Thursday, July 31, 2008

Thursday Morning Cupcheck - Answering the Readers Male Bag

By Todd Maternowski

Top of the morning, hockey fans! Last week we used the very latest in cutting-edge technology, expert-level scientific methodology and pirate brains to accurately forecast the impact the KHL's oil-stained million$$ will have on the impoverished players of the NHL. This week, I was planning on writing my annual column praising the Heroic Leadership of our Fearless Leader, when recent events forced me to unwillingly trudge down a new semi-hockey-related path.

Of course, I'm talking about the terrific letters to the editor my last column raised! For hockey writers, irate letters are the reason we get up in the morning, the reason we go to bed at night, and the reason we piss ourselves from laughter midway through the late afternoon. A non-writer, or "mouth-breathing pleb" as they are commonly known, may not fully appreciate the abject importance of your typical poorly-worded, unspelchekced masterpiece, but those of us in the elite cadre of society that get paid to write about strapping young lads with sticks know better. Sometimes, when the chips are down and you're getting paid in government cheese as I was last week, all it takes is an ancient curse disguised as a passionate email to make a hockey writer's day. This is especially true in the middle of summer, when hockey news is as scarce as a Baptist jello-wrestling runner-up farming Rube Goldberg machines on the surface of Mercury.

A Cupcheck reader, just seconds before a startling realization

What's that? You doubt the veracity of my claims? Then you are in for a massive surprise, as I once again bring you my Reader's Male Bag!

Dear Custeromsrvice,

Your chick lived you alone by reason of she had s mkv e tp x with your mate.

His male device is bi nc gg vpj er than yours and this is the main reason of leave.

Dont panic guy. Today you have marvelous possibility to Le nyu ng lz the mr n your male device si pp ze.

Lots of men the world over have en iwo la jto rge. Now it is your turn.

{SanCashSubj}

{SanCashSubj} -- You are 100% correct, sir, and your hockey-based wisdom is simply astounding, I think. If I may be so bold as to spellcheck your letter, I believe you have a crystal-clear question concerning the Dallas Stars and their ability to enlarge their roster size, preventing male devices from leaving in free agency. It's true -- other than a few underperforming Finns heading North, the retirement of Norstrom and the loss of our disliked-anyways backup goalie to someplace in Sweden (hopefully), this Stars team isn't significantly different than the one that actually showed up for a few games against the unstoppable Red Wing juggernaut in the spring. Add some odd pieces --an Avery here, a Brunnstrom there-- and you have the makings of a possible Cup champion. Now it is their turn, indeed.

Dear Ref:-L/200-26937 Batch:12/25/0340

YAHOO & MICROSOFT WINDOWS.its Be notified by our organization that you just won a Donation sum of 500,000GBP (Five Hundred thousand GBP). You are advised to contact immediately the claims agent with the information below once you receive this mail for further instructions on how you are claim your donation prize. Please also quote your Refrence and batch numbers to our claims for security reasons.Refrence numbers (Ref:-L/200-26937 Batch:12/25/0340) quote in all discussions. Contact information below: Executive Secretary- Jvanes Scheffer

Jvanes Scheffer, you are 100% correct. While half the teams in the league were scrounging around the free agent pool like bums fighting over fish, the Dallas Stars had already made their free-agent splurge months ahead of time with Brad Richards. Was signing Hossa to one year really the ultimate banzuke of free agent signings? I'll take Richards and his getting-better-every-day price tag (just a tad above Hossa's, and likely well below Sundin's rental prices) any day of the week.

Pictured: Belfour and Sundin, heartbroken about having to leave Toronto

Dear Beneficiary,

We have actually been authorized by the presidency, Republic of Nigeria and the governing board of central bank of Nigeria to investigate the unnecessary delay of your payment, Recommended and approve your claims for payment if certified as genuine. During the course of our investigation, we discovered with dismay that your payment has been unnecessarily Delayed by corrupt officials of the Bank who are Trying to divert your money into their private accounts, to forestall this, security for your funds Was organized in the form of your personal Identification number (PIN) and your transfer access code (T.A.C), this will enable only you have direct Control over this fund, and it will be sent to you by cash or bank account transfer to avoid any further delay, we have also agreed with the Presidency that we will handle this payment ourselves to avoid any hopeless situation created by the Officials of the central bank of Nigeria We obtained an irrevocable payment guarantee on your Payment from the presidency we ar

Mrs. Cynthia David International Audit unit, United Nations Liaison Office

Wow! Some big-time ballahs are fans of my column! And so well-spoken, too! Mrs. Cynthia David International Audit unit, you are correct in your assertions: they say that the best defensemen in the league are the ones you never hear mentioned on TV, because if you don't notice them, they must be doing their jobs correctly. So too, the Stars in the 2008 offseason. The biggest headlines in the three major sports involve Favre, Manny and Sundin --all potential Hall of Fame veterans far past their prime, holding their current teams hostage in order to get a better deal from a desperate non-championship patsy. The Stars? No such distractions. Can you imagine Mike Modano holding the team in limbo with these 'unnecessary delays' that you mention? Sergei Zubov? Jere Fucking Lehtinen?!? Of course not. And when the inevitably plucky veteran does hold the team's head inside the proverbial hallway toilet --I'm talking to you, Eddie-- Dallas will show him the one-way door to Hockey Hell, a.k.a. Toronto. Too many superstars think that they transcend the sport --probably because of media types like myself who issue bold, sweeping proclamations like "Joel Lundqvist transcends the sport of hockey"-- but no one is irreplaceable, anywhere, ever. Hell, they even replace the effin' President of the Free World every eight years or so, and he's even more important than Ovechkin!

Well, that's all the time I have this week -- I appear to have won the Cameroon National Lottery, which I hear is paid out in delicious bananas, but I must respond within ten minutes or they'll ship my rightful bananas to Prince Fleaswallow or something-- but I appreciate the passion, the knowledge, and the verve I get every second of every day in my email inbox. Tune in next week when I try and branch out from my traditional reader fanbase in Nigeria and Swedish massage parlors, and hit the streets asking the tough, hard-hitting questions you've grown to expect, like: "Who are you? Where are you going? Why are you hitting me so hard?"

Related stories

• Thursday Morning Cupcheck - Handing Out the Coveted LVP Awards (Aug. 7, 2008)
• Pegasus News Week in View: The Hits Keep Coming (July 31, 2008)

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• Hockey > NHL > Stars