ScorchStack Issue #38 - Don't Reward The Guy Who Ate A Hamburger Off The Ice
You have approximately 90 minutes to read this
The Flames might not be in the playoffs, but they’re still playing hockey. You tell me that’s not dedication and perseverance for the game.
They might not be playing for the ultimate prize, but they are the champions of going out there and trying their hardest no matter what and having fun, and at the end of the day that’s the truest Stanley Cup of all.
Except for the real Stanley Cup. That one is way more important.
What’s inside?
There are many ex-Flames in the playoffs, only some of whom deserve to win a cup this year.
The NHL awards are coming up! All of them stink.
Scorchstack hit 1,000 followers, the only thing we ever wanted in this life. We celebrate by going through the 1,000 Ways to Die and which Calgary Flames are most likely to die in humiliating/entertaining/curious fashion.
Draft position! We’re not that worried about it.
Since last issue
The Flames are up 2-1 in their first round playoff series against the Vancouver Canucks, with game four set to go pretty soon! NHL hasn’t scheduled game five yet for some odd reason, must be a clerical error.
Scorchstack #37 debuted the Scorchstack podcast. Many people are calling it the audio event of the century.
The Scorchstack is generously offering our fans the chance to have some one-of-a-kind prizes in our inaugural playoff pool
The second last Big Monday Thing of the regular season? The second last Big Monday Thing of the regular season.
Ranking The List Of Teams With Ex-Flames It Would Be The Most Egregious To See Win A Cup
If Jarome left and didn't get a Cup, none of these plebs should either
by Nathan (@hanoten)
The playoffs have started and despite the fact that the Calgary Flames keep playing games against the Vancouver Canucks, apparently they “did not make it”, according to sources.
With the North Division sending a representative to the semi-finals, one team will be dubbed “Canada’s team”, which is going to be insufferable. I don’t care if Edmonton is the last team standing in the North division, they are not Canada’s team and I shan’t be watching any of their games while simultaneously jerking off to nationalism.
Unfortunately, many writers will also try and tell me that I should care about teams that have connections to Calgary Flames. Like I care that Florida’s 4th line is made up of guys who once had a PTO in Calgary. If they are good enough to win a Cup, they should have done it here.
If not even Jarome Iginla could leave this team to win a Cup, then I don’t care if Curtis Lazar could potentially pull off the feat. In 2019, seeing Worst All-Time Flames member Chris Butler get to skate with the Stanley Cup did not give me pride. It underlined the pain the Calgary Flames caused me, a pain I still nurture to this day for some reason.
So here are my rankings of which teams to hate in case these ex-Flames win a Stanley Cup.
(tie) - Colorado, Vegas, Nashville - zero ex-Flames.
These teams have also been watching the same team I have over the past while and said thanks, but no thanks. Two out of three of them have built very strong teams as a result, and Nashville is also here for some reason.
Carolina Hurricanes - Dougie Hamilton
Dougie deserved better, and frankly, if he wins a Cup it’ll show Calgary they were stupid not to treat him like the king he is. The most acceptable ex-Flame to win.
Cam Talbot - Minnesota Wild
The Wild are a fun team this year, mostly because of Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek. Talbot has decidedly stolen some games for them though, proving that outside of one bad Game 6 he wasn’t the problem in Calgary. Probably could have used the Markstrom money on some scoring talent and kept Talbot. But alas, here we are. Sorry Cam, you’re hot and that will have to do it for you.
Winnipeg Jets - Laurent Brossoit
Brossoit never actually played for Calgary, but he was drafted by them and then included in the package to bring dancin’ Ladislav Smid over. He’s a pretty good backup who I don’t care to see win it all.
Tampa Bay - Curtis McElhinney
Since he already won a Cup last year, Tampa is lower than they would be otherwise. Would have ranked higher before McElhinney won last year as a backup, but the less said about 2020 the better.
New York Islanders - Austin Czarnik
Czarnik was perpetually underused in his time during Calgary, suiting up eight times last year. I liked him enough, but he clearly didn’t make an impact. He played less for NYI this year (four games) and likely won’t see playoff action barring injuries, but I still don’t want to see him skating a lap with the Cup.
