People think the first sign of spring has something to do with a groundhog on February 2, which further confirms a lot of people aren’t that bright.
The real true sign of spring is the return of the hobo. When winter slowly fades away, hobos return from their paid vacations and high ranking executive jobs to patrol the streets, helping Edmontonians deal with the huge amount of change they now carry thanks to the advent of the toonie.
Hobos have always fascinated me. In 2004, in conjunction with my friend Jeremy Bresler, I did a hard-hitting documentary entitled Hobology. Hobology was filmed in Vancouver and studied the life of a hobo – which is the third most popular profession in British Columbia after environmentalists and sushi chefs. Hobology proved to be a wild success, and spawned the sequels Hobology 2: Takin’ It To The Street, and Hobology 3: Your Suitcase Is My Syringe. There was also the unfortunate Hobology 4: The Hobos Strike Back… At The Creators of Hobology, which more or less ended the series.
I learned a lot about the homeless. For one, they prefer “hobo” over “homeless” (homeless has negative connotations like “not having a home,” while hobo is both comical and lends itself to clever alliteration like “happy hobo” or “hungry hobo”), and there’s a wide variety of types of hobo. In Vancouver, the hobos are poor and actually in need of money. Edmonton is different. Most Edmonton hobos make between $14-18 an hour, possess a small amount of downtown property, and own a selection of fine suits.
Fun Fact: Hobos are responsible for 7% of Canada’s GNP.
And now I’m sure you’re asking (if you read this far): why did Scott devote 250 words to hobos? The truth is two-fold: a) I like the word hobo; and b) I sat by a guy on the bus today who smelled so bad he reminded me of a hobo. Let’s move back to sports and another sign of spring – the Edmonton Oilers season concluding prematurely.
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I was saddened to hear the Fire MacTavish Rally fell short of expectations. I would have gone, but I assumed something like this would happen. Say what you will about Facebook, but people will not attend “Facebook events” unless they know the people involved. And even then… it’s a dicey proposition.
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I went to the Oilers game against Vancouver on Saturday. If you looked carefully, you could see me in the crowd – I was the only guy wearing an Oilers jersey (I kid, I did not wear an Oilers jersey). But I’m not kidding about the number of Canucks fans in the building. Vancouver fans may be my most hated in the league – say what you will about Calgary/Toronto/Montreal… they’ll be there win or lose. Vancouver fans only show up when they’re winning.
A few things struck me about Saturday’s festivities:
- Edmonton isn’t in Vancouver’s league. The shot clock was a pretty fair indication of the mismatch, but Edmonton caught a few breaks and escaped.
- I have ragged on Sam Gagner all year. He’s deserved it. But his goal to put Edmonton up 3-1 was fantastic, especially considering the victims were Willie Mitchell and Roberto Luongo. It’s the first time in a while that we’ve seen a goal of that quality without the name Ales Hemsky involved. This almost justifies playing Gagner 18 minutes a game and on the first power-play unit all year. Oh, wait, no it doesn’t.
- Ethan Moreau taking a slashing penalty with 3:30 to go with a fragile Oilers team hanging onto a narrow lead was priceless. I particularly enjoyed it because he slashed a Canuck behind the play for no reason. But like MacT says, “Ethan plays on the edge, and those are the type of penalties we have to kill.”
- My friend Paul Schmidt attended the game as well and got on CBC – he was wearing the brown bag over his head. Outside of that being hilarious/amusing, he said that Oilers staff threatened to throw him out of the game if he put the bag on – so he had to wait until the last five minutes to wear it. Apparently freedom of expression does not exist within Rexall Place (for the record, this is not the first time I’ve heard stories like this… Oilers management are the kings of spin control, and they’d like to have you know the fans are completely happy with the season). Not surprisingly, the Oilers also prevent negative signs from entering the arena, yet – incredibly – showed “JOEY MOSS 4 COACH” and “THIS IS OUR STANLEY CUP!” on the big screen. Sadly, Paul’s friend’s slightly dyslexic sign reading “NEED 4 WIN MIRACLE” didn’t make it on.
- Of course, it may have made it on as well if the cameraman at Oilers’ games didn’t spend 95% of his time searching the crowd for hot chicks, or in many cases the best looking 16-year-old girls he could find.
- The Oilers have a shot if they can get involved in a lot of those three-point games we keep hearing about. The only catch is the Oilers will need to take all three points from those games.
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Finally, a big thank you to Keith Ballard for levelling Evgeni Malkin. Malkin’s been taking some cheap shots at players yesterday and got his. As is now customary in the NHL, Sidney Crosby jumps Ballard for throwing a completely clean check (this also marked the first time in two months Crosby has chosen to fight a player rather than slashing him repeatedly and getting away with it):
Here’s another clip worth watching in case you haven’t seen it. Chicago and Vancouver had a brawl last week, but take a good look at Alexandre Burrows REPEATEDLY pulling Duncan Keith’s hair. Burrows is on his way to joining Steve Ott/Sean Avery/Jarkko Ruutu/Matt Cooke on my list of disgraces to humanity.
Not only did Burrows not receive a penalty, he was out on the powerplay following the brawl. Keith ,on the other hand, received a 10-minute misconduct.
http://scotttougas.blogspot.com
Original Story:
http://scotttougas.blogspot.com/2009/...
