There’s no need to get this excited

Now occasionally your ol’ pal Wanye will find a newspaper on the ground on the way to the liquor store. Occasionally someone literate will split a morning Colt 45 with us and we force them to read us the sports section. Generally we fall down laughing with the nonsense published and today’s puffball by Robert Tychkowski is in rare form.

Now if you don’t feel like reading the entire article we can’t say we blame you. Why not click on the YouTube movie we have provided and we’ll explain the best parts to you? Yeah, that’s the stuff. They go hand in hand don’t they?

The long and the short of the article is basically this: “My, the Oilers have had a tough start to the year. Lucky it’s not their fault! Instead it is the schedule that has the team two games over .500 and in the Shitanusly® mediocre position in the standings. It’s certainly not the dozens of problems that are evident with every part of the team. Well, thank heavens for that.”

RT: Finally, a full eight weeks into the season, we get our first real look at the Edmonton Oilers.

WG: Well, this starts off with an objective bang, doesn’t it? This leading sentence screams “I am a robot who is built to do one thing — serve my overlords on Kingsway Avenue. Beep boop beep.” Tsk tsk.

RT: The first 26 games, a gruelling, torturous and borderline unfair schedule that sent the Oilers into survival mode from the get go, told us nothing.

WG: It’s certainly not the lack of offence, physical play, defence or consistent effort that’s been the problem this year. It’s a bunch of hosebags in NYC in the schedule department that don’t want to see the Oilers succeed. How unfortunate.

RT: Up until now, there’s been no way to tell if the Oilers are any good or not, and certainly no means of determining if they’re capable of contending for the division lead, as so many of them predicted in training camp.

WG: Er… What? There has been no way to tell? Oh, Robert, no (shakes head sadly). We think there’s been an excellent way to tell how good the Oilers have been so far. It’s the 1560 hours of hockey that they have played since early October and their 13-11-2 record. This is a pretty indication of how good they are, wouldn’t you think?

RT: Despite near panic in some corners of the fan base and cries for a coaching change in others, it’s simply not fair to judge anything based on a ridiculous, never-ending road trip.

WG: Really, dude? It’s simply not fair to judge? What on Earth are you talking about? Are you looking to upgrade your seat on the Oilers plane closer to the washroom? Are you paid in Oilers merchandise these days? If we wrote something this stupid guys like Ender and Dennis would have us for breakfast. Baggedmilk would kick us so hard in the beans that we would be sent back in time. You just can’t print this tripe and expect us to swallow it, can you?

Then he brings the good Captain into his den of lies: “The good thing about [the tough schedule to start the year] is we got through it OK.”

RT then gushes: Better than OK. If you are going to grade the first 26 games, give it a B+. Coming out of it two games over .500, given the sophomore jinxes and the slumps, is really very good.

WG: Better than OK? Being in 10th place after 26 games after MacT basically told everyone that this team was going to contend for the Northwest in training camp? Better than OK? Better to gouge out your eyes and live out your days blind than run the risk of reading this crap, we think.

To close, Tychkowski puts his tough-guy pants on and really nails it on the head with some hard-hitting journalism as we look to the next chunk of games:

RT: It’s showtime. They had a legitimate excuse for not looking their best over the first 26 games, now they don’t. The Oilers have to flick a switch and start playing at about a .700 clip, which isn’t going to happen automatically just because they’re at home.

WG: Good Gods, man. This is why we don’t read the newspaper anymore.

— Schremp Watch: 3 GP, 0 G, 3 A, 3 Pts

— Are you voting for Souray to be in the All Star Game? You should be.