ScorchStack Issue #90 - There are a total of 40 apples. If Jerry took 22 apples and Patricia took 14 apples, how much do I hate Ryan Kesler?
If a train is travelling at 100 km/h leaving Chicago at 2 pm, at what point does it [redacted] Ryan Kesler?
Starting to beat this drum now - Flames should offer sheet Jesse Puljujärvi this offseason. It is both affordable and would be extremely funny. Let’s make this happen, Brad.
What’s inside?
The NHL Draft is coming up, and Ramz breaks down what kind of questions we want to hear the prospects answer.
All the talk about the question they are answering is about the treasure toilet, so Tibs weighs in on how the current Flames would answer that.
Noted Edmonton resident Mike eulogies the Edmonton hockey team. He is extremely fair for what they deserve.
Did you hear about this?
We know who it is.
Since last issue
The Oilers got swept and then their fans decided it wasn’t fair to laugh at them. Lmao
Darryl Sutter won the Jack Adams! Elias Lindholm was the runner-up to the Selke behind Patrice Bergeron, who they should rename the award after. Neither of these things will be discussed again.
Your Seattle Mariners went 4-2. Pretty good! Also not going to write any articles about them, but the Okotoks Dawgs continue to remain undefeated this season as they shit kick Brooks, Sylvan Lake, Medicine Hat, and Lethbridge. Fun times inside Seaman Stadium.
Questions I'd ask at the NHL combine
Even though we could determine their birth charts to figure out exactly what type of player these prospects would become, there are more pressing matters at hand
by Ramz (@ramzreboot)
Did you see this:
Now, I’ve got my own questions to ask prospects at the NHL Draft Combine. Thank you, friend of ScorchStack, Nathan of the NateStack, for the inspiration behind this idea:
Here are my questions I’d ask, on top of asking Nathan of the NateStack’s question.
What language do people from Iran speak?
If you hit on a girl at the club and she rejected you, would you call her fat or tell her, “cool, you’re not even that cute anyway”?
What is your favourite plot hole in Criminal Minds between 2005 - 2009? How would you go about handling this plot hole in your life? Would you ignore it and move on or would you take the initiative to create some sort of hotline for the rest of us?
There are a total of 40 apples. If Jerry took 22 apples and Patricia took 14 apples, how much do I hate Ryan Kesler?
Name the top five Jonas Brothers songs.
Here is the proper way to say hummus and not the American way. Repeat it back to me, please.
Name one (1) single African capital. Just one.
How much do you think your parents pay for you to play hockey every year?
According to Average Salary Survey, the average salary in Toronto is $90,809 but the most typical earning is $59,679. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto is $2,099, a 23% increase from last year. For someone making minimum wage ($15/hour, $31,200), how do you think they afford to live, including rent, food, transportation, etc.?
Do you think I’m pretty? Like how pretty?
This is a makeup tool:
What is it used for?
Which man from New Girl is your favourite? Trick question, they should all be equal.
What is this:
Do you moisturize?
If you had a stomach ache, would you a) take Pepto Bismol b) make some tea, or c) eat jalapeño chips (Kabir this is a subtweet for you, please stop eating so many jalapeño chips especially when you have a tummy ache please I am begging you)?
Who’s the worst One Direction member? This is the most important question.
Those are all my questions. If you’re an NHL GM and you use any of these questions on prospects, you must credit ScorchStack.
The Flames take the $10 toilet seat/$50 toilet bowl test
Scorchstack is home to high quality, hard-hitting hockey analysis, raising the bar on the discourse surrounding the game
by Tibs (@decayinwtheboys)
By now, you have absolutely seen this little piece of news:
If you have not, welcome: a bunch of grown men, who make more money than you ever will, spent weeks thinking of the perfect question to test the psyche and mindset of the teenagers they will pour millions of dollars into over the next few years. This is the best they could come up with.
Now obviously this is a metaphor for “are you willing to go to the dirty area of the ice to score goals,” but that’s not an interesting angle to pursue. We’ve watched this team, we know the answers. We’re taking the question at face value: which Calgary Flames would take a $10 bill from the toilet seat, and which will go diving for that $50?
Yes, all the Flames are financially well-off enough that they could afford to piss on both bills, but it’s about the principle. Who, just based on vibes, would put their hand in toilet water (we’ll make the assumption that it’s a normal public toilet- one that is at least presentable and clean, but what has happened there in the past is the great unknowable) for $50 of cold hard cash? And who are the cowards who will simply take the easy $10?
Rasmus Andersson: $50
Chris Tanev: $50 and doesn’t even blink
Mikael Backlund: Perhaps I was wrong to label $10 as the coward’s option. Sometimes it’s a sensible risk-reward assessment. Mikael Backlund is a sensible man and I cannot see him putting his hand in a toilet for any reason.
Johnny Gaudreau: Whatever he chooses, a local journalist will spend all day berating him for it.
Nikita Zadorov: Goes for the $50, manages to get his hand stuck in the toilet.
Milan Lucic: $50, but only because he feels that the only way to maintain his reputation is to go for the $50. I will also put a really obvious and easy joke here about his contract and money being in the toilet.
