Jump to content
The Official Site of the Vancouver Canucks
Canucks Community

Curmudgeon

Members
  • Posts

    2,248
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Curmudgeon

  1. I hadn't heard that. Thanks for the info. I think if he clashed with the coach it would have been over his inconsistent effort, but I could be wrong.
  2. With Dahlen you may have a point, but I don't think Goldy had a poor character. He just wasn't able to deliver an urgent, uptempo game. Nice enough guy with lots off showcase skills, but he was like a sports car with a two speed transmission; so much potential, so little return.
  3. Russia has reported the same 2300 critical cases for weeks now. Russia has also reported that 1.25% of all COVID cases have resulted in death (5859 deaths). If Russia had the same death rate as the US, at 5.67% they would have recorded 26,517 deaths. If Russia had the same death rate as Canada, at 8.13%, they would have recorded 38,022 deaths. If Russia had the same death rate as Sweden, at 10.41 %, they would have recorded 48,685 deaths. If Russia had the same death rate as Mexico, at 11.89%, they would have recorded 55,506 deaths. If Russia had the same death rate as the UK at 14.16%, they would have recorded 66,222 deaths. Perhaps Russia has a superior method for dealing with the virus that they aren't sharing. Or they are lying through their teeth. https://ncov2019.live/data
  4. And now for Profiles in Idiocy: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/07/us-army-demonstrations-washington-305913 GUILFORD, Maine – President Donald Trump traveled to Maine Friday to tour a facility that makes medical swabs used for coronavirus testing, but the swabs manufactured in the background during his visit will ultimately be thrown in the trash, the company said. Puritan Medical Products said it will have to discard the swabs, a company spokeswoman told USA TODAY in response to questions about the visit. It is not clear why the swabs will be scrapped, or how many. The company described its manufacturing plans for Friday as "limited" – but the disruption comes as public health officials in Maine and other states have complained that a shortage of swabs has hampered their ability to massively scale up coronavirus testing. Workers in white lab coats, hair nets and plastic booties worked at machines making swabs while the president walked through the room. Trump, who did not wear a mask for the visit, stopped at one point to talk with some of the workers. “Made in the USA. I’ve been saying it for a long time,” Trump said. Trump has repeatedly traveled during the pandemic to call attention to companies who are responding, sometimes with government help. In those cases, the president has used the factory floors as backdrops to convey a message of American ingenuity and production that he said the country has not witnessed since World War II. Those tours generally last only a few minutes. "The running of the factory machines is very limited today and will only occur when the president is touring the facility floor," Virginia Templet, the company's marketing manager told USA TODAY in response to questions about the event. "Swabs produced during that time will be discarded."
  5. If Jake is partying in Kelowna I'd say he will end up as a trade candidate. Benning has said he is looking to move some of the excess bodies from his roster, and I'm thinking a big, fast 18 goal scorer might be worth a first round draft pick. It just seems that Jake is entirely too comfortable playing in his home province, surrounded by a crew of guys who seem to want to party much of the time. If management learns the details of this Kelowna trip and confirms that Jake was out of bounds, I'd bet Benning will say he's had enough of babysitting a guy who just doesn't seem to get it and will trade him as soon as he can generate a legitimate offer. I like how Jake plays a lot, but it is past time to grow the hell up, take your job seriously and stay away from ANYBODY with a cellphone camera.
  6. Just connecting dots here, but if Mike Gillis is hired as President or Czar or Pope in New Jersey, he may hire Brackett to something more than he was here. Don't forget that it was Gillis who hired Brackett here in the first place. And I wouldn't be sure about Biech, unless the scouting staff has embraced analytics as their primary scouting tools. Somehow, I don't see Benning turning the department over to the computer guys.
