How was that weekend for everybody? Did your southern parts freeze together leaving you wondering if you had slept through the eleven day Canadian summer? The next hippie we see crying about global warming is going to get a roundhouse kick to the face, courtesy of your ol’ pal Wanye.

Believe that.

In what we hope has turned the corner from "thing-we-sometimes-do" to the "thing-we-always-do-and-no-complaining-girlfriends-can-stop-us-ever" we headed up the roughest, toughest gang of street thugs and headed off to Banff with the expectation of playing golf.

This expectation was quickly replaced with the realization that it was snowing and that the only thing 16 red blooded Canadian men of varying degrees of good looks could do is start a day party at 10:30 AM and go till last call.

Fortunately there was a bevy of sporting events to keep us entertained and stagette season is in full swing in Banff these days. So we had that going for us.

 

We could ordinarily give two squirts about a UFC fight except that Mr. T from the new A-Team movie was fighting and that is something you don’t see every day. Plus a big bouncer went around the bar around hour 6 of the day party and demanded $10 from everyone in attendance.

Because we hadn’t yet devised a money making scam by which we would be able to pay our existing bill, we yelled "ADD IT TO THE TAB MY MAN" and settled in to split our attention between the Cup and the UFC. 

At the risk of becoming extraordinarily unpopular – especially to FlamesNation’s own Pat Steinberg who was covering the event in Vegas for the Fan 940 – we don’t like the UFC. Sure, we can see the appeal in it. Two large, sweaty men engaging in a variety of grappling poses, faces mere inches from one another’s groins. It is a great way to spend an evening.

But we have a philosophical issue with a sport where if one of the combatants actually died during a match, it would send the crowd into such an orgy of cheering that the host city would have to scramble the national guard to maintain control.

Not to mention sales of Tapout clothing and Ed Hardy shirts would go through the roof as the viewers of the kill move would immediately begin prepping for a celebratory night on the town to compare notes with other UFC viewers like the guy featured below:

Viewer 1: Did you see that guy totally snap the neck of that other guy?

Viewer 2: Yeah, totally.

Viewer 1: Wasn’t that radical?

Viewer 2: Yeah, totally.

Viewer 1: Want to go practice wrestling in booty shorts with me?

Viewer 2: Yeah, totally.

This may be a bit of an oversimplification of the issue and we know that the UFC presents a world class event. If the NHL understood how to market itself 1/10000 as well as the UFC we wouldn’t be staring down the sagging attendance in the Southern US like we are today. 

We are just saying that given the choice between watching Bolivian C-SPAN or the UFC we would pick the wacky antics of Evo Morales any day.

Fortunately, the Stanley Cup of Hockey match was first class and presented a welcome distraction from the screaming masses of UFC fans in the bar. Did anyone else tune in to watch this thing? It wasn’t exactly the defensive battle one would expect from G1 of the finals but it certainly was entertaining.

We can’t help but marvel at the quality of play in these here playoffs. Maybe it is because 99.4% of the hockey we watch is performed by the Oilers of Edmonton, but these games are wicked good. We don’t even recognize what a good hockey team is anymore.

Whatever the case, we will be tuning in for G2 tonight where the Flyers will be giving Leighton another chance between the pipes and Chris Pronger will be left wondering why Dustin Byfuglien isn’t scared of him in the least.

You should watch too, if not for the game itself then for poor Jeremy Roenick, who is apparently so torn about his two former clubs facing one another in the finals that it merited an article on TSN.