Well, yesterday, I made broke the new Bruins  Bear ads for the Finals. Today, my other top secret source, this time in the Canucks organization, sent me these new mock-ups featuring Lumberjack Willy.

Don’t forget to follow BoF on Twitter.

Secret sources inside the Bruins organization tipped me off to these new Bruin Bear ads…

Don’t forget to follow BoF on Twitter.

With September just around the corner, it’s time to create a strategy for your upcoming fantasy hockey draft. Here are some tips to get your started…

"What you say about Steve Mason, bi*ch?" - Tuukka

• If you decide to draft Tuukka Rask, be prepared for the inevitable “Steve Mason” references from the gallery. Shut ‘em up quickly with a sarcastic “because playing behind Chara is just like playing behind Fedor Tyutin, right?”
• Be sure to bump Kris Versteeg up on your draft cheat sheet. His numbers are set to rise because he’ll finally be able to get a good night’s sleep as opposed to staying out until the wee hours of the morning playing the role of Patrick Kane’s wingman.
• If you draft Roberto Luongo, be sure to also use a late-round pick on backup Cory Schneider, and another one on farm team starter Tyler Weiman, and yet another one on farm team backup Eddie Lack. Remember, Keith Ballard is now on the Canucks.
• While it’s alright to draft a couple aging players with the hope that you can squeeze one more good year out of them, it’s never a good strategy to have your whole roster consist of these types. You can avoid getting yourself in this predicament by sticking a post-it on your monitor with the following rule written on it: Do Not Draft Any Red Wings.
• If your league counts penalty minutes, it’s not a bad idea to use a late pick on a goon who will rack up the PIMs. Most of them will still be around in the last round so don’t overpay, otherwise you’ll be known in your league as “Mr. Sather”.
• It’s always nice to gain added flexibility by drafting players who are dual-position eligible. For example, Dustin Byfuglien is a forward who slots in as a defenseman in some games, thus making him eligible at both positions. Another example would be Mike Green, although for some reason the powers that be never update his position in the main computer.
• If you’re playing with a new group of guys who don’t know each other very well and you sense the draft atmosphere is kinda cold, I suggest you draft Evander Kane with your next pick. The jubilation and applause that follows will surely break the ice.
• Contrary to what you’ve been hearing from the media all summer, a great manager does not go into a season with Mike Smith and Dan Ellis as his two goalies.


Dan Ellis wants to the world to know he's a specialist, just like Paris Hilton.

• Speaking of Dan Ellis, should you draft him, try to refrain from calling yourself a “fantasy specialist” right after the selection. Doing so will just force you to explain the whole Ellis Twitter debacle and in turn make you look like one giant geek in front of the whole league. (If you need clarification on what the hell I’m talking about, reference the 2nd paragraph in this link — see, I look like one giant geek now, right?)
• If you’re about to select Tomas Kaberle with the intention of trading him to another manager after the draft ends, you should probably rethink that pick.
• If during your draft you notice some of the other managers are writers for the Toronto Sun, try to make them feel at home by changing the league’s language setting to Czechoslovakian. Howver, be sure to keep an eye on them ’cause they may try to do something unethical like trading amongst each other to form one “super team”.
• Don’t get too emotional with your roster. If you let your emotions run wild, you’ll end up dropping a player who messed your team up, only to pick him up again a few months later with the expectation of a different result . That’s sheer lunacy.
• Don’t draft Alex Tanguay. Especially if you’ve been burned by him before.
• Oh, and don’t ever trade one good player (who may or may not have a celebrity girlfriend) for a package of lesser-skilled players.
• But don’t worry too much about the last three things. They’ll only spell your team’s downfall if you make all three mistakes in the course of one calendar year and surely nobody on this planet would ever be that dumb.
• Lastly, since all fantasy leagues end in the regular season, it’s okay for you to draft Russian-born players.

Hopefully this list will serve you well… good luck, my friends!

For those still reading, I’ll be a guest on Rink Side Rants this coming Thursday at 9pm est.  Yup, this will be my podcasting debut so if you want to hear some lame attempts at humor and just overall awkwardness which will make you cringe, do tune in.

You can also follow me on Twitter, where the push for 1000 followers is gaining steam.

Since the season ended, Blades of Funny has had insiders who were inside (thus the name) meetings involving each team’s management. Here are some choice quotes we overheard general managers saying…

Anaheim Ducks: “Hey, if we can’t sign Bobby Ryan, let’s just stick a #9 jersey on Matt Beleskey and tell people that Bobby had to change his name again.” – Bob Murray

Yes, Rick "Natural Man" Dudley does have a record.