  7. So now Vancouver needs to appoint a Director of Amateur Scouting to fill Brackett's position. Maybe it is an internal promotion or maybe it is somebody experienced from outside. Either way, it will be good to have another fresh pair of eyes looking at the big picture. Either eay, the thing that a lot around here are missing is that talented people come and go from organizations all the time for a variety of reasons and the organizations always fill with good people. This whoel saga reminds me of the three stages of anybody's career: 1. Get me Judd Brackett. 2. Get me a young Judd Brackett. 3. Who's Judd Brackett? I believe we are now in stage three.
  8. Don't know why Bates isn't listed on Elite Prospects as remaining with the Canucks, but he is listed and pictured on this website under Roster, then Coaches and Staff. I recall reading sometime in the last year that Brackett or Johnson gave Bates credit for his work with the NCAA prospects.
  9. I believe the Canucks scout who has built the relationships with the college guys who have come to Vancouver is Jonathan Bates. I could be wrong. Could anybody out there confirm that Bates is the guy who does a lot to build relationships with NCAA players?
  10. They attacked his pickup with red licence plates? Didn't they have guns?
  11. This may come as a shock to you, but the administration is bound by the terms of their contracts to carry out the lawful orders of the Ministry via the Board. It doesn't matter how an administrator feels or what he or she believes, they are required to follow orders. Administrators have not been part of the BCTF since January 1, 1988 when their status was changed to make them essentially managers. This made every job action since 1988 an incredibly tense time among school staffs. Often administrators were completely alone in the school for an eight hour day counting the holes in the acoustic tiles on the ceilings of their offices, while the teachers walked a line that nobody was ever interested in crossing.
  12. Or as George Carlin famously observed, "You can prick your finger, but you can't finger your pr***."
  13. Whew. That's good, because if he was the top scout, how would he explain Boston's draft picks over his seven years as AGM: 2007 - Zach Hamill, Tommy Cross, Denis Reul, Alain Goulet, Radim Ostrcil, Jordan Knackstedt 2008 - Joe Colborne, Maxime Sauve, Michael Hutchinson, Jamie Ariel, Nicolas Tremblay, Mark Goggin 2009 - Jordan Caron, Ryan Button, Lane McDermid, Tyler Randell, Ben Sexton 2010 - TYLER SEGUIN, Jared Knight, RYAN SPOONER, Craig Cunnigham, Justin Florek, Zane McIntyre, Maxim Chudinov, Zach Trotman 2011 - DOUGIE HAMILTON, Alexander Khokhlachev, Anthony Camara, Brian Ferlin, Rob O’Gara, Lars Volden 2012 -MALCOLM SUBBAN, Matt Grzelcyk, Seth Griffith, Cody Payne, MATT BENNING, Colton Hargrove 2013 - Linus Arnesson, Peter Charlie, Ryan Fitzgerald, Wiley Sherman, Anton Blidh, Mitchell Dempsey
  14. Okay, I've read everything about the Brackett situation and I think it may be a simple case of the media postulating a theory, searching for only evidence that supports their theory, then presenting it as a fait accompli that a) the relationship is soured, b) Benning and Weisbrod want to squeeze Brackett out and Brackett was po'd last June when Benning and Wiesbrod supposedly took over the draft, leaving Brackett shut out and angry, and c) John Weisbrod is the bad guy in this whole soap opera. Here is an extended clip of Brackett after the draft. I have watched it a few times and I really can't detect even a trace of anger, upset, disappointment or being alone. On the contrary, he seems to have been with the selection process the whole way through and is able to justify each pick. Not exactly the work of someone who has been shut out and diminished. And if he was on the outs, why is he allowed to be the face of the franchise in going out to explain and defend the draft picks? In the end, Brackett may leave, which wouldn't surprise me in the least. He's had 12 years, a good track record, and likely believes he is ready for a bigger challenge. Almost all young and talented people want to keep aspiring to bigger challenges. And if Weisbrod is the villain, it is solely because he is simply there and in the way to Brackett advancing to an Assistant General Manager position.
