Weekend Quick-hitters

I furrowed my brow yesterday, and asked myself "how can I churn out a blog in an even faster, lazier way?" I magically stumbled upon the drunken ramblings of Toronto Sun columnist Steve Simmons (he's the one with the lisp and giant moles on The Reporters) and was inspired. Simmons makes a living writing quick half-baked mini-thoughts that are published across Sun Media. It's usually stuff like this:

• Is it just me, or does Blue Jays pitcher Jeremy Accardo's surname remind you of a type of nut?
  
• We're all cheering for the Jays, but eventually we need to ask ourselves: do they have enough money to compete with the Red Sox and Yankees? I think not.
  
• It'll be tough for the CFL to compete with the NFL for players until they start paying CFL players more.
  
• I had an omelet this morning. Nothing wrong with that!
  

Such terribly written fluff has earned Simmons the plush gig on The Reporters (which should really be renamed The Reporters from the GTA). His writing is so poor, I would deem it "blog-worthy." With that said…

• I found the Ryan Smyth trade interesting. Not so much that he was traded (and may I add predictably so… his original deal with Colorado was one of those "everyone hockey fan in North America outside Avalanche management knows this is a stupid contract"), but that Los Angeles could have just as well gone with a higher-profile winger who has been openly campaigning to play in California. With that said, it's nice to see Los Angeles finally make a push for the playoffs, and Colorado accept it's time for a full-on rebuild.
  
• Tom Preissing has fallen pretty far. I thought Colorado got fair value back (promising blueliner Kyle Quincey and once promising Tom Preissing), considering Smyth has a Penneresque contract. Quincey is the key to the deal, as he had a bit of a break-out season last year. The throw-in was Preissing, who has fallen off the radar since heading to L.A. After a mediocre rookie year with the Sharks, Preissing put together a 43 point season in 74 games in 2005-06, before being traded to Ottawa… where he had a 38 point season and an insane +40. Since then, he's been a negative player and only has 31 points in the past two seasons (where he's played approximately 100 games).
  
• Jesse Lumsden makes me sad. I think every football fan knew Jesse Lumsden was going to get injured at some point this season, and while watching the Edmonton Eskimos' season opener, my brother half-joking claimed he was injured every time he was hit. Lo and behold, early in the first quarter he actually was injured, and quite seriously (a dislocated shoulder will keep him out 10 weeks). Lumsden, predictably, tried to look at the bright side when discussing his injury:
  

  
   

  "This is a completely new injury, I've never had a dislocation before so it's something that's not relative to any past injuries that I've had on the shoulder."
  

  
   

  With that said, it's a very, very bad sign if your shoulder dislocates on a relatively harmless play. As a football fan, I hate to see Lumsden injured – this is a guy who showed so much promise that he was signed by two different NFL teams, and tore up the CFL for his first 2-3 seasons in Hamilton.
  

• New Eskimos, Old Eskimos. I was (and still am) pretty high on the Eskimos this season, but I contemplated gouging out my eyes after watching the first half of their game against Winnipeg on Thursday. Even with a new running back and new receivers, Edmonton ran the exact same garbage offense they ran last year. I was left wondering if someone took last year's playbooks, scratched out "2008" and replaced it with "2009" to save a few bucks. Please, Eskimos, please… call something besides 5-8 yard passes. I think the other seven teams have caught on.
  
• He's been through a lot, what's a little more? I had one of those "how is this guy still in the league?!" moments on Thursday. Alexis Serna is still kicking for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. To put it in perspective, Serna was so bad last year (barely hitting 65% of his kicks) that fans were calling for the return of Troy Westwood (the same Westwood who had hit 70%, 69.8%, and 60.6% of his kicks from 2005-2007). Former Winnipeg coach Doug Berry hated Serna with such a passion that it was legitimately funny. And, more than anything, Serna has had to live with the name "Alexis" for his entire life. But somehow, after all that, he's still the best kicker Winnipeg could find. In case you're interested, here's an ESPN story on Serna back when he was still an "NFL prospect."
  

  Anyway, he missed a last second field goal to tie the game against Edmonton (cruelly hitting the first one, which was called back due to a last-second Richie Hall timeout). Poor Serna.