Scorchstack #116 - Of course, we have to go back to Oswald and Kennedy.
Scorchstack #116 - Of course, we have to go back to Oswald and Kennedy.
The things these two talked about would blow your mind
Scorchstack #116 - Of course, we have to go back to Oswald and Kennedy.
There appears to be a lot of turmoil in the Flames management. No, I can’t tell you who told me this but you have to trust me. Just remember, Sutter bad, Treliving good. Sutter is the one who hates Jakob Pelletier’s guts. Trust me.
What’s inside?
The Scorchstack asked for your questions and you delivered. Here are the answers to your burning questions in the first Scorchstack mailbag.
Tibs gets the help of history’s greatest minds (and also Richard Nixon) for their thoughts on this year’s Calgary Flames.
Mike highlights what both this year’s All-Star Game and fans truly deserve.
It’s all quiet on the trade front this year with the Flames and Konnie goes deep in the trenches to find any intel on what the Flames might do.
Since last issue
Yes, the Flames are still mediocre, and are not scoring enough goals when their .895% goalie is starting
Nathan steps up to the plate to give you a fantastic Big Monday Thing.
Vox media announced they were making massive cuts, leading to all hockey blogs associated with SBNation being shut down. Objectively a shitty situation, but also apparently this will cause the NHL’s salary cap to decrease?
Scorchstack Mailbag First Edition
Thank you everyone for following the rule.
by Nathan (@hanoten)
Thank you everyone who wrote in with questions to the inaugural Scorchstack Mailbag For No Hockey Questions. As the #1 Calgary Flames Newsletter and also Lifestyle Service, it was important that we gave both parts of that prestigious title some love.
As a reminder, the one rule is that no one can ask any questions about hockey. I am thrilled to report that no one did, and so no one will be getting the shame of having been told by Scorchstack to Go Fuck Yourself (yet).
Let’s dive right in.
Josh (@TheLongshot) wants to know: I have 2 dogs of my own and 1 “guest” dog. Is that enough?
The Scorchies Say: No amount of dogs are ever enough. Buy a bigger house, get a bigger yard, and get more dogs.
Thanks for writing in Josh! We will be following up on this recommendation in six months to see how you’ve done. Fair warning, we’re hearing from our real estate correspondents that it is a sellers’ market so that bigger house may be tough, but that is the burden we all share in order to provide for dogs.
Aaron wants to know: When will the Scorchies start murdering firemen as our ForeScorch intended?
The Scorchies Say: Excellent question, Aaron, this really made us reflect on our values. When we were teased with the return of Scorch 2.0 before Flames ownership did a little murder of their own (not an exaggeration) we wrote about how Calgary has a history with a great fire so Scorch would be a seamless fit here in the city. Then Scorch never came to be and we have been resting on our laurels.
But your question made us consider a new angle. What if instead of waiting for Calgary Scorch to be announced and then honouring his history as is our culture, we started murdering firefighters now? We’ll make it out to be like “Bring back Scorch and the firefightercide stops” but we both know that no matter what, it won’t. Either it’ll be us or it’ll be Scorch.
You’re onto something Aaron.
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) wants to know: Why doesn’t Grimes love me anymore?
The Scorchies Say: Okay now hold on a second. Do we think that this is actually Elon Musk? On one hand, it does seem unlikely that the world’s biggest loser would write us about his ex-wife. On the other hand, there truly is no bounds to how far our reach extends, and if there is anyone in serious need of a lifestyle shift, it would be Musk. Also, why would anyone just blatantly lie on the internet?
Oh right cause it’s cool and fun. Anyway Elon’s a sack of shit and it’s pretty self-evident why Grimes left him.
FLOSS (@jj_ross23) wants to know: What is the best pie? I would like a consensus from all the Scorchies.
Scorchie Tibs says: I would have to say the humble apple, but a rhubarb pie does fuck. And you know what? Key lime ain’t bad either.
Scorchie Konnie says: Honestly, I don’t think there is an objectively bad pie. I made strawberry and blueberry pie before and I liked them. Tropical pie was a bit of a miss I guess.
Scorchie Floob says: This is a big one. I don’t like pumpkin pie and I’m sorry. I love a pecan pie, and a strawberry rhubarb. And apple pie is so ubiquitous for a reason, it’s amazing.
Scorchie Mike says: Pie talk hell yeah. My favourite pies are:
Peach pie
Pumpkin pie
Sour cream and cherry
Strawberry and rhubarb
Flapper (vanilla custard covered with meringue)
Also a good coconut cream pie is hard to beat. The Italian grocery store near our place has a really good one.
Scorchie Ramz says: Pies are too white for me.