The real true sign of spring is the return of the hobo. When winter slowly fades away, hobos return from their paid vacations and high ranking executive jobs to patrol the streets, helping Edmontonians deal with the huge amount of change they now carry thanks to the advent of the toonie.
Hobos have always fascinated me. In 2004, in conjunction with my friend Jeremy Bresler, I did a hard-hitting documentary entitled Hobology. Hobology was filmed in Vancouver and studied the life of a hobo – which is the third most popular profession in British Columbia after environmentalists and sushi chefs. Hobology proved to be a wild success, and spawned the sequels Hobology 2: Takin’ It To The Street, and Hobology 3: Your Suitcase Is My Syringe. There was also the unfortunate Hobology 4: The Hobos Strike Back… At The Creators of Hobology, which more or less ended the series.
I learned a lot about the homeless. For one, they prefer “hobo” over “homeless” (homeless has negative connotations like “not having a home,” while hobo is both comical and lends itself to clever alliteration like “happy hobo” or “hungry hobo”), and there’s a wide variety of types of hobo. In Vancouver, the hobos are poor and actually in need of money. Edmonton is different. Most Edmonton hobos make between $14-18 an hour, possess a small amount of downtown property, and own a selection of fine suits.
Fun Fact: Hobos are responsible for 7% of Canada’s GNP.
And now I’m sure you’re asking (if you read this far): why did Scott devote 250 words to hobos? The truth is two-fold: a) I like the word hobo; and b) I sat by a guy on the bus today who smelled so bad he reminded me of a hobo. Let’s move back to sports and another sign of spring – the Edmonton Oilers season concluding prematurely.
---
I was saddened to hear the Fire MacTavish Rally fell short of expectations. I would have gone, but I assumed something like this would happen. Say what you will about Facebook, but people will not attend “Facebook events” unless they know the people involved. And even then… it’s a dicey proposition.
---
I went to the Oilers game against Vancouver on Saturday. If you looked carefully, you could see me in the crowd – I was the only guy wearing an Oilers jersey (I kid, I did not wear an Oilers jersey). But I’m not kidding about the number of Canucks fans in the building. Vancouver fans may be my most hated in the league – say what you will about Calgary/Toronto/Montreal… they’ll be there win or lose. Vancouver fans only show up when they’re winning.
A few things struck me about Saturday’s festivities:
- Edmonton isn’t in Vancouver’s league. The shot clock was a pretty fair indication of the mismatch, but Edmonton caught a few breaks and escaped.
- I have ragged on Sam Gagner all year. He’s deserved it. But his goal to put Edmonton up 3-1 was fantastic, especially considering the victims were Willie Mitchell and Roberto Luongo. It’s the first time in a while that we’ve seen a goal of that quality without the name Ales Hemsky involved. This almost justifies playing Gagner 18 minutes a game and on the first power-play unit all year. Oh, wait, no it doesn’t.
- Ethan Moreau taking a slashing penalty with 3:30 to go with a fragile Oilers team hanging onto a narrow lead was priceless. I particularly enjoyed it because he slashed a Canuck behind the play for no reason. But like MacT says, “Ethan plays on the edge, and those are the type of penalties we have to kill.”
- My friend Paul Schmidt attended the game as well and got on CBC – he was wearing the brown bag over his head. Outside of that being hilarious/amusing, he said that Oilers staff threatened to throw him out of the game if he put the bag on – so he had to wait until the last five minutes to wear it. Apparently freedom of expression does not exist within Rexall Place (for the record, this is not the first time I’ve heard stories like this… Oilers management are the kings of spin control, and they’d like to have you know the fans are completely happy with the season). Not surprisingly, the Oilers also prevent negative signs from entering the arena, yet – incredibly – showed “JOEY MOSS 4 COACH” and “THIS IS OUR STANLEY CUP!” on the big screen. Sadly, Paul’s friend’s slightly dyslexic sign reading “NEED 4 WIN MIRACLE” didn’t make it on.
- Of course, it may have made it on as well if the cameraman at Oilers’ games didn’t spend 95% of his time searching the crowd for hot chicks, or in many cases the best looking 16-year-old girls he could find.
- The Oilers have a shot if they can get involved in a lot of those three-point games we keep hearing about. The only catch is the Oilers will need to take all three points from those games.
---
Finally, a big thank you to Keith Ballard for levelling Evgeni Malkin. Malkin’s been taking some cheap shots at players yesterday and got his. As is now customary in the NHL, Sidney Crosby jumps Ballard for throwing a completely clean check (this also marked the first time in two months Crosby has chosen to fight a player rather than slashing him repeatedly and getting away with it):
Here’s another clip worth watching in case you haven’t seen it. Chicago and Vancouver had a brawl last week, but take a good look at Alexandre Burrows REPEATEDLY pulling Duncan Keith’s hair. Burrows is on his way to joining Steve Ott/Sean Avery/Jarkko Ruutu/Matt Cooke on my list of disgraces to humanity.
Not only did Burrows not receive a penalty, he was out on the powerplay following the brawl. Keith ,on the other hand, received a 10-minute misconduct.
http://scotttougas.blogspot.com
Original Story:
http://scotttougas.blogspot.com/2009/...
