The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

There is no time to wait. The time to act is now.

I am referring to the proposal brought forward by the NHL to make blindside head shots illegal and allow a referee to impose a penalty for an infraction, and the NHL to also consider supplemental discipline if warranted.

The NHLPA seems to agree that a rule about these hits should be implemented, but they want to wait until next season before the change is made. The main reason behind it is that they want the players a chance to "adjust" to the new rule first, as it may affect their game too much and take away from their ability to play the game properly. The NHL is considering bypassing union approval and implement the new rule now.

I wonder if Marc Savard, David Booth or Brent Seabrook agree with the NHLPA on this point.

The funny thing is, as pointed out by Don Cherry, there is already a rule in place called "intent to injure" that has been pretty much ignored by both the referees and the head NHL disciplinarian, Colin Campbell, that makes these blind head shots illegal already. The players know EXACTLY what they're doing when they're head hunting, and when they claim they didn't mean to "hurt anybody" when they connect with these hits, either they're stupid or lying, or maybe a combination of the two.

In any case, if such a new rule needs to be imposed to finally address the problem, so be it. Why the NHLPA would choose to protect the interests of meatheads like Matt Cooke by delaying implementing the rule over the stars of the game like Marc Savard is beyond me and I will never, ever understand it. The union needs to stop thinking every proposal by the league means a new conflict and instead work together to protect its members from being taken out on another stretcher.

And if in the end it results in players like Cooke being out of a job, so be it.

It was refreshing to the Sens pick up the win tonight against the Montreal Canadiens by a score of 2-0 after losing five in a row and winning only once since the Olympic break. Not sure if this is the sign of things to come or it's just a blip in the streak of losses for the Ottawa Senators, but I think Jason Spezza has it right by thinking you just need to step back and laugh at the situation to help yourself relax and get back on track.

Myself and M-C are preparing to sell my condo thus the de-cluttering stage has commenced to make the place look presentable to prospective buyers. And maybe because my apartment is only 600 square feet, anything and everything seems a lot more intrusive than perhaps it should, and the urgency to throw things out is much greater.

But coming across my old cassette tapes of such classic artists including Corey Hart and Technotronic...it was hard to bring myself to throw them down the dumpster. I'm not even sure if I have a machine that could play these tapes, but I've dragged them around from the three different dwellings I've lived in for the last 10 years, and can't even recall if I've listened to them even once during that time.

It's hard for me to let them go. But why? They're USELESS! I can't even listen to them if I wanted to! But look: A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle original soundtrack cassette in Leonardo blue! Limited edition I'm sure!

Ahhhh...down the chute they go. Goodbye cassette tapes. Sorry you became obsolete.

Are we so starved for celebrity-type attention we will destroy ourselves to do so?

Donna Simpson is a 42 year-old mother whose goal, if you can call it that, is to weigh 1,000 pounds. To do this, she has to gain 400 pounds as she already eclipses the 600 pound mark. The Guinness Book of Records already has recorded her as the heaviest mother to give birth in 2007. But that's not enough...she wants to gain more attention by weighing 453.59 kilograms.

I don't know about you, but I don't know too many fat senior citizens. And what's more troubling is the aforementioned fact that she's a mother, to two kids. It's one thing to purposely harm yourself, but to do so in front of your children...what does that tell them? How will that affect how they're brought up? And how much will they suffer when their mother dies and they've lost a parent?

To add further to the disgust, she runs a website that charges visitors for the privilege to watch her eat and wash herself.

At the very least, the Guinness people should call her up and tell her they're removing the pointless "heaviest mother" record and they're also not going to bother to report on this latest "effort" of hers to get into the record books again. I don't see any value in keeping these records that pretty much lead someone to an early grave.

By the way, her grocery bill? $815 a week. I'm guessing her kids get that $15.

I'm starting get all growns up.

- Cuba Gooding Jr? Christian Slater? Coming to Ottawa?! A cop-drama, Sacrifice, that will be shot in the Byward Market and different residential areas of the city, is coming to town the end of the month. I would have starred in it but...I was busy.

It might seem easy, but I don't think I could do it. And I don't think I'd be able to try.

Apparently Phoonk 2, a Bollywood production, is so scary, the director is offering anyone 50,000 rupees (or about $10,000) if they can watch the movie in a theatre alone for the full two hours. Apparently someone had tried it with the first Phoonk and could only last 30 minutes before running out of the theatre scared.

Now I'm sure there are some who would take on the challenge as if it were nothing but for me, the fact that such an offer is being made makes me think this film might be so terrifying it'd scar me for life.

Sort of reminds of this incident a few years back...

My pal John worked for this company who was contracted to pick up dead bodies and bring them to funeral homes, morgues, etc. A nice perk of knowing John was that he'd wash my Jeep at his work (as they had to clean their van daily as you could imagine).

In the garage was a gurney, covered in what appeared to be red velvet. "I'll give you fifty bucks if you'll lie down on that," offered John. "Really!?" I replied. An easy 50 bucks for sure! But as I walked closer and closer to that gurney, I got bad vibes from it. Yes, that gurney had carted away many a dead person. I ended up stopping about 6 feet in front of it, sort of stared at it as I took in all that bad aura. "Nope, I won't be lying down on that thing" and walked away.

It was just plain too creepy.

I'm kind of sad the Olympics are now over.

It didn't start off well. Undoubtedly, the Georgian luger who was killed crashing into a pole while doing a practice run started off the Olympics on a sad note. And the weather put a damper on events (that pun was intentional, feel free to use it) causing delays in the schedule and thousands of tickets needed to be refunded because they could no longer accommodate fans.

And while Alexandre Bilodeau winning Canada's first gold medal on home soil put the spark back in the spirit of Canadians, the "Own the Podium" program was being criticized because the overall medal haul wasn't going to be enough to put Canada #1 in the world as was previously predicted. And some were even saying it was putting too much pressure on the athletes to perform.

It took about one week to erase that negativity. Slowly but surely, Canada was racking up those medals. The wave of patriotism emanating from Vancouver was something I hadn't seen in some time. Canada is reserved about itself; proud but polite. These Olympics though, the red and white fever took over. More Canadians watched Bilodeau in his aerials event (probably the first time they ever took in the sport) then they did this year's Superbowl. Uplifting stories surfaced everwhere: Bilodeau's brother with cerebal palsy being his inspiration to compete. Clara Hughes in her last Olympics at 37 years old still managed to pull in a bronze medal. Joanie Rochette performed just days after her mother suddenly passed away to win her bronze medal.

And how about Jon Montgomery chugging a pitcher of lager after his skeleton 1st place gold performance?

Then of course, the pinnacle of the events, the men's hockey gold medal game, where Team Canada was seeking to win at home against the USA in front of a rabid crowd and country (about 26 million Canadians at one point or another tuned into the game) under the motto "LEAVE NO DOUBT". They took home the prize in dramatic fashion, a memory that will be talked about in Canadian history for as long as hockey exists.

Canada ended the events third in overall medals and first in gold with fourteen, a Winter Olympics record. Hard to believe in Calgary back in 1988 we took a grand total of five medals with no gold. Failure was almost expected of Canada at these types of competitions. But now it can be expected Canada to be competitive and in the process, give some pride and swagger back to its 33 million inhabitants.

Yes, it's ashame it has to come to an end. Many say this will be the last Olympics Canada will see in our lifetimes. Hopefully it won't be the case; the 2010 Winter Olympics showed the world Canada knows how to stage an event.

Even while in the warmest city in our country.