St. Louis - Jon Gillies
Gillies was barely a player for the Flames and is even less of one for St. Louis. Still, he’s on the playoff roster, because St. Louis employing dirtbags in net.
Boston Bruins - Curtis Lazar
If Lazar rides being part of a trade package with Taylor Hall to a Cup, it will underscore how much Jarome should have maybe been traded to Boston in 2013 instead of Pittsburgh. Don’t reward the guy who ate a hamburger off the ice.
Washington Capitals - Garnet Hathaway (and hon. mention Craig Anderson)
I didn’t really appreciate Hathaway for what he was in Calgary. I laughed when Washington gave him four years, but then I watched a whole season of Joakim Nordstrom killing penalties.
Craig Anderson gets an honourable mention because he was drafted by the Flames in 1999, not signed, and subsequently re-entered the draft. I looked it up on his Wikipedia page, which led me to this golden nugget.
As fellow Scorchie Floob said, “You can't have a tainted Swede. Bloodline has to be pure.” The Flames made the right call not signing him.
Montreal Canadiens - Paul Byron and Brett Kulak
Before I get into it, yes Michael Frolik is also on this roster. However, he won a Cup before joining the Flames, so he can do whatever he wants. Paul Byron and Brett Kulak are undervalued pieces who went to join the Habs. I truly hope they make it to round two. But seeing both of them win a Cup before Iggy? Montreal is already insufferable enough.
Toronto Maple Leafs - T.J. Brodie and David Rittich
If this was just about teams themselves, Toronto would be ranked higher. Even with genuinely likable roster players like Joe Thornton and Jason Spezza, it is still the Toronto Maple Leafs. Brodie and Rittich honestly felt like they tried harder than anyone on this list sans Dougie to bring a Cup to Calgary, and I’m sad they didn’t win one here. Rittich in particular deserved better as Brodie chose Toronto. But fuck doing it for Toronto.
Florida Panthers - Sam Bennett and Ryan Lomberg
With all due respect to Lomberg, this is about Sam Bennett. If playoff Sam Bennett ends up being a universal factor on top of how good he looked (in an extremely limited sample size) in Florida’s regular season, I will not care for it. Yes, I know that the difference is that Bennett gets to play with talent like Jonathan Huberdeau and shockingly that makes a huge difference. I like Bennett. I chose him for my pick as Flames That Sucked But We Loved, but I am not ready to see him win a Cup.
Pittsburgh Penguins - Mark Jankowski
Mark Jankowski???
Edmonton Oilers - Alex Chiasson, James Neal, Kris Russell, and Mike Smith
With all due respect to Alex Chiasson, you know the vibes.
The NHL Awards: Which One Is Dumbest?
Turns out the answer is all of them
by Floob (@itlooksreal)
The 2021 NHL season, mercifully, is about to end. All the players are clearing out their lockers and going back to whatever Toronto suburb from whence they came, spending their summers boating on lakes, fishing with their college buddies, and definitely not doing coke or conceiving illegitimate children.
I think the playoffs are canceled. I’ll look into that.
Once the final buzzer ends, all that’s really left to do, the one thing we all care about very much, is to hand out some trophies. That’s right, we’re on the precipice on NHL Awards season, but it’s impossible to enter this zone without having a long-overdue discussion about something crucial in this whole process: These awards are really dumb.
It seems impossible that some little trophies handed out by the stoic veterans who insist that the hot dogs in the press box being cold are a violation of their human rights could be cherished as anything other than monumental, but when you boil it down, the tenets that prop up the existence of these prizes are very contrived.
I think it’s time to put these awards on blast. I have decided to rank all the individual trophies in order of least dumb to most dumb. I’ll exclude the Conn Smythe, because that’s for the playoffs, and like I said, those got canceled. Also, because this is obviously a Calgary Flames-centric newsletter, I’ll pick a theoretical Flames champion for each award, handing it out based on the dumbest reason to win one. Let’s go.
16. The Ted Lindsay Award (formerly the Lester B. Pearson Award)
Awarded to the NHL's outstanding player as selected by the members of the NHL Players Association
Objectively not dumb. The best player in the league, as voted on by the players in the league. It’s not perfect, but this is the purest display of merit the NHL allows. The scope is clear, and the ones who choose the winner have the expertise to back it up. This should be the bar that all awards are held to. Also, Ted Lindsay is a labour champion, and cool as fuck.
