ScorchStack Issue #99 - Monahan traded away to make room for Kadri. Calisse!
You would think the #1 Calgary Flames Newsletter would spend this entire issue debating Nazem Kadri. Again, Scorchstack zags when you think we'll zig.
Everyone’s making a big deal that all of the moves that Your Calgary Flames made this offseason are really going to haunt them in 4-5 years and then for a long time. First off, this team still employs Milan Lucic, so bold of you to assume that they understand this concept. Second, the odds that all these long-term contracts hurt them are roughly 1:1 with the team either moving to Houston or the heat death of the universe, so that’s a moot point where we will be freed from this curse regardless. Finally, banners fly forever.
What’s inside?
Sure, Nazem Kadri is a Flame, but Sean Monahan is no longer a Flame, and Ramz and Tibs both dedicate some space to remember the legend. Thank you Sean for everything on the ice, but especially off the ice.
Graphic design is Floob’s passion.
Since last issue
Mere DAYS after Scorchcon 2022, the Calgary Flames signed Nazem Kadri. This is the power of Scorchstack.
We did not want to leave this up to chance though.
My favourite Sean Monahan moments
Goodbye forever Seany Gaudreau and John Monahan
by Ramz (@ramzreboot)
Sean Monahan is gone. Here are my favourite moments of his.
“If I wasn’t a hockey player, I’d be a lacrosse player”
The Flames do this thing called “Rookie Reporter” where they get a child to interview the players. The children clearly can’t read and take about two minutes to ask a 10-word question. It’s a bad time for everyone. Anyways, one time a kid asked Sean Monahan what he would do if he wasn’t a hockey player. Because he has zero depth, he responded with “be a lacrosse player”. Amazing answer. Just zero critical thinking skills whatsoever.
The time I saw him wearing this thick sweater inside Cowboys
In 2014(?) I was at Cowboys and the Flames were there. If you’re not from Calgary, Cowboys is a really gross bar/club. Don’t go there. It’s exactly what you think going to a bar called Cowboys in Alberta would be like. Like I said, the Flames were there and my friend and I somehow got into the VIP section. When we were in there, it was a very tight space, and also this was a club so it’s really gross and hot and sweaty. Nobody wears sweaters to clubs. Except Sean Monahan.
I can’t even describe it but he was wearing this like thick sweater/cardigan type that was buttoned up. Didn’t even undo the buttons. After lots of research (I Googled “men’s sweater cardigan”) I found one that resembles what he wore, except his was a dark grey.
“You know the toaster? Sometimes we’ll throw a slice in there.”
Monahan and Lance Bouma used to live together. By the way, remember Lance Bouma?
They did a house tour, it’s almost like MTV Cribs but a lot more boring and a lot worse. Monahan decided to pull attention to the toaster and let you know he threw a slice in there. Not sure why. He’s very funny without meaning to be (If you play this video it’ll start at the right timestamp).
“Johnny was gonna live in there”
In that same video, Monahan and Bouma point out this small closet and mention that Johnny was going to live in there. It’s very funny. It was mainly Bouma but I’m scrambling, here. Skip to 2:59 to see it.
When he zipped his hair in his onesie
Again in that video, we’re getting lots of content from it, for some reason during the video, he decided to change into a onesie. He zipped it up to show it zips up all the way, didn’t bother to move his hair out of the way, and zipped up his hair. Skip to 3:35 to see the hair zipping.
Scratched for being too hungover
In 2016 - the morning after the Super Bowl - Monahan, Gaudreau, and Bouma showed up to practice practically late and apparently, Bouma threw up on the ice. They ended up getting scratched for the game that night.
Listen, who among us HAVEN’T shown up to work hungover? Can’t judge him for that.
“Your right sam”
And finally, the classic “Your right sam”. In 2014, Sam Bennett posted a photo on Instagram saying only a couple more weeks until training camp. Monahan responds with this:
Very good. No notes.
The hidden side of Sean Monahan: his wonderful tweets
The Sean Monahan that I and approximately 31,399 people got to know
by Tibs (@decayinwtheboys)
The universe has been cosmically unfair to Sean Monahan. He’s a sixth overall pick who has scored 200 career goals, averaged 20 per season, became a first-line mainstay, and would’ve been a captain had he not been unceremoniously cap dumped to some loser franchise. All this because he had two hip injuries that would give geriatrics nightmares, both coming in back-to-back seasons, and all happening before he hit his 30th birthday.
What I think is most unfair though is that Sean Monahan has been branded as “boring” and will spend his entire career as Boring Sean Monahan, all thanks to a gag Twitter account that has long outlived its shelf life of five minutes after it was created. That’s unfair because every single hockey player is boring, they are all carbon copies of each other. What makes Monahan a standout bore from the assembly line Braydens, Braedens, Braydyns, and Braydenns of the hockey world? Let’s be fair here: Monahan is no more of a stunted personality than anyone else in the league.