Atlanta Thrashers: “You see those pictures behind me. The subjects in those photos are Stan Bowman and his secretary, Jessica. These photos, gentlemen, hold the key to our off-season.” – Rick Dudley

Boston Bruins: “Let me call Burkie and work some of my magic on him to see what he’ll give us in return for a hockey player who can’t count to 10 without focusing to the extreme.” – Peter Chiarelli

Buffalo Sabres: “It’s that time of the year, again. Let’s do what we always do, which is… nothing.” – Darcy Regier

Calgary Flames: “Hey, did you guys see how Lamoriello brought Arnott back to Jersey? I like that. In fact, I like that so much that I’m going to one-up him.” – Darryl Sutter

Carolina Hurricanes: “Rod Brind’Amour retired. Meeting adjourned. Enjoy your summer, guys.” – Jim Rutherford

Chicago Blackhawks: “F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! Motherf*ck!” – Stan Bowman

Colorado Avalanche: “Okay guys, last year we drafted Duchene and O’Reilly. They turned out well. In fact, they turned out so well that we’ll have to spend big bucks to retain them, so let’s tone things down this year. Let’s see … probable 2nd rounders … 3rd rounders … I got it! Joey Hishon! He’s our guy!” – Greg Sherman

Columbus Blue Jackets: “I forgot how good the food is at the draft. The last few years Hitch always ate everything before we even got there.  However, instead of eating, we probably should have paid closer attention to the prospects. Turns out Ryan Johansen isn’t a defenseman.” – Scott Howson

Dallas Stars: “Will somebody please go outside and tell Modano that the season is over and he can go home. He’s been hanging outside my office since spring. Awwwwkwwwward!” – Joe Nieuwendyk

Detroit Red Wings: “Will somebody please go outside and tell Modano that we’re not interested. He’s been hanging outside my office since Nieuwendyk kicked him out of Dallas.” – Ken Holland

Edmonton Oilers: “You guys are doing a fantastic job. Our youth movement is drawing comparisons to the Oilers of the 80′s. Now all we need is a Gretzky, a Messier, a Coffey and a Fuhr.” – Steve Tambellini

Florida Panthers: “As you can see by what’s happening in Chicago, I build my teams to self-destruct after I leave. Let this be a warning to those of you that want to play petty office politics with me.” – Dale Tallon

Los Angeles Kings: “F*cking Russians. From Frolov to Kovalchuk, they can all go to hell.” – Dean Lombardi

Modano: "I'll even play baseball. Just sign me!"

Minnesota Wild: “Hey, is that Mike Modano outside my office?” – Chuck Fletcher

Montreal Canadiens: “The future of the Montreal Canadiens now rests on Carey Price’s shoulders. … Hey, guys? … Hey? … What are you all doing? … Are those resumes you’re all faxing? ” – Pierre Gauthier

Nashville Predators: “Gentlemen, I bring great news! Hockey is FINALLY catching on in Nashville! I just came back from the coffee shop where I overheard two women having a conversation that involved the word ‘hockey’. Something about Carrie Underwood is marrying a HOCKEY player. This is a breakthrough! A BREAKTHROUGH!” – David Poile

New Jersey Devils: “Grrr.” – Lou Lamoriello

New York Islanders: “You guys won’t believe the story I planted in the media today. Check out this Darren Dreger tweet. ROFLMAO!” – Garth Snow

New York Rangers: “I don’t care how much it costs, get me a f*ckin’ enforcer with a cool nickname. That’s what I want this summer! Waaaaaaa! Waaaaaaa!” – Glen Sather

Ottawa Senators: “Sh*t! It says here that contract offers do NOT have to be sent out at exactly noon on July 1st. We DID have time to proofread.” – Bryan Murray

Philadelphia Flyers: “Okay, I acquired Nabokov for a few days. All those ‘Holmgren needs to get a real goalie’  people can now shut the f*ck up.” – Paul Holmgren

Phoenix Coyotes: “Just got off the phone with Gary. He told me that any signing over $1,000,000 is coming out of our personal pockets.” – Don Maloney

Pittsburgh Penguins: “Crosby looked pissed after our season ended. We better do something or he’ll have us killed.” – Ray Shero

San Jose Sharks: “First things first: which one of you bastards googled ‘doug wilson’s hot daughter‘ on the office computer?” – Doug Wilson

St. Louis Blues: “OH CRAP! Have any of you looked at Halak’s stats? He’s only had one good year… and he only played like 40 games… like, what the hell, man? I thought he was like Dryden and Roy combined.” – Doug Armstrong

