TWO MINUTES FOR LOOKING SO GOOD

At this very moment in my head, I’m hearing the Hockey Night In Canada theme. A song so quintessentially Canadian that it could be our national anthem. A song so quintessentially Canadian that it may as well have been written by Rush. A song so quintessentially Canadian that it is ingrained in my psyche to the point that when I hear it, not only is it hockey, but it’s Toronto Maple Leaf hockey. A team so quintessentially Canadian themselves that they are Canada’s team. Growing up watching the Leafs on Hockey Night In Canada that song was our song, the Toronto Maple Leafs song, And you were either with us or against us.

We here at Hockey the Blog hope the passion we show in writing about our team help you overcome and see past our grammatically awkward ramblings, half truths, glaring errors in fact and swears. We also sometimes make jokes about cancer, so if that’s not your scene, you may as well go now.
What I’d like to talk about might have about much cultural relevance as cold war jokes (I’m looking at you Yakoff Smirnoff) but I have more or less been living in a cave for the past 4 months...I'm still catching up. Regardless what I want to talk about shows the difference between the Leafs and the team from otwa.

Anyone who knows me, know that my love for the Leafs is pure and beautiful. So real and perfect that players I admire can leave the team (I'm looking at you Darcy...sniff)and my love doesn't waiver. They can never have won a Stanley Cup in my lifetime and I still love them. That's how much I godamned love the Toronto Maple Leafs.

What's interesting is that my loathe of the sens is also pure and beautiful. It may be as black as the Devil's anus but somehow in being completely the opposite, its exactly the same.

I see both Razors as the perfect simile. Both goalies were terrible last year. Arguably as bad, although for different reasons. If Raycroft is Toronto, in the way he always kept his dignity. I can't recall ever having seen him with a toothpick in his mouth for example. Then Emery is otwa. A guy who is such a douchebag that he drives a Lamborghini.
Clearly nobody wanted to take a shot on him and really why would you? You don't get called a cancer for nothing. But if you’re Ray Emery you really have 2 choices; choices so simple yet so colossal that in choosing either one vs the other, defines the kind of person you are.
Do you a) Learn from this, hire the best personal trainers in the world, work your ass off from now until training camp, first one in, last one out; grow a beard and chop some wood like Rocky in Rocky 4, go within yourself to find yourself or do you take the money?
Perhaps I am naïve to think that anyone would ever not take the (easy) money. Perhaps I am even naïve to think that I wouldn’t. But this is just like fucking your best friend’s girl; just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. No matter how hot she is and, to me, Ray Emery is the human equivilant to putting it in, even just a little.
Option A basically comes down to staying in North America. Granted the pay cut would suck and yes Ray, I know it's expensive to get your Lamborghini repainted every time somebody keys it when you're at International Clothiers in the St. Laurent Mall picking up your suits but let me put it to you this way. 2 words: Hyundai Accent. You can totally repaint that shitter with stuff you can buy at Canadian Tire. But at least its the NHL.
Option A means working hard. No girls, no 8 balls. Working your ass off from now until training camp and going to whatever 3 teams it was/is that invited you and blowing everyone way. It means taking 800k a year and continuing playing well until everyone calls you a steal. It means working yourself back to respectability. It means stop acting like a fucking European center and be a fucking goalie. Put the mask on and stay humble..cos nothing would make the sens and their deplorable fans more upset than playing well.
But that’s just not who Razor is.

Ray Emery fan Brenda Foote of Orleans, was quoted as saying, "Hulk Mad."

Andrew Raycroft will earn 800k next year in the NHL. Ray Emery will earn 2 million dollars next year in "some league"(I just shrugged.) One of them is a lot further away from a starting job in the NHL than the other. I’m a believer in playing for redemption. And as a goalie, you’re on your knees for most of the time already anyway. Besides redemption is a tremendous plot theme (I’m looking at you sinners.) And humans are just genetically programmed to love watching fuck ups trying to prove themselves. Success and failure is almost made moot by at least trying. It’s the little engine that could. That's Raycroft.
I bet we never see Emery in the NHL again. Then he'll be relegated to the place he belongs; a trivia question that nobody asks cos nobody cares.
In the end he took the money cos when you get right down to it, even he knows he isn't even an 800k a year goalie. Pay-cut, schmay-cut, Ray Emery isn't even an NHL goalie. Period. He knows that, that team knows that.

Not to tell tales out of school but I lived in the former Eastern Bloc and let me tell you the Russians wont put up with any of his shit. And I don't know what Razor is going to do , everyone knows that Russian coke is shitty, stepped on a dozen times and cut with far too much baby laxative, regardless I wonder if he knows Russian for, ‘the first hit is free’.

(Incidentally it’s something like, “Первый удар свободен.”)