Stupid Roenick

Taking a page from the whinin' and cryin' Phillies and/or Freddie Mitchell's playbook, poor ol' Jeremy Roenick is complaining about fans complaining.

Philadelphia Flyers center Jeremy Roenick has some advice for hockey fans who blame the NHL lockout on players' greed: Once it's finally settled, stay home.

"We're going to try to make it better for everybody, period, end of subject. And if you don't realize that, then don't come."
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"We don't want you at the rink, we don't want you in the stadium, we don't want you to watch hockey," he said Saturday at the Mario Lemieux Celebrity Invitational in suburban Pittsburgh.
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"I say personally, to everybody who called us 'spoiled,' you guys are just jealous ... we have tried so, so hard to get this game back on the ice," Roenick said.

What an idiot. The NHL has about 3 fans, 2 of which think the players were greedy. That leaves you with 1 fan and no national television contract which doesn't really matter since you don't want people to watch anyway. If you think you won't be making any money now, it can get alot worse.

And guess who else thinks the players were greedy? Who thinks it was a mistake to not take the owners offer in February and instead continue to hold out for no salary cap? That's right, other players including Jaromir Jagr and even the super genius Jeremy Roenick himself admits the same. And the fans should feel sorry for them.

I know we are going to give up probably more than any union has ever given up in the history of [professional] sports and, to me, I think that's enough to bring the fans back -- to know what their players are going to give up as much as they have in the last year," Roenick said. "If people are going to chastise professional athletes who are making a lot of money they need to look at the deal we are probably going to end up signing in the next three weeks."

Because you guys were greedy and stupid we should take pity now that you think you're getting screwed? Classic case of redirecting anger at those totally unresponsible for one's own "crappy" situation. You have no one to blame but yourself and fellow players, Roenick. The fans had nothing to do with it.

Eagles picked to be champs

As we continue to ignore the mediocre Phillies and their endless, tedious season we might as well start thinking about the Super Bowl right? USA Today did a short article that summarizes the various NFL magazine's prognostications for the upcoming season. Athlon and Street & Smith's both correctly picked the Patriots over the Eagles for last year, both have the Eagles returning, but only Street & Smith's has them winning it in Detroit. Other magazines also have the Eagles winning.

I think this ignores history. Teams that are runners-up often don't even make the playoffs let alone return to the Superbowl. And Owens of course will have a lot to do with how the Eagles fare. Andy Reid is just as wrong now when he says "the receivers are good enough" as he was before they got Owens. The receivers are good enough with Owens, they are not without him. Of course when and if he returns his subsequent behavior will also be a determining factor.

And as an aside, one stupid thing people say about Owens is that he's selfish as if that's important on the field. Is he selfish in the way that Randy Moss is selfish where he takes plays off and gives up on winning and leaves the field early? People like Eskin try and denigrate his amazing effort to get healthy enough to play in the Super Bowl as merely a selfish effort to bring attention and glory to himself. If anyone remembers, he had the best game of anyone on the field and contributed tremendously to the Eagles chances of winning that game. If only the rest of the Eagles were that "selfish". I'm not saying Owens isn't selfish and self absorbed, but who cares what his motivation is as long as it leads to the Eagles winning games.

Phantoms go for the Cup

Without the Flyer's annual Spring time choking to entertain us, Ron and I have been feverishly following Philadelphia's farm teams- the Phantoms and the Trenton Titans- as they battle it out in the playoffs. The Titans have emerged victorious, winning the ECHL's Kelly Cup. Meanwhile, The Phantoms took a 1-0 lead in the Calder Cup finals with their victory over Chicago last night. Game 2 of the Calder Cup finals will be on Comcast Saturday night at 8pm. Watch if only to see some genuine Flyers stars of the future in Jeff Carter and Mike Richards.

So what have the Phantoms done to prepare for the Cup run? Watch a lot of movies, apparently. Check out this review of Gladiator by tough guy Josh Gratton:

I would like to think I pattern myself after the main character in the movie, Maximus. That boy could really kick some you know what. I'd say it's one of the better movies that have come out recently. I think it even won best picture. I highly recommend it.

Read others Phantom's opinions (including Todd Fedoruk's sweet review of Napoleon Dynamite) here.