WWE '13

I'm sitting here enjoying WWE '13's attitude era mode. The mode is this year's "career mode" as opposed to the Road To Wrestlemania mode that has appeared in the past few games.
I gotta tell you, this game is ruling my life right now.
All the memories of the Austin/McMahon feud, the sudden but meteoric rise in popularity of the rock, the Monday night wars, the 3 stages of Foley, the brothers of destruction, ect, ect, ect.
It was, without a shadow of a doubt, a very entertaining time in wrestling. A time when it was cool to watch the WWF and WCW. A time when Tuesday morning in Canada meant you stayed up as late as you could watching both Nitro and Raw just so you could be in the conversation on Tuesday.
Reliving this era in professional wrestling at a time when I'm having a hard time enjoying the product both TNA and WWE put out really fires the passion back up and makes you feel like you want to be a wrestler again. These years, the attitude era, is where it all started for me. It's why I have a singlet, knee pads and, boots collecting dust in my closet. It's why I was driven to spend hundreds, no thousands of dollars chasing a dream.
Pop culture was just littered with wrestling between 1995 and 2000. WCW and WWE went for it and in the end, WWE won. Boundaries were pushed, hardcore wrestling was born, story-lines took the center stage and, if only for a while wrestling was loved by almost everyone.

I'm really enjoying reliving these moments from such an important part of my life. If you loved wrestling when WCW and WWF were battling it out then you really should pick this game up.

Back to the game.

The Bills in Toronto Series

I'm sure by now you've heard it a few times. Eric Wood, the center for the Buffalo Bills, expressed how much he dislikes the Bills in Toronto series. If you haven't heard it yet: check this out.

So, before I spill my opinion let me make this very clear: I'm a big Bills fans living in Toronto and I love this city.

I agree 100% Eric. I strongly dislike the Bills in Toronto series. I was very excited as the announcement of this series. I even attended the first 3 games.

Here's why I don't like the Bills in Toronto series:

1. The Price. Simply put, the price is insane. Tickets start at $48 (now that prices are reduced) for nose bleeds but quickly go up to $95 in the upper bowl! The most expensive ticket is $225.00. I spent about $200 going to a Bills game this year in Buffalo and that included my hotel, gas, ticket, beer and, sausages for tailgating. 
2. Toronto is not a Bills city. I wish that it was, don't get me wrong. When these games come around you see Steelers, Dolphins and, Patriots jerseys all over the place. I really have never felt that Toronto is a Buffalo Bills city. 
3. As a result of #2, the in-stadium atmosphere sucks. When the Bills score there is no "Buffalo Bills shout" with the crowd. There's very little noise at all. As a result of that, the poor Bills have absolutely no home field advantage. It's just a neutral site game. 
4. Game day experience. Out-of-stadium experience if you will. When you head to Orchard Park it's like entering a whole new world. The town is shut down, there are footballs everywhere. BBQs are cooking everywhere you turn with people washing them down with beer.Everyone is there for a good time and they are there to be your friend. It's a community. Nothing like that exists in Toronto.

Now don't get me wrong. I strongly believe that the NFL could thrive in Toronto, that is if we had our own team and an NFL stadium! As it stands today Rogers is doing nothing but hurting Toronto's chances of landing an NFL team by doing this. They pad the attendance with free tickets and they still can't fill the place. It's a joke. It's a NFL game in a baseball stadium, nothing else at this point. 

I'd love to hear some feedback though. Agree? Disagree? Let me know.

Danny Califf

TFC picked up defender Danny Califf in the re-entry draft today.
Yup, the same Danny Califf who TFC had all but acquired last season in a trade, which ended up being cancelled because Danny said he would not report to TFC. The reason he gave was that he was not interested in playing for a team outside of the USA.

The tattooed defender was brought back to MLS in 2010 as the captain of the upstart Philidelphia Union. He ended up at Chivas USA last season after the TFC trade fell through but he was no longer in the plans in LA.

Should be interesting to see if he'll report to Toronto this time around.

TFC Thoughts

I'm currently watching TFC play DC United. You can tell it's the end of another TFC season, the stands are empty, you can't hear the fans, you can hear the coaches yelling. It's a little grey outside too. Overcast, possibly some rain to come in off of the lake.
It honestly is kind of cliche to be honest.

