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Can we ban NHL All Star Game?

1/27/2016

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Nashville wants the 2016 NHL All Star game it’s hosting to hit high notes. Chances are the game will fall flat.

First, a bit of a plus. The game will be 3 on 3. It will open up the ice, and boost creativity, but it’s not like these games, even 5 on 5, ever featured neutral zone traps, body checks, shot blocking, or back checking - so going with fewer players won’t solve the HUGE hockey problem here.

And that is: players skate at half speed, drift, and doodle, and don’t look like they give a hoot. These matches have less contact than do conventions for anthropophobiacs.

Second, a bigger plus. John Scott, THE John Scott, he of 11 career NHL points, late of the Arizona Coyotes, voted to the NHL All Star game by nutty fans, following nuttier NHL rules, is GOING TO PLAY, despite his being traded to the Montreal Canadians, who sacked and packed the pugilist to their IceCaps minor-league team. Scott’s articulate and self deprecating and “gets it.” He’s funny. Not as funny, derisively, as his game, but funny.

Third, the biggest plus. Before, during, or after All Star festivities fans and players must try Nashville’s famous and ferocious Hot Chicken meal(s).

Now:
It’s a shame the NHL couldn’t go to a 3 on 3 format for all its games. Of course, the players’ union would never go for the job losses – so the chances of this happening are as likely as Donald Trump toning it down - but for the fans - always the lowest concern on the totem pole as regards owner, management, and player interests - they’d love the less-players-is-more format.

Fans must wonder, too, if the goal scoring sprees of the 1980's might make it their way back to today's NHL. Despite lotsa rule changes, reducing goalie equipment sizes, and actually calling penalties for hooking, holding, and interfering - the game today is stultifying, the fan-base brains fried, from watching too many brutally boring defensive contests.

But as regards the NHL All Star game? Don’t confuse a lukewarm, low energy game, with low scoring. These feature more scoring than a porn movie. The 2015 final score, the highest for the 60 All Star games played to date,

was a football result: 17 to 12!

Yet to watch the “highlights” is worse than watching a hooker faking interest. Geez, even the goalies, while being threatened to being scored upon, look like they are going slow-mo. Given such lackluster, lackadaisical efforts, it is obvious:

NO GAME is better than a shame of a game.

Heck, one NHLer, Bobby Ryan, described the 2015 shebang as “stale.”

It is, however, small wonder, when you think about it, that these exhibitions of “excellence” are played on cruise control. Participants fear injury and have little incentive to go full out. Coming from different teams means that their team(s) can’t benefit should that player, or players, be on the winning side. As well, monies go to the players’ pension fund. Since most are multi-millionaires, with average salaries in 2014 at 2.58 million - this amounts to, if not chicken feed, at least to no great shakes.

And sometimes, frankly and sadly, those picked to play are upset to lose three days off. For some, being selected is a hassle not an honor.

Another problem with the NHL All Star contest is that at least one player must be selected from each of the 30 teams in the league. Thus there are only about six positions left to fill with true all-stars, so the bottom banal six teams will be sending, relatively peon-pedestrian players to battle. Quite often, they’re not really all-stars.

But...if even the best - and the scrubeenees - hardly try, what’s the point?

And yet – possibly the only thing more depressing than watching players coast is to note their nauseous apparel. Uniform designs have, for the most part, been uniformly garish, gaudy, and gross. Ok, horrible and heinous also. The only plus here is that kids taking fashion as a college elective, somehow get jobs from their bird course. Granted, there have been a few years with classy all-star sweaters, but a few doesn’t cut it.

Back to the problem of incentive. The only All Star game played properly, played full out, is Major League Baseball’s. The stakes are huge. If the National League team wins, the National Team World Series entrant gets home-field advantage; if the American League team wins, the American World Series teams gets that benefit. Alas, how could the NHL replicate such a great stick and carrot into its game? Mucho MONEY, one supposes.