Ryan Carpenter: I don’t remember who this is. Based on the name alone, $50.
Matthew Tkachuk: Two possible jokes:
He’s always mixed in with the shit, so $50.
He will go for the $50, take the $10 anyways, and then leave the bathroom to go shake everyone’s hands.
Blake Coleman: $50. Mama didn’t raise no coward.
Trevor Lewis: Goes for that $50, somehow does not retrieve it.
Sean Monahan: Would use the toilet completely unaware of the money.
Brett Ritchie: $50
Jacob Markström: $50. The toilet has to worry about picking up more germs from him.
Michael Stone: Returns from the bathroom with $2.45 in nickles. No one knows how this happened.
Elias Lindholm: Just when you think he’s going for that $10, he pulls a fast one and snatches the $50 before you know it.
Dillon Dubé: I think he’ll go for the $50 and it will somehow elude him. He settles for the $10s, but he knocks that into the toilet as well.
Erik Gudbranson: Oh you know he’s going for the $50
Noah Hanifin: Analyzes the risk-reward of the situation, does not come to an answer, does not make an attempt.
Oliver Kylington: Like Backlund, I cannot see him go for the $50. Must be a Swedish thing like not feeding your houseguests.
Tyler Toffoli: You’d think he’d go for the $50. Alas, more of a $10 guy in the end.
Dan Vladař: He’s so tall and lanky that I’m sure that this is no big deal to him. Only 0.5% of his body will be touched by toilet water, that’s worth $50.
Andrew Mangiapane: Obvious $50 guy
Calle Järnkrok: It will be a grind to the end, but he’ll somehow get that $50 even if it means emptying the toilet bowl of all the water.
If you have a different opinion, leave your thoughts down below in the comments section. If you are a Calgary Flames player and want to set the record straight on whether or not you would put your hand into a toilet, please email scorchstack@gmail.com.
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Mike Thoughts: RIP to the Edmonton Oilers
A eulogy for the most hated
by Mike (@mikeFAIL)
Manny Perry, who founded Corsica and once said he hated blowjobs (which is a separate subject altogether), once said this about Hugh Hefner when he died:
Ashes to ashes, nuts to bust
Nothing could be more apt given the Edmonton Oilers have been eliminated in sweeping fashion by the Colorado Avalanche. The catharsis of seeing a team I despise more than the very disease that took my father’s life succumb in overtime, at home, because their goaltender (who robbed me of a beautiful evening celebrating Jarome Iginla) was next to perfect.
If it’s not obvious I can make it obvious: I don’t hate the Edmonton Oilers as a team. I don’t know any of them. I’m sure a lot of folks in the organization from top to bottom are probably nice. What I do hate on a level that triumphs any joy a Flames Stanley Cup situation could provide me are their fans.
Eulogizing a team that I don’t inherently hate is a futile exercise. Everyone does it and points out the apparent and obvious flaws with the team that just shit their pants in ‘x’ many games (which, in this case if you already forgot, was four). I didn’t even watch the game for most of the night either! I was busy playing Diablo 2: Resurrected and watching The Floor is Lava on Netflix. This isn’t a review of The Floor is Lava, but a eulogy to Oilers fans.
Making fun of the fact that they’ll likely overreact in the summer and trade a great player like Jesse Puljujärvi is a tired take given every qualified local media member (minus the great Jim Matheson) is chomping at the bit to essentially confirm the smiling (and talented) former-first-round pick will be dumped this summer because he struggled to produce next to hockey android Connor McDavid. Easy trope, not worth my time.
Belief
I don’t just enjoy the suffering of Oilers fans and their bleeding heart belief that things will improve - in fact, I admire the type of mentality of believing the future will get better and good things will come. Optimism and a belief in that is an innately human experience. We all dabble in that at varying levels of optimism from time to time.
What I derive extreme joy from is knowing that their meltdowns, their unhinged belief that every referee is out to get them, every team is dirty, and that the world is against them is a permeating belief among most of the fanbase. Nothing is just in the eyes of an Oilers fan, especially on Twitter. Everything borders on nutso-conspiracy theorist levels only found at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. There you can find wackos peddling homemade DVDs of their analysis of the JFK Assassination.
The Oilers’ Dealey Plaza is Hockey Twitter, where tweets during games occur. Every opposing player must be suspended. Every fanbase making fun of the Oilers is unacceptable and immature. “Here is some frame by frame analysis slowed down by 400% proving the player smirked as they blindsided that poor, helpless Oiler. He is probably a baby-eater off-ice!” Hell, even Sportsnet taking a run at a sweep is unprofessional because “tHeY’rE a RiGhTs HoLdEr”. Nothing is fair in the eyes of Oilers Twitter’s most unhinged minds with platforms. Everything is a slight or an injustice against their beloved hometown “oily boys”.
Keep in mind the glass house they maintain always has countless rock-throwers teeing off on every opposing player in that night’s game. It’s always a pity party and the woe is me act is essentially Toronto-levels of pathetic.