As I watch the game I'm enjoying the commentary from Jason DeVos and Luke Wileman, as I always do (Jason DeVos is just an amazing soccer mind), and they bring up a really great point.

In 2010 DC United was a horrible team, they were last place overall and over the course of the season they brought in 17 new players and had 18 players leave the team. In a nutshell, it was a mess!

But as of today, they are sitting at 4th in the East and are most likely playoff bound. How did they do this? Simple. They accepted that they needed to stop just bringing players in from around the league and other out of contract pros. They took their draft picks, signed players out of their academy, acquired a star MLS player in Canadian Dwayne DeRosario and, signed Ben Olsen (a retired American star player who understands the game in North America very well) as the head coach all the while keeping Chris Pontius in fold for the experience.

When I compare the evolution of DC United to the.....whatever you call what TFC has done with their roster it makes me very sad. There seems to be no direction, just sign who you can and then drive them out of town when the signing doesn't work out. Yes, 2012 did have injuries to the key players for TFC, Danny Kovermans, Eric Hassli and, Torsten Frings are all injured and the likelyhood is none of them will come back next season. Both Adrian Cann and Stephan Frei were injured for all of last season and both got injured again with season ending injuries this season. It's just a mess!

We do know 1 thing, Paul Mariner will be the coach next year. That's it. So here's is the chance for TFC to just finish last, draft the best player available no matter what position he plays and just build from within the academy. I don't even want to see TFC try to sign a designated player, wait till the club is ready to compete and then look to add a player that would bring the team over the top as a contender for the MLS cup. Oh, and it's time to use the Canadian Championship and CONCAF Champion's League as a way to get playing time for young players and that's it. TFC isn't deep enough to compete seriously in both competitions. Let's start doing this right. It's enough already.

EDIT: Now that DC United has won the game they sit in 2nd in the east.

Sometimes I get way too excited about things.
I'll admit it. I roll that way.

Last night, it kind of happened again. The summer hockey league wrapped up last night.
It was our team, the Angry Dragons vs the Halton Hosiers...for last place!
We won and for our efforts we scored some sweet towels.

Ok.

They weren't all that sweet.

They are too big to be hand towels and too small to be a bath towel, but you know I'm gonna use the shit out of it.

Go Angry Dragons!

WWE Raw

DX Invades Nitro
Bubba Ray's single run at the start of the brand split
Rock tossing the Stone Cold belt over the bridge
Triple H steals Stephanie McMahon and gets married at a drive thru wedding chapel
Shane McMahon shows up on WCW Nitro
"This is your life, Rock"
Eric Bishoff shows up on Raw and hugs Vince McMahon.
Jericho's WWF debut.
The Stone Cold beer bath.
The famous CM Punk "shoot" promo.
The Montreal screw job.
Ric Flair's retirement.
HHH makes Shawn Micheals think the DX reunion is going to happen and pedigrees HBK.
Trish's retirement match VS Lita.
And on a sadder note, the Owen Hart and Eddie Guerrero tribute show.

These are some of my most fond memories of WWE Raw going into the 1000th show.

Canadian Men's Soccer

Canada needs to finish.
Yesterday had they kept the ball down on a couple chances they might have won 2 - nil. I think it's time that we stop looking for the little victories with Canada. We've been getting the chances and we've been able to (in competitive games, not friendlies) hold the opposition to 1 goal over the past 8 games. Admittedly, none of those games have been against Mexico, USA or, Jamaica (again, not talking friendlies) but Canada can hang with some of the best of them in CONCACAF.
Between that and the fact that people are finally showing up to the games (16 thousand or so last night, predominantly Canadian fans) I think it's time that we should expect more from Canada and stop having an empathetic "let's take our victories when we get them" attitude and start expecting more from this team.
This team is good enough and players who were born here need to start taking some fucking pride in their country and start playing for Canada (Jonathan DeGuzman and Junior Hoilette: I'm looking at you. You can come to watch but you can't play?)  and if they won't, fuck 'em, we'll still win without them.
I'll stop my rant there.

Canada's Centennial Kit

So Canada unveiled their 1 time wear limited edition kit. The men will wear it June 30th at BMO Field against the USA in a friendly. While the women will be in the USA on the same date playing at Rio Tinto. If you ask me, this is a beauty! It's a replica of the jersey Canada's men wore in June of 1925 for the first recorded home win on record, beating the USA 1 - nil.

ARRRRRRGOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Yeah, they look awesome now.

Still Can't Wait

Already?

So that's just about it.
A loss over the weekend essentially cemented it for TFC, no playoffs yet again.
Yup, that's right, and it's only April.

Ok, I'll be fair. Let's say it's May.

Now this is assuming that TFC doesn't go on to play at a supporter's shield winning pace, collecting points in every game and most of which must be wins.
So where do we go from here? To me, there is only 1 way to go; Let's win the Canadian Championship. Please, let's win it.
PLEASE!

We have Montreal first, let's hope the boys can turn it around against our French expansion rivals because if we don't. Well, it's going to be a long, long summer.

TFC Tomorrow

Tomorrow is a big game for TFC. Chicago is in town and it's time to finally win a league game. At this point, TFC sits 0-5 and at the bottom of the league in a year where they were expected to trend up and push for a playoff spot.
A loss to expansion side Montreal being the absolute low (in my opinion) so far. Last week TFC took their chances many times, and probably were genuinely unlucky, but at some point you need to finish.
Tomorrow, Torsten Frings makes his return, but Nick Soolsma is out. Danny Kovermans is a question mark, he's not feeling well but the question is "Can he play? Is it just a cold (or something to that effect) or a real injury?". Adrian Cann returned last week after missing the entire season last year, a much welcomed return.
Regardless of who is in the lineup, it's as simple as this. A win is needed. 3 points are crucial.

I can not wait

Wrestlemania 28

Another Wrestlemania came and went last night. I wanted to chime in on each match on the card, how I felt going in and how I felt coming out. Let's just call it #maniathought to follow up my hash tag from Twitter last night.

Daniel Bryan (World Heavyweight Champion) vs Sheamus:
I was actually expecting Sheamus to win going in to this match, not that I liked that. I thought that this had potential to be a "sleeper" match. 18 seconds later all I could say was "what the fuck?!". I've since heard that Bryan is sick so that might have been the reason for this. Either way, really disappointing.

Randy Orton vs Kane:
This was easily the "we don't know what to do with these 2 wrestlers so stick them in a match." match. That essentially sums it up. Kane won and I suspect that's only because everyone assumed Orton was going to win. Whatever.

Cody Rhodes (Intercontinental Champion) vs Big Show:
This seemed all along like it was a match that Big Show was going to win. The buildup was all about Big Show never having won a Wrestlemania match. Then, he won. Loosing streak over. No surprise. I assume he'll drop the title soon. Nothing special.

Beth Phoenix (Diva's Champion) and Eve vs Kelly Kelly and Maria Menounos (Host of TV's "Extra"):
Well, this is was this year's "celebrity in the ring" match. The buildup was alright at best. The segment where Beth and Eve invaded Extra's interview with Kelly Kelly and called out Kelly Kelly and Maria was fun, otherwise I didn't really care about this. I figured either Beth would destroy Maria Menounos or Maria would win, and guess what? Maria won. No big deal.

At this point the 1st hour of Wrestlemania was over and 4 matches were left to fill the final 2 hours. I found that very weird at the time, but we had a couple unexpected turns.

Triple H vs Undertaker with special guest ref Shawn Michaels in a Hell in a Cell:
The build for this match was mostly, in my opinion, about Shawn and HHH. They talked about how 'Taker can't be stopped, ect. It made me think that Micheals was going to screw over HHH in this match. It did not come to be, so my prediction for booking next year's match a year in advance was wrong. All in all, the match was better than I expected. They worked hard and the story told was amazing! Cudos to Shawn Michaels for helping it get over with his facials/actions/funny comments. As expected, 'Taker went 20-0 and keeps the streak alive. I think that this match was the highlight of Wrestlemania. Really good job by Micheals.