Maybe the hockey hoedown should drop the game itself and dollop on more player-to-fan interactions. Hockey talks featuring stars – like the ones on January 29th at the Bridgestone Winter Park – and on prime Time TV to boot, are all well and good, but perhaps a focus on - the ice, with teach-and-greets, could be done. Yes, show off the combatants’ marvelous stick handling, skating, passing, and shooting skills – but add in the kids. Have the tyros make bets: “Game-the-Skills Games”. These gambits would help promote the sport.

So, yeah, while it would be nifty if the All Star game turned out to be a crafty, great music rock-a-baby, to Nashville fans; and the NHL, while rightly, wants to grow the game - in non-traditional shinny markets like this Tennessee town - an All Star miracle, an off-the-charts fest, would have to happen - to even approach what sweet, sweet music once came out of Music City’s RCA’s Studio B.

Still, the place is a bit pumped to host this spectacle. It’s their first time doing so, and, for sure, the American national anthem, sung by Vince Gill, a Predator season-ticket holder, should be good - as will be prior performances by the likes of musician, Aaron Lewis.
​
But good shifts from Gill and Lewis can’t make up for a lame game.  
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Our Wacky World!

1/22/2016

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Caricature artists are pissed at Trump - they can’t trace a face - whose scowl and frown, in real life, knows no bounds.

An NFL player makes a tackle, run, catch, or throw. He prances and preens as if he’s cured cancer. Please. Stop.

British PM says he’ll send British Muslim women packing if they don’t improve their English speaking skills, begging the question - how’d the Scots get off?  

Delta Airlines allowed a passenger to bring a turkey on board for reasons of emotional support.  Now, if Delta and the rest of the airline industry - get planes to run on time - who would ever need anything else?

What’s good for the goose IS NOT good for the gander. Some staff on Britain’s public – National Health Service – have, as a perk, coverage by private health care.

A British Columbia (Canada) town, Barriere, has had its Chamber of Commerce website taken over by a hard-core porn site. The town was caught with their pants down, letting the domain-name lapse.  They are offended. But that’s nothing...the town of Flint, in Michigan (USA) may have misled its citizens about their water quality. THAT'S OBSCENE.

Obama slammed Trump in his SOTU.  Nikki Haley, Republican governor of South Carolina, slammed Trump in her response to the SOTU. When you piss off both major parties - you have to be doing something right.

Black university students in the USA, in 2016, are demanding segregated spaces.  Somewhere, George Wallace, white governor of Alabama in the 1960's - is smiling.

You can buy the Playboy mansion for $200 million. But Hugh Hefner gets to stay. The plus? Tons of dates. The minus? If you survive the virus, disease, and bacterial-infested walk-thru inspection, you still gotta clean up.

Again with Nikki Haley. She wants everyone to feel welcome. Pie in the sky, or what?  Why not forget vetting, customs, immigration control and all their pointed, personal questions while you’re at it? Seamless transition for all! That’ll do it.

Hillary Clinton is bogged down campaigning and spinning her email actions against FBI investigations. Bill’s thrilled. A busy Hillary, means a wild Billy.

Jesse Joyce, in answering the question why can’t Hollywood actors and actresses taking a ribbing from the likes of Ricky Gervais, replied: “...They’re all dumb...” OK. Not to be too dumb here, but, who the heck is Jesse Joyce?

In 2008, Hillary Clinton said: “Since when, do Democrats attack one another on universal health care...” Since 2016, apparently. Chelsea Clinton says: “Senator Sanders wants to dismantle Obama care...” 
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World Weirdness

1/15/2016

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Sean Penn says “El Chapo” was "remarkably well groomed" as if a Mexican with a $billion couldn’t figure out how to comb, floss, and deodorize.

President Obama, who nixed the Canadian Keystone XL pipeline for environmental reasons, is backing, with 18 billion big ones, a pipeline in Kenya - for god knows why?

Jordan Spieth, with his win in Hawaii at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, joins the party with Tiger Woods. Both won 7 times on the PGA before their 23rd birthdays. The only difference between the two, as it stands now, is that Tiger is way nicer.

Edward Archer, claiming allegiance to Allah and ISIS, shot a Philadelphia police officer 13 times. Philadelphia Mayor, Jim Kenney, claiming allegiance to insanity, said the shooter did NOT represent Islam. Up is down. Right is left. Political correctness lunacy abounds.