Theoretical Flames champion: Johnny Gaudreau
Not a dumb award, so no dumb champion. You could make a case for Elias Lindholm, Chris Tanev, or Andrew Mangiapane here, but it seems like the Flames live or die based off Gaudreau’s production.
15. The Art Ross Trophy
Awarded to the player who leads the league in total points at the end of the regular season.
Again, not dumb. This one isn’t voted on, the winner is chosen by his output, the message could not be more clear. It’s an award you’d want to strive for as a player.
Theoretical Flames champion: hahahaha
If no other team existed this year, it would be either Gaudreau or Lindholm. This just makes me miss Jarome Iginla.
14. The Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy
Awarded to the top goal scorer of the regular season.
Again, an objective winner chosen based purely on the merits of scoring goals. Sexy, sexy goals. Scoring obviously isn’t the most important metric of a player’s worth, but look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t want to pot a few highlight reel goals in the NHL.
Theoretical Flames champion: No Flame will ever win this award ever again
13. The Hart Memorial Trophy
Awarded to the "player judged most valuable to his team".
This is where things start to get goofy. The Hart Trophy is dumb because it’s not an MVP award, it doesn’t go to the player who empirically had the best season. The definition of the prize (player judged most valuable to his team) exists solely to make the PHWA, the voting body for the Hart, lose their collective goddamn minds trying to galaxy brain a winner. “Yeah this guy had 120 points, 20 more than the next guy, but this guy who had 67 points was the reason why his team only missed the playoffs by three points. Plus he fights more”
The PHWA is where meritocracy gets a botched facelift. Trophies awarded by them are always going to be inherently loopy.
Theoretical Flames champion: Chris Tanev
Wore an “A” a few times despite this being his first season with the Flames.
12. The Calder Memorial Trophy
Awarded to the league’s most outstanding rookie player.
A cool award on its own, as everyone loves when a player takes the league by storm in his first year. The purity of this one gets bogged down by the debate over age, something we’ll for sure see this year when voters try to talk themselves out of handing the Calder to Kiril Kaprizov. Way to already be 24 dude.
Theoretical Flames champion: Juuso Valimaki
Shoutout to Sergei Makarov, for winning this award for the Flames back in 1992, despite being 31 years old, causing this eternal debate over age to begin with.
11. The Frank J. Selke Trophy
Awarded to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game.
Sort of heralded as the analytics award in recent years, the Selke is most often handed out to players who demonstrate a “complete two-way game”. This award is great, but it’s also dumb, because it has to be. It’s a murky set of circumstances that go into selecting a winner, and no one has ever really come to a consensus on what it takes to win. As a result, the players you might think should be the recipients never are, and might not even be nominated.
Kind of a mess when you think about it. But it’s maybe the only one I care about?
Theoretical Flames champion: Andrew Mangiapane
Again, won’t even be nominated. But he should be.
10. The James Norris Memorial Trophy
Awarded to the defenseman who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position.
This one has PHWA stink all over it too, which really dumbs this whole thing up. The Norris gets buried under weird semantics born out of not truly understanding what strong defensive play is. Every year there is either one slam dunk candidate or two runaway stars that don’t get their due credit because their big crime is they don’t spend enough time in their own end to be considered “good defensively”.
I can write an entire essay over how asinine this is, but that’s for another day. I’m going to stop now before this rant gets away from me.
Theoretical Flames champion: Chris Tanev
I don’t think anyone would have seriously predicted this at the beginning of the season, but he did end up being the best blueliner for the Flames all year. Sorry for picking a winner seriously.
9-8. The Vezina Trophy and the William M. Jennings Trophy
Vezina: Awarded to the league’s top goaltender. Jennings: Awarded to the goaltender(s) having played a minimum of 25 games for the team with the fewest goals scored against it in the regular season.
These two are linked together, and they’re both silly because they exist concurrently for no reason at all. The Jennings Trophy’s existence in theory makes the Vezina irrelevant (also makes it irrelevant in practice). Meanwhile, the Jennings is flawed as well because goals allowed doesn’t really tell the whole story of a goaltender’s season, and a 25 game cutoff is far too low.
