shrader

I was in Home Depot this weekend and this old guy approached me because I was wearing a BU t-shirt. He was originally from Cape Cod, so he started talking Boston sports right away. I quickly dodged the *patriots talk right away telling him I was from Buffalo and more of a hockey guy. He told me he still kept up with all of the Boston teams except for the Bruins. He said "I gave up on them when they traded away Bobby Orr, so it's been almost 30 years". I didn't have the heart to tell him that it's actually been over 40.

If Ted Nolan didn't realize then, and still doesn't realize now that he was nothing more than a PR hire, he's an absolute moron.

I don't know. I think he should assess whether or not the interviewer is interested before securing his fly.

I'd be curious to see how many times a traded player actually went to an arbitration hearing with his brand new team. I can't imagine it's too common.

So you don't think he deserves 2x McDavid money?

$29.75 million a year for 7 years? I don't think I'd call that a great deal.

I absolutely hate analyses like that. I'll never understand the point of looking at something without factoring in trades and free agents. I know that's impossible to project, but it is a huge part of any team building process. Find me one team who hasn't added a single player from another NHL team over a 3 year period. Good luck with that search. I don't understand the logic behind putting something together based on a set of rules that immediately invalidate it.

On Chris Cornell's birthday and they were friends. Very odd coincidence

He was there for a matter of months. That hardly counts as a signing one of Housley's guys.

Liberty Mutual. My 48 hour window closes in about an hour. The next one will be my 4th phone call.

Interesting. TSN actually covered it a bit 2 years ago when Moses jumped over and signed with Nashville last year. I didn't even realize that he didn't even last in the US for even half a season. It looks like that experiment quickly failed, as he's just an AHL contract now.

I'm not really sure what my best approach will be if/when they screw this up yet again. The only reason I even know it happened is because the mortgage lender sent me a letter saying they had no evidence of me having insurance. Maybe that's my fault for assuming the renewal went through after they sent me two separate acknowledgements of receiving the form. The lender letter essentially said that they have to buy insurance for me and I'll need to reimburse them unless I can prove insurance. I suppose I should fill them in on the situation, if for no other reason than to keep them in the loop. I actually had to return a similar form yesterday for my car insurance. So I get the feeling I'll have the same thing happen there, even though I already have the renewed policy in place there. It makes me wonder if they somehow applied the home owners form to my auto policy by accident. Either way, its time to start shopping around. I've cut some expenses in a few other areas lately, so why not try it here too.

That and the never ending battle over the definition of hockey related revenue.

F you, jobu

I think I posted it somewhere in here. My house has now been uninsured for a month. The company never bothered to process paperwork needed for the renewal, so my policy was canceled. I have now called three times post-cancelation to get this taken care of. Each time, they acknowledged the error, said they had the file, and told me they are expediting the process to have it reinstated within 48 hours. Later today is the 48 hour cutoff for the latest attempt. If that once again falls through (and I'm sure it will), I'd imagine that my next phone call will be to a lawyer. Yes, I know that I should shop around for a new policy. But I still need them to take care of this so that I don't have any lapse of coverage on my record. I'm already shopping around. The one fun thing though is that I got an email last night from one of those automated surveys asking how my customer service experience was. I can't wait to have some fun with that.

We've already established this. He can't hit a curveball.

It's nothing complicated. Ticket prices go up and less people can afford them. So of course that lends itself to the corporate types.

It has very little to do with the game itself. What we are describing is a direct result of how the demographics of those with the disposable income to spend on pro sports have shifted over the years. Sure there are going to be some outliers from market to market, but as a whole, this is where we are today.

I feel like we're describing the majority of teams right now.

These bushes really struggled for a while, so I take the bees as a very positive sign. My only complaint is that I need to trim them a bit, but there's always a damn bee buzzing around.

It depends. Do I have a mini-Ditka on my side?

That was my immediate thought when he said he released it in his yard, that mouse is going to come right back into the house. That and it will come back with reinforcements. One night, SFINS is going to wake up tied to his bed and 100 mice gathered around his feet. You don't want to know what they'll do next, SFINS.

Every day there's always a bee or two in the shrubs in front of my house. This morning I stopped counting at a dozen. I don't even know what they are, but the bees sure do love them. In the last couple months, it was always bumble bees, but the last couple days it has switched over to the smaller bees (honeybees I assume).

You've never seen a single one of his movies?

These numbers a good for a laugh. I don't know if it goes into much detail, but they essentially say that they nailed this guys perceived value for each of these contracts.