Allegedly, Justin Bieber climbed a Mayan ruin and dropped his pants. Bare-butt naked atop a historic monument. No need to climb high, Justin. Everyone from miles around can see you’re nothing but bare, white trash. Being rich and famous can’t hide that fact.

Barack Obama, after lying like a rug about his health plan, can't understand why folks don't trust him on gun control.

Donald Trump says he will build a wall to keep out illegals. Might not even be needed. All illegals will high tail it out of the States once Donald Trump is boss-man. A win-win.

Seen the Jihadi University video? Now, there’s a campus needing “safe spaces.”

What is most worrying for western civilization: American and European mainstream medias - self censoring stories of radical Islam, or radical Islam uncensored?

Bill Maher says “why don’t we get out of Muslim lands?” Better question: “why aren’t Muslim lands accepting of all religions like western lands are?

The annoying ads before YouTube videos? Nobody watches them - well produced and well thought out though they are - unless the viewer is caught unawares. Advertisers, stop ‘em. You already own hockey rink boards, streets with signs, sports uniforms, the very earth commercialized beneath our feet...we, as consumers, admit defeat...you’ve won. Please, give us but one small win, please kill video commercials. This public service announcement has been brought to you by...

President Obama cried over American kids killed by guns. He, to his credit, specifically mentioned Chicago, for it is a hotbed of gang-land cold killings. Barack was a community activist from the Windy City. He didn’t do the job there, so Americans, feeling guilty about race, promoted him to president.  He didn’t do the job there, either.
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Angela Merkel “we can do this” moved heaven and earth for “Arabs and others of North African appearance” to asylum-seek, migrate, and immigrate to Germany, some 1,000 of who, allegedly, sexually assaulted 500 women in Cologne on New Year’s eve.
Next thing you know Merkel’s Germany had the Polizei shut down, shut up, and shoo away born-and-bred-German protesters, who, questioned: HEY, are these new wanton feeler-uppers (new immigrant forays?) and rapists, NOW here to stay?
No.
Now that Merkel’s own life, her political life, is threatened, she’s tightening the borders.
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Rad, Mad, Sad, and Bad Facts

1/8/2016

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North Korea brags it produced an H-bomb. But producing a decent meal for citizenry...aah, that’s a story for another day...

After 1,000+ men, described as North African or Arab in appearance, allegedly, sexually assaulted 100 or so women in Germany’s city of Cologne, atrociously, Mayor, Henriette Reker, said women should keep an arm’s length away. So the Nazi salute is making a comeback...

Can Republican Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon, obviously an intellect, get more comatose?

Hillary Clinton is now taking questions from little kids...Makes sense. She can’t answer the adult ones.

Bill Clinton (not physically but orally - speech wise at least) on Hillary: “Everything she touched she made better.” Insert own wisecrack here...

Your underwear, at the worst of times, is cleaner than FIFA’s every day wear, at the best of times.

Chicago teachers stole money “meant for cheerleader uniforms”, smoked weed, and were led by a school system itself accused of a fraudulent kickback scheme. No wonder kids in Chicago join gangs – they need the protection.

Let’s stand in awe and applaud - the Frijoles and Frescas Grilled Tacos establishment’s - moxie. This outfit in Vegas was robbed. But they had video of the crime and turned it into a popular Ad, wherein they boasted that their tacos were so tasty, folks would BREAK-IN to get some. They made lemonade from lemons, saw a glass half full, recognized it’s always darkest before the dawn...

Should the Republican Party establishment, so supine and servile, be banished, sent back to Surrenderville? Trump may be a nut according to some, but he doesn’t back down at the first sign of adversity, which is loads more than anyone could say about new Republican House Speaker, Paul Ryan. What a disgrace. He’s almost making Ex-Speaker, weepy-wimpy, John Boehner, look ballsy.

Germany’s Angela Merkel feels guilty about her country’s anti-Semitic past, so she’s diluting the Aryan mixture with Arab and other mixtures, many of whom hate Jews as much as Nazis did.