From 2000-2007, there was a prize called the Roger Crozier Saving Grace Award that was handed out to the goaltender with the best save percentage in the league. It still had the same 25 game cutoff, which is still flawed, but an award to a goalie who stops the most pucks should be the baseline for choosing the top goalie. Way cooler name too.
Theoretical Flames champion: Jacob Markstrom
Dustin Wolf is going to go absolutely buck wild over these awards very soon.
7. The Jack Adams Award
Awarded to the NHL coach adjudged to have contributed the most to his team's success.
They should just rename this “Guy who happens to be the coach of a mediocre team that went on a PDO bender award”, because that’s who wins it every year. Bob Hartley says what’s up.
Theoretical Flames champion: Darryl Sutter
Prediction: Sutter wins this next year.
6. Jim Gregory General Manager of the Year Award
Awarded to the top National Hockey League General Manager.
This one seems like it should be a bigger deal, but it isn’t. And like...good. Who cares? Most GMs are bad, and they’re the real heroes, because nothing would ever get done around here if not for them.
Theoretical Flames champion: ???
I guess it’s Brad Treliving, but that remains to be seen.
5. The Lady Byng Memorial Trophy
Awarded to the player who exhibited outstanding sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability.
We’re DEEP in the Stupid Woods now, my friends. The Lady Byng is very funny, because it’s voted on by the PHWA, a body where the old guard every day decries the push towards a game that matches the characteristics that make up the body of this award, and then making up those same traits in players who don’t actually embody them, and then just awarding it to the player with the least amount of penalty minutes anyway.
Most gentlemanly player. Get the fuck out of here. They make it sound like the winner is going to drink tea with the Queen.
Theoretical Flames champion: Milan Lucic
More like M’Lady Lucic, am I right folks?
4. The King Clancy Memorial Trophy
Awarded to the player who best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and has made a noteworthy humanitarian contribution in his community.
Rich guy donates money to charity, is lauded by the community. Story at 11. If you have an award that operates on the same values that people use to justify the existence of Barstool acting like Barstool, this whole thing is a bit of a reach.
Theoretical Flames champion: Mikael Backlund
I choose Backlund because we already know he’s the nominee this year. I assume he doesn’t care about this Clancy either.
3. The Mark Messier Leadership Award
Awarded by former player Mark Messier, himself, to the player who exemplifies great leadership qualities to his team, on and off the ice, during the regular season.
Truly the most NHL thing the NHL has ever done. This is so goddamn dumb. To have one prize for leadership isn’t enough, why not create a new one so the guy who one time guaranteed a win and was lucky he didn’t fall flat on his face doing so can lord it over everyone for the rest of time.
I am genuinely curious in this particular moment about what the NHL brain worms collective is going to do with this one when (if) Mark Messier ever dies.
Theoretical Flames champion: I mean...it’s gotta be Milan Lucic, right?
2. The Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy
Awarded to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey.
I think a lot of people who know me would have expected the Masterton to go at number one on my list, and the fact that it doesn’t will REALLY serve to show how monumentally stupid that one ends up being.
When I was in high school, our sports department had their own award show every year, and one of the categories was the Heart Award. That always reminded me of the guy from Captain Planet who had the Heart ring, while all his teammates had cool as shit powers like Wind and Fire. The guy with the Heart ring didn’t so anything except like…offer encouraging words? Nice, but the other guy can make earthquakes. He was just there. He had heart. So I asked a couple of my friends on the football team if this is essentially what the Heart award for our school was, and they quietly confirmed it went to the shittiest player on the team every year.
Every high school has the Heart Award. The NHL has it too. They call it the Masterton Trophy.
The Masterton usually goes to a player who got hurt real bad but managed to come back. The prize itself is named after Bill Masterton himself, the only NHL player to ever die as the direct result of injuries sustained while playing the game (I would argue there have been others, but this was created in 1968 before anyone knew what CTE was, so we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt). But it’s kinda morbid to remind a player about their debilitating injury year over year, so the league added the language around perseverance so that they could start to include players for kicking around the league while being old.