  15. Are you serious? 79,619 deaths mean nothing? And people aren't actually stats. You really are a troll, aren't you.
  16. You can find statistics to support whatever point of view you want. You seem to be saying here that other countries have a greater per capita death rate and somehow that proves that Trump isn't as bad as people on this board are making him out to be. Do you really want to play numbers games? How about, as of 14 minutes ago: United States: Total cases 1,339,179 ↑ 17,394 (1.32%) 16,843 79,619 ↑ 1,004 (1.28%) 225,348 1,034,212 In terms of total cases, the US has about 5.5 times MORE cases than Spain, the second worst country in the world. So is all this Trump's fault? Not completely, but a lot of it is. Why? Because he was warned as early as January that there was a serious virus issue on the horizon and the US needed to get out in front of it. But he ignored it. Why? Because he was obsessed with impeachment, with Hunter Biden, with Russia, with the Ukraine, with undoing everything Obama he could, and with generally ignoring what medical experts and scientists were pleading with him to do. He says in defence, "I had a lot going on." New flash for the President: "A lot going on" is the job description and you'd better be able to handle it. By the end of next week, over 100,000 Americans will have died from COVID-19. Because Trump is incapable of empathy, of sympathy, of conciliation and basic human kindness, he doesn't really care about people that die. He is concerned only with re-election and will sacrifice anything and anyone he has to to achieve that goal. He could have listened to the scientists and medical people and helped the US prepare for the virus, but he opted instead to look after his own interests first. So is orange man evil? You bet your sweet ass, he is. (The previous post, which was only the top half of this, was accidentally sent before I had finished. Here is the rest of it.)
  17. Really, such a big fuss over such a little thing....
  18. This poster speaks truth. The broadcast rights are already owned, in Canada, by Sportsnet, who "sub-leases" Saturday nights to CBC, and a couple of regional deals with TSN. The NHL can't re-sell the rights they've already sold. Rogers paid huge dollars to land the broadcast rights.
  19. Writing a book. It's a whodunit about a young, idealistic social justice warrior who finds himself the only guest in a haunted hotel. In the night a wailing ghost appears to him and he coolly and thoughtfully empathizes with the ghost's anguish and coaxes the story out of the unfortunate spectre. He pledges to help bring the ghost's killer to justice. Turns out the butler did it, but only as an act of class struggle. I'm 300 pages in and the ghost is just about to make an appearance. I can hardly wait to see what happens......
  20. Good for you for having the courage to rise above that kind of behaviour. While I am not implying that you were raised in poverty, the experience of your former friends reminds me of some work I did several years ago. In my career I did a lot of work around generational poverty. One of the things I found out was that in order to break the cycle of generational poverty (which is exactly what it sounds like; poverty that goes on from generation to generation) you had to physically leave the social and even family ties that kept you in that way of life. That is why most people living in generational poverty never get out, because they can't bear to give up their friends and associates because that is their security and their familiarity. This is why some successful people, when they go back to the old neighbourhood twenty years later, find the same gang doing the same stuff they always did, only now they are all twenty years older and still living the same way they did twenty years ago. And what you said about being the outcast rings true. People trying to break out of the cycle feel more pressure from their friends and associates to conform than they do from the circle they are trying to break into. But again, good for you for resisting the peer influence and forging your own path.
  21. Charles Barkley said it best in an old Nike commercial: "I am not a role model. I am not paid to be a role model. I am paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models. Just because I dunk a basketball, doesn't mean I should raise your kids."
  22. My post was said with tongue in cheek. I know your posts to be thoughtful and well written. And yes, my greatest sin in some people's eyes is that I am one of those dreaded boomers. Imagine having the audacity to choose to be born a boomer. Selfish bastards......
  23. Just a thought, but if you play your cards right and everything works out for you, you are going to be on the old white guy team (yes, I am making an assumption) a lot longer than you are on the young guy team. You might want to be a little more charitable to we old white guys, since you'll be one of us, and hopefully for a really long time.
×
×
  • Create New...