This group of Republican presidential candidates is thought to be by many on the left, by some in the center, and by a few on the right - as dangerous – the most undignified dais of debaters ever seen. So Americans, therefore, in horror, will horde and hot-foot it to Canada – where they’ll get cold feet once they see how feckless Canada’s newly elected Prime Minister boy-toy Justin Trudeau – son of daddy-dandy PM, Pierre Trudeau – is.  

What is worse, a Democratic-hack dimwit or a Republican-hack nitwit?

Canada was roundly defeated in the World Junior Hockey Championship, ending sixth. Will the Canucks go to war against all, armed with their muskets fashioned from failed hockey sticks?

Hillary says aliens may have already visited America. And no, she’s not talking about the one time Bill came into her bedroom...

What’s scarier: Donald Trumps’ head scratching ideas or his head hair asleep?
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Are there differences between Ski Flying and Ski Jumping? Aren’t they both too risky to try?
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BS Baffles Brains

1/2/2016

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Can we solve these baffling conundrums in 2016?

How many horrible face jobs must be done before people are done with face jobs?

Someone, please, draw a who-is-who flowchart of frenemies and enemies in Syria.

Can anyone explain why god-forsaken countries (Allah, notwithstanding) such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, must have earthquakes too?

Why is it that fossil fuels, which provide jobs, heat, light, and fuel for flights and car rides - are reviled - while wind farms, which provide killing grounds of birds - of all types - are revered?

What is worse, the craziness of Black Friday or the madness of Boxing Day?

We encourage Google in its quest to do away with passwords. But, uh, um, will the new security systems work?

Employees in China demand cleaner office air. It's a start. They’re suffering, however, from foggy thinking. This first demand, this want – given the cesspool of outside air they grasp to gasp, sucks as a command.

Why does Kobe Bryant have the most all-star votes when he’s having a terrible season?

Does Greece still exist? It seems to have fallen off the media map.

It had to happen sooner or later: Man, distracted by cell phone, saunters off a California cliff, dies. (Actually, this isn’t baffling at all, is it?)

Explain the value of the show: My 600-lb Life.

Deer might be deported by the Canadian province of British Columbia. If so, the Canadian federal government, wholly contorted in consummate stupidity, will, wholeheartedly, house the “refugees” in hotels and motels - at dear cost – all the while touting and shouting  “Canada is back.” Also, this Canadian federal (Liberal) government is going to legalize marijuana, but to be fair, they were pissed to the gills when they came up with this kooky idea.

Is Yemen as screwed up as Libya?

Who disrespects women more, Donald Trump or Bill Clinton?

Are waist trainers a cinch to be the biggest waste of training-by-cinch?

Is it Po-lice or Pol-ice? Ve-hickle or Veh-icle?

The brokest sub-national government in the world is the provincial government of Ontario. It lives and lies in Canada. It’s also in moral bankruptcy. It owes nearly 300 billion -having banked its future finances and fiduciary capabilities on the fickle vagaries of sun and wind, as energy mainstays, as answers to all human-people...pickles and predicaments.  It's so hard up and destitute it’s now bending over, a prostitute, begging Ontarians to fork over their excess fund-money (as though citizens actually have that) to fill its cavernous coffers and confines. Good luck with that!

WTF? Catholic priests take a vow of celibacy, take a no-go to marriage, and yet, miraculously, give marital advice.

FIFA, a self-described non-profit, has, according to its 2014 books, a not so shabby, asset base - of 2,932 millions $US.

Does anyone else have trouble, at times, understanding Jonny Lee Miller-Sherlock Holmes’s enunciation in Elementary?

Who can explain why, in the USA, right-wing radio rules, while on TV, left-wing comedy reigns?

The left is bamboozled and baffled. They’re castigating the Department of Homeland Security for taking a right turn: DHS has announced that mass deportations of illegal aliens will start in January. (Note to DHS: normally Johnny Law doesn’t warn criminals of what’s coming up.)
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Why couldn’t Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, for goodness’ sake, find their way to the John Lennon 75th birthday anniversary in New York?


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