Scorchie Nathan says: All pies are good pies. Since so many great sweet pies have been tossed about, want to give some love to the savoury meat pie. My old roommate and favourite Australian Benjamin makes a meat pie that is legitimately one of the things I miss most about living with him because it was so good. However, I also want to give some love to Saskatoon berry pie. Delicious.
Thank you to everyone who wrote in for lifestyle guidance and needed your questions answered! If you ever need anything in your life answered that has nothing to do with hockey, please write in!
What does history say about the 2022-23 Calgary Flames?
Again, this title is in no way a misdirection.
by tibs (@decayinwtheboys)
History is not the study of dates and things that happened on them, but rather it’s the art of bringing the dead back to life by researching and contextualizing the wide range of things they left behind. This can be as abstract and as grand in scope as analyzing the complex organs of political machinery and the longstanding effects they had on a wide populace, or it can be as simple and innocuous as someone’s diary entry detailing their thoughts of the day.
The way to do this, as any intro level history prof would tell you, is to dig up primary sources, compare them with other primary sources, and then vet that against other historians’ analysis to prove/defend your thesis. As someone with a history degree, that is a lot more work than it appears, and thankfully some AI nerd has created this wonderful app to let us talk to historical figures directly and get their thoughts on the day.
Everyone on twitter is making fun of this app, mostly because it gives off the energy of some teenager dressed in era-appropriate costume at Heritage Park reciting facts to you than fulfilling the promise of being able to have a stimulating conversation with a historical figure. The potential horror of AI is that it will one day be indistinguishable from humanity, blurring the line between machine and man and sending humanity down a path where they have dethroned themselves as Earth’s top creature through their own creation. Thankfully, we are not close to that point yet, we still live in the comfortable zone where we can make fun of a silly app for spitting Wikipedia facts at us and occasionally saying something wacky.
Take for example Scorchie Ramz, who managed to get John F. Kennedy - president who famously had his brains blown out by Lee Harvey Oswald - to say that he loves Lee Harvey Oswald.
Naturally, this was the jumping off point for this article. If we had the opportunity to talk to some bastardized version of historical figures, we had to at least ask them what their thoughts were on the 2022-23 Calgary Flames.
Of course, we have to go back to Oswald and Kennedy.
Their first answers didn’t give us much of anything. JFK played for mass appeal, which is a shrewd political move, but Oswald did the same for some reason.
I figured the second question would at least interest Oswald, but he interpreted it as a cheap shot and was having none of it.
Yup, I offended him. Although in life he famously declared that he was a patsy in the whole thing, his AI self has taken a new tone: he admits it, but he completely regrets it and wants to change the subject much in the way that you would when something awkward is brought up at a family dinner.
Hockey was a no-go, but I was still able to get these two knuckleheads to tangentially talk hockey. Turns out these guys did end up agreeing on one thing: Murray Edwards has some pretty good ideas.
Like Ramz’s experience with AIs JFK and Oswald, they actually turned out to be guys who probably would’ve had a beer together if they had the chance. But I couldn’t help myself and had to ask:
Alright, so I guess JFK doesn’t even know why he was killed. Must be missing half of his brain or something. Onto our next historical figure.
Butch Cassidy, who I only just learned was a real guy and not a movie character, is also available to talk puck, and he seems less stuffy than the other people on the app. He seems like a good dude.
Here’s where I’m honest and say that this bit didn’t go as well as I would hope. Maria Theresa of Austria, Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, and many others couldn’t say anything of value about our beloved boys in red. They didn’t seem to know what I was talking about and could only offer inspiration in the form of vague quotes that are attributed to famous people.
Thankfully, there were a few former hockey players available to chat. Let’s ask Mr. Hockey himself!
Looks like all those worry warts will have to answer to Gordie and his legendary fists in the afterlife if they think the 2022-23 Flames stink. How could you disagree with that analysis?
Again, I couldn’t help myself and had to go back to the historical rival well. I tried striking up a conversation with Richard Nixon (did war crimes in Vietnam) and Ho Chi Minh (was trying to liberate Vietnam). No bullshit, directly to the point.
This seems out of character for one guy who secretly agreed to bomb Cambodia and hoped no one would notice, and the other guy whose quotes page is mostly about how much it kicks ass to kick ass.
These chats hadn’t been productive at all, which meant it was time to go for the low hanging fruit: asking random Italian guys about other Italian guys. As an Italian guy, this usually works.
Most of these have been strikeouts, but this time, the ball dribbled back to the third baseman for the easy out. We’ll count that as progress.
Finally, something to work with. Wilford’s take on Huberdeau seems to be a bit optimistic, but he has given us actual analysis. Maybe AI has a future.
Yes, AI does have a future. If we can get Saddam Hussein on record saying that he would cheer for the Calgary Flames, I think that this thing has potential.