Street Preachers
At the heart of their deranged pursuit of outing the evil-doers preventing them from achieving next to nothing is this unshakable belief that they are above the aggressively-worse voices in their fanbase. They disavow and criticize the likes of Dave Staples, Kurt Leavins, and whatever ilk still exists at a literal hockey blog called the Cult of Hockey.
Both Staples and Leavins both have the characteristics online of late-’80s televangelists and street preachers. There’s a very Jimmy Swaggart tone to how Staples has seemingly infected a significant portion of Oilers Twitter with poisoned concepts that carry a very “progressivism is the Devil”. If he isn’t trying to dissuade Edmontonians about the dangers of fluoride, education, COVID protocols, masks, washing their hands, or the merits of communal toilets he’s finding ways to poison every remaining well in the fanbase.
Leavins could probably double as an off-broadway version of the Unabomber; holed away on some non-descript island on British Columbia’s coast. His manifestos against logic and reason, which somehow get buy-in from readers and his peers all threats to public intelligence.
The Lowetide blog which once peddled honesty and logic has seemingly fallen into disarray. Ardent readers suckling at any morsel of sustenance into fooling themselves that the once mighty mind who championed a fair attempt at understanding the megalith that is the Edmonton Oilers is now but a shadow of his younger self.
The other street preaching disciples: Van Diest (does he even exist), Rishaug, Jones (when he isn’t tweeting about toilets or porn), and whatever low-level nameless evangelists I haven’t touched on surely have hands dripping with piss & blood too. It’s not that they aren’t worth derision, it’s that their antics have long since been ignored. I’m sure over the coming days and weeks of the offseason many of which will resurface, offer next to nothing beyond the expected, and fan the flames of discontent against the logicians who are merely holding on for their lives.
The largest culprit of this street preaching evangelism is of course OilersNation. I applaud their ability to market their message, their beliefs, brand, god knows what else, and their fervent fanaticism which does border on the occult. No one can sell an Oilers fan on “this is the year, buy this shirt, get this bumper sticker!” It’s one step short of telling them their ticket into heaven — true salvation, is simply a $40 locally-printed t-shirt that we’ll see in every Value Village in five years.
Living in this city, you get a sense of the magnitude of this fanatical investment they’ve helped cultivate. It’s also led to unintended consequences where the masses truly believe that next year will be better; and when collapse and calamity appear, the pivot of marketing around that is easily accomplished. Critical thinking is seemingly an afterthought at times, they’ve singlehandedly turned this fanbase into a collection of Manchurian candidates waiting for the trigger word to activate and soil themselves both in person or online when something doesn’t go their way.
All of this fanaticism, manic, and downright absurdity that transpires coalesces into a sickening disease that has occupied countless minds; and to some extent, my desire to see every single one of them miserable, on the brink of truly just giving up on everything is a concern in itself. Yet neither of us budge - my hate for the collective existence, their love for a team whose best showing just ended in a sweep.
Obviously, this might come off callous, that my disdain for their very existence is solely rooted in any unhealthy belief in what could be, but within that is a complex desire to see them miserable. Not because they’ve capitalized to a flawed level on cultivating two electrifying forwards who dismantle teams by themselves most nights.
The volume of intelligent voices willing to speak out against anything illogical are few and far between. Many of which suffer incalculable volumes of disdain and vitriol; and banning off Twitter (RIP: Weebo) for speaking out. Still, at the end of the day, any of those brave enough to be logical for more than five seconds at a time still fall susceptible to the crazed old god-influenced fandom they are constantly at odds with internally. It’s not a battle you objectively win in this city or in this fanbase, it’s just a prolonged war of attrition against a collective pursuit of the past becoming reality again.
And we haven’t even got to the part where the general acceptance of Evander Kane, which includes the likes of people I’ve somehow considered friends in a previous era of my life — voices who were awful critical of other rightfully criticized talents in the NHL with suspect (the nicest way of framing it) off-ice lives. The entire concept itself is a wonderful display of turning a blind eye to any opportunity that could yield the superficial sports joy they’ve chased for years to be justified.
So you can understand why there is joy in seeing their collapse in four games. Hopefully, you can realize when it’s funny, even for fans of teams who turned into total-ass this post-season, to laugh and taunt online. All of it comes with the territory and if the tables were turned, the voices in the Edmonton fanbase would be demonstrably louder and more annoying.
A swift death was everything I wanted this post-season for the Oilers and their fans. Instead, they got the upper hand over the team I adore - a team that they’re rivals with, and then they collapsed immediately after their peak. I think I can live with that and use it to fuel me through the bitter cold Edmonton winter approaching only to hopefully see worse come to this franchise next Spring.
Eat shit. I wish none of you well in the months to come.
Which player do I think kept the sex spreadsheet?
Easy answer
by Ramz (@ramzreboot)
None of them, it was a lie. Not a single one of them knows how to use Microsoft Excel.
Up Next Week
Konnie gets a week at the helm and turns this into TrainStack.
Pretty sure the Hart is given out over the next week, so we can look forward to the column from Francis Ericsson of why he left Gaudreau off his ballot.
Okotoks Dawgs go on a nine-game road trip. Let’s go boys.