Nowadays, no one really knows what values the Masterton embodies, so they essentially flip a coin every year. If you’ve never done it before, I implore you to check out the list of winners on wikipedia, to see the reason given why they were selected. It is pretty mind-blowing stuff.
Theoretical Flames champion: Milan Lucic
Again, he’s already the Flames nominee, and for good reason.
1. The E.J. McGuire Award of Excellence
Awarded by NHL Central Scouting to the draft prospect who best exemplifies the commitment to excellence through strength of character, competitiveness, and athleticism.
You have never heard of this one before. I hadn’t either until putting together this article. It has only existed since 2015, but at the same time, it has existed since 2015. They don’t even hand this one out on Awards Night, that’s how little anyone cares about this thing. they declare a winner during the draft, a thing thousands of us watch, and still no one has ever heard of this award.
This award is basically the Masterton for undrafted players. The 2016 recipient was Neil Doef, who had to leave the game two years prior after suffering a spinal cord injury that paralyzed him from the waist down. In 2018, the award went to the Humboldt Broncos, because marketing 101 at that time dictated “just say Humboldt, and people will like it”. To take the worst days of someone’s life and make it ceremonial feels pretty bleak to me, but in the eyes of the NHL, anything that doesn’t kill you (and that they are not deemed legally liable for) only makes you stronger, and tragedy porn is great for business. Except in this case, because again, no one has ever heard of the E.J. McGuire Award of Excellence before.
Obviously, there are no theoretical Flames champions here, but the first-ever recipient of the award is Travis Konecny, who, depending on who you choose to believe, will be a Calgary Flame any day now.
Those are your rankings. I hated compiling them. All of this goes to show that the NHL awards are pretty useless, you never, ever need to care about them, and the one true test of merit, naturally, comes courtesy of The Scorchstack.
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1000 Ways To Die But About The Flames
That’s too many ways to die
by Ramz (@ramzreboot)
Congratulations to ScorchStack for hitting 1,000 followers on twitter dot com. A truly great feat! We are rebranding as 1c000stack now, thanks. When we hit 1K, the only thing I could think of was 1000 Ways to Die for some reason. Does anyone else remember that show? The one episode I remember was where a girl getting implants boarded an airplane where everyone was staring at her giant knockers, and then because of altitude or something they exploded in the air. I will never get implants because of that, thanks 1000 Ways to Die. Also, does anyone else remember it being 1001 ways to die? I could have sworn it was that. Is this a Mandela Effect moment or am I just stupid?
Anyways, in honour of us hitting 1K followers, I’m going through the episodes and picking them according to Flames jersey numbers, but also multiplying it by 10 because I don’t want all the ways to die to be under 100, what fun is that? Whatever way to die that episode is, I will say which Flames player I think would most likely die that way. Enjoy!
All plots and episodes are found here.
If there is no episode associated with that player’s number x 10, I chose the closest episode number.
Connor Mackey - Episode #24: She-Manned (AKA Wet & Dry)
Plot:
Lydia is a female bodybuilder who works as a fetish actress for wimpy men, who are sexually aroused by being manhandled by a much stronger woman (Starting off real strong here). Hank was one of Lydia's best customers. Lydia decides to entertain him by crushing a watermelon between her thighs. Lydia successfully manages to crush the watermelon, but suddenly begins to choke and dies, sending her to heaven (ok?). Hank then runs out of the house, freaking out. Earlier in the day, Lydia had taken some muscle relaxers and decided to take a bath in order to prepare for Hank. Lydia, who is far too relaxed, ends up passing out in the tub and sinks under the water, but awakens before she can drown, but still intakes a large amount of water. Lydia died from a condition called "dry drowning".
Alright, so she didn’t actually die from crushing a watermelon between her thighs. I also don’t understand the episode title? Anyways, she almost drowned from being too relaxed. That’s definitely how Sean Monahan would die. Head empty. Now, who would most likely die from trying to crush a watermelon between their thighs? Milan Lucic.
Rasmus Andersson - Episode #47: Sumowed (AKA Sumo You Didn’t)
Plot:
Harold was the son of his rich father. He created a company called Ballzzz (lol) and decided to have some fun with his co-workers. He started with a trust fall, but he failed to catch Jen. Then he decided to do sumo wrestling. Harold was in a sumo suit and challenges one of his workers. Over time in the process, Harold had no idea that they did it on a cliff. Harold falls down the cliff. He survives his crash but winds up fatally hit by a smart car, sending him to hell.