But occasionally those stunted brains produce some thoughts so banal that they become interesting, and there’s a lot of that hiding behind @Monahan20, Sean Monahan’s Twitter page before he locked it in 2016 and logged off for good. This is pure, untainted Sean Monahan as a Calgary Flame, and it’s only accessible to a lucky 31.4K. I am one of them, and I’d like to present a gallery of Monahan’s finest thoughts from the years 2011-16.
Sean Monahan in junior:
Media coaching for hockey players has been overdone to the point where any future NHLer’s Twitter feed is just RTs of his own team doing well. They can’t risk a stray tweet giving them a lasting bad image. Let’s weigh the pros and cons of that:
Pros- No one really needs to hear the thoughts of privileged white kids whose highest level of education is high school (and a severe asterisk on that) on anything.
Cons- occasionally their stupidity can be very funny
This tweet seems informed by experience. Sean Monahan has had an accident in front of his classmates because he couldn’t raise his hand and couldn’t think of another way to excuse himself. That is canon.
I have been repeating “I was gunna keep it real like chill” to myself. The phrase is lodged in my brain now.
90% of Monahan tweets from this era are to his roommate, career CHLer Brett Gustavsen. They are all inside jokes, and they all follow the same format:
@Monahan20: [thing Sean Monahan did] with @gustavsen25 #[something funny that was said] #[second funny thing that was said]
This one breaks format in a very unsettling way. I don’t like looking at it, I don’t like imagining Sean Monahan talking like a child missing their two front teeth.
What did I say? These tweets are the pure essence of Monahan.
Tweeting your own roommate a photo of him in excruciating pain because he burned you (the original tweet is gone so I’m just assuming it was a burn) on Twitter. This is a level of savagery I didn’t know Monahan was capable of. He did this twice, by the way.
Sean Monahan in the NHL
Upon joining the NHL, Monahan’s tone shifted. With more corporate sponsors and more media training, the majority of his feed became pictures of him with a sponsor and a caption someone else wrote for him. Occasionally though, the real Sean poked his head out.
Sean Monahan was not invited to the 2014 Olympics. This is what he was doing instead.
Monahan was drafted on July 1st. This was his fourth thought after thanking the Flames for drafting him, after golf and sharing a vine called “Scarecrow does the dougie.”
Sean Monahan is in Calgary.
One of the fun things about Monahan’s NHL tweets is that you can look up when these tweets happened. Eight days after the Flames wrapped up their 2013-14 season, he was bumpin’ Calvin Harris, the first public thought after a tough rookie season.
This one made me sad.
Sean Monahan loves movies.
Again, Monahan’s nickname is all wrong. He should be called Sean Moviehan (Movie + Monahan). The guy’s a damn filmhound! As a fellow cinema lover, I hope you’ve heard of Letterboxd, Sean.
Look, no one said he had taste.
I hope you find a good movie to watch in Montreal, Sean.
Reviewing The Flames Offseason Using Only Terrible Graphics
If you have access to Photoshop, you're allowed to do anything
by Floob (@itlooksreal)
The Calgary Flames have unquestionably been the main character of this NHL offseason. It seems like every week, Brad Treliving’s squad has grabbed the headlines, forcing a league-wide spotlight showcasing the Flaming C more than we’re all accustomed to.
It’s been a lot, and you can hardly be blamed if you can’t keep track of it all. If you’re like me, you’re a visual learner, and a well-made and eye-catching graphic makes all the difference when it comes to synthesizing data.
That’s why I thought I’d take this time during the doldrums before training camp starts to provide a brief history of the 2022 Calgary Flames offseason using some photo edits that - and you won’t believe this part - I made myself. I’d like to see any of those other sites create something like this.
I only put in the major newsworthy items in here for brevity and to limit what is already an image-heavy issue, but you’ll really get the gist here. Enjoy!
Johnny Gaudreau informs the Calgary Flames he will not be re-signing in Calgary, and panic ensues.
Matthew Tkachuk then informs the team he too will not sign long-term, necessitating a trade. This was that trade plus some other stuff that happened.
Out of nowhere, after everyone thought it was no longer possible, prized free agent Nazem Kadri signs on the dotted line in Calgary, and the Flames are cooking with gas.
Monahan traded away to make room for Kadri. Calisse!
Michael Stone when???
Up Next Week
Nathan decides it’s time for Scorchstack to branch out and, despite being Flames fans who could not give a shit about Edmonton, starts an Edmonton Oilers-themed blog. It’s called OilersNathan, which probably sounds like nothing else out there right now and will be a huge hit that doesn’t make anyone upset. They expand too fast, and survive a scandal where they fire the only woman of colour on staff who they weren’t even paying. It’s all for naught though, as the staff break free and begin something new and beloved and better. The cycle continues forever.
Mike shares what he did this summer.