Fail... The final frontier.
These are the follies of the Carolina Hurricanes.
Their '09 mission is:
To give up strange, new soft goals,
To commit new turnovers, new defensive breakdowns...
To boldly FAIL like no team has FAILED before!!!
Just when you thought it was over. Just when you thought we'd played this theme out. We had to go back to the well. Not that I like doing it. But sometimes, it is necessary.
As everyone knows, I hate bobbleheads. I mean, I seriously hate bobbleheads. Maybe I just don't get the concept, but I find them creepy at best, and deeply disturbing at worst. But the main thing that bothers me is that you never see a bobblehead that actually resembles the player it is meant to imitate. Could it be that Todd McFarlane has copyrighted all the major sports stars' likenesses for his evil sports figurine empire, and therefore, the bobblehead manufacturers guild is forced to actively ensure that a player's bobblehead does not, in fact, resemble said player? I do not know the answer to this question. But as sure as the sun will come up tomorrow, a bobblehead never looks like it's subject.
And that brings us to the topic at hand: The Scott Walker bobblehead. I thought it couldn't get any worse than the Eric Staal bobblehead, and I was right. But, this one also leaves a lot to be desired. First off, I can't decide who it looks more like. Will Ferrell?
Or Robbie the Robot?
Of course, the look is just one of the issues I've got with this thing. The next issue I've got is the marketing. If you go to the "official" website, you'll see that they not only give you a routine picture of the damn thing. They also decided they needed to give us the Scott Walker "money shot".
Is that really necessary? Do we really need to see a picture of the Scott Walker bobble-butt? Is ass quality an issue on bobbleheads? For cripes sake, it looks like they modeled the pose from a candid snapshot taken on the team's annual prostate check day. This sends a bad signal to the community, IMHO... Exactly which local demographic are we catering to for Scott Walker bobblehead night? I guess I need to check the RBC webcam to see if they've installed pink wallpaper in the concourse and a disco ball under the jumbotron for Monday night. [Not that there's anything wrong with that...]
Of course, they also gave us the side view, which tends to suggest that the thing might've been sponsored by Dulcolax. Push Scotty! Push! Or maybe it's sponsored by Goodberry's: "Come on... , ICE CREAM!!!" Take your pick:
Of course, the appearances aside, I also have an issue with the timing of the thing. First off, Scotty isn't likely to play, as he is having concussion issues. Second off, I think it's a bit karmically wrong to give away a bobblehead of a player with post-concussion syndrome. The irony is just vicious and it seems a bit insensitive to the player. Concussion - Shaky head. Concussion - Shaky head. Seriously? I mean, what's next? The Erik Cole:
Or maybe the Justin Williams? 
Seriously, it's time we stamped out the practice of bobblehead promotions. They are evil and wrong and they are slowly corrupting our sons and daughters. The process starts out innocently enough with collecting just one sexually ambiguous Walker bobblehead. The next thing you know, they move on to the hard stuff - Ken Dolls - and with a little help from Barbie's closet, G.I. Joe becomes G.I. Josephine. And ultimately, you walk into your son's room, only to find him listening to Wham! and wearing leather pants. I tell you, these monstrosities must be outlawed as soon as possible. If it saves just one child from listening to Wham!, it'll all be worth it.
Who'll think of the children?
WHO'LL THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?!
(N&O 3/5- yes that's today)
(N&O foto by Robert Willett)
Well then, at least the GM of the Hurricanes isn't trying to blow smoke up your butts in this time of Caniac depression.
After the Caps clinched the division, this is what I woke up to on Sunday morning, as the Canes were officially out of the playoffs.
I've held off on posting my feelings about the Canes and their epic fail of missing the playoffs after being in command of their division all season. I was hoping that some of my rage and disappointment would wither away within a couple of days.. well it hasn't.
There are a number of different reasons to point to as to why things went down the way they did. Injuries, goal tending, defense (lack there of), etc... but what it comes down to for me is the inconsistency. This team was either smoking hot or cold as ice. There was no in between this year. Running out of the gate, this was the only team that could slow down the Senators amidst their record, opening season win streak. Heck, the squad was playing so well that even Jeff "Green Eggs &" Hamilton was on track for an All-Star season. After ripping the months of October & November new ones, either complacency or the injured stars started to wilt away at the Canes' momentum as they won 6 of 17 games between the end of December through the beginning of February. Sure, even the President's trophy winning Satan's minions Red Wings had a few stints of futility, but they kept it to a minimum. Hockey is a streaky sport. The Canes just had one too many slides of mediocrity.
But who could have predicted that Washington would end up going on such a tear? Carolina has been so used to having the Caps as a non-threat, cellar dweller that maybe they didn't take them seriously when they should have.
Then again, who could have predicted that the Canes would have played so well after the loss of Captain Brindy?
Either way, it boiled down to not being able to consistently bring it night after night.
I suppose I am proud of the way that Timmay Gleason developed (as hoped/predicted last year) and that Eric Staal became the "Strong Like Bull" player that he was drafted to be. I'm still proud to be a Caniac and I will still be there rooting them on even if the Charlotte Checkers could beat them.
And who am I pulling for in the playoffs? Well, the Crapitals of course. Come on Ovie; you and your puke yellow skate laces go on and bring home another Coupe de Stanley for the Southeast.
Regardless of how things ended, it's been a fun ride and thank you to all COI readers who have come to either praise, question and even bash the Canes. Good times.
Go River Rats, Fayetteville FireAntz, Charlotte Checkers, SC Stingrays in your respective playoff marches.
47 Shots on goal to 17 shots on goal. They lose, 4-3. WTF? Much more Caniac catastrophe to come, but damn, :