Tampa Bay Lightning: “So it’s finalized: 15 minutes prior to each press conference, I will stand at the podium and the media will be let in and proceed to tell me how much they want to suck my di*k. After which, I will sign autographs for each of them. Gosh, maybe if I was named LeBron, I’d enjoy all this ego stroking.” – Steve Yzerman

Toronto Maple Leafs: “You guys handle the off-season stuff for me this year. I have a parade outfit to pick out.” – Brian Burke

Vancouver Canucks: “Soooo… this is a little awkward… when Naslund was my client, I sort of, um, lost a bet to him…  and so if I ever became a GM, I would have to, um, retire his…” – Mike Gillis

Washington Capitals: “We have a good team, right? No, we have a GREAT team, right? We don’t need to do anything, right?  … Varlamov and Neuvirth will do just fine, right? … Alex? … Alex? … Alex, you still there, Alex?” – George McPhee

As always, follow BoF on Twitter for more fun.

This will be a quick post where I ramble about a few things:

The newest Canuck.

–I’ve had an amusing morning today based on my decision to tune into a Vancouver radio to gauge the reaction to the Ballard trade.

My first “lol” moment came when, to open the show, one of the hosts described the Canucks are “shaking up the draft” with the trade. Yes, you read right: they shook up the draft! … with a Keith Ballard trade. I didn’t know that was even humanly possible.

But the laughs continued…

The other host chose to break down the trade by splitting it into parts:

“Bernier’s contract was a liability to the team.” (mostly true because you can’t pay a 4th liner $2 mil.)

“It was either Grabner or Raymond for Ballard, and Raymond proved himself this season.” (sure, I can buy into that.)

“Oreskovich for a 1st rounder is a ‘we’ll see’ based on what happens.” (Whaaaaaaaat?)

Granted, it’s always a “we’ll see” when it comes to trades (especially ones that involve prospects), but please tell me how, if you break a trade down like this, is Ostrich worth a first round pick?

I fired off an email to one of my buddies who is a Canucks fan and told him about this comedy.

His reply:

The Ostrich guy has an interesting story as he quit hockey for 2 years as his head wasn’t in it.    Then he got his drive back and made the Panthers right away.   So maybe not such a long shot as his current stats suggest.

My counter:

Ostrich may be an interesting story (but those are a dime a dozen with prospects), thus would trading a 1st rounder straight up for him be justified like the guy was saying in his break down? No.

“he quit hockey for 2 years as his head wasn’t in it”

Lovely! Just the type of player who’ll be there when the going gets tough!!

lol, get outta here!

His counter:

I like a guy who was spoiled, realized what he had, and went back to get it.   He won’t leave again.    And I like that he made the team so soon.  Means the kid has skill.

I am giving Gillis a solid A- on this deal.

My reply:

go suck his d**k!

–Okay I found the above amusing. You, on the other hand, probably want the last minute of your life back. I’m sorry, the Ballard trade shook me up!

–No more Keith Ballard! Please, for the love of God, somebody good get traded!

2 Savards or 1.15 Drurys?

–… like Marc Savard! If Toronto gets him for a bargain price, the Kessel trade can no longer be mocked, for Savard needing to be moved is pretty much connected to the Kessel trade.

Marc Savard’s cap hit is $4 million. $4 MILLION! You know who made around $4 million last year? Jason Blake, Pavol Demitra, Daymond Langkow and David freakin’ Legwand. There should be absolutely no hesitation when it comes to taking on his contract.

Concussions? Sure, it’s an issue, but if you’re giving up Grabovski or Kulemin then what’s really the risk? I mean, YOU’RE GETTING A POINT A GAME GUY!!! And your team really needs all the skill up front that it can get. And most of all, every pre-Burke Leaf should have been taken out back and beaten in the first place.

I’m telling you, if the Leafs pull off this trade, they will make the playoffs next year*.

* – Unless, of course, Savard misses 50 games due to a concussions, Phaneuf plays like he did in Calgary, Schenn decides he wants to give the AHL a shot, Gustavsson misplaces his defibrillator, Giguere is Giguere and Kessel starts shooting the puck from center ice. All of which are not that big of a stretch.

–One more thing before I go and you can get on with your day.

You know what amuses me? People that come up with different ideas that would make soccer more suited for the North American market.

Like, really? That’s like saying the NFL should change some rules so it plays better to the inhabitants of Saudi Arabia. On a worldwide basis, soccer is doing fine. It’s a niche sport in North America but the game does not need this market.

Sooooo, there really is no need to go to 9 on 9 play, eliminate offsides and all that jazz. But keep sending in your ideas!