Death by getting hit with a smart car, Noah Hanifin. Death by Sumo Wrestling? Milan Lucic (They are all going to be Milan Lucic).
Mark Giordano - Episode #55: Cardiac A-Breast (AKA Zapped Rack)
(I don't understand the AKAs)
Plot:
Cindy was invited to a party. The problem was, she had nothing to wear. So, she made do, by buying a full-metal bra, and picked out the dress she wanted carefully. After arriving, she was attempting to take home a male and drain him of his bodily fluids (christ), by showing herself off. Every guy at the party wanted her. Even when there was a thunderstorm on the night of the party, Cindy was a real live wire. That is until a thunderbolt struck her, and she was dead before she hit the ground.
Hmm, you guys I’m starting to think these scenarios aren’t real. The most likely to die from a thunderbolt is Zac Rinaldo. He just has the vibe. Most likely to die from a full-metal bra incident? Sean Monahan. I can’t explain.
Juuso Valimaki - Episode #61: Furdered (AKA Pitfall)
Plot:
Henry, a hunter in the Michigan wilderness dressed in an animal pelt, travels through the forest. How he's going to die? Let's find out. [This isn’t important let’s skip to how he dies]. "Let's give it one more...shot"...literally. He gets shot by another hunter who mistakes him for an animal because he wore the fur of the animals that Henry hunted when he drinks some water from a river stream. The bullet enters Henry's neck and exits his hip, and he bleeds to death. This is why hunters wear orange vests and not animals fur as Henry does to don't end up like Henry.
Getting shot while hunting: Zac Rinaldo.
Chris Tanev - Episode #80: Caved In (AKA Neander-Fall)
Plot:
Zogg was a Neanderthal, as in a caveman. He did whatever he could to satisfy his mate, Ubba. But it was never enough, Ubba was bored with the same old cave & same old food because all she did was stay in the cave. One day in the prehistoric land, Zogg came to his cave with some freshly killed dinosaur meat. but Ubba wasn't in the mood for raw meat. Zogg on the other hand was horny and wanted to mate, but Ubba wasn't gonna do anything until Zogg did something about the food and cave. [This is too long and unimportant, I’ll skip to the part where he dies]. Zogg wasn't necessarily the first to discover fire. Since cavemen didn't spread the news about the first fire discovery, Zogg was the first to discover fire for himself. Soon enough, he was roasting & cooking dino-meat like a dad at a BBQ. But Zogg unknowing created the first gas chamber! Zogg had no way of knowing about the deadly carbon monoxide smoke that comes from a fire, and so he had no idea what to do! In a short moment, Zogg started coughing & feeling light-headed. Another moment he was gasping for air & quickly fell unconscious. 2 minutes later Zogg suffocated & died, much to the horror of a returning Ubba.
Dying from lack of oxygen due to a fire? I don’t know, I feel like it’d be Johnny Gaudreau. He reminds me of the type to leave the garage closed after starting his car because he doesn’t know about carbon monoxide.
Derek Ryan - Episode #102: Dead Weight
Plot:
A drunk weightlifter named Pete makes a bet with his workout partner Hank that he can lift a 350 pound I-beam he found at a construction site. Pete tells Hank to watch how he could lift "The Crusher", but Hank left. However, he lifts it too high, loses his grip, and drops it. "The Crusher" crushed Pete's windpipe, killing him instantly.
Zac Rinaldo.
Mikael Backlund - Episode #110: Blades of Gory
Plot:
Mario was an aggressive amateur hockey player who had dreams of making it into the pros, but is currently playing in a city league. He checked everyone including his teammates. They hated him for that. He eventually got into a big fight with an opponent. They fell back and the razor-sharp blade of the ice skate sliced Mario's carotid artery and he bleeds to death, ceasing his immature behaviour during the hockey games, permanently.
