the 4th star

Every year for the past 60 years my circle of friends participate in this hockey draft where we pick every single player skating in the NHL, AHL, ECHL, KHL, and in the major European leagues. We watch with *great interest* as half the players barely reach the 20 point mark. It’s very exciting. Knowing that George Parros could get some power play time at the end of a game that is well in hand was just as interesting as finding out that there’s a guy named Paul Ranger. I wonder if he ever played with Richard Park?

Once the season wraps up and one of same three people win the thing, we then forget about the draft for the next four months. For some, like myself, those four months of not caring about the draft push the total number of months not caring about the draft to a full year. Come September, before we harvest the Earth of its hockey talent, participants are asked to submit a list of players they would like to protect. When we started, I believe we kept 1,000 players each, thus leaving us with the bottom of the barrel to choose from. In recent years, a lobby has surfaced, imploring those in this democratic process to protect less guys — so that those who don’t have one-third of the Top 50 players would have a chance to compete come March. No dice. A rider (or Michael Ryder) has since been attached to this bill, suggesting that maybe we limit the pool of players. NHL only. Again, this died on the floor.

Which brings me to my disinterest. I have no idea how I’m doing in the draft. I couldn’t even guess where I am in the standings. No clue as to who is on my team. The minute I picked (player-X) and wrote him down on my bar napkin, I jettisoned that name from my brain. My lack of retention for the hockey draft is so bad, in fact, I couldn’t even tell you how many people are in the thing. More than 10 for sure. What I do know is that every time news like this (or this) comes to light, I always assume I have that player. This is just a guess, but if man games lost due to injury were one of the stats we tabulated in the draft, I would probably win running away.

Here’s who is currently on my team. Like you, I’m amazed that I not only have penned this list, but that I’ve managed to find it. Here’s to cleaning out the car! In no particular order…Daniel Alfredsson, Ryan Smyth, Jason Arnott, Johan Franzen, Nik Lidstrom, Duncan Keith, Andrew Ladd, Marin Erat, Christopher Higgins, Kimmo Timonen, Mathieu Schneider, Lee Stempniak, Brian Gionta, Tim Thomas, Tomas Volkun, TJ Oshie, Brian Rolston, and Mike Knuble — who apparently is with the Capitals.

Fuck. That is a terrible team. Did I pick this? It’s like I’ve never watched an NHL game before. It’s an expansion team. My home rink is the Cow Palace. Smyth and Gionta are out. Franzen is out for the year. Arnott has been on the shelf already. Same with Oshie. And Schneider. Knuble might be hurt, too. I’m sure there are others on the mend. I don’t even know if Erat still plays hockey. Much like the Leafs brass, I don’t think Stempniak is going to turn out the way I hoped. If full disclosure is what we’re doing these days, then I probably should mention that I tool Stempniak because his first name is my middle name. I mean, how many Lees are out there? I couldn’t take Lee Goren. He went in the 15,970th round.

A request to the membership. If you think you’re in the same draft as me, pass along the name of the pool and the password. I know the draft is on Office Pools or Pool Expert or one of those things. At least I think it is. Email at the top of the blog, yo.

“It doesn’t matter your background, your demographics, your race, your political affiliation, it’s such a uniting, healthy, fun, awesome activity. It cracks me up going to some running event and seeing some dude who campaigned so hard against me, or a lady who’s been blogging some mean comments about me. But we’re all there together and we’re smiling and we’re having a good time because we’re going to do something healthy and active. We need more of that.”

Whatever you say, dude.

“When I run, I’m totally incognito because I’m not wearing the trough full of makeup. I can go running through a mob of tourists and they don’t recognize me.”

Yeah. Totally incognito. You don’t even look like yourself here.

“I feel so crappy if I go more than a few days without running. I have to run. No matter how rotten I feel before or during a run, it’s always worth it to me afterwards. Sweat is my sanity.”

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t heard enough about Sarah Palin these days. She should really write a book or something. If I was working on the Democrat side, I’d be playing up the ‘end of the world in 2012′ angle right now.

In classic celebrity form — complaining about being in the spotlight while checking if the bulbs are bright enough — it seems Sarah Pee has a problem with Newsweek using this picture for their cover story this week. She’s calling the photo ‘sexist.’ I call it ‘yuppie-cardio.’ The BlackBerry is a dead giveaway. The photo comes from this interview, a ‘candid’ conversation in Runner’s World that, I’m sad to say, is more depressing than this week’s Hump Day. I’m guessing Palin has never seen a moose on the trail. I’m guessing she’s never seen a moose in her life. Image building, people. That’s what it’s all about.