Team Johnny: David Otunga (Captain), Mark Henry, Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger, The Miz and, Drew McIntyre with Brie Bella, Vicky Guerrero and, Brie Bella vs Team Teddy: Santino Marella (Captain), R-Truth, Kofi Kingston, Zack Ryder, The Great Khali and, Booker T with Eve, Hornswaggle, Nikki Bella, Aksana and, Teddy Long:
Honestly, this turned out to be the replacement for the yearly Money in the Bank match and frankly the build just didn't captivate me at all. I was mad that Santino and Ziggler were put in this match when they each deserved a single's match. Santino is the US champion he should be defending his belt! Ziggler has put in so many good matches and is so entertaining, he deserved a match that he should have won, not to be stuck in the middle of a massive tag match.
Anyhow, we ended up with 2 really cool spots.The first one saw Dolph Ziggler take a monkey flip and he did a 360 and landed on his face! Just an insane bump.
Later on Kofi, Zack Ryder and R-Truth went over the top rope at the same time and landed on Mark Henry, Swagger, Drew Mcintyre and David Otunga. Hornswaggle was also in that mess as Mark Henry had tossed him aside just before the top rope spot. The Bellas and Vicky and Aksana got into a cat fight and were out of the picture and it was mass carnage outside the ring at this point.
The match ended with Ryder getting sacked by Eve and The Miz gave him the Skull Crushing Finale and the pin. WAY over-booked, and besides the 2 spots I just wasn't happy with this match.

As team Johnny celebrated John Laurinaitis said something about Punk looking angry and if he lost his temper during the match then he'd loose the belt by DQ. I really didn't understand it. I think the idea was supposed to be if Punk manages to get disqualified the title would change hands. As opposed to the usual rules in which the championship can not switch hands on a disqualification.

CM Punk (WWE Champion) vs Chris Jericho:
Going into this match they touched on personal issues in each other's lives. I thought it was really cool of them to trust each other going down that road without crossing the line. Obviously there was quite a bit of a stretch at times but it was still really cool. I expected the match of the night here, but it took some time to get going. I think it gained steam and it turned out to be pretty good, but it was still a slight let down. CM Punk retained via tap out using the anaconda vise.

Brodus Clay came out to his music in order to do a little funkasaurus dance. Of course he didn't have a match. He ended up telling everyone to call their mommas and had "his momma" come out and dance. Then all sorts of mommas (called the bridge club) came out and danced.

The rock show happened next. Some group called MGK played Cena out, then Flo Rida played 2 songs before the Rock came out to his own music.

John Cena vs The Rock:
Well, after all the build up. The fruity pebbles jokes, the rock concert, the survivor series and, all the hype it was finally here. All in all, it was an alright match. Rock looked like he was gasping for air and there were a ton of rest holds! Rock got the pin fall in a match that was alright and, that at was that. Wrestlemania was over for another year.

MLS vs CONCACAF Champions League.

Last night TFC came out with pressure and earned themselves a 1-1 tie against one of Mexico's top clubs.
A good result, and hopefully there is some more gas in the tank come next Wednesday .
I won't talk about the game today, I was just very happy that TFC got the result and showed that MLS does have some quality in the league.
Here's what I really don't get though. Saturday TFC lost to the San Jose Earthquakes by a score of 3 - 0. So how does TFC loose to San Jose and then draw one of Mexico's best clubs? I just don't get it.

Winter Classic

So it was announced earlier this year. The Leafs are heading down to the Big House on new year's day of 2013 to take on the Red Wings.
So the question is: what should they wear? The winter classic has become a place for teams to create what are known as "faux-backs", jerseys that are inspired by a past look that the team used to use but aren't quite replicas of those jerseys.
My suggestion is to go back to 1926/27.
At the time, a newly formed team in Detroit, known as the Cougars, entered the league. Actually, to be historically accurate they were the remains of a WCHL team, the Victoria Cougars, but the NHL recognizes them as an expansion team. That same team would be re-named the Falcons for the 1930/31 season and finally, the Red Wings for the 1932/33 season.
I'd like to see the Red Wings wear the old Cougars jersey that is seen in this famous picture:

As you can imagine, the stripes were red. You can also see player #12 on the ice, with the number and the team name (on the front) fitting perfectly in the thick stripe.

As for the visitor's side of the ice, in 1917 a team by the name of the Toronto Arenas came to be, in 1919 they were sold and re-named the St. Pats, trying to appeal to the Irish-Canadian community. It wasn't until 1927 that they finally became the Toronto Maple Leafs. In 2002 the Leafs wore a version of the famous green and white St. Pat's jersey, and this new years I believe that it should be revived.

A battle of the 1926/27 season revived outdoors. Another interesting note about the 1926/27 season was that the Detroit Cougars actually played all their home games in Windsor, Ontario at Boarder Cities Arena, which went on to become the famous home of the Windsor Spitfires from 1975 until 2008 and will become a market this year.