Sniveling, Shitting, and Whining
Crop-Top Szn, Chel, Bro; other buzzwords associated with the youths.
by Mike (@mikeFAIL)
I thought about writing something deep and profound about the state of unreasonable fan expectations, the team’s internal expectations, the team’s apparent inner turmoil, and everything else in between. Then I realized what people really want is the following:
NHL players doing a tribute to this Animal doll from the mid-90s.
The All-Star Game jerseys this year harken back to the NHL Muppets dolls and I don’t know about you, but I better see some players in crop-tops this year. Of all the players I think possible and capable of doing this, the only obvious names that come to mind are David Pastrňák and shit-heel garbage son Matthew Tkachuk.
Make it a reality, boys. Give us some crop tops at the All-Star Game.
What Kind of Trade are the Flames going to make?
IMO they should trade for Jack Eichel.
by Konnie (@konnie49)
A simple question with a simple premise. Flames are lacking, haven’t seemingly been as dominant as last year, and are frustrating lots in Calgary, whether that be fans, coaching, or management. Seems natural after a summer where you lose your top two players who had monster career seasons, but after a summer where the Flames decided against a rebuild and fully committed to competing for the next few years by acquiring Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar as well as signing Nazem Kadri, it feels as though they are wasting borrowed time.
This team only has so many kicks at the can, and there is a lot of worry that they are blowing one of those this year. There is a lot of discussion about what is wrong and what needs to be fixed, but no movement in actually fixing it.
For example, the most prominent Flames rumour since training camp is that they are looking for a Top 6 Winger to add some offence. That is something that even Brad Treliving mentioned in one of the first interviews he had of the season and something that Darryl Sutter has been hinting as frequently as possible.
And that’s pretty much it for the rumours. Often, when a team has this big of a hole (which you could argue is actually more that the Flames have two holes in the top half of the lineup), there are rumours from insiders and others that say the team is interested in a specific player, and the entire fan base decides to mull over the potential trade that could happen for weeks before it either happens or it comes out that all talks have broken off.
However, this year its been really quiet. In fact, the only real trade rumour that a reliable source has mentioned was the fact the Flames had interest in Brock Boeser around the time he was about to be made a scratch back in November. Since then, that rumour went cold and nothing has come up.
So it seems the Flames are not leaking information about what they want to do heading up to the trade deadline. Insiders aren’t being informed, members of the organization do not seem to be willing to disclose what kind of talks are happening. For a team that is supposedly on the verge of a giant managerial collapse with Treliving’s contract looking to expire this summer, it’s been a tight ship.
So insiders and other sports blog sites have to make do with what they got, trying to extrapolate any information that they can find, whether it’s comments from Sutter’s press conferences or just out of thin air based on Flames’ needs. For a while in the early season, the Flames were said to be searching for a defenceman. With the report that Florida is looking to shed some salary off their books, suggestions were made that Anthony Duclair could be a potential target for the team. Timo Meier on the last year of his deal before he is set to be an RFA and being one year away from UFA with a $10 million qualifying offer is a dream target of many Flames fans.
Safe to say is we just don’t know and we as a fan base might not know until the trade deadline, at minimum. We can all hope they try to get a really good top 6 forward option in Duclair, Andrey Kuzmenko, Travis Konecny, Bo Horvat, or even Meier (if they could figure out the cap), but at this stage, it’s just speculation and wishful thinking.
So, are the Flames going to make a big splash and are doing a fantastic job of hiding their targets as of now? Potentially, with how loud everything was in the summer, seems like Flames would want to make everything quieter. Does that give fans any confidence that they will actually acquire someone that the fanbase is looking for? Probably not.
To answer the question originally asked in the title, I think the Flames will make a minor move. That means no Meier, no Konecny and no Horvat. Teams love to complain about how hard it is to make trades during the season, and one as big as Meier can be ruled out immediately. I don’t think the Flames want a repeat of the Tkachuk situation. Horvat would be out cause I don’t think the Flames want a repeat of the Gaudreau situation. Konecny would be someone you’d have to rip from the Flyers hands. In terms of guys like Kuzmenko, Duclair, and even Boeser, it seems a lot more likely of a target that the team would make, but don’t expect any of those name explicitly. Guys like those, and not specifically those guys.
So yes, I am willing to almost guarantee that the Flames will trade for a top 6 forward option and it won’t be the guy everyone wants. It will be a forward who has not been mentioned and most likely will disappoint the fan base. Remember, Brad likes his major surgery in the off-season, if he even returns at all.
Up Next Week
The Flames are waiting the return of Johnny Gaudreau, and made sure to leave a path of skittles so he goes to the opposing dressing room. Old habits die hard.
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