature would look on, incapapble of understanding what he had just caused.

Once upon a time, the second young man would be helped off the ice and the first young man would have The Suicide Pass exorcised from his body by his "coach" the only way they knew how, with the help of something called "K-Y Jelly" (ask mommy and daddy about that kids) and a skate sharpener.  And the third young man?  The young man who struck the first young man so hard that he needed to be helped off the ice?  Why once upon a time, that young man would get elected to the Hall of Fame!  Today, they would fine him $2500.  And that's why we should all miss that long forgotten land of "Hockey" very, very much.

The End.

And you thought this would be about Pascal.