A little too on the nose. This is how players have actually gotten injured so I believe this is definitely a way to die. Anyways, I feel weird saying who would most likely die this way so I’m giving it to myself instead. (ed. note: RIP ramz)
Johnny Gaudreau - Episode #134: Ghost Busted (aka Haunted Hoax)
Plot:
Two wannabe ghost hunters named Chester and Lester walk into the Rodella, a haunted house that was formerly a brothel recording the pilot for their show, The Ghost Molesters [Yikes, that would not fly in 2021]. They try to find the spirits of prostitutes and have sex with them. [Yikes again. Also, the filler doesn’t matter and neither do the ghosts, basically, Chester ran over Lester with their car].
Getting run over by a car: Noah Hanifin.
Milan Lucic - Episode #177: Jack ‘n’ Croaked (aka the Jack Daniel Story)
Plot:
Jasper was a famous Jack Daniel or Moonshiner. Jasper has been a moonshiner for many's a year. Not only did Jasper sell moonshine, but he also tested some of his own moonshine. After a while, he forgets that in his storeroom is a safe. In it was where he sold his secret formula. However, Jasper was the only one who knew the code, and testing his own product got him so drunk he can't remember the combination. Frustrated, Jasper gave his safe the boot. However, Jasper did not open his safe but he did open a large gash on his big toe, which later became infected. After two weeks, on Jasper's death bed, his assistant came in to give Jasper one last drink. Jasper took the last drink and right before he died of septic shock, his final words were, "Batch number 7 sure was the one.". He is now sent to heaven, where he can make more moonshines.
I thought this was funny because of the trivia on this page:
Anyways, most likely to die by bashing your big toe: Zac Rinaldo.
Matthew Tkachuk - Episode #191: Rhymes With “Rich” (aka Evil Exercise)
Plot:
Bill was a businessman who had hired Jenny as a personal trainer, not knowing she was a gold digger attempting to steal Bill from his wife. While helping Bill lift a heavy barbell, she notices he has an erection which disgusts his wife causing her to storm off with Bill running after her in embarrassment. A somewhat-aroused Jenny decides to practice her clean and jerk technique. Placing extra weights on the barbell, she tries to lift it up, but lifts it way too high, and drops the barbell on the back of her neck, severing her spinal cord and windpipe. She collapses to the ground as blood drools from her mouth and she eventually dies due to an inability to breathe.
Zac Rinaldo.
Joakim Nordstrom - Episode #201: Blown Job (aka Coulrophobic Clown)
Plot:
Fred Garfield AKA Laughy the Clown, a drunken alcoholic clown, also a bad clown is on his way to his next birthday party, wishing, more than anything, that it would be his last. Ironically, he was coulrophobic as a child (meaning he was scared of clowns). He would always bring the grand finale, a giant balloon called, "Ally Gator" which was probably the only worthwhile part of his act. When he stops short in front of the party, a canister of CO2 rolls up against his seat, inflating the giant balloon for his act while still in the car. He is too drunk to sense the danger until it is too late and dies when the balloon presses him against the car door and he suffocates.
Matthew Tkachuk.
Sean Monahan - Episode #230: Trailer Trashed
Plot:
A newly married man named Chuck buys a 1952 Royal Spartenette trailer home for him and his wife, Roxanne. He cleans every inch of his new home but has trouble unclogging the home's toilet. Chuck attempts to unclog the toilet with bleach since other attempts to unclog it are unsuccessful.
"Chemical warfare was the only answer. Chuck poured a gallon of bleach down the trailer's poop chute, and waited. From the darkness below, came a response..."
The bleach reacts with the sewage, creating a cloud of chlorine gas, which suffocates him.
Louis Domingue.
Jacob Markstrom - Episode #254: Booby-Zapped (aka Booby-Trapped)
Plot:
A man named Warren, paranoid to the point of paralysis and insomnia over current events and subscribing to various conspiracy theories, places booby-traps around his house to protect himself. To get some much-needed sleep, he takes some sleeping pills, but the pills come with the side-effect of sleepwalking. Later that night, Warren sleepwalks to his refrigerator to get some food, managing to escape every trap he placed along the way. However, when he sits down to eat, a laser-operated shotgun is triggered, shooting him in the head and causing instant death.
TJ Brodie (you know).