For all the reasons listed, I believe that a tip of the cap to the 1926/27 NHL season should be the underlying theme for the 2013 Winter Classic.

Why Bother?

Keeping on the Leafs,
Everyone is calling for the coach's head. I just don't get the point of firing Ron Wilson this late in the season.
There is 18 games left, and a hot run is very unlikely. If there is 30 games left then I'd get the point but now it's too late.
Just finish the season and then send Ron to the unemployment line.

Talking Leafs Again

Seems like talking about the Maple Leafs is all the rage this week. At least, more so than normal.
Last night the Leafs manage to once more shit the bed at a critical time of the season, a trend that has become the norm ever since the NHL returned from the lockout. I fully expect this to be the trend until it gets to a point where they have 5 to 10 games left and must win every one of them in regulation to get the points needed to make the playoffs. At that point they'll go on a winning streak that will end 1 or 2 games short of what they need to make the playoffs and 9th place in the east will be theirs.

I'm jaded, and I'm tired of this hockey team. It's been some time since I decided I'd watch a game on TV beyond just "flipping over to check the score". Last night I chose to watch the TFC game (no surprise there) and then play video games instead of even flipping over to check the score. Twitter basically exploded with negative comments about the Leafs and, today I hear the crowd chanted "fire Wilson". That stuff is not appealing to me.

I bet by now you are saying "no shit Jeremy, we all know this." So what am I getting at?

This is what I'm getting at Toronto: I think it's time to just accept it and calm down or turn the TV off and stop buying tickets. I get it, anyone who knows me can easily say "sure, easy for you to say. You're a Colorado fan who follows the Leafs only because you live in Toronto.".
Yes, it's true. But here's why I say what I say: normally, when a team sucks people stop going to the games. They stop watching on TV and the message is sent to the management and ownership "time to rebuild this thing".
Burke had a chance to rebuild this thing the right way when he came in and didn't go the route of blowing the hell out of this team and starting from scratch, much like the Edmonton Oilers have. That's fine, that's his choice. In fact he ended up scoring huge by getting Joffrey Lupul for almost nothing and stealing Dion Phaneuf from Calgary. I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing if I were Burke. But now everyone is saying "Burke didn't make a deal at the deadline and we don't like that.". Well, you can't have it both ways. Nothing was out there that Burke liked so he didn't make a deal. Why is this a problem?

I just don't get it Toronto, if everyone is so flipping upset about this, turn off the TV, don't buy tickets, go see the Raptors, the Rock or, TFC instead. No happy with those options? What about the Mississauga St. Michael's Majors, the Brampton Battalion, or the Oshawa Generals? Maybe even go see the Hamilton Bulldogs in the AHL, there's no lack of hockey in the area. Send a message because frankly, Twitter messages aren't the kind of message that make the Leafs think "hmm, maybe we need to come at this from a different angle.".
Because frankly, if the message is "yeah, the fans keep coming out and watching the games so we must be doing ok." then what's the motivation for any GM to win here ever?

Yeah right Diaz!

For those of you who don't know, this past Saturday night Nick Diaz lost to Carlos Condit for the interim Welterweight championship at UFC 143.
Here's the video:




My first reaction to this was "what a baby!". I mean to loose a fight, that personally I thought he only won 1 round, and then retire because he didn't like loosing is just stupid. I maintain that still. My thought process hasn't really changed, but that's not my main point in posting today.

I was thinking about it more yesterday and I realized that with Brock Lesnar, Mirko Cro Cop, Chris Lytle and, Randy Couture all retiring and with GSP out with injury there is a small void for starts in UFC right now. Chael Sonnen has been taking advantage of that by being very vocal and kind of playing a heel type role (to relate it to wrestling). On the other hand Anderson Silva hasn't been around for some time due to injury and he has never been a big personality. Josh Koscheck has not been a very vocal guy ever since loosing to GSP but I feel he's been a bit of a fan favorite because he's a hard working guy who just keeps taking fight after fight.
What UFC is sorely missing is a personality like the one Diaz has recently become, a guy who can be a little cocky, provoke people, but back it up and not be a complete jerk like Sonnen likes to be.

Retiring now is just that much more stupid for Diaz as his time was/is now, he could have made even more of that crazy money he referred to and could have become one of the big names that the UFC featured.

Stupid move Nick