Hey everyone, I actually lied because I don’t feel like doing this anymore. Sorry to all the players who come after Jacob Markstrom’s number. Just assume they’re all going to be Milan Lucic or Zac Rinaldo. I didn’t realize how long this would take and I didn’t really factor that in when starting and I am not about to do even MORE unpaid labour. Whoops!
Don't Worry About The Draft Position
It's a fake year, which means it's also gonna be a fake draft
by Konnie (@konnie49)
As with the origin of many of my articles, I saw something on Twitter that made me confused and slightly irritated. People are furious that the Flames are just bad enough that they can’t make the playoffs, but aren’t shit enough to get a high draft pick. I mean yeah, it is very annoying in any other year, but this year, who cares where they draft? It’s a shitshow of a year. Due to the state of this world in peril, and our leaders’ brains resembling a toy monkey banging two cymbals together, we know absolutely nothing about the upcoming draft class. As such, I have been given this task by absolutely no one to help you all understand that this is the one draft that you should not give any shits about where the Flames draft. To put everyone at ease, here are the top 4 reasons not to care.
1) No one played meaningful hockey
Barely anyone got to play meaningful hockey games this year, and the ones that did could not be evaluated in person. That shiny draft board that you think is absolutely bulletproof? Throw it in the trash, because you barely know anything.
Let’s look at major junior. The OHL didn’t even play, and the WHL had 20 games with no playoffs. The QMJHL had a season filled with multiple stoppages because players and coaches kept getting COVID. What are you able to extract from that? Some of the higher talents were able to go to Europe to play, but due to these being professional leagues who were also going through pandemic protocols, most of them weren’t able to get in much more than 20 games. The same goes for European prospects, who are vying for the same ice time and have to go through all these hurdles just to play.
The NCAA faired a bit better, with most of the top prospects able to get in around 25ish games, but once again COVID was not kind of their schedules. Certain schools faced outbreaks, leading to huge schedule discrepancies with teams out for such long periods of time that they ended up being 10+ games behind in their division. Outbreaks got so bad that Notre Dame and Michigan had to entirely pull out of the National Championship.
It’s been a wild ride for anyone involved, and to expect that any player was able to be at 100% physically and mentally is laughable.
2) Scout what exactly?
Now that we have established it was nearly impossible to have a set schedule in an absolute frantic time, what were scouts able to see in their very limited viewings of each player? Assuming that scouts were even allowed to go to games and view players in person, which 99% of the time they were not, scouts are watching these players knowing that they aren’t able to perform at their best, playing against players that aren’t able to perform at their best. They only get to see these players in a microscopic sample size, which further clouds their judgment.
This leads to huge discrepancies between scouts who interpret what little they saw in completely different fashions, leading to draft boards that are completely unique. Players who are 2nd round talents ranked to go in the 6th rounds, 4th round talents ranked to go in the top 20. It is almost guaranteed that the best player in the draft is not going to be the 1st overall pick and could honestly go anywhere in this draft.
3) Any pick in this draft might get lucky
Even in normal drafts where a defenceman is rated #1 in their class, that player never turns out to be the best player of their draft. Now add in the pandemic screwing things up, there has never been a better time to not win the draft lottery. Why would you want that extra pressure on your team to nail their top 3 pick, knowing full well that they have barely any information on any of the players to go off of, when your team could just get lucky with the 13th overall pick or the 26th overall pick and get the best player? This is year is the only year (hopefully) where the difference between the 2nd overall pick and the 32nd overall pick is pretty much the same. Its more of a guessing game than it has ever been.
4) I’ll say this again, NO ONE PLAYED
Seriously, what does anyone even know about this draft class?
I hope that this little exercise has put all of your minds at ease about the upcoming draft. If it hasn’t, then you should go outside and get some exercise to get this draft off your mind.
Up Next Week
In honour of a suspected Matthew Phillips debut, we review other firsts: World Wars, Kanye albums, deflowerings. You will not like it.
We will formally demand that Flames head coach Darryl Sutter tender his resignation and end his tenure with the team. On the other hand, we might not do that.
Scorchstack Podcast Episode #2 was in my pocket, but it went through the wash and it came out sounding like a Pod Save America episode. So we set the washing machine on fire.
Morkstack?